A/N: If you've come back for more, then a sincere thank you for that. I'd like to think that not all the chapters will be as short as this one, but I'm also not someone who likes a word count for the sake of a word count. Regardless, I hope you enjoy!

The Winter Swing

Chapter Three

It's a trick.

The voice, which sounded suspiciously like Ron, was back. In the depths of her mind, as she stared down her wand at Malfoy and his hands raised in surrender, Hermione heard the voice tell her that it was a trick, a con, a trap set to capture her while Ron and Harry were away. While she was all alone.

It's a trick.

The voice made sense. The voice spoke logically. The voice told the truth.

Didn't it?

"What do you want?" Hermione chanced, and she watched as his shoulders drooped, followed closely by a familiar-looking roll of his eyes.

"Just get on with it, will you?" he all but demanded, eyes returning to a look of wildness as they engaged with her own.

"Take me in."

"Why?" Hermione answered, her fingertips white where they held her wand in her shaking hand.

"Why now?"

His shoulder drooped further, and his arms fell to his sides, hands finding the pockets of his trousers with ease in a move he'd done hundreds of times before. Hermione flinched as she watched this.

Was this the part where he hexed and kidnapped her?

"Don't move," she warned, but he only looked at her with a bored expression.

"Granger, just take me to the ministry."

But it seemed far too easy. Too simple. Hermione had never been one to believe in simplicity; there was never a problem that could be solved just 'like that', and never a situation like this where there hadn't been consequences because of someone acting rashly and following a criminal's request. Hermione knew her options were limited.

The ministry had been looking for the Malfoys for weeks; Lucius was set for Azkaban when he was caught, likely that Narcissa would follow soon after, but as for Draco… he'd been there the night of Dumbledore's murder; he'd done nothing to help, nothing to stop the brutality of it all, and despite it all being part of the plan, despite the fact that Hermione knew that Dumbledore had chosen his own death… Malfoy hadn't. Malfoy had fully intended to slaughter the man that had protected them all for years.

Hermione's lip curled in disgust as she looked at him, and when Malfoy opened his mouth to speak again, Hermione silenced him with her wand. Briefly, he seemed appalled. It looked that words as harsh as she'd heard from him in the past were brewing, but he couldn't release them.

He stepped forward.

His hands came up in surrender again.

Before he took another step, Hermione waved her wand once more.

Malfoy collapsed, stunned, and Hermione was left to decide her next move.

When he awoke to a throbbing pain in his forehead, Draco didn't immediately understand where he was. Yet there was something familiar about the place, the smell reminiscent of somewhere he'd visited as a child, once, a very long time ago.

He turned his head to the right, discovered he was lying on an aged sofa full of holes, and then turned the other way. He found Hermione Granger sitting across from him, and beside her, the Minister of Magic.

Rising with some difficulty, Draco succeeded in sitting up, swinging his legs around, and facing them both. At the very least, Granger had had the decency to put him on the sofa instead of the floor.

"Miss Granger has convinced me there's no need for restraints," said Shacklebolt. His tone was cold and hard, but despite his stare boring into him, Draco turned his gaze instead on the muggle-born girl opposite him, who promptly looked away. She had his wand in her lap.

"She also tells me you're here to turn yourself in, which begs the question: what exactly should I punish you for?"

For a moment, Draco misread Shacklebolt's words and thought it a genuine question. But as the minister began to answer himself, Draco's confidence receded, and he was forced to listen to a rundown of his deeds in the far too near past.

"Perhaps for the attempted murder of Professor Albus Dumbledore during your sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Aiding and abetting death eaters, both in entering the castle, and then in their escape following that very murder? Or perhaps I should arrest you for kidnapping and torture. After all, Miss Granger's trauma at the hands of your aunt while you stood by and did nothing is news to no one in this room. In fact, given that you made no move to intervene, I would hold you as equally responsible for that trauma."

"Or perhaps, lastly, I should arrest you for your public display of support of Voldemort during the Battle of Hogwarts, wherein you abandoned friends, professors and the school that kept you safe for seven years, all in the name of power."

The silence that followed these suggestions was deafening. Draco fought hard against the bile rising in his throat.

"Please tell me, Mr Malfoy, which of these transgressions would you prefer me to try you for first? I daresay that each of them alone would earn you more than a life's sentence in Azkaban. Altogether, well… I couldn't possibly say."

Shacklebolt's eyes turned harder than before.

"The dementors are yet to be removed. I'm sure you would be a welcome addition to their prison."

Draco hadn't realised his hands were shaking until he was forced to sit on them to hide them from view. Granger had spotted his discomfort, but he couldn't read the expression on her face. Shacklebolt allowed the silence to engulf them this time; he made no attempt at hiding his dislike of Draco, who knew he deserved little else. But it didn't mean that he liked the way he was being looked at by the pair of them; Shacklebolt, his eyes cold and accusing and as though he was dreaming up ways to make Draco suffer. And then Granger. She wore an odd mixture of pity and hatred in her eyes, and Draco liked neither.

"I know what I've done," Draco said, unable to hide the disgust in his voice. Whether it pertained to himself or them, he didn't know.

