17. Chapter 17

I am so so sorry that this is late! I had some trouble getting in touch with my beta. I really hope the chapter makes up for the wait.

Last chapter, I hit 200 followers. MIND BLOWN. That is insanity. And it's all thanks to you guys. Keep up the amazingness.

Thanks for following, favouriting, reviewing, reading. You are great.

Tomorrow's my birthday! That's completely unrelated, but just though I'd mention it.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Harry Potter.

"What'd we miss?" asked Blaise again, glancing around at the situation in his office.

Draco shook his head, still chortling. "Nothing, mate, Weasley fell over." They didn't really need to know what had just happened.

Blaise rolled his eyes. "Well, now that you are all done with being children, we should figure how to proceed."

"Right, right," Draco nodded, finally getting a grip on himself. Merlin, he hadn't laughed like that in a while. The others in the office stood up, unfroze, or otherwise started paying attention.

"So, for now, what should we do with Hermione?" Blaise asked. The Gryffindor Princess in question looked up at him. She looked confused, to say the least.

"Well, don't I have a home I should get back to?" she questioned, slowly.

Draco didn't know. He wasn't particularly knowledgeable on that aspect of her life.

But Potter and Weasel were. Weasel was still huffing from the attempted punch, but Potter was paying attention. He shuffled, obviously uncomfortable. "Well…..no," Potter muttered not meeting her eyes.

Hermione cocked her eyebrow. "No? How can it be no?" Potter started to explain, but Weasel cut across him.

"Well Hermione," Weasel said quickly, Potter shooting him a glare. "You went to boarding school for seven years before disappearing, so that was your home for a long time, but now you're too old for that. Over the summers you stayed with your parents, but before the final war you erased your parents' memories and sent them off to Australia."

"Why I'd do that?" Hermione asked, dumbfounded.

"To protect them," Potter replied, admiration evident. Saint Potter obviously admired Hermione's selflessness.

"So my parents are gone?" Hermione asked quietly.

Potter seemed uncomfortable with the subject. "Well….yes," he replied slowly, as if testing the waters.

Hermione nodded, processing that information. She took a couple seconds, and finally made a conclusion. "So I have no place to stay," Hermione concluded sadly.

Draco Malfoy wasn't a sympathetic person. He never had been, and likely never would be. But as he looked at Hermione's downcast expression, he felt nothing but sympathy for the poor heroine. The look on her face struck him, deep in the gut. He felt terrible for her. Only a monster wouldn't.

Hermione's world had just turned upside down, again. Everything was new, nothing was the same. Or at least, she didn't know anything was the same. She was handling this fairly well, but no one could deny that her life had been ripped away from her, and now her fake life was being ripped away from her in a similar fashion. She had nothing to hold on to. She had no comfort to remind her of who she was. She probably barely knew who she was. All her ties to the world had been cut, and she needed those ties. Everyone needed ties. She needed familiarity, she needed friendship, she needed something to hold on to, she needed…"

"Me," he whispered. Only Hermione heard him. She caught his eye and a sort of understanding passed between them. She smiled, a sparkle twinkling in her eyes.

"Can I stay with you?" she asked, her big brown eyes warm.

That warmth spread through Draco just by looking in her eyes. He felt joyful and uplifted, so it was with a gleeful smile that he replied, "I'd be honoured."

The three Gryffindors in the room were shocked. Their jaws all dropped as they watched on the scene with disbelief. The Weasel went red and started stuttering incoherencies. Blaise just stood there, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, smirking slightly. Draco barely noticed. He was still smiling at Hermione.

"So, should we head there now?" Hermione asked, still smiling.

"You should definitely leave now," Blaise jumped in. "The sooner we get you out of here, the less chance someone will find you."

"We don't want people to find me?" Hermione asked, confused once again.

"Not now," Blaise stated. "We need a plan first, otherwise we're screwed." Hermione chuckled softly at Blaise's statement.

"You really want to stay with Malfoy?" the Weasel finally burst out. He had been steadily turning redder and had finally managed to turn his incoherencies into, well, coherencies.

