a/n…I really don't like a few things in life…1. My computer. It sucks…first I had to get it fixed after all this ad-ware stuff, and then my monitor died so we had to get a new one of those…and then 2. Summer reading…5 books, 7 assignments…enough said. Now that I've done my complaining, onto the story! I still haven't revealed the red eyes yet…maybe I'll do that this chapter…grin
Disclaimer…puts head in hands and sighs
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It had been two weeks since the night Hermione remembered, but not an easy two weeks by far. She would wake up during the night with horrible nightmares, screaming loud enough to wake the baby. Draco would just hold her, stroking her hair while she shook and cried violently. She wasn't well, at all. She was pale, and sickly thin, always sick.
"Hermione, take your medicine, please." Draco pleaded as if he were asking a five year old child to take cough syrup.
"I don't need it Draco, I'm fine." She said stubbornly, she refused to admit that she was sick and kept working in that stale little office of hers.
"Hermione, your body is under too much stress, this isn't good for you. Stop being so stubborn and just take the ruddy medicine!" He sighed, exasperated.
"Fine," She rolled her eyes, giving in to appease him, she took the little cup from his hand and drank the thick liquid from it, making a horrible face as she did so. "That stuff tastes like bloody tar-water."
"Thank you." He said, forcing a small smile and kissing her on the forehead. She gave the same back to him.
"I keep telling you, I'm fine, just a little cold."
"We don't want to take any chances, love, I don't want to lose you again." He brushed a strand of curls back from her face.
She smiled again, "I guess I should be grateful you care so much."
"Yes, you should." He laughed and went back to his reading while Hermione went over to the kitchenette and rinsed out the medicine cup.
"…Draco….Draco!" Hermione's call shattered the temporary silence in the room.
The blonde jumped out of his chair and ran over to his wife, who stood pale and stiff in the kitchen. "What? What is it Hermione?"
Without saying a word, Hermione lifted her arm and pointed toward the small window, it was only after a few moments of pointing that she spoke. "Eyes."
"What?" Draco peered out the window into the darkness of the night, there was nothing out there.
"There were these horrible red eyes, they were staring at me and watching everything I did." She shuddered, grasping onto her husband.
"Shhhh, its alright darling." He automatically held her and stroked her hair, just as he always did when she had her nightmares. "It was only your imagination."
"No, no Draco, those eyes were as real as you and me. There's something out there."
"What in the world would still be following you Hermione, he's dead." Draco reasoned.
"One of his followers, Peter, whoever it was that took me." She relaxed into him as he lead her over to one of the couches and sat down with her. "Draco, why can't things just be normal again."
"They will be, sooner or later they will be Hermione." He placed another kiss on her forehead and then one on her nose, leading to a chaste one on her lips.
They both sat there for the longest time, Draco holding her and listening to her breathe, feeling her erratic heartbeat from beneath his arms. Eventually she fell asleep, and since Draco found no reason to disturb her, he repositioned himself from under her, lay back and fell asleep as well.
During the middle of the night there was a soft bump that came from the kitchen. Draco, being the lightest of sleepers, heard it and woke up. He made a move to get up until he realized his present position underneath his wife's sleeping form. Ears alert, he strained his neck to look over the back of the couch.
There they were, those red eyes. Hermione hadn't been imagining things. He only saw them for a moment, attached to a black body form, and then before he could even make a move to get up, the figure had gone out the window and was gone.
"Unbelievable." He whispered, suddenly aware that there were still followers of Voldemort out there, waiting to avenge his death. "I really hope Harry and Ron are alright."
The next morning Draco found no reason to tell Hermione about what he had seen. She seemed so much calmer now than she did the night before, he didn't want to upset her again. Although, he did manage to set up some extra wards in their room while Hermione was in the shower.
For a few weeks the red eyes didn't appear again, but Hermione slowly kept getting sicker and sicker, now she finally admitted there was something wrong and went to Madame Pomfrey.
"Well dear, if you had been in a war, I would have called this post traumatic stress syndrome, but I'm not sure what else to call it. All this stress has taken a toll on your body, you just need a few good days rest and lots of TLC." The kind nurse smiled at her. "I'm going to give you these sleeping pills, take two half an hour before bed, and don't go to bed after 11, you need plenty of rest. And no work until you're better. Get that husband of yours to give you plenty of fruits and vegetables and such."
Hermione accepted the pills and promised that she would do everything as directed. After all, she still was Hermione Granger, and since when had she stopped following the directions of her elders?
"Now, go get some sleep, let Fiona take care of Haley."
Hermione thanked her for everything and began to walk back to her rooms, clutching her wand in her hand. Ever since she had seen those eyes, she was always on alert for anything. She made it to the rooms, thankfully, and went in.
She had been almost asleep when she heard a noise, assuming that it was Draco coming in to check on her, she ignored it, but it wasn't. Above her bed stood a short figure draped in a black robe, everything on it was black except those red eyes. She screamed, not knowing what else to do, and reached for her wand before the figure could reach for its.
"Stupefy!" Hermione heard a male voice scream. She shut her eyes, figuring that it had been the figure and she would soon be killed.
After a few moments, Hermione opened her eyes, realizing that she wasn't the one laying on the floor unconscious. The figure was, and over it stood Ron.
"Oh, Ron!" She cried, getting up and hugging her friend. He had his wand trained on the figure still but he hugged her with his left arm.
