Chapter 51
"I have an idea for your Slytherins," Hermione woke Draco one day in early August, crawling on top of him, bracketing him with her limbs and bouncing a little in her excitement. If it hadn't been so early he might have found it cute, or arousing. But it was so early. How was it that he'd fallen in love with a morning person?
He caught her hips in his hands. "I love you, you know that, right?"
She laughed. "But not so much right now?" She guessed, letting out another little laugh. That idea didn't seem to dampen her excitement at all.
"Not so much," he agreed, wrapping his arms around her, turning them over, and pinning her under him, which made her giggle. "Okay, crazy witch, what were you thinking?"
Despite his irritation at being awoken so early, Draco was intrigued. He had been able to successfully start a defense tutoring group for his housemates, but they hadn't found a solution for their more beleaguered classmates, for those who might truly be in trouble, and in need of a safe haven or even just a friendly ear.
He could feel her smile against his jaw and turned them so that they were face to face, him on his back and her nestled in the crook of his arm, their legs tangled together. She squirmed around to get comfortable, and opened her clenched fist to place a set of dice on his chest.
"Hemione," he called to get her attention, he had taken to using her full name in the privacy of their wing, ironically claiming it as his privilege given that he had been the one to nickname her in the first place. He suspected that she actually liked it, her protests had seemed half-hearted. "What is this?"
She beamed up at him sleepily, but it was clear that she had been awake for a while.
Upon their sorting into Slytherin House, each child was given a set of jade, diamond shaped, eight sided dice. They were used for settling house disputes- whomever had the better roll got to make their case first- but they were also part of a good deal of house betting. It was tradition. No Slytherin left their dice unattended. They were sacred. Not just because they could be tampered with- which was fair game, if you were stupid enough to leave your dice laying about - but because they were such a quintessential Slytherin thing, a source of house pride that meant nothing to the other houses.
Most Slytherins would just as soon relinquish their wand as their dice. It was still odd to allow Hermione to handle his, even though he trusted her implicitly.
"Okay, it's just the beginning of an idea, really. I'm going to need some of your Slytherin cunning to figure out exactly how to implement it."
"At your service," he squeezed her hip, "but of the two of us I think you actually might be the more cunning one." Some of the things Hermione's brilliant and sneaky mind thought up astounded him.
She grinned at him. "That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"Go on. What have you done to my dice?"
Her grin widened. "Oh good, you can't tell."
"Tell what?"
"Those aren't yours. They're replicas."
He could only stare at her proud face for a moment then he picked them up off of his chest and rolled them around in his free hand. Now that he was holding them, he could tell a slight difference. Having handled them for years, his responded to his magic in a way that these didn't, but he was certain that nobody else would be able to tell.
"You transfigured almost exact replicas of my dice."
She nodded.
"How?"
"I used pebbles, and I had yours as a template to make sure they looked right. I think if we used jade as the raw material it would be even more successful."
"And why are we making replica Slytherin dice?"
"We can put Protean charms on them and distribute them to your housemates that we identify as vulnerable. They can use them as a way to ask for help if they need it. I was thinking of my Marauder's Army galleons, but too many people know about those now, we can't give them to Slytherins. I knew it would have to be something nobody would think it odd for a Slytherin to have," Hermione continued to explain. "If they don't ever want to use them, they don't have to, but they have the option and nobody will suspect."
He sighed. "And how do you plan to distribute them? And how do we get them to trust that they can use them? They'll all be highly suspicious."
"Well, that's what I need your help figuring out. Obviously nobody can know that we're behind this. But, ideally we would have an inside agent in Slytherin, they're more likely to trust a fellow snake, right?"
"Yes, but how do we arrange that? How do we know who we can trust to do this? There's not a single person in my House that I would trust with our secrets."
"I was thinking Theo, if he pans out. But I wasn't thinking of approaching him ourselves, I was thinking of sending Luna."
"You want her to do her people-aura-reading-thing on him?"
"Basically, yeah. And just talk to him, see how he responds to her."
"It's not the worst idea in the world," he sighed.
