Dark Granger

Untitled Part 3

One of the guards was unlocking her wrists, pulling her from her thoughts. They led her to another bench and locked her down again. Clearly, whatever had gone on in the courtroom had been resolved.

Harry had probably won. He usually did. But then, Hermione grinned to herself, they might've just given him the win because they felt sorry for him. After all, the number of signs Harry had missed was appalling.

Her favorite example was about 2 months after Draco had become hers. She had already gotten who Draco decided held the most standing; Bellatrix Lestrange apparently. The pureblood had quickly become her puppet and she had sent her favorite blond doll out to get her several others in high standing. She hadn't had the Prime Minister yet; that was coming soon though.

They had been in the Gryffindor common room and she had just given Draco another well-deserved beating for talking back to her. Harry had been livid.

...

"They can't keep doing this to you!" He paced up and down the dorm room's brilliant red carpet. Ron eyed him from one of the large chairs, and Draco was curled up in a corner of the couch, head against the arms of it. It looked as if he were just exhausted, but Hermione had known it was so he could face her, keep her in his eye-line.

It was almost comical. Even if she had made a move, there was nothing he could do to stop her.

"I'm okay Harry," he snuggled closer to the couch. Maybe he really was exhausted; it had been a particularly brutal punishment. "You think a bunch of brutes is enough to scare me?"

Harry paused in his walking and sat on the couch next to him. "They terrify me," he said shortly, literally picking up the boy by his torso and laying him across his lap so he faced away from Hermione.

She watched him stiffen and felt her hand fall to her time turner. There were limits to every spell. The limit to her ritual was that she couldn't go outside the realm of possibility. For example, she couldn't tell Draco to turn into a cat and have him actually do it. He'd have to go through the difficult process of becoming an animagus and even then he might not become the right animal. As another example, one she had tested if she told him not to scream and then performed the Cruciatus Curse he would try to follow her command but wouldn't be able to keep from it. Everything had to be possible.

So while she had told him to act normal, he could only act as normal as he could physically. And while that was pretty good (he had pretended to be a muggle-hater for 2 years) there were moments not even he could hide.

Still, his body loosened as Harry began to pet his hair, fingers drifting over some of the many bruises she had enjoyed slapping into his cheeks.

"I hate that I can't protect you from this," Harry whispered.

"Bloody hero complex."

"Git."

Draco laughed, but even Ron raised his eyebrows at the pathetically fake sound. Harry paused in his stroking and Draco hissed at him.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked him. Both Draco and Hermione tensed at that and she watched his grey eyes flicker to hers before he smiled up at Harry.

"You're imagining things Chosen One. There's nothing wrong." He met Hermione's eyes and the smile turned to a blizzard. "I'm doing everything I want to."

"Mate," Ron said slowly. "Even I know something's up."

Draco sat up from Harry's lap and stared directly into Hermione's eyes. She smiled at the determination there.