Chapter One
Draco was officially bored.
It turned out that being in the Dark Lord's ranks as a Death Eater, but being underage and distrusted caused you to be completely ignored.
Not that he was complaining about that part.
When he escaped Hogwarts a few months ago, ashamed of himself, but also incredibly relieved that Snape had stepped in, he hadn't known what to expect.
It turned out that Occlumency with his mother had paid off, and his loyalty was not questioned once Snape spun a story about his heroism in letting the Death Eaters into the castle.
And now he was sitting at home being baby-sat by the house-elves and twiddling his thumbs. He had gone out on one or two missions, but it was only minor things. It honestly seemed as if Voldemort had totally forgotten about his very existence. Thank Merlin. He had stood before the Dark Lord enough times to know he didn't enjoy it; in fact it down right terrified him. The guy was completely insane. He was violent and totally unpredictable. And all his talk of blood purity… the muggle-born register…
Draco sighed.
A muggleborn had been beating him in almost every aspect of school since his very first day. So it was a bit hard to swallow.
If they were nothing but filth, then what did that make him, who couldn't beat one in even potions? Even with Snape's obvious favouritism.
It wasn't that he didn't want to be a death eater… was it?
He just didn't like the pervasive feeling of self-disgust that filled him.
It was like his father and aunt expected him to enjoy murdering, torturing and raping. But those things simply didn't appeal to him – he was much more like his mother. And he thought that made him "normal", but the way Lucius stared at him with such crushing disappointment really riled him.
His own father was disappointed that he didn't get off on torturing people.
He'd tried.
He so desperately wanted his father's approval, he'd even volunteered to punish blood traitor criminals once just to see Lucius smile at him, or show him any sign of fatherly affection. But at the same time he didn't want to feel as if he had to turn into a sadist just to get a simple pat on the back from someone whose mind was twisted and warped by Dark magic beyond recognition. And his mother was a hollow shell of submission these days, so she could no longer offer her gentle support.
A few weeks ago, desperate for a place where he could escape from his parents, he had purchased a small cottage through a muggle realtor. It was quaint and full to the brim with rare books, even some muggle novels – all the guilty pleasures he had to hide from his parents. He had even managed to pretend to himself for a while that he hadn't been imagining her when he bought and furnished it. Even though it was exactly the kind of place he had always pictured her in. Sitting in front of the fire, curled up with a tome and a cup of peppermint tea…
No. He just smothered it beneath his deep denial and acted like it was a little sanctuary all of his own.
Draco let his breath fall onto the cold surface of his bedroom window, fogging up the glass. A number of shadowy figures were striding up the path to the front entrance. They looked like snatchers, but that was strange, he thought.
Snatchers didn't usually come in groups to the manor. And it looked they were dragging people with them. So they had prisoners. But hadn't taken them to the ministry. Even stranger.
Three prisoners…
Draco felt his heart skip a beat a bit, but he dismissed the thought as crazy. What were the chances?
Just as he was going to dismiss the thought completely and return to his musings, he heard a series of bangs and shrieks, even across the distance between here and the main entrance.
"Tilly!"
The house-elf appeared instantly with a pop and a shy curtsey. She had been in the family for years; in fact she had practically raised Draco. For a long time she had been controlled a lot by Dobby – Lucius's elf who had managed to escape his servitude – but in the years since she had been able to come into her own more and develop a unique personality.
"What is Master wanting?"
He beckoned her closer.
"What is happening down there, Tilly? Do you know?"
Tilly nodded up at him with her wide green eyes.
"Tilly felt the wards let in those filthy snatchies."
"And?" he prompted, knowing she wasn't finished.
"And others, but Tilly hasn't felt them before. Well… not really…" Draco could see her squirming a bit and her eyes went even wider. He frowned at her and leaned closer. She shivered a little bit, but he knew she wasn't scared of him as such. She just wanted to please him, as was her nature.
