Chapter 4

Striking chords

In the spinning blackness obscuring his vision, even the hard ground beneath his body feels like it is falling away. He presses himself against it, his muscles tense and his nerve endings humming with residual pain. Maybe if he doesn't move, if he appears to have lost consciousness, they would stop. It has only been seconds since silence fell, since his own screams stopped echoing off the walls, but it feels like an eternity. He waits, his mind racing so fast that he is not even able to count the seconds. Nobody is saying a word, but he feels their gazes on him. Maybe they would stop… If he just lies there, his eyes closed and barely breathing.

He focuses on the floor beneath him. One of his arms is spread out across the carpet on his left, but he feels the cold marble underneath his stomach, through the damp fabric of his shirt, and against his right cheek. It's smooth and sticky with something warm; he has probably broken the skin on his temple when he fell. The pain is however not enough to draw his attention away from the one in his back. And just as he thinks again about his back, pain sears through it with renewed intensity while a heavy slick mass slithers over him, across his lower back, pinning him even more to the floor. He hears a low hiss right next to his face as the giant snake unwinds its coils over his bloodied back, and it takes every last bit of his wavering consciousness not to snap his eyes open as he senses the monster circle around him.

"Stand up, Draco. Stand up and face your Master's disappointment…" cackles a shrill woman's voice somewhere high above him.

His aunt's heels clatter against the marble tiles of the floor as she goes to stand next to his head. No… He isn't there… He isn't there…

"Draco…"

Another woman's voice. Soft, quiet, quivering. She is not even near him; she calls from the other end of the vast drawing room, where she stands next to Father. But his body reacts against his will and he flinches. He knows his leg moved. And for the split second his eyelids flutter open, the picture of the drawing room imprints on his retina: the huge fireplace on his right casts a dancing, strangely warm light all around, and he can see the feet and the hems of the robes of the people standing around him, but not too close either – all a cautious five feet away, except for his aunt. Now they know he is here.

"It's the third time, Draco."

The Dark Lord is speaking slowly, as though he is tired. If it were actually possible to catch some human emotion in his cold hissing, he would almost sound genuinely disappointed.

"It's the third time you are failing your initiation, my boy. You know you can't count on Severus to do it for you every time, don't you?"

Snickers run around the room, and he hears Mother sob.

"I'm starting to think you might not be so eager to prove yourself and take your place in our ranks. Or maybe… Maybe you don't know the spell?"

The audience howls with laughter, drowning out Mother's whimper.

"Let me teach you. Bella, help the boy."

One of his aunt's hands grabs him by the scruff of his neck, while the other tugs at his hair, her sharp nails scraping his scalp, to wrench his head up and make him face the other end of the room, where Wormtail is towering over the kneeling form of a teenage boy. The Muggle seems petrified with sheer terror. His eyes are nearly popping out of his head as he stares unblinkingly at the scene before him.

"-Avada Kedavra!"

Avery barely has the time to jump sideways as green lightning rips the air across the room, hitting the Muggle boy squarely in the chest. At first, his frozen body doesn't even move, his limbs locked, and then, with an almost comical slowness, he collapses sideways and lands with a thud at Wormtail's feet. Bellatrix's hand releases him, and he slumps limply back onto the floor.

"See, Draco? It's this simple. Avada Kedavra!" shrieks the Dark Lord again.

His high-pitched laughter fills the drawing room, quickly followed by the snickering of the others, while his own body starts as though a Cruciatus has been released through it. But this time, the curse hits the gold-framed mirror over the fireplace on his right, and a shower of glass splinters falls on and around him, some of them lodging into the open gash barring his spine in his lower back, sparking his nerve endings ablaze. But it's the dead silence that falls in the room immediately after that is the worst. He senses his Master approaching with every fiber as he lies facedown, his fingers curling against the floor and gripping the carpet as if it were the only thing keeping him from darting up and running for it.

"Three times, Draco. There will be no fourth," whispers the Dark Lord, and his voice creeps under his skull and slithers through his very mind, sending uncontrollable shivers of dread through his limbs.

