all characters belong to JKR
Chapter 3: A Place to Rest
Gazing into the fire, Hermione hadn't moved from the chair where she had sat down when she first arrived at the Manor six hours ago. She was tired, hungry, and the very fact that this massive house had at least twenty bathrooms made her see red, because she wanted to visit one of them, any one of them, more than she wanted almost anything…and yet…she hadn't moved from this chair.
The reasons were as simple as they were complex. She was being held prisoner.
Did Harry and Lucius think she was stupid? She knew she wasn't free to come and go as she pleased. She didn't know why, but she knew that Harry and Lucius were keeping her here, against her will, and she was bound and determined to find out. She was also bound to escape. She needed to find Draco's killer and she couldn't do that if she was still a prisoner. That one goal had kept her from going insane this last year, and she would not be deterred.
So she had two main goals in mind, one long term, one short term. She needed to find Draco's killer, (long term) and she needed to escape this new prison (short term.) Oh – and she had a shorter term goal: she needed to find a toilet.
She found one near the foyer. She walked along the hallway and noticed that the house was uncommonly quiet at night, but not in an uneasy, uncomfortable way. She found this quiet peaceful, consoling, and very much needed. She started back into the parlor when she heard the large grandfather clock in the hallway chime two times. It was two in the morning.
She was so tired, in so many ways. She needed to find a place to rest, to lay her weary head. Instead of turning left to go back into the main parlor, she turned right, followed the hallway for several meters more and then she stopped in front of a set of double doors.
She opened the doors slowly and started inside the huge library. Lucius was sitting in a large chair by the fireplace. He had a glass of firewhiskey in one hand. He didn't look her way. He merely said, "Come in and join me, daughter-in-law."
From the doorway she said, "I was never your daughter-in-law."
He smiled to himself, a rueful smile, and said, "I know." He was both angry and happy for that fact. "Have you finally decided to go to bed, or have you come in here to hex me?"
"Do you think I could find a way to do both?" she asked, less than contritely.
He turned in his seat, slowly, and regarded her. "Was that humour?" he asked, one eyebrow in the air.
"I don't know anymore," she said seriously. "I really think though that I might like to do both, so perhaps it was a serious comment." She walked into the library and responded, "This was always one of my favourite rooms in this house."
"Draco hated this room," Lucius said offhanded.
Hermione winced. "May we make a pact? Perhaps we could even put it in writing," she said lightly, coming to stand in front of him.
"Only if you agree to sign it in blood," he leered.
"Eew," she whined. She made a funny face.
He sighed. "That was my attempt at humour," he pointed out. He stood up in front of her. "I already know what you want, and I agree."
"You do?" she said, surprised.
He nodded and held out his hand. She placed hers in his and he held on tight, shaking her hand up and down, as he said, "I think we should go back to the ancient practice of Mudbloods being sex-slaves to purebloods, too and I'm so glad you agree."
She wrenched her hand from his and said, "That's not humour, because that's not the least bit funny! I'm tired, and I'm just, well, very, very tired, so don't play around with me!"
She plopped on the sofa that sat along the far side of the room. He walked up to her and said, "I know, I know. I also really know what you wanted to say. I agree to stop mentioning Draco. It's painful to you. You see, it's the opposite for me. I find comfort in talking about him, and I don't really have anyone to talk about him with, but I understand that I've had proper time to mourn him and you haven't, so things are still fresh and open for you."
She lowered her head and started to cry. Watching her cry, and wanting to comfort her, felt foreign to him. He wanted to make her feel better, to protect her, and to envelope her completely. He had wanted that for a long time. "Go up to bed, Hermione. You may think these are mere words, but things will be better in the morning."
He walked out of the room. If he didn't leave her right now, he would be forced to take her to bed himself, and he couldn't guarantee it would be her bed.
She continued to cry. She cried until the clock on the mantle chimed three times. Another hour had gone, another hour alone, another hour afraid, and another hour feeling useless and scared. She had to get out of here!
She ran out of the room. She ran as if her life depended on it. She ran to the front door, pulled on the doorknob, and the damn thing didn't budge one iota. She pulled her wand from her skirt and said every unlocking spell she had ever known, and nothing happened.
She ran to the solarium. It was a far distance away, and when she reached it she was out of breath. She tried to break some of the glass with her wand. Nothing happened. A room made totally of glass, yet the glass was indestructible! She threw a planter at one of the large windows. Nothing happened. She screamed at the top of her lungs.
She screamed, "Nothing happened!"
She sank to the ground and screamed again. Finally, she stood up, and ran to Lucius' study. It was across from the library. She rushed in the door and frantically went to the bay windows. She pulled an ottoman over to the windows, pulled back the heavy, velvet drapes, and examined the windows closely. They were average, everyday, run of the mill windows, with an antiquated sliding lock that went from the wood of the window to the sill. She jumped off the ottoman to land on the floor, rejoicing at her good luck.
She easily slid the bottom lock to the right. She almost gasped. Truly, it couldn't be this easy! She looked over her shoulder to make sure the door was still closed. She stood back up on the upholstered ottoman and tried to push the lock in the middle of the window out of the groove. It wouldn't move as easily as the one on the bottom.
Fine, she was a witch, she would use magic. She took her wand and tried to move it with magic. Still, nothing happened. Just then, the door opened. She looked over her shoulder, saw Lucius, and in her surprise she slipped and her hand went right through the glass, slicing her wrist with a large gash.
She cried out in anguish. She fell off the ottoman to the floor. Lucius rushed to her side.
"You stupid, stupid woman!" he said.
"You couldn't make these windows unbreakable, too?" she leveled, holding her bloodied wrist in her other hand. He bent next to her, and with the same amount of ease as he picked her up earlier, he lifted her from the ground and took her to sit on top of his desk.
