Vonne: I'm going to make it my goal now to make these introductions as short as possible, considering I am wanting to finish these old chapters up with as soon as physically possible. Still, I will take the time whenever I can to answer all of your questions. For the millionth time, I would like to thank you for all the support you have all continuously given to me. I appreciate your responses more than you know!

Doni: Definitely. I think it's important for someone in that state to have people that are close to him. Goyle's a nice person to have for support because he went through everything Draco went through, too. They went through it together. So it's definitely really nice to have him around. Hermione did go through the same ordeal, but her experience was far, far different. She's still a nice balance for Malfoy though, in that sense, I think. So, you're right. At least he's got two people looking out for him.

Psychic City: Thank you! I'm happy that you've decided to update, also. Finally! ;)

Lynn: I love having readers that are new to these chapters. It's nice and I feel like I don't have to hurry. I will be updating these chapters as soon as possible. Whenever I get a satisfactory amount of reviews, I will post up the newest chapter right away. Thank you for submitting reviews even without a sign-in name. Of course, as you know, it is appreciated.

Carl: Of course! Here's the next chapter for you! :)

Lively McBrighten: Okay, definitely! Here's the next chapter! I've posted it up only a little bit later than I have been, but I'm hoping it was worth that wait for you, knowing that you're also new to this story! So, please let me know what you think of it when you finish reading it! I'd love to hear back from you!

LeCandeh: Oh good! I'm glad that you enjoyed this one. To be honest, I'd forgotten what this chapter was about for myself. Then I had to actually go back and refresh my own memory!

McLanna: It's so funny that you asked that. I definitely didn't intend 'Dull Boy' to be part of 'Rude Boy' when I first started writing that chapter, but when I DID eventually notice it, I kept it intentionally. I'm not a huge Rihanna fan, but I thought someone would notice it somewhere down the line. Actually, most of these chapter titles are taken from reference of something else. I bet you can figure them all out. This one, however, isn't really anything clever. HAHA.

Christina: Thank you! I'm so glad that you enjoyed reading all the past twelve chapters up to this point! I hope you like this chapter, too! Let me know what you think!

Chapter Thirteen:
Screaming Kettle

Her light little foot hit the mess on the floor with a silent crack. Then, as the slight squeak hit her ears, she reeved back, her free hand flying up to her chest. Never in her life time did she think she'd see the house for a third time. The Manor, in all its tragic glory, was just as tall and massive and horrible as she'd remembered. However, she managed to sigh, swallowing her nerves with what she'd felt to be a rather unsuccessful gulp. Then, lovingly, she slipped back off from the broom, lowering both of her feet to the floor this time, though her hands reached out once again towards Malfoy. Slowly, she lifted her hand to his upper back and slipped her other one through the skinny bars of his five fingers.

She asked him uneasily, "can you stand up?" and the stagger in Malfoy's step was all the answer she'd truly needed. Though, to her dismay, he faked a forceful smile and slipped his fingers away.

"'M fine," he said, still sleepy despite having slept for hours, "thanks." Malfoy's smile was however, not contagious; Hermione's wiped away from her face even faster than either of the two could have anticipated. As the ping of guilt struck Malfoy miserably, his hands fumbled back up and he took Hermione's clumsily. And though Hermione's expression was all but that of satisfaction, Draco's own visage fell and he said back quietly, "sorry... I h-haven't been thinking."

Shaking her head dizzily, Hermione's hands flung upwards to her hair. She shoved the thick mane out of her face and smirked, "'s okay," she told him back, feeling more sorry for him than hurt for herself. Besides, what did she have to be hurt about, anyway? There were far more important things for Hermione to bother herself worrying about than whether or not Draco fancied her as much as she did at the moment. In fact, she'd even managed to mentally curse her own preoccupation with the subject. Why was it that her stomach could not stop fluttering, her nerves could not quit jittering, even in a situation so unquestionably serious. "Malfoy... you should sit down, okay? You should rest."

Eyes watching Malfoy's shadow find its way to his bedroom wall, Hermione said nothing. Though Draco, on the other hand, reached out his palm, shaking it slowly. The distressed look on his face made Hermione's insides churn. "No," he said, wincing slightly, "no, I'm not tired."

