Hermione returned to her quarters with the setting sun draping her office in orange hues through her open windows, bones weary and shoulders sore with the exertion of duelling after being idle for so many years. Even then she barely felt the twinges of her overworked muscles – her shoulders presently ached with a different kind of weight.
The 1981 Ministry dossier on Narcissa – bound, stamped and shrunken to fit within her robes—seemed to burn a hole through her pockets with its weight. Hermione tossed it on her desk almost as soon as she arrived, wishing the action would alleviate some of the dread weighing her down so heavily.
It looked so innocuous, sitting at her desk atop her own mess of papers – just more parchment on top of parchment. Only the glimmering ministry seal and the red capital letters marking it CONFIDENTIAL made it seem different than anything else to be found at a professor's desk.
She wanted to open it. No, she needed to open it and read every word; her fingers practically itched to undo the simple knot binding it all together. Hermione's blood fairly echoed in her ears, pounding away as she tried to calm both her heartbeat and her curiosity. Or perhaps her concern, perhaps even her fear. She tried to quell something that compelled her to read through the entire thing and put the matter to rest.
Her hand hovered over the golden seal—it glittered in the fading sunlight. Could she do this to Narcissa? No, she rationalized, desperately looking for another angle. Surely it would be fine to look into Kingsley's motivations, even if only to find them utterly ludicrous and finally put the matter at ease.
She tacitly ignored the little voice in her head that said Kingsley probably had a reason to find it pertinent even decades later, the same little voice that reminded her of the fact that Narcissa herself had warned Hermione of unsavoury secrets lurking in her past. What was it that Narcissa had said, when they had finally cracked the wards and kissed for the first time? There are a thousand and one reasons to put an immediate stop to all of this. She had also said she was making a deliberate decision to be selfish, taking what Hermione could give her even when she was "most undeserving."
Hermione shoved those thoughts deep and away, working remarkably hard to convince herself this was not something she would be doing to Narcissa, but for her. She would be... clearing the air. That's all.
Something told her that logic didn't have much to stand on, and Hermione inwardly cursed Kingsley for ever putting the dossier into her hands in the first place, knowing Hermione had never been the kind of person to think that ignorance was bliss.
Even when she found herself desperately wanting to be.
"Now then," the voice grew sterner by the second, much to the expectant mother's consternation. "I expect someone to be a little more careful from now on, lest I choose to instruct her to remain in bed for the remainder of her pregnancy."
Astoria squirmed unhappily. "Narcissa, please. I promise it was nothing; I forgot to have breakfast, is all. Nothing to worry about."
Narcissa didn't need to look at her son to know he was rolling his eyes from his post at the door. She'd have a word with him later; for now, her attention was more than occupied by a rather recalcitrant young mother.
"Astoria, darling. You fainted. I would forgive you the indiscretion were this your first time around, but as we well know-" her gaze fell pointedly to her grandson, who played with his building blocks on the rug by Astoria's bed "- you should know better by now. Quite frankly, I was rather shocked to hear you were still in the field."
Her glare fell to Draco now, who at least had the grace and sense to turn away, hands deep in his pockets in embarrassment.
"But Cissy," Astoria tried, already sitting up on her pillows.
"Don't you Cissy me, young lady. Your blood pressure was dangerously low; what happens if you faint again and, Merlin forbid, Draco isn't there to catch you? No, no, my orders will be the same as your Healer's at St. Mungo's. Take it easy."
The young witch huffed, almost deflating into the cushions. "Fine."
"Tori, that means no more going out in the field," Draco piped in, his voice small.
Narcissa stifled a giggle when he cowered at his wife's glare. Ordinarily, Astoria's obstinance was cause for good humour and occasionally inspiration, but at the moment it was no more than a hindrance.
"Your husband is right, Mrs. Malfoy," Narcissa quipped cheekily, merely arching a brow when Astoria found herself a new target for that glare.
"Narcissa, I promise I'll be done soon! You can't expect me to just drop the story like that!"
"I absolutely can," Narcissa chided. "Especially when said story involves hordes of Dementors..."
"... attacking people and destroying manors..." Draco mumbled.
"... that are as of yet missing and untraceable." Narcissa finished with a glare of her own. She took some small pleasure in the way Astoria cowed, even if the witch did so begrudgingly.
