Author's note: M rating becouse of attempted rape and sexually explicit scenes in future chapters. Regarding the spells, the stupefy spll being called "Stupeficium" is not an error, but a choice I made becouse I like the italian version more.
PS:Some reviewers have said that some characters in this fanfiction are at least partly OOC. yes, some of them are, especially Draco Malfoy, and it is a deliberate decision from my part,since it is my opinion that it is necessary for certain pairings to work and for this story to go as I want it to go.
Chapter One : The Capture
Hermione had waited for days - days full of maniacally detailed preparation. Now that she was ready, she would be able to get through the wards undetected. She could find the monster she had once thought redeemable, get the truth from him, and get her revenge.
Yes, revenge, not justice.
Everyone thought Hermione was still in Australia looking for her parents, even Ron and Harry. And she had gone to Sydney to find them, nearly a year ago. Instead of finding Albert and Jeanette, she found a burned down building, and neighbors that have moved on from the British couple that had lived there for only a few months.
After her swift return to England (what was the point in staying in Australia?), she had been pursuing the Death Eaters that had avoided capture or Azkaban for the past year, hoping to find the ones responsible for her parents' deaths. She had already captured six of them for interrogation. After asking her questions, they had been delivered anonymously to the Ministry, where they had been put on trial. Trials that would send them to either Azkaban for a life sentence or to the executioner. The first five didn't know anything, veritaserum proved it to her. The last one though… he knew, and he told her of the one responsible for her parents' deaths.
It was Draco Malfoy.
Hermione's thoughts were full of hatred as she finished the final enchantment to make her pass through the wards undetected. For this last Death Eater, Draco Malfoy, she would not give him to the Ministry, no, she would make him confess and then she would kill him herself, hoping that she won't feel remorse for taking a life to revenge her parents.
Inside the Manor, Draco Malfoy was in the library reorganizing the last set of potions books he had bought. Recently, he had been studying like a madman, working on a locating potion . A project that, if it went well, would not add to his already full vaults, but would give his conscience relief. That relief would lessen the guilt he had carried for the last year and a half - since the end of the war. The war, that damn horrifying war, had only one good consequence in his mind, it allowed him to escape the brainwashing of his upbringing, that pureblood superiority bullshit. He still was arrogant, sarcastic, and witty, but those were the only traits that remained of the Draco Malfoy from before the war. Narcissa, who had been sentenced to 5 years house arrest, had also changed her outlook on blood superiority, while his father… well he didn't know what his father thought anymore, and with his lifelong sentence in Azkaban, it didn't matter. Draco believed that everything that happened to him during the war was his father's fault; Lucius had done many terrible things in his life and it was damn good he was finally paying for them.
Finished putting away the books, Draco went to a seat near one of the large windows in the library to relax , his gaze fell on yesterday's Daily Prophet article, the headline proclaimed there was news of the last Death Eater who had been deposited in the Ministry Atrium anonymously by a "Hunter of Justice". Draco, like much of wizarding Britain, had been rather curious about the identity of this hunter. Who had the ability to find and capture all the Death Eaters that had gone into hiding, those that had successfully avoided the Aurors? Draco skimmed the article, curious about the latest capture, and he froze. It couldn't be, it was HIS name, the name of the criminal he had travelled with to Australia to kill Hermione Granger's parents.
Voldemort had ensured Granger's parents were watched before they even left for Australia, so when they settled in Sidney and assumed safe, he decided it was time to kill them to send a message. As punishment for Lucius' failure in the Department of Mysteries, and his own failure to kill Dumbledore, Draco had been sent with a seasoned Death Eater to 'take care' of them. When he and Ivan Dolohov (a cousin of Antonin) portkeyed on to the Granger's lawn in Sydney, Draco had already decided to stop Dolohov. While he could live with the guilt of not having accepted Dumbledore's offer, or of not having had the courage to refuse to kill the muggle Voldemort had put in front of him to prove his loyalty, he would not be able to live another day with his conscience if he did not try to stop this.
So he waited until Dolohov opened the front door with a whispered "Alohomora", positioned himself behind him and shouted "Stupeficium!". As Dolohov fell to the floor, stunned, Draco pushed him inside the entryway, and went looking for the Grangers. He found them sleeping upstairs. To keep them from being found by Death Eaters again, he modified their appearance with four different glamour spells each, and went on putting within them the unstoppable wish to move (to a country besides Great Britain), he didn't want to plant a specific country in their minds, and know where they had gone. If Voldemort found out what he had done, Draco would die, and so would the Grangers.
Draco returned to Dolohov, and modified his memory so he remembered fulfilling their mission; watching Draco Avada both of Granger's parents. Then Draco awakened Dolohov and both of them grabbed the portkey, returning to England, back to the Manor.
Draco was reliving the events of that day, staring out the window in the Manor library, when he felt a noise outside the room. He got up from the chair and went into the hallway to investigate, assuming it was his loyal house elf.