"You can hardly stand up straight," Hermione contradicted, blinking rapidly at the obvious delusion Draco resided in. The tint of discomfort was still marked across his face, his blond hair still greasy and flat against his sweaty forehead.

But despite his more than blatant nausea, Draco's head continued to wobble back and forth. "I'll be fine," he insisted, his voice a bit stronger than before.

Something twitched behind Malfoy's petrified expression. The agony on his face doubled and, wincing, his chest rose and fell messily. It was something Hermione had just barely noticed and probably wouldn't have if she hadn't been paying an immense amount of attention to Malfoy in the first place. Momentarily, she attempted to remain quiet, to let him do as he pleased. But the pestering little jerk she'd felt made it almost impossible. "But," she began, glancing back down at his white button up that stayed slightly untucked from his black trousers. Something other than her insisting advice had been bothering him and she could tell by the slight flashes that blinked behind his eyes.

As if he figured she hadn't been paying close attention, he glanced around wildly before pressing his eyes shut and sliding his clammy palm back up to his forehead. "but...but you-"

"Hermione." For the first time in a long time, Hermione could hear the stern tone in Draco's otherwise hoarse voice. He stopped glanced around, looked at her and locked his eyes within hers. They were wet and moist, glistening with an orb-like glassiness. "I'm fine, I promise. Just... please... t-trust me, okay?" But Hermione was not stupid. Her overwhelming intelligence told her that she was certain he was once again lying to her. However, the look in his eyes did not show that he was concerned about doing so. Instead, he looked more and more focused on whatever it was that he was hearing around him... or whatever it was he was seeing. But this time, because he'd asked her so seriously, Hermione decided not to press the issue. She swallowed, pressed her lips together, and nodded bluntly with her mouth shut tight.

He was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. He was not alright, he was not fine. And all the while, Hermione loathed herself for choosing to say a word. Her thin arms crossed heavily over her chest and she thumped against the wall next to Malfoy, who clanged his forehead against the surface of it and moaned in a draining tone. Hermione breathed out, both worried and frustrated all together. Her vibrant eyes scanned the scattered bedroom. Having still left his bedroom in an absolute wreckage, the most visible pieces of decoration stood as nothing more than a large pile of unnecessary clutter on the floor. From the looks of it, the house was still empty and Hermione guessed that Lucius and Narcissa had been having quite the conversation with the Ministry. But she could breathe again and, fortunately, she exhaled one rather impressive sigh of relief.

She said conclusively, "alright, what next? Are you just going to... to stand with your head against the wall?"

Draco's voice was bitter as his eyes moved back to her. Glaring, he said defensively, "I was thinking about it, yeah."

"Well that sounds progressive," Hermione counteracted, rolling her eyes around in a circle. She did so in fragments, glancing up at the ceiling before swinging her pupils back in Draco's slumped direction. The two of them stared at one another for a considerably long while before Draco's shoulders fell and his face reddened. He winced slightly and raised his free hand to his forehead before his face unwillingly dropped. He squeezed his expression tighter and breathed out shakily. Then, giving up, he turned around and leaned back against the wall as Hermione had.

"Okay," Malfoy said, defeated, "okay."

"Alright," Hermione said, repeating after him. As she did so, a slight smile took to arching back on her face. She had won and she'd known it. And yet, she stilled managed to feel sorry for him, as he stood there and suffered from whatever it was that had been so mercilessly plaguing him. Thus, she ignored the fact that she was in the Manor, the one house that had still managed to give her the creeps. The Manor, that wasn't the main issue now- not anymore. And though she knew that she could hardly help it, it was Draco Malfoy who had stolen the majority of her remaining mindset. Being the mature woman that she was, she stuffed away her fear of the lingering old home, pushed away all the awful ghosts that it had brought up from her past. Instead, she lifted her hand, twiddled with a single strand of her fluffy brunette hair and asked timidly, "would you like me to make you some tea?"

Draco's eyes pressed themselves shut. His face tinted to a burnt scarlet and he nodded with fast paced aggression. He opened his glassy eyes only in time to see her smile and nod as she moved towards the door conclusively, first stalling at the doorframe, and then stumbling out into the darkness of the hall.

