Author's Notes:

I apologise again for the long delay. I was back in and out of hospital for more tests and one procedure. It's been a long road to recovery. One step forward, three steps back. Still, ever onward, yes? Some progress is good!

I hope you are all staying safe and are healthy. Keep of good heart and mind!

For this chapter: some important character/relationship development and a bit of foreshadowing here and there. See if you can pick it out!

Despite all their planning, Narcissa Malfoy remained elusive to both Draco and Hermione over the next three days.

The house elf, Mippy, would only explain that her Mistress had gone away and she was unsure when the witch would return home when questioned on the matter. Not even Draco's command as one of her masters was enough to get the little creature to divulge more of an explanation.

Which meant the elf was first and foremost bound to her direct owners, the Lord and Lady of the house. Even as heir to the family estate and all its properties, Draco still ranked second in its loyalties…something Hermione would need to remember in case things became dire enough to require them to slip out from Narcissa's grasp.

~.~.~

MALFOY MANOR - DAY ONE

~.~.~

The sitting room attached to the bedroom she'd been assigned had a comfortable chaise longue in the style of an antique Victorian fainting couch positioned in front of the fireplace. It had an agreeable slope to it, one perfect for reading. Hermione thought she may never again rise from it.

In fact, in between the hearth's cheery warmth, reading an enjoyable tale of feminine heroics by Amorette Deneuve, and her general exhaustion, she'd decided a bit of a late morning lie-in might just be in order.

Closing the book and snuggling down under a lap quilt, she closed her eyes.

Sometime later, the feeling of the book in her arms being pilfered by a clumsy hand woke her up.

Hermione quickly scrambled up to grab her bestseller back from the thief's clasp, but Malfoy was entirely too swift for her, lifting it high into the air and out of her reach. "What have we here?" he asked, closing the cover and reading its title. His high-pitched laughter a moment later had her gritting her back teeth. "You're reading romance? Are you serious?" He started thumbing through the book, his amusement growing with every turned page. "Well, it certainly isn't helping your game, is it? I mean, your idea of seduction was to tear open your robes and jump me. It worked, but talk about cheating the experience—"

She got up, circled around the furniture, and kicked him in the shin with the side of her foot, the way she'd been taught by Harry to fend off unwanted attackers.

"Ow!" he said, hopping back and inspecting his leg for damages. "The hell, witch? Cut your toenails this century, would you? Ow, damn!"

"You're lucky I'm not wearing shoes." Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she shoved his shoulder and held her hand out for her book. "And that is not how it happened, you fibber! And also, Professor Critic, there's absolutely nothing wrong with romance novels, especially ones that feature an empowering female hero saving the backside of an ungrateful fool of a man!"

To her utter exasperation, he pulled a juvenile move and flipped the book opened to a random page in the middle and began to recite a rather explicit passage involving the brave heroine, the dashing hero, and a creative use for moustache wax.

Honestly, he was as bad as Ron sometimes!

Hermione cleared her throat and hoped her flush from the provocative words could be excused away by Draco's infuriating antagonism. "Why are you trespassing up on my privacy and stealing my things anyway?" she demanded of him. "Give it here!"

He shut the book with a business-like 'snap' and dangled it just out of her reach.

"Technically, this is my thing as it's in my house…although I have to wonder which ancestor is responsible for such trash. I mean, who uses moustache wax anymore?" He preened like an arrogant, little lordling holding a winning hand of cards. "In any case, it's Malfoy property and that means you can only read your freaky smut upon my say-so, Granger—and I don't say so."

That did it.

A wiggle of her fingers and she hit him with a wandless Melofors Jinx, encasing his head in a pumpkin she'd conjured out of thin air. Immediately, he dropped the book to grip his head in an attempt to remove the pumpkin, growling out profanities at her when he discovered a Sticking Charm had been added there at the end to prevent such an attempt.

Hermione summoned the book to her before it hit the ground with a wandless, non-verbal Accio. "And as I'm the guest of honour in your house," she reminded him, leaving him to his struggles as she crossed the room into the bedroom to put the book down on the side table next to where she planned to sleep later that night, "I'm sure you meant not to be such a bad host by denying me a bit of harmless entertainment…because that would be just pumpkin-headed rude of you."

