The boy in the hammock

Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Depressing, but true.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Later that day, Lucius came back from the manor and found Draco curled up around Hermione on the bed.

"Son? May I come in?"

Draco nodded, not lifting his eyes from Hermione's face.

"How's the manor?" Draco said, his voice rough from lack of use.

"It's seen better days, but the repairs are going well. You're a powerful wizard, son. Your wild magic completely demolished the main hall."

Draco glanced up at his father to find him smirking. Well, at least he wasn't angry.

"I don't remember doing that," Draco said. He didn't remember much of anything after Hermione was hit. Nothing except for that terrible throbbing on his ring finger.

"You wouldn't. You were, like myself, a little overcome."

Draco managed to smirk at that.

"I heard about your rampage with Harry and Ron."

Lucius snorted.

"Yes, well, those boys can be quite vicious when given the proper motivation. Your fiance seems to inspire strong emotions in those around her."

That's certainly true, thought Draco. All-consuming love, for example.

"Speaking of your fiance, son, I came to tell you that the house elves found something rather curious in the library."

Draco raised his head from the pillow, puzzled. His father was smirking again. It was good to see such a familiar expression on his face, but it seemed out of place, given the circumstances.

"Oh?"

"It appears Hermione landed there when everyone apparated, and ran into Mulciber."

Draco shuddered. Even when he had been in Voldemort's service, Mulciber gave him the creeps. The man was huge, hulking, violent and always opted to traumatize his victims with rape before moving on to more traditional forms of torture. He was a sick, vile excuse for a man.

That fact knocked the wind out of him.

"You don't mean to say he - "

"No no," said Lucius, waving off his concern. "Our little firestarter didn't even let him get past the bragging stage, it seems. She feigned injury, and when he made his usual threat of rape, she paralyzed him and rendered him impotent with a spell of her own invention."

Draco barked out a laugh. The sound was alien to him now, but it felt good to do something other than let his heart fall apart. That was the Hermione he was longing for. She was the fiercest witch he'd ever met, rivalled only by his mother.

The Malfoy family had a monopoly on fierce witches, it seemed.

"He's a whimpering mess," Lucius continued, the beginnings of a sneer on his face. "Keeps going on about how he was emasculated by a... Muggle-born." Draco was quite sure Mulciber did not use that word to describe Hermione.

"Regardless, he'll be put on trial and locked up. The public will have one Death Eater to persecute after all. With our family being pardoned, and with the death of... Oh... Sixty or so Death Eaters in the name of non-traditional justice - Draco snorted at his father's euphemism for the enthusiastic slaughter of his former colleagues - I think the Ministry was getting worried that they wouldn't have anyone alive left to blame. Mulciber will serve a purpose after all."