Chapter Eleven

His heart ached as he watched his little girl through Potter's eyes. She sat beside the boys hospital bed with Draco standing at her right shoulder, his expression blank as ever. The youngest Weasley male and Ginny Weasley were close at hand as well.

Hermione wore a contemplative expression after hearing Potter's description of what he had seen. After a moment of thoughtful silence she finally spoke. "Sooooo," she began, then paused for a moment before adding in an upbeat voice with a smile on her face, "trap?"

"Yep, trap," was Potter's quick and equally upbeat response. Voldemort couldn't help but chuckle quietly to himself at that. He had known that what he had shown the boy would seem highly suspicious but worth a try anyway. In all honesty he had simply wanted an excuse to see his little girl. He was just about to tune out and go back about his business, happy in the knowledge that he had seen his little girl smile when the Weasley boy spoke up.

"We're still going to check it out though, right?"

"Of course we are," Potter said.

"It's practically tradition for us to go off at every available opportunity and do stupid things that could potentially get us all killed," Hermione added flippantly.

"Are you certain this is wise?" Draco asked, stoic as usual.

"Oh heavens no," his little girl said. "But it's possible that a Horcrux is there and we need to at least have a look around. It'll take some serious-"

A knock at the door to his study snapped his vision out of Potters eyes and back to his own with a sensation like vertigo sweeping though him for a brief moment. His study swayed this way then that way and he shook his head to clear his vision. Better than nothing he supposed, and he would have plenty of time to watch his little girl in action later.

Slightly shakily, he stood up and walked to the door as the unwanted visitor knocked again. He took a deep breath before he opened it, making sure that nothing would look amiss with him. One or two apparent moments of weakness would be all it took for his Death Eaters to turn on him.

"Bellatrix? What's wrong?" She was looking to him, her eyes wide and fearful, her lace covered hands fidgeting nervously.

"I need to speak with you, My Lord," she said. "Privately." If he still had eyebrows they would have risen at that. Intrigued and slightly perplexed he stood aside to allow his most loyal follower to enter. His anger at her having abated somewhat with her successful completion of multiple missions, he decided to be kind and conjured her up an arm chair. It was less grand than his, but most likely as comfortable. While he had a reputation for being vicious and vindictive, sometimes showing compassion (fake as it often was) was the better method of ensuring continued loyalty.

"It must be serious for you to come to me in such a manner," he said smoothly. "Please, sit and tell me what it is that bothers you." She glanced uneasily to the chair but perched on it anyway, still wringing her hands. He sat opposite her, leaning back and watching her carefully.

"It's about Goyle's death," Bellatrix began timidly as Nagini slithered her way over to the woman to place her head in her lap. The witch gave a small start having not noticed the snake but soon settled down again and began to lightly stroke her head.

"Oh?"

"The girl that killed him," she said, obviously carefully choosing her words. "The Granger girl."

"What about her?" Watch what you say here witch, you're already on thin ice.

"I believe I've worked something out about her."

"Yes?" he replied, accidentally drawing out the s into an almost hiss.

"She's ruthless in a duel," the witch began hesitantly. "Like you. And her eyes were bright red while she fought him, like yours." Fought was putting it a bit strongly from what he had heard and seen. She had out right slaughtered him before he got the chance to let off a single spell. "And her nose looks like yours used to. Her hair is like the pureblood Squib that you were with for a time. And you ordered no one to harm her and sent my nephew to watch over her."

"Yessss," his heart was pounding and aching all at once as Bellatrix refused to look him in the eye.

"Get on with it woman," Nagini hissed impatiently. "You're in my chair."

"Hermione Granger, she's. I mean." She paused again, squirming slightly. "You're her father." A strange warm glow of pride filled his chest, making him almost fit to burst with all the ache and pounding that was going on in there, despite the emotional anguish however he felt a smile slowly curving his less so than last week but still serpentine lips.

"How insightful of you. Now can you figure out why I wanted as much of your nephews charm and personality to remain intact as possible?" The witch slowly licked her lips, an odd nervous habit of hers that he had noticed over the years.

"You wanted to present her with an appropriate match," she said timidly. He gave one slow nod. All the colour drained from the witch's face and she dropped to her knees on the floor before him. Without hesitation Nagini slithered into the vacant seat and carefully coiled up.

"I'm so sorry my Lord," she said, bowing low with her face practically on the floor by his feet. It was more amusing than satisfying and he felt the sudden urge to laugh at how ridiculous this all was. The bowing, the averting of eyes, even the address of "My Lord". He remembered Janey doing mocking imitations but only now did he realise just how funny it was. "I am truly sorry."

