Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series and all the ccharacters except the ones iI created belong to J.K. Rowling. I don't make any profit.

Beta: Myka Ren

A/N: If you have any question please do ask and I will answer it in an A/N in following chapters.

Tales In The Mist

Chapter 2

Her world had frozen. She stared at the man in front of her cursing herself for falling into that trap. How couldn't she realise that there was no way they would come after him in the morning. Hermione took a good look of the room. The windows were closed and Harry was blocking their only way out. She didn't want to hit or fight him, but there was no way out. Maybe negotiating would work but Harry was as stubborn as she was.

"What are you doing here Hermione?" Harry asked after a while. She knew she could keep silent but that would piss him off more than he already looked. The forest green that she so loved to look into and trusted was a vibrant green like an enchanted forest, ready to pull you in its depth and keep you there forever.

She never liked it when he got that look. Of course she had seen it a lot of times in the past. In their third year when he had met them in the Shrieking Shack after overhearing a talk about Sirius betraying the Potters, in their fifth year in the department of mysteries when she saw him after they returned to Hogwarts, when he was chasing Snape and Malfoy after Dumbledore was killed. There weren't a lot of times but she couldn't recall all the times she had seen him mad now.

"I'm here because he needed to know, and for, other reasons." She answered gulping as she noticed the sharp intake of air her best friend -if she still had the right to call him that- took. "I told you before and I'm telling you again we weren't the ones to do it" she said taking the opportunity to talk some sense to him before hell went loose.

"And why shall I believe you Hermione?" He hissed at her, a thing he shouldn't have done.

"Have I ever given you a reason to not do so Harry?" She said threateningly low, taking in how the man in front of her tensed. "I always told you the truth and you always saw that I'm right. What changed now? Gotten the position of head Auror and you have to prove that even if your best friend is framed for a murder she didn't do, you have to take her in and lock her in Azkaban till you find bloody evidence that she is innocent? And then what Harry James Potter? You'll start apologizing to her and everything will be good? Like ' I'm bloody Harry Potter, I kiss unicorns and sneeze rainbows and Hermione will forgive me every fucking time'?" She now yelled and even Malfoy turned to give her a surprised look.

"Hermione is not like that and you know- " Harry started his eyes pleading.

"Know what?!" She hissed lowering her wand from her sleeve carefully enough that Harry did not notice.

"I know that you are bloody innocent but you act like you have really killed her!" Harry now yelled back. "All the evidence point at you and the slimy git next to you. I can't turn a blind eye to that and there were eye witnesses that saw you with her! I couldn't, no, I didn't believe it from the first moment we found the evidence that you would ever kill someone but you act as if you did and then you escape the Ministry and come directly here! Believe it or not Hermione you may or may not have done it, which I frankly don't know what to believe now, but you are making yourself look guilty!" he finished giving her and the blond a dirty look.

"Believe whatever you want Potter" Malfoy finally said as, Hermione noticed, had his wand too ready. "But the situation hasn't changed. Granger didn't do it and neither did I. Ludicrous isn't it? That in school we were the ones supposed to give away our friends to save our own head and now you are doing the same thing to save your position as Auror?" Malfoy continued a small smirk tugging on his lips.

"This has nothing to do with school Malfoy." Harry hissed turning his look away from the witch.

"Oh but it has. You Gryffindors walked around as if you were owning the place just because you claimed you would never leave a friend while we, the big bad Slytherins had friendships for political alliances and to keep up with our name, but look how the roles have changed." He provoked him.

"I would never leave Hermione if she needed me! I unlike you, have people that I care about!" Harry said taking steps towards them.

"But you unlike I are willing to put your friend in jail for something they didn't do without further investigation." Malfoy hissed, moving his hand with his wand giving her a signal to get ready.

Hermione couldn't believe that she saw him giving her a signal. Not having both Harry and Ron teaching her the things they learned in the Auror training program would have let her confused and not able to recognise it but she did and what was surprising her more was how he knew of the signals. But then again both of her best friends were talking about how people knew the signals and that they needed to find new ones.

She turned her eyes on Harry to check that he hadn't seen that and seeing him still arguing with Malfoy, completely oblivious to the movement left her thinking how much had Malfoy pissed him to lose a movement that he was taught to recognise. But she couldn't delve in that thoughts now that Harry was close.

She could see his wand in his cloak's pocket. Covering her wand she took a step back to avoid the chance of hitting Malfoy too. She couldn't have him passed out now that he was crucial for getting out of that bloody house as they couldn't use the floo and the Aurors already were in the front yard.

"You'd never understand" Harry continued as he stopped just in front of Malfoy.

"Oh really? Try me then" Malfoy replied turning to look at Hermione and just as Harry was moving to take his wand Hermione saw her opening.

"Stupefy!" Hermione cried hitting Harry with a red flash of light. She stood frozen as she watched Harry's unconscious body fall limp onto the carpeted floor and had to blink a couple of times to realise what she had just done. She had stupefied her best friend, the brother she never had, and the man that stood by her side come hell or high water. But now that hell came he wasn't at her side, and that hurt her more than anything ever did.

