Hey readers! I'm so sorry it's taken so long to update, once again. I hope you all like this chapter! It moves the story along a bit…into something that I actually knew I wanted to do since the beginning. Enjoy and as always, don't forget to REVIEW:D
Chapter Seven
For the Better
Two hours later, Draco and Hermione were still asleep on the couch in front of the dwindling fireplace. Draco had watched his wife sleep for a good thirty minutes before he adjusted their positions so she was lying halfway on top of him, her head nestled in the crook of his neck. He watched her breathe in and out evenly, her chest rising and falling with each breath she took. Some of her brown curly hair falling across her face, hands tucked under her chin.
As he watched her sleep he felt more and more guilty about lying to her. At the same time, he hated the thought of losing her forever even more than the prospect of her hating him. He felt like he wanted to kill his father. What kind of a parent would threaten to kill their son's wife? Draco had always known Lucius was a horrible bastard, but this crossed the line. All the times Lucius had beaten Draco has a child, Draco's rage had never compared to what he felt now. The most he could hope for now was that Harry's plan would work, preferably quickly.
Hermione stirred awake first and she propped her chin on his chest with her arms wrapped around his body. She couldn't help but wonder what was going through his mind. True, he had been coming home late, and she felt like he was keeping something from her. On the other hand, when he was around her he wasn't distant; he was loving and attentive. He told her at least twice a day how much he loved her. Then why did she doubt his loyalty? It was the very last thing she wanted, to have less than complete faith in him. She decided, as she watched him sleep, that she would try to stand by him with whatever he happened to be struggling with.
Just as she made this promise to herself, Draco opened his eyes, finding himself looking straight into Hermione's big brown ones.
"Hey, Princess…sleep well?"
Despite her troubled mind, his gorgeous silver eyes and charming smile got to her once again. She smiled back and simply said, "I did." She was afraid if she spoke anymore she would let all her doubts spill, and she wasn't ready for him to know she didn't completely trust him. What if she was wrong? What if she did something drastic, then found out later she had been wrong all along? Before she confronted him, if ever, she wanted to be sure she truly had something to be worried about.
Draco scooted her up closer to him and kissed her mouth. "Hermione," he said slowly as she nuzzled her cheek to his chest so he wouldn't see the look of worry in her eyes, because she knew he would be able to read the signs from her face. "You fell asleep before you answered my question."
"Oh? What was your question?" she asked. Truthfully, she had heard him ask if she trusted him, and at the time she wasn't quite ready to answer, so she pretended to be asleep.
"Do you trust me, Hermione?"
She took a deep breath. She still didn't know how to answer. "I don't know, Dray. Can you tell me what's been troubling you lately? I know you say you've been at work late, but something's really bothering you and I feel like you're lying to me, or just keeping something from me.
"Mione, I…"
"No, Draco."
He was getting confused now. "No what? You don't even know what I was going to say."
Hermione sat up and sat Indian style on the sofa, facing the fireplace. "I just don't want to hear excuses anymore. I want to know what's really going on." She really wasn't planning on telling him what was going on in her head, but she figured that since he was asking, now was as good a time as any.
Draco was silent for at least thirty seconds before answering Hermione. When he spoke, he turned to her and took her hands in both of his. She still stared on into the embers in the fireplace. "Hermione, you know I love you."
"Yes, Draco, I do. You tell me every day, and that's not exactly what I'm asking you, is it?" Hermione continued not to look at her husband.
"Is it too much to ask that you trust me, Hermione? Have I ever done anything to make you think that you couldn't?" He was staring at the side of her face. It had lines on it from where she had slept. On any other day, he would have thought it was cute, but today, he was more worried about the look on her face.
"I suppose not, but can you blame me for being a little ill at ease?"
"Is this about me coming home late? I thought we had that taken care of, Mione. I'm taking a few days off of work to spend time with you."
"I have no proof that work is where you've really been, Draco. I mean, I speak occasionally with Parvati Patil, and you know she's a Healer, too. I told her how much time you had been spending at work and she said that she isn't there nearly that long each day."
"Patil works in Spell Damage, Hermione. She's there during her normally scheduled hours. I have my normally scheduled hours, plus I have to go in whenever one of my patients is having their baby. I can't just hand them off to another Healer because my shift is over. They're expecting me to be their Healer, not some stranger. They trust me, and it's too bad you don't. That's the career path I chose, and you were fully aware of everything when you married me. I know you were because incase you've forgotten, we were together before I even knew what I wanted to do, and we talked about everything together."
"I'm aware of that," she said quietly.
"Then why are you biting my head off?" He wished she knew how much he hated carrying out this lie. He wished she knew how much this was killing him inside.
"I'm sorry, I just…I just know that if I spent that much time at work, I would get sick of it and would be extremely anxious to come home."
