A/N this chapter had somehow not been that easy to write for some strange reason. I hope it's okay anyway...
So, please REVIEW
"Maybe we should make ourselves a bit more presentable."
Draco looked at her with a glance that said he didn't care about being presentable. All he cared about was her being with him again. She sighed.
"There will be a lot of people coming to see us. I want to make a good impression."
She wanted to make a good impression? Having just woken up from a month long coma didn't seem to have damaged her sense of humour then.
"Hermione, I really don't think that anybody particularly cares about us being..."
"Do you want your mother to see you physically entangled with a girl?"
"Well, if you put it like that..."
"Exactly."
He sort of sat up and watched her conjure several more pillows. Arranging them against the headrest she made sure that she would be able to snuggle up to him in an unobvious way. He grinned. Seemingly he was rubbing up on her.
Leaning back into the mountain of pillows she sighed.
"Everything okay, Lea?"
"I just wish, we wouldn't have to face all the questions that are going to be asked and to see all the people that have probably been worried sick about us."
"Being worried sick about you." He arranged himself next to her.
"I'm sure that Harry has been hoping for you to get better as well."
"Maybe. Though I doubt that he would have wasted any thoughts about me, if it wouldn't have involved you. He was hoping you would get better. Should I be able to achieve that somehow..."
Soft fingers caressed his. Deep down she knew he was right. It was still the same. Nothing seemed to have changed when it came to people seeing only the past when looking at the young man next to her. It would take a long while before he lost his Death Eater reputation. She sighed.
"As long as you know who I really am I don't care what anybody else says."
His voice was firm, but she heard all the unsaid things in it. His hand found the bump that their child now created and stroked it gently.
"As long as our children have the chance to grow up with you loving them..."
"I love you, my dragon." Hermione kissed his cheek.
The door opened moments later and his mother entered. There was a man following her. Both Draco and Hermione were glancing at him, wondering if that was James Mulligan, the auror Harry had told them about.
Mrs. Malfoy sat down on her son's side of the bed. Concern showing on her face For some strange reason it didn't seem to be only the fact that her son had spent a month in a coma-like state which bothered her. The stern looking auror who was now sitting in the corner was radiating protectiveness with every breath.
"Draco," his mother smiled, "you can't imagine how glad I am that you are awake again. When they told me that you had demanded to be with your fiancé I was fearing for the worst."
Hermione lay her head on his shoulder.
"I am deeply ashamed of what Lucius has attempted to do to you both."
"Mother, we both know that he would have sooner or later turned on me. He was simply not capable of understanding that I'm not the cold and calculating monster he wanted me to be."
He could feel Hermione's hand squeezing his.
"We had come just back from the Ministry. Having been told that he was ultimately behind you being cursed and several people poisoned with various potions... I have let my guard down." There was a bitter and accusing look on his face, but his words made it clear that he was only blaming himself for what had happened. "I failed to protect my family. He nearly killed...," he glanced at the witch by his side, "Hermione."
"Draco, your father has..." her voice faltered.
James Mulligan stepped behind her with a stern but also strangely kind look on his face.
"Your father has caused more grief than you hopefully will ever find out."
Narcissa felt his hands on her shoulders and lay one of her own on his. A small but rather intimate gesture. One that wasn't lost in all its complex meaning to neither her son nor her daughter-in-law.
Kingsley Shaklebolt sat in his office and was seriously contemplating the possibility of having a couch put in that could double as a bed. He had spent most of the night at St. Mungo's and the reason for it hadn't been pleasant. He was quite sure, that the witch he had gone to see didn't deserve what had been done to her, even so she was a scheming and malicious... He rubbed his hands over his eyes. He needed some sleep.
There was a knock on his door.
"Yes?"
His secretary entered with a letter. He groaned. Only no news were good news by now. He took the parchment with a nod and then unfolded it slowly as he watched the door being closed.
They are awake.
Wilson
Unbelievable! This was actually good news. He resisted the urge to apparate to the hospital directly. The head of the Auror Office would have informed her parents and his mother as well. They needed some private time with their children first. All the official questions could wait. He hoped anyway.
There was another knock on his door.
"Come in." His voice sounded exhausted.
It was Henri Shaw that entered his office. He didn't bother sitting down before starting to speak.
"You heard, I presume?"
"About young Malfoy and Hermione, yes, I was just informed about it. What actually happened? Did the healers finally find the cause of their state and were able to reverse the spell?"
There was a moment of silence in which the auror took a deep breath.
"Wilson only owled that they were awake. As to the how or why, no details so far."
"Henri, just between the two of us, what do you think has happened?"
Silence. There was no easy answer to the question.
"Honestly? I have no idea. Potter told me, that he saw Malfoy senior on the floor in pain, Malfoy junior concentrating on some kind of spell. He stunned Lucius and Draco passed out. The girl was already unconscious by then." There was an obvious hesitation at the end of the sentence. The other man waited patiently. "Potter told me, that Draco didn't use his wand to cast the spell and he did it silently as well."
"I have the impression in order to have old Malfoy in pain on the floor it couldn't have been an easy spell either."
"No. Whatever spell, curse or charm it was, it was a powerful piece of magic."
