Chapter Thirty-Five
Draco stood frozen by the fireplace. He was unsure of what to do: protect his wife… or save his own backside. He hated it when his father got out of control – he'd never done it much during Draco's childhood… it was a violence that seemed to have developed with levels of high insecurity during the last few years.
"You thought you could trick me," Lucius snarled, grabbing a fistful of Hermione's hair and pulling her head back against the chair, wand still pointed to her throat. "How dare you even try? I raised you – you are my heir… and you try to deceive me with a rubbish spell?"
Draco said nothing; He was staring at the place on Hermione's neck where the wand was making contact until a tiny movement caught his eye by Hermione's hand – her wand was grasped there, ready for action. Satisfaction and something akin to pride slithered into his heart for a moment with the realization that she was prepared to take care of herself.
"Perhaps if you'd never tried to force us to get along in the first place, we wouldn't be in this situation right now," Draco stalled, keeping his voice calm and collected.
"Perhaps if you did your DUTY to your family and properly slept with her, we wouldn't be in this situation!" Lucius snarled.
"I see – my family duty requires only for me to procreate," Draco commented musingly.
There was a bang, and for a split second Draco wasn't sure as to whether it was his father or Hermione who'd created it. After a few seconds, it became apparent that Hermione had decided to defend herself. She stood upright, her wand now pointed directly at Lucius, who had been blown against the far wall.
"There is more to me than a set of ovaries!" she cried, eyes blazing.
Lucius straightened his hair in an attempt to appear unconcerned, although he was still backed against the wall.
"If you don't mind, father," Draco put in, crossing the room, his wand also outstretched, "I think we're going to take all the necessary steps to ban you from entering our property."
"Outrageous, Draco," Lucius muttered, staring at his son accusingly, "this house was a gift from your mother and I."
"I've had enough of your gifts and charities," Hermione sneered.
"Such filial disrespect," Lucius tutted, continuing to straighten his mussed hair and clothing. "It's not something I had expected from you, Draco."
"You're picking on me because you think I'll be easier to cave in," Draco observed, wand still directed toward his father, "but you've forgotten the strength and will of a life of oppression."
"One would think Azkaban would have straightened that out a little," Hermione added.
"Yes, perhaps," Lucius mused, still feigning careless abandonment. "But YOU'VE also forgotten something..."
"And what's that?"
In less than another split second, Lucius was behind them – it was a trick he'd learned from being up so high in Voldemort's inner circle. Hermione's and Draco's wands were both in his hands.
He smirked. Hermione disapparated. Draco took her lead and did so also, not sure what exactly his father wanted to achieve, but wanting to be very far away from him whenever he got whatever it was.
The problem with the mansion was that you could apparate within its walls, but not out of them. So Hermione and Draco were forced to disapparate from room to room until they felt the danger had passed, whatever it was.
Draco barricaded himself in a freezer off the kitchen among the various meats hanging off the walls. It was freezing in there – but it wasn't likely his father would find him in such a place. He sank to the floor and waited for the storm to pass, whispering concealment charms all the while.
Meanwhile, Hermione found herself cornered: She stood in the middle of a hallway in the West Wing, surrounded by Lucius Malfoy on one side, and another Lucius Malfoy on the other. Unsure of which one was the real Lucius, she stood her ground, weighing which option would be best.
She made a choice and bounded to the right, only to slam directly into the real Lucius. The double laughed manically and disappeared into smoke.
"Stand still, you little chit," Lucius snarled, holding her head back by a fistful of hair, yet again. Her scalp burned and she held back a scream – this was all too familiar, this setting. She felt the more of a struggle she put up, the more it would bring her pain…
...And still…
Lucius's wand again at her throat, she couldn't help but be terrified. What was he going to do to her? Surely not anything nearly as terrible as Alan had done, that month or so ago – but yet, Lucius was so much more intimidating… what was in store for her?
"Now you'll know what it means to disobey me," he threatened.
Hermione knew she WOULD know what it meant. And very soon. But disarmed and captured, what was left to do?
.
.
As he waited anxiously in his little hide-out, brushing away house elves that came in by accident, it occurred to Draco all of a sudden that his father was not after him. He knew because if he HAD been looking for him, he would have tried contacting him by their blood, the same way Narcissa had done the day she arrived to perform the spell that'd caused all the trouble.
It was Hermione who Lucius was after.
Draco realized he had a few options facing him at that moment…
The first option was to stay put: It was the cowardly thing to do, but a very smart idea nonetheless; He'd had a whole life of living with his father to know when it was a bad idea to get involved with things Lucius wanted done – becoming a Death Eater himself had merely been a testimony in favor of that thought.
