all characters belong to JKR
Chapter 5, Deceptions:
Several days had gone by, and Draco still found himself drawn to the paper everyday, but now he was looking for signs that someone was missing Hermione. On the fifth day of her recovery, Draco read the article he had been dreading, but also anticipating. The Daily Prophet ran a story that Hermione Granger, reporter for the Wizarding Times, was missing and there was suspected foul play. The article mentioned that she had been working on a story about a terrorist group called the Mud Ones and that her disappearance was the number one priority of the Ministry.
He walked into his study, where Hermione spent most of her days reading, and threw the paper to her. She looked up at him, questioning, and picked the paper up off her lap and read the story. "We should contact Harry," she said, "and let him know I'm not missing." Draco shook his head no.
"I've been thinking about that. I think you're safer if you stay out of the public eye. I agree with your earlier thoughts from a few days ago, I don't think we should stay here anymore. The men who did this to you apparently know where I live, or else they wouldn't have brought you here. This also means they probably know you're still here."
"Well, I've been thinking as well," she said, sitting upright in her chair, "I don't think they brought me here. If they knew you lived here, wouldn't they have waited until you found me, and then killed you straight away? I think Kevin brought me here. I've been trying so hard to remember everything that happened that night and I specifically recall them apparating me back to the warehouse, where I was to meet Kevin. I think he brought me here. I think he has been following me for a long time. I mean, he knew where I lived, or else he wouldn't have been able to contact me in the first place. He knew where I worked. He knew about what happened in the alley. I think it all points back to him."
He sat on the arm of her chair and said, "So, you were always contacted by him, never the other way around?" She nodded her head yes.
"I think he set this whole thing up, but I'm not sure why. Though, I do think that he did it to draw you out somehow," she finally stated.
Draco wasn't as convinced, and he had never told her about the note that was attached to her blouse the night she was dropped off at his doorstep. "How would he know that I'd be in that restaurant the same night as you and that Death Eater? How did he know that I'd find you two in the alley?" Draco quizzed.
"I met with Meyers at that restaurant on his suggestion. He's the one that said I should pick a public place, and he even suggested that specific restaurant. Maybe he knew you might be there. Also, after I left the restaurant, I was supposed to meet Kevin, in that very alley, but he didn't show up, instead, Meyers did," she explained.
Draco stood up and raised his hands in the air. "Why are you just now telling me this?" he yelled. "Don't you think that's an important bit of information? Don't you think if I had known that, I would have suggested that you not meet the bastard?" Draco was now standing over her, bellowing down at her. "Do you have a death wish, Granger? Didn't it dawn on you that he was playing you for a fool? Hell, he probably suggested to you that you bring me along that night. That's probably why you asked me to come!"
Now it was her turn to be indignant. She stood up, the best she could, and rounded on him and shouted, "You saw his note! He didn't suggest I bring you. I asked you to come because I was afraid to meet him myself, because frankly, I was beginning to question his intentions!" She was shaking, and had turned very pale. This was the longest she had stood since her recovery.
He pushed her back in the chair, none to lightly, and replied, "Sit the hell down, Granger, before you faint or something. I have to think." He paced the room. He suddenly stood ramrod straight for a moment, as if the proverbial light bulb went off over his head, and stormed out of the room. He appeared moments later with a bag, his cloak, and his wand. "We're getting out of here, right now," he said.
"Why are we leaving all of the sudden? I thought you said we were safe here. Anyway, I don't have any of my things. All I have is my wand and the clothes I had on the night I was attacked," she answered.
Before she could argue anymore, he grabbed her arm and disapparated. She felt the faint feeling of compression that a person feels when they sidelong apparate. When they got to their location, she felt confused and grossly aware that she was somewhere she did not want to be. They were at Malfoy Manor.
As if sensing her reluctance, he said, "We'll only be here a few moments. I need to get some money and supplies. Sit down." He pointed to a nearby chair. When he returned, true to his words, only a few moments later, he reached for her arm again, but she pulled away.
"Tell me where we're going!" she cried as she stood next to him.
"I think it's better if you don't know that right now," he told her plainly.
He reached for her arm again, and she actually smacked his hand away. He reached for her the third time, and she balled up her fist and hit his shoulder. Even though it was a weak and pathetic punch, he thought, 'not bloody well likely'. Therefore, he put both hands around her waist and they disappeared.
