Chapter Text
lack of guile or corruption; purity
He can’t think of many places he would prefer to be, compared to where he is now.
There’s Sicily, of course, standing just on the edge of his back garden with the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below. Perhaps his mum’s house in Wiltshire, sitting in the bright kitchen with a bowl of her rigatoni bolognese warming his hands and his mouth. Oh, how could he forget Barcelona? From the year he turned 20, with the small Spanish thing who’d been happy to suck on his tongue every chance she got.
Those places were good, they were memorable, but they’re nothing like this. They’re nothing compared to the young, petite body writhing beneath his fingers and his cheek and his chin and his tongue. They’re nothing compared to the way her skin heats and her muscles tense, the way her chest heaves and her belly collapses with each breath.
Could it really be that much of a surprise that after so many years of life - his twisted, marred, frantic, violent life - that his favourite place is between this girl’s thighs? He doesn’t think so. Even a monster like him deserves a reward from time to time.
Particularly a reward so willingly given. He might be a monster, but he doesn’t force himself on women. He might maim and torture and kill, but he has to draw the line somewhere. He thinks of himself as a bit of a rescuer for women, to be honest. He saves them from the real monsters of the world that would take them without a care, use their bodies for their own whims and pleasures.
The uninformed call them his collection, his girls, but they’re not his. He rescues them from a fate of belonging to anyone. Instead, he cares for them and offers them something more in this life. It’s his good deed, the thing that will win him his place in Heaven despite...well, despite everything else.
He offers them smiles and soft pats on the shoulder or the tops of their heads, he feels his heart slowly knit itself back together after the violence of his daily life when they wrap their arms around his waist and greet him with a bright, “Uncle Draco!”
That’s who he is to them. Not their keeper, not their lover, just someone who cares for them. He’s a member of their family now but he doesn’t replace their parents or their siblings.
He rescues them from abusive partners, from poverty, from jobs that require them to give a part of themselves away. He sends them back to school and employs them in his businesses - not the less than savoury ones, he’s already rescued them from that type of life - and he gives them a nice place to stay while they get themselves back on their feet.
The hips beneath his fingers continue to twist in his hands as he considers her, but he knows it’s not to get away from him. No, he had given her a taste of what he could provide, just a little sample of what she could expect with him, and she squirms for more.
“Please,” she pants, her hands curled tight against her sides. “Please, Uncle Draco.”
That doesn’t quite work, he thinks, pressing his lips just to the notch of her hip bone. It’s not her fault, of course, he had told her to call him that so she could feel the same as the other girls, like she had someone to watch over her.
“No, my sweet girl,” he mumbles into her skin, his lips trailing down to the corner of the small patch of neatly kept hair at the crux of her thighs. “I think we’re past Uncle.”
None of the girls are his.
Except for this one, she just doesn’t know it yet.
Family dinners are always a disaster and he knows this going into them, but they bother him anyways. Draco plays with the signet ring around his pinky, twisting the platinum back and forth as a way to calm himself. It’s their own fault, he supposes, gathering so many red-blooded males together in the same building, let alone the same private dining room. They yammer on about this and that, bragging of both violent and pleasurable undertakings that have the men seated near them howling.
He’s too old for this now but knows it’s important that they see him there, as the head of this family. So he forces a smile and a laugh when it’s something harmless and he offers his congratulations to the one sitting down on the end - Crabbe, he thinks, a good soldier - when he shows off pictures of his new son.
He snaps his fingers in the air and nods his head at the waiter that jumps to it, “Another round please.”
It’s to celebrate. It will make the men happy, show them that he cares about them even though they’re not blood family. They’re even closer, he thinks, when they commit violent acts together.
“So, Lavender told me she’s leaving.”
Draco turns to look at Theo, the closest person to him in this mess of a family tree, and nods his head, “Yes, she told me last week. She’ll need some help moving out on the 1st.”
“I can’t believe you just let them go like that,” he says, shaking his head and taking a drag off of a cigarette. “No plan to pay anything back, no demand to stay close. Fuck, not even a kiss goodbye.”
Draco narrows his eyes and cuffs his young nephew over the back of the head, “You know that’s not how this works. I swear to the devil himself, Theo, if I find out you’re demanding anything from those women-”
“I’m not!” Theo swears, throwing his hands up next to his ears. “I was just joking, Draco. You know I’d never.”
“Good,” he mutters, giving him a single nod before turning back to the rest of the table.
