Shaelune, Chapter 8 ~

A/N: You may feel really angry at me for making y'all wait so long for this, so I'll tell you first: lots of stuff is going to happen in this chapter- kind-of truces, broomstick rides, illegal wee-hour wandering about, that sort of thing. Sorry this took so long! I promise to update more often now that I've gotten over my writer's block.

**~ goldenberry

Hermione stormed up the darkened corridor, her path only lit by what the dim torches could cast. She couldn't remember ever being this furious in her entire life... well, perhaps when she had first discovered the horrible conditions of the Malfoy house-elves, or when Buckbeak had been convicted for something that was Malfoy's fault. Why is it that everything that makes me angry has to do with him? she asked herself as she slammed the door of her small apartment.

As she put away the items from her spell earlier, Hermione noticed the dark stain down the front of her wrinkled polo shirt and cursed under her breath. "Shit! How did that get there?"
Hermione quickly changed into appropriately plain dark pants and one of her uniform oxfords (Ginny had warned against bringing them, but she'd ignored her), and grabbed her bag. The doorway to Malfoy's suite loomed forebodingly before her; breathing deeply, she walked in.

The sight of his peacefully sleeping (ferretlike, she reminded herself firmly) body was enough to renew her courage and anger. Hermione was at his side in an instant, slapping at his head.
"SHIT! OUCH!" Malfoy was suddenly awake, shoving himself across the bed away from her. "What the hell? Granger?" He seemed to be surprised, angry, in pain and rather bewildered all at once.
"No, it's McGonagall," she said, rolling her eyes. "Now, are you going to get up or do I have to rip the cover off?"

"Whatever, Granger," Malfoy sneered. "Turn around and I'll be ready in a second."

Hermione huffed and turned her back. "You are so incorrigible," she said angrily.

Malfoy laughed mirthlessly. "Are you planning on telling me what's going on?"

"I don't know, should I? You seem awfully smart for someone who didn't know this," she retorted, whipping out her clipping from the Daily Prophet.

Malfoy walked past her and snatched the paper from her fingertips. As soon as he had read it, he changed direction and grabbed his broomstick from inside the closet. "Come on," he ordered as he opened the French doors onto the balcony and levitated the broom four feet into the air.

Hermione followed him hesitantly. "What? Where are we going?" She hadn't expected this response, that was for sure.

"Get on, Granger." Malfoy straddled the broom with ease and tucked the clipping into his robe.

Hermione was many things, but stupid was certainly not one of them. "Not until you tell me where we're going."

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "You've got your wand, right? If I end up flying you to some desolate prison in Siberia, you can just murder me and use the broom to get back yourself. Four years of flying class can't have been that fruitless."

Hermione sighed reluctantly at his sarcasm and perched behind him, settling both her legs over one side of the broom. Malfoy sniggered as they flew silently over the side of the balcony and into the night sky.

Draco thought absently that gliding past the moon and stars might have been romantic if it were with anyone less repulsive than Granger; he could see his favorite constellation twinkling near the uneven horizon, and the shadowy crescent moon hanging as though by a strand of gossamer above it. Draco- the dragon, he thought. Cold and reptilian and powerful. Unloving.

He was jolted out of his reverie by a girlish shriek from Granger, and felt her weight behind him vanish. Draco turned around to see her falling through the thin cirrus clouds below, and with instinct that comes only from many years of Quidditch angled his broom downward toward her. The wind whipped against his cheeks as he brought the Firebolt to a stop several feet under her; she fell into his arms with a sweep of dark curls and cold white skin.

"Thanks," she said with a twinge of shaky sarcasm.

Draco stared at her. "You act like you've never flown a broom before."

Granger sniffed as she placed one leg over the other side of the handle. "I just don't like flying, all right?"

"Well, there goes Potter's hope of all his best chums being on the Gryffindor team with him."

He heard her laugh flatly. "Ha, ha, ha, Malfoy. Am I sitting correctly now?"

Draco gritted his teeth. As much as he hated the Mudblood, he really didn't want to be responsible for her death right now. "Put your arms around my waist, and you won't fall off."

