A/N: Hello ! This is my first Dramione fanfic, so please forgive any mistakes I make (although I try to not make any ). I will be updating hopefully once or twice a week . I hope you all enjoy it ! I also want to thank olivieblake for checking and helping me edit my first chapter !

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series and all the characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I make no profit from this story.

Tales In The Mist

Chapter 1

Something wasn't right.

He could feel it. It was the type of feeling you get when your parents catch you in the middle of mischief. The heartbeat before the scolding and the punishment. The room had suddenly gotten too cold for his liking, and it wasn't a matter of heating.

He couldn't concentrate. Grey eyes stared blankly at the piece of parchment with the ingredients he needed for the potion. He didn't know how many times he had tried to count ten drops of Chimaera blood and failed. The mandrake roots were half cut in squares, a vial with salamander's eyes was left in a corner, and the potion was bubbling a vibrant purple when it should have been green by now. Though he didn't care. All in the blond's mind was how he was all right one moment, but then he felt as if he were seventeen again the next. The feeling disappeared as soon as it came but to him it was like an eternity had passed. Drenched in cold sweat he hurriedly closed the open vials and moved the cauldron to another cool surface and extinguished the fire. The only thing in his mind was a little voice he really wanted to never hear again, telling him to get the hell out of there.

Getting out of his potion lab, Draco Malfoy recognised the feeling in the bottom of his stomach. He was afraid. Looking at the moonlit hall of the Manor he was reminded of nightmares he thought that he had forgotten. Every turn he took he made sure to stay away from the shadows. Each long hall he walked through with fast steps. Each turn was a sharp one with his wand ready to attack. He had reached the living area of the house without realising it. When the war had ended and he had paid for what he had done he used his money to change the hell hole that used to be his home. He had brought the best curse breakers to free the house of dark magic and renovated all rooms. Especially the dining hall and the drawing room.

Taking back steps he slided down the wall sitting on the carpeted floor and looking at the shadows. He was alone that night. His mother was off with Andromeda - after a year of owling each other they finally met in face - and Astoria was in France with Daphne, supposedly helping her to prepare the house for the summer. When he had first heard of that he had questioned why Astoria was needed when Theo and Daphne would live there, and she insisted that Daphne wanted her opinion in some things. He didn't really care but he made sure to give her an extra special 'have a nice trip' treatment that almost made her unable to move.

The shadows in the room were dancing, looking, touching him, sucking him in their depths. He let himself relax the best he could. He really had believed that he had gotten rid of the nightmares, but there he was letting the shadows engulf him. He wanted so desperately to let go, to lose himself in the mystery the shadows were offering him, leave the company he had worked so hard to open, to stop trying to change his image, to fix the damage his father had done. Yes, partially he blamed his father. Lucius was the one in the first place to drag him in this mess; but mostly Draco hated himself, that he had thought that he could make things right if he walked up to the Dark Lord like a lamb for slaughter.

He could hear a ticking noise and that confused him. It was like something frantically hitting wood. Opening his eyes he scanned the room. Nothing was moving but the knocking, yes, knocking, was there. Standing up he walked back to the hall, wand at the ready as he realised it was the door. Someone was knocking on his door as if their life was depending on it. Undoing the wards and collecting himself, he opened the door to be met with a mass of brown hair and a frantic witch.

"Granger?" he questioned, as the witch noticed that he had finally opened the door and pushed him aside in a rush, warding and locking the mahogany doors.

"What the hell is happening, Granger? I don't recall calling you over for a midnight stroll," he hissed as the witch, once satisfied with her work, turned to look at him, eyes shining with fire.

Draco was taken aback by her sudden appearance. He had never had the best relationship with the witch and she certainly didn't think otherwise. He could say that midnight visits he got from Astoria, or the witches he used to bring home before he made the arrangement official, but Granger? No. Never her. She looked a mess. Her hair was worse than a bird's nest, even though he remembered that earlier that day they were in a neat plait. She was still in her working clothes and she looked tired, he guessed.

His patience was running rather thin tonight. He had a mental blackout in the middle of developing a new potion - almost a panic attack - and the insufferable know-it-all had to appear in his sole moment of weakness. Merlin seemed to be against him tonight.

"I am asking you again," he started, folding his arms. "What - "

"Listen Malfoy, this is the last place I want to be right now, so believe me, the reason why I am here is really important," she said, looking around. "Are we alone?" she asked, after a moment of examining the shadows.

"Yes. But don't worry, I'm not planning on taking advantage of you," he smirked at the witch, who gave him a look of utter disgust and worry that he didn't quite get.

