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Chapter 2: A Place to Stay

"Well, Lucius," Hermione said, "You may take your leave now. I'm tired, and I think I'll stay here tonight after all. I need to get one of the bedrooms ready. I don't think there are even sheets on any of the beds." She walked past him and went straight to the grand staircase.

He watched her go for a moment, smiled, and then followed. He reached for her arm just as she stepped upon the first step.

His smiled felt plastered on his face as he said, "What part of 'being under my care' do you not understand?"

"You aren't serous!" she accused. She pulled her arm from his grasp and stormed down the step, her finger pointing to his chest. "Listen here, Malfoy Senior! Harry Potter dropped me off here at my insistence, even though he told me I was to be under your watchful gaze as well. I assume that really means I'm free to be where I want, and I want to be here! I realize this place isn't much any longer, thanks to you and the fact that you had it stripped of everything. Still, it was my home for years, before I even fell in love with your son, and it was his home for the last year of his life, so I'm staying here!"

He laughed, though he found nothing funny from her rant, and said, "You seriously think I would let you stay here in this seedy little Muggle neighborhood, where you aren't safe? I hardly think so."

"Seedy? Not safe? Not safe from what? What's out to get me, Malfoy?" she asked with her hands in the air. "And this 'seedy little Muggle neighborhood' as you call it is in a very ritzy part of London, with mansions, Malfoy! Mansions! Fine, this house only has fifteen rooms compared to the eighty or so at the Manor, but it's not exactly a hovel and I'll appreciate it if you would leave now! I've had a tiring day and an even more tiring year!"

He stepped closer to the woman in front of him, her gaunt, pale expression full of fire and he was at a loss. Should he tell her of the dangers facing her, or continue to lie to her, as he had intended to do?

The truth was that she was in danger. She was a target. The people or person who killed his son also wanted her dead. They had hoped to do that in prison, but she had spent the last year at a detention center, instead of being sent to Azkaban. Unknown to Lucius at the time, Potter had arranged that, due to the fact that he actually knew of the danger to her from the beginning. In the last few months, it appeared that she was no longer safe at the detention center either. Therefore, Potter, along with a few trusted people and Lucius Malfoy, along with a few of his associates, arranged for her 'release'. Translation: Hermione Granger, for all intents and purposes, had broken out of jail, though she thought she had been released.

The result being, she wasn't safe here, whether a mansion or a hovel.

He stepped forward, his eyes predatory, and he said, "Understand this, Hermione. You will come with me to the Manor. I take my job as…" he paused, when he almost said 'protector', "as probationary counselor seriously."

She snorted. He smiled.

"I'll humor you for now, though I still plan to convince you that I would be better off here," she said. She walked toward the den, where she had started to enter when she first arrived. She walked up to the window, pulled back the heavy drapes, and looked outside. She was in a winter wool coat, made of fine material, and was dressed in nice clothing, but yet she looked so altered, so different. She removed the heavy coat, placing it across a chair that was covered in a white cloth. He almost hissed sharply at what he saw before him.

He took a second to really look her over, and noticed that she was so much thinner than she was before. He could see her bones protruding from the lightweight v-neck jumper she wore. He could see her spine, and when she raised her hand to place it on the windowpane, he could see the outline of her ribs.

Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and her skin was so pale and wan that she almost looked ill. Her eyes, normally the warmest and richest part of her, still sparkled, but they also showed sadness and pain. He wanted to hit something, or beat something, for what had happened to her, to his son, to all of them.

Someday, someone was going to pay severely for what they took from all of them.

His mind kept up the dark thoughts; so much so that he hadn't noticed that she had turned her back to the window. With eyes that held as much pain as they once held warmth, she was watching him just as surely as he was watching her. He felt a frisson of pleasure when his stare caught hers. She felt it too, he knew she did. She turned back to the window.

Hermione felt flushed and warm knowing Lucius was staring at her. He was staring at her as if he 'knew' a secret about her. He was staring at her as if he knew her soul, or as if he wanted to know it. It made her uncomfortable.

"Look at me," he said.

