Whoo! Chapter Thirteen! This one's a little bit shorter than the last few have been, but if I had included everything I wanted in it, it probably would have ended up being as long as one of the actual books ;)

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, why on earth would I be writing Harry Potter fanfiction? So no, I'm not J.K Rowling, just a teenage girl who loves writing but doesn't want to get sued.

OBLuve13: Thank you! I love writing in plot twists :) They always make the story so much more interesting - even though this particular one added a lot more to the story than I had originally planned!

Loslote: You're right, this could get very interesting. But all four of them are resourceful, so I'm sure they'll figure something out...Somehow or other...;)

sappheiros: Thank you! Haha, yes they are :) I know, right? I still love sliding doors, they're the most fantabulous thing evah! Hmmm...very observant...there might just be a little bit more to his "respect" for Hermione, you never know ;)

mydirt09: Don't worry, the moment's coming up...And I imagine they might have to use magic...:)

.17: Thank you! That's more or less what I was going for, I loved writing Draco and his newfound obsession with electronics!

xoRetributionox: Thank you so much! I was hoping Draco's enthusiasm in the stores would add a little bit of humor to the story, so I'm glad you enjoyed it! Trouble...well, trouble seems to follow Hermione, Draco, Harry, and Ginny around no matter where they go, so...Anyway, thanks, I think Draco really needs to go through some character growth, which I am currently having him do :)

And of course, to all the beautiful, wonderful people who favorited, story alerted, or author alerted this story or, well, me, thank you very much!

I love getting reviews, favorite, story, and author alerts, because it's nice to know that people are reading and enjoying the story! :) Love you guys! :)

Chapter Thirteen – Death Eaters In a Muggle Village?

They were screwed. They were so screwed.

That was the mantra that kept on playing over and over in Hermione's mind, like a song on repeat. How the hell were they going to get Harry and Ginny out of the town jail? They had about as much chance to hire a lawyer as they did finding a cure for werewolf bites.

As Hermione and Draco followed the policeman down the street, towards the large brick building with a sign stating Little Hangleton Jail, Draco nudged her in the side and bent down to mutter in her ear: "We can always confund them if need be."

Hermione nodded, although she shifted away; the feel of his breath on her skin was…nice – no, strange. It was strange. Yes, that was it. Strange. Uncomfortable. Those were good words for it.

"But only as a last resort, because the Ministry has records of each witch and wizard in muggle towns, and they'll know if we perform magic in the actual town, amongst a few thousand muggles." Her voice was low so as to make sure no one heard.

"Are you two sure you wouldn't rather just go and find a lawyer?" the cop called over his shoulder at the two teenagers.

"Why? Do you know any good lawyers that'll handle a teenage trespassing case?" Draco replied coolly. "Because don't lawyers like being paid, just the tiniest bit?"

"Er…"

They walked into the police station, and were immediately hit by the overwhelming smells of strong coffee, dirt, and sweat.

The cop nudged another policeman. "Where're the two kids that we brought in a little while ago? The ones who illegally entered the Riddle House?"

"They're in one of the cells," the other policeman answered as he flipped through multi-colored papers attached to a wooden clipboard. "Mind you, I don't know why we're bothering locking them up, lots of kids try to get into that house."

"Yes," a policewoman joined the conversation, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand, "but how many do you know who have actually managed to get into the place? The lock is the best Bellavieve could find; remember when they found Frank Bryce dead in there? Perfectly healthy except for a bad leg, and no marks on him whatsoever, just like the Riddles, nearly exactly fifty years previously. No explanation whatsoever. Something strange goes on in that house, and we can't have teenagers roaming around it."

"That's shit," the second policeman said. "Bellavieve doesn't care how many people die in that fucking house, he's just worried about the insurance money, and the fact that because of the dark shroud the Riddle and Bryce deaths caused, he can't rent it out to anyone. No one wants it, it's said to be cursed, or haunted, or both."

Beside Hermione, Draco snorted. Hermione threw him a warning look, but no one paid any attention to him.

"Well, I for one don't want to see anyone else end up dead in that house," the woman retorted.

"And I would think Bellavieve wouldn't either, because it doesn't exactly reflect well on him."

"Bellavieve?" Hermione spoke up. "Is he the – ?"

"The owner," the policewoman confirmed with a nod. "Bloody git, hardly ever visits the place, and then gets pissed when something goes wrong with the house. He can't seem to get it through his thick head that the effing house is old. He expects everyone to do everything, without any input from him. In my opinion, he doesn't pay the gardener and groundskeepers enough."

