Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1
THE OATH
The pendulum clock leaning against the wall struck the eighteenth hour when the man in grey stopped talking.
Draco’s eyes were peering outside the stained glass window, looking at the endless sea of heavy concrete of London’s suburbs.
The walls of the high-rise in front of the flat he was in was covered from the bottom to the top with a few of the slogans of The Party.
REMEMBER YOUR PLACE
THE PARTY KNOWS WHAT IS BEST
HIERARCHY IS FREEDOM
Bright crimson letters that beckoned against the silver grey.
Crimson like the colour of those who were worthy to reign over that peace. But although Draco’s clothes shone the darkest shade of red, peace was a foreign feeling to him.
“What does it mean you have nothing?”
The question erupted out of Draco’s mouth in a menacing threat that made his lips quiver as he redirected his attention towards the Commoner. Even though he had not raised his voice, the man dressed in grey lost several shades of colour in his face.
He swallowed.
“I’m sorry, my Lord.”
His tone was shaking.
His eyes agape in fear.
“I don’t know what to do with your excuses, Fletcher,” replied Draco.
Mundungus Fletcher’s breath turned uneven. He knew that disappointing a Malfoy might easily become the last action he made on Earth.
“I tried, my Lord. I followed him everywhere, never lost him-”
“And yet you came to me bare handed,” Draco bluntly cut him off. “Not even the smallest information I could use. I paid you for nothing.”
A shiver shook Fletcher.
“I…I saw him at The Red Ribbon again.”
Draco arched an eyebrow. “Does he have a favorita now?”
If he had, perhaps not everything was lost. Although it would not be an easy task to get close to his favorita and find a way to bypass the Secrecy Whisper, that would be a lead to follow.
It would be better than the nothing he had.
“No.”
Draco narrowed his eyes at Fletcher, his mouth twisted in scornful.
“Then you have nothing.”
He took the wand out from the holster and aimed it at Fletcher, who raised his hands to shelter himself.
“My Lord, pl-”
“Stupefy.”
The spell hit Fletcher in the middle of his chest and sent him straight to the wall beside him. Draco sent his gaze wandering about the narrow kitchen until he found the cabinet where the Commoner kept the booze.
He waved the wand to open the cabinet and summoned the bottle of Giant’s Rum. He cast several spells to uncork it and vanish most of the liqueur inside. Although the remains were less than two fingers, the strong smell forced him to scrunch his nose up.
He hovered the rum close to Fletcher’s unconscious body and poured the rest of the liqueur over the Commoner’s parted lips. Most of the liquid fell on his chin and on his chest, soaking the fabric of his shirt.
Draco let the bottle fall on Fletcher’s lap.
“Pathetic,” he murmured before pointing his wand at the unconscious wizard. “Obliviate.”
Judging he had wasted more than enough time in Fletcher’s disgusting pigsty, Draco apparated in the entry hall of Malfoy Manor.
It had been a waste of fifteen days and several Galleons. Although Malfoys most certainly were not lacking golds, Draco despised losing it for nothing.
Father would not be pleased.
“Welcome home, Master Draco.”
He looked down at the house-elf and quickly removed his blood-red coat.
“Are my parents home, Wolby?”
Wolby stuck a finger in the air, stopping the coat from falling.
“Yes, Master. Master Lucius and Mistress Narcissa are waiting for you in the dining room.”
Shite .
Draco crossed the corridors in hasty steps.
“...not a tragedy, Cissy.”
Lady Malfoy uttered a disapproving sound loud enough to echo outside.
“You’d speak differently if you had to instruct another silly girl into doing your hair.”
“I’m sure you will do a wonderful job again.”
“That’s not the point, Lucius,” replied Lady Malfoy. “These girls are one stupider than the other.”
“We are talking about Unworthies, dear. What do you expect?”
“I expect not to have to change a maid every two years at best. The Department of Use should locate them as soon as they finish school.”
“I promise it will be my first amendment when I become Great President,” said Draco as he entered the dining room.
The table was already set, Lord Malfoy sitting at the head and Lady Malfoy at his left.
“Good evening,” Draco greeted them.
While his mother smiled at him, the expression on his father’s face was as cold as ice.
