He studied her, his expression guarded. His silver eyes were like mirrors to the point that she could see herself in them. Her eyes and the red of her clothing. She was paler than she'd realised.
“Please, Draco…”
He nodded reluctantly. “I'll stand by the door.”
Before he left, he stalked over to his father and started going through his robes, confiscating several weapons and a variety of objects Hermione couldn't identify.
Lucius had three additional wands concealed in his clothing, a tin containing a dragon's heartstring, and an entire set of torture instruments shrunk into the size of a pocketbook. Draco cast several detection spells and seemed to find something new with each of them.
“I don't even have use of my hands, I don't see how or why you expect me to murder her,” Lucius said in a sulky tone as Draco extracted the last wand.
Draco just wordlessly stashed everything in his own pockets with a sneer and then cast a careless tergeo spell on Lucius as he straightened.
Lucius hissed as the blood was roughly scoured off his face.
Draco stared down at his father for a moment. “Ten minutes. I will set mother's portrait on fire before your eyes if you attempt to so much as touch Hermione.”
Cold rage shone in Lucius' eyes as Draco walked away.
Hermione and Lucius stared at each other.
He didn't say anything; he just studied her. His silver eyes were intent as though he were weighing and measuring who she was.
After a minute, she spoke. “If you expect to make me promise that I'll give him up and disappear once he's safely away, the answer is no.”
He blinked and leaned forward. “What do you intend to do with my son?”
She gazed steadily down at him. “I intend to save him.”
Lucius' eyes narrowed. “Then what?”
She twitched a shoulder. “Then — we live. There are no plans after that. Everything else is dust. What's left of us is all there is.”
He scoffed at her. The noise rattled in his lungs, and he coughed, reddening his lips. “You're fools if you think you can run and disappear. The Dark Lord will never let him go. You'll be hunted down. Unless he has power he can maintain, neither of you will survive. If you want to stay safe and be taken care of, you'll give up your romantic ideation. There's a family in Bul—”
“Draco made an Unbreakable Vow to the Order never to claim Voldemort's power or become a Dark Lord.”
Lucius fell into an astonished silence for several seconds.
“He. Did. What?” His voice was deadly.
The corner of Hermione's mouth threatened to twitch, but she forced herself to continue staring at him impassively. “The Order feared that Draco was using us to further his own ambition. To prove his loyalty, he vowed to do his best to defeat Voldemort, and that following the Dark Lord's defeat, he would never seize power or become a Dark Lord.”
She knelt down so that her face was close to Lucius'. “You're right, he does plan to save me. Since the moment I arrived, everything he's done has been to protect me and for the purpose of getting me somewhere safe before he commits suicide, so that no one can ever find me. That's his plan. That's his idea of taking care of me. But I want to save him. I made promises to him too. I will do anything to save him.”
Lucius' expression grew mocking. “Except give him up.”
She looked down for a moment before meeting his eyes. “Except that.” Her throat tightened as she swallowed. “I'm — I'm more selfish than he is.”
“And how do you imagine yourself saving him?” Lucius asked in a cold voice. “Will you send me off to kill the Dark Lord in order to avenge my wife and save my heir?”
He said it derisively, but his eyes were glittering.
Hermione stared at him calmly. “No. There's too much margin for error. Even if you could, killing Voldemort won't protect Draco from everyone else who will want him dead. After you help me remove Draco's Dark Mark, I need you to kill yourself.”
Lucius gave a wet sounding laugh. “I wondered when your true colours would come out. Maybe you did level Sussex.” He tilted his head back. “Why should I regard leaving my son in your hands for the rest of his life as somehow better than his death?”
He was baiting her. He wanted her to beg, she could see it in his eyes.
The Mudblood whore who seduced his son, that was what he saw her as. A paltry source of comfort that Draco had grown attached to while grieving over his mother. In another life, in a slightly shifted set of circumstances, Draco would have gladly walked over her corpse.
Her throat tightened, and she forced herself to keep breathing.
The only way to keep Draco alive was by convincing Lucius to willingly agree to her terms.
She would make Lucius agree.
She would save Draco.