July 3, 1998

"Again," ordered the Dark Lord.

"Crucio!" Percy Weasley obeyed, his voice mechanical.

Rabastan Lestrange screamed. At the outset, he had sworn at the ginger and said filthy things about his sister, but ongoing torture had made him incapable of forming words. Despite his unemotional delivery, there was no doubt of the painful intent behind Weasley's curse.

Lestrange convulsed on the floor of Malfoy Manor's dining room, specks of spittle and pink phlegm staining his dark beard. Although the wizard was a pathetic sight, it was the safest place to look in an assembly of Death Eaters. Still, Draco's grey eyes darted around the room, making eye contact where he dared, seeking stray thoughts about Ravenclaw's diadem.

After several minutes, once Rabastan had wet himself from the pain, Voldemort raised a hand and Percy lowered his wand. "Enough. Have you learnt your lesson?"

"Yes, my lord," Rabastan whimpered. Draco made eye contact with him. He caught glimpses of a golden cup entrusted to the Lestrange family - the Hufflepuff Horcrux that Hermione already had destroyed - but there was nothing in Rabastan's mind relating to the diadem.

The Dark Lord raised his voice. "The lesson applies to all of you. I am a generous lord, and I would have given Rabastan permission to wed his brother's widow, but do not attempt to seize such a prize before I award it to you."

A chorus of affirmation echoed throughout the dining room, heads bobbing in agreement like marionettes. Draco again made eye contact here and there, delicately probing to see whose minds were unprotected. He skimmed past Longbottom, taking note of the grim set to the Gryffindor's mouth and dark circles under his eyes. There was a story there, but Draco did not waste his time or effort using Legilimency to find out what it was.

"Dunno. I think it's better to seek forgiveness than ask permission, especially with a looker like Little Red," Blaise whispered in dissent. "And everybody knows there's better than even odds Rabastan put Ginny in the pudding club instead of Rodolphus."

"She's still not worth being tortured for," Draco scoffed, discontinuing his subtle Legilimency.

"You'd do it for Hermione," Blaise pointed out. "Have done, even without adding a brat to the equation."

Since he was annoyingly correct, Draco did not reply. He gave his attention instead to Walden Macnair's report on the Scottish situation, which was as bleak as the highlands in winter.

"They've fortified their manors - fortresses is more like it - and the clan leaders have been meeting somewhere Unplottable. Looks like they'll declare their independence from wizarding Britain, maybe agree to join a loose federation once you're dead."

"They'll be waiting a very, very long time then," the Dark Lord said, allowing himself a small chuckle at the thought of his own immortality.

"Aye, I think that's what they're hoping for," Macnair said candidly. "There are Scottish wizarding clans that've been waiting for an excuse like this ever since Bonnie Prince Charlie lost on Culloden Moor."

Rather than descending into a rage and blaming the messenger - as Draco secretly hoped, since Macnair was a vicious nutter - Voldemort gave an unnerving smile. "It's been so long that they've forgotten the consequences of treason," he observed. "I shall have to remind them."

Draco waited for details, anything he could casually "allow" Granger to overhear in a conversation with Blaise or Greg. He never told her anything directly - there was no incriminating pillow talk that could be traced back to him - but he certainly allowed her to filter out the pertinent information from the interminable meetings all Death Eaters were required to attend. He also turned a blind eye when she used her charmed Galleon to pass it along.

However, to Draco's frustration, Voldemort offered no details as to how he intended to punish the rebellious Scots, but instead gestured for Scabior to speak. The Snatcher began a rambling and ungrammatical complaint about the casualties his men had suffered over the past week after being lured into ambushes by trained fighters - many of them ex-Aurors - using the Taboo as a lure.

Draco hid a grin. The Snatchers were the scum of the wizarding world, and he was delighted to hear the Order of the Phoenix was helping to thin the herd.

"Mebbe we can remove the Taboo on yer name?" Scabior finished by offering a moronic suggestion. The Dark Lord despised being referred to as Voldemort. Thanks to the Quibbler, anyone who was literate now knew it was a pretentious nickname made up by a moody adolescent rearranging his Muggle first and last name with his respectable wizarding middle name.

"Crucio!"

"I'll take that as a no," Blaise muttered as Scabior howled. The Dark Lord's Cruciactus Curse was much more powerful than Percy Weasley's. Within a minute, Draco's ears were ringing in the sudden silence as Scabior collapsed, unconscious or maybe dead.

Without batting an eyelash at the body on the floor, Charlus Nott began an impeccably detailed briefing on the Death Eaters' efforts to consolidate control over the Wizengamot through a combination of bribes, blackmail, and threats to beloved family members. Despite his personal distaste for the man, Draco listened carefully and with grudging respect, making no attempt to read the old wizard's thoughts. Nott's plans were all too likely to work and his Occlumency shields were bloody well perfect.

