chapter four: invitations and revelations
“Unbelievable!”
Her thoughts about Malfoy interrupted by the exclamation, Ginny looked over at Hermione, who stared, obviously perplexed, at a letter that a school owl had just delivered.
Hermione turned to Ginny and waved the parchment in her face. “Malfoy’s requested a private meeting with us.”
Ginny lowered her fork. Her eggs, which had already been sitting neglected on her plate, now sat abandoned. Was it the early hour that made this information difficult to process? The fact that she’d stayed up way too late writing a Transfiguration essay? Or was she simply confused about Hermione mentioning Malfoy at the same moment Ginny had been thinking about him as well?
“Us as in… the two of us? What does he want?”
“He asks for our help on a matter he can’t disclose until he sees us.”
“Fishy,” Neville said from behind a potted plant. He peeked around a leafy frond to add, “Are you going to meet him?”
Ginny felt much as Neville looked: exhausted. Less than a week into the new term, dark circles and a panicked gaze already marked him as a NEWT-level student. In fact, all around the castle, most students seemed overwhelmed, as evident by the groans of defeat and hurried paces of students making last-minute attempts to finish assignments.
She supposed they were all a bit out of practice. The last school year could hardly count as academically challenging when the Carrows made lessons in propaganda mandatory and heavily discouraged (read: forbade) the Hogwarts professors from teaching certain concepts. Now that Hogwarts was running like a school again, where classwork was deemed more important than extracurricular activities like rebellion, no one could remember how to function like a student rather than a soldier.
“I think we have to, don’t we?” Hermione said. “What do you think, Ginny?”
Ginny didn’t know what to think. The only thing she could think was that it was convenient that Malfoy had reached out to them and surprising that he had done so through Hermione.
It had been over a week since returning to Hogwarts. Not only did Malfoy continue to sit next to Ginny in Potions, he also sat beside her in Charms and Transfiguration, though he made no effort to talk to her. His demeanor was odd and dismissive. Even though Ginny wanted to ask him about what he’d said to her in their first Potions class, she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
What did he mean by “I’m drawn to you”? Why would he say something so absurd and then ignore her every day after? Ginny was starting to think he’d said it to unsettle her. If that had been his goal, then he had succeeded.
“Let’s do it. Does he say when or where?”
Hermione rummaged through her bag and pulled out a quill. “No. I’ll tell him we’ve agreed to meet and let you know the details when we work them out.”
After breakfast, Ginny made her way down to Hagrid’s hut for Care of Magical Creatures, which had already become her favorite class. She thought about what Harry would say if she told him how Hagrid had grown as an instructor over the past few years, but her smile at the thought dropped as she remembered where she had left things with Harry on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters.
Both of them had had expectations about their relationship after the war, and the reality had not satisfied those expectations. Ginny had been disappointed with herself when she’d realized soon after the Battle of Hogwarts that she did not feel like the same girl who had rushed into Harry’s arms and kissed him after Gryffindor won the Quidditch cup a year and a half ago. The traits that younger Ginny had admired, such as Harry’s nobility and his concern for his friends’ safety, suddenly rankled her after she spent months fighting his battles at Hogwarts while he was searching for a means to defeat Voldemort.
She understood his sacrifice and concern. She truly did. But the war had changed her, and she couldn’t go back to those carefree weeks she’d enjoyed with Harry before Malfoy smuggled Death Eaters into the castle. It had been harder for Harry to accept whatever it was that had changed, hence the relief when Ginny had boarded the Hogwarts Express and left him on the platform, forcing him to leave her behind.
Ginny pulled herself out of her thoughts when she arrived at Hagrid’s hut to find Luna and Hagrid engaged in a conversation about Aquavirius Maggots. Hagrid looked up with a rather grateful expression upon her approach.
“‘Lo there, Ginny!”
“Morning, Hagrid! Have we lost the rest of the class?”
Hagrid’s cheeks grew red above his beard, but he waved his hand in a dismissal. “It’s jus’ the two o’ yeh from now on. Everyone else decided they couldn’ hack it, I s’pose! Just as well. You two’ve got enough passion for magical creatures ter rival me!”
“No, I don’t think you could accuse us of that, Professor Hagrid,” Luna said blithely.
