Lucius sat across from his son and analyzed him with worried eyes. He had been having breakfast with his wife when one of their house elves appeared at the side of the table stating that Draco was in desperate need of him. This had puzzled the older Malfoy greatly for in all of Draco's life he had never had a "desperate" need of him, and so Lucius had excused himself and found his son in one of the many parlor rooms that the Manor had to offer. To say that he was shocked at the scene before him it would be a gross understatement.

Although a man, all Lucius could see was a terrified boy, and right then and there he was sure that it was the house elf who had determined that Draco had needed him. As it stood, Draco had been (and still was) incapable of speaking. Neither the wave of his hand nor the call of his name had done anything to snap his son out of his daze. The only thing that Lucius could think to do was to wait until he snapped out of it on its own.

And so, he waited. A clock ticked on in the distance, and every few moments Lucius would look up at it to see how much time had passed. Five minutes. Twenty minutes. An hour. Narcissa came into the room at half-past and sat beside her husband.

"It must have been truly horrific," Narcissa frowned as she observed her baby boy. "Or it's still ongoing."

"Perhaps the latter," Lucius bitterly replied. "He appears to be lost within himself. Have you contacted our Healers?"

"I have."

"And Miss Granger?"

"Under a Sleeping Spell."

"Very good."

"…It's odd, don't you think?" Narcissa said after a bit of silence. "I didn't expect for the insanity to come on so soon or so strongly."

"You and I were different," Lucius reminded. "We courted. We had time to develop feelings for one another. Draco and Miss Granger were forced together and they have absolutely nothing with which to cushion themselves. Until genuine feelings form from the ingenuine, it will, unfortunately, continue to be like this."

"No, I won't let it," Narcissa fumed. "Look at him, Lucius! His first encounter with whatever hallucination he's seen —whatever he's seeing or hearing now —and we can't even reach him! Something must be done, and it will be done."

"I sense a plot, dear," Lucius replied with a happy hum. He turned his body so that he could face his wife head-on and urged her. "What did you have in mind? Another vagabond?"

"No, no, I don't want to endanger him like that. Being caught unawares is never good."

"Clearly that wasn't your mindset where the Granger girl was concerned."

"She's not our son," Narcissa airily answered. "It didn't matter if she was killed in the process."

"Touché," Lucius nodded. "What do you propose for Draco then?"

"Something in which he must be in control of the situation. He has to want to kill of his own accord."

"That Weasley boy would have been a perfect candidate," Lucius sighed. "You should have seen Draco, Cissa. He was so ready to kill and didn't have a single care in the world. None except how his future wife would feel if the Weasley was dead. If there was only a way to replicate such a feeling, then Draco would have no trouble at all."

"Is there anyone else that Draco dislikes and who would be easy to miss?"

"No one that I can think of," Lucius brooded. "At this rate, Miss Granger would have to be attacked for Draco to take action. Whether she lives or dies has become his top priority."

"Then it's settled," Narcissa smiled. "She will be attacked yet again, but this time Draco will be the one to kill the attacker. Orchestrated correctly, it would be seen as Draco saving her life, thus limiting Ministry involvement."

"It would have to be done correctly and carefully," Lucius warned. "Draco is starting to lose his mind, and for all we know Miss Granger will be following in his footsteps shortly. We both know all too well what someone at the behest of a broken mind is capable of. Things could get messy."

"It's risky, yes, but consider the alternative." Narcissa gestured to their son who was still in his catatonic state. Lucius didn't want to look at him and refrained. Instead, he agreed.

"Who will be the intended attacker?"

"Someone from our side will do. Merlin knows they all have the proper motive."

Lucius scoffed and settled further on their shared couch. "Too many options."

"Oh, there's no such thing as too many options," she laughed. "The more the better, and they will all have their chance."

Before Lucius could ask how that would be accomplished, the same house elf that had fetched him for Draco had apparated into the room.

"The Healers are here, Master and Mistress Malfoy."

"Thank you, Hazel," Lucius addressed her. "Send them in."

Draco felt groggy. It was like he had been locked in a room without sunlight for days, and while he knew that wasn't true, he couldn't help just how right it was. He stretched, one arm reaching over his head, but the other was stuck. He looked over to his left and found Hermione cuddled up next to him and killing the circulation in his arm. He smiled at her and attempted to wriggle his arm free. Instead of the desired effect, however, Hermione snuggled closer to him.

"Excuse me," he whispered to her, "but I can't feel my arm."

"Let it fall off," she murmured. In the past few days that Draco had woken up next to this woman, he had determined that Miss Hermione Granger was not a morning person. Well, terrible to wake up at any rate. It was well past two p.m., and it was quite rare for him to sleep so late.

There was only one way to properly free his arm, Draco surmised, and so he tilted his body a tad, wrapped his right arm around Hermione, and used all the strength he had to pull her on top of him. Her squeal let him know that he had succeeded in waking her up, and now he had the ability to flex his left arm.

