Their Anthem and Our Anthem
Recap:
Lucius was the first to speak. "Son, as you know we are going out to eat with the Zambinis tonight, and even though you might want to come, your mother and I would prefer that you stay at home with your fiancé."
Draco just nodded.
Lucius smiled.
"Well, if you don't mind, we'll go first so we can make sure to get there on time."
Draco nodded again and watched as his parents into the fireplace and emerald flames ate them up.
As before, Draco took Hermione's arm and led her into the fireplace. "Malfoy Manor!" he called and once again, Hermione felt the familiar feeling of spinning round and round, seeing only green surrounding her and Draco by her side."
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Chapter Eight
When they arrived into the manor that Hermione had come to love and hate at the same time, Draco said for her to follow his mother; for she wanted to speak to her.
Hermione found this odd, as Narcissa had never requested this of her before, but she did as she was told and followed the older lady up the staircase and to the North Wing of the manor. Hermione had been here once before, when she had first been brought here. She had overheard Draco's parents having a fight.
Hermione stepped lightly and nervously as she continued on. Narcissa seemed to take no notice of her until they reached the same black door that Lucius and Narcissa had emerged from after their fight.
She motioned for Hermione to enter, and so she did.
Beyond that door was the most extravagant room Hermione had ever laid eyes on. It made her own guest room look puny. There was a king-king bed in the center of the room against the opposite wall and there were two giant windows on either side of the bed, which were surprisingly open, and had long rays of bright sunshine shining into the room and making it look – shock – happy.
Gulping, Hermione turned to look back at her soon to be mother-in-law. Narcissa raised an eyebrow.
After clearing her throat, she spoke, "Now look, girl, you are up here for one reason and one reason only. I have to lay down some rules for you to follow. You did actually quite well at Diagon Alley; my husband and I were surprised. But you have still not earned our trust, may doubt you will ever. So here's what's going to happen: you will do everything, and I mean everything Draco tells you to. You will respect him and treat him kindly. This may take time to master, as it unbelievingly did with me. As a young girl of your age, I would speak my mind as I pleased, but after I married Lucius, I learned to hold my tongue. You will have to, too. It's hard, trust me, but it must be done. Also, I want you to spend all of your time alone tonight with Draco. Draco may not be the easiest person to be close to, but try, for your sake, at least, try."
Hermione's eyes were huge. She had never seen a Malfoy talk like that – to anyone, even someone of the highest standards. She was beyond shocked and totally unprepared for that speech; it had quite the impact on her.
Suddenly, as unexpected as the nice Narcissa came, the evil one came back.
"Now, go downstairs, I must get ready," Narcissa barked, her eyes narrowed and dangerous, "and don't run off, you do remember what I said about you and Draco being together tonight, correct?"
Hermione nodded, and stumbled backward toward the door. All of a sudden not caring what Narcissa thought, she turned and jogged to the door, yanking it open, running out and slamming it back shut. The young woman ran all the way down the long hallway and around the corner before she slowed down.
Now walking down the hall, Hermione caught her breath. Her life was so weird sometimes – unexpected, crazy, and sometimes scary. She just couldn't get over it.
After a couple more minutes of thinking, Hermione made it down the stairs and to the living room, where the huge fireplace was. Hermione settled herself down into a big wingback chair. She closed her eyes, until then she hadn't realized how tired she was. She wasn't used to this much going on; the last few weeks every day was boredom and wondering what to do. Slowly, Hermione drifted into a light sleep.
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(THIS IS GOING ON AT THE SAME TIME THAT HERMIONE'S POV IS)
Draco watched as Hermione uneasily followed his mother out of the room and up the stairs. It was honestly kind of funny.
"Draco, follow me." Surprised, the teenager turned to look at his father's descending back. Taking a deep breath, he obeyed.
Malfoy Senior led the way to his office. It was on the main floor and quite a long walk from where they arrived from Diagon Alley. When they reached the humongous room, with had black velvet curtains trailing all the way from the tall ceiling to the hardwood floor, with black gruesome rugs covering it, decorated beautifully. There were two very expensive couches facing each other in front of the massive mahogany desk that Lucius settled himself behind. This was the same room that Draco had first found out of his and Hermione's marriage. Smirking, he took his place, standing in front of his father's desk.
As usual, his father didn't offer Draco to take a seat; instead, he got right to the point. "Well, Draco, the wedding is approaching closer and closer. What do you think about the girl?"
