A/N: Thanks goes to LiterallyLiterary for Beta-reading. She's such a great help! HP = JKR

Finally the new chapter! Thank you all so much for your reviews for the last one! I apologize for the long wait but graduation, lots of champagne, a great hot summer, and my own criticism got in the way.

Here's the music for the second part: If I Had A Heart – Fever Ray

"If you're going through hell, keep going." – Winston Churchill

9 Draco Lucius Malfoy

"Your father is quite a character."

Draco, who stood on a chair, unscrewing the lamp body on the ceiling, paused. "Yes, he is," he responded curtly and continued with the handiwork.

Holmberg cleared his throat. "I'm not being very subtle, am I?"

Draco handed over the lamp body. "The less you know, the better, trust me. Now, would you mind giving me that light thingy over there?" he said impatiently and pointed at the light bulb on his escritoire. With a chuckle Holmberg did as asked, and after successfully changing the light bulbs, Draco stepped down from the chair to examine the result while Holmberg switched the light on and off.

"See that wasn't so difficult," the Muggle said in a mocking tone.

"Sod off. I changed the light thingy, not you."

"It's called a light bulb," Holmberg said drily, to which Draco rolled his eyes, shut his Swiss Army Knife with a snap, and ran his finger along the engraving: Patience. It was the most important virtue he had learned during his studies. Hermione once said that he needed it. Cheeky witch. She was the only one who successfully managed to make him want to strangle and hug her at the same time. What a lucky girl she was that he desisted from both.

What then followed was an exchange of creative insults between the two new roommates and Draco was enjoying every bit of it, despite Holmberg being a Muggle with whom he had the misfortune of sharing the dormitory. Henry Holmberg was the illegitimate offspring of a former Swedish fashion model (Draco had a hard time believing it to be an actual occupation) and a high-ranking member of the Chaebol, Korean's power elite. Given that circumstance, some people might have reserved pity for Holmberg, being a bastard with no significant inheritance in perspective. However, in Draco's eyes, his roommate's status was nothing less than a wild card, enabling him to do whatever he pleased without bearing the responsibility of stepping into his father's shoes.

In moments of resentment, Draco envied him for it.

"I'm going to have some company. Could you just phone me before coming back to the dormitory?" Draco asked as Holmberg reached for his jacket. His request sounded more like an order in bad disguise. That was, of course, intentional.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm not planning to come back this night," Holmberg answered with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Have fun," he added, wriggled his eyebrows ambiguously, and left.

Draco sighed, irritated, but did not feel like clearing up this misunderstanding. Instead, he locked the door and dialled a number, just to hang up after the first ringtone. A second later, Hermione apparated into his dormitory, dashed forward and barked, "You!" She shook him violently, nearly throwing him off balance, while her eyes were shooting daggers at him. "This is your fault!"

With slow determination he forced her hands from his chest and her eyes started to glisten with unshed tears she kept from spilling by biting her lips. "Sorry, what did you say again? I can handle him perfectly well?" Draco drawled patronizingly, tilted her chin up, and raised an eyebrow, to which Hermione moaned and slapped his hand away.

"Don't give me that look," she said flustered, sounding half annoyed, half embarrassed.

The wizard wrinkled his nose at her incapability to admit a fault. To be fair, he was not an inch better. "You know very well that I would never set you up."

Hermione folded her arms and tapped her foot expectantly. "Do tell!"

That stance meant she wanted an apology, Draco realised, and he leaned his head back to look down the ridge of his nose at her; he was not willing to give one.

"You have a strange way of showing your friendship, Malfoy," Hermione continued bossily, "asking me to spend time with your father, appealing on our friendship and insisting on a favour."

"Oh, don't play dirty with me by accusing me of abusing our friendship!" he countered petulantly, "You know that isn't true!"

"You've asked for it!" she cried shrilly.

"Because it was his birthday!" he shouted back with much more vigour than intended. "I've asked you because I thought you'd…" Draco continued reconciliatory, "you know…" Yes, what was he thinking anyway? "You didn't sound that aggravated as you texted me and so..."

"What? That it's okay asking me to spend time with you father only because I didn't try to do him in?"

Draco clenched his hands into fists. He felt a rush of heat rising up his head. Of course he had not wanted his father to have to spend his birthday alone, brooding over the past like some grumpy old sod. And, admittedly, it may have been a bold idea to ask Hermione, but not a silly one. Father did recognize that being on civil terms ('good' might be a tad too optimistic) with her might open some doors again. Besides, his father valued challenging conversations, even more so with a woman who actually made use of her brain, which in general could not be said of most people. And conversing with a witch, who, on top of being bright, happened to be famous and attractive altogether, surely promised enough diversion.

Apparently, his father thought so too – and further.

Draco congratulated himself silently and wished for a brick wall to bang his head against.

