Chapter Thirteen.
The sun was just rising when Draco was awoken by Hermione's wriggling form beside him. When he first opened his eyes he wasn't sure what had woken him, but when Hermione whimpered in her sleep he realised what was happening. Ever since the wedding, Hermione had been tormented by nightmares and very few nights passed without their night been disturbed. Pulling Hermione into his arms, Draco stroked her hair until she calmed down. Once the nightmare had subsided, Draco continued to hold Hermione as she slept. Hermione slept peacefully for another hour before she began to stir in Draco's arms.
"Hey." Hermione said sleepily. "Did I wake you, again?"
"Yeah, but I don't mind." Draco replied, brushing Hermione's hair out of her eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Hermione nodded.
She couldn't remember dreaming, but she figured it would be the same as all the rest. Hermione's dreams usually played out in the same way, with the first part happening exactly as had occurred. She woke up covered in blood and Ron was lying beside her dead, but before she had a chance to work out what was happening and get away the Aurors burst into the room and she was arrested. Sometimes the dreams stopped there but other times the dreams continued and she was thrown into Azkaban, with the threat that she would never see the light of day again.
"Do you want to get up and have breakfast?" Draco asked, drawing Hermione away from thoughts about her nightmares. "Or I could go and grab something and we can have breakfast in bed."
"Let's just stay here for a bit." Hermione suggested. "Maybe we can work up an appetite."
Draco grinned at Hermione, before dropping his lips to hers. While his tongue plunged into her mouth his hands slipped under the covers, pushing at the silk material of her night wear. Draco slipped Hermione's nightie over her hips, caressing her bare skin as he did so. Hermione moaned into Draco's mouth as she let her own hands begin to wander over Draco's body. Trailing her hands down his firm torso, she reached the waistband of his pyjama bottoms and eased them down.
Briefly breaking the kiss Draco kicked his pyjama bottoms off and whipped Hermione's nightie off. Once the couple were naked Draco pulled Hermione's leg over his hip and eased inside her. Hermione moaned quietly and pressed herself closer to Draco, capturing his lips with her own. After a few minutes Draco rolled Hermione onto her back as he began to make love to her.
Draco and Hermione moved together perfectly in sync, each knowing what the other one liked. The couple kept eye contact throughout the whole thing as they slowly built towards their climaxes. When they did reach completion they exploded almost simultaneously, before collapsing back onto the bed in a tangle.
Eventually the couple detangled themselves and got up. After having a shower together, which led to a second more heated round of sex, they got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. While the couple were sitting at the kitchen table, Draco glanced out of the window and spotted Blaise and Theo arriving on the boat.
"What's wrong?" Hermione asked her boyfriend. She couldn't see out of the window from her seat to see what Draco was frowning at.
"Blaise and Theo are here." Draco answered.
"They were only here yesterday." Hermione jumped up and moved to the window, where she spotted Blaise bringing the boat into the dock. "Do you think they have good news?"
"I don't know." Draco muttered. As much as he wanted his friends to be bringing good news he found it hard to believe they would have found something vital in less than twenty four hours.
At they watched Blaise and Theo disembark from the boat, Draco tried to spot what expressions his friends were wearing. At first they were too far away but even once they got nearer Draco still couldn't decide if they were bringing good or bad news. He still hadn't decided which it was when the two wizards entered the kitchen.
"Hi, guys. Do either of you want a drink or something to eat?" Hermione asked.
"Yes, please." Blaise replied. "I'm starving. I was just settling down for my breakfast when Theo arrived and insisted we come over."
"Does this mean you have some news?" Draco asked Theo as Hermione made a fresh pot of coffee and handed Blaise a plate of scrambled eggs.
"Yes, well I think so." Theo said, sitting down at the kitchen table and grabbing a slice of toast. "You see I was in bed, and Pansy suddenly popped into my head."
"I don't think we need to know about your sexual fantasies." Blaise interrupted with a grimace. "Especially ones involving Pansy. I mean, why would you think about her when you have a beauty like Daphne."
"I wasn't thinking about her in a sexual way." Theo retorted, glaring at Blaise. "Daphne had just gotten up and as I was lying watching her, I suddenly remembered a recent conversation with Pansy. A few days ago she had dinner with us and she said something that bugged me."
"That's nothing new." Blaise snorted. "Everything Pansy says bugs someone."
"It wasn't just her being annoying." Theo said sharply, getting sick of the interruptions. "We were talking about Draco and Hermione and she said something that struck me as odd, but at the time I couldn't work out what it was. Anyway this morning it suddenly hit me, she mentioned Weasley's face had been bashed in."
"So?" Blaise asked, not understanding the significance of Pansy's words.
"That wasn't in any of the newspaper reports." Draco answered. He and Hermione had looked at the papers that Theo had brought numerous times and they had discussed the fact that the exact nature of Weasley's demise hadn't been released, all the reports merely said he was found dead in the honeymoon suite and he'd been killed with the killing curse.
