He Didn't

AN: This story just randomly hit me last night before I went to bed. I know I haven't really updated any of my other stories recently, but I've kind of been busy writing Heroes fanfics and making Heroes fanvids…yes, Heroes is my new obsession :P ENJOY!!

My eyes widened as his hands were roughly pulled behind his back.

"What…?" I didn't get a chance to finish my sentence, not that I would've known what to say.

Kinglsey shot me a dark glance. I glared back him as menacingly as I could, but a sharp loud cry caught my attention.

The other Ministry worker pulled my husband's head back by his hair.

"Shut up, boy. You know you deserve this." He said threateningly.

"Let him go." I said with as much dignity as I could muster, but my voice was wavering.

I could feel my eyes go moist.

"No, it's okay." My husband said, grunting as his silvery blonde hair was tugged even harder.

"NO, Draco! If you let them take you without a fight, you're practically admitting that you did kill him!" Tears were running down my face now.

"He did kill him." Kingsley shot back.

"Just shut up for one minute!" I shouted.

"Hermione," Draco said in that loving, silky, but stern voice that I fell in love with. "You know I didn't do it, and that's all that matters to me. That's all I want."

I walked up to Draco and put my hands on either side of his face.

"You left me…for three months. Then you come back to me and 10 seconds later, you get arrested. And you expect me to let you leave me again? There's no way I'm letting you go. Not now, not ever."

Kinglsey grabbed my arm.

"Mrs. Malfoy –" I shoved his hand off.

A chill ran through my spine. I couldn't help it, even after two years, whenever someone called me Mrs. Malfoy, my toes still tingled and the usually dormant butterflies in my stomach came alive. I guess I never really got used to the fact that I was married to Draco Malfoy, my childhood crush.

"Where do you expect he was the past three months?" Kingsley demanded.

I turned on him; I clutched onto his arm and dug my nails through his robe.

"Shacklebolt," I spat. "You're supposed to be on our side, the good side. Has hanging around with people like him," I jerked my head at his co-worker. "All day made you forget was good is?"

"I'm sorry, Hermione. The evidence that Mr. Malfoy here is a murderer is overwhelming."

"You know he didn't do it, Kingsley." I was pleading now. "He's one of us."

"It doesn't matter what I think, Mrs. Malfoy," His voice had gotten hard again. "I have strict orders to bring Draco to Azkaban."

"Orders? Orders? Since when have you taken 'orders' from anyone? You're Kinglsey Shacklebolt. You've been an independent man your whole life. You've only ever done what you think is right."

He looked at me with a confused expression.

"That's right, I've done my homework." I mentally smirked. "Listen; can you at least give us five minutes to talk? Please. I'm begging you."

Kinglsey glanced at his colleague. The shaggy brown-haired man shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"Five minutes." Shacklebolt gestured to a door at the far end of the room. "And don't try anything funny. If you're not out in five minutes, I'm coming in to get you, and trust me when I say, I won't make it pleasant."

My heart lifted, I was sure I was the only one who noticed it. When Kingsley said 'I'm coming in to get you', he put a very distinct emphasis on the 'I'm'. So he was still on our side after all.

I instantly regretted being so feisty and rude to him, but it's not like he could blame me.

"Thank you." I tried to take a little bit of the relief and gratitude I felt out of my voice, but I don't think I did a very good job of it.

I grabbed Draco's shoulders and wrenched him from the hard grasp of Kinglsey's evidently annoyed acquaintance.

He whimpered slightly when I clutched onto him too tightly.

I dragged him into a different room and all but pushed him onto a huge night blue armchair.

"You have exactly five minutes to tell me where you've been the past three months and why those guys out there are so bent on taking you to Azkaban for murder."

"My arm was almost just broken off; a little sympathy would be nice." His fallen, hurt face made my heart crumple.

But I soon regained my posture. I took his face in my hands once more and kissed him as passionately and quickly as I could, remembering that we only had five minutes.

I unlocked his lips from mine and looked him in the eye.

