A/N: I have a BETA! Non-offically, but still! *doing a happy dance* I needed one really bad!

Disclaimer: I'm a looney fan girl who bows at the feet of JKR. I do not think I am her, or that HP is mine in any way shape or form. I live to serve her, not take her place. (I also don't own any of the music I've chosen.)

Chapter 8- Your Song

Hermione's fingers lightly touched the fall that hid the black and white keys of the baby grand piano she sat at. The black wood felt cool and hard to the touch, and despite the memories she had at the sight of the instrument, she couldn't keep herself from lifting the fall and exposing the keys.

She set one finger on an ebony stick, pressing down, and listened as the note rang loudly in the Room of Requirement that would be her new home for a few days until she moved to Malfoy Manor. She was still trying to wrap her head around why Minerva had chosen Draco to help her, and why the room she now sat in had wanted her to have a piano, of all things.

After recovering from the Calming Draught, and having the biggest breakfast she'd eaten since the last time Molly Weasley cooked for her, Minerva had given her a set of tight fitting, all black dress robes to change into. She had then escorted Hermione to the seventh floor corridor where the room was hidden, informed her that only herself, Hermione, Harry, and Malfoy were allowed to enter, and then skirted off to meet with the Aurors.

Minerva hadn't listened to Hermione when she said that Le Don would still be able to get through the new wards, and Hermione stared after the woman with a look of worry.

She could only begin to guess as to why the room had given her so many open windows, and a lone black piano. She had been thinking of her home in Thailand when she'd paced up and down the hallway waiting for the door to appear; a room with a connected bathroom, a sleeping mat, a training mat, a small table with a tea set, a bookshelf, and window seat. Simple.

'I guess the room gave me what I truly required?' she mused. Her mother used to tell her that music soothed the soul, and perhaps the room knew she needed soothing and that connection to her mum.

'I should leave, but- bloody Minerva! I hate how she can still make me feel like a child unable to say no to an adult,' Hermione thought, 'I should be leaving. Even if I left alone, Le Don would STILL come back here, and he'd pick this place apart to find me. But if I really do leave, then he won't have any excuse to return here. He'd be forced to find me in whatever way he used to find me the other day…'

Hermione had asked the date, and she'd only been gone from Tanet's for four days…

'How did he find me?'

She knew that question was a stupid one. The man could find anyone, or find someone to find someone for him. His reach was vast, and powerful, and she should have been surprised it had taken him three years to track her down, not surprised that he had succeeded.

She pressed a white key, and she basked in the high pitched sound she hadn't heard in many years… Not since Le Don.

Hermione could not believe that she had told her old Professor about him, and how she had been in love with someone so foul! She scowled at herself as she remembered the look on Minerva's face at her slip. She hadn't been ready to tell her that part, not yet. Hermione had only meant to warn Minerva about what Le Don was capable of so that she could get the school as prepared as possible.

She swallowed a pang of guilt at the thought of Le Don being anywhere near the school, because she knew that dangerous fuck had only entered the grounds because of her; because of what she'd told him before she'd found out that he killed people for a living.

She brought both of her hands up onto the keyboard, and she began to let them move, rather stiffly, to start playing her mother's favorite song.

She'd told Le Don of her affinity for music, and her mother's love for Elton John, and he'd played and sang the song to her at random moments. She'd especially loved it when he sang to her in French; so much so that she made him teach her how to play it so that she could sing it too.

She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat, replaced the newly empty space with air, and blinked back the tears that were already beginning to fall. She'd practiced breathing through the times that she remembered what Le Don had done to her parents, and even though it had been three years, she cried every time she thought of her mother and father - and the last time they'd all been together…

'It's been a long time,' she sighed to herself, as her fingers stumbled over the keys at first, looking at them with wet eyes, before she willed herself to breathe deeply once more and relax her hands.

()()()()()

Draco's sleep had been far longer than any he'd had all school year.