"And then she can be a go-between. Either between Theo and us, or if he's not interested, we can send her directly to talk to Slytherins we suspect are wavering and offer them a set of dice. Luna seems barmy enough that people don't take her seriously, so I think she can be seen talking to them without it raising too many red flags. But she's also known to be close to Harry, so people will believe that they can come to her, and she means it, if she offers them help. And because every Slytherin already has a set of dice, anybody who accepts ours will remain anonymous, even to others who have a set of our dice. What do you think?" She huffed a breath as she finished rambling, and Draco stared up at her, one eye-brow lifted. She blushed.
"I think it could be brilliant, if it works." He bit his lip, not really wanting to say what he knew he needed to say next. "But it probably won't work. There are too many variables, and as much as I love you and know how smart you are, you still don't really understand the Slytherin mindset. They're not going to trust some random Ravenclaw, whose nickname is actually Loony, and you are putting way too much on Theo."
She let out a long sigh and averted her eyes. "I know, but I couldn't do nothing. If it doesn't pan out, then it doesn't. But it might. Or we could find another use for the dice, I don't know, what would you have me do Draco? I can tell how this is weighing on you."
Well damn. He sighed and fingered the dice still resting on his sternum. "Also," he continued more quietly, "if they choose to use the dice, then what? What can we actually do for them?"
"Yeah, that's where I get stuck too. I don't know, I suppose it depends on the situation. If it's desperate enough we can send them to the Order." She shrugged. "But sometimes people just need a sympathetic ear, and your House is so isolated, it might be enough to let them know that they have more support, more options than they might think."
Draco thought that sounded terribly optimistic—it had 'Hermione' written all over it. "It's a good idea, I just don't want to get your hopes up."
"Or is it your hopes that you don't want to get up?" She challenged.
He conceded her point with a tilt of his head. "How long have you been considering this?"
"Just over a week. I owled Luna to make sure she'd be willing to help, but I didn't give her any specifics. Are you mad? I wanted to have at least a basic plan before I told you."
He huffed "I'm absolutely furious that I didn't think of something like this myself. I hate to say I had kind of given up on thinking of anything at all. But I know my housemates a lot better than you, we could have been refining an idea for weeks. Do you think you could hold off and we could start talking about it in more detail in a couple of hours, though? Seriously, how did I fall in love with a morning person?"
She laughed."Your life is so hard," she sniped. "Actually, I've been thinking about something else."
"Naturally," he allowed his eyes to drift closed as he caressed his betrothed's bum and legs; she was always thinking, it was usually about something rather inconsequential, so he was not at all prepared for the bombshell she was about to drop on him.
"I think we may be 'the power the Dark Lord knows not."
His eyes flew open and he could only blink at her. "Have you lost your mind?"
"No. I know how it sounds, but I've given this a lot of thought. Hear me out."
"Why? What would make you say that?" What he wasn't saying was that once she expressed the sentiment, he felt something tugging at his magic that he desperately didn't want to be true.
She looked at him knowingly. "You feel it too? I wonder if this is how Harry felt when he first heard the prophecy."
"I," he stuttered, "Hermione. The two of us and Potter, we're all powerful enough, and especially together, but you seriously think the prophecy is talking about us?"
"Not the two of us, specifically. Just this entire—I don't know what to call it, operation maybe—that is your parents, and us, and Sirius. We are literally a power the Dark Lord doesn't know about. All of us, standing behind Harry."
Draco started to interrupt. Not because he didn't feel the truth in her words, but because he was selfish enough to not want it to be so.
"What would have happened if we hadn't run into each other in Flourish and Blotts, if your mother hadn't seen us together? What would have happened to Sirius? Can you imagine?"
"No," he responded, voice suspiciously gruff, "I can't imagine."
"Me either. It all just feels like fate."
"Since when do you believe in fate?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Since I'm here with you against all the odds."
He couldn't argue with that.
"But in the end it makes very little difference whether or not the prophecy means anything about us. I still want to fight, Draco."
"I know."
"Are you okay with that?"
"Not even a little bit, but it's who you are. And it's who I've become." He lay there, suddenly wide awake, caressing her back, and contemplating her words. "If it doesn't make any difference, why did you bring it up?"
She propped her chin on his chest so that she could look him in the eyes and he realized she had been waiting for him to absorb her theory and ask that question. "Because I think if there's the slightest chance it is about us, then we should do what we can to prepare. If there's a special power that we can hone, we need to do it."