"I'm not trying to run away from it. Why else would I be here?"

"That's what we'd like to find out," Granger said, and her soft voice broke the silence like a glass shattering.

"I've already told you," Draco bit back with more venom that intended. "I'm here to turn myself in; I'm here to answer for my crimes. All of them, everything I've done…" he spared a glance at Granger and noticed for the first time the scarf around her neck. He wondered if she used it to hide the cut the dagger had made.

And everything I didn't do, he finished to himself silently.

"Regardless of your true motivations, which are still in question make no mistake," Shacklebolt commandeered Draco's attentions once more.

"We feel that, though you deserve Azkaban, it is not the place where you'll be most useful."

Draco narrowed his eyes.

"While you are one of many still in hiding, we feel your place is not within the confines of a prison, but rather as a turncoat out in the open. In exchange for your freedom, we're prepared to offer you a deal."

"You want me to spy," Draco guessed. He chuckled mirthlessly; it was the first laugh in months, and it felt foreign in his chest despite its sarcastic nature.

"If I'm found out, I'll be dead anyway."

"Your safety isn't our priority." Granger said coldly. "But Harry's is, and so is the rest of the wizarding world. Until your death eater friends are all caught, none of us is safe."

Draco saw her hand touch her other forearm. He wondered if the wound was yet healed.

"They're not my friends," he challenged, eyes lifting from her arm to her face.

"But they are your family." She matched his poisonous tone with plenty of malice in her own.

"You have a decision to make, Mr. Malfoy," said Shacklebolt, rising from his seat. "And until its made, you'll not be leaving this house. You have twenty four hours.'

With that, he disappeared from the room. A low popping sound echoed throughout the house as he disapparated.

Draco's gaze was still on Granger, and he wondered why Shacklebolt had been so quick to leave them alone together if he suspected Draco's appearance had been a trap after all.

"I have the authority to kill you, if it comes to it,' Granger said, as plainly as if she'd told him the weather report for the following day.

"What happens to me after twenty four hours if I don't help you?" he spat, nose wrinkling as she stood up and appeared to move closer.

"Azkaban for the rest of your life," she told him easily, retrieving some clothes from under where she'd been sitting and throwing them at him. "Or death if you try to run."

No more than an hour later, Hermione received an owl from Ron as she sat alone in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. Her back to the hallway door, she read the letter quietly to herself.

Hermione,

Harry's settled in, but still not talking much. He's not even really talking to Ginny. We're all worried, but hoping he'll come through it soon. I think it was the best idea for me to bring him here, I just wish you were here too.

Let me know if you need anything and I'll come back.

Miss you.

Ron.

Her chest suddenly heavy with a lump, eyes threatening to stream with tears, Hermione tried to take a deep breath but a sob erupted instead. It was as though all those months had quite rightly begun to burst from her, the emotions she'd stowed for the sake Harry and Ron and the Weasleys; all people who'd lost so much more than her. She hadn't allowed herself to really cry for them all yet, all the ones they'd lost because of one man and his quest for power, and those who followed him.

A floorboard creaked, and Hermione whipped around in her seat.

She found Malfoy staring back, hands in his pockets, no doubt enjoying her in that state.

"What do you want?" she choked out, hands gripping for her wand.

When she found it, she aimed once again at his chest.

He didn't move.

"Now, now, Granger. We both know you only hex me when my back's turned."

"Get out!" she cried, standing from the seat and allowing the letter from Ron to fall to the floor.

Draco's eyes followed it down and it was as though he couldn't help himself.

"News from lover boy?"

She snarled at him, casting aside her wand and instead slapping every part of him she could reach.

"I hate you!" she cried louder, pounding on his chest.

"Then- in that, we-we are the- same," he replied with some effort, catching hold of her forearms to put a stop to her onslaught.

She wrenched herself free of him and stepped back.

"No!" she shouted, hair frizzing in wet curls where her tears had been caught in them, eyes wide and nostrils flaring.

"We are not the same. I hate you for everything you choose to be!" Her chest was heaving; she had never felt rage like it.

"You hate me," she advanced on him, a finger pointing at his face. "For everything I cannot change about myself." She paused to take a deep breath. The finger that was aiming at him was shaking, along with the rest of her.

"We will never be the same!"

With that, she shoved past him and made for the stairs, not caring to look back at him again.

How could she have agreed to this? To be confined with him and him alone, a man she loathed almost more than any other? That had stood by and allowed her torture, allowed her friends to be tortured and maimed. That had teased and bullied them all relentlessly for years.

The bedroom door slammed behind her, and disturbed dust danced around above the doorframe. Hermione threw herself onto the bed next to where Crookshanks lay. As she sobbed, the cat curled into her chest.

Alone in the kitchen, the echoing sounds of Granger's sobs filtering down to him, Draco had only one thought:

You'll never hate me as much as I hate myself.

There was only one way forward, that he knew.

He only hoped that when it was over, his mother would be able to forgive him.

A/N: Obviously, we all have different ideas of characters. These are mine, and I hope you can see why I see them in this way. Please leave feedback, it encourages progress and writing like nothing else! Em x