Author's Note: All disclaimers apply. I do not own the characters contained in this story. They belong to J.K. Rowling, her publishers, and Warner Bros. Inc. Also thanks for all of the reviews. They are very inspirational and appreciated! Edited to add credit to Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and her plot from Shanna. This entire disclaimer applies to her work as well.

Happy Easter everyone and take care!

Chapter 21

Narcissa's Secret

"You're sure there's nothing there? There's got to be a file Ron," Hermione snapped impatiently, starting to drum her nails on the desk before her.

Ron watched the expressions on her face and wondered if he should conjure a fake file to simply to take the dark scowl that was shadowing her features. An angry Hermione wasn't easily handled. "Maybe someone else is looking at it right now?" he suggested, garnering an even more ominous glare. "Well what do you want me to do? Gods Hermione I can't make it appear out of thin air. Who knows Percy might have pulled it to try and rewrite some of the evidence or something. Wouldn't put it past him."

Hermione huffed loudly and glanced around looking for Ginny. She was supposed to meet her at the Ministry and she was running a few minutes late. About to turn her attention back to Ron another wizard caught her attention. Gregory Goyle was slinking into an office, piles of papers nearly hiding his face from view. However, those same dull but sneaky eyes, and sneering mouth was visible. "Ron, what in the name of Merlin is Goyle doing here?"

Ron looked up and shrugged with some disgust. "He's working below in filing and research. Doesn't pay very much, and keeps him out of everyone's way. After all he was supposedly valuable with some of his testimony. Load of bollocks if you ask me," he finished with a grunt of loathing.

Hermione watched the offending wizard disappear into a dark office and shook her head at the Ministry's continued ignorance. "Neville was supposed to meet me today do you know where he went?" she asked standing when she saw Ginny at the door of the office waving enthusiastically.

"Left a little while ago I think," Ron answered, rolling his eyes at his sister's animated greeting. She never seemed to grow up. Even now that she was married she still acted like an excited child sometimes. "I've been meaning to ask you how things are going. I mean living with you know…"

Hermione stifled a groan at Ron's less than tactful question. "You can say his name Ron, and very well thank you."

"When he didn't come to Christmas dinner I figured you might not be getting along as well as you wanted us all to think."

"Harry made it perfectly clear he didn't want him there and Draco would have to be blind and deaf to be able to sit across the table from him while he ruined the entire meal with his remarks. Not that Draco would've behaved much better," Hermione drawled, turning to Ginny with a smile and hugged her warmly.

"After all the trouble you've had Hermione I don't know why you insisted I meet you here," Ginny said, shaking her head and throwing a disgruntled expression in Ron's direction. "I know you hate working for Percy but do you always have to look like you're sucking on a lemon or something?"

"I was trying to see the public records concerning Draco's trial a few years ago, nothing special really," Hermione told her friend, gathering her bag and turning to leave. "Ron, she's your baby sister. Smile and say how nice it is to see her."
"Just don't let her drag you around too much today. She thinks she's got Harry fooled with how much money she spends." Ron actually glared at her disapprovingly then. "Behave yourself and you know better. Mum taught us the value of a galleon and because you have more to burn than you ever thought possible doesn't mean you should."

"Harry and I are quite comfortable on his inheritance and his investments thank you and now Hermione and I are off. She's married to a wealthy wizard and should be dressing like it," Ginny stated with a firm nod and tug on Hermione's arm.

Ron watched them leave wondering if Hermione knew what she'd gotten herself into by agreeing to let Ginny take her shopping. Hermione could act like a girl now and again but she wasn't all that crazy about spending hours looking at dresses and robes. Ginny would probably have her begging to return to that drafty manor of Malfoy's by a little past lunch.

"I just need to stop by my flat for a minute. There's something I wanted your help with," Ginny said cryptically.

Both women Apparated to the Potter's flat and Ginny rushed off to her bedroom returning with a rather thick book. "I know Harry's been hinting at starting a family of our own and I kept telling him we were so young, but I just wanted to surprise him."

Hermione smiled brightly at her friend. "Ginny do you think you're?" she alluded motioning with her hands for Ginny to answer her.

