Disclaimer: Haven't got the patience to write a book, much less six. Thanks for making it easier for me JK.

Summary: This is basically what you get when there's stuff to do and the only person you can count is a royal pain in the derriere. Essentially, the spotlight's on two very different yet very alike people and both can't help but be driven up the wall with each other.

A/N: Well, it's not exactly AU since in the end, it's going to be pretty normal (as normal as it gets, I guess). It's the present but it's in the past; it's a plausible thing to happen in the HP world. Me needs a beta-reader. Just if yer interested, kiddies :)

Chapter Two: Fancy A Nightcap?

There were three things which caused a rather disgruntled Hermione Granger to unwillingly rouse from her slumber: first was the feeling that her bed had been transfigured to large lumpy sack of quaffle-sized potatoes; secondly, there was this awful yapping sound near her left ear that seemed to grow louder as she drifted into consciousness; and third (this promptly sent her bolting out of the her bed with an unladylike yelp), was that she was unceremoniously doused with winter-tinged water.

"Took you long enough," muttered someone to her right as she proceeded to walk out of sight with a wooden bucket tucked under her arm.

Hermione was disoriented and needless to say, sopping wet against the chill December wind.

"You're a mess, you know that?" said that yapping thing amusedly.

"Whuzzurell?" she replied with a slur that meant sleep did not want to evade her just yet.

"What? Marguerite, don't gibber. You sound like Hubert."

This made the drenched girl's eyes to snap open and gape at the yapping thing which turned out to be Ginny Weasley.

"Gin? What are you doing here?" she flapped about sending drops of water to hit the other girl's face.

"Gin? Isn't that what you had some of last night?" Ginny said with a quirk of her lips and she wiped off the sheen on her cheeks.

"Zonked, my dear? Here," said a new voice, a male one, "this should sort you out." he said, offering a chipped mug of, what looked like, boiling water.

If the bucket of ice water didn't wake her up, the sight of the man surely did.

"Pro-professor Dumbledore? Is there anything wrong sir?" Hermione stammered as she sat on the bed and grabbed a fistful of blanket to cover her soaking sanctity.

The two other people in the room burst out laughing, her bemused expression doing nothing to relieve their mirth.

"Hardly an alcoholic, this girl is," said the chuckling old man handing Hermione the smoking mug which the girl accepted confusedly.

"Pity she failed to inherit you tolerance, grandfather," Ginny replied, fighting to keep a straight face. "Drink up Guertie. It will do your state a lot of good." she finished with an air of feigned stiffness and a wink.

She wasn't drunk, she was sure of that, even if she wasn't one to experience hangovers personally. She was dazed yes, confused most definitely, but certainly not drunk. She felt as if she was yanked from a strange dream to an even stranger reality.

Hermione absentmindedly took a careful sip of the hot drink and surveyed her surroundings. Here was Ginny, dressed in what appeared to be, an ensemble of muggle clothing which seemed to be in fashion in the early 1800s. It looked a lot like what those prancing Swiss milkmaids wear. Professor Dumbledore donned a loose wrinkled nightdress, which looked like his normal robes except that it fell short below his knobby knees. If Hermione was thinking straight, she would have commented on their choice of clothing, but she was more preoccupied. She presumed it was barely five in the morning as the cracks on the wooden windows only showed very little sunlight.

Cracks on the windows? Wooden windows? She thought uselessly

"What's going on? Where are my windows" she choked on the drink that tasted like tea.

"Stupid thing to ask really, Guertie. Why don't you lie-"

"Ginny! Quit calling me that!" as she cut her off.

"I'll stop calling you Guertie, if you stop calling me Ginny! It's a silly nickname, don't you think grappa? Ginny retorted even before Hermione could finish her sentiments.

"Actually, it's quite alright, Virginia. But I'll have to agree with Marguerite here. Guertie is a name fit for a spinster hag, I say!" replied the man with an amused sparkle in his blue eyes.

There were about 12 things wrong in Dumbledore's sentence-

"Wmrgprfgrappginny!" -and Hermione tried to voice them out in one sorry word.

