Thursday, 6th May 2004

Draco woke as he usually did the first morning after a transformation; aching and starving. He squeezed his eyes shut against the flu-like feeling of having put one's body under immense strain, despite the fact he had done little more than sleep for the past forty-eight hours. That was when he realised that there was something decidedly different about this post-transformation morning; a heavy weight was laying across his chest, and from the point of pressure, in the centre of his ribcage, the usual aches and pains were slowly dissipating.

He blinked slowly, customising his sensitive eyes to the pink-tinged daylight. The first thing he noticed as his eyes adjusted was a cloud of brown, curly hair. The second thing he was aware of was the cute little noises coming from the sleeping form, and the timely puffs of air on his bare chest.

"Granger?" he tried, his voice hoarse but still audible. "Granger?"

"Hmm?"

Something in his chest clenched and Draco had to work incredibly hard to keep his thoughts in the present moment; he was aware that he was completely naked, after all.

He shifted slightly, so that she would be able to maneuver off of him without too much difficulty, but this movement seemed to startle Hermione from her slumber. In what could only be described as a poorly executed war-time reflex, she jumped on to the flats of her feet in a crouching position before pistoning upwards in attempt to stand.

She would have succeeded, too, had it not been for Malfoy's head getting in the way.

"Ow!" he moaned, clutching his forehead. "Sweet Circe, Granger, what the hell?"

"Oh Merlin! I'm so sorry!" she squeaked, her fingers shaking as they covered her mouth. "Let me get a pain potion!"

"Granger," he ground out. "Stop. Shouting."

Without a word, she scrambled from the room and flung herself out of the door. She returned moments later, her arms ladened with vials and jugs with a kaleidoscope of coloured liquids swishing within them.

"Hold still," she ordered, uncorking a vial and dropping to her knees. She crawled towards him and settled next to his lap. Draco fought a groan as he physically began to react to her, praying to any and all deities who might listen that he wouldn't get a boner while she administered the potion. "Are you okay?" She sat back, having forced the liquid down his throat. "You don't look so good...Draco?" Bringing both her hands up to cup his face, she watched as his pupils dilated and his breathing shallowed to the point of near-hyperventilation.

Holy shit, did she just call me Draco? Think of Umbridge, he thought desperately as heat radiated throughout his body. Think of McGonagall...why is she still touching me?

"How many fingers am I holding up?" she demanded, before she began to click in front of his face.

"You need to hold them still for that to work," he snapped, more intense than he intended. She froze and he allowed an easy grin to spread across his face. "One," he said with a false sense of pride, "your middle finger, to be exact. That's not polite, Hermione." He enunciated her name with a caress of his tongue, and marvelled the effect it had on the witch in front of him.

Slowly, she lowered her hand, which had been held in a rude gesture, her cheeks flushing a delicate pink shade.

"Well I," she stammered. "I mean, that…"

Draco lifted his hand slowly and began to click in front of her face. "Are you okay?" He was about to move his hand to cup her cheek, and then...well, he wasn't sure, but it didn't matter because at that moment they were interrupted by the post owl.

The plain tawny owl did not stop as it swooped in through the window, dropped the rolled up newspaper into Hermione's lap, looped around the room, and then exited the same way it had entered. With her faculties back in order, Hermione shuffled backwards and untied the paper, pressing it flat on to the floor with her hand. She gasped as she read the headline.

Lunar Eclipse Massacre: Camp security to increase as hunt continues for rogue Werewolf

She read it outloud, using her finger to anchor her sight to the words, as if she could not focus on them otherwise. Malfoy moved to read over her shoulder as she began to skim the article.

"Seventeen attacked...nine confirmed dead...three in Saint Mungo's...two missing...Camps to be reinforced with new and improved wards...kill or capture strategy now imposed…" Hermione trailed off, her hands now clutching the paper in shaking fists.

She turned to face Malfoy, who was sitting like a marble statue, his pale face blank except for his eyes which swirled with unbridled fear. "I don't understand," she whispered, her voice tight with barely concealed rage. "The lunar eclipse has absolutely no effect on werewolves; it makes no difference in terms of savageness, or transformation, or -"

"I need to leave." He cut her off, rising to his feet. He was still naked, which put Hermione's gaze level with a very intimate part of his anatomy, but there was no time to relish in the sight, or recoil in embarrassment.

