A/N: I'm so sorry …. my computer broke and I had to get a new one..... I felt like I was abandoning all of my readers. But I will not keep u waiting that long again!!!!!

I really liked this chapter …... not too much happens but it sets a lot up for next chapter which … I'm just gonna say ….is gonna be really good …. you should all leave comments …. I might post faster!!!!

Chapter 12

Draco lifted the unconscious body of Harry Potter and followed a crying Hermione up the stairs to what looked to be the master bedroom. On the walk up the stairs, Draco ran through a number of thoughts in his mind. 'How did this happen?' -was a major thought. Draco knew immediately when he saw Harry's eyes that he had been possessed by Voldemort, or that some part of Voldemort was being channeled through Harry. And while the thought alone made Draco want to run out of the house before Harry woke up with those red eyes again, he knew he couldn't leave Hermione here alone, whether it be to protect her or to support her while her best friend recovered.

He laid Harry down on the bed and conjured a comfortable lounge chair to sit in and watched as Hermione climbed up on the master bed to sit next to Harry. She pulled out her wand and began running medical tests on Harry. After about twenty minutes of hearing her run about fifteen basic spells, he heard her cry out in exasperation. He looked up to see that she had thrown her wand across the bed and was now crying in Harry's chest.

"There's nothing wrong with him!!!" she said, tears still streaming down her face. Draco had to wonder how a girl could cry so much for so long.

"He has no temperature, his vitals are fine, and his magical energy is high. I don't know what it could be." She said picking her wand off the bed where it had fallen when she threw it.

Draco stood and walked around the bed to the hysterical girl and took her wand. He waved it over the boy and a blue projection of Harry Potter rose off the bed. As he waved the wand over different parts of his body Draco could see in squiggly writing:

Harry Potter

Age-17

Weight- 158

Nationality –Scottish/Irish

Status-living

Currently- sleeping

Medications-none …

The list went on and on but Draco got what he needed and ended the spell.

Hermione who for a few seconds into the spell tried to get her wand back now sat staring up at him. "What did you do? -What did you see?"

"Relax Granger, Potters just sleeping. If he doesn't wake up by noon tomorrow, we will call Pomphry."

Hermione, for whatever reason, burst into tears again and launched herself at Draco, engulfing him in the tightest hug he had ever received. He was startled for a moment but quickly wrapped his arms around the girl and lifted her into the air like she was a child. He carried her over to the chair he had conjured. He sat and lowered her onto his lap.

Draco had little experience with crying girls so he did the first thing that came to his mind. As she sat there on top of him almost completely curled up in a ball with her head on his shoulder, Draco began kissing the top of her head. After what seemed like an hour, she looked up at him. With her eyes still red with tears and the imprint of his shirt on her cheek, Draco smiled.

"You are beautiful, you know that right?" Draco said staring into her eyes.

If he had any other look on his face, she probably would have hexed him for making fun of her. But instead she just wiggled off his lap, blushing.

"I have to use the ladies room, why don't you meet me down in the kitchen and we can have something to eat, I'm starved," she said all this without looking at him then rushed out of the room.

He took another look at Harry, glad that he wasn't awake to see that and followed Hermione out of the room.

He followed his memory back down to the kitchen and sat patiently to wait for Hermione. After a few minutes, his growling stomach got the better of him and he walked over to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of pumpkin juice. But when he turned around to sit back at the table, he nearly tripped over an elf.

"My name is Creature and you are most welcome in my mistress's house." Draco nodded toward the elf, "If there is anything you will be needing, Master, let Creature know," the elf said before bowing and muttering a few incoherent words as he rushed off.

Hermione chose that moment to enter the kitchen just as creature rushed off.

"Now that's a proper house elf," Draco said, sitting at the table, "Why did he call me master?"

"Well I suppose that you are Creature's dream come true, a pure blood, and a Black," she said, opening the icebox and pulling out the juice and coming to sit next to Draco.

"And he probably thinks you are here to rid the house of filth." At Draco's questioning look, she tilted her glass toward herself.

A look of anger crossed over the face of Draco Malfoy. Hermione was quite used to that particular face being directed at herself, Ron or Harry.

Draco stood up took a deep breath to calm himself and… "Creature!!" Almost instantly the elf appeared bowed at Draco's feet.

"Creature, can you tell me about this girl here?" Draco said in an evenly calm voice as he motioned his head toward Hermione. The elf perked up, clearly eager to reveal to his master what trash was living in the house.