“Draco, darling. You are late.”
He pecked his mother on the cheek and moved to the opposite side of the table.
“I’m sorry, Mother.”
Lord Malfoy’s eyes did not leave him as Draco sat.
“Do you have any news?”
The youngest Malfoy swallowed.
“No.”
His father’s nostrils flared, silver gaze flashing in disappointment and anger.
“Nothing. How can you have nothing ?”
The last word was imbued with all the disdain the Malfoy patriarch could muster.
“I’ll soon have something, Father,” Draco muttered under his breath,making an effort not to grit his teeth.
“This is not the first time I hear these words, Draco,” his father spat at him with venom on his tongue. “Do I need to remind you what’s at stake?”
“I know exactly what is at stake, Father.”
Lord Malfoy bent forward on the table and glared at him.
“Then why do you still have nothing on Theodore Nott?”
Draco mirrored the same look of his father. Truth was he was as angry and disappointed as Lord Malfoy was, frustrated by the continuous attempts to discover an inconvenient truth on his rival. He needed a bomb to explode in Theodore Nott’s hand to kick him out of the political stage.
With Nott out of the games there would only be a suitable name, only one wizard that could replace Great President Grindelwald.
Draco Lucius Malfoy.
As the richest family in the wizarding world and with a member as Great President, the Malfoys would become unstoppable.
The Notts were the primary rivals of the Malfoys, the two most prominent families of Worthies. If Nott won, he would destroy Draco and that would lead to the downfall of the Malfoys.
And that could simply not happen.
“Theodore has always been cautious,” said Draco. His words were followed by a mirthless huff from Lord Malfoy.
“Are you giving up on our family future?”
“Of course not. I would never.”
“Then what-”
“Enough.”
Both men’s eyes darted on Lady Malfoy, whose severe gaze travelled from her husband to her son.
“Enough with politics. Now we are going to have dinner.”
Without waiting for an answer, Lady Malfoy snapped her fingers. The Salmon Meunière appeared before them, alongside bread, boiled potato and a bottle of Superior White.
For five minutes the only sound echoing in the room was that of the cutlery tickling. Draco was glad for the silence, for it gave him space and time to think about his next move.
He had counted on Fletcher’s abilities, but his faith had been misplaced.
He needed someone on the inside.
Someone that was close to Nott.
Someone that Nott trusted.
Someone that would enter Nott Manor and discover Theodore’s secrets.
What Draco needed was someone who did not exist.
Dinner was a quiet affair after which the Malfoys retired to the drawing room, where they all resumed the discussion Lady Malfoy had halted.
“How is it possible that we have nothing on Theodore?” Lord Malfoy mused aloud as he decanted the Firewhiskey.
“Fletcher’s leads led to no valuable information,” said Draco. His hands were clenched around the crystal tumbler, silver eyes studying the amber liqueur inside.
“That’s because Mundungus Fletcher is an incompetent you should have never trusted.”
His father brought his drink to his mouth but did not drink it.
“You obliviated him, didn’t you?”
Draco snorted.
“Of course I obliviated him, Father. I’m not the fool you believe me to be.”
“Your father doesn’t think you are a fool, darling,” intervened his mother in the same cooing voice she had used when Draco had been a child. “Wasn’t this Fletcher the one who found out about the Greengrass youngest daughter affair with that Unworthy?”
He was.
Paid by no one less than Lord Crabbe, Fletcher had sent Colin Creevey to the gallows with the vile and preposterous accusation of having raped a Worthy witch.
Said Worthy witch had later been married to the Crabbe family for the scantest sum to be raped by her Worthy husband to spawn heirs.
“Yes,” answered Draco bluntly.
“Then there must be something he found out about Theodore Nott,” his mother concluded.
The youngest Malfoy licked his gums. “Only that he is an aficionado of The Red Ribbon. But apparently he has no favorita and, even if he had, there is no way to bypass the Secrecy Whisper.”
Lady Malfoy set her tumbler down on the small table before her couch, her blue eyes locked on her son.
“What if there were?” She inquired.
“There is not,” replied Draco. “Once a witch is employed at The Red Ribbon there is no manners to get to her.”
“And if this girl was not at The Red Ribbon yet?”
