Chapter Five

From Last Chapter: '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.'

"Ah, so this one is your room Granger. Damn all the doors in this place look exactly the same." he said with a roll of his eyes.

What?! No Mudblood, no sneering, just a normal greeting? Hermione was suspicious, Malfoy seemed to civil to be true. Of course, he had been very uh, courteous when he had greeted her down in the foyer earlier on but here in her room they were far from the eyes of his 'parents' and there was no need for civility.

So why was he still acting like that?

"Granger? What's wrong with you? Has time travel finally shut you up?" he sneered, his old self coming back. Hermione relaxed - now this was the Malfoy that she knew and loathed.

"What do you think, Malfoy?" she shot back.

"Apparently not." He replied, then he moved past her into her room, "Not too bad, Granger. Looks like my brother's really got an interest in you, though I don't see what's so interesting about you."

"Look, if you came here just to taunt me, then I suggest that you leave now." she snapped at him.

"No, of course not. Why would I spend half the night looking for your room just to taunt you?" he replied innocently. Hermione glared at him, positive that he had something up his sleeve.

"Look, Granger I came here for two reasons. The first is to propose a truce, so that we can at least keep up with appearances with the 18th century Malfoys, and so that we can work together successfully to get back to Hogwarts."

Hermione was silent as she processed this information. On one hand, she felt like rebelling against Malfoy's logic and refusing his offer, on the other hand she knew that she needed to cooperate with Malfoy so that they could get back to Hogwarts soon. She frowned, she didn't trust Malfoy...what if he just left her behind after they found out how to get back?

"Granger, its really not a hard decision to make. Either you go back to Hogwarts, or you're stuck in 18th century France."

"Maybe I wont need to make a decision. I'm sure Professor Dumbledore will find a way to take us back." Hermione answered stubbornly.

"Dumbledore? That crazy old fool? I don't think he even knows what happened in the dungeon. I'm pretty sure he knows nothing about Potions - he's more of a wand magic person if you know what I mean." Malfoy drawled, "He's never tried to vanquish Voldemort with a potion has he? No, its always been with a wand...hey what are you staring at Granger?!"

Hermione jaw had dropped. She was stunned to find that Malfoy, Death Eater in training actually had the guts to say the Dark Lord's name. The only two people that ever said His name were Harry and Dumbledore. And yet...

"Hello, Granger?"

"Uh...yeah?"

"Never mind. What's wrong with you? Were you even listening to what I was saying?"

"Yes I was."

"Well have you made up your mind yet? Are we going to cooperate or not?"

Hermione scratched her head, she didn't know what to do. She was positive that Malfoy had no idea what he was on about and that he only wanted a truce because he wanted her to find a way back to Hogwarts. But then she felt that she should take a risk and cooperate with him because two heads were always better than one.

"Fine, you can tell me your decision later. I'll tell you the second reason why I'm here. I came here to talk to you about this little situation that we're in. In case you haven't noticed, we're not only stuck in 18th Century France, we're unable to perform magic as well." he said.

"What?! As if we cant perform magic!" Hermione exclaimed indignantly.

"Look at that, little miss know-it-all is in denial. When we got transported back in time, we lost our wands. So unless you know how perform wandless magic, (highly unlikely) we're pretty screwed." he answered. Hermione's jaw had dropped again. She had completely forgotten about her magic...

"Then how are we going to get back to Hogwarts?!" she asked panic-stricken.

"Haven't you tried to use magic for the past few days? Or has 'Marie' been too busy to think?" Malfoy shot back, ignoring her question.

"No I haven't. There's just been too much to digest that I haven't had much time to think." Hermione answered quietly. It was true, she had passed out for about a day ever since she had gotten here and in the brief time that she had been awake, she had been dreading her betrothal to Xavier Malfoy.

"Strangely enough, I know how you're feeling." Malfoy answered uncomfortably. He thought back to his feeling of disorientation when he had found that he was in 18th century France. An awkward silence hung in the air between the two enemies - Malfoy broke the ice.

"Where's Weasley?" he asked curiously. Hermione shrugged.

"I have no idea. Where's Blaise Zabini?" she asked.

"Well I don't know where the real Blaise is, but I do know where his identical twin lives." Malfoy replied sardonically. Hermione laughed despite the fact that she was laughing at her enemy's joke.

"Xavier does look a lot like Blaise..." she agreed with a grin. Malfoy nodded and rolled his eyes again.

"Shame that he only looks like Blaise. His personality completely sucks."

"It does?" Hermione asked, mindful of what Lady Malfoy had just said to her.

"Oh yeah, he's an arrogant pretty boy who always gets what he wants. I hate those people." He said seriously. Hermione had to keep herself from bursting out laughing - Malfoy sounded like he was talking about himself.

"Yes, anyway Granger, I think I've said enough for tonight. Tell me when you've made up your mind. Good night." said Malfoy civilly. He turned to leave. He was halfway down the corridor when he heard Granger's voice.

"Truce, Malfoy."

--

Ron, Harry and Blaise had been flipping through old musty books in the library for three hours straight. They were bored, tired and absolutely drained of all hope of ever finding Hermione and Malfoy's names in the French family trees.