One after the other, the two other scars on his back – one across his shoulder blades and the other barring his lower ribs – reopen like slashed by an invisible sword as his Master whips his wand to punish him for his failure. He feels his own hot blood soak his shirt and trickle down the sides of his body even before the pain itself comes. And then it comes.

His forehead bangs against the floor as he screams, and somewhere in the distance, Mother's pleading wailing answers him. It's a punishment for her as well. His whole family is punished because he is a failure. He bites the inside of his cheeks to stop screaming until the metallic taste of blood fills his mouth. Everything is a whirlwind of distorted sounds; the Death Eaters laughing, his aunt yelling at Mother to pull herself together, the noise of the Dark Lord disapparating as he leaves him to his agony, his own moaning, and the blood ringing in his ears… It all swirls, scatters and blends, fading and turning into a quiet melody.

Suddenly, he senses that there is nobody around him anymore. He is still lying on his stomach, but the surface beneath his naked upper-body is soft, and his face is tucked against a velvety pillow. His back is still aching awfully, although the pain is dull instead of scorching. He manages to open an eye – the one that isn't pressed against the cushion. Through the crack between his eyelids he can see a slice of Mother's sitting room; he is lying on the loveseat, one of his arms hanging to the floor, his knuckles brushing against the polished cherrywood boards. From the wet warmth on his wounded back, he knows she has covered him with plasters of diluted Essence of Dittany. He is allowed nothing more – nothing that could prevent the wounds from scarring.

Mother is sitting at the grand piano between him and the crackling fireplace, her back turned to him. Her frail shoulders are shaking, but her hands are steady and she plays without false notes. The fire dancing in the hearth baths the room in orangey light and illuminates the tall Christmas tree on the right of the fireplace, the silver and golden baubles sparkling and shimmering.

This is when he knows he is dreaming. The scene he is watching is the result of two superposed memories: in both of them, he had been lying on the loveseat while Mother played piano for him. But there were no Christmas trees at the Manor that last winter he came back for holidays in his seventh year, only to fail the Dark Lord for the third time in the task He had given him. He was a weakling. Unable to kill a mere Muggle.

There will be no fourth.

He doesn't want to think about it now. He only wants to listen to Mother playing. He knows he is safe, for now. She only plays when the Dark Lord is away. He listens to her, clinging onto every familiar note of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata he knows by heart. The slow, low melody flows through him and vibrates inside his chest. His dreaming, half-conscious self knows it's the last time she is playing for him. But his memory self lying on the sofa doesn't. So he just listens…

Merry Christmas. Welcome home.

/\\/\\/\\/\\/\\

The worst part of his nightmares was the excruciatingly long time it took him to awake from them. It was like being pulled to the surface out of deep, dark waters. Without surprise, Draco opened his eyes to the sound of Granger playing piano in the living-room. It was a ritual of hers. A week had passed, and there hadn't been a single morning he did not hear her play upon awakening, either early at dawn before she left for the Ministry or later in the morning during the week end. He was almost regretting she had decided not to cast any Silencing Charms on the bedroom, because he knew her playing was the very reason the nightmares had started in the first place – four days before, on Friday morning, when the diffuse unease he had been feeling through the first days had turned into nightly dreadful visions. There could be no other explanation, as until then and for now nearly eleven months, he had purely and simply stopped dreaming.

Breathing heavily and shivering, Draco sat up, peeling his t-shirt drenched in cold sweat off his skin as he pulled it over his head. He clenched his fists, the veins on his forearms swelling, and tried to inhale deeply, but it was as though iron chains constricted his chest and crushed his windpipe. The room was shrouded in darkness; the late winter dawn hadn't come yet. His bare skin looked a bluish white, like the bed sheets around him, and was striped with orange in the slanting beams of light that streamed through the window and came from the lampposts in the street outside. He waited for the melody on the other side of the door to die out, and then listened as Granger bustled as quietly as possible in the kitchen – coffeemaker buzzing, dishes clanking every now and then, the refrigerator door opening and closing with a soft suction sound. His heartbeat was gradually slowing down, but he still felt cold drops slide between his shoulder blades and down his chest.

