Chapter 23

Three Quarters Muggle Part 2


"Why don't we do lunch. There's a café that is quite good." And Draco knew from the Minister of Magic's assistant that she was there for lunch pretty much every day, arriving in about fifteen minutes.

Draco hoped this might be far better than attempting to corner her in the Ministry. They sat down at table by the window and a waitress with a floating pad and quill came by to give them menus and offer them drinks.

"Muggles are rather ingenious for not having magic," Sev said. "The…variety and feats they manage without it are astounding. If not ridiculously loud."

"I don't know how they hear themselves think," Draco agreed. "They always look so busy and in a rush."

"They probably have to because they can't use magic to get anything done. They have to do it by hand, I guess."

One wizard walked by them and gave a surprised look. Sev wondered if it was because they were heard talking about Muggles.

"Pureblooded Malfoys are not supposed to talk about Muggles in public, apparently," the blond said with a chuckle. He got it often enough. The looks.

"I don't care what anyone thinks of me talking about Muggles here," Sev said. In World 1.0 that would have been something to be terrified of, but in World 2.0, there was not much he was afraid of. "They aren't going to murder me over it."

Draco opened his mouth to reply, but he saw Hermione arrive through the door. He stood up and said, "Minister, what a surprise to see you here."

Sev followed suit, standing, but said only, "Good afternoon." It still sent a jolt through his system to see her. It was like his brain recognized something that could not be there every single time, and it did not particularly hurt any less as time went on.

"Is it a surprise, Draco? I thought you asked my assistant about it?" She then smiled at Sev and said, "Good afternoon, Sev."

"Oh well, I suppose my Malfoy charm is losing its potency," Draco replied, with an unrepentant chuckle.

"You could have just asked to have lunch…"

"And what, be put off on your schedule for a month?" He scoffed. "So, now that you're here. Do join us."

She sighed and then sat down with them. "I would not have put you off for a month," she said, putting down a small stack of books.

"We've not ordered yet," Draco said. "We've just been on a little excursion in London. Considering Sev's three-quarters Muggle and has never seen one, I thought it apt."

"I feel like we stink of petrol still, sorry," Sev commented. Knowing he was going to have to say something, he simply compartmentalized like he did in World 1.0 and refused to let himself dwell on her face. His mother's face.

Hermione chuckled and said, "Yes, there is a lot of that without magic to run things, but I'm not as sensitive to the smell as I'm sure you are." She picked up the menu and asked him, "Where did you go?"

"A bookstore, a sport shop, and a clothing store. Except for the bookstore, it all smelled strange and was very loud. The other shops had people talking on their phones everywhere. I felt like I heard one side of thirty conversations that were half in another language. It started to give me a headache."

"Go figure, he liked the books the most." Draco smiled to himself and hid it behind taking a sip of cappuccino.

She ignored Draco's comment. "Oh yes, a sport shop would also have a lot of strange smells for you. Lots of synthetics and plastics."

"What are synthetics, Minister?" He knew what plastics were. He did not realize that plastics were also synthetics, especially since she mentioned both things.

Draco snorted, happy she was there to field that question, because he had absolutely no idea. He tried not to laugh out loud as Granger gave him a withering look.

"It's man-made to mimic something natural," She explained simply. "Plastics are also synthetic. There are also synthetic fibers for clothes, so that might account for the odd smells everywhere."

Sev blinked some, then his eyes narrowed in thought.

Draco could not help but see the scrunch-nosed resemblance between Sev and a teenaged Hermione Granger in that moment.

"So, Muggles have no magic to make anything, they have to do it all by hand or machine, and yet they also make objects and materials that are like natural ones that already exist?" He blinked again. "Whyever would they do that?"

It seemed an awful lot of non-magical work to make something that had a natural equivalent. Surely the natural equivalent was a simpler solution? Muggle society had not existed this way in his old world at all, so he could only work with whatever he had read since his splash down.

"That's a very good question, but the simple, non-environmental answer is ease and quantity. If you can make as much of something as you need, there's no need to source a natural equivalent. Some things don't have enough naturally no matter what."

"Hmm." It sounded lazy. Not unlike some witches and wizards he had observed in this world who magicked everything indiscriminately. "Where else do they use the unnatural fake things?"

Hermione smiled at him and then said, "Unfortunately, pretty much everything. The Energy sector, food additives, cleaning products, building materials, pesticides. There was a sweetener that was discovered when trying to make a pesticide that I heard about from my parents." Then she added, "They're dentists, so tend to people's teeth, or did, they're retired. Artificial sweeteners are a big thing. Living in the magical world, I don't keep completely up to date on it."