"She's talking gibber again! How many barrels did you polish off? A couple? Seventeen?

Hermione decided to ask the most intelligent (in her opinion) question that she can come out with, since obviously, she was cornered by a couple of deranged lunatics who thought it would be spiffy down some polyjuice and dress up as if it was the county fair.

"Who are you people?! Where did you take me?" she shrieked flinging the half empty mug into the two impostors' general direction. It sailed a few feet away from her intended targets and landed with a plop on a nearby haystack.

Wooden windows? Haystacks? Tasteless brown skirts? What's next, perhaps a horse? Hermione asked herself.

"Oh no dear, no horses. Just goats and Hubert the pig." The-man-who-looks-like-Dumbledore uttered while still smiling despite Hermione's juvenile attempt to chuck the mug to his head.

"D-did I say that out loud?" she said, almost only to herself.

"Apparently, you loon. Grappa, I'll sort ickle Marguerite out. You still need to get washed." The-girl-who-looked-extraordinarily-like-Ginny said.

"I hope only minor scratches would ensue once you are done with her, child," he grinned. "I am quite smelly, no?" he added with good humor

"Quite barn-like, if you ask." she answered fondly and wrinkled her freckled nose.

The man waved a goodbye and walked out of the room. Or barn. Or warehouse. Or dungeon.

"Right, lift your arms." the redhead ordered as she pulled on the hem of Hermione's nightdress.

Hermione decided to play along. It is perhaps just another idiotic dream. But when "Ginny" started to lift the sodding clothing up her calves-

"Ginny, what are you doing?!" –she decided to end the minute-long charade.

"You will be called Guertie from now on, you silly girl." Ginny said and stuck out her tongue.

"That doesn't make sense Gi-. That doesn't make sense" she stopped as she was about to call the stranger Ginny. It seems to irk her when Hermione called her that.

"And why is that Guertie?" she replies as she plucked a comb from her apron and wrestled with Hermione's mane.

"Well, your name is Virginia, so Ginny is quite apt. But then, Guertie... See, I don't see how it resembles Hermione." she answered pointedly, wincing (so does this mean this isn't a dream?) every other syllable or so as her hair was being attacked.

"Her-mi-o-ne?" Ginny asked.

Hermione frowned. Ginny had said her friend's name in an uncommon fashion. It was slow and drawn out. It usually sounds like that if the person saying her name was to say it for the first time.

"You see, I think you've got the wrong person," Hermione starts, trying to find logic in her current situation. "I know this would sound strange but, I think. I think I've gone mad."

Hermione was babbling. She was merely prattling to buy her time to recall the events of last night. But so it seems, her nonsensical banter made the red-haired girl jump, her eyes alight, as if Hermione was some intricate potion that she has seemed to solve.

"I think I know what your problem is." Ginny says. She then peeps her head out the doorless doorframe.

"Grappa! Auntieee! Marguerite has –uh- what do you call that again grappa?" yells Ginny which makes some three or four chickens of some neighbor to cluck indignantly.

"Good God child! Taper your mouth unless you want the neighbors to clamp them for you!" shrieks a lady's voice with as much volume as that of Ginny's.

"Auntie Minerva, just get in here!" replies Ginny as she ushers in a lady with red hair, much like Ginny's, only a bit darker and streaked with gray and white.

Hermione guessed right. It was her head of house, Professor McGonagall. But is it? Or is she some impostor too? Hermione would gladly give up a years worth of Christmas money so as to wake up from this horrid, unamusing dream.

"Are you coming down with a fever dear?" the older woman asked as she presses her palm to Hermione's forehead.

"I-I don't think so…" replies the tawny-haired girl, but shivers from her still wet clothes.

"Oh my, I shouldn't have splashed you. I thought it was a good remedy for being drunk." she says concernedly.

I am not drunk! she thinks hopelessly.

"I see you have failed to sort her out my dear." says a chortling Dumbledore as he steps into the room, all clean and decent-looking.

