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Some Blond Fool	By : AndreaLorraine Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 46885 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
Author�s Note:� Seriously, I have to stop writing this when I
should be writing other papers.� Procrastination much?�
But it�s so much more fun than writing about professional ethics�so, in
this chapter, smut & angst.� From
this point on make sure you pay attention to the dates; I�ll be jumping back
and forth a bit to piece the story together.�
The one reference I make to Lempicka relates
to Tamara De Lempicka, a modern art deco artist.� You may or may not like her; I find her work
to be very powerful.� I�d also like to
apologize in advance to the Rita Mancinis of the
world, mainly the one I went to college with, though I doubt very much that she�ll
ever read this. ^_~

September 6

�� Say hello,� Lucius
said, dropping a photograph onto the table, �to Rita Mancini.�

�� Rita Mancini?� Draco
asked around a mouthful of Chinese food.�
He was the only one eating it with a fork; he saw no point in grappling
with chopsticks.� Lucius,
of course, was an expert, probably the most graceful consumer of lo mein she had ever seen, and Hermione found this stranger
even than watching him play football.

�� Does she look familiar?�

�� Hermione contemplated the
picture.� It was a young woman with
poorly tamed blonde curls and glasses that magnified her eyes.� She was pretty but was the type that didn�t
know what to do with it; Hermione had been one of those, once, too.

�� That can�t be her,� Draco said.

�� Who?�

�� Skeeter,�
he replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

�� No!�� Hermione didn�t believe it.� The woman in the photograph did resemble her
a bit, but she had none of the smugness of Rita Skeeter.� Or perhaps Hermione had an image so ingrained
in her mind that she could not see her any other way.

�� It is her,� Lucius
nodded.� �At age
eighteen.�

�� You�ve been poking around,�
Hermione accused.

�� Lucius
cast exasperated eyes upon her.� �Of
course I have.� They�re still out there
and I, for one, am not willing to just wait for their next appearance.�� Considering
that the first one nearly killed us, went the unspoken corollary.� �Don�t worry,� he added.� �I�m not doing anything illegal.�

�� Hermione frowned.� Lucius had
different ideas about what constituted illegality than she did.� His below-the-radar work with the Bulstrodes proved that.�
However, he was not stupid; he�d been caught red-handed once, learned
from it, and it would not happen again.�
She was sure of that.�

�� In spite of his ingenuity and the
damning recording on his mobile, nothing could be done.� Skeeter and Ethan
had both fled the country.� They were
nowhere to be found.� It was, at least,
mildly satisfying to know that they were fugitives and that aurors
in every country were ready to pounce on them.�
Without Rita Skeeter and her mysterious
paparazzo, the news had been dormant, as well.

�� Yes, things were good�but
uneasy.� She found herself worrying about
them, Draco and especially Lucius,
now that she had returned to her teaching job at Hogwarts.� She burned to know where Skeeter
was, what she was doing, and wondered if things would escalate.� Lucius was
evidently of the same mind.� She could at
least take comfort in the fact that if there was a puzzle to be pieced, Lucius would solve it whether he had a wand or not.

�� She turned to Draco.� He wore an expression that said he was
reaching his limit with the Chinese food.�
His stomach was better, much better than it had been, but it still
wasn�t quite the same.

�� You too?� she asked him.

�� Draco
shook his head.� �I�ve got classes.� I don�t have time.� �

�� Classes?�

�� Yeah, you know, that whole
doctorate in potions thing��

�� Hermione nearly fell of her chair.

�� You�re doing a doctorate in
potions?�

�� Draco
nodded.� He looked faintly embarrassed at
her reaction.

�� Who are you studying under?� she
almost shouted.

�� Do we need to hose you down?� Lucius interjected sarcastically.

�� Just tell me!�

�� Fine,� Draco
mumbled.� �Finley Greene.�

�� Finley�Jacob�Greene?� she squeaked,
awestruck even by the name.

�� She registered that both of them
were snickering at her.� Lucius, behind his hand as usual, and Draco
openly, with a slight shake of his head and an indulgent expression on his
face.

