Well, let me just say that I am overwhelmed and extremely ecstatic about the number of reviews I have received and the number of people reading this. All I can say is that i am very sorry for not getting this chapter out earlier. It's not very actionny or anything but something major does happen. Anyways, hope you all read and like it!

by the way, did anyone watch Avatar last Friday? I got really mad at that episode but I can't wait for the one coming this Friday...

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters. They are all owned by J. K. Rowling but I do own those characters that you do not recognize.

About three hours after his conversation with his mother, Draco found himself in Chinatown. Of course he knew that it was not China, but he could have been fooled. What amazed him was the abundance of people in one area. It was crowded.

The streets were filled with bright reds and greens flashing everywhere. Cars were parked haphazardly all over the place and people walked about in every direction. On the streets, vendors stood selling whatever they had to offer. The scent of seafood flowed into Draco's nostrils every direction he turned.

What amazed him the most about this area was that it reeked of magic. He had never been to China in his lifetime and he had never wanted to go there. This made him want to change his mind. Chinese aurors, he knew, did not care too much about hiding their auras. In fact, if Draco did not know any better, it almost seemed as though they showed them off to others. Their auras were mostly bright red as in very bright red, brighter than the brightest red that could be made. This red sparkled and shone with a sort of fervor that Draco had always admired from afar.

Now, here he was in Chinatown where every single thing on the street shone in that exact color. He could see it flowing, touching every single person or animal that crossed its path. It was like a current that swallowed everything in its touch. He almost believed for a moment that the muggles could see it.

That was another thing that irked him. This was a blatantly magical community yet muggles roamed the streets without a clue in the world. It marveled him how these wizards hid their magic so well but had it open for the world to see. It was that or the muggles hear knew about magic and did not mind it. He snorted at the absurdity of the thought.

As he took in the sight in front of him, he was shoved slightly to the side. He frowned and glared at the person who had tumbled into him. It was a child no more than five or six years old.

"Watch where you're-" Draco's eyes widened suddenly as he saw what the boy was holding. "Is that…a broom?"

The child looked up at Draco with tear filled eyes and said, "Don't tell my mommy that I stole daddy's broom! She'll take it away and…and…"

Draco smiled uncomfortably at the boy and said, "Calm down…I'm not telling anyone anything."

The boy smiled gratefully at Draco and climbed back on the broom. Draco's eyes nearly popped out of his head as he saw the child rise up in the air and shoot past a bunch of muggles. His jaw dropped as he saw the child fly up to a group of children in the air all on brooms. The muggles had been oblivious to everything.

He watched as the group of flying children pointed to a group of muggles with large sunglasses and muggle cameras. The proceeded to fly straight towards the muggles and laughed loudly as most of them were knocked backwards. He couldn't keep a smirk off his face as he heard them exclaim wildly about the windy weather.

Pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket, he inspected the list his aunt had given him. She had a variety of items on the paper and told Draco to be very careful of what he bought. The wizards in this part of the world were very crafty and would cheat you in an instant if they could. When he had asked her how she knew that, she had simply laughed at shooed him out of the house.

He frowned as he saw what she had written. She needed the reddest wine he could find, two bushels of mandrake root, three pounds of betel nuts and bat hair. She had also written down that she needed rosemary and trinity leaves. Draco raised an eyebrow. He had absolutely no idea what potion she was making.

Draco stepped to the side of the road as the children on their brooms swerved towards them. Feeling slightly rebellious, he pulled out his wand and giving it a wave, a jet of green light shot out of his wand and advanced to chase the children who began squealing happily.

Looking about the place, he noticed a multitude of shops selling herbs and other things, many of which Draco knew would cause muggles to ask questions. He stopped at a view of the shops to inspect the herbs but found much to his chagrin that many of them did not have what he was looking for. At one shop, he saw that many of the herbs seemed too old to still be out for selling.

Finally, he stopped in front of a stall that was placed in front of a funny looking Laundromat. Draco raised an eyebrow as he saw muggles inside staring at some sort of contraption that had clothes going in circles in them. He rolled his eyes and looked down at the herbs in front of him. He picked up a betel nut and inspected it closely. Once he saw that it was to his satisfaction, he put it back and looked around for the person who was the owner of this stall. No one was in sight. He turned around to look at the street to see if there was anywhere else and was immediately confronted with the sight of a Chinese girl about his height, with jet black hair and coal black eyes, standing in front of him. She was wearing a bright red apron and twirled a knife in one hand.