He'd managed to have a full three hours before he woke up to get ready. He still had the dark circles under his eyes, and he still needed a cup of coffee before he was even able to fathom a shower, but he almost felt normal; or at least as normal as he had felt in years. The headache he'd been harboring had even been reduced to a small aching in the muscles at the top of his neck, below the occipital ridge, and his ribbon was back in his hair.

The night before, or early that morning rather, had been so exhausting that Draco could barely remember the hour he spent angry prior to his slumber.

He'd contemplated resigning. He'd considered telling McGonagall to stick her wand where the sun didn't shine. But he'd considered all of this to be his own fault. Not the part with Granger, of course, but the fact that he had quite literally begged Minerva for this position, and technically that made him have to lie in the grave he'd dug for himself.

If he had just stayed home and drank fire whiskey until his liver disintegrated, he wouldn't have had to deal with the fact that he was going to have let Hermione Fucking Granger hide out at his childhood home and assorted other properties. He also wouldn't have had to start brewing a long list of potions for the witch either.

Half of said potions, the ones that were easier to brew and took hardly any time at all to finish, were inside of his robe pocket; as well a few extras. He'd charmed his pocket to have twenty little vial pouches.

His class had ended only five minutes or so ago, and he had walked out with the students, locking the door behind him, on a mission from McGonagall to care for a witch who hated his guts.

'I'm not a healer!' Draco growled inwardly, 'I just know how to brew the damn potions! Granted, I can brew all of them to perfection. And I can also tell the amount to administer simply by knowing a person's mass…' Draco sighed. No, he wasn't a healer, but he was more than capable of finishing the work that Poppy had started.

Draco knew that the battered witch in question was healing rapidly, and he hoped that he would be able to give her the potions she needed, and soon be done with the task of taking care of her. He was also ready to go find this "Le Don" himself, and Avada him into oblivion for not just killing the stupid bint and leaving Draco out this!

He could blame Granger for being the runaway who started all of this drama, but she had wanted to stay gone! This French-sounding bastard had been the one to bring her back against her will.

'Why would he bring her here? What was he playing at by bringing her back like that? Did she owe him money? Was he a jilted lover looking to get revenge on his paramour? Granger as a paramour, that was rich!' Draco let himself crack a smile at the joke he'd just made to himself. 'I really must have gotten sleep! I feel almost chipper!'

Yes, Draco Malfoy would have been very chipper if it hadn't been for the looming cloud of darkness that now hung over the castle, with only McGonagall, Potter and himself being aware of its existence.

The second Draco rounded the last corner, Harry Bloody Potter came around the corner at the opposite end of the hall. Both of them froze mid stride at the sight of the other, and even with the length of the hall, Draco could tell that the other wizard wore a face of displeasure. Draco was sure he wore the same face, and he made sure to deepen it as he continued his path to stand right in front of the wall that hid the Room of Requirement.

Potter must have gotten the same note from Minerva stating that Granger had been moved from the infirmary during last period - and that she would be awaiting him after his last class - for the dark haired wizard came to a stop just before Draco, folding his arms over his broad chest.

The two men eyed each other wearily, and Draco was reminded of the yelling match the two had barely avoided that morning after leaving Minerva's office. Potter still looked pissed, and it was probably due to Draco's wishing the man "sweet dreams of Granger's flat arse!"

He'd been tired, and couldn't think of anything else to say. So he jibed at the bastard for calling Granger "perfect". She was far from perfect, what with having a body that resembled a board. Draco had to smirk at the memory; it caused Potter's dark brows to furrow somehow closer together.

"Tosser," Potter spat before pacing in front of the wall to cause to hidden door to appear. Draco eyed the other man for a moment, before turning to the door and waiting for him to open it. Instead, Potter knocked on the door. After a few seconds of waiting without an answer, Potter knocked again.

"There's no way Minerva convinced her to stay," Draco began, "She ran away again, Potter. Let's go." The only response Draco received was a vile hand gesture, before Potter's hand was on the door again, rapping a little louder than last time.

"Bollocks!" Potter spat, and the hand was off the wood and on the doorknob in an instant, opening the door quickly, only for the sound of music to escape from whatever silencing charm the room used to conceal things. Draco had a momentary unpleasant memory of the room concealing the sound of birds chirping.