Once the meeting was over and Voldemort had dismissed them all, Draco hurried upstairs to the nursery wing, converted before he left for Hogwarts into a suite of rooms for a growing boy and later remodeled by his mother into an apartment for a young man. He hoped that Granger still was awake. Late as it was, he could use some intelligent conversation as an antidote to the meeting, not to mention the distraction afforded by her warm and willing body in bed.

To his disappointment, she had fallen asleep at his desk, slumped over a pile of parchment with a book on resurrection magic open by her hand. A tiny furrow between her eyebrows showed how hard she was working to bring Potter back to human form, fretting over the Chosen Git even in her dreams. Draco's lips curled in a reflexive sneer as he stripped off his Death Eater robes and flung them on the couch with unnecessary force. Even in snake form, Hissy was a royal pain in his arse.

Indeed, Granger had come close to ripping him a new one just because Draco had pointed out that if Potter had to die in order for the Dark Lord to be defeated - which was the most sensible interpretation of the prophecy - Hissy would be much easier to kill as a snake than a human. It wasn't as though Draco was plotting to murder Potter himself or even putting a sword in Longbottom's hands so he could do the job - he was just being pragmatic about the vulnerabilities of his schoolyard nemesis.

And on the subject of Longbottom, there was the whole issue with Hermione's desire to include the big lump in all their plans even though his Occlumency shields still were spotty, all because he might be the Chosen One. She was not a Legilimens, like Draco, and not directly involved in Longbottom's Occlumency trading, like Greg, but Granger still was her know-it-all self, insisting that transparency was best despite the risk that such sensitive knowledge would pose to them all in Longbottom's penetrable mind.

Even so, Draco was not about to leave her in an uncomfortable desk chair, not when she could be snug against him in a warm bed. He scooped her into his arms, smiling at the absurdly grumpy little noise she made.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," he whispered, as her long eyelashes fluttered.

Her eyes snapped open immediately. Draco silently cursed his own stupidity. He had forgotten - again - that her brand made her obey his lightest wishes as commands.

Hermione misread the angry expression on his face as directed at her, rather than himself. "What did I do now, Malfoy?" she asked, brown eyes wary.

"Nothing," he mumbled, embarrassed at having been caught staring. "You were going to get a crick in your neck if you stayed there all night."

"Is your meeting done?" she asked, still sleepy.

"Finally," he groused. "Fucking waste of time, just like Gringott's." After leaving King's Cross station, he and Granger thoroughly searched the Malfoy, Black, or Potter vaults - all of which Draco could now access as the rightful heir, since the goblins and everyone else thought Potter was dead - but Voldemort had not stashed the missing Ravenclaw Horcrux in any of them. "Not even a hint about the diadem. Either people didn't know a bloody thing or they were shielded too well for me to tell."

"At least you eliminated some of them," Hermione consoled.

"Many of them," Draco agreed. Longbottom was by no means the only Death Eater with porous mental shields. "Did you spend the entire time I was gone working to solve Hissy's many problems?"

She shook her head and squirmed in his arms. "You can put me down. I spent most of my time working on something else."

"Oh?" he inquired, setting her down on her feet with reluctance. He rather enjoyed the feeling of her bum rubbing against his groin.

Hermione pulled a couple of pieces of parchment from the top desk drawer. "I've been working on the Malfoy Manor Marauder's Map all evening. I'm curious to see if it's working. Are the Death Eaters all gone?"

Draco looked over her shoulder, equally curious. "I'm the only one left," he confirmed. "Except for He-Who-Has-No-Nose, but he's retired to the drawing room for the night."

"Hmmm," Granger hummed. "That's what the map shows, too." She handed him the second sheet of parchment, which he saw was a list of names. "Is this everyone who was at the meeting tonight?"

"Indeed it is," he confirmed, smiling down at the brilliant little witch - his brilliant little witch, at least until the Dark Lord was defeated. After that, Draco knew she would be gone, back with the Weasel King or maybe Potter himself - some righteous and shiny hero who had always made the right choices because he never had to make hard ones.

"What about the potion? Is there anything else we need to do tonight?" he asked, trying to take his mind off the tempting prospect that Granger could remain his if Voldemort remained in power. Two days ago, they had begun brewing the potion to resurrect Potter in Draco's bathtub before siphoning it into a massive cauldron, now hidden in his equally massive closet.

"The potion was done about an hour after you left. It can stay in your closet under a stasis charm until Harry's birthday," Hermione replied. Although skeptical about divination, she could not dispute that Trelawney's prophecy was clear in its reference to the end of July. There also was a certain poetic justice in bringing Potter back to human form on the day of his birth that appealed to her.

"I have a better idea. Greg and I have a patrol in Godric's Hollow tomorrow night. We'll take it to the graveyard then," Draco volunteered. "If someone happens to find a Disillusioned cauldron with that particular potion by Potter's dad's grave, they'll blame the Order. It's a lot harder to blame them if the cauldron's in my closet."

"Don't get caught," she warned.

