"I can't believe..." Hermione almost said to herself.

Panting and freezing, she had not taken her coat with her lack of common sense when she stepped out onto the terrace.In all fairness, she wasn't expecting an impromptu run through the woods in the depths of winter either.

Well, at least her feet are warm, thanks to the boots.

Draco seemed to know where he was going, which was good, because Hermione felt like she had no clue about the ground beneath her feet, stumbling along.He didn't pull her away, as he used to do, but let her follow behind.

Several times, Hermione had to grab the robes behind him to keep up.

The trees were few and far between now, and she could just make out a garden path.They turned a corner, and suddenly a small ball of fur burst out of the darkness and hit Draco.

"Oh!" It was obviously a female voice.

Then came a spell that Hermione narrowly avoided, and it flew past the trees behind her, hitting a stone slab with a soft thud.

"Dodds?" she heard Draco say, "Put away your wand before you hurt someone."

This man is Dandis Dodds, a former Slytherin student nicknamed "The Tadpole".Lying on the ground next to him was a very beautiful young witch with long and straight black hair, and her whole body was properly wrapped in a woolen fur coat.

Hermione didn't recognize her right away, even though she looked familiar.

"Malfoy, is it really you?" said the shocked witch in a soft, husky voice.

Carmen Merry Fran, the name popped into Hermione's head, the little fourth year who used to follow Draco all over the school, but she was a lot older now.

Draco pulled Carmen to stand up: "What are you two doing here?"

"Talk," Dodds replied.

"Arguing," clarified Carmen, slapping the leaves off her expensive coat, which Hermione didn't want to guess how many dead animals it was made of: "We're getting engaged soon, and if you're wondering, Dodds is making the final s hard work."

"I don't want to know," Draco interrupted, "Did you see anything?"

"Well, we heard voices in the house and were going back to help," Dodds said.

"To help means to hide in the bushes and wait for the danger to pass," Carmen muttered.

"Are they after Potter?" Dodds asked.

"Not always?" Draco replied dryly.

Hermione folded her hands and mouthed the heater. It was so funny. Voldemort had been trying to finish Harry for more than ten years, and every new attack attempt would make her vigilant.Some thought she should let it go, and Harry apparently did.

Carmen looked in the direction of the manor anxiously: "How did they get in? Don't these old houses have unbreakable spells?"

"There should be," Draco replied coldly, "I'm not sure which one Pansy used."

"And, to plan such an attack..." Dodds mused. "A third of the people in the room work for the Ministry of Magic's Law Enforcement Division."

Draco was undoing the concealed tie of his robes: "It's better they're running after Potter, don't you think? Put this on," he instructed Hermione.

The clothes fell off his shoulders with a soft rustle, and Draco was wearing a fitted black jumper underneath.Hermione wanted to say no for her own sake, but there were more important things to worry about now.

Also, her fingers might be starting to turn blue.The clothes were draped over her body, but the light cashmere still carried his body temperature.This caught her attention, as if she was immediately surrounded by his breath.Hermione shuddered, trying to get rid of the overwhelming feeling.

"Focus, that's all we have to do," Draco said, waiting for the young couple to cease their uneasiness, and then looked straight at him together: "You two apparate to the Ministry of Magic and tell them what's going on here .” He explained slowly.

"What about her?" Dodds tilted his head towards Hermione: "She won't come with us?"

"Miss Granger insists on staying, so I won't bother her to follow you."

Hermione was glad she didn't have to argue with him: "When you meet the night guard, ask to see Rufus Scrimgeour. Arthur Weasley won't be there at this hour, and it would take too long to talk to him directly through the channel." Much time, but Scrimgeour is on order tonight."

Dodds' eyes widened, and he held Carmen's hand firmly: "Scremgeour, I see." He seemed relieved to be asked to leave with Carmen, but he soon became worried again: "Wait Wait, what are you going to do?"

He seemed to be asking Draco what he was going to do for the weekend, and Draco clearly didn't care.

"What do you think? I'm going to kick those goddamn uninvited guys out of my house."

Eighteen, no, there are twenty.

