Chapter 10

Finding The Key

-oOo-

Ernie MacMillan was going bald.

It didn't suit him, and Hermione had to prevent herself from doing a double-take as she took his coat. He stammered the briefest of greetings before joining the party in the ballroom, and Hermione was left shaking out the heavy velvet cloak, wondering when Ernie had started accepting invitations from the Malfoys.

An observer would have believed the war never had happened: tonight, the pure-blood elite celebrated Daphne Greengrass' engagement to Theo Nott, and bar the odd Muggle-born made good like Sarah Fawcett and Donaghan Tremlett, the guest list could have been taken from the Pure-Blood Dictionary.

No Weasleys were present.

Hermione didn't know whether she should be grateful that they still remained the same they always had been, or sad that she wouldn't get to see them.

Ron may have acted like a complete idiot, but after being stuck at Malfoy Manor for months his crime seemed less heinous. She was pretty certain that Ron, whatever his feelings about leaving the wizarding world may be, wished her well. A few months under Astoria's thumb had taught Hermione the value of that. It was like walking on egg-shells, waiting for the inevitable-

"Hermione must come to the kitchen. Now!" Rippy was tugging at Hermione's sleeve, and she was recalled to the business at hand.

They had a party to water and feed, and the elves were so busy that Miffy had graciously allowed Hermione to prepare food that the guests actually would eat. Hermione didn't consider the concession as much of a privilege as the house-elf did, but it was still a welcome diversion from trying to predict Astoria's next move.

Tray after tray with dainty canapés were transported upstairs with a flick of Eddel's fingers, and Miffy kept them coming. Hermione and Essie were preparing the main meal for later, and Rippy was in charge of drinks. Welder, meanwhile, was busy in the garden marshalling the peacocks for a display later; apparently it was a Malfoy tradition.

Disaster struck just before the party was supposed to sit down to dinner.

A hundred guests were streaming into the magically extended dining room upstairs, while Miffy was staring in horror at the puddle of water on the floor in the kitchen.

"Who spilt something? Essie?" Despite her shrill tones, it was obvious to everyone that the slowly increasing pool of water wasn't due to a simple spillage.

A minute's frantic search located a leaking pipe in the larder. It was connected to the sink there, and then it disappeared into the bowels of the manor, the second basement Hermione only had ventured into to dust the wine cellar.

"Miffy not have time for this!" She was wild-eyed and her forehead had taken on an alarming dark purple tone. Her voice was so shrill it made Hermione fear for her eardrums. "Hermione fix it!"

Being a sworn enemy of most of the guests, Hermione could afford to take a rather more relaxed attitude. Admittedly, she did have soft spot for Draco, whom she had spotted skulking desultorily in the gallery upstairs earlier. He hadn't been looking forward to the evening, she knew that much.

"What do you want me to do, Miffy?" Hermione asked, with her most reasonable voice. It always put a suffering expression on Ron's face and made Harry remember he had something urgent to do elsewhere. "You know I don't have a wand—"

"Does not need wand, just fix it!"

"Oh, for God's sake," Hermione mumbled under her breath, but she abandoned the watercress garnish and went off in search of the offending pipe. Plumbing wasn't exactly her forte, with or without magic, but surely it couldn't be that complicated?

Ten minutes later, knee-deep in ice-cold water and flailing for purchase without reaching anything that wasn't as slippery and wet as the floor, Hermione had to declare defeat. There was a leak down here somewhere, but her chances of finding it without magic were slim to nonexistent, never mind fixing it.

Well aware of Miffy's likely reaction should she have the temerity of making the kitchen floor even wetter, Hermione wiped her legs dry as best as she could before going back in. There didn't seem to be much she could do about the shivering.

Fortunately, the kitchen was roasting. She still inched closer to the industrial-sized stove as she reported her lack of progress to Miffy.

The house-elf did not take it well.

"But what are we to do," she wailed. Before Hermione could suggest that it might work better if one of the elves, who could actually use magic, had a look downstairs, Rippy piped up.

"Get the Master!"

The suggestion seemed to find favour with Miffy and Essie, too (not that the latter had a say in the matter).

"Get the Master," Miffy repeated, and for the first time in hours she didn't look flustered to the point of self-combustion. Rippy was dispatched upstairs, and returned in the blink of an eye with Draco, who was clad in formal robes and wearing a long-suffering expression on his face.

