Ch. 3

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She decided to wait until that night to escape, planning to use the rest of the day to memorize the layout of the cottage so that she could easily slip out without getting lost. As Draco was handling his burned hand, she wandered back into the living room and slowly made her way towards the doorway she had seen earlier.

Pausing in the doorway, she stared around the room in front of her; there were bookcases lining the walls, filled with hundreds of books. In the center of the room were a few armchairs and a long couch with a small table in the center of them. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.

She was momentarily distracted, running her fingers along the nearest shelf as she looked over the books. They didn't seem to be in any kind of order, and didn't seem to be any sort of genre in particular. What surprised her the most however were the sheer amount of muggle books that were on the shelves, placed here and there between wizarding books. There were books on science, astrology, psychology, medicine, potions theories, romance, science-fiction (which thoroughly confused her), fantasy, spell books; the list was never-ending.

The sound of someone clearing their throat made her jump and she looked to see Draco standing in the doorway, his hand bandaged by his side while his other hand was in his pocket. He looked at her for a few moments before nodding towards the bookcases.

"I don't know what you like to read," He started quietly. "There's a bit of everything in here though."

"I see that," She managed to say, looking back towards the books. "Are they all yours?"

"Most of them," He said, stepping into the room and walking towards one of the bookcases. "I was surprised by some of the subject matter that I ended up liking, so I started blindly buying books every time I went into town."

Now she was intrigued. "How often would you come here?"

He sighed heavily but continued looking at the books. "I bought this a little over a year ago, during sixth year. I spent all of my Christmas break here just to get away from everything. I wasn't able to visit as often as I thought I would though; I didn't realize how...busy I would get."

She heard the bitter tone in his voice as he said this but she didn't respond, instead turning to lean against the nearest bookshelf to look at him. He was standing calmly with his back turned to her, and for a brief moment she could see long scars tracing around his arms. She wondered where they had come from but didn't wonder long as he turned then to face her.

"Aren't you worried they'll come looking for you?" She asked, crossing her arms against her chest.

"No one knows where this place is, not even my parents," He said in an unnervingly calm tone. "I doubt they'd come looking for me anyway."

Her brow furrowed slightly. "You don't know that."

He forced a half-hearted laugh before saying, "I do. While my parents care about me, they care more about not being in trouble with him. Especially since he's taken up residence in their manor, and has my mother's sister has his second-in-command. They're prisoners in their own home; even if they wanted to find me, they wouldn't be able to escape."

"So what makes you think you're any safer here?" Hermione asked. "You don't think that he'll come find you?"

"He has more important things to do than look for a defected Death Eater," He said with a shrug. "Especially a brand new one that couldn't even complete the one task given to him."

She gave him a confused look but he didn't say anything else on the subject. He turned away and went back towards the doorway leading to the kitchen, pausing to look back at her. "Want some tea?"

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