"You can't go," she argued, standing as well.

He summoned his clothes and began to dress. "I can," he growled, "and I will." He paused as he buttoned his trousers, looking down at Hermione from beneath his mussed bangs. "If they find me here, it'll be worse for both of us."

"If you leave here they'll catch you, and kill you!" She snatched the shirt from his hands as he moved to place it over his head. "Besides, if they find out you were here, they'll assume you left out of guilt. Just give me a couple of days to work something out. I'm going to have to go in to work and assess the damage." She paused, watching his face, which was now completely closed off to all emotions. He held out his hand for the shirt, and Hermione hesitated. "Promise me you'll still be here when I get back."

His shoulders slumped slightly and Hermione bit her lip, watching him ponder. "Fine," he said finally, gripping his shirt and tugging it towards him. The material slipped from Hermione's fingers but she hardly noticed, her focus instead on the fact that he hadn't actually promised.

Don't beg him, she told herself. It's not as if he has any loyalty to you…

"Okay, well…" She felt awkward now, as if by asking him to be here when she returned from work had somehow shifted the dynamic they had carefully crafted over the past month. "I'll see you later?"

Draco offered her only a stiff nod in response. He stayed standing in the room, his gaze locked on the spot they had curled up in the night before, his arms folded like a vice across his chest. Hermione only stayed a second longer, committing the image of him to memory - though she did not want to dwell on why she felt the need to - before she slipped out of the doorway and hurried to her own bedroom to get dressed.

Her day was long, exhausting, and a whirlwind of meetings in which ignorant buffoons spoke passionately about the kill or capture strategy, though she noted that there was a much stronger emphasis on the kill part of the plan. She was keen to return home to see Draco; she had been checking her coin every fifteen minutes, but it remained cool to touch. The knot that had started off the size of a penny in her stomach was now at boulder status, and she hoped with every fibre of her being that her gut feeling was wrong, and that Draco would be there to greet her when she Floo'd home.

It was close to nine o'clock when Hermione was finally released from the last meeting. Not much had transpired in all the hours she had been cooped up with the idiots from the Beast Division - nothing that would actually help, anyway. They had increased security, as promised, and were working towards building impenetrable walls and gates around the Camps to secure them further. New legislation had been drafted and was expected to be fast tracked and passed through the Wizengamot, initiated and presented by none other than Lucius Malfoy himself.

Hermione wondered if he was skilled at Legilimency as his eyes flickered to her face every few seconds throughout his presentation. Was he trying to catch her off guard? Did he have suspicions about where his son was hiding? Hermione's stomach clenched as he snapped his file closed and dismissed the meeting.

Without saying goodbye, Hermione hurried from the board room and headed straight towards the Atrium. She Floo'd home, almost exiting three grates early in her hurry to return to her apartment. When she stepped out of her fireplace, the house was dark, void of all light and sound.

"Malfoy?" she called, dusting the soot off the front of her robes. "Hello?"

She continued further into the house, using her wand to turn on the lights as she entered each room. A shiver ran from the base of her spine, up towards her neck and she pulled her robes closer around her as she entered the spare room. Expecting to find it empty, she screamed as she turned the light on, throwing the figure sitting in the chair by the window into sharp relief.

"Draco!" she choked, flinging her wand down on to the bed spread and storming over to him. "What the hell are you -?"

"I agreed to be here when you got home," he answered, still staring out of the window.

"Why are you -? Merlin!" Hermione's hands flew to her mouth as she took in the sight of him. His hair was plastered to his head; he was completely soaked through. Blood combined with the raindrops still trailing from his temple towards his chin, and his left eye was ringed with a nasty shade of yellow-green. She was reminded with an awful pang in her gut, of the night he had first arrived on her doorstep.

"What happened?" Hermione demanded in the same breath she summoned her healing kit.