"Now what is a British wizard doing in this part of the world?" she twirled her knife in her hand, her eyes never leaving Draco.

He looked back at her with a bored expression and drawled, "If you must know, I'm buying potion ingredients for my aunt."

"Really? Now why don't I believe that?" The girl looked at him suspiciously for a few seconds.

Draco rolled his eyes at her and her American accent. "If this s how you treat all your customers, it is no surprise why you seem to be lacking in business."

The girl sniffed at him and went to the front of the stall. "What can I help you with?" she asked in a sugary sweet voice.

He pointed at the betel nuts and said, "Three pounds of betel nuts."

The girl slipped her knife into her apron and pulled out a silver cup. She bent down under the stall and pulled out a bag. Scooping the betel nuts into it she said, "Are you trying to make someone sick with these because, just in case you did not know, betel nuts are very-

"-harmful to the digestive system and cause severe poisoning if too much is taken at one time. It is also used as a drug to reduce pain and put people to sleep. Yes, I am well aware of that," snapped Draco.

She raised an eyebrow at him and continued shoveling the nuts into the bag. Once she was done, she tied the bag into a knot and said, "Is that all?"

Draco sneered at her and replied, "That's all for now. How much?"

She smiled sweetly at him and said, "Sixty-two dollars and eighty five cents."

Draco gaped at her speechless. What game was she playing at? These nuts were worth no more than- if his calculations were correct- ten dollars. She glared at her and asked, "Sixty-two dollars?"

"And eight five-" her eyes widened momentarily. "Shit." She threw off her apron and began running. Unfortunately, her feet would not move so she groaned and collapsed onto the ground.

"Jenny!" came a screeching voice. Draco turned to see a tall woman with white hair and bright red lipstick hobbling towards them with an angry look on her face. "How many times have I told you to call me when the customers come? You are a bad girl! You cheat these poor innocent people!"

The girl sulked at the woman and muttered an apology. The woman snapped something to her in what Draco supposed was Chinese and she sprang up. Jenny's face was slightly red as she picked her apron up from the ground. The old woman turned to Draco with a distressed look on her face. She shook her head as Jenny refastened her apron. "My granddaughter here is a very big pain to me." She held out a gnarled looking hand to Draco and said, "I am Arumi. May I ask as to the reason of your visit here?"

Draco gingerly took her hand and asked, "Pardon?"

"What is a great wizard like yourself doing in our humble abode?" From next to her, Jenny snorted. Arumi looked at her granddaughter with a scandalized expression and the girl apologized at once.

Draco watched the two of them with an amused expression on his face. Shaking his head, he replied, "I'm here for my aunt. She needed a few things."

Arumi smiled saccharinely at Draco and gestured for Jenny to come to her. "Jenny, sharpen your knife." When she saw that Draco had taken a step back, she said, "No, no, no, I do not mean to use it on you. I take it that you need a few more things. I probably have them but they would not be cut."

Draco looked apprehensively at the woman before giving her the list of items. As Arumi's eyes scanned the paper, her eyes darkened. She looked up at Draco and asked, "Do you know what these ingredients combined can do?"

"No," he replied shortly. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and said, "At least it is nothing that I can recognize."

"There are few who can," the old woman replied softly. "I hope your aunt knows what she is doing. Tell her that if she needs anything at all, I am willing to give it." Arumi handed Draco his betel nuts and bent down behind the stall. She came back up a few seconds later with everything else that was on the list. Jenny had come back by then and handed her grandmother the knife. Arumi took it from her and nodding to her, went to work cutting the ingredients.

Draco watched her carefully to make sure that she did not mess anything up. As he watched her a question popped into his mind. She had used magic to stop her granddaughter from moving. The children had been flying right in front of muggles. How was it that they were so oblivious to it all?

"How is it that you can do magic in front of the muggles?"

