Chapter Four

"I can't believe Dumbledore wants us to search all the French family trees for Hermione and Malfoy's names." said Ron in disbelief, and Harry nodded in agreement.

"It's too farfetched to work. As if their names will be the same!"

"But you'll never know until we've tried." Blaise Zabini said from behind them. Ron and Harry turned around to face him with forced smiles. He wasn't as bad as Malfoy to them, but they weren't exactly buddies either. Blaise saw the looks on their faces and sighed.

"Look, I want Draco back as much as you want Granger back. I think we should put our differences aside and co-operate with each other for this. That way we can get them back as soon as possible." He proposed.

Ron and Harry glanced at each other. Blaise was right, of course...three heads were definitely better than two.

"Sure. Lets get to work." Harry said. And with that the three of them all took some French family tree records from the library shelves and began to search them for the names of their lost friends.

--

'Out of all people he had to be betrothed to, did it have to be Granger?!' fumed Draco silently in his room.

He couldn't believe his luck, not only was he stuck in France with Granger, but she just had to be betrothed to his brother. It would've just been a whole lot easier if she was some unknown girl that he 'ran' off with to England. At least from there they could've found a way to get back to Hogwarts and inform the Headmaster that they were in fact, from the future and somehow get back to their friends and family.

'Ok, calm down Draco. Look on the bright side, at least now you're not alone in 18th century France. And her betrothal to your brother makes everything simpler, you don't have to go through all of Paris looking for her and Weasley and whoever else was involved with the accident. Its now just a matter of thinking up a plan to get back to Hogwarts.' he thought.

It was strange that fate should play such a dirty trick on him. Fate had been pretty kind to him - he was blessed with good looks, intelligence and wealth, the whole package. But being stuck in 18th century France with one of his enemies?! That was just cruel. Especially since Granger was not only Saint Potter's best friend, she was also smartest witch in the grade - the bane of his academic frustrations. But it was doubly cruel because he had been studying so hard all holiday just so that he could beat her this year, and now his studying was probably going to be useless - it was highly unlikely that they would get back to Hogwarts any time soon, especially since they had lost their wands on their trip back in time.

His mind wandered back to when he had first seen Granger in the foyer. She had looked so unlike herself - in fact she looked almost pretty. He had never really registered that Granger was actually female until tonight. She never showed off her uh, assets much at Hogwarts, and it was surprising that the Mudblood actually did have a figure, considering that she hid it under shapeless robes at Hogwarts. And her face wasn't too bad either...except she hid that behind all her books. Now why would someone like her actually want to hide themselves behind books and robes too big for them?

Draco knew that Pansy would love to look like Granger. She was slender, but not a stick and she had an almost pretty face, well...prettier than Pansy's anyway. She was also intellectually equal to him (or so he would like to think). In fact, he would probably be attracted to her if she wasn't a Mudblood. Shame that she was and Pansy wasn't. Life would've been much more bearable if he didn't have to spend the rest of his with Pansy.

Suddenly he realized exactly what he was thinking about, and he mentally slapped himself in punishment.

'What the hell. Now is not the time to be thinking about the Mudblood. Now is the time to be thinking up a brilliant plan to get us out of this damn place.' Draco berated himself.

He lay on his bed and racked his brain for a plan. There were no ideas forthcoming.

"Damn this all to hell!" Draco exclaimed in frustration. He jumped up and began to pace around the room, but that didn't help him think either. He stared for awhile at his heavy wooden door looking for some inspiration, but needless to say, that didn't help him either. Finally he pushed open the door and looked down the corridor.

Should he?

Would she mind?

Oh well what the hell, they needed to have a talk anyway, might as well do some brainstorming together while they were at it.

And with that, he strode down the hallway in search of Granger's room.

--

Hermione had just put on her bathrobe and was in the process of drying her hair when she heard a knock on the door. Quickly she went to open it, wondering who was on the other side...a part of her hoped that it was Xavier, while another more rational part hoped that it was Malfoy, so that they could figure out a plan to get back to Hogwarts.

To her surprise, it was neither of them. It was Lady Malfoy.

"Oh, good evening Lady Malfoy...I wasn't expecting -" she stammered in shock.

Lady Malfoy smiled kindly at her and put a finger to her rose pink lips. Hermione shut up straight away and looked meekly at the floor, she felt so embarrassed that her future mother-in-law had seen her looking so...dishevelled. Her hair was bushy from the shower and she was sure that her wet feet had left tracks on the plush carpet. To make Hermione feel even worse, Lady Malfoy was still wearing her formal dinner dress and looked gorgeous.

"Marie, you must be wondering what I am doing here at such a late hour..." Lady Malfoy began uncertainly. Hermione smiled weakly in response. Was something wrong? Was the betrothal going to be called off?

"I just wanted to have a talk with you."

'Oh my god. I haven't even been here for a day and she hates me.' Thought Hermione in shock. Lady Malfoy saw the look on Hermione's face and hurriedly reassured her.

"Oh, no it is nothing serious! There's nothing wrong, I just wanted to talk to you about Xavier."

"Oh! What about him?" asked Hermione curiously.

"He is a very...strange boy lets just say. He has never been the type to want to settle down, his father and I have been trying to get him to think about his future for a very long time and we have had no success. Then suddenly he met you, and all he wanted to do was settle down." She paused here, to check Hermione's reaction. She was nonplussed.

"Marie, what I am trying to say is that Xavier seems to have changed after he met you. I don't know if it is a permanent change, or if it is just one of his phases...but I want to warn you about his fickleness in any case. Xavier tires of things easily, and I don't want you to be hurt if something does happen with you two - you must understand that he has always been like this, even as a child and that he doesn't mean any harm by it."

Hermione was slightly shaken, still trying to process what Lady Malfoy was telling her. She figured that in a very long-winded way, she was trying to say that Xavier was a...playboy?

"Uh, I understand Lady Malfoy. Thank you for informing me...I appreciate it."

Lady Malfoy smiled awkwardly in response. "I don't want you to get hurt by my son, Marie. You are a good girl, I can see that much."

"I can look after myself." was Hermione's reply.

"I know. Good night Marie, I'm sorry to have disturbed you."

Then Lady Malfoy walked out of the room shutting the door behind her, leaving Hermione to ponder what she had just heard. What the hell was all that supposed to mean? Was Lady Malfoy trying to scare her into breaking off the engagement?

Suddenly another knock jerked Hermione out of her thoughts. She hurried to the door as the knocking got more insistent, wondering if Lady Malfoy was back for more scaring. Instead the door swung open to reveal none other than Malfoy junior himself.

A/N: Hehe, cliffie : ) stay tuned for the next chapter guys! Thanks for all your reviews btw, keep them coming please : ).