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The Best Of...	By : T-W-O Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 13807 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I own nothing of HP nor do I profit in any way from these missives. I almost own the laptop I'm writing this fanfic on, tho'.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
In her room at Parkinson Provenance, Pansy paced.
Pansy committed not one selfless act during the war — nor did her father, for that matter, so sure had they been that pure-bloods would rule the wizarding world after the conflict. Supporting the most powerful and most malevolent wizard in remembered history assured their continued dominance and advantages — or so they believed.
Pansy’s prior station in life reinforced her belief that virtually all others were beneath her. She’d known from her first day at Hogwarts that the likes of Neville Longbottom, Lavender Brown and the perpetual twit Ronald Weasley would never be her peers no matter their pure-blood status. That Voldemort espoused her forgone blood-advantaged conclusion merely reduced her need to explain it to the uninformed or the unworthy. Upon finding out that the Dark Lord himself had a muggle father, Pansy secretly dismissed him as unsuitable and avoided taking his mark, though her father’s forearm displayed the “club” symbol.
Fully cognizant that her efforts for her seven years at Hogwarts entailed whittling down the best marriage candidates to the likely few and pursuing those few to select The One, the future Mrs.-Somebody-Rich-and-Famous set about her task with a dedication rivaling the mudblood Hermione Granger’s, only the grades assigned for Pansy’s ”classes” were earned in subtle ways from her peers. Barely two years after the hunt began, she’d narrowed down to two choices: Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini. The boys’ close friendship bothered her not one knut; as a Slytherin, she’d use that too if necessary.
From her window seat in a room that should have already been redecorated twice this year, Pansy considered the current situation objectively. Her father held on by a sickle financially, their holdings frozen until the trial and decision from the Wizengamot. This time last year she’d come home to a house decorated to the nines, a Yule tree overflowing with presents, balls and soirées galore — including those at the Malfoys, a marriage contract to Draco and the ability to pass the wards on Malfoy Manor at any time to shag her fiancé senseless. Today she stood in a home she was increasingly ashamed of with a father who spent as much time crying as working to rectify their circumstances. Her school fees had been waived by Hogwarts and her school supplies and robes provided by a fund for indigent students. Her access to the Manor had been barred since the Battle of Hogwarts. Along the downhill slide she’d lost her marriage contract, her lover and the man she’d made the mistake of losing her heart to — Draco Lucius Malfoy. Broke, disadvantaged and without acceptable suitors, Pansy sighed — how could it get any worse?
Staring through windows that needed a good wash onto a garden that needed a proper pruning (the Parkinson house elves had been “invited” to Hogwarts after the battle and freed by that mudblood bitch and her S.P.E.W. cronies), Pansy considered her options for a better match. The number of dead male pure-blood heirs buried on the field and in the hills around Hogwarts didn’t make her prospects promising. Thanks to Voldemort and his fucking inability to defeat Harry Potter, the best marriage candidates in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the States were being snapped up by families whose ties to Voldie and the Death Eaters didn’t include dark marks or stints in Azkaban.
No, she concluded, her head, heart and body still believed that she remained Draco Malfoy’s best option…
…and she’d spend the remainder of this extended holiday proving that to her chosen victim.

In his room at Malfoy Manor, Draco paced.
The Malfoy heir’s one selfless act during the war had been developing acute-onset amnesia when asked to identify a butt-ugly Potter, a noisily incompetent Weaselbee and a terrified Hermione. As punishment for not extricating his family from the further displeasure of the Dark Lord, Draco’d had a front row seat in Auntie Bella’s class on the repeated application of the Cruciatus to mudbloods.
Meanwhile, the brains and guts of the Golden Trio managed with Potter (and sometimes Weaselbee) to escape Malfoy Manor, break in and steal Helga Hufflepuff’s cup — from Bellatrix’s vault at Gringott’s no less, steal and ride a dragon, destroy all but the horcrux inside Harry and win a war against the Dark Lord.
She’d taken everything Auntie Bella dished out without breaking, recalling to his mind the steel will of the Black family females. Should he provide her the one thing she couldn’t provide for herself?
With a sigh that expressed his impending sense of doom, Draco whispered a name he only used during wanking sessions in his bed or his bath —
“Hermione…”
Seconds later the embers in his fireplace flared in the outline of Ginny Potter née Weasley’s features.
“Malfoy — did something happen?”
“No, I thought I’d congratulate you on capturing Potter by shagging you in my bedroom.”
“I’ll admit I sounded a bit like Ron. What’s going on with Hermione?”
In a few concise sentences Draco explained Hermione’s longing for her family.
“That’s awful!” escaped Ginny between hitches of breath and slow tears, “What should I do?”
“Nothing. I, however, will do a number of things. I have already promised to return and spend Christmas with her.”
“You really do feel something for her — and don’t be a Slytherin and deny it. We’ll all graduate in June and be free to live the lives we want. We’re adults, Malfoy; we just fought a war to make our own choices.”
Malfoy lost himself in that thought until Ginny’s question revived him.
“Do you need my help?”
“I do. I’d like to invite your parents to Christmas dinner in our rooms. Just your parents. I think they’ll be helpful; the holiday was a big deal in the Granger household. I know this will impact your own Weasley rituals…”
“I’ll handle it. I’ll have them floo directly to your Commons.”
“Five o’clock should be perfect and I promise not to monopolize their time with descriptions of the Manor at Yuletime.”
“Gods! You’re still a prat, Malfoy, but you’ll be good for Hermione when you get your head out of your arse.”
“If only the same could be said for that squib brother of yours, ‘Wrong-ald’…”
The bat bogey came out of nowhere. Her words, as he struggled to remove it, were never again forgotten.
“I was a Weasley first, Malfoy; don’t ever forget that.”

