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Pansy's Volcano	By : Bluemidget57 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 206382 -:- Recommendations : 6 -:- Currently Reading : 8
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
- 1-Pansy's Volcano
- 2-Two
- 3-Three
- 4-Four
- 5-Five
- 6-Six
- 7-Seven
- 8-Eight
- 9-Nine
- 10-Ten
- 11-Eleven
- 12-Twelve
- 13-Thirteen
- 14-Fourteen
- 15-Fifteen
- 16-Sixteen
- 17-Seventeen
- 18-Eighteen
- 19-Nineteen
- 20-Twenty
- 21-Twenty one
- 22-Twenty Two
- 23-Twenty Three
- 24-Twenty Four
- 25-Twenty Five
- 26-Twnety Six
- 27-Twenty Seven
- 28-Twenty Eight
- 29-Twenty Nine
- 30-Thirty
- 31-Thirty one
- 32-Thirty Two
- 33-Thirty Three
- 34-Thirty Four
- 35-Thirty Five
- 36-Thirty Six
- 37-Thirty Seven
- 38-Thirty Eight
- 39-Thirty Nine
- 40-Forty
- 41-Forty One
- 42-Forty Two
- 43-Forty Three
- 44-Forty Four
- 45-Forty Five
- 46-Forty Six
- 47-Forty Seven
- 48-Forty Eight
- 49-Forty Nine
- 50-Fifty
- 51-Fifty One
- 52-52
- 53-53
- 54-54
- 55-55
- 46
- 47
- 48
After the insanely long delay, here is the next chapter. Please forgive the tardiness. We are now officially AU. If you haven�t yet finished Book 6, do not read my musings at the end of this chapter. There are no actual spoilers in it, more some thoughts on the Hr/D �ship, but I don�t want to give any small thing away to those who are currently unspoiled.

