A/N- I know I'm posting fairly rapidly right now, but I'm doing it so I can catch this site up to where I've posted on other sites - unfortunately I won't be able to keep it up! Anyway, I a;so want to say a great big thank you to everyone who has followed/favourited/reviewed this story so far! I really hope everyone is enjoying it, since I haven't heard anything in a review... and if you do want to leave a review andet me know what you think, don't be shy!

Chapter Four

Stop talking! Stop, or I swear you will regret it.

Hermione jerked upright, she had been sitting in the Gryffindor common room with Ginny, Ron and Harry when Draco's voice suddenly burned through her mind.

She leaned forward, ignoring whatever Ron was saying and put her head in her hands, concentrating as hard as she possibly could. They had been practicing over the last couple of weeks but for some reason Draco was way better at contacting her then she was him.

Draco?

Draco, can you hear me?

Hermione?!

Are you okay?

I'm fine, sometimes I just can't control myself when I find I have to defend you. I don't want anyone to become suspicious but I can't seem to help it at times.

Where are you?

Going back to our common room.

Okay I'll meet you there in a while.

Hermione?

Yeah?

Watch out for Theodore, okay?

Theodore? Theodore who?

Theodore Nott! Goofy looking Slytherin? In our year. Watch out for him. He said something to me a couple weeks ago about you and he keeps bringing it up. I keep meaning to tell you but whenever we are together we are… otherwise indisposed and then I forget to tell you.

Hermione felt her cheeks redden at his words.

Promise me!

Okay, yes, I'll watch out for him.

See you soon!

"Hermione?"

"What?"

"I asked if you're looking forward to Hogsmeade this weekend, it will be so nice to get out of this damn castle, even for a few hours."

"I don't know if I'm going."

"Come on Hermione! It'll be fun. It's not because you're still trying to avoid me, right?"

Hermione laughed.

"No, Ron. I'm not, I swear."

"Then come to Hogsmeade with us!"

"We'll see," Hermione said, glancing toward Harry and Ginny who were sitting close together on the couch, Harry's arm around Ginny's shoulders.

"I'm glad you guys aren't fighting anymore."

"I'm glad you and Ron got over your issues."

Hermione turned slightly red and glanced at Ron, who was glaring at Harry for saying that. As far as Hermione could tell, Ron still had a thing for her. She chose to ignore it in order to keep the peace; she couldn't imagine telling him that she was already married – and had been for almost the last two months, to Draco Malfoy, no less.

"Yeah," Hermione said absently, her cheeks burning again, this time at the thought of being someone's wife.

"Are you feeling okay? I thought your headaches have been gone for a few weeks. You look a little flustered." Ginny was leaning closer to Hermione as she spoke, trying to convey her concern.

"I'm fine. I should probably be getting to my homework though."

"It seems like you're really distracted lately… what's going on with you?"

"I'm in my NEWT year, Ginny. I have so much homework and planning about the future to worry about."

"Okay, well if you ever need to talk, I'm here."

Hermione looked directly at Ginny, realizing that she hadn't had any girl time with her since school began and also came to the conclusion that Ginny probably knew there was something major going on and was probably feeling extremely left out. She had only asked Hermione about her episode when Draco had tried to refuse the bond one time and Hermione explained it away as a residual effect to the fight between them a couple days before. Ginny never asked again.

Hermione felt guilty.

"I know you are, Gin. I have to go, I'll see you at breakfast!"

/*

Another week went by and it was suddenly November. Hermione and Draco were getting on much better than they were in the beginning but they still bickered like the teenagers they were. They seemed to be unable to not fight with each other, and Hermione sometimes caught herself wondering if they did it because that was all they knew how to do. She resolved to fight with him less and try and be nicer to him. They were also slowly getting used to each other's patterns. Hermione knew that Draco preferred to shower in the morning and that he would rather drink coffee than tea. Draco knew that Hermione also liked to shower in the morning in order to attempt to keep her hair tame, but sometimes showered in the evening just to please him, or keep the peace. He also knew that she read for pleasure much more often than she read for school, and he found this endearing. They still had very important things to talk about but both seemed happy enough skirting the issues for now, whenever they were brought up, things would become much more serious between them.

