Pictures

Here's the next chapter you guys! Thank you again to all my kind reviewers, especially the ones who have stayed with me through all my stories. You guys are WONDERFUL!




Looking around the room, Hermione made certain that they hadn’t left anything important. She had checked for Draco as well, even though it was his house and he could return to it anytime he wanted. It just seemed like the polite thing to do. The past three weeks had been far more wonderful than she had imagined. She had envisioned spending three weeks feeling like Malfoy’s inferior love-slave. Instead she had spent three weeks in either heated debate in bed having mind-blowing sex. She knew it was only temporary and that nothing they shared actually meant anything, and she preferred it that way. If she’d been in an actual relationship she would have had to worry about the other person’s feelings and she would have been constantly plagued with questions of ‘Where is this going?’ or ‘How long can this last?’ All the restrictions that Malfoy put on their arrangement weren’t based on any kind of emotional feeling; rather he was just spoiled and didn’t want anyone to mess up his arrangement. At least that’s what she thought.

A few times, Hermione had caught him looking at her with a mixture of lust and panic. She already knew how much he enjoyed the little things she did for him out of habit. He obviously had never encountered much affection before in his life and common courtesy amongst friends seemed to be a rarity as well. His constant need to touch her, while at first annoying, she now found endearing. It was almost as if he needed reassurance. She found that laughable because whenever she thought of Malfoy, unsure never crept into her list of adjectives. Cocky, self-centered and egotistical, yes; but unsure? She couldn’t reconcile herself to the thought.

As she finished her packing, the object of her thoughts entered the room. He looked hungrily at her for a few moments before speaking. “Are you ready to go back?” He sounded almost sad. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t get to continue shagging her once they left. He was probably itching to get another girl soon because she’d never known him to be monogamous for this long. For some reason the thought of it made her sad. Although she’d been blackmailed, she’d enjoyed her first experiences with sex and found she had grown sentimentally attached to him. Leaving him would be like leaving her entire childhood behind.

When she nodded to him that she was ready to leave, he walked towards her and put his hands on her hips, by now a familiar gesture, and kissing her, apparated them both back to her parents’ front steps. Still looking into his eyes, she didn’t notice that anything was wrong until she saw Draco looking at her front door in concern.

“Were your parents selling your house before we left?” he asked, confused.

Whipping around, Hermione didn’t bother answering him, she just pushed past the SOLD sign on the front door to find her parents in a flurry of packing. “Mum? What’s going on? What’s happened?”

Looking at her mother’s tear stained face broke Hermione’s heart. Jane Granger couldn’t even speak, she just burst into more tears and hugged her daughter. Marcus Granger came in, and completely disregarding Draco, tugged Hermione into the living room to sit on the lounge.

‘Hermione, I don’t have much time to tell you this and it’s going to come as bit of a shock, but please try to bear with me.” Mr. Granger took a deep breath before continuing. “I know that you are aware that your brother has never been the kind of person you are and that he often gets himself into trouble that he can’t get out of on his own.” When Hermione nodded mutely, her father continued, doing his best to keep his voice steady. “Hermione, your brother has been addicted to heroin and cocaine for quite some time now and he’s gotten very deeply into debt with the wrong sorts of people. About a month ago, we gave him most of our savings and took out a loan against the practice to settle with the people he owed money to and he used that money to gamble and get more drugs. He’s sick and he needs help.”

‘No, Dad, he needs to have his face slapped! Why does losing the practice have anything to do with you guys selling the house? What’s happening?” At her daughter’s outburst, Jane began to sob even harder.

“He owes double the money he did before,” she told her daughter. “If he doesn’t pay it back by Friday, they’ll kill him Hermione!” Hermione’s blood turned cold. She loved her brother, despite all the trouble he caused. He’d always defended her against bullies in grammar school and he was the best storyteller she’d ever met. Unfortunately his bad days were as awful as his good days were wonderful.

“How much does he owe?” she asked, not wanting to know.

“Close to a million pounds,” her father stated numbly. Hermione sucked in her breath. Their house was at best worth 250,000 pounds.

“What else are you selling to get the money?”

“We’ve sold both our cars, your mother’s jewelry and your Uncle David can loan us another hundred thousand, but we’re still so short. We barely have half the amount he needs and we can’t take out another loan from the bank. We’re hoping that they’ll accept what we’ve got as a down payment, but the Russian mafia isn’t known for its mercy. Please try to understand, Mione, he’s our son. We’d do the same thing for you.”

“What about the police? Haven’t you called them?”

“The second we do, Chris will be dead, they’ve already told us. Even if Chris turns himself in, they’ve threatened to kill us in relaiation.”