"You alright Hermione?" He asked, looking at her to make sure there was nothing wrong.
"Yes, I'm fine. Just a little upset." She said, still clutching onto him and looking at the figure laying down on the floor.
"We should take it to Dumbledore." Ron said, Hermione nodded in agreement. "Mobilicorpus." He muttered as the figure was stood up as if by invisible puppet strings and floated along behind him. Thankfully the hallways were empty because it was during classes and they made it safely to the Headmaster's office.
"Cotton candy." Hermione said, watching as the stone Gargoyle began to move. She, Ron, and the still masked figure made their way up the steps.
A knock from Hermione received a simple "Enter," from Dumbledore.
"Hello Hermione, Ron, and…Oh my." Albus stood up, walking over to the hooded figure, "Would someone care to explain?"
"This…thing, whatever you'd prefer it called, has been stalking Draco and I, Albus. It tried to attack me in my room several times. This time it would have succeeded if Ron hadn't heard me scream and come to help me." She thought for a minute. "Wait, Ron, why were you in my rooms to begin with?"
"Draco asked me to set more wards in the rooms, I was in the bathroom when I heard you scream and I came running." He said.
"Well, I suppose we should see who the perpetrator is, shouldn't we?" Dumbledore said, reaching for the hood and pulling it back from the figure's head."
Hermione gasped, "No, it couldn't be."
"Bloody hell, who would have thought?" Ron said, running a hand over his red hair.
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Draco sat in Snape's classroom, grading papers for the Potions Master. He grumbled as he took another 2 points off the student for careless errors.
"I never realized how annoying it is to grade all these papers until every single student spells the exact same word wrong." He sighed.
Snape did something uncharacteristically strange coming from him, he laughed. "You'll learn to love it Draco, considering you are coming back next year?"
Draco thought for a moment, "Well, now that Voldemort is gone, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't come back. Hermione and I both love our jobs, and Fiona is great with Haley." He shrugged.
"I do hope you come back next year, my life has been a lot easier since you came." Snape said, laughing again.
"I'm sure." Draco smiled, setting down his grading quill and leaning back in his seat. "So why didn't you ever get married and live happily ever after Severus?" Draco grinned, he had always wondered, and with Snape laughing so much, he thought maybe he was in a good enough mood to tell him.
Snape did the same, reclining in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. "Well, there was one girl. I did love her, but she went off and got married to someone who 'was much more like her.' She was a Ravenclaw."
Interested, Draco waited for him to go on.
"She and I were together for about two years, our fifth and sixth, she broke it off to tell me she was cheating on me with another Slytherin. I was of course heartbroken, but I would never cry. James and his cronies would have gotten too much satisfaction in seeing me cry. No, I dealt with it the best way I knew how. I went and attempted to beat the bloody pulp out of the man who had stolen her." He stopped with a bitter smile, obviously remembering that day. "Of course, he was much stronger than me and I was left in the hospital wing for the night, but I still remember her face as she watched me fall. I knew she still loved me."
Draco sat in wonder, "Who was it?"
Snape laughed softly, "You see, Draco, that is the bitter irony of it. It was your mother. You don't think I treated you well all those years just because I liked your father did you? No. I hated that man, I never would have said it until after he died, but I hated him. He stole your mother from me. The only reason I ever treated you so specially is because you reminded me so much of Narcissa, you still do."
"Bloody hell." Draco muttered, his jaw hanging open. Snape laughed again.
"So now you know, my secret is out."
Draco began to say something, but Ron burst in the door of the classroom. "Draco! You'd better come, they've found the person whose been stalking you."
Draco jumped from his seat, followed by Snape, and the three men ran to Dumbledore's office. Hermione was sitting on the desk, her eyes still looking amazed, and a little girl sat in the corner chair, her arms and legs bound by invisible ropes, but her eyes were still the same. Blood red.
"The officials should be here any moment Draco, they're on their way." Dumbledore said.
"Who is she?" He asked Hermione as he looked at the little girl who was struggling against her bindings.
"Destiny Harriman." Hermione said, "She came to me sometimes during the weeks because she was so terrified of Snape, I still can't believe a little girl so sweet could do something like this."
"Her father and mother are death eaters, or at least they were," Draco said simply, his mind running over the list of last names he had in a rolodex in his mind.
"That would explain it." Ron said, watching as a few ministry officials came into the office. He walked over and began talking to them quietly about the situation.
"Now our terrors are over, Hermione." Draco said comfortingly, wrapping his arm around her waist and placing a kiss in her hair.
"I really do hope so, Draco. But they're still out there."
"No, no one is ever going to hurt you again. I won't let it." He whispered, pulling her in closer.
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a/n…so sorry, short chapter, but! I have a new story coming out, it is going to be a Draco/Hermione story again, but with a lot more fluff and humor, none of this depressing stuff! It takes place on summer vacation…and…well, just read it to find out. Its title is going to be "Teaching Dragons to Swim" I already have the first chapter uploaded, and once I post this, I'll post that. I hope you like it! It doesn't seem like a Hermione/Draco story to begin with, but it will be, I promise! Oh yeah, and I have even more news, I've decided that I want to do my part to help the world of fan fiction to get even better. I'm going to be a beta! Draco/Hermione stories only, but e-mail or IM me if you'd like me to be your beta! or just ptownqt076 on AIM. Thanks! Now…please review!!
Love and Fluff,
Natalie