"Draco?"

"Hmm?"

Draco was laying on the couch staring at the ceiling so she knew that he was deep in thought, making her reluctant to speak to him. This was something they needed to talk about, though.

"When are we going to be able to say something to our friends about what's going on?"

"Like who?"

"I want to tell Ginny. I feel like I'm betraying her by keeping this a secret."

"So tell her."

"Really?" Hermione was a little more than surprised that he wasn't turning this into something more.

"Sure, if you trust her enough, tell her. I want to let Pansy and Blaise in on our little secret but I'm really unsure if it would be the best move."

"Why?"

Draco sat up and watched Hermione closely for a moment. Now that he actually thought about it, he wasn't sure if she knew that he was a Death Eater. They hadn't got to any point in their relationship where clothes were removed but he was sure she had her suspicions.

He sighed and stood up from the couch, facing her.

Their eyes locked.

"I think you may have had your suspicions about this, I don't know if it's been confirmed or not…"

He slowly pulled up his left sleeve, revealing the red tattoo of the skull on his arm.

She pulled her eyes away from his finally and looked down, her eyes widened momentarily, but she didn't seem overly shocked.

"I thought so," she said sadly, "When did you get it?"

"This summer."

"Was it awful?"

Draco was confused, why wasn't she freaking out and running away from the big, bad Death Eater?

Because even if she did, it didn't change the fact that she was married to one. Bonded to one, and they both knew what would happen if they tried to refuse each other, or even avoid spending time together. She was scared now that this had been confirmed and she wasn't stupid enough to let the ramifications of it pass her knowledge.

Her husband was, indeed, a Death Eater.

She took his moment of silence as a yes and then asked, "What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know. I mean I obviously can't exactly support this cause of the Dark Lord's," a small smile played around his mouth, "since my wife is a muggle-born and all."

"Wife. That still sounds so weird, no matter how many times I hear you say it… Maybe we should talk to Dumbledore…"

Draco was obsessed with referring to Hermione as his wife. He liked the way it sounded, the way it made him feel. He also knew she wasn't used to it yet, so he said it as much as possible, as though he needed to drive the point home.

"I've been thinking about it, but I have my reservations - I don't want my family to be punished because of me."

Hermione sighed.

"We got ourselves in deep, Mr. Malfoy."

"That we did. We'll figure it out, just let me think about it all a little bit longer. I have a question for you, now."

Hermione just looked at him.

"Why would you have invited Professor Snape to our rooms that evening? You asked for both Snape and Dumbledore, why did you do that?"

"He's good with counter curses. I thought it would be a good thing for him to come as well. I won't deny that he is an amazing wizard, and if any two professors at this school would have been able to help us it would have been Snape and Dumbledore."

Hermione wasn't sure if she wanted to tell Draco yet that Snape was a spy for the light.

"You're lying to me. You're an awful liar, but I'll drop it for now."

Hermione only stared at him, neither confirming nor denying his words. Why was he being so easy tonight?

"So, I can tell Ginny about us then? I won't tell her about," Hermione gestured to his arm, "but I honestly do feel like I am betraying her, she knows something's going on and I haven't said a word."

"Tell her."

Hermione smiled and stood up as well, moving into Draco's embrace.

"Thank you."

They hugged and their lips found each other for a slow kiss.

"I'm going to go find her, then."

"See ya," he said, throwing himself back onto the couch to resume staring at the ceiling and thinking about what he was going to do. The question sat heavily on his shoulders, he had more than his own future to worry about.

/*

It was a little bit later than Hermione realized when she left for the Gryffindor common room, probably around curfew, she figured, since she hadn't seen anyone in the halls. Now that she was Head Girl she didn't have to worry about being in her common room by a certain time, she technically didn't have a curfew.

She was grabbed from behind and laughed lightly, assuming it was Draco since he did this at least four times a week.

