Chapter 4
A/N: Hello readers!
Blocks of italics are flashbacks.
Thanks to DramioneLover123 for betaing and to all of the lovely people who reviewed!
This chapter's a little short, but chapter 2 was a little long, so it all evens out in the end. The length of time for the car trip in here was from google maps, so if I'm wrong, feel free to point it out... Kay?
Also, there's mention of popping a snail in this chapter... Has anyone else ever done this? You're walking around after it rains without shoes and there's snails everywhere and you accidentally step on one? It's horribly unpleasant, and then you feel bad because you killed it... Altogether icky experience. *shudders*
~ Frosty
"Malfoy! You can't just manhandle me like I'm your property!"
She struggled against his hold. There had to be a law somewhere against forced side-along Apparation. It was almost the same thing as kidnapping!
He let go of her and waited until she stopped yelling at him, arms crossed and looking completely unimpressed. "Are you finished?"
"No." Her voice was sullen and the protest had been more for the sake of protesting than because she had something else to say.
When she didn't elaborate after her one word answer, he continued. "Someone's out to get you - someone who knows how to get into your flat. You obviously can't stay there until whoever's it is has been caught. You can stay here until it's safe, my wards are practically as impenetrable as Hogwarts'."
If she was to think logically and not let her feelings on Malfoy interfere with the decision, what Malfoy was saying made perfect sense. But he was Malfoy. There had to be some sort of ulterior motive there, or a glaringly obvious flaw in his logic. The man who spent most of his time drinking himself into all kinds of trouble shouldn't make sense!
"What's in this for you?" she asked.
Malfoy shrugged. "You've been keeping me out of trouble and I hate to owe someone, so I'm doing the same for you, then we're even."
Hermione shook her head. "You have the strangest honour code. You realize you've been paying me for keeping you out of trouble."
"Inconsequential. You've been going beyond what I pay you for. Now let's have some dinner before I pass out from nutrition deprivation."
"I'd say you were being overdramatic, but I know how many meals you replace with alcohol. I think it might be a legitimate concern."
The blond scoffed but didn't disagree. He led the way towards the kitchen, leaving Hermione to follow in his wake. She rolled her eyes; apparently, he had decided their conversation was over.
The door to the kitchen was surprisingly plain considering the style of his office. Maybe Malfoy didn't share his father's dramatic and intimidating taste, which could be why he didn't live in the Manor. The decorating style of his home was actually similar to the simple look of her flat – with more expensive furnishings, of course.
They sat at the modest table and elves immediately set food in front of them. Hermione looked in surprise at what appeared to be fish and chips; she'd have thought something like that would be much too plain for Malfoy. She watched as he picked up a chip and ate it, not seeming to mind that his fingers were greasy. It seemed there was a side to Malfoy that she hadn't predicted, and it only took a few minutes in his home to see it.
"Malfoy," she started while she buttered a piece of bread for her chip butty – she knew it was horribly bad for her, carbohydrates with more carbohydrates and all that. But it was just so good. "Why haven't you commented on my parentage even once since I walked into your office?"
"I figure if I offend you, you'll be even more ruthless in your confiscating of my alcohol." He didn't make eye contact as he spouted off the line, and Hermione immediately saw the flaw in his lie. It was a rather large oversight for someone in Slytherin.
"You didn't comment on my parentage before you knew I was going to start taking your Firewhiskey."
He rolled his eyes as he made a sandwich identical to the one Hermione had constructed. "I spent several months in the Muggle world, it squashed out any Pureblood supremacist thoughts I may have had."
Their Muggle dinner made much more sense now that she knew he'd spent time among them. "Why did you go to the Muggle world?"
"I drunkenly stumbled out of the Leaky Cauldron into Muggle London one day. I woke up without my wand somewhere near Glasgow; it took me a while to find my way back."
"It took you months to travel what would be an eight hour drive in a Muggle car?" she asked in disbelief. How had he even managed to get so far so quickly without magic?
"There was quite a lot out there to distract me. Are you aware that Muggles have hundreds of different types of alcohol? We really only have Firewhiskey. I spent a month quite taken with tequila... I don't remember it very well, but I know I had a hell of a time. Coincidentally, I'm banned from several drinking establishments in the Glasgow area... and one knitting store – don't ask."
She didn't even want to know what Malfoy had done in a knitting store to get himself barred from entry, or what he'd been doing in the knitting store in the first place. She also wasn't sure she wanted to know how he'd managed to get Muggle money. He had been suspiciously good at stealing his flask back from her pocket without her even noticing.
"So you're over all that Pure-blooded nonsense you were always spouting off when we were in Hogwarts?"
He nodded. "If I had known all it took to get rid of an entire childhood's worth of lies was some alcohol and a trip to the Muggle world, I would have taken a field trip with the Death Eaters and ended the war early."