Hermione wanted to throw up. ‘Where will you live?” she asked

“Your Aunt Clara has offered to let us stay with her until we can get things sorted out. I’m sorry we won’t be able to help you with your flat like, we promised. You’ve got enough saved though, that you should be fine.”

“You can have my savings for Chris,” she stated. “I’m not going to let him die. I’ll just sleep on somebody’s floor until I’ve got enough to get a flat again. I have my Hogwart’s ring that should be worth some money and I’ve got the pearl’s that Gran gave me for my birthday two years ago. We’ll figure this out, Mum, I promise.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hermione, you won’t be sleeping on anyone’s floor. You’re coming to live with me in my flat.” Seemingly for the first time, Hermione’s parents noticed that Draco was standing behind their daughter in their recently sold living room.

“Hermione, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even realize that you’d brought your beau home. How awful you must think us, Draco, is it?” Hermione blushed at the reference her mother made. However, it wasn’t as if she could correct her. ‘Oh no, Mum, Draco and I are just shagging’ would go over like a lead balloon in her father’s house.

“Yes, Draco is my name, Mrs. Granger. I met up with Hermione and her friend, Miss Scarpelli, while they were in Milan and offered to escort her home when it was time. I wonder, could I speak with your daughter alone for a few moments?’

“Of course dear, why don’t the two of you go up to her bedroom to talk? Marcus and I have more packing to do. Again, I’m so sorry you had to listen to all of this.” The pretty older woman gave him a watery smile and returned to the task of putting her possessions into marked boxes.

Pulling Draco up the stairs, Hermione hesitated a moment before drawing him into her childhood bedroom. Instead of being decorated in red and gold like Draco had imagined, it was instead decorated with a light, pastel floral pattern that spoke of her gentle heritage. There was a teddy bear and a stuffed elephant on her bed and Crookshanks, her mangy ginger tabby cat was curled at the foot of her bed. Hermione felt slightly uncomfortable allowing Draco into a place that not even Harry and Ron had seen, but she sat down on her bed, inviting him to do the same. There were bigger issues at stake here than her pride.

“What do you need to talk about?” She knew she was snappish, but she didn’t care.

“How much money do you need?” he asked, his grey eyes boring into hers.

“It translates to roughly half a million galleons.” I don’t know how we’re going to do it,” she moaned.

“I’ll loan it to you,” he had assumed the cold, arrogant mask that he wore to hide his emotions.

What do you want in return?” She waited a few moments before hesitantly asking the question.

“As Malfoy heir, I’m expected to attend various dinners and galas and invariably I’ll need a date on my arm. I don’t want to ask any witch in society because she’ll assume that I’m interested in her as a potential wife. I could contact an escort agency, but that will cost me two hundred galleons per event. You’re already bound to me at least twice a week for sexual favors, but if I want more I might have to look elsewhere, which will most likely lead me to the escort agency again, costing me more money on some random bint who may or may not be good in the sack. If I’m going to pay three hundred pounds for a shag, I at least want it to be good. Furthermore, I need reinstating into the ministry’s good graces. Being seen with you, while damning me in the pureblood community, would raise my social status with the rest of the wizarding world. Let’s face it, the pure blooded society is so small now, that no one cares what they think. If you’ll agree to pose as my girlfriend and shag whenever I want it until this is paid off, I’ll give you the money and when it’s all over, we’ll go back to our daily lives as if nothing had ever happened. Your parents can keep their house and their practice and your worthless brother can keep his life.”

“I’ll do it.” Hermione didn’t care that he’d essentially offered her a situation in which she was his personal whore or that he’d called her brother worthless. All she cared about was the fact that her family wouldn’t be destitute. Her brother deserved many things, but right now he didn’t deserve to die. She knew that she was selling herself, but by now that was nothing new. Embarassing pictures were one thing. She could eventually overcome the shame of those pictures give or take a few years. She couldn’t get over watching her parents sell off all their possessions only to have their son killed.

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Draco nodded and went to go downstairs to talk her father. She thought she caught the gleam of something akin to triumph in his eyes. “I’ll discuss it with your parents and see who needs to get the appropriate money.”

“Wait!” She didn’t know why, but she was about to take a gamble. Hermione Granger never went into a situation without some modicum of power. “If I agree to this, I know you’ll continue your stance of not sharing. If I’m going to sell myself to you, I want to be the only one doing. The exclusiveness runs both ways.”

“Done,” he said, without an ounce of emotion. Hermione couldn’t quite place the look in his eyes as he stared into hers a moment before continuing downstairs to her parents. Sitting on her childhood bed, it seemed surreal to think that only moments ago she’d been in danger of losing the place she’d called home all her life. For the first time since waking up that morning, she was glad that Malfoy had taken those pictures.