"What a waste of a perfectly nice Saturday afternoon." Ron moaned, slamming a book shut in frustration.

"I completely agree." Blaise sighed, "Any luck, Potter?"

"Nope." Harry sighed as well.

"What the hell are we going to do?! We've been through practically the whole goddamn library and we cant find anything!" Ron burst out angrily.

"Wait, I found a person called Louise Malfoy...you reckon that's got anything to do with Hermione or Malfoy?" asked Harry hopefully.

"Could be related to our Malfoy." Ron replied.

"It could be. Shame this book doesn't have a family tree for us to check."

"I guess we'll just have to keep on looking." Blaise said. He got up and took a few more books from the shelves to search. He tossed one each to Ron and Harry. After grumbling and muttering under their breaths, they resigned themselves and kept looking.

--

The morning dawned on the Malfoy Chateau and Draco awoke with a start. He had been dreaming about Hogwarts, and he was struck by how much he missed the place.

Sure, he was always complaining about Dumbledore and all these other things while he was actually there, but now that he was so far away from Hogwarts (both in time, and physically) he realized that it really wasn't that bad back there.

He wondered if Snape and Dumbledore knew where they were. He wondered whether anyone missed him (Pansy most likely did) and he wondered if anyone was doing anything to try to get them back to Hogwarts.

He sincerely hoped that they were, at the rate which Granger and he were going at, they would take a couple of months to get back - provided they could actually come up with a plan.

Draco made up his mind to go and research more about the Potion in the library today. He wondered whether Granger would be able to go with him, but then he decided that she wouldn't - she'll probably be spending the day with his brother. Great.

He lazily got out of bed, and got dressed. He cringed when he saw himself in the mirror - the clothes that these people wore were atrocious. Though they were tailor-made to fit him, he still thought that he looked ridiculous. And that was really saying something as Draco looked good in anythingOh well, it wasn't like he had anyone to impress so it didn't matter how he looked, he reassured himself.

Draco was making his way down to the dining hall for breakfast when he heard voices coming from around the corner. Both were male, and one sounded familiar while the other was completely unknown to him.

"She's like a completely different person now." said Xavier.

"So she isn't a stubborn bitch anymore?" asked the unknown.

"No...on the contrary, she seems quite willing to be here. She even let me kiss her last night." Xavier answered.

"Well that's too good to be true, Xavier. She must have something up her sleeve, no one can change that much in a week. She absolutely loathed you last week - no offence." said the unknown.

"I know. But I cant complain." sighed Xavier. At that moment they came around the corner and were face to face with Draco, who had very intelligently opted to pretend to tie his shoelaces to cover up for his eavesdropping.

"Julien! What are you doing down there?" asked Xavier suspiciously.

"Uh...tying my shoelaces obviously." answered Draco with a smirk. He looked up to sneak a peek at who the unknown was. It was a tall man with auburn hair and like Xavier, an air of arrogance.

"But your laces are already tied." said Xavier, glaring at Draco.

"Yeah well I was just checking them. So, aren't you going to introduce me to your friend, brother?" Draco shot back.

"I already have brother". Xavier spat.

"No you haven't." Draco retorted childishly.

"Look, stop being so immature. You've known Michel since you were six years old, you fool. Why would I need to introduce you again?" snapped Xavier. Michel laughed, clapping his friend on his back.

"There's no need to be that harsh on Julien." he said, chuckling.

Immediately Draco was overwhelmed by a profound dislike for this man. When he laughed, the laughter didn't reach his eyes, which remained cold and icy. He reminded him too much of his own father...

Father. He would be furious with the school and Dumbledore. They had allowed his only son and heir to vanish into thin air - he would be especially angry as Draco was due to be initiated into the Death Eaters next holiday. Luckily for Draco, he wouldn't need to confront his father about his unwillingness to be a lowly servant of the Dark Lord.

Malfoys should serve nobody but themselves, that was what Draco had been taught. And yet Lucius was willing to serve his Master wholeheartedly. It was such a contradiction, and it had made Draco hate his father even more when he was old enough to realize what a hypocrite he really was.

Draco shook his head and came back to the present. He had tuned out, and now both Michel and Xavier were giving him strange looks.

"Sorry, did I do something wrong?" asked Draco nonchalantly. Xavier rolled his eyes and walked towards the staircase leading down to the dining hall. Michel and Draco followed him in silence.

They entered the dining hall, and saw that Hermione was already seated at the table. He thought he saw Hermione's mouth twitch into a small smile when she looked at him but he dismissed it as a trick of the light.

"Good morning." he said, seating himself down directly across from Hermione.

Xavier had, of course, taken the seat beside Hermione and Draco was forced to watch as he openly showered her with affection. It was disgusting, how he held her hand in his, and how he fed her bits of his breakfast. Was he trying to make them lose their appetites, or was he merely flaunting the fact that she was betrothed to him?

Draco suspected that it was the latter. He was in for a very long and painful breakfast.

A/N: ok. I had a severe case of writer's block, and I have absolutely no idea where the story is going...scary as that sounds. So I apologise for the long delay in updating, and I apologise for the boringness of this chapter - its just a filler/developer chapter...I'll think up something interesting for the next chappie ok? J Alright, thanks for reading and PLEASE REVIEW!