Draco swung around and glared at the blonde haired man behind him, his wand pointing threateningly in Lucius' face.
"How did you get here? These are Hogwarts grounds?"Hermione demanded.
'I would prefer it if you'd lower your wand' Lucius gritted through his teeth, ignoring Hermione and directing his gaze to his son. Draco did so, his expression unchanged, but he moved discreetly to stand protectively in front of Hermione.
Lucius sneered. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. You do know who she is, right?"
Draco looked worriedly at Hermione and she spoke before he could.
"Of course he does!" She cried indignantly before continuing in a smaller voice "He knows everything"
Lucius didn't seem perturbed. "Well then, you know that her father is none other than our Lord"
"Your Lord" Draco corrected firmly.
"Excuse me?" Lucius asked, thrown off.
"He isn't my Lord, he never was" Draco repeated.
Lucius' eyes dilated with anger.
"You'll regret those words soon enough" he promised.
Draco scoffed. "I doubt that"
Hermione shushed him, she didn't like the sound of what Lucius was saying.
"What are you here for?" She demanded.
This directed Lucius' attention to her.
He gulped, though it was discrete. How to talk to the daughter of the Dark Lord, who is still widely known to be a mudblood?
"To talk to my son" he answered curtly and truthfully with a small nod of respect.
"Talk away" Hermione ordered, gesturing for him to speak. She was also surprised by the man's change but had expected as much since she was the Dark Lord's daughter and it was common knowledge that Lucius would've licked the guy's shoes clean if he'd asked. Draco, on the other hand, hadn't taken it in his stride and was currently gaping openly at the man he knew as his father.
Lucius ignored his son's blatant sign of surprise, instead he seemed to debate with himself for a moment before he turned stoically to Draco.
"Son," he began "Stay away from her" he pointed at Hermione "if you know what's good for you. She's nothing but trouble, boy and if you continue your friendship with her it will earn you a sticky end"
A moment's silence.
"It's the Malfoy name, isn't it?" Draco asked finally. "That's literally all you care about"
Lucius hesitated, glancing at Hermione for a millisecond as if expecting her to say something. Hermione stayed silent.
"It's your welfare, boy" Lucius argued. "Your safety"
Draco scoffed, but let it lie. Lucius never admitted to his mistakes. Too proud a man he was to do so.
"Is that all?' He sneered, turning towards the castle.
"Remember what I said, Draco. She means nothing but trouble for you, that girl. If you care even the slightest about yourself, you'll cut all ties with her" Lucius said sternly, grabbing Draco by the shoulders with a piercing grip. The next moment he'd vanished.
"Where did he go?" Draco asked frantically, looking around.
"You can't apparate in and out of the Hogwarts grounds" Hermione recited, her eyes darting around her. "How did he do that?"
"Maybe Aunt Bella found a way" Draco breathed, sucking his breath through his teeth.
Hermione shivered at the name and leant into Draco for comfort.
After a few moments of silence, she spoke once more, voicing her thoughts.
"We ought to tell Dumbledore. This is a breach of school security"
Draco nodded solemnly before gathering his wits about him and trudging up the grassy pathway to the school, Hermione close behind.
—
"You're telling me that Lucius Malfoy entered the school grounds, Mr Malfoy?" Dumbledore asked, looking far more perturbed and distressed than usual.
Draco nodded. "He then vanished as well"
"Are you sure it wasn't a hologram of sorts?"
"No, he touched Draco" Hermione said.
"Grabbed me actually" Draco corrected.
Dumbledore nodded gravely.
"Did he give you two any hints as to why he turned up at such a late hour?" The elderly man asked searchingly.
"He probably knew about the ball and chose the late hour to come, because he knew that many students would be occupied by the ball at that point" Hermione volunteered vaguely "But he gave away nothing specific"
"You said he grabbed you by the shoulders, Mr Malfoy?" Draco nodded. "Why?"
"He wanted to emphasise a point. He wanted me to stay safe" Draco replied not untruthfully.
Dumbledore hummed pensively for a moment.
"Okay, you two, I thank you for coming to tell me about this occurrence. I shall see that this doesn't happen again. Goodnight to you both" he dismissed the two students and they hurried out of his office.