He sighed, but began to speak as she tended to his wounds. "I agreed to be here when you returned," he repeated, "but I didn't promise not to leave at all. I went out as soon as you'd left this morning. I travelled to the closest Camp; I have a friend in there...well, -" he shrugged, disrupting the vial of Dittany Hermione was holding "- he was a friend."

"For what purpose?" Hermione admonished, siphoning the spilled potion from the drenched material of his shirt.

Hermione pulled back, waiting for him to canswer. She was kneeling between his legs, only inches from his face, assessing the bruise around his eye; he had obviously been punched by a rather large fist. His breath was leaving him in short bursts, and as Hermione reached towards her bag for the bruise removal paste, he caught her hand and forced her to look back at him.

She had just enough time to catch the determined, yet somewhat feral look in his eye before he closed the gap between them, his lips slanting across hers with a heat and hunger she would not have thought it possible to possess. For the first few seconds, she remained frozen, completely caught off guard...but then he shifted, leaning forward so that he could grasp her shoulders in his surprisingly warm hands, tugging her into him. Instinct took over then, and Hermione melted against his chest, her hands fisting in the front of his shirt, ignoring the way the rain water dribbled through her clenched fingers. She kissed him back with fervour, pouring every ounce of fear and frustration she had been holding all day into it. Tongues began to dance, and had it not been for a severe lack of oxygen, Hermione was sure the passionate kiss would have turned into more.

"What was that?" she panted as they pulled apart.

"It was a kiss," he said, his voice like gravel. "I saw an opportunity and took it." He rested his forehead against hers and softened his tone slightly. "I have no idea what is about to happen, and I've wanted to kiss you since you made me pancakes, so…"

He let the implication hang there and Hermione blinked rapidly, trying to focus on just one thought as they paraded through her mind at breakneck speed. Part of her wanted to shake him, she decided, and another wanted to kiss him again...her gaze flickered back down to his lips and she realised her hands were still twisted in his shirt; she let go as if it had burned her and he chuckled low in his throat.

"Perhaps this wasn't the best time to take such an opportunity," he said softly. He let his hands drop from her arms and leaned back in his chair, attempting to put as much distance between them as possible.

Hermione nodded vigorously and reached once more for the paste, forcing her whirring mind to concentrate on the task at hand - mending Malfoy. "You were talking about a friend?"

"Yes." Draco cleared his throat and obediently closed his eyes as Hermione motioned for him to do so, poised with the paste in her hands. "He's been giving me information from the inside, and I promised to help him get out in return." He jumped slightly as the cool paste touched his skin. "He said that there had been confirmed sightings of a werewolf with similar markings to mine - white fur with blood all over its muzzle."

Hermione frowned. "Is that why he attacked you? He believes the rumours?"

"He didn't attack me," Draco bit out, his voice hard. "We were interrupted by Guards. They tried to capture me, but my presence had caused quite a stir within the Camp and they had to turn their attention to the twenty-plus werewolves collectively trying to escape; it was quite a riot."

He sounded almost proud, Hermione noted as she twisted the lid back on the jar and placed it back in her healing kit. She remained silent as she stood, indicating for him to do the same as he continued his recount. He stood shakily, placing one hand on the wall to steady himself.

"I was roughed up a bit by a particularly aggressive Guard, but eventually he had to leave me to help contain the masses inside - you know," he huffed, "it's really hard to concentrate when you're undressing me, Granger."

Hermione bit down on a smirk as she continued unbuttoning his shirt and then slid it from his shoulders. "You're soaked through," she stated. "After all the effort I've gone to in order to keep you alive, I refuse to have you die from hypothermia."

"So cast a warming spell," he growled. "I'll be fine, just get your hands off of me."

Hermione froze, finger tips grazing his forearms as the shirt fell to the floor, but then obediently stepped back. She glanced up at him from beneath her eyelashes, confusion reflected in her brown orbs. His breath left him in a forceful exhale.

Running one hand through his wet tresses, he rolled his eyes to the ceiling before allowing them to settle back on her form. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "You touching me is a little more than I can handle right now."

"Oh." Hermione blinked, unsure of what she was meant to do with her hands now.

