This Is War

Clouds of Misery

He blinked the brown eyes he was borrowing, the jet of colored-light still spotting his vision. Before him Richard and Jean Granger were slumped against their chairs, eyes closed and their faces frozen white.

"Have you gone mad?" Draco muttered, shock drenching the voice he was using as he approached the table with cautious steps.

Lowering the quivering wand in between Malfoy's long fingers, Hermione could feel herself shake from the inside out. The heart she was lent was thumping wildly, bruising Malfoy's bones with her uncontrolled and frenzied emotions.

Draco turned back to the girl caught in his body. "What did you do, Granger?"

"They're just knocked out," Hermione replied in a broken murmur. "There's...There's something I need to fill you in on."

Malfoy glanced back at the muggles. "You're utterly insane, Granger, honestly." He could see her parents' chests rise and fall softly, clearly alive. "You could've been followed. My mother had warned me they were watching every person in the manor carefully. You could give yourself away."

"I didn't. I was-"

"Do you know the kind of danger you could put me in?"

"You're not in any, Malfoy. I made-"

"Unless I present them heads of muggles, my being here has no valid excuse. You're not going to be able to get yourself out of this one."

"No, there isn't a valid excuse, you're right. But I've-"

"The enchanted galleons, Granger, come on. There's a reason-"

"Would you shut up, Malfoy!" Hermione shrieked with his rough tone, finally having enough of his interruptions. "Don't you worry about how I got out. No one will suspect anything, I assure you. Now stay silent for a few minutes, you insufferable idiot, so I can tell you something important!"

Startled a little at the tone and volume she was taking with him, Draco narrowed eyes at the sight of his own silver ones, tightening one of Granger's palms into a fist. "All right, Brightest Witch of the Age, tell me why you're here. Tell me what possessed you to make such a stupid decision as to escape the manor to come to a muggle neighborhood."

She knew he was upset, that he was insulting her intelligence and questioning her actions, but none of that mattered. She would have another day to be angry with him, to fight back and curse his teeth in. This just wasn't the time or day or moment. "Follow me," she told him, turning on his heels.

Keeping her tiny handle clutched into a fist, Malfoy muttered something incoherent under his breath. He still hated her, he was certain. She was so damn aggravating that he couldn't tolerate her in her own body, let alone his own.

"I pity you, honestly, I do. Living with her must be a nightmare," he said to the unconscious bodies of her parents before following after her.

There couldn't be a reason for her being here, could there? The Order had said-from what he'd gathered in that short and blurring meeting-that Granger was supposed to go to her family's house and spend the holidays like the jolly muggles they were, right? Of course, this was Granger who he was referring to. What made him think the annoyingly irritating Bookworm was just going to stay inside his bedroom in Malfoy Manor like a good little witch and pretend to be him for a few days? Obviously he'd have to be off his rocker to assume she'd do anything for his benefit.

What was she thinking, he thought to himself in irritation as he saw the door of her bedroom was banged open, putting me on the line so she'd see her mummy and daddy?