TWATW-Chapter 26-Research

By Marmalade Fever

Clone (klon) n. Gr. klon, a twig Biol. All the descendants derived asexually from a single individual: also clon.

Hermione sighed. No news there. (And did she ever wish she had a dictionary more recent than 1975.) She hadn't really expected any help from the simple definition. No, what she needed was a history lesson. Regulus had died roughly seventeen years prior, so really she needed to know more about the time just before Voldemort's first demise. For that she pulled out her well-worn copy of The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, skipping forward to the chapter preceding the one entitled "Harry Potter—the Infant Savior." Although she had read this chapter several times over before, she tried reading it again, just to see if she was missing something. Apparently she wasn't. There was no mention of cloning or anything to do with copies at all.

And so she tried another book. This one was, oddly, a biography of Harry. She guessed that it had been bought by Sirius, rather than any of the other Blacks. (Which would have been surprising, to say the least.) After flipping through it and finding nothing more substantial than Harry's favorite ice cream (someone had snapped his picture out front of Florean Fortescue's without his permission) she decided that it wasn't going to help her at all.

"Hermione?" It was Harry. He had been walking on eggshells around her for the last couple days.

"What?" she snapped. "Sorry," she added. She could hear the faint sound of music drifting in through the open door, and it disappeared as soon as he closed it behind him.

"Had to get away from the music," he explained. "If Ginny plays 'You Can Dance if You Want To' one more time, I think I'm going to have a conniption."

Hermione grunted in reply. "And Ron's not any better. You really shouldn't have taken them to that muggle music store, you know."

"How would I know he'd pick out a Lamb Chop's Play Along cd?" he asked, pulling a face. "All day long it's the song that never ends!"

"And it goes on and on, and on, and on, my friend," Hermione replied disgustedly. She rubbed her head. "At least he doesn't know 'I Know a Song that Gets on Everybody's Nerves.'"

"No kidding," Harry replied. "Any luck?"

Hermione sighed. "I've learned that you really like strawberry peanut butter brickle ice cream, but other than that..." She shook her head. "Mind opening up Regulus' room for me?"

Harry nodded. "Sure. Maybe he has some books in there or something." Harry led the way to the fourth floor while Hermione followed. "Stand back," he cautioned, getting out his wand and starting to do a combination of hexes and door-slamming. Finally he just turned the knob. "Ladies first."

Hermione looked around her quizzically. It was definitely the sort of room that would belong to a teenager in the late seventies/early eighties, except that everything looked sort of dark and depressing. There was a mural of a spider web across the walls and ceiling, with charmed little black and red paint spiders scuttling around on it. "Charming," Hermione commented. Harry pointed out the loose floor board to her, and she ran her hand along the bottom of it. "What's this?" she asked, after standing up and approaching an ancient-looking cauldron that still had a few dregs left in it.

"I think it's a—"

Hermione sniffed it. "Very, very rancid tomato soup that must have been affected by all the old potions to keep it from completely going bad after all these years."

"Oh," Harry said, as if this was not at all what he had thought it was, and sounding disappointed because of it.

Hermione turned to an old dresser and began pulling out drawers full of moth-eaten clothing. "Nothing under his socks," she said, unrolling some to check if there was anything besides lint concealed inside them. "Or in his underwear drawer," she added, while Harry looked slightly surprised at her behavior.

"Hermione," Harry said, as if just remembering something. "When we were at your house—yours and Malfoy's, I guess—er, why was there a sock drawer out on the bed?"

Hermione turned so she wasn't facing him. "How should I know? It was from his dresser. Maybe he had been looking for a specific pair."

"Oh," Harry said again, sounding satisfied with her answer. "I thought maybe you had been looking through it for some reason. You did look sort of worried by it."

"Really?" Hermione asked, still not facing him. "Aha!" She held a pair of black pants up, reached into a pocket, and pulled out... a muggle bubble gum wrapper.

"What a find," Harry said, trying to hide his smile.

"At least it shows us he had been into the muggle world enough to have gum," she said glumly, stuffing the pants back into the drawer.

"True," Harry said, still stifling a smile. He went over to the book shelf and started looking through the books, Hermione coming to join him. "1001 Cures for Warts, Wizard's Chess Strategy Guide, Wilhelmina, the Wily Witch, Help! I've Turned Into a Disco Zombie..." Harry trailed off, pulling the last book out to read the cover, then stuffing it back on the shelf with a loud snort.

