{ Chapter Sixteen }

Three weeks later.

Draco woke with a start. His hand was automatically reaching for his wand before he was even aware of his actions. Every sense he had was tingling, telling him, warning him of some as yet unknown danger lurking in the dark. His heart thumped loudly in his ears as he strained to hear any noise that would explain the adrenaline pumping through his body.

Something was off. He could feel it. It hung in the air, thick and foreboding.

He turned to check on Hermione, only to find that she was wide awake and staring at him wtih wide eyes. She looked up at the ceiling and pointed in that direction. Whatever it was that had awakened him was upstairs in the library.

Creek.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

His breath caught in his throat and his fingers tightened around his wand. Someone was in his house.

There was a small amount of moonlight filtering through the windows. It was just enough that Hermione was able to locate the t-shirt she had discarded earlier in the evening and slip it over her head silently. Draco was also able to dress quickly. He handed the flannel pajama pants that he had not gotten around to putting on earlier to Hermione and she slipped them over her bare legs.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

They both stopped moving as the clear sounds of footsteps on the stairs echoed down the hallway. Draco moved first. He wrapped his arm around her waist and held her close.

"Where is your wand?" He whispered into her ear, barely making any sound at all.

"I don't know," she whispered back just as quietly. The sound seemed to echo through the room and she tensed, sure that whoever it was had heard her.

"Use mine. Disillusion us. Now." He forced his wand into her hand and felt the magic wash through both of them as his wand accepted her. He didn't really have time to ponder that fact right then, but he filed it away to come back for later. His wand had never accepted anyone but him. Others had tried and failed, but Hermione merely had to take it from his hand. There was something to that. He was sure of it.

She tapped him on the head with his wand and he felt the spell taking effect. She repeated the action, tapping herself on the head this time, and faded from her hair to her toes into nothingness. He gripped her hand and led them both to an empty spot against the wall, in between the bookshelf and the closet.

Then they waited.

It was only moments later when they noticed the door knob turning slowly, silently. The door inched open slowly and stopped. From their vantage point they could not see into the hallway. All they could see was the tip of a wand as it was pointed through the small gap. The wand was pointed at the bed. At Draco's bed. At the exact spot he would have been sleeping in if something hadn't woken him not five minutes earlier.

"Petrificus totalus."

Draco and Hermione barely heard the spell as it left the intruder's lips. It wasn't wordless as Hermione's disillusionment charm had been, but it was still spoken very quietly. The spell flashed across the room and hit it's target. If Draco had still been in bed asleep, he would be frozen to the spot at that moment, completely defenseless.

Hermione still held Draco's wand in her hand and it took every bit of self control she had not to attack. Logically she knew she couldn't. There may have been one person in the hallway or there could have been twenty people out there for all they knew. No. They would only defend themselves if they were discovered. Otherwise they would hide, and hope to both make it through the night alive.

The door swung open wider, the intruder no longer worried about the element of surprise. As far as they knew, Draco was incapacitated and hardly a threat.

More footsteps were heard in the hallway. There were at least two of them, possibly three. Another quiet creak echoed through the stillness as Hermione's door was opened slowly. She could picture it in her mind, they were taking aim at her bed much the same way they had Draco's. She expected to hear the same spell, whispered in that same barely there voice.

What they heard next, though, was not a person that was concerned with being quiet and sneaky. This was a person that didn't care how much noise he made, and really the more the better.

"Crucio!" His voice was rough and raw and sent a jolt of surprise through her.

Draco wrapped his arms tighter around Hermione. He couldn't see her, but he had to feel her. He had to make sure she was really there in his arms and not across the hall being tortured in her own bed.

The flash from the spell illuminated the room for only a second.

"Why isn't she screaming?" A woman's voice from the hallway. "You aren't doing it right. Do it again."

"Crucio!" This time it was louder, angrier, and the flash from the spell illuminated the room enough that the intruders could see that the bed he was aiming at was empty.

"Where the hell is she?"

"Where are you, Mudblood?"

Hermione's entire body tensed. She stepped back reflexively, moving away from the voices and as close to Draco as possible. He moved with her, tightening his arms around her waist and grabbing his wand from her hand before she could drop it to the floor.

"Do you really want to play this game with me? We both know what will happen when you lose. Show yourself!"

A cold chill ran down her spine as she recognized the voice as well as the words. How many times had he issued that particular order over the years? No matter how hard she had fought it, the result was always the same. The disillusion charm would lift against her will and she would be revealed. And punished.

Draco cursed under his breath. There was no doubt in his mind that the man in the other room was Ron Weasley, even before Hermione's reaction had confirmed his suspicions.

"Reducto!"

The walls of the house shook as the spell hit it's target. They couldn't see the damage from where they stood, but they could hear the explosion as the closet door in the room across the hall exploded into nothing more than splinters and dust.

"We have to get out of here," Draco whispered into her ear. There were at least two intruders, possibly more, and they only had one wand between them to defend themselves. It wasn't impossible, but he wouldn't take that risk. If it were just him, then maybe. He couldn't take that chance with Hermione's life, though. He wouldn't.

