Hermione spent the first day with Elouise jumping from complete anger at the audacity of the man to shun his own child and utter heartbreak because the child was the sweetest little girl she had ever had the pleasure of meeting and her father refused to give her the time of day.
The girls' manners were impeccable, as one would expect with the child of a Malfoy and she wondered how he could be so ashamed of this delightful child to keep her hidden away from the world.
She knew Lucius wasn't the warmest of people and losing a wife would send someone over the edge, but how he reacted to his daughter hugging his leg made her wonder what the deep, dark secret was behind this whole story. A rational thinking man didn't act that way when their own flesh and blood showed them an ounce of affection.
She was pulled from her thoughts as the girl tugged on her shirt hem to garner her attention. Looking down at the child, her bright green eyes caught Hermione off guard for a moment. She'd always remembered Draco and Lucius to have grey eyes, so she was unsure where the green came from. Perhaps Narcissa's side had the green-eyed gene that had reared its head and dominated the Malfoy genetics.
"Yes, sweetheart?" Hermione asked in a high falsetto.
"Can we go outside to see my pony?" She asked, hope swimming in her emerald eyes.
"Um. Yes, I suppose, but you will have to lead the way. I do not know where I am going."
Grabbing Hermione's hand, the girl pulled her along with all the strength she could summon, Hermione letting the girl think she was pulling her along with an immense strength she didn't have.
Surprised that the girl even had a pony, Hermione wondered if it was a fictitious pony that graced the pastures of the child's mind. Lucius didn't seem the time to afford such a luxury to a child he hardly seemed to tolerate.
After she had been led through the mansion, down the front steps and a few hundred meters down a path past the hedgerows and towards an outbuilding she could only at this time assume was a small barn, the stone walls rose proudly holding a thatched roof above. A rustic three-railed yard come off the side of the barn where she finally saw a small dappled-grey pony of what looked to be of Welsh breeding grazing happily.
Dropping Hermione's hand, the child sprinted the last fifty meters towards the pony. Skidding to a halt at the fence, she beamed with glee at the sight of the equine.
"What's her name, sweetheart?" Hermione asked curiously, finally reaching the yard a few moments after the child, watching the pony meander over to Elouise with curiosity in her eyes.
Both reached their hands out to pat the velvet muzzle as warm breath hit their skin. Hermione smiled broadly as she inhaled the scent of the pony, and it took her back to her own childhood when her parents allowed her riding lessons at the local livery until she went to Hogwarts.
"Poppy!" the girl exclaimed, stroking the pony between the eyes. "Father bought her for me for my birthday, she smiled proudly. I can ride her all by myself, too."
The pony turned parallel to the fence. Hermione started scratching the ponies wither in a world all on her own as the memories of her riding days came flooding back.
"I'm sure you can," she whispered, a million miles away, " but not today, I have to ask your dad before I l- "before she could even finish the sentence, the girl had scaled the fence, straddled the top rail, shimmied down the other side, had one leg over the rotund ponies sleek dapple-grey back and had slid on seating herself fully.
The pony cocked an ear backwards towards her passenger and gently walked off with the girl smiling broadly from ear to ear. Poppy was going at a sedate walk and Hermione didn't want to rush at her to grab Elouise should she spook.
"Look at me. No hands." She held her hands high, up above her head.
"Y… Yes, that's great," Hermione said calmly, even though every fibre of her being was screaming at her to get the child off the pony who had zero control because she was totally tackless. "Show me how you dismount at a walk," Hermione tried to encourage her off the pony while everything was still going smoothly, but she declined.
Heart racing, she needed to devise a plan to get her off the pony without an incident. Having previous experience with horses, she knew it wasn't best to go in wand blazing for fear of spooking the pony.
"What is going on here?" Lucius's voice bellowed from behind her, causing her to jump slightly, unaware he was even around. He had snuck up silently.
"Get off that pony now!" His voice cut through the otherwise silent air, pace quickening he strode to the fence and leapt the three rails as if they were mere centimetres high.
