All characters belong to JKR

Chapter 7 – The Long and Winding Road, Leads to Scotland Apparently

Glancing out the car window as the scenery rushed past her, Hermione placed her forehead on the cool glass and for several brief seconds she closed her eyes. Without looking toward the driver of the car (Draco) she asked, "Why are we driving again?"

"Because the children are too young to Apparate," he answered reasonably.

She lifted her head from its place on the window and swerved her neck around to look at the children as they sat in the backseat. Marie had earplugs in her ears, listening to music, and she was reading a book as well. In many ways, she reminded Hermione of herself at that age. Jeff was playing with a handheld video game.

Placing her right hand on Draco's shoulder to catch his attention, she asked, "Why couldn't we take a portkey?"

"The children have never taken one before, and I didn't think they would like it, and besides, it's hard to arrange those type of things on such a short notice," he replied.

"Short notice?" she observed.

Draco was afraid she would notice that he said 'short notice'. He offered, "Well, we are leaving two weeks earlier than I had first anticipated."

"Why?"

"Goodness, Granger, but having you in the car is akin to having another child. Why can't we take a portkey? When will we get there?" he mocked. "At least Marie and Jeff are riding quietly and not asking a million questions!" Draco huffed in reply.

Hermione folded her arms in front of her and returned, "Well, excuse me, but when I agreed to tutor the children and live with them, I thought we were going to your house in Muggle London, remember? After we left the city, I asked you at that time how long before we got there, and you didn't answer my questions then, either." She turned slightly in the front seat, offering her back toward him, and started to watch the scenery again.

She was nauseated once more, and the car ride was aggravating her sick stomach tenfold. Likewise, they had already been in the car for two hours, and Draco had been evasive from the start. She asked in the beginning where they were going, again after a half an hour, again at the hour mark, and then every fifteen minutes after that. Each time, he wouldn't answer.

"Are you afraid I'm kidnapping you, too?" he joked. He peeked over at her quickly. He couldn't see her face, just a sliver of her profile. She seemed disinclined to talk suddenly, so he reached over and flipped her shoulder with his middle finger.

"OUCH!" she barked, turning toward him, before she slapped him hard on the back of the head with her open hand. The car swerved slightly as he was distracted by the blow, and by the pain. Both children stopped what they were doing in the backseat and laughed.

Draco pulled off the motorway at the next exit and pulled into a petrol station. Unlocking his seatbelt, he reached in his pocket, pulled out Muggle money and handed it to Marie. "Go to the toilet, you two, if you must, and then get some fizzy drinks and sweets, or the likes, but leave me and Miss Granger alone for a moment."

Marie ducked out of the car quickly. Jeff stayed in his seat. Draco turned toward the silent young boy, as did Hermione. "Yes, Jeff, was there something you needed?"

Jeff shook his head no.

"Then please go with your sister," Draco requested.

Jeff looked right at Hermione. Hermione thought the young boy looked incredibly sad. His eyes were empty, hauntingly so. He reminded her of someone. At first, she thought he reminded her of Harry, but that was probably because he was orphaned, and he had dark, unruly hair. However, when she looked at his eyes, she thought for one instant that they reminded her of someone else. She just couldn't think whom.

Jeff pointed toward Hermione and then inclined his head toward the station, as if he was asking her if she wanted anything. She smiled and fished in her purse for some money. She handed him a few pounds and then said, "Please get me some water and some mints if they have them, Jeff. Thank you." The young man nodded and opened his car door and left.

Draco raised an eyebrow and turned toward Hermione. "Seems young Jeff is smitten with you or something."

"Seems young Jeff probably thinks of me as a mother figure or something," Hermione rebutted. "Now, Draco Malfoy, we are all alone. Tell me, please, where are we going?"

"To Scotland," he answered quickly. He stared at her with a smile.

She stared at him with no expression, then she started to smile, then she started to laugh. "Oh, but that's a good one." She laughed harder. "Now, where are we really going?"

"To Scotland," he repeated. "The children's father had a house in Scotland, and he used to take them there every summer. I'm taking them there for two reasons, no, make that three."

Hermione placed her hands to her face and mumbled something. Draco pulled her right hand down and said, "Pardon, I can't hear you when you're mumbling what I'm sure are death threats into the palms of your hands." He kept one of her hands in his and held it loosely.