“Er, maybe not. Well anyway! Let’s get started, why don’ we?”
Hagrid had become a better teacher over the last year or two. Or maybe he was more suited to teaching NEWT-level concepts. The students who had originally signed up to take Care of Magical Creatures had not dropped the class due to Hagrid introducing them to creatures beyond their level of experience. No, for once, his lesson plans were appropriate. However, his class required hard work, and that’s why seventh year Care of Magical Creatures had dwindled down to a class of two: Luna and Ginny.
Hagrid shouldered a large leather bag and turned away from his hut, toward the Forbidden Forest.
“Are we not finishing Witherwings’s nest today, Professor?” Luna asked as she took abnormally large strides to keep up with Hagrid.
“Not today, Miss Lovegood. I heard an Augurey cry comin’ from the forest this mornin’. Since there hasn’ been a speck o’ rain, it seems likely he’s been injured. We’re gonna try to find it.”
“Oh, I do love a quest!” Luna enthused.
As soon as they entered the forest, the sounds of nature became muffled, as if the foliage itself absorbed all hints of rustling leaves and the pitter-patter of scurrying creatures. Ginny’s heart rate amplified to fill the absence, which sent her anxiety skyrocketing and made her paranoid.
“Charlie told me an Augurey cry foretells death,” she said, voice lowered out of respect for the forest rather than to keep from sabotaging their search.
“Bah! An old wives’ tale. They’re sensitive ter changes in the atmosphere, and they say they have a different song for every type o’ weather. It’s difficult to learn them all, though, because they’re shy.”
“How will we find this one, then?” Luna asked.
Hagrid narrowed his eyes. “Keep yer eyes peeled. They build tear-shaped nests in thorny places. Lucky for us, I know a bramble patch nearby.”
They proceeded through the forest without uttering another word, following a trail deeper through the trees where the light fought to reach the ground. After over half an hour, they finally stepped into a clearing surrounded by brambles, which had the appearance of a nest of a much larger beast.
“There!” Hagrid said in a harsh whisper, pointing at the other side of the clearing, directly across from them.
The unmistakable Augurey nest was indeed tear-shaped and created out of thorny vines twisted together. However, the Augurey itself was not in the nest. It floundered on the ground below it, crowing weakly. If not for its cry, Ginny would have missed it due to its feathers blending in with the shadows cast on the grass.
“What do we do?” she asked.
Hagrid reached for his pack and pulled out a worn cotton towel. “Here,” he said, offering the towel to Ginny and Luna. “Doesn’ look like it can fly, but we don’ want to scare it too badly. One of yeh’ll have to go out there an’ pick it up. Wrap it up nice an’ tight in this towel to keep it from flappin’ about an’ injurin’ itself more. We’ll take it back to the house an’ see what can be done.”
Ginny and Luna looked at each other, but Luna gestured for Ginny to take the towel.
“Are you sure?” Ginny asked.
“Oh yes. This won’t be the last time we’re confronted with a winged creature to soothe. You can have this one.”
Hagrid gave Ginny an encouraging smile as she took the towel and crept toward the Augurey, keeping her body low to the ground to make herself appear smaller. The poor bird began to struggle upon her approach, its cries growing louder in its distress.
“Shhhh! It’s okay,” Ginny said in a calming tone. “I won’t hurt you. We just want to help.”
“That’s the spirit, Ginny!” Hagrid whisper-called from the edge of the clearing.
Despite its attempts to get itself airborne, Ginny managed to wrap the towel around the Augurey, trapping its wings. Its mournful cries pierced straight through her as she cradled it against her chest, moving her to tears. It truly sounded like an animal in the throes of death.
Ginny slowly lifted a finger to gently stroke the top of the Augurey’s head in an attempt to ease it. It blinked as if startled by the touch, and though its beak remained open, ready to release more forlorn noises, its cries died away.
“Well done, Ginny!” Luna said as Ginny returned to the edge of the clearing.
“Great job!” said Hagrid. “Let’s get outta here so we can fix this little guy up.”
Ginny continued to soothe the Augurey with soft sounds and touches as they made their way back up the trail and out of the forest. Its cries echoed in her heart long after they quieted down, and despite what Hagrid had said about the old wives’ tale being untrue, Ginny couldn’t stifle the dread that choked her.
