A.N. Aaaaand I'm back! Weee! Just a warning, this is still un-betaed, so forgive any mistakes that I've missed. Things are going to start moving faster from here.

Keep in mind as you read that Malfoy = the bad side of Draco created by the spell work, Draco = the actual man.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize does not belong to me. The rest is mine ^^.

Chapter Ten

It was hard for Draco to decide how he felt. He knew Granger had been in his dreams, but he didn't feel angry. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be angry with her. Part of him had wanted her there with him last night. Maybe it was because she was the only one around and she had helped him, begrudgingly or not. She certainly hadn't killed him yet, but he wasn't entirely sure that was in his favor. He was sure that she confused him.

The only emotion that was clear to him was complete and utter confusion. What the hell was he supposed to remember and what the bloody hell had happened in his dream last night? The uncertainty he felt when he remembered his younger self caused something akin to fear, not that he truly feared anything. Not that he would admit to. It wasn't that his younger self was frightening really. It was how he had felt in the dream and what his sixteen year old self had said. He had felt so angry and murderous like he could never remember ever feeling before. Pure hatred had coursed through him, so much that it had caused him literal pain. Granger had seemed genuinely afraid of him and so had his younger self, although the latter was also just as angry as he was scared, if not more. Just thinking about the dream had trails of ice cold dread running down his spine. Something was wrong with him. He felt like something was missing. The key seemed to be somewhere in the fog of his forgotten memories, but his mind rebelled against him every time he had tried to push past the mist and explore. There was something behind it that honestly almost terrified him. Granger's reaction alone was enough to make him at least wary of what he had been forced to forget.

Draco dragged himself slowly up the bed to rest against the headboard. His head was on fire. Half of him hoped Granger would come in with more pain potions, but most of him hoped she would just leave him alone. It was quickly becoming more than he cared to handle. The more confused and afraid he felt, the more angry he got. He was angry that he was stuck in his room, stuck in his bed. He was angry because he could be. He was angry because it was the only emotion he felt that didn't hurt.

Hermione stared at her ceiling and watched as the sunlight played with the shadows. Her time with Harry and been wonderful, but she wanted to avoid reality for just a bit longer. There was so much to process and she wasn't in the mood to jump back into research when she knew there was no way she would be able to focus at the moment. And so she brooded. At least until the very inconvenient and more that slightly uncomfortable rumbling of her stomach began to disturb her thoughts. After all, it was extremely difficult to mope when your stomach was demanding food like a spoiled little child.

Since her food wasn't going to magically appear, due to the rather unfortunate natural laws of the wizarding universe, Hermione dragged herself up and left her room facing the dreary options of cooking or dying of starvation.

An hour later Hermione was levitating a rather large tray of food out in front of her and quickly regretting the decision to do something nice for Malfoy as the teasing scent of her spinach and tomato omelet only encouraged the now all out rebellion currently waging in her stomach. And besides, she could never really be sure of what kind of mood the man would be in seeing as Malfoy was just as surly as he had been in school.

Hermione paused in front of his door, half of her just wanting to march into her room with her delicious brunch and forget all about the jerk. But a faint noise caught her attention. Leaning into the door, Hermione strained her ears listening for anything else out of the ordinary. For the space of a couple of heartbeats there was silence, but a resounding rash and a dull thud like the falling of a body had her blasting through the door, food now very much forgotten.

She swiftly entered the room, wand at the ready, a million scenarios rushing through her head at warp speed. Hermione stopped about five feet from the door and surveyed the surroundings. Feathers were floating through the air and she would have thought it strange if it were not for the gigantic, scorched whole gracing the middle of the bed at the far end of the room. The bed where she had last seen Malfoy. Her heart skipped a beat and she scanned the room frantically searching for his attacker.

Her eyes landed on two figures in the sitting area of his ridiculously large suite and her mind jerked to a halt. Of all the scenarios she had envisioned, this was certainly not one of them. Falling back on her old childhood habit for banishing the boogie monsters of the night, she blinked. She blinked again, but the scene before her didn't change and the monster didn't disappear. There were two of Malfoy, just like there had been in his dream. Unfortunately, this was all too real and where there had been a sixteen year old Draco, there was now the malicious Malfoy that had haunted her dreams. He was standing over Draco's prone body, wand trained on his chest and a spell on his lips.

