CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: FALLING IN
Her breath caught in her throat. Her, Minister of Magic? What, how, why, when, where was he going on about?
"You're crazy," she said in wonder.
"Aren't we all?" he mused.
"Now is not the time to get philosophical about things!"
"Fine," he ceded. "Are you in or out?"
"What are you talking about!" she whisper-yelled at him across the desk, suddenly conscious of the idea of someone, anyone overhearing this particular conversation. "You're the current Minister's assistant, and you know as well as I do that he's a good one! Why would you want to conspire to replace him with me?"
"Because you'd be a better one," he said, also keeping his voice low.
"You don't know that!"
"I actually do," he said.
"How?" she asked.
He became as aloof as a cat.
"It would take too long to explain," he said.
"Please try?" she asked, at her wits end.
"Perhaps another time."
Oh, Merlin. She glimpsed, for a moment, the labyrinthine depths dealing with Lucius Malfoy would entail and most of her mind screamed at her to simply walk away, to not touch this ball of tar, because this was a situation from which she may never get out. But there was that other part, the part that nagged how very fascinating it all was, like seeing for a split-second a vast vault full of secrets and mystery and she very much wanted another glimpse. In fact, an idiotic part of her wanted to inspect the contents of this vault.
On top of that, and as much as these circumstances should have made her think otherwise, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was sincere. However, this was Lucius Malfoy. Was he ever sincere? He certainly seemed sincere enough since the war, but was it all a façade? Was he playing her in a long con? It tied her brains in knots.
She came out of her thoughts and realized he'd been studying her face.
"You can trust me," he said.
"Did you just use occlumency on me?" she asked, alarmed and defensive.
He had the audacity to look amused.
"No," he said, and then he must have seen her disbelief because he added: "You wear it all on your face, Miss Granger."
Did she?
"Then if I do," she said, "Tell me if I'm going to take your offer today."
He observed her from across the desk, and if it were the case that she wore it all on her face, it was also the case that he was completely unreadable with his strange blue trim and unexplained Roman hair and out-of-the-blue offers of power and greatness to someone he had a long history of despising. And there was also his pleasantness and reformed-ness and politeness, yet approachable-ness… ever since the war ended. Ever since he split with Narcissa Black. Ever since…
"I don't know," he said.
"Are you really Lucius Malfoy?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
She must have looked dubious because he reiterated.
"I am," he said, something of a smile crossing his face. And then, after a pause, "Why?" But he said it as if he were amused by it.
"Because you aren't the same," she said.
"I would have to agree with you," he said.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I will tell you someday," he said, withholding and… sad?
Hermione leaned on her desk and let out a sigh of frustration, letting her eyes fall to the desk-papers under her hands. How was she to trust him if he wouldn't even tell her a single thing she asked?
"Hermione," he said, and there were so many colors in that word as he said it that she felt a chill go down her spine and she drew back.
He looked surprised by his own admission, though it wasn't an admission at all, it was only a name, but it seemed strangely intimate somehow, and for several long moments Hermione's thoughts locked in a futile attempt to make sense of it.
"I'm sorry," he said, breaking all eye-contact and amending: "Miss Granger."
He looked for the door (though of course neither of them had lost it), and then cleared his throat.
"I'll come back another time," he said, extricating himself.
"Wait," she said, though half of her brain disbelieved she'd just stopped him. He was responsive, pliant, he stopped on a dime.
"Yes, Miss Granger?"
"Tell me more," she said, knowing full well curiosity killed the cat but being unable to resist the visceral thrill that satisfying curiosity would give.
-ooOOoo-
Time passed, and no one could do anything about it. It took them five years of combined effort and intellect to manage it, but, once they'd figured out how to maintain something of a parley of trust, they'd done it. It took Lucius bringing to Hermione's attention some of the things Kingsley Shacklebolt had done and tried to silence to make her raging-Gryffindorian-justice instincts stop at nothing to see him replaced. If it was her that replaced him, all the better to keep the office clean. And, in all those five years, Lucius never once called her "Hermione" again.
"Madame Minister," said Lucius to her (in a congratulatory manner) on her first day in office.
"But why does it seem as if you're mocking me?" she asked, giving him a wry look.
"It's your own insecurity at fault," said he.
"You're definitely mocking me," she said.
"Why would I do such a thing? You now have the power to fire me."
"Oh, good! You're fired."
"What have I wrought?" he mourned.
Later, she asked him to go to dinner, to celebrate conquest.
