Author's Note: This chapter contains mentions of homophobia and discussion of a character's sexuality.
Chapter 5
Draco woke gradually.
First, the distant perception of light, which filtered through the thin seam of his curtains. Dawn played a game of chase with darkness; the latter fled the former without any real haste, as if dawn, too, was loath to start a new day.
Next, texture.
Soft sheets against his body. The weight of the down duvet. The gentle press of Hermione's arm against his. Fully cocooned with no need for escape, what had been hell the previous week now felt like heaven.
Finally, sound.
Low, even breathing. The steady inhale-exhale rhythm of someone well and truly asleep, undisturbed by troublesome dreams.
Tears pooled behind Draco's closed eyes. Before this morning, he had not fully appreciated the peace of waking on his natural, circadian schedule. For months, he'd been jarred from sleep by visions of death and destruction. He would never take greeting the day on his own terms for granted again.
He drifted in a pleasant, half-conscious haze until Hermione shifted beside him. The desire to fall back asleep lost to a more selfish urge.
Draco opened his eyes and looked at her.
Hermione's arms were flung over her head, like she had tossed them up in frustration or abandon before giving herself over to slumber. Her face, angled slightly toward him, was peaceful, her eyes twitching beneath closed lids. Her braid had come loose in the night. What remained of it spilled over one shoulder while rogue curls, crushed and misshapen between her head and the pillow, stuck up at odd angles around her face.
He would never tire of this sight. Considering Hermione's plan, it was probably best that he looked his fill. If she were truly bent on breaking their connection, Draco knew she would succeed.
She could do anything.
But gods, he would miss her when she did.
He debated the wisdom of brushing a curl from her cheek when there came the faint sound of shattering china.
Draco dropped his hand and stared at the closed door, uncertain what he'd heard. Rosie was a graceful elf, her work precise and executed with care. He couldn't remember the last time she'd set so much as a tea towel out of place, to say nothing of dropping a dish.
Another crash sparked worry.
Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Rosie at all last night. She'd announced Hermione's arrival and disappeared, ignoring several direct Summons and leaving Draco to flounder in the kitchen alone. She hadn't acted at all like the attentive Being he knew and adored.
Something had to be wrong.
With slow, precise movements, Draco eased himself out of bed. Whatever Rosie's problem, they needed to solve it quietly. He didn't want to wake Hermione before she was ready. She deserved the rest.
He lifted his day robe from its hook and slipped out the door, leaving it slightly ajar to avoid the latch's click. The manor was large enough that the noise could have come from anywhere. He ventured downstairs first, visiting the dining room, veranda, and kitchen.
No Rosie, no broken crockery.
Perhaps she'd already tidied it up. Elves were efficient, after all, and their proficiency with household magic was incomparable. What would take Draco all day, Rosie could accomplish in a snap.
Back upstairs, he paused at the landing and heard faint crying.
Not from his side of the manor, but from his parents' wing.
It wasn't unusual for the elf to be somewhere Draco rarely ventured. She had the entire manor to maintain, and that included his parents' private quarters.
The crying, however, was strange.
While not stoic by any means, Rosie had not exactly grieved when Lucius was sent to prison. She missed Narcissa—or maybe more accurately Narcissa's personal elf—but Draco did not think either connection was strong enough to inspire tears.
Following the sniffles, he found Rosie kneeling outside his parents' bedroom door. She was bent over the remains of Narcissa's second-least-favourite tea service. Sliced fruit and iced pastry lay among the porcelain. A thin stream of milk swirled into a dark puddle of steaming tea. It soaked into the hall runner, threatening a stain.
"Is everything okay?"
"Yes, Master Draco." Rosie swiped a forearm across her face. "We is sorry for the noise."
"It's fine, just… Miss Hermione is still sleeping."
A nod. "Rosie will be silent."
"Not silent." He knew how literal elves could be. "Just a little quieter until Miss Hermione wakes up, please."
"Yes, Master Draco."
