"Sean..."
"You want me to call Magical Law Enforcement?"
Draco shook his head.
"I know, who is behind this. I'll get them and then the Auror Office can deal with..."
There was a rather loud and annoyed sounding hooting somewhere outside. The two wizards looked at each other and then Draco went to the front door. On the tree across the road sat an eagle owl radiating annoyance. There was a letter in its beak. He held his arm up and tried to make it understand it could come to him. It didn't. It took off, started towards his house and then seemed to be repelled by some kind of forcefield.
How could that be? He hadn't set any owl repellent spell around the house. Why would he? Then again, maybe it had been the intruder. He walked along the path, stood on the pavement and held his arm up again. This time the bird landed as he would expect it to do. He took the letter, stroked his head and then sent it back to its owner.
While reading the letter he walked back to the house.
Draco!
Pansy and the youngest Rockwood, William, were going to get their hands on your girl. I took her to stay with me until you could come and collect her. I'm at the flat.
Blaise
"Everything okay?"
Draco nodded.
"Okay. Should you need anything, let me know."
Sean was halfway down the path, when the younger wizard called after him, "You were a Ravenclaw prefect. Gave me detention for trying to charm a Griffindor's hair green."
Sean turned and smiled.
"That's right. Her hair turned yellow as you didn't know that she was really a Hufflepuff."
When he was alone again, he noticed that Turo had cleaned and repaired the furniture in the living room. He called the elf and told him that he would go and get Hermione. Nobody was to enter the house, nobody!, while he was gone. The elf promised to make sure that his orders would be carried out before Draco spun on the spot and tried to disapparate.
It didn't work.
He frowned. It should be possible for him to disapparate in his own house, shouldn't it? He tried again and yet again nothing happened except for him starting to get dizzy. He pulled his wand out and then did a quick check on the protection surrounding the building. For some strange reason, he found a counter spell for him being able to disapparate, but everybody else was able to get in and out.
"Finite Incantatum."
He checked again, he was again able to disapparate. Then he cast the protective spell that allowed himself, Hermione, Blaise and the Weasley girl, what was her name again?, apparate inside the house. He took the owl repellent spell off and replaced it with a Pansy Parkinson repellent instead. That should do it for the moment.
Time to get to Blaise and collect his girl. He hesitated. If Pansy was hell bent on kidnapping Hermione, what were the chances that she might try something to harm his mother? Had that been what had happened to her? He needed to find out.
For a moment he wondered, if he should get the Griffindor first and then go and see his mother, but as Blaise was watching her for the moment and Draco very much doubted, that Pansy had any idea about this, it should be okay, if he went to St. Mungo's first.
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"Mother?"
Draco slowly opened the door to her room. Narcissa Malfoy sat in her bed reading. She looked up and smiled as she saw her son.
"Draco, come in."
He did and gently hugged her. This was something he wouldn't have done in the past, but he was just glad, that he hadn't lost her. She kissed his forehead as he drew back.
"What brings you here? I would have thought you would want to spend your time with your girlfriend."
"I need to know about the curse that was used on you."
"Oh? Why?"
He didn't quite know how to tell her that somebody that she had known for years might have tried to kill her in order to get to him.
"Who ever tried to kill you..."
"No."
"What?"
"She didn't try to kill me. She just wanted to get me out off the way."
"How?"
His mother sighed.
"The healers and some aurors have found out that the curse that had been used on me was aiming for you not being able to find happiness."
His face only too clearly showed that she had lost him.
"I was only to wake up, if you could tell me that you had found true love."
"..."
"You see, the girl or woman that cast the spell must have been pretty sure to be able to make you fall for her and then when you told me about it, I would be back to normal. In the meantime she would be trying to be a shoulder for you to cry on so to speak."
"You are awake..."
"Because you found true love. Just not with the person that wanted you to fall for her."
He sighed. His thoughts had gone into overdrive. Pansy! She must have cursed his mother in order to get close to him, but he had already had his night with Hermione and was therefore no longer susceptible for her evil scheme. How could one person be so... evil was the only word that came to mind.
"It was Pansy, Mother. She has cursed you and this evening she has tried to kidnap Hermione. Blaise got there first though and made sure that she is safe."
His mother thought about this for a moment. Yes, Pansy was allowed to apparate within the Malfoy grounds as she had always been regarded as one of his friends. The house elves knew her as well, they wouldn't be suspicious about her visiting and now she had tried to get her hands on the girl his son had chosen for himself? This was not going to be pretty when it came out.
"Will you call the Auror Office or shall I notify them?"
His voice drifted into her thoughts.
"Don't worry, I'll talk to them. You go and get your fiancé back."
She smiled warmly at him.
"And remember to bring her here as soon as possible. I want to meet her." He was already half way to the door. "Preferably before I become a grandmother."
His steps only faltered for a moment, then he was gone. His mother smiled to herself. It was good to see him being happy at last.
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Blaise was looking at Hermione. Again. He had been trying not to for the best part of the last hour, but for some strange reason she intrigued him. She was still the same girl he had seen nearly every day at school for years, but something seemed to have changed. She had changed, in a way he couldn't even define. He frowned. Why hadn't he just send an owl to warn his friend? Beside the point that it wouldn't have been fast enough to reach him that was.
