The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man

Title: The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Suspense, romance, angst
Warnings: Character Death, graphic violence, madness, non-consensual sexual acts, abuse, oral, M/F, and overall darkness. Dark!Harry included.
Summary: DH-EWE: Ten years after the fall of the Dark Lord, Hermione Granger leads of life of self-imposed obscurity, that is, until the day Headmistress Minerva McGonagall is murdered and a certain 'hero' is responsible.
Author's Notes: This fic is in 1st person POV, so take heed. It will eventually be a DM/HG, but there is a squicky scene that might make you think otherwise. There is some non-con in this fic, so if it squicks you, don't read it for Merlin's sake! Comments and ConCrit is welcomed!



The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man

Part 14




“Ah, what a glorious day!” Narcissa Malfoy exclaimed, raising her pale face to the cloudless April sky.

I could not disagree with the Lady, and I raised my eyes to the sky. It seemed impossible that only the day before I had nearly faced my death…and the death of Malfoy at the hands of Harry Potter.

Narcissa had taken me out into the gardens after breakfast in the kitchen, insisting that I get some air. I had descended into the kitchen in a new outfit, Narcissa apparently working quickly to find me new clothes…clothes that were comfortable, but too nice and too formal for me to feel like myself.

Walking me from the kitchen garden, around the shadow of the house, Narcissa led me along a different cobbled path than the one Malfoy had taken me down. I quickly found that the second path led about the backside of the Manor, past a beautiful terrace and rose garden. Through a hedge, Narcissa commented that we should walk through the hedge maze.

“It is not very large, but it is diverting,” Narcissa had commented as we entered.

The hedges were not like the one I knew from the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and were not dark and foreboding…but trimmed to appear like green waves of velvet on either side of us, the sun streaming into every bend and thoroughfare.

The floor of the maze was lined with white pebbles, and a strange warm breeze flowed through the manmade passages. Narcissa held my hand in her arm as we walked, her pale blue dress reminding me of a Victorian dowager, and the cameo brooch at her throat moving slightly so that an ivory carved lady combed her hair with smooth care.

The sun made Narcissa’s pale hair gleam like gold, and her eyes sparkle like moonstones in her smiling face. I could not help but be in awe of the woman. She appeared like a woman just come into maturity, a timeless quality about her thin face, which was a stark contrast to her dark sister Bellatrix.

We walked, talking about how lovely the warm air was, how lovely a shade the sky was, how comfortable my new slippers were, and how lovely my hair seemed in the sunlight, pulled up from my face to fall down my back in near wild waves. It was not long until we reached the centre of the maze, coming to the loveliest garden I had seen yet…a garden in the Japanese style with koi ponds and a central Japanese style gazebo with a hammock, table, and chairs…and hot tea and biscuits waiting.

“This is my favourite place,” Narcissa confided as we sat down in the shade of the flying eaves of the gazebo. “Lucius’ grandmother redesigned this garden after a visit to Japan.”

I nodded, taking a sip of milky tea, a change from my preferred strong black coffee.

“Draco likes it too, but anymore he prefers the solitude of the groom’s quarters and the forest behind. We have deer in the forest…but it has been years since Draco went hunting.”

I blinked. “He hunts?”

Narcissa smiled as she dabbed her mouth with an embroidered napkin.

“And he rides. Sometimes Lucius will find him in the stables, dressed like some woodsman! Lucius used to do the same when we were first marriage…and his father, and his father’s father… Draco, for the most part, as far as I know, stays in his apartments reading, or walking in the fields. Of course, most of his time is spent on one police case or another, but now…”

I turned my eyes away from Narcissa to the lily pads on the ponds surrounding the gazebo. Now…the world was a dark place.

Narcissa, being the lady she was, gently turned conversation to other subjects, none of which I could really converse about, not being versed in such matters of what I would consider ‘frivolity.’

Finally, Narcissa bade me walk with her again, and I was thankful for the change. The maze garden had been lovely, and had my mindset been different and times less worrisome, I was sure I would have truly enjoyed myself. Instead, as we walked, darkness clouded my mind.

I had the Elder Wand, as well as the Bellatrix’s wand, in the sleeve of the fine blouse Narcissa had given me. The pale blue sateen of the shirt nearly matched Narcissa’s dress, and despite the breeze, I was warm in the button up shirt with its long tails that trailed over my hips, making the shirt appear more like a dress of its own. The sleeves were belled and terminated in cuffs about my wrists, but not so tight as to inhibit me from sliding a wand into my palm if need be.

I had left my old coat in my room with the Invisibility Cloak inside the pocket…and the lead box…hidden in a niche under the sink counter in the bathroom. It was surely an absurd place to hide the goblin-warded box, but it was not a place one would think to look. I assured myself that most magical folk would place such important things in a vault or a magically concealed place, but I, being Muggle-born, was thinking of the less obvious choices.

