Sara: Thanks for your review… and yeah, I thought their relationship was too perfect too… it seemed unreal, that's why I decided to create a bit of friction between the two of them… Hope you like this chapter!!!
Alba: albillus!!! No pude esperar para publicar este chapter porque me encanta!!! Está bueno para mi gusto… no sé… aparte va a ser muy pero muy difícil para Draco el hecho de volver a su casa… no sé, me gustó… Espero que te guste!!!
Marina
Chapter 18: "The Malfoy Manor"
Weeks had passed and there were no news about Voldemort or any of the Death Eaters. Harry and the kids had been training really hard so The Dark Lord wouldn't stand a chance against them. Christmas had finally arrived. All the Order was staying at the Malfoy's Manor in order to investigate if there were any vestiges of Dark Action in there.
"Home sweet home" Draco said ironically, as he opened the door to his house.
"Are you ready to do this?" Hermione said.
"Yes, I'm perfectly ready, Mione… besides, if we don't start cleaning this place now, we might as well go back to Hogwarts next Christmas holidays. There's no other way."
"Yeah, guess you're right…"
The Malfoy Manor seemed to Hermione as the darkest place on earth. Even though the windows were open, there was no light inside. There was a staircase carpeted in black on one side and on the other side, there was a huge living room with a fireplace. At the end of the hallway was the kitchen, which was huge to Hermione… She couldn't wait to see if they had a library… she guessed so because it was the obvious thing as Draco new a lot about books she had never seen on bookstores and sounded really old. The walls were painted in black and lined with pictures of nasty looking people that looked at Hermione and whispered among themselves.
"That traitor and the Mudblood. They should be killed and have their skins boiled!" They whispered.
"Shut up!" Draco told the portraits menacingly.
"They don't affect me… they shouldn't affect you either." Hermione said starting to examine the kitchen.
"I will have them taken down by the new house elves." Draco said. "Dobby! Come here!"
"Don't shout at them…" Hermione said distractedly.
"I'm sorry." He said bending in order to face Dobby. "Could you do us a favour, Dobby?" Draco asked politely.
"Yes, sir. Dobby would do anything for his Master." Dobby answered.
"Don't call me your Master… call me Draco… or king of the world… no, just kidding. Just call me Draco, ok?" It was getting difficult to suit Hermione's demands… she wanted him to be polite to these 'things'.
"Yes, sir… Dobby is sorry, Master Draco. What should Dobby do?"
"Could you please take down all the portraits in the house and… I don't know… wait…" He said and turned to Hermione, holding Dobby by its shoulder. He wanted to prevent him from punishing himself for no reason. "Mione, where should I put all the paintings? We can give them to Dumbledore or something so he destroys them… I don't know… I just want them out."
"Yes, I guess we could give them to Dumbledore… he will know what to do with them…" She answered.
"Ok… take them all down and give them to Dumbledore… in fact, do this, send each to the castle as you take them down, I'll tell Dumbledore."
"Your pictures too, Master Draco?" Dobby asked.
"Yes, Dobby, all the pictures you can find. We don't want anything that reminds us of the previous owner of this house." Draco said.
"Oh, sir! Dobby is sorry! Dobby forgot!"
"What did you forget, Dobby." It was getting harder for Draco to keep being polite to this unbearable servant…
"The lady left something for Master Draco."
"What is it?" Draco asked suddenly interested in what the creature was saying.
"Come with me, Master Draco."
"I'll go with you." Hermione said.
"Yes, Mione, come…" Draco said distractedly.
"Lady comes to Dobby and… and says." Dobby told Draco anxiously as they walked up the stairs. "Dobby, I wants you to give this to me son. And… and she gives Dobby this thing… it was a box… yes, Master Draco, it was a box. She says you gives it to her." He said pointing to Hermione.
"How… how did your mother know?" Hermione asked bewildered. Draco looked puzzled.
