Black, White And Gold
Welcome to the Malfoy Manor, Draco thought as he descended the winding obsidian staircase, a place where treachery, deceit and utter lack of morals are as much of an accessory as a cloak.
"Draco Salvador Malfoy. It's been a while." The familiar appraising eyes of Pansy Parkinson swept the height of his body were standing in his father's hallway.
"My mother invited you?"
"She invited my husband and I, yes," Pansy's once shinning black hair was dull, the pride she put into her appearance seemed like habit and her now sunken eyes no longer held the self-respect they once did. "Narcissia thought we should stay a few days before the Ball, I hope you don't mind – we're staying in the Guest Tower."
"Of course not," Draco did not let his pity show for his old friend supposed lover from school, his mothers favourite for an arranged marriage. Pansy absolute cow Parkinson was her father's only daughter, which meant she, like him, had no choice in her future. But she unlike him did not have a mask and the Dark Mark waiting in her post-Hogwarts summer, she had a gold band and the hand of the highest bidder.
"Theodore is just fine," she said knowingly, "have you parents got anyone in mind for you, Drake?"
He resisted the urge to say he bloody well hoped not and shudder at the use of the nickname he had never really warmed too. "No they haven't, my father is busy with-"
"The Dark Lord?" Pansy inquired further, "Theodore said he saw you at the initiation, I didn't know you intended to-"
Draco clapped a hand over her mouth muffling her speech, and then, with a glance around he mouthed to her "even the walls have ears."
Pansy nodded dully, a sad look in her tamed eyes.
"So how have things been? I heard you got the second highest marks next to Granger of course."
Draco ignored the mention of Hermione, though his expression was suitable vacant as he politely inquired, "Well enough, following in the line of tradition as you know. How is married life?" He felt he had the look of a cat that had suddenly swallowed a far too large bird.
Pansy, all formalities and conversation suitable for children of Death Eaters aside smiled widely. "Well I can't see it suiting you." "Remember the good old days, Pans? Before Hogwarts when you used to make me play dress up's in your parent's summer home? Remember when you dressed me all in red, and mother said I looked like cupid – and father said I looked like the devil?"
"Draco, what are you-"
"How old do you think we were? Four? I suppose technically I was born evil."
"Draco, have you gone peculiar? Professor Snape always said you would."
At the boy-cupid's look of surprise Pansy laughed, and then grabbing his arm pulled him in the direction of the dining room. "Come on, Blaise and Theodore are having breakfast."
- - -
A gloomy air hung over number twelve and the Order members had no time to grieve.
Can life ever go back to normal? Hermione thought as she drained her cup of pumpkin juice and feverishly thought of another excuse not to go to Malfoy's Ball.
"I have a cold." She said meekly, and a faint trace of a smile crossed Dumbledore's features.
"Miss Granger, you and I both know you are going to attend the Ball, because the Order needs information on the Malfoy's and all those in league with them – and you are going to do it because you know it's the right thing to do." He looked at her as though that settled it, and added as an afterthought, "and the entire Order will be stationed around the Manor so insure your safety."
He resumed his quiet watch on the fireplace. He had not informed anyone whom the other two envelops were addressed too, apart from they were 'important' and they should all move to a room more 'comfortable'.
The 'trio' and Dumbledore were now in the dust living room of number twelve, a room not often used, decorated like the rest of the house in rustic reds, browns and chipped paint. A severely beaten three seating couch and an armchair were the only furnishings, aside from the large fire place. The headmaster had called it a 'snug' which was defiantly a matter of opinion.
Hermione shivered, thinking that here in the summer months it was probably warmer outside that it was in. She sat resigned, in her now uniform black next to Ron who was being severely unhelpful by biting his nails and looking bored. Harry sat beside him, green eyes clouded over deep in thought.
A cough was heard.
Looking around the room, Hermione could see that no one had moved, and the coughing fidgeting sound was coming from the grate.
And then, out of the ashes, in not her best entrance, (who could forget the leaving ball where she turned up wearing a near see through dress) was Lavender Brown.
Dumbledore uttered a small sound, and Ron let his head drop into his hands. Harry and Hermione simply looked stunned.
"Lavender?" Hermione exclaimed as her former roommate stumbled towards her and embraced her as though they were long lost sisters.
