The Pale Boy's Secret

by Asleep

NOTE: I know this starts with Draco, but don't be decieved: I've decided to intertwine the two storylines together within chapters rather than having them have their own chapters. As usual, a "Thanks" section will follow, and watch out for quotes and references. I want to see if anyone can spot them! (Melody: I know you'll be able to spot one in particular.) Please point out errors of any kind.

>><><<

Chapter Four: Jammies Galore


Hermione Granger sat on a stool in the Leaky Cauldron, a cup of untouched tea by her hand. Though it wasn't particularly cold, she shivered involuntarily. While she waited for whoever she was waiting for, she went over the past twenty-four hours in her mind.

Dumbledore had gently refused to tell her whom he believed Malfoy's kidnapper was. Despite the fact that he assured her that she would be safe (he covered her with protection charms of his own invention), especially if he was correct about who the kidnapper was, Hermione was very nervous. She comforted herself with the knowledge that Dumbledore would not send her on a mission by herself if he thought that she would be in danger. That must have been why he hadn't involved the ministry.

The situation had been made worse for her when she discovered that she hadn't seen Crookshanks in a few days. Normally she wouldn't have thought much of it--Crookshanks often took long journeys--but it seemed that, put on top of everything else, not being able to find her cat pushed Hermione over the edge. Harry and Ron found her in a stall in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom (it was the last place on their list of where she might be) and when they did, they found her with her head buried in her arms, too distraught to hide her tears of frustration.

Harry and Ron. Hermione felt, like she had done walking to McGonagall's office, small and alone without them. At first, Ron had been rather annoyed.

"How could you have agreed to go through with it? Malfoy?" he had said, horrified.

That was before she had explained, however, that she had no control over the situation. This, however, as she thought afterwards, was not altogether the truth. She had not actually ever asked Dumbledore if she could have not gone, but he had seemed to know what he was doing. Besides, Hermione certainly didn't want to question a professor.

But perhaps there was more to it than that. Perhaps she hadn't bothered to ask because she had wanted to help Malfoy, even if he was a miserably slimey git. If this was true, it was due to the fact that Hermione wasn't like Ron--she couldn't just let someone get hurt if she could help it, even if it was Malfoy. Ron probably didn't mean it, but Hermione wasn't the sort of person who could even joke. Not about that.

It had been hard leaving Ron and Harry. Hermione had hugged them both and assured them she'd be alright, which was something she wasn't at all sure of herself, and Harry had given her his invisibility cloak ("Just in case," he had said). She was very apprehensive; sure, she'd faced things that had seemed much worse than this before, but she'd always had them with her. She had become so dependant on their friendship (quickly, she checked herself--she wasn't dependant on their friendship, she simply valued it) that she felt her confidence abandon her in their absence. She wished fervently that they were with her.

On top of it all--the pressure of having to "rescue" Malfoy, losing her cat, missing Harry and Ron--she was very, very tired.

"More tea, Miss Hermione?"

Hermione was jerked smartly from her thoughts. She lifted her head up, which was buried in the folds of her cloak, and looked up to face one of the teenage boys who worked at the Leaky Cauldron.

"Er--no. Thanks."

The boy shrugged, blushing, and walked off with the kettle. Hermione found with annoyance that she had lost her train of thought. She sighed and buried her face back in her arms, trying in vain to pull herself together. Everything seemed so unreal, like a blur...

Hermione was miserably dwelling on the number of classes she would miss when a cold hand on her shoulder made her jump and look up.

A tall figure stood over her. It--or her, by the looks of things--was covered head-to-toe in beautiful blood-red robes, so that the only skin visible was the area round the eyes. Hermione saw that the woman's eyes shone as though she were smiling. She could tell that the woman was nervous--she was wringing her hands. Quickly, so that Hermione barely caught it, the woman winked. Then, she turned slowly on her heel and walked over to the fireplace, motioning for Hermione to follow her.

Hermione sat, open-mouthed, for a few moments before remembering herself. She left what she owed on the counter and, gathering up her things, hurried towards the woman, whoever she was.

>><><<

Draco woke up and stretched. He fell out of his bed, which seemed much narrower than usual, and tripped over a rope, which was an odd thing to be on his dormitory floor; but it wasn't until he walked into a solid wall on his way to the shower that he realized that he wasn't in the fifth-year Slytherin dormitory anymore.