"What do you mean? What did you feel?" he questioned in a low, encouraging voice.
"Her magic smells familiar."
"Who? What smell?"
Tilly whimpered a little bit and twisted her dress in her long fingers.
"The book that Master Draco brought home from school that doesn't belong to him," she whined sadly, "it smelled of apples, and so does she."
Draco shot to his feet.
It was true, She was here. He felt his body go numb and he was frozen on his feet for a moment just trying to process the fact that Hermione Granger had been captured and brought here to his house.
Fuck.
When he saw that Tilly was starting to cry, he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and bent down to her.
"Stop crying," he commanded, knowing that she needed a firm hand from him now, "Are you sure that it's the same person?" he asked quickly.
Tilly sniffed, trying to control herself.
"Yes, Sir. Are you angry at Tilly, Sir?"
Draco shook his head at her, distracted.
He was literally frozen with indecision.
A part of him knew he should stay here in his room and block out all sounds, or even apparate directly to his cottage so he wouldn't be called. It was definitely safer not to risk going down there and seeing her. He had no idea how he would react.
But the other part of him knew he couldn't stay away. He had to see her. He had to know what was happening, it was a morbid curiosity that had taken hold of him. He could still hear people yelling and he knew he had to act now.
"Tilly, listen to me carefully," he murmured, kneeling down at her level to look into her misty eyes, "I might need to call for you in the next hour, so keep an ear out."
"This girl is important to Master?"
Draco swallowed and felt a shiver pass through him.
"Yes, but I have a bad feeling not for much longer."
Tilly started to blubber then, and Draco gave her a last squeeze on the shoulder before dashing out the door and downstairs.
So it was her. Tilly had good instincts. And Draco knew that Hermione's scent had been all over that book.
He had taken the book from her table in the library after she had rushed out in a hurry one day. Her place was marked by a red ribbon used to tie her curly hair back, and as he had lifted it to his nose, he had been overwhelmed by the fruity scent of her shampoo. With a blush and a shiver of nervousness, Draco had slipped the book into his bag after casting a stasis spell on it to preserve the smell of her lingering there.
He had spent a week staring at her in the back of the library as she devoured that stupid book, wishing that she would look up at him but also dreading it. But she never had; she'd been too engrossed.
Draco's footfalls tapped on the floor a little more quickly than he usually walked as he rushed towards the drawing room near the entrance hall. That was where his parents usually endured the company of any snatchers that stopped by.
When he arrived, he was surprised to see a couple of the same snatchers huddled on the floor nursing wounds that looked like severe burns.
"Ah, Draco – it's about time you showed up. We need help."
The disdain was clear in his father's voice, but he ignored it in favour of scanning the room for a sight of her.
Before he could see beyond the people standing around, his aunt stepped in front of him with an expression of sadistic glee.
"Drakie, come here!" she said in a shrill voice that set his teeth on edge, "We think this might be the wee potter and his blood traitor friend."
Draco numbly stepped forward, thanking Merlin for his mother's occlumency lessons that helped him keep his face completely expressionless.
"Take a close look at them, son," his father said urgently, his upper lip almost dripping with sweat as he bared down on Draco with wide eyes, "This could be our chance…my chance, to get back into his good graces."
Draco felt the desire to roll his eyes at Lucius, but refrained. His father was nothing more than a sycophant these days. Ever since he'd been released from Azkaban he had become so obsessed with pleasing the Dark Lord that it had twisted him into an even more corrupt version of his former self. And considering what a total wanker he'd been before, that was saying something.
Draco let his aunt lead him towards two captives who were kneeling on the floor, their heads pulled back and throats exposed to knifepoint.
It was just two boys, one of whom had had his face disfigured, but was still unmistakeably Potter. And the other a raggedly dressed ginger. He didn't care about these two idiots… where was Granger?
"Well, Draco?" His father spat at him, desperate or answers.