47

Garrett was hobbling across the foyer when Draco appeared; he seemed to have aged at least a decade since the summer holidays, and Draco was immediately alarmed at what could have caused this to happen.
�Garrett!� He exclaimed dropping his trunk onto the marble floor with a loud clunk. The old servant smiled toothily at him, his attitude not seeming to be affected by whatever was preying on his physical health.
�Master Draco, you�re here already,� he wheezed delightedly. �Madam is in the Blue Room - she wanted to see you immediately you arrived.�
�Yes - yes, I�ll go in a minute. What�s happened to you, Garrett - you look like Hell.�
Garrett choked on a laugh. �So very complimentary, Master Draco,� he wheezed. �We�ve been very busy, the mistress and I. We�ve been making plans and arranging things for months now. I�m just not as young as I used to be - it wears me out Apparating here, there and everywhere. Madam will tell you what we�ve been up to when you go and see her. Be off with you now. I�ll see that your things get taken up to your room,� he shuffled away towards the kitchens calling for Dipti, who was ostensibly Draco�s personal house elf, to transport the trunk up to the South Wing where his rooms were located.
Draco didn�t like the sound of his mother and Garrett Apparating all over the place; that no doubt meant she hadn�t given up on her ill-advised scheme to get Lucius released from prison. He scowled angrily as he made his way towards the Blue Room where Narcissa was apparently waiting. Draco really had no wish to see his father incarcerated, but whilst the elder Malfoy still believed in the Dark Lord�s supremacy, he thought it was probably the best place for him. There was no doubt Lucius was more than capable of stirring up vast quantities of trouble were he freed to return to Voldemort�s side.
Draco was under no illusions that his father had repented the error of his ways whilst locked up in Azkaban, nor that he had been framed and wrongfully arrested as his mother had convinced herself. He supposed that Lucius� one redeeming feature was that he had kept the depth of his involvement away from Narcissa all these years, for otherwise how could she so blindly believe in his innocence. Draco�s mother certainly had no love for witches and wizards of a lower birth than herself, but she preferred to deal with them by ignoring their existence, rather than trying to eradicate them from society. Violence involved far too much effort for Narcissa Malfoy. Draco was quite surprised she had stirred herself to expend as much energy as she had into trying to get his father released.
In an ideal world, Draco supposed, his father�s release would occur after he had finished at Hogwarts, by which time as an emancipated, legally-of-age wizard, he would not be subject to any of his father�s whims, and his choice to refuse the Dark Mark could not be overridden. Draco wasn�t entirely sure he wanted to join Dumbledore and fight against all he had been brought up to believe in - stand in effect against his own family, but when push came to shove, he didn�t think that Hermione would be able to accept a decision to support neither side. He wondered if he could convince her that the Malfoy family was Swiss-French, and that it was his ancestral obligation to remain neutral.
Probably not.
He pushed open the door and entered to find his mother sitting at her desk in front of the bay window which gave panoramic views of the parkland and lake to the rear of he house. This was Narcissa�s favourite room, and she was most often to be found sitting in here in the late afternoons enjoying the setting sun while she read or worked on one of her tapestries; his mother was an expert needlewoman - her samplers were highly sought-after amongst the upper class of the wizarding world. However, Narcissa only embroidered for people she liked, and never for profit because that would simply have been common.
Goyle�s family had a small landscape in their dining room which Narcissa had made for them the year the boys started school. The Greengrasses, who had a daughter Daphne, in Draco�s year had also been favored. However, regardless of Lucius� opinion that Pansy Parkinson might make a good match for Draco, the walls of the Parkinson home were bare of any work by Narcissa. She had experienced a disagreement with Pansy�s mother whilst at Hogwarts herself, and despite Lucius� feelings on the matter she refused to sanction the match or forgive Imelda for past slights.
Finding his mother scribbling furiously on a parchment instead of her usual pursuits of sewing or reading was quite alarming to Draco. It only served to emphasize how serious she was about her new campaign, as if Garrett�s haggard appearance had not been sufficient notice. He allowed the door to bang slightly as he entered the room, and Narcissa Malfoy looked up impatient with whomever had disturbed her work.
When she saw that the invader was in fact her son, she uncurled herself gracefully from her chair and swept across the room to enclose him in a light embrace and a cloud of expensive perfume. Draco found himself thinking as his nose twitched under the onslaught of the fragrance, how much better Hermione�s hair smelled with it�s light touch of freesias.
�Draco, darling, you�re here already,� Narcissa said happily. �I hadn�t realised how late it was. Did you have a good journey down from Scotland?� Draco opened his mouth to reply, but his mother carried on without pausing for breath. �When you�ve had a shower and taken the time to unpack I need to show you what I�m working on here. I�m quite sure you will have some thoughtful insights into how best to proceed with the matter. Let�s talk about it after dinner.� She reached up for Draco was considerably taller than she by now, and dusted a kiss on each cheek, before turning away from him in obvious dismissal and returning to her desk and her papers.
Draco did not mistake the gesture for anything other than what it was; his schedule for the night. He sighed and exited the room trying very hard not to compare his welcome with the one bestowed upon Hermione, those red-headed Weasels and Scarhead at the train station; people of his mother�s breeding simply did not behave in such a loud and brash manner. He knew his mother loved him as much as Hermione�s parents and the Weasleys loved their own offspring - she merely expressed it in a different way, and so he told himself as he stalked up to his rooms to prepare himself for the barren desert of a fortnight without Hermione.
That night set a pattern for Draco�s days over the break. After dinner, which Narcissa had insisted they ate in the formal dining room despite there only being the two of them for the meal, she had sat him down and presented her plans to bring the subject of Lucius� release before the Wizarding Prison Board and the Department of Wrongful Arrests. She had obtained the assistance of a lawyer who Draco could only regard as a charlatan for allowing his mother to believe that a case for wrongful arrest actually existed. Certainly the firm of Pennington, Grey and Pennington, who had acted for the Malfoy family for nearly two hundred years now had refused to touch it with a bargepole, and Draco could not blame them for they had their own excellent reputation to consider.
Lucius had sweet-talked his way out of trouble one too many times now; in the past he had been more careful - sending his minions in wherever there was the chance of detection - Draco could only conclude that he had escaped capture so many times that he had become arrogant in his belief that he was untouchable. Either that, or the psychotic menace who pulled his father�s strings had convinced Lucius that he was invincible and he could simply stroll bare-faced into the Ministry of Magic and go wherever he liked simply because he was Lucius Malfoy and Voldemort�s right-hand man.