Lord Malfoy was distracted from his drink, an eyebrow elegantly arched up at his wife’s direction. Draco followed him and looked at his mother with a frown.
“Are you talking about infiltrating the Department of Use?” Asked Draco.
Although it would theoretically work, it would not be an easy task. On the contrary, it would be terrifically risky.
He would have to cast the Imperius Curse on one of the employees, have them send him a note with the name of the girl the second the Department repositioned her at The Red Ribbon. Then he would have to find said girl and…and then what?
The Imperius Curse would not work. The Red Ribbon checked with extreme scrupulous signs of possible tampering with the girls destined to work there.
An Unbreakable Vow might be the right path to follow, yet Draco was reluctant to bound his vow to some obscure Unworthy.
Not to mention that there was no factual reason to believe Theodore might be attracted to her.
“My maid has been relocated to The Red Ribbon.”
Lady Malfoy’s statement dragged Draco out of the spiral of thoughts he had descended into.
“When will they come to take her?” Lord Malfoy inquired.
“Tomorrow at eight in the morning,” came the witch's prompt reply.
Lucius’s eyes became unfocused, probably lost in the same machinations which had twisted and turned Draco’s mind.
“It would change nothing,” the youngest Malfoy started off, bending forward on his armchair. “Theodore might not find her attractive. And, even if he does, I doubt your maid is tempting enough to make Theodore welcome her into his house. Especially now.”
Lady Malfoy addressed Draco with an intense look.
“She will become more than just tempting if we teach her,” said she in a conspiratorial voice.
Lord Malfoy frowned. “Teach her what ?”
“Everything. Etiquette, style, dancing.”
It was Draco’s turn to snort. “Do you want to turn the maid into the witch who would tempt Theodore Nott in less than twelve hours?”
“Don’t be silly, darling,” Lady Malfoy replied. “We need a month.”
Draco sighed. “We don’t have a month, Mother. You said they will take her to The Red Ribbon first thing in the morning.”
“They will, but she will be back here the very same day if you claim her as your favorita .”
He exchanged a quick glimpse with his father who appeared to be as befuddled as he was from Lady Malfoy’s proposal.
“You can’t be serious,” whispered Draco.
“I am. We would keep her here and that would give us time to properly instruct her,” was the reply his mother supplied him with. “Besides, she has been my maid for two years. She’s already equipped with some basic knowledge of decency.”
Silence fell upon them for several seconds. A stillness later broken by Lord Malfoy.
“Although it might potentially work, there is a flaw,” said he. “Who will be instructing her? The Department of Use will give you another personal maid. We can’t risk her seeing you teaching manners to your son’s favorita .”
“Obviously I won’t be the one teaching her.” Mother motioned towards her son. “Draco will.”
Had the situation been less ridiculous, Draco would have burst into laughter.
“I can’t waste my time teaching etiquette to an Unworthy.”
“Would you rather wasting it paying someone else for nothing?” Lord Malfoy seethed while narrowing his gaze at Draco. “This might be our only chance to infiltrate the house of Notts.”
The young Malfoy fisted his hands on his lap.
“You do understand I will have to make an Unbreakable Vow with this girl? With this Unworthy.”
The idea disgusted him to the core.
“It’s a small sacrifice to make to become the next Great President.” Without waiting for a reply, Lord Malfoy turned his attention to his wife. “We have to act quickly. Where’s this girl now?”
The witch shot a glance at the pendulum clock.
“She is in my chambers, preparing my bath.” Lady Malfoy stopped. “Or at least she should. She was in considerable shock when she got the letter this morning.”
“You don’t say,” Draco muttered under his breath.
Mother glanced at him before going back to her husband.
“We need to have her here right away,” was what Lord Malfoy uttered. “Dobby!”
The elf cracked into existence next to Lord Malfoy, perfectly miserable with his ears pointed downwards.
“Yes, Master?”
“Find my wife’s personal maid and bring her here. Quick.”
“Yes, Master,” bowed Dobby before disapparating.
Draco grabbed back the tumbler and gulped down the Firewhiskey in one long sip.
“This is going to work,” Lord Malfoy mused aloud. “It must work.”
Although the Malfoy heir nurtured several doubts, he did not get to voice them for the house-elf apparated again in the drawing room.