�� Oh Merlin,� Hermione breathed at
last.� �Oh, that makes you more qualified
to teach potions than me!�

�� I don�t think that teaching is my
calling, Hermione.� Your job is safe.�

�� Hermione sat back and poked at her
General Tso�s.�
Teaching potions at Hogwarts for the last two years had certainly been
an experience.� She understood now why Snape, rest his soul, had always been so dour; when it came
to the doling of talents, potion-making was one that very few people ever
received.� She and Draco
were probably the best that Hogwarts had churned out in a long time.� She had her Potions Mistress certification
(in addition to those in Charms and Arithmancy) and
he was going for a doctorate, which was one step above.�

�� What is Greene researching now?�
she couldn�t resist asking.

�� Curing
vampirism.�

�� She was close to swooning.� �Has he made any progress?�

�� I don�t know. �I only just started.�

�� Hermione slapped a palm onto the
table.� �How are you so casual about
this?� she demanded.� �This is
brilliant.� You�re brilliant.�� He had to
be to get a position with Finley Greene!

�� By this point Lucius
had strategically removed himself.� He
was remarkably good at that; Draco looked as though
he wished he could do the same.� She was
convinced that he had a serious problem accepting compliments.

�� I know I am,� he said at last,
highly uncomfortable.� �But I don�t feel
the need to broadcast it.�

�� Of all the things that she had seen,
done, and experienced in the last two months (many of which were completely
bizarre and unforeseen), this shocked her the most.� Draco Malfoy had learned humility.� Draco Malfoy.

�� Why are you looking at me like
that?�� His voice held an edge of
annoyance.

�� You�the kid I grew up with would
never�he�d be gloating, mocking, rubbing it in my face that he was outdoing
me.�

�� I thought we had established that
I�m not that kid anymore.�� The edge of
annoyance had burgeoned into pure indignance.� His eyes were angry, perhaps even wounded.

�� This was the first time she had seen
him since his discharge from the hospital two weeks ago.� In spite of her best hopes she and Draco had not managed to do anything that remotely
resembled culminating a relationship in that long month of
hospitalization.� She supposed it was
fair; he had more important things to concentrate on.� But watching him struggle to get well,
knowing that it was because of her that he was sick in the first place�she had
fallen into some kind of nurturing robot role and forgotten all about the
raging lust that had gripped her twice that summer.� Once consummated in the hallway of this very
flat, and once in her own head while she lay beside him.

�� Her jumbled feelings returned
full-force.� She was out of her chair so
fast that it nearly fell over.� He made a
shocked noise when she flew into his lap, which she proceeded to stifle with an
exhilarated kiss.� She could tell that he
had absolutely no idea how to react.�
Eventually, though, he relaxed and his lips attended to hers.

�� She wasn�t sure how long they sat
there, kissing as if it was the first time.�
Gradually the kisses deepened and his tongue stroked hers, pliant and
enticing.� His hands came to rest on her
backside.� She couldn�t recall a more
pleasant application of those hands.� Oh,
wait�yes she could�

�� She pulled her lips away, weathering
a surge of desire.

�� Let�s go to the guestroom.� �

�� Not while my father is here.�

�� He won�t bother us.�

�� Draco
raised an eyebrow.� �You think?�

�� She sighed, exasperated.� �Fine.� My flat.�

�� Unnecessary,� a third voice rejoined.� Lucius strode
through the room, pointedly ignoring their compromising pose.� �I�m going out.�

�� To where?�
Hermione asked, unable to override her protectiveness.� He was still unarmed; all the sympathy and
outrage the general public had expressed had done little to alter the mindset
of the Ministry.

�� None of your business, mum,� Lucius retorted.�
�Don�t have sex in my bed or on the table.� Those are my rules.�� And with that, he was out the door.

�� Hermione stared at the empty spot
where he�d stood a moment before, incredulous.�
Draco laughed, his chest vibrating against
her.

�� His rules haven�t changed.�

�� So they had gone to the guestroom
after all, falling upon the bed together.�
It didn�t escape her notice that Draco
maneuvered so that she was on top.� She
was more than happy to straddle him and lean down to reclaim his lips.� His hands skimmed up and down her back before
settling on her rear end.� He squeezed with
relish and pressed her against his groin.�
She smiled into his mouth; he felt it and closed his teeth around her
lower lip.� He worried it, his tongue
stroking for a minute before he released her.