"Now do you see the value of obedience?" he said, trying to fight down a smile.

"Yes my Lord."

Draco sat in a compartment of the Hogwarts Express with his eyes closed, his arms folded and his legs crossed at the ankles. Hermione sat beside him, leaning against his side. Her friends were in the compartment as well and the train noisily made its way along the tracks.

"I can't believe you actually put down a bet on the Chudley Cannons," Potter said, his voice incredulous.

"This coming from a Glasgow Griffins fan."

"I have a good reason for that."

"Really?" Ginny said, sounding as though she didn't believe him.

"Well would you want fuck with a Glaswegian with a club?"

Hermione squirmed down, turning slightly and draping her arm over him. After a week and a half of sharing a bed with her and her near constantly attaching to his arm he had finally gotten used to this type of physical contact. From the sudden silence of the compartment however he assumed that the others didn't know how much she clung to him.

Without saying a word, he opened his eyes and glanced down. What he saw almost made him smile. Hermione had fallen asleep and nestled into his chest, trapping one of his arms in place. While she had been getting enough sleep since she decided to share his bed, she was still occasionally having nightmares and last night was the worst one yet, though she hadn't told him what the nightmares were about. Still, it was good to see her not worry for once.

"So, Malfoy," Ginny began, keeping her voice quiet. "What's your favourite quiditch team?" He glanced up, somewhat irritated at being acknowledged when he would have preferred for them to continue ignoring him.

"I don't really have one anymore," he replied, his voice a little colder than he would have liked. He hadn't really done anything that could be seen as recreational since his training began. "Though I do think the Glasgow Griffins are a better team than the Chudley Cannons," he added when he realised that this was their way of trying to involve him in the group. Thankfully Hermione woke up after about half an hour and saved him from having to act like a normal human being. He disliked talking to other people. Hermione knew that he was and didn't expect more than he was willing to give, but other people always wanted him to fully participate.

As soon as he could he went back to sitting with closed eyes and hoping that everyone thought he was asleep with Hermione still leaning on him. His charge chatted animatedly with her friends throughout the journey, talking about inane things that she never talked about with him. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted her to talk about such things with him. He had only just coped with responding to her talking about killing people and academia but he wasn't sure how he was meant to reply to more personal matters.

It was something of a relief when the Hogwarts Express pulled into Kingscross and they disembarked. He helped Hermione with her luggage, or rather he tried to and got sternly swatted away to the point where she ended up helping him. Once they'd retrieved their belongings, they left platform 9 ¾ to find Hermione's parents. They were stood off out of the way, between platforms nine and ten.

They greeted both Hermione and himself warmly, his charge letting go of him to hold onto her step father as they led them out to the car. Hermione visibly relaxed upon her re-entry to the muggle world. Draco however didn't let the apparent harmlessness of the population cloud his judgement. While he had little interest in the strange world of technology and magic-less living, he would need to ask Hermione some questions about the place as they would be living there for a week.

He gave Hermione a suspicious sidelong glance when her father managed to load all of their belongings into the boot of the car and she looked away innocently and got into the car. Shaking his head he got in next to her and fastened his seat belt. He was somewhat impressed at how efficient Hermione's mother was at embarrassing her. The older woman had barely got into the car before she somehow managed to make music come out of the front and started to sing along.

"Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass

Seemed like a real thing, only to fi-i-ind

Much o' mistrust

Love's gone behind."

Jane sang with over enthusiastic flair as Hermione hid behind her hand and groaned while Lewis shook his head and pulled out of the car park. She didn't exactly have a good singing voice, though it wasn't abysmal it was just bad enough to make him hope that she would stop soon. Unfortunately his hopes were dashed three songs later when Hermione seemed to decide that the best way to avoid embarrassment was to join in.

"Sweet dreams are made of these

Who am I to disagree

I travelled the world and the seven seas

Every body's looking for something"

Muggle songs were strange, he decided.

"Some of them want to use you

Some of them want to get used by you"

He highly doubted that any band in the wizarding world could get away with singing about sado-masochism. He had no idea what some of the strange instruments he could hear were either.

The drive was about two and a half hours, though with Hermione and her mother singing it felt more like four. Eventually they pulled into a nice but dull looking suburb and parked up in the drive.

Hermione felt a huge weight lift from her mind as she crossed the threshold of her bedroom with Draco lingering behind her. The Star Wars posters, the book case crammed to bursting with trashy sci-fi and textbooks and the microscope along with her fossil collection that took pride of place at the back of her desk, not to mention Mister Fixit.

Mister Fixit who should have been perched precariously on top of her wardrobe, above the table of elements she had carefully penned in with a black permanent marker and had jotted down notes around with blue paint. Mister Fixit who was instead sat slumped against the pillow of her bed, the purple clashing against the mint green of her bed spread.