"No!" she screamed, interrupting whatever spell he was about to cast. Hermione froze as he turned slowly, gracefully to face her. His features were contorted into a frighteningly cold smilk.

"Hermione," he practically purred. Her name coming from his mouth turned her stomach. "Always barging in where you aren't wanted, you nosy little Mudblood chit." His voice was even and disinterested, despite his words and his stance relaxed to match his tone. His clear dismissal of her was infuriating. Her hand gripped her wand so hard that her knuckles protested under the strain.

"I suppose you're wondering how I'm here," he continued. The smirk now a full-blown grin deserving of the cheshire cat as he began to stalk smoothly towards her.

"This pathetic one," he punctuated with a sharp kick at Draco's ribs. Hermione flinched as she heard bone crack, but Draco didn't so much as twitch. Her healer senses had her more than a little alarmed. "The poor thing never knew how deep he was in this shit. Always going along, doing what he's told. He never even questioned when Father called us into his study that day. He never did that except to dole out punishment."

"Cut the crap," Hermione snapped. "You aren't making any sense and I don't really care how you got here. What do you want?"

Malfoy threw back his head and laughed. The sound was tinged with with bitterness. It was a sinister sound, as crazed as his Aunt's and been. The reminder had the scar on her arm itching like it was still healing and not nearly eight years old. In some ways it would always be fresh.

"He was a good little tool and has now served his purpose. Granted your appearance triggered the change a little earlier than we had planned, but a good leader rolls with the tides, right? He might have lived a little longer had you not been so bloody nosy. I am what you can call a fail-safe. Draco here has outlived his usefulness and is now a liability. A mess. And we always clean up our messes," he finished with a wink.

Hermione automatically took a step back and trained her wand on his heart.

"Who are you," she asked levelly. "I know you aren't Draco!"

"Draco? Oh, I am very much the Draco Malfoy that you had the distinct pleasure of getting to know over the past couple of months. Or rather, should I say that the Draco Malfoy you knew was me? I most certainly not the pathetic waste of flesh over there. Confused, little professor?" he chuckled again, a sound that sent shivers down her. "Young Draco served me well and prove to be quite…malleable. You see, I needed a front man until I was ready to take over and reveal myself. And once he is out of the way, the real show can start! He was a loose end and so are you," he said with a shrug. Hermione's heart fell into her stomach as she turned her attention to Draco.

"Did you kill him?"

"Not yet," he chuckled. "But you should really be worried about yourself right about now." And he came to a halt a few feet in front of her. He hadn't even raised his wand, but she knew better than to think he was as relaxed as he wanted her to believe. They both stood there for a moment, silently assessing each other watching for a sign, a twitch.

And there it was. Hermione quickly fired an Expelliarmus and Protego to block the spell that was already careening towards her. The room erupted in a shower of colored lights as hexes and spells were shot off and deflected all over the room. Belatedly she realized that any number of the stray spells could hit Draco, so she began to push firing more aggressive spells as fast as she could until Malfoy was staggering across the room and away from Draco.

As soon as she was close enough to Draco, she cast a shield as well as a stasis spell. He might not be dead, but there was no telling what Malfoy did to him. The stasis spell would keep him alive until she could get back to him. Malfoy laughter anther when he saw the glowing green and blue shell that formed over his wounded counterpart.

"You know, you should really be worried about yourself, Granger. I don't like having to repeat myself," he taunted as he sent a particularly nasty hex her way. She edged as quickly as she could, but she hissed in pain as it grazed her shoulder, leaving her skin on fire.

Hermione bit back the pain and refused to rise to his taunting. Instead she switched to using the more nasty spells she knew, especially because now she didn't have to worry about hitting Draco. She cheered to herself as she successfully wiped the smirk off of his face, she refused to hold back, convinced that this man in front of her was not an actually piece of Draco and she was more than tired of fighting.