The Time-Turners… The box did not merely contain the conventional idea of a Time-Turner, for each turn of the larger hourglass signified a year and not an hour. In one treatise about the devices, they had not been called Time-Turners, but ‘Revisionist Chronological Devices’ or RCDs. I preferred Time-Turner. ‘Revisionist’ was a word that almost demanded that the Time-Turners be used to alter the timeline.

“Here we are…” Narcissa said softly, rousing me from my thoughts. I had not paid attention to where we were walking, but I realized quickly that somewhere along the way, Narcissa had led me out of the hedge maze, and we stood before a gap in a familiar stonewall…a rolling field before me.

I realized that I was standing in the nearest gap to the stables, the gap I had passed on my angry trek through the rain days before.

Sunlight kissed the fields, and the smell of soil, grass, animals and the nearby forest of white trees made the air like a perfume. My eyes swept over the horses running along a crest of a hill in the distance, the sheep moving in a flock to a shallow stream…birds flying from far away toward the forest.

Narcissa squeezed my hand as a figure moved along the path from the stables, a figure dressed in black riding boots, trousers, gloves, riding crop, and white shirt. I smirked as I saw that Malfoy had decided to continue wearing the patch over his ruined eye, and I stifled a giggle, thinking that he looked like some roguish hero on the cover of a tawdry romance novel with virgins being kidnapped by pirate princes. But as Malfoy moved closer, the wind catching a few strands of white blond hair, my smile faded. He looked like an elfish prince…some fey creature come from the white trees.

“Morning, Mother…” Malfoy said in greeting, stopping to lean against the wall.

Narcissa spoke to Malfoy, but I did not listen. Instead my eyes travelled to the bandage just visible under his shirt where it had been unbuttoned. Had it not been for his pale skin and hair, I would have rolled on the ground with laughter…he did seem like some roguish pirate prince…as well as some otherworldly thing. My heart fluttered, and I hated myself for it.

His eye was upon me even as he spoke to his mother, and I blushed, steering my eyes to the crop in his hands.

“Was you hair always like that, Granger?”

I flicked my eyes to Malfoy’s face at the sound of my name.

“Not nearly as long, but the color is the same,” I answered, trying ignore Narcissa’s knowing smile.

A few more words were spoken between mother and son, and soon I found myself walking with Malfoy for the stables, my hand tucked into the crook of his left elbow. I wondered how I was suddenly in the position to walk quietly with Malfoy, but concerned myself with looking at the bare white trees behind the stables, trying not to think at all.

Once I was installed on the bench below the open front windows, the gramophone softly playing a record of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, a cup of hot coffee in my hands, I realized that Draco Malfoy was growing impatient for me to speak about the events of the day before. He sat on the other end of the padded bench, leaning back into the wall, his coffee cup resting on the windowsill, his right leg propped up, his arm resting on his knee.

“If I said your hair looked nice, then would you speak, Granger?” Malfoy growled.

“Would you be saying that honestly, Malfoy?” I shot back, raising my coffee to my lips.

Malfoy’s mouth opened, and then shut, his eye moving to gaze out the window. I drank deeply, my mouth resisting the bitterness after drinking Narcissa’s sweet chai-like concoction earlier.

“Your hair looks nice…honestly. Now speak,” Malfoy grumbled.

“What about?”

Malfoy shifted on the bench, the wood underneath giving a low groan. “Yesterday. Your thoughts, observations?”

I wanted to grin at him, and his irritation, but I could not.

“I think we’re almost even.”

Malfoy’s pale eye turned to me, his brow knitting. “What the hell are you talking about?”

I set my cup on the sill, and gently kicked my slippers from my feet to pull my legs up under me, warm under the layers of linen skirts. “I saved your life.”

His mouth quirked. “One point to Granger…I still stand at about ten points or so.”

I said nothing, leaning so that my elbow rested on the sill, my fingers moving to a few strands of hair that had fallen about my face, curling them around my forefinger.

“What are you really asking me, Malfoy? Unless a near death experience has addled your brain, quite a bit happened yesterday,” I said softly, turning to gaze out the open casement window.

“Oh…let’s see… Let us start logically. The ‘Titans,’ you called them…what did they say?” Malfoy asked, abruptly taking up his coffee.

I sighed. “A logical place to begin…” I mumbled. “They told me ‘when’ Harry wanted to go.”

“And?” Malfoy asked, his voice muffled in his cup.

A smirk played over my lips at the sound of his voice. It seemed to be habit that we drank coffee together, mulling over the events surrounding us. I wondered if our tête-à-têtes would always be, or would it change like so much else in my life?

“June 24, 1995, after sunset.”

I watched Malfoy out of the corner of my eye, and saw that his face slowly drained of what little color there was, and he slowly replaced his cup on the sill. He crossed his arms before his chest, the bandage crinkling on his breast as he did so. I knew that Malfoy realized the significance of the date, and as his face began to darken with thought, I continued.

“The Titans told me that Harry will leave no one alive. Voldemort…your father…no one.”

“He won’t save Diggory then? Not with the Stone?”

