Chapter Four.

The Visitor

The next few weeks went about the same. Jane would get up to find him in the kitchen waiting for her. He would never ask for help with the cooking, but she would occasionally catch glances of him watching how she did certain things. His clumsy, unsure movements became more and sure until he was sometimes already eating by the time that she made it downstairs to the kitchen. She had gotten a laugh out of him trying to use the appliances. He took the time to explain to her that with magic, they didn't need them. She relished in the fact that he seemed to be coming out of his shell with her.

"We need to go shopping today." She said through a mouthful of toast. She was sitting on one of the cluttered counters while he sat on his usual stool on the other side of the room.

He didn't say anything as he cut those intense grey eyes up at her.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm tired of seeing you wear and re-wear the same pieces of clothing that you came with." He still didn't say anything, but he did turn his attention back to his breakfast, which she took as a good to go. "Have you ever been shopping in a muggle town before?"

"No. My family wouldn't have been caught in a muggle town."

She knew the answer but his frankness took her by surprise.

"Why did your family and you hate muggles so much?" The sincerity of the question was the only reason why he didn't bite her head off. He didn't like thinking about his family, or their pure-blooded antics.

"I didn't hate muggles." He wanted so badly to tell her that he wasn't like his family. That he had played into and believed the pure-blood madness to a point, but there was another part of him that saw Hermione Granger besting everyone at everything. That part of him knew that the pure-blood is better than all crap was just that, crap.

"Why did your family hate us then?" Her voice small this time, timid. She knew that she was walking a tight line and she very close to crossing into forbidden territory with him. He didn't usually talk a lot and the long hours between meals he always spent upstairs in his room. She had refrained from questioning him about anything too personal, until now. She really wanted to know more about him though, it was her job after all. She was already getting post from ministry officials wanting updates about him, and she didn't really have anything to say about him, other than he could now feed himself without magic and operate a blender.

"Because they did." His voice was quiet but not calm. She knew better than to ask the other questions bouncing around in her mind, so she sat silently watching him. He closed his eyes tight, she could tell the inner conflict was happening again. It was a long moment before he looked back up at her. "My father believed it because his father taught him to. His father before him had a father that believed the same things, and his father before him… and so it went… back further and further in our history." He licked his lips and looked down at his plate. "It's like they were brainwashed, and they couldn't see beyond their own little world to realize that there was another world out there… and it didn't believe what they did."

Jane dropped her own gaze back down to her plate. Draco glanced back up at her to see her, she was almost hidden behind the curtain of her dark hair. "Do you know how many pure-blood families there are in the magical world?" he tried to contain the bitterness he felt but failed. She didn't say anything out loud, she just shook her head. The gesture made her seem smaller than she was. "Twenty-eight. There are twenty-eight pure-blood families, and you know what would have happened to me if the Dark Lord would have succeeded?"

She shook her head again but at least found the nerve to look up at him again. "I would've been married off to a girl from one of those families. We're all kind of related in one way or another, so I would've been married off to some form of a distant cousin, and then it would have been up in the air whether we would have been able to have kids that where… alright. My own mother only carried one healthy child herself. Do you want to know what happened to all the rest?"

The horrified expression that took over her features told him that she didn't, but she said no all the same. She noted how the pain in his face wasn't the usual sneer that he sometimes wore to stop her from getting too close to him. That sneer was a mask, but this… this was real.

"I suppose." Her voice stopping in her throat awkwardly, she looked like she was trying to choose her next words very carefully. "That it's another good thing to come out of Voldemort not winning."

He cringed inwardly at the mention of the Dark Lord's name, but he refused to break eye contact with her. "Yeah. I suppose it is."

Neither could come up with anything else to say. Draco tried hard to ignore the nervous glances that she would send his way and tried hard to think of something to say to make the tension go away. The sudden knock on the door made both of them jump slightly.

"I'll get it," Jane said quietly as she rushed the room.

Draco watched her leave and let out the frustrated sigh that he had been holding. He hadn't told anyone all the rage that he felt about the past. He was glad that his future wasn't supposed to pan out the way it was originally planned, but it still made him angry. The thought that his father would have married him off to someone that he didn't care for at all, and that the man had no regard at all of how that decision would've made Draco miserable his whole life. He wasn't sure what made him snap and tell her all of that, but he would have to watch himself from now on. He couldn't afford to keep putting that kind of information out there. He knew that the ministry would be questioning her regularly. He was here, cut off from the magical world, but he hadn't been pushed aside and forgotten. He was sent here to be punished, a thought that he frequently reminded himself of whenever he found himself making horrible thoughts of the muggle work. He had never had to make up his own bed, or cut vegetables by hand for dinner or use his own hands to clean the dishes after a meal. He was capable, the lack of magic had proven that to him more than he would've guessed, but he still hated the fact that he was taking the time to do things that a wave of a wand could've done in seconds before.