"The window," she whispered quietly as she nodded her head in agreement. They moved silently across the room and slipped behind the curtains.

There was another explosion from the other room as the dresser was obliterated. Laughter rang out in the aftermath of the explosion. A man's voice, dark and dangerous but lined with humor followed.

"You really think she's hiding in the dresser? You moron. She's more likely to be across the hall bedding Malfoy than hiding in the bloody dresser."

Hermione froze, her hand on the window latch, and held her breath while Draco pointed his wand at the open closet door and wordlessly commanded "Accio Firebolt".

The woman across the hall laughed now. It was almost a maniacle laughter that reminded Hermione of Bellatrix LeStrange. Of course it wasn't Bellatrix. It couldn't be. She was long since dead and gone.

"Don't be ridiculous. Draco married the mudblood out of some warped sense of duty. The marriage is a farce. There is no way he would touch that...that...that filth!"

"She might be a mudblood, but she's still hot. Maybe he couldn't resist? Don't you think we should check it out?"

There was another explosion as the windows in Hermione's bedroom were blasted.

"Now. Go." Draco pushed her forward urgently. The window latch slid open easily and she stepped through onto the roof. Draco followed, ducking around the corner of the eve just as the bedroom door inside slammed open.

"Wakey, wakey, Drakey-Poo. Tell us where that filthy wife of yours is."

Draco peered through the window pane and watched unseen as four figures entered his bedroom and surrounded his empty bed. He was surprised to see that it actually looked like a person was lying under the blankets. Somehow he just knew that was Hermione's doing. She stood next to him, gripping his arm tightly.

"We need to get out of here." He tried to guide her to the waiting broom, but she wasn't moving. She was to busy staring at the shadows inside, trying to figure out their identities.

"Not yet. Give me the wand."

He stared at her incredulously. What the hell did she think she would accomplish? As soon as she fired off one spell, they would all know exactly where the two of them were hiding. It was suicide.

"No. I need to take you someplace safe and I need to get Theo and Cho as backup." He tried to tug her towards the broom, but she still wasn't budging.

"By the time you get back here they'll be gone. Give me the damn wand."

He muttered something that sounded a lot like "Damn Gryffindors" as he handed his wand over to her once again.

The first thing she did was conjur a patronus and sent it on it's way to Theo and Cho at the MLE office. Then she focused on the room beyond the window and the four people currently standing in a semi-circle around the bed. They were throwing curses at the bed, gleefully ignorant that all they were hitting was open air in the shape of a person.

The bedroom door had somehow been closed, which worked to her advantage. She silently cast a barrier charm around the doors and every window except the one she was currently looking through. The window they had passed through was still open, just a crack. She cast a bubble head charm on herself and Draco before sticking the tip of the wand through that small crack and muttering a spell.

Draco watched her in fascination. Most of the spells and charms she was using were wordless, an extremely difficult task. Beyond that, she was simply brilliant. A fine mist was emitting from the end of his wand, noticable only to him and Hermione because they knew what to look for. The four occupants of his bedroom would never notice it settling around them. It was colorless, odorless, and tasteless. And it would render them all unconscious before they even realized what was happening. The barriers she had placed against the doors and windows worked as a seal, keeping the gas inside the bedroom. He also noticed, belatedly, that a light wind was blowing into the window, pushing the gas further into the room and preventing it from escaping through the cracked opening of the window.

When the first of the four fell to their knees, a slight panic erupted inside the room. Hermione quickly cut off the spell and sealed the remaining window shut. Moments later, all four intruders were unconscious on his bedroom floor.

"That was bloody brilliant." Draco couldn't hide the fact that he was impressed. He idly wondered if she had ever thought of working for the MLE department. "So now that they're contained, can we get out of here?" Draco tugged on her arm gently as he tried to pull her towards his waiting broom. She eyed the broom with mild disgust. She would rather jump off the roof than depend on that...that stick to take her anywhere except to her death. She hated flying with a desperate passion. She always had and probably always would.

"Why? They aren't going anywere. We're safe until Theo gets here." She removed the disillusionment charm from herself and her husband before sitting down on the shingles. Draco mumbled to himself about what a stubborn witch she was before sitting down behind her.

The night air was chilly and a bit damp. Draco noticed that Hermione was rubbing her hands against her bare arms in an effort to combat the cold. He didn't even think before wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her back against his chest. He couldn't see her face, but she was smiling softly to herself as she leaned into his warmth.

"Do you suppose that everyone assumes our marriage is a sham?" He asked her thoughtfully. He stared into the night as he held her and wondered to himself why he cared what anyone else thought. Let them think whatever the hell they wanted.

A short burst of laughter escaped her lips. She had not been expecting that particular question from him.

"I would say that's probably a safe assumption." She didn't particularly care if everyone thought it was a sham. Hell, it was a sham. The only reason he had married her was because she saved his life and he owed it to her to save her life as well. It just so happened that the best way for him to save her life included marriage.

"Why would they think that, I wonder?"

