To Get Back Life


Thank you so much to –

Londonmalfoy,
Louiebugooey,
Countrybutterfly,
XadraineMalfoy – oops! Thanks for telling me, this was a story I wrote ages ago as a sequel to The Dark Lady where Hermione is evil, I guess I must have missed some when I was changing the first few chapters I wrote in that plot.
epiphany-the-storyteller,
mysteriouscharm,
Danish Pastry 28,
Swtndreamypnay


Chapter 6
Working

A small hand shook her from her dreams at dawn the next day and Hermione jumped when she saw the face of a House Elf peering down at her from close range.

"It is being time to get to work Miss Hermione." It squeaked when she got up.

"Err, thanks, um?" Hermione trailed off, not knowing the Elf's name.

"Blinky, Miss." The Elf supplied.

"Yeah, thanks Blinky." She muttered as she got up and looked out of the small loft window.

The sun had hardly risen at all, this is not natural she thought I should not be getting up this early, ever!

Groaning she pulled her robes over her head and quickly stumbled into the tiny box of a bathroom that all the servants used. The Malfoy family had bought another Muggleborn to work around the house, a young boy whom Hermione didn't know the name of yet, but he was only the butler and was allowed another hour and a half of sleep before he was forced to start working.

She silently padded down to the ground floor and into the parlour where there was a box of equipment to use when cleaning the fireplaces. She was not allowed a wand so she had to do everything by hand, the Muggle way. This, of course, took a great deal of time longer than it would have done if she could have been magically aided.

As soon as she had done scrubbing the metal with a hard bristled brush and applied the polish with a soft rag a House Elf would appear and stock up the wood to light the first fire of the day. This happened with all twenty of the fireplaces. It was just coming up to seven o'clock when she got down to the kitchen, she sat down on one of the chairs while the House Elves placed all the breakfast food upon silver trays.

As the clock chimed seven thirty Hermione carefully carried the first tray into the large dinning room where the whole family were sat. She passed out the bowls, plates and cutlery to each of them, making sure to not look at Draco as she did so. She then quickly carried in the large bowls of cereal, plates of toast, bacon, sausages, eggs and kippers. Only when she carried in the very large jug of freshly squeeze orange juice did she stumble slightly, a little of the liquid tipped over her hand and Draco's mother 'tutted' loudly and Hermione wiped it off.

--

An hour later Hermione was allowed back into the Dinning Room to clear away the plates while Mr and Mrs Malfoy got ready for work and Thomas, Clarissa and Adam got ready to go back to their own home. Hermione had no idea what Draco would be doing; she knew that he was doing a college course in Medicine, but she was almost certain that he got his course material sent to his house. That meant that he would probably be somewhere in the house while she was working.

Great! Just great! She thought sourly because that won't be awkward at all now will it?

But she had little time to dwell on such thoughts, there was a lot to be done and the consequences of her not doing it had been explained extremely explicitly. She shuddered as she remembered Mrs Malfoy's tone and quickly picked up the bucket full of cleaning products.

She started on the ground floor and worked her way up. It took her around three hours to clean the first two floors to that she hoped was an acceptable standard. The third and fourth floors, however, took quite a lot longer. The first two floors were mainly sitting rooms, dinning rooms, libraries and studies. These were kept fairly clean and just needed dusting, and windows cleaning. The floors had been polished the day before and would need doing that morning so Hermione had quite an easy job. But the last two floors were in a horrible state; these were the bedrooms and bathrooms mainly. These had been used every day when the family got ready to go to work.

The third story was home to one of the largest rooms; the master bedroom, belonging to Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. It was a terrible mess that Hermione was sure they had made on purpose to heighten her work load. There were clothes all over the floor, large mugs with, now cold, coffee at the bottom of it. The bed had been completely stripped and the mattress was half way off the frame. There were makeup stains all over the mirror and fingerprints smudged across the windows. With a heavy sigh rose set down her bucket and started to place the clothes back on their hangers. Trying to avoid the door that led to the en suit bathroom that she knew would be just as bad.