"I certainly would accept your offer, Miss Granger, but it is against ministry policy for us to date."
"'Date'?" she cried, outraged.
"Since I'm your subordinate, and all," he said.
"I didn't ask you on a 'date'!" she objected.
"But how would it look?" he asked, feigning scandal.
"You're fired," she said. "Problem solved."
"Contrary to what you might presume," he said, "continuously firing me will not solve all of your problems."
"But it is so very satisfying," she sighed.
Dinner was fine, but she could tell Lucius was distracted.
"So," she said. "You can just tell me what's on your mind, or I can drag it out of you, kicking and screaming."
"Can we do the latter?" he asked, piqued.
"Not tonight," she said, feeling her new-found authority.
"You're no fun since you've become Minister," he said.
"On the contrary, I think I'm lots of fun," she said.
He gave a sort of half-smile and looked thoughtful. Definitely not normal. She pointed at him.
"Don't you dare do something strange like agree with me," she warned.
"Oh, I wasn't even entertaining the idea," he said, but went on: "To be honest, I was thinking about something else."
"Of what were you thinking?" she asked, curious. She liked his thoughts. They were, perhaps, one of her favorite things.
He seemed hesitant to get it out, so she waited, which is something she'd learned from him, though she'd never admit it openly. He let his eyes fall to his plate.
"It is a pleasure to see you bloom, Miss Granger," he said, sans eye-contact. "To see you reach closer to your potential than you might have otherwise."
She was stunned by his candid demeanor, so much so that she didn't move or say anything as seconds passed. He shifted, and still didn't look at her, but drummed his fingers on the table, because there was something else in there he hadn't gotten out yet.
"Wh-," she began, at the same moment when he started again.
"I-," he began, and paused.
"Please," she ceded, and their eyes met, and she saw something familiar there, but she didn't think she'd ever seen it before.
"Miss Granger," he said. "I think it's time I show you something."
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's important," he said.
"Yes, and," she said, "so…"
She could tell this was difficult, and the sadness she'd seen in him in past years reemerged.
"Mr. Malfoy, what is it?" she asked.
"Will you come to the manor?" he asked.
"Ah, does the part where you assassinate me come next?" she asked.
"Definitely," he replied.
"Well then," she said, calling for the check, "I don't see why not."
-ooOOoo—
The mid-May moon rose above the roof of Malfoy Manor with ease of practice, bathing the gardens, statues, and fountains in greys and blues. Her footsteps on the stone pathway reminded her of the déjà vu on the day of Draco's wedding, and the sound of wildlife in the shrubs reminded her of something she couldn't place. Most markedly, however, the thought of entering Malfoy Manor wasn't bothersome to her as it might have been some years ago. Lucius Malfoy, if he meant her any ill intent, had had countless opportunities to destroy her over the past five years and had never once made the move to do so. In fact, he'd always worked tirelessly in her favor. And his own favor, of course. Fortunately for them both, their life-goals, talents, and intellect aligned in a serendipitous way.
"Has the manor ever been … um… derelict?" asked Hermione as they crossed the grounds.
"Why do you ask?" he replied.
"It's nothing," she said, with an awkward chuckle. It was nothing, to be sure. She wasn't about to tell him about her silly déjà vu years ago.
He stayed silent as they approached the front door, and it opened on its own. Hermione watched it open, feeling as if she'd seen it do that before. She looked at Lucius.
"Have you charmed your front door?" she asked.
"No," was all he said. The sadness which she'd only glimpsed in the past seemed to weigh on him now, and she wondered why. Could it be he missed Narcissa? Did the manor remind him of her? Hermione had no way of knowing, since she'd never once observed him here since the wedding, and certainly not inside.
"Ah, master," said a house elf as they entered. "Shall I prepare tea for you and your guest?"
"Please," said Lucius, and then beckoned Hermione follow him into the hallway. Paintings of elder Malfoys lined the hall, observing them both in silence. Hermione couldn't shake the feeling of heaviness that pervaded the manor, like everything around her was collectively holding its breath.
"Where are we going?" she asked, her voice feeling small and absorbed by the high ceilings.
"My office," he replied, pensive but resigned.
"What is the matter?" she asked him, and perhaps also asked the manor itself.
Lucius took his time answering, and they'd arrived at what she assumed was his office before he began to speak.
