Year Seven:Blindsided

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters or places they belong to the wonderful J. K. Rowling: It is her world I just play in it.

A/N: This chapter contains graphic violence and rape. Rape is about power not about sex. I know that most of you know that, but some might not. So if that offends you then please don’t read this chapter.
~ Lauri


Chapter 5- August Thirty-first


Out of habit Hermione woke at first light on her last day of summer as a child. She still found it hard to swallow the idea that she would be an adult in the wizarding world after just two more terms of schooling. She yawned as she looked around the room that had been hers for so long; what would it be like not to have to answer to one’s parents? It was bittersweet, beginning her final year at Hogwarts, ending a chapter in her life that it seemed at the time to have taken forever to write.


The prospect of beginning a journey that might literally take her anywhere was a bit too much for her. Her eyes filled with tears, neither of sadness nor of joy, but filled with memory, with everything she’d ever done within the confines of these walls.


Crookshanks snorted loudly in his sleep, shaking her from her reverie, and seemed genuinely appalled to have been woken by Hermione’s giggling. Though perturbed, he hadn’t had any problem curling right back up to continue his beauty sleep. She smiled at the enormous ginger lump on her bed as he wound himself into an impossible position. It seemed to her that cats, contortionists as they were, mustn’t ever sleep comfortably. She stood and stretched.


Looking out the window at the gray light of pre-dawn, Hermione saw it being chased ever westward by the rising sun. Her stomach greeted the dawn with a rumbling protest for food. Her gastric protestations would have to wait a few moments more, at least, until she’d showered and dressed.


After a refreshingly cool shower Hermione ran from the bathing chamber, in naught, but a towel, to her room. She had two sets of clothing laid out for today, a khaki skirt and a blue t-shirt or her new blue jeans and a black tank top. After staring at both for ten minutes she had given up on choosing which one to wear. She decided to flip a coin in order to make the decision: Heads-skirt, Tales-jeans. As the coin left her thumb it twirled in the air before coming to a rest on her bed: Heads. She nodded and then decided that she would rather wear the jeans.


She pulled on the jeans and looked at herself in the full-length mirror on her door. These were the best pair of pants she’d ever owned, as they made her bum look fantastic. It was, indeed, the perfect outfit to show off her feminine assets. The only thing left to complete the look would be shoes. She went to her closet to find her black boots. ‘Perfect!’ she thought. “Draco is going to love it…” Hermione groaned if she was thinking of Him it meant she’d not yet taken her potion this morning.


Her earlier hunger had vanished at the realization that she’d caught herself thinking of Draco, again. Still, the potion needed to be taken with food. Now that she was headed back to school she could not afford any slip-ups in her dosing schedule.


Hermione was the first student to reach platform nine and three-quarters in Kings Cross Station. The scarlet steam engine seemed to anticipate her arrival. The Hogwarts Express chugged and puffed to a stop just in front of her and the conductor smiled at her as he hopped down from the tender to help her aboard with her bags. He led the new Head-girl to the compartment she would share with the female Prefects.


As Head-girl it would be her duty to brief Prefects as to their individual duties for the year. Hermione would also be expected to mentor these girls for the entirety of the year. No small task when added on top of the amount of work she would be undertaking as a seventh year student. However daunting it may have seemed, she remained convinced that she would be more than equal to the task.


After stowing her remaining luggage she opened the latch on Crookshanks’ basket; the disgruntled ginger cat slinked from his wicker prison and curled up to sleep on Hermione’s seat. She took her Head-girl badge from her pocket and, for the first time, affixed it to her attire. She frowned slightly as she gazed down at herself; she wished she could see how it looked. She sighed, however it looked it would have to do. Hermione exited the train and crossed the platform, she them passed back through the magical barrier and into the Muggle world.


Since the fiasco that was Harry and Ron’s trip to school in their second year (In Mr. Weasley’s flying car.), either the Head-boy or the Head-girl was to be stationed on the platform outside the magical barrier to ensure that such catastrophes did not happen again. Hermione volunteered for this task, as she had been raised by Muggle parents it would be quite easy for her to blend into the crowd at the busy station. She secretly thought that it would be quite amusing to see Draco amongst so many Muggles. Alas, she did not feel that it was a chance worth taking to endanger innocent people for her own amusement.


Draco awoke in his grand and immaculate bedroom on the thirty-first of August to the angry screams of his father. He thought that after seventeen years of his father’s ‘instructions’ to the servants that he should be accustomed to this aspect of his life; he was not. They were servants, but more importantly that that they were creatures with thoughts and feelings. Draco remembered all too well the only occasion on which he had attempted to champion the cause of those poor disenfranchised individuals.

**
Lucius stood, smiling wickedly, over the bloody mess that had once been the face of one of the House Elves who was bound to the Malfoy bloodline. “Let that teach you some respect for your betters you filthy, simpering excuse for a servant,” he spat. The small elf lay on the floor motionless, save for the heaving of her chest as she drew breath, in a pool of her own blood and gore. A smaller elf sat, wide eyed, in the shadows of the dining room shaking as he tried desperately not to make a sound, not an easy task when he’d been a witness to the brutal beating of his mother. Should young Dobby utter even the most minute of sounds the wrath of the Master would be brought down on his tiny shoulders without regard for his age or safety.
***

So malignant a force was Lucius Malfoy that it mattered neither to whom nor how viciously he ‘taught’ his ‘lessons’ to those he deemed to be in need of such an education. The only commonality that Draco could find was that all of his father’s victims were weaker than him.

