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Slytherins in the Attic	By : elruefaerie Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 3904 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, the characters, or anything else that was originally by J.K Rowling. I also did not create this for profit or make any money off its existance.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
All allusion phrases and their meanings were found at www.phrase.org.uk
"Skeletons in the closet" - A secret source of shame, potentially ruinous if exposed, which a person or family makes efforts to conceal.
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CHAPTER 1

�In a Cleft Stick�- In a position where advance and retreat are both impossible; in a fix.

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Cold and alone, Draco had been running for the better part of four months.
At least, that�s what he thought. His last rummage through the trash a few weeks ago had given him the most recent date from some Muggle newspaper, but even now he couldn�t remember how many days and nights he had spent running since that last brush with civilization.
Draco huffed in an attempt to laugh. Civilization. Nothing more than a few dilapidated barns on Muggle farms at the edge of the forest. How could any human being stand to live in something so dirty and bare? No servants or magic to do their chores for them. Their houses were barely furnished and nothing particularly tasteful existed within them. It would be an affront to his heritage and the Wizarding community to be caught in anything below radiance.
Yet there he was, sleeping amongst the Muggle families� animals at night. Stealing their scraps of food and hiding during the day within the forest until it was safe enough to slip into a hay loft to sleep amongst the rats and the insects that resided there as well.
It was not a few hours ago that Draco had been on his way back to the hay when the most overpowering scent caught his attention. The Muggle farmer�s wife had left the window open as she bustled around the kitchen cooking. Before he knew what he was doing, Draco had pulled his wand from his tattered robes and began levitating food straight from the table and out the window to his outstretched hands.
He hadn�t counted on the Muggle farmer to be in the house, nor the hysterics that had ensued when he witnessed a batch of cookies hovering in the air. Draco�s feet had also betrayed him at some point in his thievery, moving him out of the shadows and into the eyesight of the Muggle�s wife, who screamed and pointed to the bandit, already holding a mince pie in his hand.
Producing an item that looked like an iron double ended broom stick in his hands, the farmer had run out of the house, chasing Draco away. Loud blasts, probably from the item, had sounded and the trees he ran towards seemed to blow up around him. What the hell kind of magic was that?
No, not magic. Whatever the Muggle contraption had been, it was dangerous and Draco could still smell the sulfur that had hung in the air around him as he ran from the farmer. The mince pie was lost in the flurry of events and Draco continued to run through the forest, his legs pumping forcefully, until he could no longer breathe.
Out of breath and panting, he collapsed into the weeds covering the ground. Snape had saved him from Azkaban, but would it really be any worse than what he was enduring now? He swore under his breath at the thought. How the hell was he going to survive this mess? After pulling him from Hogwarts� grounds, Snape and Draco had continuously hidden from the onslaught of teachers and students who had gone searching for them. They ran from shadow to shadow until Snape had pushed Draco away, telling him to run. For, if Snape had brought him back to headquarters, the Dark Lord would have surely killed Draco for his failure. As it was, Snape would most likely be punished by the Dark Lord for not bringing Draco back with him. So, why hadn�t he?
Instead of taking Draco back to the Death Eaters, Snape had let him make an attempt to escape. Still, he had warned him in hushed tones not to trust anyone or to be seen by wizards, especially someone who could alert either side of his whereabouts.
Draco banged his fists against a nearby tree in frustration. The bark grated against his skin, leaving shallow bleeding cuts on his hands. Rolling over to lay flat on the ground, he looked up at the treetops and tried to think, like he had done almost every night since his escape, of someone who could help him.
His mind racked through Slytherins and teachers alike, but none would have cared the slightest about his problems now. No one in any of the other houses would lift a finger for him either. Scared for their own lives, or just scared of him.
Crabbe and Goyle would sooner turn him in than help. Stupid as they were, they had been his left and right hands all through school, taking orders from Draco as a Death Eater did from Voldemort. Draco shivered in the night air at the analogy. They were attracted to power more than they were loyal friends. They served the strongest wizard which, up until a few months ago, had been Draco through their six years at Hogwarts.
No. They would definitely be working for the Dark Lord now. He would be using their friendship as an advantage to catch Draco.
His thoughts moved on to Pansy, the girl who had given him so many pleasures, both physically and emotionally. She had been the one to support him in his status as a Prefect, standing beside him and aiding him in picking on those who were weak. Smarter than Crabbe or Goyle, she had spied on various people for him, alerting him of rumors or taking matters into her own hands for his protection from those who defied him.
The nights they had slipped into empty classrooms to avoid the Slytherin Common Room whispers as they ravished one another on the cold stone walls and hard wooden desks also entered Draco�s thoughts. His cock hardened at the thought of her hands on his body as she brought him to his peak.
But she had been just like the rest of them; addicted to the power and money Draco would inherit, sooner rather than later once his father had landed himself in Azkaban. Draco never fooled himself to be in love with Pansy, however he believed she would have, if the chance had arisen, died for him. Yet, she would have given him up to the highest bidder and betrayed him for anything that would be to her advantage. She had been there to watch him follow in his father�s footsteps from the moment he had set foot in Hogwarts.
And he had. Like his father, Draco had fallen from the grace of his riches, his family, and his loyalties. He had grown attached to his lifestyle, haughtiness and snobbery bringing him to believe he was above all others, and then, in what was meant to be his moment of triumph and glory, the moment in which he was to prove himself to everyone around him, he too had failed the Dark Lord.
He hadn�t been able to do it. In the end, Draco was no more a killer than he was a true Death Eater.
At the thought, he absently scratched the Dark Mark on his arm. It burned on occasion, but only itched at the memories of that night, the night Dumbledore had been murdered. His face, as the Avada Kadavra curse had hit him accentuated his pitiful expression with pallid green light before he fell ridged on the wet grounds, would not leave Draco�s mind. It had been burned into the very backs of his eyelids whenever he closed his eyes. Every time he slept, the event would play itself over and over, until he was upright in a cold sweat and shouting into the darkness.
Something had to be done. Somewhere, someone had to be willing to help him. He was in a dead space. Aurors and Death Eaters alike were after him now. Not one side, good or evil, would claim him and he neither needed nor wanted to show allegiance to either. For the first time in his life he wished he were Muggle-born, free of the war and the knowledge of the things he was left to face.
Draco laughed hollowly at the thought.
He shivered and curled his legs into his chest in an attempt to warm himself. The autumn air blew colder each night, soon it would be winter and snow would cover him like a blanket. He worried about using his magic during the night. A fire would be seen from the houses in the town below, and a heating charm would only last a few minutes until he fell asleep and was unable to sustain it. Nothing more than a miracle was going to help him now.
What was he going to do?