She strode in, somewhat annoyed by the obvious intrusion into her room, grabbed her childhood teddy and strode straight back out. She stormed over to the top of the stairs.

"Mom!" she yelled down as Draco leaned against the wall watching her with a raised eyebrow and his arms folded across his chest. After about thirty seconds she saw her mother arrive at the bottom, "Have you been in my room? Mister Fixit had moved." Her mother frowned then rolled her eyes.

"I keep forgetting you have a photographic memory. We thought you were dead, of course I've been in your room." Suddenly feeling slightly childish and ashamed, Hermione bowed her head.

"Sorry,"

"That's okay hun, Dinner will be ready in an hour." Hugging her teddy dragon to her chest, Hermione turned back around to go and finish her unpacking, her eyes landing on Draco. He glanced to the teddy then back up to her face.

"Mister Fixit?" he asked, his voice dull and monotone with his head tilted. Blushing furiously, Hermione strode past him back into her room.

The bed was softer here than in the Shrieking Shack, but Draco had only been able to get comfortable on his side with his back leaning against the wall. Perhaps it was because he was no longer accustomed to such comfort, but there was a much more disconcerting answer to this dilemma however.

In the short time that he had been Hermione's guardian she had slept in his bed every night. The first she had shown up late and had almost shyly settled down. Every night after that however she had been with him and asked if she could stay, climbing into bed with him. He didn't like to think that he might be becoming as reliant on her as she was on him. He forcefully pushed down the growing need to roll over again. Perhaps her familiar surroundings had let her be at ease enough to sleep without him.

Almost as though his very thoughts had summoned her, he heard a door open, most likely the one opposite him. The soft padding of her footsteps across the hall was most likely his own imagination, his hairs stood up on end as a strange sort of anticipation rippled through him. He wasn't entirely sure what his body was anticipating, extra warmth perhaps, maybe just, no, he wasn't going to think like that. Not about her.

When his door opened and her saw her standing there, unsure and clasping that childhood teddy of her to her chest he felt even worse for his half formed thought. She looked so child-like and unsure, even more unravelled than she had been in the Shrieking Shack.

"Draco?" she said timidly, barely above a whisper. "Can I sleep in here, with you? You don't have to move."

"Feel free," he replied, hoping that his voice had at least attempted to reach comforting. She silently made her way to the bed, when she was pulling back the duvet, her dragon still held in one hand, he noticed that her eyes were red. It was hard to spot the pigment in the dark and the fact that she had been crying from the look of it didn't help.

"I'm sorry," she murmured as she climbed into bed and lay down with her back to him, brushing against him slightly. "I thought with being, being here I'd be able to sleep. Let you have a bit of time to yourself. You must be getting sick of me always being around." He hesitated, not knowing what to say.

So he didn't say anything. Instead he put his arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. He worried that the hold he had on her was too tight, that he was hurting her when she started shaking slightly. Then he realised why she was shaking. She was crying again. No conventional comforts jumped into his head, but he knew what would calm her.

Out of impulse he placed a kiss on her neck, his lips finding mostly her hair and little skin. Leaning slightly he began to whisper into her ear. "It's alright. I won't let any of them hurt you. And when we find them, think about what you'll do to them instead of what they did to you. Think of what you did to the one we've already ran into." She squirmed, pushing herself further back, more completely against him. A strange little thrill jolted through him as he continued whispering vile suggestions and crude imagery.

Here was someone that understood. Understood completely and wasn't afraid. Wasn't disgusted. She didn't flinch away from his touch or avoid his gaze. In fact she was fighting to be even closer to him and occasionally made small sounds of approval. Her fingers dug into his forearm as she made another sleepy little humming noise. Until now she had been the instigator of anything more than a light touch, but she didn't seem to mind this. His instincts led him to start nuzzling her neck and behind her ear as he cooed his spiteful words. She sighed and gripped his arm harder. The force from her small but nimble fingers bordered on the painful but she made no move to push him away. She did stop crying though.

He didn't push their physical contact any further though he dearly wished he could. Instead he soothed her sleep with a lullaby of sick and twisted tales of torture and murder.

A/N Thank you to blackRoses15, unnamed, WordsbyMoonlight, wanderingcub, Beautiful-Liar13, hottopicgirl, KraZiiePyrozHavemoreFun and IGOTEAMEDWARD for reviewing Chapter 10. I really didn;'t think that many reviews had come through until it came to writing the thanks.

Sorry about the wait for this chapter, I hit a bit of a sticking point. Hopefully the next instalment won't take so long.