A/n: this is long overdue, while I have no real excuses other than I just wasn't happy with it and I felt I was cheating you with a subpar chapter, I , like Severus, must beg forgiveness. Hope you enjoy.
Hermione woke up once again in the large poster bed of Draco Malfoy's bedroom. This time however she wasn't alone pressed against her back was the blond in question. She started to panic had she made a mistake, no her clothing was intact and she didn't have that post sex ache.
"Stop over analyzing things," his voice carried sleepily over her shoulder. "I can feel you thinking so hard it woke me."
"Sorry. I had a slight gap in how we ended up like this. Thank you for the safe landing place." She said rolling to look at him.
"I would not have taken advantage of your emotional state, even if you had insisted. Friends first, it's what you said remember." He stroked her hair. "Though this wasn't such a horrible way to wake."
"Your bed is quite comfortable, I should get home. I'll shower and dress. If you floo over you can join me for breakfast in about 45 minutes." She said squirming out of his arms.
"Then to Spinner's End?" He asked releasing her from his grasp.
"Yes, the anticipation is killing my composure. If I can just get this last first over, maybe my life will go back to normal." She smiled.
"Life will never be normal, we were born into the same year as Potter." He laughed as she rolled her eyes.
"It can get less exciting then." She said before trying to tame her mess of hair into a plait. She had given up after two failed attempts of trying to untangle it. "I'll see you in a bit then."
"Yeah, three quarter hour. " he confirmed rolling off his side of the bed and walking her to the floo. "See you then."
She pecked his cheek and stepped through to her own flat. Shaking her head and wondering what had come over her, spooning with Draco , seeking comfort from Draco, thinking of Malfoy as Draco, worst of all kissing Draco. Her musing was interupted by a familiar voice calling her out of her reverie.
"Hermione where have you been?" The male before her asked, giving herself time to realize that it was Harry and Ron sitting on her couch.
"We were ready to send a search party. You didn't answer our owls yesterday or any floo calls," Ron complained.
"I was at McKinnon Manor, I spoke with my mother's protrait. I just came from Draco's we are going to Spinner's End today."
"Why the bloody hell were you over there so early?" Ron asked.
"Umm just you know confirming plans he is going to be here in a half hour. I need to get ready and eat still, either make yourselves useful or leave." She stated by the end a bit more confident.
"We'll go but perhaps a visit soon yeah?" Harry said pushing Ron towards the floo but giving Hermione a knowing glance.
"Yes, I'll owl you, lunch this week I'm sure we can swing it." She said as Harry all but pushed Ron through the floo.
"I don't know if this is a coping mechanism, but Sirius told me he is trying to get you out of the bethroal, you don't have to be with him." Harry state cautiously.
"He makes things easy, we aren't sleeping together Harry, but he doesn't ask asinine questions and he understands how weird the bethroal is. It's nice. I'm not being irresponsible just hiding for a bit." She reassured her best friend.
"Know that we are here." He told her with a quick hug he too joined Ron through the floo.
The floo roared again as she stepped out of her room plaiting her hair after her shower.
"I'm sorry I'm late," he said brushing the soot from his sleeves.
"It's a good thing or you'd have caught me in the shower, I had guests when I got in." She explained as the timer on her stove dinged. She walked over and pulled out a breakfast quiche.
"Here? Who? How did they get in?" He sounded panicked for her.
"Yes here, my wards are keyed in to Harry and Ron," she laughed at his concerned tone.
"Ah they had started the search party had they?" She had set two places by this point at her breakfast nook and directed him to sit.
"Essentially yes. I may have fib and told Ron I had just popped over to chat with you but I'm sure Harry knew I'd been out all night."
"Has he given you the speech of how I'm not safe?" Draco asked between bites.
"No but he reassured me that they were there for me and I didn't have to just rely on you." She rolled her eyes and he chuckled.
"We'll have to aparate as Severus shut the floo connection before we left the last time." He told her. "I know it's not the most convenient but I will side aparate you."
"I suppose breakfast wasn't the best plan then." She cringed.
"It won't be so bad," he assured her and they finished their meal in silence. When they had cleaned up they headed down to the alley behind Hermione's building and apparated to Spinner's End.
Hermione shivered as they landed much more smoothly than she had expected.
"He lived here?" She asked surveying the gloomy neighbhood.
"Mmhmm, it's a wonder why. He could have moved the man owns the rights to well over half of the modified medical potions at Mungo's." Draco said leading her towards a row house not unlike number 12. "Though I suppose you do now, come on, here we are." Draco pulled a small dagger from his cloak and requested her hand she gave it to him and he pricked her finger causing her to screech.
"Really Hermione I know you had to give blood to both of those cauldrons not two days ago." He teased as he pressed her bleeding finger to the door.
"Yes well I knew what was happening then and I did it magically." She said as she nursed her finger. He pulled her hand back to his and sealed the wound with his wand.
"It wouldn't have worked. He charmed it so that someone could not magically force you to open the door. You had to willingly give your blood. Open the locks now a charm should do it. "
She said the incantation and the lock popped allowing Draco to open the door. "I would have but it was registered to your signature." She nodded he started to enter but she stood frozen outside the home. "Hermione, are you coming."
"I, umm, yeah." She stuttered, she had been comfortable entering the McKinnon estate, fear had gripped her at Spinner's End. Draco turned back and took her hand.
