Harry Potter The Long Lost Malfoy

Hermione sat with her hands over her face, her breathing rapid and shallow. She had spent part of the day looking out for an owl until she remembered that she had asked Harry not to write to her.

And it was the right thing to do. Professor Dumbledore had indicated that. They didn't know who the Death Eater was who had escaped Hogwarts. They didn't know how much other help he might recruit for You-Know-Who. They didn't know how much Death Eaters might be able to tamper with owl post.

Hermione knew that.

She knew, too, that Harry simply vanishing from Hogwarts the way he had done had given her nightmares. They hadn't even known where he'd gone for a full day. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy were Harry's legal guardians and they had the right to do whatever they wanted with him, but Mr. Malfoy had thought it was a great idea to follow a genocidal warleader. What if they decided that Harry couldn't come back to Hogwarts next year? What if they kept taking him out of Defense, even if Hogwarts had a good Defense professor in the future?

It had turned out to be a good thing that Harry wasn't "Moody's" student, of course, but Harry hadn't made the decision for that reason. He couldn't have known Moody was a Death Eater at the time.

And then when she and Ron had found out where Harry had gone, they'd been prevented from seeing him for weeks. How did that argue that Harry was making decisions of his own free will? Hermione had the bad feeling that Harry had been more independent-minded in the past. The Dursleys had been horrible guardians, but at least Harry hadn't blindly trusted them the way he seemed to trust the Malfoys.

And she and Ron had had to hear about where Harry was from Professor Dumbledore. Not Harry himself. He hadn't written them a letter until almost a week after the Malfoys had taken him to the Manor. Hermione didn't know why. It could have been trauma, but maybe not. What if it wasn't?

That was the whisper in the back of her mind whenever she looked at him now. Harry had seemed to have a good balance in the last few years of accepting that the Malfoys were his family but still questioning them, still being skeptical when they tried to offer him rationalizations about something.

Now he was just…

Falling into their embrace. Acting like Draco said funny things. Acting like Mr. Malfoy was someone he could reasonably trust the safety of children to.

Hermione took a long, deep breath and turned around to stare at the parchment on the desk in front of her again. It contained a list of answers to questions she'd sent Professor Dumbledore. Hermione had double-checked his answers with old history books and Daily Prophet editions that she'd asked Professor McGonagall to owl her, and…it all made sense.

The Malfoys had been behind a lot of different actions in the first war, not just Mr. Malfoy being a Death Eater. They'd funded legislation that had tried to make it criminal for Muggleborns to attend Hogwarts. They'd used Malfoy Manor as a base to shelter people wanted by the Aurors. Mrs. Malfoy's sister had been a Death Eater, too.

Professor Dumbledore had told Hermione straight out that he was worried about Harry. Yes, Harry shouldn't be so involved in the war when he was only fifteen, but the fact was, he was. And there was no protection to be found just because he was the Malfoys' child instead of the Potters'. Voldemort obviously had still tried to kidnap him and use him.

Harry had killed someone, too.

He would need Mind-Healing for that, Hermione thought, brushing at her cheeks. Professor Dumbledore had said so, but it was something she'd thought of on her own before that. And Harry hadn't said anything about getting Mind-Healing! Who was going to watch over him, if not her?

If not Professor Dumbledore? Even if he wanted to use Harry in a war, at least that would mean not sacrificing Harry to Voldemort or twisting him with Death Eater values or isolating him behind wards for weeks and depriving him of a Mind-Healer.

So Hermione was upset, and worried, and convinced that Harry needed to be prepared for his role, not shut away from it. Or turned neutral. If that was what the Malfoys were doing.

And he wasn't writing to her. He had argued with her last time she and Ron had visited the Manor and sworn at her. Why would he do that if he was a friend?

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