***

Hermione checked the time on the clock perched on the wall above her head. She had been standing there more than 5 minutes now, too long not to start attracting stares. Another minute and she would abandon her post in front of the store. Where were they?
No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than Ron stuck out his head from around the corner opposite of her. He nodded curtly, waiting for her to return the gesture and disappeared from sight again. Hermione moved from her post, crossing the street towards where she knew Ron had been standing, and slipped into a small eyeglass shop on the corner, even though the sign on the door clearly read �closed.�
Once inside, she locked the door behind her and shut the blinds. Several soft pops were heard and the cloaked figures of Ron, Harry, Ginny, George, Fred, and Tonks appeared in front of her.
They had, with the help of a contact within the Ministry, procured a spot in the middle of London to meet in private. However, being that it was used as a public dwelling it had no secret keeper, and was to be used only in dire emergencies, with charms and such set around it. Tonks removed her hood and wrung her hands together, immediately looking nervous. �I shouldn�t be doing this,� she said for what was probably the fifth time in three days.
�If your mother found out I was helping you to use this place as your own secret hideout, she�d hex me into the next lifetime!� To emphasize this point she looked around just be sure Mrs. Weasley wasn�t, in fact, standing there already with her wand raised.
Ron and Harry exchanged uneasy glances while Fred and George rolled their eyes. �Hardly anything to worry about there, I would think,� said George as he pulled out his wand and began helping Hermione re-enforce a few silencing spells. �Mad Eye and Lupin are in on it too, you mentioned,� finished Fred. �And Mom wouldn�t dare question them.�
�Yes,� agreed Tonks, though her face was dark. �But that�s mostly chalked up to the reasoning that they didn�t tell her either. If you lot had kept to the house instead of following us on that last mission, you wouldn�t be here. I suppose it�s just as well now that you�ve become mixed up in this, but none of you have the appropriate training to run around on your own. I�m just here to keep an eye on you lot.�
�Good. Down with the ship and all that rot then, eh? Give us a hand with this.� George and Fred each spoke a sentence as they made to move a large bookcase from the wall.
�What�s upstairs?� Hermione asked Tonks trying to block out memories of the previous week. �Just a small loft and bathroom. Hardly worth a second look, really, but we thought it may come in handy if someone were injured nearby.� Hermione nodded and sat down on a rickety looking stool behind the register.
Ron was examining the wall across from her. It was filled with small wooden drawers and a few scattered mirrors hung between them. Ron�s freckled hand reached for the worn knobs and opened a few, occasionally finding a box of reading spectacles or cleaning pads. Harry looked grim as Ginny sat beside him on a long bench propped up against the wall Ron was examining. The room was haphazard at best and extremely crowded with all the wizards crammed inside, but it was clean and would suit them for a few hours.
Tonks cleared her throat and Hermione�s thoughts broke as she concentrated on the woman. Tonks� hair was sheared short and dyed almost platinum blonde with a black underbelly of hair by her neck; a few tattoos and she�d fit right in with the Muggle punk crowd of London. Everyone else grew quiet and turned to look at her again.
�Report. Twins, you first,� she stated simply and boldly. Hermione gathered that Tonks was doing her best to act as the leader of their soiree and felt a surge of guilt at the thought.
The twins hadn�t found anything helpful in their evening search of the elf. They mentioned Mundungus Feltcher�s appearance hawking some more of Sirius� silverware in Knockturn Alley, who suffered from a few accidental explosion charms sent his way each time he tried to sell something to a bystander. After receiving a face full of soot six times in a row Mundungus had finally given up, throwing his bag away from him and running down the alley claiming the items were cursed. Fred produced a small sack of stolen items which George tossed at Harry, who was scowling darkly at the identical twins for blowing up some of Sirius� things. �Aw, c�mon, Harry! Lighten up, mate.� George grinned as Harry inspected its contents. �If we hadn�t had some fun with him, old Dung would have sold all the stuff he�d nicked from Grimmauld Place.�
