Hermione wasn't very keen on special treatment, but it had been the norm for many years —first beginning at Hogwarts and continuing through now due to her heroic history and marital name. While annoying and an unfair abuse of power, Hermione was using that special treatment to her advantage in order to speak to the Minister, otherwise she wouldn't be able to get a meeting with him for the next month. In all honesty, she could probably work around him, but no matter the changes in her life she was still a stickler for order —until the need for disorder.
"…another meeting for next week then."
Hermione looked up from where she sat next to Kingsley's receptionist to find him seeing a gentleman out. Said gentleman gave her a quick nod before moving to the receptionist to schedule his next meeting while Hermione rose and met Kingsley's genuine smile with one of her own.
"Hermione!" he happily greeted, foregoing all professionalism and scooting out of the way so that she could head into his office. "It's been a while. We really need to get together outside of work, don't you think?"
"I'd like that, Kingsley. Life is too short to postpone getting together with friends."
"Too right, too right." He sat behind his desk, cupping his hands on the unusually clean desktop. Normally, it was covered with bits of parchment, various quills (for he was a lover and collector of quills of various lengths and tip width), and sometimes a glass of muggle branded brandy. The rest of his office was equally immaculate. A plush, white carpet was underfoot and maintained with a number of charms to keep it clean. Upon entering the office and to the right was a bookshelf with far too few books for its size. Further in and also to the right was a door that would lead to his personal bathroom. The back wall was nothing but large ceiling to floor windows and in the middle of it all sat Kingsley.
"Now, I know this isn't a social visit, so what's on your mind?"
"Well, I'd like to discuss the Malfoy belongings that the Ministry seized several years ago." Hermione noticed how the jovialness of the Minister dimmed at that. Of course, any conversation that had to deal with the Malfoys warranted all the serious care in the world. "I wanted to see what the process would be in getting them back."
Kingsley leaned back in his chair, a hand coming up to stroke his chin as his brows furrowed. "I see… I don't understand why you would want them, though."
"Why not?" she countered. "Those things are ours."
"Those things are theirs," Kingsley corrected. "Furthermore, many of those items still remain to be catalogued and checked for any curses. For all we know, the Malfoys could very well be arrested for what we find. I'm sorry, Hermione, but I can't release them."
"Kingsley," Hermione bitterly sighed, "you and I both know what was taken from the Manor hasn't been looked at since I and several others stowed them away in the first place. If they haven't been catalogued since then, I don't see them being looked at any time soon."
"Whether that be today, tomorrow, next month, or next year, it doesn't matter. I still can't let them go. Protocol must be followed."
Hermione refrained from grating her teeth and instead took a deep breath to contain her frustration. However, if he wanted protocol to be followed, then protocol it was. "Is everything still in the MLE's containment center?"
"It should be; however, you would have to ask the department head to be sure. As you have alluded to, it's been quite a few years and things might have moved."
"Will do." Hermione tilted her head in a nod before getting up to leave. The air between them had become stiff and saturated in those few minutes of fake bureaucracy which was a clear sign that it was time to leave. However, she couldn't go without saying one last thing. "For the record, 'their' things are my things too. It would be good of you to remember that. Furthermore, you may owl me whenever you're interested in having lunch or tea so that we can catch up."
Dillan Roxbury, Head of Magical Law Enforcement, was an incredibly busy man. Hermione hadn't been able to get a meeting with him until three weeks after seeing Kingsley. That meeting, unfortunately, had to be cancelled, and the next one scheduled after that wasn't for another four weeks. That, too, much to Hermione's utter annoyance had to be taken off of her calendar. It was mid-November now and she had been informed that meetings outside of the MLE or its frequently associated departments would not be held again until January due to the typically busy time of year. While irksome, it was good to have friends who worked in the very department that she needed information on. The answer that had been given to her, however, was one that she hadn't expected.
"The Department of Mysteries?" Hermione repeated. "Why on earth would the Malfoy belongings be down there?"
"Is it so odd?" Harry shrugged. "The Malfoys have a tendency of owning some very peculiar items. They cross a line between dangerous and curious and could very well be here or the Department of Mysteries."
"Yes, I suppose so. I guess it makes my job a bit easier. The department head shouldn't be nearly as difficult to talk to as Roxbury."
"Hopefully not. Have you told me yet why you're so interested in getting the Malfoys' things?"
"It's the principle of the matter," Hermione said simply with a slight lift of her chin. "Either the Ministry investigates them as they should or return them."
"Ah, that's my Hermione," Harry grinned as he pulled her into a hug. "Always trying to do the right thing."
