SwedishA/N: This one is for you Crossing Lines, Laws and Love fans – those of you who know that Draco doesn't own Owls but Eagles… Oh, and I finished NaNo as a winner (if someone cares)! So, because of the long wait, I will just publish this without having it BETA:d. Less heartfelt author notes, more reading.

Go on!

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Chapter 7:
Malfoy Men

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[Day 17]

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For being a highly paid and successful lawyer Hermione Granger lived far from grand, Draco thought. When he first stepped into her living room a week ago he didn't give the décor much thought, he was only concerned with what brought him there. He remembers himself barely glancing around and saying something rude as she expected. Right now, however, his only concern was about their employee and employer relationship. She had wrote him a short letter saying, you need to come here as soon as you can – it's all your fault, and he had tried to be early but the day's activities had been many so at eleven p.m. he had knocked on her door. She was not late to answer and she showed him her living room with a casual wave of her hand, an too much of an introduction compared to the items in the room. In the middle was a horrible looking sofa, a weak table and a flickering picture box that the muggles entertained themselves with. Against the wall stood a huge, black bookshelf stuffed with every title of books that had once made it into a bookshop– as expected – and lastly a few solemn looking paintings of landscapes and one painting of a woman in a black cloak with a small, almost mischievous, smile.

"Is that your mother?" he asked, wondering where his curiosity about Grangers private life came from. He looked at the woman in the painting; she was not painted like his family members were in the moving paintings over at the manor but perhaps the woman in the picture was suppose to look like that.

Hermione smiled. "No, it's actually the Mona Lisa – well, not the original one but a copy."

"Who has the original?" he asked, one eyebrow raised in dislike towards the copy. "I know people."

Hermione laughed, more at him than with him because he was far from laughing. "The French has it," she said. "It's one of the most known paintings of the world," she added and turned around, heading towards her kitchen.

"I never heard of this Mona girl before," he muttered and followed her into the kitchen.

When he entered the kitchen more decorative disappointments hit him. The kitchen seemed to go in a mess of yellow toned dishes, curtains and feathers.

Like Hermione heard his thoughts she said, "I didn't dare to go into the kitchen to clean because of the constant fights between Charlie's Pixie and your eagle." It was with a disliking look that she pointed towards one of the cabin stops. "I couldn't get it down, it doesn't listen."

He recognized his beautiful eagle easily; its beak, its sharp eyes and its pride. "It's the most trained eagle there is, Granger," he said dryly. "It does whatever you say."

"Really?" Hermione replied, arms crossed in disbelief. "Because I spent my morning and afternoon, trying to summon that eagle."

"You must've ordered Beast to stay up there, that's the only way," Draco drawled. "Come down, Beast."

Like on queue the magnificent bird flew down and sat on his stretched out arm. The eagle dropped the heavy post on the floor and flapped its enormous wings, pleased. He rewarded his bird with one of the cheap owl-candies on Hermione's kitchen table, although he considered it to be an insult more than a reward.

Hermione gaped when she realized how Draco had summoned his owl. "Who names their eagle Beast?"

"A very intelligent man who wants to know who insulted his eagle," Draco said and smirked. "The flying eagle I mean, not my –"

"I don't care for what you call beasty but I'm sorry, for insulting the bird. Well, for the other thing too… I'm sure," Hermione interrupted hastily and reached for the letter on the floor. "But to my defense it's a really annoying bird. It fought The Daily Prophet owl and Charlie's Pixie."

He was amused. "The Beast never liked The Daily Prophets owl, it too often brings garbage to our house and he hates Charlie's Pixie because it feeds on Beasts breakfast, and baby eagles have a habit of being . . . lively," he explained. "Well the other thing too."

When Hermione only glared at him he asked, "Aren't you going to open that?" and looked interested in the package that he sent Hermione earlier that day.