�� She looked down at him.� He looked right back.� His eyes, gray and clear and strangely
comforting, were no longer shuttered.�
She had seen him at his worst in the hospital and consequently he had
given up the fa�ade. ��

�� You know,� he said quietly, �this
will put us right back where we started.�

�� She peered at him, her head tilted
slightly to the side.� He was right; they
had gone in circles around a real relationship, all the while touching upon
everything in between.� The past had
provided hate, contempt, mild tolerance, and the present friendship and pure
scorching passion � but never that elusive and terrifying love thing.� A memory flickered in her mind, a
recollection of Harry telling her that Malfoy said he
loved her.� He had not mentioned it upon
waking and she hadn�t asked.�

�� She was sure it had been
delirium.� Draco
didn�t love her.� His eyes held hers,
though, watching her sift through things in her mind.� No, he didn�t love her � not yet.

�� I�m all right with that,� she said
at last.� �It isn�t a bad place to start
over.� It�s not as if we regressed.�

�� He smirked.� �No.�
We won�t be doing that.�� His
hands left her bottom to work on the button of her shorts.� She chuckled and captured his hands.

�� Eager?�

�� I�ve been half-dead for the last
month,� he huffed, easily freeing himself from her grip.� �You�re supposed to be sympathetic.�

�� Ah?� she tested, rocking forward on
his hips.� �Is that why you want me?� Because you�re neglected?�

�� She was rewarded with a sharp intake
of breath.� This time he captured her
hands, pulling them out from under her so that she fell on top of him, chest to
chest.� He kissed her, holding onto her
wrists tightly, and the gentle sensuality of his lips seared her to the
core.� This�the dark room, the impeccable
furnishings, the soft linens, the moonlight that threw everything into soft
angles�this was actually�

�� Romantic.

�� Draco
released her hands.� They relaxed
automatically against his chest, palm down.�
The fingers of his right hand twined into her hair, and his left trailed
down her back slowly, at first ghosting across the strip of skin between her
shirt and shorts, and then brazenly slipping beneath her shorts and knickers to
cup her buttocks.

�� So this was what it felt like to be
lost.� Her body fit perfectly against his
and as she kissed him she felt at peace.�
Maybe peace wasn�t the right word, because the sensation building in her
loins was not peaceful.� But there was an
element of serenity, of certainty�

�� She wasn�t worrying.� That was it.�
She wasn�t worrying about how she kissed, if he liked it, what the state
of her body was, if he�d like her underthings�she
wasn�t worrying.� She felt no
self-consciousness and no need to analyze.�
When did that ever happen?

�� It didn�t.� And of all the people she should have felt those things with, Draco Malfoy was tops�

�� He turned his head.� She turned hers the other way automatically
so that their faces molded together, nose astride nose.� Oh, he was such a good kisser�he understood
that less was more.� He didn�t use too
much tongue; it was just enough to send fluttering tingles through her body
each time it grappled with hers.� She had
a feeling that he would know her moods, too.�
If she wanted more�he would give it to her�

�� As if reading her mind, his hand
slid lower and dipped suddenly between her thighs.� She bit his lip this time, tugging slightly
as he circled a gentle fingertip around her slick entrance.� His body hummed with a slight chuckle.

�� Eager?� he whispered.�

�� She raised an eyebrow.�� I was half-dead, too - from worry and guilt.�

�� His finger slipped inside her,
slowly and torturously.� It felt good,
very good, but it wasn�t enough.� She
desperately wanted him to add another finger, even a third, or that fine part
of him that was now prodding her abdomen.�
She wanted him to fill her.� Hermione
squirmed, agitated, as he lazily explored her wet sheath.

�� It will take more than arsenic,
anticoagulants, and neurotoxins to kill me�� Draco
murmured.� He withdrew his hand,
streaking her own moisture up her back.�
Then he caught her shirt and tugged; she lifted herself and let him pull
it over her head.� Once again he made
short work of her bra, reaching around her to unhook it and tossing it aside
without even looking at it.

�� Instantly he cupped her unrestricted
breasts in warm, sure hands and lifted his mouth to them.� His tongue danced, teasing her nipples into
erect peaks.� Each swipe of his tongue
and firm seal of his lips further inflamed her; she was quite sure that her
arousal was saturating her knickers.�
That had never happened before.� Well,
except�

�� She put the brakes on that thought
and shivered as his teeth clamped agreeably around one nipple.� Unexpectedly, he snuck his hands between
them, caught her hips, and lifted.� Her
knees moved automatically to either side of him.� Before she could even catch up with what he
was doing, he�d unfastened her shorts and was pressing them impatiently down
her thighs. �

�� She struggled out of the shorts,
keen to return the favor.� She was about
to strip off her underwear, as well, when his voice stopped her.

