Hermione's office was spacious compared to Ginny's and most in the
ministry. Orderly books, some not even held in the restricted section,
filled the floor to ceiling shelves. Her multiple honors adorned the wall
behind her desk, including the plaque for graduating top in her class.
Scrolls, inkwells, half-scribbled parchment, and a mountain of books
covered her desk. They obstructed Ginny's view, and the only reminder that
the petite bookworm was even in her office was a mound of brown curls.
Ginny had given her the frame half an hour ago. She had been expecting a simple appraisal, with the magical origin, magical value, and if possible a price estimate. Draco would have to be pleased with this information. He couldn't possibly take away her fifty-thousand galleons now. He had seemed so angry that she couldn't tell him more, disgusted that she couldn't do it herself, and put-off that she had asked for additional help. Ginny was hoping that her visit with Hermione could give her extra material, something to please the overgrown brat.
Hermione was blatantly unimpressed at first sight. She'd carelessly rolled it over in her hands, deciphered the words in English, Latin, and recognized the last language as Italian. Her eyebrow's scrunched at some of the lettering. From the top corner to the placement of where it was ripped it read: To taste with touch. She'd read that somewhere before, but could neither remember when and where nor what it had meant.
She had attempted to take it across the room, but the frame swung back nearly knocking her off her feet. She took the dark yellow cloth like parchment out of it's case, with the same results. She couldn't take it more than two or three meters away from the red head. Ginny explained that the reason she couldn't part from the frame was that Draco had bound her to it. Ginny had to take it when she slept, cooked, and even bathed. Hermione wasn't happy that Ginny was irresponsible enough to let Malfoy get so close to her with his wand, but she understood.
She studied the piece some more and racked her brain for all her memory of maps. She remembered the Marauder's Map, and the Map of Guidance, which helped in the Goblin Rebellion. Then it fluttered through her mind like a blue-jay in a sand storm.
It was a myth.
It couldn't exist.
Just like the Chamber of Secrets was a myth her mind countered.
Hermione left the map fragment on the desk. She was quickly across the room, on one of the sturdy ladders that leaned in and hooked to her bookshelves. She nimbly made her way up, and used her arms to slide the ladder to the right. She used her wand to charm books on and off her desk.
"Aha." She exclaimed pulling a large red leather bound book.
She picked the piece of map up, it's unusual clothlike texture foreign to her fingers. She laid the red book on her desk.
"Do you know what it is?" Ginny asked, her face unable to hide her emotions. The way Hermione's face was glowing with happiness, Ginny was sure that it must have been something big.
"I'm not sure." Hermione answered. Her fingers were quickly fingering the pages. While her deep brown eyes were scanning them. Ginny often wondered when she saw Hermione like this if she was some sort of speed reader.
"Well?" Ginny asked. She was beginning to grow impatient and her voice betrayed her.
Hermione let out a soft hiss, and Ginny understood. She often did that when she was with Harry and Ron. A warning to be quiet, and let her work.
After consulting her books, incoherent mutters, and a stretch of unbearable silence, she answered.
"You have to test it," she smiled. She was holding the piece in her hand and walking towards Ginny.
"I've already tested it." Ginny countered.
"Not that kind of test. This a physical test. We must merely set it on fire, and all will be revealed. Quite simple, really."
"Wait." Ginny snatched the cloth away from Hermione. "You're telling me, that I have to catch this very old, very expensive, very important, map on fire?"
"Yes." Hermione answered her dark eyebrows knitting.
"Are you crazy? Malfoy will kill me!"
"No, he won't. If it burns then it's a fake and he spent a lot of money on a pretty piece of parchment." Hermione, seemed very pleased with herself.
"And if it doesn't?" Ginny asked. She didn't understand what Hermione was saying.
"Well then Malfoy, has purchased something rare indeed, something that could change the course of this war. It could even change the course of history.
"Do you have any idea what this is Gin?" Ginny shook her head.
"A myth, a legend, a fairytale..."
"I get the point. How's a myth going to change the world?" Ginny interrupted. Hermione wasn't making sense, and it was actually starting to scare her.
"I was getting to that." Hermione answered, annoyed by Ginny's interruption.
"I read that it was said to be forged by four of the greatest wizards of the time.."
"The Hogwarts four?" Ginny asked, excitement getting the better of her.
"Well, yes." She answered slightly impressed. "How did you know?"
