This story incorporates the frequently-used Dramione plots of Marriage Law, Hermione-Getting-Over-Ron-Cheating, Draco-Is-A-Veela and Hermione-Must-Babysit-Draco. Disregards DH. I hope you enjoy…
*Mysterious Music…*
*Zedax...says...hi*
A beautiful morning never lasts longer than 12pm.
Right now, it was 3am. That left Hermione a whole nine hours before the morning turned bad, she thought. Or so she thought…
She was standing around outside, waiting nervously for her boss/mentor, Bill Weasley. He had told her to wait for him in the front lawn of her house, so he could meet up with her and give her first official order assignment- to be started immediately. She was so excited that she couldn't stand still…
She was jumping from foot to foot when she heard a distinctive pop and whipped her wand out as quickly as she could, holding it ahead of her.
"Who's there?" she demanded clearly, lighting the tip of her wand with a non-verbal lumos spell. The narrow beam of light fell on a tall, red-haired figure.
"Hermione, relax! It's just me…Bill…"
She kept her wand focused on him anyway.
"Keep your hands where I can see them!" she barked. "And tell me…what form does my patronus take?"
The man who looked like Bill held his empty hands up for Hermione to see and said seriously, "Your patronus is an otter, Hermione." He smiled. "And nice work. I'm glad to see that I've taught you so well…"
Hermione nodded and lowered her wand slightly, holding it up just enough to be able to see with the light coming out of it. Then she warily walked over to Bill.
"How's Fleur?" she asked.
Bill chuckled.
"Excited… Driving Mum up the wall… Driving Ginny up the wall…the usual. Merlin, I love her!" he said.
Hermione laughed.
"And how's the rest of the family?" she lowered her voice. "How's Harry?"
"Ahhh, they're all good. After you left yesterday morning from escorting Harry to the Burrow, he and Ron got secretive straight away, planning things for this little anti-Voldemort excursion that the three of you wanted to go on. Mum was very happy that I pulled you out of it…"
"Speaking of which, what am I going to be doing while Ron and Harry have fun?" she asked. Bill smiled somewhat crookedly and grabbed her arm.
"You're about to find out…"
She was slightly surprised, but, catching on, quickly relaxed and focused her mind on apparating to wherever Bill had in mind.
They ended up outside a gate. In the dark of the early morning, the trees surrounding it, the large Manor that was set on a hill inside the perimeter of trees and the gate and even the gate itself looked eerie and spooky…
Hermione, who had always read the Daily Prophet, recognised the area from a picture she had seen in the newspaper and let out a small squawk of surprise.
"Bill!" she exclaimed. "This is Malfoy Manor!"
Bill nodded gravely.
"Walk with me," he said, tapping the gates with his wand. They creaked like in muggle horror movies as they magically opened.
"We've won it over for the Order only recently," Bill explained as they walked up the hill. "We kidnapped one of the residents… that freaked out the Death Eaters and then they scurried off to some other safe-house; our sources tell us that it's probably Selwyn's mansion. The Selwyns are a very wealthy pureblood family and they are known supporters of the Death Eaters…"
"So, what do you have inside this manor?" Hermione asked, hugging her arms around her body.
"Well, that's part of your job…" he answered.
They reached the front door of the Manor and Bill pushed it open after saying the words "Hydrurga Leptonyx" and ushered Hermione in after him, closing the door quickly.
"That was quite clever, you know, having the password be the scientific name of the leopard seal," Hermione babbled as Bill sent a flying fire-bolt into a nearby central-heating fireplace, washing light and colour all through the entrance hall of the manor. From upstairs, she heard a human-sounding groan, the kind which Ron would make when he didn't want to wake up.
"DRACO!" Bill called up the staircase, to more groans. "GET DOWN HERE NOW!"
Hermione panicked.
"Surely you don't mean Draco as in Draco Mal-"
She was cut off as a pale, slumped-over figure wearing a tight-fitting grey t-shirt and green flannelette pyjama pants descended down the staircase, its white-blonde head nodding into its chest and its hand trailing elegantly over the stair-railing.
"What's up with you, Weasley?" it said in a faintly sneering voice, even though it sounded as though it was half-dead. Hermione paled. She knew that voice- and that hair- too well.
"Tell me you're joking, Bill…" she said despairingly. "Tell me that this is not my job…"
The white-blonde head snapped up at the sound of her voice.
Draco knew that voice. It was the voice of a know-it-all, the voice of a bossy, nagging female. That was the voice of his worst nightmare…
As Hermione looked into the silver-grey, currently-baggy eyes of the thing, she felt extreme loathing. All she could think of to say was "Not this faggot, Bill!"
"Why the hell did you bring GRANGER here, Weasley?" Draco shouted. "ANYONE but GRANGER!"
Bill ignored Draco and looked at Hermione.
"Welcome to your first Order assignment," he said seriously.
"I'm not going to spank him, Bill, if that's what you want me to do…even if he deserves it…"
"You told me you were bringing me a BABYSITTER! Not a bloody Nazi!"
