CHAPTER 37
October 17th 2001
Draco Malfoy's vision blurred as his eyes strained to focus on the clock beside his bed. If he squeezed hard enough, it became maddeningly clear that only two hours had passed since his last check up.
The safehouse Potter had stuffed him in was trammeled with loneliness. Walls painted with the dust of abandonment. This was once the home that Neville Longbottom grew up in, left by his grandmother after her passing.
Lavender stained air confirmed his memory.
Out of the two options he had this was not the out of date house that he ached to be in, but the thought of Hermione tucked in between the safety of her yellow sheets eased his craving.
Taking one last look at the time, Draco begged himself to fall asleep for just a wink more. His eyes stinging with lack of slumber as he fluffed his pillow for the millionth time. But drowsiness soon crept up on him quicker than a comet passing in the night sky. The final image his mind photographed was a framed portrait of Neville Longbottom's toothy grin distracting the camera from his atrocious Yule Ball robes.
"Pansy!" Draco called across the school's hallways. "Pansy, stop fucking running away from me."
"I will not!" Squawked the overly decorated witch, heels clicking to every stomp.
"What the fuck is your problem tonight?"
Pansy came to a halt so quickly she nearly tipped over, but recovered gracefully with a spin. Ball gown swishing at the dramatics of her attitude. Draco knew he was about to get his arse handed to him the moment he could see tear stripes down her blushed cheeks.
"What the fuck is my problem?!" She pushed his shoulders back. "What the fuck is MY problem?!"
Draco let her aggressive slide off him without retaliation.
With a black polished nail, Pansy dug at his chest with every next word. "My problem is that everyone in this god forsaken school has been gawking at that mudblood all night, and not even my boyfriend has the time of day to pay attention to me!"
"Oh please, everybody was just staring at Granger because she brushed her disgusting hair for once."
"I am not an imbecile, Draco. You and every other moron had your jaws on the floor the moment she walked in the room. Merlin knows she probably bewitched Viktor Krum to ask her as his date."
"Don't tell me you're jealous of the mudblood, Pansy?" Sarcasm was laid on thick with his question.
"Are you giving me a reason to be?"
The glow of the ball kept its buzz between their fight. The Wicked Sisters doing little from the Great Hall to distract the tension building between the two.
Draco tilted his head to the side with a tainted grin.
"Maybe I am."
Pansy ran her tongue across the front of her teeth, matching the sour look of squinted eyes.
"Maybe I did think Granger looked nice tonight." He continued to tease, "What would you do, Pans? If I said I wanted her on my arm instead of you. If I said I wanted her lips locked with mine. That when I had my hand wrapped around your neck, I was dreaming of her curls caught between my fingers."
"You're a prick." She spat as her chest drew closer to his.
"And you're an insecure witch who wishes she had half the attention of a mudblood."
It wasn't until his gaze was suddenly met with the ground that Draco had realised he had been slapped. His cheek burning at the claws that clipped him.
There was no time to respond before Pansy had pushed him against the wall, her palms colliding with as many inches of his body they could. His pale skin numb to the physical abuse that fought his verbal.
In the corner of his eyes, Draco was called to the flow of periwinkle blue gliding along the staircase above them. It was the vision he had been enchanted by the entire night, both the dress and the witch that bore it.
A final blow to the side of his head pulled him away from the mudblood witness. Pansy had been dragged back from her defence by a common hero.
"Alright, I think that's enough for tonight." Theo Nott grunted as he carried the defiant girl by the waist.
"Let me go!" Pansy huffed with kicking feet.
Draco rubbed his soon to be bruised arms. Not even his Italian made robes could have protected him tonight. Theo dropped Pansy onto the floor, quick enough to restrain her shoulders; by chance she wanted a second round.
"He gets off on seeing you pissed. Go to bed. Kiss and make up tomorrow." He shook her slightly to brush off the hostility.
Pansy threw his hands off with an ear piercing scream following her down the hallway to the dungeons.
In a way he didn't know it could, Draco's stomach dropped as he noticed the blue dress had disappeared from the staircase. A fleeting moment gone at a blink.
Theo straightened Draco's robes in silence. The shake of his head speaking on his behalf.
"Have something to say, Nott?"
"You're a prat, you know that?" He smirked.
"She loves it."
"Does she?"
A jealous aura resonated between the friends. One, envious of the toxic relationship, and the other lusting to get out of it. Neither willing to admit to each other.
Draco ran a hand through his overly gelled hair, "Thanks for… helping."
"Keep it up and she's going to leave you."
"Please, no matter what shit I give her, Pansy will never leave."
"Your father tell you that, did he?"
The distant memory faded at an interruptive noise of someone banging on a door. Theo's disgraced expression swapped in Draco's eyesight for the frills of a pink pillow, drool dripping at the corner of his mouth.