I shook my head slowly. “It puzzled me, Cedric was the first person Harry ever saw killed. If he wanted to change everything, why not save Cedric? But then I realized…if Cedric was not killed, no one would have believed Voldemort had returned. If Voldemort is killed…the Wizarding world would believe that a fourteen year old Harry had somehow managed it…” I trailed, my voice beginning to thicken with emotion.

Malfoy sighed. “But it isn’t just that, is it?”

I shook my head again. “The Titans said that Harry would kill anyone connected to Voldemort. That means even those who were not connected to Voldemort at that time. Harry knows who joined the Death Eaters, he knows who has survived. Even if he killed Voldemort that night, so many people’s lives would be spared. So many would not take the Mark, others would not join the Death Eaters, but to Harry, it would not matter. His mind is filled with lists of names, images of faces of people in this timeline.”

“My mother…Severus…Crabbe, Goyle, the ones in Azkaban…and so many others…” Malfoy whispered, raising a hand to place his marred face into his palm, leaning so that his arm was supported my his knee.

“It won’t stop with those directly connected. They told me that I…”

“It won’t happen, Granger,” Malfoy growled into his palm before lifting his face to stare at me, his eye penetrating my very soul. “You have the Time-Turners, you have the Elder Wand. And I took his fucking hand!”

My breath quickened, Malfoy’s face dark with a deep anger and power that I had never seen before. But, slowly, sunlight seemed to reenter the room, and Malfoy sat back against the wall again, the darkness fading.

“Last night…I was thinking about something,” Malfoy said softly, his voice sounding weary.

I nodded for him to go on.

“The people Potter has killed so far…all of them had something in common.”

I blinked. “What is that?”

Malfoy smirked. “They all were people who would have tried to stop him in some manner, even the Dursleys. And some of them were people who lived without love.”

I swallowed. Malfoy was right, on both accounts. I had thought of the second account…but the first account was more profound. From the Healer at St. Mungo’s who had died due to injuries, to the Aurors in the Ministry…all of them either had tried to stop Harry from his intended course of action by force, or would have stopped Harry by other means. Some of the people were literal threats to Harry, others were a threat of another sort.

And most I knew personally…

“Ernie?”

“Early this morning…” Malfoy whispered in answer.

Ernie Macmillan had survived Harry for several days…and now I was the only survivor of his madness…excluding Malfoy whom Harry had not shown an interest in until the day before.

“Are you going to destroy them?” Malfoy asked, stealing me away from my thoughts.

“The Time-Turners? I don’t know…I don’t know if I can…”

“Because of some ethical obligation, or literally, Granger?”

I smirked, “Both. I know Time-Turners, normal devices, can be destroyed…but these others… Their manufacture is different, even the materials used are unusual. I would have to examine them to be certain.”

“But not use them.”

“Never.”

Malfoy sighed. “You should start thinking of worst-case scenarios, Granger.”

I let my eyes fall upon my cooling coffee. “I know,” I whispered, clasping my hands about my knees to adjust my legs so that the tips of my toes peeked out from under the hem of my skirt. “I just don’t want to do it right now. I have had no occasion to let myself think about anything else except Harry, the Time-Turners, and the past. It depresses me…and it makes me feel so helpless.”

I closed my eyes with a sigh as the record behind me skipped to the beginning.

“During the War, there was not much time for distractions, or times to feel happy…but we did. It was not often, but it happened.

And now I’m ten years older, and that happiness seems so far away. I cannot remember when I was really happy since then. Happy as in, all consuming, lasting happiness…”

“The ‘working toward a common goal’ happiness, Granger?” Malfoy asked, his voice serious.

I opened my eyes and smirked again. “Not exactly.

I just keep wondering how long this diversion is going to last. We run, we fight, and then we come back here to heal…and argue. How long before we have to run and fight again?”

My voice was thick with unshed tears. My soul was tired…so very tired. Thoughts of running away from everything crossed my mind for a split-second…fleeing to Australia or America, anywhere. But as I raised my chin to gaze out the window at the horses running in the field, I knew that I could never leave, and that I was not alone. I knew that everything I had been through would have truly been unbearable had I been alone…

And alone, you are not, Miss Granger. Never alone…Severus whispered warmly.

I smiled again, and sighed as fingers reached toward my face, brushing away the small curls about my temple behind my ear. I turned my face to see Malfoy leaning forward, a smirk on his lips.

“Someday, when we’re very old, we can sit down, drink coffee, and laugh about how exciting our lives had been,” Malfoy said softly, a hint of sarcasm in his voice as he leaned back into the wall. “In the meantime, I guess we’ll just have to go along the path chosen for us.”

I released a small laugh and rolled my eyes. “You are terrible with reassurances, Malfoy.”

He frowned. “I was not born to reassure anyone, Granger. I’m a Malfoy…I tell people to reassure themselves.”

