Evermore

VI.

Especially not now! What girl in her right mind would ever want to be with a disfigured and hobbling idiot? He didn't possess a lovable personality either...

Taking off his mask, Draco skimmed his fingers along the angry scars on his face. He could not even bring himself to look at his reflection in a mirror! How else could someone as beautiful as her....

Three, soft knocks dragged him from his dismal musings.

"Malfoy?"

It was Granger! Hurriedly, he put the mask back on and pulled up his hood.

"Yes, Granger, come in," he said.

The door swung open and in she walked with her basket of flowers.

"Are you hungry? Would you like me to have some biscuits sent up?" she asked as she replaced the dried flowers on his desk with her newly-picked ones.

"No...I'm okay," he replied, leaning back in his chair.

This had become one of their routines. He would spend every Tuesdays or Fridays in his study, usually in the afternoons. She would come in either with snacks or flowers, sometimes both. She would putter around, rearranging things (which sometimes drove him mad) as he went over his correspondence and the reports from his managers, lawyers and Gringotts agents. Most of their businesses had been placed under his supervision even though his father was still the head of House Malfoy. And he'd been doing it from here ever since the 'accident'. After he was done conducting business, they would sit in front of the fireplace, sip tea and discuss their theories or what they'd found out about the curse of the rosebushes.

At first, it was a sore point in their...'relationship' (he cringed at the word, knowing that Hermione would hex him if he ever used it to refer to what they had in front of her). The night that he showed her the library was a turning point for both of them; he should've known that the way to the Gryffindor witch's heart was through books. She never locked herself up inside her room after that and became quite tolerant of his presence.

When she asked about the curse, he told her everything that he'd found out so far. She took down notes and began a journal of sorts. Draco still marveled at Hermione's ability to set aside her personal feelings in pursuit of the solution to a problem. As soon as they'd reached a tacit agreement that they needed to solve the mystery together, she acted like all those years of enmity between them never existed. As they delved deeper into the mystery of the rosebushes they realized that they also needed to learn about the history of Malfoy Manor.

It turned out to be much more complicated than they'd anticipated. Malfoy Manor was built in the late 1000's, probably about 1066 or later, after their ancestor, Armand Malfoy, who was originally from France, had been given parcels of land as payment for services rendered to the new king, William the Conqueror. They had searched the library, and even his study, but they didn't find anything that was remotely near that era. And they had both agreed that the answers to their current predicament could go back as far as the time that the foundations of the Manor were laid. The most ancient tome that they had unearthed was dated 1560 - a diary written by a certain M. B. Malfoy. It contained nothing useful - except perhaps a glimpse into what a young bride thought of her new husband.

"Did you turn up anything interesting in the library today?" he asked.

"No. I decided to take a break. It might give me fresh eyes when I return there tomorrow," she replied, sitting on the chair facing his desk.

"Tomorrow? Aren't we going there tonight?"

"Well...if you want to...but I was planning on taking a stroll in the gardens after dinner. There's going to be full moon tonight," she said.

His reply was cut short when Tinder suddenly popped up in the middle of the room.

"Master! You have to come to the stables! Something terrible happened!" he said, wringing his hands before disapparating with another loud pop.

Hermione was beside him in a flash, her hand gripping his arm as they disapparated to the stables. What greeted them made Draco's blood boil.

Lying on the straw-strewn stable floor was an old elf with an odd expression on his face. His eyes were staring unseeing at the ceiling, his lips stretched in what appeared to be a cross between a grimace and a scream. But what really caught Draco's attention were the elf's hands. They looked like they were grabbing at something. When he leaned down to inspect the fisted hand, he discovered a piece of dark cloth trapped within. He carefully pried the stiff fingers apart and pulled out the cloth. Hermione was kneeling beside him, eyes brimming with tears. She'd come to know the wizened elf through their bi-weekly rides around the estate. Luli always had a cheerful greeting whenever they came around, endearing him not only to Hermione but to Draco as well. He also kept the stables spic and span and the horses clean and well-fed.

"What happened to him?" Hermione sobbed, reaching out to close the elf's eyes.

Draco shook his head, unable to give voice to the rage that he was feeling.

"Master, look!" Tinder exclaimed, pointing at the amber liquid slowly spreading from underneath a neat clump of straws stacked in one corner of the stable.

Hermione jumped to her feet and ran towards it.

"Hermione! Be careful!" Draco called out as he, too rose to his feet.

"I think it's..." she paused, dipped her finger on the liquid and sniffed it, "whisky."

"Whisky? Why would there be whisky here?" Draco whipped his head around at Tinder. "Does Luli like to drink?" he asked.

The old elf shook his head. "No, Master. Luli hate drinkings," he replied.

"Please get a vial, Tinder," Hermione said.

Tinder nodded and disapparated. When he came back he gave a small phial with a stopper to Hermione. She removed the stopper and with her wand, transferred the remaining liquid into the phial.

"We need to find out what's in this. I have a feeling that this isn't just whisky," she said, swirling the amber liquid inside the phial.

"What made you say that?" Draco asked, not really following.

"Look at this," she said, lifting a large shard of glass. "It has the Malfoy crest. This is from one of your decanters. I wouldn't be suspicious if the whisky was still in its original bottle - any one of those villagers delivering goods could've left it here," she said, rising back up to her feet. "But this makes it look more suspicious."

Draco now saw where she was going with this. He never liked pouring from the original bottle, preferring to transfer his liquors into decanters to let them breathe. And all his decanters bore the Malfoy crest. Deliveries were never allowed in the main house, so this couldn't have been stolen. But, clearly, someone took it out of the house.

The question was - who would be foolish enough to sneak into the house to steal a measly decanter of whisky? And why hide it here in the stables? Why not take it with them?

He glanced back at the body of his faithful elf. Sorrow gripped his heart. These elves chose to stay with him even though they had been granted their freedom. They were his responsibility.

"Tinder, does Luli still have family left?" he asked the elf.

"No, Master. Luli is alone," Tinder replied, brushing an arm across his nose.

"See to it that he's taken care of. We'll bury him tomorrow," he said, turning away from the macabre scene. Hermione was now standing beside him, her hand resting on his arm. He gripped her cold fingers and apparated them both back into the main house.

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A/N: Thanks for reading! If you're enjoying the story, please don't forget to vote. :)