Hello and sorry for my lateness! Enjoy.
...
The next day, Hermione left work at eight o'clock. She hadn't seen, nor heard from Draco Malfoy that day, and to be honest, that worried her.
She walked across the back yard, huddling under her long cape... and accidentally slipped upon a patch of ice and fell hard on her arse. Cursing, she took a deep breath and briefly closed her eyes to calm her racing heart. Damn it, her bum and her thin, knit gloves were soaked through by the snow now!
With a sigh, she regained her composure and prepared to stand up...
A pair of legs clad in black men's trousers stood directly in front of her.
A glance upwards confirmed her worst fears: Draco Malfoy was looking stonily down upon her. She cursed again, mentally this time.
Of course, Malfoy didn't offer her a hand up. Instead, he sneered down his nose at her.
"A Mudblood's rightful place: kneeling at my feet."
Biting back a scathing retort due to her current position, Hermione carefully got up and dusted the ice off her backside. She glared at him, even as she acknowledged him. "Mr. Malfoy, to what do I owe the privilege?"
"Actually, I'm a Lord, referred to as 'Milord' by my inferiors. Then again, I would hardly expect someone like you to understand the importance of social niceties, Mudblood."
"What do you want, Milord?" she spat.
He gritted his teeth, then gestured towards the bins behind which Daphne's warm corpse had been found. "Is that where you dumped my sister-in-law, Granger?"
Her eyes widened in shock at the blatant accusation. "What? I didn't dump anyone! I told you already that I didn't kill Daphne Greengrass. Please, Milord," she muttered crossly, "please leave me alone. I know nothing."
He looked at her with a serpentine, calculating gaze, before replying, "Potter and Weasley won't always be there to protect you, Granger."
"I know that," she admitted, "and they aren't actually protecting me, so leave them be! I don't need anyone to save me, because I haven't done anything wrong! Now, may I go?"
"No, you may not."
She growled. "What do you want now?"
"Speak nicely to me, or I'll hurt you."
"Are you menacing me, Milord?"
"I'm promising you, Mudblood. And I'm following you to your house tonight."
Her eyes widened with fear. "What? Why?"
"I wish to look around, and you can't prevent me from doing so."
She shot him a cold glare. "If you must, though I repeat: you are wasting your time." She stuck her nose in the air and stiffly walked away.
"Lord" Malfoy followed closely on her heels.
.XX.
If the girl had been born a pure-blood, Draco would probably have appreciated her talking back to him and giving him a difficult time. It would certainly have been a nice change up from the spineless men who always licked his boots and from the women who threw themselves at him without shame (then again, he liked to be feared and lusted after, so he guessed he got exactly what he deserved from society: fawning women and cringing men).
But she was not a pure-blood, and that was the sticking point.
.XX.
Hermione tried to ignore the man walking behind her and quickly made her way to her flat, which was situated on the far end of Diagon Alley.
Her home was a "charming" closet-sized room inside an old building that creaked and groaned with age. It was truly a tiny space, but she felt lucky to have it and to not have to beg on the streets, like many Muggle-borns did. As they entered the flat, "Lord" Malfoy shot her a superior glance and muttered something about his house-elves having more space back at his Manor. Hermione ignored him.
The flat was composed of a small sitting room, in which was place a forlorn sofa and a small side table. A built-in bookshelf was filled to bursting against one wall, and photos (all gifts from friends) lined another wall. A pocket-sized bathroom was next to the bedroom, where the only piece of furniture in the room—her bed—took up all the space, touching all four corners. Finally, a cupboard opened into a miniature kitchen, with a built-in stove, an icebox, and a small sink inside. Her small pile of clothes and two raggedy wash towels were folded neatly on one of the cupboard storage shelves, next to a few cans of beans and a half-bottle of ketchup.
It wasn't as grand as a manor house by any means, but everything in it was hers and honestly earned, and Hermione was proud of that fact.
.XX.
As the two of them stood in the sitting-dining-everything room, Draco noticed that there was barely space for one, much less two.