"Narcissa, you can't toss a story like that my way and then just expect me to not follow it through," her patient complained through a pout. Narcissa patted her cheek—the pouting may work on Draco, but her defences were daresay impenetrable.
"Except I can, my darling. That was exactly the nature of our agreement and the reason why I gave the story to you in the first place."
Astoria huffed. "To bribe me into bedrest? Not because of my unwavering moral quality and journalistic integrity?"
"And all of those, too," Narcissa laughed, giving her daughter-in-law a peck on the cheek. "But no matter what, Astoria, you need to rest. If I don't see much improvement in the next two weeks, I'm afraid you'll be on mandatory bedrest for the remainder of this pregnancy."
The bedridden witch shuddered. "Perish the thought."
"I shall owl your editor at once!" Draco laughed, bounding out of the room with a pep to his step that only worsened his wife's glare.
"Oi! Don't look so bloody pleased about it, you git!" Astoria hissed after him. She waved off Narcissa's reprimanding gaze at her wording with a young child in the room. "Don't worry, he's off in his own little world."
Narcissa laughed, sparing a glance to Scorpius, who was indeed immersed in whatever pretend world he had just created—or was currently destroying. It was hard to tell.
"Very well then," she said, putting away her Pinard and other tools in her Healer's kit with a final click. "You know the rules. Absolutely no Apparating to and fro, no Floo, and for Godric's sakes, Astoria, no skirting the rules and taking a ruddy broom. You have a husband, use him. I shall be very displeased if I hear you've been overexerting yourself again."
Astoria raised both hands in defeat, eyes narrowing. "Yes, Mother," she laughed. "Fine! Fine, fine, I'll do as you say." She levelled her glare at her swollen belly. "You are being such a pain. See what Mummy goes through for you? The torture I endure!"
"It's hard working, making a person," Narcissa laughed. "All worth it, in the end."
"You don't need to tell me. But speaking of hard work..." Astoria waggled her eyebrows playfully. "Draco just let it slip earlier that someone might be finally receiving their much-awaited Potions Mastery! Is that true?"
Narcissa couldn't contain her smile—she was not even sure she wanted to try. "Draco can't keep a secret to save his life," she bemoaned dramatically. "I only received the letter from the Potioneering Society yesterday."
"Narcissa, that's amazing! Congratulations! How wonderful to have a bit of good news. When is the ceremony?"
"Two weeks from now—and you'll still be on bedrest by then."
Astoria rolled her eyes sinking into her pillows with a theatrical huf. "If only you'd stop reminding me!"
It was dark when Narcissa finally returned to her Hogwarts quarters, still inwardly laughing at her daughter-in-law's dramatics. Astoria was certainly unendingly stubborn, but one would have to be such to be able to deal with Draco-she'd be the first to admit it.
She had barely crossed the threshold when the flickering of candlelight caught her eye. Her office was lit, and a sizeable parcel awaited on her desk.
Narcissa froze once she approached, the glint of the official Ministry seal shimmering in the candlelight sending an unpleasant, ominous shiver down her spine.
The voice from her doorway very nearly made her jump in alarm.
"Narcissa?"
The Slytherin turned to the door deliberately slowly, giving herself enough time to calm her suddenly racing heartbeat. Narcissa was amazed at how difficult it was to keep her composure, but the ominous red letters stamped atop the parcel of parchment—not to mention the prominent date—were enough to drench her in a cold sweat.
It was inevitable, she supposed; frankly, she had been a little bit surprised Kingsley had waited so long to drop that little treasure on Hermione's lap.
He'd unwittingly waited until Narcissa had grown accustomed to being selfish and keeping the brunette by her side. She had been so foolish, allowing herself to be lulled into a false sense of security.
Hermione's eyes were sad when their gazes met, and Narcissa mentally prepared, steeling herself for the worst—undoubtedly the end.
"Hermione," she greeted back throat dry. "Good evening. Tea?"
If the Transfigurations Professor was in any way surprised that Narcissa was ignoring the parcel, Hermione did not show it. She only flashed Narcissa a little smile, one that did not quite meet her eyes, and nodded.
"Tea would be lovely, thank you."
