Author's Note: Hello people! Firstly, apologizes for the long wait! Secondly, Lucius Malfoy may appear to be a little OOC in this chapter but just to let you know that in my story, ever since Voldermort died, Lucuius Malfoy has been a little OOC. Hope you enjoy this chapter!
Chapter 14- Meeting At Midnight
Wednesday passed excruciatingly slow in Draco’s opinion. Teachers seemed to talk slower than usual, lessons were seemingly lengthier and time was taunting him by moving at snail’s pace. He wanted the day to end fast because he could hardly wait to see his father that night.
His excitement, however, was not due to the fact that he missed his father, but was mainly because he could not wait to question the hell out of Lucius Malfoy.
Hermione was still furious at Draco for lying to Professor Snape the previous day, so she was giving him the silent treatment throughout the day. Initially, Draco thought it did not make any difference to him. In fact, he was relieved that he did not have to waste his time arguing with her.
Later, he realized that he rather argue with Hermione so that he could waste time. He needed to waste time. He wanted to waste time.
In between classes, Hermione and Draco had a brief encounter with Michael Corner. Hermione wanted to take the opportunity to clarify with him the events that had occurred in the Boys’ bathroom the previous day.
But before Hermione could get the words out of her mouth, Michael gave her an alarmed expression, saying, “I didn’t see anything, I promise!” Then his face turned as red as a beetroot and he fled in the opposite direction, leaving his classmates, Hermione and Draco staring after him.
“I guess that sort of means he hasn’t told anyone anything about what he thought he saw yesterday,” Draco said as Hermione sighed.
“I hope so,” Hermione muttered to herself, not wanting to talk to Draco.
When the bell that indicated the last lesson of the day sounded, Draco was overjoyed. He could not remember the last time he was so happy hearing the school bell ring.
Dinner today was at the Gryffindor table. Draco ate quietly while Hermione talked to Harry and Ron.
“Still ignoring him, ‘Mione?” Ron asked despite Draco’s presence.
Hermione nodded. “Yes.”
“You should have let us cursed him for what he did yesterday,” Harry said.
Hermione had told them the day before about Draco’s lie during Potions. Needless to say, the reaction from her three best friends was colossal, but she had stopped them from doing anything stupid.
“We can still do it now, if you want us to,” Ginny added with a wicked smile.
“I'm sitting right here!” Draco said all of a sudden. “Can’t you at least try to be discreet?”
“No, Ginny,” Hermione said, paying no heed to Draco’s words, “it’s not worth it.”
Draco scowled and went back to eating his kidney pie.
That evening was spent doing school homework, which was rapidly increasing due to the approaching N.E.W.Ts. Silence hung in the air of the Heads’ common room during the course of the evening, until finally at a quarter to eleven, Hermione shut her book and stared at Draco.
“Are you done with your homework?” she asked reluctantly. She did not wish to speak to him, but she was getting sleepy.
Draco smirked. “My, my, what made you finally decided to talk to me?”
“Sleep, that’s what,” Hermione answered, agitated and too tired to argue.
Draco shut his books and rolled up the parchment on which he had written his Herbology essay. “What if I don’t want to sleep yet?”
“Then I’ll just sleep here, on this table and you can do the same unless you're in the mood for carrying me to the sofa once you start feeling sleepy because I'm not going to get up once I fall asleep,” Hermione replied smugly.
Hermione knew that had struck a cord because Draco threw her a sour look and strode over to the sofa.
Hermione found herself desiring the warmth and comfort of her own bed as her head touched the soft material of the couch. She longed to wear her cozy nightie (particularly the one with the sheep, hearts and pink pompoms) to sleep and wrap herself in her soft comforter as opposed to sleeping with her sweater on. With all these thoughts mingled in her head, sleep shrouded her eventually.
Draco, on the other hand, lay awake and checked his watch at regular intervals. At five minutes to midnight, he got up from his space on the sofa and went over to the armchair at the fireplace, grateful that the Love-Knot stretched the whole distant without pulling him back to Hermione. Glancing up at the portraits, he was glad to see them snoozing in their frames.
Punctually at midnight, Lucius Malfoy’s head appeared at the fireplace. “Hello Draco,” he said in his custom drawl. “How have you been?”
Draco had promised himself that he would deal with his father in a calm and cool manner, but the minute he saw his father, something in him just snapped.
“How have I been?!” he exclaimed incredulously. “You send me some enchanted object that binds me and Granger together for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and you’re ask me how have I been?! How do you think I've been?!”
“Good to know that you've been doing well, son,” Mr. Malfoy said as though he did not hear Draco’s exclamation.
Draco glared at his father. “Are you even listening?!” his voice rose a notch.
“Draco, keep your voice down,” Mr. Malfoy warned. “You might wake the portraits.”
Unbelievable. Un-bloody-believable, Draco thought. Here he was having the worse time of his life but Lucius Malfoy was more concerned about waking the portraits.