Granger hesitated and then wrapped herself close to him as the Firebolt tilted upward toward the sky. Draco wondered why he'd never done this with someone else; it was nice, in the chilly northern spring, to have a warm body against his.

After another hour of flying, the broom began to descend toward land. Below them Hermione could see a forest of thick brambles, interrupted in the center by a large, silver lake. An island floated in the lake's middle; a towering castle was built on its peak, boasting turrets of African ebony that spir aled into the clouds. For all the palace's splendor, Hermione saw no bridges to the shore, and suddenly she realized where they were.

"You live on an island?" she asked Malfoy incredulously.

"The Isle de Mal Fet," he answered. Then, with pride, "My ancestor Sir Lancelot built it in the ninth century- perhaps you've heard of him?"

Hermione smirked. British history, she knew. "Oh, the Chevalier de Mal Fet the Ill-Made Knight. Fitting." She felt him tense and smiled victoriously.

They were coming closer, and Hermione saw that only a few of the many hundreds of Gothic windows were lit. "Where are we landing?"

"On the north balcony," Malfoy said as he aimed the Firebolt toward an expansive verandah to their left.

As he glided to a stop on the tiled stone, Hermione shivered with discontent. The landing was dark except for what light the moon could shed, and hideous gargoyles watched over it from the corners; when she stared at one, its eyes slid silently towards her, and its fanged lips curled in a very Malfoyish sneer. She shivered again, quickly disentangled herself from Malfoy, and hurried off the broom.

Malfoy made his way to the intricately carved doors; as he turned the key, Hermione looked closely at the sluggishly moving carvings. In one panel, a flaxen-haired mermaid seemed to be happily drowning a little girl; in another, a grove of trees served as witnesses to a vampirical ritual in which dozens of necks were being feasted on and mortal blood stained the grass. She turned towards Malfoy, who had opened the door. "Pleasant lot, your family."

He ignored her and pushed forth into the darkened room. Hermione withdrew her wand and whispered "Lumos!" as she followed him; the globe of light illuminated a cavernous hallway lined in framed paintings. "Where are we?"

Malfoy had lit his wand as well, and was reviewing the newspaper clipping he'd taken from Hermione. "Portrait hall. Every Malfoy, from the first" He gestured to their right, where a dashing blonde man in black armor leered out at her. Lancelot, Hermione thought. " down to my father is immortalized here. In chronological order, of course."

Malfoy handed her the clipping. "Chalybsis Malfoy? Never heard of him, but he must be in here somewhere. 1584" He began to stride quickly down the hall; Hermione had to jog a bit to keep up. She passed legions of silver-haired men and women, each with the same nose and I-know-something-you-don't-know smirk, all unmistakably beautiful. No matter how evil they were, Hermione couldn't deny the good physical genes in the Malfoy line. Lost in her thoughts, Hermione nearly collided head-on with the heir as he came to a stop in front of her.

Draco stared up at Chalybsis Malfoy and saw, as much as he wanted to deny it, an innumerable amount of similarities between this man and himself. With a shock of golden-white hair slicked back in the traditional fashion, and cut to about halfway up his neck, Chalybsis sneered back at him, his delicate blonde mustache tilting. His regal nose turned up the same way; the only major difference, apart from age, were his dark cobalt eyes, flashing with a sort of danger Draco only dreamed of conveying.

"Well, this is definitely it," Granger said as she knelt on the marble floor and began to unpack her bag.

"This is definitely what?" Draco hated not knowing what was going on.

Granger came up with a broken pocketwatch, a dusty leather book, the portrait of Alexandria de Lunariam, and a knife. But before she could say anything in answer to him, Chalybsis Malfoy began to speak.

"What are you doing, children?"

Draco turned to him, astonished. He'd temporarily forgotten the portraits could talk, and was a bit unnerved. "I'm Draco Malfoy." He hastily added, "And I'm not a child."

Chalybsis shot him a glare. "I know who you are."