She looked up from the items she was cutting and smirked. "That is the advantage of living in a magical community owned by one of the wealthiest families on this side of the country." She resumed chopping the bat hair and said, "About half a year ago I think, they cast a powerful spell over the whole city. It is like an illusion charm almost but greater." She gestured to the children still flying about. "I am not exactly how the spell works but it cloaks anything magical so they cannot see the children or anything even vaguely magical. A full scale magical war could take place in this city and no one but wizards would see it." Arumi gathered the bat hair into a bunch and put it into a small bag. Handing it to Draco she said, "Free of charge. Come back any time."

Draco took the bag from her and inspected the items once more. Finding that they were to his satisfaction, he nodded to her and turned to leave. Stopping halfway in his steps, he turned around and asked, "Who is this family?"

"You must have heard of them," Arumi replied. "The Duprés."

About two days later:

Hermione was lying on her back in her cell. Her stomach was paining her badly and she was one hundred percent sure that it was not natural. She had refused all food from the house elves because she did not want to risk getting even sicker than she already was.

A jet of pain shot through her stomach causing her to groan slightly. She could feel the sweat dripping down her face. Her clothes were dirty and slightly damp. Hermione wanted to curl up in a ball and die right there on the floor.

She was however still able to hear the footsteps approaching her cell. She grimaced as she registered the tapping of a cane along with the footsteps.

"Ms. Granger," came the silky voice of Lucius Malfoy. "I take it that you are not doing so well?"

"No thanks to you, sir," she muttered, wincing as the chains around her wrists tightened.

Lucius Malfoy looked at the witch in front of him and allowed a smirk to cross his face. "I have no idea what you are referring to. You must have made yourself ill from refusing to eat the delicious food I have been serving you. But do not worry; I am sure that you will be back to your old self in no time."

Hermione mentally rolled her eyes and somehow managed to prop herself against the wall. "What can I do for you?" she rasped.

"I'm afraid that question was phrased wrong. The real question is what can I do for you?"

Hermione winced as her stomach growled. "Real food would be nice about now. Not poisoned food to be exact."

"The house elves served you poisoned food?" Lucius smirked at her and said, "I suppose I shall have to punish them now. I think five sets of twelve floggings should do the trick."

"NO!" cried Hermione, clutching her hands together as the chains tightened around them. "Don't- don't hurt them."

"Some one needs to be punished. This matter simply cannot go unattended."

"Punish me then!" she cried. "Just don't hurt them."

Lucius frowned at her and said, "Punish you? A mudblood? That seems to be a good idea." He grasped the bars of her cell and said, "Would you like to know something?"

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut as she asked softly, "What?"

"My son and my wife are missing."

Hermione's face paled considerably. "Missing?" Her face hardened as she asked, "What did you do to them?"

Lucius's face took on a sneer as he watched her. "Maybe I did nothing. Maybe someone killed them off for old times' sake." He almost laughed when her breath hitched. "Or, maybe, I brought them here. Maybe I tortured them until they couldn't speak. Maybe," he said in a dark tone, "Maybe I placed a silencing charm on then and killed them with my own hands in the cell right next to yours."

"You monster," she spat, yelling as the chains cut into her. She turned so that her back faced him.

Lucius grinned broadly at her before saying, "My offer is still open."

"What offer?" She bit her lip as the chains tightened unnaturally around her wrists once again.

"Why, your sight. Surely you haven't forgotten the message that my dear nephew conveyed to you."

Hermione sighed. She hadn't stopped thinking about it ever since Charles had told her. She wanted it back so badly. To be able to see again would be the best thing in the world at the moment. She was nothing without her eyes; in fact, no wizard was a good wizard without use of their eyes. There was just something about getting her sight back now that made her shrink away. What if it didn't work? This curse was something so unknown that not even the healers could fix it. What if Lucius was purposely misleading her and in the process was trying to ruin her even more than she already was?

"What do you want me to do?" she asked quietly.

"I take it that you've accepted my offer?" he asked cockily.

"What do you want me to do in return for getting my sight back?"

Lucius's cold eyes bore into her as he said, "Is that a yes or a no?"

"Just tell me what you want from me!" yelled Hermione as she felt fresh blood dripping out of her wrists.