The next night, Ginny and Hermione climbed the stairs of the Astronomy Tower with their fingers wrapped around their wands, which were concealed in their robe pockets. They’d already discussed their suspicions about this meeting prior to venturing out from the common room, and they had a plan in place in case Malfoy or Parkinson became hostile.
They waited for Ginny and Hermione on the battlement outside the tower, Malfoy leaning irreverently against a parapet while Parkinson stood closer to the tower wall, her arms crossed in impatience.
Malfoy faced outward, peering through the darkness at the grounds, and did not turn at their arrival.
“You came,” Parkinson said with a hint of disbelief.
“We came,” Hermione echoed. “What’s this about?”
Ginny’s attention was devoted to observing Malfoy. He grasped the stone of the parapet so tightly, his knuckles were conspicuously white, noticeable even in the darkness. As she had noted before, there was a glow around him, a light shimmer that shadows could not touch, as if he was made of silver that reflected and magnified the starlight.
He finally faced them, his body stiff, his hands clenched at his sides. Focusing solely on Hermione, he said, “I need your help. I have a… problem.”
“Hermione’s great at solving problems,” Ginny said, trying to make Malfoy look at her. Why invite her if he was just going to ignore her?
“Show them, Draco.” Parkinson’s voice came softly, not just in volume, but in tone as well. Ginny had never heard her speak with anything other than mockery or panic in her voice. How strange to think of Parkinson as a person capable of compassion.
Malfoy peeled off his robe and discarded it onto the ground before turning his head just slightly to finally look at Ginny. As soon as he did, he doubled over, and a groan burst from his throat as if he’d just been punched in the gut. When he fell to his knees, Ginny took a step forward and Hermione took a step back, drawing her wand.
“What’s happening?” Ginny demanded of Parkinson, who only watched with a detached gaze, her arms locked around her torso.
Ginny went to Malfoy’s side, falling to her knees next to him. Despite the glow he emitted, she had difficulty understanding what she was seeing. He hid his face in his forearms, but underneath his arms his skin stretched like taffy. His back arched, and the crack of bones fracturing pierced the night.
Then the darkness grew darker, the light of the moon obscured, and Malfoy’s groans turned into pants as he stilled.
Malfoy lifted his head to meet Ginny’s eyes, and she fell back, a gasp stuck in her throat along with a scream.
Inky blackness shrouded his eyes, erasing his natural eye color and the whites of his corneas. But the more Ginny looked, the more unsettled she became. Below his eyes, a hawk-like beak dominated his face, hooked and sharp just like a bird of prey.
Then her gaze drifted above him to where the moon’s light was bisected by expansive, diaphanous wings protruding from his back. Instead of releasing her scream, Ginny swallowed it.
Malfoy rose to his feet and then offered her a hand to help her up. She took it, unable to look away from him but too overwhelmed to look at any of his new features for longer than a few seconds at a time.
She thought of the Augurey she’d helped yesterday, its flailing wings, its helpless cries. Hagrid had taught her and Luna how to mend the broken wing, and they’d listened with relief as it emitted a new cry, one of sad happiness, while it devoured a lunch of forest mice.
Without thinking, Ginny ran her hands along Malfoy’s bare shoulders, her touch light in case he resisted. She wanted to examine the beak and wings more closely, but Malfoy wasn’t a creature she could manhandle like one of her Care of Magical Creatures assignments, and she didn’t want to cross his boundaries. But he seemed to sense her desire, because he grabbed one of her hands and moved it to his cheek. He closed his eyes as her fingers skated across the top of the beak, down to the sharp point of it, tracing the edge to see how it connected to the rest of his face, how it fit on his jaws.
Goosebumps rose up on his arms. She could see the shadows of them clearly in the bright moonlight.
“Uh-hem.”
Ginny turned at the sound of Parkinson clearing her throat. Parkinson’s eyebrow arched in expectation while Hermione stared, mouth open and an expression of horror frozen on her face.
Ginny suddenly realized how close she and Malfoy were to each other. She hadn’t realized that he was still grasping the wrist of the hand that examined him. She stepped away, taking a deep breath when he let her go. Disappointment filled her at not getting a chance to look at the wings, but now that she stood further away from him, she got a whole picture of what he had become.