"I don't know. I might be and I wanted you to be here to make sure I did the test right. Mum got it wrong once when she was going to have me. Didn't get the wand to glow at all and then it put a Mars symbol for the male gender over her belly."

Hermione took the book from Ginny and they read the exact incantation and Ginny played the words over in her head with determination. Nodding to herself and Hermione she took off her robes and lifted the edge of her shirt just enough to expose her stomach. Taking a deep breath she circled the wand once over her belly and spoke, "Reperio presentia novus vita."

The wand jerked once and looked as though it would begin to glow a faint red, but then the light faded and both girls had to frown at one another. "Do you think that was a positive result and it just didn't materialize properly?" Ginny asked Hermione, wondering and anxious.

"Maybe," Hermione mused, thinking this was like a Muggle home test where the lines are faint and you have to retest again. "Go ahead and say it again," she suggested, picking the book back up to see if ancient wizards had mastered the problems of false positives and false negatives in pregnancy testing.

This time there was no glow and Ginny's head fell in defeat. "I was so sure this time," she whispered, her disappointment evident.

"We're still so young though Gin," Hermione reasoned, not sure how to comfort her when she thought that her friends were too newly married to be considering children. Her own parents had been married almost seven years before she had been born. Then again in the Wizarding World, why wait as far as they were concerned. The sooner one started the more children they could produce to infuse the numbers for the Ministry.

"You take the test," Ginny said quickly. "If its positive for you we'll know it's not working or whatever."

"Ginny, I'm not taking it," Hermione said flatly. "I'm not pregnant and I've been taking precautions. I don't want children for a while and I'm not sure about…"

"Oh for Merlin's sake Hermione I'm not asking for an outline of your life plans. I'm asking you to see if this wand is faulty or the test isn't going to work for me like Mum that time," Ginny groaned, rolling her eyes back in her head.

A little disgruntled Hermione pulled off her robes and lifted her shirt slightly so Ginny could do her worst. "I'm doing this under protest," she ground out when Ginny smirked triumphantly.

Repeating the words again Ginny circled Hermione's belly and smiled smugly when the wand instantly glowed red and vibrated slightly. "See, its not working. Shows you've got a positive result and if you say you've been being careful you're too annoyingly perfect to forget a contraceptive potion or spell."

Despite Ginny's reassurance Hermione glanced down at the traitorous wand in horror. "Ginny, do it again," she ordered tersely, snatching up the book again and reading even more frantically for evidence of false results.

"I'm certain I'm pregnant and you're certain you're not so apparently we're having some difficulty making the spell work properly. This happens a lot Mum says," Ginny reassured her, but dutifully preformed the test again.

This time the wand shook violently and glowed the moment the last word was spoken. Hermione actually squeaked and grabbed her own wand and tested again. The result was the same. She gazed back in a mixture of horror and disbelief at Ginny who was starting to appear surprised herself. "Check the gender. If there's really no baby then surely it won't give a gender."

Quickly Hermione asked for the gender and within seconds a small glowing ghost of a symbol hovered over her belly, the symbol of Venus for the female sex. Ginny gasped audibly and Hermione fell silent. She credited herself for having the strength to make it to the sofa on the other side of the living room before actually losing consciousness for some time.

"It was as I suspected, nothing whatsoever," Neville nodded angrily, throwing the file down on the desk in front of Draco. "You have no idea how hard this was to get out of the Ministry let alone dodge Hermione in the process."

"What was she doing there?" Draco asked leafing through the pages and finding most of them blank, either charmed or erased he didn't know which.

"The same thing you are, except for different reasons. She owled me earlier this morning and said she wanted to make sure they couldn't find a reason to reinstate your sentence. I sent a reply back assuring her that you were as free as you're going to be, but she wants to see the records for herself," Neville sighed, dropping into a nearby chair without waiting to be invited to do so.

"Of course." Draco almost smiled at how determined she could be, but the reaction turned into a frown instead. "You didn't let her see this did you? She'll only worry more if she thinks the Ministry is hiding something."