"Shit," he said, with much feeling, backing into a wall and sliding down it. For once, he was at loss for a snide yet clever remark. He rested his head on his knees, scratching his head and letting his fingers get tangled in his pale hair. It was all coming back to him. Here he was, imprisoned by psycho lady, the woman who claimed to be not only his mother but his nursemaid. It was a crazy situation and he pondered whether he was going mad.

That's it! Draco thought. He must be dreaming. He pinched his arm very hard, as he had seen people do in a Muggle movie his father had brought home for some Death Eater research. He didn't wake up. Feeling that he must not have hurt himself enough, he frantically looked about for something that would.

Luckily perhaps for Draco, he was interrupted before he could find anything.

"Draco!"

Draco scowled sleepily under his arm towards the direction of the crazy woman's now farmiliar voice, which was coming ffrom behind him, with the intent of telling her off for giving him a narrow bed. Nothing in the world, however, could've prepared him for what he saw. There, in front of the fireplace, was the woman. And standing next to her, a look of mingled horror and amusement on her face, was--

"Granger?"

Draco was instantly relieved of all sleepiness and disorientation. He was snapped back to reality as though someone had poured a bucket--or a truckload, rather--of icy water on him. Granger, Hermione Granger, was standing there, getting a rather direct view of his--tush. Suddenly conscious of the teddies and fire engines on his pajamas, he scrambled to get his body from the neck down behind the bed and out of view of the fireplace and its occupants.

But, of course, it was far too late.

"Er...heh..."

Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth and turned very pink. Draco suddenly felt the strong need to explain.

"It's not my fault," he stammered. "She, er, got them for me. They're not mine."

He realized, after a few more moments of awkward silence, that his saying this didn't help his situation much. He looked away from Hermione, who looked like it was taking every fiber of her being to keep from collapsing in a heap of giggles, and instead fixed his attention on the woman, who was nervously fumbling with her cloak to lower the hood.

"Why'd you bring her into my room?!" Draco barked moodily. "In fact, why the hell's she here at all?"

The woman, though she jumped slightly at his tone, pretended not to hear him and frowned in concentration. As she finally removed her cloak and shook out her mess of hair, Hermione stopped trying not to laugh immediately and uttered a small gasp of surprise. She had seen Narcissa Malfoy and the Quidditch World Cup and apparentally had not yet seen this woman's face.

"But--" Hermione started.

"She's not my mother, so you can save your breath for laughing it up some more."

Hermione gave him a serious look. "Well you have to admit, those pajamas--"

"Oh, shut up!" Draco howled.

"No, you shut up, Teddy Boy!"

"Stop it!" the woman called shrilly yet calmly. "Both of you. Really!"

Draco and Hermione glared at each other. The woman looked from one to the other and sighed, her hands on her hips.

"Now I didn't bring you two here so you could bicker like a pair of five-year-olds," she said. The woman looked from her son, who had his lower lip in a pout and his arms crossed, to Hermione, whom she could tell was fighting the urge to stick out her tongue.

Hermione turned slightly to the woman. "If you aren't Malfoy's mother," she said slowly, "then why do you look so much like her? Does she have a twin?"

Draco scoffed. "No," he said. "She's just some nutter who's pretending to be my mum so she can--"

"That--is--enough."

Draco looked up, startled, at the woman. He hadn't seen her look this way before. Her features were twisted in a way even his mother's never were.

She was livid.

"First of all," she said slowly, her hands shaking slightly, "I am your mother, no matter how much you deny it, no matter how little proof there is. That, I know is true, whether you believe me or not.

"Secondly, I could explain everything if you two would just shut up long enough for me to get a world in edgewise. Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. You argue like an old unhappy married couple."

Draco and Hermione opened their mouths to protest at this last bit, but the woman held up her hand and they didn't dare go any further.

"Thirdly, we're going to have to work together from now on. You two will get along. And," she added, "as there are only two bedrooms, you'll be sharing one. And no late-night snog sessions, please, I'll be right next door." (NOTE: No, I did not write this into the plot as an opportunity for Hermione and Draco to have wild sex. You'll notice the PG-13 rating. Carry on, then!)

At this, they really did protest. The woman couldn't exactly understand what they were saying, as they both burst out at the same time, but she did catch snatches: "shit", "they leave toilet seats up", "smelly", and "corn on the cob" were the only parts she could make out (though she thought she might have misheard some of it).

