Sweet Sacrifice

By JennyRice07

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author's note: Thank you to all of my wonderful reviews who gave me some ideas. It helped me get this story back off the ground. And thanks to those of you who have favorited this story or added it to your alerts. I will try to update again soon. Please at the end of this chapter if you have any idea's, let me know!

Chapter 3

Beginning a New Life

The first month went by so fast that it left Hermione's head spinning. Her professors ignored her most of the time on Snape's orders. Not that Hermione ever raised her hand anymore. She didn't want to talk out loud. But that didn't mean that the old know-it-all was gone for good. She had a new hobby. This one seemed to please the Dark Lord. Instead of raising her hand and giving the answers herself, she wrote them on a piece of parchment and slid it across the desk to Draco who then would answer the questions. She and Draco had become close friends as the days went by. He was surprisingly down to Earth.

It had been a very confussing month. The first confusing thing was when Snape summoned Draco and Hermione into his office. Hermione thought that it was something else the Voldemort had demanded. It had been quite a surprise when Ron and Harry had both grabbed her and hugged her.

"Hermione! Oh we're so glad you're safe." Ron had said before noticing Draco.

"What are you doing here Malfoy?" Harry spat at him.

"I'm her husband. What do you think I'm doing here?" Draco responded with a shrug. He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

Just like that Ron snapped and pulled his wand on Draco. "No!" she shrieked as she jumped in front of Draco.

"Hermione are you insane. He's just using you to get information to Voldemort." Harry tried to pull her away from Draco but she wouldn't budge.

"No he's not. He's good to me. He married me to keep You-Know-Who from killing me."

This caused Harry and Ron to freeze. "What?" they asked in unison.

"That's right boys. Voldemort gave her the choice of joining the Death Eaters or being killed so I came up with a plan to marry her to Draco and keep them here where the Order can keep them both safe. Draco has been on our side all along." Snape spoke for the first time since they entered the room. "Now I'm glad that you have been reunited, but we must keep this meeting brief so that the Dark Lord know's nothing of it.

And that's how she was reunited with Harry and Ron and also learned that Snape was on the Order's side. About two days after that Lavender apologized for the way she treated Hermione. She and Hermione quickly became close friends again.

Things became a rotine after that. Hermione usually had class till 3. Then she finished all of her Homework by 4. Usually she cleaned their suite until it was time to go to dinner. So this leads us to where we are now. The first month had passed by quickly. It was the beginning of October and Hermione wished she had brought her cloak to Potions class because the air was very chilly, even with all of the cauldrons boiling. Professor Reed had replaced Snape. He was worse than Snape had ever been. He hated all students. Voldemort had put him there so that he could make potions for the war.

Today they were making the Draught of Sleeplessness. It was a highly dangerous potion and should only be attempted by experts. Neville had already sent half of the class to the Hospital Wing. Hermione and Draco worked quickly trying to finish their potion. Hermione had never heard of this potion before but she hated it. It caused a person to never be able to sleep again. Eventually it caused the person to go insane and kill themselves. She was sure that this was a potion made for the Dark Lord. They were on the right track until Hermione noticed that their potion was pink instead of the light green it was supossed to turn. Before she could instruct Draco on how to fix it, Professor Reed saw it.

"Mr. Malfoy. Why is it, do you think, that your potion is pink when it is supposed to turn green?" Professor Reed looks at Draco expecting an answer.

"Umm" Draco looks at Hermione for help. She slides the paper that she wrote the answer on towards him. He glances down quick enough to see the answer without letting Professor Reed see.

"I forgot to turn it counter clock wise 4 times before I added the Newt Eyes."

"Precisely. 20 points from Gryffindor Miss Malfoy for not telling your husband how to fix a potentially dangerous error." Hermione looks down and starts scribbling notes again.

After Reed is gone Draco whispers, "I'm sorry I got you in trouble. Thanks for helping me out back there."

"You're welcome."

"Do you know how to fix this so we can get out of here? I'm starving."

Hermione giggled making Draco's face go red. "What?"

She turns her head to look at him, a huge grin on her face, "You're always hungry."

"I am not always hungry." Draco puffed out his chest pretending to be annoyed with her.