"Ms. Granger. I always get what I want," hissed Lucius. "And right now, I am not getting an answer from you." He pushed his cane through the bars of the cell and brandishing it at her, said, "Your children, should anyone ever want to reproduce with you, will be born blind and stay that way for the rest of their lives if you do not have the curse removed." He grinned cruelly as her face paled. "I am sure that you do not want that. So, here are your options. Either you let me remove the curse now and I shall tell you what I want after that or you never have it removed. It is that simple."

Hermione's face dropped as she heard him. It was a lose-lose situation either way. She only wished that she knew what she needed to do. Inwardly, she groaned. Both Malfoy men, as much as it pained her to admit, were alike in that nature. Neither of them would give you a straightforward answer. She nodded her head slowly and took a deep breath as she felt the chains around her wrists loosen up.

Lucius smirked at the girl and swiftly opened the cell. He grasped her chin in one hand and with the other hand, pulled her to a standing position. She was much shorter than him. He sneered at her. Mudbloods were obviously on the more stinted side of growth. They were never tall or strong like the rest of the purebloods.

Hermione nearly cried out as she felt his hand digging into her chin. She wanted to slap him or push him away but she knew that it would only give him further pleasure to know that she hated how he touched her like that. So, she stood her ground, willing for the tears in her eyes not to spill.

He finally let go of her chin but not before running a cold finger down the side of her face. She shivered silently hoping that no expression showed up on her face. He disgusted her infinitely.

"I suppose I could tell you what I want from you. You cannot back out of this deal anyhow." He grasped her dirty hair and murmured, "You will stay in the library, Ms. Granger. Yes, I know that you love books. What I want you to do is simply read them and tell me what you have read." He looked at her glibly and said, "I am growing old and much to my disappointment I have never had the time to read any of the wonderful novels contained within this place."

"That's it?" gaped Hermione. "You want me to read for you?"

Lucius smirked at her and said, "That would be all…for now." Hermione clutched her stomach as a spasm shot through it. Lucius chuckled, which to Hermione sounded very abnormal.

Without warning, Lucius's other hand was on her chin. He yanked it down and forced something down her throat almost causing her to gag. Hermione let out a feral yell as she collapsed to the ground. She felt herself breathing heavily. Her whole body was as cold as ice. She felt as though she was burning yet freezing at the same time. Every nerve in her body screamed at her, giving her the sensation that she was going to die but she did not open her mouth even once. She squeezed her eyes shut willing for it to go away.

Vaguely, she registered stars in front of her eyes as odd as it was. But then, the image of her getting hit by the jets of red light in the muggle store came up. She saw the red light hit her skin and diffuse into her red blood. In an instant she saw how her blood took on a dark tinge, something so unnatural that she almost flinched away from it.

Then, she saw the green. It poured through her body engulfing her blood, turning it a Christmassy sort of color. The darkness was gone but there still wasn't something right. She saw as her blood turned back to red and right at that instant, a searing hot pain shot through her body. She caught a glimpse of her aura and found that the normally gold blue color had a vague swirl of darkness about it, the exact color that was in the blue study.

Suddenly, she saw nothing. She felt her breathing go back to normal. Strangely enough, her stomach pain was gone as well. Her body felt cool, for a lack of a better word. Something nudged the side of her leg. Hermione opened her eyes and was shocked. She sat up so quickly, that she almost knocked down Lucius Malfoy, who was standing in front of her.

She turned her head to look at the cell that she was in and found that it actually was rather spacious. She supposed that she had been sitting in one corner of it the whole time and as a result never knew that she could move about more. The chains were relatively long.

"I see that the potion worked, then."

Hermione swiveled around to face Lucius Malfoy. She was not at all prepared for what came next. There he was standing in front of her looking not a day over how he had looked the last time she had seen him. His resemblance to Draco was uncanny. The way his hair fell down his back, his pale skin, and his ice grey eyes.

She promptly fainted.

Lucius chuckled and shook his head. He struck his cane on the ground two times. A house elf appeared, trembling as it bowed low.

"What can Tobey do for Master?"

"Take this mudblood up to the main library. Conjure a bed for her to sleep in. She will be staying there." He looked down at Hermione's body and said, "Lock all the windows and doors and make sure that she has no way of getting out."

The house elf nodded quickly and snapping its fingers, he and Hermione disappeared. Lucius watched the ground where she had previously been with a satisfied smirk. Everything was going according to plan.