“You’re a Veela!” Ginny said with a tone of wonder. “A male Veela!”
“Ginny!” Hermione said, shocked. She, too, was transfixed by Malfoy’s transformation and unable to look away. Or perhaps it was the trademark Veela charm that mesmerized her.
Ginny shook her head. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry, Malfoy, I shouldn’t have assumed your gender.”
“I’m male!” Malfoy’s words came out articulate enough, but there was a bit of an outraged squawk in his voice.
Hermione huffed. “That’s not—what I mean to say is—there are no male Veela!”
“Maybe I’m the first!”
“Or maybe he’s not a Veela,” Parkinson added.
“No,” Ginny replied, circling Malfoy to better inspect him. “I’ve seen Veela. You have, too, Malfoy, Hermione. At the Quidditch World Cup. This is the form they take when they’ve been angered: a beaked face, bat-like wings, talons on the tips of their fingers.”
Malfoy hid his hands behind his back, his wings flexing with the movement of his shoulder blades.
Another thought dawned on Ginny. “My sister-in-law is part-Veela. I should have known exactly what you were when I saw how everyone reacted to you at the Sorting ceremony. You’ve got the same sparkliness Fleur has.”
“Delacour?” Pansy asked dubiously at the same time Malfoy said, “Fleur Delacour married into your family?” Astonishingly, he managed to convey a sneer through mandibles.
“Have you always been this way?” Hermione asked before Ginny could respond. Distress covered her face and coated her voice in a way that concerned Ginny, and she found herself automatically moving a little closer to Malfoy.
“No. I transformed for the first time on my birthday. Just wings and claws back then. The rest—” He waved his hand, indicating all of him, the beak, the glow, the attraction. “The rest came later.”
Parkinson released her torso to let her arms hang at her sides. “That’s why we need your help. We don’t know how this happened. If there’s Veela in his blood, why is he only displaying these traits now?”
“It’s not in my blood,” Malfoy said, his beak clicking together in agitation. “This can’t be in my family. My parents have never said—”
“Would they have, though?” Hermione interrupted sharply. “Would your parents really have admitted that your bloodline—one of their bloodlines—isn’t as pure as they’ve insisted?”
Malfoy stayed silent, but he flexed his hands, his talons reflecting flashes of moonlight with each clench.
“I didn’t think so.”
Parkinson put herself directly in front of Hermione, another barrier between her and Malfoy as if she sensed the same unpredictability that Ginny did.
“Does this mean you won’t help us?” Parkinson asked.
“Of course I won’t help you!” Hermione snarled. She looked at Malfoy over Parkinson’s shoulder. “It serves you right, you know! All those years tearing down people like me for our Muggle parentage, and here you are, not fully wizard yourself. I hope you choke on your beliefs!”
Hermione turned and re-entered the tower, her stomping footsteps echoing on the stone as she descended the stairs.
The three of them watched her leave and didn’t move until well after the sounds of her departure had ceased.
Finally, Ginny looked back at Malfoy and Parkinson, a tight smile on her face.
“I bet all the Galleons in my bank vault she’ll be at the library researching Veela during lunch tomorrow.”
“I’d take you up on that bet, but I probably have more Galleons in the pocket of my robes,” Malfoy said, his voice changing, becoming clearer.
Before Ginny’s eyes, the beak and wings shrank, Malfoy’s body morphing back to its normal human shape until he was just a shirtless man in trousers standing on a battlement, the moon glimmering on his skin. He bent down to retrieve his robe and donned it again.
Ginny scowled. “Do you want our help or not?”
“So you will help?”
Without the beak, his face was much more expressive, his earnestness obvious. Ginny didn’t know when his birthday was, so she didn’t know how long he had hidden this secret, but she could imagine him agonizing while trying to figure out what had happened to him, trying to find answers without knowing where to start looking.
She wanted to know more. Not just about his Veela heritage—the love of magical creatures that Charlie had inspired within her certainly made that side of him fascinating to consider—but about him as well.
She couldn’t help herself. Drawn to the downtrodden, whether that be a sick cat, an injured bird, or a person who didn’t understand their own history, Ginny could do nothing else but step in and offer aid.
“Of course I will,” she said, and with those four words, her fate became entwined with his.