"Did I just hear right?" Hermione asked testily. "My big Order assignment is BABYSITTING? And my charge is Draco Malfoy, no less! What's this! Harry and Ron get to go off and have fun doing whatever the hell they have to do, and I'm going to be stuck here wiping Malfoy's bottom! What is that?"
"Hermione," Bill said seriously, drawing himself up to his full, impressive height. "You said that you wanted to do whatever you could for the Order. I knew that you meant you wanted to accompany Harry and Ron, but we really needed someone here. We kidnapped Malfoy from within the Manor itself, that's why the Death Eaters left.
"He doesn't know the password to leave, he doesn't have a wand and we've taken away all the Floo powder and any contact to be had with him has stopped, but there still might be ways for him to get out of here. We need someone to live here, to be his constant supervisor. And, not to put too fine a point on it, we can't spare anyone else from the Order to do this. We can't even take shifts, because we don't have enough free people. So, if you have a better suggestion, please, share it."
Hermione sniffed indignantly, but nodded in submission.
"That's better," Bill said approvingly. "I've had someone send your clothes and other necessities over. They should be arriving in your bedroom at any second. At night, lock Malfoy in his bedroom. It's upstairs, he'll show you were it is, and put a Sticking Charm on the windows. The fireplace in there is closed off completely, because Malfoy is under our protection as well as our hostage, so you should put a few blue-bell flames up in there.
"Oh, and you can't apparate into or out of the Manor. AND be careful of the housekeeper, Brianna…we let her and her twin brother, Cameron stay to make your life easier. They both have fully functioning magical abilities, but the Manor and the area around it is under the Fidelius Charm, so if they leaves, they can't tell anyone where they've been. And that covers pretty much everything…"
"So, all I have to do is make sure that Malfoy stays here?" Hermione asked, disbelievingly. "But I could be out there with Harry and Ron, contributing to the war in a real way, not dancing around here being pathetic!"
Bill sighed and beckoned her to him. They went closer to the door while Draco stood at the foot of the stairs, looking annoyed and thoroughly unhappy.
"Listen, Hermione," Bill said in a hushed tone. "This is the best thing for us. Malfoy obviously has information, but he can't or won't give it to us. Veritaserum won't work; we don't know what questions to ask him. What we really want you to do is find out what he's keeping from us. We have high hopes in you. I've left a full list of your responsibilities with the man who was delivering your things."
He hugged her briefly in a brotherly way.
"I hope you can make it to the wedding in five days," he said, before flicking a side-ways glance at Draco. "Bye."
And, with that, he whispered the words "Hydrurga Leptonyx" and walked out the now open front door, closing it firmly behind him.
Now, Hermione turned to Draco, feeling a sense of loss and annoyance. So much for her big plans to kill the Horcruxes, kill Voldemort and save the world! She wondered how Harry and Ron were going to survive without her.
Draco stared at Hermione blankly. He had expected for Weasley to bring someone like Remus Lupin, the werewolf, or that Metamorphmagus chick to look after him. Not the Know-it-all who just decided to skip her seventh year of Hogwarts! Didn't he deserve better than that?
"So, Granger," he sneered. "Heard how hot I am, have you? Come to see what it's like to live with Draco Malfoy, eh?"
She rolled her eyes.
"First of all, if you had been listening properly, you would have noticed that I did not sign up for this job. And secondly, I thought that Malfoys didn't like to touch filthy little mudbloods like myself?"
Draco cocked an eyebrow.
"Well, we don't, generally," he said. "But I was merely making a reference to your pathetic crush on me, not suggesting that I am in any way lusting after you…"
"Whatever," Hermione said, walking up the stairs. "Come on, Malfoy. It's bedtime for ferrets…"
Draco narrowed his eyes.
"Alright, Granger," he said. "Hurry up and lock me in for the morning. I'm tired and your presence here has probably annoyed Brianna…she's going to give it to you when she meets you."
He smirked. He liked the idea of his housekeeper getting up at Granger. If Granger thought that she was going to be the one in charge here, she was sorely mistaken.
"Hmm…" Hermione said sarcastically. "Smirking at the thought of my getting in trouble…if I thought there was any chance of this being a joke my friends are playing on me, all of it has vanished from my mind…only a true Malfoy would be so cruel…"
"You have friends, do you Granger?" he drawled, before climbing up the stairs after Hermione. "I'm going to my room…"
Hermione waited for Draco to pass her before finishing her trip up the stairs. She then followed him down a long corridor, past many doors made of black ebony, to the door right at the end. He opened the door and walked through it, into what Hermione thought was a room fit for a king.
The room was completely silver and green. But then, Hermione thought, this was Malfoy Manor. It was sure to have a lot of silver and green colour-scheming. The furniture (and the door) was all made of black ebony with silver handles. The…dining table? Why did Malfoy need a dining table in his bedroom? Anyway, it was exactly the same, ebony with silver ridging.
The wall paper was Slytherin (a.k.a. forest) green, with swirling silver patterns on it. The carpet was soft to the toes (or, at least, that was how it looked to Hermione, who was still wearing shoes) and coloured a cool, silver-grey. And the massive black ebony bed that sat against the middle of the wall to Hermione's left was covered in a big, thick, scrunchy, green-and-silver doona.