If this was a less serious conversation he would have laughed. "Okay, who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger? I mean really, special power?" He didn't know if he was more incredulous over the idea itself, or that it was Hermione proposing it.
She let out a sound that was part laugh, part sigh of frustration. "I know how it sounds. But if there's anything I've learned since I entered this world, it's that there is so much out there that I can't explain, so much that I don't know." She averted her eyes and began toying with the dice resting on his chest. "I owe our relationship to one of those things."
He craned his neck to kiss the top of her head. "Okay, touche. But how would we go about identifying this power, if it does, in fact, exist?"
"Well I was thinking about that. Remember how your mother described our connection, about how unique and powerful it is? When we were only eleven and twelve it was strong enough to convince her to accept a Muggle-born into the family."
"Yes, of course."
"And we've kind of gotten used to it over the years, but the way we perform magic together isn't normal. I mean I taught you to do wandless magic when we were twelve."
"True."
"And we used to do a lot of experimenting with that, to see what boundaries we could push together, but then we started to do serious training and that fell to the wayside in favor of more conventional magic."
"I—yeah, you're right." He smiled at her fondly. "That was fun. We're awesome."
Hermione looked smug. "We are, aren't we? And I think we need to carve out some time and get back to that."
It wasn't the most ridiculous theory he'd ever heard, and they didn't have anything to lose. He smirked at her. "Sure love, I'm always happy to make magic with you."
She just closed her eyes and shook her head.
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Against all odds they ended up having a relatively lovely conclusion to their summer holidays. Attempting to maim the only son of one of his most favored Death Eaters - without permission - apparently didn't go over well with the gracious Lord Voldemort, and Bellatrix was temporarily shut down. Neither Draco, nor Hermione, had to see her after she came to the Manor for tea.
Their Hogwarts letters arrived along with their O.W.L. results and Hermione thought she might have been just as proud of Draco's ten Outstandings, as she was her own. She was more excited than she probably would have thought she would have been, when the Quidditch Captain badge fell out of Draco's letter. She was pleased for Harry when he wrote to tell them that he'd also been made Captain. She could only hope they didn't kill their respective teams by driving them to exhaustion with practicing in a bid to out-do each other.
For two of the last weeks of the summer they accompanied her parents on holiday to their home in America, where they met up with Sirius and Harry who had been there for most of the summer. Draco was jealous, until he considered the burden on Potter's shoulders and then realized he couldn't resent him for a few weeks of peace.
It was over all too quickly. He and Hermione had unfortunately missed the opportunity to attend the Olympics in Atlanta, which they'd been very interested in the year before, but it was a small thing in comparison to everything else going on in their lives.
They returned to England with just enough days left of the summer for Draco to find time to do something ill considered: he brought home five puppies as a gift for Hermione's birthday (read: an excuse to adopt puppies).
Hermione was less than impressed and managed to convince Draco that five dogs were too many. They gave two of them to Sirius and Harry, and one to Narcissa, and kept two boys for themselves. Hermione dubbed them Plato and Aristotle. Nox was less than impressed with The Philosophers and it took Draco days to earn her forgiveness.
On the night before they were to return to Hogwarts, Hermione was in their bedroom going through her trunk to ensure that she hadn't forgotten anything, when Draco entered the room wearing only a pair of silk pajama bottoms slung low on his hips and the protective amulet Hermione had enchanted for him which he never took off, cradling the two puppies in his arms like two very contended furry babies. And he was so obviously up to something that she was certain Salazar Slytherin was rolling in his grave at the lack of subtlety from a student of his House.
"Hermione," he began without preamble, "we need to bring The Philosophers to Hogwarts."
She sighed. "We've talked about this." They had, in fact, had this discussion at least five times."Dogs aren't on the list of Hogwarts' acceptable pets."
"That's true, but as you know, Father has gotten us an exemption."
"Draco," she sighed.
"No, hear me out. I know you don't like getting special treatment and you think people will resent us for it. But I mean, come on, look at them. Who do you think will really resent having them around? Plus, we need them."
He punctuated that last statement with a decisive nod of his head.
"We need them." She repeated with a frown - this was a new argument.
"Yes. In order for your plan to work to distribute our dice, we have to get to know my housemates well enough to be able to tell Luna who to approach. But I'm intimidating for a number of reasons, especially to the younger years. I mean, I ran around last year playing junior Death Eater."