Startled by his joke, Hermione nearly choked on the bite of fish she'd been chewing. She had to take a sip of her drink in an attempt to stop her coughing fit. She was unsuccessful. Tears started streaming from her eyes and her face warmed up as she coughed.
Malfoy was grinning at her when she'd recovered – not a smirk, a genuine grin without any malice behind it. "Didn't think I could joke about past mistakes, Granger?"
She could only shake her head at him; he wasn't anything like she remembered him to be, or anything like what she would have thought him to be. He was a person, not the snake she'd always seen him as.
When dinner was finished, they stayed seated at the table as the elves cleared away their plates, both of them unsure what they were supposed to do next. The atmosphere got increasingly awkward and uncomfortable until Malfoy snapped and broke the silence.
"Let me show you to a guest room."
She hesitated. "I'm not going to wake up tied to the bed, am I?" The concern was a genuine one, but she tried to hide it behind a half-joking question.
"Only if you want to be, love." His answer wasn't as comforting as she'd hoped; she was relatively sure he'd oblige if she asked and that hadn't been the response she'd been expecting. Knowing he tolerated Muggleborns was strange enough, but knowing he'd actually sleep with her was a whole new level of disturbing.
Against her better judgement, Hermione followed him as he led her down a long corridor. She tried not to think about the hoards of other women who had walked down the same corridor with entirely different intentions.
"You know where my room is if you need anything," the git said with a wink, as he opened a door just down the hall from the one leading to his bedroom.
Hermione slipped into her room quickly and shut the door firmly behind her. She made sure that it was locked with a strong locking spell, partly because someone was out to get her and partly because she wasn't entirely sure Malfoy wouldn't tie her to the bed while she slept despite what he'd said about her willingness. She knew it was an unfounded and silly fear, but he was so unpredictable sometimes and his drive to irritate her had no end and few boundaries. It just wasn't worth the risk.
After tossing and turning for a few hours, she heard the quiet click of a door opening and then soft footsteps heading down the corridor. It seemed that Malfoy wasn't having much luck sleeping either.
She lay there staring at the ceiling for a while longer before deciding that she was going to see if Malfoy wanted some company. Not that way; she wasn't going to sleep with him or anything, she just thought that if she was going to stay up all night, it might be nice to be able to talk to someone – even if it was Malfoy.
Decision made, she pulled a robe over the pyjamas she'd found in her room's closet, all the while hoping they were new and not some discarded garment from a long-gone conquest. She padded out in the hall in the direction she'd heard Malfoy go.
Having spent the last week hunting him down at work, Hermione was starting to get used to finding Malfoy. She'd discovered that he had a tendency to gravitate towards the outdoors, so that was where she headed first.
She found him lying in the dew wet grass with a bottle of Firewhiskey beside him, staring up at the bright stars. One thing she loved about the wizarding world was the lack of light pollution; it's hard to blot out the night sky with candlelight alone.
Hermione padded over to him, not caring that her toes were getting soaked and little leaves and bits of grass were sticking to them. There were probably bugs crawling around as well, but as long as she didn't pop a snail with bare feet, she'd be fine.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asked when she sat cross-legged beside him.
"Someone's out to get me and I have no notion why and even less idea who. It gives me a lot to think about while I try to sleep in a bed that isn't mine because everything I own has been destroyed."
Wordlessly, he handed her the bottle of Firewhiskey.
"I really don't think-" she started.
"Stop. Stop thinking. Just drink the bloody alcohol and stop thinking for once in your life."
"You're a horrible influence," she said, actually accepting the offering. She took a tiny sip, cringing at the taste and the burn as it slid down her throat. It wasn't called Firewhiskey for nothing; if it had been meant to taste like something gentler, she supposed it would have had a different name. Still, she wasn't fond of that initial burning sensation.
When Malfoy scoffed and gave her a look that clearly said 'don't be a pussy', she took a larger gulp. What was the worst that could happen?
It was the sun that woke her up. Bright rays were shining right in her eyes and she couldn't seem to roll away from them – she couldn't seem to roll at all, it was as if...
"MALFOY!" she yelled, opening her eyes and yanking on the bindings holding her arms. The git had tied her to a bed! Further inspection of the room revealed that he had tied her to his bed. Was she wearing his shirt? The garment was certainly too large to be one of her own and she was positive it wasn't what she'd been wearing the night before when she left her room to follow him.
Merlin, what had happened the night before? Frantically, she ran over her clouded and blurred memories of the previous night, trying to figure out the events that had led to her current position.
"Merlin Granger, I never thought I'd be saying this to you, but slow down a bit," Malfoy laughed as Hermione took yet another big gulp from the bottle. He tried to take the alcohol back from her, but she held on, managing to slosh Firewhiskey down her front in the process.