�� Stand up, Hermione,� he
breathed.� �I want to look at you.�

�� A thrill of shivery exhilaration
swept through her.� She leaned down,
kissed him once, and eased herself off the bed.�
Surprisingly, standing before him mostly nude did not evoke much anxiety.� His eyes branded over her, hot and
insatiable, and she felt unexpectedly powerful.�
She let her hands travel on her body, tweaking her nipples, and
wandering further still.� A light rub
against the fabric of her knickers lit the nerve endings between her thighs on
fire, and she moaned at her own touch.

�� Draco�s
breath was coming faster; she could see the rise and fall of his chest.� He lifted a hand, gesturing with his index
finger.� He wanted her to turn around.� She did, slowly, sticking her bum out a
bit.� She knew from a few neck-twisting
observations that her rear looked particularly good in the aquamarine boy shorts
edged in lace.�

�� By the time she turned the full
circle, he had liberated himself from the expensive denim that seemed to have
become his signature.� To her great
amazement, he was touching himself.� She
nearly fainted with the lasciviousness of it; Draco Malfoy, masturbating, his hand sliding roughly along his thick,
pulsing erection, while he looked at her.�
Thought about her.� It made her dizzy. �

�� She hooked her fingers in the
waistband of her boy shorts.� They slid
down her hips, thighs, calves, and she stepped out of them.� It was time to make that brief fantasy that
had crept up on her at the hospital a reality.

�� She returned to the bed, tugging his
jeans and boxers the rest of the way off.�
He relinquished his pleasurable grip and hastened to remove his shirt.� She was stuck for a moment, staring at
him.� In that first encounter she had not
had the time or the presence of mind to look at him.� He was magnificent.� His erection strained toward his belly, a
proud column of hard masculinity, the head slightly darkened and already
weeping a precursory tear.

�� Impulsively, she leaned down to lick
that little bead of desire away.� The
effect was that of lightning; he gasped, arching slightly, the hand nearest her
fisting in the bedclothes.� Oh, if that
was from one little lick�she couldn�t possibly resist seeing and hearing what
her whole mouth would do.

�� She tested it a moment later, grasping
his length and guiding it between her lips.�
In a minute he was trembling; she could feel his manhood pulsing madly
against her tongue.� In two minutes,
words tumbled from his lips.

�� Ah�fuck�yes�Hermione�� a soft grunt
escaped him, before his voice turned commanding.� �Suck harder!�

�� She pulled back, the dominance in
his voice triggering a dangerous desire to toy with him.� Never before had sex been competitive; this
had gone from romantic to a new thing edged in erotic conquest.� It was the same thing she had imagined so well with Lucius�she
had no doubt that she had pegged him
correctly, even if she had never actually slept with him.� Like father�like son�

�� What�s the magic word?� she asked,
smirking.

�� The look he gave her could have
singed the ends of her hair, but he said it.�

�� Please.�

�� She obliged, resuming and tightening
her seal around him.� It made her lips
and cheeks and jaw ache but he was moaning his wanton approval, his hips rising
to press deeper into her mouth.� Oh, his
sounds�she loved that he was not afraid to express his pleasure because each
wave of his low voice was like an electric current wired directly to her womb.

�� She released him a moment later; his
engorged member sprang away from her and he groaned at the sudden absence of
the wet, tight heat of her mouth.�
However, she had no plans of leaving him that way for long.� She climbed on top of him, resting her hands
on his chest for balance, and gave him a few seconds to recover.

�� His eyes were fogged, afire, drowned
in lust.� After a few deep breaths, his
hands settled on her hips.� He was
ready.� She raised herself, gripping his
sex, and sank down upon him.

�� They sighed together as she buried
him, lock and key, plus and minus.�
There�there, now she was full�

�� His hips moved almost of their own
accord, an anxious request.� She
positioned herself, got her legs underneath her, and rose slowly before
descending.� Each glorious inch of him
slid within her, an easy friction.� She
rode him unhurriedly at first, reveling in the different
sensations she could create with very slight adjustments.� He was patient for long minutes, his eyes on
her, traveling the hills and valleys of her flesh, kissing her everywhere,
watching where their bodies joined, where his length, glistening with the
juices of her arousal, disappeared�

�� Ah � there it was,
that evasive bundle of nerves!� She
needed to feel that again, feel his steely thickness grate against it, and once
she did she needed it more and more and more.�
Her pace began to increase.� A
startled moan wrenched from her when his thumb found her clitoris.� It was almost too much, the pleasure from
inside and out at the same time, but he didn�t relent.� She was tightening around him, bliss pooling
in their junction.