“Unbelievable!”
Her thoughts about Malfoy interrupted by the exclamation, Ginny looked over at Hermione, who stared, obviously perplexed, at a letter that a school owl had just delivered.
Hermione turned to Ginny and waved the parchment in her face. “Malfoy’s requested a private meeting with us.”
Ginny lowered her fork. Her eggs, which had already been sitting neglected on her plate, now sat abandoned. Was it the early hour that made this information difficult to process? The fact that she’d stayed up way too late writing a Transfiguration essay? Or was she simply confused about Hermione mentioning Malfoy at the same moment Ginny had been thinking about him as well?
“Us as in… the two of us? What does he want?”
“He asks for our help on a matter he can’t disclose until he sees us.”
“Fishy,” Neville said from behind a potted plant. He peeked around a leafy frond to add, “Are you going to meet him?”
Ginny felt much as Neville looked: exhausted. Less than a week into the new term, dark circles and a panicked gaze already marked him as a NEWT-level student. In fact, all around the castle, most students seemed overwhelmed, as evident by the groans of defeat and hurried paces of students making last-minute attempts to finish assignments.
She supposed they were all a bit out of practice. The last school year could hardly count as academically challenging when the Carrows made lessons in propaganda mandatory and heavily discouraged (read: forbade) the Hogwarts professors from teaching certain concepts. Now that Hogwarts was running like a school again, where classwork was deemed more important than extracurricular activities like rebellion, no one could remember how to function like a student rather than a soldier.
“I think we have to, don’t we?” Hermione said. “What do you think, Ginny?”
Ginny didn’t know what to think. The only thing she could think was that it was convenient that Malfoy had reached out to them and surprising that he had done so through Hermione.
It had been over a week since returning to Hogwarts. Not only did Malfoy continue to sit next to Ginny in Potions, he also sat beside her in Charms and Transfiguration, though he made no effort to talk to her. His demeanor was odd and dismissive. Even though Ginny wanted to ask him about what he’d said to her in their first Potions class, she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
What did he mean by “I’m drawn to you”? Why would he say something so absurd and then ignore her every day after? Ginny was starting to think he’d said it to unsettle her. If that had been his goal, then he had succeeded.
“Let’s do it. Does he say when or where?”
Hermione rummaged through her bag and pulled out a quill. “No. I’ll tell him we’ve agreed to meet and let you know the details when we work them out.”
After breakfast, Ginny made her way down to Hagrid’s hut for Care of Magical Creatures, which had already become her favorite class. She thought about what Harry would say if she told him how Hagrid had grown as an instructor over the past few years, but her smile at the thought dropped as she remembered where she had left things with Harry on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters.
Both of them had had expectations about their relationship after the war, and the reality had not satisfied those expectations. Ginny had been disappointed with herself when she’d realized soon after the Battle of Hogwarts that she did not feel like the same girl who had rushed into Harry’s arms and kissed him after Gryffindor won the Quidditch cup a year and a half ago. The traits that younger Ginny had admired, such as Harry’s nobility and his concern for his friends’ safety, suddenly rankled her after she spent months fighting his battles at Hogwarts while he was searching for a means to defeat Voldemort.
She understood his sacrifice and concern. She truly did. But the war had changed her, and she couldn’t go back to those carefree weeks she’d enjoyed with Harry before Malfoy smuggled Death Eaters into the castle. It had been harder for Harry to accept whatever it was that had changed, hence the relief when Ginny had boarded the Hogwarts Express and left him on the platform, forcing him to leave her behind.
Ginny pulled herself out of her thoughts when she arrived at Hagrid’s hut to find Luna and Hagrid engaged in a conversation about Aquavirius Maggots. Hagrid looked up with a rather grateful expression upon her approach.
“‘Lo there, Ginny!”
“Morning, Hagrid! Have we lost the rest of the class?”
Hagrid’s cheeks grew red above his beard, but he waved his hand in a dismissal. “It’s jus’ the two o’ yeh from now on. Everyone else decided they couldn’ hack it, I s’pose! Just as well. You two’ve got enough passion for magical creatures ter rival me!”
“No, I don’t think you could accuse us of that, Professor Hagrid,” Luna said blithely.
“Er, maybe not. Well anyway! Let’s get started, why don’ we?”