"Hermione! Harry!" She squeaked, and then more solemnly, "Dumbledore!" And then, more shyly. "Ron!"
"Now that we've established you remember our names," Dumbledore said with a smile, "Miss Brown – I trust Miss Patil is on her way?"
"Parvati?"
"Yes, Miss Brown and Miss Patil have too been invited to this," he paused as though choosing his words carefully, "Malfoy Family function. They have given up they're time working at the Daily Prophet to help us, particularly you Hermione prepare for the," another pause, "party, so that we can assess the situation with the Malfoys fully."
All four pairs of eyes turned on the blonde girl who smoothing her sky blue robes down and unaware of the three shocked expressions, looking up she smiled brilliantly.
"Ooh, Hermione, you're hair looks lovely! And Harry, you're looking so tall, Ron I've always liked red hair – ooh, Parvati!"
Hermione's second dorm mate was stepping out of the fireplace, dusting oriental robes and arranging her silky black hair. It was, as Hermione remembered d into a long plait.
"Sorry about being late – had to check the stars before I left –" (Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged puzzled looks.)
"It's quite all right, Miss Patil, now I trust you girls know what needs to be done. Harry, Mr Weasley, do try not to cause too much trouble, I will let you know when you are needed for the Order." Dumbledore, that cursed twinkle now returned to his eye, stood and nodded at each in the room and left.
There was silence for a moment as the door closed, and then everyone burst into speech.
"Wow Hermione I love your hair-"
"What in the name of Merlin's big toe are you doing here?"
"There's an awful lot of dirt in that fire place-"
"It's nice to see you two again, how are you?"
"Has Dumbledore told you anything about this-"
They laughed, as though it could have been a joke told in their old common room. Except now the stakes were higher, and they were all slightly more mature.
"Well," Lavender began.
"Dumbledore owled us and told us invites to the Malfoy Ball for us had been sent to him, and because we're all members of the Order it would be a good idea if we went to scope out the scene." Parvati continued.
"Of course we'd have gone anyway!" Piped in Lavender. "I mean, Dark Lords and stuff aside but these types of invites only come once a lifetime!"
Hermione bit her lip at that statement – it was clearly what kind of reputation the Malfoy's were looking for, and Ron and Harry both sent the girl withering looks.
"So Dumbledore showed us this piece of paper and told us to floo here, because Hermione is going too and she's not really-"
"She never goes out and doesn't know how parties work?"
"Aheh, he didn't really say that, Lavender." Parvati smiled.
Lavender glared.
"Well he might have mentioned 'blowing up' and 'charming and courteous would be nice' along with ''killing Malfoy at all costs' and 'not a good idea'." The Patil twin amended, with an apologetic look to the brunette witch who, in her opinion, looked a little off colour to her despite the drastic improvement of her curly hair.
Lavender looked a little dreamy. "Malfoy." Anyone else would think by the way she said it a 'Malfoy' was actually a rather large piece of gold.
"He just killed a friend of ours, one of the Order." Ron said sharply.
"Right," Harry interrupted, as Hermione was looking quite likely to hex the next thing that mentioned the name Malfoy, and they're redheaded friend was about to blend into his hair. "What have you two been up to since we last saw you?"
The two girls both smiled and then the black haired witch answered, "Well, we joined the Order along with the rest of the Gryffindors at the end of term and then, we got offered jobs at the Daily Prophet!"
"As what?" Harry asked, curiously.
"We both work for the Column of Astrology."
"Uh-" Ron looked confused.
"They make up star-signs," Hermione answered a little briskly. She wasn't the most tolerant of tabloids, or reading the future.
Lavender made a sound that was a bit like "harrumpf" and then, catching Hermione's hand in hers she held it out to the girl beside her. "Parvati's got a real talent in palmistry." She informed everyone as Hermione suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.
Parvati touched each of Hermione's straightened fingers one by one and starred at her hand thoughtfully. She traced the three vein lines with interest, and then dropped her hand as though it had burned her.
"You'll meet someone tall, dark and handsome," Ron quipped breaking the moment of silence.
"Tall and handsome," Parvati declared seriously, her dark eyes confused, "but not dark."
Hermione snatched her hand back. "I think we've all had enough of cryptic predictions to last us a life time. So what comes first when you're going to a ball, the dress, or learning not to blow the host's head off?"
