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Golden Snitch

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Dear Hermione,

It's been so long! How have you been? I hope your S.P.E.W campaign is faring well.

A few days ago, I got an invitation to a charity gala. I wasn't initially intending to go, but I'd heard that there would be faces I could meet — it would help tremendously in my astronomy research to get advice from experienced people. Have you heard of Dina Van Dunn? She's been researching the magical properties of stars for centuries, and she'll be at the gala.

The gala is huge! There's guests coming from all over the world. All kinds of high-accomplished individuals. And I thought to myself, how?

Well, that's the problem. It's at Malfoy Manor. This Friday, starting 6:30pm. I know there's a lot of bad history there (even if the world seems to have forgotten it). But I just can't turn down an invitation like this. And see, I can take a plus one.

So I was wondering if you would like to come along with me? I completely understand if you don't. Just remember the opportunities you can get from this.

Regards,

Padma.

Hermione already has a quill in her hand, a parchment flattened on the desk by the palm of her hand. She's standing with a T-shirt and a pair of boxers, bread crumbs clinging to her chin, not having had the energy to dress up for the weekend; the owl tapping on her window had caught her off-guard, ruffling its grey feathers against the darker clouds behind it.

Her immediate instinct had been to decline Padma's request. So why is her quill not moving? The more she tries to convince herself otherwise, the more she considers taking her old classmate up on that offer. Slowly, her teeth guide themselves to her lower lip. By the time she makes her decision, she can taste blood on the tip of her tongue.

The next week crawls by.

As usual, she spends hours in her tiny, hollow office listening to all the bustling of all the busy ministry workers, the shouts across the hallways, the parchment planes zooming assuredly past her office entrance. She draws out, spends her entire shift on, and then scraps any new plan she has for her campaign. Even though she refused House Elf Keeping for her office, she doesn't remember the last time she tidied it. Her bin has been overflowing with crumpled parchments since her stupid teacher's pet, apple-cheeked beam died at her boss's lack of investment in her work.

Every evening, she drags herself home and plops herself onto her sofa. As soon as she scoffs at Parkinson's evening reports, she switches off her television and either drifts into uneasy sleep or stares at her ceiling until the winter's sunlight casts a morning gloom in her living room. Apart from Crookshanks, her only companion is the more successful individuals popping out of her television set with each channel she flicks through.

It's only Friday night that she allows herself to acknowledge the decision she made.

There's a knock on her door. Brisk and crisp.

Padma's waiting.

She hasn't even gathered up something half-decent to wear.

After chucking on a slightly moth-eaten winter coat she'd owned for a few years, and damping her hair with the sputtering water of her shitty sink, Hermione glances briefly in the mirror. She shrugs.

When she opens the door, Padma's strained smile drops in an instant. Her perfectly plucked and arched eyebrows are in danger of disappearing into her hairline, glossy lips thinning into obvious disapproval. But she doesn't voice her true opinion. That's just not the nature of this world.

"Hermione! You're looking well!" she exclaims, plastic smile reemerging. Padma expands her arms — Hermione's eyes are drawn to the satin sari she's wearing, glittering silver even under the dim, grim flickering hallway light outside her apartment door.

Giving her an awkward hug, Hermione clears her throat slightly. "So, um… how's your research been?"

"It's been fantastic!" Padma responds, reaching behind her and slamming her apartment door shut. Before another pathetic excuse for conversation escapes Hermione's throat, the former Ravenclaw hooks her arm around her own, and then Hermione feels that familiar tug in her navel. The world's disarray of colours quickly reassemble into a silhouette against an inky sky, cut through with crystal glows extending out onto vast, frozen fields.

The last time she faced Malfoy Manor, she was expecting that she was walking into the palms of Death. There's something beautiful about irony.

Her eyes flicker over the guests as she quickly conceals her incredulous grin with a twist of her lips. Padma hadn't been exaggerating; there's a lot of people here. She's pretty sure she recognises a few Quidditch players, nothing that she gives a toss about but she's watched a few of Ron and Ginny's games. The guests are either wearing tuxedos, suits, intricate gowns or strangely elaborate costumes. All it takes is one transfiguration spell, but Hermione simply doesn't care enough to cast one.

Padma, on the other hand, does.

Her coat spills out around her into a silky, golden dress; there's a slit that plunges down her back enough to make her cheeks burn brighter than the cold could ever manage. As goosebumps raise up her back, her hair detangles itself and curls up into a messy bun on the top of her head.

Padma sighs, smiling. "There, that does it." She pauses, eyes narrowing. When they move down over her legs only half-shielded by the flimsy material, Hermione follows her gaze. Her old, trusty trainers dissolve into glossy black, and her heels are shoved uncomfortably high.

As Hermione nearly topples over, Padma catches her with a hearty laugh. "Presentation is key, Granger."

Hermione scowls, but she doesn't get the opportunity to voice her opinion on being 'presentable'; Padma's already dragging her right towards that godforsaken building. With each second she staggers forwards, Hermione wonders why she ever decided this would be a good idea. There's goosebumps erupting all over her skin and it's got nothing to do with the cold, now.

By the time they reach the entrance, she's already come up with twenty different excuses to vocalise to Padma. But bloody Ravenclaws, canny as they are, can spot a thought from miles away like an eagle's eye: "Your ex ditched me in Fourth Year. Are you planning to do the same?"

Hermione purses her lips. He was hardly even a boyfriend to be referred to as an 'ex', but whatever.

Rubbing her forehead, she mutters, "You seriously couldn't find anyone else?" The sheer volume of people has her motivation for being here staggering on its hinges, and the location certainly doesn't help matters. Even so, she doubts Padma hears, continuing to plough through crowds of heavily perfumed people with a vice-like grip on Hermione's bare arm. Or she did, and just didn't care to answer.