"She is a hopeless case, I have always assured you of that." says Ginny in a fake mournful voice but she looks at Hermione and gives her a hearty wink.

"Hmm... child, do you remember what happened to you last night?" the old man asks carefully, as if talking to a patient in a closed ward.

Hermione ponders; a thing she should have done the moment she found things were very peculiar and was called by another name. All she gets are hazy blurs of the library and someone she could not quite remember as of the-

"Malfoy!"

- - -

In the other side of town, would you believe the exact same thing is happening to one boy, er man, er boy-man? Well excepting that the young man is yet to be woken by three unusual creatures. They stand, about half of a normal man. They all have grey, rumpled skin and don the same kind of clothing: they have on their frail frames a cream-colored pillowcase embellished with what looked like a coat of arms (it was caked with so much an array of dust and soot that one could barely notice it, much less the color)

"His Highness?" inquires an elf with a high-pitched voice. It must be a girl. She is timid and her voice wavers yet loud enough, she supposes.

She gets an incoherent mumble in return.

"Is His Highness awake, sir?" squeaks the bold one, poking the bundle on the emerald-green poster bed which is the young master. This is probably the youngest house elf owing to the fact that its back was still straight and its skin was still quite firm

"Merchin! You is not to poke the young master!" the oldest one whispers and smacks Merchin's bony wrist.

The young elf grimaces and nods in apology to the sleeping form.

"Why did Mistress wants all three of us to wakes young master? Surely, one house elf would do!" says Blessie, the girl one with amber eyes the size of, what muggles call, a golf ball.

"I hears from the kitchens that the Master of the castle is to returns!" answers a very energetic Merchin.

"Master returns? Is true what he says is true Golaf?" gasps the girl elf.

"I does not know it is true. I hears it from two gossiping elves but I does not know if is true!" exclaims the old one then dissolving in fits of coughing brought by age.

"Merchin is sure! True it is! Kitchen elves is cooking a great lunch! All of the favorites of the king!" says an overtly zealous young elf while flinging his arms in to his sides to emphasize his point. Unfortunately (or fortunately since they were there 15 minutes ago trying in vain to wake the boy), this caused his thin hand to smack the young master squarely on the face.

The three elves knew better than to stick around especially since the boy was so rudely awaken by a solid hit on his pale face. After Golaf gave a Merchin a good yank on the ear, they simultaneously disapparated with a crack.

On the boy's side of things, he was in a middle of a dream wherein he was riding a wild flying beast which he recognized as the hippogriff he provoked back in his third year. They were descending to the Hogwarts grounds, making his stomach do a somersault. He gazed down to where they were about to land and saw a girl beckoning them to get down. When they landed with a light thump, the boy leaned towards the girl without getting off the magical creature and recognized her very vaguely. She reached out to touch his cheek and in a quick blink of an eye, he found himself being slapped on the cheek and as the girl's hand collides with his face, the scene changes and he remembers it to be four years ago wherein a bushy-haired Hermione Granger rushed up to him and smacked him, eyes bright and full of unyielding rage.

That's when he wakes up.

Draco Malfoy gingerly sits up on his plush bed and rubs the spot that had been hit. He was surprised to feel it to be quite raw, not painful but still annoying. He takes his time shaking the sleep off his eyes and cracks his knuckles and shakes off the stiffness in his neck.

"Alistair, darling?" says a cool female voice from the other side of his door, followed by a knock.

He stuffed a finger up his ear and pulled on it as if he had heard something not quite right. In fact he did hear something wrong.

Alistair was it? All is there, perhaps? All this air? Well that didn't make sense. He thought pointedly.

"Dear, will you let your mother in or will I have to barge in like an uneducated skrewt?" said the lady outside who was supposed to be Draco's mother. Her voice was stern, but not unkind and it had a tinge of humor in it.