"Did you notice?" Draco said in a hushed voice "He didn't tell you any information that he might've derived from our findings"
"He's very secretive" Hermione agreed.
The Winter Ball seemed to have come to an end, so Draco and Hermione made their way back to the common room.
"I wonder what the others are doing?" Hermione asked aloud.
"Blaise and Theo are probably sleeping" Draco chuckled good-naturedly.
Surprisingly, when Draco and Hermione opened the portrait hole's door, the room was jam packed with students all revelling in the after-ball celebrations.
Draco sighed. "I'd forgotten that we did these"
Hermione laughed outrightly and took two glasses of probably-spiked punch from a young Slytherin third-year and held one out to Draco.
"Come on, have some fun" she urged him, downing her own glass in one go.
Draco stared at her, taking his glass from her slowly. "You scare me sometimes" he whispered to himself and Hermione giggled, spotting Pansy, Blaise, Theo and Ginny sitting on the floor and laughing jovially while passing around a bottle of mead.
"Looks like you two are talking now" Blaise commented dryly, as Hermione dragged Draco by the hand to the rest of their group.
Hermione blushed and let go of Draco's hand, but nodded all the same.
"Good. It was getting ridiculous" Pansy smiled, offering the bottle of mead to Hermione who kindly refused.
"We've got some news" She informed them seriously.
Ginny looked sceptical. "You're not getting married are you? You only just made up, even I think that's too fast"
"No, me and Herm aren't getting married" Draco said, rolling his eyes, while Hermione looked incredulous.
"Really Ginny, you should know me better." She reprimanded her friend. "You know my husband rules"
Ginny laughed. "Oh yeah, you gave the whole list to my brother. He was ranting about it for days after."
"You considered Ronald Weasley?" Draco asked her, looking almost hurt, but he hid it well.
"I couldn't just outrightly refuse his offer. It wouldn't have gone down well with the press" Hermione explained, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, missing his tone of voice.
Draco muttered something incoherent under his breath about losers.
Blaise stifled a laugh.
Theo rolled his eyes. "I thought you two had news" he deadpanned.
"My father came up to us tonight" Draco said curtly, not making eye-contact with any of his friends.
Pansy spluttered violently on the mead she had been taking a sip of. "What!"
"In the Hogwarts grounds?" Blaise asked, patting Pansy on the back comfortingly.
"Yeah, he even disappeared suddenly, as if apparating, right after" Hermione confirmed before retelling the whole scene to the four friends.
They all looked grave.
"We told Dumbledore" Hermione added.
"Dumbledore?" Ginny cried. She looked to Draco. "But I thought…what did you tell him…everything?"
"My father entering etc grounds is a breach of school security. Dumbledore ought to know." Draco explained. "We didn't tell him anything else of concern however and were as vague as possible about why he was there"
"Weird, though, isn't it?" Pansy noted "He came to tell you to stay away from Hermione, right?" Draco and Hermione nodded. "But Hermione's the Dark Lord's daughter. Why go against her?"
"It makes no sense" Theo agreed.
"Are you going to obey him then?" Blaise asked.
"Obey him?"
"Cut ties with Hermione?" Blaise explained.
"No way!" Draco cried at the same time that Hermione said "Of course" They stared at each other.
Pansy giggled. Draco glared at her. She just giggled more.
"I think you should, as well, Draco, but only put on that outward appearance of distancing yourself from Herm. You can still talk to her when you're in your dorm and alone but you shouldn't risk" Ginny suggested helpfully.
"I agree" Theo said. "You shouldn't risk your neck for something you can easily avoid"
"-and it's not like you're harming anyone anyway" Hermione finished for him. "I know that you're not actually avoiding me. It's just for show"
Eventually, Draco agreed and the six of them all breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing into their customary teenage lives again and enjoying the evening.
Little did they know what lay in store for them ahead.
A/N: New Chapter! I hope you liked it! Quite a lot happened, but it was supposed to be like that or we'd never get to the end of this story. Only a few more chapters left if I'm not wrong. This is so exciting!
Please review!