"Hey, it's alright, he wanted you. He wants to tell you that even if it's only through an oil canvas." Draco assured her. "Plus if you think my bookshelves are impressive you will never leave the library here. The rarest texts I've seen outside of my parents home. "
This caused her to crack a smile and her feet began to move again. She followed Draco through to the library. The house had clearly been put under a stasis charm as there was no dust in the home but it was eerily quiet, until they cracked the door to the large library. It was twice the size of the library at Grimmauld Place, and the texts ranged from the dark arts to transfiguration and charms. While his passion was the dark arts and his craft potions he had been very well read in all aspects of magic.
"Daughter, I see Mr Malfoy must have bribed you with the contents of my library to get you here." A voice shattered the silence. The oil painting hanging behind a large mahogany desk came alive as its subject spoke to the pair.
"He did boast of its rarities a little." She said making her way across the room to the protrait of the man who was, for all scientific purposes, her father.
"Well done godson, now what you are looking for is in my den third shelf beside the fire place. I'd like like to speak to her alone surely you understand," Draco nodded as Hermione sat in the large leather seat. " I must apologize child. I had hoped to be able to tell you all these things in person. Did I see you before I passed, I only hold the memories I infused myself with before I left, before September 1997."
"Yes, Harry, Ron and I were with you when you passed. You gave him a vial of memories and reached for my hand, but nothing you said nothing!" By the end she was near tears, things she had forgotten until that morning had rushed into her mind.
"I couldn't jepordize you Hermione, it was too close to the end. My last selfish act where you were concerned was to keep you in the dark incase Potter did not come back from the dark forest where Voldemort held camp. The Dark Lord would have killed you had he known who you truly were, the natural power you held. You are exceptional at any type of magic and would have been a large threat to him given your allegiance the Order." Oil painting was not warm and life like, unlike her mother's but did embody the professor she knew. The words however were those of a man who wanted nothing more than to save his child, the compassion she would expect from Arthur Weasley or Sirius of their children and surrogate children.
"Why not tell me as soon as you knew. How did you find out anyway?" She questioned he foot tapping as she looked at him.
"Hermione Lily, you will stop that infernal tapping or I shall refuse to answer your questions." Her foot stopped instantly. He had called her by her birth name. The name Marlene had given her. The one that paid homage to a friend both of her parents held dear. "Thank you, now I found out when you were in the infirmary following that ridiculous stunt your band of miscreants decided was an act of heroism in your fifth year. Madame Pomfery had me look you over as Dolohov had used a rare curse on you, one he had created, you were in need of a transfusion as opposed to just replenishing potions once we had reversed the damage, as it happened we shared a rare blood type, AB negative, I may or may not have take some of yours to study before the transfusion as it is thought to be a carrier of rare magical powers. I ran basic tests on your parentage for data and to appease my mind. You had always reminded me of both Lily and Marlene I had an unquenched thirst for the knowledge. When my name appeared beside Marlene's on the parchment after the spell, I knew she had hid you for safety. It took me all summer to wrestle my demons about going to you. The morning I chose to set out to London Narcissa and Bellatrix came to me to protect Draco. After that it was no longer safe for you to be my child even in my mind. It was a fact I buried deep in my memories in hopes that even under the most excruciating torture it would not come out. I beg of you to forgive a foolish man the need to protect his child, even one he had no hand in raising."
"You can't say you had no hand in raising me." She paused "you were my professor, your rigorous sometimes down right mean teaching methods were what shaped my drive. Surely as a man of science you've heard of nature vs. nurture. I believe there is some science to the nature part."
"Be that as it may, I was not the father I had hoped to be, I've also saddled you with the responsibility of marrying that prat who by this time is most likely eavesdropping in the hallway. Lucius and I have been through the contract a million times there are no outs in it, you can tell that mangy mutt to stay out of Prince affairs as well."
"How did you know Sirius was back let alone looking into it?" Hermione asked.
"This isn't my only portrait daughter, while it may not have been for a full year I was still a hogwarts headmaster and your friend Mr Potter ensured my painting was hung next to Dumbledore when school let in this year. Phineas Nigelus has a rather large penchant for boasting about this decendants as well as the fact he came to Minerva about it."
"He offered right after I found out about my parentage. I didn't think a fresh set of eyes would hurt, I'll let him know it's not necessary." She bowed her head slightly embarrassed.
"I'm not cross with you darling. I'm cross with myself and Black, he grew up in a noble house he knows better than to meddle. You are affianced to Draco as such he is the only one with the right to look into McKinnon and Prince affairs on your behalf, which I'm sure he will do should you ask." He said finally sitting in the chair in his portrait. "Now tell your father about the last three years since I closed this house up, from your point of view."
She smiled and began to recount her time from the wedding at the Burrow she had reached the point of being caught by snatchers when Draco joined them. He filled in the blanks on where and what the two men had been doing and when they went seperate ways at the appropriate spots. She vaguely described her projects at the department of mysteries to her father and as the sun began to set out the window once more she found herself saying goodbye to an oil paint version of one of her parents.
"I do hope you will visit again soon. Do not feel you must though," Severus spoke as Draco had bid ado to the pair saying he would wait for her outside.
"I'll be back father, if for nothing else the books and intelligent conversation." She assured him.
"I can't imagine the lack of it else where, what with the company you still keep." He drawled causing her to laugh.
"They truly aren't that horrible. Draco has been filling that void this week."
"Indeed. Daughter, you don't have to keep this house. Just promise should you sell it move my protrait to somewhere more populated, while I enjoy my solitude it does get boring and storage seems like such a waste." He requested.
"Perhaps you are also in need of intelligent conversation, I'll look into it for you."
"That would would be a welcome change." He smiled down at her a soft not overbearing smile, just the type you would expect from one such as Severus Snape. "Until next time Hermione. "
"Until then Father."