Hagrid had become a better teacher over the last year or two. Or maybe he was more suited to teaching NEWT-level concepts. The students who had originally signed up to take Care of Magical Creatures had not dropped the class due to Hagrid introducing them to creatures beyond their level of experience. No, for once, his lesson plans were appropriate. However, his class required hard work, and that’s why seventh year Care of Magical Creatures had dwindled down to a class of two: Luna and Ginny.
Hagrid shouldered a large leather bag and turned away from his hut, toward the Forbidden Forest.
“Are we not finishing Witherwings’s nest today, Professor?” Luna asked as she took abnormally large strides to keep up with Hagrid.
“Not today, Miss Lovegood. I heard an Augurey cry comin’ from the forest this mornin’. Since there hasn’ been a speck o’ rain, it seems likely he’s been injured. We’re gonna try to find it.”
“Oh, I do love a quest!” Luna enthused.
As soon as they entered the forest, the sounds of nature became muffled, as if the foliage itself absorbed all hints of rustling leaves and the pitter-patter of scurrying creatures. Ginny’s heart rate amplified to fill the absence, which sent her anxiety skyrocketing and made her paranoid.
“Charlie told me an Augurey cry foretells death,” she said, voice lowered out of respect for the forest rather than to keep from sabotaging their search.
“Bah! An old wives’ tale. They’re sensitive ter changes in the atmosphere, and they say they have a different song for every type o’ weather. It’s difficult to learn them all, though, because they’re shy.”
“How will we find this one, then?” Luna asked.
Hagrid narrowed his eyes. “Keep yer eyes peeled. They build tear-shaped nests in thorny places. Lucky for us, I know a bramble patch nearby.”
They proceeded through the forest without uttering another word, following a trail deeper through the trees where the light fought to reach the ground. After over half an hour, they finally stepped into a clearing surrounded by brambles, which had the appearance of a nest of a much larger beast.
“There!” Hagrid said in a harsh whisper, pointing at the other side of the clearing, directly across from them.
The unmistakable Augurey nest was indeed tear-shaped and created out of thorny vines twisted together. However, the Augurey itself was not in the nest. It floundered on the ground below it, crowing weakly. If not for its cry, Ginny would have missed it due to its feathers blending in with the shadows cast on the grass.
“What do we do?” she asked.
Hagrid reached for his pack and pulled out a worn cotton towel. “Here,” he said, offering the towel to Ginny and Luna. “Doesn’ look like it can fly, but we don’ want to scare it too badly. One of yeh’ll have to go out there an’ pick it up. Wrap it up nice an’ tight in this towel to keep it from flappin’ about an’ injurin’ itself more. We’ll take it back to the house an’ see what can be done.”
Ginny and Luna looked at each other, but Luna gestured for Ginny to take the towel.
“Are you sure?” Ginny asked.
“Oh yes. This won’t be the last time we’re confronted with a winged creature to soothe. You can have this one.”
Hagrid gave Ginny an encouraging smile as she took the towel and crept toward the Augurey, keeping her body low to the ground to make herself appear smaller. The poor bird began to struggle upon her approach, its cries growing louder in its distress.
“Shhhh! It’s okay,” Ginny said in a calming tone. “I won’t hurt you. We just want to help.”
“That’s the spirit, Ginny!” Hagrid whisper-called from the edge of the clearing.
Despite its attempts to get itself airborne, Ginny managed to wrap the towel around the Augurey, trapping its wings. Its mournful cries pierced straight through her as she cradled it against her chest, moving her to tears. It truly sounded like an animal in the throes of death.
Ginny slowly lifted a finger to gently stroke the top of the Augurey’s head in an attempt to ease it. It blinked as if startled by the touch, and though its beak remained open, ready to release more forlorn noises, its cries died away.
“Well done, Ginny!” Luna said as Ginny returned to the edge of the clearing.
“Great job!” said Hagrid. “Let’s get outta here so we can fix this little guy up.”
Ginny continued to soothe the Augurey with soft sounds and touches as they made their way back up the trail and out of the forest. Its cries echoed in her heart long after they quieted down, and despite what Hagrid had said about the old wives’ tale being untrue, Ginny couldn’t stifle the dread that choked her.
