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Disclaimer: Move along folks there is nothing to see here...well nothing that I own anyway, and that is precisely the point I am trying to make.
A/N...Ok we have another flash back, since I really like using italics. :) Remember to look for the [[ ]] and Italics. Thanks.
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Chapter 3 Part 3 The Female is Always the Most Dangerous of the Species.
(or as I like to call it, The Never Ending Chapter)
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Draco moved up to walk with me, neither of us looking at the other.
The office of Draco Malfoy may not have been the very last place on Earth I wanted to be, but it was in the top five. I sat down on the chair opposite him and we did the stare down thing for a minute.
Finally he shook his head and started speaking. Was that one point for Hermione Granger I wondered? Too bad I was generally the only one who thought I was funny.
"There are things you have to know. We may as well start with the Nursery. Its been enchanted with a soothing spell, its tuned so that it doesn't affect me, or surprisingly Ilse," He said the last bit under his breath but I heard it well enough.
"...But anyone else who goes in will feel, immediately, like that is the place they want to be most in the world. The thought of leaving it will fill them with feelings of unease ." I gave him the 'tell me something I don't know' look.
"OK I know you figured that out. But you don't know why." He took a deep breath and let it out.
"Hermione, these children are not ordinary children, their mother is a cousin of mine. Their mother is Beneficent De Faine." That name stripped the pretense of boredom off my face!
Beneficent De Faine, yes I knew that name very well. I had hated that name. Rage boiled in me. I remembered thinking either her parents had been hoping for a different sort of child, when they named her, or they were as sadistically evil as she was. Now knowing that she was a cousin of Malfoy I was betting on the latter. Beneficent? Not even close! She had killed without thought or provocation. She had worn her Dark Mark with pride, and when she had been sent to Azkaban, I had wished that the Dementors had still been there, getting "kissed" by a Dementor couldn't happen to a "nicer" person. It had been four years since I had heard that name, but no amount of time is enough for me to forget what that woman had done.
"They have been living with my mother while Beneficent has been in prison. But now she has escaped Azkaban and has vowed to kill them, we had to move them in here to protect them." I just looked at Draco as he continued, I wasn't ready to say anything yet.
"In her mind she truly believes that the fact that they have been living outside the grasp of the remaining death eaters means they are tainted. She is completely insane Hermione, she will stop at nothing to see them dead." He paused and ran his fingers through his already rumpled hair.
I looked at Draco, insane he says, it seems more like typically MALFOY to me. They had always seemed to take the cliche, 'You always hurt the ones you love' to a new level...Draco's own father would have been only too happy to push him off the nearest cliff if the opportunity arose....of course this was Draco we were talking about. Who wouldn't be willing to do that? (That, however, was somewhat beside the point.)
"Now that Ilse has heard that her mother has escaped she is convinced that she be needs to join Beneficent, and will do whatever she can to facilitate that." He paused in his narrative. Despite myself I was starting to feel sorry for Ilse again. She was just a child after all. I seemed to be vacillating between fear FOR the children and fear OF the children.
"She doesn't understand what sort of person her mother is at all, she doesn't understand that her mother would kill her in a moment given the chance." He sighed.
"So far Ilse has managed to find ways of getting Beneficent into the house, we have been able to stop her actually finding the children, but I know its only a matter of time. Ilse is already using wand less magic. The girl is too smart for her own good. She has a very devious little mind." The last statement was said with a slight sense of pride.
"The children were raised to be DeathEaters Hermione, they aren't nice little children. You can't imagine the impact that daily haranguing and mind games can have on a child" He looked me in the eyes and I could tell he wasn't just speaking about the trio in the nursery now, but himself as well.
"You might be thinking, perhaps I am over reacting, but Hermione you have to understand that Ilse is playing with you as she has done with every single one of the other people I have hired to help me. She is very good at playing games, until its too late." He seemed to have wound down. I wasn't sure where the cold chill that should be walking along my back was, but I didn't feel a thing. I was calm.
"You are being unusually quiet, no smart rejoinders? No know-it-all answers to this problem? Really Granger you disappoint me." He tried to look typically Draco and failed miserably, he had had too little sleep and too much worry for too long to be able to pull it off.
"So Malfoy, if I am reading between the lines, then I am here for more than my unparalleled babysitting skills." What no laugh? Told you no one thinks I am funny.
"You need a Witch who actually knows one end of a wand from another." I challenged.
"I hate to admit it Granger, I really, really hate to admit it, but you are one of the smartest most accomplished witches that I know. I would give my right arm to not have you in my home, but unfortunately I am out of options at this point." There was none of his usual sneer in the words, and I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or insulted, part of that had sounded like praise, of sorts.
"Ok so how long is the little fiasco supposed to last?" It wasn't like it mattered, I had signed the paper. I just wanted to know.
"They have been enrolled at Hogwarts, they are a bit young, but with Ilse as advanced as she is magically, and with no structure, and the fact that they can be protected better there than anywhere else, we thought it....."He trailed off again. "So I just need your help until September and then they will be Headmaster Snape's problem."
"Ok so just under three months. Fine. I need some things from my house, I assume you will make a room ready for me. I am not about to set foot in that nursery again, not while I am conscious anyway. So you can just get that look OFF your face Draco Malfoy! I don't care what you say about the children or who their mother is, I won't have children being bespelled nor enchanted by nurseries. Try to at least ACT like you have some morals." Without another word, and barely hearing his outraged "Hermione" I apparated out of his office and to my own apartment.
I didn't notice a thing as I walked from the lounge room to my bedroom, my mind was on what Draco had told me.
