"Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love." - Solomon
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In which Hermione should have been in Slytherin and Draco hits his head again…September 27, 2003
Hermione didn't recall Palais de Malfoi being so maze-like, but then she'd never explored it so thoroughly.
She'd managed to catch Crookshanks, he was now padding regally ahead of her, but had since got lost in the manor's deepest, darkest halls.
She was holding her wand ahead of her like a sword. Draco had told her all sorts of stories about what happened when uninvited guests got lost in his 'Palais'. Rooms that devoured intruders, chimaeras hiding under dark couches, rooms filled with fire, rooms filled with ice… Hell, even Tonks had disappeared for an entire week when she'd been one of the aurors in charge of searching a third floor corridor. Hermione glanced nervously over her shoulder, half-expecting to see a dragon, or something worse, watching her. Instead, she saw nothing but the same black marble corridor she kept turning on to.
"I'd turn right," said a portrait to her left, and old woman with Draco's cheekbones.
Hermione turned left at the next corner. The portraits had been helpful, for all their attempts to kill her. She'd almost tried a door that one of them recommended, only to realize that what she'd thought were decorative spikes around the doorframe looked horribly like teeth waiting to consume her once she'd passed the threshold. She'd since resolved to ignore their advice.
She took a side staircase down, counting her steps in case she'd have to go back up.
"…nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirt— woah!" She slipped on and then tumbled through a trick step. Her coat billowed up around her as she fell, whipping around her face in a sudden wind.
She slammed against the floor and twisted her ankle with an acute stab of pain.
"Lumos…" Light flared up, her guiding star in the darkness, casting long stretches of light and shadow in front of her.
The dust she'd kicked up in her arrival was just settling back to where it'd clearly been resting for years.
She attempted to stand, but her ankle gave out beneath her and she toppled forward, wand shooting from her outstretched hand as she swung her arms in a mad attempt to slow herself.
She watched helplessly as her wand clattered away before the light flickered out and she was plunged back into darkness.
"Merlin's bleeding bathrobe!" she groaned.
Draco Malfoy didn't like house-elves. He didn't trust them and he didn't find them 'cute'. Yet, he could not deny that if anyone knew Palais de Malfoi better than Draco himself, that anyone would be a house-elf.
That was how he found himself in the mansion's second kitchen (The first kitchen was for those rare occasions when Narcissa felt the urge to pretend she could cook. It was to be avoided at all costs.), which was generally proportioned for house-elves.
He had to crouch to fit inside its door; but he consoled himself with the knowledge that he wouldn't be staying long.
It was lousy with elves going about their daily routines. Diminutive brown beings in tea cozies and pillowcases were washing his dishes from breakfast, readying a counter-space in which to start making his lunch, polishing ancient silver goblets and cutlery, and sweeping leftover bits of eggshell from the floor.
"Do you know where my mother put Hermione Granger's flat?" he asked the nearest elf, as though this were the sort of question one was asked on a daily basis, a question like "What time is it?" or "Where is my other sock?" or "Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?" The elf was, naturally, quite confused, but this might have had something to do with its name being Confusedy, its mother having run out of awful names ending with y (which, everyone knows, is the only way house-elves are ever named.) Confusedy stared up at him… confused.
"I is not knowing, master," she, he assumed it to be female by the squeaky timbre of its voice, replied.
"Well…" He though for a moment. "…did any… did anyone..." He thought it very strange to use such a personal title as 'one' on house-elves "…see anything weird last night, like a new door, maybe?"
"Drunky is saying he is seeing a new ghost this morning; but I is not listening to Drunky, master." She shook her head fervently. "Drunky is drinking too much butterbeer, I is saying. And he is scaring Scaredy!" She gestured at a small elfling crying into her potato sack.
"Where did he say he saw it?" he asked. A new ghost was worth looking into, in any case.