Draco shrugged casually, keeping a cool face despite the sickness he was feeling in his gut.
"Well, it's hard to say…" he drawled, crossing his arms nonchalantly, "There are usually three of them."
Bellatrix cackled just as the snatchers around them growled with anger.
"The mudblood girl was a bit of a problem for these amateurs," she laughed, "fancy that, being beaten by muggle spawn. You should be ashamed of yourselves."
For a brief second, Draco felt a slither of sublime hope. Had she managed to escape after all?
"Is she still out cold?" His aunt continued, and the hope was crushed all too quickly as once again he felt himself shake. He clenched his fists to make it less obvious to the people in the room.
The voices around him swam in his ears as though he were underwater. All he could focus on was the weightless body being dragged in by a burly snatcher who hadn't been hurt.
It was her, alright. Her hair would give her away anytime, especially as it was wilder than usual. She had obviously been manhandled by it. It was the same chestnut brown locks he had once called "bushy", but in recent years he had noticed more and more how elegantly the tresses had begun to drop down into thick silky curls. Age had been very kind to Granger. And Draco had been unable to stop watching her as she matured into a stunning girl. Her buckteeth had obviously been shrunk back, but that wasn't the biggest difference to her appearance. It was her confidence that had drawn his gaze.
Sometime towards the end of their fifth year, Draco had started to notice that Granger was holding herself differently. She had always had perfect posture despite being hunched over books all the time. But what had once seemed rigid like there was a prissy stick up her ass, had slowly become self-assured and regal. She no longer bounced around in her seat desperate to prove that she knew all the answers. Granger had a quiet surety that he envied. She knew exactly what she believed in, and she believed it with all her heart and soul.
But now he felt sick as his eyes followed the path of a droplet of blood congeal around her skull, mangling her sweet curls, and tracing a lazy path down her forehead. She looked ghostly pale and her body was completely unmoving.
"Is she dead?" he asked, hoping no one else heard the shake in his voice.
"Nope… hard to kill this one," Bellatrix smirked, "We'll have to try harder, won't we?"
Draco shivered.
"Oy! Give it a rest – we took her wand an' everythin'. She just exploded or something. Fuckin bitch scorched us all."
Narcissa stepped forward then with a frown.
"She used wandless magic?" she asked faintly.
Bellatrix scoffed.
"Don't be ridiculous, they're obviously delusional. Stupid bastards probably touched a cursed piece of jewellery or something. Novices."
Draco wasn't so sure. If anyone he knew could use wandless magic, it would be her. He had tried to dabble in it a little, but it was so draining he'd never done more than a simple levitation charm, and not for very long.
But Granger was potent, lethal and thorough. She would no doubt have launched into research about it the moment Snape mentioned it in DADA class.
Under the pretence of kicking her onto her back, Draco stepped forward to turn her over and see if she was still breathing properly. He had to do it a little too violently for his liking, but it was worth the feeling of relief at seeing her chest rising and falling softly.
"Get away from her, you filthy ferret!" The weasel shouted it from where he was being held, struggling uselessly against the much larger man holding onto him.
Draco frowned at the red head. Brainless git. He heard Potter grunt softly from behind his swollen features, and knew that scar head was just as infuriated with his moronic friend at this moment.
"Well I guess we know it's them," Lucius snorted.
At that, the ginger menace started struggling harder, and Potter joined in. With a pained grunt, the snatcher holding him copped a boot to the shin.
"Ow! That bloody hurt, it did!" he cried.
A scuffle broke out then, involving the snatchers hitting them across the head and trying to get a more secure grip on their captives. Bellatrix, however, wasn't paying attention, as she had leaned down to pick up a long, silver sword that had slipped from the grasp of one of the snatchers struggling in front of her. As they yelled at each other and at the two boys, with Lucius sneering at their incompetence, she was staring at it like it had some kind of queer disease.
"SHUT UP!" She yelled, and Draco gulped as he saw that glint enter her eyes that usually meant something horrible was about the happen.
