All characters belong to JK Rowling

Summary: No one believed her. They branded her a fortunate hunter & a liar. She had to prove them all wrong, not for herself, but for him, and also to silence a deep rage inside her soul. She found she had a most unlikely champion. Lucius Malfoy was the last person she expected to fight in her corner, and believe her story. Having him believe her was a start. Having him beside her was something even more.

A Rage Deep Inside

by

AnneM

Chapter I: A Place to Start:

She walked into the abandoned, large mansion and she felt immediately ill at ease. Something wasn't right here. Something had been disturbed since she was last here. Of course, the last time she was here was over a year ago, and the house was still inhabited. A lot had changed since then.

She roamed through the large foyer, stared into the sitting room on her left, and then turned her head to the morning room on her right. She walked in there first. All of the furniture was covered with cloths, yet the place still seems musty and stale. She pulled the long, white cloth from the piano and sat down on the bench. She hit the center 'C'. It sounded out of tune.

He watched her from the corner of the room. Her senses were off, or she would have noticed him immediately. She looked so different, her appearance so altered. Gone was the vivacious, beautiful young woman who always appeared happy and full of life.

In her place was a pale, gaunt woman, with sunken, ashen eyes and a frown. A lot had happened in the last year to change not only the demeanor of the woman in front of him, but also her looks. For one thing, her future husband, his only son, died on the eve of their wedding, supposedly at her hand, if one was to believe the only witness.

Two, this woman was no longer happy. In fact, she radiated sadness, and even a certain amount of rage, which was to be expected, though not welcome. He cleared his throat so that she would know she was no longer alone.

She heard someone clear their throat, and she turned around on the circular stool, wand at the ready, other hand over her heart. "Lucius," she said as a greeting, placing her wand back in the pocket of her winter coat. She left the piano uncovered and walked past the man, back to the foyer.

"I heard you were being released today," he said.

She didn't respond. She walked down the hallway, and looked up the large, circular staircase. The chandelier, which was as large as some people's flats, was covered with so much dust and so many cobwebs that she wasn't sure any light would pass through, but she turned it on anyway. It hung high up on the second floor, in the middle of the massive, circular staircase. She turned to the right, to head toward the dining room, but instead, at the last moment, turned to head left, to the library.

Lucius followed.

"Where are all my books?" she asked, turning on the light as she entered this room. The shelves were almost empty.

He shrugged. "Perhaps they were put in storage."

She whipped around to him and said, "By whom? No one had any right to come into this house!"

"I beg your pardon, but this was my son's house too, so I had the right. I had the elves closed it up, when you went away. If I had known you were coming back here, well, if I had enough prior knowledge that you were coming back, I would have had them ready it for you again," he explained.

"It doesn't matter, I'm not staying here." She flicked off the lights, walked past him, and headed toward her original destination, the dining room.

"Are you looking for something?" he asked.

She had just stepped over the threshold, but she turned back to the man quickly and said, "Why are you here?"

"I came to welcome my daughter-in-law home. Was that wrong of me?" he asked, disdainfully.

"Our wedding didn't take place. I'm nothing to you, unless you consider me the murderer that everyone else considers me to be. Leave, now," she barked.

"You are in no position to tell me what to do, Daughter. If it wasn't for me, you would still be rotting away in that prison. Remember that." He turned from her quickly, his robes billowing out behind him. She ran behind him.

"I didn't ask for your help!" she argued. "I don't need anyone's help!"

"No?" he asked, turning on her so quickly that she took a step backwards. He pressed her against the wall, his body not quite touching hers, but very close. "The court system would beg to differ, since you have been put into my care, my dear. For all intents and purposes, I am all you have. I am the reason you're here! I'm the reason you aren't rotting away in Azkaban at this very moment! I'm all you have at the moment! Not a very welcoming thought, I realize, but there you have it."

"You don't have to worry about me. I'm not going to stay here, and I won't be your responsibility. I appreciate that you helped me get a temporary reprieve, but that means nothing." She walked past him, edging away from him, so that her back skimmed the wall.

He grabbed her arm. She looked down at his hand as it circled her wrist. "It means everything, my dear. Don't forget, you are at my mercy. You've been left in my care. You are free because of me! I won't let you go off on your own!"