"Miss Granger," he said, moving around the side and behind a large, mahogany desk. Behind him, large windows framed his silhouette, and even further behind was the silvery-blue night sky and darkened landscape of the manor grounds. She felt as if she'd seen something like this before, and it began to nag at her. Never had she experienced so many familiar things in a place in which she had surely never been.
"Have you used a pensieve before?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
"I have memories to show you," he said.
"You do?" she asked. This was a very curious development.
He produced a pensieve from a shelf and placed it on his desk.
"You certainly are behaving rather seriously about this," she remarked.
He almost half-smiled.
"I can say that while I do wish to show you these memories, I must admit that at the same time I dread it," he said.
"Why?" she asked. "Have you done something terrible?"
"Are you really asking me that question?" he asked dryly.
"Fine," she said. "Recently. Or in a way that should impact me and my opinion of you."
He looked at her for a moment.
"I suppose that depends upon one's definition of 'terrible'," he said.
"I am so curious," she said.
"That doesn't surprise me," he said.
"Then show me," she said.
"You need to know that nothing will be the same ever again after you see these memories," he said.
"What have you done?" she asked.
"It's not what I have done, per se, but one might say it is what this house has done," he replied.
"This house?" she asked, incredulous, eyeing the walls around them.
He considered for a moment, rapped his knuckles on the desktop either in thought or as a release of whatever tension was pent up inside of him, and he murmured, "I suppose there's nothing to be done for it."
She didn't know if he'd said it to himself or to her, or to the manor, or the universe at large.
Lucius sat at the desk and began magically streaming silver memories from his mind into the pensieve, and he did it with such care she was drawn to believe he found those memories to be precious. She'd never seen Lucius behave in such a way so she couldn't be sure what exactly he was about. Some minutes passed, and in the meantime she pulled up a chair and sat nearby, resting her chin in her palm and observing the silver-flowing surface of the loaded pensieve.
Though he seemed to be done, he stared at it for a long moment.
Hermione cleared her throat delicately and he looked up at her.
"Come on, then," he said gently.
He took her arm, and they fell.
What they fell into was immediately puzzling. Following a blinding flash of light, it looked as if they were in the dining hall of Malfoy Manor, yet there was no dining table, and it looked extremely disused, and to be more precise, it was derelict. Very derelict. The sort of disuse that comes from decades of neglect. How could it be this way? How could Lucius remember it so if it had never been this way in his lifetime? And… oh my.
"Is that me?" asked Hermione of Lucius.
He glanced at her, but she had more to ask.
"Why do I look … older?"
"And that's you! But you look younger than you are now!"
She couldn't give him time to reply.
"And Luna! And we're terrified!"
"What is this?"
"That will become clear in time," said Lucius, reserved.
"Mr. Malfoy?" asked memory-Luna.
Hermione watched as memory-Lucius collapsed on the floor and the memory shifted to a new one, in another room, equally derelict, a sitting room, full of dust and cobwebs and neglect. She and Luna knelt beside a sofa upon which Lucius woke and sat up in a bolt. She watched as they leaned back in fear, and memory-Hermione even held two wands in defense. It was actually sort of comical. What did she think he would do? Who was this Hermione? It was clearly not her. She'd never experienced any of this. But it felt familiar in a stupid, stupid way that was driving her crazy.
She watched as memory-Hermione caught up to a manor-searching Lucius, and that Lucius, the one in these memories, was the one she had expected all those years ago when he came to her office. He was imperious, he clearly didn't like her, and saw her like a pile of mud that might sully him were he to interact with her too much.
"Fine… what year is it?" she heard memory-Lucius ask.
"… 2015?" memory-Hermione replied, as if she was hesitant to say, but alarm bells went off in Hermione's mind.
"2015?" she demanded of Lucius, who had maintained a sad silence. "That's eight years from now! This hasn't even happened yet!"
"I assure you that all of this has happened," he replied.
"You've travelled in time," memory-Hermione whispered. "You've time-travelled."
Both memory-Hermione and memory-Lucius seemed as if they couldn't believe it, and Hermione herself found she agreed.
"Did you?" she asked Lucius.
"Yes," he replied.
"Did you really?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied.
"Then… none of this has actually happened, yet," she said.
"On the contrary," he said. "It has all already happened… and will never happen again."
"But how can that be?" asked Hermione. "It's in the future!"
Lucius was silent as the memory shifted to out of doors, in misting greening meadows and hills, by a small stone monolith and a mourning Lucius, stone-still, silent, melancholy. Mourning his dead wife. Hermione only became more and more confused.
"Isn't Narcissa still alive?" asked Hermione.