"Did you not listen Malfoy?" Neville rolled his eyes and wondered why he'd ever let himself get mixed up with Hermione and Malfoy's ill-fated schemes. She was his best friend in many respects but friendship only went so far. Hermione and Malfoy, there were two names he'd never thought to see in conjunction with one another. "I was able to leave before she saw me and could ask about the file."

"Good, is this charmed ink or did the Ministry have it purposely erased. Oh, what about the records of my father's death?"

"Those records are sealed and can only be obtained by the Minister himself," Neville explained, his eyes narrowing curiously. "If Lucius Malfoy was such a useless criminal and no one wanted to have to think about him again, why make it such a mystery? Why make it so difficult to read about the details of his death?"

"You're not starting this Lucius Malfoy's alive rubbish again are you?" Draco glanced up from the papers and glared at Neville. "He's dead, and just because you can't find out where they put him in the ground that doesn't change anything."

"There was another incident," Neville said quietly. "A man with the same description as the assailant in the Grangers' murders and Hetherington's was seen entering Hermione's shop late last night. Some local wizards went into see if they could catch him but he fled. Someone is looking for something and it goes deeper than Hermione's elves I think."

"Why the bloody hell can this man walk around all over the place and not one Auror or Ministry official can catch him?" Draco demanded angrily. "He's a suspect isn't he so arrest him or whatever it is you do."

"We're trying Malfoy," Neville growled, not liking to be told what to do by a former prisoner and with him being Malfoy to boot. "Things take time. Not to give you anything else to brag about, but it took us over two years to capture you."

"Find him," Draco ordered, in a low threatening voice. "Or I will."

"First you're trying to protect Hermione and keep her from being taken into custody, then you start rambling like that and you know acting alone could get you sent to Azkaban."

"I thought helping the Ministry was admirable."

Neville snorted and came to his feet then having said all he wished to say. "You'd deliver him to us after you threw the Killing Curse at him."

"No better than he deserves if he's the one whose been killing Muggles and blaming me for it."

Neville fought back the urge to agree with Malfoy and knew he really needed to be going before he started sympathizing with him. "Whatever, keep yourself out of trouble Malfoy for Hermione's sake. She's nutters, but she's in love with you and she's lost enough already."

"I mean it Longbottom find him," Draco said as Neville disappeared into the green flames of the fireplace.

Staring after the Auror Draco decided to put the file aside and look through his mother's diary again. He'd managed to read a few passages that morning but had decided to move on to another year. After she'd married his father the words became too painful to read. Draco knew why his father never hit him now and only used words as punishment, he was too weary from punishing his mother. Whenever Draco had disobeyed or did not live up to expectations his mother had born the brunt of the penalty for displeasing Lucius Malfoy.

That didn't make her any better in Draco's eyes however. Malfoy's didn't divorce, but they also weren't weak and timid. His mother should have taken him and left Lucius. It would have been no more than he deserved, but she'd been too pathetic to try and force his father's hand.

After reading another passage that afternoon Draco hurled the book away in disgust to hear it land with a soft thud against the rug near the far wall. How his mother could have borne such abuse and wrote about it as though it was an everyday part of life astounded him and he cursed her for her inability to be strong and fight back. Hermione would have hexed him, and possibly come close to killing him, if he ever even thought about doing some of the things his mother wrote about. That idea gave him some peace of mind in knowing that if his temper ever got the best of him Hermione wouldn't shrink away. Except the night he'd accused her of sleeping with Percy and she'd truly been afraid of him. No, she would fight him, or anyone else if they tried to hurt her.

Something else that bothered Draco was the distinct feeling he got that his mother had loved another man before and after she had married his father. She was vague in her references, but her disdain for her husband was obvious, and she was wistful talking about her school years. Also, she had outwardly and blatantly written once that had she not gotten pregnant she could have been free of Lucius. She hadn't wanted a child, and she had seen her son as a burden, and had borne abuse meant for him and punishments that he rightly deserved. His very existence had been a punishment to her, dashing her last hopes of freedom.

Draco felt physically sick and almost had the urge to burn the terrible book filled with his mother's life stories and shattered dreams. The manor had been as much a prison for her as Azkaban had been for his father and himself. True she had put herself in front of him secretly, never letting his father harm him any substantial way, but she had hated herself and him for it.

