Chapter 8

As much as Hermione and Draco really wanted to go immediately to the tomb, both agreed it would be indelicate to demand to see the body of a child presumed dead for almost two decades.

"Then what am I going to do?" Hermione slumped over and held her face in her hands.

Draco could not stand to see her look so defeated. "We." He said calmly.

Hermione looked up, confused "What?"

"What are WE going to do. You aren't in this alone. Not anymore." Draco reached out to wipe the tears from her face with his thumb. His thumb gently brushed across her slightly open lips, relishing in the warm breath that washed across his fingers.

Hermione's eyes widened as Draco slowly leaned in.

"Ahem…" the painting of the four founders coughed behind them. It was Helga Hufflepuff. "You have visitors at the door."

"I am going to burn that painting." Draco growled causing Helga to harrumph in outrage and Hermione to giggle.

It was Blaise and Pansy.

Pansy smirked when she saw the two sitting on the couch and nudged Blaise. "You owe me 5 galleons."

Blaise returned Pansy's smirk, "OK, OK."

"What is this about?" Draco glared at the two suspiciously.

"Oh," Pansy waived her hand airily "we just had a bet going on how long it would take before you were sharing the same side of the common room."

Draco rolled his eyes while Hermione blushed. Their responses only amused the two friends.

Just then Pansy noticed the objects on the table, which the two being so caught up in one another had forgot to remove before allowing guests inside. She gasped. "Draco, that is some serious prison time to have that signet ring! How could you allow Hermione to be in possession of it! Hogwarts won't protect her when the Aurors come to arrest her for this!"

"How do you know I didn't steal it?" asked Draco stalling for time while he could figure out any plausible lie that would explain the presence of a ring that for all intents and purposes held the very power of the Greengrass fortune and influence with a simple press in to a wax seal.

Pansy rolled her eyes "Because you are essentially a coward who doesn't want to go to Azkaban."

She waved him off when he started to protest his cowardice "Any of us would be terrified to go there, Draco."

Looking at Hermione, Pansy said very sternly "I don't know how you got that, but you need to put it back at once. Your Gryffindor bravery will not protect you from the fury of the Greengrasses. If you have used that they have the right to demand life in Azkaban and being a war hero won't spare you!"

Hermione was rather shocked by Pansy's attitude. She almost sounded like she didn't want her to get in to trouble.

Pansy notice the look Hermione gave her "Oh grow up, Granger. I have. We aren't on opposite sides of a war any longer. I am not looking to get in to Draco's pants so that is no longer an issue."

"No longer….?" Hermione started.

"Shut it Pansy." Draco interrupted.

Blaise, who had been ignored all of this time, had started to look at the other objects on the table and picked up the stack of papers before Hermione could grab them back. He dropped them back on the table and looked at her speculatively.

"This is serious Granger." He said quietly.

All Hermione really knew about Blaise was that he had taken no part in the war and had distanced himself from those who did. She knew he shared the same racist beliefs his friends had. He'd made that pretty clear over the years, but had not held them so strongly as to be willing to kill for them. Although perhaps he had changed his opinion somewhat since she had saved him from the fiendfyre in the Room of Requirements (*)

"I know." Hermione said quietly.

Blaise sighed and rubbed his face. "One of my Mum's husbands, who was a barrister before he died, worked on that case, Hermione. It was all very hush, hush from what I know. He left behind information about all of his cases, but there was almost nothing about that one."

Hermione and Draco looked at each other and then back at Blaise.

"What did he leave, Blaise?" Draco asked.

"Just the bare bones. What you could read in the papers. All of his other cases had pictures of the deceased, but not this one." He looked down at the muggle newspaper clipping thoughtfully.

Pansy, who had never been as stupid as she had pretended, picked up on the implications immediately. "Do you mean to say it is possible that Hermione is actually Astoria Greengrass?"

"Yeah… I don't know. I do know that there will be some who would not be happy to have a resurrected Greengrass heir." He and Pansy looked at each other.

"Daphne." Pansy said simply.

"So you don't think Daphne would be happy to have a resurrected twin?" Hermione asked. Having always wanted a sibling she could not fathom this.

"Look at it from her perspective" Draco said somberly. "she has been living in just the shadow of a dead twin. A live one would be infinitely worse. She has always had a bit of a self esteem issue."

Hermione scoffed at this. She could not imagine the beautiful blonde having any reasons to feel insecure. She had been born with beautiful sleek hair and clear lovely blue eyes. Not the bush of hair and plain brown eyes Hermione had been cursed with.

Pansy shrugged "It's true, she never felt like she could live up to the perfect image of her dead twin. And to find that twin alive and the one and only war heroine Hermione Granger on top of that? What isn't there to feel threatened by?"

Hermione was shocked it almost sounded like Pansy had complimented her in a backhanded way.

"Blaise, look in your step father's old things, see if you can find anything to help. Pansy, see if you can get anything out of Daphne." The two nodded and took their leave.

"Thank you Draco." Hermione said quietly. He nodded simply and the two spent the rest of the night reading quietly.

Draco did not go to his own side of the room.

Hermione spent the next week quietly observing Daphne.

What would it have been like to have this beautiful girl as her twin? Would they have been close? Would Hermione have been sorted in to Slytherin? How would that have affected the war? Would she have even been friends with Harry?

(*)Typically I stick to book canon and not the movies, but for this purpose it was Blaise and Crabbe who confronted Harry in the RoR not Crabbe and Goyle and Hermione pulled Blaise on to her broom.