He suddenly wondered if Granger had ever had any love interests over. If so, where would she entertain them? Where would they fuck? The bed looked only big enough for a child to lay within, and the sofa... well, the sofa, he supposed, would do in a pinch.
It was a pathetic hovel, but more than any Mudblood deserved.
.XX.
Granger ignored the way Malfoy looked around at her home with disdain. She hung her cloak to the back of her front door, but didn't offer to take his cloak, as a good host might. Instead, she went to put the kettle on the stove, rubbing her hands to bring back some warmth to her fingers.
"Do you live alone?" her 'guest' inquired. He seemed annoyed with her again for some reason.
Probably just angry she had an actual roof over her 'Mudblood' head.
"Obviously not," she sarcastically replied as she rummaged through a random cupboard above the tiny sink in her so-called kitchen. "It's too spacious for just one person to occupy in such a highly-fashionable part of town. We're twenty or so in here, come and go at all hours."
She didn't see him move; his hand was suddenly clamped down on her wrist and then he was pulling her around to face him, and hostile words were spewing from his mouth. "Listen up, Mudblood, I don't give a shit that you're protected by Potter and his sidekick, you hear me? If anything, that only wants to make me hunt you to ground and bury you deep, just to see how it hurts them. So, from now on, you will play nice with me and answer my questions truthfully. This is an official criminal investigation, and you don't want to be any more out of line."
At first, she glared at him for having touched her in such a rough manner, but as the look in his stormy grey eyes grew harder, more hateful, she diverted her gaze. He was beautiful in his savage anger, like Lucifer himself – so evil, so... un-human. She shivered at the thought, and replied softly, "No. I live alone."
"Better," he sneered, shoving her wrist away as if it were a thing of filth. "Do people visit you here?"
"Yes."
"Yes, what?" he demanded.
Curling her fingers into fists at her side, Hermione curbed her tongue and answered in a soft, slightly wavering voice, "Yes, Milord."
"Very good," he praised, mockingly. "We'll make an obedient slave out of you yet."
Furious at such condescension, her head snapped up and she lost all pretense of meekness. Openly snarling at him, she said, "All tyrants meet their end one day, Milord." This time she referred to his title with contempt.
His backhand landed squarely on her cheek with enough force to drop her to her knees. Hermione let out a wounded yelp, cradling the side of her face.
Above her, Malfoy smirked and fisted some of her hair, pulling until she was forced to look at him again. "Now what do I do with you, Granger?" he mused aloud. "Do I take you back to the Ministry for disrespecting a Pure?"
She almost whimpered in fear at the threat. Almost.
"People have died for showing me less respect than that, you know. Is that it? Do you have a death wish, Mudblood?"
He bent and applied pressure to her head, forcing her down on all fours in front of him. "This is how all Mudbloods should live: doggy-style, with a collar around their throat, a leash to guide them, and a good whip to keep them in line. What do you think, Mudblood? Give it a try?"
She took a deep breath to calm her fear and swallow her pride. Malfoy was clearly mad, and he had it out for her. If she didn't want to end up in prison or worse, she had to bend. This time.
"I...I beg your pardon, Milord. It was not my place to say such a thing."
"Good, Mudblood," he calmly answered, despite the loathing in his voice. "See, you can be taught to behave."
He stood and started looking around again as she quietly made her feet and returned to her tea. All of her limbs trembled.
"So, Mudblood, who visits you here?" he casually asked.
"Harry Potter," she answered. "The Weasleys. Madam Malkin, sometimes. The Aurors come often, to see that I'm straight."
He didn't reply, instead gazing at the photos on her wall.
.XX.
From the pictures, two things were clear: one, that Granger's friends had given her these expensive gifts (as there was no way she could have paid for wizarding photos and frames, given her small salary), and two that Granger was well-loved by those same friends.
The first picture was of her, younger, sitting under a tree on lush green grass, reading a book while sucking absently on the end of a quill. Sometimes, the quill dropped to jot something in the margins of the book. She would often push her hair behind her ears, he noticed.