The pony caught sight of him rushing towards her and took off at a canter, side-stepping away from him as she did so. Elouise was flung from the pony's back in the blink of an eye, landing with a loud thud awkwardly on her left shoulder.
Silence hung thick before she began to scream. Clutching her shoulder with her right hand, tears fell freely down her face.
"Look what you've done!" Lucius spat venomously.
"Me?! You're the one that went racing towards the pony. If it wasn't for you, she wouldn't have shied."
"If it wasn't for you, she wouldn't have been on the damn pony. I'm getting rid of the damned thing. I knew it was a bad idea."
"You can't just get rid of her pony," Hermione protested. "People fall off and break bones every day, if they all jumped to the irrational decision of selling their mounts after an accident, nobody would ever ride."
"Not my pony," she sobbed through the pain that was radiating through her shoulder. "Not Poppy!" Heart-wrenching sobs filled the air as she clambered to her feet. "I'm fine. See!"
"Sweetheart," Hermione began, "Poppy isn't going anywhere," she looked pointedly at Lucius.
"Merlin," Lucius muttered under his breath, scooping the girl up in his arms. "We need to get you to one of the elves. They will fix you right up."
Hermione was slightly taken aback. That was the most interaction she had ever seen between the two, and she wondered if he cared about the child, or if he was merely fulfilling his obligation to seek medical attention.
"I'm selling the pony," Lucius snarled through clenched teeth.
"No!" Hermione and Elouise protested in unison.
"I'm not having either of you telling me what to do in my own home. The pony is going, and that is the end of the story."
The rest of the walk to the mansion was silent. Elouise, to upset to talk, Hermione seething beyond measure.
o-o-o-o
A light knock upon her bedroom door roused her from her thoughts. "Come in," she said airily, sitting primly cross-legged.
Lucius entered seconds later, darkening the doorway. He stood awkwardly for a few moments. "About today…" He trailed off.
He noted she clenched her jaw and folded her arms. It was obvious she wasn't welcoming of this conversation.
"What about it?" She asked in a flat voice, looking him up and down critically.
"I may have been too quick to blame you. I know she can be a handful at times. Hell, the Elves have lost her for hours at a time and found her wandering through the grounds, oblivious to anything around her. She craves adventure. I suppose she is like any child. You can't turn your back for even a second."
"I'm well aware of how children act, Mister Malfoy, and how to care for them, I've spent the last four years caring for a myriad of children from Scotland through to Windsor and everywhere in between," she snorted indignantly, eyeing him sideways.
She watched as he shifted from foot to foot for a moment as if weighing up what she had said heavily. "Anyway, I just wanted to apologise for putting the blame solely on you. The elves fixed her up, and she's as good as new."
"Thank you, Mister Malfoy," she said coldly, not even looking up as he exited through the door. She really disliked this man, regardless of him paying her wages.
o-o-o-o
Anger coursed through her veins as she tried to lull herself to sleep. The image of Lucius kicking the child from his leg as she desperately clung to him for affection made the bile in her throat rise. Only she wanted this job for the sake of the child. She would march into his sitting room now and give him a dressing down. He may have been a death eater at one stage in his life, but she wasn't scared of him. And just because he had power and money, which intimidated many, it wouldn't intimidate her.
Sighing heavily, she punched her pillow in frustration. "Elves!" She exclaimed to herself in an angry whisper. The fact elves raised the child to this point was abhorrent in her mind. He couldn't even afford the poor child human interaction daily and that spoke volumes to her. He either really hated the child, or he was trying to shield her from something in life. What? She wasn't sure.
Perhaps it wasn't what he was shielding her from, but perhaps a who?
o-o-o-o
The first week had gone off without anything of substance happening apart from the pony incident. She only ever saw Lucius at dinner time and even then, the conversation was non-existent, and if it did ever happen, it was short and to the point.