"Yes, yes Master. This girls name is Hermione. She is filthy Mudblood vermin, sir, and my Mistress would keel over in her grave to have such trash sitting at her table. She kisses the Potter boy and she also kisses one of the red haired blood traitors…" The elf was cut off by Draco holding up a hand to stop him before he said something that would end his own life.

"Creature?" Draco said in a voice that gave Hermione goose bumps.

"Yes Master?" the elf responded clearly not noting the tone of Draco's voice.

"Master … you view me as your true and rightful master, am I correct?" The elf nodded eagerly.

Draco put a clearly fake smile on his face to fool the elf, "… why?"

"You are a good pure blood master, sir." Draco took a deep breath as the elf continued, "Not a half blood blood traitor like Potter or worse the blood traitor that was my mistresses son Sirius Blac-"

Hermione hadn't seen Draco's arm move or connect with the elf but within seconds the elf was hanging in there air held up only by Draco's fingers around his neck.

"Draco!!! You put him down this instant." Hermione had jumped up from her chair and was trying to pull down Draco's arm.

"Do you see who is defending you?" he said to the trembling elf that he dropped on the floor.

"Y-yes Master Draco, sir."

"I think you should properly thank her. She is a mistress in this house and you will from this day forth obey her as you would me. Have I made myself clear?"

The elf nodded eagerly.

"I'm glad. I wouldn't like to you to be the second house elf cast off by a Malfoy."

"No sir, never sir. Thank you, Mistress Granger," he said with one quick breath.

"You may go. And why don't you try and do some cleaning?" Draco said as the elf scurried off.

He turned to Hermione fully expecting the look that was awaiting him.

"Draco, how dare you! I do not need you to defend my honor. Creature is troubled and he can't be held accountable for what he says."

"How much do you know about elfin history?"

"Enough to know that they have been enslaved for hundreds of years and mistreated by horrible pure blood wizards like you!" she yelled at him, trying not to show that she regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth.

The words stung Draco. He thought that he had changed her view of him in the last few weeks. But he had mistreated her for years, so he figured she was right to question his change in behavior. He took a breath and began to explain the history of house elves to her.

"Elves were once powerful magical beings. They go back hundreds of years before Merlin and for a few hundred years lived harmoniously amongst wizards. Their government and ours worked together." He saw the wheels in Hermione's mind whirling as she formed a new approach towards S.P.E.W. It probably had something to do with 'bringing back the old days of peace and cohabitation' or something.

"They used wandless magic, extremely powerful, but because the Elvin woman can only have one litter in a life time, except for the queen who never dies and can have a litter per year, wizards began to outnumber them quite quickly. When wizards became more civilized and created wizarding towns and schools, the elves thought we would try and take over their governments." He looked at her face, now completely entranced in the story.

"They attacked us, Hermione, children at school, people at work, elves flooded and attacked. We fought back and caught the queen, and in exchange for not wiping out the race of elves, she promised them to a life of happy servitude." Hermione still looked in awe of the story, so he continued.

"We let the queen be freed after one full life span of an elf so the oldest of her subjects was born into servitude. They were no longer loyal to her, and she was powerless and destined to live eternity alone. She hasn't been seen in over 1000 years."

Hermione looked like a child listening to their favorite story. She had both elbows on the table and she was resting her head in her hands staring intently at Draco waiting for him to finish the story.

"Now, wizards have bred elves to be loyal and hard working because that is what most wizarding families want. But there are some pure blood families that breed hostility and anger into the elves like the Blacks. Creature was trained as was his father and mother to hate all things that weren't strictly dark magic, and back in the day when wizarding-muggle relationships were so taboo that if a father were to find out his son had been with a Muggle, he was forced a stripping potion and he lost his magic. He was then exiled to live in the Muggle world, while more often than not the Muggle was killed off." Hermione was horrified; she knew how strict pure blood families were back then, but stripping their own child of magic and killing his mate seemed barbaric.

"I was just trying to protect you Hermione; he is more dangerous than you think." Draco said, taking her hand and kissing it before rising from the table and walking back over to the ice box.

He pulled out eggs and all the ingredients for the best omelet Hermione had ever eaten. They ate mostly in silence, both deep in thought about what had happened that day.

Deep, deep in the mountains, in a castle hidden from most of the wizarding population and the entire Muggle world, Voldemort sat in his throne room, trying to plan his next move.