As if Hermione sensed what was going on, her gaze softened. "Draco…"

But he could not withstand that understanding look of hers, those innocent, brown, deer-like orbs that spoke of so much sympathy. And before his resistance started to melt away, he turned his back on her. "It's no good crying over spilt potion," he said while preparing tea. "There's a tray full of elven-made madeleines from my mother," he continued, trying to steer away from that particularly disconcerting topic. Unfortunately, Hermione did not take the bait, Draco deduced correctly, feeling her scrutinizing gaze threatening to burn a hole right through him. He knew exactly how much she hated it when he turned his back on her. She called it disrespectful. He called it keeping face.

"Hermione, don't make me say it…" Draco muttered after a long and uncomfortable silence.

He felt a touch on his back. "Look at me," she said placatory.

Draco turned and focused his concentration on more trivial, less affecting details; like that she looked rather lovely with those figure-flattering trousers and matching blouse. Who would have thought that little Miss Know-It-All would acquire a bit of taste along the way? Although Hermione was not gifted with the kind of flawless beauty his mother was, she held her own charm with her pretty face and compelling smile. But it were her eyes that did the job of persuading any man that she was pretty - and her legs. Consequentially, these attributes did not go unnoticed by some of his fellow male students whenever they went out, but Draco found it quite amazing how fast Muggles minded their own business again upon receiving looks that promised a slow, agonizing and thoroughly executed castration.

"Fine!" Draco huffed, at last. "I'm sorry, and now stop giving me the silent treatment. Slytherin knows, I've already started speaking to myself in your absence because it's the only way to ensure intelligent conversations."

Hermione sniggered and smirked triumphantly. "Apology accepted. So, what's his game?"

This was the question he dreaded and Draco had to finally acknowledge the graveness of the situation he was trapped in. Her question indicated decisions he had to make, sides he had to pick, loyalties he had to betray. So why was Hermione daring to ask that question? Did she not know into which position she forced him?

"Ah, family above all, isn't it?" she said, interpreting his silence. Of course, it was family above all. Only, she was rather slow off the mark for not realizing that he actually considered her in his own wicked logic to be somehow part of it.

"This is not about taking sides, so don't make me choose one. I'm not the enemy here, nor is my father, in any case. This isn't war," he explained, trying not to raise his voice anew.

"Then what is it about? This relationship?" she asked, making a face as if she bit into a sour apple.

"It's about chance, Hermione," Draco answered patiently. "In case you didn't realise, you are in a very privileged position. Father didn't take on a political protégée ever. Use that opportunity and learn from him."

She jutted out her lips, clearly not agreeing with him. "Should I feel honoured?"

"Yes, you should. He knows his trade better than anyone else."

"Oh, yes he does. Your father could sell a stove to a Dragon in exchange for its soul and make it feel good about it. And that's exactly what I fear," she said gloomily. "I'm trapped in a dubious patron-protégée-relationship with one of the most notorious wizards alive. My whole career is at his mercy! What if people find out? What would happen to my work? Am I not corrupt if I keep it a secret? And how could I ever think it was a good idea to take the deal? If he wanted help to get rid of the curse, he could have simply asked! It's not that I don't acknowledge his contribution to the hunt for Voldemort's followers."

A shudder ran down Draco's spine at the mention of the Dark Lord's name but he was careful not to show his unease. "Firstly, as much as I love to hear you slagging yourself, stop sulking. No-one will find out and if they should, no-one would dare believe it for a second. You're Hermione Granger, Potty– Potter's best friend. Secondly, Malfoys never ask, they demand. And lastly, would you mind lowering your moral standards to a feasible level? No wonder I barely like you."

"Oh, judging from what you did to me, you don't like me at all," Hermione answered sardonically, threw herself down to his chesterfield, and conjured paper-folded birds that flew around the room.

Draco watched the little origami-birds flapping their papery wings.

"It's been six years. You don't know what I like," he said quietly.

"Well, I know you like to bicker with me and I know you like insulting me," Hermione replied, not registering his faint blush as she was occupied with colouring the birds with her wand.

"It's called teasing, Granger, and I have to uphold what little dignity I've got left," Draco drawled haughtily, relieved that he had not given himself away.

"Oh, says the dethroned pure-blood Prince who studies and lives among Muggles."

"Hm, I finally understand why my father took you under his wing. Maybe you two could write a guide called How to Insult and Humiliate People While Feeling Good About It."

"Only if you write the foreword. In exchange, I will write yours, or Applied Sciences of the Art of Human Exploitation by Lucius and Draco Malfoy."

"Gladly," he answered, feeling faintly posh. "And you accuse me of not liking you."

"Bah!" Hermione flicked her wand, to which the little birds started chirping merrily.

