Chapter Thirteen: It's a Love Hate Relationship

There was so much blood!

Hermione hadn't seen this much blood since the final battle at Hogwarts and she had always hoped that she would never have to relive something like that ever again. Nevertheless, when Draco apparated into his bedroom literally dripping blood, she had automatically rushed forward to catch his falling body.

They had collapsed to the floor and Hermione had nearly let out a sob, staring at his condition. It was obvious that he had broken several bones in his legs, judging by the way they were awkwardly bent. Opening his shirt, she could see he had severely broken several of his ribs, the bone literally poking out in some places. His knees were shattered, his nose was broken, and each eye was swollen shut. Several lacerations marked his chest and legs. She realized he'd dislocated his shoulder and shattered his collarbone.

She had no idea how he was even breathing.

She yelled for the elf to fetch a medi-wizard from St. Mungos, which sent the elf running, tears streaming down its little face. In the meanwhile, Hermione had to make herself focus. She had to keep Malfoy breathing just until someone from St. Mungos could come and help them. It was all up to her.

But gods, she was about to go into full panic mode!

She remembered the procedures from all of the healing books she'd read and tried to methodically apply them. The first step was always to cast a Stasis Charm so that no splintered bones could puncture vital organs. Yes. She'd done that. Step two...step two...step two... God, Malfoy was going to die and it was all going to be her goddamn fault! Why couldn't she remember step two?

Check for internal bleeding, the voice in her head provided for her. She thoughtlessly followed the advice, hope blooming in her chest. She could remember how to do this properly. She cast the diagnostic spell that she vaguely remembered reading about in the Hogwarts library and four spots on Malfoy's body started to glow a bright shade of blue.

Alright. So he had internal bleeding. Where the fuck were the healers? Right. So she had to stop the internal bleeding... Why the hell were they taking so long, anyways? Something to do with stopping the spread before it increased to an unmanageable state. Didn't they know that a man's life was on the line?

Draco groaned in her arms and she automatically held him closer, panic rising deep in her chest.

"It's okay, Malfoy. They're coming, I swear. I sent your house elf. You just need to breathe, alright? Breathe," she frantically whispered to him.

But all he did was groan and try to shift in her lap.

The moment the elf burst through the door followed by four healers, Hermione burst into tears. She had never been more relieved in her life! She had never been put in a situation where her mind had just clammed up like that, where she'd just been rendered useless. She was glad the healers were there now or Malfoy surely would've died, especially under her inept care. She had no idea what had come over her.

When the healers tried to get Malfoy out of her lap, he would groan and only clutch at her arms harder. So she did what she could, helped the healers stop him from moving around too much, and filled them in on what she had gathered of his injuries. In the end, it had taken seven blood replenishing potions, an entire bottle of skelegrow (which he hadn't taken willingly), and a multitude of stabilizing potions for Draco to be deemed alright enough to be put in bed.

It had taken five hours of continuous work, and crying on Hermione's part, to keep the man alive.

She knew that he needed his rest now, especially for his bones to fix themselves, but all she wanted him to do was wake up and tell her he was alright in that confident, arrogant way of his. She needed to know what it was that had attacked him, put him in such a horrific condition. She needed to know if this was what awaited Hugo.

When the healers levitated Draco into his bed, Hermione willingly went with him without the encouragement of the healers. She had learned in the past five hours that if she thought of letting go of him, he'd start groaning and reaching out for her. It was best to let him rest peacefully. The elf whose name she had forgotten, led the healers out after Hermione had thanked them.

She perched herself next to her childhood enemy in his bed. It was a very surreal situation, to be honest. If someone had told her a few weeks ago that she'd willingly be lying next to a sleeping Draco Malfoy, she would've dismissed them without a second glance.

But now, she couldn't think of any other place she should be.

If there was one thing that Hermione knew she should be doing, it was fulfilling the needs of the man that lay snuggled against her. Because in all reality, he really was doing the world for her. He didn't need to go look for her son, didn't need to keep her safe by keeping her in his house (she had overheard him telling Harry exactly that a few hours previous). But he was and now he was going to be scarred.

The healers had tried their utmost to prevent scarring from the cuts that had been made onto his torso, but they had failed. He would have thin, ropey scars marring his perfect chest for the rest of his life and it was all because of her, she knew.