Hermione turned to him, her eyes slightly annoyed. Draco became apprehensive immediately. Hermione, when she was annoyed, was frightening, but if her annoyance increased into anger, Weasel would be fried.

"Of course I do, Ron," she said shortly. Weasel was in dangerous waters. Everyone in the room took a step back, except Ginger. He was obviously too thick to notice. Draco leant against a wall, and bit down his lip to stop a chuckle from escaping. This was going to be hilarious.

"Hermione, you've hated him for years! He's done nothing but torture you, figuratively and literally! He is nothing but a horrible waste of a human flesh and bones! And frankly, I'm starting to think when your memory was taken away, so was your sanity!"

"Oh shit," Draco muttered softly. There was a line. Weasel had just crossed it, and Hermione was not very happy.

In all of Draco's years, he had never seen Hermione as she was right now. Not when she had punched him, not when the Inquisitorial squad had captured the DA. Not even when the library was closed for cleaning. She seemed to have gained several meters of height. Her eyes were blazing with fire, intensely suffocating the room. Draco found himself momentarily awed. She was a warrior in this moment. Magnificent and strong and beautiful. She could be an amazon. Hermione, the Gryffindor Warrior Princess. Quite a title, but Hermione deserved it.

The Weasel gulped. He had noticed his precarious situation.

"Draco Malfoy is my friend," she stated, her voice dangerous, her eyes blazing, her hair crackling with electricity. "He has been nothing but kind to me for the last few weeks. He has done things for me you wouldn't have done in a million years. If my sanity is lost while liking someone who has done nothing but help me, then I don't want to be sane!" she finished, with one final blaze of fire flourishing behind her eyes. Draco nodded appreciatively. Hermione had a temper on her. He liked it.

The Weasel looked stunned at Hermione's rage. He backed up a few meters, and shut his mouth. He shot Draco one last look of disgust and hate, before lowering his eyes to the ground. Draco smirked.

Blaise looked slightly amused, but just ignored it. He continued with the original conversation. "So, we should bring you over to Draco's now. You can set up there and we can figure out how to tell the world later."

Everyone nodded. Well, everyone except the Weasel, he was still staring at the floor. Blaise shot the ginger a look but continued once more. He was good at this ignoring thing.

"Should we apparate her?" Blaise asked, but Draco shook his head immediately.

"It's alright when she's unconscious, but it'll freak her out now. She might vomit her first time, I did," Draco chuckled, reminiscing on his first apparation trip. It had been terrible.

"What's apparation?" Hermione asked eagerly. Draco smiled at her fondly. It was endearing how fascinating Hermione found the magical world.

Endearing? Did he just use endearing to describe Hermione? Merlin, he felt like a complete softie.

"It's a type of travel, where you disappear into thin air and reappear somewhere else," Potter explained quickly. Hermione eyes widened in amazement. The word endearing popped back into Draco's mind. He smiled once more.

"But, it's hard to do, and even though you used to be able to do it, you forgot. So it'd be dangerous to take you," stated Blaise. Hermione nodded, though looking slightly disappointed.

"So we should travel using muggle means," Draco said. "We'll ease you into the magical world slowly. It's going to be a whirlwind."

Hermione snorted. "You say that like the whirlwind hasn't started already."

Blaise looked at them, snorting slightly to himself. "Well, if we're going to bring her to your house muggle style, we should get a cab. This means we have to walk through the entire ministry of magic to the visitor's entrance, without being spotted. Fantastic," he finished sarcastically.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Come on, Blaise. We've got this. Not that many people are here today, the majority took the day off because of the funeral."

Hermione looked astounded. "The majority took the day off because of my funeral?" Everyone nodded. Hermione smiled. "I must've been important."

"You still are," Draco whispered, more to himself than the others. No one heard him though. Thank Merlin.

"So," Blaise started once more. "We can probably just walk to the front, if we go in a group, and hide Hermione in the middle."