He sighed. It was his mother after all, and everything was normal. He had a funny notion that something peculiar was happening since he wasn't in Slytherin's quarters anymore. He supposed he had come home for the holidays (and perhaps forgot that he had left Hogwarts) and he was back in his room in the Malfoy Manor. He did not, however, remember his room to be this huge. He is certain that it was forest green, yes, but he could not recall a single time wherein his room was bedecked in silver and crystal trinkets ranging from a jewel-encrusted full-length mirror on the far side of his room to a tiny bell perched on a small white cushion next to his bed.

"Coming mother," he started as he walked the length of the carpeted room towards the huge ornate door and opened it. "I see you've put more stuff in here." tilting his head to refer to the vast place that was his room.

"What did you say dear?" she asked his son inquisitively as she slipped in the room clutching a large leather pouch "Put more 'stuff' you say?" she added with quirk that meant she found something funny.

"Erm, yes mum," he paced back to the side of his bed and his mother followed suit "like that mirror for instance. You know I don't like mirrors." Draco said as if there was something bitter on his tongue.

He looked at his mother's choice of clothing today. It looks as if she were a sad muggle heroine in that tragedy –who was that Shaking person? Wilbert? Willy? It was big and lacy and hid the fact that her mother was as thin as a wand. He wondered, a masquerade tonight perhaps?

"Mirrors!" laughs the woman "You say you don't like mirrors! Well Alistair, I thank you my darling for gifting your mother with a laugh to start this fine day." she exclaimed and then muttered something under her breath (which sounded like "self-absorbed" and "pretty boy") without any malice. She pinched the cheek he was rubbing only moments ago and tiptoed to kiss her son on the forehead.

Draco was quite tall. Only a daft man or a person with misplaced eyes (perhaps on his belly or his scalp or in his knickers) would make the mistake to regard Draco as puny. Especially now beside his tiny mother, he could have picked her up with very little strain.

"Come sit." say Narcissa as she herself settles on the corner of the huge bed, placing her burden on her lacey lap.

Draco obliges and sits where his mother had pat her slender hand on.

"Alistair-" the blonde starts.

"Did you just call me Alistair?" asks Draco who looks at his mother with an air of confusion and question.

"Unless we named you otherwise, then we'd have to call you Otherwise." his mother replies with a glint of mirth in her eyes.

Draco returned her cheap joke with a raised brow and smirk, but did not answer. He was still troubled by his mother's treatment of him. She was… playful. A word you would rarely hear being uttered in this house. She was always civil, all the 16 years of his life, she treated him respectfully. Too respectfully, for that matter, as if he were the older one of the two. But after- after what happened, she became less cold and less aloof, almost as if she was seeing his son in a different light. But that change of treatment only happened that summer right before his sixth year. Right before-

"Oh, forgive me son. I need a tad practicing on my rusty humor. With your father coming back with his guests and all, I need all the sparkling dinner conversation that I have up my frilly sleeves!" exclaimed Narcissa, cutting of Draco's train of thought.

"F-father? C-coming home?" Draco rarely stuttered, well in fact he never stutters. But the mention of his father made his insides knot with each other. His face was suddenly devoid of color, and the smile playing on his lips quickly vanished.

"Why yes, my darling, right before noon in fact." she answered, her eyes concerned "Is there anything wrong pet? You've gone terribly pale! Have you- hold on," Narcissa stammered replacing her look of unease with that of speculation. "Have you been in the cellars again?"

"I- what?" his body was still tense because of what his mother had told him.

"Aha! Dear, what am I going to do with you?" asked Draco's mother with a grin. "Truly a man, I say. Can't resist a new keg of cervesa, just like your brother and father." she added with a click of her tongue.

He was about to retort, denying two things that his mother claimed to be true: one, however vast their mansion was, they did not posses any wine cellar, much less one filled with Spanish beer; two, if he'd have a brother, wouldn't he at least have noticed after all these years? His sentiments were withheld due to a new voice that rang outside the hallway.

"Mother? Have you seen my boots? The ones with the gold buckle?" said a young man's voice getting louder as he approached Draco's room.