There was a discrete shuffling on the other side of the door, and a shift in the air indicated that Granger was removing the wards. Draco quickly drew the blankets up to his chin to hide the jagged lines streaking his torso, the scars looking even whiter in the eerie half-light of the room. The doorknob turned and the door silently swung on its hinges, letting in a column of bright artificial light. The young man raised a hand before his eyes, blinking, as Granger's silhouette appeared in the doorway. She stopped, holding her wand in one hand and balancing a laden tray on her other forearm.

"Oh… You aren't sleeping," she whispered with a question in her voice.

Draco grunted in response. As his eyes adjusted to the sudden light, he could see one of her usual navy blue tailored skirts she wore to work every day, topped with a pale blue shirt. The only fanciful touch was her black tights that sparkled discretely from the thin silver threads woven vertically into them. She did not have her shoes on. He had noticed that Granger enjoyed walking around barefoot. He waited for her to put down the tray with his breakfast and leave, but she lingered hesitantly on the threshold. Her face remained hidden in the shadows, shielded from the light by her wild mane of curls she hadn't tied into a ponytail this morning. She squinted at him.

"Are you okay?" she asked in a low voice not to wake the kid in the bedroom across the living room.

"Yeah."

"Umm… Okay. I'll come back in a few hours to fix you something for lunch and take Nat' away."

There was no need to tell him that; he was now used to her little daily schedule, but Granger had the annoying mania to try and make conversation with him. So he just said again:

"Yeah."

"Okay… You have a nice morning then," she muttered, leaning to put the tray onto a chair standing by the door and closing it carefully behind her as she left.

The air vibrated when she cast the spells before stilling again, and shortly after, Draco heard the characteristic pop of Granger disapparating for work. He did not lie back. His nights ended with his nightmares. And then, it was always the same routine; breakfast, showering, brushing his teeth, dressing. Granger had guessed his size right when she bought him some Muggle clothes. But it wasn't a matter of length rather than filling them. The black shirt was hanging rather miserably off his shoulders, and he had to tighten the belt of his dark jeans as much as possible. His shape wasn't however as catastrophic as a week before. Granger had taken on feeding him whenever she could, sometimes preparing him a full-course meal between lunch and dinner when she had the possibility to get back from work in between.

Draco exited the bathroom. Its light bathed the bedroom through the open door, and as soon as he switched it off, all the colors in the room faded to shades of gray. The day was dawning outside the window, the first rays of sunlight struggling to pierce the thick cloud layer hanging low over London, and once though, they were cold and bleak – barely enough to make up for the now extinguished lampposts. Draco went to the window and snatched a book he had left on the ledge the day before. He settled on the windowsill, his back braced against the edge of the wall on the right, his legs half bent, and his feet propped against the wall opposite. He gazed outside the dull glass speckled with raindrops at the rapidly awakening streets and the glinting slate roofs of the city that stretched out of view until disappearing in the light drizzle.

He turned distractedly with his thumb the pages of the book in his lap; he had picked it from the pile rising by Granger's bed on his second day here but had never actually opened it. It was something about killing a mockingbird from the title on the muddy green paperback. After long minutes, Draco caught himself counting the 76th raindrop crashing against the windowpane. The monotony and the void of his days contrasted sharply with the brutality and the restlessness of his nights. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the young man tried to justify such torpor as an aftermath of his wearisome months wandering in the streets. But it wasn't as though he had been up to much before arriving at Granger's either.

The fact was that he did not live: he existed. And the warmth, the sheltering walls, the provided food made it all the easier to detach himself from the world and to only exist. He even failed to be actually concerned or anxious about Granger's breakthroughs on his case. She had told him that, at the moment, the issue wasn't exactly about finding a reverse ritual or even figuring out where the Horcruxes were, but rather about where to find the needed information. The Hogwarts Library and all the Wizarding bookshops in Britain had been thoroughly searched shortly after the war to confiscate anything even merely referencing this kind of magic. Granger the bookworm found herself in the unlikely situation where she could not get her hands on the books she needed. She had yet to find a loophole to the desired information.

