Childhood Sweethearts Remember
Chapter 4: Crashing the Party
FLASHBACK
Little child Mia Reins crept down the stairs of her mansion. Her parents had sent her to bed hours ago so they could have their private meetings but she didn't want to stay upstairs. She wanted to be with the adults. And so she crept down the stairs, heading to the dungeons.
She heard yelling, shouting, and laughter. Not laughter per say. It was more like evil cackling. Hermione recognized her fathers voice along with her Uncle Lucius'. She supposed they were having a jolly good time since they were laughing so much. They always had a good time down in the dungeons.
She continued creeping quietly when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun around, practically falling down the stairs in the process. She began tumbling with her "attacker" all the way down the stairs. She landed on top of him with a plop. "Sh..." she warned him after noticing who it was. "Draco, you're going to get us caught! I was trying to be QUIET!" She rolled off of him with a sigh. "You're hopeless."
He just chuckled. "I'm not the one making noise!" he whispered. "Now let's go join the party."
They kept walking finally approaching the door that the laughter was coming from behind. It was open a crack and they peeked in. What they saw was something they never wanted to see. A man and a woman were chained up against the wall. Their clothes were torn and there was a puddle of blood surrounding their feet. "Now for the last time," Mia heard her Aunt Sissy say. "Where is our Dark Lord, Longbottom?"
Mia and Draco took this as the opportune moment (of course not intentionally) to stumble and fall through the door, alerting all the adults that they were there and had been listening.
Patrice and Harold shot each other worried glances. They then looked at Narcissa and Lucius searching for an answer on what to do. "What are the little ones doing here?" Bellatrix Lestrange asked. "Pat, I thought you put them to sleep."
Mia and Draco stood up quickly, brushing off their sleeping robes. "We couldn't sleep!" Draco said with a frown. "We were hoping someone would come and read us a bedtime story or at least let us have a sleep over!"
Narcissa walked over to her son and knelt down to be his height. "How did you get here? You were supposed to be at home with the house elves watching you!" she reprimanded. "You're not allowed to sneak out of the house this late at night."
"But you left me alone in the house. The least you could have done was let Mia sleep over. Please?" he whined, putting on his best puppy dog face. "And if she can't sleep over, can we stay and be with the adults!"
"YEAH!" Mia joined in. "We want to be part of the party!"
Patrice picked Mia up, carrying her out of the room. Narcissa followed behind with Draco. "You two are not allowed to ever come back to the dungeons!" Patrice scolded. "The dungeons are forbidden to you. Only when you are old enough, when you turn sixteen! Until then, you are to sleep when we say sleep and stay when we say stay. But for now, Mia, you and Draco will sleep in your room. I'll get the sleeping bags."
They brought them up and put the kids in Mia's room. As soon as the kids were tucked in, Mia turned to her best friend. "I think they were torturing those aurors." The kids had been well informed from an early age that aurors were their enemies but Mia still didn't understand why they would ever hurt anyone.
"Duh!" Draco responded, hitting his head with the palm of his hand. "No, I thought that they were playing ring around the rosie!"
"You know, sarcasm really doesn't fit you well," she responded while turning her back to him.
END FLASHBACK
The memory had scarred her because it had been at that moment that she realized that her parents weren't doing the world any good. All they were doing was harming innocent people. Of course, she had been raised in believing that aurors weren't innocent and in fact were quite evil but she knew, even at that young age, that no one deserved to be tortured like that.
As her parents escorted her back into the manor and into the living room, she became misty eyed but held in her tears. No one was going to care anyway.
"Are you ready to apologize to your Uncle?" her mother whispered. "Because if you aren't..."
She shook her mother away from her and walked over to where the Dark Lord stood. "I still won't bow to you," she said uncomfortably. "I need some time to get used to it. But for now, please accept my apology. My words were rude and that's not my personality so I'm sorry."
She heard Malfoy, still sitting on the couch, snort in laughter. "I can't believe you said that! You just said you weren't rude! For the past five years all I've gotten was your rude words!"
It was her turn to laugh. "You bring out the worst in me. What can I say?"
They whole room began to smile, breaking through the tension that had been formed when Mia had begun arguing with Voldemort.