�� Come,� he demanded, low and dripping
with raw sexual power.� �I want to see
you come.�

�� Make me,� she dared him.� It wouldn�t be difficult; she was
three-quarters of the way there, but challenging him would only make it better.

�� His eyes narrowed for a second.� Then he brought his thumb to his mouth,
licked it, and returned it to that button of pleasure with vengeance.� He pressed harder and she nearly
screamed.� The sensation was so intense
that she wasn�t sure if it was pleasure or pain or both.

�� Thirty seconds later she was ready to
explode.� She had no control over herself
anymore.� She rode him with abandon,
gasping, until her insides became so tight that she could barely move.� As she slowed, fearful of squeezing him out,
she sensed him shifting.� Then he pushed
up into her tautness with a hard piston of his hips, their skin slapping
together.

�� That did it.� The dam inside her broke.� It was like nothing she had ever felt
before.� She opened her mouth to scream
but no sound came out; air had deserted her body.� It had fled in the wake of the seizures of
pleasure rolling through her, convulsing around him, crushing everything but
carnal delight out of her body.� She saw
purple spots, felt her entire body thrum with transcendence.

�� And it didn�t stop.� It kept happening, tremulous even as she
found her breath, even as he dug his heels in and fucked her.� This
was what she had fantasized about, his hands so tight on her hips that they
bruised, the cords in his neck standing out as he arched up to her, his face contorted
in pleasure and concentration�

�� She was literally panting.� She felt her breasts jiggle, her flesh quiver
as it absorbed the shock of his thrusts.�
She couldn�t believe what this was doing to her.� If someone had told her that Draco Malfoy would provide her
with the best sex of her life, she would have laughed in their face.� Now fate was laughing in hers.� And, really, that was all right, because if a
joke at her expense led to this�

�� He was gasping, moaning low in his
throat, his eyes closed.� Impulsively,
she leaned down to kiss him.� It turned
pornographic, brutal, demanding, both of them moaning into the other�s mouth,
and he nipped her as his hands shifted to her backside.� She tasted blood, saw it on his lips, but it
was only a tiny nick that stopped bleeding almost as quickly as it had started.

�� His neck arched back.� She knew already that it was a tell-tale sign
of impending orgasm.� So was the rise of
his voice.� With each word he became
louder.

�� Oh�.God�.yesss!�

�� The sibilant plea echoed in her ears.� It was nearly a shout.� He quaked beneath her, his jaw clenched.� She felt him empty, bathing her insides and
provoking another curious spasm of her walls.�
Hermione leaned on him and moaned softly as she rode it out.� Aftershocks shook him for a minute and then
he sighed and wrapped his arms around her.�
She noticed for the first time that they were both sweaty.

�� There was no sound but their breath,
strained and mingled.

�� Did I�hurt you?� he panted.

�� She shook her head.� Exhaustion was slamming her like an out-of-control
bus.

�� I bruised you.�

�� It�s ok.�

�� I didn�t--�

�� Draco,
shut up.�

�� She felt his lips curve into a smile
against her temple.� She dimly registered
him moving, arranging her, and pulling the blanket up
before a soporific messenger clasped the hand of her consciousness and pulled
her into sleep.

�� Lucius
locked the door three hours later, feeling a bit soporific himself.� Wine buzzed in his head, wine he shouldn�t
have drunk with a traumatized liver, but if it wasn�t that it would be
something else and those choices were usually worse.� Wine over indiscretion any
day.

�� Oh, but everything was an
indiscretion lately.� Sleeping with his
ex-wife, who was on the verge of remarrying, certainly qualified.� In a public hospital, no less � but he knew that
the dubious chance of discovery had turned her on as much as him.� They hadn�t spoken since.� What could he say to her, anyway?� He had ruined her first marriage well enough,
and wouldn�t do it a second time, no matter how much he wanted to.