But it would have been a miracle if she only managed to free some time to do so. Granger's life looked like a never-ending day of work. She left for the Ministry early in the morning, returned a few hours later at the time Nathaniel would usually wake up to bring him after his breakfast to the Weasleys or whatever poor soul she dropped him on, before fixing herself and Draco a lunch. They did not eat together; she always put her meal into a plastic box, tucked it inside her bag and fled in a hurry. She came back with the kid by Portkey in the late afternoon, and when finally all the evening fuss around dinner and the boy was over, she would spend hours poring over paperwork and textbooks, the shades around her eyes growing darker and her shoulders hunching more and more. He never lingered in the living-room after dinner, but he could see her through the doorway of the bedroom he kept open until she decided to go to bed and cast the wards back.

The metallic clanking of a spoon against the ceramic rim of a bowl indicated Draco that Nathaniel was up and taking his breakfast in the open kitchen. Granger wouldn't be long to show up. He blinked, not having seen the hours fly by; the sky outside was now a steely gray, the clouds a few shades clearer around the area where the sun hid behind them. As if on cue, the pop of Granger apparating in the living room came through the bedroom door a couple of minutes later, followed by the muffled sound of her voice interrupted by the kid's short answers. Not feeling like handling her attempts to make conversation, Draco slid off the windowsill, stiffly stretching his benumbed legs and the joints between his shoulder blades cracking when he straightened his spine, and dragged his feet to the bed, where he crawled under the crumpled blankets and buried his face in the pillow.

Some time later, Granger rapped her knuckles on the other side of the door to politely announce that she was entering. As she usually did not get any response from him, she pushed the doorknob without really waiting. He heard her release a small sigh full of scornful disappointment as she paused in the doorway. He could tell that she waited for him to snap out of his torpor and do something with his time other than sleeping and staring into space. He scowled into the pillow, remaining resolutely still until she left the tray with his lunch and closed the door behind her. What could she possibly expect him to do when she was the one to lock him between four walls with absolutely nothing to occupy his mind? When silence fell back on the apartment, he did not even bother to get out of the bed to resume his spot on the windowsill.

/\\/\\/\\/\\/\\

The dazzling whirlwind of the Portkey travel stopped abruptly, and as soon as her feet hit the floor of the apartment, Hermione's free hand flew to her right to clutch Nathaniel's arm and steady him on his feet. Her own knees nearly buckled under the weight of the bag of groceries tucked under her left arm and of her purse, crammed with books and papers, dangling from her hand. Letting go of the little boy, she quickly dropped her purse onto the floor of the entrance and walked to the kitchen to put the heavy paper bag on the worktop. She turned around to see Nathaniel kick off his trainers, take off his coat and go to the sofa, where he lay on his side and curled up.

His small lips were pursed into a thin line, and his hazel eyes were half-closed and out of focus. When she went to pick him at the Burrow, Hermione knew he was upset before Molly even told her. It had obviously something to do with the session he had had with his therapist after lunch, but nor Molly nor her had been able to get a word out of him. Hermione knew the little boy well enough to sense that his sulking wasn't a simple whim. She took off her cloak, swinging it onto the back of a kitchen chair, slipped out of her boots she put in the entrance, and went to sit next to the child on the couch.

"You still don't want to tell me what's going on?" she asked softly.

Nathaniel only frowned. She reached out and gently brushed a strand of dark, feathery hair off his temple.

"Hey, what if made pizza for dinner? Your favorite – with the small cocktail sausages on it – what do you say?" she offered cheerfully.

The little boy shrugged then nodded, still examining some imaginary spot on the coffee table between the sofa and the television set.

"Okay," smiled Hermione, briefly squeezing his ankle and getting up. "You can watch telly for a bit while I make dinner."

"Can I go to my room?" mumbled Nathaniel.

"Yes… Yes, of course. I'll call you when it's ready."