- - -
"I still can't believe you still read this bollocks, Malfoy."
"And I still can't believe my parents let a no good neutral into our house of darkness, Zabini." Draco relied scathingly, pulling his book out of the dark boy's hands. "And that 'bollocks' happens to be Shakespeare."
Blaise Zabini rolled his cool blue eyes. "When are you going to get it that Romeo and Juliet don't get a happy ending no matter how many times you read it? Or that Hamlet's father does die? Or Macbeth made a major mistake in marrying for looks? Or that I am sitting on the fence?"
Draco frowned, as he sat down languidly in the long black leather setae, holding his book in his hands and facing the window of his expansive bedroom.
"You can't be neutral, not for much longer anyway. Especially not after the attacks on London-"
"I thought that's what you're parent's little soiree was about anyway, making all us upper- fence sitters realise that Evil pays well. And shit; look at your bedroom! It's like the size of the whole Slytherin common room. Black silk bedspread and all. And I would have thought your parents would have at least made the Guest Tower a little better than your room. Merlin knows your father's guests are here more often than you, Malfoy."
"I think the Guests Tower is just fine, and anyway it won't be much of a Dark Lord propaganda party, not with those bloody Gryffindors there."
"They invited Potter, Weasley and Granger?"
"Make that just Granger and some other witches– I don't think even The Dark Lord had the nerve to ask Dumbledore if Potter could… come out and play."
Blaise snorted as he continued his inspection of Draco's six-foot high and eight-foot wide bookcase. "I think even Granger was pushing it."
Draco bit his lip.
"What is it?"
"Nothing, Blaise, piss off."
Blaise was immediately suspicious. Draco was, obviously, a Malfoy – and Malfoy's do not request. They order. So to hear this half-command issued in his general direction was not only a shock. It was revolutionary.
Blaise's eyes widened as the slow, intricate mind of a Slytherin came to one conclusion. "Draco Malfoy. Are you in love?"
This, at least, elicited a grin from Draco. "With who?"
"I don't know, why don't you tell me why you get so misty-eyed every time I mention Granger? Even Pansy, for Merlin's sake, has noticed something."
"Granger?"
"Yes."
"As in Potter, Weasley and Granger?"
"Yes. Hermione Granger."
"Her-my-oh-knee?"
"Yes."
Draco's voice was cold as he said, "Get out, Zabini."
He didn't even hear the slamming of the door.
The name tasted strange on his lips as he whispered it again into the hazy sky that surrounded one of the highest towers of the Malfoy Manor.
He didn't know when this horrid, cursed affliction for Hermione Granger had begun. Was it in his sixth year when, suddenly, she answered his retorts with venom, or in that second that Voldemort had announced that he wanted her, alive?
Was it the moment he saw her, pale faced, wide eyed, unconscious behind the bar at the pub that lead into the Death Eater camps?
This whole trouble involving his father, questioning his own loyalty to the Dark Lord… it had started with her, the only way he was going to be able to assemble some sort of normalcy was to forget she ever existed.
It was, however, not going to be easy.
Her, him, in that dark and damp basement, her face so close to his, her warm eyes concerned. Just remembering it his breath caught in his throat and feeling washed over him. It was a dull ache in the bottom of his stomach, which made him want to throw, rip, tear and break things, but at the same time made him peacefully still.
Somehow her flashing eyes, curled hair and Gryffindor righteousness had become… important to him.
And it was going to get him killed.
"Draco?" Someone said as the door was flung open.
It was Lucius.
"Yes, father?" He said resignedly, his eyes not flickering from the window, as if, if he starred at it long enough he could have flown out of it.
"Our Lord does not like to be kept waiting," the long black cane came into contact with Draco's shoulder, "and I do not like it when my son defies me."
"Defy?" Draco asked steadily, as he met his father's eyes although his arm was now at a rather funny angle.
"Were you not going to tell me that you couldn't even kill one female blood traitor? That Marcus Flint was the one to kill that Auror?"
"You never asked." Draco said simply. But the effect of those words were resounding.
Lucius dropped his cane, and as it fell to the ground with a clatter, so did Draco. The heartless man stood, his hand drawn back, his cryptic calm's looking into his sons that were so similar. Yet a completely different shade of grey.