Three quarters of an hour later she emerged from a gleaming room happy with herself that she had accomplished such a task. She then opened the door to the guest bedroom that had housed Thomas and Clarissa. It was also in a bad way, with baby food drying into the carpet.

It was half past one before Hermione started on the forth and last, save for the attic, floor of the house. This one wasn't so bad. There was the large Astronomy room, with the glass ceiling that she deemed clean enough not to have to clean. There was another very small study that just needed a quick once over with a duster and then there was the last bedroom. The one that she did not know belonged to Draco.

"Oh." She exclaimed with relief as she opened the door. "Well this isn't too bad at all!"

She opened the window to let in some fresh air and to listen to the birdsong while she worked. After straightening out the bed and retrieving the pillows that were on the other side of the room she hung up the few clothes that were on the floor. She was in the adjoining bathroom when he walked in. He looked around and felt an instant twinge of guilt.

She's been in here; he thought sadly, my friend has come in and cleaned up my mess.

It startled him so much when she walked through the door back into the room that he actually made a grab for his wand.

"Hermione!" He gasped when his brained registered that the figure before him was not a threat.

She had the look of a trapped animal about her and it pained him to see that she actually backed up a few steps upon seeing him.

But once the wave of panic had washed over Hermione it was replaced with anger and betrayal. She wordlessly picked up her bucket and the few plates that had been scattered around and walked put of the room. She managed to get to the stairs before he caught up with her and grabbed hold of her arm.

"Hermione. Please! Talk to me!" he pleaded.

He forced her round so she was facing him but she still refused to look him in the eye.

"I'm sorry Sir but I have your washing to do." She whispered and quickly ran down the stairs.

Her words shook Draco; he stood completely speechless for a good few seconds before realising that if he followed her now he wouldn't make anything better. He needed to plan out what he would say to her, it needed to be good if she was going to be convinced. He made his way to the Library and threw a handful of Floo powder into the flames.

I'll talk to her soon, he decided, but now there's something that I need to do.

"Gringotts Bank!" He commanded.

--

Hermione wiped away the tears as she stood over the sink where she was washing the dishes. The meal that the House elves had prepared for Draco for his lunch was still sat on the table. It was a chicken and mayonnaise sandwich with the softest looking bread that she had even seen. It looked delicious with a salad sat at the side of it.

Her stomach growled at the thought of food, remembering that she hadn't eaten since she had been at Hogwarts the day before. She shook her head quickly and turned her back on the food, returning to her task. But again her stomach gave a cry of protest and sent her a shooting pain to go along with it.

"You can have that if you want." Came a voice from behind her.

She jumped and spun around to see who it was; Draco, of course. He had just returned from Diagon Alley and had been looking for her.

"What?" She asked looking confused.

"The sandwich, you can have it." He explained pointing to it.

"No, I'm not hungry." She said shortly but her stomach contradicted her giving a loud rumble. With a sigh she sat down and tucked in quickly.

The whole time Draco stayed in the doorway and watched her, but Hermione said nothing else to him. As soon as she had finished she carried the plate to the sink and continued washing up.

"Hermione I'm sorry I had no idea that any if this would happen." Draco pleaded to her back.

"Why did you do it?" She asked quietly after a long period of silence, she still didn't turn to face him.

"I didn't, I honestly didn't. I know it may look bad but it's not how you think. I never told Voldemort anything, he read my thoughts. I wanted you to be my friend, I honestly did." He explained hopelessly.

"And lying to me will really make you trust me?" She snapped.

"I'm not!" he insisted, ears turning pink with frustration, "I didn't know that he could read minds."

"So you're going to continue lying to me?" She shrieked getting very angered.

"No! I'm not lying to you!" Draco said again.

"Oh yeah? So it's just coincidence that you found out where the safe house was and then the Bennett family killed and me and the others slaves?" She muttered sarcastically.

"I didn't rat you out!" He cried. "It was Voldemort! I swear to you that it was."