Draco raised his eyebrows; he had definitely not prepared himself for that question. "Well…. Uh…." The nervous young boy cleared his throat, "She's, um… okay, I guess."
Lucius smirked and raised an eyebrow. "I see," he spoke softly, as if speaking of a secret. "Well, I am glad you have accepted her," at this Draco had a hard time controlling himself; he really had wanted to cough, "because this arrangement is final, and we still have to install that into the young lady's mind, because… well, I don't think she's serious enough yet."
This time Draco raised his eyebrow. "Well… okay, how do you plan to do that, father?"
Lucius smirked, "I don't plan to do anything, but I can assure you that you will make sure it's in her mind tonight," Lucius' face only grew oddly happier, "Do something that she won't forget, that shows you are in charge, and I'm sure after a while she'll learn her place in this new family of hers."
Draco nearly snorted at the last sentence that came out of his father's mouth. He hated to tell his father this (and he definitely never would), but Gran- Snape would never learn her place; she would always speak up for herself and make her opinion heard, never would she give in and as his father said it, learn her place in this new family of hers. He personally doubted if that would ever happen in a lifetime.
Jolted out of his thoughts, Draco heard his father say, "You can go now."
These were the words that always freed Draco of his father's lectures – as a child, those four words were his favorites. Now, Draco merely rolled his eyes as he thought of his younger self, always trying to please his father. He sighed, quickly turned on his heel and started to exit the room.
"Draco," the teenage boy turned to look at his father, still sitting in the same position, "don't forget about what I told you – you are to spend every minute with her tonight."
Malfoy Junior nodded and his father smiled the evil, Malfoy smile. "Good."
Draco made his way to the fireplace room, where his parents would leave in around ten minutes.
His thoughts were swirling as he walked; there was a lot to think about. He seemed to be growing up so fast; though how corny that may sound, it was still true. It seemed only yesterday that he was always following his father around and trying to impress his family and fit in, and now look at them all. His parents hated each other when they weren't pretending for the public, Draco and Gran- Snape were getting married, and they were going into their last year at Hogwarts together. He figured that she had made Head Girl, as he had made Head Boy. That meant they would be working together all year. 'Great,' he thought sarcastically, 'she'll hate me even more – then they would be husband and wife and she would have to be around me during the day – in and out of classes.'
By this time, he was in the room, but what he didn't notice until he had walked over to the couch and sat down was that his fiancé was sitting just on his right, fast asleep.
He had still been all rolled up in his thoughts when he looked over to his right. It honestly had scared the poop out of him, but he was a Malfoy, and they never show emotion, no matter how strong.
His heart racing, he studied her: her eyes closed tight shut, them softly fluttering, her hair perfectly framing her face, as if put in that position, her chest moving slowly up and down, her body curled up as small as possible into the black leather wingback chair. He rolled his eyes.
Faintly, he heard footsteps upstairs. Knowing that his parents would have a stroke if they saw Hermione sleeping, he gently, but firmly, shook his fiancé awake. At first, she wasn't too happy, her eyes furrowed together, rubbing her eyes.
"Wake up!" Draco whispered loudly, pulling her onto her feet by her elbow, "My parents are coming."
This seemed to shake her to her senses. After one last yawn, she stood up straight and looked fully awake. Within seconds her soon to be in-laws came into the room. Neither of them said anything to Hermione, or even noted her presence in the room. They seemed even more dressed up than they were going to Diagon Alley, and Hermione noticed that Narcissa had put on a diamond necklace and earrings and plus her hunk of jewel wedding ring on her ring finger, she looked like a very important figure. Not to anyone that knew her personally, probably, but to someone who knew nothing of her personality or environment.
Lucius spoke, stating the obvious, "Well, son, we're off." Just as they had done when going to Diagon Alley, they stepped into the fireplace and floo powder in hand, saying clearly, "Zambini Manor." After that, all Hermione saw was engulfing flames of green, eating them up.
Slowly, Hermione's mind went off on, "If only that would really happen…" - the Malfoys being killed by fire, dying slow painful deaths. In her head, Hermione laughed with evil (but who can blame her?).
Draco watched the young woman off in her thoughts, but he didn't say a word. It was just much more fun to watch her make a fool out of herself.