"Well," she said appraisingly. "I see that coming from a family who gets their wealth by inheritance, and not hard work has been really good to you…"
Draco snorted and walked to his bed, sitting on it.
"Just so you know, Granger," he said with his usual air of boredom. "I sleep naked. I am going to start undressing. If you don't want to see anything, you'd better get started…" And he pulled off a shoe.
Heat rose to Hermione's face when she heard that. Flushed, she hurried to the massive, floor-to-ceiling window on the wall opposite her and placed a Sticking Charm on it. She glanced over her shoulder at Draco, who now had pulled off both of his shoes and socks and had his hand at the bottom of his shirt. She couldn't help but watch as he began to pull it above his head, revealing his stomach and chest.
Hermione could have drooled at the sight of that chest. It was everything a chest should be! It was marble white, same as the rest of Draco's skin. The planes were strong-looking, but not so buff that they should have belonged to someone bigger than Draco.
And his stomach was more or less the same; white, flat and hard…
Draco looked up and caught her looking. He smirked at the sight of her ogling him. Why not taunt her a little further and see what she did, he thought. She may have been a mudblood, but Draco had been alone in the house with no one but Brianna, Remona and Cameron for a whole month now. He had never been with one girl for so long, and it wasn't as though his father ever needed to find out…assuming that his father ever came for him, that was. Draco hoped he wouldn't come until the war had been won, either way.
So, curious as to what Hermione would do, he hooked his thumbs into his pants and slowly began to push them down, smirking as Hermione's eyes followed his progress.
However, just as he revealed that he hadn't been wearing any boxers or underwear underneath his flannelette pyjama pants, and just before he showed her his…well, anyway, she woke up to herself and remembered her wand.
"Petrificus Totalus!" she shouted. Draco froze right before the point where his…would be revealed and his body fell backwards onto his bed. His eyes began to dart around wildly, and then they came to rest suspiciously on Hermione…
She walked up to his frozen form on the bed and leaned over to whisper in his ear, "You may not be used to it, but I'M the boss now…and I'M the one in charge…So I say that you get no light tonight…"
Then she got away from him, performed an extra barricade on the fireplace and then put closed the door, putting an extra-special locking spell on the room that secured all areas of escape and which could not be unlocked by any wand but hers. And then she stalked out into the hallway.
"Now, which bloody door has a good bedroom inside, that hasn't been taken by the housekeeper or her brother…"Hermione mumbled. She glared at the door next to Draco's on the right and then sighed and banged it open.
"WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME IS GOING ON IN HERE?" shouted a shocked and befuddled, sexy male voice. Hermione pointed her wand at the ceiling and shot a Lumos Maxima at it.
She froze in awe. Sitting before her in a simple emerald-covered bed was the most gorgeous half-naked male she had ever seen…well, except for maybe Draco, but he was a git and the only good part that Hermione had noticed about him was his body, so he didn't count…
This boy had the same marble colour over his muscled, knotted limbs and exposed chest. His reddish-brown, curly hair fell into his light blue eyes in a way that made him look like an older version of a cherub. His face was softly handsome, with exotically-shaped eyes, a straight, longish nose and full, rose lips.
He cocked his head to the side and looked at her.
"Are you Malfoy's babysitter?" he asked, sliding back down into his covers and yawning. "Weasley said he was bringing someone new over…"
"Yes, I'm the babysitter," Hermione said. "Hermione Granger. Who are you?"
The boy closed his eyes and grinned.
"I'm Cameron…no last name…" he mumbled, smiling. "You've probably woken Brianna up. She's going to kill you in the morning…"
"You know, Malfoy said the exact same thing…" Hermione told Cameron. "Was Brianna mean to Bill?"
"Nah…" Cameron slurred sleepily. "She has great respect for men. But she views all females as competition. She'll slaughter you. Me, on the other hand, I don't care either way. Besides…you're kinda hot…"
Hermione flushed. She had only just met this guy and he was hitting on her? But it was such a compliment coming from a boy who was that good-looking…
So she just blushed and backed out of the room, closing the door and muttering a quick goodnight, before walking straight to the end of the corridor and throwing open a door, revealing a room that was completely silver-grey and empty. In there, there was a trunk that she recognised as being from her six years at Hogwarts.
Inside, she found all of her needed clothes and toiletries, as well as an envelope entitled "The Rules". Deciding that she'd look over it tomorrow, Hermione walked into the adjoining ensuite in her room, showered and then slipped into her favourite red satin pyjamas.
She then collapsed in the bed, wriggling to get under the covers and fell asleep, thinking that she didn't remember ever seeing Draco Malfoy looking as attractive as he had that day…and that Cameron No-Last-Name was possibly the best-looking boy she had ever beheld…
Welcome to the Super Dramione…
Who is Remona, you ask? Why is Draco suddenly so attractive to Hermione, you wonder? What is so fascinatingly sexy about Brianna and Cameron, you wish you could say? All shall be revealed in time…