Chapter 2
"Mrs. Malfoy?" Hermione heard a man saying. She wondered where the hell she was, obviously somewhere where Mrs. Malfoy was. She felt groggy. Maybe she was dreaming.
"Mrs. Malfoy?" The voice said again. "How are you feeling?"
She tried to speak but her throat was dry resulting in more of a croak. A cup of water was at her lips and she took a sip.
"Can you hear me?" The voice said. Hermione ignored it, he was obviously speaking to Narcissa Malfoy. Which seemed very odd. So she opened her eyes.
"There." The man said looking down at her. "How are you feeling Mrs. Malfoy?"
He was looking at her.
"No, I'm Hermione, you have the wrong person."
"You've taken quite a knock on your head." He said after a while. "Can you remember what happened to you?"
"A chimney fell on me."
"Well, I can imagine it might feel like it." The man said, a medi-wizard, "I have given you some potions to help with the concussion. You should start to feel better now. You should be fine, but take it easy for a few days. Perhaps best to stay in bed today. You should feel better tomorrow."
Hermione didn't bother arguing, what did it matter if this man was confused about who she was. Obviously not someone who was linked with this community, because she looked nothing like Narcissa Malfoy. Hermione went back to sleep.
She woke up later in a strange room, a dark room. A room that looked familiar, then she realised it looked like the room in the bizarre dream she had. No, no, no, no, no, she repeated to herself as she ran into the bathroom. The image revealed the tall, beautiful woman that was Astoria Greengrass, no Astoria Malfoy. In other words, Mrs. Malfoy.
Why, why, why couldn't she just wake up in her own bed. She would wake up, take a sick day and just be at home, but no, some sick practical joke she had to deal with. Or maybe the chimney really did hit her, maybe this was hell. Maybe she did something really bad and her eternal punishment was to be married to Draco Malfoy.
Hermione sunk down on the bathroom floor and cried. It had been an emotional couple of days and now she might be dead. That warranted a bit of a cry.
A pop told her that she wasn't alone. Scuttling little feet came towards the door and knocked.
"Mistress?" The little voice said.
"I'm not your Mistress!" She said, but regretted it as she heard the fearful squeak from the elf.
"I have brought your dinner." The elf said.
"Thank you." Hermione said, trying to make up for the fact that she scared the little creature. "I am very grateful."
She chided herself for being cruel to an elf. Nothing justified it. And she was really hungry.
A tray sat on the table next to the bed. It smelled absolutely divine and she was hungry to the point where she didn't care if it was poisoned or laced with polyjuice potion, or whatever. Right now she needed to eat and she would deal with whatever was going on with a full stomach.
But a full stomach only made her sleepy and she kind of just flopped back on the bed. It was only supposed to be for a little nap, but she woke up again as dawn was breaking. One of those sleeps where she closed her eyes one second and opened them again a second later, that was actually ten hours later.
Her head felt better today. She checked her hand first thing and confirmed that she was still looking like Astoria Malfoy. They must be feeding her Polyjuice potion when she was sleeping, and maybe in the food.
She got dressed, again in ridiculously fine clothes for first thing in the morning. She had to wear heals, when normally she'd be in her slippers and dressing gown.
She marched down to the breakfast room where'd she'd found Malfoy before, but he wasn't there. He must not be up yet. Actually, where was her wand? She should be having this confrontation with her wand in hand. She went back upstairs and search for the wand. She found it on her dressing table. Well, not her wand, Astoria's wand.
If she had Astoria's wand, where was Astoria?
By the time she got back downstairs, Malfoy was sitting in the same place he was before, reading the paper.
"What the hell is going on, Malfoy?" She demanded.
"Astoria." He said coolly. "I have no idea what you are referring to." He said and finally looked at her. "You've forgotten to do your hair."
"Screw my hair, Malfoy." She yelled. "What have you done?"
"You're not in your right mind, dear." He said. "The medi-wizard said you were a bit confused, but that it was understandable considering your injury. Apparently you will come right."
"Right." She repeated. "You call this right? What kind of sick and twisted game are you playing?"
"Perhaps you need to go lay down again." He said through gritted teeth.
Hermione narrowed her eyes, he was playing along with whatever game he had deviced. Then she saw her face on the front page of the Daily Prophet.
