A/N: Oh my god, I had an awesome birthday! Thank you guys for wishing me a happy birthday, it was so cool to see that you all had said something. More of my reviewers wish me a happy birthday than my friends. Sad right? Eh, anyway. I had a good day. So there.
There's more fairly obvious foreshadowing in this chapter, so just keep that in mind. Heh heh.
Disclaimer: By the time I own Harry Potter, I promise you that you will able to hold an intelligent conversation with a dust bunny named Joey. It will hit on you and ask for your number. Seriously.
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Chapter 10: Too Close For Comfort
They were waiting for them. When Malfoy once again entered the Gryffindor common room with Hermione a step behind him, he found Harry and Ron playing a disinterested game of chess, with Ginny reading Witch Weekly. They all immediately looked up, thankfully the only ones in the common room, all their faces relieved that she was no longer crying. Not wanting to be in a room with four upset Gryffindors, he quickly fled to Hermione's room. However Ron was up out of his seat in less than a second and blocked Malfoy's path, placing his hand on the door to prevent it from opening. Malfoy glared up at him, he was a few inches shorter, and clenched his hand into a fist, knowing he couldn't harm Weasley.
"Going somewhere, Malfoy?" Ron snarled. Hermione rolled her eyes and placed a hand on Ron's shoulder.
"Ronald, let him go." The redhead sent her a shocked look and did as he was told, letting Malfoy slip through the door. "Thank you. Now sit down next to Harry and I can explain what's going on." He blinked up at her as she took a deep breath. "He's going to be living with me in my dorm." She braced herself for his explosion.
"WHAT?" Ron started, as Harry scowled and Ginny turned back to her magazine, knowing she would get the details later. "HE'S LIVING WITH YOU!"
"Shut up, Ronald! No one can find out!" she hissed, thinking of all the possible Gryffindor spies that could wake up and find them. Ron paid no attention and continued to yell, his voice echoing through the empty common room.
"HE'S DANGEROUS, HERMIONE! HE'S A BLOODY ROGUE DEATH EATER!" She cringed, knowing he was somewhat correct. "HE COULD BE SPYING FOR YOU-KNOW-WHO! YOU KNOW HOW EASY IT WOULD BE FOR HIM TO KILL YOU IN YOUR SLEEP!"
"Shut up, Ron!" she repeated, preparing to silencio him.
"NO I WILL NOT SHUT UP! HE MAY BE HANDSOME BUT HE'S A MURDERER!"
"Silencio!" Hermione yelled back, hitting Ron. He delivered another insult before realizing she couldn't hear him. "Now listen to me and listen well because I'm only going to say this once. Malfoy poses no threat to us so you will not harm him in any way. I am Hermione White as you well know, and I am faited to end up with him so you better get used to him being here." Harry's scowl faded as he noticed how uncomfortable she was with the idea. "Malfoy's here for his own protection as well as mine. No one was supposed to find out that he is here so you can't tell anyone, though they probably already know, no thanks to you." He didn't believe her but looked ashamed just the same. Harry, who hadn't spoken until now, said,
"I don't trust him but I trust you, Hermione. How he acts in Gryffindor tower will be a reflection on you." She nodded, knowing this was hard for him.
"I know Harry. He won't spend much time in here anyway." Hermione sighed and released Ron from the spell.
"Just watch him, Mione," he said, his voice tense. "And keep him out of my sight."
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Malfoy was sorting through his trunk next to the fire when Hermione entered her room, just a little worried. Ron's confrontation had lead her to realize that if Malfoy took up residence in her dorm, not only would Voldemort use that to his advantage and rumors would spread, but the school's reaction would be like Ron's. He would have to stay hidden to a degree; they would both have to be careful.
"What are you doing?" she asked tiredly as she sat down across from him. He didn't respond, only scowled as he pulled a sleeve of parchment out of the trunk and threw it into the fire. They watched as the edges of the paper curl up and shrivel, turning black. "Malfoy?"
"I'm destroying anything my father could use to contact me," he snarled as he resumed scavenging in his trunk. "Letters, photos, anything flammable. My father favored paper, it was easier to destroy if someone picked up his trail." She nodded and he pulled a photo album out from under a pair of navy dress robes and chucked it into the fireplace without a second thought. It fell open, and she winced as the people in the pictures screamed silently as their faces faded.
"Need any help?" she asked timidly. He looked up and sent her a blank look, obviously a no. "Fine, but I need to ask you a question."
"What now?" With a curious glance towards the dress robe, he pulled it out and laid it on the floor, checking it for traces of surveillance charms. His wand buzzed, and he growled out, "The bastard is keeping tabs on me!" before the cloth hit the fire.
"I need to know whether or not you're a death eater." He looked up again, his face blank once again. It unnerved her, and she picked an imaginary speck of lint off her skirt. Instead of an answer, he dropped the watch he had been examining and began unbuttoning his shirt, from the top frown. She blushed, but couldn't pull her eyes away from his pale chest, crisscrossed with long slash scars. "W-what are you doing?" she asked nervously.