"Have you known me to be any other way?" she laughed into his chest. Nausea crept in at the same time as well as an awkward burp. She raised her head to meet Harry staring down at her with nothing but love and care.
"Morning sickness?"
"Morning sickness," she nodded before pulling away. "And it's not even bloody morning."
It was true. It was near the end of the work day in fact and Hermione had decided to spend her unusually quiet early evening in Harry's office. She was one week into her second trimester, and so she hoped that the occasional morning sickness would finally end.
"Do you think your kid will do the unthinkable and break the Malfoy genes? About time the whole blond hair thing ended, don't you think?"
"Oh, I doubt it," Hermione playfully huffed. "Their genes are the strongest bit of DNA I've ever seen in my life. Maybe round two will shoot some lucky my way."
"Two children from a muggleborn? I think Lucius would die," Harry jested. Jest or not, Hermione did wonder about her father-in-law. This past month and a half had seen the better side of Lucius Malfoy. Despite half of his future grandchild's heritage coming from a muggle born, the other half was Malfoy. He was bound by blood to hold his lineage in high regard, and no matter how much Hermione disliked him, she couldn't deny the care he took towards his family.
What Hermione had said to Harry about doing the right thing was true. They deserved what had been taken from them. More than that, however, she needed what had been taken. It had been fortuitous then for the Malfoy belongings to have been stored in the Department of Mysteries. For starters, their security was far less intricate than the MLE's. That meant less legal proceedings to through, less rules, and less questions asked. What made it great was that much like she had Harry at her disposal for help, she knew someone who worked there. Even better, said person was more likely to break the rules than keep them.
"I thought you were supposed to glow when you're pregnant?"
"So help me Theo, I will stab you in the neck with my quill."
Theo chuckled. "No need to murder me, love; we're all friends here."
Hermione rolled her eyes. His charm was sometimes appreciated, other times nauseating, and this time was the latter. Regardless, she finished up the reminder she was leaving herself before neatly arranging her desk and grabbing her things. Her conversation with Harry yesterday had lit a fire under her and she was determined to see her task through. It was Friday, which meant that many of the Ministry's employees had gone home earlier in the day, thus facilitating an easier time for what she wanted to do.
"Alright, I'm ready."
"Let's go then." Theo allowed her to exit her office first and lock up properly once he was in the hallway with her. "You know," he began as he presented his arm to her, "if Lucius and Narcissa haven't fought for their things by now, I don't understand why you want them."
"Not everything," Hermione admitted. "I'm doing a bit of…research. There's only one thing that I truly want."
"I'm glad that it's just the one thing then. Despite the fact that my department isn't exactly 'well-policed,' inconsistencies can be noticed."
"Understood."
They had made it to the lifts and taken it straight down several floors below the main lobby of the Ministry. Hermione didn't come down here very often —there was no need to, really. Regardless, whenever she did have to take a trip to the infamous floor, there was always a sense of foreboding or of some secret that she shouldn't be unearthing. Unsurprisingly, the containment area for the Department of Mysteries was far from the lifts and on the opposite side of the floor. They were met with a large black door with a silver keyhole and nob that Theo didn't turn. Instead, he took out his wand and placed it where a key would be and the door opened of its own accord.
The room was barely lit. Truth be told, Hermione felt like she needed owl eyes to properly see in the dark. Without saying anything, Theo flicked his wand towards the ceiling, and little orbs or light littered itself across the ceiling. She gave him a silent nod of thanks and finally observed the containment center. It looked like a hollowed-out cave or some sort of catacomb. Walls weren't clearly defined. They were lumpy, rocky, often in curves and arches. Along the walls various objects were sealed and contained behind thick glass. Upon further inspection, a lot of them seemed fairly innocuous. Toys, keys, coins, orbs, and other things of the like.
"Are they cursed?" Hermione asked curiously. Theo had been standing in the middle of the otherwise vacant space and watching her.
"Some of them. Others are simply used for experimentation. The Malfoy section is over here in its own vault."
Hermione turned away from the items she was looking at and followed Theo deeper into the containment center to a vault door very similar to the one they entered. Instead of a silver knob and keyhole, there was just a silver wheel similar to that of a ship's helm. She couldn't help but comically think that some muggleborn had had a hand in building this vault and had taken cues from any cartoon with a large safe. Unlike other safes, however, there was no code needed nor any spell. Theo simply turned the wheel and a few clicks later the door was open and Hermione was stepping inside.