Hermione knows why she doesn't want to come alone. In fact, she has a good idea as to why she wasn't able to find a more desirable plus one. That 'bad history' with the Malfoys is still remembered by war survivors — there's only so much that the Daily Prophet can cover up. The living members of the Order of Phoenix still recall Lucius Malfoy behind a Death Eater's mask, and lurking behind the lies of an Imperius Curse. Older Hogwarts teachers and students still think about the night Draco Malfoy unleashed a pack of Death Eaters into the castle, throwing Albus Dumbledore off the Astronomy Tower.

The only person in the world who seems to fully forgive the Malfoy family is Harry, who, bless him, has a heart of gold. So it doesn't count.

She doesn't care that Dumbledore's death was planned by the old man himself. Only begrudgingly does she accept that Narcissa Malfoy is the reason Harry wasn't slaughtered on the spot by Voldemort.

Lucius Malfoy deserved the Dementor's Kiss. Nobody who survived from Voldemort's inner circle was protected fast enough by the frantically spun web of lies of Pureblood families. Actually, a couple days ago, Hermione had fumed at the Greengrass article claiming that Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, Dolohov, Rookwood and Avery had been falsely accused, innocent men.

And it's not like Narcissa Malfoy's suffering all that much in her luxury wellbeing ward at St Mungo's.

As for their son, well…

"Ladies, ladies, one at a time!" There are more women draped around him than she has fingers and toes. Meanwhile, he's wearing the same smug smirk she's caught sight of for six straight years at Hogwarts; the suit he's wearing is as white as his hair, and he's clutching a bottle of wine that probably costs more than three months' worth of her rent in one of his gloved hands. Now more than ever, she wants to punch that quirked upturn of his lips off. Draco Malfoy hasn't changed one bit — and she doesn't doubt his blood purity ideals remain very much intact.

Sneering, Hermione tears her eyes away from the center of the room's attention as Padma continues to drag her through a tightening crowd. The juxtaposition of heat and sweat with ice and dying grass has her gritting her teeth. People are much too close here, her dress doing nothing to help matters. Whether on purpose or not, she twitches every time fingers ghost over her bare back or fabrics brush against her thighs.

They make their way up a marble staircase, Padma letting out brisk apologies as she surges forward with Hermione in tow. A couple of tall, burly men pass them and leer, looking them up and down. Underneath her skin, her blood is boiling. Hermione allows her ankle to give way to her uncomfortable heels; it's not like people haven't noticed her stumbling around, considering the proximity of the crowds. She's about to catch herself on the banister of the staircase, but as she suspected from the burning holes in her back, a large hand fans over as much skin as it can. She doesn't need to turn around to know one of the men is now panting down her neck.

"Thank you," Hermione says briskly, glimpsing Padma trotting up the final stairs towards an ancient looking warlock in glittering indigo robes. She turns her head, gives the leering man a nod. Inside, her mind is going into overdrive; she's ready for a confrontation, has planned it for over a week, actually.

It's the only reason she allowed Padma to drag her to this stupid charity gala.

Those men are American wizards that are joint partners in Theodore Nott's trading business of pharmaceutical goods. Frank Heisenburg and Wolfgang Davis. Purebloods, of course. The sheep that watch the news or scan the newspapers simply don't know how to read behind the lines — Hermione has always had a peculiar knack for picking out the details. The alarming rates that all the ingredients are collected, including an abundance of extremely rare ones like phoenix tears. The unbelievable costs of medicines and potions based on the Nott brand. All of the heavily warded, heavily guarded masses of land that Nott has purchased. She's pieced it all together through newspaper clippings and careless slips from the sticky lips of Parkinson.

But who is she to speak? Blood Purism might be a so-called fictional concept, yet it still runs deep in the rivers of their network. She might be the friend of Harry Potter, but he still may be a fake Saviour, and she is still, no matter what, impure.

What a joke.

As she approaches Padma and the warlock, her thoughts loiter in the background as their conversation floats into her hearing range above the laughter, the cheering, the jeering. "...But of course, you are very young. You have plenty of time for experience."

Taking another two steps, Hermione reaches Padma's side. The warlock regards her with milky eyes before returning his gaze to her beaming companion.

"There's so much to discover!"

"Indeed there is, my child," he croaks, giving a crinkled smile of his own. She remembers when she was in First Year, saying very similar things to Minerva McGonagall, who looked at her the exact same way as this warlock is Padma.

There's a loud bang.

With hundreds of other heads, Hermione's one tilts down to the platform below. She watches as Malfoy, his silver eyes glittering in the crystalized candlelight, starts pouring his bottle of silvery-gold wine into glasses held by the outstretched hands of shrieking witches, the cork whizzing around them with golden sparkles flitting behind it. Scoffing faintly, Hermione's eyes travel over the crowds on the same floor as her — Nott's partners seemed to have abandoned their descent of the staircase. In fact, they've positioned themselves at an angle where they have her in full view, on their side of the upper floor.

Eyelashes flickering downwards, she doesn't realize she's smirking at her coy golden dress until she looks back up and catches their lips mirroring hers.

Suddenly, she has the urge to snog Padma. Bloody Ravenclaws.

Once Malfoy's little show with the wine has disintegrated back into a raving mess (with him offering a thousand galleon prize to anyone who can catch the cork bottle like it's a golden snitch), Hermione excuses herself from her old schoolmate and the warlock. Neither seem to mind, preoccupied in a deep conversation about the historical inaccuracies of star reading. Maybe five years ago she would've joined them eagerly.

Now, though, there's something else on her mind.

Heisenburg and Davis follow suit, something on their mind, too.