Part 7 – SWEET DRACO…

Thundering the world with the might of my voice,

After dinner, Hermione tried to corner Professor Mc Gonagall, but the older witch managed to melt and disappear in a crowd of Hufflepuffs.

By the time she reached the Common Room, Hermione was fuming.

Definitely bad news, and nobody wanted to tell her.

She tried to ease out her bad mood on her homework, and by watching Harry and Ron playing chess, but it didn't help her all that much.

By next morning, however, most of her fury had evaporated, and her practical side was resurfacing again.

She went to breakfast early, as she wanted spen the morning into the library, and she found herself alone at the Gryffindor table.

Not that she minded it. Last evening had been unbearable, as everybody seemed to consider himself or herself allowed to say something about her hair and eyes. The good news was that most of them thought that she had done in on purpose, and looked gorgeous. The bad one was that they thought she had been desperate to look gorgeous.

Well, one cannot have everything, sighed Hermione on her porridge.

When she raised her eyes, she saw that she was not alone after all.

Draco Malfoy was pointedly ignoring her, his father's large eagle owl perched on his shoulder as he unwrapped his usual supply of sweets from home. The bird seemed to be eying him in a very threatening way, but maybe its glare was only a reflection of Malfoy's own arrogance.

Hermione looked at him for a moment – she knew that he had seen her, and she wanted to force him to admit her existence. Wizards noticed unwanted stares a lot more than Muggles, and she was satisfied to see him tighten his lips in his efforts not to look up at her.

Come on…Raise your eyes, ferret…

Draco's fingers seemed to shake slightly as he started his breakfast, but he didn't raise his eyes, and Hermione took her homework planner out of her bag and started to check on it.

Well, there was at least some good news: the previous evening, between the praise of a Wonky Faint and a complaint about the Christmas shopping, Harry had managed to remember that Professor Binns had changed his mind about his homework. Quite unexpectedly, he had surrendered to the class' pleading, and he had decided that they could leave the essay about Hogwarts' history until after Christmas, focusing instead on the Wizengamot founders. Hermione had been very relieved to hear this. She didn't dare to ask Snape for the book again, but she hoped she could find it in the British Library – the History of Magic section, invisible to Muggles, was quite impressive.

When she came back for lunch, after five useless hours spent in the library, the boys were already at the Gryffindor table, looking as though they had just woke up.

« Good morning, » yawned Harry, pouring himself some pumpkin juice.

« Urgh, » said Ron, looking at the meat and vegetables on the table.

« Well, 'urgh' would be the right word if you had to eat this for breakfast, » replied Hermione unsympathetically. « You could ask Malfoy for a cake, though. He got plenty this morning. »

« Malfoy is sick, » said Harry, gulping down his juice.

« Hopefully dead, » added Ron.

Hermione scanned the Slytherin table, and saw that his golden hair were missing. For some reason, this bothered her.

« Hospital wing ? » she said, frowning.

« Nope, » replied Ron.

« You wouldn't expect a Malfoy to lie in Hogwarts' hospital wing like some common slug. »

« We saw his daddy's carriage at the gates some thirty minutes ago. »

« So you two were awake thirty minutes ago? One wouldn't say, » she replied absent-mindedly.

Malfoy's carriage...had Lucius Malfoy been in there? Hermione shuddered. She didn't want to think that Lucius Malfoy had been inside the castle. The man had bribed his way out of Azkaban during the summer, and the very idea of being so near to him made her sick…and very scared.

Draco usually pretended not to be scared by his father, but when he was alone with him he didn't even bother to pretend. The mere effort to stand was taking most of his energies.

« Are we understood, son? » asked Lucius Malfoy for the second time.

« Yes. But I still don't see why- »

« We are at war, Draco. Must I spell it out for you? » drawled the blond man sarcastically.

Draco Malfoy lowered his eyes.

« You will continue your education here with your mother till my return. And you won't write to anyone without your mother's approval. »

« How long will that be? » said Draco, wounded by the coldness of his father's voice. It wasn't as though he was trying to fail him, was it? He had eaten the poisoned sweets as he had been told to.