"I was actually praying for a higher power to give me strength not to kill you," she clarified. "Why didn't you tell me we were going to Scotland?"

"You didn't ask outright, If you had asked, I would have told you," he replied. He tightened his grip on her hand, mostly so she couldn't hit him again.

"MALFOY!" She really didn't know what else to say, because he really did have a point, the wanker. She got into his car, rather blindly, and she really didn't ask him WHERE they were going. She saw that he shrank all her luggage and trunks. She saw that the children were with them. She could have asked him before they left where they were heading, but she didn't. She could have Disapparated away at anytime, but she didn't. She leaned her head back on the headrest and asked, "What are the three reasons we're going to Scotland?"

"One, because I wanted the children to have a bit of normality, a piece of their father, perhaps their last piece before their world changed permanently. Two, because the house is very close to Hogsmeade, which if you recall, is close to Hogwarts, and I've arranged for them to have a tour so they can get acquainted with the school before they go there."

"And the third reason?"

"Is a secret," he said. The third reason was because he wanted to get them far, far away from London. Not just the children, but her, too. Draco turned her hand around so that her palm was facing upwards and he studied it. He asked, "Did you know I was a novice palm reader?"

All she knew was that the feel of her hand in his felt heavenly. She closed her eyes again, kept her head against the headrest, and asked, "You practice the pseudoscience of chiromancy?"

"What?" he asked. "Did you just ask me something in English, or were you speaking Goblin?"

She peeked at him with one eye, turning her head toward him. He was smiling. She smiled back. Closing her eyes again, she said, "Well, go on, you fortune teller you, read my palm, tell me what it says."

He traced a long line on her hand and said, "This is your heart line, or rather, your love line."

She fought for composure. "Really? I thought that line was long since used up on me," she quipped. "What does my love line reveal?"

Placing her hand gently in the cradle of his left hand, he used the index finger of his right to brush lightly over the skin of the longest line that branched across her hand and said, "It says that you've loved, and lost, but that you will love again, and soon."

She closed her hand into a fist and started to remove it from his, just as she sat up in the seat, opening her eyes. He was quicker. He kept her hand in his, even as she fought to free it. He opened the hand back up and moved his index finger along the other long line and said, "And this is your life line."

"Give me my hand," she seethed quietly.

"No," he replied. "It says you'll have a long, healthy and prosperous life," he continued, ignoring her request and her gently pulling. He kept her hand open with soft pressure of his own hand. "See these branches off your life line, these mean you'll have a large family - a husband, children, and the like."

"Please, Malfoy, give me my hand," she almost sobbed.

He released her hand and looked up into her eyes, which were suddenly filled with tears. "Gee, Granger, I was just fooling around. What's wrong?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she opened the car door, swung her legs around, and went inside the petrol station.

After everyone had plenty of snacks, had visited the loo once or for Jeff, twice, and Draco had topped up the car with petrol, the Ellington children and Draco sat in the big black car waiting for Hermione to come back.

She was sitting on the boot, outside.

"Should you apologize to her?" Marie finally asked.

Draco looked in the rearview mirror at the girl and barked, "I didn't do anything to her! Why should I apologize? I feel like I've spent my whole life apologizing to that woman out there and I shalln't do it when I've done nothing wrong!"

"You had to have done something," Marie reasoned. "Why didn't you tell her we were going to Scotland? Were you afraid she wouldn't come?"

"Who are you now, my mother?" Draco hissed to the young girl. "I don't have to answer to you." He bit his thumbnail and turned around to look out the back window. There she was, just sitting there.

"If we don't get there by nightfall, won't Mrs. Jenkins worry? You had her go ahead of us to get the house ready, remember?" Marie asked.

"Mrs. Jenkins can go to hell and back for all I care," Draco retorted.

"That's not nice," Marie scolded. "Perhaps that's your problem, Draco. If you were nicer, perhaps Hermione would like you."

Draco stared right at the young girl and said, "My stars, Marie, you sound almost just like Hermione at that age! One would think you were channeling her! You sound just as sanctimonious and self-righteous as she always sounded!" Opening his car door, he got out quickly, only to poke his head back in to say, "Put your seatbelts on, and don't get crumbs on my new car's upholstery!"