Mentally, she patted herself on the back for that clever little pun.

Behind her, Draco profaned up a storm.

"Get this bloody thing off me, you vindictive harpy!"

She reentered the sitting room and took in his measure with a wicked chuckle. "Are you sure? But the orange goes so well with that all-black ensemble you're overly fond of wearing "

"Granger, I'm warning you!"

"Just think, in nine months and with a cleverly cast Lumos under the rind, you wouldn't even have to worry about a costume for Halloween," she told him, finding the idea rather appealing. "Until then we can simply sell you to the public as the victim of an unfortunate vegetable breeding incident."

He referred to her as a rather unpleasant word, one rhyming with 'witch'.

"Oh, cease being such a baby. Walking around with a squash affixed to your head isn't that bad. There are worse things. Really, it's rather charming….trend-setting, even," she told him in between fits and giggles. "I mean, I hardly doubt anyone would actually notice the difference anyway."

At his wits end, Draco cast the strongest nullification spell he knew to reverse the jinx and its auxiliary charm. Fortunately for him, it didn't remove his head at the same time and the pumpkin popped out of existence. He glared at her then as he attempted to straighten his clothing and regain his dignity, small bits of pumpkin still stuck in his mussed hair.

Hermione pressed her lips together in a tight, firm line to keep from erupting into laughter and injuring his fragile masculinity any further.

"They're right about you," he growled at her finally, wagging a finger in her face as he brushed the other hand through his platinum cut to rid it of the bits and bobs. "You are an absolute terror."

Hermione fell onto the longue, laughing her silly head off.

"Har-har. Yes, alright. You've had your laugh for the week," he told her with undisguised annoyance. "Now come on, I have something to show you."

It took her fifteen minutes to dress and another ten to comb out the tangles from her curls, and then she met up with Malfoy on the top landing of the third floor. With a silent glare, still smarting from her trick, he led her silently down to the first level and then all the way towards the back of the house. There, he used a magical phrase to open a door that led into a rather well-stocked and expansive library. It wasn't quite as large as the one at Hogwarts, but it was certainly the largest she'd ever experienced outside of a public building.

"My mother has left the house today, according to Mippy. I don't know where she went, but I'll try to find out," he told her. "In the meantime, we need to research those collars. I've gathered all the books I could find on house elf bonding as a starting place, but honestly " He indicated a small pile of approximately twenty books on the lone desk in the vast room. "There isn't much. The Ministry usually does the job of binding a new house elf to a family that inherits it or procures it from another family. They have an entire department dedicated to magical creatures that registers the ownership rights."

"Yes, I know," she told him, circling the desk to pull the pile over to her to catalogue it. "I'd planned to work there after the war to revamp the laws regarding the ownership of other magical beings, once all of this mess is sorted."

When Draco didn't have a witty quip to come back with at that, she glanced up at him.

"Is it that idiotic Gryffindor bravery that allows you to be so cheerfully optimistic?" he asked her, his expression a mask of cynicism at her suggestion that the Second Order would win the war. "Or is it simply naivety? I can never tell with your lot."

That earned him a stern frown from her direction.

"I have to believe we are going to win," she told him. "I must work continually for that goal, no matter how bleak or hopeless things may seem. As a Muggle-born there is no other alternative for me, except death…and I will not go down without a fight."

Draco stared at her in silence for a long time, until finally his mouth turned up and a grudging admiration filled his gaze.

"Idiotic bravery, definitely," he said and rounded the desk to take a seat at her side, picking a volume at random to read from the pile. "Now shush. I can't concentrate with you talking my ear off all day."

Hermione watched him for a bit in silence before turning back to the pile to set aside the books she'd already read at Hogwarts from the school's copies. In the end, they had eight books she'd never encountered before and would need to read. Split two ways, that left them each with only four. That was a reading list she could dust off within two days, tops. She settled into the chair beside her Slytherin companion and cracked open the first volume, all thoughts of pumpkins, Halloween, and silly pranks set aside for the moment.

The issue of where the Lady Narcissa was off to, however, preyed at the back of Hermione's mind for the several hours they remained in the family's library, especially after Draco left around three o'clock to track down his mother.