Repetitive knocks echoed until he stood from the bed and opened the door. A smirk splat itself across Potter's face as he scanned Draco's lack of proper clothing.
"Get yourself together, Malfoy." He rolled his eyes, "No sleep for the wicked today."
"You're insufferable in the mornings, you know that?"
"Good to know you admire me later in the day. Hurry up, we have to catch your mother before she meets with Pansy Parkinson for their weekly shopping trip in Milan."
At the mention of his old lover, Draco's mind scattered back to the small reminisants of last night's dream. Each scene fleeting from his memory the more he lingered on them.
"How exactly do you know my mother's appointments?" His breath uncomfortably warm in his mouth.
"It pays to be an auror. Doesn't pay to be a Malfoy these days however, we've had our eyes on your family for quite some time."
The comment was supposed to be threatening, but if anything it showed how irresponsible the magical defence force had remained despite the mighty Chosen One as their latest trophy.
"What a pity your precious aurors couldn't keep my father at bay before he tried to kill your golden girl, right Potter?"
He closed the door before a reply could be thrown back. His patience was running thin after spending a month with nobody but Gryffindors, some not even the good kind.
Once ready, he waltzed down stairs at his own pace just to piss Potter off. The scarhead sat with his wand tapping the kitchen table as he read the latest edition of the Daily Prophet, not even a slice of bread prepared as a kind gesture.
Draco leant against the door frame with his hands in his pockets. "Madrid lead has been announced, I take it?"
"They printed word for word what I owled to them. You are still thought to be in America and Jenkins is polyjuiced to look like me in case any photographers show up. Fair chance they will."
"I am going to pretend like I know who you are talking about and hope they don't fuck anything up. Last thing you need is someone making a statement on your behalf and ruining that holy reputation you possess."
"I really doubt a statement to the Prophet is the highest of my priorities right now."
Perhaps it was being with Potter day in and day out or the dream of how easy his life was when he was fourteen, but a slice of Draco's privilege had started to show. A part of himself he had unknowingly dropped by being with Hermione.
Merlin, he hoped that his father would kill him. Maybe then he'd be left to die with a bone of dignity, and not have to know what life was like without her.
"Let's get this fucking thing over and done with. Find my father and never have to see each other again."
Potter looked down at the paper in his hand with a splash of guilt. "Sure."
Hermione Granger pinched the bridge of her nose as she struggled to stay awake behind the wheel. Despite having slept for a few hours in the motel, it felt as if the last month had suddenly hit her like a jinx. Ironically, being on the run felt a lot easier when she was seventeen.
Clear snippets of dreams last night ran back and forth throughout her mind. The road in front blending in with play by plays of moments she had lived before.
"Is he dead?"
"No. Just out."
"What happened, Malfoy?"
"He was sent by my father."
"I was sent to give you a message."
"From whom?"
"Lucius Malfoy."
"What did you have to tell me?"
"To leave his son alone, or else."
"Fine. When I was kicked out of the manor two years ago, it was not because I resisted his ongoing hatred for muggleborns. It was because of my interest in… you."
Lucius' long hair flowed behind him as he sprinted at great speed through the empty halls. Hermione tried to get a good aim in order to stop him but her steps were too rapid to get a steady shot.
The ongoing flashbacks came with waves of nausea. Each image hitting harder than the next. Hermione dug her nails in the leather steering wheel, trying her best to keep from swerving.
Her dreams weren't making sense. None of the past few months were making sense. She had been blind sided by inevitable feelings to see what was really happening.
A theory was brewing in her mind, but she just needed to visit one more person to confirm it.
Malfoy Manor looked less haunted on the outside than it felt from the inside. Passing muggles would never know the deep rooted evil that lurks within its shallow halls, but Hermione had a feeling even she didn't know the true brokenness the mansion held.
The gravel was welcoming as she parked just outside the surrounding hedge, and the opening gates squealed with excitement as she walked through them. One of the first visitors the charmed household had experienced in many years.
Hermione knocked two times on the dark wood door before an elf opened on the third. It appeared to be a girl elf by the look of her pink tutu dress. Tennis ball eyes widened at the sight of the guest, followed by a clap of her tiny hands.
"Miss Granger! Oh Dipsy is so pleased to meet you Miss Granger!" The elf cheered while wrapping her arms around Hermione's legs.
"Oh." Hermione half laughed. "I am sorry, Dipsy. Have we met before? I would like to think I would remember an elf with such… fun style."
Dipsy pulled away from her legs with her ears hung low and cheeks blushed rose.
"Miss Granger is too kind, just like Dobby had told. Dipsy has not met Miss Granger before but has heard many good things. Master Draco would always request papers with you in them when he lived here. Is that why you are here, Miss Granger? To see Master Draco? He is not here anymores, he is living by himself in London."