And he was not alone.
Over the course of years, his mother had had more personal maids that Draco could count. Not that he had ever attempted to do so.
They were Unworthies, scum that lived only to serve.
He did not know their names.
He did not know their faces.
That was why the girl who appeared a few feet from him was a perfect stranger to Draco.
She was not tall, quite the opposite in fact. Should he stand up, her head would barely reach his shoulders.
As the law dictated she was wearing the colour of Unworthies, a brown dress in plain cotton that covered her from neck to her ankles. Hadn’t it been for the belt tightened around her small waist, it would have perfectly resembled the pillowcase the house-elf worn.
She was mortally pale, a cadaver whose face was framed by a long frizzy curl that had evaded the updo at the base of her nape.
Eyes of the darkest shade of brown wandered about the room. Draco saw her pupils quiver when she realised the Malfoy men were there too, and she quickly darted to Lady Malfoy.
“Is there something I can do for you, Milady?”
Her voice was not harsh or, even worse, it did not possess the thrilling tone that pierced eardrums.
It was quiet, although clearly shaken.
“I have always been kind to you,” began Lady Malfoy. “Haven’t I, Miss Granger?”
Granger, so that was her name.
Or better, her family name, still it was more than enough to Draco.
The witch bobbed her head down.
“Yes, Milady.”
“And you have always been a precious help,” his mother continued. “I must confess I am not glad I have to part from you. Especially since I have to lose you to The Red Ribbon.”
The mere hint at the brothel undermined Miss Granger’s already cracked expression. Draco saw her swallowing, the columns of her throat moving as she tried to gulp down the fear that had made her bottom lip shiver.
“I’m not glad either, Milady.”
That was not a surprise.
Being relocated at The Red Ribbon was a curse even amongst Unworthies, the worst job her kind could expect.
It led to a life spent on their knees or on their back for hordes of men, until they became too old to be even remotely desirable.
Then they would face the Oblivion, which Draco supposed they would welcome as their dearest friend.
He wondered if this Miss Granger had already attempted to escape her fate.
He cast a silent Legilimens and peered into her mind, wandering the unwarded corridors to find out that she had tried indeed.
A knife stolen from the kitchen that had vanished into soap bubbles when she had tried to stick it in the middle of her chest.
Draco left her mind and met Miss Granger’s eyes. It was nothing more than a glimpse, a quick glance that lasted no more than a second yet it gave him reason to frown.
Had she sensed him into her mind?
Draco had not been subtle at all in his peering, for there was no single motif to be. Miss Granger was an Unworthy, a witch whose education was limited to five years at the Magical Academy.
Her magic skills were confined in the realm of a third year student at Hogwarts.
She shouldn’t even be aware of the possibility someone might read her mind.
She was not .
Miss Granger had just glimpsed at him, that was all.
“Maybe there’s something we can do to improve your situation, Miss Granger,” said Lady Malfoy.
The young witch focused her undivided attention on her Mistress.
“Improve my situation? You mean I won’t become an employee of the…”
Miss Granger stopped, the name of the place stuck in the middle of her throat.
“Oh, no. I’m afraid that’s inevitable, Miss Granger. You are to become one of the girls who work at The Red Ribbon. What we can do, however, is make your work less burdensome,” Lady Malfoy replied, her expression serious.
The maid frowned.
“I don’t understand,” she muttered.
“We don’t have time for this,” murmured Lord Malfoy in a blunt tone. “You will become Theodore Nott’s favorita .”
The young witch gawked, her eyes widened in surprise.
“What?” She murmured.
“It is a good deal for you, Miss Granger. Becoming someone’s favorita is the best outcome you can expect. It will spare you more than just a few unpleasant situations,” said Lady Malfoy.
“Why? Why do you want me to become Lord Nott’s favorita?” Miss Granger inquired.
“Because I must know what he is hiding.”
As soon as those words slipped out of his mouth, dark eyes darted on Draco and that time the stare was not subtle.
It was not the gaze an Unworthy should be giving a Worthy, especially when they were talking about the wizard who would become the next Great President.
It was intense.
“You want me to spy for you,” said Miss Granger.
