Chapter 11

Madam Hooch led them down a corridor, one Draco had never seen before. It was gloomy and without any degree of charm. Hastily build, he would guess, and not intended to be kept after this madness was over.

Embarrassment still burned within him, at his parents, the situation and the fact that he had no control over this. Granger walked beside him, her arms crossed and with the perpetual pout. The silence, except for their footsteps, seemed to emanate from the very walls.

"Here we are," Madam Hooch said sharply. "Number twenty-three. Your new accommodation."

"Oh good," Granger said equally sharply. "How old we'll be when we divorce."

Hooch cast her a piercing look, not appreciating the interjection. "I am sure you can explore it without me informing you what is there. They are all the same," she said, apparently to him as if she was expecting him to complain about the accommodation. Of course it was going to be revolting, but more so for the company he was forced to keep. "I'll leave you to settle in. Determine a password between you and state it now as you enter."

With sharp, determined strides, the woman walked away, leaving him and Granger to stark, stubborn silence.

"We need a password," Granger said, turning to him. Even her voice sent chalkboard scraping-like chills down his spine.

"How about 'Fuck You'?"

"Ah, I love you too, husband," she said as snarkily as she could. "How about 'Death Eater scum'? That works."

"I still prefer 'Fuck You.'"

"'Eat Shit' has a nice ring to it."

"'Mudblood'?"

Granger's eyes narrowed. "Nice to see you've evolved. Still mentally twelve, are we?"

"Yes," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder and giving her a shove back just before grabbing the door handle and opening the door. "Potter sucks cock," he said as he walked in, setting the password.

"You know, I've always suspected there's been some degree of wishful thinking there," she said tartly as she stepped inside. "And now you're going to be saying it over and over again, like a mantra."

"Fuck you, Granger. We should have gone with that, but you had to be problematic." The room they entered was made of gray stone walls, an open plan lounge and kitchen. "They expect us to fucking cook?"

Granger was silent, walking around and looking at everything, finally settling her attention on the small staircase to the left wall of the apartment that led up to a door. She walked over and up the staircase, disappearing into the door. "There's only one bedroom," she said as she came out again. There was shock on her face.

"Goes with the whole married and fucking theme," Draco said tersely. This was hell. This place was absolutely tiny.

"No way are you sleeping in my bed," Granger said. "You'll have to find somewhere else to sleep."

"Fuck off. You want to sleep somewhere else, be my guest, but I'm not."

If looks could kill, she would have killed him a long time ago. With a slow, angry exhale, he turned around and surveyed the place more closely. A couch and a chair, a small table and a fireplace. A crappy, old rug that had probably been pulled out of some forgotten storage. Had to be after everything stored in the Room of Requirement had burned to a cinder.

The kitchen had a sink and a stove, and stuff he couldn't even identify. A bench extended into the space, running parallel with the stairs up to the bedroom. It was supposed to serve as a dining area, he suspected. There were stools. Granger still stood on the stairway landing with her arms crossed. Couldn't be lost for words, could she? It would be a fucking miracle. Closing his eyes, he imagined a year of her harping in his ear.

Still silently, she walked down the stairs and continued out the door. The relief of being without the jarring aberration that she was felt soothing. It was going to be the year from hell. In terms of punishment, he had to give it to them—this was creative, and so very effective. Grangers or dementors, it was a toss-up.

Looking over, he saw knifes sitting in a wooden block. Was there careful consideration to their placement there? Was this all in the hopes of him losing his temper and plunging one of those into her. Really? Knives? Not his style.

Maybe he could cast a silencing spell in this space so neither of them could talk. Granger would remove it within seconds. She wasn't right in the world unless her squeaky voice was echoing off the walls.

Moving to the couch, he lay down and crossed his ankles. Maybe they could set up a schedule so they used the apartment at different times, never really seeing each other.

He loved being alone, loved the silence. Staying in that hall with countless other people had been driving him around the bend, and now he had glorious silence. Hopefully Granger would fall off a parapet somewhere.

