{ Chapter Thirteen }
Draco didn't sleep well at all that night. Too much had happened; too much had changed. The next afternoon he found himself in his study reviewing case files, but unable to concentrate on them. He wasn't surprised at all when the fire glowed green and Harry stepped through.
"I wondered when you would show up. I really thought you would be here hours ago."
Harry didn't answer him at first. He plopped down in the armchair and sighed heavily. Draco waited and watched as Harry opened his mouth several times to speak but nothing came out.
"I didn't want to interrupt your honeymoon," he finally managed to respond.
Draco rolled his eyes. He expected shit from Potter about the whole situation. He had just really hoped it would wait a few days.
"I know you have a million questions, so just spit it out, Potter."
"Right. It was in her journal, wasn't it? That's how you knew?"
"Not exactly." He closed the file in front of him, knowing this would be a long conversation and he wasn't likely to get any more work done. "I told you it was a list of books and references. It was her research on the curse. I followed the research and put two and two together."
Harry regarded him for a long moment. It seemed like he couldn't decide which question to ask next. Suddenly he stood up and glared at Draco.
"Dammit Malfoy! I'm your partner and she's my best friend. You should have told me what the hell was going on!"
Draco stood also and met Harry's glare.
"What would you have done? If I told you a year ago that she was still at his house against her will? That he could be forcing her to do things she didn't want to do and she had no way to fight back? That without another message from her to let us know she was alive, he could have easily killed her and buried her in their backyard for all we knew and no one would ever know the difference? So what would you have done with that information, Potter?"
Harry's face had turned dark red as his anger mounted. Anger at Ron for what he had done to Hermione. Anger at Draco for knowing what was going on and not telling him. Anger at himself for not knowing. And anger again at Draco for being so damn right not to tell him.
"That's exactly why I didn't tell you. You would have tipped him off that we knew and he would have taken it out on her. I couldn't take that chance!"
Harry had the strong urge to throw something. He settled for smacking his palm on desk.
"I should have known!" He turned around and paced back and forth a few times before returning to stand in front of the desk. "I need to know what happened. I need to know what he did to her."
Draco's eyes snapped to his. They were hard and cold. Harry almost flinched just from that look.
"I didn't ask her and I have no intention of doing so. If she wants us to know, she'll tell us when she's ready."
Harry was taken aback by the fierce protectiveness in his voice. It brought him to the other question that he had. The other reason that he had come over. He couldn't think of a good transition to the topic, so figured he would just jump in with both feet.
"Were you and Hermione secretly involved at Hogwarts?"
Draco barked out a laugh and ran his hand through his hair.
"Why in Merlin's name would you think that? We hated each other in school. Everyone knows that."
Harry turned away from the desk and walked across the room to stare out the window as he thought about their Hogwarts days.
"Did you really? She defended you a lot back then, you know."
Draco went completely still at those words.
"She defended me? When? Why?"
"Sixth year, when I was convinced you were up to something."
"You were right. I was." Draco's hands balled into fists. He wasn't proud of the things he had done that year, and he didn't like being reminded of them.
"Yeah, I was right, but she spent the whole year trying to convince me that I was wrong."
Draco swallowed thickly. Why would she have done that? He was a complete ass to her in school.
"When I hit you with the sectumsempra curse, she didn't talk to me for weeks. She went to visit you in the hospital wing, more than once."
"You're full of shit, Potter. She never visited me in the hospital wing. Why in Merlin's name would she do that?"
Harry turned away from the window to look at his partner. He looked to be genuinely surprised. But Harry knew it to be true. He had watched her on the marauder's map. She had stayed there with him for hours.
"You tell me, Malfoy." The room was silent for a long moment as the two men glared at each other.
"She even defended you after we were captured and she was tortured right in front of you and you did nothing! She insisted that you were as much a prisoner as we were. Ron and I, we just thought she was naïve, wanting to see good in people that wasn't really there. But it was more than that, wasn't it?"
"That's enough Harry."
Both men snapped their heads toward the clearly angry female voice. Hermione was standing just inside the doorway wearing jeans, a brown sweater and brown boots. Her hair fell in soft curls over her shoulders. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her brown eyes flashed with anger.
"I was naïve about a lot of things back then Harry, and it ended up costing me five years of my life. But I wasn't being naïve about Draco. I was right about him, and you know it. You work with him every day. You know that he's not the evil git that you thought he was back then."
"Yeah, I know that now, but how did you know back then?" Harry crossed the room to stand in front of her. His green eyes were flashing with anger as he stared into her brown ones for the first time in years. "If the two of you weren't involved, how did you know?"
"Because I pay attention, Harry." She took two steps away from him. "You would have known too if you could have looked past your hatred and bias."
Harry turned and paced away from her, running his hands through his hair in frustration. He was getting nowhere with this. Apparently they were both sticking to the same story. It was time for a new tactic.
"Fine. If it wasn't at Hogwarts, then when was it? You and Ron got married six months after the Final Battle, and you spent most of that time in Australia looking for your parents. It just doesn't make any sense! You hated each other in school. You had one conversation, what, three years ago? About Hermione's work? That you said you didn't even pay attention to? And now suddenly the two of you are in love? What the hell am I missing?"