'War Hero Dead' the headline said.
"I'm dead?" Hermione yelled and ripped the paper out of Draco's hands.
Her heart started beating as she looked at the article. There was a photo of her on the front page, from her 25th birthday. She was smiling and laughing. It was probably the nicest photo the Prophet had ever printed of her, usually they hung out for the most unflattering stances and facial expressions. But this was nice. Her surrounded by her friends, having a good time. She'd still not known she was barren then. The whole world had possibilities.
But this must be some kind of set up. Malfoy must have had it printed just to confuse her.
"Nice try." She said and threw the paper at him. She marched out of the room. Continued out and apparated away. She was surprised that it worked, but arrived at her flat without any incident.
She would have expected Malfoy to force her to stay, but there was nothing barring her from apparating away.
There was nothing out of order in her flat. Mail on the floor, including a copy of the Daily Prophet with the same article. No, just a very elaborate practical joke. So she apparated to Diagon Alley, where she saw several more copies, all the same with her smiling face on the front.
She picked up one of the articles and read. It said a terrible accident had occurred during the renovation of the Sanderson's home, when a chimney dislodged and crushed the respected war hero. Her body had been taken to the morgue at St. Mungo's in preparation for a funeral on Saturday. It said, she was muggleborn, but as she had no muggle family left, she would have a funeral in the magical community.
Ok, she was starting to get worried now. It could still be a very elaborate joke.
She apparated back to her flat and was confronted by the sight of Ron hugging his girlfriend, sorry fiancée. He was crying and looked up at he saw her.
"Astoria Malfoy?" He said incredulously as he was her. "What are you doing here?"
"I.." She started. "Ron, this really weird thing..."
"I think you should leave." He said with hostility and he came up and slammed the door in her face.
Hermione knew there was no talking to him when he was in a state. Maybe she should try Harry. Obviously they were all unaware that this was a practical joke. A very cruel joke.
The one thing they could not replicate was a body that looked like her. Polyjuice potion didn't work in death. The article said she was at the morgue, so prove it, she thought to herself.
The morgue was in the basement, a sterile and unpleasant place. She'd been there before, after the war. She hated it.
She demanded to see Hermione Granger's body and when asked if she was family, she said she was her cousin Sarah Granger. Sarah Granger was a muggle cousin who lived in Canada, but no one need know that.
The man told her to sit down, while he prepared a viewing. He was very sombre and reverent. Hermione guessed that was part of the job.
After about ten minutes, he came out and said that all was ready. Hermione walked into a room where a body was covered by a sheet.
"There was a bit of damage." He said. "We had to do a bit of reconstruction."
Hermione didn't want to know what that meant. She was pretty sure the body under the sheet wasn't her. But she gasped with shock when the man turned the sheet down. It was her without a doubt. That was her body.
She looked at it closely making sure it wasn't some kind of representation. It would be a massive game if the morgue was in on it too. But that was her body. She could even see the scar from when she was eight and fell off her bike.
She was starting to hyperventilate, which was obviously not unexpected by the morgue attendant because he led her out. Hermione felt wrong about moving away from her body, but the man was pretty insistent.
He sat her down and gave her a cup of water.
"It can be pretty shocking." He said quietly. "Many don't react well."
Really, she screamed in her head, people don't react well to seeing their bodies in the morgue.
She had to get out of there and she ran from the man and the morgue. She was so completely confused. She walked around Diagon Alley for a couple of hours trying to get everything straight in her head. The pieces just didn't fit. In the end her head hurt, her body ached and she was starving again.
Ron was in her flat. She had nowhere else to go. She had no money, there was nothing to do other than to return to Malfoy Manor. Any answered would be there.
She floo'd there and stepped out of the fireplace in the enormous hall.
"Where have you been?" She heard a tense voice across the hall.
"To diagon alley." She said.
"Without your purse." Malfoy said suspiciously.
"Leave me alone." Hermione yelled at him.
He raised an eyebrow on that cold, tense aristocratic face.
"You're a whore, Astoria." He said coldly. "But you've made your bed, now you're going to sleep in it, I'm afraid. I think you should stay here for a while, learn what it means to be a Malfoy. You are obviously having trouble understanding the concept."