I knew he was joking, but I mirrored his frown, and countered, “Maybe I should have let you bleed to death yesterday…”

Malfoy quirked a brow, his eye patch shifting against his pale cheek. “But you would not have let me die, Granger…”

The playful mood seemed to dissolve on the breeze that came in through the windows. I did not hide my gaze, which rested upon Malfoy’s bandage, and I did not hide the fact I was biting my lips in hesitation.

“No, I couldn’t let you die…”

“You said I couldn’t leave you alone…” he whispered.

I nodded slowly, my gaze traveling up the sinews of his neck to the shadow of a beard on his jaw…

“There’s no one else now. Ron cannot come, and I don’t think I would want him to besides. Ron could not fight Harry like you have…”

“But you fought him, Granger. You tried to kill him.”

I nodded again, keeping my vision set upon his jaw. “I have to kill him. That is my lot. And I know now that I can kill him.”

“Because you hate him?”

I gnawed on my bottom lip, but released it again to open my mouth. My ability to form a sentence wavered, and I closed my mouth again, my eyes falling to my hands in my lap. There was something I wanted to say, to make clear, but I could not find the words or even identify my intention. Finally, I met Malfoy’s eye, which had been studying me all the while.

“I could have killed him when I thought he had slain you. He has taken so much from me over something so selfish. I can hate him now, but that hate stems from my profound pity of him. I cannot muster a bit of sympathy for him, and my pity has turned to disgust.”

I paused, taking a deep cleansing breath, and found that my shoulders were shaking as if I were crying…but no tears would come. I felt sorrow, but my anger made it impossible for me to let my sorrow show.

“You would have avenged me?”

Malfoy’s voice seemed very distant, and the turn of the last word was part in question, part in a smug sense of satisfaction.

I pursed my lips and met his eye again. “Yes.”

Malfoy’s quirked brow raised higher.

“You’re the one who hates me, so why the tears and hysterics when you thought I was dead?”

I rolled my eyes. “You may have established that you do not hate me, Malfoy, but it may come as a shock for you to hear that I do not hate you either.”

Malfoy blinked.

“I cried because I thought I was responsible for the lapse in your attention…when I called out. I cried because I could not handle the idea of you being dead. And I cried because I was frightened that I might have go through all of ‘this’ alone. As for hysterics? I had tried to incinerate my ex-best friend, and I kicked him in my bollocks, watched you blast his hand off, got his blood in my eyes, and thought I was responsible for your death.

Does that answer your question?”

Malfoy’s mouth stretched into that irresistible smile… “I thought maybe it was because you had fallen in love with me.”

I snorted a laugh. “And you established you ‘disliked’ me the other day…”

“I may have exaggerated a bit…”

His smile had not changed as my eyes widened.

“To your credit, you can kiss quite well. Then again, I was on the verge of death, one can never be sure of much in that state.”

I looked away. “Please don’t mock me, Malfoy. I really cannot abide it.”

Malfoy said nothing in retort, and I would not let myself look at him. My eyes moved to the fireplace, to the couch, to the door, to the old hook rugs, anywhere but his face. If he leered at me, I would break. Even if he smiled that scoundrel-like smirk, I would melt.

I had nearly lost him the day before, and I could still feel his hot blood on my hands. I could still feel his lips against mine. Merlin, I wanted to feel…

I knew it was most likely a mistake to feel for Draco Malfoy, but I could not help myself. He was so near.

“Come here, Granger.”

My breath caught at the sound of his voice. After a blanketing silence for what seemed like hours, the sound of his voice, deep and subtly demanding, startled me to lift my face.

He had not moved from his spot on the padded bench, but his right hand was outstretched.

“Come here, Granger,” he said again, with more force.

I blinked at him, and let my legs uncurl so that my bare toes touched the floor. He wagged his fingers in a beckoning gesture, and like a puppet on a string I rose, taking a step so that I stood over him.

He was not smiling, not smirking, only his silver eye conveying anything… With a tug on my left wrist, Malfoy pulled me down so that I sat on the bench with my back pressed against his chest, his right leg still propped up on the bench below the windowsill, his left foot resting on the floor. I sat in the space between his legs, and I could feet the heat of his groin against my lower back.

I only moved to pull my legs up in a mirrored position from how I sat on the other end of the bench, tucking my feet into the warmth of my skirts. And as his arms wrapped about me, I relaxed as if somehow bewitched, my cheek falling against his right shoulder to look out the window at another view of the fields. I let my right hand fall against his thigh and curled the left into my lap as I watched several horses playing in the fields while others grazed near the sheep.

I shivered as Malfoy used his left hand to brush my hair from my left shoulder so that it fell heavily against his chest. I could feel his breath against my neck and I slowly closed my eyes.

I wondered what was happening, but part of me did not want to question the ‘whys’ and ‘hows.’ I was safe…and warm…and contented.

Malfoy held me for a long time, both of us gazing out of the window to the beautiful April day. We could hear the distant whinny of the horses, or the call of returning spring birds. It was soothing, it was secure, and it was so far away from the darkness that lay in wait for another confrontation or near-death experience.

“Granger?” Malfoy asked softly, his breath tickling the small hairs on the back of my neck.