Hermione Granger's trembling hands reached outwards, her fingers grasping, her heart pounding. Then, when she finally found the contained tea kettle at the back of the cabinet, she yanked her hand backwards, retrieving the thing with relieved aggression. The kettle came in sudden contact with her heaving chest and, cradling it desperately, she stumbled backwards, breathed out, and shut her eyes. The frazzled her that was unsettling around her face made her look as if she'd run a mile, the flushed and rosy tint to her puffy cheek gave her instantly away.

Her eyes glanced around the kitchen, watched the darkness that enveloped it completely. The walls were intimidating, even as the benign little slabs of plaster that they were. The mansion stood and seemed to stare at her, analyzing her every single move. But what was she afraid of, anyways? After all, it was only a house; merely a structure that had been laid on the earth by humans such as herself. There was nothing in the interior of it that she could sensibly fear, nothing that could come and get her now. The ghosts, they were gone. The mere memories of the past, that was all they were- memories.

"Breathe, Granger," she told herself under her breath as she moved towards the stove and pulled her wand from her open jacket pocket. Flicking it lifelessly, she lit up the stove and watched the flames cradle the large metal kettle selfishly. A house was a house, and Hermione was not going to allow herself to get distracted from the tea, from Draco upstairs.

She wasn't a little girl anymore and stories of ghosts and haunted houses did not phase her. At least, she hoped not. The last time she'd been in the house, the time before the simple time she'd stepped in Draco's bedroom days ago, was a time she could not forget for the life of her. Like a flood, the scene of it rushed back to her, freezing her in the spot before the kettle and stove helplessly. In her mind's eye, she could see herself, held up by Bellatrix Lestrange, whose laugh bounced off the walls and echoed through the kitchen around her. And from her spot in the eating room, she could see the large mantle over the fireplace, could see the exact same spot that it all happened at. As a sharp pain shot through her body, her numb hand found the spot over her heart and she rubbed it apprehensively.

The sound of Bellatrix's laugh remained clear and loud in her ear. She could hear the desperate yelling of Ron in the basement that she couldn't quite see. Even in the darkness, her photographic memory brought the white sight of Draco in the corner back to her vision. She could still see the memory of him standing there, his back facing away from her, a cold sweat just barely tainting his pale face. And Bellatrix, she asked her nephew, "what should we do to her first?"

"Yeah, Draco," someone purred in Hermione's mind. She'd remembered the voice, but not the face. "Yeah, I'm sure you've got plenty in mind..."

But even in her memory, she could only see Draco's back, covered in a white shirt, stuck to his spine with an immense amount of unwanted sweat. And when he finally did turn around, when Bellatrix grabbed for his wet shoulders with extended spidery fingers, Hermione remembered his face. His eyes, bloodshot and puffy, were surrounded in a pair of matching purple bruises. His blond hair was dripping with grease. His bottom lip was split, and an open scar was cut like a long slice at the side of his skull. She remembered how his pupils glanced over at her, how their eyes both locked together, and how an immense wave of stress took him over instantly. She remembered his misery, his fear, remembered everything all in that split second. Then, she could almost physically hear the grumble he'd answered his aunt with that night. Could almost literally make out his voice when he said, "I d-dunno. I..."

"Well," hissed another voice, sharp and barely there at the same time. She could recall the way the Death Eaters whispered and barked all at the same time. "If you can't decide, then I'm sure you won't mind if I just make the decision for you."

Something screamed out around her and Hermione snapped herself away from her horrifying memories. Yelling out on the stove, the tea kettle cried out for her, too hot and all the more ready. Blinking, she seemed to snap out of her delirium, pushing the hair from her eyes and lunging back towards the stove before before lifting up the thing and swinging it over towards the counter. She didn't need to bring up memories from the past. What she needed to do was pour herself and Draco two cups of tea. What she needed to do was climb back up the stairs, deliver it to him, and relax.

Breathing in harshly, Hermione Granger stumbled back into the dining table seat behind her and watched the rising steam as it rose smokily from the spout of the piping hot kettle.