"Winky, are you still trying to cook that Indian recipe using magic WITHOUT checking the potions I gave you for it?!" he said calling his house elf.
"Winky!" He called again when there was no answer, then he heard a "Stupeficium!" behind him, and all went black.
Hermione smiled triumphantly; she had managed to get through the Manor's wards, and find the bastard in his giant house without being discovered. It had been a piece of cake to bait him out of the library and stun him. What he said concerned her though, she hadn't expected him to have anyone besides Narcissa in the house with him. She had to hurry and get him out of the Manor to her hiding place before Winky found them. Facing a loyal house elf in a magic duel was not what she had in mind or what she had prepared for. She mentally scolded herself, she hadn't thought of the possibility of house elves stopping her! She was so used to considering them as her allies, as those she fought to free from abuse and slavery, that she had not considered the possibility of them being an obstacle in her mission.
Hindsight was 20/20, but it would only slow her down to ruminate on the holes she found in her plan while she was in the middle of the mission.
With a "Petrificus Totalus", Malfoy was bound even if he woke from her stun, and she began to move him with a levitation charm back towards her exit. Hermione frantically stopped and hid herself and Draco's body in a room when she heard an elf voice call out.
"Master Draco! Master Draco! You called for Winky?! Winky managed to finish the recipe! Please, Master Draco come with Winky to taste it!" Hermione stayed hidden, extremely nervous as she tried to make as little noise as possible, hardly daring to breathe. Winky's voice moved further and further away until it ceased completely, and Hermione exhaled a sigh of relief and continued her stealthy walk out of the Manor with Draco floating behind her. After a few more very tense minutes, she finally was outside the Manor's wards.
Draco opened his eyes, awakening as the stunning spell wore off,"Stupeficium" always had a minor effect on him compared to other wizards. The first thing he saw was the clouded sky, had he laid down outside? He wondered where he was, but before he could turn his head, he heard a familiar voice shout "Si-silencio!". He couldn't speak, but he could still see, and with a mixture of horror and amusement, he saw Hermione Granger's face enter his view.
"Karma is a bitch, don't you think, Malfoy? What goes around comes around. You killed my parents with that disgusting Death Eater friend of yours, and now I'm here to get my revenge. I will make you talk, I will make you confess, and then I will kill you.
"No one will ever find your Death Eater body, I will make sure of it. Don't worry, I'm not like you, I won't burn your dead body down in your house like you did to my parents after torturing them. Unlike you, I have mercy, which is more than you deserve. I don't enjoy killing like you and your little friends did, but I'm not going to regret what I'm about to do."
Draco was going through a very odd mix of emotions running through him as he listened Granger's speech; shock, horror and understanding mixed with a little bit of awe. It was obvious that she was the "Hunter of Justice" from the Daily Prophet (Huntress, apparently), able to find the missing Death Eaters. She's the one that interrogated Edward Dolohov and found out his modified events of their night in Australia. She thought Draco was responsible for the death of her parents. He was scared for a moment, thinking he was going to die, until she said that she was going to "make him confess", after that he relaxed.
Granger would not kill him. If she made him confess, even with Veritaserum (he would expect no less from her), she would simply find out the truth and then she would release him, probably apologizing endlessly for her mistake. He smirked at the thought, for once the know-it-all did not, in fact, know anything at all. While he did not know it all either, necessarily, since he didn't know which country her parents had ended up in, he was close to it. He still needed a few days to finalize the locator potion before he could add the last ingredient, a drop of Granger's blood. By coming to find him herself, Hermione had spared him a trip to Australia to find , Draco thought, this project to lessen his guilt and ease his conscience was going to be much easier than he thought.
As he thought this, Hermione grabbed his arm and apparated them into a flat, her flat he supposed. After binding him to a chair, she took a flask out of her purse and instructed him, in a voice which left no room for disagreement, to "DRINK". He looked at her, surprised at how much she impressed him, and he truly understood how she had managed to keep herself and the others in the 'Golden Trio' safe throughout a war in a world she had only been a part of for 6 years. She was clearly the mind behind the 'Golden Trio', and with enough sheer determination to avoid capture for a year by the most powerful wizard in recent history. But this, pursuing, finding, and interrogating all those Death Eaters by herself, was amazing, reckless yes (he found himself angry at her for having risked her life like that, what if she had died and all of his work in finding her parents became pointless?), so perfectly Gryffindor and annoying and reckless, but amazing.
She was incredible, and very angry with him, hell, was she always was so beautiful? Even when she was angry and wanted to kill him, he couldn't help his attraction. What the hell was his problem? She was just as likely going to poison him as she was to give him Veritaserum, and he was thinking how attractive she was? Mentally shaking his head at the path his thoughts had taken, he opened his mouth and drank from the flask Hermione was holding in front of him. Now he would find out, he thought, would she poison him after what she thought he had done to her parents, or would she act the honorable Gryffindor and find out the truth first?