“Hm?”

“Thank you for yesterday,” he whispered, but I could tell that he had said it begrudgingly. I had saved his life, and I knew he was bending his own proud scruples to express his thanks.

“I was returning the favor,” I whispered in return, but I was being earnest.

“If we keep saving each other, we might just make it to that very old age I mentioned,” he sighed, his fingers burying in my hair.

I sighed softly and closed my eyes.

“I have never thought that I would ever grow old,” I whispered. “For so long I had resigned myself to die young.”

“Even after the War?”

I hummed an affirmation. “When one works in the Time Room, you gain a very enlightened view of what the Fates have apportioned you…”

Malfoy did not respond, but curled his fingers in my hair, breathing deeply against my back. His body was very warm, and even the slight chill of the wind coming in the window at our right did not seem to affect me. Malfoy was the strangest man…rough, taciturn, but surprisingly warm at times, and gentle as he was stroking my hair. I knew the gentleness would not last long, and eventually some scathing word would pass his lips and the mood would change.

But for the time being, I would take what I could get. I figured that he was indulging me, very aware of my growing attraction for him. Any other time, perhaps, my mind would be in turmoil over thoughts that he was not attracted to me in turn, but at that moment, I did not care. I was being the selfish one for once.

“We have time,” Malfoy whispered. “Perhaps not much, but some.”

I stiffened. “How do you figure?”

“Potter has lost a Hallow, he cannot conquer death. You have the Time-Turners, he cannot go back to that night. And he is injured, from your frightening fire, and from my cutting curse. He will have to regroup, and that will take time.”

I considered again telling Malfoy about the Cloak, but said nothing. For some reason I could not form the words to inform him that we had two of the Hallows. I stowed that hesitation and the thoughts accompanying my decision in my mental filing cabinet, to ponder at another time.

I trusted Malfoy. And as odd as it felt to trust him, I knew, deep down, that he would protect me. He already had protected me…but he would continue to do so, not just because I was his ‘ward,’ but also because I was important enough to him and everyone else to be protected. Or so I wanted to believe. It would not last forever, but again, I contented myself to know that I would always have the memory of that protection.

“Maybe a week or more…plenty of time to decide the next course of action. He is wandless again, vulnerable.”

“Wandless?” I asked, rolling my head so that my forehead rested against his jaw.

“Shacklebolt found the remains of his holly wand. Your fire incinerated it.”

I frowned. “He’ll find another. He will take another from a victim. Being wandless could be a motive for him to strike again, Malfoy.”

“It has been considered, Granger. The curfews are still in effect, his face is plaster all over the front pages of the Prophet and the Quibbler. The Muggle authorities have been alerted weeks ago, and the Aurors, what is left of them, are patrolling non-stop.”

“But it was like that before, and Harry eluded them…”

Malfoy sighed, the expansion of his wide chest against my back making my upper body shift against him.

“I cannot think anymore, Granger…” Malfoy growled, anger clear in his voice, his chest rumbling against me. “I don’t want to think anymore, at least not for a while.”

I understood completely, but again I said nothing, even as Malfoy’s hand slipped from my hair so that he embraced me tight against him. His action was the one thing I could not really understand. He buried his face into my hair and inhaled, taking in the scent of the perfumes I had bathed in the night before.

My breathing had quickened at his embrace, but I knew I could not break free if I wanted to do so. Instead, I spoke again, trying to diffuse the confusion I felt inside.

“Are you…are you feeling better?”

My question was light, and a bit inane.

“I am,” he mumbled, his voice softened in the thickness of my hair.

Embracing me tighter still, my eyes widened at the sensation of the heat emanating from his groin as it was pressed into my lower back. I could feel arousal…fire…masculinity…and my mouth was suddenly dry.

Only a flash of panic blinded me for a moment, brought on by the memory of Harry hurting me. The flash was similar to the night Malfoy had drunkenly kissed me, but the moment was shorter, and the memory of Harry was only of his cruel mouth…

Malfoy was not Harry. Malfoy was my protector, the man I had come to regard warmly, the man who had treated me with kindness in his own manner, the man who had kept my mind sharp with bouts of witty repartees, the man who had kissed my face, my sprained ankle, and read Jane Eyre to me as I slept.

I sighed in his arms, feeling that my body was melting into his embrace. I shifted…and in doing so, Malfoy grunted into my hair. The subtle shift my hips had brushed against his arousal. My face burned, and I could not decide whether to be embarrassed or excited. Half of me wanted to get up and run away, while the other half contemplated rolling my hips again.

The latter half won, and I hoped that my internal Severus was not watching.

Malfoy grunted again, and he shifted his body, using his left foot on the floor to rub himself against me. I closed my eyes as my blood began to boil and course through my body like a rampant wave of bliss.

My right hand clutched his thigh as he moved his arms, to battle with my hair, moving it aside so that he could press his face, then his lips to my neck. Kisses, soft, innocent kisses were peppered along the column my throat. But I rolled my hips again, the suggestion lewd, and the soft kisses turned into something else.