***
Draco walked into the kitchen to find his father in a blind rage still standing over the unconscious house-elf. He was alone with his father, as the other members of the household had learned to make themselves scarce when the Master had taken to such a mood. “Father, why have you done that? She lives to serve you! You are nothing, but a bully!” Draco screamed. This furnished the opportunity for Lucius to do his worst.


“You will not speak out of turn, you impudent little shit! I am your father! I am your MASTER! I suppose I will have to teach you a lesson, and repeat it until you cannot forget!” Lucius was white with fury as he grabbed his son by the ears and pulled him off of his feet so that the two were staring eye to eye. Draco flew through the air and whacked his head on the counter in the kitchen. His father had thrown him clear across the room.


Draco’s eyesight wavered. “Don’t cry. Only the weak cry. You are a Malfoy act like it!” Lucius snapped, he then grabbed for his son once again and slapped him with amazing force. “Drop your pants,” Lucius ordered in a dangerously calm voice.


Draco could not move between his injuries and his shock that his own father had physically attacked him. There had always been threats of violence, but Draco assumed that this was merely a scare tactic his father employed to ensure the compliance of those in his company.


Lucius’ anger grew past the point where he was in control. He tore his son from the floor and with a flick of his wand, “Abrogo!” he removed his son’s pants and threw the young wizard forward over the counter before raising his own robes. “I am your MASTER!” he whispered repeatedly into his son’s ear as he thrust from behind him again and again.


The last thing Draco recalled of this incident was his father leaving the room. Without looking back he said in an icy tone, “You will obey me, Draco. You will not question me any longer.”
**

Draco felt a renewed sense of hatred toward his father as he relived this hideous event. He could think of no lower form of life than one who would so brutally attack his or her own progeny. He called for one of the House Elves to help him dress for the trip to school, and another to take care of his luggage.


Draco reached platform nine and three-quarters at an hour that, for his station as Head-boy, would be regarded as inconsiderately late. He disliked walking through Muggle London; he knew that he did not fit in. Draco knew that Hermione would be keeping watch for trouble on the Muggle end of the magical barrier between the platforms. He kept his head down hoping that he would not see her. He did not feel like having yet another reminder of what he could never have, not today.


Despite his best efforts, he nearly ran right into Hermione. He barely managed not to look up as he brushed past her. Eventhough he had not seen her face, there could be no doubt that it was Hermione. Her scent danced delicately around him for a few seconds after he passed her.


Hermione was nearly finished with her duty of watching the platform when she realized that she had not yet seen Draco. The potion seemed to keep her lust in check, but nonetheless concern rose in her at this realization. She sighed to herself, for there was nothing to be done for him, not by her anyway. As she headed to the barrier a hunched form brushed passed her. She gave the form a quizzical glance; it had to have been Draco, but there was no way to tell for certain.


She shook her head and took one last look at the platform.


“But Mum it has to be around here somewhere. There is nine and there is ten, nine and three-quarters has to be between them! I’m going to miss the train,” a young girl said nearly in a panic.


Hermione smiled for a moment before she approached the girl and her mother. The girl reminded Hermione of herself at that age, though she hoped the girl would not find as much adventure in her years at Hogwarts.


“Pardon me,” Hermione said as she approached the two figures in front of her, “might you be looking for the Hogwarts Express?”


“Yes!” the girl beamed.


“Please follow me. My name is Hermione Granger and I am Head-girl this year.”


As the three of them neared the barrier the girl’s mother looked at Hermione as though she must be daft. “That is a wall, young lady,” she said to Hermione.


“Well it is and it isn’t…” She stepped through the barrier. She stepped back out and beckoned for the two of them to follow her through.


Once Hermione had made sure that the young witch’s gear was properly stowed, and that her mother had a friendly escort (Mrs. Weasley) back to the muggle world, Hermione made for her compartment in the train once more.


She gathered all of her composure and opened the door to the compartment. She then began the lecture to the Prefects that would last the majority of the long ride to Hogwarts.


Draco was growing exasperated with the lack of respect he was receiving from Ron Weasley. Despite Draco’s efforts to be diplomatic and professional, Ron then began not only to assume the worst about Draco, but to inform the other Prefects about his (false) suppositions. By the end of the ride the blond wizard had reached the end of his tether.


“Weasley, a word before you go.” This was not a question.


“What do you want Malfoy?” Ron asked with a disgusted look on his freckled face.


“Simply to inform you that, as Head-boy, I can see to it that you are stripped of your title and privileges as a Prefect should you fail to perform the duties I have outlined today.”


“Are you threatening me?”


“Hardly, leave it to a stupid git like you not to the difference between being warned and being threatened.” Draco glared at Ron wondering, for what felt like the millionth time, exactly what it was that Hermione could have possibly seen in this lout. Ron turned his back on Draco and left the train, muttering obscenities as he went. Draco lifted his hand to massage his brow; this was going to be a very long year.