"Probably," said Lucius, though this scene seemed to pain him. "However, for a time, she was dead."
"She was dead, but now she's alive," said Hermione.
"Yes," said Lucius.
"Dead in the future, but alive in the present," said Hermione, seeking clarity.
"I have no idea what she will be in the future, but she was dead in the past," he said.
"Oh my holy handbaskets!" exclaimed an exasperated Hermione for lack of anything better to say, since the situation only became more and more convoluted and illogical.
Memory-Hermione came and offered to help Lucius find out who murdered his wife. She looked small and ineffectual, as if there was little she could offer, however, Hermione recognized the determination in her eyes. Yes, she was probably going to figure it out, or die trying.
She watched as they investigated, sometimes very poorly, sometimes ingeniously, and as they did so, came closer and closer to finding out the truth.
Draco being in St. Mungo's Psychiatric Asylum was a surprise, although he seemed a lot more tolerable as an invalid. Though memory-Lucius suffered clear anguish over Draco's situation, the Lucius beside her seemed relieved.
She watched memory-Lucius and memory-Hermione become something like friends, and she saw that, perhaps more clear to her than to either of them, that they needed each other, relied on each other, and even respected each other, despite their differences. She even saw through some of their arguments that perhaps their disparate life-views were more similar than either would admit.
"I seem to recall having similar arguments with you throughout the years," she said to him.
"Strange how history repeats itself," he replied, belying a faint amusement.
"And yet, you seemed to know how to reply, as if you'd already been through it," was her wry rejoin.
"One uses what one has in one's toolset," stated Lucius airily.
"Cheater," she accused.
"I won," he said. "And that's what matters."
"Can I fire you again?"
"A thousand times, and yet still, here we are," he replied.
She ignored him to watch more.
When she saw the midnight blue ballgown for the spring ball, she was impressed.
"I need that tailor," said Hermione.
"I can find him," Lucius replied.
But when they danced as memory-selves, Hermione took a step back. There was very clearly something romantic going on between them, and it seemed powerful.
"Oh my," said Hermione, suddenly feeling awkward.
"I could try to separate the… more…," he said, then cleared his throat to go on, "romantic parts from the memories."
"There are more?" she cried.
He only paused briefly before saying, "Yes."
She looked at him.
"But it would be very difficult to separate them out," he explained. "As they become more and more aligned with everything we were investigat-,"
"Enough," she said, holding up a hand. "It's … fine."
She glanced at their memory-selves, who seemed to be getting into a fight again despite their previous bliss.
"It's just," she said, glancing around for words to describe it. "It's weird."
Lucius didn't say anything.
Memory-Hermione ran off into the hedge-maze, and she watched memory-Lucius run his hands through his hair in frustration and begin to pace on the fringes of the hedge-maze, as if he were warring within himself whether to follow her or not.
"I mean," said Hermione. "How did this happen?"
"I don't know," answered Lucius honestly.
"But you were there!" she said.
"I still don't know," he replied, helpless.
"That isn't an acceptable answer," she said.
"It just did," he explained poorly.
"Does it not seem weird to you?" she asked.
He coughed.
"It doesn't?"
"It was so subtle I didn't notice it until it was upon me," he ventured. "And by then it was undeniable."
"Oh, Merlin," oathed Hermione.
And so she stopped talking and watched all of it unfold; the discoveries, intrigue, but most of all the falling, falling, falling that they did for each other, and the changes, the realignments, the vast nuclear fission that came over them both. Memory-Hermione became far more noble than she had ever expected of herself; she became willing to sacrifice everything for the preservation of Malfoy. What a revelation! What a revolution! What madness! And what power she possessed at the final glimpse before Lucius would be gone; at the changing of the seasons, and the dissolving universe, or that one, the one in which Hermione would never live.
It felt like a death.
But, here she was, sitting in a chair like everything was normal, in Lucius Malfoy's office, the newly minted Minister of Magic. She was surprised to find tears on her face.
They sat in silence for long, weighted seconds.
Lucius broke the silence with the creaking of his chair as he began to methodically, carefully, take the memories back into his own mind.
Another tear fell down her cheek and she didn't know why.
When he was finished, he put the pensieve away.
"Why-," she began, but her voice was watery and stupid.
He folded his hands and leaned on his desk, waiting patiently for her.
She fought against the stupid, stupid tears that were gripping her and asked, "Why am I so sad?"
He watched her and replied, but not without empathy, "I don't know."