"I didn't know you'd be here," he greeted Hermione, whose eyebrows flew heavenwards at that particular expression of thickheadedness. Where had he expected her to be – Timbuktu?

Colouring slightly, Draco turned his attention to Miffy, who was wringing her long hands. "What seems to be the matter?" he asked a little more curtly than necessary. Miffy recoiled.

"There's a burst pipe somewhere," Hermione filled in for Miffy, glancing sharply at Draco. "Your assistance appears to be required, or we might all end up drenched."

"Oh." Draco recovered himself slightly.

"Not to mention, your guests may end up without dessert."

"We couldn't have that, now could we?" He shook his head, but looked quite cheerful at the prospect. "What do you need me to do?"

The first thing Draco did was to warm the water to something more suited to the Caribbean than England on a cold night. One thing led to another, and quite soon the cellar room was waist-high in water, as impossibly blue as Hermione remembered the sea off the Emerald Coast in Sardinia.

"Oops," Hermione said without an ounce of regret as she splashed Draco's hitherto immaculate sleeve with water. The rest of his robes had been drenched at an early stage, so it hardly made any difference.

"Oops," he mimicked, sending a rather larger splash her way.

"It was an accident!" she protested. "Now, if I were to do it on purpose..."

None of them noticed Rippy. He was hidden beneath the low arches of the ceiling, watching them from the top of an ancient cupboard. The humans were getting sillier and sillier, shrieking with laughter when there was work to be done, but Rippy was quite pleased with himself.

It hadn't been very difficult to pry the casing loose from the ancient pipe supplying the kitchen with water. The Master looked much happier downstairs with Hermione than upstairs with the guests.

Yes, Rippy had definitely done the right thing. He wouldn't even have to find something sharp to poke himself in the eye with this time.

Hermione sat bolt upright in her bed, ancient springs creaking ominously to warn her against any sudden movements lest she wanted to find herself on the floor. The soft light of dawn was creeping through her window, but it was still very early. The front lawn was shrouded in a grey mist and only a single peacock was visible, its disembodied head appearing above the grey fog.

Taking stock of her surroundings helped Hermione calm her beating heart and catch her breath again. She had dreamt about the Ministry of Magic and Dementors, about frantically trying to produce a Patronus again and again to no avail.

However dismal the present might be, there were no Dementors at Malfoy Manor, and relief seeped through Hermione's body, driving out the chill. She was so used to the fleeting sensation of something vital escaping her that she almost dismissed it this time, too. It was only when she realised that the feeling came with a name that she took notice.

What in the world did Dolores Umbridge have to do with her dream and her present predicament ? There had been Dementors at the Ministry when she'd broken in with Harry and Ron... The locket... Harry had gone to Umbridge's office and—

In a blaze of clarity, Hermione realised just how much trouble she may be in.

Confirmation would have to wait until the morning, when she'd hopefully see Draco, but her theory fit all the facts.

If she was right, Astoria had good reason to hate her.

Hermione had spent the intervening hours since her epiphany tossing and turning, debating how much she could trust Draco. It was easier to dwell on how close he was to his wife than ponder the implications of her hypothesis.

When time came for her to rise, she had made up her mind. It hardly made any difference if Draco told Astoria, and she didn't think he would in any case. Having shared a house with the Malfoys for months, she still hadn't seen them exchange as much as a word. From what she gathered from the house-elves, the spouses didn't have more to do with each other than they could help.

When Draco came down the stairs from the first-floor gallery to the entrance hall where Hermione was washing the black and white marble tiles, she was ready to tackle him.

Subtlety had never been her forte, so she went straight for it.

"Would you know who your wife's godmother is, by any chance?" She'd done her research before coming here, and Umbridge appearing on Astoria's family tree would definitely have caught her attention. There was no official record of godparents, however.

Draco looked taken aback; by a tacit understanding they hardly ever mentioned Astoria despite their many conversations.

"I don't, I suppose." He looked at her, as if to measure her up, and nodded minutely before continuing on his way. Hermione tried not to grind her teeth with impatience.

After lunch, when she was polishing the floor in the breakfast room instead, Draco appeared again. The location made it quite obvious that he had sought her out, but the expression of bewilderment he put on at finding Hermione there could have won prizes.