Rosie continued to gather the broken bits of porcelain one piece at a time, setting them noiselessly upon the silver platter.
"Here, I'll help."
Draco knelt beside her, wishing he'd grabbed his wand in addition to his robe. He noticed Rosie angle her body away from him, taking care to hide her face. He sat back on his heels, unable to shake her strange behaviour.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes, sir. We is fine."
"Rosie." She stilled; they both knew what was coming. And though Draco hated to force her compliance, he hated being lied to more. "Look at me."
She fought the order, a shaking, arrhythmic stop-start gradually overcome by her compulsion to obey. When she finally faced him, Draco went cold.
Scarlet blood dripped from her nose. It had smeared across her forearm and splattered onto the front of her linen shift.
She'd taken care not to get any on the floor.
"What happened?"
It was not an order, but Draco's tone allowed no room for mistruth. Not long ago, elf abuse had been de rigueur in pure-blood circles. It tended to linger in older generations, excused by way of tradition and old habits, as if neither could be broken or unlearned.
Draco had zero tolerance for it.
Rosie was his caretaker, confidante, and companion. Anyone who hurt her deserved to suffer the same, tenfold.
And he would be more than happy to mete out the punishment.
"Rosie was serving them breakfast…" She looked desolately at the floor. "She was not fast enough."
"Them? Them who?"
Rosie blinked up at him.
"Master Mitchell and his guests."
Draco blinked back.
The same Mitchell he'd been searching for the entire week? Who'd met Rosie dozens of times and seemed more intimidated by her than by Draco? Who valued his self-sufficiency so deeply that he made his own sandwiches and coffee and bed without the aid of magic?
"That's not—"
Then, he heard it: a high-pitched giggle from his parents' bedroom.
A bedroom that should have been empty.
Draco's skin prickled. He stood slowly, every muscle in his body alert.
"How long has Master Mitchell been sleeping in my parents' bed?"
"All week, Master Draco." The elf tugged on her ears, a nervous tic as she warred with herself on whether to provide more detail. Draco waited. His patience was borne out. "Master Mitchell hasn't asked Rosie for anything but food and clean sheets."
Draco's stomach turned. Rosie was only bound to Malfoy family members. If she fulfilled a guest's request, it was either by choice or an artefact of the old rules of hospitality, a favourable reflection on the host. But those requests could never be in conflict with the elf's family's wishes.
The hierarchy was clear.
Somehow, Mitchell had perverted that structure.
How?
More importantly, why?
Mitchell was not violent, or demanding, or unreasonable. To hurt an elf—a member of Draco's family—was a betrayal of his own character, as well as the relationship between them.
Last week's impossible theory reappeared, unignorable when viewed against the injured elf cowering before him.
This was not Mitchell.
"Rosie, run to my bedroom as quickly and quietly as you can. Fetch my wand from the bedside table. Try not to wake Miss Hermione."
She sped away, elf-magic hastening her steps. In less than a minute, she returned. Draco strapped the wand holster to his forearm and drew with a flick of his wrist. He magicked the mess away with a swish-and-swirl and positioned himself before the door. After a deep, steadying breath, he cast.
The door burst open and the curtains flew apart, flooding the master suite with light.
Draco instantly regretted it.
He saw the blonde first: nude, knees sunk deep into his parents' mattress. She gripped the footboard with both hands, her head craned back in agony or bliss, held by a hand fisted in her unnaturally yellow hair. Her eyes widened when she saw him. A choked cry of surprise interrupted the rhythmic slapping of flesh.
"What the fuck?"
Mitchell's grip loosened. The blonde rolled away from him, pressing her legs together and reaching for the nearest piece of clothing to cover herself. Considering that clothing was made of white lace and about as substantial as an antique doily, it was not very effective.
Her abrupt departure left Mitchell kneeling on the bed facing the door, fully tumescent and considerably surprised. "You."