His eyes closed, he drifted off, thinking himself away from Hogwarts. A home—how it had used to be before everything turned to shit. This place was lovely, between wake and sleep. This was where peace was, because as soon as he plunged deeper, it all turned nasty. The dreams were endless and relentless. The dark, the fear, the tension, the knowledge that he probably wasn't going to make it through the day.

Awake, he'd stopped caring, but he couldn't make himself stop caring while he dreamt. That fear was insidious and ever-present. And it was probably never going away.

He found himself in the darkness, in front of a house where a pale light shone in the windows. Hooded, dark cloaked figures moved around him, silently sneaking up to the house. They were going in soon, invading that house. Whoever was on the inside, this would be the last moments of their lives. And terror, screaming was about to erupt.

"You go in first, kid," a harsh voice said in his ear. "And if I find you cowering in a corner, you're done, yeah? We'll say it was a stray curse and no one would be the wiser. Your bitch of a mother would cry and cry."

Regripping the wand in his gloved hand, he held himself back from bringing it up, from killing the man right there and then. He couldn't. It would be the end of him, and he had to survive—do whatever it took to survive. All these things he didn't want to do, just for survival.

The tiniest creak wheedled into his mind. Danger. Something wasn't right. Death was imminent. His own breath was all he could hear as he searched for the danger, and then with a rush, he emerged into silence. Was that how it happened? Death.

Opening his eyes, he saw stone ceiling. He had no idea where he was. Was he dead? His senses were on a knife's edge, searching for whatever threat was about to descend.

"There's no coffee," a soft voice said. "A plunger, but no coffee."

His heart beat wildly inside his chest, painfully beating as he flopped his head down again and exhaled.

Granger appeared above him, over the back of the couch. "You look different when you sleep."

"Fuck off, Granger," he croaked, his voice affected by the adrenalin in his system. Shifting his legs off the couch, he sat up, trying to get his senses in order. Leaning over, he put his head down to alleviate the nausea. That was often how he woke, these days, with nausea from his horrific dreams. This one hadn't been too bad. They got worse.

Granger was back in the kitchen, rifling through the cupboards. Twisting back, he lay down again, and placed his wrist behind his head. Granger was in sight as she opened another cupboard. "Any dietary peculiarities I should know about? Intense allergies? Wouldn't want to kill you—accidentally."

From her crouching position, she turned to look back at him. No, she wouldn't want to kill him at all. In fact, he probably couldn't eat anything she prepared. If not murder, she would love to see him spewing his guts out for hours on end. Not everyone saw this about saint Granger, but there was petty cruelty in her. Sneaky and hidden, but it was there. And she wouldn't hesitate to twist the knife in if the occasion called for it. So many people couldn't see past the front she put up. She'd make a good Slytherin if it wasn't for the whole mudblood thing.

"No," he replied. Was that disappointment he saw in her features? "You?"

"Why? Are you ever going to cook?"

"Absolutely not."

"Pig."

A smile spread across his lips. Well, if nothing else, he could be a shitty husband.

"Oh, and any personal effects I see on the floor, will face immediate destruction. Just how I was raised," she said.

Draco had never been slovenly. It gave too much away to enemies. Now here he was shacked up with one. No, he wouldn't be leaving his things lying around where they were within her reach. Who knew what her sordid mind would come up with. In fact, he didn't want her anywhere near his stuff. It would be too much of an intrusion.

"Classes are on this afternoon," she said. Draco had Defense of the Dark Arts, which he was going to skip. Out of everyone, he knew the tactics and strategies of the dark. He didn't need some novice on the topic trying to teach him. Because the truth was that if they came for you, there was fuck all you could do about it.

The good thing about the abolition of houses for their year was that they didn't have a lot of classes together like they used to. In fact, they only had a couple together. A false victory, because instead, they got to share this space together—a bed together. Wasn't that just wonderful?