"Lady didn't know, Hermione… lady said Master should gives it to the person he loves, Dobby thought it was you. Master Draco couldn't stop talking about you when he was here."
"Where is this thing anyway?" Draco asked trying not to look embarrassed.
"In the library passage, Master Draco. Dobby has it there." Dobby said jumping happily.
When they got to the library Hermione's jaw fell open.
"Oh-My-God…" She said.
"What?" Draco said.
"This is my dream come true… this library is… it's so huge!"
Draco laughed. "You haven't seen most of it… this is just the East Wing library… it was my mother's, she wasn't much of a reader herself."
"Are you kidding me? There must be like a thousand books in here!" Hermione said in amazement.
"Mmm… you're quite wrong… there are only nine hundred and fifty seven books in here…" Draco said pressing his finger against one of the book's covers.
"Only?! Only?! I could spend hours in here!"
"Master Draco? Lady Hermione?" Dobby said tentatively.
"Yes, we're sorry Dobby. Where's the thing?" Hermione said.
"We are not sorry… She is sorry… I wasn't the one freaking out about some books…" Draco said smiling.
"Shut up…" Hermione said blushing.
Dobby led them through a door that opened touching one of the books. Then he led them through a set of narrow passages that Draco seemed to know. Finally, after what seemed ages to Hermione, they got to a dimly lit room. It was a big stone walled room, full of candles that made it look really mysterious. At the very end of this room was a package… it was rather small to be a wrapped Death Eater… Hermione thought. But when Draco got near it, Hermione got nervous… could this be a trap? It took what seemed like ages for Draco to get to the box.
He finally got there and opened it. It was a pair of rings…
"Why would she leave that?" Hermione asked.
"I know what this is… she knew you were going to have that dream." Draco said turning around. "Come here, Mione."
Hermione got near him looking puzzled.
"Ok, now close your eyes and try to remember the dream you had back at Hogwarts." He said.
Hermione closed her eyes and felt Draco's hand against her forearm. She remembered most of the dream, including the attacker's face. When she opened her eyes she saw Draco looking at her, he was surprised.
"Is that what got you so worried?" He asked laughing.
"Yes…" She said lowering her head.
"It's ok, but know that I will never be as stupid as Potter, Mione… if Dumbledore tells me to stay put and not to go on my own wandering around the school I won't…"
"I know, I'm sorry I just got worried." She said.
"I'm glad you did… that means you care, Granger…" He said putting an arm around her and kissing her forehead. "I have a great idea, you know? Why… don't we go to the kitchen and have something to eat?"
"Ok, let's go."
By the time the Order had arrived, Draco and Hermione had redecorated and painted the house so it wouldn't look as the Malfoy Manor. They had painted the walls in a lilac colour and the stairs had been re carpeted in white. They had put all sorts of Christmas decorations throughout the house.
On Christmas Eve, everyone was sitting at the table enjoying the fabulous feast the house elves had prepared. (After Draco spent like three days trying to convince Hermione that house elves actually enjoyed working for people… and he also promised to give clothes to all the house elves, telling them that they were free to go if they wanted to, but they could stay too. The house elves told Hermione they really liked that place and their Masters, so they wanted to stay… Draco couldn't help feeling amused about the fuss she was making about this S. P. E. W. thing… she was so enthusiastic when she wanted something… he loved that.)
After they had finished everyone was so full, they couldn't even get up from their seats to got o bed. Draco was sitting between Harry and Hermione, and as Hermione left her seat to talk to Ginny, he started telling the issue about the house elves to Harry and Ron.
"You wouldn't believe how she got when she asked me who was going to prepare today's dinner and I said the house elves were doing it… she went on for hours about that spew thing… she followed me everywhere…" Draco was saying.
"Everywhere?" Ron asked.
"Yes… even the toilet… she would step outside and talk and talk and talk…"
"Well… Malfoy… if you hadn't noticed, Hermione is always talking…" Harry said.