The song was soft, and melodic, and not very complicated; but even through the random fumble, Draco could not deny that it was beautiful. Nor could he deny the beauty of her voice; it lacked power, but brimmed with sweet, controlled inflexibility.

Both of the men froze once more, but this time at the sight before them.

Hermione Granger sat on the bench of a baby grand piano, the only piece of furniture inside of the room, her back to the door, facing out to a large expanse of open windows.

Her back was set in a straight, ridged line, one even Minerva would be jealous of, and her shoulders hardly moved as her hands moved back and forth along the keys. She wore what almost looked to be a mourning dress that was pitch black, with a high neck, and long tight sleeves. The robes, which Draco figured must have been one of Minerva's old numbers, reached the floor in a soft puddle, where her feet moved below the fabric on the pedals.

The witch's hair was pulled into a braid that began at the top of her head and ended just below her moving shoulder blades. His treacherous eyes moved lower than the end of her hair, to the small of her waist, to the flare of her hips, to the arse he had made fun of some hours ago. He cocked an eyebrow, realizing that she was in fact endowed with a nice, round rump.

He'd gotten a glimpse of it the night before, but Draco hadn't been thinking about her being nearly naked while she bawled into her hands. He'd simply noticed that she was exposed and had corrected the problem. Now it was becoming his problem, because he had to force his eyes to turn away from where they'd settled for too long.

But with the moving of his gaze, it fell onto the face of the wide eyed, slack jawed, pink cheeked Harry Sodding Potter. The bloke was smitten. Draco was thankful that at least he knew how to school his features to reveal nothing even though just seconds before he had been probably noticing the same things Potter was still staring at.

He was broken from his inspection of Potter at the sound of the witch's voice returning, and there was a minute that he didn't realize she was singing in French. The Malfoy family consisted of quite a few French relatives, and Draco had been tutored in the language from a young age.

"Tu peux le dire а tout le monde, c'est ta chanson
Elle est peut-кtre simple, mais fais pas attention
Oh ne m'en veux pas, oh ne m'en veux pas, tout ce que j'ai voulu faire
C'est dire que je suis heureux que tu sois sur la terre."

Draco couldn't help his face from twitching at her words, a twitch that veiled the ghost of a smile. He had never heard this song before, but had to admit that he already liked the lyrics. When she turned to singing in English, Draco liked them even more.

"I sat on the roof and kicked up the moss
Well, a few of the verses, well, they've got me quite cross
But the sun's been quite kind
While I wrote this song
It's for people like you that
Keep it turned on."

Potter was the first to move from his spot at the open door; he'd finally composed himself, and he turned around to close it. The sound was somewhat quiet in comparison to the piano, but it made a resounding "thud" none-the-less. Draco didn't know if the man had wanted to startle the witch from her performance, but he was annoyed that he had. He'd never say it aloud, but he'd been strangely calmed by the sound of her playing.

'In spite of the technical issues, mum would have loved that…' Draco thought whimsically of his mother, as she used to be, just as the witch's hands stopped their concerto. It was still a common practice, what with the strict quasi-Victorian upbringing that still constricted the majority of pureblood society, that most women learned an instrument at a young age. His mother had chosen the piano.

Draco watched the witch's hands move down to hold onto the bench on either side of her, which drew his eyes down to flicker over her arse for a long second, and then they were back to her profile. She'd turned her head ever so slightly to the side, looking at the two of them with one eye over a slender shoulder.

"Minerva said you would be coming to see me," the woman stood then, and she moved from her spot between the bench and the piano, and turned to look at them.

Draco was slightly disturbed at the sight of her, because she looked so similar to McGonagall. Draco might have thought that he'd used a time-turner and went back to 1958, or some shite, when McGonagall was young and newly a professor, except for the hair, which even a braid couldn't fully conceal from being just so Granger.