It had been a long time since she had laid eyes on the Malfoy belongings. The raid had been pointless, in Hermione's opinion. At the time, Lucius had done his time in Azkaban (a laughable sentence considering his involvement), Narcissa had been placed on wand probation, and Draco had been acquitted due to his age and evidence of coercion. Much like the rest of the containment center, everything here seemed like normal, everyday things. Paintings, jewelry, statues big and small. Hermione couldn't begin to explain why these were taken. She could, however, be quite sure that they were all harmless. Anything dangerous would ideally be in the Malfoy Gringotts vault.
As Hermione stepped deeper into the vault, she finally found what she was looking for: the Malfoy journals.
"Merlin, there are so many of them," she breathed as her fingers danced over the journals' leather. "I'm not surprised, but to see them is just…wow." Hermione slipped off her handbag and gave it to Theo. "Hold it open, please."
"This is what you want?" Theo asked, obviously puzzled. "Just these books?"
"Journals," she corrected, "and yes." Hermione began piling in journal after journal into her handbag with its Undetectable Extension Charm. She didn't miss Theo's questioning gaze and she merely murmured, "It's for research."
"So you've said. Are you going to mention what kind of research?"
Hermione paused in her movements for a moment and shrugged apologetically before continuing. "Sorry."
"It's okay. Besides, I've learned that it's best not to ask too many questions."
"A smart decision, I say. Alright, I'm done," she happily sighed as she dropped in the last journal. "Thank you for this again, Theo, really."
"Don't mention it," he genuinely replied. "I hope that you find what you're looking for."
As Hermione took her handbag back from him and slipped it over her shoulder, she deeply hoped that what Theo said came true.
Draco's wife could be sappy sometimes. He had told her that he would be coming home late that evening due to an unfortunately ill-timed meeting on a Friday. It seemed to have worked out to Hermione's advantage because when he had gotten home, there was a floating note in front of the fireplace written in her hand.
Follow the trail!
The trail in question were petals of her favorite flowers, lilies. Naturally, his intrigue was piqued, and so Draco took a moment to remove the soot from his clothes and put his briefcase down before following the flowers. They were spread generously from the study and down the hallway to the stairs. Seeing that they littered every stair, he could only assume that his wife had either waved her wand an insane amount of times or she had gone to a florist and bought a rather large bouquet. His latter suspicions were confirmed when he found a vase in the middle of the coffee table with a considerable amount sitting in water. As for the petal trail, it stopped in front of the bookcase that, in lieu of both of his and Hermione's presence, either of their wands were required for entry. Draco stuck his into the spine of his designated book on the ninth shelf and watched it disappear from the tip straight to the handle. He would have to barbarically slit his finger open with a kitchen knife if he wanted to get it back. Cumbersome, yes, but set up as such to deter the couple from going down to the cells without each other. While they had succumbed to the nature of their lives by now, avoiding willful encouragement of their behavior had been, and still was, a personal goal. With that in mind, Draco deeply began to wonder what Hermione was doing down there alone.
It wasn't to kill anyone, so Draco surmised as he continued to follow the lilies. Hermione had done some brutish decorating and got rid of the bars of one of the cells. She had placed a table inside, two chairs (upon one of which she sat), and on top of that table were books. A lot of books.
"Hermione, what is this?"
A book had been in her hands, but she immediately looked up when she realized that she wasn't alone. With a large grin, she snapped the book shut and gestured to everything on the table.
"A gift."
"Your gift to me is a bunch of books?" Draco asked as stepped into the cell. He casually picked one up and flipped open its cover. "I do like reading, but even I can't handle all of this. It'll take ages."
"It probably will, I must admit," Hermione shrugged, "but I'll be helping you, of course."
"Helping me? Why would I—?"
" —look at the spine, Draco."
Draco's brows were nearly joined by now, but he did what she said. He admired the expensive leather, instantly recognizing its similarities to his journal gifted to him by his father on his fourteenth birthday. As he turned the book over to its spine, he realized then that this "book" was a journal indeed. A name was written on the spine in faint, silver lettering. His jaw dropped.
"Julius Malfoy," he read aloud. His eyes snapped up to his wife's who was beaming. "How did you get—?"
" —they've been gathering dust for years between the containment center in the MLE and the Department of Mysteries. The Ministry won't miss them."
"Well, that just raises more questions than it answers."
"I've been looking into getting the Malfoy belongings released from the Ministry," Hermione admitted. "It's been a hassle, but when I found out that they had been moved to the Department of Mysteries, I got Theo to give me access to it."
"I see," Draco mused as his fingers slid across the journal's front. "And of all of the valuable things that were taken from us, you chose to take a bunch of dead people's memories?"