For someone who spent a lot of time making all sorts of things from the natural world in Potions, this artificial fascination Muggles seemed to have was weird. It was like some strange sort of Muggle Alchemy. His list of Muggle things to understand was growing at an alarming rate.

Draco saw his opportunity and said, "Speaking of your parents. Sev wants to learn about all sorts of Muggle things, as you can tell, do you think they would like to meet your interdimensional magic child?"

She shook her head at him in amusement, "Is that the proper reference? My interdimensional magic child?" She looked at Sev.

He shrugged with just a tilt of his head. Sev didn't care what it was called or what they called him. Whatever it was, she wasn't his real mother. Grandparents he had never had in the other world would hopefully be different. He had no memories of them that they didn't have of him.

"You know me, Granger. I like my turns of phrase," Draco drawled smoothly. "Even if the charm is wearing off."

"The charm isn't wearing off, you never had any," she teased. "Anyway, I'm sure they'd be curious to meet him. I did tell them about you, Sev. Rose would have if I didn't get to it first."

Up popped Sev's brow, surprised that she had, but the explanation of Rose made utter sense. He had never met anyone with a bigger mouth who blabbed about everything.

"Do they still have the memory issues?" Draco asked.

"Well, yes. Many of them of me never returned. Those that did are somewhat muted. Disconnected in their way. My kids find it odd, because they can't ask my parents much about me or things when I was a kid. We don't have that tight bond, and that's different from Ron's family," she explained to Draco. To Sev she said, "I partially obliviated them to protect them from Voldemort, and the mind is too complex a thing to perfectly reverse I suppose. We were lucky as it is. Their brains are normal aside from the episodic memories, and that should make little difference to you. They'd probably really like talking to you about Muggle things if you want to meet them."

"Yes, ma'am. I would like that, if that's okay."

"I'll talk to them. Maybe we can arrange it for before you go back to Hogwarts." She turned to Draco. "When are you taking him back?"

Draco noticed the food was thankfully arriving, because that question was not one he wanted to answer in detail in front of the boy. "It's open ended right now. Some time yet, I think."


After they ate, Draco sent Sev off with the suggestion of Quidditch supplies so that he could talk to Hermione alone.

"As to when he's going back…Did you hear what happened?"

"Minerva flooed me, yes."

"He needs more than to be surrounded by a bunch of kids and teachers, Hermione. We can't just plop him into Hogwarts and hope it sorts him out. He didn't have anyone to talk to, when he needed to, and he ran off. I don't even think he realizes or realized that anyone cared enough to be worried over how he acted. He doesn't understand this world. His Hogwarts was not a warm and caring place."

"Yes, I think it scared the Headmistress half to death until Professor Slughorn said he came in sometime at night."

"Did it scare you?"

Hermione stared at him and blinked. "I mean…yes, I was worried, Draco."

"But not like it was your kid?"

"…" She took a deep breath. "Don't look at me like that. You don't understand. You're not a mother. It's not just…genetics."

"Don't give me that mother bullshit. Don't tell me I don't understand, Hermione, because I did feel like it was Scorpius. I went there to get him, I talked to his professors, what the hell did you do?"

"I'm not his actual mother, Draco. I physically upset him. I know I do."

"Clearly you aren't his mother, but if you let things continue to go this way, it's always going to upset him. If you made an attempt, that might change in time. Do you really think he wants a woman who wears his mother's face to continue to be a stranger to him?"

"It's not that simple…I can't just…You're a single dad…"

"What is simple about that?" he interrupted her incoherent ramblings with a wild hand gesture.

"…Ron is having a hard time with the thought of all of this…"

"Are you effing kidding me? Tell him to put his big boy pants on and grow up! Another you, that this him has never known, was with Professor Snape. Merlin, does he bloody blame you for that or something?"

"It's just going to take some time. He was not precisely fond of Professor Snape, even after the truth."

"Some time? Over the welfare of a child who doesn't have anyone? Seriously?"

"I have to think about my real family too, Draco."

"Because you have a selfish, useless, immature git of a husband, who you outgrew eons ago," he hissed. Then he added, "Do you know Rose told the truth to Professor Slughorn, because even she understands that Sev is weirdly like her brother, verbatim, Hermione."

"I think this conversation is over. I'm not talking to you about Ron or Rose." She stood and picked up her books, "I will talk to my parents and floo you. I'm sure I could arrange something for this weekend."

Draco stood up too, out of politeness, even though he had just told her off five different ways, and watched her stalk off out the door in the same way she had stalked up to him and punched him in the nose with they were kids.


Special thanks to Duj for the review!

It was difficult to write Hermione with Sev for me, so I hope it worked. It was much easier for Draco to tell her off than for me to write the other two being politely distant and ignoring the white elephant in the room!