"Apropos nothing, my dear wife's godmother happens to be one Dolores Umbridge," he informed her.

Hermione had been right, then.

Draco must have put some spells on the room to prevent them from being overheard, because he continued: "Apparently, they kept the relationship secret when Umbridge became a teacher at Hogwarts, to prevent any accusations of favouritism. During the war, we were all rather too busy with other things to notice, and afterwards… Well, you know what happened to Umbridge."

Hermione did. It was hardly surprising that Astoria Greengrass had kept quiet about having a godmother in Azkaban.

"I've been told they used to be quite close, which frankly came as a bit of a surprise—" Draco stopped himself, but Hermione was too busy wondering who his source had been to pay much attention to it.

She knew it didn't matter a whit who had told Draco; probably some Slytherin who wouldn't have talked to Hermione Granger even if it had occurred to her to ask. It was simply a way to avoid facing the implications of his revelations just yet.

Draco, astute as ever, seemed to have picked up that there was something ominous about her reaction once he had overcome his own gaffe.

"Umbridge has no love lost for you—" he started slowly, clearly amassing everything he knew about Hermione's past altercations with the former High Inquisitor in his mind.

She had never told anyone the full story. Perhaps now was the right time. It could hardly get any worse, after all.

"Do you know what happened to her in the Forbidden Forest the night of the battle in the Department of Mysteries?" Hermione asked, remembering whose side Draco had been on back then.

He must have had too, because for once he had the good grace to look repentant.

"You three went off, and—No, all I remember is that Umbridge ended up in the hospital wing afterwards. No one seemed to know why."

"For good reason," Hermione observed drily, hiding any trace of remorse. "She insulted the Centaurs and they dragged her off into the forest." She paused, then rushed on. "I set her up to do it. It was the only way I could think of to get rid of her, so we could get to the Department of Mysteries—"

Too late, she remembered that it was Draco's father she had been pitted against in the battle that night. He brushed it off, too busy considering the implications of Hermione's set-up of Umbridge.

"Granger, you didn't—" Draco seemed reluctant to vocalise it; he must have put the pieces together and remembered the implications of women being carried off by Centaurs. Naturally, Hermione had read up on Greek mythology when Firenze had become a teacher at Hogwarts the same year as Umbridge, even if she had long since dropped out of Divination by then.

"Yes. I set her up to be raped," Hermione admitted. Dressing it up wouldn't make it sound any better. "In my defence, the Centaurs wouldn't have done anything if she hadn't started to insult them, but I knew what I was leading her into."

Harry hadn't known what her half-baked plan was when they had walked off into the Forbidden Forest, nor had he realised what actually happened to Umbridge afterwards. Despite everything he had endured, there was still a sort of elemental kindness to Harry, one Hermione knew she didn't possess anymore. Maybe she never had.

If you applied the wizarding school of psychology and saw people as a collection of house traits, Draco ought to see nothing wrong with Hermione's ruse. Instead, he looked horrified, though he hid it well.

"Remind me never to cross you again," he mumbled eventually, when the silence became unbearable.

Hermione felt a rush of relief – at least he wasn't about to cast her off – and then only emptiness. There were so many things she regretted from that night, but picking Sirius over Dolores Umbridge was not one of them. In her darker moments, Hermione wondered if it wasn't just as well that she would be leaving the wizarding world, lest she turn out like Dumbledore in the end.

And now Astoria was out for revenge. Two-hundred thousand Galleons suddenly seemed far too cheap a price for her freedom.

"It's only for a year," Hermione said, as if to reassure herself that nothing too bad could happen. "Only a year, and then I'll be out of here." She had almost forgotten that Draco was there.

"Hermione—" he began. "Watch out for yourself, all right?" It sounded like something Ron could have said, and suddenly she was so homesick for the Weasleys and The Burrow and normal things that she could have cried.

Hermione turned her attention back to the floor again, catching a flash of the stricken expression on Draco's face as she bent down. Whether it was due to what she had done back in fifth year or the bind she was in now, she didn't know.

-oOo-

This interpretation of what happened to Umbridge is consistent with Greek mythology, which Rowling almost certainly would be aware of, considering that her degree was in Classics. There is a lot of interesting commentary on it online.