Disclaimer: Not mine, making no money.
A/N: Again, unrelated to previous chapters of this piece. This is a Lucius-Hermione pairing, requested by CheetahLiv. It is completely AU following "Order of the Phoenix."
The root idea for this fic belongs unabashedly to "Pretty Girl", a video on YouTube made by ZoettaPerry. Although the ending is somewhat different, you can watch the video on YouTube if you search for Hermione-Lucius and click on "Pretty Girl Remake". I strongly recommend it, because (in my humble opinion) it's a well-done video, and, after all, a picture is worth a thousand words - it gave me inspiration for a pairing that I have never before even thought about.
The Trial
Draco's hands shook as he fumbled his tie, cursing himself as it once again ended up in a snarled knot instead of the dignified stripe of color it was supposed to be. He had been able to tie a tie since his fifth birthday. And now, eleven years later, his hands couldn't make the simple, automatic motions.
But at five, he hadn't been preparing to attend his father's trial for being caught dressed in the resplendent black of a Death Eater at the site where the Dark Lord had finally been spied by the Minister. Now Draco was sixteen, and knew full well that the Wizengamot was going to take Lucius from him, one way or another.
Permanently.
The knock at his dormitory door startled him and he dropped the loosened ends again, biting his tongue to restrain an outburst unseemly of a Malfoy.
"Can I help you?" he ground out, giving up on his impossible accessory while any of his Housemates might see him struggling with it.
"Are you decent?"
It was the sheer unexpectedness of that voice that threw him, keeping him from immediately recognizing it, and he had answered in the affirmative before his brain could catch up with his mouth.
The door swung back to reveal no one, closed meticulously...and Hermione Granger emerged from under Potter's Invisibility Cloak.
Draco froze, unable to move or process thought as hatred roared to the forefront of his mind, eclipsing everything else. The Mudblood bitch had been at the Ministry a scant six days ago with Potter and the rest of them. It was her fault his father had been carted off to Azkaban unceremoniously, leaving his mother alone and his own status shattered. It was her doing that he was in front of his mirror with cold and sweaty palms, dreading walking into the Ministry of Magic, knowing that the man he had admired his entire life would end either soulless, mad or dead.
"You," he snarled hoarsely, taking a step towards her, wand forgotten. He would kill her with his bare hands.
Hermione could see the light of loathing flush the younger Malfoy's face and, instead of backing away, she rushed to him, pinning his arms to his side with her hands as she gazed desperately into his face, hoping that the rash movement, so out-of-character from their previous five years of interaction, would shock him out his knee-jerk response to her presence.
"Malfoy – Draco...please," she whispered. "Take me with you."
The soft words had exactly the effect she intended. Rage subsided, and Draco took in her pale, wan features, eyes rimmed red with tears and felt his world began to destabilize.
"What?" he replied, so flabbergasted he forgot to sneer or push her filthy hands away, just staring down at her face, whiter than usual, haloed in dark hair.
"You are going to his trial. Take me with you."
The word trial spurred him to action, and now he did set both of his larger hands on her shoulders and shove her backwards. "Why? To gloat? Haven't you done enough damage, Mudblood?"
Crack! His cheek stung where her hand had connected furiously for the second time in their Hogwarts careers. "I don't care who your father is, Malfoy, never use that word in front of me." She shuddered as if swallowing tears, anger passing in the blink of an eye. "It has nothing to do with gloating. I need to go...I have to see him," she whispered.
His metaphorical earth already rupturing under his feet, Draco felt it begin to shift in earnest. There was another story here, something else that he didn't know, didn't understand. If Granger was here, where were her bodyguards? And why the tearful pleading? Though he had discussed Granger extensively at home – her grades, her lineage and her place as one of Harry Potter's two best friends making her a subject to be carefully torn apart and examined – his parents had only seen her two or three times. Given who they served, she should be singing and dancing that his father was going to be condemned to either a Dementor's Kiss or a life sentence in Azkaban...
"Why?" he repeated quietly, surprised to hear all fury drained from his voice as well.
She took a deep breath and gave him a sharp look, as if measuring him. "You cannot tell anyone, Malfoy, anyone. If you do, what happened to Marietta Edgecomb this year will look like paradise by comparison. Agreed?"
He nodded mutely, the curiosity his father had encouraged in him since birth outweighing the animosity born of habit. She inhaled again, and then looked him dead in the eye. "I've been..." she groped for the right word, knowing that the truth would anger him, seeking the best way to cushion the shock, "...seeing Lucius. Since Christmas."
Draco stared at her, completely speechless, this pronouncement sending an earthquake that broke the foundations of his life in two. He wasn't sure which word shocked him more: 'seeing' or her comfortable pronunciation of his father's given name.
"I haven't been able to contact him since we were in the Department of Mysteries...and it's my fault he was arrested," she whispered miserably, water pooling in her brown eyes. "I...if I hadn't been there...if I had been able to convince Harry of Voldemort's trick...Lucius wanted to spare us. Tried to control your dear aunt," her voice hardened, "tried to hold her back, fearing for my life."
"Seeing?" Draco finally managed to spit out, the rest of her confession having gone unheard. "You...my father...?" He looked utterly bewildered, so surprised that disgust could not gain a foothold on his emotional landscape. "How?"
"I'm not going to discuss our private life with you," she replied with a dignity oddly underscored by the tears now carving tracks down her face. "Just, please, Draco – can I go with you?"
Something stirred in the younger Malfoy as he gazed at his academic rival of five years. He had hated her more viciously than he could ever despise Potter – the black-haired Gryffindor represented everything he loathed, but Potter was merely a symbol. His battle with Granger was deeply personal. She was a walking, breathing dichotomy, an unnatural aberration that should not exist. And she was better at life than he was.
But they shared a depth of caring for the man currently seated in a cell in the basement of the Ministry, and, suddenly, that superseded everything else. Draco had found himself standing alone the morning the Daily Prophet had printed the article detailing the arrest of Lucius Malfoy and five others. He had turned to his familiar sources of comfort – only to find them all withdrawn, Pansy and Blaise practically tripping over each other in an effort to distance themselves from the abruptly-disgraced pureblood family.
And here stood a Gryffindor girl with tears in her eyes and scars on her heart that mirrored his own. He might hate her, but it was clear that she loved his father. Though he should have been spitting his denial and shame, it was suddenly unimportant. What they shared would do as a platform for unity.
"Yes. I'll take you."
She smiled. It was not one of relief or even gratitude, but one of determination, and Draco felt it feeding his own flagging spirits.
It was good to have an ally.
888
Lucius sat, straight-backed and stiff in the chair as it wrapped it's ropes around his wrists, tight enough to remind him that he occupied the unenviable position he had avoided for more than two decades: that of a prisoner. The Wizengamot was coming to order, his Dementor guards fading into the background, their soul-sucking presence disappearing with them.