Someone giggled, and only then did Draco see the second woman. With dark hair and hooded eyes, she showed no signs of abandoning her mid-coital shoulder massage. Instead, she leaned against Mitchell's back and pressed her cheek to his.
"Aren't you going to invite your friend, darling?"
"There's plenty to go around." A third woman, with hair so red she could have been a Weasley, lounged against the pillowed headboard, teasing her pert nipples, utterly nonplussed.
Draco blinked, not quite believing the scene. It had to be a nightmare. An odd, decidedly unwelcome variation to the memories that had plagued him for months. Though what the connection between the Sun Disc's deity and his fornicating assistant might be, Draco could not fathom.
Mitchell cleared his throat. "Do you mind?"
Haughty. Expectant.
Jaw-droppingly arrogant.
Mitchell's question snapped Draco from his stunned silence and brought him crashing back to reality. He must have been staring.
"Do I mind? What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
With a wicked grin, Mitchell spread his arms wide. "What does it look like?"
Draco pressed his lips together. It was all too obvious what Mitchell had been doing. By all appearances, he was ready to carry on, the conversational interlude doing little to dull his interest.
"Let me be more specific," Draco seethed. "What the hell are you doing having a bloody foursome in my parents' marriage bed? In fact, what are you doing in my fucking house?"
Mitchell smiled and shook his head. He climbed from the bed, swatting the brunette's rear as he passed. Shameless, she swayed her hips, devouring Draco with a look and a lick of her pink lips. The blonde, meanwhile, traded her lingerie for a pillow and joined her ginger colleague at the headboard. Of the four, she was the only one who showed even a modicum of concern at the awkward situation.
Mitchell tugged a loose sheet from the bed and, blessedly, wrapped it around his hips.
"Your house?" Mitchell clicked his tongue, disapproving. "This is the family's manor, boy. Our heritage—one you should be proud to share."
Draco's vision narrowed. His heritage was filled with blood supremacists who used Muggles and tortured elves. Who pilfered riches from anyone they considered lesser and profited from the labour of those trapped under inequality's Sisyphean weight. His ancestors hadn't built anything. They hadn't earned anything.
He'd realised long ago that it was nothing of which to be proud.
A flick of Draco's wrist sent a Stunner rocketing across the room. The three women screamed, lunging from the bed to find shelter. One huddled beside his father's nightstand. Another tried to wriggle underneath the bed. The third ducked beneath his mother's vanity, its mirror covered with a sheet.
Mitchell spun away from the spell with the grace of a professional duelist. His expression turned feral.
"I said I would teach you a lesson, you insolent little whelp," he growled. "I meant it."
Flying from the bedside table and into his hand, Mitchell whipped his wand like a lash.
The air smouldered, then blasted forward.
Draco stumbled backwards out the double door and threw himself behind the wall, just as a concentrated block of heat scorched the door frame.
He wasn't fast enough.
The left arm of his robe caught fire, trailing white smoke. Draco swore and tore the fabric off, hissing in pain as skin came with it. His upper arm and calf were raw, blistered by a second degree burn. The longer he looked, the more his vision spun and his stomach threatened revolt.
He closed his eyes and pressed his head against the wall, breathing deep and searching for composure.
All he found was pain.
"Fuck!" Draco sent a clumsy hex through the charred door frame and rolled across the threshold, pressing himself against the opposite wall. He eyed the hallway—his only exit. Rosie crouched beside him, curled into a tight ball.
"Has he been here all week?"
The elf nodded. She held her bat-like ears twisted in her fists. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Yes, Master Draco! All week!"
"Draco?"
Hermione's steps pounded in the hallway. She rounded the corner and skidded to a stop as she saw the door blown from its hinges; the blackened floors; the melted, peeling paint. She saw Draco, clutching his arm, his injured leg shaking uncontrollably. She saw Rosie, her large eyes bruised, nose and lips crusted with drying blood.
Her eyes seemed to deaden, curiosity's light quelled by fury. Lips set in a grim line, Hermione held out her hand.