"Thanks for that," Hermione huffed as she rubbed at her eyes.

"You're welcome. It's time for us to get up anyway. We slept in a bit."

Hermione looked at the ornate clock that hung on the wall to the right of his bed. It took a moment for her to focus her attention, but when she realized where the clock's hands lay, she sat up.

"A bit? Draco, it's two-thirty!"

"I guess we were tired," Draco shrugged. "Although, I'm not quite tired anymore," he added as his hands settled on her waist. By sitting up, Hermione had inadvertently straddled him and further erased the groggy feeling he had woken up with.

Hermione let the corners of her mouth curl up and her hands slide up and down Draco's chest. "I can tell," she replied coyly. She leaned forward to kiss him while his hands moved her under shirt, his fingers grasping the hems in order to remove it. It was halfway up when the sound of apparation filled the room and distracted them from their pending activity.

"Not now, Twizzle," Draco berated; however, the house elf didn't leave.

"Twizzle is sorry, Master Malfoy, but you have a guest waiting for you."

"A guest? Who?"

"Mr. Theodore Nott, Master Malfoy."

Draco groaned while Hermione turned to the house elf and thanked him. Once he was gone, she rolled off of Draco and out of bed (much to his displeasure).

"Go tend to your guest," Hermione told him. "I'm going to head home."

"Home?" Draco frowned. "Why?"

"Well, as Twizzle said, you have a guest. While I don't know Nott very well, I can be sure that he's not accustomed to me being around you, so I'll take my leave. Besides, I left Harry and the others rather abruptly last night. I have to do some damage control."

The words "damage control" rang a distant bell for Draco, but he couldn't tell why. Instead of focusing on it, he watched Hermione get dressed and he bid her a farewell as she used the fireplace in his bedroom to go. He sighed, damning Theo with all his might, and swung his feet down to the floor. Despite the tiredness he had woken up to having gone, it was replaced with pressure in his head. He felt like it had been tampered with, but it couldn't have been a Memory Charm. For one thing, it was impossible for a Memory Charm to be cast effectively on an Occlumens —any charm that was meant to affect the mind for that matter. That wasn't to say that someone couldn't try and manage some sort of success, albeit temporary. The effects of such an attempt often led the victim to feel tired, head pressure, headaches, and sometimes lightheadedness or dizziness. Draco could only assume that whatever spell or charm that had been attempted had worked to some degree. He just needed to find out who had done it, how, and why.

"A man could die of old age waiting for you."

Draco turned his body around to find Theo walking into his bedroom. The blond huffed and finally got up from bed. His head felt light as he did so, but he shook it off and hoped that Theo didn't notice.

"Yes, well, you came unannounced," Draco said as he crossed his arms. "The fault then lies with you."

"Fair enough," Theo smiled. "You look good by the way," he continued. "You've got this… I don't know. A natural glow, let's say."

Draco raised a brow at his friend and watched him walk around his bedroom. While the man wasn't necessarily a brooding pessimist, he wasn't normally this perky either. "A glow?"

Theo stopped in front of an armchair in the corner of the room and sat down, one knee atop the other and his hands cupped on his lap. "Yeah, a glow. And judging from the hour, the bedhead, an unmade bed, and," here he gave a low chuckle as he gestured with a lazy hand to Draco's neck, "some discoloration from the variously placed love bites, I'd say that it would have something to do with your betrothed. The Ministry certainly has an interesting sense of humor. Thank Merlin I'm already married or else I might have ended up with Lovegood."

Draco worked hard to control the muscles in his mouth so that he didn't look like a gaping fish. He did, however, furrow his brows and let his arms fall to his side. His tongue swiped the back of his teeth as he contemplated every word that Theo had said and then stuffed his hands in the pockets of his pajama bottoms as he addressed him.

"Theo, my dear friend," Draco said slowly and smiling, "my head feels like shit, I'm getting a headache, and you're not making either of those two things better. What exactly are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about your muggleborn fiancée, of course," Theo admitted with a laugh. "Although, I'm sure that you knew that, but you're probably wondering just how I knew that when you didn't tell me —I'm offended, by the way," he added in a tut. Theo then went into the inside of his jacket pocket and pulled out a letter. He held it out for Draco to take, and when the blond took and unfolded the letter, he finally let his jaw drop.

You are cordially invited to Malfoy Manor

Saturday, October 21st, 2006

to commemorate the engagement of

Draco Malfoy & Hermione Granger

Please respond to this invitation by Thursday, October 19th, 2006

with notice of your acceptance.

Sincerely,

Lucius & Narcissa Malfoy

"What in the hell do my parents think they're doing?" Draco swore as he read the letter for the second time. He looked up at Theo who simply shrugged.