« Not long. A few days. »

Lucius Malfoy reached for his son and put a long-fingered hand on his shoulder. Smiling down at him, he slided it towards his neck, along his jaw, while Draco wondered what would come next. His father's hand was now resting on his blond hair. With a sharp pull, he took a dozen hairs from his son's head and hid them in one of his pockets.

Draco hadn't even flinched at the sudden and stinging pain, and Lucius smiled again, his mind elsewhere.

Brewing Polyjuice had been a very long and tedious job, but he no longer trusted Snape to do it and shut up about it. Of course, he had been doing the Dark Lord's Strenghtening Solution for over a year, but something about the Potions Master bothered Malfoy.

And now Snape had ran out of the main ingredient, and Malfoy had been given order to take care of it.

Lucius Malfoy was usually entrusted with this kind of shopping because he was handsome and charming enough to convince any girl to follow him without questions, but for once his errand was going to be a little more challenging.

Voldemort had hinted that he would have liked to have a particular blood, this time.

It had been long since he hadn't tasted a Hogwarts' student.

Dumbledore's eyes were sharp, but the stake was still worth a try.

Dumbledore's eyes were indeed sharp, and he knew why Snape had come to his office before his Potions Master had even opened his mouth.

« No, Severus, » he said sternly. « You know I cannot grant you this. »

« Grant me, Headmaster? » Snape looked him right in the eyes. « It would hardly amuse me. I would accept to go through it as it could supply so many useful informations for the Order. »

« Even if- »

« There is no doubt about that. Rasputin's Diary will reveal the secret to destroy the Dark Lord for the last time. »

« And the one which will keep him alive forever. »

Snape frowned, an unspoken question in his dark eyes.

« I do trust you. But I'll take the liberty to keep the book on my desk till Hermione takes her N.E.W.T.s, » answered Dumbledore, crossing his fingers.

« Two years? You must be joking. If she were willing- »

« It would make no difference. You are her teacher. »

« We are at war, Headmaster. »

« It is no reason not to live up our principles, » answered Dumbledore calmly.

Snape glared at him, but didn't voice what he was thinking.

My principles have nothing to do with this. Nor have yours, deep down.

A/NHi everyone! So this is a crowded chapter, hope you like it…Simply love writing about Lucius Malfoy…And as I was posting this, I noticed that my reviews' page states "Page 1of 2" and I fell off my chair… rubs her head in disbelief…I'm very happy that you like it, and I hope you'll stay with me till the end…some 15 chapters are still waiting for you…

Thank you a lot to NatsuoryGwen Drailemac and pure-undead-pyra (I don't understand your nickname but sounds revolting, lol).

kuri-the-healer – nobody needs to activate it. The book reacts to the touch of a Muggle-born witch. After his first failure, Snape hid it away, and Hermione is the first one to touch it since the eighties. It obviously doesn't react to Snape's touch, or Dumbledore's, because they're both Pureblood. I this fic, anyway, I don't think we know for sure in canon, do we? Snape was in Slytherin, but so was Riddle…

Kylala-San – woow, thank you! And this gives me the opprtunity to make some egoistic ad…my other fic is on too, it's called Obliviate! And is also starring in canon (hope so) Snape, Hermione, Harry and Ron. I'm just saying this for a bit of random and polite conversation, obviously, I don't want you to go and read it…lol

zuz – because I've been rightly advised not too. If I do, people won't see it, as it has happened for my first one. So sorry, but I'll be regular with updates.

duj – sorry, I tought it was implied in that sentence. But then, my English is not perfect. Dumbledore said that Snape was not ready to 1) bear the presence of a Muggle-born, and 2) to seduce her…I would have loved to be more specific about it, but Dumbledore can't talk about Snape's sex life with Minerva, can he? Snape would skin him alive…but you'll find out a bit more on this by himself (if I manage to convince him to)

rainbow fuzzlez, please don't cry! Good things come for those who wait (don't you English people say something like this?). Thank you a lot for reviewinf each chapter, you made me fell off my chair – again – when I realized…And yes, I rather like Russian revolution myself, it's a fascinating period. But I'm sure we don't know anything about canon Snape in this sense. The fanon theory I like the most is about his mother being a gipsy queen, but it didn't work here…

Next update: February 18th