Twenty black-robed and masked Death Eaters were monitoring the two hundred disarmed guests and waiters.Twenty people is an adventure.Draco reckoned he could knock out nine or ten people in one go before being discovered, but the rest was too much for Hermione alone.

The fact that the two hundred captives behaved so submissively was probably because Potter wasn't among them.They must have held him hostage in another room as soon as the attack started.Harry's significance to the wizarding world made most of the Slytherins in this banquet hall refrain from attempting to fight the intruder.

For Harry, this is neither good news nor bad news.

Hermione forced herself to calm down, thanking God Ron wasn't here, which meant she had one less person to worry about.

Draco and Hermione were on the ceiling, sneaking back into the house through the library window.There was a trapdoor in the roof of the second living room, and it took them a few minutes to crawl through the narrow, cobwebbed, dank passage, eventually arriving at what Hermione guessed was the beams of the banquet hall.

The beams creaked, and Draco turned his head once or twice to remind her to be extra careful.Thanks to the cloth covering covering the ceiling, they were effectively kept from being discovered.Draco crept into the middle of the ballroom and carefully cut a hole in the fabric with his wand.

"Is everything okay?" Hermione asked anxiously.

He stared down. "Yeah, though I guess Longbottom got a bone-shattering spell or something for being clumsy..."

He took a minute or more to assess the situation, then slowly crawled back to her side.There was barely enough room to hide in the corner of the ceiling, and the two of them were nose-to-nose as soon as he came to her.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked, frowning.

He hesitated briefly: "This is carefully planned."

“How come you see?”

First of all, purely from the way the Death Eaters dress, Draco hasn't seen how much money they've spent on clothing and badges since the 1994 Quidditch World Cup.It was enough to bring the Dark Lord to tears with pride, and the dry cleaning bill alone might have been surprising, with their masks polished and polished.

In addition, there were no obese or dull people in this group. It can be surmised that these people are newly recruited and trained younger Death Eaters. Voldemort and Bellatrix must have spent a lot of money in the past few years. Energy to polish them.

Those numbers had to be subtracted from Hogwarts' Blaise Zabini, and of course Draco himself.

Not a single Death Eater in the banquet hall was interested in the question of the captives, they were all calm and silent, wands in hand waiting to move unless someone dared to challenge them.

Draco slapped his face when Ginny Weasley was pushed to the floor for demanding to see Potter.

"Intuition." That was all Draco explained.

Hermione's hands twisted her skirt, and she thought for a moment, "Do you have anything in your house that you can use?"

The question frustrates Draco: "If you had asked me eight years ago, the answer would have been yes. Now I don't know what Pansy would have put in place."

Unfortunately, fluffy stuffed elephants are hardly aggressive.

But Draco was sure that someone in the house probably had a small dark arsenal hidden under his bed, and certainly had, if he hadn't been caught.

The plan had to reach the other end of the room silently, and they left the banquet hall and climbed down from the ceiling as soon as they reached the second living room.

"Where are we going?" Hermione asked as Draco gently floated the trapdoor shut.

"kitchen."

They were going to find "Boris".

Nearly all the lights and candles in the hallway were extinguished, which probably meant that other Death Eaters had been sent to patrol the hallway, guarding the passage and catching any guests left alone.

They moved quietly and quickly, Draco was very familiar with the layout of his own home, and he had access to family portraits.

There was a huge portrait of Draco's great-grandfather in the south wing, only helpful when asked in French, and Hermione cast a faint fluorescent flare.

This is the portrait of Aramis Malfoy when he was approaching the age of 90. A gentleman with a masculine appearance and as white as silver was sitting astride a white war horse, shining in the wind with the unique style of the Malfoy family.He clings to a glowing sword, which now and then lights a banner, and Aramis, exasperated, is obliged to extinguish it.

It is a portrait in color, though a more apt description would be too vivid.

"Grandfather, did you see anyone passing by tonight?" Draco asked anxiously. (Translator's Note: The dialogue here is all in French)

Aramis was busy looking Hermione up and down, her eyes rested on her chest for an extra moment, and she folded her arms and gave the old man a careful look.