He didn't return to collect her to escort her back up to her room to change until dinner time, and by then, the question of the Malfoy matriarch's goings-on had gnawed a hole in Hermione's stomach. Had she gone off to report them to her sister, or worse…to her husband?

Equally as worrisome: when would she be back?

~.~.~

By seven o'clock that night, Draco's mother was still not back and not even the enticement of a wonderfully cooked dinner of grilled rosemary lamb meatballs over a Pasta Pomodoro or a delicious raspberry-champagne posset for pudding could pull Hermione out of her anxious state.

The question of whether or not Narcissa would be foolish enough to turn them over to a Snatcher or a Death Eater had been easily dismissed hours before; one of the first possibilities she'd crossed off her list, in fact. The woman wouldn't risk Draco being accused of colluding with the enemy—a charge that would be levied when it came out he'd not only brought Harry Potter's best friend into his home without the use of chains and in a collar, but that he hadn't yet turned her in to the Dark Lord either. Worse, if he was probed by a strong Legilimens, the fact that he'd lain with a 'Mudblood' would come out as well, and such a thing would never stand in Voldemort's court.

No, there was no chance the Lady Malfoy would risk her baby boy's life, no matter her fidelity to the cause of blood prejudice.

That left very few options for her going so suddenly from her house, however.

Where would she have gone? Had she taken a trip to discuss her son's sudden love interest with her husband, who was stationed in France according to the last news she'd heard on the wireless back at Shell Cottage. Risking a letter with such a message would be folly, so it made sense that she'd rush off for a one-on-one with Lucius instead, to take his advice.

Or perhaps she'd gone to a friend's for a party or a prolonged social visit?

Whatever the truth, the woman's absence from the manor house was keenly felt by both her and Draco, although she suspected it was a bit more so on her side of things, as it was highly likely that her former lover might still be able to slither his way out of trouble if it came knocking for them…

"Granger, you're being too quiet now. It's irritating."

Her companion's abrupt, needlelike censure spooked her, as they'd been the first words out of his mouth since they'd sat for dinner two courses ago, and she accidentally fumbled her knife. It clanged against her fine china plate with a sharp ring before falling to the carpeted floor at her feet. She stared at it, embarrassed at so blatantly revealing what a bundle of nerves she was tonight.

It wasn't as if she didn't have any call to be, though. After all, with the manor's Mistress gone that left her all alone with Draco…in a magical mansion that was approximately the same size as Longleat House and which had almost as many bedrooms. Bedrooms with ginormous beds covered in luxurious silk sheets and soft, yielding mattresses. And romantic candlelight throwing secret shadows everywhere.

Honestly, the manor at night was either the creepiest place on earth or one giant invitation to sin, depending on a guest's mood.

"S-sorry," she offered with a twitchy smile. "It's been a long time since I've sat a formal dinner with such magnificent food."

"And here I thought you liked the idea of being romanced."

Her head snapped back on her neck as his words hit her with unexpected force.

"R-romanced?"

Before Draco could reply, the house elf moved in on her.

A blink later, Hermione had a fresh knife sitting next to her plate on the proper side and the fallen utensil had been disappeared from sight.

"Er, thank you," she replied a moment before the elf popped back out of the room with an adorable curtsy. "She's very…efficient," she told her dining companion with a sheepish smile, thankful for a distraction from the previous line of conversation.

"Mmm," Draco agreed, dabbing his mouth with the napkin on his lap before replacing it, "and an excellent cook." He indicated the food they were eating with a sweep of his hand.

She couldn't help but agree. The food was better than some of the nicest restaurants she'd visited with her parents over the years.

"Mippy really wants to be a Healer, though. It's her secret wish. She doesn't know I know that, by the way, so don't tell her."

Hermione nearly dropped her fork this time.

"H-How do you know that?" she asked, surprised by his revelation the he actually cared what a house elf desired.

He shrugged, and his shoulders stretched his well-cut dinner jacket in a way that had her quickly reaching for her glass of water and taking an ample swallow. After that, she tried not to notice too hard how he'd filled out a bit since last year. Apparently, Voldemort leaving his home as a result of failing to capture Harry upon his seventeenth birthday had done wonders for curing Draco's poor eating and sleeping habits. He looked like he'd put back on a little more than a stone's worth of weight and muscle since the previous June.