She was glad that he was going to live, she suddenly realized. Not just because he would find her son (of that she was sure, if he was willing to go to such lengths and come back alive) but because he deserved to live. He was nothing like the boy she remembered from school. Sure, he was still sometimes mean and definitely arrogant, but he was also refined, graceful, and...

Dare she say it?

Hermione quite liked him because it seemed like he cared. Not in the ways that all of her friends did, everyone in Gryffindor had, the way her parents had for her. He was nothing like that. He was subtle and when he showed emotion – it was explosive.

She traced her fingertips over his face, tracing his unnaturally pale, aristocratic features. Even with the dark circles from exhaustion under his eyes and the still fading bruises, he was quite beautiful. His hair was silky between her fingers and it seemed that he liked being petted because he relaxed right into her. She almost smiled at the action. When he pressed his head into the crook of her neck and let out a sigh of contentment, Hermione thought she might just die.

Yes, she wanted him to live and not just to save her son, but also because she just might like him a little more than appropriate.

/

Hugo couldn't exactly place the smell. It was a mixture between burnt plastic, hair, and the time when Manny had accidently left dinner cooking on the stove too long. Whatever the case, the smell was absolutely horrid and Hugo thought he would die breathing in the stench alone.

The man had them sitting in their metal cages surrounded by fires for hours.

Hugo had no idea why the man would do something so... silly. Maybe the man just hated them and wanted them to be hurt and in pain. Hugo didn't know or care either way. He was just pissed off that he was still stuck in this situation in the first place. If only he had opened the door...

If only he hadn't talked to strangers when they called...

But that was all in the past.

He had to focus on the present, he realized. He could only solve the problems of today, not change yesterday. But he would love to have a time turner. He'd read all about them in his mother's books. If he had a time turner, boy would things be different! He'd go back and tell Uncle Harry about the evil man and Uncle Harry surely would lock the man up. Uncle Harry was an Auror. Hugo had read that Aurors caught bad wizards.

Regardless, Hugo knew he was in an unpleasant situation. The fire had burned around him and the others for hours so that he now sat in a puddle of his own sweat. It was quite disgusting if Hugo was being honest with himself, and more than just a little uncomfortable. He longed to take a shower. Longed for a cup of water at least.

The children that had screamed at first from the fire surrounding their cages, had eventually either given up or passed out from the heat. Hugo didn't blame them. It was really, really, really hot, and sitting in a metal cage wasn't helping matters.

But at least the fire didn't burn any of them.

Well, at least the fire hadn't burned him. He couldn't see any of the others over the flames, couldn't see the blonde girl in the cage next to him. He could barely even see his own cage with the fire that surrounded it. But Hugo knew that if the fire were to come any closer, he'd have definitely been burnt to a crisp.

He cringed to think of such a thing but now he knew it was entirely possible. If the man had killed their friend so easily, had called him disposable, then Hugo knew he was just as disposable and that the man wouldn't hesitate making dinner out of him. Hugo wondered if it would hurt very much to be cooked. He immediately decided he really didn't want to find out.

Eventually, the man came back and when he spoke to the children, he really seemed exasperated. Hugo felt irritated at the man. What right did he have to be exasperated when it was Hugo and the other children sitting in metal cages with fires burning all around them? It was uncomfortable, hot, and sweaty! The man had no need to be irritated. It was his fault that they were in this kind of situation, anyways!

"Have you lot no sense of self preservation?" the man nearly snapped. Hugo wanted to respond but refrained from doing so. "Put out the fire, you idiots!"

Hugo didn't know whether he ought to laugh or cry. How was Hugo supposed to put out the fire without any water? Was the man just silly or was he going crazier by the hour? Anyhow, he had no clue how to go about such an impossible task. All he knew was that the man had obviously put the fires up to test them somehow. Test them on something...

Then memories flooded his head.

Of course they were being tested! The man wanted to take their magic away. The little blonde girl had told him so, had told him over and over again. How could he have forgotten? Hugo knew that if he didn't put out the fires, the man would think he had no magic. Hugo knew he did have magic, he'd done it himself, after all. But if he showed the man that he could do magic, the man would take it away and Hugo really didn't want that to happen.

But perhaps it would buy him some much needed time.

Yes, maybe it'd do that. Hugo did need some time to come up with a new plan, after all. Maybe if he put out the fire somehow, then the man would put them all back into their little cellar. And then Hugo could open the door and they could all escape.

Or maybe the man would take his magic and then kill him.