She jumped, and turned, and looked at him as he requested. Her defenses were on edge, and she had to fight the urge to flee from this man, or rush into his arms. However, he commanded that she look at him, though he was looking past her, toward something outside.

Then two things happened very fast. She heard the glass behind her break. She felt Lucius wrap her in his arms. She hadn't even seen him move…he moved that fast. A sob escaped her as she fought against the man who was now on top of her on the floor. His breath was hot on her neck, and she turned her head slightly, looked up at him and said, "What happened?"

Then she quickly fainted.

Harry Potter, who had been placing wards around the back of the house at the time of the attack, ran toward the front when he heard the crash of the window. He didn't see anything outside, but a smashed bush in the front, and a broken window. He rushed inside, where he saw Lucius Malfoy holding Hermione Granger in his arms on the floor.

"Is she?" Harry asked, not able to continue.

"I think she passed out," Lucius replied. He kept her on his lap, his hands running lightly over her body, to make sure she was alright. He moved to his knees, and though he was twenty years older than the woman on the floor, he lifted her with ease. He took her to the room where he had first met her today, the room at the other side of the foyer, and he placed her on a sheet-covered sofa.

Harry looked at the window and said, "Damn, as I was protecting the house with wards to keep magic out, someone used a damn gun to shoot at her."

He ran back outside. Lucius stayed by Hermione's side as she opened her eyes. She looked up at Lucius and said, "What happened?"

"This nice Muggle neighborhood, which you seem to be so proud of, seems to have a crime problem, seeing that you were shot at through the front window in the den." He raised one eye brow in a 'so there' stare. She started to sit up, but he actually pushed her back down and said, "Oh, do stay there, Hermione. I'm an old man, and I can't keep picking you up off the ground."

"You picked me up?" She blushed. He smiled at the blush, despite himself. Then she said, "You're not that old."

"Really?" he drawled out. Hermione sat up again, and instead of pushing her back this time, he pulled her to her feet. She was close to him and his body hummed with want and anticipation. He said, "I'll go get your coat. You left it in the other room. It's cold in here. Stay right where you are." He walked away from her, because if he had stayed within that close proximity for another moment, he might have done something rash like kiss her or something. He looked over his shoulder and said, "Oh and Potter is still here, you know. He's nosing around outside to find out who shot at you. As soon as he leaves, I'll take you to the Manor."

Lucius walked out of the room, and she said, mostly to herself, "I'm staying here." She walked back to the dining room, though she didn't know why. She just knew she had to get some distance between her and Malfoy. She felt as if an alarm was sounding in her brain, warning her to stay away from him, because he was dangerous. He was a former Death Eater, he was the father of her former fiancée, and she found that she felt a strange attraction for him. That would never do. She held onto the back of one of the dining room chairs and willed herself to calm down, and to think rationally. She had to figure out what she was going to do, where she was going to go, why someone would have shot at her, and why in the world was she suddenly attracted to Lucius Malfoy.

The door to the dining room opened with a slight creak, causing Hermione to look toward the sound from her place by the table. Walking toward her was none other than Harry Potter along with his former arch-enemy, Lucius Malfoy. Hermione thought they made an odd pair. Lucius walked through the door first, and then Harry, who pushed the door lightly, even though it banged against the wall as he entered.

Lucius said, "I told you to stay put in the other room."

She shrugged. Behind him Harry, who looked upset and resigned, said, "She rarely does what she should, Malfoy."

Hermione gasped. She felt done in, finished, and she turned from his piercing green eyes and walked over toward the bay window. She sat in the window seat, placed a hand on the glass and said, "I thought you had left."

"No, not yet," he said. He looked at Lucius and nodded with a curt, "Malfoy," as he sighed and then added, "May I speak with you alone, in the other room?"

Hermione perked back up and looked toward the men. Harry had escorted her here from the detention center that had been her home for the past year. He had not taken advantage of their time to say anything to her during her release, nor during the car ride back to her former home. She had been under the impression that he had left after dropping her off in front of the house. Apparently not. "You can talk to Lucius in here, Harry, in front of me," she said with an exasperated expression on her face.