His hand grasped my chin, and he turned my body so that that his lips dominated my own, and I relished the taste of his mouth, coffee, chocolate, and other bittersweet flavors that I preferred over sugary sweetness. I hummed as his tongue tangled around mine, and I found myself grasping for his shirt, to pull him closer…hands moving to his neck, his hair…as if I would never let his lips leave mine.

But, we finally had to part to breathe. I opened my eyes to see Malfoy’s face, his brow knitted, his eye glittering, his lips swollen and pink, his hair mussed slightly, and his chest heaving. It was like candy to my eyes, fuel to my internal fire…and I did not care about anything else besides touching him.

I turned on the bench, and slowly I arranged myself so that my toes were barely touching the floor, my left hip against his groin, my back against his right knee. This position let me swivel my upper body so that my hands could slip into his shirt to touch his skin.

I was being forward, but I did not care. Of all the times he had touched me, kissed me, it seemed only fair that I be allowed to have free-reign to do what I wanted. I touched the pale hair on his chest that began between his defined pectorals and trailed down a firm stomach and out of sight. My fingers traced his collarbone, gently over the bandage, down his ribs, causing his body to jump at the sensation. Pushing the shirt back, my fingers traced his shoulders and down the middle of his chest again.

He watched my face all the while, his right arm resting on his knee, a finger reaching out for a strand of my hair, his left hand on his thigh. I found that I enjoyed Malfoy’s eye upon me, and I wondered what he saw in my face. I had sucked my lower lip between my teeth as I touched him, and when his left hand raised to touch my lip, he pulled it free…the pad of his thumb running over my plump and kiss swollen flesh.

I kissed him again, my hands cradling his jaw. I kissed him soundly so that it was his turn to hum into my mouth. His hands found my hair, and we drank each other in…

I wanted him. I wanted Draco Malfoy.

The kiss deepened and changed, and blindly, my hands found the belt of his trousers.

“No…” he whispered, pulling back so that his head fell into the wall.

The sound of his voice frightened me. It was a plea…a plea from Malfoy.

Gently, his fingers found mine and pulled them free from the leather belt, letting my hands brush over the bulge unintentionally before they fell against my hip. He groaned softly and closed his eye when my fingers had brushed against him, but quickly composed himself, his right arm moving to rest on his knee again, fingers reaching out to curl strands of my hair about his knuckles.

I blinked at him…and raised my own fingers to the buttons of my shirt, one by one unbuttoning the periwinkle sateen…past the swell of my breasts, when his left hand grasped both of mine…to stop me.

“No, Granger.”

I was nearly panting. No?

Malfoy leaned forward slightly and began buttoning my shirt as if I were little girl.

I certainly felt like a little girl. My advances had been rejected…but I still wanted, I still needed. My belly was hot and itching deep inside, and I needed something to relieve the comfortable discomfort of my arousal.

When the last button at my throat was closed, I slapped his hands away and rose. I considered slipping on my light shoes and running away as I had once before, but instead I glided to the bathroom. I considered slamming the door, but I had already proven myself juvenile in Malfoy’s eyes…

Instead I looked into the circular mirror above the sink, my hands falling to the edges of the bowl to support myself. My face was obviously flushed, and my lips swollen. I sighed out a sob as I pushed off the sink to begin rearranging my hair. So many loose strands had fallen from the knot I had placed to hold the hair back.

As I fussed, my face contorted in the mirror.

I had been rejected.

I knew I was inexperienced, but not inept. I knew I was not pretty, but I was not ugly. And still, I had been rejected. Why did it have to hurt so much?

“Granger.”

He was standing in the doorway, his hands resting on the jambs, his body leaning into the bathroom slightly.

“What?” I asked with a huff, finally managing to arrange my hair as it had been before Malfoy had mussed it.

Malfoy sighed and turned his face to the floor.

“We can’t…” he started, but paused. I did not bother to look at him as my shaking hands moved to smooth some invisible wrinkle near my collar.

“We can’t do what…” he trailed. “We can’t be ‘intimate,’ Granger.”

My eyelids flickered as he spoke.

“I cannot let ‘this’ cloud my judgment. And there are ethical concerns as well.”

I breathed a cruel laugh as I finally moved my fingers to wipe invisible motes of dirt from my sleeves. I could not look at him, could not try to see his face. There was no remorse in his voice, no conviction. His words sounded flat to my ears.

“It is my duty to protect you, work with you in catching or eradicating Potter. You understand that when Potter is eliminated that I will move on to another case…”

With someone else to protect, the dark part of my heart whispered.

“I let my familiarity with you go too far…”

I stopped wiping at invisible dirt at his words, and turned on my bare heel. He was still looking at the floor, but his face expressed determination.

Draco Malfoy was a man who had no regrets…and even if he had regrets, he would never allow anyone to see them. I clenched my fists at my sides and he raised his eye to gaze upon me.

“Then send me somewhere else, Malfoy. Another safe house.”