He had been terrified during the first family dinner after his father had passed away. He was young, hardly 23, and stepping into shoes that he didn’t understand. The empty seat at the head of the table had seemed so daunting then, but he finds it comforting now.
He hopes that this dinner is close to finishing up and that he can get back to his sprawling home and lock himself away until morning. These dinners always put him on edge but it’s nothing a quiet night with his favourite Scotch can’t fix. It’s unfortunate, then, that he sees one of his men - one of the new soldiers working under Blaise - tugging on the apron of the waitress who has come around to clear dishes.
Before he can say anything, though, Blaise’s hand darts out and grips the man’s collar to tug him away from the girl. He strains to hear, but Draco grasps the gist of the quiet, “Keep your fucking hands to yourself.”
Good, he thinks. His capo’s know what he will and won’t tolerate and harassing women is at the top of the latter list. He watches the soldier’s hands come up like Theo’s had only minutes before and he gives Blaise a nod when he catches his eye.
The girl is pretty; a tiny thing with dark-brown ringlet curls tucked back into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, generous coral lips and a look in her eyes that tells him she would rather be anywhere else.
His group is intimidating, he knows that, and he swears he’ll make what is likely a stressful evening worth her while. His hand sneaks down into his pocket where he fingers his billfold, flicking the corners of a few hundred-pound bills.
After another 15 minutes, he stands, the universal symbol for this dinner is over, get out. Theo crushes his cigarette into the ashtray on the table and stands up with a groan, “Is it alright if I grab Pansy and she stays the night?”
Draco nods his head and pats him on the back, “Yes, fine. Don’t forget about tomorrow though, I’m not driving her home again.”
Theo ducks his head and Draco thinks he sees his nephew blush, but he clears his throat and rubs the side of his face, “‘Course not. Sorry about that, again.”
He likes rescuing women in need, but Pansy is not such a woman. The last thing he needs is to be stuck in a car with her again for nearly an hour, her claw-like fingers gripping his thigh while he drives. He gave her leeway for her father’s sake, but only once.
While his men wander, grabbing coats and making plans for exploits he wants no part of, Draco twirls around the room looking for dark-brown ringlet curls. He spots her after a minute, her head down with a tray in her hands to start clearing the table.
“Miss?”
She cautiously looks up at him and almost immediately cowers, tucking her chin into herself and clasping her fingers together in a knot. Now, he knows he cuts an imposing figure, but he’s never had a girl hide from him like this - unless it was deserved of course.
(And it had been deserved, at least a few times. His Auntie Bella’s bloodied smile was one such occasion.)
Draco doesn’t approach her further and keeps his hands where she can see them, almost as though he’s approaching a terrified animal. She looks like a lamb from where he’s standing, shaking and cowering, knees knocking together.
“I just wanted to thank you,” he says softly, taking small steps towards her until he can easily tuck the few bills into her apron. “I know we’re a raucous group.”
She keeps her eyes down, though they follow his hand when it touches her apron, but otherwise stays quiet. It’s strange, but there’s only so much he can do to prove that he’s not a monster - not her monster, at least.
He steps back slowly and gives her a soft smile, “Have a nice evening.”
Draco drives himself everywhere. He’s not so useless that he needs a driver, yet, and he loves his car more than people sometimes. It’s sleek but powerful and he sniggers to himself when he sees that none of his men have parked around him. God forbid they scratch it, he might actually kill someone.
(He’s killed for less.)
He’s just opening the car door when he hears a noise and turns around, his right hand moving to his side, fingers gripping the metal of his gun. For all he knows it’s an animal getting into garbage...or someone from a rival family trying to kill him.
Both are more than possible, probable even, in this city and in his line of work.
He stays quiet for a few seconds, his ears straining, when he hears it again. It’s not the clang of metal or brush of trash, but a muffled voice. From here, it sounds like a woman’s muffled voice, not a yell exactly, but not a noise of happiness or pleasure.
Blaise approaches him but he waves him off, keeping one hand on his weapon and the other by his side. His reflexes are still fast, though he rarely goes out on jobs anymore. Only the serious ones. Only the ones that have the possibility of becoming...bloody.
“I’m not interested!”
He walks quickly, distantly recognizing Blaise’s footsteps echoing behind him, and turns the corner around the restaurant and into the alleyway. There, nearly halfway down the alley, is a man moving closer to a woman.
It’s not just any woman, though, it’s the little lamb from inside of the restaurant.
And it’s not just any man, but his man.