"Oh please, Hermione. When anything's done in three's it's always you, Harry, and Ron. Anything done in fours is them." Ginny smiled at the blush that crept into Hermione's cheeks. "Anyway, what was it made for?"
"They drew the map to find each other before they died. Remember, before Slytherin went mad, they were all very close." Hermione sighed, "Every generation has their Slytherin."
"Their traitor." Ginny hissed. She hated remembering the treachery of some of her schoolmates, the way the war was slowly pulling everyone apart. The standard motto : Trust no one. Now, she was trusting the one person she shouldn't trust.
"Yes, well, some say they died, others say they built a utopia, a paradise, a heaven. They would go their before they died, and basically live happily ever after."
"How? Why?" Ginny broke in again.
"Virginia Ann Weasley are you going to let me finish?" Ginny blushed at Hermione's outburst. Hermione rarely lost her temper and patience.
"It's said to make every desire come true." Hermione said, a slight haughtiness to her as she spoke.
"Why would Malfoy want it?" Ginny asked, her eagerness not letting her mind digest her thoughts. She was sure Hermione thought she was crazy, but the former Head Girl was carrying a candle to her.
"Ginny, you can't be serious! Why wouldn't he want it?"
"Well, why didn't I feel anything? I mean, if Slytherin had his hand in creating it." Ginny found it a little hard to believe that a piece of cloth could last that long, that any of this was really happening. Was Draco really trying to take over the world?
It was Hermione's turn to interrupt. She explained to Ginny that Slytherin wasn't always dark. He slowly fell into it, and the founders had lived comfortably together for years. They had forged the map together, like they did the school, and then Slytherin turned. They divided their map. Each taking the piece they had given the most with creating, and spreading it in the four different corners of the world.
The map was far from being whole. There were the three other pieces. Hermione wasn't sure who had contributed in the making of their piece, or where it was from. Though with a simple spell they could use their piece as a sort of magnet to the other pieces. When it was complete Harry could use it. That is if it was true.
She held the candle to Ginny, waiting for the red head to make her decision. Ginny picked the piece up. The black writing and black lines contacting her skin. They were jagged and rough, unlike the smoothness of their canvas. She wondered what it was made out of. Some short haired animal. It would have to have been a very short haired animal. She looked at Hermione, holding her gaze as she brought it to the flame. It hissed as if it were a small animal but it didn't singe. It absorbed the heat and she let it drop. Amongst the black scrawl, certain red lines were glowing, as if steering them.
"Merlin's beard, Ginny. We have to tell Fudge." Hermione cried.
* * *
She lay there, a light against the black silk sheets, her long honey wheat locks thinned and limp against her narrowed shoulders. He remembered twirling those locks as a child, calming him as he fell asleep. The strong and dainty arms that held him tightly fell weakly at her sides.
She had grown so thin, barely a heap of covers where she lay motionless in the overpowering four-poster, a gentle rise and fall of thick black blankets, as she took shallow breaths.
She lay there, the beautiful, obedient, and perfect wife of Lucius Malfoy. Her health deteriorating by the day. She was sick, very sick, unable to do the simplest task of feeding herself.
He watched from his dark velvet chair, his fingers numbly tracing patterns on the smooth fabric. He watched the nurse in her white and blue apron mutter spells over his mother. He'd hired her a year ago, when he had discovered his mother unconscious, bleeding from the mouth, on the cold floor of her room, unknowingly the last time she would leave her bed without assistance.
The doctor said it was unusual, undefinable, and un-treatable.
They would do what they could, but the best they could do was to just make her comfortable, make the passing a little easier.
It was the worst day of Draco's life. The pain, the guilt, the frustration, the emotions of helplessness coerced through him like the Hogwarts Express. He couldn't let his mother die. It wasn't right. It wasn't her time. He went as far as to invite a muggle doctor to care for her, but the outcome the same. There was nothing they could do.
"Draco." She breathed. Her voice once so smooth, was brittle and hoarse. The nurse had left her, to gather much needed pain reliving and dreamless potions.
"Yes Mother." He got up from his seat and went to her side. His long smooth fingers enclosing her fragile ones. He could feel the bones through her pale, transparent skin.
She didn't answer. Draco knew she just needed his presence, someone strong to take care of her, someone like his father had been.
"Mother, listen." He whispered, hoping that she could hear him. He bent a little closer to her ear. A comforting smell from childhood filled his nostrils. She smelled of jasmine.
"Mother." He whispered again. "I have the map, and soon I WILL have your cure."
