What shal I say? The last months have been crazy, but I hope I'll be able to update more regularly now. Your reviews showed motivated me to continue this story. I hope you'll enjoy this chapter.
Time passed and suddenly, the winter break was only one week away. The Daily Prophet arrived that Monday during breakfast, and put an end to at least some of the most absurd speculations – yes, pupils were still imagining the weirdest things – concerning the disappearance of Draco Malfoy. The very first page showed a photograph of him supporting his mother leaving St Mungo's. The headline read "Malfoy matriarch's mysterious malady" which made Hermione roll her eyes. What is it with stupid alliterations nowadays, she thought. The short article next to the picture didn't offer any real information though.
A very haggard looking Narcissa Malfoy was seen yesterday afternoon leaving St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries in company of her son, Draco Malfoy. We are sorry to say that neither of the two Malfoy were willing to give an interview. Due to the fact that Mister Malfoy should still be at Hogwarts until at least this Friday, we're assuming that the Malfoy matriarch's health condition must be grave. In addition, a missive had been sent to the Prophet's editorial office. Said missive asked to publicly announce that the annual Christmas dinner at the Malfoy mansion won't take place this year; a first in over 283 years! We can only ask ourselves: what has happened to the Malfoy matriarch that she is willing to go this far?
(To learn more about the traditional Christmas dinner at the Malfoy mansion see page 9.)
Hermione's brows furrowed; the Daily Prophet tended to exaggerate, but even when Rita Skeeter still worked for the newspaper a bit of truth could be found in every article. Her heart was heavy with concern for the Malfoys. That Draco was really fond of his mother and would do anything for her, she was convinced of for a long time. And much as she had always been disposed to dislike the adherence to obsolete pureblood traditions, she could not think without worry over the cancelled Christmas dinner. To be honest, before this year, the witch hardly knew anything about the event. But thanks to Parkinson's overly loud monologues about it, everyone in school was by now rather thoroughly informed. Once more, Hermione looked at the photograph and noticed not only Narcissa Malfoy's haggard face, but also the way she tightly gripped her son's arm for support. She observed the extreme paleness of the latter as well. Yes, Draco was always pale, even more so since sixth year. But in the picture, is skin resembled chalk.
Seeing that none of her Gryffindor friends seemed to be interested in the article or photograph, Hermione decided to try to find Luna and speak with her. That was easier said than done since Luna was excused from classes for her last week at Hogwarts so she could take her final exams. Most of the morning passed before the Gryffindor found her friend who stared out of a window in the middle of a corridor on the fourth floor; she could not help asking:
"Luna, what in Merlin's name are you doing here? Shouldn't you be revising your notes?"
"Hello to you too, Hermione," replied the Ravenclaw wholly undisturbed. "I'm pretty sure that I know everything important for the exams on Friday. They can't be that difficult, right?"
"Not that difficult?! They are your final exams! Final exams are supposed to be difficult and your supposed to be learning until the minute before them!"
Luna looked at her friend and smiley: "But there are more important things today. The wind for example dances beautifully this morning."
Hermione opened and closed her mouth a few times in absolute shock. More important things than the final exams! After a moment, she decided to not continue on this point and took a deep breath: "Well... okay, I uhm... did you..."
"Yes, yes and no."
"What?", the Gryffindor asked confused.
"Yes, I've read the article and yes, I think Mrs. Malfoy is critically ill and no, I don't think she'll live much longer if her condition doesn't improve soon."
The two witches stayed quiet for a while, one looking attentively out of the window, the other watching her friend.
"You should listen to what the wind shows you, Hermione."
"Uhm... what is that?"
"Be open to the unexpected," Luna replied just as a blast threw the window open and blew a single leaf into the corridor. The blonde caught it in the air with a bright smile. "See, just what I might need for my transfiguration exam! An willow leaf!"
Hermione didn't bother to even tell her friend that only wands were allowed in every exam and just shook her head in amused exasperation. "Thanks Luna, I have to go now if I want to be an time for my next class. See you around!"
In between classes, Blaise had read the article out loud to Theo and Greg. After some discussion, they figured that Mrs. Malfoy couldn't be that bad. If it were the case, Draco would have written to them even though he had suddenly disappeared. Or wouldn't he? Greg made the mistake to ask Pansy that same question who snapped at the wizard before storming away. The Slytherin girl didn't seem to care at all about the health of their friend's mother. She was angry, mad, raging with fury. How could they cancel the Christmas dinner? It was meant to be her evening to show off as the perfect pureblood wife. And now this!
Pushing students out of her way, the witch stormed to the dungeons. Once she entered her dormitory and banged to door close, she opened her trunk. She then violently pulled out the hand sewn dress robes that had arrived a few days earlier, tossed them to the ground and cast a rather hefty Incendio! on them. With some satisfaction, she watched the expensive robes burn.
Three floors above her, Viktor Krum – followed by Ron and Seamus, in case you wondered – made another tour through the castle trying to promote the Bulgarian Quidditch team to every student he met. You could hear him boasting about his most important games, but also making snide comments about the Malfoy family whenever he wanted to further dignify himself.