His eyes swept the gallery. Doloros Jane Umbridge – a toad who was, nevertheless, sure to be a sympathetic voice...seated next to the entirely-too-clever Amelia Bones, who was equally certain not to be. A slight movement of his head brought the spectators into view and he winced as he noticed the sheer volume of them. A lot of people were here to see him convicted.
For voicing empty sentiments he no longer believed in. For the deliberate destruction of the Ministry that had covered his failure to conquer a half-dozen teenagers. In another time and place, the irony would have made him laugh. For his first genuine service to the cause championed by Albus Dumbledore, he would pay the price for his previous crimes. All for the past six months that had turned his four decades of living squarely on its head.
Because he had turned around when collecting Draco from the Hogwarts Express last Christmas and seen a woman disembarking from the gleaming red train. He would not have noticed her – but she had been looking at him when his gaze raked over her, and vivacious spirit had rolled from her almost palpably, eyes bright, inquisitive, challenging. And pure. She had captured him in the space of a heartbeat. He had promised himself that he would have her if she would let him.
And she had.
There, in the first row, he could see the pristine features of his wife. He met her gaze briefly, noting that it was as cool and collected as always. Should he manage to land on his feet, she would rush to his side and assure the public of her faithfulness and devotion to her wonderful husband. Should the Dementors take his soul, she would loudly decry him and tearfully lament his influence on her innocent son, saving both of them and the Malfoy name from the consuming fires of hysteria now eating the wizarding world.
Next to her was Draco, not nearly as composed as his mother, though he was attempting to be, and any emotional outburst on his part would be excused as a boy not yet old enough to understand the consequences of his father's actions grieving for the loss of his parent.
Seated on Draco's left side-
-he thought his heart would stop as he met those cinnamon eyes shot through with gold from the torches. She had come. Dressed in flattering green robes that stressed her womanhood instead of the school outfit that confined her to the realm of children, he could not help the smile that ghosted across his mouth or the tenderness that lit his eyes. She had come for him, braving the whispers and rumors that filled the seats around her, wearing the color of his House in a subtle declaration of her support.
He saw a flash of pale grey silk tucked into her sleeve and he swiftly turned his eyes back to his knees before his delight betrayed them both. The handkerchief he had given her after their first meeting. The lady wore her knight's colors as he strode forth to do battle. He felt oddly stronger just for her being there. Narcissa was present because a proper wife could not and would not abandon her husband. But Hermione's coming had been her choice, her characteristically Gryffindor display of courage, seated with his family, throwing herself into the serpents' nest.
For him.
Cornelius Fudge, looking exhausted and on tenter-hooks (the man was being asked to resign, or so the story went), slammed his gavel down on his bench, calling for silence.
The expectant hush fell.
"This court is now in session. Today marks the first day of the trial of Mr. Lucius Malfoy of Wiltshire, who was arrested six nights ago on June the seventeenth, year of our Lord 1996. He is charged with the following crimes: breaking and entering into the Ministry of Magic, destruction of the Hall of Prophecy, widespread damage to many valuable artifacts and papers in the Department of Mysteries, service to You-Know-Who as one of his Death Eaters, concealment of You-Know-Who's return..."
888
The first day was over. Minor witnesses had been called by the prosecution, a ruthless wizard who was Head of the Auror Core with a mane of hair reminiscent of a lion's: Rufus Scrimgeour. He had interviewed anyone and everyone who had flooed into the main hall of the Ministry the evening of the battle, alerted to the break-in by a source everyone was refusing to name. Likely a member of Albus Dumbledore's secret organization, Phoenix Feathers or the Order of the Phoenix, or whatever the old man had named them.
Lucius' posture was as rigid as it had been that morning, showing no signs of fatigue or despair. It was beneath him to break down in front of nearly a thousand witches and wizards, not to mention the court, especially when so many of the spectators were from the press.
As the session was called to a close, Narcissa was the first to approach his chair in the milling public. A wall of magic prevented anyone from getting closer than three feet, ensuring that no one could touch him or pass him anything, even if his hands weren't bound.
"Controlled, as always, Husband," Narcissa greeted him quietly. He could read appreciation in her eyes, but she was careful to keep her voice neutral. The witnesses already made his case look bad, and this was before Harry Potter and his friends would be hauled before the Wizengamot later in the week.
He inclined his head to her. "Thank you. You must pay me a visit, dear – I think I am to be allowed to stay here since my trial resumes tomorrow."
She nodded and moved to the cautiously consoling arms of Patricia Parkinson – mother being far more forgiving than daughter – allowing Draco and Hermione to step together towards the chair.
"Father..." Draco hesitated, swallowed all of the sentiments that threatened to burst out of him, and instead put forth the lie that he and Hermione had hastily crafted en route from Hogwarts that morning, speaking loudly enough that the Prophet reporters nearby would be sure to hear him. "I would like you to meet my girlfriend, Hermione Granger."
Lucius' eyes widened fractionally, darting to the witch at his son's side. What he saw there instantly pacified the momentary bolt of hurt and betrayal. In clear defiance of his son's words, she had eyes only for him, large, luminous and filled with simultaneous relief and pain. He wished he could reach out to touch her, if only to reassure himself of her reality, and he flexed his fingers against the chair unconsciously with his desire.
"Hermione," he greeted her quietly, surprising his son with the undeniable caring that saturated his voice.
"Lucius," she murmured softly. Clever, the older wizard thought, very clever. Now the girl would attend the trial and even visit him in his cell at his son's side without any consequences to herself and, in fact, improve Draco's standing in the almost guaranteed event of his conviction. No one would believe that the younger Malfoy was following in the footsteps of a man who publicly denounced witches of Hermione's background.
"Did I just hear 'girlfriend' young Mr. Malfoy?" Rita Skeeter was standing with her Quick Quotes Quill at the ready, practically breathless as her sidekick danced around them, snapping photos. The reporter turned a smug smile on Malfoy Senior.
"Given your dedication to pureblood supremacy, Mr. Malfoy, I suppose this must come as quite a shock. Your own heir dating Harry Potter's Muggle-born best friend!" Her attention zeroed in on Draco again. She might hate Hermione Granger, but she would never pass up this opportunity. With the trial to fan the flames, this story was good for the whole summer. "What drew you to this astonishing young woman, Draco? Especially against all of your father's ideals? How does Harry Potter feel about his acknowledged rival dating his ex-girlfriend?"
"To clarify," Hermione interrupted, giving Skeeter a pointed glance, "I never dated Harry, and I never will."
"I should say you won't," Draco echoed his father's silent sentiment out loud, laying a possessive arm around Hermione's waist and deliberately leading the rapidly congregating reporters and photographers away from the accused's chair.