"Yeah… believe me, I have noticed… I guess I like it somehow… it's like having the radio on all the time…" Draco said. They all laughed.
"Really?" Hermione said from behind Draco, making him jump.
"Well, you do talk a lot, Mione… but… but I like it…" He said smiling.
Harry and Ron were really amused by the scene.
"You two shouldn't be laughing… I heard you too…" Hermione said sitting next to Draco.
"Well, Hermione… we love you anyway… but you get a bit overexcited about that spew thingy…" Ron said.
Hermione sighed. "God Ron! How many times do I need to tell you that it's S. P. E. W. not spew!"
"See?! That's exactly how you get… good lord, Malfoy… I'm starting to like you for having put up with this!" Ron said and everyone laughed. (Yes, even Hermione.)
Sirius was chatting animatedly with Lupin and Tonks about some new deal Mundungus (A/N: dunno if it's well written…:P) had done and had been tricked. The night was full of laughter and jokes from the twins…
In the middle of the night, a cry was heard. It was coming from Hermione's room. She was sleeping with Ginny.
"What? What happened?" Ginny said sitting in her bed and turning her head to each side to see where the scream had come from. "Mione, are you all right?" She asked, seeing Hermione sitting in her bed panting.
"Yeah… I guess so."
"Is that dream again isn't it?"
Hermione just nodded. The door burst open. It was Draco.
"Mione, are you all right?" He said approaching Hermione's bed.
Hermione nodded again. "It was just a bad dream… that's all."
"Mione… it wasn't an ordinary dream, was it?"
"No, it wasn't…" Ginny said. Hermione threw a threatening look to her.
"Thank you!" Hermione said sarcastically.
"I'm sorry, Mione, but he has to know… it's like the hundredth time this month…" Ginny said.
"She's right, Mione, you should have told me about this." Draco said.
The door burst open again, this time it was Dumbledore and Sirius.
"Hermione, are you all right?" Sirius asked.
"Yes, I'm fine…" Hermione answered.
"She had that dream again, didn't she?" Harry said entering through the door.
"So… everyone knew about this bloody dream except me! Great, Mione! Thank you very much… I thought you trusted me… but I see you don't trust me yet." Draco said and went out from the room and slammed the door behind him.
"Miss Granger, what dream are we talking about?" Dumbledore asked.
"I had a… a dream the day you told me to skip classes… I was with Dr… Malfoy in the secret garden below the lake and… I fell asleep. I dreamt that… I went into the forbidden forest and I heard someone screaming." She said screwing her eyes in concentration. "When I finally got to see the person who was being attacked… I saw… Malfoy screaming and telling me to go away, that I should survive…"
"Who was the attacker?" Dumbledore asked.
"Voldemort."
"Well, we should protect Mr. Malfoy… he will be escorted again… everywhere, he can't be left alone in any moment… understood?" Dumbledore told the people in the room. Everyone nodded.
"I will talk to him." Harry said and left the room.
Harry knocked on Draco's door, but there was no answer. When he opened the door, there was no one there. As hard as it was for him to accept this, he was getting worried about Draco. But then he remembered the gift Draco had given Hermione at Hogwarts. He ran to Hermione's room and opened the door.
"Mione, I need you to use your ring."
"You mean the locator?" She asked.
"Yes, that."
"Locate aparo!" Hermione said and everything around her started revolving around. After a few seconds, she was in the library's floor.
"What happened?" Draco asked looking at Hermione, without helping her to get to her feet.
"It's my dream…" She said looking down.
"Ah… what about it?" He said in a bored voice.
"Dumbledore told me you were in danger… and… and Harry couldn't find you… so I got worried… that's all…"
"So?" He said going back to his book.
"So you have to be escorted everywhere again… that's… that's pretty much it… I guess."
"Ok, you can wait there, take a seat." He said pointing to the most far away chair from his in the room.