"So Mia, please take a seat so we can discuss your birthday party," Voldemort said with a warm smile, one that made her practically shriek. The dark lord was smiling at her! Never in her wildest dreams did she think that would happen. She also hated the fact that she was being called Mia. It was too much for her to handle and she was about to say something but her mum cut her off.
"Please, we're still calling her Hermione," Patrice said. "We'll ease her into her name in time. For now, she just needs to get used to everything else. Then we'll work on getting her to be comfortable with the name Mia Reins."
The room nodded in understanding and Hermione suddenly needed to get out of there. "Um... how 'bout you guys plan the party for me and I'll go along with whatever you want while Malf...I mean, Draco and I take a walk? Sound good?"
"Alright dear," Harold said. "But be back in an hour and stay with Draco at all times. You don't know this area."
Hermione grabbed Draco's hand and ran out the front door with him. Once they were outside, she dropped his hand immediately. "Show me what we do for fun around here," she said in a bored tone.
With a sigh of frustration and much annoyance, he took her hand, leading her across the street. "Let's go see Crabbe and Goyle."
"But they're...they're...they're," she searched for the correct words and finally settled, "DUNDERHEADS!"
He just smiled. "They're not dunderheads. They just act like it during school. They think it's a part of their "rep". Did you get your memories back yet?" She nodded. "Don't you remember Vince and Gregory?"
She thought long and hard until she settled on one of her birthday parties. She was turning five and they were there. She was blowing out the candles and then they both started arguing over who could get the first piece. She was just sitting there laughing. She could tell that they were her friends despite the fact that she didn't want to believe it.
"Ugh...so I have to go hang out with them now?" she asked in annoyance. She may have liked all these people as children but she still felt like she was Hermione Granger. She didn't FEEL any different. Just because she got her memories back didn't mean she wanted to be Mia Reins. She still disliked these people. She didn't hate them because there were few people Hermione ever hated. That was just her personality. She never strongly hated people, with certain exceptions I.E. Voldemort and Malfoy. But she still didn't like them.
"Yes, they are your friends," he said with a smile, knowing that it was killing her to try to be the same person that she used to be. They walked across the street and to a big tall brick house. Knocking on the door, Draco looked to see Hermione's reaction to all of this. She seemed to be sucking it all up, trying to put on a brave face. But he knew that underneath it all she was suffering. She was trying so hard to be good for her parents but he knew that all she really wanted to do was hide.
So why was he bringing her to Crabbe and Goyles? To torture her more? Well actually, yes and no. Part of him still longed to torture her, make her life hell, because she was still the same Hermione Granger that he had fought and bickered with for years and years. But the other part of him wanted so badly to ease her back into her old life, to make her be his Mia again and part of her being Mia was being friends with the same people that she used to be friends with.
"Hello," said the butler as he answered the door. "Master Crabbe and Mister Goyle are in the backyard, flying around the Quidditch Pitch. You may follow me."
Hermione's jaw dropped. "Q...Q...Quidditch Pitch? In...In the backyard?" she stuttered in awe, following the man. "Harry and Ron would love this," she whispered to herself.
Draco watched her even more intently. He wasn't sure what to do. What was going to happen? She was such a strong willed person and for so long she had grown up with muggles, sticking up for them and believing even that she was one of them. How could she just forget that? That was what she remembered for most of her life. And someone like her, strong willed and strong minded...it was going to take a while for her to get used to things. But he knew, for as long as it would take, he would be there to help her through.
They walked out into the 'backyard' and he grabbed two brooms. "Care to go for a fly?" he asked with a smile. She just smiled back.
"You know I have a fear of flying on my own," she replied back without even thinking about what she was saying.
And he DID remember. When they were children, she had always made Draco take her up on HIS broom because she wanted something to cling onto, like her life support. He mounted his broom and held out a hand for her. "Come on. I'll remind you how great it is to be that free," he said pointing to their friends, Vincent and Gregory, who were flying high above.
She didn't know why but she felt as though she could trust him. Of course it could have something to do with the fact that she had a memory of Draco and her as children flying around the town on his broom.
She took his hand cautiously and sat behind him. "I don't want any funny business, Malfoy," she warned. "Drop me and I swear I'll hex you into oblivion!"
"Still don't trust me?" he asked. "I'll change that soon enough."
He pushed off of the ground at an extreme speed causing Hermione to hug even more tightly to him. "Don't DO that!" she screamed.