She was talking directly to him with a nerve that Draco had never witnessed before.
Not in an Unworthy.
Not in a woman.
“Indeed,” uttered Draco, gritting his jaw.
Hadn’t that maid been a crucial part in his plan to destroy Nott, he would have already murdered her in cold blood for her insolence.
“With all due respect, I am going to decline your offer,” said Miss Granger in a firm voice that seemed to shatter all the glasses in the drawing room.
While Mother’s reaction was a quiet and justifiably incredulous befuddlement, Lord Malfoy was not that controlled.
He stood up, face livid and eyes breathing fire and flames, and covered the little space between himself and the maid.
“You decline ?”
The sound of his palm slamming against her cheek reverberated in the room.
He hit her with such ardour and anger the girl vacillated and would have fallen hadn’t she clenched her hands against the table Lord Malfoy’s slap had sent her against.
“Do you think we are asking for your opinion, you filthy Mudblood?” The Malfoy patriarch snarled.
The slap hadn’t had any effect on the girl’s impudence. She pointed her fiercest glare at Lucius and twisted her lips into a grimace that was made of pain and fury.
“You can’t force me.”
The second slap was more violent than the first and when it hit her, Miss Granger was too confused to promptly react and hold herself onto something.
She bumped her forehead against the corner of the table, a single whine slipping out of her lips as she ruined on the floor.
“Lucius-”
“Leave, Narcissa. I have to teach a lesson to this scum,” Lord Malfoy ordered his wife, with his sight locked on Miss Granger. She was now on all fours on the floor, though she was tentatively moving her right hand to her forehead to seize the damage.
Lady Malfoy stood up but before leaving she turned to face her son and mouthed a few silent words.
Don’t let him hurt her.
His mother had always been troubled by his father’s hot temperament against the servants. Where she enjoyed teaching manners to her maids, Father used an utterly different approach, a method that had led to two house-elves beaten to death and of which Miss Granger had only started getting a taste.
Although Draco did not possess the same merciful heart his mother did, he did not appreciate the tribulation of torture. He much preferred the clean cut of a Killing Curse.
He would have gladly cast the definitive sentence on that girl, but unfortunately he needed her alive.
The moment Lady Malfoy closed the door behind her back, his father unsheathed his wand and pointed it at Miss Granger’s back.
The sound of fabric being torn was covered by the girl’s scream of the purest terror. Having abandoned her head, Miss Granger was using her hand to press the front of her ripped dress against her body.
Watching her as she tried to crawl away from Lord Malfoy’s anger was a mostly pathetic scene to witness.
Not that she got too far, for his father bent forward to yank her by her hair. He lifted her with no effort, almost like she was weightless, and threw her back again on the floor.
“You cunt,” Lord Malfoy seethed.
Blood was pouring from a cut on her lips yet she did not seem to care about it. Her only worry was to cover as much of her body she could with her quivering hands.
She didn’t want to be seen, desperate to preserve herself before two men. Like it meant something.
The next day The Red Ribbon would have taken her, her soul, her life, and her innocence too.
As his father conjured a whip, Draco realised that they had been using the wrong approach with her.
“I’d like to talk with her alone, Father.”
Draco stood up and kept Lord Malfoy’s raging gaze.
“I thought we had already established that you can’t handle this alone.”
Always treated like an idiot, a fool.
“I think I’ll have no problem handling a girl,” seethed Draco. To state that he was firm in his resolution to deal with her by himself, he stepped closer to Miss Granger and closed his hand around her arm.
“I’ll take her to my chambers.”
“No! I d-”
Miss Granger’s protest was cut by their apparition and evolved into a scream that pierced Draco’s eardrums.
The second they apparated in his bedchamber, Miss Granger disentangled herself from his grip to stand up and hastily move backwards and away from him.
“Don’t touch me.”
Draco huffed a laugh void of amusement.
“You are aware this sentence is doomed to lose its effect tomorrow,” said Draco, and then added, “if it ever had once.”
Miss Granger scrunched her nose up, all while keeping on with the ridiculous task of covering the front part of her body.
“It had. And it has today still.”
Draco sat on the velvet loveseat, a leg crossed over the other and stared at the girl.
