Draco knew it would be easy, but he hadn't known it would be that easy. Deriding Granger came so naturally to him it was almost as if he had never stopped. He heartily drank in her pure panic at his presence, and his sadistic side simply couldn't wait to go back for more.

Besides, the look on Granger's face had been priceless: it was the perfect combination of annoyance, astonishment, and even the smallest hint of fear. Draco had learned to smell fear from miles away.

Good. At least she had the decency to be scared of him, like she rightfully should be.

While his encounter with Granger had been predictably enjoyable, Draco thought as he sauntered back into his office early that next morning, it was time to get down to business—mind the pun. He had a plan, and if the direction of their meeting had any indication of how said plans would go, Draco knew he was right on track.

He suspected Granger's mental state was becoming increasingly less stable; considering that daft S.P.E.W. business of hers was nearly down the toilet, he hadn't excepted otherwise.

It was rather funny, actually: he'd accused of Granger of keeping tabs on him, but in reality he'd been the one tracking her for quite some time now. It was all part of the grand scheme of things.

Immediately following the end of the Second Wizarding War, each and every remaining Death Eater was rounded up and brought to trial before the Wizengamot. Despite the fall of Voldemort and the chances of him returning being reduced to absolute nil, the Wizengamot remained infuriatingly and infinitely wary. What were they to do with the remaining Death Eaters, the flanks and most trusted servants of the Dark Lord himself? Would they attempt to reconcile, retaliate, and years or decades or centuries later return with the same inbred beliefs and a new worshiped Lord?

They deemed Azkaban Prison too risky for Voldemort's highest servants, fearing a repeat performance of past breakouts. They deemed the Dementor's Kiss too insufficient to reprimand the lives lost at the very hands of their callousness and brutality.

The Wizengamot, typically shoddy at best, shocked the Wizarding World when they announced—for the first time in Wizarding history—executions would be carried out.

Half of the Wizarding public had been distraught, crying out protests of inhumanity and hypocritical cruelty. The rest remained impassive, not particularly desiring the willful killing of others, but fearing for the safety of themselves and their children and their forthcoming generations too much to protest.

The high-profile Death Eaters, those deemed most dangerous and most likely to carry on Voldemort's prolific destiny, were the first to be sentenced to immediate executions. Those who were seen as less dangerous, but still problematic, ended up being given lifelong sentences to Azkaban, not wanting to push their already stretched limits with excessive amounts of executions. The Wizengamot, fearing retribution for their brash course of action, claimed they had already given them all second chances to freedom after the First Wizarding War—and look where that landed them. They claimed they would not let the Wizarding World suffer a thrice time.

Of course, Draco had attended every single moment of the prolonged trials, lasting nine days in total. He had physically witnessed his parents, his very own flesh and blood, his true remaining family, face their horrendous fates. He had watched as his mother sobbed into her hands as his father, one of his very last acts, reaching to comfort her, wrapping his arms around her silently.

They were to be executed on the tenth day. It was with sheer luck that Draco didn't face the same outcome.

Naturally, Narcissa had done everything in her power to assure Draco's safety. Softer and harsher Death Eaters alike vigorously disputed the Wizengamot to leave their innocent children alone. A great lot of the Death Eaters' children had been underage or had just turned the tender age of seventeen, and even the rest of the Wizarding public knew the Wizengamot was in a bind—they were not insensitive enough to send children to their deaths.

The sons and daughters of Death Eaters, if not having a firsthand account in brutal or malicious crimes—killing, torturing, etcetera, etcetera—were questioned separately for a short three hours only to be unexpectedly set free. Of course, Aurors would be keeping a mindful eye on them day in and day out for two years to come. Draco would learn later they'd borrowed that practice from Muggles, a form of probation, as they would call it.

Draco did not like to think back to the day in which his mother and father were killed in almost cold murder. It was a memory that was stored within boxes within safes within vaults in the deepest parts of his mind, locked away with dozens of keys, not even to be returned to on rainy days.

Instead, he'd learned to suppress and shut out those terribly nagging feelings, feelings of pain and despair at the loss of his loved ones before his very eyes.

Instead, he'd learned to focus on a new feeling: revenge.

They had been there, at the trials. The bloody Golden Trio. The mere thought of them still brought about familiar notions of disgust and ill-disguised temper. Draco witnessed them correspond directly with the Wizengamot. Draco watched helplessly from the sidelines as they poured out stories, evidence, testimonies—all vying for the end of the Death Eaters that had supposedly tortured theirs and many other lives for too long.

