Bex Drake: Hello, I had that comment a lot but his brother was on Death's door. No worries about the French it's just an automatic reaction to hearing french these days to ridicule.
TheCursedPixies: And I cannot stress how much I like your reviews. I think Bill's a little emotional anyway, or at least he is in my story. But hey you know about as much as me about this story... When I began I didn't know that Bill was going to be in it... that's Advanced Planning for you.
IdancerWeird name, but cool. Yes poor Ron. Only poor as long as Canon Ron keeps his paws off Hermione. Otherwise I think we in the fandom world should arrange his untimely death. Sorry mini rant... :-(
TheCursedWitch: Hermione is about to plunge headfirst into an even deeper rabbit hole. hehehehee...
Dianara Darkraven: I hope his changeover carry's on to your satisfaction. I try to keep things different though I have to say cliches are in every chapter. There just So hard to avoid.
FiverDKM: Sorry for delay! Hope you like this chapter! Thanks so mcuh for review!
Dragon Navi: Shes's an inventive little witch. And the boys are pretty much idiots, as most males are. So I think she'll manage it. Yes poor injured Dream Team. But where would we be without an injured hero? Great to hear from you again and I hope your internet gets itself together.
Sami Sue: I won't be writing the scene with those two in the house together but I can assure you if Lupin or Bill did it would involve naked mud wrestling. Yes Harry keeps getting stronger without me intending him too. It might be my fantastic writing skills or it might be that I keep needing him to get out of even worse scrapes... Well really our main big hero is a side story. Harry and the Horacruxes will be JKR's next book not mine. But I won't forget about them. Be nice to Bill his brother nearly died! Well whenever you can I suppose for your fanfics. There is just not enough HGTR stuff on the net. I only discovered it after I started writing this. Otherwise you might have got a TRHG. 1940's and a seriously popular strong evil guy, the setting has all the makings of a classic!
LyssaTucci: Nice name, Italian? Really good hearing from you! Thank you so much! Enjoy this chapter!
AN: Sorry for delay folks. I failed my driving test terribly! so was too depressed to write. This could happen again this Thursday as I am getting my AS results (half NEWTs to those who do not know anythign about English school system). I just hope I do well! But if I don't I hope to write another chapter before Thursday. Anyway enough of me, Enjoy!
Chapter Eight
Nott
Hanover Road walking West in the continuing drizzle. Hermione was wearing a thick coat, smart in black with lapels. Beneath it she was wearing a sensible outfit of dark blue and black suit trousers. She was dressed, she hoped, like a successful Muggle, which was the persona she was trying to convey. She'd checked with her Magical Buildings of Britain and Hanover house was not one of them. So she assumed that she would be meeting Muggles. Though what Draco Malfoy had to do with Muggles she did not know.
It was the day after Harry had arrived at Bill's house at 2am. Hermione and he had returned to the safe house for dinner, which they had spent skirting round Hermione's absence. Harry was still hugely annoyed and curious about where she had been but after one blazing row he had given up trying to force the information out of her. How she was to get out with Harry and Ron returned she did not know. If Ron was still... unaffected when he woke from his deep sleep.
In this morning she had taught Harry the basics of the wandless magic principle. He was naturally gifted at it and was still at home practising. She had told him she was to visit Ron, who still resided in the relative safety of his brothers residence. Instead she apparated to a couple of streets away from Hanover road and begun the long process of walking up it.
Despite her concerns she recognised the building from several houses away. It stood out; tall brick Victorian house in amongst small 1930s slum. As she reached it the rain stopped and she threw back her hood to stare at the Gargoyles which littered the roof. They were terrible looking, malformed and abominable creatures. She rather liked their staring large eyes and pudgy bodies leaning over the edges of the roof.
To confirm her suspicions a large sign before the steps read 'Hanover House'. She ascended them slowly unbuttoning her coat and preparing her finest manners. "Good Morning, I'd like to see Mrs Fiddlebottom please?" Hermione asked politely as possible to a rather porty security guard who looked at her with complete astonishment.
"Oh, you must be Ms Granger." A pleasant voice said from behind her. A late middle aged woman with stars shaped glasses and a great big grin said ecstatically. Hermione smiled and nodded. "Please come with me, Mrs Fiddlebottom is just finishing her morning muffin." For a minute Hermione wandered whether the Death Eaters had this woman under Imperius curse. But then realisation that this was too over the top for even Death Eaters Hermione followed meekly. "But I'll take you up straight away. So what are you seeing her about? Her recent visit to Saudi Arabia? Or the lecture at Christ Church in two weeks?" The lady asked her bouncing with every step.