As she pushed him further back, they ended up in the small hallway between their rooms. It was closed and the spells so bright that is was hard to see Malfoy down at the hall. She felt cramped and claustrophobic as she was forced to up her defense seeing that she could no longer dodge as well. No sooner had she blocked a hex then she saw a well timed Avada closing in behind it. At the last moment she threw herself down than and just felt the air above her back disturbed as the green light careened over her head and absorbed into the far wall. When she looked up, the hall was empty. Silently she crept down the hall towards the stairs. There was only one way Malfoy could have gone. Hermione climbed up the stairs as quickly and as silently as she could, not wanting to get caught on the tight winding staircase. Luckily, there was still no sight of him at the top.

Moving down the hallway, she cracked open doors and quickly cleared room after room until she reached to potions lab. Sending a prayer to the Heaven that he wouldn't be in there, she kicked open the door. Hermione barely had time to duck out of the way of another Avada and she cursed under her breath as she dove out of the way. The last thing she needed was an all out duel in a room of who knew what kind of dangerous substances. But duel she did. Brightly colored spells lit up the multi-colored vials and jars causing an eye dazzling splay of a light show across the room. It was hard to see the spells and determine where they came from, so she resorted to guessing. She couldn't hear his voice over the noise and she couldn't see him through the lights.

She heard the whining of an oncoming spell and dove out of the way only for it to crash into one of the potions cases to Hermione's behind her. There was a thunderous noise and Hermione's eyes were blinded in a white flash. Her body erupted in pain across her ribs, hip, and spine as her body was slammed by the force of the explosion into a potions table. She blinked away tears and gasped for breath, her ears rang in the aftermath. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Hermione pushed her battered body up and gripped her wand. This had gone on quite long enough. Now she was truly pissed off.

Using the table as cover, she scanned the room. There was a flash of white-blond hair over near the end of the lab and she immediately started firing off spells. This time the flight didn't last nearly as long considering she didn't give Malfoy enough time to fire off another smart remark. Within no time he was pinned to the ground, immobilized, and tied as securely as she could with the ropes she conjured. Kneeling beside his prone body, she brought her face close to hers. Her fury reflecting off his eyes as he glared at her.

"I don't give a damn who you are, but I hope you're watching. I will come for you and I will kill you." Standing up swiftly before he would have the chance to speak, Hermione fired off a quick spell that disintegrated the clone to ash. She knew that probably wasn't the smartest move considering she didn't know how it was connected to Draco, but she was pissed and it had felt good.

Without a backwards glance, she began sent a cleaning spell over the room and gathered as many unharmed healing potions as she could find and fit in her arms. Sifting through her pile, she took the strongest pain potion she could find and quickly healed her broken ribs. Hermione gasped in pain as the bones re-set themselves and waited, propped up against a wall, for the potion to set in. When she could move again, she stumbled down the stairs and back to Draco. With a wave of her wand she dissolved the barrier around him and got to work. Panic ripped at her throat as she breathed raggedly. Draco was the only person with the information they needed to bring this bloodshed to a permanent end. And as loath as she was to admit it, he din't deserve to die if everything she had gathered about the spell on his mind was true.

Time seemed to stand still as she muttered diagnostic spells, healing and administering potions as she went. When his breathing leveled and his wounds had closed she rocked back on her heels and allowed herself to really look at him. There was blood everywhere and his pale skin was becoming visible as the bruising receded and healed. The blood she cleaned with a quick spell and with another quick flick of her wand he was changed into clean clothes. Hermione levitated him across the hall to her bed, not having the energy to repair his, and made sure he was settled before stumbling to the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face, washing the blood away, and stared into her reflection as silent tears mixed with the water. If she had thought she had reached her breaking point before, this certainly wasn't helping.

With a derisive laugh, she swiped fiercely at her wet cheeks. Hermione was done letting herself feel pathetic. She knew she was no help to anyone like this. So she stomped her way over to the shower and scrubbed the blood and dirt off her skin. The time for feeling sorry for herself was over.

A.N. So here we are. The real fun is about to start and there with be some interesting Dramione interactions from now on. It was slow in coming, but it will be worth it. Tell me what you think!

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and reviewed, followed, and alerted this story. And a huge thank you to Glorioux for continuing to support me. I owe you all some amazing gluten-free cupcakes.

Oh! And the next chapter will be up in a couple of days as a gift to my readers.

xoxo

Summer Orchid