"Draco, give me your wand."
"Get out of here!" Draco waved her away, a series of frantic gestures that she—perhaps predictably—ignored.
Mitchell's voice sounded from the bedroom. "Ladies, please forgive me. This will only take a minute."
Hermione blinked. "Is that Mitchell?"
"I don't know, but you have to go before it's—"
Too late.
Sheet slung low around his hips, Mitchell appeared in the ruined threshold. He smiled at Draco, flashing too many teeth, and crouched beside him. The warm tip of Mitchell's wand pressed into the tender area beneath Draco's chin. Steady pressure forced his head up and back, baring his neck to this predator in stolen skin.
"What lesson have you learned?" Mitchell asked, voice an unfamiliar hiss.
"Please…" Hermione took a hesitant step forward. She raised her palms, clearly unarmed. "Don't hurt him."
Mitchell's cruel gaze shifted. Hermione still wore her nightclothes: shorts that revealed a healthy amount of thigh, braless beneath her over-sized shirt. Mitchell twitched beneath the sheet. Draco's stomach curdled.
"Mercy is not my instinct. But I could be… persuaded."
Hermione shot Draco a quick look, searching not for permission but understanding. Draco barely had time to nod before her decision was made.
"Let Draco go. Let me get him somewhere safe."
"What assurances do I have that you'll return?"
"You have my word."
The promise took Mitchell aback. His brown eyes grew distant long enough for Draco to wonder if this was his chance. Then, it was gone. Focus returned, and Mitchell spat onto the floor.
"Your word... The word of a woman? Of a treacherous snake?" He turned back to Draco. "I prefer hearing this one admit defeat. Mayhaps I can begin to temper his arrogance, for clearly his sire has failed."
Draco barked a laugh. "You've clearly never met my sire if you think humility is something he values."
"I am not interested in humility." He pressed the wand tip more firmly beneath Draco's chin. "I am interested in respect. Do I have yours, or do you require another lesson?"
Draco searched Mitchell's eyes. Nothing of the kind, gentle man he'd known remained.
This was a stranger.
This was a threat.
"My apologies for disturbing you." Draco forced the words out behind a sneer he could not suppress. "You are welcome to stay here as long as you'd like."
The pressure against his throat eased. Mitchell stepped back. "Was that so difficult?"
"No."
"No, sir."
Draco bit his tongue, fast approaching the limits of his restraint.
"No, sir."
A cruel smile twisted Mitchell's lips. "I will be watching you, boy. You have proven untrustworthy, so sleep lightly and do not interfere in my affairs. When our paths next cross, we shall see if you have retained my lesson in respect, or if you need another reminder."
He drew his wand slowly across Draco's throat, trailing a shallow Severing Hex. Cool air stung the seam of open flesh beneath his chin. Warm blood beaded from the wound, tickling his neck. He pressed a hand against the cut, stemming the flow, dizzied once again by the feel of his own body in a state less-than-whole.
"And you." Mitchell stood and aimed his wand at Hermione, his lips curled into a sneer too much like Draco's own. "A snake you may be, but even reptiles have their uses. This one has clearly availed himself of your gentler attributes." Mitchell nudged Draco's burned leg with his foot. He bit his tongue against the searing pain. "I hope I may one day do the same."
Mitchell stepped over the blackened floor and re-entered the bedroom.
"I told you it would take but a moment!" he boomed, all bravado. "Now, where were we?"
One of the women squealed a laugh as fabric hit the floor. Mitchell's bed sheet, no doubt.
Draco accepted Hermione's hand and got to his feet. "I'm going to kill him."
"We need to get you to St Mungo's first," she said. "These burns, and your throat…"
"I'm fine. It stings, but I'll live."
They hurried away as fast as his injured leg would allow. He could not stand to hear the giggles, the moans, the slapping of flesh. Draco was far from a prude, but Mitchell's behaviour disgusted him. Worse than the violation of his parents' bedroom, however, was the breach of trust and respect that had, until today, existed between them.