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"What was that?" Narcissa snapped as soon as she stepped into her husband's cell.
"Narcissa, my love, it's so pleasant to see you," he remarked pointedly, gesturing to the wooden chair provided for his visitors. She cast a glance at the rickety frame, clearly decided that standing was the better choice, and glared at her mate, icy blue eyes sparking with unexpected fire. "What was what?"
"That Mudblood," she hissed.
Lucius tilted his head and sneered in return, "I don't know. How is it that our son could be even remotely tempted by her – shall we say dubious – charms? It certainly wasn't in the values I tried to instill him."
Narcissa laughed, and the hair on the back of Lucius' neck stood up. Given a decade or more in Azkaban, and his wife could easily go as mad as her sister. "I'd say it runs in his genetics," she replied, the sweetness of poison injected into her words. "Considering the look you turned on her and the fact that she was clearly dying to touch you, pressed up against their magical barrier like a bitch in heat."
Lucius' grey eyes went glacial as he glowered at her, acting finished as he raised hands manacled together in clear threat, all trace of the elegant aristocrat banished in his defense of that which he defined as his own. "If you speak of her so again, Merlin help me, wand or no, I will kill you, Narcissa."
The blond witch stared at him, disbelief stamped on her fine features. Her husband would never threaten her so for a mere toy. "What is she to you, Lucius?" she whispered hoarsely. And as her partner turned his face away, obscuring it with his trademark long, almost-white hair, she received her answer in a burst of painful clarity.
"You love her?" The stunned look on her face prompted a mirthless smirk from her husband as she conceded to her weakening knees and collapsed into the chair so recently disdained. "Since when? For how long...a Mudblood? That Mudblood?"
"Do not call her that," he admonished quietly. "As for how long – it is irrelevant." He shot her an irritated glance when she made to interrupt. "Spare me your indignation, Narcissa. Hermione and I have obviously kept it absolutely secret, and Draco's intelligent maneuver today will ensure that it remains so. Ours was an arranged marriage – you have kept your lovers, allow me mine."
The peculiar expression of tenderness that crossed his face when he used the child's first name inflamed her further. To think a girl a bare few months older than his son could pull from the cold noble what she, his wife of twenty years, could not...
"Not when they endanger the whole family!" she snapped. "Our Master would never-"
"Our Master has no need to know, Narcissa," Lucius replied, getting quieter as her voice grew shriller. "And, as you so wisely pointed out, it is a great risk to all of you, so I have little reason to fear that you shall turn me in to him, don't I?"
She glared at him and strode to the door. "He knows everything, Lucius. Sooner or later, he always finds out. What lies do you intend to tell to cover for yourself? For us?"
Lucius shook his head. "He is obsessed with Potter. This is of no consequence to him." Pain briefly conquered the never-ending coolness that tinted his eyes. "I have given him my life. From before I was Draco's age, his approval was all that mattered to me. I gave him my marriage bed and promised him my heir. He will now claim my death, my mind, my soul or all three. Do you begrudge me this one thing that I value, the only part of my life that is mine?"
"She's a child." Narcissa's face twisted with loathing, and Lucius thought that perhaps one of the reasons Hermione – for all her inexperience – had captured him was that her features had never known such a feeling, she had never sunk to such a depth.
"She's a woman. Strong, willful, brave. Strong enough to stand with her friends against her lover if she must, competent enough to defend herself against a fully grown Dark wizard. Show me the one from our numbers who can say the same."
The insult found its mark, and Narcissa's lily-white hand paled further in fury on the door handle. "Don't expect too many visits from your doting wife, my love," she sneered.
"'Doting' wife?" he parried. "I wasn't aware that I had one."
The cell reverberated with the slam as she stormed out. Lucius ignored it as he settled down to wait, adjusting the long chain that fastened him to the wall to put the least pressure on his wrists.
The only part of my life that is mine. He could wait for her for eternity.
888
Draco shifted nervously as the guard outside Lucius' cell jabbed a Secrecy Sensor into various pockets of his robes. He and Hermione had agreed to wait an excruciating three days through the trial to give the appearance of a reluctant couple being forced by propriety and a general 'sense of decency' to see his father. Trust the wardens to stretch his thin patience to the snapping point now that they were finally here.
"What's this, eh?" the suspicious wizard snapped, removing a small black-and-white chessboard.
"It's a chessboard," Draco replied, keeping a tight reign on his temper. Unfortunately, the sarcasm he had been taught to use as a defensive tool slipped through. "What does it look like?"
"Don't get smart with me, son," the guard narrowed his eyes and pointedly passed the game to his partner. "You might be dating a Muggle-born who's also Harry Potter's best friend, but you're still the spawn of one of them." The other guard was waving his wand over the tiny marble-made set, but after a few minutes intense concentration, he handed it back with a shrug.
"No magic at all. It's just a game. I don't even think it's a Wizard Chess set."
"No, it's Muggle," Hermione quickly supplied. "A gift I gave to Draco."
"Uh-huh. All right, missy, now you," the second wizard gestured for Hermione to step forward. Much to Draco's indignation, the same Sensor that had probed him thoroughly barely skimmed over the witch's body. Whether because she was female or because she was a well-known fixture in the life of the Boy Who Lived, Draco didn't know.
Both, however, had to surrender their wands.
"Ministry policy," said the first smugly, claiming their most important tools and making a show of tucking them into his robes. "You get an hour at the most." He chuckled nastily. "But his wife was out of here in less than ten minutes, I'd say. How long do we think the son will last?" His eyes perused Hermione insolently, raking over her. "Especially since he's brought his girlfriend along?"
"Don't," Hermione whispered as Draco opened his mouth angrily, stepping towards the guard. "They're not worth it." Anyone in charge of a prisoner could revoke their rights to have visitors at any point, for any reason, and Hermione could feel her heart speed up in panic at the thought of losing her chance. The younger Malfoy clamped his jaw shut audibly and ground his heels into the stone as they strode through the door, hearing it creak shut behind them. As the latch clicked into place, Hermione murmured an Absorption Charm on the door. The heavy wood would swallow their voices, making anyone beyond deaf as well as blind.
"Wandless magic, Granger?" Draco murmured.
"A side-benefit of catching my eye," his father said from across the small cell. Draco turned eagerly towards the older man, taking in the unflattering dirty grey of the prisoners' robes and the glinting stubble lining his usually smooth face, trying to measure his father's state without asking irrelevant questions.
But Lucius' storm-colored eyes were irrevocably settled on his classmate, and it was clear she filled his whole world. A gentle smile lifted the corners of his mouth as she met his gaze. "Or so I would like to believe."