"Granger" Malfoy said and she turned sharply to look at him only to meet his eyes. They weren't the stormy grey they usually were but now they were a liquid silver that had some shadowed waves. A grey ocean of quicksilver.

"For fuck's sake, Granger!" Malfoy yelled and she blinked again her eyes narrowing.

"What?!" She yelled back just as the Aurors started firing spells at the door.

"Take my hand" he instructed her and she gave him a look.

"I thought we couldn't aparate from inside" she tried to reason taking his hand and soon the all too familiar feeling of being pressed in a tube and that your lungs are pressed so tightly that they might disappear, engulfed her.

The feeling soon disappeared and she was panting for air as she took in the scenery of the place they had appeared. A field with green grass up to the point the eye could see. A cottage stood at the end of the hill overlooking the sea. Turning to Malfoy, she saw that he was looking the house with a sad look almost as if something terrible had happened in that house.

She walked over to him and looked at the house. It wasn't like an ordinary cottage. The walls were from stone and the windows were painted blue. It looked more like a windmill -well a cottage sized windmill- than a cottage.

"Is that it?" She asked as he left an audible sigh.

"Yes that's it." he said walking up the path and opening the wooden garden door.

She followed him silently as he ensured some basic things like water and electricity was supplied and unlocked the door. The inside of the house left her stunned. That house wasn't at all like the Manor or a house where you expected Malfoys to live. The wood on a floor was a light coloured one and there was a ladder that lead to the second floor where she guessed were the bedroom. There was a kitchen with a marble sink and island, and an old fashioned black stove. The cupboards and chairs were made of wood painted white.

There wasn't a special room for the living area. The whole room was the kitchen and the living room and a small room in the back for the bathroom. The ladder was attached to the wall on the left of the door. The loveseat and the armchair was in white but not from leather like the ones she saw when she had visited his office in the past. A charming curved wooden coffee table and surprisingly a flat TV attached to the wall above a smaller table for the remote and photographs. The windows on the walls made the room look enchanting with the hues of the early morning.

She was amazed by the house so far. It was excluded and really pretty. She couldn't go see the bedroom and it would look weird if she walked in the bathroom just to see how it is.

"I planned on coming here with Astoria for our honeymoon. It belonged to my mother and she gave it to me as a gift for the wedding." Malfoy said making her turn to look at him as he gazed out of a window.

"I guess that I ruined your plans now that I came here." Hermione said running her fingers across the marble top of the kitchens island.

"You being here isn't ruining anything. We have to stay here until we can go back to Britain" he said.

"But you said you were keeping it for your honeymoon. I'm sure me being here is dirtying it. Since I'm a mud-" she started but soon he turned sharply to look at her, giving her a hard look.

"Don't you dare say that word." He hissed, "You are a muggleborn, yes, but not that word" he said confusing her even more with his tone.

"You used to enjoy calling me that. What's changed now?" She asked folding her arms staring directly in his eyes.

"Something changed. Not your business" he answered folding his arms too, a hard look on his face.

She really didn't understand why he always put on a mask. It reminded her of a book she had read once. The lady in the book used to compare the masked feelings and fake expressions as masked from the Japanese Theatre. In that theatre the actors and actresses wore masks to show the people their characters emotions. She could see one on him now. He stood there with his emotionless when, she guessed, underneath that mask a raging storm was taking place.

"It is my business since I'm the one you mostly called a mudblood" she said bracing herself for what was coming.

"No its not Granger, leave it." He said moving away from the window and before she could even open her mouth he had climbed up the ladder, leaving her alone with the first rays of the morning sun.

Hermione was from her nature a curious person but she didn't chase after him for answers. Something must had happened to him to stop calling muggleborns, mudbloods but right now she couldn't care less. Walking over to the loveseat she laid down on her back staring up at the wooden ceiling. Who had it in for them? And why kill Katharine? The only sure thing is that they knew that's he would be meeting them. It all suddenly seemed to much to her now that she could relax and let her tiredness wash over her. The British Ministry of magic was after them, the Japanese too as Katharine was working there.

As sleep was about to wash over her she shoot up rushing to the ladder and stopping at the first step. "Malfoy!" She called out looking up at his form standing at the top hanging over the railing.

"What is it Granger?" He said impatiently.

"We need to check Katharines house" she said watching him as he narrowed his eyes thinking.

"Why would we do that?" He asked making her roll her eyes, which lead to him growling at her.

"The ones that framed us obviously knew that she would be meeting us. She had told me once that she kept a meeting agenda and everything important in her house in Japan. We need to go there" she explained seeing him understanding what she meant.

" And how are we going to enter a country that is after us? We can't go there through a magical mean." He asked looking at his clock.

"The muggle way of course." She smirked earning a raised eyebrow from the blondisclaimer: The Harry Potter series and all the characters except the ones I created belong to J.K. Rowling. I don't make profit from this.

Beta: Myka Ren

A/N: If you have any questions please ask! Enjoy!

Tales In The Mist

Chapter 2