Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The English Rose	By : TempestLore Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 20463 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own anything of the Harry Potter Universe, nor do I make any profit off of this story or any others.

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
- 14
The English Rose

Chapter Thirteen

     I dreamed of him. No, not Harry Potter. Him! Draco Malfoy—the slimy snake who fathered my child, the Liege who made my life miserable, the man who invaded nearly all of my waking and now sleeping thoughts! It had to stop and yet my dream wasn’t a nightmare. Go figure? We were back at Hogwarts and I was making out with Malfoy under the bleachers, something that never happened, at least not with Malfoy but with Harry instead.
     The night before when I saw Harry standing before me looking healthy and fit I promptly fainted, but when I awoke neither Ginny nor Ron were there in the tent. Instead, I was lying lasciviously entwined with Draco on a small cot inside the tent that was nestled deep in the woods, away from prying eyes. He feigned ignorance when I asked about Harry, but he was hiding something I was sure of it. According to him we were never interrupted by Ginny and Ron at all, in fact they were never even there, or so he said. My clothes were on and so were his and eventually, after Malfoy asserted that I must have dreamt it all I was forced to concede that perhaps I had dreamt it all—including waking up naked next to Malfoy. That bit was comforting and yet when I returned to the brothel on my own, this after Malfoy made a rapid recovery, Ron was acting strange towards me. I probed and pressed but his story matched up with Malfoy’s which was beyond frustrating because I could have sworn that I not only saw Harry Potter standing there but that he spoke to me!
     “Feeling better?” Tuesdee asked as she entered my room with a tray in her hands. She set the tray of tea and toast on the nightstand next to my bed and then sat down on the edge of my bed where she took my hand. “I was worried about you, we all were.”
     “I’m fine, there’s no need for worry. Malcolm?”
     “He finished his breakfast and Katydid took him outside for some fresh air and to run off some energy. He’s fit as a fiddle you know,“ Tuesdee said and she smiled and squeezed my hand.
     “Well at least that’s one worry gone,” I said deep in thought.
     “Rose—if I may say something?”
     “What is it?” I asked. Tuesdee was always hard to read, most of the time she was expressionless and the smile was gone from her porcelain doll face. With the light streaming in through the window and falling on Ron’s wife it was suddenly easy to see why he loved her. She was beautiful.
     “Ron—Rob I mean,” she winked. “He struggles with the loss of…him. You know?” she hinted. I knew she meant Harry and I knew what she was struggling to get out.
     “I’m sorry. Please tell him I’m sorry if I upset him. It’s just that I was so sure that I saw Harry—that we both did!”
     “Yes, well, you shouldn’t bring it up. False hope and all that, you understand?”
     “Yes, I get it. I won’t bring it up again. I’m feeling tired. I just need a little nap and I’ll be good to go I think,” I yawned and Tuesdee nodded and I thanked her for the breakfast even though it was Ron who made it she still brought it up to me. I felt a trifle annoyed by her if I’m being honest. It bugged me that Ron had a wife who was more important to him than me. Fickle I know. I had no right to feel as such especially since I had no feelings for Ron other than friendship. Harry on the other hand, well, in my dream he called me his secret girlfriend. That was the bit that struck me. Nobody, not even Ron knew about that. Only Harry would know something like that. True it was a short lived relationship and an immature one at that and yet Harry and I had made out on numerous occasions before and after Ginny was in the picture. We never told Ron because we knew he loved me and it would have hurt him. The last time we kissed we were camping in the woods just before the snatchers arrived. Gosh could it have been him in the tent last night? Was Malfoy lying to me that I dreamt it all? “Hermione you’re going completely mental!” And with that there he was again, Malfoy, careening through my brain like a disease. “Get out of my head, bloody Malfoy!”

