Chapter 2

As it turns out, there is not much you can say to a painting, and there's virtually nothing that you can say to a painting of somebody who's dead.

'How's it going?'

'How are you?'

'It's been a long time, where are you these days?"

'War was a drag buddy, no hard feelings.'

Hermione found herself in a similar situation now as she continued to stare at him, wracking her brains to say anything that wouldn't sound completely ludicrous. She needn't have bothered, because she said the first thing on her mind anyway.

"How did you die?"

Draco Malfoy, who'd been watching her as she gathered her thoughts with a dark expression on his face, looked absolutely furious now.

"Why are you here, Mudblood?" He bit out.

She raised an eyebrow at the word, hackles already raised, but eventually decided to ignore the jab because being a mudblood was better than being dead, and she knew he knew that. She was surprised at how strongly she wanted to rub it in his face; she who was normally a morally sound person.

"Oh, didn't you hear? Your house is getting turned into a visiting site." She sniffed, looking around at the room. "Though now I wonder why anyone would want to visit your deceased lot, considering the state of this place."

"That's not possible," he said flatly, "This manor was never subject to ministry control. My father – "

" – will hear about this?" She asked. Not bloody likely.

"No, you stupid bint! He made a stipulation in his will that if in case the Malfoy line does not survive, the manor will assuredly be passed on to the nearest relative – "

"Who is..?"

"Andromeda Tonks!" He exclaimed, as if that was blindingly obvious.

"Oh, well. I will make sure to enquire about it, but you didn't tell me – "

Her next words were interrupted by the sound of a massive crash. It seemed to have come from outside, so she started towards the exit. Opening the door, she almost walked right into someone.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Miss!", the elf squeaked.

Hand on her chest, Hermione heaved a sigh of relief. She hadn't expected this project to turn out half as unpredictable, and this was when she hadn't even started on her job.

"It's alright, it was my fault. What was that noise?"

The elf widened her tennis-ball sized eyes.

"Noise, Miss? Bitsy heard no noise!"

"No? But it was just here. It sounded as if something had broken."

But Bitsy had just caught sight of the door behind her and she looked as if she'd seen a ghost. Her ears flattened against her skull as her eyes darted in every direction.

"Miss, that room is out of bounds! It's very, very dangerous. You mustn't go there, you mustn't!", she spoke in a very small, hushed voice, causing every hair on the back of her neck to stand up on its end.

"Er – why is it out of bounds?"

She had immediately clamped her yellow teeth over her mouth in what looked to be a very painful manner.

"Whoa, ok. It's fine. No need to – "

Bitsy looked more pained with each word that Hermione spoke. Just when she thought that the poor elf was going to faint from the ordeal, she blurted:

"Dark magic belongs in that room! You mustn't place yourself in danger, Miss! It is full of dark things!"

"Really? It didn't look like dark magic. Just a bunch of old furniture," said Hermione uncertainly, not mentioning the portrait for some reason.

"I'm forbidden to disclose anything, Miss," she said, the tray full of pots rattling in her small, bony hands, "Bitsy will have to punish herself! But do not cross into that room! Never!"

Hermione stared at the elf, a bit dazed from her warning. She was younger than the elves she'd seen in her lifetime, obviously not senile…and she looked dead scared of something. Was getting carried away in the moment worth jeopardizing the first day of the project? Surely the caustic words coming out of one Draco Malfoy's painted mouth could wait.

"Alright, Bitsy. I'll be keeping that in mind," She extended her hand, but retracted it on catching sight of the load of dishes in both of her hands. "I'm Hermione, by the way. I'm going to be working in the library from this day onwards. Care to tell me where it is?"

The elf was all too happy to be giving the directions towards the Malfoy library and Hermione finally decided to get on with her job.

She could recall a time during her school days when she used to spend a few minutes staring at Draco Malfoy – a time when she'd barely started seeing any boy in the same light as she did Professor Lockhart – how he would sometimes look at the people around him as if they were automatically inferior. She had first noticed it in her second year, even before he'd ever started calling her that horrible name. And it couldn't have been because of their blood because he looked at his friends in much the same manner; she'd guessed that it was something that came with being the sole heir to the oldest and most prosperous magical family in the entire country. She hadn't understood it then. She just couldn't see how getting randomly born into a rich family gave you the right to look down on other people. So, you got dealt a lucky hand, that didn't make you a God.

Then as she'd grown older, she started seeing things as they truly were. She saw how it was not necessarily a lucky hand, how it came with a heavy price, and how being rich and pureblooded still made you human enough to cry in a bathroom as you were hounded by a madman to do his bidding, and that too just for a laugh. Draco Malfoy had oscillated from one extreme to the other in the time that she'd known him, and everywhere in between – with his bullying, cruelty, arrogance, deceit, shame and helpless misery – but he'd never once lost that profound sense of superiority.

Now standing between tall shelves filled to the brim with rich magical history, she understood where a little bit of that came from. If she'd had a library half the size of this one, she'd feel like the luckiest person on Earth. She'd feel like she'd been handed over a legacy that was literally centuries old, and she would have done virtually anything to hold on to it, to protect it, cherish it.

All this didn't belong to Draco Malfoy, he belonged to all of it.

Or had belonged, to be exact.

Her mind still couldn't the hang of it, the idea of him having been dead all this time. She'd learnt it three years ago through an email from Harry – muggle communication had seemed quick, reliable and relatively safe during the post war period. But it was also probably why it never fully registered.