"Granger -" he indicated the front of his pants with a downward shift of his eyes "- I mean it's a bit difficult for me to concentrate with your hands running all over me." His expression darkened considerably as he spoke and Hermione's eyes widened as she finally understood.

"Oh!" she repeated. "Right. Sorry."

He chuckled as her cheeks flushed. "Use your wand," he ordered.

"You mean this wand?" A new voice came from her left and both Hermione and Draco whipped around, coming face to face with Lucius Malfoy. He was sitting on the far corner of the bed, twirling Hermione's wand in his hand. "Seems rather careless of you to leave it unattended, Miss Granger."

The blond man stood slowly, his palms up and facing towards Hermione, as if he expected her to hex him without a second thought. As her brain processed the sight before her, Hermione considered it.

"I'm sure you're wondering how I got in," he said.

Draco growled low in his throat and Hermione instinctively reached for his hand. He laced his fingers through hers and tugged her so that she staggered forward, now effectively hidden behind his broad back.

"What do you want?"

Lucius' eyes flickered for a fraction of a second. "You, son. You're wanted across the entire continent. I'm sorry that your...affliction...has turned you into a brutal beast with a taste for innocent humans, like Miss Granger here." He nodded towards Hermione who was peeking out from behind Draco. "I understand it's been a trying time, but you can't just go around killing people." His voice was barely above a whisper, but it seemed to cut through the air like knives.

"I haven't killed anybody," Draco growled.

"That's not what several eyewitnesses are saying." Lucius simpered. "Come with me and they won't kill you, Draco."

"Bullshit!" He spat.

"He hasn't hurt anyone!" Hermione felt her chest restrict painfully and she clutched a hand over her breastbone to ease it. "You've got the wrong wolf!"

Lucius' answering smile was sardonic as he prowled towards them. "No, I don't," he said. "Come, Draco." He stretched a hand forward and gestured with a crooked finger. "We can negotiate with the Ministry and maybe get you life in Azkaban instead of -"

"Oh, well, why didn't you say so?" Draco spat. "Off we go then." Sarcasm laced every word, and he remained stock still as Lucius lowered his hand.

"No!" Hermione struggled to pass Draco, but he was too strong.

"I won't be going anywhere; calm down, Hermione." Her first name on his lips settled her somewhat, but she placed a hand in the middle of his back just to centre herself.

"You must," Lucius repeated. "The attacks will stop if you come quietly. If you don't…" he trailed off with a half-hearted shrug which looked completely out of place on the usually well-put-together Malfoy patriarch.

Wait, Hermione startled, her body freezing in place as realisation trickled over her. What does he mean 'the attacks will stop if you come quietly'? How can he possibly know -? Unless…

With all the mental force she could muster, she projected her thoughts beyond herself and willed Draco to recognise her attempt at telepathically communicating with him. She had briefly studied occlumency and legilimency as part of Ministry training, but she would not call herself proficient, and it was not long before the strain of the exercise caused a dull ache to radiate from the base of her skull.

Draco, she thought desperately, please hear me.

I can hear you, Granger. His thoughts suddenly melded with hers and Hermione fought the urge to collapse against the force of it. What is it?

Your father is the wolf!

What? How do you -?

"Using legilimency to discuss your options? I thought I taught you better than that, Draco." Lucius tutted.

Draco ignored him, waiting instead for Hermione's reply.

Check his fingernails.

He did, and only just managed to stop himself from recoiling at the sight. It was not something he would have noticed normally; Draco was more of an eye-contact guy himself, but there was no mistaking the dark, burgundy crescents that shaped the tips of his father's fingernails; human flesh.

"Father," Draco began in a cordial tone. Hermione slumped gratefully against the wall behind her, her hand slipping from his back. "How is it that you can guarantee the attacks will stop if I come with you?"

Lucius rolled his eyes, but Draco caught the brief flash of uncertainty within the grey irises. "Because you will be locked up, of course. You won't be able to hurt anyone in Azkaban."

"Ah." Draco nodded sagely, as if this suddenly cleared up a lot of confusion. "Except, you know I'm not the wolf responsible for the attacks."