"What? You aren't satisfied with my apology and the peace offering of an evening with the finest pure-blood bachelor of the British Wizarding world and aspiring author?" exclaimed Draco, emoting indignation.

"What's the use of an apology from someone who's going to abandon me anyway?"

"Oh, that's low down. If my father weren't such a supremacist he'd start courting you."

Hermione gagged as if she swallowed a spoon of sand. "Ouch, Draco! You're the worst!"

He bowed his lips into a relieving smirk. They were in familiar territory again. "See? That's why you, my dear, have to keep on delivering me from my sins, and save my mother's house-elf from self-mutilation by eating up those madeleines."

"Only if you promise me that you won't let me down," Hermione said and watched one of the paper birds bump into the poster of one of Draco's favourite movies, A Clockwork Orange.

"Of course. It's the least I can do for you. Now, let's continue our game from last time and tell me what happened."

He handed her a cup of tea and made himself comfortable beside her. Like that, they spent the rest of the evening and the better half of the night talking and bantering while playing chess.

Although Draco believed that Hermione did not lie as she told him about the incident in New York, Draco had the impression that she was withholding some pieces of the whole story. He did not try to probe – that would have been a clumsy attempt unworthy of a Slytherin. But he was determined to find out, one way or the other.

"I'm glad you're coming back," she said after he took her last knight. "Might take the edge off your father."

"Never," Draco said with a taut undertone, to which brown eyes stared at him questioningly. "The only one who could calm him down was my mother. But they're not exactly on speaking terms. I doubt that they will ever be again." He knew all the reasons, also the ones his parents were not aware of, giving his privilege as onlooker who had to endure their rows for months before they finally rang down the curtain to over twenty years of marriage.

"Why didn't you tell me about your father's curse?" Hermione asked as she moved the rook to take one of his knights in return.

"Because he asked me to stay quiet about it, since he doesn't know for sure who's involved," he said. "Check."

She scowled and knocked down her king. "And mate."

"Just half as fun if they don't knock themselves off," Draco drawled, pleased with himself. "That's my third victory in a row."

"From a series of nine losses in a row," Hermione specified while he scuffed to the window for a smoke.

It was snowing again, he noticed, as he blew the smoke out of the window. "I didn't quite know what to think when he told me that he took you on. But what I can say is that the deal sounds fair." He fixed his gaze on Hermione who was listening expectantly. "People can slag him off but those who actually conduct business with my father know that he's a wizard who keeps his word and always pays his debts. But that doesn't mean that you can afford to lower your guards. He has a way with words –"

"Oh, pray tell," she butted in.

"– and expects everyone to hold up their end of the bargain."

Draco had a back-flash of the first time leaving for Hogwarts. They had been standing on platform 9 ¾ when his father took him aside and taught him the importance of cleverly drafted agreements, and making sure that those who entered them kept their ends of it.

"Of course, trust is good but control is better. Boy, do you remember what I told you about how men ought to be governed?" his father asked, to which he answered carefully, "Through vices, greed and fear."

At that time, Draco did not exactly understand what vices were, despite looking it up, but he supposed it did not matter, since his father patted his shoulder in proud approval - something he usually only did on Birthday and Christmas.

"Good. Very good."

Draco's mother had been waving him goodbye as he got on the Hogwarts Express, and the last thing he saw was his father stroking his mother's back while she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. Shocked by such an open display of sentiments in public, Draco promptly missed tripping Longbottom up who was running past him in search for his stupid toad.

What else could he tell Hermione about his father to make sure he actually remained heir-apparent?

"My father has a foul temper. So, whatever you do, just avoid the topics of divorce, Muggle taxes, and his involvement in the Second Wizarding War. Also, he detests unpunctuality and sloppiness. But that shouldn't be a problem for you –" Draco stubbed out his cigarette "– at least the latter two points," he added, making her arching her eyebrows as in challenge.

"No, no, no. Just don't even think about it," he warned her, earning himself a reconciliatory smirk that was not entirely convincing.

"I think I'll call it a night." Hermione straightened herself up, stretching her body in a cat-like fashion.

"Hermione." Draco stepped close to her.

He was unsure whether to speak the next words but decided to give it a go, borrowing the words of a famous late writer. "Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."

He wanted to tell her more – that she should not forget who she was, that her good-heartedness and bravery inspired their whole generation of witches and wizards, and that he did not want to see that spirit in her perish. Rather, she should finally acknowledge and use that power she held in her small hands to achieve greatness. But he could not. It was an inappropriate display of sentimental incontinence unworthy of anyone who went by the name of Malfoy.

But when suddenly Hermione embraced him into a hug, standing on the tip of her toes, making an effort to hug him properly, he mentally flushed all his previous reservations down the toilet. She was important to him and he was a well-bred wizard, not some socially degenerated wimp, was he not?

And just as he wanted to speak up, she drew back.