“Were you traced?”
The older man glared at the younger, angered at the implication.
“I was giving aurors the slip when you were still swimming in your father’s sac. None but Mad-Eye could trace me and he’s gone.”
The younger man smiled, nodding to acknowledge his elder’s rightful props.
“I’m here. What’re you looking for?”
“To get the hell off this island. Someplace to lay low until they give up chasing me. Haven’t slept two hours straight since the battle. Don’t want ’em to get me like Jugson.”
“Jugson sold out; made a deal to turn us over to the Ministry for amnesty.”
“I knew Alaric before you were born, son. A good man, he was; had no confusion about who he was and what he believed in.”
The young man moved in the moonlight illuminating the small clearing in the grove. Sea waves provided the only sound effects.
“So did you take the Ministry’s deal when they offered it to you Augustus?”
The color rose in Augutus Rookwood’s face, his redness evident even in the subdued light.
“I’ve killed men for less! No one questions my loyalty and lives!”
“Then make an Unbreakable Vow with me…”
The color drained from Augutus Rookwood’s face, the pallor evident in the brightening moonlight.
“No need for that, whelp! I serve the Dark Lord’s cause — always have.”
The young man stuck his arm out and waited, wand at the ready.
“Take my arm Mr. Rookwood. Prove your loyalty.”
His tongue, grey in the night, licked lips gone dry. Hesitantly, Rookwood extended his arm and grasped that of the young man threatening him. Immediately the pull of a secondary spell glued their arms together.
“You vow that you remain a follower of Lord Voldemort and an active Death Eater. You further vow to continue the fight for blood purity and the supremacy of pure-bloods above all to your death.”
“I do,” Rookwood intoned, sweat evident on his forehead, upper lip and along his palm and forearm where it adhered to the young one’s arm. Believing the vow to be complete, Rookwood exhaled in relief.
“You further vow that you have not nor will you at any time discuss amnesty, pardons or double agent activities with the Ministry of Magic here or anywhere else in the world.”
“I-I-I d-d-do…”
The young one cast the Silencio charm as the effects of the broken vow accelerated, ensuring that no one else would hear Rookwood’s agonizing demise. He’d been discovered in discussions similar to those Jugson engaged in with the Ministry.
Rookwood’s arm began to glow red as if it contained fire. Unable to let go, he screamed as the glow moved with excruciating slowness up his arm to his shoulder and into his body. At the same time, the Death Eater’s skin, seemingly unable to hold together, developed small cuts and nicks which bled far more profusely than normal. The internal fire met the magical incisions, burning and cooking skin and flesh. Rookwood was being seared alive like a roast on a spit.
When only piles of molten and cooked pieces of Rookwood lay on the forest floor, the young zealot retrieved the old wizard’s wand and placed it, point down, in the middle of its owner’s heap of flesh.
It wouldn't do to go unclaimed at the Ministry morgue.

“I owe her this, Mother.”
“Draco, Malfoys — nor Blacks, for that matter — owe anything to those outside their social class or business circles. I doubt she expects anything for her services,” Narcissa corrected her heir with an air of arrogance.
“You sound like Father! I owe her, Mother — and so do you! I’d be rotting in Azkaban without her testimony and her preparation. Hermione took not one knut from Zabini or me — refused me outright! She talked Pothead into testifying for you. Malfoys always pay their debts and the time to pay this one is well past due.”
Sentiment seldom revealed itself in the Slytherin dragon’s expressions but at this moment a confused cocktail of emotions invaded his patrician features. Suffused with frustration at his mother’s attitude, Draco paced before her while he detailed the Malfoy’s indebtedness to the “mudblood”.
“Granger rescued me — did you know? Those ‘gracious victors’ of the Battle of Hogwarts would have killed me if she hadn’t hexed them into next week. The school’s directors almost expelled her for defending me.”
With an impatient motion, Draco raked pale fingers through his hair in a display of his adamance to support his roommate.
“Pomfrey told McGonagal I’d have choked on my own blood without Hermione’s aid. She apparated me — in Hogwarts — to hospital and stood guard over me until Pothead and Shackledolt showed up.”
“She apparated you in the school?”
“Yes… How about that?…”
The stunning woman’s haughty bearing stiffened with a small gasp at Draco’s revelation. This odd young woman — the same muggle-born who’d asked after their welfare when the battle ended and who’d seen to their comfort with compassion and courtesy — saved the last Malfoy heir from death by misadventure at the hands of their vengeful classmates. The young muggle-born witch snapped the school’s anti-apparation spell effortlessly.
“Lucius never mentioned her involvement.” Narcissa confessed in a quiet tone.
“And neither will Hermione…”
Draco and his mother could enjoy their time together in the comfort of Malfoy Manor thanks to Hermione Granger, who no longer had parents or a real home. The young pure-blood’s silver-blue eyes watched as the realization of Hermione’s sacrifice wound its way through Narcissa’s head.
“What are you proposing to do?”
“Granger lost everything in the war; she’s an orphan. Barely 18 and on her own. I intend to spend time with her; she shouldn’t be alone.”
The sorting hat at Hogwarts understood the hidden talents of each student whose head it touched and Narcissa Malfoy (née Black) had not entered Slytherin without the requisite latent abilities prized by its founder. After quiet but quick consideration of the best interests of her family for the next 20 years, she proposed an idea that rattled around Draco’s brain-damaged head.
“We have been remiss in our manners, a dreadful gaucherie for cultured people. Please invite your Ms. Granger to dinner on Boxing Day so that your father and I might meet our obligations to her as well.”
- 10
- 11
- 12
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