She was still crying. Her wrist was bleeding copious amounts of blood. He waved his wand back and forth over her wrist, administering silent healing spells, even as he said words to soothe her. "Now, now, it's alright. It's okay. It's fine. It's stopped bleeding now."
He released her wrist, placing it in her lap. He looked down at his hand, crimson with her recently shed blood. The sight upset him more than it should. It sickened him in a way. He looked back at her wan expression and pallid face, and she grasped his robes in her hands and said, "I'm tired, Lucius."
"I'm tired as well, Hermione. I'm tired of your antics. You wouldn't have been able to get out of the windows, anyway, merely because you got the thing unlocked. There are wards and charms and enchantments to keep you here, just as many that are in place to keep others out. I knew immediately when you broached the threshold of this room. You need to face the fact that you have to stay here. You have no choice."
She still had his robes bunched in her hands. She looked up at him, tears falling still, and she asked. "Why? Why can't I just run away and hide? Why can't I just run away and die?" She dropped her head to his chest.
He cleaned her wrist and hands free of the drying blood. Then, he cleaned his hands with his wand, placed the wand by her leg, and then he stroked her hair several times. Finally, he held her tightly. "I won't let you run away and hide, or worse, wish to die. Furthermore, I find that I want to be truthful with you, though I've never had that inclination before now."
She looked up at him, waiting, anticipating.
He placed a hand under her chin, nudging it upwards more. "You aren't really released from prison. Your sentence was commuted, and you weren't pardoned. Potter, in all actuality, and as hard as it is to believe he would ever do anything wrong, or even that he would take that wand out of his bum long enough to do something wrong, helped you escape, in a way." He knew he was rambling, but it was hard for someone like him to tell the truth when he had spent a lifetime perfecting lies. He stopped to gage her reaction, and decided to continue.
She released his robes, but placed her hands on his arms. He said softly, "You see, the truth is, you weren't safe in prison. The person who killed Draco wants you dead as well. They always have. Potter pretty much knew from the beginning that you weren't guilty, and that you had an equal threat against you, but proving it was another thing, especially since there was so much evidence against you."
She straightened up, but remained on the desk. "Go on," she urged.
"Your old boyfriend even witnessed the supposed crime, as you recall. He swore under truth serum that you did it. There was other evidence, as you know, but what you didn't know at the time was that there was someone who wanted you dead as well. Potter uncovered this, and persuaded the Minister to sentence you to the detention center instead of Azkaban.
"The thing was he thought he would quickly find evidence of your innocence, and he assumed he would discover who was behind killing Draco and behind the threats against you. Although he searched hard, with help from me and others, the only discovery he made was that you were in more danger in jail, than out. That brings us here."
"I'm not really free?" she said sadly. If Lucius Malfoy had a heart, it would break at the sight of the dejected expression on her face.
"In one sense, you are, in the fact that you are no longer in that hellhole, but only myself, Potter, the Minister of Magic himself, as well as three others, know of this," he relayed.
She looked worried. Then she looked angry. "Wait a minute, does that mean that everyone assumes I escaped?"
"No," he said, with a long sigh. "To the vermin in the jail and to the public in general, they assume you have finally been taken to Azkaban. Someone matching your description was taken there by Potter this very night, and was placed in solitary confinement."
"Who?" she asked.
"Really?" he asked back, incredulously. "The thing that's most pressing on your massive mind is who did Potter get to play the part of Hermione Granger in prison?"
Then she did something he didn't expect. She began to laugh. She grasped his robes again, laughed, and said, "It's all so outlandish! There are so many things I want, and need, to know, yet I'm so tired, and frankly, right now, my wrist throbs where it went through the window, and hell, at least I'm not in jail." She laughed some more, but then stopped and said, "Do my parents still think I'm in jail?"
"Yes," he said solemnly.
"That's depressing. We should have just told everyone I died in prison. If someone was really after me, that would stop it," she said dolefully.
He smirked and said, "Now see, I finally really believe you are tired, because a Hermione Granger who is in her right mind would see the foibles of that theory. If everyone thought you died, then the real killer would no longer seek you out and we would never find them." Suddenly, his mood turned dark. He said, "Of course that didn't stop, well, never mind."
Looking back at her he quizzed, "Are you finally ready for bed?"
"Sure, whatever you want. Your bed or mine?" she said with a slight smile.
He looked shocked. She laughed outright and said, "Now THAT'S what they call humour, Lucius Malfoy. HA!" She jumped off the desk, and to her surprise he didn't move. She was right up against his body. He reached out and pulled her to him.
He raised an eyebrow again, placed his arms around her waist, and pulled her against him. Her eyes widened. He said, "Now, Hermione, what would you say if I said I wasn't in the mood for humour? What if I thought you were serious? What would you say if I had answered your question?" He leaned down slightly, she leaned back. He placed a hand on her cheek, pulled her closer, and then placed his lips upon hers. She clutched his robes again, tighter than before.
Her lips were soft and giving under his. Desire washed through him, around him, to her, and for the first time in ages he felt exultant and happy. She made a muffled noise in the back of her throat. He hardly moved his lips, he didn't press hard, but he left them on hers for a few more seconds, and then lifted them slowly.
He watched her eyelids open slowly. Did she even know the overwhelming power that she had over him? He slid his right hand up to her neck, to feel her pulse, and then moved it to the back of her head, to curl in her long hair. His left hand slid lower, on the curve of her back. Her shallow, raspy breaths told him that she was as overcome as he, and they had barely kissed and embraced.
What might happen if they DID share a bed? He inquired, "Well, do you want an answer to your question, or would you like to decide? Your bed or mine?"
"Since I'm not sure where my room is, I guess yours," she answered.