The fireplace crackled to life and Hermione stepped from it without much grace. She stumbled with all of the packages in her arms and muttered a rather crude curse that Draco didn't even know she had the nerve to say. "I think Ginny made me buy half of the store and then some. For a pureblood she goes positively barmy over Muggle clothing," Hermione muttered, dusting herself off after her unceremonious entrance.

When Draco did not respond Hermione set the bags over to the side of the desk and sat down across from him. "I spent my own money so you can't pretend to be the disgruntled husband and argue about my shopping habits," she teased, but whatever smile she had let brighten her face disappeared instantly. "What's wrong? Did something happen? Is the Ministry trying to…"

"Are you truly happy here?" Draco asked as bluntly as possible, never lifting his eyes to meet hers.

"What kind of question is that?" She wondered now if Harry had made a visit since he hadn't been at Ginny's flat or at the Ministry discussing when he would be returning to work.

"A very good one if you feel confined or weren't given a choice in the matter," Draco replied simply, his gaze shifting to the bags briefly causing him to shake his head.

"What I said a few weeks ago was to purposefully start a fight and you should know me well enough I don't do or say anything I don't want to really," Hermione assured him, watching him study the bags carefully. Surely he wouldn't take a notion to tear through them to see what she'd bought. He never went through her belongings or pried, but he was acting very curious and she had let Ginny talk her into buying a pink pair of knitted booties at Twillfill and Tattings. Personally Hermione was surprised she'd been allowed through the doors concerning her "dirty" blood, but word traveled fast, and to turn away a Malfoy would apparently be bad for business.

"What if you did things without knowing it?"

"You're being obtuse for a reason," Hermione accused him becoming worried where the conversation was headed. "If you're upset I spent the day with Ginny again I'm sorry, but you refuse to leave this drafty study sometimes, and I can't sit here all day with nothing to do. I had to return some books to the library and Molly read over some of my research with Arthur and…"

"Didn't you ever wonder why I left you alone those first few weeks?" Draco asked, his eyes finally resting on her.

Something was dreadfully wrong, she could tell by how dark and angry Draco's eyes were. It wasn't displeasure with her, rather something he couldn't control or understand. His features looked pained, and Hermione impulsively reached across the desk to grab his hand, but he stood and took several steps away from her. Sighing, she decided to play along for the time being. "As I recall you didn't leave me alone at all. You were hovering like an old woman most of the time and…"

"Those weren't dreams you were having," Draco stated, crossing his arms over his chest and slashing her with a shrewd stare. "I believe you know what I'm talking about."

Hermione did pale slightly then and rose to her feet. "What are you saying? Did I mention something in my sleep or," she didn't finish a deep blush spreading over her cheeks. Honestly she hadn't thought about those vivid dreams for a long time. Thinking on it more she realized since she'd agreed to remain married to him she hadn't had one dream since. Eyes wide and mouth falling open she almost dissolved into tears of shame and anger. "Like the carriage that night," she whispered.

Recalling the almost nightly intrusion into her sleep Hermione remembered how hot and uncomfortable the room had always felt, how sometimes thoughts and emotions almost weren't her own. "You manipulated my mind into thinking I was dreaming and used it to your advantage?"

"So, do you think I'm proving Potter right?" Draco asked harshly, wondering why he was approaching the subject this way. He had intended to tell her about his small invasion into her conscious thoughts and apologize, not bait her and let the situation escalate.

"I'm going upstairs to change," Hermione whispered, hoping to make it to their bedroom before she started crying. He probably thought she was a slag for acting like she had those nights when she emphatically stated she wanted nothing to do with him or their marriage. Oh, and how easily she had succumbed as well. Draco couldn't possibly respect her for her behavior. Then, however anger came to her instead. He had manipulated her when she thought he was changing and becoming a better person. There was probably some convoluted reason behind his actions, but she thought it best to leave the study before she hexed him painfully. Not that he didn't deserve it, but she kept telling herself his behavior was stemming from something else he wasn't telling her.