The only ghost who'd lived in Palais de Malfoi for centuries was a ghost-butler called Chaucer, and there were always rumors of a phantom specter called Erik who prowled the west staircases and frightened the elves, but Draco didn't believe in him.
"He is saying he is seeing it on the third floor, on the west wing. But you is not should be going there, master!" she pleaded. "The bad one is getting you!"
Draco scoffed and tried to stand impressively. He hit his head on the ceiling. "Oh, bollocks. Go clean something!"
Hermione wasn't afraid of the dark, she was a Gryffindor; but there was no denying its inconvenience.
She fumbled forward on her hands and knees, bumping her head against walls and furniture. "I can't believe this…"
Finally, her hand hit on the long, solid comfort of a wand. "Oh, thank god," she breathed. "Lumos." The light flared up again, not as bright as before but helpful nonetheless. She looked curiously down at the wand. "This isn't mine…"
"Yours is over here," said a male voice to her right, she jumped around to face it. Light dimly outlined a sheet-covered couch and wax-laden candelabra. She continued turning, trying not to put weight on her bad ankle.
She was standing in a long, apparently abandoned hall, filled with dust and the ghostly forms of sheet-covered furniture. An elaborate fireplace stood dormant in the corner and dark drapes hung over windows that were no longer there. "Who's there?"
"Over here, behind the curtain," said another, female voice. She turned towards it to where a huge curtain was hung over the wall, dilapidated and dusty after years of being ignored.
She stepped forward, steeling herself for fight or flight.
One trembling hand reached out and tugged the heavy curtain back. She groaned.
It was a huge portrait, clearly having held twenty or more people when it was first painted. Now, two tiny figures sat alone in the middle of the frame.
"It's right there," said the man, who had pale skin and dark hair, pointing towards her feet. She bent to pick up her own wand.
"Then who does this belong to?" She examined the alien wand curiously.
"That's Claudia's old wand, she used to come down here every Christmas," said the woman, who had olive skin and whose hair was a dark red. "I've been hoping she'd come down looking for it."
"Is there a way out, then?" Hermione asked.
"Huh?"
"Is there a way out, then, if it would be so easy for her to come back?"
"Not for another hour or so," the woman replied.
Hermione sighed.
"Why are you here, anyway?" asked the man.
"Are you an auror?" asked the woman.
"No. I'm lost." Hermione sat.
"Oh," said the woman. "I've never been lost, but I suppose it's hard to get lost when one can only move about in the second dimension."
"I suppose," Hermione replied. She took the break in conversation to quickly fix her ankle.
"What was that for?" the woman asked.
"I twisted my ankle when I fell in," Hermione answered.
"You fell in?" The woman gasped. "How awful!"
"Is there any other way in?"
"Claudia used to come down through the door, over there." Hermione turned her wand to where the woman was pointing.
"There's nothing there."
"And there won't be for another hour, like I said. Tell us about yourself; it isn't often that we get an auror down this way."
"I'm not an auror," Hermione snapped. "I own a shop."
"What do you sell?" the woman asked.
"Freedom."
"What?"
"I sell clothes to house-elves."
"Oh." The woman made a face. "Why?"
"Because house-elves should be treated as humans with feelings and fears and dreams and..."
"Okay" The woman interrupted. She made a little noise in her throat and curled up next to the man again. "I never liked house-elves."
Hermione didn't bother to force her point on a portrait. "Who are you?"
"You don't know?" The woman looked utterly aghast. "But then… you brunettes never do remember anything."
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"My name is Anastacia. I'm married to Lux." She beamed, as though nothing could make her happier than to just say his name until the end of time. "And he's Damien."
"I'm married to Loyola," he drawled, doing a spot-on impression of her doe-eyed look. Anastacia pushed him playfully.
"I'm afraid he's a bit of an arse."
He glared.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked. If she had an hour, she might as well be curious. "What is this place?"
