Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters solely belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. I'm just playing with it.
Chapter 12
"So…" Pansy says, chewing on her carrot. "What do you want to know?"
Hermione pauses chewing on her tomato, thinking about what she should ask. A smile spreads over her face and after swallowing, says, "Everything he doesn't want to tell me."
Pansy laughs loudly at that. "I see you haven't lost your sneakiness, Hermione."
They are having a light salad in the same room they'd had dinner the evening before. Only this time only Pansy and Hermione are present.
"Well, let's see," Pansy says when her laughing ceases. "What would be the most beneficial things that you should know?" She pauses, looking at Hermione with a sudden wicked gleam in her brown eyes. "Are you going to tell him you know anything?"
"Hell no!" Hermione immediately answers without thinking, making Pansy laugh again. Hermione hadn't really paid much notice to her in school, but she is certain she has never seen the girl laugh this much. She also has that same feeling with Draco. When she really thinks about it, it unsettles her. Thinking about school, she suddenly remembers something. "Didn't you two date at school?"
Pansy stops laughing. "Yes," she says honestly. "But not for long, it felt weird. Like dating my brother. I still love him though." As an afterthought, she adds, "As a brother." A smile graces her face again and she cocks her head a bit to the side, looking questionably at the girl eating in front of her. "Didn't you keep up with the gossip?"
Hermione shakes her head and mumbles with her mouth full of food. "Only the Gryffindor gossip."
Pansy just nods, pushing her empty plate away. Hermione is still eating, but she has always been a slow eater.
"Now, about Draco. You noticed yesterday already that he has the power to make you come to him, but only if you are in the same room. I really have no idea how that works nor do I know what use it has," she says, holding her hands apologetically up.
"He has one power that you do need to be aware of. If you are really upset, angry, happy or in danger he will feel that." Hermione looks like she has been found out. She opens her mouth but Pansy stops her, already knowing what she is about to ask. "It helps if you are in trouble. He can even locate where you are if he is, for example, in the same house. So if he is near you, he can locate you. It is also a way to console him when he is away, so he will still feel you near him and knows you're okay." Hermione makes a noise in disgust and pushes her now empty plate aside. "Another important thing you need to know is that he can, and he probably will, lay his will on you. That is the term they use in the book for that but it's more like a command you will feel the need to follow. For example..."
"That I cannot leave the house nor contact anyone," Hermione interrupts Pansy bitterly.
For a moment Pansy looks confused but then realization dawns on her. "I didn't think he would start to brag about his powers so soon."
Hermione bites her lip and stares with crossed arms at the table. Looking very much like her nine–year-old pouting self, Pansy thinks.
"Well, it does make a bit sense. I think he's just afraid you would try to escape. He didn't say you could go out at all did he?" she asks, ignoring Hermione's pouting. She is such a drama queen sometimes.
"Only with Draco and Blaise. And I can only contact them two or you."
An angry frown appears on Pansy's face. "You can't go in the garden with me? And it just is such a nice day! Oh Draco, how the hell will I be able to entertain Hermione?"
The answer is delivered by a small pop next to Hermione. A house-elf Hermione has never seen before bows. "Miss Sophia, Mistress Narcissa invites you for tea this afternoon in the patio."
Hermione stares in shock and looks, distressed, at Pansy for any aid.
"Sophia will be delighted. She will be there."
The elf nods and disappears with a small pop.
"Do you think that's a good idea?" Hermione asks Pansy. Panic flickers in her bright blue eyes.
"Why not?" Pansy asks, pushing her chair back and standing up. "Hermione, you cannot say no to Aunt Cissa. She adores you and it's just tea. What can happen?"
Hermione sighs and follows Pansy out of the dining room. "Will you come too?"
"I will bring you there this afternoon but I will not join you."
When she felt Hermione's hand on her arm making her stop, Pansy looks at her. "Please, Pansy. What if she starts crying again? I really have no idea how to cope with that."
Pansy takes her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze, and they start walking again. "No worries. She probably just wants to talk. And I'm positive she will be in control of her emotions now. She is a very emotional woman, Hermione."
Hermione sighs deeply but doesn't say anything.
When they start to walk up the stairs again, she asks, "What are you going to do then when I'm having tea with Narcissa?"
"Looking for ways to get your memory back, as I have promised," Pansy answers with a comforting smile.
Hermione smiles at Pansy as they walk into the sitting room of the east wing.
XXXXX
Hermione stares at the teacup in her hands, loving the smell and the color of the red raspberry. It has been her favorite fruit for as long as she can remember. Taking a small sip of it she places the teacup back on the little table and looks up at her hostess. Narcissa smiles at her and also takes a sip of her tea.
"Even as a child you where always fond of raspberry. I see that has not changed?" A friendly smile is playing at her lips.