The other thing that led Draco to know that this was indeed Hermione was the pair of brown eyes he was staring into. The bruising on her face had already faded to a light discoloration along her jaw. She stood two or so meters away, her hands clasped in front of her, with a look that screamed defiance. Draco knew that look; that was the look she got when she was about to be a bossy little shite!

What little skin he could see that wasn't covered by the high-necked, ankle-length robe, was so much darker than when last he saw her, and her braided hair showed highlighted sections. She'd obviously been outside a lot while she was away. Her body, which was being cinched way too attractively by her dress for Draco's comfort, was tight and obviously muscled. Her arms were toned and slim, her stomach was flat and hinted at more muscle, and her hips and the part of her thighs he could see were unforgiving. Her breasts were small, and sat below strong shoulders and a slim neck.

It was so fucking weird! This Granger looked as tough as she used to pretend to be; when she'd make that particular face that warned Draco that she was going pull her wand and threaten him! He absently thought of the soreness that his stomach had harbored before going to sleep. He'd taken some potions to get rid of it, and he'd awoken without the soreness, or the foot-shaped bruise.

"Good to see you too, Granger." Draco said, lifting his lip in the growl that threatened to leave him. Sure, he found the Granger before him somewhat attractive for a Minerva doppelganger, but he wasn't about to let the bitch look at him like he was the insensitive one who ran away five years ago. Draco had stayed instead of running like a coward, and he had faced his problems, and was trying to right his mistakes.

'This bitch is going to stand there and give us the shite looks? Well she has another thing coming.' Draco folded his arms across his chest in a pose to match her indignation.

"I was surprised to hear that Minerva had allowed a cunt onto her staff," Draco wanted to grin, because that word sounded especially filthy coming off of the lips of the infallible Hermione Granger.

"There is only one position open for that at a time, and she'd already given the job to Potter." The man scoffed, "Good thing that you aren't planning on sticking around, because that would leave you without a job." The witch's eyes dared to hint amusement at his retort, and he flashed the look in return, before he quickly turned his expression back to one of indifference. Confusion flitted across her face before she landed back on indifference as well.

"What have you brought for me, then?" Granger asked, looking between them both. Draco glanced to Potter, who looked put out by the witch's words. "Potions," she said pointing to Draco, "-and..?" She looked to Scarhead, and Draco wanted to burst into a fit of very unmanly giggles, but settled on a small smirk. He could watch her be a snatch to the dark haired wizard all day long. Especially if it caused him to look like he did at that moment. He looked hurt! And so pathetic!

"I brought all of the extra wands from the store room, at McGonagall's request." Granger stiffened as Potter brought a long box out of his spelled pockets, and opened it to show her the ten or so wands within.

"I've already told you that I do not use magic anymore." The witch looked even more defiant. 'How is that even possible?' Draco thought.

"If you are going to be safe, you need a wand. If you would have had your wand, you might have been able to fight off whoever attacked you." Draco didn't miss the near silent scoff the witch gave to her friend.

"It wouldn't have helped, trust me. I haven't used my wand in years. I am so out of practice, it probably wouldn't have done me any good."

"Did you break it?"

"Not everyone likes to destroy shite like you do, Potter!" Draco glared at Potter's question. 'Wanker,' Draco sniffed inwardly. He'd long ago guessed at what the dumbshite had done to the Elder Wand. And the incredulous look that Potter gave him now confirmed his suspicions. Stupid, bloody Gryffindor, wearing his emotions on his face so obviously

However, anything Potter might have said was cut off by the witch continuing, confessing,

"No. It's under a floorboard in my house in Thai… Land…" Draco piqued at this information, and looked between the two. He noticed Potter's tight-jawed expression at Granger's confession, and figured his sour face had almost halted her words. But Draco ignored it.

"Thailand? I was there only a couple of summers ago," Draco said, almost pleasantly, and he looked up at the woman as she turned her eyes to him.

"For the transsexual hookers?" Potter was the first to reply, and Draco glared at him. "Or was it the little boys?" Draco fumed at this, and he ignored Granger's smirk.