Either way, Hugo was decided. Sitting in his own puddle of sweat and tears was not a fun place to be. Even if he was being kidnapped, he shouldn't have to go through something so icky. And they did need to buy some time. Maybe there would be more tests, more fires after this one. The man was crazy, after all. Hugo was counting on it.

The only problem was that Hugo had no idea how to put a fire out with magic. Come to think of it, Hugo didn't even know how to put fires out without magic. But that wasn't something he should think about. One problem at a time was more than enough to think about.

He was starting to get really itchy. What if he was developing a rash from all the sweat? That would just put a damper on all of his plans, really... But he knew he was getting ahead of himself. Just because he could open a door, didn't mean he was going to escape. In fact, it wasn't even a guarantee. Hugo almost felt stupid for even thinking like that.

But he was getting off track. Right now he had to focus on the fire and putting it out, nothing else! He told his mind that and his mind told him alright. They could work on it together now without any distractions, just like he'd worked on reading through those seven encyclopaedias.

Yes, he could do this.

Could he really do this?

You have to.

So he concentrated, just like he had concentrated on the door. Nothing happened for minutes on end. He could hear the man pacing the room, yelling at them to put the fires out or they'd all suffer the consequences. It made Hugo angry. Who was he to tell them what to do after all he'd done to them? It made Hugo want to jump on the man and beat him with his own stick.

The fires started to dim and Hugo almost gasped in shock. It had worked! Hugo had made the fires go down! Even if it was just a little bit, it still surprised Hugo that he had magic at all. Hugo had always believed that magic came when one went to Hogwarts because then one would get to have their own magic wand. How else were you supposed to do magic?

It was obvious now that he could do magic if he would really, really concentrate hard.

So that's what he did. He concentrated until he thought his head would explode. The fires slowly abated, so slowly that Hugo thought he'd lose his breath before they were completely gone.

By the time they were just a little flame, Hugo was completely exhausted and could do no more. Instead, he lay on the floor of his overheated cage and panted heavily. This would have to do. The man would have to be happy with his efforts because there was no way Hugo could do anything more than this. But if the man beat him with his stick, Hugo knew that he'd try to punch the man, and he really didn't want to die today...

But it appeared as if Hugo had been worrying for nothing, because the man was jumping up and down and clapping excitedly at Hugo's progress and Hugo almost wanted to smile. He would have smiled at the man's excitement if the man wasn't such a nasty, old, evil troll. Hugo almost wished that the man would drop dead right there.

But no such thing happened. The man left them alone in the room.

Looking around, Hugo found the blank little girl staring at him from inside the cage next to him on the left. There were absolutely no flames around her cage, not even little ones like the ones around Hugo's. So it was obvious that the girl knew how to do some magic too and it was obvious that she was better at it than Hugo was.

It seemed that the other children weren't, though, because four of the cages were still engulfed in pillars of flame. Hugo knew that he should help, but he was too tired to even concentrate on making an escape plan, let alone putting out another fire. He had to hope that the other children would catch on and do what he had done. He couldn't see them behind their respective fires.

It seemed like they were all going to be okay, at least that was the thought in his head until he turned to the right to see the progress of the last boy that had been brought in.

Hugo immediately screamed, wishing he hadn't.

While there were no flames surrounding the cage of the new boy, nothing at all, the boy had been burnt to a crisp. All Hugo could see were wide open, bright blue eyes and a charred body.

He promptly turned away and threw up.

/

When Hermione woke up, she felt like she was well rested. She hadn't felt this way since well before Ron had died and it surprised her to feel this way now. In fact, she didn't want to open her eyes. She wanted to pretend that everything was normal, that Hugo was in her bed, and that she worked a job that didn't require such long hours.

She was more than content to just pretend. She could hide until they found her son – or until she was brave enough to face the world, at least. Until then, she'd just...stay here. Wherever here was, it was bloody comfortable.

That is until "here" started moving against her.

Her eyes snapped open and she attempted to bolt straight up in bed, but the pair of arms that were around her stopped her from doing so. She heard a groan from next to her and something muttered unintelligibly. When she looked down, she found a messy head of blonde hair tucked neatly against her.

Then she remembered. Malfoy had come home half dead. Malfoy had had to be saved by healers. His injuries...his blood, Gods his blood. She looked up past his head to the floor where they'd worked on his body. It seemed the elf must have cast a Scourgify, thank God. She didn't want to be reminded of the fact that he had nearly died in her arms. What would she have done then?

