The Price of Harry Potter

Chapter Six: Damocles

Hermione couldn't sleep that night. In the past she had lain awake on Christmas Eves wanting to sleep because the sooner she did, the sooner she could wake and the sooner it would be Christmas Day. This year was different. This year she didn't want to sleep; she didn't want it to be Christmas. The idea of facing Christmas without her family, without the Weasleys, without happiness, was more than she could bear.

Maybe it won't be entirely devoid of happiness... a treacherous part of her whispered, remembering Draco's eyes on her and her unexpected reaction.

It will, she convinced herself. Christmas at the Malfoys! I never thought that I would see that!

Maybe sleep was a good idea, if it removed thoughts and allowed the hours to pass. I will survive this. Christmas will be over this time tomorrow, she told herself.

And it will be one day closer to New Year's Eve.

Come sleep and welcome...

But slumber remained elusive and painful thoughts continued searing themselves through Hermione's guilty mind. Betrayer...

You could spend Christmas with Harry, but you chose to go to his arch enemy and promise his life away.

I severed my ties with Harry months ago! When he did nothing to save my family... my friends... when they died in Voldemort's attempt to kill Harry!

Is his life not worth the nine that I will get in return? One life for nine?

But THAT life...

Oh Harry!

* * *

When she opened her eyes it was Christmas. But that wasn't the first thing that her mind registered. Hanging from the ceiling, point downwards, facing her, focussed on her, was a long, black sword.

She probably screamed. Her mind was so blank that it was difficult to be sure. Draco's voice told her not to panic, but how could she not panic when someone was trying to kill her, when someone was standing over her with a sword, a sword made of night, made of evil, made of pain, black, black, black...

"Hermione! Hermione!"

Her breathing slowed.

Her hands clutched convulsively on the hands that held hers, the sword retreated.

"Hermione!"

"Draco?"

"Are you okay?"

"What the hell was that?"

"What?"

"The sword! What? Why?"

"Oh, that?"

"Yes that! What else?"

"Oh, I don't know. It could have been anything. It could have been your reaction to waking to find me at the end of your bed."

"I didn't know that you were... Oh, just give me a straight answer!"

"It's a sword. As you so astutely noted. In fact, it's the sword. And I thought that you might like it for Christmas."

Hermione blinked. "Go away. I want to sleep and I want to wake up again and I want you to be gone when I do. And I want Christmas to be over."

He didn't go. In fact he came closer, sitting on the side of the bed, resting his hand on her bare arm. She snatched her arm away as if his tough burned.

"Hey, I didn't mean to scare you. It was meant to be a joke."

"A joke? How would you like to wake up face to point with a sword?"

He quirked an eyebrow. She seethed at the idea that he could make an innuendo at the expense of her fury. "That sword!"

He smiled. "Actually, I know exactly what it feels like. I woke up on Christmas morning two years ago eye to point with that very sword."

She felt slightly put out, but then he admitted that he too had screamed. Normality, such as it was, was starting to flood back to Hermione. Her ears were ringing, and she was suddenly aware that she was sitting in a rather revealing nightdress in her bed in the presence of Draco Malfoy. She meant to scream at him to leave. She meant to grab the sword, which was now resting against her bedside table, and fling it at him. She really meant to. But what came out was a rather teasing, 'Oh, so you gave me an unwanted present from two years ago?' That's not what I wanted to say!

"Actually, yeah. But it was my father's idea. It is the sword of initiation - offered to potential students of the True Art."

"The Dark Arts."

"As you will."

She rose from her bed, hurriedly wrapping herself in her robe and clutching it shut across her body, but not before she saw Draco's eyes race up her body, assessing, judging.

"An offer of initiation. An offer to me?"

"How many other sexy brunettes are there in here?"

Her look was daggers and he retreated, hands raised in surrender, but a smirk on his handsome face.

"You don't have to accept. You don't even have to think about it yet. Just... if you want then you can be initiated on New Year's Eve."

"Oh yes, New Year's Eve. The day I betray my best friend."

"Oh stop being so melodramatic. You made a choice."

She sighed, "Yes, I did."

