2

I wake up when the sun reaches the highest point in the sky. Hermione begins to stir, so I take my clothes into the attached bathroom and change. When I come out, my skin is clammy and I feel uncomfortable. I don't usually change in a place that isn't my room.

Hermione is now awake and pacing. "I'm sorry I came back," she bites out. She looks more harried than she did last night, I notice.

"Do you want a change of clothes?" I ask. "I can ask the house elves to arrange for that." She just looks at me and takes a deep breath, as if she can't believe what I've just said. I remember her obsession with elfin freedom, and frown. "I can have it arranged," I amend.

"Don't you have anywhere else to be?" She sounds like she needs time to think, so I back out of my room and close the door behind me. I don't lock it, and I don't tell her not to come out. I trust she won't, unless she has a death wish.

There's another meeting in the dining room, two hours after noon. This time, the Dark Lord does not attend it. I can understand he has more thrilling things to do than to attend unnecessary meetings held by indecisive people. I can still hear his rage from last night echoing between the walls of the room I'm stuck in. That very same rage is present in our gathering today. Rage because we have been lied to, defied, by one of our very own. Rage because Harry Potter had slipped out of Voldemort's fingers one more time.

I take myself by surprise when I think The Dark Lord's name. I look around, expecting one of the Death Eaters to pounce on me for thinking it. Voldemort, I repeat mentally, rebelliously. It just makes me feel pathetic, so I tune back in.

"An imposter is in our midst," Mulciber is saying. He's standing at the head of the table, opposite my father. I'm somewhere in the middle, sinking into my seat. "And we must get rid of him, find him and castrate him! Who dare defy the Dark Lord, who dare?"

There is a chorus of agreement around the table. I shout out my cheers too. Father sees me doing this and signals for me to stay quiet. When I look around, I notice Severus Snape watching us carefully. His eyes flit back to Mulciber and he behaves as though he saw nothing. I do the same.

"I brought you lunch," I announce, entering my room with a platter of food.

Hermione is sitting on the floor in the middle of my room, her arms folded. I'm relieved she's still here. I set the food down in front of her and lean against the wall opposite. "So what are you going to do?" I ask as she digs in.

She takes her time swallowing a piece of croissant. "I'm going to have to track them down. Don't you have an inkling where they might have escaped to?"

I shake my head. "Where did you go, yesterday?"

"To this… forest, where we had stayed for a few nights. I camped there once as a child." She doesn't seem too comfortable giving me details. That's understandable – I'm surprised she's even eating the food I gave her.

I try picturing Hermione as a child on a camping trip, but it's hard to imagine her without a wand and wisdom in her eyes.

"They weren't there?"

She frowns from behind a cauldron cake. "Isn't that obvious?" I conclude she's ravenous and decide to let her eat. When she's done cleaning the plate, she says, "Does nobody in the Manor suspect I'm still here? Who's here, now? I heard noises."

Apparently Hermione Granger doesn't do one question at a time. "The usual crowd. Nobody suspects a thing – there are more important matters to discuss."

She snorts. "I can imagine that."

I feel mildly irritated at her obvious undermining of our jobs. "The escape of The Chosen One just happens to be more attention calling than a lost – "

"Mudblood?"

I wince. "I wasn't about to say that."

We were getting along. Now we're not.

There is a very long moment of silence, in which I walk to my desk, sit down and flip through some issues of the Daily Prophet.

"If you're a Death Eater too now, why did you help Harry and Ron escape?"

I find it difficult to blink as I contemplate her question. "Maybe," I say slowly, "Maybe I'm just a Death Eater by name."

"You're not going to tell them what you've done?"

"They know."

"All of them? Even Voldemort?"

I flinch. "Not all. Especially not him."

Another bout of silence drags on. I'm attentive enough to know that she hasn't moved from her spot on the floor.

"You could run away, you know," she says, her voice but a whisper.

I don't move a muscle. "What makes you think I want to leave my home?"

"I doubt you consider the Manor your home."

"It's the closest I'll ever get."

"You could get closer."

She's gone too far (oh, the irony), and she senses it. We spend the rest of the day in silence.