"Haven't you ever flown with Potter or Weasley?"
She hesitated with her response. "Um...Well...I never really trusted them enough. I mean, I knew they were great fliers but I thought that once we got up in the air, I might want to come back down and they wouldn't listen."
"Why do you trust me then?"
He began making circles around the pitch, waving hello to Crabbe and Goyle. "I remember coming up with you before," she said. "I remember you always taking me back down when I said no more. You always respected that. You never even questioned it. You just took me back down."
He scoffed angrily deciding to bring her back down so they could talk. As soon as he landed the broom and they were both off she asked, "Why did you land?"
"Because I'm pissed off, Mia!"
"HERMIONE! MY NAME IS HERMIONE!" she screamed with infuriation.
"NO IT'S NOT!" he screamed back. "How is it that you can remember trusting me but not loving me! How is it that you can try to get used to some things, like flying with me and being friends with Crabbe and Goyle, but you can't even consider using your old name let alone being MINE again?"
For once in her entire life, she didn't know what to say. She remembered loving him. That was true. And she even remembered her friendship with Hogwarts Dumb and Dumber. But she still was Hermione and she wasn't going to change. She couldn't change. She had grown values that she wasn't willing to compromise.
Mia Reins, from what her memories could tell, was the loving daughter of two death eaters and despised muggles and aurors.
Hermione Granger was the loving daughter of two muggles and wanted to one day BECOME an auror. Exact opposites.
"I can't be Mia, Malfoy," she finally said. "I'm not a Reins. You see, it doesn't matter what I used to be. The fact is that all I know is what I have grown to believe and my morals still stand firm. I fight against death eaters and the Dark Lord and though I may not still FIGHT in the war on the light side, I still support them!"
With that said, she ran off, back to her house. She ignored her parents calls from the living room, running up the stairs and to her bedroom to cry some more. Things were never going to get easier for her. That was the last thought she had before she cried herself to sleep.
A/N...sorry it took so long to update. I've been busy writing my other stories, That Was Weird, and Message in a Bottle. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Thanks for all your wonderful reviews and I hope to get the same response to this chapter!
Chapter 4: Crashing the Party
FLASHBACK
Little child Mia Reins crept down the stairs of her mansion. Her parents had sent her to bed hours ago so they could have their private meetings but she didn't want to stay upstairs. She wanted to be with the adults. And so she crept down the stairs, heading to the dungeons.
She heard yelling, shouting, and laughter. Not laughter per say. It was more like evil cackling. Hermione recognized her fathers voice along with her Uncle Lucius'. She supposed they were having a jolly good time since they were laughing so much. They always had a good time down in the dungeons.
She continued creeping quietly when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun around, practically falling down the stairs in the process. She began tumbling with her "attacker" all the way down the stairs. She landed on top of him with a plop. "Sh..." she warned him after noticing who it was. "Draco, you're going to get us caught! I was trying to be QUIET!" She rolled off of him with a sigh. "You're hopeless."
He just chuckled. "I'm not the one making noise!" he whispered. "Now let's go join the party."
They kept walking finally approaching the door that the laughter was coming from behind. It was open a crack and they peeked in. What they saw was something they never wanted to see. A man and a woman were chained up against the wall. Their clothes were torn and there was a puddle of blood surrounding their feet. "Now for the last time," Mia heard her Aunt Sissy say. "Where is our Dark Lord, Longbottom?"
Mia and Draco took this as the opportune moment (of course not intentionally) to stumble and fall through the door, alerting all the adults that they were there and had been listening.
Patrice and Harold shot each other worried glances. They then looked at Narcissa and Lucius searching for an answer on what to do. "What are the little ones doing here?" Bellatrix Lestrange asked. "Pat, I thought you put them to sleep."
Mia and Draco stood up quickly, brushing off their sleeping robes. "We couldn't sleep!" Draco said with a frown. "We were hoping someone would come and read us a bedtime story or at least let us have a sleep over!"
Narcissa walked over to her son and knelt down to be his height. "How did you get here? You were supposed to be at home with the house elves watching you!" she reprimanded. "You're not allowed to sneak out of the house this late at night."