The sound of voices coming up the short hallway broke him from his own thoughts. Jane came back into the kitchen, a rare smile on her face. "You have a visitor."

Visitor? Draco turned his attention to the door where none other than Hermione Granger followed Jane into the small kitchen. She looked better than the last time he'd seen her at the ministry. That was about a month ago, she seemed to have been getting more sleep, the dark circles under her eyes were lighter, and her frame looked like it had filled out too. He hadn't noticed how thin she was at the ministry until seeing her now with a more healthy amount of weight on her.

"Granger!" The shock of seeing her played out in his voice. He thought that he was supposed to be cut off from the magical world, why was she here.

"Draco." She nodded at him with a small smile. She looked a little uncomfortable, but she was handling the awkwardness well.

"Is there something wrong?" Draco was already on his feet, he took a couple steps towards her before stopping. Unsure if she would want him to approach her or not. "My mother…"

"Is fine!" Granger said quickly "She was given the same rehabilitation as you." The shock on his face was almost comical. She let out a small chuckle before she went on, "Harry went to her trial too. She was taken to her new muggle home the day after you were brought here. It took her a couple weeks to come to terms that she didn't have magic anymore, but she seems to be coming out of her shell pretty well now."

"You've seen her?" He took another step towards her.

Jane silently watched the pair of them with interest. She could barely believe that he almost seemed happy to see this woman, he had been pleasant enough after the tension of that first day, but she knew he wasn't happy. The two of them obviously shared some sort of history, but after reading his file she couldn't see how it would have been decent history. Nevertheless, there was something about the two of them, they seemed drawn to one another. Maybe it was just because she was the first person from his world that he had seen in a while, but that didn't really explain why the excitement seemed to be mutual.

"Yes, I've seen her." Granger gave him a sincere smile. "I've been tasked with keeping up with the two of you."

"You work for the ministry now?" Some of the excitement in his voice diminished slightly. Maybe she's just here before she has to be, He thought to himself.

"Yes, but that's not exactly why I'm here." Her eyes flitted towards the other woman standing in the kitchen for a second before her attention fell back on him. "Jane told me that you guys were going shopping today. I figured I could tag along. I need to get some things for your mother. She's making good strides, but she isn't ready for muggle outings yet. I thought that you could help me pick her out some things. She would like that, you know."

Draco found himself nodding his head, both in agreement that his mother would like that and in disbelief that Hermione Granger was standing in front of him talking about shopping with him and showing genuine compassion towards his mother.

"Great!" Jane said, clapping her hands together in front of her. The sound made both Hermione and Draco flinch. "We need to get changed. Draco, you don't want to go out in your pajamas."

Draco looked down at the plaid printed fleece pants that he was wearing and the white t-shirt. Hermione could've sworn that his cheeks flushed a shade of pink before he composed himself.

"Yeah, you're right." His voice was calmer than Hermione remembered from Hogwarts. He was just… talking. There wasn't a hint of a sneer or disgust in his voice as he excused himself from the room. Hermione could hear the sound of his footsteps going up the creaky stairs.

"He seems… good." Hermione turned her attention back to the other woman. Jane Sharpe. She hadn't had the pleasure of meeting her yet, so the shock of seeing such a young woman had to have shown on her face when Jane opened the door.

Jane shrugged slightly. "He's getting there. He hasn't really talked much, even though he has been receptive to learning the muggle ways. He did admit to some stuff today, I think that he is harboring a lot of bad feelings about stuff that's not going to happen anymore. I'm not sure how to help him."

"What kind of stuff?" Hermione asked. Jane quietly went off in an explanation about everything that Draco had said to her over breakfast, leaving Hermione perplexed. She hadn't ever known the extent of Lucius' control over his son, but the thought of him being forced to marry seemed excessive. It did make sense to her though, they would have done just about anything to keep their bloodline "pure". The thought of it made her shudder.

Their conversation was cut short by the sound of the creaking stairs as Draco came back down the stairs. Jane gave Hermione an encouraging smile as she passed Draco in the hallway to get herself ready for the day out.