“Let me put it in plain words for you, Miss Granger,” he started off. “You can cover yourself all you wish with that thing, but it changes nothing. This hour tomorrow you will be on your knees sucking cocks.”
Miss Granger’s face lost the little colour it had gained with the slaps his father had hit her with. Draco would have mistaken it for shame hadn’t it been for the spark of rancour in her eyes.
“Have you ever sucked a cock, Miss Granger?” He inquired, amused by the quiver of her bottom lip. “I don’t think you have. Aren’t you thrilled at the mere idea of having the cock of some unknown man stuck in your mouth? Then he will very likely force you on your back and push his cock inside your cunt. You are a virgin, aren’t you?” A vicious smirk curled his lips up. “Oh, you are going to have an interesting night tomorrow, Miss Granger.”
The witch stood tall before him. He had to concede to her that she was trying her best to retain some dignity.
It was a quality not many girls would have had.
“I know what kind of future awaits me, Lord Malfoy. I don’t need you to picture it for me.”
Draco shook his head.
“I have to dissent. I need to picture the future that awaits for you at The Red Ribbon so that I can present you another one.”
The witch snorted.
“Are you talking about the future in which I am Lord Nott’s favorita ?”
“I am. Nonetheless, your deplorable behaviour in the drawing room stopped me before I could explain how rosy this future would be for you,” said Draco.
“I have to dissent.”
She was an insufferable little cunt.
“Are you dissenting at the idea of spending another month here at the Manor instead of being raped at The Red Ribbon?”
He was pleased to notice the sceptical frown that wrinkled her forehead.
“Lady Malfoy said I have to work for The Red Ribbon,” muttered Miss Granger.
“And you have to.” Draco paused. “I will claim you as my favorita .”
Granger's sceptical frown turned into bewilderment. “Didn’t you want me to become Lord Nott’s favorita ?”
Draco relaxed on the couch and rested an arm over the headboard.
“Precisely. That’s why I have to teach you.”
“Teach me what?”
“Everything. Etiquette, style, dancing.” He licked his teeth. “Seduction.”
The last word seemed to be the one that disgusted the witch the most for she twisted her mouth in a horrified expression.
“You want to teach me seduction?” Miss Granger rephrased, yet again pressing her dress over her chest.
Draco tutted.
“I don’t want to teach you anything, but it is a small price to pay to get what I want.”
“And what is that you want, Lord Malfoy?”
He leaned forward, elbow on his knees and head cocked to the side to stare at Miss Granger with a cruel grin.
“Power, Miss Granger. And you are what I need to eliminate one of the greatest threats to my climbing.”
“Your whore?”
Draco shook his head. “No, not my whore. I have no interest in making you my whore. You are my weapon, Miss Granger.”
Silence followed his words, several seconds during which the girl studied him with an intent stare.
“But I would be Lord Nott’s favorita ,” she noticed.
“Only until you find out something I can use against him,” replied Draco in a calm tone.
“I would have to be with him,” she replied.
Be with him.
She truly was a virgin.
“If by being with him you mean fuck him and suck his cock then yes.” He paused. “But I see it as an improvement for you. Being a man’s whore is better than being the hole thousands of men fuck, isn’t it?”
Although Miss Granger did not answer, the way she pursued her lips into a stern line told Draco that she knew him to be right.
“And then what? After you get what you want and Lord Nott is out of the game, what will it be of me?” She pressed.
“I won’t be keeping you as my favorita until your death day,” he clarified in a firm tone.
Despite having known her for less than thirty minutes, Granger had placed herself amongst those human beings who Draco would have gladly erased from Earth.
He noticed there was still blood leaking in small drops from the cut on her lips.
“Kill me.”
Draco raised an eyebrow.
It was not an unreasonable request, quite the opposite in fact. He had already seen in her memories Miss Granger had tried to take her own life, pointlessly and stupidly fighting the block imposed by the Government.
Yet that was a last resource.
“Aren’t you even trying to convince me to keep you with me?”
Miss Granger shook her head.
“No. I don’t want to be yours. I want to be free.”
Free.
He straightened his back, looking up to the maid who had shown more personality in ten minutes than most Worthy witches had done in their entire life.