With an irritated huff, Draco stomps towards them. The girl is backing away, getting closer and closer to the wall behind her but she looks completely different from how she did inside of the restaurant. Gone is the timid little lamb, the girl who refused to look him in the eye. Instead, she’s mostly standing her ground.
“I told you to leave me alone,” she says again, her voice carrying loudly, bouncing off the walls.
He can’t hear his man’s answer, he doesn’t want to for fear of what he’ll do, but as he moves closer - Blaise’s footsteps still sounding behind him - she turns her face to look at him. Her reaction is almost immediate but he thinks it’s more deserved this time.
“You really must be a fucking pillock,” he spits at the man.
His man, this man he doesn’t even know the name of, whips around and looks even more afraid than the girl does. Draco reaches forward and grabs him by the collar, pulling him away from the girl and slamming him back against the brick wall. His head bangs and Draco grins, the grin he reserves for moments like this.
“I wasn’t doing nothing, Boss!” He yells, grimacing.
Out of the corner of his eye he can see Blaise walking over to the girl and Draco pulls his gun out of the holster and presses it into his man’s kidney, “You were told to keep your hands to yourself, were you not?”
His man’s eyes bounce between him and the girl and he groans, “She’s just a girl, I wasn’t doing nothing!”
Draco’s finger tightens on the trigger, digging the gun further into his flesh, when he feels Blaise grasp his shoulder tightly. He turns his head to the side and can see the girl shivering up against the opposite wall.
“Let me. He’s my man,” Blaise says quietly into his ear. “She’s shaking like a leaf.”
The girl is staring at them, her arms wrapped around herself and, like Blaise said, she’s shaking. He pulls away from Blaise’s man, letting go of his collar and tucking his gun back into the holster. Blaise takes his spot, grasping the man and pulling out from the alley, leaving Draco and the girl on their own.
He approaches her slowly, his hands out of his pockets in front of him and asks, “Are you alright?”
“Please just leave me alone,” she says quietly, her eyes tracing his face.
She’s still cowering, her chin is still tucked in, and she’s made herself seem as small as possible against the brick. It’s not hard for her to do, she’s already a small girl, and Draco takes another step towards her.
“I just want to make sure that you’re alright,” he says, hunching, trying to make himself closer to her height. “I won’t touch you, I swear it.”
He keeps his hands up and out but takes another step closer to her. There’s a bag of trash on the ground by her feet and her apron is still tied around her waist. Blaise’s man must have cornered her as she was taking out the trash and he curses him in his head for preying on such a small girl.
The girl tilts her head to the side and considers him, “I’m fine. You can leave now.”
Draco frowns. She doesn’t look fine but he doesn’t know how else to help her, to gain her trust.
“You can take this back too, I don’t need your money,” she says, dipping her fingers into her apron pocket and pulling out the bills he had put there.
He refuses it, shaking his head, “It’s yours, you earned it.”
Her eyes grow a little fiercer and her chin punches out a bit, “I don’t want your blood money.”
“Blood money?” He asks, incredulously, stifling a small laugh. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. It’s just a tip for your service tonight.”
She snorts and her arms loosen from around her body, “I know who you are, Mr. Malfoy. I’m not as naive as I look.”
Draco sighs and tilts his head back. A girl will be the one to kill him, one day, he knows at least that much. Maybe this one, maybe another one, but it will be a girl. After all, they seem to be his only weakness.
“Then you know that I don’t just hand out money for the sake of it. Keep it,” he settles on saying, twisting to look around. “Can I walk you back inside?”
The girl narrows her eyes at him, pondering him as he stands, before she slowly shakes her head, “No. I’m finished for the night.”
He sweeps his arm out towards her and gestures to the end of the alley where the parking lot is, “To your car then, please.
“I don’t need your help.”
Draco chuckles, he can’t help it. He’ll give it to her, she’s no longer cowering in fear of him, but the way she shakily stands her ground reminds him almost of a kitten - sharp claws and teeth all to do superficial damage.
“Are you this way with everyone?” He asks, stepping closer to her and tucking his palm behind her back, giving her a push in the direction of the lot. “You seemed much nicer inside.”
It’s her turn to laugh, a fake laugh, one grounded in disbelief, “My apologies, Boss. Your big group of barbarians kept my true feelings buried deep inside to avoid me being buried out in the woods.”
She turns towards him and offers up a placating grin, her teeth gleaming in the low light from the lamp posts. He shakes his head and walks a step behind her until they reach the lot. She pulls out her phone and he sees her open up a rideshare app.