"That's why you think I'm not at work? I should be sick of it? I should be sick of helping bring babies into the world?"
"OTHER PEOPLE'S BABIES, YES! YOU SPEND SO MUCH TIME HELPING BRING OTHER PEOPLE'S BABIES INTO THE WORLD THAT YOU FORGET YOU HAVE A WIFE AT HOME WHO WANTS ONE, TOO!" She pulled her hands out of his and crossed her arms.
"Hermione…"
"And you know what, Malfoy? I'm not sure I want one if he or she will never have their daddy around."
"You're not serious?" He couldn't believe his ears, and he also wasn't oblivious to the fact that she called him "Malfoy." She truthfully hadn't called him that since sixth year at Hogwarts…and in bed occasionally. But this was neither of those times.
"I think I am, Malfoy." She now tuned her face to look him directly in the eyes.
"Stop calling me that!" he said through gritted teeth, intensifying the staring contest the two of them had going. It was scaring him to death that she was talking to him like they lost their intimacy.
"You never seemed to mind before."
"I mind now because you're scaring me. It sounds to me like you want to leave me, Hermione."
"I don't even know what I want anymore."
"I do, Hermione."
"What? Pansy?" she said angrily.
Draco stood up so suddenly that Hermione was a little frightened. "Is that where you think I've been?"
"I have my sources. I've also been keeping in touch with Neville, and he says he saw you and Pansy going into a house as he was visiting someone who lived near." He cursed the fact that Neville Longbottom had seen them entering Pansy's father's house for a meeting.
"Why are you just telling me this now? You seemed perfectly fine last night."
"I don't know, Draco. I don't know much of anything right now, because it feels like my whole world is turning upside down." She stood up now, putting her face mere inches from his while their shouting match ensued.
"How could you think I would cheat on you, Hermione?"
"I don't know, Malfoy, but do you care to explain what you were doing going into a house with someone you claim to hate?"
He didn't care to. He couldn't. He couldn't risk losing her forever, just so that she wouldn't hate him for a little while. It would only be until he and Harry carried out their plan, and that should be very soon.
"Well? Are you going to tell me what's been going on?"
"I…I can't."
"Why the hell not?"
"I just can't, Hermione."
"You can't…well, I guess that just leaves one thing for me to do."
He didn't even have to ask what that one thing was. He could tell what it was just by looking at her. "Hermione, please."
Without another word, she turned around and ran into the foyer and up the stairs. Draco sat back down on the couch and buried his face in his hands. He could hear her banging around upstairs, probably angrily throwing things into her suitcase. Maybe it was better this way, after all.
Around the same time that Hermione and Draco were waking from their nap, Harry and Ron were sitting in the Leaky Cauldron after a day of work at the Ministry. It wasn't an exciting day. It was mostly spent sitting at a desk filing papers for their regular "inventory" of Death Eaters.
Harry had asked Ron if he wanted to accompany him to Diagon Alley for a firewhiskey. He planned on filling him in about Draco's problem, and hopefully acquiring the assistance of his best mate.
"So, Ron, there's actually something I wanted to talk to you about," Harry started as the server handed them their drinks.
"Whassup, Harry?" Ron said in his usual tone. Little did he know, the information he was about to receive was far from "usual."
"Well, Draco needs our help."
"Malfoy? You expect me to help him?"
"You can't honestly tell me you still have something against him, Ron."
Ron looked down at his firewhiskey and sighed. "I supposed I don't, not really, anyway."
"Good." Harry relaxed a little in his chair. He was worried for a minute that Ron would refuse to help with the plan to keep Lucius in Azkaban. "Besides, this is mostly about helping Hermione."
"Hermione's in on the plan, too?"
"Not exactly." Harry leaned in closer and spoke in a quieter voice. "No one can know about what we're about to discuss, Ron. It has to be kept a complete secret, or else Hermione's life is in danger."
Ron suddenly looked very concerned and much more interested in helping Draco. "Hermione's life is in danger? Well, who knows about this plan already?"
"Just me, obviously Draco knows about it, Addison actually knows, and Narcissa. We may need to get more Aurors or members of the Order involved depending on how it goes with the crew we have now."
"Is it safe to assume this has to do with the infamous Lucius "Scumbag" Malfoy?"
"I daresay that's very safe to assume, Ron."
"Well, what's going on?"
"It all started when Pansy Parkinson ran into Malfoy on the street. She was sent by her father, another Death Eater as you know, to recruit him to assist in the plan to get Lucius out of Azkaban."
"Her father was released from Azkaban last year, right?" Ron asked.
"Right, and apparently he feels rather lost without Lucius as Voldemort's replacement Dark Lord." Harry gripped his bottle tighter, feeling his shoulders tense as they did whenever he thought about the days of Voldemort.
