Chapter 4 or The Chapter with Lucius Malfoy.
She was beautiful, sand was in her hair and she was dancing to Arabic music shaking her hips. A gleaming skirt was on her, one of the Asian ones with metal coins on it, so it rang as she danced again and again. Her expression was full of desire, her eyes never looked so extravagant, exotic and full of longing. And she was dancing in the sand, and sundown, near the sea. She put her hand on his shoulder and stopped dancing, the music kept going. The sun so dim they could barely see each other, and she leaned in pushing his head towards her. They were so close, so close, and then her lips touched his…
"AAaaaa," Malfoy sat up in his bed sweating tremendously and looked around. There was Granger sitting on the edge of his bed looking at him with a worried look on her face.
"Granger? What are you doing in here?" he looked at her suspiciously, wondering what on earth the goodie-two-shoes Gryffindor was doing sitting on a Slytherin's bed.
"Oh, me!" she stammered, blushing. Actually she wanted to stomp into his room and declare that he is the meanest prat she'd ever seen, but seeing him asleep, sweating and mumbling her name, she cautiously sat on his black and green serpentine bed.
"I just… got lost," was all she could think of.
"Well next time I'll draw you a map, and now if you excuse me, I'd like to get out of bed without you being there to watch me." He declared angrily.
"Oh… right," she clumsily got off his bed and shyly walked across his room. Looking back at him she lost her balance and fell forward on her face. Draco jumped out of his bed immediately and went to see if she was ok, obviously revealing much of his fine body and silky black boxers. Upon seeing she was ok and then seeing her eyes wander all over his stomach in amazement he rapidly got up and covered himself with his bath robe.
"GO!" he urged her impatiently.
"Yes… yes… I'll go" she blushed if it was possible, even more and staggered out of the door.
"Herms?" asked Ron cautiously noticing not for the first time that day, that Hermione was in some distant place and absolutely no where near the snow-filled courtyard in front of Hogwarts.
"Yea?" she asked distractedly, still staring at one point in the snow as though there was something there worth looking at. Her gaze slid past the snow and then at the crowd of people from 7th year who decided to get some fresh air. Suddenly, the crowd of 7th years gathered in the courtyard parted. Professor Dumbledore was hurriedly walking towards the trio: Hermione, Harry and Ron.
"Ms. Granger, may you please some with me?" he asked politely, and she nodded wondering what on earth made the wrinkles on professors face look even more old, and why he looked so troubled.
"I'd like to ask you for a favor, Ms.Granger. It is a busy season for Madame Pomfrey, and she needs a hand with one of the patients. I know you are excellent at healing, so do you mind giving her a hand?"
"No, absolutely not professor. When should I be there?"
"Oh, see that's the actual 'favor' part of it ahem… right now?"
"But professor, right now I have class!" she protested thinking of how Snape was going to react to her late work.
"Yes, well I promise, just one week. I shall notify your teachers. Thank you, have a nice day." He said quickly, and with a swish of a cloak, he was already far away, walking up the steps of the castle.
"But… but…" Hermione stammered, and then thinking there was no way out, went in the direction of the hospital wing.
"Malfoy? What happened to you?" she asked awkwardly when first seeing who her patient was going be. She sat down next to him on the bed and looked at him for a long time. His face was unrecognizable, bruises were all over it, and a deep gash was situated on his cheek. His eyes were swollen and his nose looked broken.
"Please…something… eases pain…" he strained. At once she conducted a series of simple spells healing his cuts a bit and then went and got him some skelegro for his nose. Finally he was breathing evenly and forced a smile out of his pale face.
"Thanks," he breathed. With her hand, she brushed his hair back, so she could see his cuts clearer (he finally stopped using hair gel), and started working on those. It was obvious he was in great pain; he kept wincing every time she touched his face, and she suddenly saw how much he was shaking. It was as though he was in the North Pole with nothing but a T-Shirt on, however soon, two massive blankets were covering him, and still he was shaking uncontrollably. He tried to say something, but his voice was barely a whisper, so he signaled for her to lean in. She cautiously lowered her head to hear what he had to say.
"Thank you, I may have not had the power to hold back my pride and do what you did for me," he managed to say in between sharp intakes of breath. She nodded, smiling, and sat back up. Then she carefully, straightened his hair in a gentle way as not to hurt him, and Malfoy apparently touched by such warmth from his former enemy looked at her in amusement.
But soon, his eyelids drooped, and he fell into a deep, deep sleep, and his nurse, exhausted by the amount of magic she had to exert that evening, lay down in the bed beside him, and also entered the land of dreams.
She did not know how long she lay there, but when she woke up, it was already past noon. Panicking that she had missed school, she got up and quietly tiptoed to the door. Just as she reached for the handle, she heard a moan and unwillingly pulled back.
"No… Granger…stay," she heard from behind Draco's bed curtain, then after a pause, "please." She walked back to his bed and carefully asked:
"Can I draw the curtain?"
"Yes," came the answer. Upon drawing the curtain, she happily realized that he looked a lot better today. He wasn't as pale, and his cuts were almost healed.
"Granger, that night with the… making fun of you, I'm really sorry. You did all these things for me, and I… I acted as my usual self," he looked at her straining a smile, as though he wasn't used to his face being in this position. She smiled at him widely, and he suddenly felt a tingling sensation run down his spine.
It was in the night when the flashbacks began. Draco was seeing the most horrible dream he'd ever seen – but the worst, was that it was true.
The man who was standing in front of him, made Draco shudder at the very thought of seeing him. He never experienced love to the man, or for that matter, any other kind of feeling except for hatred. Every long, blond hair on his head made him tingle with fear and hate. Every word the man uttered made him want to go in hiding and never see the world again. The man, who was standing in front of him, was none other than his own father. And then, the man's high-pitched, screeching, accusing voice cut into the winter air.
"You, son, have lately caused me much trouble," he accused, "Do you not respect the family?"
"I do father," Draco tried hard to answer in an even voice.
"Do you know what an honor it is to be part of the Malfoy family?"
"I do father," he answered, his voice wobbling.
"And are you part, of this family?"
"I am father."
"Well then, you smart boy, you must know why our family is SO pure… because we don't lower ourselves to the level of MUDBLOODS!" he spat, "And do you know what BETRAYAL to the family is?"
"Yes father," answered Malfoy.
"WELL that's what you did Draco, you BETRAYED our family, by SOCIALIZING WITH A MUDBLOOD, you are not my son, you are just FILTH," he roared striking him hard across the face, as Draco fell back and then…all dissolved in darkness.