"Not at all, madam," Hermione answers, politely. Though she is now relaxed around Draco, which she feels must be due to the bond, and Pansy, doesn't mean she feels comfortable around everyone in this house.
"Oh darling, I told you before. It is Aunt Cissa. You kids always called me that. It feels strange that you should be so distant." Narcissa leans back in her chair and her blue eyes shimmer with tears.
"I know, madam. But, you must understand my place. I don't remember a thing and to me you all are strangers. It would be weird if I would call you 'Aunt' if I don't even know you." Hermione lets her eyes drop to the ground when she answers Narcissa. She can't start to talk to the woman like she is an old, familiar person, even if she is that to Sophia.
"I understand completely, Sophia, but would it hurt you to try? In the meantime, while Pansy is searching for ways to get your memory back, you can get to know me. You used to be a daughter to me, so the distance seems to me inappropriate and, after all, you are my daughter-in-law and speaking to me like I'm a stranger isn't at all appropriate either."
Hermione's breath stops for a second as she hears Narcissa's words. What is she going on about? She will never want to marry Draco. She is not the Sophia everyone here expects her to be. But for some reason, unknown to her, she lets it pass without any comment.
Hermione looks up at the woman and smiles at her. Narcissa is definitely a woman to be reckoned with. "Yes, I see your point, Aunt Cissa." The words feel strangely familiar to Hermione as she slowly speaks them.
A bright smile shimmers on Narcissa's face now. She reaches to the table and takes the platter with little cakes, handing them out to Hermione. "You can have the last one, with apple. You used to be very fond of that."
Hermione smiles back at Narcissa and takes the last slice of apple cake. "I don't think I'm just fond of it. It's more an addiction."
Narcissa laughs out loud. "Yes, indeed. How you used to fight with Lucius over the apple cake the houselves baked. Both of you were very fond of it. Somehow you always got the upper hand when it involved that cake." Her eyes glaze over as she reminisces about Sophia's long forgotten memories.
After taking a bite and chewing on it, Hermione asks, wonderous, "So a little girl won from a grown up man?"
Narcissa laughs again. "Yes, you could say that. But I think he let you win. After all, how could say no to such a lovely girl?"
Hermione sighs. "It's amazing how many things have happened and I can't even remember a single thing." She takes a lock of her blond hair, still surprised by how soft her new hair feels, and twists it around her fingers.
"Do you have any idea why I can't remember anything?" she asls after a few minutes of silence.
Narcissa is just bringing her teacup to her lips when she pauses, midway. Her light blue eyes fixate on the girl she has always seen as her daughter. "No one is sure about what happened the night Alexander and Catherina Naberrie were killed. The authorities claimed there wasn't any evidence left to even start an investigation, but the Malfoy household, just as the Zabini household, always believed they didn't even try. And then it was found out they were loyal Death Eaters, so people didn't care anymore and why should they? Everyone thought 'good riddance'." Narcissa has put her cup back on the table, without drinking from it, and is now wearing a bitter expression. "Catherina was my best friend. I had known her since we were children. I still can't understand how nobody seemed to care." Gripped by the grief she has, so it seems, never learned to accept, Narcissa holds a hand in front of her eyes, pushing back tears that she feels welling up in her eyes. When she has composed herself she looks up again, straight into Hermione's eyes. "You look so much like her, Sophia."
Hermione is still playing with her hair but seems more concentrated on Narcissa's story. Though she doesn't want to admit it, even to herself, she is curious about her past. "Ginny had found an article about the Naberrie family. It said that my parents didn't want me. And that I almost never slept in the Naberrie Manor."
Narcissa looks quite insulted by that. But before she can say anything, Hermione pushes on. "I find it quite strange that on that specific evening I was…" she pauses on the word, "home." It is still difficult for her to think in terms of that. "You see if I hadn't been…" Again, a pause, and her fingers stop twirling around the golden lock of hair. "If I hadn't been there, then… I just wonder how different my life would have been."
Narcissa's expression is a mixture of sadness and disapproval. Before she can answer there is the sound of a deep voice behind her. "Then you would have been a Slytherin." Lucius Malfoy comes into view, walking around Hermione's couch to sit next to his wife. Hermione lets go of her hair and sits up a bit straighter. Scrunching her nose in disgust, she answers honestly. "Probably." There is, of course, no denying that.
After giving Narcissa a kiss on the cheek, he looks at Hermione again. Eyes as grey as Draco's pin her to her seat as he ignores her disgusted look. "We have asked ourselves that same question over and over again for the past eleven years. And if it is one thing we've learned, it is that if we keep asking ourselves 'what if', we will forget to live in the present." And now a smile, that very much resembles the smile Draco gave her, spreads over Lucius face. "So live in the present. And be happy that everything, ultimately, turned out as it should."