__0__
The previous day…
     “Why’d you do it?” Draco asked and Harry smiled lazily.
     “She asked me to,” Harry replied and he glanced in Hermione’s direction.
     “I see. It was bloody stupid and not part of the plan. You know you can’t tell her—“ Draco said in a low voice.
     “I know,” Harry assured.
     “Wha—what’s going on? Harry, is that really you mate?” Ron said with eyes like saucers.
     “Ron Weasley, you and I were bunk mates at Hogwarts,” Harry said and his glasses fogged up. “I remember you! Merlin, Ginny—Draco, I remember him! He was terrible at Quidditch but we all pretended he was good. He didn’t know about ‘Mione and I—we used to snog under the bleachers before every Quidditch game.” Draco’s face dropped and he clenched his jaw tightly when he heard Harry’s declaration.
     Ron backpedaled. “That’s not Harry. What are you talking about whoever you are? I was great at Quidditch and Hermione and Harry never had a relationship. You’re an imposter—polyjuice probably,” Ron said with narrowed eyes and he immediately raised his wand on Harry.
     “It’s Harry, Ron,” Ginny drawled and she rolled her eyes.
     “No, it’s bloody not!” Ron shrieked.
     “It is him,” Draco proclaimed in a calm and cool manner.
     “Well you’re not really one to judge, are you Malfoy since Harry hated you—hell, we all did,” Ron bellowed and his face began to turn red.
     “Look you dimwitted twat, if I say it’s Harry, it’s fucking Harry!” Unable to retain his own boiling anger upon hearing that Hermione was Harry’s “secret girlfriend” Draco launched on the redhead where he found himself holding Ron by the scruff of the neck.
     “Stop it you lot!” Harry shouted and he raised his wand and chanted. The pair were magically blown backwards where both Ron and Draco landed with a thud on the soft, tent floor.
     “Gods that’s hot,” Ginny said and she flew to Harry’s side.
     “I love you too Gin,” Harry said and he gave her a peck on the lips.
     “Alright, well you might be Harry—but if you are then that’s not my sister,” Ron exclaimed as he sat bewildered on his bum, staring at Harry like a lost puppy dog. “My sister is a Death Eater and she hates Harry Potter.”
     “You really are thick,” Draco said, climbing to his feet and pulling the blanket tighter around his waist to cover himself. “That’s your sister you babbling buffoon! And you--” Draco turned and pointed at Harry. “You’re not supposed to be here! You’re risking everything we worked for—and if you ever hit me with a spell when I’m completely defenseless—"
     “I’m sorry Draco. I didn’t know what else to do,” Harry apologized.
     “What about me?” Ron challenged. “Aren’t you going to apologize to me? We were best mates!”
     “Draco is Harry’s best mate now,” Ginny said and Draco smirked at Ron.
     “What? Hermione are you hearing this?”
     “No she’s not, she’s out cold,” Ginny said. “Let’s get her up on the cot. Draco, we can undo this,” Ginny quipped as Draco picked his sleeping beauty up off the floor. “Just get her dressed and we’ll all leave.”
     “Yeah, and what am I supposed to tell her when she wakes, that it was all a dream?”
     “That’s precisely what you tell her,” Ginny said.
     “There’s just one little problem with that,” Draco said and he glared at Ron.
     “Yeah, it is a problem because you better believe that I’m going to tell ‘Mione everything,” Ron said, folding his arms and digging in.
     “No Ron, you’re not,” Harry said. “Look you lot, I’m sorry I showed up here, but I promised Hermione. She asked me to. She was afraid that—“ Harry said with caution and he glanced at Ron. “…She was afraid that she wouldn’t remember that she loves you,” Harry said and he stared at Draco. Misty tears flooded his eyes the moment Potter revealed that. “It’s true. She knows how important it is that she remembers and she thought that my appearance might jog her memory.”
     “The hourglass…” Draco said and he did something he’d not done in years, not since he watched his parents suffer and die at the hands of the Dark Lord. He wept. “There’s not much time,” he said stoically and emotionless, but his cold composure betrayed him as tears trailed down his cheeks.