"What happened, Granger?" he asked again, once he saw that the witch was trying to find a way to break him some news. He could see the gears spinning in her head and she was chewing her bottom lip so badly that if it weren't Granger, he would have found sexy.

"They found Katharine dead," Hermione said. She could see realisation in his eyes, and confusion.

"What do you mean dead, Granger?" he hissed, his hand gripping his wand harder. "We saw her this afternoon. She insisted that you should come to our little business meeting as you were working to help her get the paperwork for the products she imported," Draco scowled, looking at the petite witch. He wanted to believe that she was fucking with him and everything was a prank, but the haunted look in her eyes and the emergency in her voice told him otherwise.

Hermione narrowed her eyes dangerously at him. "You think I'm playing you, Malfoy?" she hissed in retort. "She was found dead three hours ago in her hotel room and unfortunately we were the last ones to see her alive, and can you fathom what that means?" she asked the blond, her wand hand shaking.

Realization hit him like the Hogwarts express. She wasn't fucking around, and based on what she said, they were in deep shit. Running a hand through his hair, he closed his eyes, trying to get a grip on the situation.

"How did she die, and why are we suspects?" he asked, opening his eyes and narrowing them almost immediately upon seeing the witch chewing her lip again. "Granger?"

"We aren't just suspected. They found your DNA and mine on her. Harry told me that when they found the body, the walls were painted with her blood and that she had marks on her as if she put up a fight. In the end she was killed with a Sectumsempra," she explained. "They guessed that I tried to tie her up and in the process I left hair on her, and they think you cast the curse and raped her," she finished, raising her eyes to meet his stormy ones.

Draco was now pacing up and down the hall, his hands grabbing fistfuls of his hair. Hearing how she died and what those bloody fools thought had him jumping to all possible scenarios. "Seriously, you don't believe that I would rape and kill a really important business partner just for the sake of getting you thrown in Azkaban and being so reckless that I forgot to erase my doings now, do you?" he hissed, pointing his wand at her.

Hermione, though, didn't budge. She pointed her wand at him too. "Are you that dumb?" she hissed threateningly as she neared him. "Listen, I came here to make a deal with you. Someone has it out for both of us, and I don't think that you would be capable of something like that. You aren't careless," she added, taking a deep breath.

He wanted so much to smirk and tease her but the situation didn't call for it. He didn't have anything to lose if he made that deal with her. She would get them out of that mess. She was able to get Scarhead out of a lot of shit during the war, and now that she had only gained knowledge to a lot more issues, she could get him out of this mess. At least he was an intelligent being that could survive alone, in comparison to Potty.

"Name it," he said, lowering his wand as he watched her straighten her posture and look him straight in the eye.

"We will work as a team to clear our names and when this circus is over, you will never have to spend time with me unless it's business related," she said, her tone bossy like he remembered it back from school.

Of course, as Draco Malfoy, he had everything he ever imagined, but the offer she was giving him was tempting. He wouldn't have to talk to her out of working conditions and she could help him rebuild his reputation. She was a war heroine after all, and everything she touched or liked was suddenly important.

"Deal," he agreed, as he reached out to her to bind the agreement.

He was surprised to see the look of confusion in her eyes. It wasn't about the hand shake and the binding; he guessed it was more about letting her hands touch him. Well, he could say that it pained him, but it didn't. He had hated the term 'mudblood' ever since his aunt took the pleasure of torturing her in front of him and making her bleed. He had spent the rest of that night in his private bathroom throwing up and cutting his palm to watch the blood. It was the same. Same red, same substance.

Hermione shook her head to clear away her thoughts and shook his hand, watching as he performed the binding and let her hand. ''Where to, Granger? " he asked, pocketing his wand.

She took a moment to pocket hers too and looked up. "We need to get away from here. The Japanese Ministry of Magic is searching all the floo networks there in case we appear, and they planned to confront you in the morning. Do you have any place that the Aurors or generally the Ministry doesn't know of?" she asked as he looked at her, eyes meeting for a moment before he took out a piece of parchment and he wrote down an address. Handing it to her she silently read it guessing that the house was under the Fidelius charm.

"First we have to Floo somewhere quickly. You said they would wait till morning for me, so I guess that they won't be checking my network," he started, and led her to the living area.

"I doubt they will -" Hermione started but as soon as she passed the door and stood next to the blond, her eyes met a pair of bespectacled emerald green .

"Harry?" she asked, her mind refusing to accept the betrayal that glimmered in his eyes