"What are you talking about?" Lucius was visibly frustrated now, his hands fisted by his side and beads of sweat forming at his hairline.

"You're the wolf, aren't you?" Draco didn't need to add the question at the end, but despite everything, there was some part of him that hoped his father would deny it. There was a moment of tense silence as Lucius set his jaw, looking from Hermione to Draco. "When?" Draco spat. "How?"

Lucius lifted his chin and appraised his son as if weighing up his options before responding. "Just after the war," he said in a strangled whisper. "Fenrir was upset that the Dark Lord was vanquished; he blamed me, and I paid for it." His eyes glowed suddenly, the slate grey that matched his sons turning a pale yellow. "But I never wavered in my loyalty to my Lord, and I did not deserve to be punished, so I went after him and I killed him." Hermione recoiled slightly at the brash honesty in his voice, the lack of empathy evident in every word. "I must restore the Malfoy name, and to do that, I had to take out the weak link - you, son." He smiled, barring perfectly white teeth, though Hermione noted that his canines had been chipped slightly on both sides. "Which is why I'll be taking you with me to the Ministry tonight."

"I don't think so." Draco shook his head and folded his arms across his chest.

"Don't be a fool," Lucius growled, his eyes narrowed into slits.

"This may be the least foolish thing I've ever done," Draco shot back, his hand plunging into his jeans and pointing his wand at Lucius.

Wordlessly, Draco shot a red ball of light towards Lucius, but the elder Malfoy was too quick, casting a Protego before the spell could meet its mark. Draco tried again, but Lucius ducked, rolling forward along the carpet, so that the spell bounced off the wall, shattering a photo of Hermione, Harry, and Ron from third year.

She was barely lucid enough to understand what was going on, but was aware of the photo shattering and her finger tips covering her mouth as a retaliation shot left her wand, controlled by Lucius, and narrowly missed Draco's left shoulder.

Roughly, he pushed her to the ground while simultaneously blocking another curse, this one a purple jet of light which crackled as Draco shielded it. A growl ripped from his throat as his movements intensified. From her place on the floor, Hermione watched as light bloomed above her, his sinewy muscles stretching and contracting as his wand arm danced through the air.

It was neck and neck, as far as she could tell, until Lucius managed a hit to Draco's chest with a simple Stupefy! Hermione crawled towards him as soon as the thud resonated through the room, the crumpled form of Malfoy eerily still and silent.

"No!" She choked, placing her hands on either one of his shoulders.

"Step aside, Miss Granger." Lucius was looming over them, Hermione's wand pointed at Draco's vacant expression. "Out of the way!"

He reached for her with the intent of shoving her from Draco's form, but in his moment of distraction, Hermione had seized Draco's wand and used it to disarm his father.

"You bitch!" he roared, lunging to reclaim the wand.

With practiced finesse, Hermione used a non-verbal spell to bind Lucius with rope and forced him to sit on the end of the bed. Her heart thudded against her chest as she glanced down at Draco who was knocked unconscious, but she knew she had to tend to the evil bastard currently warring with his ties first.

In minutes, Harry and a team of Aurors had arrived and wasted no time in carting the senior Malfoy off for questioning.

"Well done, Hermione," he said as they watched the thrashing form of Draco's father leave the room, flanked by three Aurors.

"Thanks, Harry." She wiped her hand across her brow, exhaustion now hitting her in full force. "I don't know what I would have done if -"

"Is that Draco Malfoy?" Harry had turned and noticed the blond still passed out on the floor.

"Um -"

"Potter?" As if his voice had stirred Malfoy from his slumber, Draco blinked his eyes open and squinted against the harsh over head light.

"Merlin's beard!" Harry gawked, his jaw slack as he moved closer. "What is going on?"

"He's been staying with me," Hermione explained with a sigh. "I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, Harry." She touched his elbow gently and he started forcefully. "For now, I think we all need some sleep."

Her friend nodded, but shot her a look that clearly said that he expected all of the details - the gory and the mundane - first thing tomorrow. She nodded without looking at him and listened for the click of the door which signalled that he had left to follow his team back to the Ministry.