Her answer was a small hitch in her breath. A sign, Draco imagined, that was good.
"Mr. Malfoy?" a small ravenhaired boy whispered from the door. Draco kissed his mother's smooth hand and gently set it on the bed.
Draco turned on the boy, as they stepped outside. His face emotionless, almost as if he were at a dinner party, and not at his dying mother's bedside.
"What?" He hissed, smoothly. His face was passive, but his voice was harsh.
"An owl brought this, sir." The gaunt boy was holding a white envelope on a silver platter.
"I was holding court with my mother and did not want to be disturbed." His voice was even, but dripping in venom.
"But Edmund insisted sir."
"Did he?" Draco asked. A light blonde eyebrow arching. If Edmund insisted it must have been important.
He quickly snatched it off the serving tray, and sneered at the young servant. He watched as the boy scurried through a service passage. Draco didn't understand his enjoyment from watching people cower. Especially black haired boys, green-eyed boys, or boys with glasses.
He looked up and down the hall. Not a servant or house-elf in sight. He opened the letter slowly.
It read:
Malfoy,
Little Red Riding Hood and The Mudblood went to Fat Arse.
Smith
Draco scoffed at the unoriginality in which his informant decided to code their correspondence.
He wasn't surprised the Weasel betrayed him. He had been half expecting it. The girl was as cunning as a Hufflepuff. Did she actually think that she could delude him? Obviously the mudblood did. It had probably been her idea to go to Fudge.
Draco was angry and satisfied as the oak door cracked. He was in his study. Not the office Ginny had gone earlier in the week, but in his study where he kept his concealed belongings. He needed the problem to be fixed. If Fudge got his greasy hands on Draco's map, Draco could never use it, he'd never find the island, and his mother would never be cured. He had to get the map back. He pulled his parchment and quill from his desk drawer. The scratch of quill against parchment was ringing in his ears.
He read over it when he was finished.
Smith,
Take care of the Mudblood. I will take care of Red. DO NOT MESS UP.
Malfoy
It was short and to the point. He liked it. Now he needed to find the address of one Ms. Virginia Weasley.
A/N: Okay, I know I promised to have more D/G action. I'm sorry, I couldn't deliver. Next chapter is full of those two crazy kids.
Anyway, Thanks to Beccs, VirtualFaerie, Aemiliana, August (I hope you can read this one), ME, Elmoon87, and special thanks to my new BETA Lyss.
Ginny had given her the frame half an hour ago. She had been expecting a simple appraisal, with the magical origin, magical value, and if possible a price estimate. Draco would have to be pleased with this information. He couldn't possibly take away her fifty-thousand galleons now. He had seemed so angry that she couldn't tell him more, disgusted that she couldn't do it herself, and put-off that she had asked for additional help. Ginny was hoping that her visit with Hermione could give her extra material, something to please the overgrown brat.
Hermione was blatantly unimpressed at first sight. She'd carelessly rolled it over in her hands, deciphered the words in English, Latin, and recognized the last language as Italian. Her eyebrow's scrunched at some of the lettering. From the top corner to the placement of where it was ripped it read: To taste with touch. She'd read that somewhere before, but could neither remember when and where nor what it had meant.
She had attempted to take it across the room, but the frame swung back nearly knocking her off her feet. She took the dark yellow cloth like parchment out of it's case, with the same results. She couldn't take it more than two or three meters away from the red head. Ginny explained that the reason she couldn't part from the frame was that Draco had bound her to it. Ginny had to take it when she slept, cooked, and even bathed. Hermione wasn't happy that Ginny was irresponsible enough to let Malfoy get so close to her with his wand, but she understood.
She studied the piece some more and racked her brain for all her memory of maps. She remembered the Marauder's Map, and the Map of Guidance, which helped in the Goblin Rebellion. Then it fluttered through her mind like a blue-jay in a sand storm.
It was a myth.
It couldn't exist.
Just like the Chamber of Secrets was a myth her mind countered.
Hermione left the map fragment on the desk. She was quickly across the room, on one of the sturdy ladders that leaned in and hooked to her bookshelves. She nimbly made her way up, and used her arms to slide the ladder to the right. She used her wand to charm books on and off her desk.
"Aha." She exclaimed pulling a large red leather bound book.
She picked the piece of map up, it's unusual clothlike texture foreign to her fingers. She laid the red book on her desk.