     “She loves you. She proved that last night and both Ginny and I were witness to it.” Ginny smiled and nodded where she stood next to Harry with her fingers laced in his. “You have to believe that she will remember in time. She will, I know it,” Harry said comforting Draco and then the unthinkable happened when Harry hugged the blond.
     “This is mental,” Ron piped in. “What’s going on? Someone better explain and right now.”
     “Draco lost his—“
     “Don’t you bloody tell him,” Draco said angrily.
     “Well we have to tell him something,” Ginny defended. “Alright, I’ll just say that something happened when Draco saved Hermione’s son and it set off a powerful curse. We think it might be a good thing though, this after Hermione found a possible counter curse, and if it works for Draco then Harry and I might try it,” Ginny said with all seriousness. "There's a time on the counter curse though so you can't tell Hermione anything otherwise it won't work. Hermione has to remember on her own and in the next five days or Draco is completely screwed," Ginny said.
     "Ginny, don't say that," Harry scolded.
     "I'm sorry, I really am Draco," Ginny said to the blond.
     "It doesn't matter...It's true," Draco said under his breath.
     “What?” Ron shouted again. “I’m gathering ‘Mione and we’re out of here. You’re all bloody bonkers.”
     “It’s true Ronald. You see this,” Ginny said and she dropped her cloak and held up her arm to expose the hideous brand of Voldemort’s, the dark mark that was on her forearm. “I want his power over me to end!”
     “Bloody hell! You really are a Death Eater. I suspected you were, just like that traitor Charlie, but seeing it now…bloody hell,” Ron seethed.
     “Yes I am and I want his power over me to cease. We think Hermione stumbled onto the cure.”
     “How and when? She’s been holed up in this tent for days with him,” Ron pointed to Draco.
     “I might have performed legilimens on her and we went back to Hogwarts, the restricted section actually, that’s where she found the cure,” Draco said under his breath. “It was tucked away in that pretty head of hers all along,” Draco said and he sat down next to Hermione and tenderly raked his fingers through her wavy hair as she slept.
     “Legilmens? That’s some dark shit right there! It’s not so surprising coming from a Malfoy, but you,” he said and he wagged his finger at Ginny. “Mum and Dad are rolling over in their graves right now, you know that don’t you?
     “Mum is alive you dipshit. She’s living in Ireland and that’s where we’re all headed if this coup d’état that Draco cooked up doesn’t work,” Ginny fought back.
     “What coup d’état? You mean the checkpoints--the ones Harry’s been taking down so people can escape Britain?” Ron asked, confused.
     “It’s not me Ron,” Harry said and then he motioned to Draco.
     “You’re the cloaked figure, the one in the papers—the one who’s been helping us in the resistance?” Ron gaped in disbelief. Draco however could care less about Ron and he was still back at the bit where Harry said Hermione loved him.
     “He pulled me from the fire and ash and took me in, hiding me all these years until I was healed,” Harry said and Ron’s eyes bulged. “It’s true. I can’t tell you how many nights Draco sat with me, brewing healing potions that tasted revolting by the way,” Harry said to Draco with a smile, “But that started the process of healing. I owe him my life. It wasn’t me out there risking my neck, fighting Death Eaters, it was him.”
     “That’s…bloody brilliant. I can’t believe it but…thanks,” Ron said to Draco and Draco nodded and turned back to his sleeping beauty. He picked up her dress and carefully put it over her head, mindful not to let any revealing part of her show. She was his. For always and as he dressed her the memories of the previous night hit him like a ton of bricks. Come back to me and hurry, we’re almost out of time.