Feeling worry settle at the pit of her stomach, Hermione watched him leap off the couch and disappear into his room. Heaving a sigh, she removed one by one all the bobby pins from her hair she had pinned up at work, and slid them in the pocket of her tailored skirt. She let herself go against the back of the sofa, burying her toes in the thick, soft carpet, and rubbed her eyes before remembering that she was wearing mascara and trying to wipe off as best she could the dry make-up she had smudged under her eyes. At last, she stood up, waved her wand toward her bedroom door, muttering incantations under her breath, and rounded the kitchen counter to start taking the groceries out of their bag.

She was unrolling the pizza dough onto two baking trays, planning a vegetarian one for Malfoy and one for her and Nathaniel, when the door across the living room opened. She gave Malfoy a critical look as he dragged his feet out of the room, her gaze running over the sleeping marks across his left cheek, his tousled hair and crumpled clothes. His black outfit matched the expression of cold impassiveness upon his face.

"Why, look at you. Aren't you such a little ray of sunshine?" snorted Hermione sarcastically.

Malfoy only sniffed, shooting her a dirty look as he went by, and flung himself into an armchair, propping up his feet on the edge of the coffee table. Hermione glared and bit the inside of her cheek, but did not say anything. It was of no use; once Malfoy settled somewhere, nothing could make him move unless he decided to. He folded his arms, and letting his head fall on the back of his seat, stared at the ceiling. Hermione turned away from him, starting to chop red and green peppers. After a week, she was more or less used to Malfoy's presence or at least wasn't afraid anymore of him attacking her when she wasn't looking.

In fact, she was starting to believe that a chair could be less apathetic than him, which was exactly the way Nathaniel treated him. After their first exchange of words during their first meal together, the child had been ignoring Malfoy as though he were a piece of furniture and did not try and talk to him again. Hermione knew it wasn't resentment; Nathaniel simply never tried to impose his presence on people that weren't interested in it. But she would sometimes catch him peeking curiously at the Slytherin out of the corner of his eye.

She was putting the pizzas into the oven when something tugged at the fabric of her skirt at her hip. Hermione looked down to see Nathaniel, his head tilted up but his eyes not meeting hers.

"Read to me, please," he said.

He was holding out an old illustrated edition of 'The Wonderful Adventures of Nils', a book they had been reading together for at least three times already. Hermione smiled and stroked his forehead with the back of her knuckles, as her fingers were dripping with tomato sauce.

"I can't right now… I promise I will after dinner."

Something strange flitted across the boy's features.

"I want to read it now," he whispered almost inaudibly. "We won't have time later…"

Hermione opened her mouth, but before she could voice a question, Nathaniel had turned around and spotted Malfoy's motionless figure in the living room. The child crossed the room and stopped a few steps away from the Slytherin. His eyes fixed on the tip of his toes, he held out his book.

"Read to me… Please?"

"No," was all Malfoy's answer.

He didn't as much as blink and barely moved his lips. The little boy knitted his brows.

"You don't know how to read?" he asked with puzzlement, tilting his head and glancing at the blond man out of the corner of his eye.

"That's right, I don't know how to read," drawled Malfoy dismissively, still gazing at the ceiling.

"Oh…" said Nathaniel, looking thoughtful. "I'll teach you then."

Hermione's eyes widened as she watched, torn between apprehension and faint amazement, while the little boy pushed unceremoniously Malfoy's legs off the coffee table to settle there himself and dropped the book onto the Slytherin's lap. Malfoy's head shot up, and there was a short moment of mute bewilderment, during which the child started spelling the title of the story:

"That's T like 'tea'… and H like 'horse'… and E like…"

But Malfoy suddenly leaned forward and seized the boy under the armpits, lifting him from the coffee table and putting him back on his feet as far away as possible, at arm's length. He tossed the book onto the sofa on his right and propped up his feet back on the edge of the coffee table, scowling.

"Mal- Dorian…" hissed Hermione threateningly.

He ignored her.

"Didn't anyone teach you what 'no' means?" he glared at the little boy. "Stop pestering me."

"Nat'!" called Hermione. "Come on! I'll read it to you…"

But the child remained standing next to Malfoy, this time looking directly into his face.

