Initiation
"What's going on? Why are you all in black?" Draco asked his grey eyes narrowed at them all.
Hermione's own eyes were spitting fire. "Get. Out." She snarled.
"Why? I want to know what the hell is going on here." Draco argued, his eyes returning the fire.
Haley looked at him and then back at her friends.
"We need to talk." She said.
A door appeared in the far wall of the room, which had taken on the appearance of a cozy cottage with a kitchen, roaring fire and three comfortable sofas and 2 chairs.
The seven walked into the room, shutting the door behind them. Draco sighed and flopped onto one of the sofas.
"That went well." He muttered.
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"What do we do?" Lottie asked.
"I think we should tell him and swear him in. His dad's pretty rough." Tom stated.
"No." Hermione snapped.
"Why? He gets treated rough and we are here for those who suffer like we do." Lewis argued.
Hermione scowled.
"I don't trust him. I don't want him to know." Kerry groaned.
"Mione. He deserves a second chance. Plus, he can't tell if we have the dirt on him and if there is a large group of us that could kick his ass. Slytherins are all for self-preservation and it isn't in his best interests to spill." She explained.
"Let's vote." Matt offered. Agreement went through the group.
"All for?" Haley called. Six hands went up.
"Against?" Haley asked. Hermione just side, burying her head in her hands.
"Sorry Hermione, but the majority rules." Haley smiled.
Hermione's eyes sparkled with tears and the mood instantly changed. "Oh Hermione, I didn't mean to make you feel out of control!" Haley gasped, wrapping her hands around Hermione.
"What if he tells Harry or Ron? What if he lets something slip?" choked Hermione. Kerry stroked her back gently.
"What about we trust him?" she asked, softly, "don't we all deserve a second chance?" Hermione dashed her eyes angrily.
"Fine… I guess I can always obliviate him." She sniffed.
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Draco looked up as the group came back into the room. Lottie took one of the armchairs, Hermione took the end of the sofa closest to her, Tom took the other end, Kerry and Lewis took another sofa and Haley and Matt took the last sofa.
"Welcome, Draco Malfoy, to the Shadows." Kerry greeted.
"We are a group of kids who get abused and we come here to be with friends and talk." Lewis finished. "There is no need for glamours here." He added, his sharp eyes looking pointedly at Hermione and Tom.
Hermione and Tom shared a look and removed their glamours and were shocked to see Lottie remove one too. Hermione's bruise on her face was now a yellowish colour and her black eye was healing nicely. The bump on her forehead was nicely concealed by her hair and barely visible.
Tom had a few more on his face than her. He had two black eyes, two bruised cheeks and four dotted around his face. Lottie also had a black eye and a bruised cheek.
Draco gasped in horror. "Damn." He breathed.
"So Malfoy, what's your story? You tell us yours and we tell you ours." Lottie asked.
Draco sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "It's nothing like you guys. Father is really old fashioned, I guess. He hurts Mother. A lot. Sometimes I interfere and he'll crucio me but he never physically beats me. It's… it's just painful watching him hurt Mother and not being able to do anything about it. He did go absolutely insane once, though, when I refused to be a Death Eater. That's the only time he physically hurt me as well as magically." The others nodded and Hermione was a little shocked to hear he didn't want to be a Death Eater.
"My turn. Okay, my Dad's got a drinking problem. It started when my Mum died of cancer when I was ten. He became a violent drunk and he beats me up when he gets drunk. I manage to protect my little sister, but I hate to think what he does when I'm not there." Lottie explained, running a hand through her long blonde hair, her blue eyes worried.
"Same." Matt sighed. "My Dad's a drunk too. But my mum's alive still. He just got into drinking a while ago. He's been hitting Mum and me all my life. Done some real damage. Usually it's my Mum who gets the brunt of it; he's scared I'll fight back one day." He told them all, his hazel eyes clouding with memories.
"We only get it when Father feels like we need to learn our place, so at the start of the holidays and maybe a couple of times through it. Father doesn't want us to get too badly mucked up because he hosts dinners and that with the Minister. It's to remind us to be good. If we get out of line or something, then he'll hit us though." Lewis explained, looking Draco right in the eye as he spoke.
"Went pretty easy on us this year. Had a ball the next day so he wanted us in good condition, but it got the message across." Kerry added.