"I don't know, Malfoy. I imagine they have a plethora of reasons to choose from." She tried to keep her answers light, not really sure what he was getting to.

He pushed her tangled mane of curls out of the way before resting his chin against her shoulder. An involuntary shiver ran through her body as his warm breath caressed her bare neck.

"Name one reason," he said finally.

She turned her head slightly so she could see into his eyes. She expected to find humor there, but instead only found the hint of a challenge lying in those silver depths. They stayed there for a long moment, lost in each other's eyes, before she broke contact and turned to face the night sky once again.

"How about because we hated each other throughout school."

He leaned in and kissed her neck softly.

"That doesn't count. Try again."

"What do you mean, it doesn't count?" She laughed at him as she pulled away, denying his lips access to her skin.

"It's a complete fallacy. We never hated each other. Not really." He raised his eyebrow in challenge, daring her to contradict him. She wouldn't, though. He knew now that she had never hated him.

She watched him carefully for a moment before settling back into the warmth that he provided. He was right. She had never hated him. She had thought him to be an arrogant, spoiled rotten pain in the ass, but she hadn't hated him. Harry had thought it was because she was naive and always wanted to see the good in people, even when there wasn't any good there to see. But she had known better. She had looked into his eyes and known that deep down Draco wasn't a bad person. He put on a good show, but even back then she had been almost certain that that's all it was, a show. Now she knew she had been right all along.

"Yes, well, no one else knows that, do they? The rest of the world assumes that we are what they've always seen us to be. Enemies. Opposites. They don't realize that once you take away blood status we're actually very much alike."

Draco thought about her words for a moment. He supposed she was right. Just because they had figured each other out long ago, didn't mean that anyone else had. He was about to respond to her when they heard noises coming from the bedroom. They both moved quickly to the window to see what the noise was.

Through the window they could see Theo and Cho entering the bedroom. Both were wearing bubble-head charms as Hermione's patronus had instructed them to wear. The two MLE officers stared in surprise at the four unconcious figures lying on the bedroom floor.

Theo reacted first by binding two of the figures, Cho followed suit quickly and bound the other two. Only then did they look around and see Draco and Hermione standing on the window ledge watching them.

"I figured you two would be long gone by now." Theo waited until they had bubble-head charms on before he opened the windows and let them in. The gas started slowly drifting out the windows behind them.

"We would have been, but someone just had to stay and make sure these guys didn't get away." He rolled his eyes at that. She knew perfectly well that they wouldn't have gone anywhere. Not after the stunt she pulled.

"Sorry. I've seen to many James Bond movies." Theo actually laughed at her joke while Cho and Draco just stood there looking confused. "James Bond always got captured by the bad guy, who would set some elaborate trap that would kill Bond in the end, then they would leave. Bond would inevitably figure out a way to get away and...you know what? Nevermind. Not important."

She realized she had been rambling and cut herself off before she could keep going for hours on end. She tended to ramble when she was nervous and/or anxious, and at this point she was. Nervous and anxious, that is. To find out who the attackers were that were lying on Draco's bedroom floor.

Theo seemed to read her mind because he stepped forward at the same moment and grabbed hold of the hood covering the first person's face.

"Okay, so let's see who your late night visitors were, shall we?"

Theo pulled their hoods off one by one. Two of the faces revealed did not surprise either Draco or Hermione. They had already recognized the voices of Ron Weasley and Lavender Brown. The other two, though, shocked Draco to the core. They were former classmates and friends, Gregory Goyle and Daphne Greengrass.

He stared down at them, completely dumbfounded. Goyle had a young son at home and another baby on the way. And Daphne, though spoiled rotten (as most purebloods were apt to be) had never been a mean-spirited person. She had stayed neutral during the war, as had the entire Greengrass family. Why would they attack him? Why would they attack Hermione?

He swore to himself, rather loudly, as soon as he realized he knew the answer. Goyle and Weasley had worked together for years, and Goyle had always been a bit of a follower. All Weasley would have had to do would be to plant the seeds in his mind and Goyle would have followed right along. He had always bought into the pureblood superiority bullshit and he had always hated Hermione. His friendship with Draco had come to an abrupt halt after the war, after it had become known that Draco had switched sides. Although they were still cordial to each other in passing, he couldn't really say they had been friends for a very long time.

His mother had been trying to set him up with Daphne for years, but he had been so busy and so focused on Hermione's case that he had never kept any of the dates she set up. Was Daphne acting on jealousy because she wanted him for herself? No, not him, he amended. She wanted the Malfoy name and fortune, that's all. He had never seen Daphne as a petty and selfish gold-digger before, but in one evening everything he knew about her had changed.

He found himself looking at Hermione and thanking every deity known to existence that he had found her and she had, once again, saved him from a fate worse than death...marriage to a pureblood bitch like Daphne.

AN: I know. My posting schedule has gone completely to hell. I am still going to try to have the whole story posted by Sunday. I think I have to post a chapter every day this week to make it happen, so keep an eye out for them. And be sure to review and let me know what you think. :) I haven't replied to every review, but I swear I read them all and smile at every single one. Thank you all for reading.