"In part," she granted in a whisper, and then she was moving towards him, meeting him in the middle of the room, the thick chain running from one wrist to fasten him to the wall stretched as far as it could go. Her fingertips brushed over his face, reacquainting themselves with the high cheekbones, the perfect nose, the thin mouth, accustoming her skin to the wholly out-of-character scratchiness born of ten days without a razor. Draco found he could not turn away from the scene, fascinated as he watched a girl he had fought with for five years eagerly touch his father in a way that would bring a sneer to his mother's face.
Hermione took a deep, shuddering breath as his hands closed over her elbows, embrace impossible with his arms cuffed together less than a foot apart. "Lucius..." she whispered, and hated the trembling in her voice, the weakness of need that it betrayed.
"Hermione, don't-" he started to say, and his son hurried to turn away as the bold Gryffindor stood on tiptoe, wrapping her fingers in the blond hair and pulling his mouth down to meet hers.
Lucius' grip on her tightened as his tongue darted out, requesting and gaining entry to her mouth, body frustrated as hands and lips remained their only points of contact. He could feel her fingers clenching and releasing on the back of his head as the sickening worry of the past week and a half and fear for the future flowed between them, shared in a kiss at once savage and tender, pliant and unyielding.
When they broke their kiss to breathe, faces barely parted, exhales caressing each other, she was murmuring brokenly, "I'm so sorry, Lucius. It's my fault – I couldn't get Harry to believe me, that it was a trick instead of reality. You know he never let Professor Snape teach him how to properly close his mind and he was so convinced that Sirius...I couldn't..." Tears stood bright in her eyes and Lucius clumsily lifted his bound hands to cup her face, cold metal grazing the underside of her jaw as his strong thumbs pushed away the salt water.
"It is not your fault. I have long lost my stomach for killing, Hermione. I do wish that Potter had not been so foolish in regards to Severus' teaching – you have lost a powerful wizard in Sirius Black – but that is neither here nor there. The instant Potter stepped into the Dark Lord's trap, this was almost inevitable. I was never going to kill him or anyone else who appeared in the Ministry that night."
"Father?" The uncertain crack in his son's voice reminded the lovers that they were not alone in the small cell, that Lucius could not sink to his cot and wrap his arms around the young woman who had occupied his every waking moment and many of his dreams for months, no matter how much he wished to do so.
Hermione colored instantly as she withdrew, unable to believe she had so swiftly forgotten her long-time rival's presence, her hands catching in the soiled hair as she pulled away, cherishing the lingering touch of Lucius' long fingers as he straightened and turned to face his heir. Now was not the time and the place for emotional breakdowns. That would come later.
"Draco. I'm glad you have come – and grateful for the cover story that allowed you to bring Hermione with you."
The son inclined his head, the facade of calm perfected as a member of wizarding society's upper echelons dropping into place as his thoughts threatened to spin entirely out of control. He had been growing away from the older man steadily since his first ride on the Hogwarts Express, and over the past year, since the Dark Lord's return, he had barely seen his father at all. But this brief exchange – added to his sire's unfathomable attraction to the Brain of Gryffindor – made it clear that he knew almost nothing of the man before him. He was, in essence, a stranger.
And it unsettled the teen enormously.
"You have questions," Lucius stated as Hermione sank onto the filthy cot that the Aurors passed off as a bed, wandlessly Enlarging a small comb she had tucked into her pocket.
The boy took a deep breath, and nodded. His cool face had often kept his classmates at bay, but he knew better than to assume his father would be fooled. Lucius had taught it to him.
The older wizard gestured to a tiny table that was, if possible, more fragile than the mouldering chair in the corner. "Set up your chessboard, and I will answer what I can."
Father and son faced each other across the small square of black-and-white in their time-honored method of relaxation, quiet voices rising and falling in the small cell as Hermione kneeled behind her lover on the cot, patiently untangling the snarls ten days in prison had wrought in the fine strands.
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"When, exactly, did you stop believing in him?" Draco asked, gesturing subtly to Hermione, indicating she should move her knight.
"No cheating, Draco," Lucius ordered – but the tolerant smile on his lips betrayed him as he captured the small hand fluttering indecisively over her side of the board. Father and son were both fascinated that a mind the likes of Hermione Granger's simply seemed incapable of grasping chess strategy. This was their second visit, and after the first long game the Malfoys had played, Hermione had lost three times in quick succession and was rapidly approaching the fourth.
"If he can't help me, you should be handicapped in some way," she groused, bringing up her other hand to lift the knight her faux boyfriend had pointed to, unable to fathom what he might want her to do with it. The obvious move was for Lucius' bishop, but something told her that her lover had deliberately placed it there for her to pounce on, trusting her to take the easy move. Slytherins. They thought in circles.
"Some would consider chains of iron a significant handicap," Lucius replied dryly, and in spite of his situation, the three laughed as he rattled them melodramatically. As Hermione continued to brood over the knight's possible moves, the elder Malofy's lighter grey eyes locked on those of his son.
"I would say when he returned, ironically enough." His mouth twitched, but there was no mirth in it. "I had very poor timing. My Mark had been growing more distinct for months and I was...intrigued. Excited, perhaps, that I could finally suspend my mask of civility towards the incompetents at the Ministry and that biased, meddlesome old man running Hogwarts..." The patriarch shook his head. "I was a fool. I managed to make myself forget that thirteen years had passed since there was any activity from my brethren, and that the intervening years had merged the facade I crafted to save you and your mother so thoroughly with reality that I could not now distinguish them. I still have no use for either the Ministry's current administration or Dumbledore, but I discovered that I also no longer hold to the badly-skewed ideals of my youth."
He swallowed, and Draco felt his breath catch as he saw pain – real and undiluted, rush his father's eyes. "When I responded to the burning of my arm, I materialized in a graveyard. Our Master has always possessed a flare for the dramatic, so his use of this particular symbolism for his re-birth hardly fazed me. If anything, it was to be expected."
"But on the ground..." and the younger man was horrified to hear his father's modulated tones breaking, "on the ground was Amos Diggory's son. No more than three years older than you, training to be a fine wizard...seventeen years old, impeccable pureblood lineage and dead at my Master's feet. Simply because he was there." Lucius set his jaw, looking older than Draco had ever seen him. "And I knew then that the rest of my service was condemned to be lies – I genuinely despise Albus Dumbledore and could not turn to him, he would never believe me – and I could not turn away from the Master I had already responded to. The risk to you and to Narcissa would have been too great."
"Diggory changed your mind?"
"No. You did. In that instant, I knew that should it be deemed necessary, the Dark Lord would have no trouble turning his wand and dispatching of you, throwing away all the potential that you hold." He fell silent for an instant and then, in a subdued voice very unlike the carelessly arrogant one that his son had tried so hard to imitate for years, he continued. "When you have children, the knowledge that the next generation is the future of your world becomes very, very real. And whether it is your child, their friends, or even their enemies, who end up in power, the world still turns, we all get older, and we must provide for those who come after. Our Master has no plans for those who come after – precisely because he does not intend for there to be one. Your whole generation will be laid waste. As much as I loathe who Harry Potter fights for, he, too, is someones son and will be someones father. As you will be."