"You are not nice," he said sternly. "I don't like you."

Malfoy quirked a mocking eyebrow.

"The feeling is mutual," he replied with disdain.

"Nat'," repeated Hermione more firmly.

The boy returned to the open kitchen but did not bring the book. He sat at the table and watched the pizza dough swell and the cheese melt and bubble in the orangey light inside the oven, while a mouthwatering scent wafted through the room and Hermione set the table. The next time he spoke, they were all sitting around the table, halfway through eating their pizzas.

"Can we go visit mummy and daddy soon?" said Nathaniel suddenly in a low voice, scraping tomato sauce with his fork off his plate.

Hermione put down her slice of pizza.

"Yes, of course," she answered softly, examining the boy's face worriedly. "We'll go on Saturday, okay? Or I'm going to take a day off… As soon as I can, okay?"

Nathaniel nodded.

"Nat', what's wrong?" whispered Hermione, her sense of foreboding intensifying with every passing second.

"I don't want them to forget about me…" mumbled the child, his gaze wandering to the floor.

Hermione took a sharp breath, searching for something to say.

"Doctor Bell said I can't like you very much, and you don't have the right to like me, because I can't stay with you forever."

At the other end of the table, Malfoy made a muffled sound – something between a disgusted sneer and a sigh. But Hermione was too frozen in horror to snap at him. She was torn between the need to urgently find something soothing to say and was fighting desperately the mounting anger she felt as blood started thumping in her ears.

"She said that?" was all she could manage in a somewhat shrill voice.

Hermione gripped the edge of the table with such strength that her knuckles turned white. She knew that technically it was the way things were supposed to work, but she did not expect the therapist she sent Nathaniel to for comfort to tell him so, even if it were to keep him from eventual emotional harm. She was vaguely aware of Malfoy leaving the table and striding to her bedroom with a scowl of annoyance. The feet of her chair screeched loudly against the tiled floor of the kitchen when she pushed it back to crouch next to Nathaniel. For once, she didn't think twice before scooping the boy in her arms and pulling him off his seat and into her lap, and he did not flinch; it was one of these moments when he needed human contact. Hermione held him tight against her chest, the side of his head resting on the top of hers.

"I like you very much, Nat'," she whispered fiercely against his small shoulder. "And your mummy and daddy will never forget about you. They love you more than anything in the world. We'll visit them as soon as possible, I promise, little buddy."

After a moment, the little boy nodded and freed himself from her embrace, but remained within her reach, peering at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Come on, let's read about Nils," smiled Hermione, standing up and managing to hide the trembling in her voice.

Nathaniel scooted to his room while she went to pick the book from the sofa and joined him to help him change into his pajamas. She climbed next to him atop the comforter, near the bedside lamp, and read for the next two hours, disregarding the pile of paperwork waiting for her in her bag, until the boy's eyelids were so heavy that he couldn't bring himself to keep them open even to look at his favorite illustrations. Then, she put the book on the nightstand, tucked him in and dimmed the nightlight, before exiting the room.

Her bedroom door across the living room was shut. The high windows on the right side of the room had taken the color of blackboards. Instead of returning to the kitchen, Hermione only waved her wand to send the dishes into the sink, and with another flick of her wand, the tap turned open, and the sponge and the dishwashing liquid jumped into action. She dragged her feet to the piano, slumped onto the round, leather stool, put her elbows on the edge of the keyboard and buried her face in her hands. The muscles in her neck were knotted, her eyes prickled after so much reading. The only idea of going through the innumerable files crammed in her bag – all of them minor criminal cases to review for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement – or engrossing herself in her Advanced Arithmancy textbook made her temples throb. So she just sat there, letting her hands fly absentmindedly over the black and white keys.

Sometimes, when her thoughts started to wander as they did now, she would picture what it would be like if Nathaniel could actually stay with her forever. She would start doing a list of every step of an adoption procedure, and then, a scorching feeling of shame would wash over her. To imagine that Nathaniel could stay with her came to consider that his parents would never wake up. And she certainly did not have the slightest right nor the slightest desire of wishing him that.