"No, Potter. For your information, it was for business. There is a fish there that excretes a neurotoxin I need for a certain potion; a hard-hitting Calming Draught that Poppy has me brew; a potion you love so much." The wizard's green eyes flared, and he pressed his lips together in a tight line. Draco took the man's lapse of silence to continue, "Don't presume me so inept, Scarhead. You walk around like a zombie! I can tell who's taking what, even if I am not the person giving it to them directly.

"Oh! While we're on the subject, do you need more? I brought a little extra for your- girlfriend." Draco patted his pocket, gave the woman a meaningful look, and was pleased with the looks of displeasure on the two faces that glared at him. He could not care less; Potter had insinuated he touched kids! 'Fucking tosser,' Draco thought as he returned the glare.

"I see you still make a habit of going around sharing everyone's secrets." Granger finally found her words, which didn't surprise Draco in the slightest.

"I do not! Don't be daft! I just figured that we're all friends here. Aren't we Granger?" he sneered. Draco had missed this! The rush of provoking Granger and Potter. To hell with Minerva's contract, this was worth a million careers! He could do this all-day-long! Draco was suddenly excited about the situation at hand. He couldn't wait for the weekend, when he would be on his turf, and he could harass the two of them endlessly. This situation is looking up, indeed.

"Why did Minerva even ask you to do this?" Potter asked, turning to fully face Draco.

"Because Poppy tried to overdose your girlfriend here on Strengthening Potion! The old bint actually thought it would help with her muscle trauma. But I wouldn't expect you to understand that "Defense Professor"."

"If I was your friend," Hermione interjected, "you'd call me by first name." Draco blinked, for the witch had ignored the other things he had said to zero in on this. She continued in his confused silence, "You also wouldn't call us daft, or harass us endlessly! Oh! Wait! I remember who you consider "friends". Get any new tattoos since I went away?"

Draco almost called her more foul names, but instead opted for a cocky smile and purred, "Why yes, I did. If you ask Scarhead here to leave, I could show them to you." Potter nearly growled from the space beside him, and the witch before them let her face flash a look of surprise.

Although Draco kept the cocky smile on his face and the same relaxed pose of his body, inside he cringed. Had he really just inadvertently propositioned Granger of all people? It had only been a couple of months since Easter Holidays, when he had last been laid, so was he really so desperate that he had to hit on a damaged muggleborn? No, he was above that. He was just pestering her.

"You can go bugger yourself," Granger replied sharply.

"I'll get right on that, Hermione, right after I give you your potions." Draco finally moved from his spot at the door and walked past the witch, being sure to go around her with a large breadth of space, and closed the piano lid. He began emptying his pocket of potions, setting them on top of the fine wood.

"Take a wand, Hermione," Potter cajoled after Draco started sorting out what he needed to. He remembered the list that Poppy had sent to him, and he busied himself while he listened to Potter and Granger.

"No, Harry. It is already too much for me being back here. I need more time to adjust before I go back to using magic."

"So you're going to stay? You're not leaving again?"

"I don't know! I can't say no to McGonagall, never really have been able to… But I know that if I am going to be able to come back into this world, it will have to be with her help. Now I am not saying that I am going to stay here forever… Harry- it is likely that this will not end well for me. I do not wish to lead you into believing that I am back for good. You don't know what I have dealt with since I left, I don't expect you to; but I do expect you to be ok with the fact that I am not ready to talk about it yet."

"Tell me, Hermione, so that I can understand! Please tell me what happened. Tell me where you've been. I want to know, and I want to help you." Draco couldn't help but look up from his task at the man's words, and he noted how much closer together the two were. Draco frowned at them.

"I'm not ready to tell you yet, Harry. I don't know if I can ever talk about everything that happened. I've- I've told Minerva what I have out of necessity, but I-"

"You can tell her and not me?" Draco turned his eyes back to the potions at the other man's words. 'Awk-ward…' he thought.

"I had to tell her. She has to keep the school safe." Granger's voice was getting smaller and less self-assured.

"From who? Le Don?" Granger didn't answer. "Who is he Hermione?"