Draco and Hermione's eyes widened.
"Woah. Wait a minute, Potter. No one ever said anything about love here." Draco waved his hand between himself and Hermione. "We did what we had to do to get her out of Weasley's grasp. That's all."
"Exactly!" Hermione nodded her head in agreement.
Harry looked from one to the other in bewilderment. Could it be possible that they didn't know? That they didn't see what everyone else had seen the day before? He reached into his cloak and pulled out the Daily Prophet from that morning and tossed it on the desk.
"In that case, the two of you put on one hell of a show."
Hermione crossed the room to stand beside Draco as he opened the paper. On the front page was a picture of the two of them standing in the corridor outside the courtroom. They were staring into each other's eyes, and then they were kissing. The image repeated in a continual loop.
"Holy shit." She swallowed thickly as she watched. They looked like lovers that had been reunited after a long absence. "It's not what it looks like, Harry. And you should know better than to believe anything that Rita Skeeter writes."
"What is it then, Hermione?" His eyebrows rose. "Explain it to me."
"It's none of your damn business, Potter." Draco dropped the newspaper back down on the table. His eyes remained on the image, though.
Hermione felt her anger rising. She clenched her hands into fists in an effort to control it, but just the thought that Harry could actually believe the rubbish in the paper, that he could actually think that she and Draco had been secret lovers for years and had planned this elaborate ruse just to get him thrown in Azkaban. Why? For what reason or purpose? Why not just kill the bastard and be done with it?
"You want to know what it was, Harry? Why I kissed him? How about gratitude? Or relief? You have no idea what it was like, being trapped in that house day in and day out, a prisoner in your own fucking home for years. Years, Harry! With nothing to do but wait and hope that Draco would figure it out. That he would do what needed to be done, knowing what would be at stake for him. You have no idea, Harry, so don't you dare judge me." The air around her practically sizzled with her anger.
"You're right. I don't have any idea. Give me an idea. Tell me."
Draco's hand hit the desk and echoed off the walls as he stood and glared at Harry.
"Dammit Potter. You just couldn't resist, could you? I told you she would talk when she wanted to talk. You don't have to tell him anything, Hermione."
Hermione glared at Harry for a few long moments. Her anger was simmering just below the surface. Her eyes were narrowed, and her hands were clenched into tight fists.
"What the hell do you think it was like? You don't really want to know, Harry. You want me to say 'oh, don't worry; it wasn't all that bad really.' Or maybe you want me to tell you that even though he had the power over me, he didn't abuse it. Well, I can't tell you those things because they aren't true." She wiped angrily at the tears that had started to fall and took a few deep breaths. Draco reached for her but she shrugged him off and took several steps back.
"On our wedding night he told me he had something special planned. I was nervous and excited and, what was the word you used? Oh yeah, naïve. He caught me off guard because I trusted him, because I thought I loved him. Love. Ha! He never loved me. He never wanted me. All he wanted was to prove to himself that I was nothing. That he had outsmarted me. Fucking asshole."
"Hermione, you really don't have to do this." Draco approached her slowly. The air around her was still sizzling, literally, with sparks radiating from her aura sproradically.
"No, I do. You both want to know, don't you? It's okay. I'll tell you. But we are having this conversation only one time and then we are never discussing it again. Do you both understand?" Her eyes were practically glowing. Draco tried to get closer to her, but the static field around her held him back. Harry had sensed it too and both men had their wands out and ready. Uncontrolled magic of this magnitude could cause a lot of damage. They needed to be ready for it.
Hermione started pacing back and forth across the room, trying to calm herself down. She knew she was upset and angry, but she had no idea how much power she was emanating at the moment. After a few moments she stopped and turned her glare back to Harry.
"It was mostly about humiliation with him. Insults. Threats. Treating me like dirt. But yeah, it was physical too. He would slap me around or have sex with me. Not as much in the last couple of years. Apparently he preferred sex with Lavender. Thank Merlin. And he didn't want to risk getting me pregnant again. Wouldn't want a little half-blood spawn running around, now would we?"
"Fuck. He knew about the baby." Draco commented to himself, but she heard him loud and clear. She clenched her hands into fists and curled them around her stomach. A vase sitting on the table next to her exploded into a thousand shards of glass. She didn't even notice.
"Hermione." Harry spoke calmly as he stepped closer to her. There were small trickles of blood running down the side of her face where the glass shards had embedded themselves in her flesh.
At the sound of his voice her eyes refocused on him. When she spoke again her voice was low and rough. The sound of it sent cold chills down his spine.
"You want to know what it was like? It was terrifying. Every day. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that Draco had my journal, that he knew how to read it, and that he owed me one hell of a favor. So I'm sorry if you're feeling a little left out here, Harry, but honestly keeping you in the loop has been the least of my fucking worries."
A shockwave of raw power ripped through the room. Furniture was overturned. Frames were ripped off the walls. Books were pulled from the shelves. Draco and Harry were thrown backwards like ragdolls where they collided with the wall before falling to the floor in a heap.
Hermione, her power completely spent, collapsed at the epicenter of the damage.