"Really, there's no need to say 'corn on the cob,'" she said, a shadow of a smile on her lips, after they had calmed down enough to breathe. She ran a thin hand through her silvery hair distractedly. "Really, you act as if I just told you I've signed you up for a nudist colony. You're sharing the bedroom, not the bloody bed, after all."

"Now, wait a minute," said Draco, his eyes narrowed into tiny slits. "You expect us to be cooperative? You kidnapped me, and I don't even know what she's doing here," he gestured wildly at Hermione, still keeping his lower body hidden behind the bed.

The woman frowned. "Draco, I--"

"And you gave me firetruck jammies!"

For the second time that night, Draco realized he hadn't said the right thing. There was another awkward pause.

"Well, I am truly sorry about that." And the woman sounded sorry. "But I didn't really have much time to pack for you, so I grabbed the pajamas at the top of your drawer--"

"No!" Draco cried, but the damage was done. Hermione looked triumphant.

"A-ha! So much for the teddies not being yours, Mal--"

"Oh, shut up! I'm going back to bed."

Draco, still pouting, climbed carefully into bed (strategically blocking the teddies from view) and turned so he was no longer facing Hermione and the woman, who were still standing in front of the fireplace. Sleepiness was once again starting to take him over. He vaguely heard what sounded like a large bed being magicked.

"Get some sleep," the woman whispered. "I'll explain things in the morning."

Hermione seemed to be as tired as Draco, for she didn't ask questions or even protest. In fact, she only uttered a large yawn.

Draco turned his head very slightly, but it was enough to see the woman walking towards the wall. Again, like she had done when he had first seen her, she made a doorway appear in it, only this time she conjured an actual permanent door. She opened it quietly and, before walking through it, glanced anxiously at Draco, who quickly closed his eyes. After the woman left, he heard Hermione shuffling about the room. He fell asleep to the sounds of her brushing her teeth.

>><<

Narcissa glanced in James' direction and heaved another sigh of relief--he was staying true to his word.

She had sworn him to secrecy the day before, very embarrassed. The last time she had behaved that way...it had been a very long time ago. Before she had come to Hogwarts during the second year.

Looking again at her dinner, she struggled to pay attention to the boy who was talking to her.

"--so I asked her about it and she said she'd give me the extra homework," he was saying earnestly.

"Er...yeah," she said, peering at James again.

"Narcissa," said the boy, sounding remotely hurt, "why do you keep looking at James?"

Narcissa looked reluctantly away from James, who now seemed to be arguing with Lily, and faced the boy who was speaking to her.

"I'm sorry, Remus," she said, "but I'm just a little preoccupied today--"

"That," Remus said, and now he sounded very hurt indeed, "is obvious."

"No, I--"

But he had already gotten up and stalked from the table, no doubt to retire to his sanctuary--the library.

"Just swell!" shouted Narcissa, slamming her fork down and making sure for one last time that James was keeping his promise (although she knew he was). This all came down to Aunt Clio, as it so often did. It was so like her to ruin everything for Narcissa.

She pushed back her chair and made to go after Remus and explain things to him (or rather, she realized, to find him and make up a lame story, for she couldn't tell him what was really happening), wondering vaguely why he thought she was involved with James.

I really don't think my day could get much worse... she thought bitterly under her breath as she reached the Great Hall entrance.

"Hallo, Narcissa!" said two unpleasantly farmiliar voices from behind her.

Narcissa rolled her eyes. "Oh," God says, "a challenge."

She turned grudgingly around and tried to smile. It was Artemus and Apollo--Art and Pollo--Prattworth, her fellow fifth-year Gryffindors. They were twins, and though Art was a girl and Pollo was a boy, they were very seldom seen out of the company of each other. In fact, Narcissa had become quite accustomed to finding Pollo in the girls' dormitory.

Overall, the characteristics of the black-haired, blue-eyed twins that stood out most were that they were extrememly annoying and non-ceasingly gossipy.

"Er--look guys," Narcissa said distractedly, looking over Art's shoulder to see if she could spot Remus, "I want to chat, but I really can't--"

"But this is important!" said Art. Narcissa saw that she was flushed with excitement. Curiosity got the better of her.

"What exactly do you mean?"