"But you left me alone in the house. The least you could have done was let Mia sleep over. Please?" he whined, putting on his best puppy dog face. "And if she can't sleep over, can we stay and be with the adults!"
"YEAH!" Mia joined in. "We want to be part of the party!"
Patrice picked Mia up, carrying her out of the room. Narcissa followed behind with Draco. "You two are not allowed to ever come back to the dungeons!" Patrice scolded. "The dungeons are forbidden to you. Only when you are old enough, when you turn sixteen! Until then, you are to sleep when we say sleep and stay when we say stay. But for now, Mia, you and Draco will sleep in your room. I'll get the sleeping bags."
They brought them up and put the kids in Mia's room. As soon as the kids were tucked in, Mia turned to her best friend. "I think they were torturing those aurors." The kids had been well informed from an early age that aurors were their enemies but Mia still didn't understand why they would ever hurt anyone.
"Duh!" Draco responded, hitting his head with the palm of his hand. "No, I thought that they were playing ring around the rosie!"
"You know, sarcasm really doesn't fit you well," she responded while turning her back to him.
END FLASHBACK
The memory had scarred her because it had been at that moment that she realized that her parents weren't doing the world any good. All they were doing was harming innocent people. Of course, she had been raised in believing that aurors weren't innocent and in fact were quite evil but she knew, even at that young age, that no one deserved to be tortured like that.
As her parents escorted her back into the manor and into the living room, she became misty eyed but held in her tears. No one was going to care anyway.
"Are you ready to apologize to your Uncle?" her mother whispered. "Because if you aren't..."
She shook her mother away from her and walked over to where the Dark Lord stood. "I still won't bow to you," she said uncomfortably. "I need some time to get used to it. But for now, please accept my apology. My words were rude and that's not my personality so I'm sorry."
She heard Malfoy, still sitting on the couch, snort in laughter. "I can't believe you said that! You just said you weren't rude! For the past five years all I've gotten was your rude words!"
It was her turn to laugh. "You bring out the worst in me. What can I say?"
They whole room began to smile, breaking through the tension that had been formed when Mia had begun arguing with Voldemort.
"So Mia, please take a seat so we can discuss your birthday party," Voldemort said with a warm smile, one that made her practically shriek. The dark lord was smiling at her! Never in her wildest dreams did she think that would happen. She also hated the fact that she was being called Mia. It was too much for her to handle and she was about to say something but her mum cut her off.
"Please, we're still calling her Hermione," Patrice said. "We'll ease her into her name in time. For now, she just needs to get used to everything else. Then we'll work on getting her to be comfortable with the name Mia Reins."
The room nodded in understanding and Hermione suddenly needed to get out of there. "Um... how 'bout you guys plan the party for me and I'll go along with whatever you want while Malf...I mean, Draco and I take a walk? Sound good?"
"Alright dear," Harold said. "But be back in an hour and stay with Draco at all times. You don't know this area."
Hermione grabbed Draco's hand and ran out the front door with him. Once they were outside, she dropped his hand immediately. "Show me what we do for fun around here," she said in a bored tone.
With a sigh of frustration and much annoyance, he took her hand, leading her across the street. "Let's go see Crabbe and Goyle."
"But they're...they're...they're," she searched for the correct words and finally settled, "DUNDERHEADS!"
He just smiled. "They're not dunderheads. They just act like it during school. They think it's a part of their "rep". Did you get your memories back yet?" She nodded. "Don't you remember Vince and Gregory?"
She thought long and hard until she settled on one of her birthday parties. She was turning five and they were there. She was blowing out the candles and then they both started arguing over who could get the first piece. She was just sitting there laughing. She could tell that they were her friends despite the fact that she didn't want to believe it.
"Ugh...so I have to go hang out with them now?" she asked in annoyance. She may have liked all these people as children but she still felt like she was Hermione Granger. She didn't FEEL any different. Just because she got her memories back didn't mean she wanted to be Mia Reins. She still disliked these people. She didn't hate them because there were few people Hermione ever hated. That was just her personality. She never strongly hated people, with certain exceptions I.E. Voldemort and Malfoy. But she still didn't like them.
"Yes, they are your friends," he said with a smile, knowing that it was killing her to try to be the same person that she used to be. They walked across the street and to a big tall brick house. Knocking on the door, Draco looked to see Hermione's reaction to all of this. She seemed to be sucking it all up, trying to put on a brave face. But he knew that underneath it all she was suffering. She was trying so hard to be good for her parents but he knew that all she really wanted to do was hide.