The second option was to find Lucius and figure out what he wanted. Conditionally – if it wasn't too bad, whatever it was – then he could possibly help come to a consensus and everyone could leave the unfortunate event unscathed.
The third and final option was to seek out Hermione and help her formulate a plan of defense. The idea wasn't appealing, although he recognized that it was the morally right thing to do. Probably the idea repelled him so much because it reeked of a plan a Gryffindor would charge directly into.
The second idea didn't bode well for working in his favor, and so he scrapped it. But the first was tempting... though he knew it was the third option he should be choosing if he wanted to do the correct thing.
Draco fought an internal war with himself for a couple seconds. A loud bang from the floor directly above him brought him back to reality.
He sighed and promptly disapparated into the room above.
.
.
The hall was torn apart; A chair was upturned, the tapestries were in tatters, and Floo powder was spewed across the floor, as though Hermione had made an effort to escape, but failed.
Lucius had Hermione pinned against the far wall when Draco's feet touched the ground. Her eyes were wide, but fixated and determined, like the lion he knew she was on the inside.
"What do you want with her?" Draco demanded, wondering how he was supposed to defend himself when he still didn't have his wand.
"You don't factor into this," Lucius snarled. He resembled an angry pitbull, his face contorted into a theatrical mask of hatred and insanity.
"If I'm not much mistaken, FATHER," Draco stressed, crossing his arms across his chest, "that is my wife you're threatening."
"A wife you can't even properly impregnate, you mean. Some pride YOU have," Lucius countered, his hand sliding across Hermione's neck, the other still pointing the wand directly at her throat. "You weren't supposed to be a coward, Draco, but that's how you turned out."
Hermione had visibly tensed – she wanted to fight back, but the situation was in such tight quarters, she knew she had no reasonable way out in that moment. She was trapped, like a rabbit that'd been spotted by a falcon in the middle of an empty field.
"Don't. Touch. Her," Draco growled, his voice low enough to be heard, and threatening.
The tone of his voice made Hermione shiver ever-so-slightly. It was a very un-Draco voice.
Lucius's hand tightened around her throat and Hermione's hands immediately shot to her neck; She clawed wildly at his hands with her fingernails, struggling to breathe.
"Let her go," Draco warned again in the same low voice.
Hermione was running out of air. Her arms were beginning to slacken, her energy waning. As her vision began to cloud, she was painfully reminded that this was the second time she'd been strangled into unconsciousness that summer.
What would happen to her once she had fainted?
Would Lucius kill her? That might be a welcome end, after all. But... Harry and Ginny and Ron… she couldn't die, if only for them…
Would Draco just stand there…?
"Do you mock me with this… joke?" Lucius was screaming at Draco. "Do it right! I don't care if you have to impregnate this girl a thousand times, but until you properly conceive, there will be repercussions. Take this warning seriously – or I will do it myself!"
With that, Lucius bodily flung Hermione into the wall. In her half-conscious state, she briefly marveled at how easily he had thrown her whole weight - like a ragdoll, almost - before the pain settled in.
Her whole body was on fire, especially her lower abdomen. It burned, searing her insides like Fiendfyre…
The blackness came like an old friend, welcoming her to be enveloped into its arms…
...There wasn't any pain there to meet her…
...She sunk away, unconscious.
.
.
"Hermione."
Her name barely left his lips; Draco, himself was surprised he'd even uttered it.
A dark red rivulet leaked its way across the floor, an ominous indicator that the outcome of such a vicious attack was going to be extreme. The tiny stream of blood grew thicker, bigger – it was seeping into the carpet, saturating the floor. The iron-like smell of blood was dense in the air, dank and pungent.
"There," Lucius breathed. "Now get it right." He stalked over to the fireplace... rummaging through the mess for some Floo Powder.
"Do you think you're just going to leave?" Draco demanded.
Lucius laughed, "What exactly do you think you're going to do to stop me?"
.
.
Author's Note: Hehe, you're going to hate me but... the next update won't be for awhile. I'm going on a business trip for a week or so!
General consensus on longer chapters vs. quicker updates seemed to be pretty even. So I added another 500 words to this chapter. Updates will probably be another 3-5 days as a result, which is a pretty even compromise.
Thanks bunches to gitgit, MyLookOfDenial., Sarjhi, Xx. Shaiya Star-Gazer .xX, InvisibleLilacNights, tfobmv18, sureynot, Joe-nasGirl, RIPJameSiriusLupinTrueMarauder, and -Arria Rose- for the reviews!
-Arria Rose- - Hooray for grammatical corrections! Thank you for pointing that out.
sureynot - The basic plot of this will be the same. It's just the details that tend to work out a little differently, as I'm sure you noticed. Since you read and (maybe somewhat?) remember the original fic, I bet you DO know what happens. Perceptive readers... huh. Ruin all the build up! Haha