"Aren't gardener and groundskeeper the same thing?" Draco asked.

"Similar, yes; but in this case the gardener tends to the rather large gardens, and the groundskeepers – that's plural – manage everything else."

The second policeman kicked back against the wall, one foot flat against it. "Let me tell you, it took ages for him to find a new gardener, close to a year and a half."

"Because the old gardener was killed?" Hermione piped up.

"You got it. No one wanted the job, just like no wants to live in the house. This current gardener had lost his job and was about to lose his house, he had no choice but to apply for the job."

"How long has Bellavieve owned the house?" Draco wanted to know.

"Just a little over three years. The old owner sold it to him after Bryce was discovered in the house."

"What's his full name?"

"Bellavieve's? Mordred was his first name, I don't know if he has a middle name."

Draco nodded, his face stony. "Would you mind if we saw our friends now? Once we do, we'll see if we can find a lawyer."

The second cop nodded and glanced at the first cop, who was now munching on chocolate glazed donuts.

"You take 'em, I'm about to go on my lunch break," the first cop said, licking the frosting from his fingers.

The second cop rolled his eyes, but beckoned Hermione and Draco forward. Once they entered the hall that led through the cells, he began talking again.

"Imprisoning a couple of teenagers for a simple act of trespassing, this is ridiculous. They didn't even break the lock, the gardener or one of the groundskeepers probably had to go in there at some point in the last few months and forgot to lock it properly. And they got out just fine, didn't seem shaken or anything. But after Bryce's murder…And strange happenings have been going on in that house."

"Such as?" Draco prompted him.

"Such as weird colorful lights being seen through the windows. A couple of times we've seen something really strange hovering over the roof of the house. It must've been a firework…"

"What did it look like?" Draco's voice was now more urgent, and Hermione turned her head to look at him. His face was even paler than usual, and his gray eyes were dark steel with worry.

"Like a…A skull…With a snake coming out of its mouth."

When Hermione and Draco exchanged horrified looks, the cop laughed.

"I know, pretty bizarre right? It must've beeen an extremely ingenious firework, what else could it have been?"

What else could it have been indeed?

"Here we are," he said, and they halted right in front of a set of bars. Harry and Ginny were in a cell, with a cot, and not much else.

"Right. I'll leave you four to it then," he added, and walked away, checking on the other prisoners as he went along.

"Well, it's about time you two got here!" Ginny cried, leaping from the bed and hurrying over to the door, Harry following her.

"Don't get excited, we need a – "

" – A lawyer, we know. So what're we going to do? I'd say the confundus charm, that one works wonders," Ginny was off and running, but she caught the look on their faces and immediately shut up. "What's wrong?"

"There's at least one death eater here in Little Hangleton, at least part time," Draco told her. He looked at Hermione. "Incase you didn't pick up this little tidbit, Mordred Bellavieve is a death eater, nearly as deep into the Chief Death Eater's inner circle as the Malfoys once were, or the Lestranges."

"I've never heard of him," Harry said.

"Well, no, you wouldn't. He was very high up in the Ministry, in charge of keeping track of witches and wizards who live in or around muggle towns. He was never caught, he was much too sneaky and smart, and knew just who to suck up to. But if he owns the house, then that means – "

"That the Chief Death Eater probably has people watching it," Hermione finished for him.

"Could they be the gardener or groundskeepers?"

"I doubt it, we would've been killed on the spot if it had been them," Harry told them. "But who knows, they might just be watching the town."

"Or the ruins?" Ginny said softly.

The horrible truth sunk in like a brick. Had they been seen when they had replaced the ring?

Hermione buried her face in her hands. "I should've performed Homenum Revelio before we did anything. And we should've at the very least disguised ourselves, the Chief Death Eater's probably on his way here right now!"

Harry shook his head. "I would've felt it, but he doesn't know we're here. And in any case, we would've been captured if we were seen by a death eater, there's no way they would have just let us go."

Hermione nodded. "That's true."

"So…What now?" Ginny wanted to know.

"We go and see if we can find a lawyer. If we have no other choice, then we will confund the entire bloody station, but that's if there's no alternative," Hermione stated firmly. "Oh! I almost forgot!" She opened her bag and dug around it, finally locating Harry and Ginny's brand new cell phones. "Here you go. They're activated, and we've performed the spell to run them off of magic. There's instruction manuals with them."