Hermione made some garbled reply and was saved by the arrival at the office of Mrs Fiddlebottom. "Good Morning." A sharp, crisp school headmistress's voice rose from behind the desk. A woman stood up who could have been forty, and remained forty for the next twenty years. Her hair was brushed back into a half up style and what was down was a wiry brown colour. She looked like she should wear glasses and their absence from her face was notable. "You must be Ms Granger. How can I help?"
So much for Malfoy's 'know what to do when you get there'. "Hello. Yes I was sent here by a recently deceased friend, Draco Malfoy." The woman looked blankly at Hermione. Damn. Damn. Damn. "He said I was to do something for him here." Blank. Then... lightbulb!
"Well Ms Granger that sounds wonderful. We can always do with volunteers." The woman said speaking very fast.
"I'm sorry, excuse me? I'm afraid I haven't a clue what you do..." Hermione felt like an idiot for the first time in her life and she burned with the shame. Mrs Fiddlebottom blinked at her for a minute. But the minor fact of her client being unable to tell her in the least why she was here never put a person such as Mrs Fiddlebottom off.
"We are Christians for the Survival of Mankind, child." Mrs Fiddlebottom informed her kindly. "We do work in Africa, Southern Asia even occasionally the Middle East, though it's so terribly dangerous. We take volunteers such as yourself, and they help us teach not only Christianity but English, Maths and Science." The woman said proudly. Her face of exhalation and enthusiasm promptly fell, however, when she shrewdly noticed Hermione's own expression.
"I'm sorry, I don't think that is what he meant at all. I'm not a Christian, you see, and neither was he." Hermione said apologetically, wondering if Malfoy had just meant to humiliate her. Remind her of who he really was, even if he had...
"Oh. Well then I suppose he could have meant the Shelter for the Homeless we run or the Orphange." The woman suggested wondering how long this girl was going to take. She had a speech to write. "The Orphanage is in the West Wing, as the children like to call it. Did he have any children? Perhaps one he never told anyone about?"
Hermione admitted it was a possibility. Mrs Fiddlebottom promptly rose and shouted "Mrs Danvers!" to which the star shaped glasses lady answered immediately. "Miss Granger here thinks that one of her friends children could be in our Orphanage. Would you take her over there please?" Mrs Fiddlebottom promptly smiled shook hands and sat back down at her desk. Another problem solved by FIDDLEBOTTOM!
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Hermione pondered if the two women had swapped surnames. But her musings were interrupted by screams. They had entered two tall oak doors which had led onto a zoo. The monsters of children were chasing each other round with various toys and slightly manical looks on their faces. "Angels." Commented Mrs Danvers who nodded to one or two carers who were chasing the children. "Now what was your friends name?"
"Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." Hermione told her. Mrs Danvers shook her head.
"No one here by that name." She informed Hermione gravely. "Did he have a girlfriend? If they had had an argument she might have not entered his name on the birth certificate." Hermione cringed.
"Parkinson?" Hermione asked dreading any kind of response to such a monstrous suggestion. The spawn of that match had nothing to do with her. Mrs Danvers again shook her head. Hermione, despairing of this humiliating and hopeless situation, tried one last suggestion. "My friend had really white blonde hair. Really white blonde. Is there any child here like that?" And at last the penny dropped.
"Yes, yes. Mercury? Mercury?" Mrs Danvers called out amongst the screaming hoards. A small silent girl with a sneer attached to her pretty lips answered. A girl with grey eyes and white blonde hair. A girl who looked just like her father. "Oh she must look like her father then." Mrs Danvers commented at the almost tearful Hermione. "Mercury this is Miss Granger, she knew your father. Miss Granger this is Mercury Simpson." The girl glared up at her from under the white blonde hair and Hermione felt herself shaking. "Run along now child, you can talk to Miss Granger later."
Mrs Danvers quietly pulled Hermione into a small office. She sat her in a chair and pulled a bottle of water out from under her desk. "Here drink this child. I overheard you talking with Mrs Fiddlebottom. I'm sure he was a great friend of yours." Hermione just let out a little sob. "We always thought it was rape, you see. When her mother arrived here with her she was so upset and distraught we thought it had to be. But seeing as he was a friend of yours, it must have been just a bad relationship and an unplanned complication."