"Actually, we're not quite sure. This was a family portrait. But everyone left… and they didn't come back. Lux moved us. This is just a part of the old house." Anastacia answered, not bothering to breathe (but did portraits breathe, or did they just move their mouths and make the noise? Did one need breath to snore?) until she'd finished. Hermione suspected she'd had no one to talk to but Damien for quite some time. "Most of it burned down… a long long time ago… but they just built the new one over what was left… very cheap. Doubt they even know we're here."
"Otherwise they'd be sure to move us." Damien snarled. Hermione was beginning to suspect that all Malfoy men possessed that uncanny sneer after a time.
Draco's head was still throbbing when he'd got to the third floor. It took a special tact to maneuver around Palais de Malfoi without getting horribly lost; Draco didn't even think about it anymore. Left, right, left, straight, take a wide berth around that door, knock twice on that, right, left, left… He paused before a door that hadn't been there before. This would not have been so strange— doors tended to move about quite a bit in his Palais— but that such a very red door belonged on the outside of Hermione Granger's flat and not anywhere near his third-floor (He'd had that particular door slammed in his face often enough to know what it looked like on the outside.) He wrapped nervously on it. No reply.
He breathed, tapped his wand on the keyhole and slipped inside. "Granger?" he hissed into the darkness of her entry hall. No reply. He snuck into her darkened living room. "Granger?"
He tip-toed into her bedroom, she was probably still sleeping. "Granger?" He poked nervously at her comforters. No reply. He tore them from the bed in one panicked motion. "Damn damn damn DAMN." The bed was empty.
"So here's Granger's flat… but where is Granger herself?"
"So, what are you doing here, anyway? You never properly answered me." Anastacia asked, after they'd been talking for quite some time.
Hermione sighed. "I've been kidnapped."
"Kidnapped?" Anastacia cocked her head to the side and frowned.
"My entire flat has been picked up and dropped down in the center of this charming mansion. I have no idea where I am," she replied honestly.
"Well…" Anastacia thought for a moment. "What did you do to get yourself kidnapped?"
"I got engaged."
"Oooh… who to?" Anastacia cooed, as though that was a perfectly excusable reason to kidnap someone.
"You probably don't know him."
"I probably do."
"Draco Malfoy."
"Oooh! Has it really been that long? Last time I saw him he was two!"
"You do know him, then?"
"Know him! I practically taught the boy to talk. You know, I—"
But Hermione never knew what Anastacia knew, because in that moment there was a sound like rushing water and the wall in front of her melted away to form a gaping door.
"That's my cue…" Hermione called as she passed through the door, glad to be free of such maddening company. To her dismay it opened onto a dark stretch of doorless corridor that ended in a patch of blue-gray sky. She stepped towards the lone window and peered out. Or rather, she peered down, because she'd suddenly found herself three stories above the grassy, green, solid ground below. "Gak!" She jumped back. Heights had always been something of a concern for Hermione.
She mustered her courage and chanced another peek over the edge. This time she noticed a rickety ladder propped a few feet below. She'd have to jump a bit, but there were no other options. It would have to do.
She sidled awkwardly onto the window frame and swung her legs out. From this angle the height seemed to double. She took a deep breath, then another quick glance down before propelling herself out and down. Unfortunately for Hermione, the damaging effects of heat and rain had warped the ladder beyond use and the top rung snapped neatly in two as her feet caught it.
She slid down the steps, each one breaking apart as she screamed for something, anything to hold her.
Crack
Crack
Crack
Crack
Crack
Crack
Crack
"AH!" She stopped in an awkward heap at the bottom, covered in splinters and pieces of ladder but otherwise unharmed. She groaned and sat up. "This day has soured very quickly."
"Exi Echauffi" she muttered half-heartedly, then leapt up when her pants burst into flames. "Gah! Aquilius!" A spurt of cold water doused the fire and she swore at the little black hole burned into her pocket. "Exi Echaude" she corrected. A splinter in her palm fell out. She repeated the spell until she was splinter-free, and then stood, picking bits of wood from her top and hair.