The words had passed my lips even before I could think them through. I blinked my gaze to his riding boots.

“Find someone else to ‘protect’ me. I will speak with Alastor Gumboil myself, if I have to…”

He did not speak, but I could tell by the way his hands grasped the jambs of the door that he was feeling something…

“I cannot…” I began in a whisper, but found my voice was too racked by emotion. “I cannot stay here…with you.”

His knuckles were white from the grip on the wood, but his face was as impassive as stone.

“I have also let my familiarity with you cloud my judgment. I have behaved inappropriately and informally with a member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and I think it best that I be the burden of another officer, one which I do not share a history with…”

The wood whined slightly in Malfoy’s hands before he pushed off the jambs and away from the bathroom door. He strode through the parlour to the door leading down to the stables, and without bothering to look at me, nearly pulled the door from the hinges, jogging down the stairs. I moved slowly across the parlour to the front windows, just in time to see Malfoy flying from the stables on a horse…pushing the animal so hard that I feared it would throw Malfoy.

Across the fields and out of sight, I fell to the bench and stared after him…but no tears came.

The crimes of love are cruelest of all…Severus whispered in my suddenly empty brain.

“Love? There’s no love here, Severus,” I whispered back, my voice hollow, my entire body suddenly colder at Malfoy’s departure, both physically and emotionally.

The wind seemed colder, blowing in the windows, and as if my soul were separate from my body, I moved mechanically, shutting the windows. I stared down at my slippers, knowing that I did not have the will to leave the groom’s quarters. Instead, I rose from the bench and moved to the fireplace, using the Elder Wand to stoke the fire so that it roared in the hearth. I wanted to sleep, to dream some silly dream, and to wake into a world that made sense…

I glanced at the couch, but did not move to it. Instead I moved through the kitchen, through the sheer curtain, to the bed in the middle of the small bedroom. Light streamed in through the French doors, but I paid little heed to the cheery illumination. All I could see were shades of grey.

I lay down on the feather bed, inhaling the spicy scent I associated with Malfoy, and curling up in the middle of the wide mattress, I closed my eyes and let the scent assist me to a dream.






I could hear the sea. It was not the sound of the sea that I knew in Britain, with waves slamming into bedrock, but it was a soft white sound…saltwater on smooth white sand.

“Dear, you look like you have a headache,” my mother asked, and I felt her familiar hand on my left arm.

I smiled and opened my eyes to my mother’s face…warm chocolate brown eyes studying me.

“I’m fine, mum. I was just listening to the sea…” I said airily.

“I can barely hear it myself,” my father intoned with the deep bass of his voice.

I turned to smile at him as well, his strange yellow eyes flashing in mirth from across the table.

“All I can hear are the sea birds squawking…” Narcissa said softly from my right.

“Are we playing a game at ‘guess that sound?’” Lucius sneered playfully across the table, sitting at my father’s left.

“Might as well play ‘eye-spy,’ but it would not be fair… Paris is colour blind,” my mother said with a laugh.

“Really, Helen, I hate it when you call me Paris,” my father grumbled, crossing his arms before his chest, thick arms folding before his loose tunic.

“Paris and Helen…a bit fatalistic…” Lucius mumbled.

“Wasn’t it Menelaus who was the father of Hermione?” Narcissa asked, her pale hands moving to adjust the shoulder of her cream coloured monochiton.

“It was,” I said smiling at my father who smirked, and let his arms fall away from his hairy barrel chest to his lap, covered in a man’s chiton, cinched with a wide black belt at the waist.

“Menelaus is not a very British name, but Paris sounds so…rakish,” my father said with a deep laugh.

“Better than Lucius, Perry, but I think my wife has it worst of all,” Lucius said with an unusual smile, his grey eyes turning to Narcissa, his long silver blond hair falling over the pinned shoulders of his pale blue chiton.

“I like my name, husband. It rolls of the tongue easily,” Narcissa said, beginning to laugh…we all laughed softly.

The sea was still in my ears.

Our table was laid with glasses of sweet wine, fruits and cheeses, and our meal began. Light fell into the little stoa, hitting the right side of my face, warming me. I reached for a piece of unleavened bread and sighed as my hair fell over my right shoulder in strands of small caramel braids

“Have you seen Draco this morning, Narcissa?” my father asked, a piece of cheese poised at his lips.

“Just before dawn. He said he had some business to finish and he would join us for our little adventure after lunch today,” Narcissa answered.

“Adventure?” I asked holding my wine in my hand, about to drink again.

“Narcissa didn’t tell you, Hermione?” Lucius asked with mock scandal.

I shook my head so that more tiny braids fell down my shoulders.

“Well…now that the Minotaur is dead, we are going to traverse the labyrinth,” Lucius continued with a smirk.

“Oh, I do hope that silly elf who solved it left the red thread so we won’t become too lost,” my mother sighed, swiping back her unruly dark curls from her handsome face.

“It couldn’t be that difficult,” I supplied, the sweet wine lightening my tongue.