"You need treatment."
"Rosie?" Draco called. The elf tripped in her haste to be of service. "Burn cream and bandages, please. Meet us in my bedroom."
Hermione clicked her tongue, even as Rosie disappeared.
"That's not enough."
"It will have to be." Though he was injured, Draco wasn't the priority at the moment.
Mitchell—or whatever demon had possessed him—was.
Draco groaned as Hermione helped him onto the bench at the foot of his bed. His body trembled, the adrenaline that had kept him steady fading now that the immediate danger had passed. He felt cold, though sweat beaded at his temples and on the back of his neck.
Hermione cast a quick series of proximity wards then leaned against the closed door, palms pressing flat against the wood. She stared at Draco, but her eyes were distant. He wondered what she saw.
Rosie appeared with the salve and bandages. "Master's neck…"
Draco tipped his head back, obliging. Rosie's fingers were warm, trailing comfort where there had previously been pain. When she finished, he couldn't even feel a scar.
"He'll be okay?"
"Yes, Miss Hermione."
Draco was equally relieved to hear it.
"That wasn't Mitchell, was it?" Hermione asked.
A week ago, it had seemed impossible.
Today, it seemed like the only reasonable explanation.
"I don't think so. I've never seen him act so… foul," Draco answered. "It's like he's lost his mind. A head injury, maybe? A curse? What else could explain it?"
Hermione began to pace.
"A head injury is plausible. There are documented cases of significant behavioural changes due to frontal cortex damage, but those injuries are traumatic. Life-threatening. You said Mitchell's been missing for a week?"
"Missing," Draco repeated, the word sour on his tongue. "He's been here."
"Presumably not sustaining brain damage," Hermione said. "I suppose it could be the Imperius Curse. But what's the motive? Why Mitchell?"
"Professional jealousy?"
Hermione scoffed.
"I'm serious," Draco said. "Apparently, the archaeology publication circuit is cutthroat, no pun intended." A deep frown; Draco noted her aversion to gallows humour. "Mitchell is one of the best there is. Was one of the best." He coughed to clear the sudden lump in his throat.
"We don't know that we've lost him." On this, Hermione was firm. "The Imperius Curse can be broken, though I'm not convinced that he's been cursed. Even if the motive is journal publications—which, for the record, seems unlikely—what witch or wizard could have the power to sustain it? The curse needs to be maintained, reapplied at set intervals to ensure compliance. If Mitchell's been here all week, who could have recast it?"
"One of the women he was with, maybe? Only I've never seen any of them before."
"Of course you haven't."
He bristled at her flippancy. Mitchell had never shared much of his personal life; Draco assumed he didn't have one. "He's private, and I don't pry."
"Yes, but did you not find his choice of partner unusual?"
"He's a good enough looking bloke, I suppose. I'm not sure why he had to pay for it, but we all have our vices."
Hermione heaved a sigh and lifted her eyes to the ceiling, as if asking for strength to bear this most recent bout of stupidity.
"What?" he asked, his annoyance building. "He can sleep with whoever he wants, as long as it's not in my bloody house!"
"Yes, but it's the whoever that's suspect. Those women were very nearly… opposite his typical preference." Hermione stared at him, willing him to understand.
After almost a minute of thought, Draco did. "How was I supposed to know that Mitchell likes blokes?"
"Perhaps by showing human interest in your closest coworker? Forming a friendship? Any number of ways, really."
Hermione's condescension nettled. He scowled at her.
"Is that why he never liked you, then? Because you knew?"
"Among other reasons, I'm sure. I saw him in Muggle London on a date once, back before Egypt. I think he was embarrassed. I'd seen a part of him he hadn't intended to show."
"But that's… Well, that's fine, though." Draco looked up at her, confused. "Why keep it a secret?"
Hermione gave him a pitying smile and sat beside him.
"You've never been hated for something you couldn't change," she said softly. "For just being who you are."