Hermione quietly moved her knight up to endanger Lucius' queen. He blinked down at the game, squeezing her hand gently. "Are you sure you don't want that lovely bishop?" he asked lightly, pulling all of them back from the dismal topic.
"Now I am," she replied, pleased with herself for not falling for his gambit.
"Shame," he drawled, and his other bishop came from nowhere to swoop on her knight. "At least then you would have done something useful with it."
"You-!"
"Psychology, my love, plays a large part in this game...and...yes – I think it will be mate in three."
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"-and I never want to see either you or that filthy piece of Mudblood trash you dare to call a paramour again!" Lucius' enraged voice bounced off the stone, followed by the pattering sound of chess pieces smashing against cell walls as the couple darted out, slamming the door behind them and panting in feigned distress, Draco's cheeks flushed and Hermione summoning tears for the Death Eater's behavior.
Pausing only to snatch their wands from the half-pitying, half-amused guards, the couple sprinted down the corridor, waiting until they were in the vacant Apparition Chamber to exchange furtive smiles.
"Third visit and he's already banished us from sight. I wonder what he'll do when we return next week?" Draco wondered casually.
"Kiss me, impart fatherly advice to you and trounce me in chess like always, I suppose," she replied quietly, her tone more lighthearted than she felt. She found her ally's hand and squeezed it. "See you Monday."
His half-smile was the last thing she saw as she Disapparated.
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Monday morning, as she prepared to Disapparate from her parents' house (the Weasleys had rescinded their offer for her to stay with them over the summer after Rita Skeeter had splayed a large photograph of Draco and Hermione holding hands in front of an appropriately-enraged Lucius on the front page of the Daily Prophet), the large eagle-owl owned by the Malfoys swooped through her open bedroom window.
She tore open the seal, fear congealing in her gut. Draco had never before sent her an owl – their relationship was for display only, and real correspondence via the written word was entirely too risky. Had they convicted Lucius? Unlikely. They hadn't yet called the key witnesses – she was one, although her 'intimacy' with Draco was probably grounds for her dismissal as a biased party...
There's a complication. Come to the Manor as soon as you get this. Apparate outside the gates – Mum'll go spare if she sees you in the house. The Weasleys weren't the only ones taking their cover story badly. Hermione glanced at the glossy photograph Draco had provided as reference, memorized the Malfoy seal on the black iron gates, shut her eyes, blotting out all fears of what the 'complication' might be, and felt the uncomfortable pressure of moving through magically-folded space.
"What happened?" The words were off her tongue as she Apparated to see Draco standing right in front of her, pale face whiter than usual.
"They've moved the trial date," he bit out without preamble. "It's going to be in September."
When we're back at Hogwarts. No...
"And they've transferred him back to Azkaban. Which means that his visitors are limited to Mum and me. Only direct family are allowed in."
Hermione was barely aware of the tall boy's arms catching her as her legs gave way without warning. Distressing as it had been to watch her proud lover kept dirty and burdened by his heavy chains, visiting him in the cell under Draco's ever-watchful eye, Hermione could not deny that these hours had been the high points of her week. There had been a freedom in their interaction there, a private world composed only of the three of them.
Now this peaceable interim reality had been moved irrevocably beyond her reach. The trial would resume when she couldn't be present, the verdict announced before the uncaring world. Their time had, abruptly, run out.
"We will find a way, Hermione," Draco was whispering. "Don't worry – you know my father is brilliant. Don't give up..."
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"Do something about your son's dangerous obsession before our Master solves the problem for you," Bellatrix told her sister flatly. Narcissa froze mid-action, teapot forgotten in her hand.
"I beg your pardon?" the youngest daughter of Orion Black contrived to look puzzled.
Bellatrix threw her a disgusted look and planted the Prophet on the sitting room table. Narcissa ground her teeth. Her son again, ridiculously flaunting his father's Mudblood lover – this time sharing a lovely scoop of Fortescue's Triple-Berry Surprise as they smiled for the camera.
"This has been appearing in the papers for a month now. Convince Draco it's time to give up his game with a piece of forbidden fruit – pass it off to our Master as the hotblooded folly of youth, combined with some tripe about grieving for Lucius – and your family might be forgiven." Bellatrix's eyes were more hooded than usual as she sighed. "I would not fancy seeing my only nephew's body gracing the front page under the Dark Mark."
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"Ms. Skeeter, I'm so pleased you could grant me this interview," Narcissa lied graciously, ushering the bundle of journalistic vitriol in loud magenta robes into her sitting room. The willowy hostess reflected that certain colors ought simply not be allowed to hang in a wardrobe – then again, Rita Skeeter's unique choice of dress certainly made her easier to avoid in a crowd.
"Mrs. Malfoy, I'm thrilled to have received your invitation. Your husband's choice of...extracurricular activities has been, unfortunately, quite well documented, both in the first rise of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and now, after the Ministry break-in and subsequent destruction of extremely valuable property. But the woman's side of the story is, as usual, tragically under-told. Tell me: what are some of the pressures you've been under as the wife of a practically convicted Death Eater? How did you meet him? Was yours an arranged marriage, or would you say that the last twenty years has changed a man you fell in love with? And what do you think of your son's revolutionary attachment to a Muggleborn? Do you share his enthusiasm for embracing a new era of cooperation between old and new societies?"
The woman's questions were fired off with a speed and precision born of many years of practice, and Narcissa carefully concealed her smirk – Skeeter would never hear the damning answers to the first question, or the deeply personal details of the next two. Their Master was already livid with her husband for his failure to retrieve the prophecy, and the blond witch intended to give the reporter a story that would blow any questions regarding the pureblood wife and her son's loyalties out of the minds of their readers. Much as it offended her sensibilities to parade her own life in front of the public eye, her sister's point had been well-taken. A little censure, a few whispers as to her husband's tastes in women, were preferable to the loss of husband and son and possibly her own life. Lucius would be sacrificed – he was a lamb being led to the chopping block anyway – and Narcissa and Draco could escape unscathed from both sides.
"Well, Ms. Skeeter – tea?" After they had settled her black tea with three lumps of sugar, Narcissa carefully affected a state of exhaustion – knowing that the early afternoon light streaming through the pale yellow curtains would add greatly to her air of faint illness. "After whole-heartedly supporting Draco – true love is so rarely found now, and that's such a shame, don't you think? – imagine my surprise when I discovered that my dear son is not in love with Hermione Granger after all. He's merely carrying out one more order from his father!"