"Yes you are. Anyways, just take the potion off of the heat and add the Fig leaf. Make sure you stir it counter clock wise ten times and clockwise 5. It should counteract the mistake with the Newt eyes."

Draco did as she said. It worked. The potion turned the bright blue that it was supposed to turn. They bottled the potion. Hermione cleaned the desk as Draco gave the potion to Professor Reeed and they left for lunch. Draco and Hermione always ate lunch in there rooms. The Dark Lord had wanted Draco to eat in the Great Hall with everyone else to show off Hermione, but Draco claimed that he had so much homework that he needed the extra space to spread out with his books during his lunch period. The Dark Lord had granted him this, but only if they eat Dinner at the Great Hall every night.

The truth was the Draco didn't have much homework. He was brighter than Hermione had ever given him credit for. He usually had his homework done within a few hours after class was finished for the day and always before he started his first round. It was a lot different living with him and not being begged for hours to write and essay that was due the next day because Ron couldn't write his way out of a paper bag. Instead they used their lunch period to talk and spend time getting to know one another and occasionally sneak Ron and Harry in to see her. Since the meeting in Snapes's office Draco, Harry, and Ron seemed to start getting along. They were finally convinced that Draco was taking care of Hermione and keeping her out of harms way. Draco's Slytherin boys claimed that the only reason that he took Hermione back to his room was to shag her. Of course for her sake Draco never argued that. This had been another one of the reason's he had used to get the Dark Lord to allow him to take lunch in their rooms. He hadn't actually touched her since their honeymoon. Hermione suspected that it was because he didn't want to push her into anything. The Slyterins hadn't give her as much trouble as she expected them too, but there were two different instances where Draco had to report to Voldemort to explain what had happened.

The first was when Blaise had tried to grab Hermione's breast causing Draco to punch him in the face. Blaise went down hard. He hit his head on the corner of the table causing him to have a concussion and he had to be taken to the Hospital wing. Voldemort had demanded to know what had possessed Draco to hit Blaise over touching the mudblood. Draco had responded by saying that if he had to be married to the mudblood that he didn't want to be disgraced by having another man's hands all over her. The Dark Lord used Crucio on Hermione for "tempting another man". Draco stood still and pretended to enjoy it. Then when he took her home he babied her and treated her wounds while apologizing. That night he held her as they slept. The bright side was that the Slytherin boys were instructed to ignore her and pretend that she wasn't there.

The second was when Pansy and the other Slytherin girls had jumped her when she found herself alone inside the girls bathroom. They took turns beating her endlessly. Lavender chose that exact moment to walk in and tried to pull some of the girls off of Hermione. She quickly jumped on Millicent, but Milicent flung Lavender into the sink. This caused the pipes to burst spraying cold water everywhere. This was when Lavender realized that she needed back up she used the DA coins from there fifth year to call for help. Within minutes Ginny, Luna, Parvati, Hannah, and Susan we're pulling the Slytherin girls off of her. Hermione ended up with a broke arm, four teeth knocked out, a broken nose, and two black eyes. Madam Pomfrey fixed all of this for her in a bout an hour. All of the Slytherin's had received detentions. Pansy had immediately wrote to the Dark Lord to report what had happened. Again he wanted to know why Draco had allowed this. Draco again told him that if he had to parade Hermione around he wanted her to look good and not like a beat up teddy bear. The Dark Lord finally set a law stating that while the war was going on that no one was to touch Hermione. Of course that didn't stop the Howlers or the evil looks that she got. Draco had finally installed shields against the Howlers because they were keeping them both up at night. This just angered the girls more so they took to setting off firecrackers at her feet or other mean pranks throughout the day. Hermione just tried to ignore them. Finally someone (Draco claims that it wasn't him although it was brilliant) cast a charm on Hermione so that whenever a firework or something else unpleasant was aimed for her, it went back on the user. Pansy had most of her eyebrows blown off when one particularly nasty firecracker went off in her face. Neville eventually took credit for this claiming that he knew what it was like to be tormented. Thus how Draco and Neville became friends.

No, her new life wasn't as bad as she had imagined. She was beginning to like it. Only time would tell what this year would bring.

Author's Note: Thanks again to all of my reviews. I still need you're help because the writer's block is still there. What do you want to see next?