Draco's eyes were back to them, and he saw that Potter's hands were on the witch's upper arms, keeping her from turning away from him. Draco controlled the urge to walk over and slap Potter in the face. 'He's going to get her worked up again!' Draco didn't realize that he took a step toward them, forgetting his potions for a moment in his newly found concern for the woman's mental state.

"Yes! From Le Don!" Draco's brows went up at the confirmation. "I don't know why he left me here, I don't! And I hate to guess at his motives because they are always so, so dark!" Draco was already confused about this "Gifted Bastard" – that's what Draco had decided to call him- and now she was giving him even more to decipher. 'Dark? Dark Wizard?'

Not that he cared too much about deciphering the loon's past. He had enough lunacy in his life already.

"Stop beating around the bush, Hermione." It was Draco who spoke this time, even if he didn't really care. They both started. They had forgotten that he was there as their conversation heated up. He moved from behind her to stand next to Potter, who let his hands fall from the woman's arms. "You need to tell us, because you're putting us in danger by keeping us in the dark!"

"Malfoy's right," Potter bit out in a voice that indicated just how much it pained him to say those two words. Inwardly Draco crowed at hearing Potter say something aloud that he never expected to hear. Later he would gloat over this, but now was not the time. So Draco resisted the urge to even look sideways at his coworker and instead kept his face hard and stern as he looked at the witch. "Do you remember all of those times Dumbledore kept us in the dark? Hm?" Potter continued. This sparked a look on the woman's face, but Potter didn't stop to analyze it, "You know how much easier our school years would have been if he'd told us of the Horcruxes earlier?! You need to let us know because we need to be able to help keep the school safe, too! We work and live here. Our home and hundreds of children are threatened by your problems, and you're going to let us wonder what in the fuck is going on until we're dead? Or raving loons?

"I mean, listen to me! I just agreed with Malfoy!" When Potter acknowledged this a second time, Draco considered if this was the right time to gloat. He allowed a small twitch of his lip as he nodded at the witch, and pointed his thumb at man beside him, to show her he was on the same page as Potter.

Draco found himself falling into a strange comradery with Potter in order to gain information as he stated, "What he said! I'm also worried about whether or not I'm going to beaten to death, or if students are going to be killed in the middle of the night! You brought this here, Hermione, and now you have to tell us!" She stepped back from them, hands raised to push them away from her. Draco hadn't realized they'd been advancing on her, and she was now backed up against the piano.

"Shut up!" She shrieked, and she let the tears fall that had become welled on the length of her lids. "Stop talking to me like I am some child! I know what's going on! I get I made the choice to run away. Unfortunately, I was brought back here by a lunatic! Minerva knows who he is and that is all that matters! I can't tell you! Not yet!"

"After all we've been through together, Hermione, you can't tell me who almost killed you?!" Potter was fuming, while Draco kept up his calm façade. Watching Potter yell at Granger was an interesting change.

"You know his name already!"

"And you know what I mean! Who is he? Why would he do this to you?" Potter's voice was rising quickly again, and Draco was on guard to keep Potter from grabbing her again. He hadn't liked that at all, even though the wizard hadn't been rough with her. He made a point to think about why it mattered later, but for now they had her on the brink, and Draco was happy for just a fleeting second when she said,

"You really want to know that badly? Have you ever heard of curiosity killing the cat, Harry?"

"I hear that satisfaction brought her back," Draco drolled suggestively to her idiotic attempt at avoiding the subject 'Really? Again with the words leaving my mouth before I think them completely through?' he commented inside his head with surprise. The witch turned her angry eyes to Draco, and she snapped,

"Will it satisfy you to know that he was my lover?"

Draco was shocked to realize that the joke he had made to himself upon waking to see her didn't seem so funny now. Instead it filled him with dread.

A/N: The piano part might be cheesy, or whatever, but it's kind of important. Kind of… For Draco and Le Don's sake. I can't wait to write for him! Gah! I'm so excited!

A Harry POV next!

(Your Song- Elton John (French translations by Michel Delpech))