"Harry dear, I threw them down the sewers. They're horribly overused." replied an amused Narcissa while wrinkling here regal nose.

"Oh no you did not!" said a huffing Harry, his head sticking out from the doorframe of Draco's room.

"Child, those things you call boots can hardly be pertained to as footwear. You've rubbed the heels thin from use! It's time you've changed them, honestly." replied the blonde woman, matching Harry's feigned haughtiness with an air of her own hauteur.

"I resent that, mama. They're perfectly fine. And I am not to be fooled. You wouldn't approach the sewers with a 10-foot broomstick, honestly." Harry answered mimicking his "mother's" tone with amusement as he entered the room and leaned on the doorframe.

"What If I asked one of the house elves to do it?" she challenged, but obviously already defeated.

"Boots, I believe, are classified under clothing. And even if they weren't, you'd think twice before giving a pair to them. They might run along free and babble the family secrets and- oof!" Harry ended his rave as something heavy collided with his stomach. It appears that Narcissa hurtled the curious brown pouch towards Harry.

"I think, you've just burst my spleen." he said weakly as he massaged the spot just above his navel with one hand, and picked up the shoe bag with another.

"You're welcome my dear." she smiled and walked towards the raven-haired boy "But you'll be sorry when you find yourself running on gravel then suddenly," she rubbed her palms together and made a scratching noise "you'd wish you just let me toss those things away." Narcissa exclaimed sternly as she waggled a finger at Harry and pinched his nose.

"Why would I be running on gravel? I could always fly." Harry replied as he rubbed his nose. He kneeled, putting on the things that bruised his abdomen.

"Boys!" she told the air "Why didn't the gods just gift me with a pretty little girl?" she looked from Harry to Draco

"Alistair could pass as a girl." Harry grinned, looking up from his bootlaces.

Draco was interrupted from his daze as he watched his mother and Harry Potter exchange banter and regard each other as mother and son. Without thinking, he replied out of habit.

"Potter here has dating preference very much like that of a girl, mother." Draco said with mild distaste.

"Potter?" said the Narcissa and Harry in unison.

"Oh, am I supposed to call you Harry now?" he asked with a tiny tinge of apology.

"You've always called me Harry, you nut." Harry said as he stood, bootlaces tied. "And why the hell potter? Is that some new term for a girl pretending to be a boy?" he added with a small smirk.

"I suppose so! Makes them up, he does. What did you call these trinkets dear?" Narcissa cut in and motioned to the adornments Draco referred to earlier. "Stuff, was it?"

"Erm, yeah, mother, er, H-harry" there he goes again, stuttering like an epileptic.

His head was spinning. He must have downed a keg or two of firewhisky or he must be dreaming. He dug his nails on his arm and felt a suffice amount of pain. Whatever this is, he wasn't sure if liked it.

"Can I take a walk, mother?" he asked the blonde lady by the door.

"I suggest, you bathe first young man. Though I'm quite puzzled on why you suddenly want to stroll about the castle grounds." said a smiling Narcissa.

"Right." Draco replied feebly.

"I'll go with you. Since your mother here locked up our brooms, I've nothing to do around here." said Harry, making his voice louder than it was supposed to be.

"I have every reason to do that. Do you think the French muggles wouldn't find it odd that the Crown Princes of France and Spain are to be seen hurtling in midair with a couple of brooms? Their poor little hearts wouldn't take it. And they'd burn you, mighty right!" Narcissa said all this very fast and gulped a large amount of air as she finished.

"Crown Prince? Of Spain? Me?" Draco stated in disbelief standing from the side of his bed.

He felt dizzy and somehow he thought, he was able to find exactly how Longbottom felt every single day of his life. Stupid, stumbling and senseless, he thought uncharitably.

"Don't be selfish you prat. You only get France." Harry said, looking at Draco as if he was a dense wad of cotton.

"Oh, so I'm Draco, Prince of France, then?" he shouted rather frantically. To his annoyance, Harry and his mother seemed to be holding back their laughs.