Art and Polly exchanged a meaningful look.

"Well," said Pollo, a very slight smirk on his face, "see for yourself."

He held out his hand and Narcissa saw for the first time that he was brandishing a rolled up copy of The Groovy Chick, something of a tabloid for young Hogwarts witches (published by a group of flakey sixth-years). She took it and, when she caught sight of the cover, gaped at it in horror. It read:

James Potter and Narcissa Baker: Unable to share their love with the world.

Under the headline was a moving photograph of Narcissa and James hugging in the girls' dormitory the day before; it seemed to have been enchanted so that the Narcissa and James in the picture were kissing passionately.

Narcissa said nothing, only shoved the magazine roughly back into Pollo's hands and walked listlessly off. She could still hear them sniggering as she mounted the marble staircase.

So that's why James and Lily had been arguing. She must have read the magazine. And Remus--

Remus! Narcissa had nearly forgotten. She quickly descended the staircase she had just trudged up and stalked off towards the library.

>><><<

When Hermione woke up, it took a moment for her to figure out where she was. Upon realizing that she was no longer at Hogwarts, but in a chilly bedroom a few yards away from a snoring Draco Malfoy, she felt a pang of dread. How had she gotten herself into this?

Reluctantly, she rose from the bed and went for her toothbrush. She had felt somehow secure under the covers and now felt rather vulnerable and unguarded, even though Malfoy was asleep. He had pulled his quilt right up to his chin in a transparent attempt to hide his teddy and fire engine specked pajamas. His pale hair was all over his face. She snorted, realizing that she was spending too much time watching Malfoy.

As she padded slowly in her slippers to the bathroom, Hermione yawned and made a mental note to tell Ron and Harry about Malfoy's pajamas.



When Draco woke up, it took next to no time at all for him to realize where he was. He had walked into a wall once already in the past twenty-four hours and he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

If he were at Hogwarts at this moment, he thought, he would probably be trying to sneak away from Crabbe and Goyle. Draco wondered what was happening there. Were they looking for him? Well, they had sent Hermione. But that didn't make much sense. Come to think of it, nothing that had happened to him lately made the least bit of sense at all. Everything was surreal. He wasn't even quite sure whether he was alive.

He stumbled out of bed (noting that Hermione wasn't in her bed) and went grumpily for the small bag in which the woman had carefully packed some of his things. Everything was folded very neatly and it didn't take him very long to find what he was looking for--his hairbrush.

Walking over to a circular mirror he had discovered the day before that was mounted on one of the walls, Draco began brushing his extremely messy hair with equally extreme care. He heard a smirk behind him, but didn't turn.

"What's so damn funny, Granger?"

"You," Hermione said from behind him. "I don't know anyone who spends so much time brushing their hair."

Now Draco turned fully to face Hermione.

"Some people take pride in their looks," he said. "Others prefer to stay buck-toothed and bushy-haired."

"So that's how you decide on clothing? How good it looks? I didn't know teddies and firetrucks were in these days, Malfoy."

The shock from the pajamas of the night before had worn partly off and Draco was ready for a nice arguement.

"Didn't you? They're all the rage. You should throw away that nasty, frilly thing and go out and buy yourself some T&F lingerie."

"Who are you, the spokesperson?" Hermione looked mildly affronted by Draco's insulting her nightdress. "I can just picture the name of your shop now: Malfoy's Teddy & Firetruck Clothing."

"Are you two almost through? If not, I can try chucking some of these pancakes into your open mouths, because I don't want them to get cold."

Draco and Hermione both jumped. They had been enjoying their discussion so much that they hadn't noticed the door opening. The woman stood their, a large tray in her hands, looking very amused.

"Alright," she said, setting the tray down on the floor and suddenly looking serious. "Since it seems that you two are running out of things to do and beginning to resort to bickering again, I think it's time to explain why you're both here. I suppose I owe you that much."

>><><<

Okay. There wasn't much Narcissa in this chapter, but I'm working on it. I'm sorry if this sort of dragged...I just wanted to get this up as fast as I could.

As promised here is the Fanks Section (not very long at all, but complete):

All's Well that Ends Well, Kayeth, Jess, Ravenclawizard, ~wicked*witch~, elisa, Thea (put up your next chapter!), Fallen*Angel, Hermione2, and Melody (guess the quote).