She'd had enough to drink that the mess only made her giggle as the cold droplets slid down her body, towards the ground in freezing trails that raised goose bumps in their wake.
She pulled off her robe, only to discover that it had soaked through to her nightgown. At least she knew that any germs that may have been on the nightwear were now disinfected. Or was that vodka? All alcohol? She couldn't see wine disinfecting much. Her mind was slightly fuzzy and was having difficulty coming up with the answer for her.
Regardless of whether she was disinfected or not, Hermione was wet and it was too cold to be wet outside.
"Give me your shirt," she ordered Malfoy.
He looked at her questioningly, but when it became obvious that she was completely serious, he complied, undoing the buttons and handing over his shirt. It hadn't mattered when he was half clothed around her before, and it wasn't going to start mattering just because she was completely smashed and on his lawn in the middle of the night.
"Turn around."
Malfoy rolled his eyes, but he obeyed her and turned his back on the woman.
She watched to make sure he was looking the other way before sliding off her nightgown and replacing it with his shirt. Her coordination wasn't what it should be, so she struggled more than she normally would have in getting her head through the right hole. The bloody shirt was obviously as evil as its former wearer. The same wearer whose body heat had made it warm and whose cologne or aftershave still clung around the collar.
She grunted in irritation and tried again to get the blasted garment over her head. Why would they make holes for her head that obviously didn't fit her head? Maybe they hadn't made allowances for her large hair. She obviously had to push harder.
"Granger, my shirt has buttons, you don't have to put your head through a hole, you just wrap it around your shoulders and do up the middle," Malfoy said. He pulled the shirt off of her head and helped her slip her arms through the proper holes. A gentleman would have averted his eyes and turned back around to allow her to do up the buttons herself, but Malfoy was no gentleman and didn't have the patience to wait with his back turned while she struggled to get the buttons in the right holes.
He started at the collar of the shirt, slipping the button in its corresponding hole and moving on to the next one. His fingers trailed over her skin much more than necessary, leaving trails of warmth that contrasted with the coolness of the night air.
When he came to the last button, Hermione's breathing had increased enough that every breath nearly made her chest brush against his. How had he done up the buttons while he'd been so close? She looked up into his eyes and was distracted by what she saw there.
Buttons forgotten, she sidestepped him and grabbed the bottle of Firewhiskey; she wasn't near drunk enough to deal with her attraction to the blond snake.
Malfoy came into his bedroom with a grin on his face. "Feeling a little hung-over, Princess?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Just untie me, Malfoy!"
Something about her voice and body language tipped him off, making his grin widen as realization dawned. "You don't remember last night yet, do you?"
She did her very best not to blush. "I'm working on it. Now untie me!"
He looked her up and down, contemplating her request. "You know, I don't think I will. I'm hurt that you've forgotten our night of corruption and sin. Bye, Princess."
Hermione tried really hard to remember what type of sins they'd committed the previous night. She knew he wasn't actually hurt that she'd forgotten; if he was actually hurt, he'd never come out and tell her. Everything that had followed that first sip of Firewhiskey was his fault. He never should have given her alcohol!
Something else about what he'd said finally sunk past the jumble of confusion and distress that was currently occupying her poor brain. Why did he keep calling her Princess?
She twirled in place, taking in the stars above her and watching them swirl. When she felt like she was going to throw up, she plopped back in the ground beside Malfoy, who was watching her with his lips quirked into a half smile.
"You're a lightweight, Granger."
"I'd rather be a lightweight than an alcoholic."
The lightness in his expression disappeared as his jaw tightened. Hermione caught this change.
"What, I'm not allowed to mention how you spend all your spare time drinking and abusing numerous other substances?" she asked.
"No," he said.
Ignoring the rigidness of his posture, she flopped onto her back, resting her head in his lap. Upside down, she watched him give her a slightly bewildered look. "I think you do it because you hate yourself."
His jaw stayed clenched and he didn't comment. Seeing this, Hermione reached up and poked the tip of his nose. "You can't tell me nothing's wrong. No one slowly kills themselves because they're happy and shiny inside."
"And you're the expert on happy and shiny?" he asked, swatting her hand away as she tried to poke his nose again.
"No, I haven't been properly happy since Ron left." She wasn't sure why she was telling him about Ron, since she hadn't even told Harry what had happened – he knew, but she hadn't spoken about it.
"Okay, you tell me what it is that makes the Gryffindor Princess so unhappy and I'll tell you why I drink so much."
"Princess?" she asked, focusing on the wrong thing.
"You didn't know? Everyone in Slytherin always called you the Gryffindor Princess. You were the swotty embodiment of pretty much everything Gryffindor."
Her bushy head tilted slightly to the side as she contemplated her new information. "I like it," she decided.
"Princess is it then. Tell me Princess, what is it the Weasel did that ruined your happiness?"