"No. You're Henry Gregory Alistair De Laud Prè, Prince of France, and unfortunately, you are my son." Narcissa answers in a false tone of disappointment. Her eyes were brimming with tears of mirth.

"And you're my brother then?" Draco bellows, finally getting thoroughly infuriated by the situation.

What in Merlin's name is she playing at? And why the hell did she drag Harry Potter into this manic charade? he thought furiously.

"Right after you mother marries my father, yes in essence." Harry sputters, finding immense laughter in Draco's wild antics.

"What?!" the blond boy is driven up the wall "Bloody hell, what century is this? No don't tell me, it's 1616 isn't it?" he asks rhetorically, throwing his hands in the air.

"You're a year and a century off." replies his mother rather taken aback by her son's outrage. "Dear me Alistair, you better lie down. Cervesa has ill-effects on you, darling." Narcissa says softly, drawing closer to red-faced boy.

"I better go to the library." says a confused Harry "There must be a book about this somewhere there." he trudged out the room eagerly, wanting to distance himself from his hot-headed half-brother. "Adios mi mama, mi hermano." chortled Harry from the outside, wanting to put a bit of humor into to suddenly tense scene.

"Darling? Alistair? Do you want a drink of water?" asked a concerned blonde witch.

"Where is he going?" inquired Draco. His voice was calmer. He rationed, the only thing he would get screaming at Potter and his mother was a sore throat.

"The library, dear. To sort you out." replied the Draco's mother with her back turned to him as she rummaged through the mahogany drawers for a wash cloth.

Library. He seemed to recall being at a library the night before. Was it in this place's library perhaps? He was pretty sure it was in Hogwarts…

Narcissa cursed under her breath as an open cabinet door hit her head as she stood up.

"For heaven's sake!" she exclaims, catching herself and recalling that she need not delve in drawers for wash cloths. She was the queen of France for crying out loud!

"Mother, I believe we have house elves here, don't we?" asks Draco helpfully, sliding into the blankets. He felt quite tired and quite shaky. He needed a clear mind to sort the confusing reality that is the present.

"Yes, yes boy I was getting to that!" Narcissa snaps, berating herself for not thinking of it herself. "Now what are their names? We have about a dozen dozens, don't we?"

"Right." he played along distractedly, recalling the happenings of yesterday.

Library, library. Was it the Restricted Section? If this was the workings of Dark Magic, why wasn't he dead yet?

Oh right, I'm worse off than dead. I'm insane. he thought wistfully.

No, he didn't remember getting in that roped area, much less asking a teacher for a permissions slip. He did however recall…

Hippogriff. Flying. Granger. Smack

His eyes were wide with realization, and he hit himself for being so slow to remember.

"Mother?" he asks uncertainly.

His mother was busy with herself, shrieking random names in the air.

"Trinket?! Blimpy?! Oh, Merlin's beard! How many times should I guess? Alistair, remember any of the house elves, dear?" she looks at her son, unaware that he had asked a question first.

"I- no. I don't." he grows impatient and wants to ask his mother now but she is preoccupied by a petty thing so Draco assumed he'd have to help her before she could do the same to him. "Lotty? Mildred? Dobby?" he started finding the task completely amusing.

"Rancher! Prancer! Oh, good God Rudolph!?" the older witch screeches.

"Crabbe! Goyle! Vincent! Gregory!" Draco was shouting at random, immensely amused. "Blaise! Millicent! Oh I say, Pansy!"

At the last name, they hear a sharp crack and a rather pudgy girl elf appears.

"You calls, young Master?" squeaks Pansy the house elf. She eyes Draco inquisitively since he was now rolling on the bed in fits of laughter.

"You-your n-name is P-P-Pansy!" he giggles. Aside from stuttering, giggling is another thing he does not do. But then there is a first time for everything. Especially when it involves the name of a certain pug-faced girl and household help.

"Y-Yes, Master? Um, Mistress?" she turns her attention to the very confused Narcissa, her arm supporting her weight as she leans on one of the open drawers.