"Draco, well done! It's great to see you with a woman, Draco. I'm afraid you're going to be like your father, you're ready for a decent date, that's great "(Translator's Note: This paragraph is still in French, but it is the first time that Lucius's sexual orientation has been confirmed, professor, are you a wife...)

Hermione had always stumbled in French, but she understood this sentence enough that she bit her lip and kept her eyes on the carpet.

Draco was still asking patiently: "Did you see the masked man passing the corridor? This news is very important to me."

Aramis seemed interested: "Indeed, there was a masked man walking by not long ago, he looked very anxious, I thought it was a bit strange, but it's enough to have a girl here now, don't worry about it , think about her."

"Thank you," Draco finally said.

Hermione tugged at his sleeve: "I didn't hear the last sentence, did he see anyone?"

"Yes, so be careful."

They continued on, stopping next to Pansy's room.Draco thought the room was worth checking to see if Pansy had anything they could use.

His hand was about to touch the doorknob when a Death Eater suddenly appeared between them, and the mist of Apparition temporarily obscured Hermione's vision.

There was a flash of emerald green light, and Hermione immediately feared something worse.Her wand was roughly disarmed from her hand and dropped to the floor, and total darkness ensued, as her fluorescent flare was the only light in the narrow hallway.

"Run!" Draco yelled, and Hermione was pleased and comforted to hear his voice.

Yes, he'd be an idiot if he thought she'd listen to him.Hermione fumbled frantically across the floor and found her wand within seconds.

"Fluorescence!"

She hadn't been through such a hair-trigger fight since fifth year with Harry's mission at the Ministry of Magic.

"Stay where you are!" Draco ordered her.

Hermione just clung to the wall, trying her best not to get hit.This is not a school fight club, nor are they friendly practice spells whose purpose is either to kill or to injure.Hermione knew Harry and Ron had faced a life-and-death battle, but witnessing it up close still made her stomach churn.

Then the unknown Death Eater fired a spell that Hermione had never heard of, and suddenly she lost all sense of space and balance and was upside down.She clings to the wall and feels the hallway become a spinning tube.

Draco was unaffected, he blocked the effect of the spell.Hermione could see the force of the spell bounce off a visible defense on Draco's wand before his spell hit the Death Eater in the midsection.

The Death Eater flew backwards, hitting the wall hard.He started coughing, and the horrible dizziness stopped, just as Hermione was about to throw up.

Draco walked forward unhurriedly, bent down to pick up the Death Eater's wand, sighed artificially and snapped the wand off.

"I wonder who would be stupid enough to use my spell against me? Let me guess..." He gently lifted the mask of the cloaked Death Eater with his wand.

"Hello, Dominic," Draco started the conversation, dragging people up: "It's been a while, what are you doing here tonight?"

The Death Eater spat out a mouthful of blood: "The Dark Lord is angry, Malfoy, we're going to take everything you hold dear." He spoke with a thick Russian accent, and Hermione wondered if he was a successful young man from Durmstrang. recruits.

"So you start with Harry Potter? I don't want to break your fantasy, Dominic, but my socks are more precious than that four-eyed kid."

The Death Eater fell silent.

Draco laughed smugly: "You didn't know he was going to show up tonight, did you? Showing up at my party, my God, how funny. Did you see him wet his pants when he was in the banquet hall?"

"You can kill me, but you're still alone, Malfoy, and you can't save all your friends."

This was an attempt to treat death as home. In the past, Death Eaters always left room for bargaining when faced with the possibility of being arrested or killed. These newbies intended to be martyrs.

Draco hated these fanatical followers.

"Very well, so you agree to my killing you." He turned to Hermione for a show, "You heard, Granger, he said I could kill him."

The man obviously didn't want to just sit there and die, he drew a dagger from his cloak, the look on Hermione's face had warned Draco, and he kicked Dominic on the wrist.

The dagger hit the floor, and the desperate Death Eater rushed to retrieve it.

Draco took a step back and took out his wand, his intentions being clear whether the man's back was turned to him or not.