"Why did you stop?"

Hermione started with a gasp and spun around on her seat. Malfoy was leaning against the doorframe of her bedroom, watching her with an unreadable expression.

"I wasn't actually… I was just thinking."

"Play again."

Taken aback, Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"Sure. You are asking so nicely!" she snorted.

Malfoy crossed the living room and slouched in his favorite armchair, which left the sofa and the coffee table between them. His steely gaze focused on her, waiting.

"What was I playing?" asked Hermione, rolling her eyes.

"Beethoven."

"Right…"

It took her a moment to remember the score now that she was aware of what she was playing. She wasn't a big fan of Beethoven. The few pieces she knew of him filled her with melancholy, and it was not a feeling she liked to dwell on. She liked Chopin better. But it was the first time Malfoy actually reacted more or less positively to something, and she was intrigued by this new state of mind. So she complied, playing the first movement of Moonlight Sonata again from the beginning, but a little faster than should: Malfoy's still presence, the pitch black night outside the windows, the sinister melody of low notes, made her skin crawl.

"You are playing it too fast."

"I know, I…" Hermione trailed off and turned to the Slytherin, considering him with interest. "I didn't know you liked music."

Malfoy shrugged, his gaze as cool as ever.

"I won't ask you to play again. You've completely mangled it," he drawled, rising from the armchair.

But she was too curious about his emerging from his lethargy, briefly as it was, to pay attention to his taunt and take offense.

"Do you play?" she asked as he walked past her, heading back to the bedroom.

"Used to," he answered curtly without pausing.

"Would you like -…"

"No."

This time, he stopped and turned around, his cold eyes meeting hers. His mask of indifference hardened. Hermione hesitated, biting her lower lip, but held his gaze. At last, she resolved to reach for this new streak of humanity she discovered in Malfoy.

"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul," she said quietly, quoting Wilde and hoping that he would remember the reference.

"Don't," snapped Malfoy, his features sharpening as anger twisted his face.

Hermione cast a worried glance toward Nathaniel's door, before looking back at the Slytherin.

"Don't make me into a case study, Granger," he spat, his dull eyes suddenly blazing in their slightly hollowed sockets. "Keep your tactics to your loony boy."

He spun around and strode into the bedroom, the door slamming so violently behind him that Hermione flinched. Gritting her teeth, she tiptoed to Nathaniel's room and opened the door just a crack: miraculously, the little boy was still deeply asleep.

"That went well…" muttered sarcastically Hermione to herself, massaging the bridge of her nose with weariness.

/\\/\\/\\/\\/\\

The green flames swallowing his body die out, and soot falls onto his shoulders from under the high mantelpiece as he steps out of the fireplace in the drawing room of the Manor. He dusts his clothes, squinting when blinding daylight hits his eyes. All the diamond-paned windows of the room are open, the crisp air of March gushing inside. Everything looks oddly sharp in this cold light. As usual, all the furniture is pushed against the walls, leaving a large empty space in the middle of the room. There is a large crack in one of the black marble tiles of the floor, left there by the heavy chandelier their former house-elf had toppled two weeks ago. The Persian carpets covering the floor had been removed after having been irremediably stained with blood – traces of their Master's wrath after Potter and his friends escaped.

He makes a few reluctant steps inside the empty room, already impatient to leave the place and return to Hogwarts and filled with dread as to why he has been summoned. The note he received from Father in the morning gave no indication. He relaxes a little; the Dark Lord doesn't seem to be there. In fact, there is only Father, his motionless figure silhouetting against the hollowed turquoise of the sky, on the other side of the room. He is holding a glass of what must be Firewhiskey, and his free hand twitches nervously at his side. A thick stubble is shading his jaw, and his long hair looks matted as it falls on his shoulders.

"She is upstairs," Father rasps out without turning to look at him. "She wants to see you."