"I never do," he smirked. "So, is everything in place for Hissy's triumphant return?"

He poured himself a glass of Firewhisky as he spoke, trying to keep his tone snarky rather than bitter at how little time he had left with her.

"Not quite. I'm still trying to find a better way to make Harry into a homunculus, but he can stay in snake form while I research." The spell that Pettigrew had used to put Voldemort's spirit into a humanoid form had been easy enough to find among the grimoires in the Malfoy library, but it required the sacrifice of an infant, something that Hermione balked at.

"You drink too much, Malfoy," she added with a sniff of clear disapproval.

"And here I thought I was the one who got to tell you what to do." Draco narrowed his eyes at her use of his last name. "I have a headache from trying to pry into people's minds, alright?"

She glared back at him, undeterred. "If you don't like what I have to say, then tell me not to nag. Merlin knows I've heard it from Ron often enough."

"I'm not Weaselbee." Draco automatically sneered at the mention of her ex-boyfriend. "I wouldn't give you an order like that."

"No, I know you wouldn't," Hermione said, laying an apologetic hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, Draco."

"It's alright." He gave her a crooked grin. "Besides, I need you to be able to tell me no, to stop me before I do anything unforgivable, or unforgivably stupid."

"Well, in that case . . . . " She gave a meaningful glance at the tumbler of liquor in his hand.

"This? This is just a distraction, a way to help me relax," Draco explained. "I need that distraction, what with a mental despot with daddy issues having taken over the government."

"There are healthier ways to go about it," she said, her prim reply at odds with the tiny smirk on her face as she took a step closer, into his personal space.

"Did you have something in mind, Hermione?"

He was careful to make his question as open and neutral as possible. She was an enthusiastic partner, but Draco did sometimes wonder if she would be so quick to drop to her knees or spread her legs without the inducement provided by the brand on her back.

"I always have something in mind," she purred, stepping up on her tiptoes to give him a quick kiss that swiftly turned into a breathless snog. It ended when she nipped lightly at his lower lip and then teasingly stepped away.

"Granger," he growled in warning.

"Are you feeling distracted yet?" she asked mischievously.

"No, not at all," Draco said, deciding two could play this game. He took a deliberate sip from the glass of Firewhisky still in his hand.

She grabbed the hem of the oversized Falmouth Falcons t-shirt she was wearing - one that belonged to him - and pulled it over her head. While he insisted that Granger dress like a proper pureblood witch when he paraded her around the Manor, in the privacy of their rooms, she dressed as she pleased. While wearing his old shirts might have been a subtle act of rebellion on her part, Draco had no objection. He found it dead sexy.

"Are you distracted now?" she asked, standing before him wearing nothing but a pair of knickers.

"Not really," he lied, knowing the huskiness of his voice and visible bulge in his trousers betrayed him.

Hermione gave a pointed glance at his groin before looking up to meet his eyes. "You were a better liar back at Hogwarts," she observed, applying her nimble fingers to unbutton his shirt and unfasten his trousers.

"I'm not lying," he insisted, suppressing a groan. He tore his eyes away from her bare breasts, focusing on the glass of Firewhisky and taking another gulp.

"That must be some excellent liquor. May I try it?" From the amusement in her voice, Granger was aware of her arousing effect on him. Without waiting for an answer, she dipped her fingers into the tumbler clutched in his now-sweaty palm.

"Bloody hell, witch," he moaned as she sucked the Firewhisky off her fingers, eying him all the while.

"Have I succeeded in distracting you, Malfoy?" she taunted, stepping closer, so close that the hardened peaks of her nipples brushed against his bare chest as she reached into his silk boxers, stroking his hardened length.

"Almost," he grit out, willing her to get on with it. He bit his lip to keep from vocalizing that thought, knowing she would have to obey. Draco nearly cheered when Granger lowered herself to her knees and took him into her hot, wet mouth. "Thank Salazar!" he said, with fervent relief.

Blindly, he reached behind him to set the glass of Firewhisky on the desk, not caring whether it spilled. He tangled his hands in Granger's wild hair and thrust forward, relishing the fluttering sensation when the head of his cock hit the back of her mouth. Her breasts rose and fell as she breathed deeply through her nose in order to suppress her gag reflex and suck him in even deeper.

Fuck," he swore happily as Granger worked between his legs, diligent as a house-elf.

She hummed and looked up, seeking his approval. Even with Legilimency, Draco could read the question in her golden-brown eyes.

"Oh, yes, Granger," he told her. "I am now quite distracted."

A/N: So sorry about the delay in updating - thanks to everyone for sticking with this story despite it! Special thanks to wordhoarder24 (I love jigsaw puzzles!) and susiequeen300, for her appreciation of Harry as a fashion accessory.

I recently came across Dreaming of Spires by mildred meadowlark - it is an intriguing and well-written Dramione memory loss story set primarily at Oxford. I recommend it for your reading enjoyment.