"Giving you an answer." He slid his shirt off his shoulders. She sighed in disappointment when she saw the black skull on his left arm, avoiding his eyes.
"Was it consensual?" she asked, fearing his answer. He gave a short harsh laugh.
"It's not sex, White, it's a bloody tattoo," he drawled with a noticeable sense of false confidence. She glared at him, before hissing,
"We both know it's a whole lot more than a bloody tattoo." He sighed, his mocking smirk fading in less than a second. She leaned over, placing her hands on the top of his trunk.
"It was at first," he admitted quietly, raising a hand to scratch the dark mark nervously. "I was thrilled, completely willing, but I began to regret it when I saw what I had gotten myself into." Hermione's face softened as she realized how honest he was being with her. "It was so much more than bragging rights and influence, it was servitude to a lunatic." He humorlessly snickered to himself, reaching for his shirt. But before he could even so much as touch the sleeve, she extended a hand over the trunk to run her finger over a long scar that started at his breast bone and ran down his stomach to disappear under his pants. Malfoy flinched.
"How did you get all of these?" He pushed his trunk away with his foot so she could come closer, kneeling between his legs. Neither of them realized how intimate their position was, Malfoy was distracted by the feeling of her cool fingers against his skin. Hermione was simply horrified by the criss-crossing raised lines running along his chest like an intricate spider web.
"How do you think? This is the Dark Lord's preferred type of painful torture." She sucked in a breath as she noticed that several of his scars got deeper red as they went down, though most of which were not in her view.
"Can I see… um," she started, blushing as she motioned to his zipper. He gulped, but nodded, watching with no comment as her small fingers hesitantly unzipped his gray trousers. Hermione pulled on his belt loops as he shifted his weight onto his hands so she could guide them down his legs. Her eyes widened as she saw how they circled around his hips and that several were cut off by the waistband of his cotton boxers, only to reappear where the boxers ended and continue down his legs. "My god, Malfoy, these are terrible! Have you tried healing them?"
"It's part of their magic, they can't be healed. I usually illusion them." His heart seemed to beat in his throat as she placed her hand on his thigh to turn his leg over and better see a faded bruise that darkened under his knee. Something, that little voice repeated. You like her, you know you do. Unable to resist the moment and desperate to distract himself, he drawled,
"You gonna polish my wand while you're down there?" She laughed nervously and slapped him on his leg, but she backed up. However, since the fates were against her today, she had forgotten that his pants were around his ankles and she tripped over them, landing on her back. He chuckled softly as he gave her his hand to pull her back up. "Relax White, it was only a joke, but could you imagine the look on Patil and Brown's face if they walked in right now?" He smirked as he stood up, puling up his pants. "Or Weasley? That would be worth good money."
"If you're done poking fun at my friends, may we return to the matter at hand?" Hermione huffed, handing him his shirt.
"What was the matter at hand?" he asked back, straight faced. Hermione was not amused.
"You being a death eater. Is there any chance that Voldemort could summon you?" He hissed at the name but shrugged and responded,
"It's always a possibility, but I haven't seen him in months. Professor Snape told me to see him if I were, so I imagine the order with prepare for that." She nodded. Malfoy closed his still open trunk and sat on its lid, rubbing his eyes. "But we should probably worry about your little boyfriends instead, seeing as I'm not exactly welcome here." She sighed, knowing this was true, and sunk down into an armchair across from him.
"They'll be okay once Professor Lupin talks to them. What we need is a way to let you come in and out of the tower without anyone else finding out you're here." She pulled her hair out of her eyes and put it into a quick bun, trying to concentrate. He rolled his eyes at how it remained a bushy ball of fuzz at the back of her head, and began to button up his shirt. "I suppose we could get you an invisibility cloak, but those get cumbersome and would become a hindrance. What we need is to find a second entrance to my rooms from the hallway."
"And where exactly would we find out about a hidden passage way to your dorms, White?" he asked sarcastically. She didn't notice and continued plotting.
"What we need is a reliable map of Hogwarts, something that shows us stuff hardly anyone knows about," she voiced aloud. "Duh! Why didn't I think of it before?" She sprung up and left the room, leaving Malfoy to wonder what had happened. When she returned a few minutes later, she held a wrinkled sheet of parchment, and laid it on her coffee table. He stood up to lean over her shoulder as she pressed her wand to it and said,
"I solemnly swear I am up to no good." He watched, amazed, as lines of ink spread out from her wand tip like a droplet of water fanning out in rings over a pond, going on to map the school in detail. She smirked happily as she found Gryffindor tower and saw her and Malfoy's dots.
"What the hell is that?" He asked as she traced her finger over it and looked across the room. According to the map there was a small tunnel behind her Gryffindor lion banner that would end just outside the Fat Lady's portrait.