He slammed the car door, hard, and walked back to the boot, where he sat down next to Hermione.

He looked at his watch and said, "We should be on our way. We still have another three to four hours to drive."

"You should have told me," she said sullenly.

He felt a sudden sting…damn, there were so many things that could apply to that statement. "Told you what?" he asked carefully.

"That we were going to Scotland," she qualified.

He actually sighed a sigh of relief. He really thought she might have figured a few other things out by now. "Are you still going on and on about that?"

She looked down at her hand and said, "I'm never going to get married, by the way."

"Are we jumping from one subject to another?" He slid from the back of the car and then pulled her from it by her legs, until her feet were on the ground. His hands remained on the car by her hips, so he was terribly close. "That's not why I'm whisking you off to Scotland, Granger, to marry you. Goodness, isn't that only in those Muggle historical romances? Why do you say you aren't getting married?"

"I'm just letting you know that your palmistry is lacking, that's all," she warned. Hermione placed a hand on each shoulder of the man before her and stood her full height, which made her stand almost to the top of his chin. She had to look up at him to look him in the eyes. "And also, I know I'm acting strange," she began.

"Not much stranger than usual," he argued. She was dead quiet for a moment, so was he, then he smiled and said, "Go on, I won't interrupt again, I promise." Placing his hands around her waist, because after all, she had hers on his shoulders, so why not, he said, "You were saying something about your being strange."

"I said I know I'm acting strange, and there's a reason, and I want to tell you that reason, and I will soon, just not yet, okay?" She pushed him away, harder than she had to, because he stumbled slightly, and she started toward her car door.

"That's it?" he asked. "That all the explanation I get to your little outburst about me not telling you about Scotland, and your getting upset about my reading your palm?"

She seemed to think about it and then nodded. "Yes, that's it." She almost reached her door, when he reached it first. He grabbed the handle and started to open it, when she closed it gently with her hip and looked up at him. "Wait, that's not it. I have a question, an important one that I keep meaning to ask, but which keeps going out of my head."

"I can't imagine anything going out of that thing," he laughed, knocking on the top of her head with his fist. "What is it?"

"What's the name of the children's father? I need to know, because I might know him, and if they ask me anything about him, I need to know how to respond," she leveled.

Draco stared at her, opened mouth, and then he frowned. "His name was Charlie Ellington." That wasn't a lie. He had changed his last name for his Muggle life, to Ellington from Warrington, although he had never once in his life gone by the nickname 'Charlie'. He stared deeply into her eyes, waiting for a response of some type.

She looked a bit confused. He could tell she was racking that massive brain of hers for a wizard by that name. "Did he go to school with us?" she asked, reopening her car door.

"Gads, no," Draco lied. "Tons older than us," slight lie, "and the thing is, Granger," here was a bit of a truth, "he was Death Eater."

Hermione gasped. She closed her door gently, and pulled him away from the car so the children wouldn't hear. "A Death Eater?"

Draco nodded and said, "Yes, so you see, I don't want the kiddies to know the bad things about him, 'right, because they don't even know about Death Eaters and the like, so if they ask questions about him, let me tell them whatever they want to know."

"But you said he was one of your best friends," she reminded him. Pacing around the outside of the car, she repeated, "A Death Eater? Did he go to Azkaban?"

Draco knew he had to be cryptic with his answer, so he said, "He served his time, and then he fell in love with a Muggle woman. It happens all the time. You know, classic story of Death Eater falls in love with Muggle woman.""

Hermione opened her mouth to protest that stupid statement, but before she could, Draco laughed at the absurdity of it, so she laughed, too. "Yes, Death Eaters go to jail for killing Muggles and Muggle-borns," she began, "and then are rehabilitated by those lovely guards called Dementors, have a change of heart, and once they're released, fall in love with the first Muggle women they meet."

Draco shrugged his shoulders and said, "It could happen."

"Not bloody likely," Hermione responded. Hermione pulled him further from the car, his shirtsleeve grasped in her fist, and said, "I think we should tell them a cursory story about our world, perhaps to pass away the time on our way to Scotland. Tell them a bit about Voldemort, and Harry, and Death Eaters. Nothing graphic, and no naming of names, but just the basics to get them started. Agreed?"