Skeeter frowned, not following and Narcissa heaved a long sigh. "Apparently, the girl has been Lucius' lover." Narcissa saw shock spark in Skeeter's eyes as all the words connected in her brain, and the aristocrat smothered her smile to continue. "He commanded Draco to pretend with her so that he could have her brought to him without raising suspicion! After all these years, to take up with a girl our son's age..." As the slender woman feigned tears for her callous husband's actions, the reporter sat stock-still on the couch, almost forgetting to breathe.
A pureblood-Muggle-born, Slytherin-Gryffindor, father-son triangle. Not to mention the more than twenty-year age difference between Lucius Malfoy and the witch in question...and the crowning fact that he was heralded as the Dark Lord's right-hand man and she was one of the Boy Who Lived's best friends. The headlines were too easy: Opposite sides of a pitched battle in the Department of Mysteries...or had they been?
The Daily Prophet hadn't carried such luridly sensational news in her lifetime. Skeeter patted the other woman's back, too deep in thought to notice Narcissa wincing away from her heavy-handedness.
The Granger girl's name would be dragged through all the metaphorical mud the wizarding world could sling. And she, Rita Skeeter, was going to make a fortune.
"You poor dear," she murmured, pulling a contrived expression of sympathy onto her face while scrambling for a hideous handkerchief that matched the color of her robes. "This must have come as quite a blow to you..."
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"Oh. My. God." Fred's unusually serious voice was the first thing Harry and Ron heard as they tumbled into the Burrow's kitchen for their breakfast. Ron flicked a glance at his older brother, eyes hardening as he took in Fred's pale features tucked behind the Daily Prophet.
"If it's more about Hermione and ferret-face, I may vomit," Ron snapped repressively, finding his appetite for his mother's excellent cooking abruptly dimmed. The article in the Prophet revealing the relationship between the poster-boy for pureblood supremacy and Gryffindor's leading Muggle-born lioness had been published the morning after Hogwarts had closed for the year, and the youngest son of Arthur Weasley still found himself reeling from the photos – new ones popping from the glossy pages of Witch Weekly every Sunday – that confirmed the romantic inclinations of his best friend and arch-rival. His mother had wanted to bring Hermione to the Burrow anyway, partially to determine whether the intelligent girl had been bewitched, but Ron and Harry had flatly refused to see her.
"Lucius Malfoy is one of the causes of Sirius' death," Harry had expressed bitterly the last time Molly had gently tried to broach the subject. "I've heard they're going to authorize the Dementor's Kiss and I can't think of a single wizard who deserves it more. If Hermione has decided to spend her time with his son, she can shack up at their Manor."
Harry's hard tone had permanently closed the matter, and both the Boy Who Lived and his sidekick had taken to averting their eyes when the morning edition arrived by owl, not wanting to sink their nails into a gaping wound.
"It is. And I think I'm going to," George said, setting his fork down as he read with his twin, his skin faintly green.
"What is it?" Morbid curiosity prompted Harry to lean in, examining the front page. He had never seen anything make the irrepressible duo look so ill. His jade eyes skimmed a few lines, and, like the twins, his face drained completely of color as he staggered away from the table, one hand clapped over his mouth as if forcibly restraining himself from gagging.
"Harry?" Ron said, alarmed as he moved to his best friend's side.
"D'you think it's true?" Fred muttered, laying the paper flat on the table so all could see. The top image was one of Hermione and Draco Malfoy, strolling through Muggle London hand-in-hand, bright smiles captured by the cameras – another sickeningly sweet moment in a long string of photographs of the Prophet's newest darlings.
The photo underneath was one that had gone previously unprinted, a black-and-white from the first day of Lucius Malfoy's trial. Someone had caught a moment in the milling courtroom with the younger Malfoy and their friend standing in front of the accused. As they watched, Hermione's hand lifted slightly and pressed against the air in front of the proud man, an invisible barrier keeping her from touching him. The pureblood's fingers twitched under his bonds, as if wishing to reciprocate her gesture.
There was no denying the intensity of both parties as they gazed at one another.
The headline underneath it blared: Darling Couple a Daring Cover-Up?
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"Hey Granger – is it true?" Seamus Finnegan's voice cut through the press of bodies at Platform 9 and ¾, and Hermione resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands as, en masse, parents and children stilled, eyes shooting to the face they recognized as well as Harry's after seeing it in the Prophet everyday for the past two months. There was a collective withdrawal from the scorned Gryffindor witch now widely perceived as a traitor – and one with loose morals at that.
"Did you really sleep with Lucius Malfoy?"
Muttering swelled in the beats of silence following Seamus' question, and though the young woman did not turn away, nothing could keep a rich blush from staining her face.
"What's it like to screw a Death Eater?" jeered a Ravenclaw she barely recognized.
"Does he call you 'Mudblood' in bed?" laughed Pansy Parkinson. "I always wondered if that would be a turn on for you, Granger. Is it?"
A jet of bright yellow light ploughed into her chest, knocking her backwards, and Draco Malfoy stepped up behind the girl who had proven to be his only friend and confidant for the long weeks of summer. Absolute quiet descended once more around the Hogwarts Express, the busy terminal unnatural in its complete stillness. His cold grey eyes swept the crowd in a movement that consciously mimicked his father's as he draped one arm casually around the slender Gryffindor's shoulders. She looked up at him gratefully, deliberately cementing this image in the minds of their hundreds of observers as one of a damsel looking to her rescuer.
"No one uses that word around me or my girlfriend," he told Pansy and her clique of Slytherin hangers-on coldly. "As for you," his lip curled in sincere disdain as he glared at the tight knot of Gryffindors who comprised Hermione's class, her two former best friends amongst them. "The Ministry has been telling lies for a year through the Daily Prophet. As the target of most of these falsehoods, I would have expected especially you, Potter, to not be so quick to believe everything you read."
There was a swift re-arrangement of faces as the crowd took in the Malfoy heir's harsh but entirely honest appraisal of their government. The Ministry's rapid back-pedaling after the appearance of Voldemort in the heart of their operations had left many witches and wizards distinctly nervous. Draco knew their failing reputation would lend credence to his assertion that they were once again simply trying to stir up trouble. "And Skeeter has always hated Hermione," he said in a quieter voice, eyes locked on still-mutinous blue and green gazes. "Think of what you know of my father, Potter, Weasley, and tell me if you can imagine him laying a hand on a Muggle-born. Especially one known for spending her time with you."
Their furious features faltered only very slightly, but it was enough. Seeds of doubt had been planted, and Draco's continued solicitous treatment of the young witch who had been so celebrated as a hero in the Department of Mysteries was enough to bring the station back to life, parents installing their children on the train, bidding them to write often and do their best.