It is certainly true that Draco had been hurt and frightened by his father�s capture at the end of his 5^th year, but considering that it had occurred straight after the debacle that was Professor Umbridge, and had heralded the revelation that Voldemort really was returned, he considered that his reaction at the time had been understandable. He had still been captive to his father�s doctrines about blood and heredity, and prior to that moment in time his mother�s influence had been minimal for she lived very much in her husband�s shadow. It was hardly surprising that he lashed out at the most convenient target - his world and everything in it had been turned on it�s end and of course it was Potter standing there at the root of it all again.
However, a summer spent at Malfoy manor without his father dictating his every move, his every social interaction, and his mother alternating between weeping and trying to put on a brave face, had left Draco with a lot more time on his hands than he had ever been allowed in his sixteen years before. And the oddest thing had occurred; a post owl had brought a copy of the Daily Prophet and dropped it on the breakfast table one Wednesday morning as he had been eating on one of the outside patios. With nothing else planned for the day, Draco had picked it up idly and begun reading it before he ever noticed it was addressed to Garrett.
The editors of the paper seemed determined to make up for their year of denial by laying bare every minute detail which might elucidate on the horror that was Voldemort. There was a series of articles complete with pictures, in the centre pages which reprinted news reports and stories from the first rising of Voldemort, when Draco and Potter had both been babies. Before Draco knew it, lunch time had come and gone and he had dragged himself to Garrett�s quarters asking for back issues of the paper up to where the series began.
When the reading material available to him at home was exhausted, he took himself to Diagon Alley to the Wizarding Library, and spent the next couple of weeks searching through the archives from the past fifteen years of every wizarding paper for references to Voldemort, and in particular his family�s ties to the madman. Having the freedom to simply depart the Manor when he chose was something else he had never experienced before, and whilst Narcissa always asked where he had been, she rarely paid attention to the answer and certainly never tried to prevent him from leaving.
The results of Draco�s research left him feeling sick and appalled, and he knew he could not return to Hogwarts the same person he had been previously. His father�s life choices scared him, and his - albeit naïve and ignorant decisions not to take responsibility for his own future embarrassed him. One thing was clear and that was that he must start making his own choices about what he wanted out of life; he might still hate Potter and with even better reason, for his destruction of the charmed illusion that had been Draco Malfoy�s life, but ultimately it was something which had to happen.
And now for some insane reason, his mother was trying to destroy everything he had achieved for himself, by himself in the past two years, by starting some crazy crusade to have Lucius released.
How any lawyer thought they could gain the release of a man who had been caught red-handed breaking into the Ministry, attempting to burgle the building and casting Unforgiveables on under-age wizards and witches, by a team of Aurors and Ministry officials - must in Draco�s opinion have one thing in mind and that was a large retainer, and several years worth of job security whilst he continued to fabricate work on a lost cause. Most of which he was sure, would come at the expense of his mother�s foolishness and shattered hopes.
By the third day of his holiday he couldn�t put up with another meal spent dissecting Thilomenous Troy�s writs and motions, and pushed to the limits of his tolerance he finally cracked and burst out to Narcissa,
�Mother! How can you believe that any of this is going to work. There were a dozen witnesses who saw him right there, doing all those things that he�s accused of. There have been pensieve testimonies, and - people came to the school right after it happened to explain to me why my father was being sent to prison. He fucked up big time, and he�s having to pay the price for following that genocidal maniac beyond the point of all good sense! Troy is just wasting your time and taking your money under false pretences. If Mr Pennington didn�t think there was any chance of getting Dad free, then why in Merlin�s name do you believe this slimy bit of vermin will manage where the most influential law firm in all of England failed?�
Draco paused for breath, suddenly aware that he had just uttered something tantamount to treason without ever stopping to weigh his words before he spoke; something he would never have done normally, and he gnashed his teeth realising that only Hermione�s influence could be responsible for his impulsive outburst - it was such a dreadfully Gryffindor reaction, that he cringed inwardly even as he waited for his mother�s reaction.
Surprisingly, Narcissa neither chastised him, nor burst into tears at his words. Instead she stared at him narrowly for several moments before nodding her head thoughtfully. �I see, Draco,� she muttered. �It would appear I have not been paying close enough attention to you recently. Apparently you have been doing some growing up while I�ve been distracted. I always did wonder whether you would ever decide to use that formidable intellect you were blessed with to start thinking for yourself, or if you would always take the easy path and follow in your father�s footsteps.�
Draco was genuinely confused. �What?� He asked foolishly. �Aren�t you at least going to tell me what a disloyal son I am, and that I�m a disappointment to the Malfoy name?�
�Well, I can if you like, dear,� Narcissa said soothingly, �but really, since I don�t actually think any of that it would be somewhat of a lie, so I don�t believe I will. You have to make your own way in the world, Draco. You aren�t a carbon copy of your father; he has made some terrible mistakes and some very poor decisions. I am not unaware of that fact, and the most that a mother can hope for is that her child does not make the same mistakes in his youth that his parents made in theirs. Your father has some very strong beliefs, and this is not the first time they have caused problems for his family - if he is to be paroled this will be absolutely his last chance in the eyes of the wizarding world -�
But Draco was not listening any more. �Did you say paroled?� he asked weakly. Great Merlin, that put an entirely different perspective on the prospects for Lucius� release. It was quite one thing for Narcissa to campaign herself into penury and social suicide with a doomed attempt to bring about her husband�s release, but a parole implied the sanction of the Ministry - the very people who had incarcerated Lucius to begin with. Draco was aware that he should be happier to think that his mother�s actions were not foolish as they had seemed at first, but somehow he could not get his head beyond the fact that the Ministry was considering paroling Voldemort�s most devoted follower. What were they thinking?