Summoning the tea set was perfunctory at best, but it served for some distraction, some elongation of a tense, yet empty moment that Narcissa could use to pull her thoughts from the disarray they were in. She could feel Hermione's gaze boring into the back of her head, and once she had stretched her moment to its limit, finally sitting to face the brunette, the silence became deafening.
Narcissa was at a loss. She had mentally prepared herself for this, for this very occasion—she had been prepared from the moment Hermione suffered her breakdown in that moonlit greenhouse, the moment their gazes became laden with a meaning and depth she had not wanted to explore at the time.
"Narcissa?" Hermione interrupted her train of thought with a small, shy voice that was anathema to her very being. Her tea sat untouched, still magically steaming in her cup. "Are you alright? You seem... you seem to have a lot on your mind."
Narcissa let out a little laugh, and the action felt alien—like being back at gatherings at Lucius' side, or her parents', laughing politely and demurely and without any real feeling behind it. She looked pointedly at Hermione, though her focus was elsewhere: the grip she had on her teacup, the give of the leather of her chair, the flickering of candlelight behind Hermione.
"Perhaps," she drawled, taking a sip of her tea simply to have something to do. "But surely not as much as you."
Hermione took her stiff posture and delicately arched brow with a questioning gaze, and whatever she found in Narcissa's eyes during those short moments of silent observation seemed to make her deflate a little. She stared guiltily down at her teacup, fingernails tapping nervously against the porcelain.
"I didn't know how to bring it up," she finally whispered, in a voice so soft yet so deafening it made the hair on the back of Narcissa's neck stand. There was no need for Hermione to even indicate the parcel that sat on the other witch's desk like a ticking time bomb. "I guess subtlety was never really my forte."
It was a little joke, and Narcissa could recognize it for what it was—a bit of wiggle room, some space in a heavy conversation for her to fill with something a little lighter, an opportunity to cut the tension that permeated the air between them with a sarcastic quip or witty remark.
Narcissa did not take the opportunity. Instead, she took the tension the silence, and wrung it out between them with silence, stretching it into itself until it was too tight to bear.
Hermione did not seem surprised by it in the least. She could use probably see the white-knuckled grip Narcissa had on her china; she knew the Slytherin well enough by now—too well, she knew her too well—to be able to see all the little cracks in the composure Narcissa held on to almost as tightly as her cup.
"I haven't read it, you know," she said, voice low and heavy.
Now that was surprising; that did crack Narcissa's mask a little further/ As close as they had become in the past few months, she had never dared—no she had never dared seriously consider—that any of it meant enough to stay Hermione's resolve. Had their positions been reversed, Narcissa knew she would not have hesitated; a Slytherin's sense of self-preservation would always be stronger than their capacity for trust.
It seemed that the very opposite was true for Gryffindors.
"I must admit," she began when it became apparent they had allowed the silence to stretch itself long enough, "that I find that quite… surprising."
"is it?" Hermione asked, neglecting her tea altogether and placing her teacup back on the tray, nearly untouched. "How so?"
Narcissa nodded. "I know you must have questions," she murmured. "You must. I also know you try to accept my lack of answers, for the most part. But I see it in your eyes, how you need them. How desperate you are, to prove Kingsley wrong, to prove me wrong. To prove to yourself that your trust has not been misplaced."
"It hasn't," Hermione said resolutely, a hard set to her jaw. "I know it."
"There's so little you do know, Hermione," Narcissa said, cursing herself for being unable to keep the warble from her voice as her throat tightened with sadness. Hermione simply remained silent, hands wringing themselves together—a nervous tic Narcissa had picked up on very early on in their renewed acquaintance.
"You must realise I also see your… fear. Of being wrong—about me, about yourself. The fear of what it means to be right about me, but also the fear you have about being wrong and still being able to forgive me. I wonder if you could."
The pause this time felt interminable, tight, uncomfortable. Hermione's eyes flickered between Narcissa and the parcel on the desk. At last, the brunette released a heavy sigh, shoulders slumping with a weariness Narcissa had not seen since the War Trials.
"You're right," the Gryffindor finally relented, jaw setting rigidly. "I am afraid of what I might find in there. Terrified, in fact. But I feel like you think I am afraid for the wrong reasons."