"Um – what are these?" Ginny asked, eyeing her phone as she turned the plastic covered device over in her hands.

"Cell phones!"

"Oh, right, those felly-tones that you can take with you anywhere. Cool!"

"Right. Well, good luck, see you guys soon," Harry said, as Hermione and Draco moved away from the cell.

A couple of minutes later, Hermione and Draco were outside, blinking the bright sunlight.

"So any idea where the cheapest lawyer is?" Draco asked.

Hermione shook her head. "None whatsoever."

The pair plopped down wearily on a bench, and Draco dug his own phone out of his jeans pocket.

"This thing's amazing," he said. "I wish wizards had stuff like this, it would be the best thing ever."

Hermione smiled at him. "Who would've thought that you were a technology buff?"

He returned her grin. "No one who I know." There was a pause. "Hermione?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever – I dunno – been attracted to someone who you didn't want to be attracted to?"

Hermione looked at him sharply. "Ron maybe, because he was my best friend. Why? Have you?"

"Er…" he shifted on the bench a bit uncomfortably. "Not – not really – oh cool! There's games on this!"

"Where?" Hermione asked, distracted.

"Here," he said, leaning over and helping her find the games on her own phone. As he did so, his thumb brushed over her fingers. Hermione felt her heart begin hammering against her chest as if she had just run about twenty miles, and her skin suddenly heated up like she had held her hand over a flame. Her breath caught in her chest, and she raised her eyes to look at Draco. Their eyes met. His thumb had not moved, and Hermione realized that she didn't want it to. His eyes were gentle, much gentler than she ever seen them, and there was a vulnerable look in them, a look she had never thought would be possible on Draco Malfoy's face.

And then her cell phone beeped with the beginning of Uno.

They both leapt back, startled, and Hermione fumbled with her phone. "Oh – er – um…"

What on earth do you say to someone when your cell phone acts like a chaperone?

"Oh, good, it's working," Draco said, his own face every bit as flushed as Hermione imagined hers was. "Awesome."

"Ummm…" she had no idea what to say to him. What had just happened?

"Wow, this is fun!" he said with a bit too much enthusiasm, and he settled back to play on his own phone. Considering he had never held a cell phone in his life before today, he seemed to be doing exceptionally well.

Hermione leaned against the back of the bench, and reached for the instruction manual, just for something to do. Boys are like technology – they're much too complicated for their own good, and they should come with instruction manuals, she thought furiously.

She began flipping through the booklet, although her eyes weren't picking up more than a word here and there. Her mind was on the – moment – between her and Draco. What had just happened? And what was up with that question? Had he been talking about her? Was that his way of finding out how she felt about him? But weren't boys supposed to be more straightforward? Wouldn't he have just come out and asked her? Or was he one of those boys who excelled in mind games?

Or maybe she had just managed to misread the signs. That was a definite possibility. Of course, it would be partially his fault. If she had misread the signs, then Draco had labeled them wrong. After all, the signs seemed fairly obvious. And now he was acting like they weren't even there.

"Hermione!" he poked her in her ribs, and she turned to him, startled, wondering for a split second if he had been able to hear her thoughts.

"Yes?"

"Look!" he nodded his head towards two men. One was blond and bulky, and the other was slighter, with a pockmarked face. Thorfinn Rowle and Antonin Dolohov, two known death eaters, whom a year before Harry, Ron, and Hermione had managed to run into at a muggle cafe.

Hermione groaned. This day just kept on getting better and better.

Okay, please, please, pretty please don't kill me! I know this is getting dragged out, I know you guys want to know how Harry and Ginny are going to get out of jail, and I know another plot twist just got added, which will make it even more complicated, but on the bright side - Dramione! Could you guys focus on that, not the fact that Harry and Ginny are still stuck in jail, Hermione and Draco still need a lawyer, and death eaters are now hanging out in a muggle village (say what?) ? :D

Don't worry, I am in fact making plans to get Harry and Ginny out of jail, I'm not leaving them in there!

Anyway, on to a slightly less dangerous note (I hope) what do you guys think of the Dramione moment? I thought I would do this entire chapter from Hermione's POV because we'd been getting a lot from Draco, and we knew what was going through his mind, but what about how Hermione was feeling? So if anyone was wondering that, hopefully this will answer the question (plus, I was wondering that myself, so I just answered my own question xD)!

So...I would love to hear from you guys, and let me know what you think of this chapter!

Lots and lots of love!

Rock on!

Science-Fantasy93 ;)