Hermione rushed in front of him, effectively putting herself between Draco and the Death Eaters, and when Draco looked at her, he didn't even have time to adjust the expression on his face, so Hermione faced a A strong-willed murderous face.

Hermione fell silent for a moment, Draco terrified her.

"Don't stand in front of me when I draw my wand," he whispered.

He could yell at her, his voice was like a slap in the face, and he was very, very angry when his actions were questioned.

Hermione wanted to persuade Draco: ""You can't kill him in such cold blood.

Dominic realized that his life was hanging in the balance, and when Draco lowered his wand and aimed at him again, he looked as if he was going to catch Hermione.

"Death, or an ugly death," he hissed, and Dominic flinched.

Hermione still stood there: "You just need to knock him out!"

Draco spoke menacingly again, and he didn't have to move an inch for Hermione to feel his gaze pinned to the wall.

"You should know he could have killed us without hesitation, and you can bet he could have been more brutal. Damn, Hermione! Luckily the first Avada didn't kill us! We didn't know that How many other Death Eaters are roaming around the house, knocking him out or just letting him go means we risk his fellows finding him, then he can tell them who we are and how many of us there are .Now you're wasting my time and risking Potter's life."

Waste of his time, she noted, was not hers.He was reminding her that she was the weaker of the two.He was the one who took care of things, he wasn't the boy who was shaking and couldn't hold his wand five years ago because he had killed a Death Eater by mistake.

They ended up tying Dominic up and stuffing him in a utility room.If the man was grateful for having survived, he wasn't showing it.

"Don't question me anymore," Draco said after he was done.

Hermione wasn't frightened by him: "Prevention is no reason for murder, Draco."

He turned abruptly to face him, allowing Hermione to slam her head into his chest.

"So you think I'm a cold-blooded killer, right? Then you must have read that investigative report?" he sneered.

She found that her poor opinion really bothered him, and Hermione felt a slight nervousness, but it was suppressed by a determination to reassure him that she wasn't very good at being someone who would mean to hurt someone.

"No, I haven't read it." She couldn't meet his eyes.

Hermione's emotions overwhelmed her reason, and Draco must have made terrible and obviously wrong assumptions in his head, because he suddenly looked very hurt, (Translator's Note: Draco should feel that Hermione didn't care about him at all I didn't read the report...) Even my voice became weak.

"You think it's a five-year anniversary, don't you?" He narrowed those fabulous eyes: "You know where I've been: wallowing in self-pity in the goddamn rainforest, riding camels in the dry desert , playing Oro on a particularly boring day. How lucky I am to have the reformed Bellatrix Lestrange. What fun my school year off is supposed to be. Damn, I I miss the days when I got a tan."

"Shut up! I know it was hell! Harry told me all about it." A tear slipped: "I'm sorry for what you're suffering," she added softly, "I'm sorry I haven't read that Report, I don't know why I haven't..."

It was a lie, and she knew why she didn't want to read it, because then she might evoke sympathy and pity for his experience.

He looked like he wanted to grab her and shake her hard.Hermione resisted the urge to take a step back, she couldn't remember Draco being that angry with her.

But then Draco shook his head, walked away, stopped, turned around, and walked back.

"Granger," he said, "you only think this because I still love you, and I'm sorry I hurt you, because you can turn me into an ordinary man with a flick of your finger? My Meaning, why bother? You didn't even want me back."

"I..." She wanted to speak.

"Don't cry," Draco cut her off sharply, not entirely heartlessly, looking down at his hands now, looking only a little tired and bored: "If you don't really mean to regret it, don't cry. ’ He pulled himself together: “We have to go.”

Yes, she silently agreed, even if she wished she could admit that she regretted it more than the rescue mission at hand.

The author has something to say:

To love someone is to love him no matter what he has become. Draco has become a mature warrior who has experienced many battles. Hermione is at a loss for this. When she can accept Draco like this, she will mature No, it’s not the know-it-all in the ivory tower. A life without experiencing brutal battles is not a complete life.

Lu Dae's orientation has finally been finalized, the portrait of Malfoy's family is so gossip.

I speed up the pace and strive for a Christmas dinner as a present.

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