�� And now, having to exert serious
self-control not to sleep with the
pretty muggle that fate had tossed into his lap also
fell into that category.� Emma was a
gorgeous woman, a Lempicka-like muse and workaholic
single mother that did not even understand her own appeal.� She reminded him�

�� Yes, she reminded him of
Hermione.� Smart, quick, but always a
little uncertain of her own power.� The brown curls did not help.� He would have liked nothing more than to toss
her down and ravage her but that crossed the bridge into relationship
territory.� He couldn�t embark upon that
in good faith; she had children.� Two
children who deserved a father, and when he got his wand back, he was returning
to the wizarding world.� He had already proven to be a miserable
father, anyway.

�� Bugger.

�� He loved his son and was happy that
he had at last articulated liking for someone.�
He knew what he had done to Draco.� He knew that his activities had pulled the
then-teenager into the stuff of his nightmares.�
The kid was a pile of insecurities, a collection of defense mechanisms �
most of which Lucius had put there himself.� To crawl out of his shell now, to face his
ever-daunting father down and tell him to back the fuck off, was telling.

�� He just wished it had come with
someone else.� He liked Hermione, more
than he cared to admit. �Part of it was
conquest, yes, he wanted to know what it was like to topple an idealistic
Gryffindor, one of those who had defeated the Dark Lord and defenestrated all
his ideals�but otherwise he just genuinely felt�something.

�� Well, what the hell was �something�?� Draco was not
feeling �something�.� It had to be
exceptional to evoke his blunt boundaries, to cause him to say that he might be
driven to patricide if he lost this girl to him.� Draco was not a
violent person, but he had been taught the ways of violence.� For all the relative calmness that inhabited
their lives now, Lucius was not foolish enough to
think that his progeny might not one day discover how easy it was to dispose of
inconveniences.� And choice and
circumstance had made him, Lucius Malfoy,
a mere inconvenience.� At least, for
another two years and eight months�

�� They were asleep.� The guestroom looked like a crime scene with
clothing substituted for blood.� It lay
scattered about, carelessly discarded, coordinates on a graph of lovemaking.� They, too, looked as if they had been shot,
asleep in the positions they had fallen apart in.� His son had blood on his lip, and she a small
laceration in the mirroring spot.

�� He had agreed to surrender her and
he had meant it.� He owed Draco that much.� He
could entertain himself, reel women in as he pleased, and he was all right with
it meaning nothing.� Love had come and
gone and he knew the world allotted a very small quota of it for rotten men
like him.� It was not likely to come
again.� He wasn�t sure if he wanted it
to.� Love was easy to handle with a layer
of ice around one�s heart; it melted occasionally in the midnight sun, revealed
itself only in the worst of times, just enough to renew its existence�

�� Being caught and censured had laid
his chest open and taken a pickaxe to that ice.�
He had fought it, kicking and screaming and bleeding, at first.� He didn�t know when exactly it had become all
right.� Perhaps when he realized he was
in danger of losing his wife, whom he had given no reason to stand beside him
in the last decade.� Then, realizing how
stupid it was and what it was costing him, he had taken the pickaxe and driven
it into himself.

�� It didn�t matter.� The shards of pride, bloody with his ego,
didn�t matter.� She was already
gone.� Inevitably winter overtook and
drove things back into the freezer; so had it been with his heart.� Until this�until his escape into anonymity,
where no one expected anything of him and he could begin to remember what he
really was - if he had ever been anything at all.

�� He breathed.� It still hurt, perhaps moreso
because he was half-drunk and emotions tended to escape the mores of control
when the bottle was involved.� How weak
he was, to allow such things to bruise him.�
Ah, but he had always been weak, even in his armor.

�� The Dark Lord had known that.� What he hadn�t known was the swift lethality
that would come upon him when he dug an exacting blade into that weakness.� Sighting it, peeling back the defenses to
wound it, had made Lucius realize that it was there, it would always be there, and
the fierce urge to eradicate it catalyzed into something else � the fierce urge
to destroy the one who had exposed it.

�� It was that easy to demolish loyalty
with one misstep.� The moment Voldemort had threatened his family, his, he understood that without the weakness of attachment to them
he would be just like his master.� He had
never wanted that.

�� He hadn�t wanted it, but he still
had a hard time understanding what it was to admit to weakness.� Wearing it on one�s sleeve was so
foolish.� But he had that final day,
moving through a firestorm of climactic war to protect his son and not caring
who witnessed it.� The eyes upon him in
the aftermath were inconsequential, bloodless little punctures in a toughened
hide.