No. Absolutely not. Does she even realize the danger she puts herself in? This little lamb of a girl who’s clearly susceptible to the scourge of this disgusting city. Over his dead body.
Without another thought, he swipes her phone and tucks it into the pocket of his trousers, gripping her shoulder and steering her towards his sleek car, “You’ve left me no choice, sweetheart. Get in.”
Her eyes blaze, “What? I will not get in! Give me my phone back!”
The handle flicks up under his grip and the door pops open, the dark leather of his passenger seat more inviting than the backseat she’d apparently rather be sitting in. He turns to look at her, his hand still gripping her shoulder and he knows then and there that she needs his help.
He prefers that the girls come to him for help, prefers not to use any force in getting them to accept his helping hand, but he can tell just from looking at her that this girl is different. It will be an uphill battle to get her to accept anything from him, including a ride home.
He lets go of her shoulder and sticks out his hand instead, “My name is Draco. I would tell you my job but you seem to have a handle on what I do for a living. Despite your clear distrust of me, I can’t in good conscience not give you a ride home after what one of my men did. Please get in the car.”
She glares up at him and he pulls both her phone and his own out of his pocket as a show of good faith, “I’ll even let you have my phone while I drive.”
“And what about that weapon you’ve got hiding under there?” She questions, pointing at his blazer.
He smiles and quickly pats the holster, “That will be staying with me, sweetheart.”
Her hand is small and cold when she grips his in a rough handshake before plucking both phones out of his other hand and sliding into his car. He just barely has time to yank his fingers away from the door when she slams it closed.
The lot is mostly empty when he walks around the back of the car, his shoes tapping loudly against the pavement, and he slips into his car without any fuss. The car starts with barely a rumble and he looks to his passenger to ensure she’s strapped in.
Her arms are folded over her chest and he can see both of their phones in her grasp, closer to the door than to him. It matters not to him, it’s not as if it’s his work phone, which sits heavily in his other pocket.
“Hermione.”
Draco spares at glance at her as he reverses out of the spot, “Pardon me?”
“My name is Hermione.”
He nods to himself and instantly considers which room she’d like the best back at his home.
It takes three weeks before she’s moving into his home. Three weeks of chance meetings, three weeks of more dinners at that stupid restaurant than should be allowed, three weeks of his men surveilling her and taking note of her life.
She lived in a little shitbox of a flat with a rusted door and broken buzzer. She dealt with slimy men at the restaurant, hands snaking behind her to grab a palmful or pinch her thigh. She had a big enough loan that it dinged her credit. She was halfway through an English degree when she dropped out in her third year.
He quickly realized that she was the exact type of girl that could use his help and nothing could stop him. So, a week before, he’d offered, fingers tapping the wooden table and eyes glued to the way she sipped her tea.
“I...run a program, of sorts,” he says, his shoulders tensing at his words.
This is always the hardest part, trying to explain to them that no , he’s not like other men and no , he doesn’t expect anything in return. But slowly, one by one, they’ve all come to trust him. After all, in his world, his word is law.
She looks at him, unsure, “A program?”
“For young women,” he continues. “For young women who are in need of help.”
He expects the frown. He knows it will be accompanied by an adamant head shake and usually a disbelieving scoff. Hermione gives him all three in quick succession.
“Look, I don’t know who you think you are but I am not going to work for you in whatever…” she trails off, her eyes shifting up as though trying to come up with an appropriate word. “-whatever brothel or, or strip club that you run.”
“I don’t.”
The eye roll comes next.
He sighs, “Well I do, a strip club, but I would never expect you to work there. If you want a different job I can offer you one in plenty of other places. But that’s not the point-”
“Then what is? Because from where I’m sitting it sounds like you’re trying to buy me!”
Draco’s eyes darken and he clasps his hands in front of him on the table. Most of the girls don’t get this worked up, most of the girls usually let him finish a complete thought before throwing accusations at him.
She’s not most girls though. He knows that.
“I am happy for you to speak your mind around me but I will not be accused of things like that,” he says in a low and level voice.
He reaches across the table - tucked into a dark corner in the back for a reason - and grasps her chin between his fingers, “Do you understand me?”
It has the impact he’s looking for. She immediately settles into her seat and nods her head, but she also looks away from him and curls in on herself. He recognizes it for what it is: fear. Fear of him. He hates it.
“Don’t,” he bites out, trying to keep his temper under control. “Don’t do that.”
Her eyes flicker back to him and he loosens his grip on her chin, just letting his fingers rest against her cheek, “I would never hurt you, Hermione. Ever. You’re safe with me.”