�Yes, Draco - isn�t it wonderful? I spoke to Cornelius Fudge myself at the beginning of the month, and he seemed very hopeful that he could persuade certain key figures that Lucius had served enough detention, and was ready to re-enter society. I was so excited, but I didn�t want to spoil the surprise for you, and here I have any way. Your father and I were going to tell you together on Christmas Day when we go to see him. Of course, he will definitely have to keep a low profile at first, but -�
Draco stayed frozen in his chair, zoning out his mother�s excited plans as the ghastly implications of his father�s release flooded into his brain one after the other, allowing him no respite. Could one keep a low profile when pledged into the service of the Dark Lord? Draco�s understanding of the way it worked was that when He called, you obeyed - he could hardly see Voldemort caring one way or another as to whether Lucius should be keeping out of trouble because he had just been paroled from Azkaban. If Voldemort required Lucius, he would expect obedience, and then what?
Did Dumbledore already know about this? Probably - his intelligence was as great at the Ministry�s - in fact half of the Ministry employees probably gave their loyalty to the old codger first and their employer second. So did that mean that Potter already knew his father�s release was in the pipeline - Scarhead certainly seemed to be privy to every detail the Headmaster knew these days. Did Hermione know, and hadn�t told him? He didn�t think he could bear the betrayal if she did.
He pushed his chair away from the table and stood suddenly, calling for Dipti to bring his cloak. �I am going to get some fresh air, Mother,� he said abruptly. �I need to process what you�ve told me. Please excuse me for the moment.� He strode across to the French windows, and had just opened one to exit out onto the patio when an unremarkable brown owl descended right in front of him and landed on the back of one of the wrought iron garden chairs, holding out it�s leg to him.
Narcissa frowned from inside the dining room. �What is it, dear?� She asked. �That bird doesn�t look like it belongs to anyone we know.�
Draco sighed and retrieved the parcel from the owl; as soon as he touched the small packet the owl had been carrying, it began to expand until it was the size of a small square-ish book. Draco immediately recognised the handwriting addressing the package to Mr D Malfoy, Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire as Hermione�s, and despite himself he felt his stomach flip-flop excitedly in anticipation. His little witch was so clever; she had obviously charmed the parcel to respond to his touch and restore itself only when he had received it.
�Draco?� Narcissa asked again and he realised he had been grinning foolishly at the package for some minutes without answering her. Luckily, Dipti appeared in front of him with a pop holding out the heavy winter cloak at that moment, giving him a brief respite to gather his thoughts somewhat.
�It�s a mail owl from the Post Office in Diagon Alley,� he said truthfully, but improvised further, �I sent for a book from H W Jones just before the end of term.� He took a couple of knuts out of his pocket and paid the post owl, making sure to keep his back to Narcissa in case his expression gave him away. He shoved the packet deep into one of the inner pockets of his cloak and made his way quickly off the patio and towards the stables, where he hoped to be able to open his parcel unobserved.
As soon as he was alone, Draco cast a distraction charm over himself, just in case someone had followed him. He sat down in one of the furthest stalls from the door and tugged the ubiquitous brown Post Office Seal-n-Stick parchment off the packet, eager to see what Hermione had sent him.
He was quite floored to discover beneath the wizarding outer, a bright red, obviously Muggle envelope, with his name scribed in Hermione�s neat pen, and a flat square item wrapped in some equally strange and garishly decorated paper which featured a jovial fat man dressed completely in red and sporting a beard and moustache to rival Professor Dumbledore�s. He winced at the overwhelming Gryffindor-ness of it all.
He opened the envelope first; it reminded him of nothing so much as a Howler, and he cast quick a silencing spell to complement his distraction charm just in case it began screeching at him. However, there was nothing more alarming inside than a card, again featuring the fat red-suited man - this time he was standing on a rooftop and seemed to be trying to push gifts down a chimney. Draco opened up the card,