Even as he said it out loud he knew how corny it sounded. He knew that Hermione wouldn't believe him and that she would probably become even angrier with him. And he was right; she slowly rose from her seat and returned to the skin.

"If you excuse me Sir I have work you're keeping me from, I don't think that the master of the house would be happy if he knew you were stopping the servants doing their tasks." She said in an icy voice.

Knowing when to admit defeat Draco got to his feet and walked from the room. Might need a little more planning next time, he told himself furiously.

--

Thankfully it was only ten o'clock by the time the family had finished eating and Hermione had done the dishes. She collapsed wearily onto her bed and fell instantly into a deep sleep. The next morning it was the same process of being woken up and not being able to stop working until eleven in the evening. She was only ever allowed one meal a day if she had time to fit it in between her work load. But her body started adapting to this and the only thing that changed was the fact that her jeans were now too big for her and had to be kept up by a belt.

She avoided Draco as best she could as it was too painful to see him, he had ratted her out to The Dark Lord, he had let her believe that he was her friend and now she felt completely stupid.

The whole week he had been trying to talk to her, using the time that they had alone in the house to try to make things up. But whenever he managed to find her she was able to slip away before he got to vocalise his true thoughts and feelings and most days she heard him coming and hid before he could even be in the same room as her.

Draco's father decided that his new favourite time of day was the family evening meal; the tension was so great that he could almost see it rippling through the air. Draco refused to talk to him or Narcissa and would go bright red as soon as Hermione carried in the food and served it up for him.

"Girl!" He barked at her one evening as she turned to leave, "I want you to clean all the floors tomorrow. And make sure to put a wax coating on the floorboards in Draco's bedroom."

He face broke into a huge grin as he saw the look on his son's face at his words, he became even redder if it was possible and he sunk down into his chair, wishing that the ground would swallow him up.

"Yes Sir, certainly Sir." Hermione nodded quickly and rushed from the room.

--

At noon the next day there was a knock at the door and the butler, Mathew, quickly opened it. A young lady was stood on the porch dressed in pale pink robes and stiletto heels in the same colour.

"I'm here to see Draco." She said in a bored tone, twiddling a stand of her shiny blonde hair around her finger.

"Certainly Madame, if you would like to step inside I shall get Master Malfoy for you. And your name is?"

"Courtney Banks." She drawled as she stepped through the threshold and looked around the hall she was stood in.

"I shall alert him of your presence immediately Miss." Mathew said and walked away to find Draco.

A few minutes later Draco walked down into the Entrance Hall and Courtney leapt to her feet.

"Draco," She exclaimed happily, "It's so good to see you!"

"What are you doing here Courtney?" He asked holding back a sigh.

"Well when I came back from school and Daddy told me you were doing his course in medicine I had to come and see you! It's been almost two years since I last saw you, I thought I could come and catch up."

As much as he wanted to pushed her back out the door and lock it many times to keep her out, he didn't. This was the daughter of his professor, the one that would mark the term paper that he had been working so hard on. If he was impolite to her then it would leak back to her father and he knew that his behaviour would be reflected in his finale grades.

"How nice, it's really great to see you." He said with false cheer. "How about we go into the sitting room?"

"Certainly, lead the way." She said with an even broader smile.

They walked along the hall and Draco opened one of the doors for her to walk through. She stopped at the threshold and her nose curled up in disgust. He looked round her to see what had caused her to stop.

"Oh Hermione!" He exclaimed when he saw her. She was on her hands on knees scrubbing the floors with a hand brush.

"We'd like you to leave now maid." Courtney sneered at Hermione, talking slowly as though she thought Hermione was stupid.

"No Courtney we can go to another room, come on." Draco said quickly turning to leave.

"Oh come on Draco don't be stupid. She's the one who isn't important she can go." She said harshly.

Hermione collected up her things and turned to walk away.

"Oh and while you're up you can bring us some pumpkin juice." Courtney instructed.

Hermione looked to Draco, waiting for him to say something, but he simply blushed and looked down at the floor. With a sinking heart Hermione walked from the room.