"Yeah, finally. My curiosity has been killing me," Hermione admitted. He watched Hermione stroke one finger across the big, red seal on the letter before she tore up open and got seated on one of the chairs at the kitchen table. He watched her eyes dart in rapid speed across the first parchment that seemed handwritten from his angle. When she was done with the first she let it rest on the table and started to read the other parchments that came with the post, them too in rapid speed.

"Fly home, Beast," Draco ordered his bird, who rubbed his beak against his cheek before flying out the open window.

He shut the window behind him, shivering by the feel of wind that hit him and got seated in front of Hermione who seemed to take no notice of his existence. He saw that she had already managed to read through four pages of fine text. She didn't look extraordinary to the eye, he noted, she was simple looking with ordinary brown eyes but those eyes looked like a machine working on automatic and that alone was extraordinary.

He watched her turn page after page while mumbling sentences like, "It might be possible"and, "special reasons,". At one spot she even looked as she was smiling while reading, it was an odd thing he thought, smiling while reading. Lastly she had this annoying habit of wrinkling her nose almost unnoticeable after every page she turned, he noticed this when she reached the last page.

"Oh," Hermione said when she looked up from her papers and saw him stare right at her, still observing her carefully. "I forgot all about you."

"That's not a nice thing to say," he said with a pretend hurt in his voice.

"Neither is naming a pet Beast, but you did it," Hermione said, still hanging on to the past. "Moving on, these are papers about the camp. It's about the size, the number of dragons and so on. Basically these papers are filled with a lot of unnecessary statistics for this case. What you might know though is that your family is legal owners of the camp; it would have helped a lot if you had told me this earlier, Malfoy. Your grandfather wrote this when he agreed to fund the camp." She handed him a page.

… … …

A CONTRACT CONCERNING FUNDING: Written by Abrax Malfoy

I, Abrax Malfoy, entitle Ike Tatcher and his followers to run THE ROMANIAN DRAGON CAMP with my funding.
FUNDING AMOUNT: 100237 galleons, 17 sickels and 1 Knot.
In return THE ROMANIAN DRAGON CAMP entitles Abrax Malfoy and his current inheritor one dragon per man. Regardless to the dragons importance, race or/and health the dragon have to be given the current inheritor, regardless to the nature of the inheritors cause.
The finding amount will be paid every 50th year until the contract is broken by law or clans.

Ike Tatcher
THE ROMANIAN DRAGON CAMP

Abrax Malfoy
FUNDER

… … …

Draco looked at Hermione who were smiling. "What does this mean?"

"Are you serious? It means as the inheritor of the camp, you're given that dragon legally. That makes you its caretaker and that's a far better start than before," Hermione said accusingly. "And I heard you were the second best student in our class somewhere."

"Well, you heard wrong. It was the Rawenclaw Patil, and then Nott," he corrected. "Besides, this seems too good to be true, written by a Malfoy. But again there's the payment . . . the knot. . . No, there has to be something that jeopardizes everything."

"The payment? So far so good," Hermione said shrugging. "The only thing, really, is that now when you are listed as the caretaker of optional dragon you have to convince the English authorities that you need the dragon in England for the good of the dragon."

"Right," he said and thought about Jean. He was basically fighting for her death with a lawyer who was oblivious of the intentions of his. "There is one problem left thought," he added when he skimmed through the contract. "I'm not the inheritor, yet."

"Who is the – ?" she started but finished midsentence when she seemed to realize that he was in fact the son of the living Lucius Malfoy. Her lips were now struggling with saying something but they ended up being slightly parted and shaking. He watched her draw up her hand towards her mouth to cover a small gasp. She looked like she didn't dare to meet his eyes but when she did he saw her seeing all the inherited Malfoy features. Never before had he felt this conscious about his look, and hating it. Finding out what could make Granger shut up was not as much fun as Draco expected it to be. Truth was he disliked the whole situation.

"I better go," he said when Hermione started to look paler than he did. "But I will need my lawyer to assist me tomorrow. Meet me at three at the Pegasus Lake. Do you know where that is?"