Draco stared at Blaise. "Or, you know, we could camouflage her. We are, you know, wizards."

Blaise blushed a tad, but stood his ground. "Yeah, we could do that." He turned to Hermione. "I'm going to dillusion you. I'll cast a spell that allows you to blend into the background. Feels a bit weird, but you'll get used to it." Hermione nodded eagerly. Blaise smiled and cast the spell over Hermione. She immediately blended into the background. You could see the outline of her figure for a moment. Draco stared. He hadn't noticed how curvaceous she was.

"This is amazing!" said her voice from somewhere near his shoulder height.

"Yes," Blaise nodded. "Now, everyone, stand around Hermione. We'll walk like this to the front, and then Draco and Hermione can head out in cab." The others nodded. Potter and Weasel glared, but did as they were told. Draco stood in front of Hermione, Potter and Weasel on her right, Weaslette on her left, and Blaise at the back.

They all headed out of the Blaise's office, into the auror office, then the elevators, and into the atrium. There was not a soul around. They got lucky. In areas that were usually overpopulated, there were, instead, tumbleweeds blowing through. Not a single soul was around. Draco was feeling very lucky, thanking the wizard gods. He was fully confident that this would work out.

Then they arrived at the atrium.

It was all downhill from there.

The atrium was completely full of people, which was saying something, since the atrium was huge. It was packed to the brim with witches, wizards, house elves, reporters, even a goblin or two. It seemed that everyone had come from the funeral. Draco recognized the majority of the people, some ministry employees, some old Hogwarts Alumni.

There were also many reporters there. Rita Skeeter was at the head of the group of pariahs. It astounded Draco that the bitch was still a reporter. She was horrible.

When the group protecting Hermione had walked out of the elevators, everyone seemed to turn in their direction. The large group seemed to be expecting them. The excitement level rose exceptionally and everyone started babbling. Draco turned around quickly, his heart pounding. Thank merlin, Hermione was still camouflaged.

"Mr. Potter!" The reporters yelled, running up to them. Their group suddenly stopped. They couldn't get to the door. There was a wall of reporters blocking them, then after that, another wall, consisting of almost every person in the entire wizarding world. Then, in the far distance, the door.

Great.

All the reporters in front were shouting various questions at them. Though the deafening noise lessened the ability to understand them, Draco understood the generalities. They were all asking about Hermione.

"Oi! Shut it!" roared Potter. The endless noise dialed down immediately. Potter breathed a sigh of relief and continued. "I have had a very hard day, so if my friends and I could pass please…..

"Mr. Potter!" cried a voice near the front. It belonged to a middle aged man in a suit, dark hair and a press batch. He had a notebook opened and a quick quotes quill poised to scribble. Potter sighed in defeat, (what a pushover), and nodded, giving the man permission to speak.

"Bill Crocket, Daily Prophet, sir," the reporter started. "As we are all aware, today was the service for the long missing war heroine, Hermione Granger. What motivated you to suddenly have the service, given that she has been missing for years?"

Potter shifted uncomfortably, but stood his ground. "Because I know Hermione Granger. She would not have wanted me to waste my life wasting after her. I love Hermione so much, and I will never truly let her go, but I suddenly realized that I had to start living again, because otherwise, Hermione would be so angry with me."

The quick quotes quill was going nuts on the page, as other reporters started to yell out questions. Draco shot a look at Harry, glaring at the ground in aggravation. The Saint obviously didn't like this sudden press conference. Now that he thought about it, Draco didn't like it much either.

"Mr. Potter!" shouted another voice, shriller than the other one. Draco quickly found the source of the squeak, a young twenty year old girl. It was a girl Draco would have dated in school, blonde, great body, vacant expression. It was a bimbo reporter.

"Ella Vacon, Witch Weekly," she smiled, batting her eyes slightly. Her attempt at flirting was horrifying because it was Potter she was attempting to flirt with. "As we are all aware, at the moment you are married to Ginny Weasley, another war heroine. However, my readers would like to know if you were ever involved with Hermione Granger?"