"Thank you," Hermione whispered and disapparated.

She was gone.

"Ah, for fuck's sake!" he shouted.

Draco was reading the same sentence from his book (Managing Brand Equity) for the sixth time without being able to grasp its meaning, when he finally admitted defeat. He threw the highlighter on the desk and leaned back, rubbing his tired eyes. Sleep was what his body craved but what his mind denied him. A deep breath escaped his dry lips and he poured himself a glass of whisky. Or so he tried. The bottle was empty.

"Bugger," Draco groaned and dragged himself up to wash his face with cold water.

He stared into the looking glass, hearing the echo of his father's fuming voice in his head. "You're my successor in the first place and then her heir in the second!"

Yes, he was his father's spitting image, his legacy, the family's sole son and heir.

"Draco, quit trying to live up to your father's expectations", his mother told him. "You're also a Black, don't you forget that."

But what features had he inherited from his mother? Where did it show that he was his mother's son?

Draco tilted his chin up, turning his head from side to side. No, there was really nothing of her in him.

"Only if you promise me that you won't let me down," he remembered Hermione saying.

Would it really come down to picking a side? Could he not just be his own man, find his own way, do what he thought was right?

A shudder ran through his body and festered in his stomach, churning and twisting his guts. "Fuck!" Draco barked and drove his fist into the looking glass. It chinked and split the reflection of his face in two.

He needed diversion.

Half an hour later the blond wizard was leaning back in his armchair trying to focus on the moist and tight sensation, the sucking contractions down there caused by that half-naked thing kneeling between his thighs. It moaned and scratched its painted fingernails along his legs, devouring every rigid inch of him in eager devotion.

"Is your girlfriend as good as me? The one with the curly hair?" it asked in an unsuccessful attempt to please him.

Anger flared up in him and Draco fisted its blonde-dyed hair roughly, making the Muggle groan his name in a vulgar manner. That tart was supposed to nosh him, not attempt to make poor conversation.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and stared down at it once more, observing it licking his weeping erection as if it were a lolly threatening to melt away.

Somehow it must have felt his gaze, since it looked up, its eyes full of want. Nausea overcame him.

"I bet it turns you on to fuck us both at the same time," it misinterpreted.

"Shut up," Draco snapped, suppressing the urge to slap it for the offensive remark and, in fact, for everything she represented.

Why were Muggle-girls in this part of the world so crude, so lurid, so false? Dyed, inked, clipped, padded, glued, pierced – Draco moved his fingers along the shell of its ear – they celebrated self-mutilation as a form of individual expression.

How pathetic. As if it would change anything about whom they were.

Draco moved its head to increase the pace as he felt the climax building up in him and he grunted satisfied from the feeling of the fleshy walls convulsing around him.

"Let's do it," it whispered and moaned lustfully.

Certainly not, Draco thought, tilted its head back, forcing it to take him all the way in. He pumped, one, two, three times, shut his eyes and let out a deep redeeming growl, feeling a rapture cursing through his whole body until he finally exploded inside its mouth, rewarding him with the sought relief, and vaulting him into another dimension.

Finally. Finally.

And he sank into the divine emptiness, losing the sense of time and space, floating, forgetting, being nothing at all and everything there was, being himself.

Just himself.

And then his heart made another beat, yanking him back to the here and now, where he was Draco Lucius Malfoy.

Wizard.

Pure-blood.

Successor.

Draco watched how his viscous release trickled down sluggishly from the corners of the Muggle's mouth.

Death Eater.

Traitor.

Coward.

"Swallow," he ordered in a cold voice, not allowing any room for objection, to which the Muggle complied and gulped, its eyes watery from the pain he must have caused.

"Hey!" it exclaimed upset, its face flushed bright red.

Unaffected by its reaction, he drew his trousers up and left the seat.

"Leave," Draco said with his back on it.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" he heard it yelling in disbelief of what he just said, its voice shaky from embarrassment.

Slowly, he turned and looked down at the Muggle, having yet to move from the kneeling position. "Are you deaf as well as stupid? Get out of here."

Tears of anger were pouring down its cheeks. "You motherfucking bastard!" It grabbed its clothes and slapped him. "Fucking hypocrite! I pity your girlfriend!" the Muggle screeched and stumbled out of his dormitory, slamming the door shut.

"That makes two of us, slag."

He went for the bathroom and took a steaming hot shower, scrubbing every inch of his skin and only stopped when it finally started to burn.

Noticing that his legs began to shake, he leaned against the bathroom wall.

"Draco Lucius Malfoy," he rasped and bit his lower lip, barely registering the pain. A trail of blood mingled with the twirling water, making its way down the drain.

He pressed his palms against his face.

And wept bitterly.

"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them" = The quote is from William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

A/N II: I hope you liked this one and would love to get some feedback.