He stops, suddenly feeling cold, his nostrils catching a faint scent of death the wind fails to carry away. He starts toward the door, the soles of his shoes stepping loudly on the stone floor. Everything seems to be floating; the hallways, the flights of marble stairs and the dim corridors flash by, and while some awful sense of foreboding tells him to turn on his heels, he realizes he is running. He skids to a halt only when he reaches the closed door of Mother's sitting room. He knocks, and getting no answer, enters after a few moments. Here, the curtains are drawn, and the air is thick. A fire is roaring in the hearth.

She is sitting at her grand piano; her hands are resting flat on the keys. Something in her posture reminds him of a puppet whose strings have been cut.

"Mother?"

He hears his own voice like from afar.

"Close the door, Draco. It's cold in here."

No, it's not… It's a dream, Mother, he wants to answer...

He complies and crosses the room, going around the piano.

He has to wake up… Now! Before he understands…

"Mother, you wanted to see me?" he croaks out.

He knows.

His breath catches when she looks up at him, her eyes slightly out of focus and her features slack. And then, she quickly averts her gaze. She looks scared and ashamed at the same time and wraps her arms around herself.

"Lucius called you?" she whispers. "He shouldn't have."

Everything is sinking inside of him, his heart plummets in his chest. He is suffocating.

"Mother… Mother! Mom!"

He is on his knees next to her seat, shaking her.

"Why? Why?"

"You should go back to school now, Draco."

The room is spinning, and the scene crumbles like a house of cards before rising all around him again and regaining its sharpness. He is back in the drawing room and he is yelling, but it doesn't sound like his voice. The murderous fury, though, is certainly his. He feels it washing over him in relentless waves, almost blinding him as he shouts at his father's blurred face.

"Why? Why did you let her? Why?!"

He has no idea when he has taken out his wand. But it spits sparks and then flies out of his hand as Father disarms him with a flick of his own wand.

"I hate you! I fucking hate you!"

He wants nothing more than to curl his fingers around his throat and choke him to death… He feels the flesh under his palms… A body thrashing beneath his… And then, a blast sends him flying backward and he hits a wall, all the bright daylight vanishing suddenly and giving place to a bluish darkness striped with the orangey rays of Muggle lampposts.

"Incarcerous!"

Dazed, Draco watched the thin cords appear out of thin air to wind around his legs and up his body, tying tightly his arms to his sides. On his right, the high pile of Granger's books had collapsed, some of the volumes lying open on the floor. On his left, the blankets were hanging off the bed in a crumpled mess. Draco struggled against the ropes binding him.

"Don't move!"

He froze; a few steps away, Granger was crouching on the floor, wearing a tank top and pajama bottoms, her hair flying madly around her head. She was pointing her wand at him with a trembling hand while massaging her neck with the other. She crawled backward, coughing and spitting, and a ray of light hit the reddish marks around her throat. Draco opened his mouth, but panic had knocked all breath out of him.

"Mione?"

Granger whirled around toward the small voice, and Draco noticed the little boy in fleece pajamas standing in the doorway and staring at them with confusion written over his sleepy features.

"Nat', go back to your room!" shrieked Granger, scrambling to her feet.

She jumped to the kid, lifting him in her arms and slammed the door behind them. He heard her stride hurriedly across the living room, muttering something to the boy. His brain was like paralyzed, failing to understand what had happened. The back of his head was starting to throb where it had banged against the wall. Did he attack Granger? He was out of breath and sweating as though he had run several miles. A door opened and closed, and her footsteps sounded again in the living room. A few seconds later, she kicked open the door of the bedroom and stopped in the doorway. Her breath was escaping her chest in short, wheezing puffs, and her wide eyes were full of shock and anger.

"Granger…"

She raised her arm, aiming her wand at his chest.

"You are getting the hell out of my house, Malfoy."

A/N: Those of you who have read my first story know how much I love writing dreams and flashbacks… So, yeah, there is going to be some of these...

I'm afraid this chapter might have been a bit boring… I wanted to explore a bit more the psychological state of the characters. Hopefully, you'll find the next chapters more interesting.

Anyway, thanks to all of you for the follows, favs and reviews (I'm answering to all the signed ones but I also want to thank the guests)! You are fueling my inspiration!