But what the hell was she doing now?

This was completely inappropriate, lying in bed with Draco Malfoy of all people. It was completely unprofessional for one thing and just plain wrong on principle for another. He was a Malfoy and she was a Granger/Weasley – people he despised. Just because he was hurt didn't mean she could... what? Soothe him? Did she even want to soothe him?

She didn't give herself the time to answer the question. Instead, she tried to pry his arms open and wriggle her way out of bed, but he did not relent. In fact, all he did was groan and hold her closer like a needy little boy. It was endearing and more than a little creepy. Malfoy being endearing? Hell had definitely frozen over somewhere.

Eventually, he cracked open an eye and glared at her. "Stop moving!" he hissed. "I'm trying to sleep and you're hurting me."

She immediately froze with panicked eyes. "Where does it hurt? What can I do? The healers told me to contact them immediately if you felt any pain... Are the potions wearing off? I can get you some, just-"

He groaned and she immediately shut up. "Did anyone ever tell you that you talk too much, Granger?" he asked and buried his head against her once again. She found the action extremely weird, but didn't say anything. He was on a billion potions. They must have been messing with his judgement.

"Yes, I vaguely remember a bratty little blond boy saying something along the lines..." she muttered quietly. He laughed and then immediately started coughing. All she could do was rub his back and wait for it all to subside. He only pressed closer to her. She found the action almost comforting, that someone like Malfoy needed her for help. "Are you okay?" she finally asked.

He raised his head and gave her a quizzical look. "Do I look okay, darling?" She rolled her eyes and he almost grinned, but she could tell that despite the pain potions he was on, it was an effort. "No. They got me pretty bad. Was a trap...shoulda known..."

But before she could ask him what he was talking about, he had rested his head back into the crook of her neck and fallen blissfully asleep.

There was nothing else to do but follow his example.

/

Many hours later after Hermione had given him a new batch of potions, she finally managed to escape his arms. She almost felt violated, but it wasn't even in a bad way if that made any sense at all. Her mind really didn't make any sense at all, she could tell. Beyond that, she knew she was flailing and hoping to land somewhere that she could actually understand.

Because this, this really wasn't something she could understand.

So she did what she did best. Avoided thinking about the subject and immersing herself in studying the Auror investigation files Malfoy had so thoughtfully nicked for her. Apparently, Malfoy had been the one that had found some sort of lead, the updated files said. She could read Harry's messy scrawl and noted the automatic update time that all the files had.

She realized she must be holding Malfoy's Auror copy file of the case. Harry, since he was head of the investigation and head of the Auror department, had the master file. Anything updated in the master file would automatically be updated in all of the other copies. It was quite a nifty little invention, actually.

Malfoy must have found something important then. But he had told her that it had been a trap. So did the kidnappers know that they were searching for them? Well, that much was obvious, she figured. But did that mean Hugo was already dead? It almost killed her to think it.

She was suddenly startled by a loud shriek noise coming from Draco's room.

Thoughtlessly, she bounded towards the room, thinking that he might've been hurt or something terrible must have happened. But when she stopped in front of the door that stood slightly ajar, she found Draco tickling his son who was shrieking quite loudly. The sight melted her heart.

"PAPA! STOP!" the boy laughed.

"Not until you say sorry!" Malfoy chuckled. His face still had a few bruises that were healing, but the wide smile on his face completely distracted her from them. He seemed happy, almost. Carefree. She had to stop breathing for a second.

"I'm sorry! Sorry! I won't do it again!" the boy said at an incredibly high pitched voice that Hermione almost giggled. Malfoy stopped and kissed his son on the cheek before letting him go. But surprisingly, the boy didn't run away. Instead he started to jump on the bed. "Sorry, papa. I lied."

"Why you little rascal!"

And so the catching and tickling of Scorpius Malfoy ensued with a whole bunch of loud shouts, giggles, and laughs. It made Hermione smile to see Malfoy interacting with his son like that. It made her feel like... well, maybe Malfoy wasn't all that bad a father after all. It was obvious that he loved his son. And she knew from experience that Scorpius was an absolute doll.

What had Astoria ever been afraid of? Draco adored his son. It was as obvious as the sun being out in the day.

She had to admit though; this affectionate, loving side of Malfoy was goddamn attractive.