"Yes. It's their memories that may shed light on the family curse."
The journal fumbled in Draco's hands and he barely caught it before it flopped to the floor. Clearly, that wasn't what he had expected her to say, and Hermione got up from her seat at the table to slip the journal from him and hold onto his hands.
"I don't know if you remember, but you made me promise to find a way to end it. I'm ashamed to say that I've forgotten that promise, but now it's a priority. Tampering with curses is a nasty business, as you well know, but I figured that we could start with what your ancestors have done in terms of modifications —assuming that they wrote about it."
Draco's throat and mouth were dry. He jumped from Hermione to the journals and back again, slowly comprehending his wife's plan as well as the potential consequences. The more he did this, and the more he thought about it, his brows closed in yet again and his lips thinned. Hermione's excitement was instantly quelled and a frown had appeared.
"You still want me to do this, don't you?"
"I…" He hadn't meant to pause, but the body often betrayed thoughts and words, and his heart ripped when Hermione dropped his hands and took two steps away from him.
"I thought that you would be happy."
"I don't know how to feel," Draco sighed, running his hands through his hair before ultimately groaning and replying, "We're going to ruin it."
"You don't know that," Hermione countered. "There's a chance, I know, but we'll do the research. Deep, deep research, and—"
"—no, not the curse. Us. We're going to ruin us."
Of all the things that he could've meant, Hermione didn't think that was it. She was floored until she put his fears into words. "…You think that the curse is the only reason we love each other, don't you?"
"You know it is," Draco sadly replied. "It started like a switch and it'll end like one. I'm sorry, Hermione," he apologized, but just as quick his apology was rendered moot. His eyes grew cold, jaws clenched and taut as he made one thing perfectly clear. "I'd rather kill a thousand unfortunate souls before I lost you."
Cruel and sinister, yes, but it made Hermione's heart thump with exhilaration. She closed the space she had made between herself and Draco and placed her hands on his cheeks. Tense and firm under her fingers, and his gaze would be sure to hurt if it had been possible.
"And I you," she told him softly, "however, the curse doesn't take account of one thing: the love of a child being more than that of your spouse. Can you honestly watch our child do what we do?"
That had done it. The fire in Draco's eyes had immediately dimmed, and he relaxed under her touch and stare.
"I thought so. I do have some good news for you, though."
Draco scoffed. "I doubt it, but go on."
"Let me ask you something first," she said as she let her hands fall to her sides. "When was the last time that our sanity slipped and we had to kill someone?"
"We just killed someone with my parents a short while—"
"—No, think. We were of sound mind then. I want you to really think about the last time we heard a voice or saw something."
Draco was ready with a response, but held back. The person before last was that degenerate of a Death Eater his parents had brought to dinner, so he didn't count. The one before that Draco had simply had the urge to do something horrible and brought Hermione along for the ride. As he truly thought about it, the answer was obvious.
"It's been years."
"Two," Hermione confirmed. "Your mother once told me that the amount of time it takes for the madness to kick in depends on how much the couple loves each other —the curse's sick and cruel way to keep us together. In the past two years we've killed because we wanted to, not because we had to."
The realization made Draco's knees buckle, but before he could make an utter fool of himself, he walked over to the chair closest to him and pulled it out. He sat with a harsh flop, but his attention was on his wife. His three month pregnant wife whose startling conclusion had left him breathless.
"So…you love me for real?"
"We love each other for real," Hermione amended with a soft smile. "Or at the very least care about each other enough. That said, when this curse breaks —because we will figure this out —I'm not going anywhere. Okay?"
Draco returned her smile, picking up a journal in the process and thumbing it through. "We kill because we want to, hm?"
"I've come to terms with some pretty harsh realities in my life, and that's one of them," she bitterly chuckled. "What was once something we were forced to do, we're now willing to do. The curse has turned it into a baser desire, simple as that."
"Baser desires are a bitch," Draco grumbled.
"Yes," she admitted before moving the remaining chair closer to her husband. "Fun though."
"Exceptionally so. Let's get reading then."
Author's note: Hermione's got a plan! Let's hope that there's something written that they can use :D.
Happy Halloween!
P.S. To Lou, I did watch the Haunting of Hill House and I TOTALLY AGREE! I was so happy with the horror and the intrigue and then the ending got SAPPY. I really sat there like...wait a minute, you did such an amazing build up for that lol? So, yeah, I get it lol. Not my intention with this fic no matter how much Hermione wants to spare her kid's fate, I promise.
-WP