She'd begun to realise why Draco always chased the drama at Hogwarts because being in this house was about exciting as a lobotomy and she had come to the stark realisation that just because you had copious amounts of money didn't make you a good person nor an exciting one
If she were being honest, she would have a better conversation with the tapestry on the dining room wall that she would get from Lucius.
Elouise was a delight, there was no denying that. She was sweet, kind and bubbly, all the things her father was not, and she hoped the child stayed this way for the entirety of her life because if she became the rude, dismissive and unpleasant person her father was then she wouldn't get too far in life, well, maybe she would with the money her father had stored in their vault but she would be doing it alone.
"Miss Granger?" The tiny child looked up from where she was sitting on the bedroom floor with her toy dragon clutched tightly in her hand.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"What happened to my mum? Why did she leave?"
Hermione shifted uncomfortably from where she stood looking down at the girl. This was obviously not a subject that had been broached with her father and quite frankly, she didn't know where she should go from here. Taking a steadying breath, she tried to think of the right thing to say.
"She…" Hermione trailed off, rubbing her left forearm hard as she tried to piece the words together. What did you say to a child that wasn't yours in this situation? It wasn't her place to tell the girl that her mother had died.
"You better ask your father that question, I'm not too sure." Not the answer she wanted to give but the answer she thought she better give rather than step on Lucius's toes.
"Ok," Elouise's soft voice met her ears, little shoulders upheaving into a shrug.
Hermione let out the breath she had been holding, glad the child had accepted her poor excuse and didn't push any further.
o-o-o-o-o
Knuckles wrapped lightly against his sitting-room door. She stood waiting for passage. Seconds passed and there was no answer, so she knocked again.
"Enter!" a gruff voice snarled from the other side of the mahogany door and she tentatively reached out for the brass doorknob and pushed it open, stepping through the threshold.
"Mister Malfoy?" She questioned straight up, watching him where he sat at his desk, his head snapping fast at the use of his title.
"Yes?" He asked, his voice dropping a few octaves from when he snarled at her through the door.
"Elouise asked me earlier where her mother was. Of course, I didn't want to overstep the boundaries and tell her the truth, so I told her perhaps she should ask you instead."
The quill in his hand halted above the parchment. A black splotch of ink dripped at glacial speed off the tip and onto the paper and he didn't even seem to notice. Laying the quill on the desk gently, he intertwined his fingers together loosely and looked at the woman who stood before him with an expression of utter loss plastered upon his face.
"It's odd that she's asked you and not me," his voice a breathless whisper as he almost stared right through the woman.
"Maybe if you had spent more than ten minutes with her since she had entered this earth, perhaps she might have felt the need to confide in you and ask but seeing as you are merely a casual father who steps in for a few minutes here or there maybe she hasn't the bond with you that she is starting to develop with me," she countered, hands on hips. She never meant for the harsh words to fall from her lips, but the resentment she felt towards the man was unparallel to the hatred she had ever felt for anyone else in the entirety of her life.
"You've been in my home and observed one interaction and have based all your judgements upon that. You know nothing of the matter nor the actual situation. If you did, perhaps you would be a little more sympathetic. From the outside looking at it, yes, it may look like I am a terrible father to my own flesh and blood, but on the inside, the story is so much more than your quaint mind could ever think."
"Well, Mister Malfoy," she huffed, the venom dripping from her every word. "I can only see from the outside because no one has allowed me inside," she snapped ferociously, folding her arms tightly across her body, jaw tight as her teeth clenched together so hard, she was sure they may start to crack soon.
"The help doesn't get to see further inside than need be, Miss Granger. And I will, in fact, remind you of your position within my walls. You are the help," his words cut icily through her. "The help keeps their nose out of business that does not pertain to them."
"Very well, Mister Malfoy," her words matching his just as coldly. "I shall stay in my lane from here on in."
"That would be wise," he agreed. "One should not meddle in the affairs that are no concern to them. I pay you to care for my daughter, not judge me on my life choices."
She only nodded her head curtly before exiting the room without another word. May Merlin give her strength because she was going to need every ounce of it to not strangle this man before the year was out.