AN: Okay, so we're officially caught up to what I've (re)-written so far! Your reviews and feedback are so helpful and encouraging. It's great to hear how you find the characters I've written.
DramioneFever: I'm glad you like how Draco is responding! I've been enjoying writing him, as he is so complicated!
Mega70021: Thanks!
Le soleil brille pas pour toi: Glad you are liking the characterizations!
Draco trudged back upstairs. He now had an assignment from the Dark Lord, using a tool who currently mistrusted him. Bloody fantastic. He had no idea how to use Hermione to figure out what Potter was up to. He couldn't very well let her go ask; she'd be back in the clutches of the do-gooders and on their side in a second flat.
He supposed he could Imperious her, but given the Order knew she had been in Death Eater hands, they would undoubtedly check for the telltale signs before blithely spilling secrets. And then he risked her escaping and being back in their hands with additional information about him and the Manor to boot.
Polyjuice? They might check for that as well, and he doubted, heck he was sure, he didn't know enough about her comportment with her friends to believably extract information. Plus, it would put him in an unbelievable amount of danger. Better than Imperious though, in terms of detection, magically. Heck, that old bat Mad Eye had used it for a whole freaking school year under Dumbledore's nose.
Ugh, even if he could convince her to trust him again and to go speak with them herself, how would he explain that they'd treat her as a friend they'd been worried to death over? He really had no idea how to approach this and was baffled as to what the slimy-snake man had envisaged his role to be. Given the impossibility of his task the previous year, maybe he just expected more failure.
Draco spent the evening in his room brainstorming and researching. He read through old tomes of espionage, wrote out wilder and more fantastic ideas, charted out pros and cons lists… He found himself wishing he could ask for Hermione's help. He imagined her neat printed text as she researched the spells that could cause memory loss, her furrowed brow as she tested her skills against his in Transfiguration. A weaker man would have described the feeling coursing through him as missing her.
He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, feeling the pressure build. The hopelessness of this task was making him maudlin and nonsensical.
He looked at his list again. Once he'd thought through it, he realized that not knowing how to use Hermione to extract information was the least of his problems; he didn't even know how to find Potty. Hermione wouldn't even know how to contact him, what with her memory loss of his very existence. He picked up a book on communication spells again and hoped it would jog some ideas into his tired brain.
The next morning, Draco visited Hermione again. She had tottered over to her desk and sat in her pajamas, reading through one of the many books on memory she'd pulled from the library. He'd brought a peace offering - a set of rare books from deep within the Malfoy library on Dark Magic that touched on memory altering spells.
Her head whipped around when he entered, her face twisted into an expression of discontent.
"I know you're mad. I want to help," he offered.
He set the books next to hers on the desk, tilting the first one so she could see the title - Darkest Spelles to Control the Feeble Mind.
He dodged a stinging hex.
"Not the nicest books, I'm aware, but I thought the darker stuff might have the nastier spells you're really looking for. And no, I'm not implying you have a feeble mind, either."
She made a moue of disgust, but she reached for the books eagerly. The wrinkles from her face smoothed a bit as she started to flip through the first one. She flicked her fingers in dismissal.
He cleared his throat. "Also, I have a spell I think you will really like."
She scowled at him for interrupting. He couldn't help contrast that look with the smile she'd given him in the garden, with the bashful look when she'd asked him to kiss her... He flicked his eyes towards her finger. She still wore the ring, whatever that meant. He forged on and explained the spell he'd bought off the Ravenclaw for finding useful pages in books. Hermione dutifully copied his motions and squealed when the new books lit up like the night sky with her search words. She smiled at him for the first time in days, before quickly reschooling her face into that dreadful scowl.
Scowling accentuated her awful eyebrows he thought peevishly.
"Still. Angry," she explained, again making larger shooing gestures. "Or do you need it spelled out a bit more explicitly?"
Draco hesitated, wanting to capitalize on the brief smile she'd shown. It was a moment too long.
"Locomotor volex," she drawled, flicking her wand sideways. Draco felt as if a gust of wind crashed into his stomach and lifted him upward and back; he stumbled as he landed just outside her door. He looked up just in time to see her cast a non-verbal Clodoportus, slamming to door in his face.