"A map that Harry's father and his friends made," she said simply, standing up and walking to the red and gold tapestry. He followed her, as she continued, "No one other than Harry, Ron, the Weasley twins, Ginny, Professor Lupin, me, and now you know about it, so you can't tell anyone." Feeling slightly peeved that the Golden trio had a virtual ticket to the castle after hours, he watched helplessly as she pushed aside the faded fabric to see a hole about halfway up the wall that they could easily crawl through. "Get the map and follow me," she directed as she bent over and climbed into it. He did so and followed her through the slightly descending tunnel, crawling on the flat stone on his hands and knees. She was standing in front of the wall when he emerged from the passage and dusted himself off before looking down at the map.
My little dot's saying geoffnet, he remarked as he turned around to face the now blank, closed wall. The bricks that had just slid back into the wall reopened outwards, similar to the way the entrance to Diagon Alley did. I guess we've established that the password's geoffnet. She laughed lightly before ushering him back through the tunnel.
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Sleep didn't come as easily for Malfoy that night as it had the night before. Hermione passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow, but he lay listlessly on the couch, unable to close his eyes. He wasn't in direct danger, but he couldn't shake his normal feeling of paranoia. The shadows cast by the fire in the grate seemed to make dark cloaked figures lurk in the corners, but there was nothing there other than dust bunnies and random stacks of books. He shifted onto his side, comfortable but not enough to doze off. Too much was on his mind.
Hermione was one of them. He looked over at her, sleeping peacefully on her stomach with her curtains parted near her head. He smiled contently. She seemed to trust him, to believe that he regretted being a death eater. That was rare. He would have never told her that, but when she looked so disappointed in him he just had to say something and it came spilling out. She was a different breed of Gryffindor. She whimpered softly as she turned over onto her back, her eyelids fluttering. Aw, the poor dear was dreaming. And she was at his disposal.
That scared him. He didn't want to hurt her; she was almost like his friend. She seemed to trust him, enough to let him sleep in the same room as her, even though he had the mark of the enemy on his arm. 'I depend on you,' she'd said, her fearful look dancing through his mind. He sighed. That could mean a number of things. And so far, other than one kiss he had initiated spur of the moment, he had no reason to believe she liked him as anything more than an acquaintance, if not a friend.
Did he want her to? Really, in all brutal honesty, did he want her, want to kiss her, talk to her, share with her, make love to her even? He rolled his eyes at his idiocy. Of course not, she was a White, the long time enemy of his grandfather, and his grandfather's grandfather! But then again, you couldn't stop the inevitable. They were destined to be together.
He was being silly; there was no such thing as destiny, that's codswallop. Only morons who also thought wizards should tell muggles about magic, cough Weasleys cough, believed in destiny of fate. Bloody divination…
Hermione's whimpers grew louder as she turned back over, and he shifted to see her better. Her hair was messed up and lopsided, and her mouth was moving, although he couldn't hear anything. A tiny bead of sweat was forming on her brow as she kicked away her sheets, jackknifing her legs. Puzzled, he wondered what she was dreaming of.
Draco! She screamed, but not out loud. He flinched and sat up, bewildered. Draco, he's dieing! Harry, he's ill, look, see! Shoving off his blanket, he swung his legs off the sofa and stood up quickly and walked over to her bed. Malfoy pushed aside her curtains to see her better.
"White?" he asked, placing his hand on her shoulder. She didn't open her eyes.
Please, help him! He can't die, not now! PLEASE! COME BACK TO ME! Malfoy groaned as she yelled into his head, considering how she had wormed her way in. He hadn't taught her how.
"White, wake up! You're dreaming, it's a nightmare!" he repeated, sitting down on the side of her bed to reach for her hand. Wondering if it would help, he pressed her mark to his, but it didn't change anything.
No, Draco! You're not one of them! YOU'RE NOT A DEATH EATER! She screamed frantically. Aggravated, his head throbbing, and suddenly fairly daring, he leaned down and kissed her on the lips. Just for a handful of seconds, five or six tops, he pressed his lips to hers. It stopped, and she apparently didn't wake up. He pulled away, ashamed of what he had done. He had taken advantage of her while she was asleep. Only scum did that! But nonetheless, he was still scared her nightmare would return, and she continued to twist slightly. Sighing deeply, he walked around to the opposite side of the bed and crawled in next to her, before wrapping his arms around her waist. She stopped, and immediately nuzzled her face against his bare chest. Malfoy smiled slightly, before closing his eyes.
He didn't notice a pair of startled, but nonetheless, happy brown eyes blink up at him sleepily before they too closed.
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A/N: And the plot thickens. Ok, I'm dead tired so I'll give you a teaser then go. And check out my blog, listed under homepage on my profile. More teasers there!
Hermione stirred against his neck as he stared in horror at the two smirking Gryffindor girls sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed.
Heh heh. Three guesses who.
Final Word Count: 3095