Thursday 3:40
Hermione had been with her parents all day, giving Draco no chance to meet her anywhere at lunch. Half of him felt frustrated, longing to be with her, but the other half new that she needed to spend time with her parents and he tried to tell himself that. She'd said at breakfast that she'd come and meet him at the tower at 4:30, before dinner, but 4:30 still felt like ages away.
Sighing he started to head toward's Firenze's classroom, to see if anyone was there and if he could help with the making of the spell when Dumbledore walked up to him. His first thought was immediately, uh oh. What did I do now? Then he scolded himself mentally, there was nothing he had done, Dumbledore probably just wanted to tell him something. Then he thought, tell me what? I hope Hermione's okay, what if something bad happened? That thought he quickly pushed away also, if something had happened he would have heard of it. Maybe it was something to do with You-Know-Who.
"Ah, Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore said smiling at Draco. Draco gave a part smile back and dug his hands into his pockets.
"Have you heard about your manor yet?" Dumbledore asked and Draco raised his eyebrows. He'd almost completely forgotten about that. He shook his head.
"We don't know where your mother is, the manor is completely abandoned, not to mention it was quite thoroughly ransacked and everything of value stolen," he went on to explain, "We believe it was death eaters, we don't know when it happened though. In the fact that they might come back, or might still be there, hiding, and that most of your relatives are missing as well, we can't let you go back there this summer."
"Ah," Draco said, dumbfounded. This was unexpected. His mother, gone. Dead or with the death eaters, a prisoner, he felt his stomach jump a little, or with them? Unlike his father, Draco did care about his mother a little bit, despite her natural airy stuck-up manner. She was his mother.
"Is there any place you can think of that you could go?" Dumbledore asked. Draco's mind immediately lept to Hermione and he bit his lip, he doubted Hermione's parents would want to bother over him all summer, especially if they knew there was something going on between them.
"Could I stay here?" Draco asked.
Dumbledore frowned slightly and tilted his head, "We don't normally allow students to stay during the summer. Most of the teachers go home, so there doesn't tend to be anyone here. Well, if a teacher stays this summer, and they don't mind watching over you, you can stay. We have had this happen a couple of times."
Draco's hopes lifted, he had no idea where'd he'd go if he couldn't stay here, he'd always taken it for granted he'd be able to go back to the Manor.
4:32
Up on the tower a breeze whipped around giving Draco a feeling of falling whenever he leaned against the edge. He heard steps on the stairs and opened up the door in the floor as Hermione stepped out. She looked happy and started their conversation by kissing him softly.
"Have a nice day with your parents?" he asked when they came apart.
Hermione nodded taking a deep breath, "I told them, and they were pretty shocked. Then we pretty much talked all day, it felt good to really talk about it."
"Skip all your classes?" he asked teasingly.
"Well, since I've been forbidden to do any homework or class work, just watch the classes and do some stuff, its not like I was missing much at all," Hermione explained, "Kind of drives me crazy, I get what they teach, but then I just have to sit there while everyone does the work. I think they're worried I'll faint again, they want me to take it easy for the rest of the year."
"Not fair, I still have do tons of work," Draco said grinning.
"Ugh, I wish we could trade," Hermione replied smiling brightly then added, "I told my parents about you, and how we were stuck together down there and so on. They want to meet you, I told them I'd go find you then drag you to them."
"Stuck? Drag?" Draco asked, "You make it sound as though as though I'm your slave or something."
Hermione laughed then said, "I really want to tell Harry and Ron about us. I think we should soon, they're getting used to the idea of you as a friend I think. Its hard, to not mention anything about you, hard not telling my friends."
Draco nodded, "We should probably wait a little longer though, we still have a couple weeks of school left."
Then he grinned and added, "We should tell them the last day of school then zip home and give them the summer to sit on it."
Hermione grinned, "Right before we get off the train?"
Draco nodded and Hermione said, "Sounds good to me! I kind of wonder what the expressions on their face will be, you know?"
Draco nodded then laughed, "Before being down there I would always think about ways to get back at you guys, look forward to expressions on your faces when I did something awful. Now here I am thinking similar thoughts, except for completely different reasons."
"We should just tell them, let them rave and rant or whatever, then convince them that, you're not the bad boy you were before," Hermione said thoughtfully as the wind blew her hair around.
"The only question is when, tomorrow, in a week?" Draco wondered then said, "That reminds me, Malfoy Manor was ransacked, so I can't go back there this summer. Hopefully I'm going to stay at Hogwarts for the summer though."
"Maybe you could stay with us," Hermione suggested, "I have seriously no idea what my parents would think. I mean we often let the odd cousin and stuff stay during the summer for various reasons, I don't see why you'd be any different, especially after they meet you and see what a great person you are."
"You flatter me," Draco said smiling then shrugged, "Do you actually think there's a chance of me staying with you this summer? I can see myself having a very lonely miserable summer away from you."
"If they do say no, though, we can also visit," Hermione told him then leaned down to open up the door again, "Come on, time to meet the parents."
A/N: Shorter chapter than normal, computer froze up a bit yesterday, otherwise this chapter would already be up. Today though my computer is up to speed!
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