"Dr…. Nott?" She had paid more attention to the Slytherin's in her year so she could pick him out of the crowd.

Her breath caught in her throat, Draco's warning flashing through her mind.

"What do you want, Nott?"

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the mudblood that Draco can't seem to stop defending. What is it you're doing for him in that shared common room of yours?"

"What?"

Hermione pulled out her wand out but she had barely cleared her pocket before it was pulled from her fingers.

"I'll just take that…"

"Give me my wand back, Nott," Hermione said, while desperately trying to contact Draco with her mind.

Theodore put her wand into his pocket and then grabbed her by her arms, pushing her back into the wall. Hermione was small, she was 5'4"and weighed about 120 pounds soaking wet. The boys in this school, for the most part, were large. Seventh years were averaging at 6 feet and weighed at least 200 pounds, mostly muscle. The upcoming war was being taken very seriously.

He held her there tightly, leaning down and brushing his lips against hers, causing a small electric shock to assault her lips. She pulled her face to the side, her eyes wide. What the hell did he think he was doing?

"Let me go!"

Theodore took both of her wrists into one hand in a crushing grip, holding them above her head and his other hand started to roam beneath her shirt.

Hermione?

Oh, Merlin! Draco!

What's going on?

I need help!

With what?

Nott…

Draco jumped from the couch the second Theo's name reverberated through his mind, anger immediately coursing through his veins.

Where are you?

In an empty classroom heading to the Gryffindor-

Draco felt a pain on his right cheek and knew that Theo had hit her.

Hermione's cheek throbbed.

"Let me go, Nott! What would you want with a filthy mudblood like me, anyway?"

"I think you know what I want."

He unbuttoned her jeans - she typically wore muggle clothes when she wasn't wearing her school uniform for classes - and he started to pull them down her hips.

His head cocked to the side when he saw the black runes against the golden skin on her hip and she cursed inwardly.

"What is that?"

"Muggle tattoo!"

"What does it mean?"

"Clarity."

Nott laughed cruelly and continued to lower her jeans.

"Stop, please don't do this. You don't want anything to do with me, if you let me go now I won't even tell anyone this happened."

"Tell whoever you want, mudblood, I don't care."

"You'll be expelled!"

"I don't care! School is so unimportant in the grand scheme of things."

Hermione looked at Nott's arm, the one holding her hands above her head in the crushing grip, and realized it was his left hand and she could see the bottom of a red mark…

The Dark Mark.

She had been looking at Draco's identical one less than thirty minutes ago.

"I don't think your master would be very pleased to know that you were having lustful thoughts over a mudblood…"

Theo froze for a second and then dropped her hands, his free left hand coming around and slapping her hard across the face before she could even consider defending herself.

He grabbed her by the throat this time and threw her against the wall again, pushing into her esophagus tightly. Her hands fluttered up and tried to pry his loose, but she couldn't, so she ended up just holding onto his wrists tightly.

Draco! Hurry, please.

I'm looking for you, I have to check every classroom.

The torches are lit! Look for one with light coming from beneath the door!

I'm looking!

He's strangling me!

"You better be careful what you say, mudblood! I can kill you right now and it wouldn't even faze me, it wouldn't cause me to lose sleep at night."

He let go of her throat and she doubled over gasping for breath.

"You're lucky I want a piece of you before your death, if I didn't want it so bad I would honestly just kill you now."

He shoved her to the ground quickly and her head slammed off the stone floor a little harder than he intended it to, not that he cared. His body was over top of hers, but she was dazed and wasn't defending herself.

He leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on her lips before he ripped her shirt down the middle.

Nott caught one of her breasts in his hand and she started to struggle against him, her hands weakly pushing at him, slapping at his face, but it didn't deter him one bit. He pulled her breast out of the cup of her bra and leaned his head down, assaulting her exposed flesh with his mouth.

Now she really began to panic, pain began lancing through her breast as though she was being electrocuted repeatedly. She realized that this was against her blood bond and she started to take a breath so she could scream out, but before she did Nott was ripped brutally from her body.