So why was he bringing her to Crabbe and Goyles? To torture her more? Well actually, yes and no. Part of him still longed to torture her, make her life hell, because she was still the same Hermione Granger that he had fought and bickered with for years and years. But the other part of him wanted so badly to ease her back into her old life, to make her be his Mia again and part of her being Mia was being friends with the same people that she used to be friends with.
"Hello," said the butler as he answered the door. "Master Crabbe and Mister Goyle are in the backyard, flying around the Quidditch Pitch. You may follow me."
Hermione's jaw dropped. "Q...Q...Quidditch Pitch? In...In the backyard?" she stuttered in awe, following the man. "Harry and Ron would love this," she whispered to herself.
Draco watched her even more intently. He wasn't sure what to do. What was going to happen? She was such a strong willed person and for so long she had grown up with muggles, sticking up for them and believing even that she was one of them. How could she just forget that? That was what she remembered for most of her life. And someone like her, strong willed and strong minded...it was going to take a while for her to get used to things. But he knew, for as long as it would take, he would be there to help her through.
They walked out into the 'backyard' and he grabbed two brooms. "Care to go for a fly?" he asked with a smile. She just smiled back.
"You know I have a fear of flying on my own," she replied back without even thinking about what she was saying.
And he DID remember. When they were children, she had always made Draco take her up on HIS broom because she wanted something to cling onto, like her life support. He mounted his broom and held out a hand for her. "Come on. I'll remind you how great it is to be that free," he said pointing to their friends, Vincent and Gregory, who were flying high above.
She didn't know why but she felt as though she could trust him. Of course it could have something to do with the fact that she had a memory of Draco and her as children flying around the town on his broom.
She took his hand cautiously and sat behind him. "I don't want any funny business, Malfoy," she warned. "Drop me and I swear I'll hex you into oblivion!"
"Still don't trust me?" he asked. "I'll change that soon enough."
He pushed off of the ground at an extreme speed causing Hermione to hug even more tightly to him. "Don't DO that!" she screamed.
"Haven't you ever flown with Potter or Weasley?"
She hesitated with her response. "Um...Well...I never really trusted them enough. I mean, I knew they were great fliers but I thought that once we got up in the air, I might want to come back down and they wouldn't listen."
"Why do you trust me then?"
He began making circles around the pitch, waving hello to Crabbe and Goyle. "I remember coming up with you before," she said. "I remember you always taking me back down when I said no more. You always respected that. You never even questioned it. You just took me back down."
He scoffed angrily deciding to bring her back down so they could talk. As soon as he landed the broom and they were both off she asked, "Why did you land?"
"Because I'm pissed off, Mia!"
"HERMIONE! MY NAME IS HERMIONE!" she screamed with infuriation.
"NO IT'S NOT!" he screamed back. "How is it that you can remember trusting me but not loving me! How is it that you can try to get used to some things, like flying with me and being friends with Crabbe and Goyle, but you can't even consider using your old name let alone being MINE again?"
For once in her entire life, she didn't know what to say. She remembered loving him. That was true. And she even remembered her friendship with Hogwarts Dumb and Dumber. But she still was Hermione and she wasn't going to change. She couldn't change. She had grown values that she wasn't willing to compromise.
Mia Reins, from what her memories could tell, was the loving daughter of two death eaters and despised muggles and aurors.
Hermione Granger was the loving daughter of two muggles and wanted to one day BECOME an auror. Exact opposites.
"I can't be Mia, Malfoy," she finally said. "I'm not a Reins. You see, it doesn't matter what I used to be. The fact is that all I know is what I have grown to believe and my morals still stand firm. I fight against death eaters and the Dark Lord and though I may not still FIGHT in the war on the light side, I still support them!"
With that said, she ran off, back to her house. She ignored her parents calls from the living room, running up the stairs and to her bedroom to cry some more. Things were never going to get easier for her. That was the last thought she had before she cried herself to sleep.
A/N...sorry it took so long to update. I've been busy writing my other stories, That Was Weird, and Message in a Bottle. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Thanks for all your wonderful reviews and I hope to get the same response to this chapter!