__0__

     “Legilimens,” he said and my eyes went wide.
     “No, get out of my head this isn’t right,” I said and I tried in vain to push the blond out of my thoughts. I was never a very good at the art of Occulemens. That was dark magic and I hated it, but what I would have given for an impromptu lesson at that point because I couldn’t hold Draco back as he forced his way into my mind.
     “I don’t want to do this to you, I promise I don’t but I have no choice. I’m going to lose something very near and dear to me and I need your help,” the blond begged and I could suddenly see him standing near.
     “I…I can see you,” I said and I could. Draco was standing there on the banks of a fiery lake. Above the lake of fire was a twisted dark figure who I knew to be Voldemort. He held a half full hour glass in his hands that was raised above his head. I could see the soft, pink sand as it flowed through the hourglass and then I saw something in my peripheral vision.
     “Granger, you with me? I can’t see you,” Draco said, his voice taking on an almost melodic quality as if he had me under a trance.
     “I see you. There’s an hourglass with pink sands and he’s holding it. It’s half full and then I see…” I broke off as I gazed at the horrid woman who had horns coming out her head and who snarled on the left bank of the lake of fire.
     “What do you see Granger, tell me?”
     “It’s—it’s Astoria. Yes, it’s Astoria and she is performing a curse. Oh God Draco, she’s cursing you!”
     “Doesn’t surprise me. What’s the curse?”
     I paced over to where she stood, careful so she wouldn’t notice me. When I got within a meter of her I covered my nose to block out the putrid smell of death. “Granger, you with me? I need to know that curse,” I heard Draco say and I nodded to him, even though he couldn’t see me I could see him. I bent down in order to see what was in Astoria’s hand and then I covered my mouth when I saw her thin, translucent lips whisper the incantation. It was a fertility curse, one she cast upon an unknowing Draco.
     “Only one child--a boy,” I said perplexed. “That doesn’t make sense. She’s been out of the picture for years. Why would she curse you now?” That’s when I remembered her cold stare when she told me that day in the carriage that a witch had cursed the Malfoys’ and that Draco could only sire one child.
     “Perhaps you’re seeing a past curse. Is there a calendar perhaps so we know?” Draco asked and again I nodded my head, only this time it was a no. Forgetting he could not see me I relayed that fact to him. “Granger, you’re a witch so conjure a calendar.”
     “Can I do that?” I asked.
     “I don’t know, just try it,” Draco coached and so I did. I was pleasantly surprised when an old calendar appeared next to the shriveled and foul smelling, Astoria Greengrass. I watched in awe as the months began to flip backwards, finally stopping on the month of November. The date showed six years earlier than our present date and again I relayed that to the blond. “Good, you’re doing great. Do you see any other curses?”
     “No, just Astoria and…him… with the hourglass,” I said and I turned back to Draco hiding my eyes in the process in order to not look at the snarling monster that was in the middle of the lava lake that lay before me. I pinched my nose shut to block out the revolting smell of sulphur. That’s when I saw her and I couldn’t believe it. “Wait, there’s one more.”
     “Who is it this time?” Draco said sounding very much annoyed and deflated at having so many curses put on him. “Oh God, it’s—I can’t say it. I can’t believe it!”
     “Who is it?”
     “It’s Katydid and she’s casting a love curse on you,” I said and I grew sad. It was far and away the simplest curse cast on the blond and yet it was the curse that hurt the most. The others, Astoria and Voldemort were to be expected and those curses were powerfully potent and long lasting. That’s probably why I didn’t see Katydid at first because her spell wasn’t as powerful, and yet it felt like a betrayal of the worst sort.
     “I’m not so worried by that one, even so I need you to make the calendar again,” Draco instructed and I nodded, this time to myself.
     “It’s—recent, I mean, the love spell. She cast it in the last day or two.”
     “Good, and the Dark Lord’s curse?” I gulped when he asked it of me. I didn’t want to look.
     “Draco…I can’t. I can’t look at him.”
     “You must. Please,” he begged. “I need to know how much time is left on that hourglass.”
     “I—okay,” I said with reluctance and I turned to face the beast that was Voldemort. With a lowered head I slowly opened my eyes.
     “Are you making the calendar Granger? Are you alright?”
     “I’m afraid to look. It’s…terrifying,” I admitted and he comforted me and again he urged me on. His eyes were blood red and glowing and the moment our eyes met an overwhelming force hit me. It felt like a Mac truck had just mowed me down. I felt him deep in my soul and it was akin to sheer terror. I shrieked aloud but then I could hear Draco’s soothing voice telling me it’s not real it’s just an interpretation of the curse. That seemed to help as I mustered every bit of Gryffindor courage that lay within me and pressed the heavy darkness away. When I looked at the curse again it didn’t frighten me and it had somehow lost power over me. I quickly formed the calendar again and then watched as the days on the calendar flipped forward. It stopped a mere seven days ahead of our current date. “I see the calendar. It’s next to the hourglass,” I said.
     “Good. How much time do I have?”
     “It’s, uh, a week is all that is left. You have seven days before the hourglass runs dry,” I said and I inexplicably began to cry. I knelt in the filth and the foul smelling sulphur that bubbled up from pools of fire and ash. The putrid smell invaded my nostrils causing me to gag and then suddenly I felt strong arms around me. I shuddered for a moment but then sunk into the hug when I realized that it was Draco.
     “I’m going to lose my magic forever in seven days,” he said somberly and he stared into my swollen, tear stained eyes and then he wiped my tears away with his thumb.
     “Not if I have anything to say about it,” I said and then I was drawn from my dream when I heard my name being called.