The next night, Ginny and Hermione climbed the stairs of the Astronomy Tower with their fingers wrapped around their wands, which were concealed in their robe pockets. They’d already discussed their suspicions about this meeting prior to venturing out from the common room, and they had a plan in place in case Malfoy or Parkinson became hostile.
They waited for Ginny and Hermione on the battlement outside the tower, Malfoy leaning irreverently against a parapet while Parkinson stood closer to the tower wall, her arms crossed in impatience.
Malfoy faced outward, peering through the darkness at the grounds, and did not turn at their arrival.
“You came,” Parkinson said with a hint of disbelief.
“We came,” Hermione echoed. “What’s this about?”
Ginny’s attention was devoted to observing Malfoy. He grasped the stone of the parapet so tightly, his knuckles were conspicuously white, noticeable even in the darkness. As she had noted before, there was a glow around him, a light shimmer that shadows could not touch, as if he was made of silver that reflected and magnified the starlight.
He finally faced them, his body stiff, his hands clenched at his sides. Focusing solely on Hermione, he said, “I need your help. I have a… problem.”
“Hermione’s great at solving problems,” Ginny said, trying to make Malfoy look at her. Why invite her if he was just going to ignore her?
“Show them, Draco.” Parkinson’s voice came softly, not just in volume, but in tone as well. Ginny had never heard her speak with anything other than mockery or panic in her voice. How strange to think of Parkinson as a person capable of compassion.
Malfoy peeled off his robe and discarded it onto the ground before turning his head just slightly to finally look at Ginny. As soon as he did, he doubled over, and a groan burst from his throat as if he’d just been punched in the gut. When he fell to his knees, Ginny took a step forward and Hermione took a step back, drawing her wand.
“What’s happening?” Ginny demanded of Parkinson, who only watched with a detached gaze, her arms locked around her torso.
Ginny went to Malfoy’s side, falling to her knees next to him. Despite the glow he emitted, she had difficulty understanding what she was seeing. He hid his face in his forearms, but underneath his arms his skin stretched like taffy. His back arched, and the crack of bones fracturing pierced the night.
Then the darkness grew darker, the light of the moon obscured, and Malfoy’s groans turned into pants as he stilled.
Malfoy lifted his head to meet Ginny’s eyes, and she fell back, a gasp stuck in her throat along with a scream.
Inky blackness shrouded his eyes, erasing his natural eye color and the whites of his corneas. But the more Ginny looked, the more unsettled she became. Below his eyes, a hawk-like beak dominated his face, hooked and sharp just like a bird of prey.
Then her gaze drifted above him to where the moon’s light was bisected by expansive, diaphanous wings protruding from his back. Instead of releasing her scream, Ginny swallowed it.
Malfoy rose to his feet and then offered her a hand to help her up. She took it, unable to look away from him but too overwhelmed to look at any of his new features for longer than a few seconds at a time.
She thought of the Augurey she’d helped yesterday, its flailing wings, its helpless cries. Hagrid had taught her and Luna how to mend the broken wing, and they’d listened with relief as it emitted a new cry, one of sad happiness, while it devoured a lunch of forest mice.
Without thinking, Ginny ran her hands along Malfoy’s bare shoulders, her touch light in case he resisted. She wanted to examine the beak and wings more closely, but Malfoy wasn’t a creature she could manhandle like one of her Care of Magical Creatures assignments, and she didn’t want to cross his boundaries. But he seemed to sense her desire, because he grabbed one of her hands and moved it to his cheek. He closed his eyes as her fingers skated across the top of the beak, down to the sharp point of it, tracing the edge to see how it connected to the rest of his face, how it fit on his jaws.
Goosebumps rose up on his arms. She could see the shadows of them clearly in the bright moonlight.
“Uh-hem.”
Ginny turned at the sound of Parkinson clearing her throat. Parkinson’s eyebrow arched in expectation while Hermione stared, mouth open and an expression of horror frozen on her face.
Ginny suddenly realized how close she and Malfoy were to each other. She hadn’t realized that he was still grasping the wrist of the hand that examined him. She stepped away, taking a deep breath when he let her go. Disappointment filled her at not getting a chance to look at the wings, but now that she stood further away from him, she got a whole picture of what he had become.