"And you'll be doing the same this year," she reminded him, but she cringed as she did so, she knew how he hated the part he had to play.
For once he appeared unphased. "Yes, but that's why it's even more important. A couple of puppies humanizes me. Because, I'll bet you anything kids will flock to us to play with them, and people drop their guard around cute little animals."
"Draco, I don't think they're going to start spouting their true feelings about the Dark just because we have cute dogs."
"Of course not," he rolled his eyes, "like I said, it's just a way to get to know those of my housemates that I probably wouldn't otherwise. The rest will just be intuition."
She chewed on her lip as she considered his points.
"It's the best plan we have," he added quietly, "because we basically had no plan at all."
Hermione sighed. She couldn't put her finger on why she was being so stubborn about this issue, why it chafed so badly that Lucius had gotten an exception to the rules for them. She suspected that, deep down, she was a little nervous about playing the pure-blood princess and didn't want anything that would draw more scrutiny to her than she knew she would already be getting. But she would never tell Draco that, he felt enough guilt over the situation already.
"Also," he broke into her thoughts, "if we leave them here, they'll think we abandoned them and then they'll have forgotten us by Christmas. Mother will have spoiled them rotten and they'll love her best." She looked up to see that he was actually pouting. He shifted them in his arms and held them up on either side of his face. "Look at their faces. How can you leave them behind?"
He was being incredibly dramatic and yet she felt her heart twist.
"Please my love."
Oh, he was really laying it on thick.
"Please."
"I'm going to tell Harry you begged," she heard herself say.
His face lit up. "Is that a yes?"
"It's a yes." He closed the space between them and kissed her hard, then he encouraged Plato and Aristotle to cover her face in little puppy kisses. "Okay, okay," she laughed, pushing at his chest. "Now go away, I have to finish up here."
"You're the best," he grinned and turned to leave the room, practically skipping. "You're going to Hogwarts boys," she heard him say as he stepped through the door.
She bit her lip to suppress a grin. "I am such a sucker."
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September 1st was a surreal experience. Draco had often considered what it would be like to arrive at Hogwarts with Hermione on his arm. The Summer Fete had been one thing, but for the most part it had been adults, people who didn't really know them in attendance that night. It felt different being surrounded by their fellow students.
He felt surprisingly melancholy as he looked around Platform 9 & 3/4. There was a part of him that was thrilled to have her beside him, most of him actually. But there was another that hated the necessity of her hidden identity, and that made his heart sink like a lead weight.
They made their farewells to Lucius and Narcissa and boarded the train. She nudged him as they searched for a compartment. "That thing you're doing, stop doing it," she whispered.
"I can't help it."
"Stop feeling guilty for things that aren't your fault. You're behaving like Harry."
That had him standing up straight. "Shut your mouth witch, that's just mean." She let out a peal of laughter and he relaxed.
They found a compartment where Theo Nott was seated alone, which was exactly what Draco had hoped for. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, Pansy Parkinson soon joined them, followed by Crabbe and Goyle. He knew he had to have a conversation with them in order to make his priorities for the year clear, especially when it came to Hermione, but he had stupidly hoped to put it off.
Draco introduced Crabbe, Goyle to Hermione - she had already met Theo and Pansy at the Summer Fete - and then the puppies whined to be allowed out of their carrier so he obliged, and to be fair, he let Nox out of hers as well.
The puppies clambered onto their laps while Nox just glared at him disdainfully and leapt onto the luggage rack. He had a feeling she still hadn't completely forgiven him for inserting a pair of canines into her world.
"What are those?" Pansy asked, wrinkling her nose.
"They're dogs, obviously," he intoned.
"I know that but what are they doing here?"
He grinned at Hermione and put an arm around her. "They were an early birthday present for Mia, Father got permission for us to bring them."
Pansy sniffed, but didn't comment.
"What are their names?" Goyle asked, leaning forward to regard them with genuine interest.
Hermione eagerly sat up a little straighter at the question, practically radiating pride. "This is Plato," she placed her hand on the puppy in her lap, "and this is Aristotle," she reached over to touch his brother who was gnawing on Draco's belt, "we call them The Philosophers," she beamed as she spoke. Draco knew that she found their names to be infinitely amusing. He had no real understanding as to why, nor did he have any idea how she'd come up with them, but he'd been walking on thin ice with her at the time and hadn't been inclined to ask.
