They stopped first at Hermione's house after Lucius insisted she change clothes, which she begrudgingly agreed to after finding a few patches of blood that she hadn't noticed before.
"I honestly didn't see those," She muttered as she pulled her shirt away slightly to frown at the dried blood at the edge.
Lucius crinkled his nose slightly as he looked away. "Granted, you have had a few other things on your mind."
As they approached the house, he looked it over with a thoughtful expression before saying to her, "This is a stunning house! I must say, I'm impressed; not to offend but I didn't think you would pick something this large and manor-ly."
"No offense taken!" She laughed slightly as she unlocked the door and smiling at him. "You can actually thank Draco for this; he helped me pick it out after my sudden divorce."
Lucius's eyebrows went up in surprise as she led him inside but didn't say anything as she excused herself upstairs to quickly change. He folded his hands behind his back and looked around with a small smile on his face, taking in everything. He thought she had decorated it beautifully, and there was a warm, welcoming presence in the home.
Hermione rushed downstairs a few minutes later as she threw her hair up into a messy bun, looking around to see that Lucius had found her pictures in the hallway leading to the living room. He glanced at her as she approached with a small smile on his face.
"These are your parents?" He asked, nodding towards one of the pictures.
"Yes, right after they got back from Italy a couple of years ago," She laughed, looking at the picture as well. "Mum was so sunburnt."
"Sunburnt?" He gave her a confused look and she shook her head.
"I'll explain later," She said before nodding towards the door. "We need to find Draco first."
He nodded and she had to hold herself back from jogging towards the door, being sure to pull the right sleeve down over her bandages. She had a feeling that seeing her arm bandaged up might make Draco disappear again once they found him.
Lucius silently offered his arm again and she took it, bracing herself as he disapparated the two of them away. They landed in the foyer of an absolutely beautiful manor, and if she wasn't so determined to find Draco she would have stood there in awe of the décor. Lucius chuckled at her as she walked off quickly and he patted her shoulder.
"Don't worry, dear," He said gently with a smile. "There's plenty of time to look around after we locate Draco."
She nodded and they both walked through the entry way as he led her through the manor. Hermione anxiously looked into every room that they passed until they heard voices coming from the next floor.
Her heart jumped into her throat and she nearly took off running towards the stairs, taking them two at a time as she breathed heavily. As she stopped at the top of the stairs, she saw doors to the left and right of her, and she looked back and forth.
The voices began speaking again and she managed to pinpoint them coming from a door to the right. After rushing to the door and taking a deep but quiet breath to calm herself down, she pulled down on the handle and pushed the door open, rushing inside.
Draco was sitting on a plush couch with his head in his hands, but he looked up as he heard the door open and froze. She gave barely more than a glance to Narcissa who had been sitting on the couch next to Draco with her hand on his back, and even moreso ignored the glare she was given by the older witch.
"Hermione?" The look Draco gave her was a mixture of disbelief and hurt that nearly broke her heart. "What are you doing here?"
"Draco, I'm alright!" She said quickly. "You don't need to try and isolate yourself from me!"
"But I bit you!" He exclaimed with a pained expression as he stood up and ran a hand through his hair. "I've turned you into-"
"I haven't got it!"
He stared at her. "What do you mean, you haven't got it?"
She began making her way towards him as she said, "They were running tests on me at St. Mungo's and they said I don't have any trace of lycanthropy in my blood! It didn't get passed onto me!"
She stopped in front of him and he stared down at her still, gaping slightly. After a few moments his brow furrowed and he shook his head, pulling away from her. "You're lying. Don't get my hopes up like that."
"But it's the truth!" She said, grabbing his arm to pull him back around. "I swear, I'm not lying!"
"How dare you toy with his emotions like that?"
They both turned around to see Narcissa standing up now, glaring at Hermione. Hermione pulled her arm from Draco and straightened her spine as she firmly said, "I'm not toying with his emotions. I'm telling the truth. Why else would I be here?"
"If I may..." Lucius interrupted, catching everyone's attention as he pulled a few documents from the pocket of his robes. "I have the proof here myself."
"Where did you get those?" Hermione asked in surprise, recognizing them as her papers from St. Mungo's that the Healers recorded their notes on."
He simply shrugged and said, "It seems the Healer left his notes on the counter, so I simply borrowed them for an occasion such as this."
Draco rushed forward and snatched the papers from his father's hands, his eyes quickly darting over the writing. After a few tense moments of reading he looked back up at Hermione with wide eyes.
"You...you really don't have it," He said in shock.
"I really don't," She repeated, shaking her head with a slight smile. "Somehow, your potion prevented it from spreading to me when you bit me."
His face lit up then and he rushed forward, picking her up in his arms and spinning her around. She was caught off guard by this but laughed as she wrapped her arms around his neck and breathed a sigh of relief, squeezing his neck as he set her back down.
"You had me so worried," She said as he pulled back slightly to look at her. "I was thinking I would have to forcibly drag you back!"
She heard a scoff from behind him then and they both turned to see Narcissa still glaring at them, and specifically at Hermione.
"You would have deserved the infection!" Narcissa spat then angrily, causing Draco to turn around as if to shield Hermione from a potential attack. "After causing him to become infected with it, it would have only been fitting for you to have it as well!"