"I overheard her telling Dobby once, when I was a child and playing near the kitchens," he explained. "She would always heal his injuries."

She'd forgotten that Draco had once owned Dobby and that Lucius Malfoy had delighted in abusing the poor elf.

Had Draco ever been so cruel to his family's servants, too?

No, from the way Mippy looked at him, it was clear the little elf adored him, so perhaps he hadn't been as terrible a little snot to everyone in his life.

"She would also reset my bones and clean my scrapes. Theo—Theodore Nott, from our class—he and I would always get into mischief when we were younger. Usually, it ended in one or both of us limping around or bloodied up. Mippy took care of it and ensured our parents never found out."

His gaze was distant as he got lost in memories that had his lips twisting with amusement.

Hermione, too, became lost in a memory—one involving a particularly nasty conversation between Malfoy and Nott from a potential future that could already have been derailed, or which might still occur…

"You two-faced son-of-a-bitch, Nott! Is this how you treat old friends?"

"Old friends? When were we ever that, Draco?"

It seemed strange to hear Draco speak of Theodore Nott now with such fondness after having heard that particular conversation plucked by accident from the ether of the time stream that she'd become unintentionally tied to, and she couldn't help but wonder at the possibility that somewhere along the line Theo might become bitter and resentful of his one-time friendship with the Malfoy heir.

Would she be the cause of that fracture?

She remembered Nott, of course, had noticed him in more than a passing way, even. When they'd been in second year, Ron had compared him to a rabbit for his chubby cheeks and twitchy nose, but Hermione recalled how he'd grown out of that characterization by the beginning of fifth year. The twitching had actually been a result of squinting because he'd needed glasses for hyperopia; a pair of smart spectacles had easily corrected that problem. As for the round face…puberty had fixed that, giving Nott squarer features and a strong jaw. The girls had swooned over him by the time sixth year had come around, in fact. Hermione could admit to having admired not only his pretty blue eyes with their long, dark lashes, but also his fine intellect and absolute wand proficiency when assigned to walk Prefect rounds with him. The fact that he'd spent most of his time running as a 'lone wolf' among his own Housemates, who tended to congregate in gangs, had further caused her to notice him.

Of course, even if he had been interested in something more than acquaintances—something he'd never given her any indication, to be fair—it had been far too late by the time the thought had even passed through her head as she'd been thoroughly ensnared by another Slytherin then, one whose suspicious comings and furtive goings had her obsessed with discovering his darkest secrets, and then in finding a way to save him from them…

"—Mippy's always taken care of me," Malfoy was saying, jarring her out of her inner musings.

"Did you take her to Hogwarts with you then, while we were in session?"

She knew some of the richest pure-bloods had a familial house elf assigned to their children while they attended school—primarily to serve as a status symbol or to sneak extra food out of the kitchen at nights.

"No, she's my mother's elf, technically. I don't have one of my own. It was Madam Pomfrey to the rescue anytime I was injured at school. Mippy did most of her mending work on me when I was a younger child," he told her, setting aside the past to return to cutting up his meal on his plate, "and entirely too reckless."

"You mean you're not reckless now?"

He gave a low chuckle that had Hermione's chest fill with unexpected warmth.

This moment reminded her of when they'd been back in school, before the war. The friendly banter and begrudging smiles… Were they actually behaving like quasi-friends again?

"Now I'm only reckless where you're concerned," he told her, lifting his wine glass and taking a sip of the light red varietal they'd been poured earlier to go along with their meal.

His gaze met hers over the edge of his glass, and stayed locked as he licked his bottom lip of residual wine.

Hermione's face flushed with heat, bringing her right back around to her earlier musings about being alone with him for the night.

Obviously, she knew they weren't actually "alone" in the strictest definition of the term, as there was Mippy, more than thirty magical portraits, and according to Draco, a "moldy dungeon complete with an uncountable number of spiders, and one ghost tucked away in the wine cellar". Still, it was the first time since their one and only afternoon in the Room of Hidden Things last year that she and he would be together all night in an enclosed space without the benefit of another living human being in the immediate vicinity. There would be no adult supervision to interrupt, interfere, or inhibit anything Draco might be planning for her, and Hermione was feeling intense anxiety at the thought.