"This day has soured very quickly…" Draco spat. Hermione had not been in her flat. In fact, she had not been anywhere he had looked for her at all. Either she'd been attacked (He doubted that, though. For some sappy, romantic reason that he hated he thought he might know if she was in trouble) or she'd found a way out.
He decided to pursue the second option and so trekked back through his Palais, down the back steps, and out into the rolling Jardin de Malfoi. After all, no palais would be complete without its very own jardin.
He stopped a passing garden-elf. "Have you seen a woman, a little shorter than me, dark brown, curly hair, possibly carrying a cat?" he asked.
The elf simply stared at him, uttered a few short squeaks and fainted away.
"Well… that was helpful." He stepped over the elf and stopped another with the same question.
"Yes." The elf nodded and continued pruning its roses.
"Where?"
"Outside."
"Where outside?"
"She is been wanderings around the apples for long times, master. I is not knowing what is she doing."
"Great." He turned towards the rolling fields of apple trees, which he could see in the distance.
"But I is not you should be going there, master. It is being a Saturday, master."
Draco froze. "Shit."
The apple trees were very pretty, Hermione thought. It was just their season (though she suspected they'd be so ripe even if it were snowing), and the apples hanging on them were plump and red and round and perfect. It made her realize exactly how hungry she was.
She wanted an apple.
But that would be stealing; and stealing was wrong.
She continued on, she knew she'd find the end eventually, and so going straight seemed as good a bet as going left or right.
Her stomach grumbled loudly. She had to admit, the further along she walked the riper and redder the apples seemed to be. She shook her head, as though shaking off the thought and her hunger.
Then again, it couldn't really be stealing if she was practically family, already, could it?
She walked forward, the sweet, intoxicating smell of sun-ripened apples connected in her mind and she knew… she was going to die of starvation if she didn't have just one apple. She reached out and let her hand rest for a moment on one cool, red-hot-red fruit. She pulled down and with a quick snap it was free in her hand. She lifted it to her lips, perfect and juicy and round and shiny and so very red…
"Are you stealing from my apple trees, Ms. Granger?"
Hermione didn't realize that, of course, there was an Enticement on the apples and that she hadn't actually been starving, she was only a little hungry, until a few hours later when she had time to think about such things. She didn't realize any of that because when she turned to face Lucius Malfoy she only had time to realize a few things before she chose to pretend she'd realized nothing.
"Of course, not, Mr. Malfoy," she simpered. "I was hungry, Draco told me I could have one."
"Did he?"
The first thing she realized was that she had no reason to be frightened of Lucius Malfoy. She had a wand and he did not. She could apparated and he could not. Her advantages were far better than his; he was just better at parading his about.
"Yes," she lied.
The second thing she realized was that, for the first time in their history, she was at fault and he'd been wronged. She was trespassing on his property. She had stolen his apple. She was about to eat his apple. There was no reason for a fight and (this was the third thing she realized, and why she decided to pretend she'd realized nothing.) he didn't seem all that anxious to start one.
"Well, I should tell you that he was trying to kill you, then," he stated, as though this was not shocking news. "These apples are poisoned to anyone but a blood Malfoy."
"Oh." She quickly dropped the apple. "Hm… maybe he forgot."
"Maybe." He started to walk off. "Walk with me, Ms. Granger, today's a Saturday and so my day to be alone in the apple trees. I might kill you if I still possessed the ability." He laughed; she didn't find the joke all that funny. "I'd quite like to know why you're really here."
She saw nothing to do but obey, and so did. "I've been kidnapped."
"Oh." He didn't bother feigning real interest. "Do you like apples, Ms. Granger?"
"Yes." She'd never really thought to like apples, they were neither good nor bad, they just were. However, she figured 'Yes' was likely the safest answer.
"I do, too."
She relaxed. "Is that why you have so many?"