�� Seeing his weakness made them back
away from it.� They did not forgive and
they did not forget, but they understood.�
So that was why he wasn�t a vegetable, his questionable soul in the gut
of a dementor; he was merely neutralized, to suffer
and rage in the horror of self-discovery.

�� And it was suffering.� He was no Job; he deserved it.� He deserved it for not facing it sooner, for
locking his demons away, for being too afraid to reveal that he had anything to
suffer over.� It was necessary.� It was survival.� But it was an illusion, one that had come
crashing down like a house of cards.

�� Oh, he had to stop.� He had to stop.� Ginny Weasley�s
face was dancing on the edge of his consciousness.� His heart was throbbing against its frosty
cage.� He felt like a man who had fallen
through thin ice and couldn�t find a way out, a man trapped beneath a sheath of
cold, clear finality, drowning�

�� Father?�� Draco was sitting
up in the bed, his chest bare and the blanket at his waist.� He looked tired and bewildered, unsure if he
was awake or dreaming.� �Is everything�?�

�� Lucius
backed away and closed the door, struggling for casual numbness.� He didn�t understand what he was
feeling.� It had snuck up on him like a
common cold, filling his head with pestilence.

�� He wanted to scream.� He wanted to break something.� He wanted to die.

�� Father!�� Draco�s footsteps
were hurried and he caught up with his sire�s hasty retreat.� He had thrown on his boxers and the polo
shirt that had landed on the lamp.

�� Go�back,� he managed, astounded at
how difficult it was to force coherent words out.� Draco was swimming
in his eyes.

�� No.�
There�s something wrong with you.��
His son�s face was pale, fearful.�
�Tell me what it is.�

�� He shook his head, leaning on a
chair for support.

�� It�s Hermione,� Draco
said.� �You love her.�

�� He shook his head again.� No, that wasn�t it.

�� I�m not stupid!� Draco objected.�
�I�ve only ever seen you like this when�� he stopped and swallowed,
perhaps fearing what his words would do, �when Mum left.�

�� Lucius
said nothing.� The words lashed him like
a whip, a three-syllable synopsis of his failure.

�� You love her!� his son accused,
angry.� �Why did you tell me I could have
her if you love her?�

�� I don�t!�

�� Don�t lie to me.�� Draco�s voice was
quietly toxic.

�� That broke him.� It shattered him, the way a frozen thing
shattered when thrown to the ground.� He
was in a million pieces.

�� I�m not lying.� I�m not.�
I don�t�� He was eroded to grains
of sand.� His sense was leaving him.� �I�m sorry.�
I�m sorry.� Forgive me.�

�� Draco was
caught severely off guard.� So, too, was Lucius, unprepared for the hot cascade of grief.� It drove him to his knees and he thought he
was clenching the front of his son�s shirt, crying into it, whispering pleas
for forgiveness.� He thought so, but he
wasn�t sure; the world had ceased to be comprehensible and it spun around him
and he spun around himself and everything was pain.

�� Father.� Father!� Draco was trying to pry his hands away, his voice
frightened.� �Please, I forgive you!�

�� Draco�s panicked
voice woke her.� Her instantaneous
thought was that it was happening again - Skeeter and
her henchman were back, trying to finish the job.� She struggled into her shorts and bra, nearly
tripping and killing herself twice.� That
was enough; death didn�t wait for modesty.

�� She grabbed her wand and ran down
the hallway.� She stopped so abruptly
that her feet hurt.� The stream of her
consciousness wondered if it was possible to get rug burns on the soles of
one�s feet.� Inane thoughts aside, there
was no intruder for her to hex.� Only Draco and Lucius were in front of
her, silhouetted in the light of the half-moon.�

�� Draco was
petrified, cradling the trembling form of his father against his chest.� Her mind jumped to a thousand conclusions:
someone had gotten him while he was out, he was dying,
leaving the world in his son�s arms.� But
there was no blood�no outward damage, but there must have been pain, for only
the most extreme pain could have driven him to tears.� Whether the pain was physical or
psychological, she couldn�t say.

�� Father,� Draco
pleaded, �please, you mustn�t do this�there is nothing to forgive.�

�� She ached to go to them.� Draco didn�t know
what to do.� From his panic she could
deduce that emotions were not freely shown in his circles, and for his
formidable father, a man who had lived most of his life with about as much
outward sentiment as a rock, to be reduced to tears�

�� She was about to move when she
sensed someone behind her.� She whirled,
wand at the ready, but could only blink in confusion when the tall form of
Kingsley Shacklebolt filled her vision.� The Minister of Magic and Head of Auror Training was suddenly, inexplicably�there.