“Now, where’s my future daughter-in-law?” Mr. Malfoy asked in what appeared to be an eager voice.
Draco’s jaw seemed to drop to the ground, burrow itself through the earth’s core, and shoot out the other side of the planet. After a few long moments of gaping at his father, he finally got his face back together. “Did you just call Granger your future daughter-in-law?!” Draco asked, still staring at his father intently. “Have you gone out of your mind?!”
“Draco, that’s no way to””
All of a sudden, a piercing scream echoed through the common room, alarming Draco and interrupting Mr. Malfoy.
Draco looked around and saw Hermione facing him, screaming her lungs out while kneeling on the sofa. He quickly leapt over to her and clamped his hand over her mouth.
“Will you shut up, Granger? Wake the whole castle up, why don’t you?!” he said, highly infuriated.
“What is going on here?” Godric Gryffindor asked, his precious sleep obviously disturbed.
Both Hermione and Draco looked up at the Gryffindor founder and saw that his partner, Salazar Slytherin, was throwing them venomous looks.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” Draco said with a forced smile. “Granger here was just having a very bad dream. Weren’t you, Granger?”
Hermione frowned.
“Weren’t you, Granger?” Draco asked in a tone that suggested he wanted her to say yes regardless of what the actual answer was.
With Draco’s hand clamped over Hermione’s mouth, she nodded and waved at the portraits, attempting to smile.
“A bad dream, eh?” Salazar Slytherin said bitterly. “Well, I'm not taking anymore chances. I'm going to some other portrait to sleep.”
“I'm right behind you, Salazar,” Godric huffed.
Within seconds, the two founders vanished from their pictures.
Hermione pushed his hand away and stared at the fireplace. “Who in the name of Merlin is that?” she asked, thrusting a finger toward the fireplace. “Scared the life out of me seeing a head sticking out of the fireplace like that!”
“That’s my father,” Draco replied, sighing deeply. “I was trying to have a conversation with him until I was rudely interrupted.” He gave Hermione a reproachful stare.
Hermione looked in the direction of the fireplace again and squinted slightly. “Well, forgive me if your father looks so sinister and frightening from far,” she said acerbically.
“Now, now, that’s not a very nice way to talk to your father-in-law,” Mr. Malfoy said from the fireplace.
Hermione’s eyebrows shot up so high that they threatened to disappear in her curly brown hair. She stomped over to the fireplace with Draco and stared at Lucius Malfoy’s head. “Did I hear you correctly? Did you just say that you're my father-in-law?”
When Mr. Malfoy nodded, Hermione turned to Draco. “Has your father completely lost his mind?!”
Draco sighed, a gloomy look cast upon his face. “It appears so.”
“Come on daughter-in-law, there’s no need to get so worked up,” Mr. Malfoy said silkily. “I'm just trying to get used to the term.”
“Daughter-in-law?!” Hermione gawked unbelievingly at the head of the man in the fireplace. “I think I'm going to pass out.”
Draco steadied Hermione and made her sit on the armchair while he took a seat in the opposite one.
“I'm very pleased to see that you're taking good care of your future wife, Draco,” Mr. Malfoy said as he watched Draco steady Hermione.
“Firstly, I'm not taking care of her,” Draco shot back. “I just don’t want her passing out on me. Secondly, she’s not my future wife!”
“I second that!” Hermione said from the armchair.
“Come off it, you two,” Mr. Malfoy said with a bored expression on his pale face. “There’s no point arguing about that anymore.”
“Father, I assume that you received my letter,” Draco hastily said before his father had a chance to say anything else.
“Yes, I did receive it, Draco,” Mr. Malfoy replied with a look at his son. “A very long letter you know. Took me ages to read half of it,” he added sneeringly. “After that, I got so bored of your angst-filled teenage outburst that your mother suggested I see you personally to answer all your questions. So here I am son, to elucidate any queries you may have.”
Draco rolled his eyes. Trust his father to get bored reading a letter from his very own son. “First things first father, did you send this to us?” he asked, pointing at the Love-Knot.
“Draco, you cannot possibly be that dense. I thought you were smart enough to figure that out,” Mr. Malfoy said, a trace of amusement in his voice. “I'm surprised with you though, daughter-in-law. I was certain you would know right away.”
“I’m not your daughter-in-law! Stop calling me that!” Hermione cried, irritated with Mr. Malfoy’s behavior. “And just for your information, Malfoy and I did figure it out. I'm presuming he just wants to be sure that you indeed did send it, am I right, Malfoy?”
“Yes,” Draco said with a nod.
Mr. Malfoy gave a cold, forced chuckle. “How sweet to see that the two of you have started to agree on things. I'm delighted that you're finally making some progress, Draco.”
Draco and Hermione grimaced simultaneously.
“Why did you do this to us?!” Draco asked, his anger rising once more. “Do you know that I can’t do anything anymore?! No eating alone, no using the bathroom alone, no Quidditch!”