At that point, he would agree to anything she wanted. If she wanted the moon and the stars, he would find a way to capture them for her. Her eyes were bright once again, her sadness gone, abated. One could almost see the thoughts and plans spinning around her head. Furthermore, one would have to be immune to beautiful smiles and visceral pulls of attraction if one did not give her anything and everything in which she only had to ask.

Before he could agree, Marie buzzed down her window and asked, "Are we going to get started soon?"

"Ask Miss Granger," Draco asserted.

Jeff leaned across his sister's lap and looked out the window as well. Hermione told the children, "Roll up the window and put on your safety belts. We're going to Scotland, I guess. For two glorious months, heaven help me." She walked toward the car, Draco falling into step beside her, and for no apparent reason other than the fact that she wanted to, she pushed him hard, with her hand on his shoulder, and he stumbled a bit.

She smiled and held back a laugh. He opened her car door and as she started to get in he whispered, "Good thing I don't hit girls, Granger, because you've been quite brutal, you have."

She bit back another laugh and watched as he strolled quickly around the front of the car to get in the driver's seat. Once there, he started the car and pulled back out onto the road, and then back out onto the motorway.

Draco's left hand rested lightly on the gear lever between Hermione's and his seat. As they drove again, quietly, the kids eating and returning to their activities in the backseat, Hermione drinking her water and looking at the scenery again in the front, he moved the hand that was on the gears slightly so that it brushed against her skirt, and then rested it on her leg.

She brushed if off as if it were a gnat. Placing her water in the console, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Daring another glance her way, he reached up to placed his hand on the back of the seat this time, his hand on her headrest, moving a bit every so often so that eventually his hand was resting under her long hair, against her neck.

Her eyes fluttered open at the first feel of his hand on her neck. Turning her head quickly toward him, he continued to look at the roadway in front of him. He started an innocuous conversation with Marie about stars and constellations and about the meaning of his name, and the like.

Without realizing, as he was speaking to the young girl he had begun to massage Hermione's neck. It felt heavenly to him, so he could only wonder what it felt like to her. He began to wonder what she looked like naked, what she tasted like, what she looked like when she first woke up. Did she have any moles near her bum? Did her breath stink in the morning? Was she a passionate lover? Would she be a good mother?

Everything about this felt wonderful. It felt, right. It felt like: The Future.

Hermione blocked out everything but the feel of his hand on her neck and the sound of her own breath. She couldn't hear them talking – she couldn't hear the outside noises of the car – she couldn't hear the motor hum – all she could hear was herself breathing, at first more rapidly, and then slow and steady, as his thumb moved in little circles near her pulse point, and his index finger and middle finger rubbed near the base of her skull, and his fourth finger and his wicked, wicked little finger rubbed sensual circles near the tiny hairs on her neck.

This time, instead of glancing out the window, she glanced over at Draco Malfoy. She stared at him. His silver grey eyes and the little laugh lines beside them. The way his mouth was quick to form a smile as he laughed and joked with Marie. His bright, white smile, and his perfectly straight, Roman nose.

Why did she feel so happy and secure suddenly, right here, in the car? Why did she feel as if THIS was her future? Bringing her hand up to her face, Hermione glanced at it, touched her finger to the long line, which represented the love line, and then the second one that represented the lifeline.

Draco stopped massaging her neck and reached over to grab her hand in his. He brought it to rest on top of her thigh, tightly in his grip, and then he said, "I think I'll tell you the story of Hermione's wretched best friend now. Jeff, put your game away. I'm going to tell a little story to pass away the hours. It's about a poor little boy who lived in a closet. Hell, I think he's still in the closet. He had a terrible facial deformity that scared away the masses, and he had no friends besides Granger and an ugly pet weasel, because he was so hideous and unlovable. What am I forgetting, Hermione?"

She laughed, pulled her hand from his, turned slightly in her seat and rebuked, "If this story is going to be told, let me tell it, and I'll tell it right. First, to tell it correctly, we must start at the beginning. There once was a boy named Tom Riddle."

Hermione began her story. Draco reached back over and held her hand. Marie placed her book on the floor, and Jeff listened in rapt and unadulterated silence.