"In My Life"
Chapter 8
Hermione sat in shock, still not entirely comprehending what Draco had just said. He knew? How? When? Was he okay with this new development in their relationship?
She searched Draco's face for answers. He was smiling at her, not broadly, just a gentle barely detectable smile. His eyes told her nothing; they remained emotionless, all feeling hidden behind a gray mist. "Draco, I…I'm so sorry. I didn't know whether to tell you, everything was going so great, I just…I'm sorry." Hermione looked down, feeling tears form in her eyes, regretting that she had kept up this lie so long that Draco had figured it out on his own.
Draco saw Hermione's misery and gently lifted her chin so that she met his gaze. "It's alright, Hermione. It doesn't matter anymore. Our, er, less-than-friendly relationship at Hogwarts is behind us now." He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, "Forget it ever happened."
Hermione looked at him, the tears rolling down her cheeks, not in sadness, but in joy at having gotten that huge burden off her shoulders and, best of all, having Draco accept the real her. "Thank you, Draco. I love you." And, feeling like that was the truest statement she had muttered since she met Draco again, she kissed him passionately, which he returned without hesitation or interruption of any kind....
The man named Dante checked into the hotel where Hermione currently resided. His room was on the third floor, as he had specially requested. He entered the room, put down his single suitcase, and immediately exited again, strolling casually down the corridor. He noticed a security guard watching television at his desk near the elevators, six security cameras in all; three on either side of the hallway. As the guard could not see very far down the hallway from the elevators and stairs, Dante carefully searched the hall for a blind spot in the cameras' vision. At long last, he found one, right outside room 357, under and slightly to the left of a camera. Cautiously sliding down the wall where the blind spot was, he marked it with his wand, leaving a barely visible green speck. This, surely, was the spot Lucius had meant as an apparition point. He looked at the door to room 357, where he could hear speech, but it was impossible to understand. "Lissenervado!" He muttered, pointing his wand at the door to room 357. Immediately, he heard the voices floating from the room clearly.
"Hermione, there's something I haven't told you about my father and the film." A young man's voice spoke. Obviously Draco.
"What is it?" A second voice spoke, this time a young woman's. "Is it about why you produced it? You know, you never did explain that."
"I've only known you knew that I was a wizard for a few days! For absolute certain, I didn't know until last night."
"Right. I know. I forgot. Anyway, why did the Malfoys, usually so keen to take away muggles' lives, pay so generously for their entertainment?" Dante leaned forward slightly, eager to hear every word that Lucius had so coincidentally left out at their meeting. So she knew about magic folk and the Malfoys' history? This was going to be considerably tougher than if she was as ignorant as Lucius had made her out to be.
"First of all, you know my father's background...." Dante muttered "Finite!" as he heard the slight Ding! of the elevator. A tall man emerged and walked up to the security guard. Dante quickly stood up and hurried to his room, mad at the interruption of his eavesdropping. He quickly shook off his disappointment, however, and continued on to think about planning the kidnapping of Nicole Madison....
"First of all, you know my father's background," said Draco, slightly uncomfortably, "You know of his work for the Dark Lord." He looked up from the floor to Hermione to see her reaction, but she merely nodded for him to continue. "Anyway, the night of the tenth of October, only two weeks left now, on that night he... has something planned." He paused for a moment.
"Yes...?" asked Hermione apprehensively.
"He.... Did you ever wonder why we insisted on having so many muggle stars in this production?" He inquired suddenly.
"Er... Well, yes, actually. Why?" asked Hermione, slightly taken aback.
"Well, on the tenth of October, he is going to host a party at Malfoy Manor. At this party, he is going to make a…statement…for the whole world to care about, magical and muggle...." He looked down at his feet once more.
"What kind of statement?" asked Hermione worriedly.
"He's going to show the strength of the dark side; he's…" Draco paused again, afraid of finishing, "He's going to murder them all."
A tall, gaunt man named Macnair looked up from his desk as he heard a loud popping noise coming from the corridor outside his study door. Someone knocked a few seconds later. Swiftly, Macnair rose from his seat and crossed his eerie, cold office to answer the door. He opened it to see his long time friend, Dante, standing before him. "Dante!" he said with a smile. "What a surprise!"
"Yes... did I disturb you?" asked Dante, looking around the study for other visitors.
"No, no. Please come in." Dante entered and sat in a rather uncomfortable black leather chair. He kept glancing at the photographs of beheaded animals lining the wall with a shiver running down his spine.
"Macnair, this is about Lucius. He has given me a mission." He said smoothly.
"Oh?"
"Yes. It involves the capturing of a certain Nicole Madison, though the precise reasoning I am not fully aware of."
Macnair raised his eyebrows. "Nicole Madison? Have I heard that name before?"
"Most definitely. She's quite popular in the muggle world, all over their news, etcetera. Are you interested?" asked Dante.
"Perhaps... what kind of capture is this?" Macnair asked, wondering why Lucius cared about a popular muggle girl.
"Let me put it this way," said Dante with an amused smirk. "Draco Malfoy, Lucius's son, is dating this muggle girl." Macnair's eyebrows were in danger of disappearing into what little hair remained on his head.
"Young Draco? A traitor? Lucius's own flesh and blood? Surely you are mistaken."
"I'm afraid not. I've just witnessed the two of them talking early this morning in Miss Madison's hotel room." He skipped over the part where Draco had called her 'Hermione'; a part of this mess that Dante had yet to figure out.
"Oh..." Macnair seemed at a loss for words. "Fine. I'll help you. Should be fairly easy, am I right?" Although this whole ordeal would usually be too complicated for his liking, Macnair could not deny that he was slightly intrigued by the story.
"It would be... that is, if she didn't know about magic."
"She knows what?"
"Oh yes, from what I heard this morning, Draco has told her about our kind."
"This is getting difficult far too quickly. This means we don't have quite the surprise we ought to on our side."
"Exactly."