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Trial to Resume: Newly-Appointed Minister Promises Maximum Punishment upon Conviction
Hermione and Draco looked at each other from where they sat ensconced at one end of Gryffindor's table and reached over the rough tabletop to grasp hands, both mouths pressed together in terse lines that betrayed their mutual grief.
"They'll kill him," Draco murmured, feeling his throat close around the words, making them clipped. Hermione could only nod her agreement, unable to speak, unable to feel. Numbness stole through her, blessing her nerves and emotions with blunted reactions, knowing that if the full force broke over her it would come in brutal waves of tears and screams.
Both were unaware of Harry Potter's eyes tracking them, almost obsessively, from farther down the table. He had made it his habit to observe them together over the past three weeks, to the point of following his former friend. The lascivious rumors in the Prophet and other magazines had not abated following Rita Skeeter's slanderous article that summer, with more witches and wizards than Hermione knew existed willing to come forward and testify that they had seen the young witch and her older lover in any number of places in the months leading up to his incarceration.
While Harry did not believe most of them, he had found himself incapable of accepting Hermione's relationship with the son – no matter that they played the part perfectly. Ron was all-too-willing to push aside the unwelcome thought of the witch he had once fostered hopes of dating being involved with the known Death Eater. They hated the younger generation almost as much as the elder, but although he was a bully, his side in the war had yet to be determined. Better the spoiled child than the cold man Harry had seen at Voldemort's resurrection.
But try as he might, the first – and only – photograph to appear in the Daily Prophet of Lucius Malfoy and Hermione Granger seemed branded onto his eyelids. The searing quality of their glance, the intimacy even in a crowded space...these were not the signs of a mutual disdain and lethal hatred.
And now she was reduced to speechlessness, despair wrapping the duo as they clung to each other – not as a couple but as survivors of a sinking ship desperately seizing what they could.
Much as he wished, for the first time in his life, to believe Draco Malfoy, the young hero simply could not.
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Hermione tore into Draco's room in a whirlwind of golden-brown tresses, clutching a piece of official-looking parchment that looked suspiciously like the one that had just been dropped on his own duvet.
"Have you-" he started.
"I've been subpoenaed," she panted, eyes huge. Draco brought one hand to run down his face in a gesture of exhaustion borrowed from men many times his years. He wordlessly handed her his own summons to appear before the Wizengamot in four days' time.
"It appears that someone wants to check on our little charade," he muttered as she skimmed it.
Her eyes were wild when she lifted them again. "They'll use Veritiserum – even the most carefully crafted lies cannot make it through the drug. Lucius-"
"My father is already a dead man," the younger blond cut her off with a ruthlessness that shocked her with its clarity. She knew how much Draco loved his father, but the grey eyes had rapidly shifted as he gazed at her, his Slytherin-trained sense of planning replacing emotion. "It's you we've got to do something about."
As she blinked, he snorted in one of his now-rare displays of impatience with her. "Put that raved-about mind to use, Hermione. My father has been a Death Eater for longer than either of us have been living. We have not one shred of evidence that he has changed his mind – merely his word, which, although we both know it to be true, the Wizengamot cannot trust." His fingers ran quickly through the fine stands of his hair. "You can be sentenced to Azkaban for aiding and abetting a criminal, and frankly, given our current political atmosphere, they might do worse. Everyone in power now lived through the Dark Lord's last rise, and they will be less inclined than ever to be merciful – or just."
Hermione paled, and nodded. "And your own place in the scheme?"
"As his son, the defense lawyer will have the easiest time getting me a pardon. 'Grew up in a twisted environment...' 'What wouldn't a son do for his father?' That's easy. Family is always a weak point and, frankly, the fact that I am still under-age will be to my advantage."
"So..." Hermione blew a long sigh as her brain finally shifted into gear again, over-riding panic. "How do we disappear?"
Draco arched an eyebrow at her. "Who?"
"You, me and your father." She tilted her head at him, her face as impassive as his own. "Unless, of course, you wish to remain behind to face the consequences on your own?"
"I'll pass on that significant pleasure," he rejoined. "We'll have a very narrow window of opportunity – probably inside the Ministry itself..."
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Draco rubbed his hands surreptitiously on his robes, hating the feeling of sweat pooling there as he waited. His testimony was scheduled to take place following Hermione, and he was seated separately from the spectators and criminal court on the opposite wall, behind the chair of the accused.
The lithe Gryffindor he'd come to know had taken her place in the witness box and gazed over the crowd calmly. Mutters of scorn and whispers of encouragement betrayed who amongst the avid watchers had bought into Skeeter's poisonous story revealing her relationship with Lucius. Draco was impressed in spite of himself – for a girl who had always looked out on the world with her heart in her eyes, she was remarkably composed. Perhaps another side effect of spending time with Slytherins.
In a calculated movement, she turned her head and caught his gaze, one half of her mouth curving upwards. He returned the gesture, and another wave of murmurs rippled through the court, both of them and their behavior plainly on display.
The gavel fell, and with it, silence.
"Bring in the accused." The ringing voice was so different than Fudge's prior fatigue that Draco shivered as he gazed at the lion-maned man who had previously been the prosecuting attorney and now held the highest office in the wizarding world. His stomach tightened and he clenched his jaw to fight a wave of nausea.
Draco tensed as the Dementors emerged with Lucius. He could see Hermione's eyes widen involuntarily, saw her swallow forcibly the cry of distress that threatened to come ripping out of her at his haggard appearance. Although he had clearly been allowed a razor and a change of robes, the lustrous hair that Draco had inherited was matted and filthy, and the previously-austere cheekbones were now skeletal. Lucius' skin was beginning to take on the faint yellow that came with the thin diet of the prison coupled with the constant presence of the Azkaban guards.
The elder Malfoy lifted his head, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other as the Dementors once again faded back, clearing his mind for this day's abuse-
-he stopped moving. He was two feet from his chair when his eyes locked on the woman they had brought against him today, and seeing her here cracked the glaze of dignity he had struggled to maintain. For a moment, he could only stare at her, absorbing her beauty as she steadily regarded him in turn.
The general noise level was rising again at this development, and Draco could see his mother glaring furiously at Lucius and Hermione as they continued to study one another in front of more than a thousand of her peers. An uncharitable spurt of satisfaction filled the boy at the ugliness twisting Narcissa's classically beautiful features. He had no doubt as to who had told Rita Skeeter about Hermione's unlikely meetings with his father, and had not forgiven his mother her cruelty in exposing them all to danger and ridicule.
The sound of voices penetrated Lucius' fog and he gave the Gryffindor on the stand a credible sneer as he continued towards his chair. Behind him, Draco tensed, hand slipping into his pocket for his wand. His time was growing very, very short-
-Lucius' pale, slightly unsteady hands brushed the edges of his seat, and as Draco watched the tremor shoot through them, a motion so shameful in a man so rigidly controlled all of his life, rage whitened the son's vision until he thought he would gladly AvadaKedavrathe entire room.