'..and you'd probably be shocked to know of this, but Draco and Lucius Malfoy both died two days ago. Ministry is trying to hush it all up, and there's been talk of some curse involved, but between you and me, the whole thing stinks of foul play, and one of Voldemort's more ardent supporters is to blame. Lestrange is my best guess, but Ginny says no because he's still in Azkaban. What do you think? Shouldn't be too hard for a man like that to orchestrate a murder from behind bars if you ask me... Anyway, any lead on your parents yet?.."

There had been none, and she'd given that mail barely half a minute of contemplation; she'd gotten used to hearing about deaths, and at that time she'd been primarily worried for her parents' lives and scared to death over the possibility of losing them forever.

Now she wondered why she was so surprised. The Malfoy manor stood bereft of it owners, ready to be converted into a Ministry owned landmark, and she had no idea why.

Glancing at the books around her for possible answers, she lowered into the ground. Her hands reached off their own accord to pluck a book from the shelf, driven partly by habit and partly by the otherworldly magic of the manor as it called to her, whispering words from a forgotten language.

She knew this place had probably been constructed to spurn her kind – but sitting on her knees, her head lowered in unexpected reverence, she could've sworn that it was accepting her as its own.

At five minutes past six o'clock, a highly flustered Ginny walked into the Leaky Cauldron. Peeping from her overflowing bag was the lime-green healers' robe encrusted with the St. Mungo's emblem.

"One more time, and I swear I'll murder you," she began, sliding into the chair opposite her, "Wands 'n Willows is a perfectly nice pub and guess what? Right next to St. Mungo's, but no… prodigal daughter Hermione Granger has to drag me fifty miles away into this sorry establishment, and just because."

Hermione bit down on a grin, as she idly circled the rim of her bottle with a finger. "All you have to do is Apparate."

"..which drains almost half my energy by the time I get back," she said matter-of-factly, then curled her fingers around the chilled bottle of butterbeer, "but thanks for this."

Once they had finished most of their drinks, Ginny began.

"So. How was your first day?"

Hermione thought about it.

"It was… interesting."

The redhead cocked her head to side, "I know what that means… it means there's no chance for you to get any action."

"Ginevra Weasley!"

"Tell me then, name one guy who caught your eye."

"Well, I didn't really get a chance to meet anybody apart from Luna, and I worked alone for the rest of the day."

Ginny raised her eyebrows.

"I wanted to work alone," Hermione explained.

"Hmm. And why are you doing this, again?"

She let out a long drawn sigh.

"We've been through this. I can't just not do something. You're an Apprentice Mediwitch, Ron's doing great in his Quidditch, and Harry – "

" – is very interested in what you're going to say next," came a voice. Hermione looked up to see the lanky form of a very amused Harry Potter settle in right next to his girlfriend.

"I was going to say 'getting pretty bigheaded'," she quipped.

He laughed, before turning sideways to peck Ginny lightly on the cheek.

Harry had joined the Auror Training Programme, just like he'd always intended to, but it hadn't gotten off to a very good start. He hadn't been able to pass the first few tests in the initial year, and after a difficult couple of months, he'd had to retake the beginner's course to get on the right track. Harry jokingly said that he was failing now because she wasn't by his side letting him sail through as easily, like she'd done at Hogwarts, but Hermione suspected it was something else. It was the void of magical ability that Voldemort's soul had left when it had fled Harry's body. So he was going to have to work just a little bit harder. But now he was showing significant progress, and was on his way to become a very successful Auror.

"Harry, I needed to ask you something."

"Go on."

She pushed her bottle away.

"What's the Malfoys' story? I mean, what exactly happened there?"

Harry rubbed his eyes, probably tired. "I'm not really sure, Hermione. Nobody is. The Malfoy's have just… poof. Gone. Vanished off the face of the Earth."

"But you said they were murdered."

"I suspected they were, but I'm not too sure now. There wasn't any planned investigation. All I know is that Lucius Malfoy dropped dead during his trial, right in the middle of the Wizengamot and I was there. Some say that he was cursed by someone in the audience, or possibly the jury but the more I think of it, the more I'm starting to realize that it was just a good ole' heart attack, a subject which I frankly think…", he glanced towards Ginny, "..the magical world is still in dark about."

"But what about Draco?"

He looked down uncomfortably into his drink.

"His body was discovered in Hogwarts some days after. Cause of death was unknown, as nobody was there to witness it. He had a separate room to himself, you see. He'd returned to complete his seventh year."

Something clenched tightly inside of her, and she felt incensed all of a sudden. She didn't know why.

"Doesn't that seem the slightest bit suspicious to you?," she said, " - and why on earth has the Ministry completely ignored it for so long?"

"Hermione…it's the Malfoys," began Ginny, "...the common citizenry was all too happy to get rid of them, and the last thing they would've wanted to do was investigate a dead-end case when there's an entire new world to build ahead of them."

"But don't the dead deserve justice? Doesn't his mother – " she stopped dead, "Wait – what about Narcissa? What happened to her?"

"Well, she didn't take their deaths especially well."

No shit.

"You mean she's alive? What are they doing then, taking their manor under custody?! Where's she?"

They both shared a glance.

"She's been living in the Janus Thickey ward at St. Mungo's for the past two years," said Ginny.

Please tell me what you thought!