Hermione opened her eyes. She knew this place very well. Very well indeed. She was at her parents' house, the house in which she grew up. How did he know where her parents' lived? He was getting so adept at reading her thoughts, that he answered her before she could speak. "I went to your flat after your attack. I got the address from your wallet. I looked around for any information on the group you were writing about, and I came upon a birthday card from your parents. That's how I knew where they lived."
"They're in France right now. They're not even here," Hermione told him.
"That's even better. I think we'll be safe here for a few days. I take it you have already put numerous protection spells on the place," he deduced.
"I thought I had on my flat as well, but you managed to sneak in there," she said with a sneer.
She sat on the couch. She was tired and in pain. "Did you bring my pain medicine?" she asked. He gave her a look that meant, 'are you daft, of course I brought your medicine,' and he opened his bag and threw it at her. He sat down beside her and put his feet up on the coffee table.
"Do you mind removing your feet?" she chided.
He made a point of huffing as he removed each foot. Then she said, "Malfoy, surely someone at your work, or one of your friends, will notice you're missing as well. Don't you think that it will seem a bit conspicuous if we're both missing? I think both the Ministry and the Mud Ones will notice that."
"I don't have friends, only acquaintances, and I told them at my work that I was taking an extended leave. I'm the boss and owner, you know? So, no, I don't think anyone will miss me." When he finished explaining this to her, the thought that no one would miss him, even if he fell off the ends of the earth, made him feel melancholy and angry at the same time.
Now, as though she was sensing his thoughts, she reached out her hand to touch his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. He didn't need her sympathy. He stood up and said, "Do Muggles have food?"
"You are a moron," she came back. "Of course Muggles have food. However, since my parents live half the year in France, and half in England, and at the moment they are there and not here, I seriously doubt there's much food in the cupboards." She tried to stand, but he walked up to her and more gently this time, pushed her back down.
"I'll go check, Granger, just stay there," he told her as he started to walk out of the living room.
As he walked toward a door, she yelled, "That's the den!" He turned back around and smirked at her with his hands on his hips. She pointed toward a hallway, and said, "Second door on the right."
He strolled the way she just pointed and mumbled under his breath, "Thank you, now was that so hard?" She thought to herself, 'prat'.
He came back into the living room with a bottle of wine and some crackers, and some canned pears, which he left in the can. He had two forks, he sat next to her, and said, "Tuck in," and he handed her one of the forks.
"Surely there was more food than this. Let me go see."
She made to get up again, and he put his hand on her arm and said, "There was more, but we might be here a few days, and we should ration our food. We can't very well go to the market, now can we?" She saw the reason in this and concurred.
"You could have put the pears in a bowl," she said, as if she was explaining something foreign to him.
"Just eat," he said.
"I mean, it's not like there's going to be a shortage of dishes, now is there?" she said.
"Shut up and eat," he said again.
"Seriously, even if there was only one bowl in the whole house, we could still use it. There's this thing called a sink where you can wash your dishes," she rattled.
He made a loud grunt, went back to the kitchen, and came back to the living room with not one bowl, but two. He put part of the canned pears in one bowl, and the other half in the other, and handed one bowl to her and said, "Will you shut up now?"
She smiled and didn't say another word. They continued to eat in silence. While they ate she had two glasses of wine, and with the pain potion she took earlier, she felt gradually more lethargic, and she fell back on the sofa. He was on the other end, reading a magazine, and he looked over at her as she lay down. She turned to her side, so her back was against the sofa pillows. He looked at her as she started to fall asleep. She really was very pretty. He always thought as much. He had never expressed those thoughts to anyone. He still couldn't. His eyes moved down her slumbering body. He remembered the day he helped her shower. Now that he could think about it more clearly, she had a very beautiful body as well.
She shivered slightly, and he took the throw that was on the back of the couch, and put it over her legs. She stretched out further, as if in complete and utter comfort, and she put her feet, which at the moment were bare, in his lap. He smiled at himself. This was somewhat nice. Was this what it would feel like if he had a wife or girlfriend? Would they sit around on the couch on a lazy afternoon, after eating lunch, and feel so comfortable with each other that they would drape their bodies over one another. He felt a pang of desire. Not sexual desire. Just general desire. One could even call it envy. He looked back at her sweet face; sleeping, peaceful, not talking, (he smiled at that last thought) and he pulled the cover down more to cover her feet in his lap, and put one of his hands on top of her legs, and picked his magazine back up with the other hand and continued to read.
(Coming up in Chapter 6: Kevin finds Hermione and Draco; and things are not at all what they appear.)