* * *

They had gone to church in the morning, an experience that Hermione had never believed possible. Narcissa in a grey fur coat over a midnight green skirt and Lucius in a black suit chatting amiably with the parson; donating money to the charity box, smiling at cherubic children and singing their lungs bare during the carols. Angelic as the three Malfoys looked with their golden hair so pale that it was almost silver, their beautiful eyes, their chiselled cheekbones, Hermione could not prevent the shiver that ran down her spine as the service ended.

Oh come all ye faithful,

Joyful and triumphant,

resonated Lucius's voice beside her, clear genetic evidence of where Draco had got his musical ability. Faithful to who? she couldn't help thinking. Triumphant....

Lunch was pleasant, an unusual occurrence. Lucius was drinking sherry and his merriness was infectious. Hermione couldn't believe that she was enjoying herself. House elves made this delicious food, she told herself. These people are evil. Death, destruction, dark arts, remember? They even want you to join them. Why are you laughing at his jokes? They aren't even funny.

* * *

After lunch Draco and Hermione went for a walk in the snow. The sky was flaming red with icy clouds low over the fields. The snow bled the colour from the landscape, leaving everything shades of black, white and grey under the wounded sky. The air was cold and white ghosts of warm, moist breath floated away from her every time Hermione opened her mouth.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Away from the house. Somewhere. Where do you want to go?"

"Draco?"

"Yes,"

What am I trying to say?

"That whole sword thing..."

"Oh," he sighed, running a mittened hand through his blond fringe. "Forget it for now. It doesn't matter. It was a stupid, inconsiderate idea."

They walked in silence. "Draco?"

"What?"

"Where are we going?"

He smiled in exasperation and she found herself smiling too.

"My tree house," he replied.

He has a tree house? What - like a ten year old? Now that I did not expect. The boy is full of surprises. She looked at him from underneath her eyelashes, but he was looking the other way, his eyes focussed on something she couldn't see.

So they walked in silence. Her charmed boots kept her toes warm, but Hermione's nose and ears were beginning to feel numb. Luckily there had been no new snowfall and so what remained was starting to harden and was not too difficult to walk through. They were walking in the direction of the field with the ponies, but before the animals came into sight, Draco veered left and broke a new path through the trees. Hermione followed, slightly irritated at his inconsiderateness in letting the frozen branches fly back into place behind him so that she continually had to duck to avoid being hit in the face of splattered with a load of snow that came soaring off a branch. But then, it was Draco Malfoy. When had he ever been considerate?

Hermione was beginning to think that this wasn't a good idea, when Draco stopped abruptly and she walked right into his back.

"Here," he stated.

She looked around. Where exactly?

"Um, Draco, I don't see..."

"Of course you don't. It's enchanted." She was going to ask why, but didn't bother, figuring that he would tell her anyway. She was right. "I need a private place. Somewhere nobody else ever comes," he continued. "The house is always busy, filled with servants and my parents' friends. I need somewhere to get away from it all."

Oh, so he is human! Somehow this was reassuring.

"So I come here," and with a wave of his wand the outline of a door was traced onto one of the oaks. He pushed at the bark which opened inwards. When he said treehouse... Hermione followed him, the door just tall enough for her to pass through without stooping, and then climbed the circular staircase on the inside. She entered a room on the inside of the tree with dimensions far greater than those of the outside of the tree. But Hermione was used to this by now, she barely registered the fact. She was too busy looking around the room in wonder.

The floor and walls and ceiling were wood, but not boards or panels, they were the living, breathing wood of the oak tree, tinged green with sap and life. Three irregular shaped windows, formed by the growth of the tree, were glazed with glass the palest green casting a light which bathed the whole interior with a viridian glow. A long, cushioned bench draped with velvet in deepest, midnight green curved along one wall, opposite the windows, the legs and arms made of twisted, growing wood. Beside it stood a cupboard and a table, and piles of soft cushions and pillows were scattered across the floor, all in shades of green and silver. It crossed Hermione's mind that Draco would have had to alter his entire taste and décor had he been sorted into another house. Of course, that could never have even been an option.

The master of the lair was sprawled across the bench where he had flung himself on entering, one booted, black leg dangling languorously to the floor. "Don't just stand there, come in," he addressed her.