Narcissa could only shake her head. "Hermione… whatever you find in those pages will feel like an immense breach of trust. I can guarantee it."
"I refuse to accept that so blindly!" Hermione interjected. "I don't know what the documents are about, but I refuse—I refuse to let it destroy…" she stopped suddenly, as if she had run out of steam, mouth opening and closing a few times, trying to coax the words out once more. "I just… You mean a great deal to me, Narcissa. I don't want to lose you over something that happened thirty years ago."
Narcissa scoffed, feeling her lips pull taut into a grimace she could not stop in time. "Then you are more naïve than I thought," she drawled. "You don't understand how the world worked then—how my world worked, the extents to which…" she paused, eyes shut tight as they began to burn with tears.
Tears were an unpleasant surprise. If anything could be the definitive proof that Narcissa was losing all control over her composure, tears would be it. Narcissa could only hope Hermione would not pick up on them, of if she did, would not mention them.
The brunette was silent for long moments.
"You're right."
Narcissa's eyes flashed open suddenly—a rogue tear escaped the last tendrils of her control, but the low murmur had caught her so completely by surprise she could not bring herself to care. Hermione's voice had been so soft Narcissa thought she had imagined it, but Hermione's gaze was fixed on hers, fiery and determined.
"What did you say?"
Hermione nodded once, clasping her hands together. "I said you're right, Narcissa. I don't know how your world worked. I don't know what you have done, or why. But I do know one thing." She motioned to the ominous stack at Narcissa's desk. "I am sick and tired of other people telling me what I should think. Kingsley, you, those who know you, even that bloody dossier. This—"she motioned with her hand, and the dossier came flying from Narcissa's desk to rest on Hermione's lap –"will only give me part of the picture. I want the full picture, Narcissa. I want everything. Then, you will let me decide for myself who I should and shouldn't forgive."
Narcissa could only stare—she hoped her disbelief was written plainly in the lines of her face, because she could not bring herself to articulate it in words, not for long, long moments during which Hermione simply stared resolutely, hands resting atop the Ministry parcel.
When her voice came, it was hoarse and strained, thick with tears.
"You… you don't know what you're asking."
Hermione nodded, giving Narcissa a little smile that was utterly unconvincing, but that Narcissa found herself appreciating nonetheless.
"I am asking you to sit with me and go through this," she tapped the dossier again, and the sound echoed in the room with finality. "Page by page, word by word. Walk me through everything in the most detail you can. Please."
Narcissa's stare of disbelief flitted from Hermione to the dossier for a moment—she could practically hear the gears of her own brain going full throttle. The thought was a little bit funny—usually she said that very thing about Hermione's.
There was the question of whether Narcissa could stomach relieving such a chaotic, painful time in her life. She was not entirely sure herself—some memories were better left alone, for they burned bright and deadly even after decades, and could very well still burn the both of them now. If she went through with this, it could reopen so many old wounds; it could tear them fresh ones to compound the pain. It could rip them apart.
But for Hermione?
For Hermione, the very least she could do was try.
"Very well," Narcissa said finally. She came to the decision slowly, trying to ignore all the reasons why it might be an entirely, utterly terrible idea to go through what she was about to do, but by the time she had stood and Hermione followed her movement almost subconsciously as she walked across the room, her mind was made up.
"But I'm afraid merely telling the tale will not suffice. There are things you need to know, things you need to see."
They stopped at a short cabinet in Narcissa's office, full of books and journals with a heavy mirror hung above it on the wall. Hermione's eyes widened, dossier still clutched to her chest, as Narcissa took out her wand and tapped a precise staccato around the mirror's ornate iron frame.
The brunette let out a little squeak of surprise as the mirror seemed to melt into itself, dripping over the frame as if the metal and glass were boiling, dripping to the floor. It seemed to eat away at the wall like an acid for a few tense moments, opening a gaping, illuminated hole on the stone.
It stopped after a few seconds, revealing a small room the size of a broom closet, illuminated ethereally by a source Hermione could not identify. The walls were covered by small phials, translucent and capped with golden wax.
Narcissa lowered her wand, stepping away to reveal the silvered bowl of an intricately made Pensieve. Her voice barely registered in Hermione's ears.
"I'll simply have to show you."