“Where did you say Draco was going, Narcissa?” my father persisted, apparently not interested in our afternoon adventure.

“I think it had something to do with the Potter case, but I cannot say for certain.”

I blinked at the name ‘Potter.’

“Didn’t you go to school with someone named Potter, Hermione?” my mother asked.

I frowned. “It sounds familiar. He may have been in the same year…”

“This isn’t the same Potter who murdered all those people, is it?” my father asked, picking up a slice melon from the platter in the middle of the table.

“It is,” Lucius said darkly, leaning his bare elbows on the table, his glass dangling from his hand. “But, it seems that Draco killed Potter in the middle of trying to apprehend him. Several Aurors were killed in the fight, and Draco had no choice…”

“Goodness…” my mother gasped, her soft hand raising to her mouth.

Narcissa sighed and placed a hand on Lucius’ elbow. “Draco has refused rewards from the Ministry, and he seems so distant lately… Hermione, he hasn’t said anything to you about this?”

“No. He doesn’t talk about his work. I have tried asking him, but he says that he doesn’t want to bring work home…”

“It makes sense to me,” my father asserted, his yellow eyes upon me, concerned.

The stoa fell silent, and I could hear the waves very well. My parents and the Malfoys continued to eat leisurely, but I was listening to the sounds outside the palace.

“Hermione.”

I closed my eyes.

“Hermione?”

I inhaled, the scent of the sea, the food, the palace…intoxicating me.

“Hermione, you need to open your eyes!”

I resisted the voice, which was not the voice of any of my company, but a voice that came from the doorway into the passages of the palace. I knew the voice, but did not. It was a deep voice, almost sensual in the way it said my name.

“Open your eyes, damnit!”

The snap of the voice was too demanding to disobey any longer, and I opened my eyes. My little family were talking, but I could not hear them. Instead, I removed my gaze from their smiling, happy faces to the source of the voice.

Standing in the doorway was a strange man, dressed in black robes, buttons seeming to shimmer from his chest, his sleeves, even the pant legs of his trousers. His face was like an ominous storm head, hooked nose, sallow skin, thin lips, black eyes, lank raven hair…

“Get up, girl! You need to go!” he hissed, his yellow crooked teeth barred.

I obeyed, my chair scrapping on the stones of the floor of the cool stoa. I straightened my chiton, which I realized was as black as the clothes on the strange man in the doorway. I moved around the table in my bare feet, and stood just before the man who towered over me.

“Where are you going, ‘nee?” my father asked, turning his head to watch me, using my childhood pet name.

“Just for inside for a bit, da. I’ll be back in a moment,” I said distractedly, realizing that none of my little family had seemed to notice the dark man.

The dark man then took my wrist, his long fingers curling about the flesh and bone, and he pulled me inside the cool corridors of the palace. I could only stare at the back of his long, greasy hair as we seemed to run.

“You would not wake up, so I had to come here to collect you. I swear by Merlin’s great beard, girl, this is going to be bad for you! It was not time for me to use you yet!” he snarled without looking back at me.

We ran along the stone corridors, passing murals and mosaics on the walls…leaping dolphins set into a blue and black glass sea. I could still hear the waves even in the darkness of the unlit passages.

Down the steps of the light well we flew, down into the bowels of the palace…down into the labyrinth.

“But…” I gasped, feeling very short of breath, my bare feet aching and cold against the stone. “…we have to wait for Draco…he has to show us the centre!”

The labyrinth was dark, only a few torches lit along the smooth stonewalls of the corridors. I tried to find the red thread on the floor, but I could not make my eyes focus fast enough…the dark man was pulling my arm so painfully…and we were running so fast…

“Shut up, Hermione! Snap out of it, for Merlin’s sake! We are running for our collective lives!” he roared, his deep voice echoing off the smooth walls as we twisted and turned through the labyrinth.

“I don’t understand,” I cried as his grasp tightened.

“Your mind would not wake up. You willed this dream out of your sorrow, and you are so fucking single-minded that you have made it a trap for yourself. Now I have to save you, so that we can both live!”

I still did not understand. Who was this man? Where were we going?

The torches were gone, and we were running through the dark. How could the man see where he was going?

My feet felt as if they were bleeding, and I was cold… I wanted to return to the stoa for it was warm and I could hear the sound of the sea. My legs were turning to lead, and the man had to pull harder and harder to keep me in pace.

“If you do not move, you are going to die, Hermione!”

I was sobbing. I was being led away from my family by some insane man in black!

I tripped suddenly, and I was falling.

“No!” he snapped, turning to catch me in his arms so that we landed on the ground roughly, his back bouncing off the ground after so much forward momentum.

I wrenched my arm away from his grasp and pushed myself up from his chest.

“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” I screamed at him, hitting his chest with my fists, although I could not see his face in the dark.

The sound of air moving made me pause for a split second, and suddenly a hand belted me across the face so that I bit my tongue and my ears rang. I fell off the man and to the cold, hard ground…

And suddenly…and shockingly, I was awake…