"You are going to pay for your foolishness boy, and once you have, you are going to find out everything you can about Hermione Granger, and were exactly her weaknesses lie."
With that, his fist slammed into Draco's stomach and all hell let loose.
- - -
"What do you think about red, Parv?" Lavender asked, holding up the long velvety crimson dress up to the brunette.
"Shouldn't you be asking me?" Hermione asked, waving the dress away from her face with a careless flick.
They ignored her.
"No, too predictable."
Lavender heaved a delicate sigh and dumped the dress on a chair with the ever growing stack of garments that were either 'so last year' or 'wouldn't quite suit her completion, damnit, Hermione, were in England did you get a tan from?'
Hermione, feeling rather uncomfortable dressed in nothing but her underwear and a undershirt over sized tee that read 'Kiss the Prefect!' (Last years birthday present from Ron) in a closed up-market robes store, fussed over by the lady behind the counter and two former, (for which she was very thankful) roommates.
"How about this one?" Parvati smiled as she held up a long, very thin, golden dress that could have been stolen from a cherub, the early afternoon light bounced off of it, making it seem almost white in colour.
Hermione swallowed as the girl advanced on her, saying slowly as though speaking to a child, "Just try it on-"
"There is absolutely no way I will go anywhere in that bit of material masquerading as a dress!" Lavender exchanged knowing looks with the shopkeeper who was busily tidying up after them. "It's gold for god's sake! I will look like something perched on top of a Christmas tree! I won't be able to move, let alone run if the time calls for it, no. No. No."
"Can you just imagine the look on everyone's face if you wore this, Hermione?" Lavender smiled as they backed her up against the changing room's velvet curtains. "Ron and Harry will die!"
"Not exactly the look I was going for thanks, Lavender," Hermione snapped as she collided with a mirror.
Parvati frowned for a moment, and then brightened as though she had come to a conclusion. "Well, the way I see it, Hermione, you can either go to this party and look stunning and shock the hell out of all this high and mighty wizards like Malfoy-"
Here Lavender pretended to swoon.
"-or you can go, look all demure and un-Gryffindor-"
Hermione, who had been hiding behind the curtains, took the dress out of Parvati's arms and rolled her eyes. "I'll take it," she said firmly.
- - -
Half an hour later Hermione was seriously regretting her decision. It hung on her wardrobe like an omen, evil in its beauty. Treacherous in its low cut V neckline and enmity in its layers of whitish gold silk.
Why she had agreed to buy it she didn't know. Why she sat now starring at in dread, instead of listening to Parvati's and Lavender's tips on how one should behave whilst dinning with killers, she was also very confused about.
Why exactly she was here, buying dresses and learning etiquette as opposed to helping Harry, Ron and the rest of the Order devise tactics she did know the answer to. And it was all because of Malfoy.
I would like to dedicate this chapter to the readers, as an apology it took so long. Thanks very much for not giving up on me!
Damned Authors Note: I am so sorry this chapter took me about three months. Gosh, that's terrible. It has been by far, the most difficult to write – and we haven't really progressed, we just see new characters. I thought Draco's scene was quite repetitive too, but it's all leading up to the next chapter called "The Balcony Scene". Which really won't be long until it's finished (I wrote this chapter and that together) and will most defiantly be finished by Friday 14th.
Damned Authors Disclaimer: Still Not mine. Sigh…
Damned Reviewers:
Kate - ah yes, dark is good, and realism also helps.
dangelu881- lol I will update soon, very subtle, by the way.
ashlee - its ok. I am also very excitable. thanks for the compliments. Think it up? Hmmm, I don't know, these things just pop up, all furry and twitchy I guess. Damn those plot bunnies.
Arafel2 - depends how you define 'reasonably happy' ;)
Bride of Malfoy - thanks for reviewing again :)
Golden Lion of Venice - Thanks very much blush
mystripedskirt - I think the jury's still out about Tonks. No, she irritated me too. I hope you like the ball :)
scholz03 - ack! I'm sorry! You hated the cliffie? Yeh, I have a tendency to do that... whenever I read one I want to shoot the author in the foot. I'll try and end the next chapter in a decent place.
Thalion1 - PoshEvil!Draco has got to be my very favourite, thank you so much for the fantasic review!
WolviesLover - sigh post hogwarts is all we've got now glares at JKR
candygoddess –