"Are you going to be like this much longer?" Hermione asked.
"As long as I want, Granger." He answered. He didn't want to behave like that with her, but she didn't trust him, and that hurt him.
"I… I only did it because I thought you already had too much on your plate for me to add something else."
He turned around. "You're everything on my plate, Granger. But of course! Potter doesn't have too much things on his plate, does he?"
"Look, I just didn't tell you I kept having that dream because I was afraid."
"Afraid of what? Of me, eating you alive? WHAT WERE YOU AFRAID OF?"
"I was afraid that if I told you that made it real. Like now everyone's trying to protect you, that makes the threat real, Draco… that makes me think 'well, maybe it was an omen'." She said and started crying.
"C'mon, Hermione, I've already told you a thousand times I'm not in danger."
"Are you sure?" A voice from behind them said. It was Narcissa Malfoy.
"Mother? But… I thought you were dead! Wait, what are you doing here?" Draco asked shocked.
"Oh, son… you are not as intelligent as this Mudblood, I see…"
"But Voldemort killed you both! You're not real!" Draco shouted with his wand raised.
The woman let out a terrible laugh. "You're so naïve, Draco… he killed your father, but I managed to escape somehow. And I came to finish what the fool of your father couldn't do!"
"Ha! You think you can kill me. Please, don't be so stupid, whenever you weren't at home father would teach every defence against dark spells he knew and lots of dark magic… you don't stand a chance against me!" Draco said and Hermione understood he was playing with his mother, so Hermione had a chance to escape. As fast as she could she whispered the enchantment to go back to the place where she had been before touching the ring.
She appeared in her room to find all the order waiting for her in there. "It's Draco! His mother is here!" She cried. "C'mon! He's in the library!"
"Miss. Granger, take us there! I'll take her wrist and we'll all take the wrist of the person we have on our right." Dumbledore said and everyone nodded in agreement.
"Locate aparo!" Hermione shouted and everyone was transported to the library where they found Draco fighting with his mother. Ten stunning spells shot towards Narcissa. She fell to the floor.
"Ok, another one for the Dementors…" Sirius said.
"She's getting the kiss, isn't she?" Draco said looking down.
"I'm sorry Draco," Dumbledore said. "But she could've killed you if we didn't arrive on time."
"I know… take her." He said still not looking at them.
"Draco, are you all right?" Hermione asked.
"How do you want me to be, Granger?" He asked and collapsed on one armchair.
Hermione just looked at Ginny, as if she could tell her this wasn't real, but Ginny just hugged her.
"Miss Granger, I think you should stay with Mr Malfoy." Dumbledore said.
"Am I still in danger?" Draco asked.
"We don't know, Draco, we don't know…" Dumbledore answered and closed the door behind him.
"It's not my fault, you know?" Hermione said.
"What are you talking about?" Draco asked.
"That I don't know why you are being like this…"
"Just leave me alone."
"I can't."
"Yes, you can. There's the door, if you know how to use it." (A/N: I actually said this to a boyfriend once… it's a good one… hehe).
"Nope, Dumbledore's orders."
"Yeah, whatever, just don't talk."
"Fine!" She said and sat on the floor, leaning against a wall. She was not going to beg for his attention, it was not in her nature anyway.
They spend all the afternoon in there without speaking to each other. Suddenly, he got up.
"I'm leaving; do you have to follow me?" he said.
Hermione just got up without saying a word. They left the room and headed to the kitchen. Ron was there talking to Luna. When they saw Draco and Hermione enter the room, they fell silent.
"Hi!" Hermione said as if nothing had happened.
"Let your soul speak, Draco." Luna said.
"Please, don't get all weird again…" Ron said. Everyone laughed except Draco. He couldn't help thinking he was being a git… but if Hermione really loved him, she would be crying right now… then he remembered that she had tried to let her pride aside… but he had treated her so bad… she had the right to be mad at him… maybe he had to stop being such a self-centred brat and start thinking how she felt.