I flopped down on my bed and looked at the ceiling for a while. Surprising really how few answers were posted up there in the plaster. I did not want to go back to the Malfoy house, ever again. I didn't want to clap eyes on Draco Malfoy, ever again. And as for the children....I don't know what I wanted for them. Sometimes I wonder if a person is completely lost before they have a chance to be found. Were the children entirely beyond saving? With a large sigh I pushed myself off the bed and got out a bag in which to pack a few belongings.
I was folding socks when it all really hit me, the socks dropped from my nerveless fingers.....
[["Ron...Ron. Don't!" I put my hand on his arm, and pulled him back from rushing through the crowd. I pulled the cloak more tightly over his head, to hide the bright Weasley hair. The look on his face was both heart breaking and frightening. I don't remember ever being afraid of him before.
"Please Ron, you need to calm down now, if we are discovered this could end very badly for all of us...are you listening? Ron, are you listening?" He was still pulling against me as if to break free. I hadn't wanted to come today I had a feeling Ron wouldn't be able to just "watch" the sentencing like he said. I had had a very bad feeling all morning.
"I hear you Hermione." He growled at me, but his eyes never left the platform at the front of the room. There was death in his eyes. Danger and pure intent in Ronald Weasley. Ron Weasley, everyman, boy next door, good guy, was fighting to get to the woman who had tortured and killed his mother. Part of me wanted to release his arm, Merlin help me but if I thought he could get away I would have begged him to kill her. She deserved it. The things she had done....I shook my head...and felt tears fall to my cheeks.
The tears on my cheeks stopped Ron as nothing else could have.
"Don't cry 'Mione, its ok. I just want to see her sentenced I promise. Justice, is being served." He sneered the word justice.
The open war between Voldemort's forces and the mainstream wizard population had been going for less than six months, and the Ministry pretended it had the upper hand. By publicizing every capture and trial of a DeathEater they were trying to show that we were still all safe. Life was fine. We could trust the Ministry and sleep at night. Those of us living underground, part of the real war, knew this was a lie! But then, war is only as good as its propaganda, why should wizards be different from muggles in that regard?
I was dragged out of my reverie with Ron's hand tightening painfully on my arm. His eyes had taken on that menacing look again and I turned to see what he was watching. A small woman with blond scraggly hair and wild eyes was being dragged onto the dais in the front of the room. She had hysterical laughter pouring out of her mouth, a laughter that stopped all the sound in the room. This was Beneficent De Faine, murderer, DeathEater, proud servant of Voldemort. She stood flanked by two large wizards who seemed to be having a hard time keeping her in control. She was struggling violently to get away.
Another door opened and a short wizard with flushed face entered the room. Everyone gasped as one, when they noticed behind Cornelius Fudge (Minister of Magic) there walked a tall proud wizard, Albus Dumbledore. The Headmaster of Hogwarts and as most people knew, leader of the underground movement, walked behind his shorter counterpart with a slight smile on his lips and twinkle in his eyes. It was strange to see the two men in the same room let alone, without any blustering and yelling on the part of Fudge. At the entrance of the pair Beneficent De Faine stopped her laughter and went eerily quiet, standing still as a statue and with eyes glaring at Dumbledore. Their appearance may have quieted down Beneficent, but it sent a murmur of speculation racing around the room.
Cornelius Fudge raised his hand and the room was still once more.
"Beneficent De Faine," He turned to look at the woman, she was still staring at Dumbledore a picture of rage. "Having been charged with the grievous acts of murders upon your fellow wizards, and the act of having sold your allegiance to the Dark Lord Voldemort, and now having been found guilty of these charges, you are hereby sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban. As it has been written here on this day and has now been witnessed by, these, your peers, let that sentence be completed." With no other words, Beneficent De Faine and the men who had been keeping hold of her apparated from the room leaving behind a silence that the name Azkaban could still create within those of the Wizarding world.
Beside me I felt Ron slump and his hand slipped from mine. I could hear him softly sobbing. It was time I got him out of here. I took one more look at the dais and saw Dumbledore raise his eyebrow in my direction. I quickly looked away. We had been told not to come here today.... ]]
How could a person go on after what we went through? How can we ever be the same? Answer, we can't, none of us can. We just try to get back some of our lives. Sadly but fortunately time has a way of taking the fine edge of grief from you and you find yourself smiling again. You find yourself learning to be happy, until one day when you laugh seeing a butterfly, or when you cheer as your favorite Quidditch team wins the Cup, you forget to feel guilty about it. But it doesn't mean you ever forget. You can't ever forget. Laughing and smiling, and loving are not forgetting. They are simply living and living is never forgetting.
I leaned down and picked up the socks from where I had dropped them, and wiped my tears on them. Time to give some children a second chance. Time for me to make a few more mistakes of the monumental kind, at least I still had the chance. With my bag in hand I walked out to the lounge room and apparated back to the street in front of Malfoy's house.
TBC
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A/N Sorry this was such a long time in coming, this has been a nasty little chapter to write. A bit dark...but it has to be that way for a sec, this is a still a romance/humor fic despite evidence to the contrary...darned contrary evidence anyway! ;)
AND yes its Headmaster Snape to you! Who would you want as headmaster when Dumbledore becomes Minister of Magic? What no answer? I thought not. ;)
PS thanks for all the reviews and the telling me to hurry up and post already, also all your helpful hints and suggestions. You all keep me motivated and inspired...thanks!
Real life and work can be evil but I am HOPING I can get my mind in gear and get you another chapter this decade.
Remember to read Arbitrary's Temporary Insanity it is quite fantastic and I can't say enough about it. :) Except it needs a lot more updates. (yes I should talk I know.)
And also if you like a bit of Draco/Harry loving you might want to read....Nichneven's Harry and Draco: An Onomatopoeically Enhanced Tale...its cute and funny and cracked me up. Thanks Nichy!