"Why are you so sad?" she accused, wanting to know the burden of sadness she'd seen on him throughout the years. "I'm here, aren't I?"
"You are," he said, and then after a pause: "But you're not her."
Hermione felt a blanket of futility drop upon her from the missteps of time.
"Don't," he protested, "Don't despair, Miss Granger."
"Call me 'Hermione'," she said, small.
He paused.
"Look at what you and I have accomplished," he said, clearly not saying her name, "Narcissa is gone, Shacklebolt is gone, Draco is happy and living the life he should have, and you…"
She had leaned back in her chair and was cleaning up the mess of emotional outburst, attempting to restore some measure of respectability.
"You are what I had hoped you would be," he said.
Augh, it made her want to cry again. There was some residue that refused to leave her, something tucked away deep within her psyche that had just been allowed purchase and now screamed for release. She did not have any logical memories of everything she had just seen, but she felt as if it were true, all of it, and that she'd lived it, but she only felt it. The pain of feeling was almost unbearable, however.
Lucius became attentive at last and stood, then knelt beside her after pulling a napkin from the nearby tea tray.
"I don't know what is happening," she managed, tears returning to stream down her face as she struggled with emotions that seemed to surge from nowhere but threatened to overwhelm her. She was barely aware of Lucius' kindness as he dried her tears, but he was only making it worse, because now she was also embarrassed as well as feeling a thousand other things she didn't know existed an hour ago. Finally, she just gave in and, taking the napkin from Lucius, sobbed uncontrollably into the bundle of cloth for the first time in as long as she could remember. She mourned and mourned and mourned for the thing she never knew and had long since lost.
In time, she became exhausted and came to herself enough to look towards Lucius. He'd left her side and had been gazing out of the window, towards a stand of perfectly manicured rose-bushes that glowed gentle blue in the moonlight. She decided to join him there.
As she arrived beside him, he began to talk.
"Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I had stayed there, with you," he said. "And if we had thrown all caution to the wind and run off to rule some other part of the world."
"Do you regret coming back?" she asked.
"No," he said. "Yes. No. Of course not. For one thing, I don't think the manor would have had it any other way."
"I think you're right about that," she said, glancing at the window's frame. She would most certainly never look at this manor the same way, again. Some part of her longed for that connection again, to know a house. How strange! Yet, how intriguing.
"And for another… Draco got another chance."
"He clearly did," she said.
"And so did you," he said.
"Oh, did I?" she mused.
"You were squandering your talent," he said.
"I suppose you made sure that didn't happen this time around," she said.
"I had to," he said.
"It of course had nothing to do with my own effort," she said.
He had to smile wryly.
"I suppose you helped," he said. "Some."
"But guess who else got another chance?" she asked, glancing askance at Lucius.
"Hm…" he said.
"You," she said.
"I'm the only linear thing in this timeline, how did I get another chance?" he asked.
"If you had never gone forward in time, how different would you have been?"
"Well, assuming I didn't die at the hands of Narcissa and Kingsley," he said, "quite a lot, I suppose. This thing we've done would never have happened. I would have still been so lost in my pride and prejudice that it never would have occurred to me the endless depths of potential you possess, especially when augmented by the slightly more endless depths of potential that I possess."
She smiled at him and might have slightly chortled.
"Fine, you may be somewhat right," he relented, and she brightened in response. "It forced me to know you."
"It forced us both to know each other," she said.
"Hm, by 'it' are we referring to the manor?" he asked.
"Oh," she said, dawning. "Oh."
She glanced around suspiciously at the house around her.
"But even a house isn't so clever," she critiqued.
"You know it can hear you, don't you?" he stage-whispered.
"What's it going to do, send me back in time seventeen years?" she stage-whispered back.
"Only if you're a threat to the House of Malfoy," he said.
"Maybe I am," she said.
"You are not," he replied.
"Who are you to say?" she said, brushing a piece of lint from her sleeve.
"I simply know," he said, and there seemed to be a fondness in his voice which caused her to look up at him.
"But...," she said, "I'm not her."
He looked away, outside, in what seemed like an attempt to stop her from seeing the sadness return. Fat chance.
"No, you're not," he said. And then: "Not yet."
Curious.
She drew a breath, and then narrowed her eyes at Lucius, whose eyes and mind still rested elsewhere.
"I'll go to with you to the Ministry's spring ball if you'll get me that tailor," she parleyed.
"Done," he said with immediacy.
-ooOOoo—