"Granger, let's go outside, we need to talk." Draco said.
"If you say so…" Hermione answered.
"Jerk…" Ron whispered.
"I've heard you, Weasel, be careful, I know where you sleep…" Draco said maliciously.
When they got out from the room, Hermione automatically looked down; she didn't want to make eye contact with him. She was afraid of what those cold grey eyes could tell her if she looked up.
"What do you want?" Hermione said coldly.
"Look, maybe I acted wrong back there…"
"So?"
"So, Granger, I want you to speak to me at least."
"Do you think I will speak to you just like that? I mean, are you serious? You treated me like dirt down there!"
"I know, I know, but I can't stand this situation anymore… Loony was right… I wasn't letting my soul speak… I just thought that if I blamed it on someone else, I would feel better."
"But you feel like crap, so now you apologize just to feel better? Please, Draco, don't let me be another pain in your ass!" (A/N: Again, I'm so so sorry for the cursing, but they are really angry… I can't find a better way to show that…)
"Good God, Granger… don't make this harder than it already is… I just want to come back to what we were before."
"What were we?" Hermione asked looking up.
"Back when you loved me… and I… I loved you… I still do, Granger."
"Then why, Draco, why do you always make me cry? We can't be together more than two weeks that you make me cry! I can't be like this anymore."
"What if I promise I will never make you cry again? If I do, you can punish me… I don't know, poison me, or something…"
Hermione stood there looking at him.
"C'mon! Please?" He said.
"God you were right, I can't resist you…" She said shaking her head.
He lowered his head and kissed her, and then he put an arm around her. "I can't resist myself either… I'm so perfect…" He said.
"Ok, be careful when entering the kitchen, your big head might not go through…" Hermione said rolling her eyes.
"Oh no! We're not going to the kitchen; I might kill Weasley if I see him again…"
"Where are we going then?"
He didn't answer, but he just kept walking.
"Draco, I demand an answer, I have to know it's really you!" Hermione said with her wand raised.
"Are you serious?" Draco asked almost laughing.
"Don't I look serious? Answer me!" She exclaimed pressing the wand against his chest.
"Ok, let's do something, let's go to Dumbledore, the old lad must know some way to show you it's me really… or not…" He said laughing.
They headed for Dumbledore's office, and when they arrived, Dumbledore was already waiting for them.
"Come in, kids." They heard him say.
Hermione opened the door, and after apologizing a thousand times for bothering him, she told Dumbledore what was bothering her.
"I want to find a way to know it's really him professor" Hermione said in one breath.
"Look at him in the eyes…" Dumbledore answered.
"What next?" She asked him puzzled.
"Nothing next, Hermione, if it's really him, you'll know." He said. "Look, the Malfoy family is one of the oldest in our country, and you can identify them by looking at their eyes."
"What's so special about them?" Draco asked.
"Many years ago, one of the members of the Malfoy family had been betrayed by his brother. So he wanted people to know any traitor inside the Malfoy family. He wanted people to know that this member of the family wasn't trustworthy. He cast a spell that would last for generations to come on every member of the family." He explained. "This spell was cast on their eyes." He made a pause.
"How come my parents didn't tell me about the spell?" Draco interrupted.
"Because it only shows when you betray them, Draco." Hermione said in an exasperated voice.
"Oh… I see…"
"Once a Malfoy betrays his family, his eyes show a red outline around their grey eyes."
"Why red?" Hermione asked already knowing the answer.
"Because the betrayal that this man had committed was falling in love with a muggle-born."
"I see, so the only thing she has to do is look at me in the eyes?" Draco asked.
"Yes, that would be it, Mr. Malfoy." Dumbledore answered.
Hermione walked towards Draco and looked in his eyes, there was, in fact, a red outline in his eyes. She kissed him and they left the room. She was now sure he loved her. He was now sure he would protect her with his life if it were necessary.