"WHY?" she shouted. "Never mind! As soon as I find out who really killed your son, then I'll be free of you, free from all of this, and you'll never have to see me again." She dipped her head to her chest. "I'm so tired," she mumbled. She looked up at him. "I'm so very tired."

He reached out and rubbed his thumb under her eye, over the shadow that fell there. "I know," he said softly.

"Why do you believe me when no one else does?" she asked. Her head fell forward. "Even my friends thought I killed him."

He reached for her, holding her cheek in his hand. "You would never kill someone you loved, and I know without a doubt that you loved my son, as he told me he loved you. I also want to find out who killed him. Besides, not everyone thinks you killed him. You're free, aren't you? Others must believe you're innocent."

"My sentence was commuted to involuntary manslaughter, Lucius. That means that they still think I killed him. They think two hours before I was to marry the man, I raised a vase, hit my fiancée on the head, caused him to stagger backwards, where he hit his head on the marble mantle of the fireplace. The eyewitness said that I did it in the throes of anger. I claim I didn't do it all. I ran in the room after he was already on the ground." She began to sob. "The problem is the eyewitness testified under Veritiserum that his story was true, and I have a black hole in my memory regarding everything that happened from the moment I found Draco on the floor in his blood onward."

"It didn't help facts that the eyewitness was your former best friend, Ron Weasley, either," Lucius barked. "Or that your other supposed best friend, Harry Potter, believed him over you."

"What am I to do? I have to find out the truth!" she insisted. She clutched his robes in her hands.

"No, what you have to do is to put all of this behind you. You're free, you're out of prison, who cares why," he said. She looked at him incredulously, and then he smiled. "Did you believe any of that? Of course you have to find out the truth, and now that you're no longer in prison, you'll be able to do so, and you'll have me to help you, but we have to do this my way. Do you agree?"

She stared at him, wide eyed, confused. "Why are you helping me again?"

"To find the murderer of my son, and to put him in prison where he belongs, to avenge the wrong that was committed to you," he said slowly. There might be other reasons, but she didn't need to know them.

"Did you know that Draco was going to back out of our wedding at the last moment?" she asked. That was something she found out only after he was killed.

Unfortunately, that was some of the more damning evidence that was held against her at the trial, and that little tidbit happened to have been true. Lucius knew it at the time. He saw no reason to lie to her now. "Yes, he told me he was having second thoughts."

"But you still claim that he loved me?" she asked meagerly. She walked over and sat down at the long cherry table, resting her chin in her hand. "I wish he had told me."

"I think he must have changed his mind again, because I'm sure he would have told you before the wedding day if he had decided not to marry you. I'm certain of it." Lucius sat beside her. "My son was a tortured soul, I'm sorry to say. You helped him in many ways, but in many others, you were a constant reminder of his past and his sins. You knew he had many dark days."

She nodded. "I tried to help him."

"Sometimes a person can only help themselves," he answered.

"Did you ever think I killed him?" she asked. She needed to know.

"Does it matter?" he asked. He leaned away from her, and sighed.

She nodded. "It does to me. Please, tell me."

Hermione stared at the man whom she once hated. The man was pushing forty-five but didn't look a day over thirty-five. He was as handsome as ever, well groomed, tailored black robes, blonde hair perfect in every way. His face was handsome, sometimes cruel, but always handsome. He had been a widower for five years, and a man without a son for one. He gave her a slight shrug and said, "I blamed you at first. I hated you with a passion. Then, when they took his body away, and I saw you leaning over him, crying out for him, and I knew, you couldn't have done it. You didn't try to leave, or state your innocence, or beg for mercy.

"Your only concern, the entire time you were in custody with Potter and the other Aurors was for whether or not Draco was alive or dead. I watched from the other room, already knowing he was gone. I knew you were innocent. I still know it. Such passion isn't false."

He looked at her chocolate brown eyes and took her small hand in his. He felt sympathy for her, but he also felt something much more. He couldn't define what he felt. It was detached, and foreign, and perhaps forbidden. He wanted to help her, prove her innocence, help her find her son's killer, but more than anything, he WANTED her.

Merlin help him, or curse him forever, but he did. Lucius Malfoy wanted Hermione Granger in every conceivable way.