“You’re a Veela!” Ginny said with a tone of wonder. “A male Veela!”
“Ginny!” Hermione said, shocked. She, too, was transfixed by Malfoy’s transformation and unable to look away. Or perhaps it was the trademark Veela charm that mesmerized her.
Ginny shook her head. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry, Malfoy, I shouldn’t have assumed your gender.”
“I’m male!” Malfoy’s words came out articulate enough, but there was a bit of an outraged squawk in his voice.
Hermione huffed. “That’s not—what I mean to say is—there are no male Veela!”
“Maybe I’m the first!”
“Or maybe he’s not a Veela,” Parkinson added.
“No,” Ginny replied, circling Malfoy to better inspect him. “I’ve seen Veela. You have, too, Malfoy, Hermione. At the Quidditch World Cup. This is the form they take when they’ve been angered: a beaked face, bat-like wings, talons on the tips of their fingers.”
Malfoy hid his hands behind his back, his wings flexing with the movement of his shoulder blades.
Another thought dawned on Ginny. “My sister-in-law is part-Veela. I should have known exactly what you were when I saw how everyone reacted to you at the Sorting ceremony. You’ve got the same sparkliness Fleur has.”
“Delacour?” Pansy asked dubiously at the same time Malfoy said, “Fleur Delacour married into your family?” Astonishingly, he managed to convey a sneer through mandibles.
“Have you always been this way?” Hermione asked before Ginny could respond. Distress covered her face and coated her voice in a way that concerned Ginny, and she found herself automatically moving a little closer to Malfoy.
“No. I transformed for the first time on my birthday. Just wings and claws back then. The rest—” He waved his hand, indicating all of him, the beak, the glow, the attraction. “The rest came later.”
Parkinson released her torso to let her arms hang at her sides. “That’s why we need your help. We don’t know how this happened. If there’s Veela in his blood, why is he only displaying these traits now?”
“It’s not in my blood,” Malfoy said, his beak clicking together in agitation. “This can’t be in my family. My parents have never said—”
“Would they have, though?” Hermione interrupted sharply. “Would your parents really have admitted that your bloodline—one of their bloodlines—isn’t as pure as they’ve insisted?”
Malfoy stayed silent, but he flexed his hands, his talons reflecting flashes of moonlight with each clench.
“I didn’t think so.”
Parkinson put herself directly in front of Hermione, another barrier between her and Malfoy as if she sensed the same unpredictability that Ginny did.
“Does this mean you won’t help us?” Parkinson asked.
“Of course I won’t help you!” Hermione snarled. She looked at Malfoy over Parkinson’s shoulder. “It serves you right, you know! All those years tearing down people like me for our Muggle parentage, and here you are, not fully wizard yourself. I hope you choke on your beliefs!”
Hermione turned and re-entered the tower, her stomping footsteps echoing on the stone as she descended the stairs.
The three of them watched her leave and didn’t move until well after the sounds of her departure had ceased.
Finally, Ginny looked back at Malfoy and Parkinson, a tight smile on her face.
“I bet all the Galleons in my bank vault she’ll be at the library researching Veela during lunch tomorrow.”
“I’d take you up on that bet, but I probably have more Galleons in the pocket of my robes,” Malfoy said, his voice changing, becoming clearer.
Before Ginny’s eyes, the beak and wings shrank, Malfoy’s body morphing back to its normal human shape until he was just a shirtless man in trousers standing on a battlement, the moon glimmering on his skin. He bent down to retrieve his robe and donned it again.
Ginny scowled. “Do you want our help or not?”
“So you will help?”
Without the beak, his face was much more expressive, his earnestness obvious. Ginny didn’t know when his birthday was, so she didn’t know how long he had hidden this secret, but she could imagine him agonizing while trying to figure out what had happened to him, trying to find answers without knowing where to start looking.
She wanted to know more. Not just about his Veela heritage—the love of magical creatures that Charlie had inspired within her certainly made that side of him fascinating to consider—but about him as well.
She couldn’t help herself. Drawn to the downtrodden, whether that be a sick cat, an injured bird, or a person who didn’t understand their own history, Ginny could do nothing else but step in and offer aid.
“Of course I will,” she said, and with those four words, her fate became entwined with his.
Leave a Review