Answers Part 1
"Well?" she said expectantly.
Harry folded the paper up almost lovingly and was about to answer when Mr. Dursley slammed the back door shut with a bang so loud it startled both of them.
"You," he said, panting slightly. "Both of you, in the living room, now."
For the second time that morning, Grace's hazel eyes filled with fear.
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"Would you care to tell me just what you meant by this ... by this display?"
"Nothing to tell," said Harry.
Their gazes turned to Grace. "I wanted to know who Malfoy was," she said defiantly. "And he wouldn't tell me."
"Why were you in my room in the first place?"
"An excellent question – I-"
"Shut it!" Harry said. "Why were you in my room?"
"I ..." She felt it would sound stupid to say she had sensed Harry was hiding something and had wanted to find out what it was. "I ... I don't know ..."
The three of them were in the living room, Grace and Harry on one sofa, Mr. Dursley on the other. Mrs. Dursley was in the kitchen with Sarah, starting breakfast. Dudley, Grace figured, was lurking somewhere just outside the door.
"You don't know why you did it, but you had to go snooping through my things?" Harry pressed. "My private things?"
"I'll ask the questions here if you don't mind," said Mr. Dursley. He stuck his giant, red face very close to Grace's. "Why did you go snooping through his things?"
"I told you, I don't know."
He swore, and then leaned back, reclining on the sofa. "That's it, then," he said.
"What?"
"We'll have to take you back. Tomorrow, if possible."
"I – you can't!"
"Oh yes I can!" His face was growing redder now, he was getting angrier. "I never liked this idea from the start – not one bit! If you'd go through his things, you'd go through our belongings in the blink of an eye. Steal things."
"I'd never-"
"I'm not going to harbor such behavior ..." He continued on, but Grace took no notice. After all this, after she had found out that Harry knew a Malfoy, she was going back? Back to Derkhall Lane?
"... And if I were you I'd get upstairs right now, before one of us does something drastic," Mr. Dursley finished. Grace took one look at his face and fled.
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Grace lay in her bedroom hours later. She was hungry but didn't dare go down for something to eat. Mrs. Dursley was down there.
She couldn't believe how stupid she had been. To get in trouble like that, to embarrass Mr. Dursley in front of his neighbors? How could she have been so stupid as to think he wouldn't care, that he'd let her go with just a warning ...
Maybe if she was his own daughter, if he'd wanted her, things would have turned out differently.
Another one of Grammy's sayings ran through her mind. "While this door is closing, another door is opening. It's our job to go find that door." Something good would come out of this. It just had to.
Grace flipped onto her stomach and squeezed her pillow tightly, trying not to cry. They weren't going to make her cry, not those Dursleys!
Just when she thought she couldn't hold it in any longer there was a knock at the door.
She lifted her face, staring disbelievingly at the door. The knock came again.
"Gracie? Let me in, it's Harry." Grace stiffened at the nickname, but got out of bed and crossed the room.
"Why'd you call me that?" she said accusingly as the door swung open. "Only Grammy ever ..."
She shut the door behind him, turning away to hide the look that had come over her face, but he had seen it.
"I can't believe you did that."
"Did what?"
"Stood up to him like that, out in the yard," he said. "I'd always wanted to do something like that when I was your age, but I never worked up the nerve." He sat down on her bed and pulled an apple out of his pocket. "You want it?"
"Thanks," she said, grabbing it out of his hand and dropping down next to him. "I'm starving."
"It's all I could get." He watched her eating for a while, and then asked, "So, you wanted to hear about Malfoy?"
"Yes," she said eagerly.
"Would you mind telling me how you know him first?"
Grace complied. "There was a family that came over to our house for dinner once when I was eight or nine," she said slowly. She had never spoken about Grammy to anyone before. "Me and the boy had to go upstairs because the grown ups wanted to talk. He said his name was Draco Malfoy." She shuddered.
"What did he do?"
"Well, he didn't do anything," she explained. "His parents did. They convinced Grammy to go on vacation ... and she was killed there ..."
"I'm sorry ..." Harry said softly.
"Never mind that, is it the same Malfoy?"
"Yep," he said. "Blond boy?"
Grace nodded. "His parents too."
"Definitely the same Malfoy," Harry said. "He's in my year at school."
"So you're friends?"
Harry forced his face into a look of exaggerated astonishment. "Now did I say that?" he said. "Malfoy and I are friends like ... like Dudley and I look alike."
"So you're friends, then?" she said with an impish grin.
"C'mon, cut it out," he said. "Malfoy's family's very ... very evil. I wouldn't put anything past them ..."
"Huh?"
"It's hard to explain," said Harry. "The whole family's bad, you know, murderers and stuff like that. They're like ... like a mafia. Sort of. The whole entire family's involved."
"Oh," Grace said, and returned to her apple.
"What was your grandmother's name, anyway?"
"Grammy wasn't my grandmother, I just called her that. Her name was Bertha," Grace said, wrinkling her nose in dislike.
Suddenly, there was a loud crack and the figure of a woman appeared right before their eyes.
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AN: How was that? Please review!
Disclaimer: Most of the characters belongs to JK Rowling. I only own Grace, Sarah, Derkhall Lane, and the plot. The quote "While this door is closing, another door is opening. It's our job to go find that door" was said by Matthew Perry in ... um, well, I got it from the August issue of Reader's Digest, actually.