Hermione took a moment to process all the elf had dumped on her. "Uh-I-um, I am actually here to see Mrs Malfoy. Is she present today?"
"Yes yes yes! Come in, Miss Granger, come in. I shalls take you to her."
Dipsy pulled Hermione through the house by her finger. A burn in her throat appeared when they passed the drawing room, but the traumatic memory of Bellatrix's cackle elapsed by the time they reached the library.
Narcissa Malfoy stood ever so elegantly in flowing black robes that held the intimidation of a death eater but the grace of a mother. The book within her grasp snapped shut the moment she sensed someone had disrupted her privacy.
With a head held high, Hermione sucked in a breath that lodged in her lungs. No matter how cold of a look the elder witch's eyes possessed, she would not be shaken.
"Miss Granger…" Narcissa drawled with a lift to her nose.
"Mrs Malfoy." Hermione tried not to quiver.
Dipsy yelped at the animosity shift, scattering out of the room in knowledge that she did not belong in the following conversation.
"If you are looking for answers for the reasoning behind my husband's resurrection, Miss Granger, you have come to the wrong place. Aurors have already torn my home apart, you have no need to do so as well."
"When my life is on the line, I feel the need."
The two witches kept their distance far, but loathing close.
"I had heard that you and my son were whisked away on a ministry trip to America, but by the look on your limp just now, I sense a lie has been told."
"Draco is fine, if that is what you are implying."
Narcissa pursed her unusually bare lips, relaxing her pale jaw at the sounds of good news.
"I know that Lucius is not the one trying to kill me," Hermione blurted. "I have come to ask who you think the true enemy is here."
"What makes you think that Lucius is not the source of his own evil? It is well known how deep my husband's dislike of you lies."
"Mrs Malfoy, I am well aware that you hate me as much as you adore your son. It is that reason that I need you to give me the answers you would have refused to give the aurors. You know something that could ruin your family's reputation."
"My family reputation was ruined a long time ago."
"Yes, but you always kept your dignity."
"Hmm." Narcissa scanned her up and down. "You are cursed with knowledge. Aren't you Miss Granger?"
"My logical thinking has come to be both a blessing but often damned."
"You are right in that Lucius had no intention to end your life. A disapproval of your friendship with our son, most definitely, but never to the extent that it has reached."
Hermione's legs started to grow weary, knees slightly knocking themselves under. She prayed that the distance between them kept her struggle discreet.
"Lucius is being controlled isn't he?" She threw her theory into the playing field. "The imperius?"
"Brightest witch of your age." Narcissa hissed through the teeth of pearls. "And yet you dare conclude my husband has lost his own right of choice within his own home?"
Hermione swallowed, "Am I wrong?"
The elder witch stepped forward, closing the gap between them until the smell of roses infiltrated Hermione's lungs. Trimmings of the black robes inches from being under her toes.
"You already know the answers that you came for. Why embarrass my family by digging for more?"
"Because I believe that you don't know who is controlling your husband… do you?"
With a puffed chest and glossy eyes, Narcissa revealed the truth. "No."
Reaching across, Hermione softly took the cold mother's hand into her own. "Mrs Malfoy, I am going to find the person who is ruining you and your son's life. I promise you."
"You need only to look into a mirror, Miss Granger."
Despite the harsh wording, Narcissa allowed their touch to continue. A comforting notion that both had missed dearly.
"How long do you suspect that Lucius has been under someone else's control?"
"Since… since the day he told Draco to leave if he continued your friendship."
"2 years? So all of this chasing, all of the threats, none of it was from Lucius?"
"None."
Hermione's legs started to tremble, her grip tightening around Narcissa's for balance. The elder witch frowned at the woman crumbling before her.
"You are still injured, aren't you, child?"
With a nod, Hermione replied weakly. "Yes."
A flick of her wand was all it took for Narcissa to drag two chairs over for them to sit on. Hermione sighed with relief the second her legs were released from strain.
"Who did this to you?"
"Crawford." She rubbed her thighs, "He tore my back open. Draco was the one to heal me."
A glaze of shameful pride swam over Narcissa's eyes. Proud of her son for heroic actions, and yet disappointed of the blood type he saved.
"How are you so certain that Lucius was not aware of his actions that day? Is it not logical that he would want to refrain Draco from being close to a muggle-born?"
"I am surprised, given your friendship with Harry Potter, that you do not understand the love of a parent. My husband, as cruel as he can show it, has never loved anything more than his son."
"You must have some id-"
Before she could finish her sentence, a voice called from the library entrance. "Hermione?"
The two witches spun in their seats, meeting the familiar face that matched the familiar husk.
"Draco..."