"Yes. But they are also a reminder… do you know the story of Adam and Eve Ms. Granger? Of course you do. Every muggle knows that story." He plucked an apple from the nearest tree and bit into it. Hermione was silently jealous. He finished chewing and swallowed before continuing on. It reminded her of Draco. (Hermione was always secretly delighted when Draco did that, it was one of those quirks that made him so very different from Ron.) "Perfect. Apples are the only things in this world that will ever be so perfect. That's a reminder, too."
"But what about Adam and Eve?" she prompted.
"Yes, of course. Adam and Eve. 'Now, the serpent was more wise—'"
"Subtle…" Hermione corrected, automatically. She'd tried to read her parents' King James Bible when she was younger. She'd only ever got through creation, but that phrase had stuck with her (as all phrases tended to).
"It was wise to be subtle in Eden, lest one be trodden on," he snapped. "'than any beast of the field which the Lord God hath made,'" he continued, as though she had not interrupted at all.
"It's wise to be subtle. Is that the reminder?" she guessed.
He ignored her. "So, you see, the serpent, wisest and most cunning of all beasts, showed Eve the way to wisdom, freedom from ignorance, the truth, as you say."
Hermione did not recall saying, but nodded anyway.
"And yet," he continued, "he was punished, his limbs taken away… thrown unto dust."
"But still thrives today," Hermione finished. It was a good story, but the ending was a little obvious. "Is that the reminder?"
"But still, the serpent thrives today, all over the world." He took another bite from his apple. He chewed, swallowed, and continued, "That is the reminder. That is my secret. Even when you are thrown to the dust, you can thrive, if you keep your wits about you—" Constant vigilance! Hermione thought "—and if you are wise enough to know when subtlety is called for."
"Don't they also represent temptation? In Snow White—"
"Muggle fairy tales have always been ruled by fear," he stated simply. "Snow White's apple is evil because muggles still cannot see the truth before their eyes, they are so blinded by a pretty story about a nice man and a pretty place. They cannot appreciate the world around them... they do not. They have to attribute its good parts to someone and its not so good parts to someone else. They have to believe that there is a place they can escape to so that they don't mind mucking about with this one. The truth is frightening to them, fear is evil, and they are not subtle enough to handle it."
"They're also very pretty." Hermione offered.
"What, muggles?"
"The apples."
"Ms. Granger, you should have been in Slytherin, and your father should have been a wizard, then maybe you might have married my son." He walked on without her, tossing the apple back over his shoulder as he went.
"Perfect," she echoed. She turned left and trekked off through the apple trees, crushing through brambles and tripping over random hedges.
He found her, after a few hours of searching the apple orchard to no avail, standing alone in the cemetery (Palais de Malfoi had everything if you looked hard enough). She was hovering at the top of a narcissus-covered hill, silently regarding a pair of white, marble angels. He approached as quietly as possible, slipping one arm around her shoulders before she could stop him. She didn't even flinch.
"When did they die?" she asked, thoughtfully biting her thumb.
"Did you know them?" He followed her gaze to the two names carved around the angels' bases. Anastacia Malfoy the one on the left said, andnext to her Damien LeBaron. He laughed. "They didn't."
She eyed him warily.
"No, really. They didn't. They actually ran away together, just one day in July, about seventeen years ago. I believe she said something about having 'enough of this hell-hole', but my being warped might have had warping effects on my warped memory. Shall I say warped again?"
She shook her head and sat down, leaning her back against the first angel's base.
"So, anyway, rather than admitting to a scandal, Mum pretended they'd died, shipwreck or something like that, and made headstones and had a funeral and everything. Quite elaborate, really."
"They just ran away together?"
"Well, actually, me and Lucine—"
"Lucy and I."
"Me and Lucine, we were talking about it a couple of years ago, and we think that she was knocked up, probably."
"Oh. And no-one ever forgave them?"
"Oh, I'm pretty sure Claudia and Angelos and Kaida have, and Lux too, actually, since he married Rachel a few months later. Lucius, Loyola, mum, and Mum, however, that's a different, darker story."