"You left me, Draco Malfoy. You left me with one thing to give me the slightest clue as to when or if I was going to see you again. You left a note saying 'I'll miss you, I love you'. Do you have any idea what that did to me? I didn't sleep or eat for an entire month after that. I lost over 6 kg in that one month alone. My best friends stopped talking to me because they'd thought I'd lost it, and after a while, I too thought that I'd never be sane again. I got fired and my parents stopped writing to me. My life was over. Two months ago, my father died, and I wasn't allowed to his funeral! The only thing that kept me from completely giving up was that last thread of hope that still remained in me that prayed every single day that you would come back to me. You broke my heart, Draco. Now if you think that you can just stroll back in here, pretending like you'd been here the past three months and not expect me to ask you for an explanation, you better think twice."

Draco was staring at me in disbelief as I retold in a short simple version how horrible and tormenting my life has been recently.

"I'm so sorry Hermione. If I had known –"

"Known what? How much you meant to me? How much I loved you?"

He continued as if I hadn't interrupted him. "How much pain it would've caused you if I left you, I would never have gone."

"But why did you? Why did you leave me, Draco?"

He sighed. "I guess I can't put it off any longer."

I looked at him expectantly, my eyes eager. This better be good.

"I went to find my mother."

"…What? Wait, no, don't repeat it. I heard you…how could finding your mother take you three months?"

"Just let me finish. I went to find my mother so I could ask her where Lucius was."

"But Lucius was in –"

"No. He escaped from Azkaban three months ago. I never told you this, but I was the one who sold him out in the first place. I went to the Ministry and told them where he was. And he somehow found out that it was me. Lucius was bent on killing me. That's why it was so important for him to escape, everyone was shocked. Voldermort's dead, there's no reason for him to still want a life outside Azkaban…other than to see me dead, and by his hand…or wand. I knew that I had to be alert, and I couldn't risk staying with you in case he found me and tried to hurt you as a punishment. Hermione, if he touched you because of me, I would never forgive myself."

Tears were rolling down my eyes again; I didn't even bother controlling them.

"I swear, I had no intention of hurting him, I just wanted to land his sorry butt straight back in a cell in Azkaban. But my mother wasn't at the Malfoy Manor. I couldn't find her anywhere, eventually I found her in this cave a couple of hundred miles from the Manor. She told me that she went there to hide from Lucius. The thing is he had kind of gone mad. Crazed, bent on killing me. I was obviously disappointed when she couldn't tell me where Lucius was, but I convinced her to go back to the Manor. I placed charms over the place and promised her that she would be safe. Finding my mother had taken me about two months, despite the fact that I was apparating everywhere. After I made sure that she was safe, I went to find Lucius. That took me about twenty days."

"So where were you - ?"

"Hermione, I'm not done yet."

He instantly silenced me. He had that dangerous glint in his silver eyes. It was the same glint that I loved and feared at the same time.

"I found him in this park, not far from the Manor. It was the same park that I used to go to all the time when I was a kid. It was a wizard park, you know, revolving slides, automatic moving swings and monkey bars that actually had enchanted monkeys helping you climb them. Lucius was sitting on one of the swings. I walked up to him, expecting him to jump up at me or something, but as I got closer I realised that he wasn't breathing. I checked his pulse and to my horror…found that he was dead. And since he had no cuts on him, I figured it must have been from The Killing Curse."

I drew in a sharp intake of breath.

"He was already dead?" I whispered.

He nodded solemnly. "That was when I started running. I knew that everyone would assume that I was the one who killed him. The Ministry knows that we hated each other; me selling him out to them confirmed their beliefs that we absolutely despised each other. For over a week, I've been hiding from the Ministry. You see, I had completely lost track of time, but then I saw a newspaper and realised that it was already July. That was when I decided to come back to you."

I was silent for a few minutes; it took me a while to digest it all. I threw my arms around his neck.

"You stupid, stupid boy. You risked your life just to make sure that a man you used to call father was locked away safely in Azkaban?"

"No. Well, yes. But not really, I risked my life so yours wouldn't be endangered by a man I used to call father running around, trying to get revenge for what I did to him. I never cared about myself, but if you got hurt, I would do horrible things to him that goes well beyond the Cruciatus Curse…but I wouldn't kill him."