"So, they're trying to help him escape. Why is Malfoy helping?"
"Draco's helping because if he doesn't, and if he tells anyone what the plan is, Pansy's father will kill Hermione."
"So that's why…"
"Yes, that's why this plan will help her," Harry confirmed.
"Bloody hell…" Ron sighed.
"There's more. Draco's been forced to go to a lot of Death Eater meetings to work on their plan to free Lucius, causing him to spend time away from home. He's had to tell Hermione that he's been at work, and it's possible that she'll think he's cheating on her…possibly with Pansy."
"So, if she does? What happens? We let her ride it out until she learns the truth?"
"We have to 'be on her side,'" Harry said. "We support her and call Malfoy an ass every chance we get."
"What's our plan, then?"
"Malfoy's going to play a double agent the same way Snape did for the Order of the Phoenix." Harry took a sip of his firewhiskey, then set the empty bottle on the table and pushed it away. "He'll tell us what's been going on and we're going to try to get enough proof…"
Ron interrupted him right there. "Hold on, Harry…proof? Since when has 'proof' ever been good enough? We need a real plan. First, we need to keep Hermione safe."
"Actually, if she really does think Draco's cheating on her, she may want to stay with one of us which could be essential in keeping her safe. We just need to find out who's involved in the plan to break out Lucius, then we need to get to them all at the same time before they have a chance to rebel against us."
"I guess that makes sense. But, if anything happens to Hermione…"
"I know, Ron. And, don't forget, Ginny can't know either. She might tell Hermione. And, I think it's best if the members of the Order that help out are the ones that care about Hermione. We just have to make sure George, Bill, and your parents understand that Ginny and Hermione can't know."
"I thought you said we might not need members of the Order."
"We might not, but it's likely that we will."
"Well, Harry, I'm in. Let's get those bastards…again."
"Hold on!" Ron called from the bathroom, wrapping a towel around his waist as the buzzer rang for the third time. He had Apparated home from the Leaky Cauldron and had just stepped in the shower and got his hair wet when he heard someone at the door.
He ran into the living room of his flat and looked out the peep hole and saw just who he was hoping to see. He threw open the door quickly. "Addison…"
Ron grabbed her and pulled her towards him and kissed her deeply. "Well," she said, slightly flabbergasted when he finally pulled away, "that was quite the 'hello.'" She smirked.
"You know, that face you're making right now, that smirk, is the first Malfoy trait I've seen in you."
"I'm cunning when I want to be, you know. Draco told me that if I had gone to Hogwarts I probably would have been in Slytherin.
"I don't know, you must have some of your father's brave blood in you, the braveness that helped him turn away from the Death Eater side of the Malfoy family. I think you could have been a Gryffindor."
"Sure, Ron. You wish." She slapped him playfully on his bare chest, then appeared to realize for the first time that he was half-naked.
"Ahem," she pretended to clear her throat and he looked down at his appearance.
He smirked a smirk that could have rivaled the one she had put on after their kiss.
"You don't like my outfit?" he joked.
"Oh, no, I like it alright, but that's not why I came here, and I don't have much time. I promised Aunt Narcissa we could go shopping tonight."
"Fine, fine," Ron pouted, "then what can I do for you, Miss?"
She grinned at his formality as he stood before her in a towel, and said, "I just wanted to say I heard that you know about Draco's problem."
"Oh, yeah, Harry told me today."
"This isn't the first time Uncle Lucius has done this."
"What, escaped from Azkaban?"
"No, it was before Draco and I were born…right when my father met my mother."
"Your mum's a Muggle, isn't she?"
"She is, and Lucius threatened to kill her if my father didn't break up with her. I guess Lucius still has to learn that you can't mess with soul mates."
"Yeah, I guess he does. What happened, though? How did they throw off his threats?"
"They moved to France and put up a Fidelius charm. Aunt Narcissa kept in contact with my dad without Lucius knowing. They always got on really well. Draco and I got to meet in secret once when we were little. I figured it was safe to come since Lucius and all the other Death Eaters were in Azkaban."
Ron put his hands on her shoulders and rubbed his thumbs in circles. "How did the old Draco react to the fact that you're a Half-blood? He called Hermione a Mudblood every chance he got."
"Well, we were pretty little. I don't think Lucius had started, er, affecting him yet. Anyway, I'm family. In between then and eight years ago he wanted nothing to do with me. Now is obviously different, though."
"That's definitely true. I'm still surprised he and Hermione are married."
As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Ron walked to the coffee table where his wand lay on a stack of that week's Daily Prophet. He said a spell and his towel disappeared to be replaced with clothes. When he reached the door he opened it, and was strangely unsurprised at what he saw before him.
"Come on in, Hermione," he said to his friend sporting a tear-streaked face, carrying a suitcase.