Father calls me down for dinner at half past seven. There is a place set for Mother at the table, which calls for a dull ache in my chest. I assume the house elves are not aware of what happened last night, after everyone was gone. We eat a meat loaf, boiled lettuce and barbecued fish. The food is bland to my tongue. I can't have eaten faster if I tried.

When the leftovers from the plates disappear, I make to stand up. My father gives me a stern look, and I return to my seat.

"There are things we need to discuss," he says.

"I bet there are," I snap.

"You will respect me, young man." His voice is commanding. It doesn't scare me, but it reprimands me. If I want to live here, there are some rules I will have to abide by. You can run away, Hermione tells me once more in my head. I push her voice away.

He begins talking, assuming I'll begin listening. He assumes right.

"What happened yesterday was unfortunate." Which part? I want to ask him. The part where we lost family, or the part where Voldemort lost his pray? Knowing him, it's the latter. "But we must move past it. There are questions floating around as to your Mother's whereabouts. If you are faced with such a question, avoid it at all costs. Do not lie. Do not speak the truth. You must avoid it – there are more pressing matters at hand."

I can feel my fist trembling, my leg shaking uncontrollably. I struggle to control it. I fail.

"There will be a mission for you soon," Father continues. I decide to stop calling him that. "And I expect you to carry it out with all the dignity we have left. You failed the Dark Lord once, Draco. You will not do it again."

"What am I expected to do?" I spit out.

"The nature of the mission will be revealed to you when situations call for it." Lucius leans back in his chair and stretches his arms over his head. Is the conversation over?

I push my chair back roughly from the table and stand up. My fists are clenched as I look down at him. "What did you do with her body?"

He lowers his hands, reproach seeping back into his eyes. I inherited the white-blond hair, the thin ghostly face and the snarky personality. But I did not inherit his ever detached eyes.

"What did you do with her body?" I yell, forgetting for a moment that at this volume, Hermione will be able to hear everything I say.

"It has been taken care of," Lucius chokes out.

I'm filled with so much of rage that I can jinx him to oblivion. Instead, I channel my anger into stomping my way up to my room.

Her scars have begun bleeding again. She's tried stemming it with spells, but her anxiety is getting in the way of her magic. Hermione is sitting on my bed, holding her arm out over the floor, immediately getting rid of any fallen drops of blood with her wand. I can't handle the inconvenience anymore.

"Just let me do it," I say impatiently.

She glares at me. "I told you I'm fine. It'll heal."

"It won't heal." My fingers are tapping incessantly against my desk – I haven't exactly worked off my rage yet. "Just let me get it over with. For heaven's sake."

"Fine." She's behaving like she's letting me borrow a couple of million galleons from her account at Gringotts.

I pull myself away from the desk (I've been spending increasing amounts of time at my desk over the past two days) and approach her. "Give me your wand," I say.

She looks at me suspiciously. "Where's yours?"

"Your boyfriend thieved it."

"You'll have to specify," she comments dryly. I fight back a smile at the unintentional joke as she hands me her wand. It feels alien in my fingers. I look down at her arm, which she's hidden behind her back. I look at her pointedly, and she sighs.

"Just… do it slowly, okay? It still stings."

"Okay," I breathe, lifting her arm slowly. What I see makes bile rise in my throat – Mudblood, carved into her skin, outlined by her scarlet blood. I nearly drop her arm and step away. Nearly. "What spell do I use?" I ask her, trying to stop my voice from wobbling. This close to her, I feel strangely vulnerable.

"Vulnera Sanentur," she tells me.

I point her wand at her arm, supporting the latter with my left hand. "Vulnera Sanentur," I repeat, closing my eyes and concentrating on her wound. She sucks in a deep breath pulls her hand away from mine, and I realize I've been holding it for too long.

"It's healed," she says blandly. "Thank you."

"Sure." I give her back her wand and get back to my desk chair. She falls asleep on the bed. I don't fall asleep at all.

Credits to .com for helping me with minor details I'm too lazy to recollect from the books. R&R, darlings! :*

Kristopher