Crossing her arms and ignoring his last sentences, because she somehow just knows she would lose the arguement, she turns her eyes again to Narcissa, who is speaking now. "And about that foul gossip your friend found in the papers. Don't believe a word, Sophia. Your parents loved you deeply. It is true you were spending a lot of time here, but that was only to make the bond between you and Draco stronger. And also because I insisted." Hermione has to smile at that. She has always thought that Narcissa was a woman to be reckoned with. "Even on that horrible fateful night, you were at first going to stay here. Then you had that stupid quarrel with Draco and you immediately Floo'd home." A sad expression fills Narcissa's eyes and Lucius places a consoling arm around her shoulders.
Hermione blinks at the revelation. "We had a quarrel?" Somehow she had assumed she and Draco had never argued, given the way she had heard them talk about their past. Lucius smiles at that. "It was not your first one."
"But it was your last," adds a still sad-looking Narcissa.
"About what?" askes an intrigued Hermione, looking from Narcissa, back to Lucius and back to Narcissa again when she speaks. "I think it was about a book," Narcissa says with a questioning look at Lucius, who nods. "And to make it even worse, it was about a Muggle book," said Lucius, a look of disgust on his face. "How you even got that, I have no idea."
Narcissa's eyes have a strange shimmer in them, as if she knows who was responsible for giving her that book. Maybe she gave it to me, Hermione thinks.
"But it was her favorite. Carrying it around everywhere she went," Narcissa says, smiling, making her husband smile also, forgetting about his disapproval. "But I have forgotten what it was…" Narcissa stares in the distance, trying to remember the name of the book. "Oh! Of course." A triumphant smile brightens her face. "It was called 'Alice in Wonderland'. How could I forget?"
Hermione's heart stops beating. Alice in Wonderland: it is her favorite book. Somehow this proves even more that they aren't lying. But sadly enough the argument doesn't ring a bell with Hermione.
"I remember how Draco held himself responsible for your death for so long. It almost ruined him." The joy has immediately disappeared from Narcissa's face.
"Because of an arguement?" Hermione asks, shocked. It also shocks her that Draco seemed to care so much for her. She doesn't dwell on the fact why it still wonders her. Hadn't he already proven himself?
"Well, I think it was more than an argument," Narcissa starts but Lucius jumps in. "It was always more than an arguement."
"Yes, well, anyway. It was a beautiful day in June and you two were playing outside. I always made you two play outside when the weather allowed it. Draco was flying on his new broom, a birthday present from us which he had received for his ninth birthday a few weeks before. You were reading your book again. Draco wanted you to fly with him, though I had forbidden it because he didn't fly well and it wasn't safe. You were always a wise girl and when he asked you, you said 'no'. When he asked why, you told him you didn't trust him. And he later told me, because we weren't present at the time, that you had wounded his ego by telling him that you didn't trust him. So, dealing the way a nine year old boy deals with things, he started teasing you. You got angry and when you told him you wanted to read, he told you that you never had any fun. You were always reading that same old dull book. He took the book from you and flew high up and away from you. You were jumping up and down and following him, in the meantime shouting that he should give your book back. When you threatened to tell me, he got angry and dropped your book, but didn't see he was flying above the lake. The book fell into the water and so it was ruined." Narcissa ends the story.
Silence lasts for a few minutes till Lucius speaks. "I didn't even leave my desk when I heard you two screaming at each other. The sound was streaming in through the open window. When I heard Draco shout your name three times, I just knew you had gone inside and would probably floo home. I didn't worry about that, it wasn't the first time you went home after a quarrel. You two had had some serious fights, but you would always come back the next day."
"That's how strong your bond was," Narcissa says, smiling.
"I have often thought, what if I had stopped you and you had stayed with us that evening." For the first time, Hermione sees a sad glint in Lucius' eyes.
"But all is well now," Narcissa tries to break the sadness that now hangs in the air. Hermione leans back in the chair and recommences twisting hair around her fingers. She wishes she could remember, but the story doesn't even sound recognizable.
"Do you want some more tea, Sophia?"
Hermione shakes her head no and casts her eyes on the window behind Narcissa. The day is as beautiful as it was yesterday. No cloud can be seen again for miles. She suddenly wishes she could go outside. But she can't, or at least not without Draco or Blaise. Draco had forbidden her.
And she knows he is right to not trust her yet. Though Hermione seems very docile and accepting from the outside, she is actually quietly making plans. Hermione has always been a rather quiet and introverted person. And she has to admit it scares her to notice how well Draco knows her. But there is nothing that can be done about it now.
Hermione winces as her finger gets stuck in a painful knot of her hair.
AN: Again a great thanks to my lovely Beta Sarah Liz B, who helped me get all the fault out of the chapter.
I hope you liked it! ^^