"I'm really not hit like that." Haley began. "Only if I try to stop my mother's beatings."
"You see, Dad's a control freak. He likes everything to be in order, but Mum's a Muggle and not everything's perfect because she can't use magic to make it right. If she breaks something, she can't fix it with a spell. So Dad gets angry with her and he hits her. If I step in, then I get hit as well. He also hits me in front of mum to punish her." Haley concluded with a shrug.
Tom sighed heavily. "My Dad's dead. It's my Mum's boyfriend. He's got an obsession with hitting us. He gets angry over the slightest thing that we do wrong and he hits us for it. My owl arrived at ten at night and went to the wrong window. Mum's Boyfriend was furious. I got hit for it." He told them. "Mum's in too deep to get out now. He won't let her go, threatens to kill us if we leave him."
Kerry sniffed and gently hugged Tom. "It'll be okay." She soothed. "I hate listening to yours and Hermione's stories." She added, shuddering.
Draco frowned. "You'll see." Kerry told him, sending a sad look at Hermione.
Hermione sighed. She turned to Draco.
"I'm sorry. No-one deserves to be treated like we do." She told him.
Draco nodded in acknowledgement. "So what's your story?"
Hermione shut her eyes in grief and let out a choked sob. Her friends drew her into a hug.
"Do you want me to tell?" Tom asked.
Hermione nodded weakly.
"Hermione's got it like I do, in a way. She says living with her Dad is like walking on egg shells. She's adopted and when her dad's in a certain mood, he hates her calling him 'Dad'. Then she gets hit for calling him that. She also can't do Magic or send any letters to her friends. He beats her over the smallest errors and also beats her adopted mother. He also rapes her. Started when she was twelve."
Kerry picked up where Tom left off. "Thanks to him, she has a four year old son and a two year old daughter, Bennie and Nettle. She takes their beatings if they do things wrong, if Crookshanks does something wrong she gets beaten, if he's drunk, if she protects her kids and if she does something wrong, even by accident, She's hit or kicked or raped. It's hell." Tom explained, stroking his friend's back as she sobbed.
Draco looked at her with a dropped jaw. After a few more sobs, the distraught girl sat up and wiped her eyes.
"Now you know." She whispered her eyes full of pain.
"Hey, Mione, how's the tykes now?" Matt asked.
Hermione's eyes immediately softened and she pulled out a shrunken photo album, resizing it.
"I thought you might ask." She said with a wobbly smile. "I managed to sneak this from home." She handed it to Kerry and it went round the group, the other cooing over it, finally reaching Draco.
Draco flicked through, staring at the children. One of the photos was of Hermione, with a long sleeved top on, holding a little girl with soft black curls on her hip and hugging a small boy of four, also with black hair.
Another was of the same boy, holding the little girl. Another was of the children and a brown haired woman, who Draco assumed was Hermione's adopted mother, in a park. They all looked happy. Draco closed it and handed the book onto Haley.
"Oh my gosh, they've grown so much!" She gushed.
Draco frowned and looked at her with an eyebrow raised.
"What? We were with Hermione through the pregnancy and I held Nettle first." Haley added, seeing his face.
"You came to school pregnant? And no-one noticed?" Draco snorted disbelievingly.
"Of course. It's amazing what a simple glamour can hide." Hermione replied, smiling fondly as she gazed upon the pictures of her children again.
Finally, the time came for the Shadows to head to bed and get some rest before school the next morning. Hermione hugged all her friends before starting to walk back with Draco.
"Look, Granger, I'm sorry about all the teasing. If I'd known." The blond boy sighed.
Hermione smiled sadly at him.
"It's fine. You couldn't have known. It's more to the fact that you did tease that hurt. Besides, it's nothing compared to what he does or says. Hogwarts is my sanctuary. All of ours." She told him, running her hand over the smooth stone walls as she spoke.
Draco nodded. "I know." He agreed.
Hermione sighed. "As soon as I'm old enough, Mum and I are leaving. I won't have Bennie and Nettle growing up in that environment. No telling what it could do to them."
Draco shot her a lopsided smile.
"You didn't turn out so bad." Hermione blushed and smiled back.
"Thank you, Malfoy. You're not so bad yourself."