Draco couldn't help it, he burst out laughing. Everyone in the room glared at him, and even Hermione behind him whispered "shut up" in his ear. He couldn't help it though, it was so funny. Potter was the one who was always saying "loved her like a sister", and even in school their relationship screamed platonic. He didn't even know why he found it that funny, it was just so absurd. He managed to stop laughing, as Potter shot him another glare before answering.

"No, Hermione and I were never involved. I loved Hermione as a sister and she felt the same about me. There was never a time where I considered another option, it was always simple with Hermione. She is my sister. Plain and simple."

Throughout his answer, Weasel and Weaslette were also shooting Potter looks. Once Potter had finished, Draco saw Weasel inch closer to the camouflaged Hermione.

The bimbo nodded, still batting her eyelashes and scribbled down his answer. The reporters pounced again. Draco rolled his eyes and felt a wave of pity for Potter. It must suck to have to deal with all of the crazy press every second of the day.

"I have a question for Mr. Malfoy!" shouted a voice. Draco turned to the woman asking, raising an eyebrow. What could she possibly want ask him?

"Ferrara Eleanor, International Wizarding Times," she stated. She was a middle aged woman, decently attractive, but not flirty like the Witch Weekly bimbo. This reporter was a professional.

"It's been common knowledge that you and Hermione Granger never got along, but today, you gave a beautiful speech at her service. When and why did your opinion change?"

Good lord these reporters had no boundaries. Draco hated this. But, against his own will, he began to think of an answer.

He had no idea really, when or why his opinion of Hermione had changed. It had just happened. Over his time at Hogwarts, when he had thought of Hermione he hadn't been disgusted. He hadn't even realized it until all these years later. Now he cared about Hermione, no question. What was the trigger though? He couldn't answer that, but the reporter was still waiting.

Draco spoke softly, but he voice carried throughout the room. "My opinion of Hermione was always one of respect. I only noticed it when I stopped being such a moron."

Everyone chuckled, even the people standing up at the front with him. He could even hear a small twinkling laugh charming its way to his ear. He grinned. Hermione agreed.

Suddenly, a cold wind seemed to blow through the atrium. Draco felt a chill go down his back. The saying "someone walking over your grave" came to mind. He looked around for the source of the rush of cold air, when he felt Hermione's hand touch his shoulder. He looked at it. He almost passed out.

Her hand didn't blend in. The spell had worn off. She was visible once more, and everyone noticed.

The room had gone silent, as all eyes fell on Hermione. When Weasel had inched towards her, he accidently moved the wrong way, leaving a large gap in the group. Now, Hermione could be seen all throughout the room. No one said a word, as everyone stared in shock. Draco caught Hermione's eye. Fear filled her face.

"Bollocks," muttered Draco.

The room exploded. The reporters rushed forward, all snapping pictures and shouting randomly. The people at the back of the room stared forward in shock. Draco saw the reactions of all Hermione's old friends. Mother Weasley was crying, a smile spread across her face. Mcgonagall was completely white, her hand over her mouth. Seamus was gawking, and Luna was grinning as though she knew all along. Draco caught her eye, and she winked.

Potter rushed forward, trying to dispel the reporters, before Hermione was mobbed. She looked very frightened now, but she stood her ground. Draco smirked. That Gryffindor bravery truly was a part of her. Draco knew though, that if she was mobbed, she was screwed. Completely and utterly screwed.

He turned to her, and she mouthed HELP. Draco nodded. He grabbed her arm, and turned to the Weaslette, given that she was closest.

"I'll take her to Malfoy Manor, the wards are strong." The Weaslette nodded, understanding.

Draco tightened his grip on Hermione and said to her quickly, "this is going to be strange, just hold on tight." Hermione nodded, and hugged him, gripping him fiercely. Draco was momentarily distracted, but with his lack of wanting to be splinched, he regained focus. He gripped Hermione and apparated away from the incoming mob, the shocked old school mates, and the reality they would soon have to face. Right now though, Draco simply wanted to get away.

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