     “Rose. Rose? Wake up,” she said and my eyes flitted open and then closed. “Rose, there’s someone here to see you,” came the voice again. I sat bolt upright in bed and turned to my left where Katydid smiled cheerfully at me. I felt a growing and uncontrollable anger when I saw her staring dumbly at me and I wanted to lash out and so I did as my hand swung forth and I struck her cheek.
     “Rose, why’d you do it?” Katy cried and she covered her face with her hands.
     “Get out! Get away from me. How dare you? How could you?” I wailed.
     “What did I do? I didn’t do anything but wake you because you have a visitor. Please, Rose…I love you like a sister,” she said with salty tears trailing down her now red and swollen face. I could already see the red handprint forming upon her cheek.
     “You know what you did—you put a curse on him knowing full well how I felt about him,” I said and Katy’s eyebrows flew up as she backed up and away from me.
     “I—how did you know—I—let me explain!” Katy said but I reached for my wand and pointed it at her.
     “Out! Now!” My voice was like thunder and I was positive that everyone in the English Rose could hear me but I couldn’t control myself. Katy left in a hurry as the door banged closed. No sooner had she left did I begin to weep uncontrollably and yet I didn’t know why. I didn’t know how long I’d been sobbing into my pillow, perhaps for a minute or two when I heard the door open once more. I raised my wand at the intruder.
     “I’m unarmed and I come bearing gifts,” a male voice said, one that I recognized. I pulled the sheet down that covered my face to see Draco standing with a beautiful bouquet of roses. There were red ones and yellow ones and white ones and peach colored roses and my mouth fell open. “Mmm, such a hot little mouth. Better close it ‘lest I fill it with something,” the blond said crudely and I furrowed my brow but secretly, I liked his flirty and lewd comment. That was Draco.
     “I’ve gone completely mental. I just dreamt that Voldemort put a curse on you and that you will lose your magic in seven days,” I said feeling completely gobsmacked by my own insanity.
     “Ah,” Draco said and he paced over to the bed where he sat down on the edge and leaned over with his head in his hands.
     “Ah? I’m mental. Right? I mean, there’s no curse to take a wizard’s magic. Such magic doesn’t exist and if it did well he could take every Muggle-Borns magic for his own. No, it’s preposterous. I’m insane. Seven days and you’ll lose your magic? What was I thinking!”
     “Actually, it’s five days now,” Draco said and he turned and looked at me with a stare that was so bright and deep and penetrating that it gave me instant chills.
     “What? That was real?” I asked unsure as to whether or not I wanted to hear the answer.
     “You’re starting to remember,” he said and without asking he scooted onto my bed where he lay down next to me. He reached forward and he tucked a stray curl behind my ear and then he spoke. “Baby, please, please remember,” he said in a deep, husky voice and then he pressed his lips against mine as I froze.

Review?

I’m thinking, two maybe three chapters left is all. All will come out and there are some satisfying twists to come. Hermione has some missing time that will reveal itself over the next couple chapters. As always let me know and thanks for reading.
- 12
- 13
- 14
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The English Rose