"Why?" Goyle asked.
"Why, what?" Draco could hear the frown in Hermione's voice.
"Do you call them 'The Philosophers?'"
Hermione slowly turned to Draco, her eyes wide, though she was clearly making an effort to control her expression.
"Plato and Aristotle are the names of two famous ancient Greek philosophers, Goyle," Theo provided, before either of them could explain.
"Oh."
The resulting silence was cringeworthy. Neither Crabbe nor Goyle was the sharpest knife in the potions kit, and both were easily led. But, whilst Crabbe was power hungry and anxious to absorb some of the reflected glory of a strong leader - a perfect future Death Eater - Goyle was just simple, so simple that sometimes it was painful.
"Would you like to hold him?" Hermione finally asked kindly, holding Plato out in Goyle's direction, his face lit up in a way Draco had never seen before and he carefully but eagerly, took the puppy into his big hands.
Draco reached over and squeezed Hermione's knee.
They all made small talk until the train departed and Crabbe cracked his knuckles. "So, Umbridge is still Headmistress, this should be a good year. We should have some fun on the Inquisitorial Squad." It was like he'd read Draco's earlier thoughts.
Draco snorted.
"What?" Crabbe asked with a frown.
"Are you still on board with that nonsense? Because I, for one, am done."
"What do you mean?"
"All that extra work for what? Our illustrious Headmistress' approval? She's nothing, a Ministry lackey," he said with a dismissive flick of his wrist.
"Well, we get to take points from Mudbloods and half-breeds and Gryffindors!"
"Who cares? The point system is meaningless and we all know it. I plan to devote myself to much more pleasurable pursuits," he nuzzled Hermione's neck. "Not to mention I'm still a Prefect and I'm Quidditch Captain. I don't have time to bother with her power trip." He scoffed. "You realize she's nothing more than a figurehead, right? Don't waste your time sucking up to her. The Dark Lord will take care of the other problem."
Crabbe leered. "So he was pleased by your… project?"
"I think you'll find that Granger has disappeared and Potter is adrift. So, yes."
"How do you know that?" Pansy demanded eyeing the way he was holding Hermione with so much envy that he almost felt sorry for the girl—or he might have, if he thought she had a single feeling for him that didn't include his title or his vaults.
"My father is Chairman of the Board of Governors. Granger got a whole bunch of O.W.L.s, of bloody course," he rolled his eyes." Apparently, McGonagall kicked up a big fuss when she withdrew. Like most of us aren't saying 'good riddance.' And everybody knows how much Potter depends on Granger."
Hermione subtly caressed his hand, obviously knowing how hard it was for him to talk about her like this. He relaxed against her. They all laughed, and as promised, playing her part, Hermione followed suit. However, he did not like the way Pansy was eyeing her at all and resisted the urge to sigh. It was always something.
0000000000
"You know you won't be able to hold onto him, don't you?"
The Slytherin upper years were lucky enough to have their own individual bedrooms, but they still had to share a bathroom, divided between the sexes. Hermione didn't bother to look at the dark headed witch standing beside her at the sinks, just glanced at their reflections in the mirrors.
"Excuse me?"
"Draco. I know he seems like a catch, but he's already cheated on you. He spent the better part of last year running all over this castle with a Mudblood, or didn't you understand what we were talking about on the train?" She smiled at Hermione maliciously.
And it was such a transparent attempt that Hermione almost felt sorry for the other witch. Pansy would bore the hell out of Draco. She carefully finished combing her hair and turned to face Pansy.
"You think I didn't know about that?" Hermione said and Pansy's smile faltered. "You think Draco does anything without my knowledge? He loves me, he tells me things. That's why I'm here, you know. He easily could have left me at home to continue my homeschooling with his mother, but he wanted me here with him. He was acting on orders when it came to the Granger girl, but he's mine."
"We'll see."
Hermione actually rolled her eyes. "Cross me at your own risk, cross Lucius at your own risk. Draco and I have an airtight contract. Lucius calls me 'daughter.' You have some idea what he's capable of, don't you?" She finished sweetly.
Hermione took a little too much pleasure in watching the other witch's complexion go completely white and she didn't look back as she left the bathroom.