"I know I have the ability to do that," he said, making fun of the fact that she used the word, 'can', which was something she used to do with him all the time, "I just wish not to. Lucius?" He looked back toward the older man and walked through the dining room, out the other door, toward the kitchen.

"Stay here, and this time I really mean it," Lucius commanded to Hermione. He followed Harry to the kitchen. "What Potter?"

"Don't tell her the reason she was released early, do you understand?" Harry demanded.

Lucius rolled his eyes and said, "Didn't we already have this conversation? Didn't you already warn me once that I was to play by your rules? She's to believe her sentence was commuted, and that she is released into my care for the time being. Under no circumstances am I to tell her that you've gained intelligence that her life was in danger while she was in jail, and that you believe whoever really killed my son now wants her dead."

"Listen, Malfoy," Harry said, his eyes darting back to the door between the rooms, "If you aren't up to this, tell me now. If you can't keep her safe, I'll take her somewhere else."

"What makes you think I can't keep her safe?" Lucius asked, his eyes aglow with anger. "It isn't my fault someone shot at her here! You were supposed to bring her to the Manor, remember? When I found out that you were bringing her here, I didn't have time to make sure it was safe. Apparently, neither did you!"

"Listen, when I told you earlier that she insisted we bring her here before we take her to your house, you told me you would meet her inside and convince her right away to leave, yet I waited outside for a half an hour and she never came back out. What the hell were you two doing in here? Having tea?" Harry walked closer to the older man and said, "I'm doing something here that goes against ever fiber of my being: I'm trusting you of all people. I can't trust my bosses and I can't trust my partner. There is no one at the Ministry that I can trust, so that leaves you. Are you up for the task or not?"

"You do what you must to uncover the plot against her, and find out who killed my son, and I'll keep her safe, Potter," the older man warned. "But know this; it won't be easy to convince her not to investigate on her own."

"I know that, and that's why she's in danger," Harry said. "That's why I have to keep her at arm's length as well. She has to keep thinking I'm one of the enemies. I knew from day one that she was innocent, but the evidence, Malfoy, the evidence was so insurmountable that it was a bridge even I couldn't cross at the time. Just keep her safe."

"Harry?" Hermione poked her head in the swinging door that connected the kitchen to the dining room.

"Yes?" he asked, running his hand through his unruly black hair.

"You may leave now. You too, Malfoy. I've decided that I'll stay here tonight. I already fixed the front window with magic. I think someone must have thrown a rock at it or something, but I'll be safe, I'm sure. All I have to do is get one of the guest bedrooms ready, and then tomorrow, I'll decide what I want to do, and where I want to go."

Harry looked at Lucius and said, "You take this one."

Lucius smiled at her and said, "I already explained this to you, my dear. Let me reiterate that you've been entrusted into my care, during this transition period following your release. That means you'll come back to the Manor with me."

She looked at Harry first, then to Lucius, then back to Harry. Her hands were clenched in fists of rage and she spat, "You were serious, Harry, when you said that a condition of my release was that I had to stay under house arrest with Lucius Malfoy, of all people, during my probation period? What fool decided that? He's not exactly a paragon of virtue!"

Harry couldn't help but to laugh. "Regardless, that's what you have to do, or I'll take you back to jail myself. Also, it wasn't a rock that flew in your window. It was a bullet, Hermione, a bullet; therefore, you aren't safe here, so go to the Manor."

He knew she would be safer at Malfoy Manor than anywhere else in the world, and that was all that was important to him right now. Also, he knew that he had broken many laws himself, by 'breaking' her out of jail, and if she was hiding at Malfoy Manor, no one would know. He had gone to a lot of trouble to get her out, and he wouldn't have her ruin it now. She was still staring at him, hands on hips, eyes glaring, and he said, "Give it a rest, Granger. It's go with Malfoy, or go back to jail. Pick your poison."

An hour later she was sitting in a chair at Malfoy Manor. She had refused to move from it from the moment that Harry had left her there. Lucius walked into the small parlor where she sat and said, "One of the house elves has your suite ready. Wouldn't you like to wash up before dinner?"

She didn't answer. She didn't look at him. She didn't say a thing.