"Unless of course it's been mentioned in the newest editions." Hermione added.
"It hasn't, I checked." Theo replied. "I've scoured every newspaper report and nowhere does it say Weasley had his face caved in."
"So how does Pansy know that?" Blaise asked.
"I don't know." Theo shrugged. "But it's suspicious. No-one else seems to know that detail, apart from us, the Aurors and I'm assuming Weasley's family."
"I can think of someone else who knows." Draco said quietly. "The killer."
"You think Pansy killed Ron?" Hermione questioned her boyfriend.
"I don't know, but that would be one way to explain how she knows about the state he was in." Draco replied. He didn't like to believe Pansy could be the killer and he could see no motive for her bumping Weasley off, but Theo was right, her words were suspicious.
"Either that or she knows who did kill him." Blaise suggested. He couldn't picture Pansy as a killer but he could definitely see her colluding with someone to kill Weasley and set Hermione up.
"Why would Pansy get involved in this?" Hermione asked. She didn't really know Pansy as she hadn't seen her since school, but her motives in being involved seemed unclear.
"Maybe she wanted Draco for herself." Theo suggested. "We all know she's madly in love with him."
"How would killing Ron achieve that?" Hermione questioned.
"Besides, she knows she doesn't stand a chance with me. I've made it clear that nothing will ever happen between us." Draco added.
"You know how stubborn Pansy is, she might assume with Hermione out of the way she could stand a chance." Blaise said, warming to his idea that setting up Hermione was the real motive behind Weasley's murder. "I think we've been looking at this the wrong way. Weasley was just collateral, the real target was Hermione and getting her sent to Azkaban."
"First of all for that to work, she would have to know about Hermione and she didn't." Draco argued, spotting a flaw in Blaise's theory.
"How do we know that she didn't know?" Theo questioned. "Just because you didn't tell her, doesn't mean she hadn't picked up on it."
"Theo's right, while we didn't advertise our relationship we weren't always the most secretive." Hermione said to Draco. "I often visited you and just entered the building from the ground floor, and we did used to eat out in a couple of small places near to your penthouse."
"True." Draco nodded his head thoughtfully. "I guess it is possible she knows about us. But would she really kill Weasley just to get Hermione sent to Azkaban? I mean how could she even be sure it worked?"
"I don't suppose she could be sure, but I was certainly well set up. All the evidence in the room pointed towards me, even without the fight earlier in the day I still would have looked guilty." Hermione pointed out.
"I'm still not convinced that Pansy is behind this, but I do think we need to know what she knows." Draco said. "We might be completely wrong here, but it's all we've got and I say we investigate things further."
"How are we going to get Pansy to talk?" Blaise asked. "If she is involved she'd hardly going to admit it."
"We need to either trick her into confessing or corner her and force the truth out of her." Draco replied.
"How about we accidentally let it slip where you are." Theo suggested. "She won't be able to resist coming to find you."
"What if she just sends the Aurors?" Hermione questioned worriedly. "If she wants me in Azkaban, she might just tell them where we are."
"Firstly we're not going to tell her you're here. I was thinking we could say you were in Blaise's villa on the mainland." Theo said. "And I also thought we could imply you were getting ready to leave and we didn't know where you were going. If she wasn't sure if you might have already left, she wouldn't risk sending the Aurors. Even if she does call them, I'm betting she'll want to make sure you are actually there first."
"Theo's plan actually makes a bit of sense." Draco said. "I say we at least try it. If she sends the Aurors and doesn't show up, we won't be there. If she does show up, we'll have the chance to find out if she knows anything."
"How are we going to let her know where you are?" Blaise asked. "Surely she'll get suspicious if we just casually announce where you're hiding."
Draco thought for a couple of minutes, before a solution came to him. "Theo, you and Daphne can ask her around for dinner and when she's there Blaise can show up needing to talk. Make sure you act all secretive and arouse her interest. You know Pansy, she won't be able to resist listening in on your conversation."
"And the conversation will go something like me confiding in Theo that I've been hiding you two, but you're getting ready to move on." Blaise grinned, looking forward to the upcoming subterfuge.
"Exactly." Draco nodded, smiling at Blaise's obvious enthusiasm. "Give her the bait, then we just sit back and wait to see if she bites."
"What do we do if nothing happens?" Hermione asked. "What if she doesn't show up or she doesn't send the Aurors?"
"Then we'll have to find another way to find out what she knows." Draco said.
He already had another idea in his head, but he wasn't planning on telling Hermione what it was just yet. If Pansy failed to fall into their trap he was going to go and pay her a visit and force her to tell him what she knew. Although hopefully that wouldn't be necessary and she would walk into the trap they were currently discussing and perfecting.