Granger stood up. "Excuse us, Mr. Malfoy, but we were wondering if we could-"

The portrait furrowed its brow and interrupted her. "You, I don't know. Care to introduce yourself?"

She shot Draco a sideways look. "Pansy. Pansy Parkinson."

Chalybsis narrowed his eyes, but Draco couldn't tell whether he'd bought it or not. "Enchanted. Now, what do you want?"

Granger smiled, and Draco realized she'd extracted her wand from her pocket and was gradually bringing it upwards. "Tempi Frigidium!" she cried, aiming the glowing rowan branch at the portrait. Chalybsis froze in mid-smirk, and Draco coughed. "What was that?"

"Simple time-freeze spell. It should hold him for a few hours, or at least until we can get out of here." She bent down to retrieve her bag. "Hadn't counted on the talking-portrait factor, had you?"

Draco ignored her. "What's the hurry?"

Granger raised her eyebrows in her favorite Isn't-it-obvious expression. "Your house is definitely not my favorite place in the world, Malfoy. And your parents are not my favorite people." She frowned. "And I really doubt that I'm one of theirs."

He started walking further down the hall, confident she would follow, if a little indignantly. "Where do you think you're going?" Granger called after him.

"My parents aren't at home, and I'm hungry." He smirked and added, "It's a long ride back to the inn."

Granger rolled her eyes and changed directions, hurrying up to walk beside him. "If we get in trouble, this is all your fault, you know."

Draco smiled inwardly. "Of course."

"Ooh, your bedroom, I presume?" Hermione commented as she followed him into a circular tower room sumptuously decorated in black and silver. "Not afraid to have dirty blood in your private sanctuary?"

Malfoy gave her a mock-innocent look. "If it matters that much to you, you can sit outside. Alone."

Hermione shuddered and didn't push it.

He seemed to be trying to choose between the several bells that hung on velvet ropes of varying colors from the ceiling near the door. As she looked closer, though, Hermione saw that each bell was engraved with a name: Seepy. Ellomy. Tiry. Rueby. At the end of the row, one rope had been torn out of the ceiling.

House-elves! Hermione instantly felt the rage she'd adopted last year on behalf of the enslaved creatures begin to irritate her again.

"I can't believe you," she told Malfoy angrily. "Not only are you the most despicable little piece of vermin I've ever had the displeasure of working with, you have the audacity and insensitivity to demonstrate your ill-gotten power over these poor elves in front of me. I'd thought maybe you'd begun to understand me just a tiny bit when we worked on this project, but no." She felt like slapping him again, and managed to keep from doing so only by applying all of her self-restraint. "You're the same self-absorbed ingrate you've always been." She added to herself, "People don't change."

Malfoy sighed patronizingly. "Still entertaining hope that I'm going to become a saint and join up with you and all your buddies, Granger?" He pulled the rope that was second-from left and turned away from her, towards his bookcase. "I agree with you for once; people don't change. They can't change." He laughed derisively. "This is the way I am, and I'll always be a self-absorbed ingrate, I think you said. Just like you'll always be a smarmy know-it-all who's full of shit and can't keep her opinions to herself."

Hermione let out a catlike hiss through her teeth. Snape, she could take it from, Snape, she had to take it from. Malfoy was a different matter.

But as he selected some book and crossed to the window, Hermione realized exactly what kind of situation she was in here, one she'd been incredibly stupid to put herself in: alone in his house, which was on an island, in the middle of the night; her only escape was on a broom she didn't know how to fly, and no one knew she was here. And Malfoy wasn't exactly a weakling, either. Much as she hated to admit it, he had a good half a meter on her in height (she'd always been petite and was much shorter than even Harry at this point), and four years of Quidditch hadn't left him with no muscular power. Plus, she observed as he waited moodily for the house-elf to arrive, he could wield quite a bit of psychological power when he wanted to. No, it was definitely not a good idea to tangle with him right now.

There came a timid knock on the door, and a house-elf clothed in a ratty sack with illegible black lettering stamped on the side scurried into the room. "Will there be anything else, Master Malfoy?" she stuttered in a high-pitched squeak.