A second image was of Hermione again, this time standing between Weasley and Potter, both of whom had an arm flung around her shoulders in camaraderie. They were all three laughing, tears of mirth sparkling in their eyes. Lip curling, Draco recognized the Burrow—the Weasley's pathetic home—in the background (honestly, Draco wouldn't even have his elves live in such a low-rent place).
A third photo showed Granger with two girls. One was a beautiful, fiery woman Draco recognized as Ginny Weasley – the future Mrs. Potter. The other was a blonde with a dreamy look upon her face. The latter pointed to something in the air under her friend's dubious stares. The three were playing Exploding Snap, sitting on a rug in a circle.
Several other photos were similar: Hermione Granger with her friends (including one with that Longbottom fool), staged in various locales. There were two photos, however, that were curiously still, containing people and locations completely unfamiliar to him.
The first featured a tall, man with salt-and-pepper-hair. He was wearing a Muggle suit, standing behind a lovely, curly-haired woman in her early forties who sat in an armchair, wearing an elegant blue dress. On the arm of the chair was a recognizable, ten-year-old version of Hermione Granger. The girl was wearing a Muggle school uniform, her unruly curls up in a bun. She had an unfortunate buck-toothed smile, and her eyes were wrinkled in happiness.
The man and woman in the photo had to be her parents, Draco guessed.
Something foreign and uncomfortable stirred in his gut at the thought.
By law, Mudbloods were taken from their families when they reached the age eleven, so wizarding officials could keep an eye on them and contain their power, if necessary. To ensure there was no chance of them ever seeing each other again, as well as to stop the parents from giving birth again to such unnatural spawn, the families were killed. Mr. and Mrs. Granger, the smart-looking man and the pretty lady in the picture, had been wiped out long ago.
Draco's throat suddenly felt thick with an odd emotion that choked him up, and forced him to swallow several times to clear it.
He had absolutely no qualms about destroying abominations such as Mudbloods...
Still, he had never seen the parents of such people before, and strangely, he felt a little ill looking at them now, smiling gently at him, knowing they'd been murdered.
Cleansed, not murdered, he reminded himself. 'Murder' only happened to those with a right to life and liberty.
The final photo in the set was of Hermione again. This time, she was holding a tiny, sleeping baby in her arms with a look of affection, and a small touch of envy upon her face.
Draco's stomach suddenly took a nose-dive into his lower gut.
Granger would never know the joys of true motherhood. This was as close as she'd ever get, and she knew it, because Mudbloods were forbidden by the law to have children. The only known case in history of a pure-blood and a Mudblood having a child together was that of James Potter and Lily Evans.
"Any men in your life, Granger?" he asked, glaring at the photo, wondering who the baby belonged to. Was it secretly a love-child of hers, or the baby of a friend?
From his peripheral vision, he saw her spine straighten. "No."
He could practically smell the lie. "Be careful about lying to me, Granger," he warned.
She hesitated and sipped her tea. "I have had...a wedding proposal, to which I have not agreed yet."
"Really?" His curiosity was piqued. Who would want to estrange himself to marry a filthy little Mudblood, as pretty as she may be? "Who would want to marry you?"
"Ronald Weasley," she replied, her tone bordering on insolence again in its clear irritation.
Her reply provoked him.
"I see."
.XX.
Malfoy gazed at her for a long while in silence, but his face was carefully neutral. A poker-face, she'd heard it called. He was good at it, and she wondered what he was thinking just then.
Eventually, he tired of the game and turned on his heel, heading for the door. "I'll be back," he growled before slamming the door behind him.
Hermione let her breath out slowly, and looked up to see what it was that had captured Malfoy's attention for so long, before he'd moved on to the image of her holding little Victoire.
It was the picture of her parents that had caught his notice.
Her emotional dam finally burst, erupting into tears.
.XX.
A/N: Please read and review. Have a very nice new year 2015, full of good ole dramione love.