She barely nodded.

"Okay. I'll find my way out by myself," he assured her before he stood up to leave.

Again, she barely nodded.

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[Day 18]

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He was sitting on a small bench, facing the Pegasus Lake when Hermione Apparated out of thin air. Honestly he never expected her to show up from the yesterday's events but when she finally did, seventeen minutes late, he thanked whatever sorcerer or sorceress that had helped him.

"You came," he said, wishing that he didn't sound as excited and relieved as he felt.

"You waited," she said shortly. He watched her tighten her hairdo, wondering why she bothered when there was hair constantly breaking free. He even considered offering her to loan his hair products, knowing that the tiniest straw of hair never came out of place when he used the products. Instead of suggesting that he listened to her say, "I'm your lawyer, Malfoy, and this is only affairs. I never let my personal problems get in between. We both know that is for the weak workers."

Draco was impressed by this new, tougher lawyer. "Reasonable," he said but secretly he wondered how this would go. She might've pretended like it didn't matter but to him, yesterday seemed to have shattered every fiber of trust he had built up and her coming back, determine to assist, might've saved some of that.

What he was going to ask her though could ruin everything, for both of them, again.

"So why did we meet up here at this lake?" Hermione asked.

Draco hesitated. "I need you as a juridical witness. Come."

He saw the summerhouse that he grew up in at the top of the hill in front of them, protected with all kind of spells. As they started to walk up towards it, Hermione still a bit resistant, he remembered playing catch with Blaise, Pansy, Gregory and Vincent around the white summer house and the lake. It was with a small smile that he remembered Vincent and how cruel he had been towards Blaise and Pansy when they were small. Neither of them could swim at that time but Vincent had thrown them in cold-bloodily nonetheless. Draco remembered him getting a toy for that from Mr. Crabbe and Gregory got a scolding. Gregory had joined in, of course, but not as viciously. Those were the good times according to Draco, carelessly running around and ordering the house elf's around.

When they reached the top of the hill he stood in front of the entrance door, seeing two people moving on the third floor of the white painted house. They seemed to be dancing or fighting, these days Draco did not know so he kept on watching the silhouette of the slim woman and the tall man. Considering the time, the purpose and the meaning of his visit carefully.

"What are you watching?" Hermione asked, curiously while she stared at a spot two windows from them.

Draco let out a dry cough and then faced her. "You mean you don't see them?"

"See whom?" Hermione asked and judging by her tone she sounded irritated. "Listen, Malfoy. If standing on top of a hill and staring at the sky was what you brought me here to do I'll have to say that it isn't what I am paid to do."

Draco sneered. "It's a house, Granger. A beautiful, white painted house from the mid 1900's designed by the French-Italian designer called Beux. Surely you must've heard of him, everybody has. It has golden details, the door however is blue, and its location is on this hill. I guess I'm one of the secret keepers of this house and now I'm telling you where it is."

Hermione's lips formed an 'O'. She must've thought of the place she hid in with the Order during the war, he thought, but somehow she didn't seem to see what he was seeing. He watched her squint her eyes towards the stair handle in front of her.

"I don't see all of it, this is clever," she murmured.

Draco gaped. "Are you serious, its right in front of you, you're staring at a handle. I told you."

"Tell me why the door is blue instead of throwing insults around, Malfoy." Hermione gave him a most serious stare. "You tell me it's all white and gold but tell me why the door is a misfit."

Of all the questions she could have asked him she asked the one question he didn't want to answer. "I won't tell you that."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "This is an Attachment charm mixed with the regular Security charms. The Fidelus will allow me to enter but I don't know where. Only the persons who are emotionally attached to anything attached to this building will see it. It's very clever, the only one who can break in are those with some kind of attachment to the location or its habitants. Tell me about the door, and if I see it I'll know why you brought me here. If I don't I'm done with this countryside hike. I have things to do at the office, Malfoy, so we better test my theory now."