Hermione trailed her finger along the spines. "Nothing!" she cried out exasperatedly. "No mention of anything to do with the dark arts or clones or anything at all!"

"The way Sirius talked about him, you'd think this place would be crawling with it," Harry mused, flipping through a book called I Came, I Saw, I Did a Super-neat Cleaning Spell.

"Here, help me move the bed," Hermione demanded. Harry complied, sliding the bed a few feet across the floor. "Girly mags, a children's potion set, and a sleeping bag. Great. Just great." Hermione collapsed onto the floor. "He did a right job hiding any evidence of what he was up to with those Horcruxes," she mumbled.

"Why don't you go get some rest?" Harry offered, looking nervously at her.

Hermione glared at him. "See here, Harry James Potter. If I want some rest, I'll very well go get some. You aren't the boss of me, got it?" A moment later her face was filled with joy, and Harry looked flummoxed.

"What?" he asked.

"Give me your hand," she said, grabbing it before he could respond. She placed it directly on her abdomen.

"Hermione," he began, looking terrified.

"Wait for it," she said. A second later and Harry was looking doubtfully down at her stomach.

"She's kicking," he said, frowning.

"Isn't it wonderful? The first time she did it, Draco was so..." She trailed off at the look Harry was giving her.

"I just can't believe you're having his baby," he said, his hand withdrawing. "You know how Ron feels..." he said, looking away nervously.

"Not that he ever bothered telling me," she said grumpily.

"Honestly, Hermione, you didn't say anything to him either," Harry said, turning a little green.

"And frankly I don't feel the same way anymore," she said. "Ron is no longer that to me, okay? I've moved on."

Harry frowned miserably. "If this is because of Lavender..."

Hermione shrieked. "What is it with EVERYONE and LAVENDER?"

Harry gulped. "I... You sure you don't want a rest?" Hermione nearly slapped him just then, but thought better of it and stormed out of the room, slamming the door in his face.

Draco watched the interaction between Snape and Fidget with subtle interest as a line of coffee-deprived muggles began forming behind them. Fidget must have noticed them out of the corner of her eye, because she stated loudly and without tearing her eyes off her "daddy," "We're closed today, folks. Sorry for the inconvenience." There was a murmur of discontent, and Draco began to realize that he just wasn't going to make it into work today. He shifted uneasily, wondering if he should warn Clarence. It just seemed like such a goody-goody thing to do, though. The crowd dispersed and Draco was left alone with the two Snapes, who, now that they were standing side by side, turned out to actually share a few facial features, despite Fidget's nose explanation. Their eyes were uncannily the exact same color of beetle-black, though while Fidget's were sparkling and cheery, Snape's were broody and not just a bit scary. Slowly, Snape began to turn away from his daughter and returned his gaze to Draco.

"Mr. Malfoy—" he began, before Fidget cut him off.

"I just still can't believe you're here after all these years," she said, plopping down on a barstool.

"Yes, well," Snape said aloofly, looking as if he really didn't know what to say to her. He looked even more out of it when she took his hand in her own and held onto it.

"We have so much to catch up on," she said. "Can you stay very long?"

"I..."

"Please?" she asked, giving his hand a squeeze. She was fluttering her eyelashes in that way girls sometimes do to get their way.

"For a while," he said, and it was obvious to Draco that he was completely out of his element.

Fidget smiled, her wide mouth turning up at the corners. "Would you like to sit down?" she asked, gesturing to a booth across the room. Reluctantly Snape allowed himself to be dragged to it. Fidget looked expectantly at him as they sat there, Draco looking curiously between the two.

"What would you like to know?" Snape asked at last, seemingly uncomfortable under Fidget's awe-filled gaze.

Fidget poked her chin. "How do you know my mother?"

Snape looked uneasy and glanced at Draco. "I didn't really..." he began.

Draco crossed his arms. "Spit it out, Professor."

Snape glared icily at him. "On second thought, I have a question for you, Fiona," he said.

"Shoot," Fidget said, looking only mildly disappointed that he hadn't answered her question.

"Did your mother ever give you something of mine?"

A.N.: Sorry about the cliff hanger. I left writing this to the last minute. (Bad Marmalade, bad!) Anyway, here's to you, all you lovely reviewers! Thank you for helping me reach one-thousand reviews. You guys rock my socks all the way to Pluto and back!