The Disillusionment of Draco Malfoy
(and His Accomplice Hermione Granger)
Chapter 10
"I traced the Hufflepuff line down to Hepzibah Smith, who was poisoned by her house elf. She had the cup, but it went missing after she died and her family wasn't able to locate it. Smith's death coincides with Voldemort quitting his job at Borgin and Burkes, so say their ledgers which cost me half of my parents' university fund to take a look at," Hermione tells him.
Draco changed out of the clothes from this morning as soon as the clean ones were dry, and now leans against Hermione's dining room table, staring at her parchment-covered wall. Hermione sits in a chair behind him, narrating.
"After that, there is no mention of Voldemort anywhere for a decade, and the cup never turns up, not even in rumor. Assuming he made it to a horcrux during that time, what would he do with it afterwards?"
"What did he do with the others?"
"The locket was—well, it was supposed to be—in a cave surrounded by Inferi."
"Something just as ostentatious, then?"
"Possibly; but for all that he's a psycho, he is clever, and wouldn't hide every horcrux the same way. The Gaunt ring was left in a shack, the diary was given to your father—"
"I'm sorry, what?"
Draco whirls around and stares at her. His father had a horcrux? Since when? For how long? And was a fragmented piece of that twisted bastard's soul still lurking somewhere in his house?
"Your father had a diary—a horcrux—that he gave to Ginny in second year. Harry destroyed it with a Basilisk fang," she explains, waving her hand like what she just said isn't making his brain implode.
"Back the fuck up, Granger. There…my…and there was…what?"
Hermione sighs and explains, and Draco wonders what exactly he was doing in second year that made him miss all this. In fact, what was he doing the first five years of school, while the girl in front of him was risking her life?
"We are going to have a little chat about your extracurriculars, Granger," he says when she's finished.
"Aw, I didn't know you were interested in S.P.E.W." She smiles sweetly.
"Remind me to…curse your knees or something." He pushes the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Christ my head hurts."
"I'll get you some paracetamol."
A few minutes later, Hermione hands him a small pill and a glass of water.
"You've really got the hang of muggle swearing," she comments, head tilted to one side.
"Can't go around swearing like a wizard, can I? I'd be sectioned."
He sets the glass on the table and looks back at the wall. A cave and a shack and his father, of all people, but his mind whirrs with thought. Before prison, before a botched mission, before before before, his father was in the upper echelon of the Dark Lord's circle. But then, so were other people—other family members in fact. It hits him and cold revulsion slithers down his spine.
"He could have given the cup to another Death Eater," he says, and Hermione stares at him a second.
"Who?"
His head throbs. "My father was one of the favourites—one of the best. But Aunt Bellatrix was better."