Still angry indeed. He squelched his instinct to bang on the door with his fist to show her his anger in return and settled for stomping loudly down the hall to his room.
Draco ran his fingers through his hair, hard enough that he felt a few hairs pull from his scalp. A year ago, he'd have worried he'd go prematurely bald. Now, the only sort of premature he really worried about was the one that preceded death. He looked at the parchment before him again. The polyjuice potion seemed to be his only hope. Not a good option, but… well, actually it was his only viable option, so that was what he'd go with.
Now the question was how to obtain some. He was working on an official assignment, so he could probably swing some of the standing stock the Death Eaters kept. However, he'd also bragged to the Dark Lord that he had Hermione angry at the Order and ready to act against them. He wasn't sure how believable his excuse that she might be caught was.
Then again, it's not as if he had the time to brew the damned potion.
He banged his head softly against the desk, feeling the dull thud of the wood against his skull. Why was everything so hard?
On his sixth thud, an idea was knocked loose. Galleons. This was one of the few problems that faced him recently he could solve with money. He loved those sort of problems - easy and their completion left him with a sort of warm, superior glow that only flaunting his hereditary wealth and status could.
Moments later, a loud pop coincided with his disappearance from the room.
Landing in Diagon Alley, Draco pretended all was well. It was a technique his mother had taught him when the Dark Lord had moved into their home. Walk, talk, smile as if all is well and you'll slowly feel as if it's true. It didn't really work all that well living in a house of horrors, but out in Diagon Alley, with a sketch of plan… It was still easier thought than executed-the crowd was thin and moved quickly, heads down. A few storefronts had char marks on them, evidencing the scuffles between the Dark and the Light. The watery sunlight seemed to struggle to pierce the sombre clouds.
Nevertheless, Draco puffed up his chest, held his head high and stalked over to Slug & Jiggers Apothecary. The front window was filled with healing potions and concealment ointments and through the window he saw many more bustling witches and wizards than on the main thoroughfare. Stocking up for more danger. Draco's imaginary good bubble burst inside his head. Diagon Alley was no longer the kind of place one could walk safely with an ice-cream, eying the latest brooms and wet-start fireworks. It was sort of place for battles and -
Draco stopped just outside the door, arrested by his thought. Kidnappings. He'd been torturing his brain to figure out how to connect with Weaslebee and Potty-pants, when they were actively looking for her. He didn't need to find them, he just needed to be seen, as Hermione, and lure them… somewhere. The details of the plan were still vague but the flounce in his step as he stepped into the dim apothecary was strong and sure.
Draco sat in his room, bottle of Polyjuice potion on his desk, ready for the addition of a single tortuously curled hair (that'd carefully accio-ed from beneath the door, not being particularly keen on being seen by an already angry Hermione). He'd spent the better part of the previous day watching his memories of her in the family Pensieve. He'd watched the memory of her writhing on the floor under his aunt's wand even though it made him feel ill. He didn't know how Hermione acted in private with her friends, but he'd seen how she acted under torture, and a Hermione who'd miraculously "escaped" from Death Eater clutches would be, he decided, more similar to the woman who'd wiped her own memory under torture than the school he'd watched answer every question at school.
But he watched them all anyways.
And he'd called Mipsy to watch him walk and talk with a test batch of the Polyjuice. She'd been delighted to help Young Master plan a surprise for Young Mistress and had watched him intently, barely blinking as he'd tried to mimic the way she tugged on her hair and bit her lip when thinking, or how she'd hitch her shoulders back, just an inch, when she disagreed. It had taken hours - not only because it was hard, but because extracting feedback from the deferential drivel house elves spouted was nigh impossible. But what other options did he have?
The set of robes he'd Transfigured to match the ones she'd worn in Diagon Alley - plus some added rips and grime to account for her struggles in her escape - sat on his bed, ready for his use once he was in Hermione's smaller frame.
He called Mipsy in and gave her a few final instructions, before he dropped the hair into the drink. It frothed and bubbled and turned a creamy, caramel color. He grimaced and chugged the potion; he was surprised it tasted of cinnamon and chocolate, not whatever ground animal parts and human hair should have tasted like. Or what potions like Skelegro did taste like.
Moments later, a frantic Hermione Granger stumbled across the edge of the Malfoy property and Apparated to Ottery St. Catchpole.