"Take them down to the dungeon…" she said with a dangerously quiet tone.
"But-"
"You owe us-"
"NOW! DO IT NOW, you fools!"
Her scream reverberated around the high ceiling and shocked everyone into freezing. Even Draco who was used to her outbursts shivered a little and stood stiller.
Eventually the snatchers moved to drag out the boys, but when one of them limped forward to grab Granger by the hair again, Bellatrix whipped her bony hand out in front of her.
"No," she murmured, "leave the mudblood."
Draco felt his heart pounding again. He wasn't sure what to do other than stand uselessly to one side, and hope with all his might that some miracle would happen. He really didn't want to be forced to make a reckless decision.
When the snatchers had been bundled out and the boys were secure in the cellar below, Draco was left with only his parents, Bellatrix and Granger in the room, though the latter was still unconscious.
As Bellatrix paced the room throughout this, Draco had a chance to look a little closer at her face. It was strange. She looked almost peaceful, as if she were sleeping. If it weren't for the blood on her head and hands she might have been.
She had changed noticeably since he'd last seen her at the end of sixth year when he'd fled the castle with the Death Eaters.
She was markedly thinner. Not skeletal – she still had those tantalising curves that had drawn his gaze too many times to count – but there was a certain gauntness to her face and arms that wasn't there before.
Draco blinked a couple of times as he was reminded forcefully of all the evenings and late nights spent in the library pretending to read while he stared at her.
She hadn't really caught his eye until one day in the second half of their fifth year. She had been sitting with her head buried in a book and he hadn't even noticed her when he'd first entered the library. As usual he was being shadowed by Crabbe and Goyle, though he'd tried to discourage them more and more by then. He and Blaise Zabini were firm friends, and he had less and less time for the two goons who didn't even share half a brain between them.
"Draco, where are we?" Gregory had said belligerently in a voice far too loud for the quiet space. Draco had seen the cranky looks directed at him already.
"It's the library, you moron!"
The boys had looked around them in wonderment.
"Woah, there's so many books in here."
"When did it open?"
Draco looked at the two of them in disbelief, too horrified to even laugh.
"Look, juts piss off back down to the common room, alright? The Greengrass sisters have had a box of cakes sent from home."
The two boys immediately smiled matching goofy grins and stumbled off, leaving Draco shaking his head.
It was at that moment, when he had turned around with a grimace that he had found himself looking straight at the Gryffindor princess.
Her hair was piled up in a messy bun with a pencil sticking through it, and her clothes looked a bit ruffled as she peered around the books piled high in front of her.
When their eyes connected, she hadn't been able to contain her cheeky smile that told him she'd heard the exchange with Crabbe and Goyle. At first he had bristled, thinking she was making fun of him somehow. But then he'd seen clearly that there was no artifice in her face – she was a bloody Gryffindor after all, she wore her heart on her sleeve. She had just been genuinely amused by his frustration with the two buffoons and their ignorance. And she hadn't been able to stop the wry grin from teasing at her lips.
Draco had been completely caught off guard by this sudden feeling of camaraderie. He shouldn't have been. Granger and he were by far the two most intelligent students in their year; he supposed it was only right that they share some similar traits – such as their derision of idiotic friends.
Unable to control himself for the first time in many years – he was a Slytherin after all – he had smirked back and rolled his eyes before going and retrieving the book he was after.
Draco could clearly remember how he had cursed himself once she was out of sight. As soon as he had entered the row of shelves he had physically shaken himself and muttered profanity. Stupid Draco! He had taken a while to collect himself before he had returned to the seating area, curious as to how such a small interaction had affected him so much. And to his dismay he had found himself staring at her often for the rest of the evening.
That had been the start of it.
Draco shook his head, clenching and unclenching his fists as he watched her now expressionless face dripping blood on the floor of his parents' drawing room.
What in Merlin's name am I going to do?