She looked up and Draco was looming over her, looking murderous. He spun Theo around and had the front of his shirt gripped in both hands, their faces only about a foot apart.

"Draco, mate, what are you doing?"

Draco's eyes started to glow.

Actually glow.

Hermione sat up quickly and grabbed her wand out of Nott's pocket, she muttered a quick "reparo" and touched the wand to her shirt, which mended itself before she righted her jeans.

"Draco? What's going on?!"

Theodore Nott was scared, not that Hermione could blame him.

Draco's eyes were glowing and the silver seemed to be radiating out, looking like pale chips of ice, his blond hair was whipping around his head in a non-existent wind, and his muscles were taut, straining against his shirt. As he pulled Nott closer to his face the room dropped in temperature, enough that they could see their breath puffing out in front of their mouths.

"Draco," Hermione said, moving closer.

Nott looked at her in surprise.

"Draco, stop. Its fine, I'm fine."

"It is NOT fine!"

Hermione reached out and placed her hand on his arm but realized immediately that it was a mistake, he started to draw her power too and now the cracking of magic could be heard, it seemed to be shooting blue sparks off of his body. She withdrew her hand quickly.

"Let me go, Draco, you're losing your mind. What do you care if I fuck the mudblood, anyway?"

"DON'T CALL HER THAT!"

"I'll call her what I want to! I'll touch her if I want to! You shouldn't care if I want to fuck the bitch!"

Hermione thought that Nott was being extremely daft, she would never provoke someone who was in this state. It was obvious that Draco was doing his best to reign in his power and control himself, but it wasn't doing much good.

"I care if you touch her, and I care if you try to fuck her, Nott, because she's my wife!"

"Draco…" Hermione whispered this.

"What?!" Theo yelled, shock on his face, "Your wife?!"

"That's right Nott, so back the fuck off."

"Draco! Stop!"

Draco looked at Hermione and their eyes met, locking up.

"Calm down! Please calm down!"

Her eyes were scared, but she was also trying to get him to realize what he had just done. Theodore looked between the two and saw the way they were staring at each other.

It was unnerving.

Slowly, Draco began to reign himself in. His hair stopped whipping around and he wasn't crackling with magic anymore, the room warmed back up and his eyes softened slightly. He took a deep breath and finally broke his eyes away from Hermione's, looking down at Theo again.

"I guess I'm going to have to kill you now," Draco said, looking Theodore in the eye.

Hermione watched on in shock.

"No! No, you don't have to do that."

Theodore obviously found Draco terrifying, probably more so after he witnessed the amount of power that Draco possessed.

"I do. I know you'll let the Dark Lord know as soon as you possibly can. I can't allow that."

"I'll take an unbreakable vow! Just please, don't kill me."

"An unbreakable vow… hmm… Hermione would you mind doing the honours?"

She made sure to word things carefully so that there were no loopholes that Nott could get around. He promised to not speak a word to anyone about what he learned, he was unable to show anyone any sort of memories or even allude to the fact that he knew Draco was married to a muggle-born, or that Draco was married at all. He wasn't allowed to draw attention to the tattoo on Hermione's hip in any way, shape or form. He also wasn't allowed to allude, talk about, or show anyone the power he had seen radiating from Draco, as it was alarming and they had to figure out what it meant. They definitely didn't want Voldemort to be informed of his power, what a weapon he would be.

As soon as the ritual for the unbreakable vow was preformed, Nott fled the room.

Draco seemed to be weakened suddenly, leaning against a desk for support.

"Are you okay?" he asked Hermione, worry marring his handsome features.

"I think so. Did you feel the pain when he kissed me, and in my chest, or was it just me?"

"Oh no, I felt it."

"I'm sorry, I tried to fight him off."

Hermione's vision swam suddenly, now that the adrenaline was wearing away. She reached back to touch her head and her fingers came back with blood on them.

She looked at Draco, surprised.

"Hospital wing, now."