It was the hardest sell he’d ever made and he was more than pleased when she’d reached out only a few days later and agreed. She wanted his help, she was willing to accept his help, and most of all, somewhere deep down she trusted him.
He slides his glasses off of his tired eyes and lets them land with a clack on top of his desk. Most of the noise has quieted in the house. He had left Theo in charge of moving her in, wanting to give her time and space to get used to her surroundings. His eyes burn when he rubs them and he looks at the watch on his wrist, shaking his head at the time.
Just as he’s about to stand up and sink into his couch, maybe shut his eyes for a quick power nap, there’s a very soft knock at his door. He knows it’s not Theo, who more often than not just bounds in without invitation, and it’s unlikely to be any of his other men with that force of knock.
“Come in,” he says, voice loud enough to carry beyond the wood.
It creaks open a few inches, slowly, before he sees dark-brown ringlet curls and two shining eyes peeking at him through the gap. Her eyebrows are raised as though she’s wondering whether she’s actually allowed inside of his office.
“Hermione,” he says, offering her a smile. “Come in, please.”
She slips in through the crack in the door and shuts it behind her, looking very much like the little lamb he first saw at the restaurant. Her eyes sweep across the dark wood of his office, the paintings and photos that are framed on his walls and the sparse decorations.
She walks towards the shelves at his back, her hands behind her back, and immediately seeks out the no longer small collection of finger paintings he has on display.
“Do a lot of art in your spare time?” She asks teasingly, fingers brushing the crinkled papers.
Draco smiles at her, “Ah, no. They’re from the girls.”
He winces at his under-explanation and Hermione chokes out a laugh, “Am I expected to dabble as well?”
His cheeks burn slightly at the words and he shakes his head, “No, unless you’d like to. Some of the girls who have moved on now have families of their own. I get cards and such from them during the holidays, usually with some art project or another from their children.”
Hermione nods her head and brushes her fingers against some of the other knick-knacks that he has out and Draco tucks his hands in pockets as he stands and watches her. She looks comfortable, if a little bit tired from the move, in a simple sweater and denims that cling to her shape.
He clears his throat, “Is everything to your liking? Do you need anything?”
She turns to him with a smile, “Everything is great, thank you. Truly, I don’t know...I don’t know how to thank you for this.”
“It’s not necessary,” he says. “If you need anything, please let me know.”
The clock on his wall ticks loudly in their silence and he moves back over to his desk chair, taking a seat while she continues moving throughout his office. When she finally ends up standing behind the chair on the other side of his desk, he gestures for her to sit.
“I wanted to ask you something,” she says, a light flush coming to her cheeks.
“Of course, anything.”
He watches as she takes a deep breath and looks down at her hands, “I heard some of the girls calling you something.”
He raises his eyebrow, “Oh?”
“They were calling you Uncle Draco. Are you related to them all?”
Draco can’t help the smirk that comes to his lips but he tries to cover it behind his hand, “No, I’m not related to them. It’s just a...familial comfort thing. A lot of the girls don’t have much of a family and I...I can take on that kind of role for them.”
Hermione hums and nods her head, “I see. Should I…?”
She trails off and Draco considers her question. His eyes are drawn to her lips and the small movement of her chest as she breathes. If he’s honest, then no, he doesn’t want to be her Uncle Draco. But he knows she wants to fit in and be like the other girls, so yes, he can be that for her.
For now.
“You can, if you’re comfortable with it.”
They both sit there in the quiet, Hermione avoiding his eyes but he continues to watch her. There’s still something drawing him to her, something about how small and innocent she is. There’s something so different about her than the other girls.
She surprises him with her next question.
“Can I give you a hug?”
His mouth drops open but he quickly closes it and gives her a single nod of his head. Hermione stands up from her seat and comes along to the side of his desk, standing with her fingers tangled together in front of her.
Draco stands, almost a foot taller than her, and holds out his arms. He knows she’s just trying to show how grateful she is, knows that it isn’t anything more than a way that she shows her appreciation for him, but he’s going to enjoy it nonetheless.
She tucks herself into his chest, arms curling around his torso and Draco wraps her up. She fits there better than any of the other girls ever have. She fits there better than anyone ever has. He tucks his chin down and lets the scent of her shampoo and lotion fill his nose, softly rubbing his fingers over her shoulders.
When Hermione pulls back, she lifts up on her toes and carefully presses her lips to his cheek in a soft brush, “Thank you for everything, Uncle Draco.”