"So…off in your own world again, huh, bookworm?" Draco smirked the infamous Malfoy Smirk.
Hermione's brown eyes narrowed as she turned to look at him. "Actually," she said, coolly and confidently, "I was just thinking of what an ass you are and how many ways I can get rid of you."
Draco raised an eyebrow. "Really! I was just thinking the same thing about you. But, you know, if one of us died, the other would die too. Did you know that?" Hermione rolled her eyes, and Draco took it as a 'no.' Smirking, Draco continued, "Of course you wouldn't, but our parents made an unbreakable vow; now I already know you know the word-for-word definition of it, so spare the waste of time." He looked away and held up his hand to Hermione's open mouth, as if in disgust.
This made Hermione angry. "Just because I'm smarter than you doesn't mean you have to make fun of me!"
"Oh really! And who says I was making fun of you because you are supposedly 'smarter than me'?"
Hermione raised an eyebrow and made a smirk almost as evil as the infamous Malfoy one. "Well… let's see, I believe that my grades are just a tad bit better than yours. Doesn't that prove it or are you just in denial?"
Draco rolled his eyes, "You think I'm in denial? Look in the mirror! You still can't get yourself to believe that we're getting married!"
Hermione frowned, and then got red. "Because we're NOT going to get married! I refuse to marry you – you arrogant brat, self centered jerk, and the absolute rudest person I have ever met!"
She made a lunge to leave the room, but Draco grabbed her around the waist. "And where do you think you're going?" he breathed.
Seething, she tried to pry his hands off of her. "LET ME GO!" she screamed.
Draco smirked, "What if I don't want to? And please don't tell me that you thought I seriously was going to let you go!"
Hermione was too angry to say anything and she kept trying to get him off of her, having absolutely no luck at all. Draco stopped trying and Hermione finally got free.
Being a little too anxious, she made another lunge for the room's exit, but Draco acted too quickly. Lifting her off of the ground, he placed her, on her back, on the couch he had been sitting in not to long ago. She put up a fight, but Draco definitely had the strength advantage over her. Even still, she never gave up.
Then Draco did something to make Hermione even more jumpy, he positioned himself above her, holding her down by the shoulders. They were almost in the position as if Draco was doing a push up and Hermione was the ground. In this case, the teenage girl wished to be neither.
After thirty seconds or so, Hermione gave up, and stopped moving all together. Thankful, Draco smirked, "Finally. Now, we can talk, since you chose not to listen unless you're forced to. So, here we go… first off, as just proved here a couple minutes ago, you need to learn your place. You can't act like this in public. In public, you and I have to act like we mean the world to each other," at this Hermione made a face, and Draco added, "even if it's not true. It's still required of us, by my parents."
Hermione swallowed and dared to move a little underneath him. Draco sighed, "There's also something else you need to know," he took a deep breath, scared of her reaction, "we… uh… well… I don't really know how to say this… um…we have to have an heir."
The room was filled with dead, empty silence. Hermione seemed to have stopped breathing. Her face turned purple.
"HERMIONE! BREATHE!" Draco yelled, reaching one of his arms up to yank down her chin. After she had caught her breath, she unexpected, made a lunge from under Draco. Draco was unprepared for this and fell literally on top of her, half-way under him, body.
Her head was hanging off the side of the couch, hair everywhere. Draco impatiently pulled her back up, not caring if the position they were in was awkward or not. "You have to learn to behave!" he cried, turning her head around rather roughly, so that she was looking him straight in the eye. "You can't keep doing things like this, you hear me?" She nodded.
Suddenly, as if a big burst of a firework had hit him, Draco suddenly realized how close their faces were. Out of nowhere, he leaned forward and pressed his lips onto hers.
Shocked out of her mind, Hermione did something also unexpected – to Draco, anyway – "OW!" shouted Draco, nursing his tomato red cheek, "THAT HURT!"
Hermione smirked, "Just remember that everyone gets what they deserve!" she sang.
Draco had the urge to hit her back, but knew his father would kill him alive if he did so. He also had yet to learn about patience and knowing your place, though, he of course, would never admit it.
Hermione's almost Malfoy smirk never came off her. "That was awesome!" she muttered to herself. And honestly it felt pretty darn good.
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A/N: Hey Everyone! Hope you enjoyed the story! I hope I updated soon enough for all of y'all big readers out there:) Thank you to all of my wonderful reviewers!
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