~*~The Lull~*~

From the open door, the night air rolled over the group in the foyer of Malfoy Manor, rustling clothes and hair. The after-smell of curses lingered in the atmosphere before them and smoked sizzled off the holes left from stray hexes. A few pieces of stone had crumbled around one particularly bad impact and turned black. Crackling up the stairs with a vicious intensity was a blue spell that had scorched the area it shocked red hot. Draco had probably been the one to cast that.

A groaning yelp sounded from the base of the steps and three red-clad men lifted the bound form of one Winfred Brighton, who struggled against his bonds with half-formed declarations of vengeance. There was a cut across his brow and three or four holes in his robes where he had narrowly been missed. His wand hand, however, was severely burned from Draco's curse.

Standing with his wand held down to his side and a fierce frown on his bespectacled face, Harry Potter ordered the Aurors to report back to the Ministry and a pretty little holding cell laid out just for the man they held between them. A broken wand was crunching together in his palm, a hint of dragon heartstring peeking out of the chipped end. She had never seen him so ruthless and she had travelled the woods of the world with him trying to hunt down a vile despotic wizard's soul fragments. Every trace of the kind-hearted Harry she had seen her whole childhood was gone in favor of the more mature, Moody-esque, Auror.

She was across the foyer, on the ground by the entrance to the downstairs parlor, healing a deep cut on Draco's cheek from debris. Hermione brushed the hair back from his face gently as she finished and helped him back to his feet. One of the Aurors' preliminary spells had knocked him down.

The group Harry had brought with him were unrefined, but well enough at their jobs. She guaranteed that Harry would have them all working at the highest caliber if he were ever granted the Head Auror position. With Brighton out of the running for fraud, corruption, bribing and murder, he stood more than a good chance. The crackling from the stairs abruptly ended as Harry cast the counter at it. The wood cooled immediately with the night air.

She gave Draco another once over and finally met his eyes. He looked furious and she wasn't strong enough to stop him from charging up to Harry.

"You should have let me have him, Potter! He was my kill!" The pureblood shoved Harry backwards but the Boy-Who-Lived simply stuffed the former Auror's wand into his pocket and crossed his arms. "You couldn't save my father and now you take the murderer away from me; is there no end to your meddling?"

Harry laid a hand on Draco's shoulder so calmly that even the angered man had to pause.

"I can't pretend that I know what you're going through. My father was dead before I could even love him and I lost nearly every other fatherly figure before I was able to fully love them either. But, Draco, you have a mother that loves you, a mother that is in as much pain as you are, if not more. The last thing she needs is for you to end up in Azkaban for murder.

"It hurts you to think you missed out on revenge, but the cost of revenge hurts more than what caused you to seek it out. Hate me if it makes you feel better, but open your eyes to the truth. Killing Brighton wasn't going to bring your father back or cure you of guilt." Harry sighed and started for the door. "I did you a favor; deal with it." The door shut softly with Hermione's wave goodbye lost in the wind.

Draco was silent for a moment, then he brushed past her to his mother, who he helped up the stairs. Narcissa had begun to weep again and the sound slowly faded as Draco led her around the corner. Hermione was at a loss. If Harry hadn't come in...she didn't want to think of what would have happened. The parlor was behind her so she turned around and found a seat with the least amount of work involved. The cushion of the couch was like a dream but she felt heavy and tired emotionally. The house elves that inevitably had to exist here were nowhere to be found just when she was willing to bend her rules to ask for something to drink.

All she had wanted when she started this whole thing was to research what her boss had told her to. How come every time she set out to do something, it always went terribly wrong? Was it some sort of defect? If it wasn't in a book or in the scribbled margins, could she not navigate it safely? Hermione laughed at herself. She had done so many things that no one had even thought about putting in their diaries, much less widely read tomes. But even though she knew she could weave the choppy waters of life, she wondered why she hadn't been able to stop Brighton sooner. Lucius hadn't done a thing to deserve her help...but that didn't mean he deserved the Kiss. No one deserved that.

It seemed she sat there for quite a bit of time, just staring into the middle distance, before Draco came to stand in front of her. Her eyes trailed up his torso to his eyes, which were grey once more, and she offered him a soft smile. He didn't move though, until she patted the space beside her. He hesitated, then sat and turned left to wind himself around her. He nuzzled his head into her chest and sighed.

"Would you love me even if I had killed that slimy fool?" His voice was muffled against her skin and he seemed just as tired as she felt.

"I don't see why not. It's only because I'm a Gryffindor that I stopped you. That and because it would have severed your soul."

"Is my soul really worth all that trouble?" Tears made his voice thick and she was forced to lay on her side from his increasing weight.

"Apparently, otherwise I would have stood by and let you hex him once or twice...or thrice." She pressed a hand to his head and made to say more, but he was already fast asleep. Hermione shifted to get up and leave, and mired herself further beneath him. He curled his arms tighter around her and rubbed his tear-stained face across the fabric of her shirt. The sight of him so unguarded made her smile through her own exhaustion and she closed her eyes. Sleep was not too far behind.

A/N: It seems I riled you up last chapter, my apologies. Hahaha, no. Actually that made me feel awesome because I did what I set out to do. Thank you all for making my goals achievable. By the way, A Rogue Without Her Remy, I hope this fulfills your request for a day made. Thanks for reading and please review! Tickle2Kill