00000000000
Lucius sighed. One of these days he was going to be given a break. Today was apparently, not that day.
The Dark Lord had finally run out of patience trying to figure out the contents of the prophecy. He wanted to discover the contents himself, he wanted the prophecy orb.
And his first plan for attaining it included luring Harry Potter to the Ministry, and tricking him into taking it for himself. A plan which was so riddled with pitfalls, that Lucius couldn't even begin to count them. If it failed, then the Dark Lord's wrath would be mighty. And if it somehow worked, it placed the boy in mortal danger. Neither of which Lucius could afford to risk.
So, instead, he'd convinced the Dark Lord that allowing him to have the Ministry 'conveniently' cleared out for the evening so that the Dark Lord could go retrieve the prophecy himself was the best idea. It appealed to his sense of superiority, being able to stride through the Ministry like he owned the place. And Lucius was pretty sure once he heard that there was a 'power the Dark Lord knows not' he would back off of targeting Harry. Because the only thing bigger than his megalomania, was his fear of death.
Now he just had to convince Dumbledore. And, damn it all, but Black was his best bet in doing so.
"Why don't you ever ask me over for a social visit, Malfoy?" Black said as he strode into the sitting room Lucius had retired to an hour after he, himself arrived home. "Why does it always sound like the beginning of the apocalypse?"
"My wife regularly asks you over for social visits," Lucius countered. "Are we pretending we like each other now?" He asked, even as he handed the other man a tumbler of Firewhisky. "Because, otherwise, I will continue to call you in emergencies only."
"Fine, whatever, what do you want?" Black answered petulantly.
Lucius resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He was such a Gryffindor, in the worst ways.
"I need you to help me convince Dumbledore to allow me to bribe Ministry officials to clear out the building for a couple of hours one evening so that the Dark Lord can retrieve the prophecy."
Black set his drink down with a large 'clink,' the amber liquid splashed over the sides of the glass. "Have you lost your damn mind? Are you trying to make Harry even more of a target?"
"The opposite actually."
"Explain," he barked.
"He is already focused on Harry." Lucius saw the other man's eye twitch at his use of the boy's first name. "He now knows that one of the two of them must retrieve the orb. I'm afraid that we might be at a crossroads. Either we allow him to get it without much hassle, or he tries to lure, kidnap, or otherwise cajol Harry into doing it. He's growing impatient, more than impatient."
"He cannot know the prophecy, Malfoy."
Lucius sat forward in his chair and looked at him steadily. "Why not?"
"He'll come after Harry!"
"He's already coming after him, relentlessly so," Lucius let that sink in, arching an eyebrow in Black's direction. "We both know this, he has been since Harry was a baby. But I think if he knew the full prophecy he would retreat, reconsider. It would buy us more time at least, which we both know is what we need. I can't hold him off forever, nobody can, not even Dumbledore. He needs to be defeated and for that we need time, you know what must be done."
"Why would knowing the full contents make him retreat?"
"Because he clearly believes that Harry is the child of the prophecy, and the part that he hasn't heard, says that Harry has a power that he knows not. That will terrify him. He'll want to investigate that, be sure he knows how to defeat him, before he makes a move."
Black picked his drink up again and downed it. "There's no end to his depravity, is there?"
"I'm afraid not."
"You keep saying that he's insane, that there is no predicting him."
"He is, at best, unstable. It does make him difficult to predict. But he is truly terrified of death, he is predictable in that. I think it lessens the risk for Harry, if he hears the prophecy, and it gives us the added bonus that he feels like he's accomplished something."
"I hate that you're making sense."
"Will you speak to Dumbledore with me?"
"Yes," he pinched the bridge of his nose. "But I'd like to stop playing Russian Roulette with my kid's life as soon as possible."
Author's Note: It kind of feels like the world is on fire, so I've inserted puppies into this fic. I'm not even a little sorry. Plato and Aristotle are a magical breed of dog, but I imagine them looking a lot like English Setters. So, there are pics on my Pinterest board (you're welcome) haha. Also, if you'd like to read more about how they joined the Malfoy family and haven't already, check out Chapter 11 of Beyond an Unexpected Malfoy. Thank you guys for your patience, your continued interest in this story and just for reading. Beta love (and for dropping everything last minute) to Weestarmeggie.