Draco glared at Hermione, who overused his surname today, and watched her refuse to withdraw her demand. He hesitated before he said, "It was a very long time ago. I barely remember –."

"I don't even know why you bother with this," Hermione interrupted, venomously. "You're wasting your time and you are wasting mine."

"No, hear me out. I was not a day older than seven when that door was bought, we were hiding from the rest of the wizard community at that time," Draco snapped, the word 'time' stressing him out. He didn't want to tell her any of this, he hated the memory but her annoying face and those stupid charms were forcing him to relive that memory. "Listen, I know you're one of the good guys but you don't know anything about being pureblood. They were those – er, otherborn – who hated us like we hated them. Those who did worse things than the bad guys because they pretended to be good while hurting. If there's one thing you should know about the bad guys is that they never lie about being good. We are born bad, raised bad and we are expected to behave badly."

Hermione looked at Draco, puzzled, because with every word his voice seemed to go weaker and with every word Draco said she looked like she saw the same dark blue door that he looked at appear in the mix of grass green and sky blue.

"So some acquaintance to us told those that hated us about where we were hiding so they came. And then they took him and they said 'where's your son and grandson?' and he had told me that I should hide. He knew where I was and I hid . . . the stairs, under them. The door broke when they dueled, him with some blue flame and they with all kind of hexes. I saw them all. And he flew through the door, and he was old and bitter and I didn't like him much but he got hit for me, I guess. We bought a new door the day after. And –," Draco said and took a pause to reflect on what he was saying to Granger.

The first thing that came into mind was how much he had managed to say 'and', a nervous habit he trained away before Hogwarts, the second thing was that this was outrageous, personal and by far one of his most horrid memories. She was not suppose to know this much so he shortened it out. "I was a kid, okay, I didn't know much about anything I realize now but I got to pick a color for this door because, well, I always got my way, and I decided that we needed something that protected us."

"I'm so sorry," Hermione said and squinted towards the door, she seemed to see the entrance taking shape. "Tell me why did you choose blue?"

Draco didn't know why before l he spoke it out loud. "I remember my grandfathers blue flames when they dueled," he said. "I remember being protected by the color blue."

She must have seen the entrance, Draco thought, because she gasped. But he was proven wrong because she had whispered, "I didn't know these things happened," instead of admiring the fragments of house that she saw. He felt her place one hand on his shoulder for a brief second before she withdrew it quickly. He might've fantasized, or almost wished, that she actually cared about his silly child story because in his eyes she looked like she was genuinely sorry. For a second he even felt healed.

"So, you see the entrance now?" Draco said to try to shrug the story and the moment off.

Hermione nodded slowly. "Yeah, it's really beautiful but what are we doing here? I guess you have something in here that can help us."

"Kind of," he said. A pause and then he collected all the Malfoy wit in him. "I need you to follow me in and co-sign the Dragon Camp as my lawyer," he explained as fast as he can so that she would not be able to grasp what it truly meant.

It looked like it took a moment before it dawned to Hermione what Draco was asking of her. "You mean, you mean that he's in there. Your father," she almost stuttered to him. "And you want me to. . . I – I can't . . ."

"I can't what?" Draco asked, clearly the wrong thing to ask by the look of Hermione. She looked like she could not actually believe the logic in having a lawyer representing him during a business proposal. As she said earlier, it's just affairs.

She turned into a dragon in matters of seconds. "I CAN'T BELIVE YOU TRICKED ME HERE!" she shouted and hit him hard across the chest.

"I didn't trick you! I needed my LAWYER!" Draco shouted as a reply, now gritting his teeth between the coughs that came with Hermione's strike.

"HE CRUCIOED ME, DRACO," He heard Hermione shout.

In her anger she must have forget to call him by his last name. He saw the rage in her eyes and her lack of self-control turned her into a storm of anger. He realized that he had tricked her to come here, after yesterday he had dragged here to the house of the man who hurt her and he didn't know why but he felt bad. Really bad.