"The young Malfoy was always only second to Miss Granger. His years trying to stay alive while Voldemort took over his father's life might have taught him some things even we wouldn't dare to attempt."
The Grangers were a bit surprised when a rather early visitor was ringing their doorbell and to find that is was Hermione's friend Ron was even more astounding. They had asked him in for a cup of tea. He took his time to start explaining why he had come.
"The good news is that Hermione is awake again."
"Oh, thank God for that." her mother said.
"The healers don't know, why she has woken up. They are just glad that she has."
"What has actually happened? The doctors only told us that she was hit by a spell of some kind."
They hadn't told them? A plan was forming in Ron's head. It would hurt his friend, but if he was lucky he would finally get her away from the ferret.
"Well. I don't know, if Hermione has told you that her so called fiancé is the son of a Death Eater."
"What was that again?" John Granger asked, dreading the answer.
"They were the followers of Voldemort. They were doing his dirty work, pillaging, raping and murdering innocent people. Wizards, witches and Muggles alike. Malfoy's father was the right hand man of this monster. Malfoy himself is also a Death Eater. They are all wearing the Dark Mark on their left forearm."
Shocked silence.
"Has he, Draco, also done all these things?" Maggie Granger's voice was trembling.
"I can't be certain about it, but he has been tormenting students at Hogwarts for as long as he was there. Only during the last year, he didn't dare do it any longer as his evil Master has been defeated."
"That is horrible! How can our daughter be engaged to such an evil person? How can she willingly want to be have his child?"
"There are ways, using a forbidden spell, to make a person comply to anything and everything." Ron felt a little twinge as he saw the horror on her parents faces, but he was doing this for her own good. Malfoy must have put her under the Imperius Curse. Otherwise she would have never consented to having sex with him, bearing him a child and being engaged to him.
He got up and excused himself.
"When can we see her?" her father asked him as he accompanied the youngest Weasley to the door.
"Any time. I suspect that the healers will be in touch so that you can visit her."
"Oh, good. Her mother will want to go as soon as we can."
Ron said his good-byes and walked down the drive while Mr. Granger was watching him go, recalling what he had said about the young man that had got his daughter pregnant. He had seen Draco act around Hermione with nothing but care and consideration. He had comforted her, held her. His words had seemed so honest. Had that all been false? He couldn't believe it, didn't want to believe it, but doubt had been sown in his soul about the wizard claiming to love his only child.
The same afternoon an owl arrived from the hospital with a portkey so that the Grangers could visit their daughter without having to use the lengthy Muggle transport system. They went straight to her room and were shocked to find their daughter sleeping peacefully on the chest of the also sleeping young man they now knew to be a murderer and rapist. Had he raped her as well?
They didn't notice the bulky man sitting in the corner, watching them closely.
"Hermione!" her mother called.
Draco opened his eyes and knew at once that something was wrong. His hold on his witch tightened just a fraction and he cast a silent shield charm around them. The girl next to him stirred.
"Hermione! Come away from that... murderer!"
Her eyes flew open and she was shocked when her mother was trying to reach for her, but was repelled by a spell that seemed to have been cast around them.
"Mum? What's wrong?"
"We know, what he is!" Mrs. Granger pointed at the wizard before her. "He has raped you and then he put a spell on you. The Imperial Curse."
"Imperius Curse." Draco corrected coldly.
"He is the son of a rapist and murderer and has done it himself. He has probably done it to you and then made you forget it."
Utterly bewildered Hermione looked at her parents. Who had been telling them this kind of nonsense? She had thought they understood that he was different, that he was a good man having had to grow up in the wrong environment.
"Mum, dad! Who has been telling you all these lies?"
"Your friend, Ron."
"WHAT?"
With impeccable timing said friend chose to enter the room at this precise moment.
Draco wasn't quick enough to get a hold of Hermione before she jump out off bed, raced to Ron and slapped him right across the face.
"You evil bastard! Why have you been lying to my parents about Draco?"
Holding his burning face, he only glared at her for long silent heartbeats. Warm hands got hold of her shoulders and it took a moment before she realised that it was her fiancé that was now standing behind her. He bend down to whisper into her ear.
"Just leave him, Lea. He isn't worth your time."
"He has been trying to..."
"I know." His lips gently feathered a kiss on her temple. "As long as you remember the dragon nothing can touch us."
Ron glared at his adversary. What was he talking about? What dragon was his friend suppose to remember?
"Hermione..." he started, but the stare she shot in his direction silenced him instantaneously.
She allowed herself to be led back to and helped into the bed.
"I don't know, what he has told you," Draco addressed her shocked parents, "but you should listen to your daughter and trust her judgement. She wouldn't let me near her, if I was a murderer. Hermione knows everything there is to know about me, good and bad, and she still became my fiancé."
It was obvious that the Grangers were not sure any longer what to believe.
"Ron said, that he was wearing a mark that would proof him to be evil."
Without hesitation Hermione grabbed Draco's arm, pulled his sleeve up and exposed his branded flesh. There were gasps from her parents.
"This is what Ron has been telling you about. Has he also told you that it was either being branded or being killed for Draco? Or has he mentioned that this happened when he was only just sixteen years old?"
Stunned silence.
"I didn't think so."