"I asked myself that same question," he answered. "Granger is as good as dead come Saturday. Draco, you don't think…" Theo paused, obviously not wanting to continue, but he pressed on both because it needed to be said and because of the impatience that the blond was sporting. "You don't think that your parents planned this for that purpose, do you? You know…with the hopes that one of our rather unscrupulous acquaintances would just take her out? Not to say that your parents are those kinds of people but—"

"That's exactly what you're saying, Theo," Draco interrupted with an uncontrolled sneer. Theo recoiled in his seat, but Draco let the sneer drop just a moment later because, even if he didn't want to admit it, it was exactly the type of thing that his parents would do. There was only one flaw in that plan. "They wouldn't do that. If anything ever happened to her I…"

He would die. That was the end of it. His family curse had bound him and Hermione together, and it would only grow stronger as time went on. If she was to be killed, Draco could imagine just how his heart would break. Would he even be able to live without her? He had already felt a bit of hurt when she had told him she was going home. He shuddered to think if she never returned to him.

"Draco, mate, can you hear me?"

Draco blinked. He hadn't realized that he had spaced out or that Theo had gotten up and was standing directly in front of him.

"Sorry," Draco mumbled. "Saturday, will you come?"

"Of course," Theo nodded. "It would be foolish to miss a Malfoy affair, even one as dangerous as this."

"Good. You'll help me to keep a watch on my future bride. Blood status aside, Ministry ruling or not, Hermione will be a Malfoy no matter what. Anyone who threatens that will have to go through me."

"Sounds like Granger's in good hands then," Theo grinned. He gave Draco another once-over, particularly now that he could see the evidence of the blond's night up close, and hummed amusedly. "See you Saturday."

Draco absolutely loathed how much enjoyment Theo was getting from this situation, but that was the least of his worries. His hand was still curled around the invitation and it made his blood boil simply thinking about it. Without a second thought, he called for a house elf and demanded to know where his parents were. Once he found out, he quickly dressed and stormed his way out of his bedroom.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Draco shouted as he walked in on his parents having an early dinner. Lucius and Narcissa looked up at their son, none too surprised at his outburst although he rarely ever raised his voice to them. They took note of the piece of parchment in his hand and recognized the delicate script that was written on it.

"Where did you get that, dear?" Narcissa asked as he stabbed a piece of lamb with her fork.

"It's Theo's invitation to my engagement party," he replied with a touch of anger as he approached the dining table. It was larger than the one where they usually ate breakfast and held seats suitable for eight people. Draco dropped the letter onto the table and it fluttered in between a bowl of mashed potatoes and a gravy boat. "He's RSVPed yes, by the way."

"Lovely," his mother beamed. "I'll have Izzy update the guestlist."

"Lovely?" Draco repeated. "This isn't 'lovely;' it's an utter catastrophe. How could the two of you plan an engagement party for Hermione and me?"

"Why not?" Lucius asked. "It's customary when one is getting married."

"Under normal circumstances, yes. However, I'm marrying the woman who most, if not all, of the guests despise. She'll be a walking target."

"While that is unfortunate, you will simply have to keep an eye on her," Lucius casually replied. It made Draco's eye twitch and his mouth twist into a horrible snarl.

"Why thank you, Father. I see how much this worries you."

"Come now, Draco, you're a fine dueler," Lucius continued. "Stay at the witch's hip, and everything will be fine."

"You can't be serious," Draco fumed. "It's the bloody vagabond all over again, except this time not done on purpose!"

He missed the casual glance his parents shared before Narcissa dabbed at her lips with a napkin and turned to her son.

"Draco, I know that you're not fond of the idea, but aside from custom this was necessary."

"Necessary?" Draco scoffed. "Please, Mother, tell me how letting my fiancée walk into a death trap is necessary?"

"Better a death trap now than at your wedding." That certainly caught Draco's attention, and Narcissa carried on once the tension in his face and body lessened. "Whether this Saturday or your wedding day, Miss Granger will have to face these people. She'll have to face them for the rest of her life. We already know what a struggle this will be on our end. They're not going to care that this was inflicted upon us by the Ministry, and, in fact, they will probably see fit to 'remedy the situation' for us.

'For that reason, we need not to shy away from this, Draco. We need to tackle this head on and show our peers that yes, this is Hermione Granger, war heroine, responsible for the states of many of your lives, and a future Malfoy. It doesn't matter that she's a muggleborn. Being a Malfoy comes first, and we will stand by her side."

Draco stared wordlessly at the table. His anger at his parents had waned during his mother's speech, and he didn't want to look at her. He didn't want to raise his head up because, despite it all, despite how much he hated this, he couldn't help but agree. An offensive attack was always best, and gathering all of their potential enemies in one place and knocking them all down in one shot was certainly a way to do it. Ambitious and wildly dangerous, yes, but a good method nonetheless.

Draco groaned and sighed before reaching across the table, picking up Theo's invitation, and rolling it up. "Next time that you want to plan and execute such an audacious move that includes two lives outside of your own, perhaps you can run it by me first? It would save me a headache."

"Of course, son," Lucius replied and happily got back to his dinner.

Author's note: I haven't had this much fun writing Lucius and Narcissa in a very long time lol.

Happy New Year Everyone!

-WP