"Answer me," he shouted as she retreated from the study. Gods what was wrong with him? Was he deliberately trying to turn her against him and live up to his father's name? Draco mentally shook himself, but he couldn't seem to keep quiet. "See, I'm as wicked and depraved as the entire Weasley clan wants you to believe. So I'm giving you your chance to escape while you can." At that moment he wished someone would hurl a silencing charm at him before he said something he couldn't take back or would destroy his marriage beyond repair.

"Is that what this is about?" she snapped, whirling on him now giving up on trying to keep the tears from falling. Hermione hated this feeling, sadness, anger, and humiliation combined "Do you want me to leave you? Are you trying to make me so livid I'll walk away and then you can be the injured party?"

"I wouldn't have to pay you any spousal support if you left willingly?" Draco shrugged but clenched his fists at his sides and berated himself. Shut up you fool, he mentally berated himself. Just keep your mouth shut and think of a way to apologize later.

Hermione's gasp echoed through the still sparsely furnished room and she choked on a sob. She shook her head once to clear it, and started to say something, when her eyes fell on the book Draco had tossed angrily to the floor earlier. Recognizing it instantly as his mother's diary Hermione set her mouth in a firm line of disapproval. "This is the last thing you truly have to remember her by and you throw it around like it means nothing," Hermione hissed, picking it up and dusting it off gingerly.
"Burn it," Draco snarled, rounding the desk and advancing on her.

"I most certainly will not." Hermione's eyes flared with rage and she stuffed the diary back into her robes hastily. "What in Merlin's name is the matter with you?
"I said burn it," Draco repeated, wondering why she would ever think tucking something away in her robes kept it safe from him. "There's nothing in there but memories and lies."

"Been reading it have you?" Hermione taunted, sidestepping him when he reached for her to retrieve the diary again. "Not enough to ignore your wife's privacy in her bedroom, but lets destroy that last bond of trust and delve into your mother's life as well?"

"Either give me the diary or I'll take it from you and I don't think you're likely to win this fight," Draco warned her, fearing he would lose his temper any moment.

"What lies did she tell? That she was happy and perfectly content to stand in a corner, smile, and pat you and your father on the head for your misdeeds?" Hermione realized she had gone too far the moment something animalistic flared to life in her husband's eyes and he lunged for her. Spinning around she felt her back connect with the wall.

"That she hated every minute of her life here. That she hated my father and herself and me. Me most of all," Draco roared, before falling silent and loosening his grip. Dropping his head in defeat he released her completely and walked back to his desk hating himself for ever admitting such a weakness. How pathetic was it for someone to learn their own mother couldn't love them?

"You shouldn't have read it if you weren't prepared for what was inside," Hermione said quietly, wanting to keep hurting him as he had hurt her.

"I thought you were going upstairs." Yes, she would go upstairs, pack her clothing, that furry creature that kept leaving claw marks in the furniture and his robes, and go home to the Weasley's where she belonged.

"Here," Hermione said simply, laying the diary on the desk and turning to walk away. "I'll send Auggy in here for the bags later." She stopped at the doorway still refusing to glance in his direction. "By the way when I leave you I'll have more than enough money to survive on my own. I won't need anything from you."

When she slammed the door it was then Draco realized she'd used the words when and not if she would leave him. For a second time that day the worn diary was sent flying along with the papers and other items that were scattered on top of the desk. Some of the journals fell haphazardly onto the bags setting to the side of the desk, and they were overturned. Sighing he almost kicked the contents of the shopping bags out of his way in annoyance, but a small pair of socks lying on the floor caught his attention.

Bending down he picked them up and decided Hermione was set on teaching the elves modesty and trying to get them to dress themselves. Not that they even were approachable. The damn little things ran away from him and Hermione most of the time in fear. Still, the bag was from Twillfill and Tattings and he doubted she would spend such an exorbitant amount of money on something she wasn't even sure the pesky creatures would wear anyway. Draco almost tossed the socks aside when the emblem that stated what fine quality material and stitching was used appeared to have the outline of a small infant crawling animatedly in place below it.

Reperio presentia novus vita To reveal the presence of new life