"Cruico me, CRUCIO ME RIGHT NOW," Draco demanded and without knowing how he had gripped her fists to stop her from hitting him. "Crucio me like he did to you and we will be even."

"I DON'T HATE YOU ENOUGH," Hermione shouted, pronouncing every word hard, and withdrew her burning fists away from him and looked at them like she'd been burning.

She paused, just staring at him. "And it's a pain you don't deserve."

"I deserve it, don't you see –," Draco retorted angrily but broke off his sentence when he realized what it was that he was going to say.

He wanted to tell her everything about him pushing her buttons from the start on purpose, about lying about Jean, about him having a fatal disease and about him scheming about killing a dragon so that he could live. . . He wanted to tell her that she was being a real lawyer, helping out scumbags instead of causing good, and somewhere deep down he had the urge of telling her that she should run away from him as fast as her legs could take her.

"Nobody deserves that kind of pain," Hermione said, tears in her eyes. "I know that I am your lawyer but I'm sorry. I can't go in there with you and if it comes down to that man I can't help you with this case either –," she whispered before she gave him a pair of eyes that burned themselves into his memory.

"I. . ." he started, thinking about saying I'm sorry but his mouth spoke other words. "I have to go in," he said but truth was he had never wanted to flee the summerhouse this much.

Hermione nodded, saying, "maybe you should seek a lawyer who can actually help you," before she left. He watched her heading towards the lake where he only could vision a half-drowning Blaise and a floating Pansy before. That image was now changed by Hermione Granger, drying herself up with her sleeve and turning around, looking defeated at him. "If you don't get this . . . this is the end," she said before Apparating with a crack! right on the spot.

He took a deep breath, collected his thoughts and knocked at the door. A minute later the door opened by his father. Lucius Malfoy was gripping the silver cane hard and he saw his own grays reflecting back at his father's clear, analyzing eyes. He always looked so small in those eyes.

"Hello, son, you arrive without your mother's lilacs I see," Lucius said like it was an everyday visit that Draco did. "The house elves are preparing dinner. Are you joining us?"

"Hello father, and yes – no flowers, I am solemnly coming here to take over some family businesses," Draco said and tried his best to feel more important than he looked.

"Where's you attorney then?" Lucius said, chilly. "There's no deal without anyone who knows how to fool the dealer I usually say."

"He could not assist," Draco said, his lie annoying him. "He will co-sign in his office when the ordeal has been taken care of, father."

"Very well," Lucius said and when Draco stepped in he closed the blue door behind him. "That can be arranged."

Draco, however, didn't feel safe behind the blue for the first time since childhood. Truth be told, he felt everything but safe when he felt his legs bent underneath him. It felt like Pansy's revenge when she finally surfaced and faced Vincent, Gregory and him; a punch that came so hard that before it went black you knew you would meet death. Pansy had been the only one that could've made him loose his breath and make Vincent cry, or even feel but she had nothing on Hermione, he realized, when the only place that hurt now was where her two small fists had hit him and somewhere inside him that he recently discovered existed. She had hit him good with all the force she had in her and as he steadied himself towards the wall instead of crumbling into a ball as he wished to do, his father's intense stare made him feel even weaker.

"You're so alike your grandmother," Lucius said and handed him his cane. "You have a tendency not to fall easily."

"It's a Malfoy trait," Draco said but he was startled that his father spoke about his mother.

"No, Malfoy's try to soften the fall, son. Not avoid it," Lucius said and handed his son his walking cane. "We are all destined to fall down and sacrifice our glory, only to hide in some summerhouse sooner or later." he added with contempt. "Because that, son, that is a Malfoy trait."

Draco stood alone in the hallway unsteadily on his father's cane, trying to inhale the nonexistent air. Once again his legs bent under him and once again he was determined to keep standing up and stay like that.

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