He sat on the chair he had pulled up next to his bed. Was she sleeping? No, resting maybe, but definitely not sleeping. So, what was it that had him go all the way to Scotland to get her before his deranged ex-house mate could? Her breathing was even. The rise and fall of her... He was torn between stealing glances and keeping hie eyes off her. He opted for the latter. It was safer. Though he couldn't have said what he might have done otherwise. Nothing more than looking, if he valued his life.
He sighed. What was it that made her so interesting all of a sudden? She hadn't been on his radar for as long as he knew her and now... Was it simply the fact, that she belonged to his best friend? Was it the fact that he had discovered something about her that had been hidden from everybody else? What though? What was it that had captured the attention of the uncrowned ruler of Slytherin House? Hermione shifted and was now turning her back to him. He couldn't belief it. She did present him with her unprotected back? Deliberately?
He got up and walked slowly over to the window. The sun had set and darkness had fallen. With the flick of his wand the candles around the room lit. Everything was bathed in soft light. Outside he could see few people still on the go. All the shops in Diagon Alley had closed hours ago. There were still several pubs and restaurants open though. Images of a candlelight diner for two with him and Hermione in the leading parts were invading his mind. He tried his best to chase them away, but one of them stayed: She was sitting across from him, smiling warmly.
He rubbed his face. If he seriously considered to ever do that he should arrange his funeral together with the restaurant reservation. Draco would kill him for sure. He sighed again. What was she doing to him? Was this what had happened to his friend? Had she just managed to get to him in such a subtle way that he hadn't even noticed before it had been too late?
"Blaise?" Her melodic voice invaded his reverie.
"Yes?" He answered without turning towards her. He didn't want her to see that he had been thinking about her.
"You have owled Draco, haven't you?"
"Hours ago. I would have thought that he would have come long before now to collect you."
There was a tense pause for a moment.
"Do you think, something has happened to him?"
"No. He'll come. Don't worry." He sounded more optimistic than he actually felt.
She didn't say anything else for a long while.
"Tell me about him. About Draco."
He finally turned to face her. She looked divine.
'Get a grip, mate! If you fall for her he'll have you strung up by your privates!'
He didn't come closer, tried to avert his gaze.
"What do you want to know?"
"What was he like during the last year at school? It must have been hard for him to be despised by most of the school."
Blaise sighed.
"Yes, it was, but he never paid any attention to any of the gossip or the names people called him behind his back. He spend a lot of time studying, practised Quidditch quite a few hours a week and went for long rides on his broom. Most Slytherins of our year didn't come back after... So there were quite a few people less of the crowd we normally hung out with."
"What was he like outside of school? I mean, have you two ever met up during the holidays?"
There was a long pause on Blaise's part. He cleared his throat before he started speaking again.
"We spend quite a few holidays together. The summer after the battle he stayed with me in Italy. We have a house near Pescara on the Adriatic coast." He seemed lost in the memories of those days for a while. "We were talking about what we wanted to do after we got our N.E.W.T.s. He had planned to travel the world and maybe find a witch somewhere where they had never heard of the name of Malfoy before."
"He wanted to leave Britain?"
"He didn't think, that there was anything that would hold him here. His mother had told him to get away for a while before taking over his rightful place as the head of the family. I'm not sure, if he really wanted to do that."
Another long pause.
"And of course we had the long girl talk..."
She looked at him. They had what?
He grinned as he saw her expression.
"When guys talk about girls. Girls they can't stand, girls they fancy, girls they... have fun with."
"A-ha. Which category did I feature in? Girls you would never consider human regardless of what everybody else was saying?"
He turned away. She hadn't come up once in all their conversations. Not once. Strange. Or had she?
"One evening we were describing the girls we would want to...," an embarrassed pause followed, "spend our lives with."
"Oh?"
"Draco said, he wanted a girl with brains, somebody that could think for herself. He wanted to be able to actually talk to her. Not just shag her. Though he wanted her to have a nice body as well." Blaise smirked at her. "He wanted a girl he could feel underneath him, somebody that was a bit more than just skin and bones."
"..."
"He didn't want his girl to be afraid of him or the power his name gave him. He wanted somebody that wasn't scared to speak her mind. Shame I didn't realise sooner..."
"What, Blaise, realise what sooner?"
"That he was longing for a girl he could have had years ago, if his father hadn't filled his head with all that crap about pureblood supremacy. If he hadn't been brought up the way he had. If it hadn't taken him being forced to be a Death Eater and having to do Voldemort's bidding or be killed before he started to think for himself."
Hermione didn't say anything to that. He couldn't really believe that she would have got together with Draco any earlier if he... She took a deep breath. If he hadn't been that opinionated, arrogant and self entered prat for all those years... Would it have been possible for her to be friends with him? She was now, wasn't she? She was more than just friends with him. She was his girlfriend and mother to his son. Girlfriend... He had told her that he wanted her to be more than just his girlfriend. Though she hadn't been able to say yes to that straight away. She wanted to think about it. What was there to think about it really though? Either she wanted to be with him for the rest of their lives or she didn't. She knew, she did.
There was a loud -crack- and Draco stood suddenly next to the foot end of the bed trying to gain his balance back.
"Hermione?"
"Draco!"
She was off the bed and in his arms before he managed to steady himself. Blaise looked at them with a heavy sigh.