Draco Malfoy had not moved an inch from his spot on the wall and he was beginning to scare even himself. As territorial as he'd become of his simple little spot, he slumped down the front of it, his long legs out in front of him in a twig-like manner. He pressed his head in his hands, feeling the immense rush that flowed mercilessly through it. Whatever had happened to him at Goyle's was a mystery even to him but, then again, he'd come to expect such odd behavior. Still, the fear of his faltering sanity sent unwanted shivers down his weak spine. His heart beat thunderously in his sternum and he felt rather short on necessary breath.

Something outside grumbled, but Draco was sure that whatever had made the noise was only just something further snapping in his mind. Then he leaned backwards, cocked his chin up to the ceiling, and watched the blurred slate above him twist viciously. Like it or not, he was unsure how long it would take for him to get used to the unsightly bruises and the unclear vision. Whatever was happening to him, the side effects seemed to be everlasting. His eyes glistening back up at the top of the house, he considered what living like a crazy person was going to play out like. Inquisitively, he wondered how long it would take for him to go full blown mad.

How long, he wondered, until he was the mirror image of one Leroy Beevis. Horrified, he wondered how long it would take until he was wandering the streets spitting bogus remarks and prophecies. By then he'd be too far gone, too far plummeted in his madness. And, morosely, he ran his shaky hand through his mop of disgusting and greasy blond head of hair. With his luck, the way it had ben playing out lately, Draco Malfoy had come to expect that such a time was not too far ahead of him.

The whispering in his head, it had been looming around him ever since he had woke up at Goyle's house. Having never left him, it now buzzed about his head like a lingering fly that would just not let him be. The voice, high-pitched and snake-like, twisted around his head and messed with his faulty mind. The messages were sent to him as different commands and comments, both hostile and gentle. Voldemort, with his manipulative charm and haunting whisper, seemed to never have left him. As Malfoy clutched his head and suppressed a suffocated little sob, he could hear the man whisper back to him, "not even death can prevent me from finishing what I'd started."

Draco's teeth dug hard into his lower lip, drawing a trail of scarlet blood. His eyes, bloodshot and bruised, glanced around the darkened room. There was no sight of the dead man this time, much to Draco's relief. However, his voice was loud enough to make up for his lack of presence. Malfoy's hands moved up his skull and he wrapped them around the back of his neck before slamming his head down on his raised knees. Somewhere mixed into the sounds of Voldemort's hissing, a small little mumble shot out through the open window before his bed.

And the sound outside the window went furiously, "ouch. Ugh- dammit."

Malfoy's head shot up, his eyes still red and filled with tears. But he whisked himself up to a stand-point and anxiously wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his white shirt. Stumbling towards the window, Malfoy almost lost it on the discarded pile of possessions he'd left on the floor. However, once he'd made his way over to his goal point successfully, he could then see it. The shadow, which was slightly short, beautifully curvy, and brunette, saw was struggling in the branches of the tall tree above his house. "Come on, you bloody bastard!" the harsh voice said, not noticing Draco as he stood above. The shadow's fingers were tugging with the long skirt, which was notably snagged on one of the sharp tree branches. "You useless piece of-"

"Pansy?"

"Draco!" The voice shouted. Pansy Parkinson's head whipped upward, her short brunette hair falling perfectly around her face. The cold wind had made it wavy and a bit frizzy. She dropped the fabric, though it remained tangled on the branch. In her high heels, she looked almost completely ridiculous climbing up the bulk of the steep branches. "I've been looking for you everywhere!"

Embarrassed instantly, Malfoy's hands flung back up to his face. He desperately took to wiping his face for a second time, hopeful that she would not notice his current distress. Always the actor, he put on a content expression and cleared his voice, hoping for a steady and casual sounding tone. "W-What are you doing in my backyard?"

"I told you," Pansy said again, twisting her face up in a frustrated way. Hadn't he just head her clarify. Repeating herself, she yelled back at him as she tried to force herself higher on the tree, "I've been looking for you everywhere. You just kind of... left the other day, remember? I wasn't done seeing you."