I sighed and pecked his cheek. "I can take care of myself. I'm a big girl now."

I rested my head against his smooth lean chest. He wrapped his arms around me protectively.

I couldn't believe what happened next. I had five minutes with my husband before he gets apparated away to prison…and I fall asleep on him!

The next thing I knew, I was waking up to someone shaking my shoulder vigorously.

My eyes flew open in alarm, I looked around me furiously. I relaxed when I realised that Draco was still holding me in his arms.

"What happened?"

"I convinced Jeorge to go back to the Ministry. He was unwilling at first of course, claiming that it would take two people to 'hold down that beast of a wizard'. But I told him he could trust me, and he did. Now I don't want to violate his trust, nor do I want to lose my job, so I'm giving you one hour to find some kind of proof that you didn't actually kill Lucius." Kinglsey was talking to Draco now.

I sighed and looked at him. "Is there anything?"

"Yes. Narcissa." He said confidently.

Draco had taken me and Kinglsey to the Malfoy Manor. When we apparated in, after Draco removed a few of the strongest protective charms, I inhaled the familiar scent.

We looked around for a while before a rather chubby house elf waddled up to us.

"Master Draco! What a pleasant surprise! Oh how we've missed you! Thank god you're okay! Madam got us all scared that you might have been locked up in a cell in Azkaban by now! If you're looking for Madam Malfoy, she's in her bedroom. I'll warn you now though; she's not doing so well. She's become…well…not to be disrespectful, but she's become slightly paranoid. None of us a sure about what though. She keeps repeating over and over again 'It's all my fault, they're all gone and it's my fault'. We have our theories about what she may be talking about, but we're not sure."

We all listened to her intently. Kinglsey frowned.

"Can you take us to her?" He asked in that deep booming voice of his.

"Yes, of course. Right this way, Master."

"Aw. I've always wanted a house elf." Kinglsey said under his breath.

I shot him a dark, evil look. I never truly got over S.P.E.W. so sue me.

Finally, the little fat house elf (I found out later that her name was Bonnie) led us to a large polished oak door. She knocked on it thrice and then opened it for the three of us. We emerged in a grand ballroom-type bedroom. The master bed in the far left hand corner was way bigger than a King sized bed, and the walk-in wardrobe looked like it could hold dozens of people, but I'm sure it could probably hold more.

Narcissa sat in the corner, near her bed, in a shrivelled up ball, her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin sitting comfortably on her knees.

Just as Bonnie said, she was repeating the same thing over again:

"They're gone, they're all gone. It's my fault, it's all my fault. They're gone and it's my entire fault. How could I? Narcissa, you've been so selfish. It's all my fault."

She was rocking back and forth as if she was in a rocking chair. She looked up when we entered. Her eyes widened when she saw Draco. She jumped up, her previous fragile-ness and breakable-ness gone out the window.

"DRACO! MY DEAR DRACO! YOU'RE NOT IN AZKABAN! OH MY DRACO! MY SWEET SWEET DRACO!"

Kingsley whispered to Draco:

"How exactly does she help in proving you innocent? No offence, but she kind of seems like she's lost it." He mimicked twirling a lock of hair near the top of his head.

Draco shook his head dismissively.

"Mom, of course I'm not in Azkaban. Although I might be if you don't help me."

She froze mid-hug.

"How do you know?" She whispered, almost inaudibly.

"Know what, mother?"

"How do you know what I did?"

"What did you do, mother?" Draco was getting impatient now.

"Oh, I'm so sorry sweetheart. I thought he was going to hurt you; he would've if I hadn't acted first. I was just trying to protect you, I swear. Please don't hate me. When I found out that you were suspected of killing him, I felt like killing myself. I feel so horrible, so selfish."

"Mother! What happened? What did you do?" Draco demanded, although I was pretty sure I already knew.

"I'm so sorry. I did it."

"Did what?" Draco's eyes were glistening now.

"I did it. I killed him. I killed your father." Narcissa cried.

AN: So what do you think? I know it doesn't really have much of a storyline; it's one of the longest one-shots I've written though. If enough people ask, I'll add a sequel, or another chapter, or something. Reviews are appreciated!!