She nodded. "We couldn't do that, though."
"I know. We're mildly liked."
"And if that's not something to stick around for then I don't know what is. Which reminds me, I'm angry at you."
"Oh?" He sat down beside her and leaned against the other angel. "Wherefore?"
"Well, you moved my entire flat here without my permission, I should hex you into oblivion." He gestured for her to continue. "I've had a very bad day. My fireplace kicked my arse, my cat laughed at me, some portraits tried to kill me, a door tried to eat me, I fell through a flight of stairs, I talked to a mostly-empty picture frame for an hour in order to keep my sanity but I'm fairly certain I lost it anyway, I fell out of a window, I broke a ladder I was trying to stand on, I got covered in splinters, I set my pants on fire and so subsequently had to walk around in wet pants for half-an-hour. I almost ate a poisoned apple, and then I had to listen to your father ranting at me about the state of the muggle world when all I wanted was a little food. It's dinnertime and I haven't even had breakfast. And on top of that, NO-ONE BOUGHT ME FLOWERS." She paused. "I'm Tired."
He laughed against her shoulder.
"Shut up. I'm tired."
"So you've said." She made a face. He reached behind him and picked a handful of Narcissus. "Did you say you wanted flowers?"
"Mmm." She took them from him and hid her face in the cheap white blossoms.
"I didn't kidnap you, by the way." She didn't respond, so he continued. "My mum thought it was a good idea, that's all. She's not malicious or anything… she's just got this real rose-tinted view of the universe. I've been trying to save you all day… just so you know…"
"I know." Her voice was muffled by the makeshift bouquet. "So what are we gonna do?"
He sighed. "I need you to leave."
She didn't look up. "What do you mean?"
"You can't stay here; my house will eat you. And trust me, that's exactly what my mum has planned, at least subconsciously. That and mani-pedi parties."
"Mani-pedi parties?"
"If you don't attend I'll have to."
"Oh." He watched the top of her head for a long moment.
"So, are you gonna go yet?"
"Hm?" She looked up so that he could only just see her eyes, newborn tears pulling at her lashes.
"I'm sorry Granger, you've just got to go." She crawled over and placed one barely-blooming narcissus in his top buttonhole.
"Forget-me-not," she giggled, brushing one swift kiss across his unprepared lips, so fast that it seemed more a shared breath than an actual kiss.
"Oh, please, Granger. We both know you'll be back tomorrow."
When she got there he was painting the front porch (the front porch she'd always said he should get, but which he'd never gotten until she was too far away to know), passing the spongy roller over freshly-sanded boards, the way her father had taught him to that summer he'd come to stay with them ("Yes, I know magic can do it faster; but is it quiet so satisfying as having done it by hand?").
He was painting it a deep, rusty orange. When he reached the edge little droplets of rust dripped down onto a row of hedges four feet below, covering them in smatterings of paint that made them bleed ginger. He drew the roller back and forth over the creases, the stretches of smooth board, pushing the extra layers away in simple, graceful motions (Mr. Granger had made them paint the porch for their keep, they'd gotten very good at it).
He had the radio blaring "The Weird Sisters, Live: The Voldemort Tour". He was screeching along to "On Paper Cut" and so her appearance went unnoticed. She stood in the hedges and watched him above her for a few long moments.
It all works out on paper/ It all works out on paper/ It all works out on paper/ 'til, girls, girls, girls, girls, gi-i-irls, that paper cuts…
She cleared her throat. He stopped singing long enough to look up. There was a smudge of paint on the tip of his nose. She wondered how it'd gotten there. He looked like he had a nosebleed. For a moment she froze. He froze. The radio kept playing and little droplets of not-yet-dried paint dripped trails of orange onto the ground below. They were two deer caught in violently opposing headlights.
It all works out on paper…The crash was inevitable.
"Hullo, Ron. Did you know you've got paint on your nose? Right there…"
Girls ought to know that paper cuts…