Merlin almighty, where was Minerva McGonagall when a witch actually needed her?

She reached for her water glass again, taking a good swallow of its contents, and dropped her gaze to her plate.

"D-did you have any luck finding out where you mother is off to?" she asked, turning the conversation again.

"I'm not sure," he said, staring into his glass with a frown. It was as if the admission pained him—which she was sure it had, as Draco had been supremely arrogant about this whole plot from the get-go and now to have an unexpected wrench thrown in his plans… Well, Hermione was sure he was silently as vexed by the move as she was, honestly. "She took a conveyance from the stables, but her magical signature led me astray once I was off the grounds. I was nearly to Bath before I realised she'd laid down a false trail."

"Well, is there anything that can be deduced from her trip? We know she could Floo to the Ministry, if necessary, so it wouldn't have been there that she went."

"And the carriage is drawn only by one horse and is a short-distance conveyance," he explained. "It can go fifty miles or so at a time. It couldn't make it to Canterbury without a change of horses, much less across the channel to France to where my father is currently staying, if she'd gone there to discuss us with him in person. That means she went somewhere close."

Ah, so she'd been right to suspect this possibility.

"Do you think she's visiting Bellatrix, to tell her we're here?" It would be the worst possible scenario, but fortunately one they'd planned for. "We should leave, as discussed," she said, feeling an anxious swoop in her belly at the thought of Voldemort and his army of Death Eaters appearing at the Manor's front door any minute now…

Draco set his glass down harder than necessary and all that displeasure was suddenly turned on her.

"No."

"But—"

"No. I don't think she went to visit my aunt, nor do I believe she will sell us out to the Dark Lord. My mother's angry, but not irrational, Granger. It would mean my death to be found out here with you, and she knows it."

Yes, she'd already deduced as much, but still—

"You wanted this," he reminded her. "You wanted us to deal with my aunt, to take her off the board."

"And you knew I would," she countered with heat. Setting her utensils down, she politely wiped her mouth and reached for her water glass again to stave off dry mouth. "Don't pretend you didn't know Ron would eventually let the slave collars slip in conversation and what my reaction would be. You knew I'd come out of hiding and demand your aunt's madness be stopped. Don't bother denying it."

He leaned back in his chair, an arrogant smirk curling his lips.

"Of course, you're entirely too predictable, Granger," he told her. "That's your problem."

"No, you are my problem," she candidly replied, wiping the amusement from his face in one short sentence. "You and your infuriating Slytherin mind games! I know there's something more going on here than just dealing with Bellatrix Lestrange. Why won't you just tell me what this is really all about?"

"I'd say it's rather obvious, wouldn't you? We both have a problem that needs a permanent solution."

"You mean your aunt and her deranged plans to enslave the world?"

"Among other things, yes."

"And what, pray tell, are those 'other things'?"

"You'll know when the time's right," he told her with an absent wave of his hand while reaching for his wine glass again. He downed its contents in a single go, and then called for the house elf to appear and to remove their dinner plates, since it was clear neither of them would be eating anymore of it. "Let Miss Granger try the sweet you've prepared for us, if you would, Mippy."

"Yes, Master," the little elf said and hurried off.

They sat in an angry silence until the elf returned with their possets.

As they waited, Hermione glared at her host, who seemed rather amused by the mental daggers she threw his way. He sipped quietly on his water, watching her with grey eyes dancing a fox's delight.

Once dessert arrived, Hermione dug in, but once more her concentration was elsewhere and so she couldn't truly enjoy her pudding. "You're after something more," she grumbled and pointed her spoon at him. "I want to know what."

He laughed at that.

"We don't always get what we want…or expect, Granger," he told her with a mysterious smile. "Get used to it. I have."

She spent the rest of the meal attempting to puzzle out what he meant by that.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Amorette Deneuve is an author in "Harry Potter: Wizards Unite" mobile video game. She was considered "the foremost expert on love potions and spells." She had "many published works about Love, among them, First Love, First Loss." (source: Harry Potter Wikia).