�This way you still have a full set for one to eat with�well, maybe two halves of a person!� Fred snickered as Harry pulled out a spoon and two knives from the bag.
Tonks rolled her eyes and moved on. �Hermione? Ron? What did you find?� Ron twirled a set of thin rimmed glasses in his hands and Hermione shook her head dismally. �Nothing, aside from a few ghost stories,� Ron grumbled.
Harry�s attention left the silverware to stare at Ron while Ginny�s face went a little pink. Hermione sighed. �He�s right. Some farmers near Thetford claimed there were ghouls in their haylofts at night, or that something out in the fields was keeping the animals at unrest.� Hermione missed the look that Ginny and Harry sent her way. Every other face in the room looked bored, but the two of them seemed to be hanging on each word as she spoke. She was too busy thinking of the last few nights spent alone with Ron. While their relationship remained as platonic as ever, a few things had changed between them. They were more nervous around one another than usual, and occasionally Hermione would catch Ron staring at her for no particular reason. She had let herself hope, just a little, that he would be seeing in her whatever it was she had seen in him these last few years, but the two would quickly set to arguing again shortly after followed by long hours of sour silence. After six years, Hermione was definitely losing hope.
Harry cleared his throat. �We heard something similar just North of there, over in Brandon. Some woman was raving about her pies floating right out the window about a week ago. She claimed her husband had seen some kind of spirit in the woods and taken a shotgun to it.�
The room went silent as they mulled over the possibilities. Ron glanced at the twins who shrugged their shoulders and Tonks tried to look as though she understood what Harry had said, even though �shotgun� was as foreign a word to them as �pigmy puff� would be to an adult wizard.
Something about what Harry was saying bothered Hermione. The group was in pursuit of the house elf, Kreacher, who had left Grimmauld Place. While she could hardly call Kreacher a ghost, Hermione believed a Muggle could mistake him for at least a gnome or troll of some kind. Then again, something about these stories was not quite right. Kreacher was not free in any sense of the word, and living out in the open wilderness like that suggested some degree of autonomy. This could be a trap, but the fact the same information was gathered in two different locations at the same time made it quite unlikely. She considered this along with the rest of the information Harry had given her.
�There�s definitely some use of magic, no matter how we spin it.� She concluded out loud after a few moments. Tonks nodded in agreement and the rest of the room tensed as she picked up on Hermione�s train of thought. �At the very least, there�s someone with the ability to levitate things hiding out in the forest over there. We should check it out, starting with Thetford, seeing as that holds the more recent sightings.�
They all nodded somberly and Tonks let out a wide yawn. Blushing slightly, she glanced at the clock perched behind Hermione and gave a little sigh. �We should get a look tonight before whomever or whatever moves on to another area. There are still a few hours until nightfall. I�ll leave you lot to rest up while I inform Moody of the situation. We�ll meet two hours after sunset on Brandon Road just west of the town.� Tonks wrapped her cloak around her and strode over to the door, releasing a few charms to allow her to Disapparate. She looked back over her shoulder intending to glare at the children standing in the room, but looked sullen and slightly annoyed instead. It was a look they all recognized from Molly when she was exasperated at them. �Try�� she paused as she took another look around the room, and then shook her head with another inwards sigh. �Try to stay safe while I�m gone.� And with that, she popped out of the small room.
As Hermione walked over to the door to reinforce the charms, while the rest of the group lay out a few sleeping bags, she had the feeling Tonks had meant to say something else before leaving. She decided that �Try not to do anything stupid� would have fit just as nicely.

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Author�s Notes:

Please Read and Review. It makes me happy :D
I tried to stick as close to the books as possible, but somewhere in the plot things got out of hand-so it's post HBP with some differences, but they're pretty minor.
And Thank you to my Beta, Carolib!
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Slytherins in the Attic