She was a threat to everything Great President Grindelwald had worked for. A menace for all Draco wanted from the society he will rule upon.
Order.
Submission.
Compliance.
Loyalty.
To have a witch with freedom ideas in Orden was a problem Draco was not eager to deal with.
Using her first and killing her later was the only solution.
Draco stood up and bowed.
“It will be my pleasure to kill you, Miss Granger. Once you bring me something useful to use against Theodore, of course.”
Miss Granger bobbed her head down and, while keeping her dress up with her left hand, she stretched her right arm to offer him her open palm.
“Deal?”
Draco frowned.
“You must be completely delusional if you believe I’d seal a deal with you with a hand-shake. We are going to make an Unbreakable Vow,” uttered Draco.
Tired of watching her keep her dress up, he waved his hand and sewed the two torn hems on her back together once more.
Not that it changed anything or served to confer her the basic decency Lady Malfoy had proclaimed the girl to be equipped with.
Or perhaps after having been relocated to The Red Ribbon, the maid had decided to abandon any rules.
After all, what else did she have to lose when she wasn’t even attached to her life anymore?
“As you wish, Lord Malfoy,” agreed Miss Granger.
Exactly .
Everything had to be as Draco wished.
“Follow me.”
They did not exchange a syllable as they paced the corridors of the Manor to head back into the drawing room where his father hopefully still was.
The Unworthy walked by his side, her gaze cast forward but unfocused.
He didn’t like her.
Had Draco had another choice - whatever one - he would have never trusted an Unworthy maid who talked about freedom and would rather die than become a whore, but unfortunately he had been left with no option but to collaborate with her.
And that hoping he would be able to operate some miracle and turn her into a witch who would capture Theodore’s attention to the point of always having her in his bed.
An almost impossible task from the wild state of her hair and the sack of onions she used as a dress.
But that would be a thought for tomorrow.
First, he had to make the first Unbreakable Vow of his life with an Unworthy.
His father was not alone when Draco entered inside the drawing room, for his mother must have joined him after he had apparated away with the maid.
“You are back,” uttered Lady Malfoy, eyes travelling from her son to the girl next to him.
Lord Malfoy’s welcome was less friendly and consisted of a glare at his son’s direction followed by a hateful glance shot at the maid.
“Miss Granger and I have an Unbreakable Vow to take,” Draco announced.
Lady Malfoy’s face brightened with a smile that she quickly exchanged with her husband.
“I’ll be your witness,” she proclaimed as she approached, stretching her hand towards them.
His father sat on the couch, observing the scene with open disgust.
Miss Granger’s hand was infinitely small inside his, the skin not as soft as those of the Worthy witches Draco held in the ballrooms.
“I’ll go first,” he uttered, squeezing her palm inside his.
The witch just bobbed her head down.
Draco opened his mouth to start with his oaths when he suddenly realised he missed a crucial part to pronounce them.
“What is your name?”
The vibration of her lips was almost imperceptible, but he did notice it.
“Hermione.”
An elegant and elaborate name for a girl whose fate was the worst doom.
“Hermione Granger, do you swear to spy on Theodore Nott for me?”
“I do.”
“Do you swear to work at your best to help me discover the secrets Theodore Nott is hiding?”
“I do.”
“Do you swear to report to me all that you discover about Theodore Nott no matter what you have to do?”
Her pupils quivered but she did not falter.
“I do.”
“Do you swear never to tell anyone about our deal?”
“I do.”
“Do you swear to be loyal to me and no one else but me?”
“I do.”
Flames kept on hovering between their joined hands while a fake smile appeared on Draco’s face.
“Your turn.”
Miss Granger’s tongue darted out to graze her lips, licking away the blood still leaking from the cut.
“Draco Malfoy, do you swear to take me as your favorita ?”
He couldn’t believe he was actually doing this.
“I do.”
“Do you swear to take me away from The Red Ribbon?”
“I do.”
“Do you swear to kill me once I give you Theodore Nott’s secrets?”
Draco’s peripheral vision caught his father frowning, while his mother darted a flabbergasted gaze at Miss Granger.
But she ignored them.
Her dark gaze remained locked on him, waiting for the oath she valued the most.
An Unworthy life for unlimited power.
Draco smiled.
“I do.”