Fuzzy, Malfoy knew that he was in no state to deal with such a situation. Hermione Granger was downstairs, in his house, at the very moment. Pansy, as she stood rockily on the branches below him, was only unaware unless she remained outside. Though Pansy did not stop with her climb. Her hands finally freed her skirt from the branch and she smiled before lifting a second foot up on the nearest branch. She was making fast pace, too. Only two feet away from the window ledge, Draco wondered how long she'd been climbing up the tree before managing to make it so high. But Malfoy had no time to be impressed. Instead, panic overtook him with sudden despair. "You... you c-can't come up here," he stuttered, glancing over his shoulder lightly. "My dad-"

"Is with the Ministry, I know," Pansy added, finishing off Draco's sentence with sure confidence. Her right foot lifted her body up even further. "I just saw him and your mother." Smiling, Pansy put on a grin that she might have though made her look cute. Instead, the smug smile looked only like she was up to something questionable. "They sure are a determined pair," she added playfully, "aren't they?"

An entirely new feeling of stress overtook Malfoy's wobbling posture. From the floor underneath him, he could hear the metal clang of Hermione handling metal. He could almost hear the tea as she poured it in to their separate glasses. The voice of Voldemort in his mind was just beginning to die down, much to his relief, however. It was Pansy who was, quite literally, on the rise. Still gawking up at him with a proud and gleeful beam, Pansy had finally advanced herself enough to be at the top. With that, she glanced back down, inhaled at the steep drop that she'd just recently conquered, and then shifted her focus back up at Draco. "Well," she said, keeping her expression a lastingly satisfied one, "I think we should just... you know, finish where we left off."

Then, as if her idea was enough to convince him, she thrust out her hand, which was covered in a glove of soft emerald velvet. "Pansy... I'm not feeling-"

Once again, Pansy's expression faltered. "I'll make you feel better," she said in a sultry tone and then reached out for the windowsill herself, once she'd realized Malfoy wasn't about to offer his hand. Anxious, she pulled her slender figure through the window's opening and placed both her feet steadily on the messy ground. Seeing that his bedroom was still an absolute mess, she only grimaced before turning her back to the wall and facing Draco with an all new look of desire. "Now," she said again, "where were we?"

A sudden bang sounded out from the downstairs section of the massive manor and Malfoy's face drained of any possible color. Pansy's once gentle expression morphed strangely. A look of absolute terror overtook her and she seemed to have assumed that someone had broken in to the house. The anxiety-ridden flick behind her eyes became instantly obvious and Malfoy felt his stomach twist. Nausea swept through him bitterly. "What was that?" Pansy asked, her voice a thin little whisper.

But Malfoy was at a loss. For a split second, he was sure that the correct thing to do was to yell out, however, he could see Hermione's lingering shadow before he could manage to do so, could see her long, slender leg as it stuck out through the opening of the doorframe. "Draco," Hermione's voice said, making both Pansy and Draco's finch for different reasons entirely, "I think after some tea you'll start to- oh."

Hermione's brown eyes glanced back and forth. With her fingers looped around two different cups of steaming hot tea, it was a miracle that she did not drop them on the floor. Instead, she remained frozen, her pretty mouth opened slightly, her shoulders dropped in an extremely low manner. Pansy, she stood with her eyes wide and her mouth clenched shut. In her tight emerald green dress, she no longer look sultry, but stupid and rather immensely unnecessary. Behind Pansy, Malfoy couldn't help the beat red color that washed over his entire visage. He felt even more sick than he could have ever imagined and almost lost his balance as he stood watching in the back. He breathed out, hoarsely, and his flimsy head of hair fell limply across his forehead.

"Granger?" Pansy squealed, the first to speak out of the three, "Hermione Granger?"

Her gloved fists were balled up tightly, her eyes flashing bitterly. Even in the darkness, the lines on her pretty face were obvious. But Hermione, however, seemed almost too uneasy. Like Draco, she stood like a statue, her eyes slowly finding Draco's. On the other hand, Pansy's voice rang high again. "What... what the fuck?" Then, on the end of her spiky little heels, she spun around to face Draco, whose chest dropped nervously. He couldn't, however, take his eyes off of Hermione. "What is she doing here?" Pansy asked loudly, thrusting her finger out behind her, shoving it angrily in the direction of Hermione. Her face had never looked so red, her eyes almost caught up in twinkling flames.

But Draco couldn't help himself. He wasn't prepared for this, could never had imagined that he'd have had to prepare himself for this. As he remained glancing at Hermione, he tried to stop the croak that tainted his voice. "I..." he stammered uselessly, "s-she was just..."