Draco's heart sank as shame surfaced. "I'm not like that. Not anymore."
"I know that." She laid a hand on his uninjured forearm. "I imagine Mitchell would believe you, too. You can tell him yourself once we get him back."
Draco rubbed his eyes. The morning's events left him groggy, even after his first full night of sleep in months.
"Once we get him back… We don't even know where he went. And if that's not Mitchell, then who is it? How could he have lived here for a week without me knowing? How could he have ordered Rosie…"
Draco looked at the elf. Despite the dried blood on her face and her swollen eyes, she had carefully bandaged the salve-numbed skin of Draco's arm and had diligently moved on to his leg. She was a good elf, kind and loyal to a fault.
Loyal to her family.
"Draco…"
Hermione had made the connection, too.
He cut the air with his hand. "No, it's not possible."
"Then how—"
"I don't know, but that's not—"
"Rosie?" Hermione addressed the elf directly. "Why didn't you tell Draco that Mitchell was in the manor?"
"Master Mitchell ordered Rosie not to."
"Why did you listen?"
At this, the elf paused her work. She lifted her head, chin set with injured pride. "Rosie serves the Malfoy family. We is sworn to it, Miss. And we has. We has."
Hermione gave Draco a significant look.
Draco shook his head, unconvinced. "Mitchell is not a secret Malfoy. The tapestry records all family births, legitimate or not. If he were a Malfoy, we would know. We would see it. That's not the answer."
Rosie's ears perked. "Master is calling."
Her eyes went wide just before she disappeared.
Hermione slid from the bedroom bench and finished bandaging Draco's calf. She rested a hand on his knee, the trembling mostly subsided now.
"If he's not a Malfoy, then why does Rosie obey him?"
"I don't know."
"Then don't we have to entertain the possibility? In the absence of another plausible theory?"
Draco frowned. Maybe they did.
"If—and that's a significant if—Mitchell is a Malfoy, then the rest of my family's properties may recognize his ownership rights as well."
He flinched as a stinging hex raced up his thigh. Scandalised, he looked down at Hermione.
"What the hell?"
"Rosie isn't property," Hermione scolded, rising to her feet. "She's a—"
"I know she's not! Merlin, Granger, ask first and cast second, won't you? I'm using her as an example. Rosie's obligation to the Malfoy family is a blood bond, as is the link to our properties. If she obeys Mitchell, then we can infer that our properties—our geographic properties—will as well. He would have unfettered access to every part of the manor and wouldn't be beholden to any of the security wards like you are. Even the proximity wards you just cast would be useless. He could Apparate or Floo into any room without tripping an alarm. It's the only way he could have lived here for an entire week. The only way he could have snuck those women in."
"Even if the manor didn't catch him, how did you miss him?"
Draco looked at her deadpan. "It's easy to disappear in a house of this size. How do you think I survived Seventh Year?"
Hermione dropped her eyes. "What do we do now? Check his flat?"
"I've been dropping by all week. It's empty. We wouldn't find any clues there, anyway. Mitchell's life was in his lab."
"What was he working on?"
"I'm not sure." Draco ignored her incredulous look as he rose, using the bedpost for support.
"Not sure? Isn't he your employee?"
"Technically, he's an independent contractor."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "His office, then. That's our first stop."
Draco's breath caught. "Our?"
She looked at him like he'd sprouted horns. "Yes, our. Your friend is in trouble. You think I'm going to let you save him by yourself?"
"What about everything we discussed last night? Retracing Nott's steps, severing the connection between us…"
To Draco, there was no question of priority: he needed to find out what had happened to Mitchell. But if it meant a delay to what they'd discussed last night, would Hermione feel the same?
She frowned, but took his hands. "We've lived with this connection for six months now. Mitchell is in trouble today. I know what I'd want him to choose if the situation were reversed."
"So we can wait?" Draco asked, daring to hope.
Hermione squeezed his hands. "We can wait."