His father moved so slowly, almost as if he knew what they were doing, giving them enough time to see every minuscule movement of his gaunt frame-
"Silencio!" Draco bellowed, sweeping his wand in a modified motion to cast the entire court into noiselessness. He smirked. He was now the only one capable of casting spells verbally – and while there were plenty of Aurors who could cast without words, no one would be able to give mass orders. The confusion would accomplish what he never could hope to alone. His "Impedimenta!" felled Kingsley Shacklebolt, undoubtedly the quickest wizard on the uptake, and the young man hastily fired a Stunning spell that narrowly missed the new Minister and slammed into his Undersecretary, still the unpopular Doloros Umbridge, sending her flying.
The room was instantly ablaze with colors, protective and offensive spells filling the space with fractures of light like prisms in the sun. They were fighting each other to get to him, and the blond smiled grimly as more than one of his enemies collapsed from so-called friendly fire. Draco dimly saw Hermione cast her silent Accio from the witness stand, saw his father jerk towards her, away from the chair before the magical contraption could bind him. Lucius stumbled, lifted his head, saw the determined face of his beloved, and immediately righted himself, reading her intent and ducking towards her in the storm. Draco saw her reach, catch Lucius' hand-
-and Vanish. The Portkey had been activated, and the younger Malfoy's mouth curved almost ferally as he cast a wide-range Jelly Legs Jinx, causing the nearest dozen people to go wobbly at the knees, plunging his free hand into his own pocket. As his fingertips brushed the watch, the familiar jerking feeling from behind his navel seized him and he was traveling.
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"Draco. Good. Ve vere hoping you vould arrive safely," a peculiarly familiar voice was his first greeting as Draco struggled to untangle himself from the chair that had been occupying the same square of floor as his landing body.
"Viktor Krum?" he said incredulously as he straightened his robes, automatically smoothing them into place. The Quidditch player smiled easily.
"Yes. Our friend Hermione wrote me that she required immediate assistance."
"You sent the Portkeys?"
"Off course," Viktor replied, and started for the sitting room door, gesturing for the former Hogwarts student to follow him. "They are in the kitchen." He paused as Draco passed him in the doorway, a peculiar expression of curiosity and faint distaste on his well-known face. "It is none off my business, but how did your father and Hermione-"
The Slytherin swiftly shook his head, having long ago decided he had no desire to ever know the answer to that question himself. "In regards to that, I think it's better not to ask. I don't think they'd tell you even if you did."
"Ah."
"I know it takes some getting used to," Draco told him. "In fact, I'm still not used to it. But I will be in time. She grows on you, you know."
The ex-Triwizard Champion raised both thick eyebrows and the blond laughed, surprised by the genuine ring to the sound. "I guess you would, wouldn't you?"
"Indeed."
They entered the sunny little kitchen to see Lucius and Hermione seated next to one another, heads bent together so closely that the straight blond strands tumbled into the curly brown, merging in a shifting waterfall of gold and amber. In the instant before they registered their audience, Draco watched his father reach to twine his fingers with Hermione's, his classmate returning the squeeze with obvious affection as she smiled at him.
Viktor cleared his throat as the two stepped into the room. The seated pair jumped faintly, looking slightly guilty as their private moment was interrupted. Draco helped himself to fresh green grapes whose taut skins promised juicy sourness within, a soft cheese he couldn't identify and a long sausage before joining the duo.
"What now?" he asked after swallowing his first grape.
"We're staying," Hermione said quietly. "At least for now. We can use Polyjuice and attend school at Durmstrang – Karkaroff owes Lucius a favor. Something about hiding from the Dark Lord after his resurrection."
Draco stared at her, cheese forgotten on his fork, fighting an absurd desire to burst into hysterical laughter. She had pulled her illicit lover from the depths of the Ministry of Magic and his trial less than an hour before, set out to live an entirely new life with less than a week's planning – and Hermione Granger had already figured out her academics. A ridiculous sense of relief bubbled within him. It was nice to know, in a life that had been utterly wrecked over the past several months, that some things never changed.
His father must have been watching the display on Draco's face, for Lucius smirked as he said, "I agree with Hermione – you must get your degree. And as returning to Hogwarts, or to Britain, for that matter, has now become impossible, Durmstrang is an admirable second choice."
"Didn't you want me to go there to begin with?" the younger Slytherin queried, vaguely recalling a long-past argument between his parents.
"I did. Especially with the dangers that the world faces now...Durmstrang's education offers a few subjects that Hogwarts should adopt. Dumbledore seems to be convinced that he can win the war without dirtying his hands."
"He can." This came from Hermione, and all three men turned towards the girl, surprised by the bitterness loading her voice. "He just has Harry sully his."
Silence fell at this unexpected condemnation from one of Dumbledore's favored pride.
Draco chewed his sausage, caught Hermione's eye when she turned away from his father, and shrugged. Durmstrang. It was as good a plan as any. He hadn't thought past getting them all out of England, and there was no denying that they needed their final two years of schooling if they were going to go on to be professionals of any kind.
"What will you do, Father?" Draco turned to the elder wizard with a frown.
"First? Shower," Lucius replied, rising with a final press on Hermione's hand, reluctantly releasing it as he kissed her forehead. "And secondly...in spite of the fact that I have spent most of my life playing the rich aristocrat, I took Outstanding NEWTs in Charms, Herbology and Transfiguration. I will seek some kind of gainful employment – preferably one that will not attract too much interest or attention."
After spending a lifetime striding in his father's wake through the Ministry and the homes of other purebloods, observing how hastily lesser witches and wizards moved aside to accommodate Lucius' passing, his son could merely stare at him. His father seek anonymity? The sun might as well rise in the west.
"I am no longer that man, Draco," Lucius told him gently, and two pairs of grey eyes, shades apart, held one another until some kind of understanding flashed between them. Then Lucius' gaze travelled to Hermione, who was sitting in the glow of the mid-morning sun, light rimming her tresses like a halo. Peace spread its wings in his heart, a pure contentment that the older wizard had not experienced since his early childhood. He had everything his heart desired.
"It's time to start over."
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A/N: As usual, please read, review and throw any requests my way!
Shogi: You are such a wonderful reviewer! I'm so tickled that you like my little side trips. Severus-James? Now...that's a combination I have never thought about...good challenge! I look forward to coming up with a good story around it!
Demmons1399: Thank you! I agree - Fleur always seemed a bit too girly, but then, I think Bill and Fleur would look like a movie-star couple, so maybe that's what he wanted. I'm glad you liked this!
Beth5572: Thanks for reading this one as well!