“You know fully well why I did it, Draco. You not being able to play Quidditch is the least of my concerns. It was the best solution I could think of after the Love Potion, Love spells and Love charms didn’t seem to work””
“Hold on a minute,” Hermione cut in. “What Love Potion, spells and charms?”
“I sent them to Draco,” Mr. Malfoy said dismissively, “but he said they failed because you were smart enough to figure them out before he had a chance to use them.” A look of puzzlement crossed Mr. Malfoy’ face. “Didn’t you notice Draco using them on you?”
Draco cursed under his breath when Hermione shook her head slowly.
“No?” Mr. Malfoy’s voice dropped a few notches and became increasingly menacing. “According to my dear son here, the first time I sent the Love Potion, you saw it and threw it away yourself.”
“I didn’t even see the bottle, so I couldn't have thrown it away,” Hermione said and Draco sank lower into his chair, cursing even more.
“Draco also said in a letter he sent me a few months back that you used charms to protect yourself from the Love spells and charms, that’s why they didn’t work,” Mr. Malfoy continued, slowly turning to his son and shooting draggers in his direction.
“I’ve heard of such counter-charms, but I've never used them on myself,” Hermione said with a shrug. She did not noticing that Draco seemed to be silently begging her to lie for him.
“Really now?” Mr. Malfoy asked, looking at his son maliciously. “So you didn’t do as I said then, Draco?”
Draco tried to put up a brave front. “That’s all in the past, father! Now, all I want is for this thing to come off!” He pulled at the Love-Knot.
"It’s NOT going to come off. It’s a perfect plan that even an incompetent fool such as yourself, Draco, cannot foil,” Mr. Malfoy seethed. “Eventually, the two of you have to agree to marriage whole-heartedly because there’s no other way around it.” He paused to glance from Hermione to Draco. “And I'm hoping it won’t take too long a time for you two to agree. I’m very keen on having you as my daughter-in-law as soon as possible, Hermione,” he added with a disturbing grin, his fury at Draco momentarily forgotten.
Hermione shuddered in her seat. She had just heard Lucius Malfoy use her first name and the word ‘daughter-in-law’ in the same sentence. She was not feeling too good about it.
“Anyways,” Mr. Malfoy continued, “your mother and I feel that it’s best you two consent to marriage before the end of the school year. We were thinking of having the wedding right after your N.E.W.Ts. Summer wedding, probably at the Malfoy Manor. Your mother has already started picking out the color scheme of the wedding, Draco.”
Hermione was pretty sure she was about to have either hyperventilation or a heart attack there and then and Draco looked like he was about to do the same. “Malfoy, your father’s already planning for our wedding!” she shrieked.
“Well of course daughter-in-law, there’s a lot to plan in a wedding, you know,” Mr. Malfoy said matter-of-factly.
Hermione winced. “Tell him to stop calling me, daughter-in-law, Malfoy!” she implored.
“Father, stop calling her daughter-in-law!” Draco told Mr. Malfoy, who appeared unfazed by Draco and Hermione’s anguish.
“Draco, I'm ashamed. You have yet to marry and you've already started obeying your future wife’s every command?” Mr. Malfoy said with a smirk.
“Father, she’s not going to be my future wife! She’s not your daughter-in-law, I'm not her husband, you're not her father-in-law and there’s most certainly not going to be a wedding! You and mother are planning a wedding that’s not going to take place!” Draco said, his face livid as he stared at his father disbelievingly. “We’re going to find a way to get rid of this Love-Knot some how or another because there’s no way either one of us are going to live with each other for the rest of our lives. This is like a big joke for you!”
“This is by no means a joke, Draco,” Mr. Malfoy said coolly. “This wedding will take place and I reiterate that there’s no other way the Love-Knot will come off unless it has accomplished its objective. It’s a win-win situation for me, you see. Don’t agree, the Love-Knot doesn’t come off and you stay this way forever. Agree and be wedded for life. I want this to go according to my plan, Draco. And you know that I’ll make sure it does,” he added in a whisper, his voice menacingly low.
Draco glared at his father hard, shooting daggers at Lucius Malfoy with his cold grey eyes. He inwardly swore that there was no way he was going to let his father’s plan succeed.
“It’s not going to happen,” Hermione said, voicing Draco’s thoughts. “It won’t happen.”
Mr. Malfoy let out an indifferent laugh, which made his face contort in a strange way. “We’ll see about that, Miss Granger. We’ll see.”
He leered at Draco and Hermione, who glowered back in response.
“Anyway, enough of serious talk. So now tell me Draco, have the two of you had any encounters?” Mr. Malfoy inquired with lazy smile.
“What do you mean by encounters?” Draco asked, befuddled by his father’s question.
“Well, you were mentioning something about not being able to go to the bathroom alone so I was wondering if the two of you””
Mr. Malfoy’s question was cut short by the strident and unanimous “YUCKS!” that escaped from Draco and Hermione’s lips and rang through the deserted common room.