D,

Merry Christmas - I was unable to get away to Diagon Alley to send this until today; as you know I do not have my own owl. I can usually borrow one belonging to a friend of mine if I need to send a letter during term time. However, this was not possible at the current time.

I know we did not discuss exchanging gifts before we came home for the holidays, but I wanted you to have this. I shall not tell you what to do with it; I am sure the star of Professor DiBona�s class should be able to work it out for himself!

I hope you have a happy and healthy Christmas - I will see you in the New Year.

Thinking of you during this Holiday Season,

H.

See you in the New Year. Draco groaned - Merlin, that sounded so far away - he couldn�t believe it would be next year before he saw Hermione again. He reread the card several times, hoping to find some hint that she was miserable without him, but it appeared very circumspect - which obviously it had to be in case it was to fall into the wrong hands, but would it have really hurt for her to have signed it Love, H?
He put the card back into it�s envelope and turned his attention to the gift. It was very light, and he could not imagine what Muggle item she would have chosen to buy him for Christmas. He wondered momentarily if he should wait for Christmas Day, but knew full well that the curiosity would overwhelm him, and besides he could not possibly open it in front of his mother anyway.
So deciding, he ripped the smiling fat men asunder and frowned curiously as a small box fell into his lap - there was a picture of a blonde woman on the box and Draco recognised it suddenly as a cd. Whilst he had been discovering film and video the previous summer, he had realised that music was also available in the same kind of format, but he had not pursued the concept very thoroughly, preferring the visual excitement of movies.