Being Potter, the savior of all good and sunshine and daisies, the destroyer of evil himself, was—not surprisingly—treated like a king at those trials. They took his word as if it were the words of Merlin himself. They were obviously very heavily swayed by him, and acted out on his beliefs as if he wasn't just an annoying seventeen-year-old child like the rest of them. No matter what Potter said, Weasley backed up his claims wholeheartedly, like the brainless follower he always was.

Granger was different.

Instead of participating avidly in the offhanded, casual discussions about future murders, she remained unusually quiet, looking rather hesitant and off-put throughout the ongoing trials. On several accounts, Draco watched as her mouth would part slightly, uncertainty etched into her features, looking as if she was seconds from speaking out, but each time… she would just stop. Her mouth would suddenly snap shut, her eyes downcast, hands folded timidly in her lap. She looked positively defeated, fighting an internal battle of whether to stop the brutality or remain silent.

This, in the end, was what had angered Draco the most.

Wasn't it Granger who was supposed to be the sane, smart one? Blasted—he fucking knew she was intelligent, no matter how much he hated admitting it to himself. He knew she was the more level-headed of the three, the more rational, the most allegedly kind-hearted—but why the fuck wasn't she saying something? Years and years and bloody years of throwing up her hand in class day after day, shouting out her unnecessary and ridiculous opinions, and she chose now to shut her mouth and allow the clear atrocities to pass by under her nose without a word?

Draco had found himself constantly wanting to shout at her, scream at her throughout the trails—say something, Granger, anything. Save them. Damn it, Granger, save them!

But she never did.

Draco wasn't sure why he felt Granger, who was just one girl, had been his last lifeline in keeping his parents alive, but for some bloody reason he'd put stock in her. He'd inadvertently hoped her farfetched moral compass would save them, save them all.

This was a clear miscalculation on his part.

In Draco's eyes, this was far worse than Potter and Weasley's mindless behavior. They simply were too stupid to realize the true consequences of their actions, what would be happening practically under their hand. Granger, however, was not stupid. She knew. She knew, and she didn't fucking do anything.

These arguments had been running through Draco's head like freight trains for six years. Six whole years this tortured him to no end. The more he thought about Granger, the more possessed he became. The more angry he became.

Of course he knew it wasn't wholly, completely, and one-hundred-percent her fault his parents had died on that tenth day. Of course he fucking knew.

But ultimately, realistically—who else could he aim all this terrible pent-up energy at? Who else could he aim his rage and vengeful fantasies at, a bunch of fifty-plus middle-aged idiots in the Wizengamot he would never even know the names of? Potter and Weasley were clear options, but something about Granger's demeanor and vulnerability daunted him. Consumed him. Unfortunate for Granger, he had already set his ill-intentions out her and she was none-the-wiser. She was his easiest target.

Blaise, who spent a bit of time around him, however, would occasionally remind him of his growing, sick obsession with the girl. But there was nothing he could say to stop it, nothing he could do to put an end to Draco's rampant and harmful thoughts.

It would be easier than Draco had expected to pretend to brush the death of his parents under the rug. It was even easier to pretend to pick up his life as a well-meaning, well-functioning member of Wizarding society once the dust had settled. It was easiest to fool those idiots into believing he'd actually changed.

While it only happened in tiny, miniscule increments, way too dramatically for Draco's taste, the Wizarding society slowly but surely began to put Voldemort onto the back-burners of their minds. They continued on with their lives with maddeningly optimistic dreams, settling into mediocre jobs and starting families and all that other happy-ending bullshit he despised.

Hoping to keep up with his new do-gooder pretenses and get those pesky, prying probation Aurors off his bloody back once and for all, he'd decided right before he hit the age of twenty to follow in his father's leadership footsteps and start creating the line of Malfoy family businesses.

Surprisingly, Draco's very own outcome hadn't been terrible—he'd really hit it off with the whole business thing. He was good at it—good at the marketing, the manipulating, the money—he was good at all of it. He was growing older, wiser, better at the game; he let the Wizarding society grow accustomed to the Malfoy name once more, this time in a positive light. He appeared in local papers, in the Prophet, in countless other interviews, and word of his success traveled far, even crossing to international lands.

Soon enough, Draco's pleasant, smiling face was everywhere: business meetings, lunches, fancy dinners, conventions, events—they all knew him, knew his name for his contributions to society and not for the Malfoy's association with now-dead Dark Lord.

Whether purposely or subconsciously, he'd placed his primary office locations strategically around England's neighboring countries and they ultimately spread like wildfire. He wanted to assure his name was established. He wanted to be trusted. Then, when all offices had been built, when they learned to love him, and when the Wizengamot had all but forgotten about him, he'd come back. Just like he'd planned for years, he would come back for her.

And the time had finally come.