He waved her away wordlessly, and she gave Hermione a look of sympathetic pity as she left.

Hermione studied her shabbily painted nails; Malfoy seemed to be totally absorbed in his book. The house-elf (Ellomy, she discovered, looking at the bell he'd pulled) had left a tray of sophisticated-looking pastries, accompanied by two steaming goblets of something dark and reddish, Hermione surmised, glancing into them. How had the house-elf known Malfoy had had a guest?

"Convenient, having a slave, isn't it?" she said loudly.

Malfoy closed his book and took one of the goblets. "Rather. Service at a moment's notice; unquestioned authority; an all-give, no-take relationship. I'd marry one if it weren't a social faux pas." He looked Hermione up and down, taking in her slightly rumpled shirt and windblown hair. "Not that you know or care about those."

Hermione gestured toward the goblet and raised her eyebrows in question; she'd learned to ignore his subtle insults about her background. "I don't care, have some," he said in answer, and Hermione wrapped her chilled hands around the goblet, breathing in the warmth before she sipped at it.

And nearly choked. "Wine," she sputtered inelegantly as she wiped the liquid off her mouth.

Malfoy looked at her in confusion. "Did you expect pumpkin juice?"

Hermione glared at him. "No, I expected something not alcoholic, as you're underage."

He was still confused. "What?"

Hermione realized that the wizarding world didn't have alcohol restrictions. "Never mind," she said, then tried to think of small talk she could have with Malfoy. "Erm do you usually fly home by broom?"

Malfoy looked at her incredulously. "Like I'll tell you," he said as though it were obvious. "How do I know you're not gathering information for Potter?"

"It's this little thing called trust," Hermione shot back. "I hope you realize this is pathetic, Malfoy. I'm at your house, we've known each other for five years and you can't even bring yourself to make small conversation about transportation."

Malfoy shook his head. "You make it sound like we're friends, Granger; and in case you haven't noticed, we're not. In fact, I believe I've heard Weasley refer to me as your worst enemy."

"You are," Hermione admitted. "But that's not the point. It's the fact that you can't even be polite to me when I ask you a simple question that doesn't pry into your private life. It's not as though I want to know the morbid details of Voldemort's latest plot."

He snickered. "The thought of me even considering having a conversation with you- the Mudblood champion of Gryffindors everywhere- about my personal life makes me want to laugh and vomit in unison, Granger."

Hermione huffed. "Fine. Can we leave yet?"

Malfoy gave her his trademark smirk as he put his goblet down and picked up his cloak, swirling the black velvet around himself deftly. "Don't you want to finish your wine?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes and swallowed the rest of the alcohol, fixing him with a glare. The wine burned her throat and she almost choked on the heady wave of dizziness she felt after downing the entire glass, but she managed to smirk back at Malfoy. He slipped the book he'd been reading into the pocket of his robe; Hermione caught the title- the collected works of Rumi- and almost laughed. Malfoy, reading poetry? Especially Muggle poetry? True, she wasn't sure whether the poet had actually been a wizard or not, but it was still hard to imagine Malfoy so interested in love poems.

As she followed him from the room, Hermione looked back longingly at the untouched pastries on the tray. He was right; it was a long ride back to the inn, and she was pretty sure she'd need something else to concentrate on except his chest beneath her arms. Silently, she stole back and took one from the pile, and set off down the darkened corridor after the black-robed figure ahead.

**

Thanks so much to Elfin Warrior Maiden, AcidAngelTears, eden, jepa, L. Rynn, Lauriena, Ashley, Elizabeth Choi, LilyAyl, Star of Light, Rosandra May, RowenaR, a1tymdiva, MeMyselfI, kstar47, Padfoot AKA Tori, fluere113, AngelzGaze, Chaser, Rachel Hunt, Mae Noelle, Strife21, Nuada, Chrissy, Priya-chan, Starbrite, Epequa, Fire Goddess, and Icy Stormz. Expect my next chapter sometime before December 4th! I'm back! **