FAITH HILL

BREATHE

He read the title on the box and it took him a moment to realise the significance of the disc Hermione had chosen to send him. She had bought him the song they had danced to at the Halloween Ball; the night which even now was still shrouded in confusion and uncertainty - but surely the very existence of this song in his hand now meant that it had all really happened?
He gripped the box tightly to his chest; in terms of a sign that she was missing him it was huge in its significance, yet so incredibly subtle that no one but he would be able to recognise it. Merlin, he hoped he was not reading more into it than truly existed. His challenge now was to find some way to listen to the songs - turning the little box over he discovered that there were more songs than just theirs on the disc.
Draco passed his mother in the hallway, a new determination in his step. �I am going to go and buy some Christmas presents this afternoon, Mother,� he said as he dashed up the stairs towards his room. �Don�t wait dinner for me if I�m not back!�
Narcissa opened her mouth as if to make some objection, but before she could voice it her son had disappeared around the curve in the staircase and was gone from sight.
Draco�s exploration of things Muggle had of necessity been conducted in secrecy from his mother - to facilitate his exploration into the forbidden world he had adopted a disguise which he used whenever he ventured out to acquire some new item or other.
As disguises went, it was neither complicated nor elaborate; when he reached his bedroom he dragged his fingers through his ruthlessly controlled hair so that the soft curls Hermione had been so astonished to discover fluffed up all over his head. Draco pointed his wand at his hair and muttered a colouring charm which darkened his hair to a brown similar to Hermione�s own. It was the same charm he had used to costume himself for the Halloween Ball. He rummaged in a drawer and retrieved a pair of eyeglasses not dissimilar to Potter�s, and planted them on his nose.
He took a critical glance at himself and deciding that he was thoroughly unremarkable, he lifted the complicated wards he had placed on the fireplace in his room, and flooed to Diagon Alley.
His destination was a deceptively small store off Knockturn Alley called Adolfo�s which specialized in the black market pedaling of magically altered Muggle items. The shop was routinely raided by the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts dept. of the Ministry, but Draco had seen the senior Weasley in there alone on more than one occasion, furtively purchasing things which he was quite convinced Mrs Weasley would not approve of.
Whilst Draco�s trip was first and foremost to find himself a music player for his gift, he was quite aware of the need to buy his Mother some trinkets to make his cover story credible, and now that Hermione had made the first move, he fully intended to return the gesture with interest. However, he didn�t imagine he could purchase anything suitable for the women in his life at Adolfo�s, so he tried to conduct his business there as expeditiously as possible before moving on to the more up-market stores in Diagon Alley.
Having finally obtained what Adolfo called a cd player, which he had haggled down from the extortionate price of 10 galleons to a far more reasonable 4, Draco left the store muttering about greedy half-bloods and made his way back to the main thoroughfare. He entered a small coffee house and in the bathroom, removed his camouflage, forcefully slicking his hair back by wetting his hands and running them through the stubborn waves. The spectacles he slipped into his inner cloak pocket with the cd player, and he emerged from the stall as Draco Malfoy, out for some seasonal shopping.
**
It took Draco longer than he would have anticipated to charm the cd player to work; at Hogwarts the residual magic in the atmosphere was so great that channeling it to substitute for Muggle power cells had been relatively simple. It turned out that Malfoy Manor did not contain anywhere near the same levels of magical energy, and by the time Draco had managed to produce sound from the infernal machine, it was Christmas Eve.
He had barely had time to play the song 50 or so times it seemed, when his mother was shaking him awake and telling him it was time to get up and go to visit his father.
**********************
Again, I wish to apologise for the wait; I am also going away on vacation next week, so I don�t expect the next one to be any quicker. Although on a positive note, the next chapter is one which has been written in my head since the beginning of the story, so it should not take long to transcribe. I venture to think you guys might enjoy it.
GO AWAY THOSE OF YOU STILL READING BOOK 6. I just want to throw my sixpence worth in about the future of Draco & Hermione in canon after what happened in HBP. Honestly, we all knew there was less than no chance of it ever happening because Jo has said so on many occasions. That�s why we write what we want to see ourselves. I am going to draw a parallel with another ship I sailed before I was sucked into the Potterverse; Buffy & Spike. I think that all of us Spuffy shippers held out some hope that they might end up together because Joss dangled the possibility there in front of us during season 6. He cruelly gave us hope that we would get what we wanted, even while he taunted us with the nature of vampires and souls. Jo has never blatantly mislead us into believing there could ever be a relationship between Hermione & Draco; we never see inside anyone�s head but Harry�s anyway (and I am going to throw myself to the lions here as I say -) that I don�t even think that portrayals of Hermione (or Ron, or Draco or any other character even) can ever really be OOC because we don�t ever get inside her head in the books, and learn what motivates her or what she thinks. All Jo�s characters are reactive to Harry. They do not function on their own. I think that it why when I finally chose to write something, I picked the Potter fandom and not Buffy - Joss was never reticent in devoting whole episodes to all the peripheral characters in Buffy�s universe, and we did see inside their heads - And I never thought I could do any of them justice simply for that reason.
Actually, I am all for Ron & Hermione together in canon - I just wish they would hurry up and get on with it, all the dancing around each other is agonizing! Any way, I will run and hide now from the squashed tomatoes which are sure to be coming my way. Catch up with you next time.
Blue

7.20.05
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