"Mother!" Draco exclaimed in shock.
"Narcissa, if you are going to blame anyone for that incident, please only blame me," Lucius said calmly, though the defeat was clear in his voice as he said it.
She glared at her husband and shouted, "And you deserve it just as much as she does! How could you put our only son in danger like that?!"
Lucius didn't shrink back from his wife's verbal attack, instead taking a deep breath and saying, "You know what would have happened if I didn't take that mission."
"He could have died from being bitten!" Narcissa exclaimed, her voice cracking slightly as she said this. Hermione noticed the glint of tears in the blonde's eyes as she went on: "Neither one of us did anything to try and protect him from this! I should have stopped you; I should have sent Draco away! I should have never allowed him to be exposed to your bloody group of Death Eaters!"
No one could say anything else as Narcissa continued to rage. "If only I had made Severus agree to the Unbreakable Vow sooner; he would have made sure that Draco would have been safe! And Draco might not have even been caught up in this mess if we had sent him to Durmstrang like we originally planned!"
Hermione realized then exactly what was going on. She stepped out from behind Draco and took a few steps towards Narcissa, who angrily turned to glare at Hermione.
"This isn't your fault either," Hermione started slowly, holding a hand out towards Narcissa in a calming gesture. "I can't begin to imagine just how scared you were, not knowing if Draco was going to survive being bitten by Greyback; but you need to understand that the ones who were directly at fault for Draco's condition are already dead. Blaming those who indirectly attributed to this isn't going to heal you, it's only going to cause unneeded resentment that is taken out on the wrong people. But you can't blame yourself either, because nothing you could have done would have prevented that from happening. Not without drastically changing the outcome of the events. And for the record, I am truly sorry for my part leading to Draco's condition, but I am not going to take the blame for this and neither should Lucius, and neither should you."
Narcissa stared at Hermione with a completely baffled expression. Her mouth hung open slightly and her eyes continued to water. After a few moments she shut her mouth and clenched her jaw, unsuccessfully blinking back more tears. Her shoulders began shaking as she looked down to the floor, bringing her hands up to cover her face in shame as she began sobbing quietly.
She looked up then and through her tears she managed to choke out, "I'm so sorry."
Hermione was caught off guard by this sudden change and couldn't find the words to say, but thankfully she didn't have to say anything. Lucius then pulled Narcissa to him and wrapped his arms around her as she sank into him, finally letting out sobs that shook her entire body.
Draco stared quietly at the scene that unfolded in front of him, unsure exactly of what to think of it. But as Hermione looked back at him over her shoulder and gave him a small smile that he returned, he stepped forward and took her hand, giving it a slight squeeze.
Lucius looked up at the two of them and quietly said, "I think I'll be taking Narcissa back to the manor now, if you two don't mind."
Hermione and Draco both shook their heads and Lucius nodded before both he and Narcissa disappeared with a quiet pop. Draco let out a short sigh then, smiling nervously as he ran a hand through his hair.
"I don't know what exactly you did..." He started in disbelief. "...But you sure do have a way of talking to people."
She laughed at that before stepping up to give him a kiss that he happily returned. Then she lightly smacked his arm and said sternly, "That's for making me worry!"
He winced slightly and she immediately panicked as she quickly exclaimed, "I'm so sorry! That wasn't supposed to be that hard and I forgot you're still healing!"
"I'm fine, I'm fine!" He said, waving her off before pulling her against him and sighing. "I deserved it anyway for running off like that. I just...panicked and I couldn't bear the thought of turning you into a monster like me..."
She sighed as she wrapped her arms around his back and looked up at him. "Draco, you're not a monster. And even if you had passed the lycanthropy on to me, I wouldn't have cared."
He stared at her. "What?"
"I wouldn't have cared," She repeated with a shrug. "I would still spend the full moon with you, and we could be together still. You wouldn't have a reason to be scared of being around me."
"I don't want to put you through what I have to go through every month," He said quietly.
"And I don't want you to go through it alone," She replied. "What did you think would happen if I had turned?"
"You would have hated me for turning you into a monster and abandoned me?" He said in a slightly amused tone.
She smacked him again and said with a laugh, "I love you too much to even think about doing that!"
He froze then and stared down at her, pulling away slightly. "You...you what?"
She gave him a confused look before her words came back to her and her cheeks turned a bright shade of pink. Giving him a shy smile, she said quietly, "I love you, Draco."
He couldn't stop himself from grinning as he picked her up and spun her around again excitedly. "You love me? Really?"
"Draco!" She laughed loudly. "Put me down!"
"Not until you say it again!"
"I love you, you prat!"
They both laughed as he slowed to a stop and gently set her down, looking deeply into her eyes as he said, "I love you too, Hermione."
She grinned widely as she stepped up onto her toes to give him a deep kiss that he happily returned.
A/N: aaand Narcissa's behavior is explained! I always love exploring why people think the way they do and how they would react based off that, so I feel like in this situation, this is a plausible line of thinking for Narcissa. Plus some major Dramione action that I know you all have been waiting for! :) thank you all for your patience with this chapter, I'm so sorry to have kept you all waiting but I promise I'll get the next chapter up sooner! In the meantime please enjoy and I love you all! <3