Standing still, Hermione could not look away from Draco as well. Her chest dropped when she thought of him. Sympathetic, she wasn't sure whether she should step in, or sneak out slowly. Though Pansy had Draco in a trap and, even with the delicate cups in her hands, she managed to step forward. What was it with her need to protect Draco? Was it the natural motherly instinct that she was sure all women possessed, or was it the fact that she was almost certain that Draco could not truly manage to protect himself? "I've... I've b-been helping Draco out with some... Ministry issues. He was interested in a job at the... office."

Pansy's face twisted. Tossing her head to one side, she said flatly, "don't you dare patronize me." Then, spinning around for the second time, she watched Draco carefully. "Draco," she added with a bluntly harsh tone of voice. But when he did not answer her instantly, Pansy seemed to get the hint. For a moment she looked as if she didn't believe it, but as the moments passed, the more she became convinced. Furious, her face immediately burned with the harsh shade of scarlet that matched Malfoy's embarrassed expression. Her pulse pounded and her pounding heart was almost obvious even to Hermione at the other side of the room. "This is who Goyle's been on about, huh? Hermione Granger?"

Then she tossed her head backwards, laughing sarcastically as she pushed the messy brown hair from her face. "Hermione Granger, seriously, Draco?" There was a look of both hurt and bitterness in her anxious voice. Her eyes flashed and she dug her hands in her pocket, feeling for her thin little wand. Outraged, she added, "... a mudblood?"

In the corner of the room, Hermione stiffened. She glanced back up at Draco, whose eyes shot back up from the ground. For a moment, he looked as if he were about to pounce on Pansy, but instead of instantly doing so, he came back with, "don't call her that," instead.

Face twisting, Pansy glanced back at Hermione and then returned her focus to Malfoy. "Call her what?" she said bitterly, her lips curling, "a mudblood?" She analyzed his face, noting that he was, in fact, completely serious. "What," she laughed angrily, "you're not kidding?" Her brows fell, her hands slipped from her side. "Draco," she said sternly, "what the hell happened to you?"

But Malfoy only cleared his throat. He couldn't help it. With the sick notion churning mercilessly inside his stomach and the sweep of immense nausea in his throat, he said timidly glancing back down, "I think you should go..."

"This I should go?" Pansy chuckled again, though her smile was certainly not an amused one. "You know what? You're right. You're absolutely right. I should go. And I also think I should have a talk with your father about this... relationship." Her bitterness was all the more blatant. "Or, better yet, the media. I think they'd have a hay day with this one, don't you Granger?" Instinctively, Hermione's first thought was her wand. She could have dropped the glasses to the ground if she hadn't been so horrified. Still, she couldn't help the threatening pulse that raged through her body. She both wanted to thrust the steaming hot coffee in Pansy's face, and stand in front of Draco like a human shield. To her dismay, however, she did neither.

When Pansy's threats were not addressed, the strong look on her face did not last. When her expression slipped from her visage, she looked only bitter. Then, though no one had said a word, she lifted her hand and sent her palm straight across Malfoy's already bruised cheek. The collision of skin sent a loud smack echoing throughout the entire bedroom, but Malfoy did not move a muscle. Instead, he seemed to try and avoid Hermione, his wet eyes locked this time only on Pansy. He did not look confused, however. The expression on his face was that of understanding, hurt, and humiliation. The blow had knocked his hair down over his forehead and had caused his cheek Hermione at once set the glasses aside, spilling the steaming tea over their edges as she did so. However, she only took several steps forward, drawing her wand out in front of her. The only noise that emitted from her throat was, "leave!"

Pansy paid Hermione no attention. Instead, she took one last step towards Draco, her finger jamming him in the chest. "You know what?" she said curtly, "you are crazy." Then, with certain conviction, she pushed her way past Draco Malfoy, darted undauntedly towards Hermione and shoved her as she did so. Though she said not another word as she made her way down the long hall. The sound of her high heels sounded through the hallway and climbed down the stairs. Both Hermione and Draco stood in silence until they heard her finally reach the tile floor and pull the door open before conclusively slamming it harshly shut.