"Well, fetch me a wash cloth and a bowl of water. Lukewarm would do. Go on, don't gape. Pansy it is?" orders the blonde and is answered by an equally bewildered house elf by curtsying and disappearing with another crack.

"Oh wait! Pansy?" she asks the air while Draco tries to compose himself but as his mother utters the house elf's name, he dissolves back into unmanly sniggers.

"Quit it boy! I don't even see what's funny! Oh yes, there you are." she says as Pansy appears yet again making Draco bury his face onto a pillow to muffle his cackles.

"Elf, look for the other young Master, yes the sane one, the one with glasses and dark hair. Tell him to get inside the potions lab and look for a numbing solution, the ones used to tame a Hyenasaul (which is fundamentally a mesh of your basic laughing hyena and sea lion and they are very odd creatures since their deaths are caused only by themselves. Making them laugh spells their demise since these furry water animals would laugh and sink until they are bereft of any air to breathe thus killing them, but then this pretty useless and Narcissa need to get her point across). Look for him in the library, probably in the Healing and Cure Section." she finishes and sends of the obedient elf to do her bidding.

With the mention of the library, Draco is able to revert back to what he was ought to do 52 laughs ago.

"So I see you don't need that numbing solution my dear?" the mildly irritated blonde asks.

"I guess not. What where you going to do? Rub it on my stomach?" he was quite familiar with Hyenasauls. Their drool and blubber are quite useful potion ingredients.

"No, that only works for the animals. I was to throw it down you throat, love." she answers, her smile morphing into a sly grin.

"But those things are toxic! They'd have killed me in a snap." Draco reasons, his voice sounding a pitch higher.

"That was the plan, darling." Narcissa was laughing at this point.

"Glad that I dealt with the problem myself then." he says smirking. "Mother, I have a question." he needed to get to the bottom of this. And he knew that he had to start somewhere.

"You just asked one, dear, but I'll be kind and grant you another one." she replies, still thoroughly amused with herself.

Sparkling dinner conversation was out of the question then, Draco thought idly. He ignores her grin, and asks.

"Mother, do you know anyone by the name of Hermione? Hermione Granger?" he starts to ask, hoping this was a sensible question in this world.

"Hermione Granger? Well no dear." she answers pursing her lips and Draco's hopes suddenly plummet. "But I do know of a Hermione, a daughter of a good friend, you see."

His relief comes as swiftly as his disappointment disappears.

"Well, can I meet her perhaps?" says the blond boy, sounding very stupid to himself.

"I don't see why you're so eager, but you are in luck if you really do want to see this Hermione." she says to his son.

"Thanks mum, so when do I see her?"

Draco heaves a sigh of relief. He needed to talk to her. She was after all the last person he very distinctly remembers and he thought, he had no other shot.

"Later today dear. This friend, see, she's coming to the-" Narcissa answers but is cut by an agitated Draco.

"Ah yes." he says quickly, knowing exactly what was happening later on. "What time is it?" he asks looking around for a clock.

"Nearly six." answers his mother, pointing to a highly wrought grandfather clock near the mirror.

"Six?! Six in the bleeding morning? What'd you wake me for then?" asks an incredulous Draco.

"Well as you know, today is a Friday, you and Harry always have your childish little horse riding thing every week. Remember?" she says his mother as she pushes back the drawers she hastily pulled out earlier.

"Oh yeah, almost forgot that." he replies, pretending to comprehend. "So I'll be washing up now, then?" he adds looking at his mother.

"Best idea you've had all morning, my dear!" briskly ambling towards the door after putting everything back into place. "You know where to go. And don't be late this time. It's at 7:30, not 10:00 as you have so wrongly told that poor old house elf last week just so she won't wake you up till 9. Had to beat her toes raw for that!" she reprimands him strongly.

"I was –dreaming?" he defends himself from an act he could not even remember doing and smiles innocently.

"Always the charmer, you are." Narcissa quirks her lips exits the room and shuts the door with soft thud.

A/N: Lalala, more trouble in paradise. R&R pleasie : )