"Do you know what it is?" Ginny asked, her face unable to hide her emotions. The way Hermione's face was glowing with happiness, Ginny was sure that it must have been something big.
"I'm not sure." Hermione answered. Her fingers were quickly fingering the pages. While her deep brown eyes were scanning them. Ginny often wondered when she saw Hermione like this if she was some sort of speed reader.
"Well?" Ginny asked. She was beginning to grow impatient and her voice betrayed her.
Hermione let out a soft hiss, and Ginny understood. She often did that when she was with Harry and Ron. A warning to be quiet, and let her work.
After consulting her books, incoherent mutters, and a stretch of unbearable silence, she answered.
"You have to test it," she smiled. She was holding the piece in her hand and walking towards Ginny.
"I've already tested it." Ginny countered.
"Not that kind of test. This a physical test. We must merely set it on fire, and all will be revealed. Quite simple, really."
"Wait." Ginny snatched the cloth away from Hermione. "You're telling me, that I have to catch this very old, very expensive, very important, map on fire?"
"Yes." Hermione answered her dark eyebrows knitting.
"Are you crazy? Malfoy will kill me!"
"No, he won't. If it burns then it's a fake and he spent a lot of money on a pretty piece of parchment." Hermione, seemed very pleased with herself.
"And if it doesn't?" Ginny asked. She didn't understand what Hermione was saying.
"Well then Malfoy, has purchased something rare indeed, something that could change the course of this war. It could even change the course of history.
"Do you have any idea what this is Gin?" Ginny shook her head.
"A myth, a legend, a fairytale..."
"I get the point. How's a myth going to change the world?" Ginny interrupted. Hermione wasn't making sense, and it was actually starting to scare her.
"I was getting to that." Hermione answered, annoyed by Ginny's interruption.
"I read that it was said to be forged by four of the greatest wizards of the time.."
"The Hogwarts four?" Ginny asked, excitement getting the better of her.
"Well, yes." She answered slightly impressed. "How did you know?"
"Oh please, Hermione. When anything's done in three's it's always you, Harry, and Ron. Anything done in fours is them." Ginny smiled at the blush that crept into Hermione's cheeks. "Anyway, what was it made for?"
"They drew the map to find each other before they died. Remember, before Slytherin went mad, they were all very close." Hermione sighed, "Every generation has their Slytherin."
"Their traitor." Ginny hissed. She hated remembering the treachery of some of her schoolmates, the way the war was slowly pulling everyone apart. The standard motto : Trust no one. Now, she was trusting the one person she shouldn't trust.
"Yes, well, some say they died, others say they built a utopia, a paradise, a heaven. They would go their before they died, and basically live happily ever after."
"How? Why?" Ginny broke in again.
"Virginia Ann Weasley are you going to let me finish?" Ginny blushed at Hermione's outburst. Hermione rarely lost her temper and patience.
"It's said to make every desire come true." Hermione said, a slight haughtiness to her as she spoke.
"Why would Malfoy want it?" Ginny asked, her eagerness not letting her mind digest her thoughts. She was sure Hermione thought she was crazy, but the former Head Girl was carrying a candle to her.
"Ginny, you can't be serious! Why wouldn't he want it?"
"Well, why didn't I feel anything? I mean, if Slytherin had his hand in creating it." Ginny found it a little hard to believe that a piece of cloth could last that long, that any of this was really happening. Was Draco really trying to take over the world?
It was Hermione's turn to interrupt. She explained to Ginny that Slytherin wasn't always dark. He slowly fell into it, and the founders had lived comfortably together for years. They had forged the map together, like they did the school, and then Slytherin turned. They divided their map. Each taking the piece they had given the most with creating, and spreading it in the four different corners of the world.
The map was far from being whole. There were the three other pieces. Hermione wasn't sure who had contributed in the making of their piece, or where it was from. Though with a simple spell they could use their piece as a sort of magnet to the other pieces. When it was complete Harry could use it. That is if it was true.
She held the candle to Ginny, waiting for the red head to make her decision. Ginny picked the piece up. The black writing and black lines contacting her skin. They were jagged and rough, unlike the smoothness of their canvas. She wondered what it was made out of. Some short haired animal. It would have to have been a very short haired animal. She looked at Hermione, holding her gaze as she brought it to the flame. It hissed as if it were a small animal but it didn't singe. It absorbed the heat and she let it drop. Amongst the black scrawl, certain red lines were glowing, as if steering them.