�� Hermione had always liked him.� He had a calm sternness about him and he was
a man completely unimpacted by the melodrama of
politics.� There was a saying that the
best wielders of power were those who had never aspired to wield it; it bore
truth in Kingsley.� Though his
appointment as Minister had been temporary at the end of the war, the people
liked him so much that the next election made it official.

�� Kingsley also had an uncanny ability
to walk into a strange situation and take it utterly in stride.� So, Hermione standing in the elder Malfoy�s apartment in her bra while the two men fell to
pieces behind her registered in his mind and nothing more.� He didn�t feel the need to make comments.

�� What are you doing here?� she
whispered.� She was suddenly protective
of them, feeling the insult to their privacy as keenly as if it was her own.� Shacklebolt turned
and retreated to the dining room.�
Hermione followed, glad to lend them space and time without prying eyes.� The picture of eighteen-year-old Rita Skeeter was still lying on the table.

�� The healers and aurors
are monitoring him, especially in light of recent events,� Kingsley said
quietly.� �I was speaking to the auror on-call when his vital signs began to fluctuate.� He was having heart palpitations and his
temperature rose.� Those can be tell-tale
signs of Cruciatus, so I decided to come and check.�

�� Well, it�s not Cruciatus,�
she replied, feeling shaky.

�� Shacklebolt�s
eyebrows rose.� �I would not be so sure
of that.�

�� And he was right.� She was beginning to understand.� It wasn�t a curse, not some external action
that caused him pain.� It was a battle
inside his mind, his psyche, a consuming blight of guilt and other things she
could only imagine.� Lucius
was cruciating himself internally, making himself sick with all the things he ought to have felt and done.�
All the things he had felt and
then suppressed. �

�� She had been guilty of the same
thing after the war.� The mind was an
amazing entity, able to endure untold horrors and maintain its composure.� But sooner or later those delayed fears
caught up and ambushed you.� Sooner or
later, the breakdown came.� It had at
last come for the indomitable Lucius Malfoy.

�� I trust him to your care,� Kingsley
said softly.

�� She felt like crying.� �But what can we do for him?�

�� In all probability,� the
dark-skinned man said, pausing at the door, �nothing.� �

September 23

�� The sun shone brightly over Milan, Italy,
but like anywhere else, it had places the sun never reached.� The blonde witch stood in one of these
places, looking too fragile to have overpowered the man that lay quivering at
her feet.� Only that man and a few others
knew better.

�� Where�s Scattori?�
she demanded for the fifth time, her voice a pretty hiss.

�� Fuck you, lady,� he spat.

�� You will tell me where he is or
I�ll continue to Cruciate you until your eyes melt
out of your skull.�

�� I�d like to see you try.�

�� Her eyes flashed.� �Cruc--�

�� All right, you psychotic bitch!�
the man shouted, worn down.� �Scattori has a summer home in Capri!� That�s where he is!�

�� She leaned close.� For such a slender, delicate-looking woman,
she could pour on the intimidation.� �Are
you sure?�

�� Yes!�

�� Get up,� she commanded.� He did as she said, grumbling under his
breath.� She held his wand in front of
her and abruptly dropped it to the floor.�
With one elegant foot clad in Christian Louboutin,
she broke the wand as if she was stomping out nothing more than a cigarette.

�� What the hell was that for?� he
shouted.� �I told you what you wanted to
know!�

�You�ve heard the phrase �hell hath
no fury like a woman scorned�?� she asked, her eyes cold and her voice colder.

�I have,� he said apprehensively.

�� Scattori
tried to kill my son and the man that gave him to me.�� She pointed her wand, a demure thing of ash
and dragon heartstring, and her voice and posture flirted with absolute
zero.� �Consider me scorned.�

�� He closed his eyes, thinking he was
about to die.� However, she said no more,
and when he opened his eyes the fearsome woman was gone.� He was, he reflected, as good as dead
anyway.� He had betrayed the Family.� They would find him, whatever he did,
wherever he went, and quickly without a wand�

�� It was better to die.� In death, there was no shame.� He thought the pretty witch would give it to
him; so frosty were her eyes, and so painful her curses.� But he had misread her.� Only Scattori
earned her death wish.�

�� Poor thing; in pursuing him, she
earned his�
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Some Blond Fool