Hermione just nodded numbly, not realising what the information meant. Just that it was information. Draco Malfoy had a child. A walking talking child. Who was just like him. Except the last of the Malfoys... could not be a pureblood. "Mercury's four years old, now. She's a little bad tempered, but she has a fine sense of humour. Some of the other children are scared of her but she's really a sweet girl." Ha. "She's got another friend who visits her, I think a friend of her mothers. Oh."
This was said to the sudden banging of the office door as it slammed open. "Oh." Repeated Mrs Danvers. "Theodore. Speak of the Devil. Yes, Miss Granger this is Theodore Nott."
They froze staring at each other for at least half a minute. The blood was pounding in her ears and she felt breath struggling from her. "We've met." At least the Slytherin said putting something back in his cloak which looked remarkably like a wand. Behind his legs Mercury Simpson glared up at Hermione.
"Oh. We'll I've got to see how Mrs Fiddlebottom is progressing with her speech. I'll be back soon." Mrs Danvers excused herself taking the sullen Mercury from behind Nott's legs and shutting the door gently behind her.
"What are you doing here?" Nott hissed, shaking to rid his cloak of waterdroplets. He was dressed in Wizarding clothes and looked out of breath. He was also taller than Hermione remembered, taller than the new Malfoy. Rusty dark brown shaggy hair and a scar from his hairline to his eyebrow made him seem dangerous and appealing. His complexion and dress also made him look remarkably vampiric.
"I was sent here to find that girl." Hermione answered standing to meet his challenge. "What do you want with her?" As far as Hermione knew Malfoy and Nott, although childhood friends, were never that close.
"Sent here by whom? The Ministry? What do they want with her?" Nott asked venom in his voice.
"By Malfoy." Hermione answered. "Who sent you? And why are you so scared for her?"
"I came because someone was enquiring after Mercury and I have a spell which warns me when that happens. And unless you hadn't noticed she's the last of the Malfoys and her father betrayed Voldemort, or has that not entered your head, Granger?"
"Why do you want to protect her? What is she to you? She's a halfblood!" Hermione asked, her tension fading. She sat back down looking out to where, through the speckled glass, she could see a bright white blonde head.
"She's a human being. Isn't that enough? Or do only Gryffindors feel compassion, Hermione?" He jeered at her, leaning down an inch above her face.
"Well thats-" Mrs Danvers entered the room to find her two companions in a somewhat suspicious position. And therefore she jumped to conclusions. "Oh that's wonderful!" She gushed rushing forward and embracing the pair. "Now, I don't want o rush you into anything," She said rushing round the desk and sitting hastily on her seat. "But how would you feel about giving little Mercury a family?" Mrs Danvers gushed, tears in her eyes.
"You've got the-" Nott started before Hermione's elbow collided with something squishy in his anatomy and he collapsed onto the floor.
"Opps." Hermione said grinning in an embarrassed fashion. "Now as my darling Theodore was saying, we've been talking about it for ages, we'd love to adopt young Mercury."
"What!" Nott roared from the floor. Hermione quickly cast a charm on Mrs Danvers who promptly kept talking and preparing the paperwork. "Granger, are you on Gernim Dung!"
"No. I am taking that child with me when I leave the Orphanage. You can let me or you can fight me, but we both know who will win." Hermione informed him. "That is what Malfoy wanted me to do. Besides, she needs a family." Hermione was thinking of Riddle as she spoke. His apathy and growing distaste towards Muggles as he grew up in an Orphanage. Whether she would look after the child herself or take it to others she did not know. All she did know was that this child needed a family who understood.
"Malfoy has no authority over this child. He raped her Muggle mother. How can he?" Nott said exasperated. "And you taking her will only lead her to more danger. She is safer here."
"The only danger she is under threat from if she comes with me will be from Voldemort. And that is no different from hear accept that with me he will not know where she is." Hermione told him. "And if Harry fails, she will die anyway." Hermione added looking deep into those swirling deep eyes. Nott blinked and looked away. "You can contact me at this address." She gave him the Orders Official Residence, which was merely a forwarding address for letters. "I will take care of her, myself or with others who I will trust. I swear I shall see no harm to her."
"Then an unbreakable oath." Nott said glaring down at this small stupid haired Gryffindor. "Swear that neither you nor your actions will harm that girl."
"We'd need a witness." Hermione said standing up, her head in turmoil.
"She's watching." Nott said looking down at Mercury who was staring in from the open door. "She knows what we are doing and what it means." Mercury picked out a wand from the inside of her jumper and held it out. "She's seen one before."
"Then I swear Nott. I swear that neither my actions or I shall harm Mercury Malfoy." The flames danced from the girls wand and the shape of an majestic owl tied them together.
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