"Merlin's beard, Ginny. We have to tell Fudge." Hermione cried.
* * *
She lay there, a light against the black silk sheets, her long honey wheat locks thinned and limp against her narrowed shoulders. He remembered twirling those locks as a child, calming him as he fell asleep. The strong and dainty arms that held him tightly fell weakly at her sides.
She had grown so thin, barely a heap of covers where she lay motionless in the overpowering four-poster, a gentle rise and fall of thick black blankets, as she took shallow breaths.
She lay there, the beautiful, obedient, and perfect wife of Lucius Malfoy. Her health deteriorating by the day. She was sick, very sick, unable to do the simplest task of feeding herself.
He watched from his dark velvet chair, his fingers numbly tracing patterns on the smooth fabric. He watched the nurse in her white and blue apron mutter spells over his mother. He'd hired her a year ago, when he had discovered his mother unconscious, bleeding from the mouth, on the cold floor of her room, unknowingly the last time she would leave her bed without assistance.
The doctor said it was unusual, undefinable, and un-treatable.
They would do what they could, but the best they could do was to just make her comfortable, make the passing a little easier.
It was the worst day of Draco's life. The pain, the guilt, the frustration, the emotions of helplessness coerced through him like the Hogwarts Express. He couldn't let his mother die. It wasn't right. It wasn't her time. He went as far as to invite a muggle doctor to care for her, but the outcome the same. There was nothing they could do.
"Draco." She breathed. Her voice once so smooth, was brittle and hoarse. The nurse had left her, to gather much needed pain reliving and dreamless potions.
"Yes Mother." He got up from his seat and went to her side. His long smooth fingers enclosing her fragile ones. He could feel the bones through her pale, transparent skin.
She didn't answer. Draco knew she just needed his presence, someone strong to take care of her, someone like his father had been.
"Mother, listen." He whispered, hoping that she could hear him. He bent a little closer to her ear. A comforting smell from childhood filled his nostrils. She smelled of jasmine.
"Mother." He whispered again. "I have the map, and soon I WILL have your cure."
Her answer was a small hitch in her breath. A sign, Draco imagined, that was good.
"Mr. Malfoy?" a small ravenhaired boy whispered from the door. Draco kissed his mother's smooth hand and gently set it on the bed.
Draco turned on the boy, as they stepped outside. His face emotionless, almost as if he were at a dinner party, and not at his dying mother's bedside.
"What?" He hissed, smoothly. His face was passive, but his voice was harsh.
"An owl brought this, sir." The gaunt boy was holding a white envelope on a silver platter.
"I was holding court with my mother and did not want to be disturbed." His voice was even, but dripping in venom.
"But Edmund insisted sir."
"Did he?" Draco asked. A light blonde eyebrow arching. If Edmund insisted it must have been important.
He quickly snatched it off the serving tray, and sneered at the young servant. He watched as the boy scurried through a service passage. Draco didn't understand his enjoyment from watching people cower. Especially black haired boys, green-eyed boys, or boys with glasses.
He looked up and down the hall. Not a servant or house-elf in sight. He opened the letter slowly.
It read:
Malfoy,
Little Red Riding Hood and The Mudblood went to Fat Arse.
Smith
Draco scoffed at the unoriginality in which his informant decided to code their correspondence.
He wasn't surprised the Weasel betrayed him. He had been half expecting it. The girl was as cunning as a Hufflepuff. Did she actually think that she could delude him? Obviously the mudblood did. It had probably been her idea to go to Fudge.
Draco was angry and satisfied as the oak door cracked. He was in his study. Not the office Ginny had gone earlier in the week, but in his study where he kept his concealed belongings. He needed the problem to be fixed. If Fudge got his greasy hands on Draco's map, Draco could never use it, he'd never find the island, and his mother would never be cured. He had to get the map back. He pulled his parchment and quill from his desk drawer. The scratch of quill against parchment was ringing in his ears.
He read over it when he was finished.
Smith,
Take care of the Mudblood. I will take care of Red. DO NOT MESS UP.
Malfoy
It was short and to the point. He liked it. Now he needed to find the address of one Ms. Virginia Weasley.
A/N: Okay, I know I promised to have more D/G action. I'm sorry, I couldn't deliver. Next chapter is full of those two crazy kids.
Anyway, Thanks to Beccs, VirtualFaerie, Aemiliana, August (I hope you can read this one), ME, Elmoon87, and special thanks to my new BETA Lyss.