The next day was another workday for Lucy. That meant getting up early, getting ready in a hurry, eating while walking into the Ministry and being met by a hundred complaints upon entering her office. It was strange, being back in the real world. Sure, she had gone to work all the time during the whole affair with Scorpius, but she had had her head in the clouds, and the rest of her body had been floating along.

Now it was as if she returned from a sunny holiday soaked wet and with a cold. This was not going to be her day.

While finishing some reports, she got a message from her boss, telling her to meet him in his office right now. When leaving his office, she was met by a huge pile of paper she needed to read through and sign. As she was having lunch, she got to deal with complaints about the coffee tasting like mud and the tea tasting like tar. How those people even knew what tar tasted like? Lucy had no idea.

But after what had happened and what she had heard the day before, she was almost certain that this was all one person's doing: Astoria Malfoy's. While Lucy tried to calm the workers down, she sat back in her chair and watched her with an smug smirk, a look that didn't suit her at all. Lucy wasn't usually quick to jump to conclusions, but she knew that nobody else would have done this.

So the first thing Lucy did after lunch was talk to the older woman to find out why she had done this.

"Astoria, can I have a word, please, in my office?" she asked politely, and Astoria sent her an annoyed look, making Lucy wonder, once more, why.

"I have a lot of work to do," Astoria replied, nodding towards a pile of papers. Lucy was sure that those were closed files, no matter what she said. And if they weren't, that had to be because she had done absolutely nothing this morning.

"It won't take long," Lucy said, and turned around towards her office. As she sat down behind her desk, she saw, to her pleasure, that Astoria had followed. Good. For a moment, she hadn't been sure if she would do so.

"What's wrong?" Astoria asked, and Lucy gestured for her to sit down, which she did.

"What are you trying to do, Astoria?" Lucy asked, and she could've sworn that the other woman looked a bit shocked there. "Why did you deem it necessary to mess with the coffee and the tea? What kind of stunt is that? Aren't we all too old for those things?" Lucy's cousin James wasn't, but that didn't matter for this conversation.

"Why did you deem it necessary to work for this department, for this part of the Ministry?" Astoria shot back, not even denying that it had been her who had been playing around with the drinks. "Why did you get the promotion, and not me?"

Seriously? She was jealous? Lucy was sure she gaped for a second before closing her mouth. "Is that what this is about? You hate it that I was promoted, instead of you?" The glare directed her way was all the confirmation she needed. "It isn't my fault that I got that promotion, and I came to work here because I like what I do. Don't tell me you're doing this because you're jealous."

"I'm not jealous," was the answer she got.

"Really?" Lucy asked sceptically.

"Let me rephrase that; I'm not doing this out of jealousy. That was what the love potion was for." Right. Lucy assumed that Astoria knew, then, how that had ended. In one big mess. "This was for what you did to my son, you little bitch!" After sending a particularly foul look Lucy's way, Astoria stood up and strode out of the office, back to her own desk.

Lucy, in the meantime, slouched down in her chair. What on earth had Scorpius told his mother? The only thing she'd done was talk to him and, though she might've been more than a little bit shocked last night, as far as she was aware, she hadn't done anything to hurt him. At least, not willingly.

But then again, what had Scorpius told his mother? Perhaps he hadn't even said anything, and this was just a conclusion Astoria had drawn from that. Or perhaps she was mad about the fact that her son had even been hanging out with Lucy. Perhaps she had done something that had caused him to react to his mother in a way he wouldn't react to her before. All in all, Lucy had no idea what she had done wrong.

The remainder of the day was rather boring. As hectic as it had been before lunch, after lunch, there was little that needed to be done. Lucy used this free time to think her situation over again. She could go visit Scorpius, and who knew what would happen then – they could fight, they could just talk, they could argue, they could laugh, they could do anything. Or she wouldn't pay him a visit and forget him. If she could. At any rate, it was very likely that he would forget all about her anyway, now that the potion wasn't in effect anymore.

When the day at work was over, Lucy briefly stopped by her flat to leave her briefcase there, to change into more comfortable clothes and to collect her Gryffindor courage. Then she had a quick dinner at the local fish and chips store and after that, she apparated to where she had figured out Scorpius lived.

The flat looked deserted, but Lucy rang the doorbell nevertheless. When he didn't answer, she knocked the door several times, and, looking around, she decided to open the door the magical way. For one moment, she didn't care that she was trespassing; she needed to talk to him, she had decided earlier, to find out whether he still wanted anything to do with her or not.

Looking around, Lucy suddenly understood why he had been a little ashamed about his obsession; among various articles, she could even make out the small announcement that had been in the Prophet after she had been born. Other than that, his flat looked cosy enough, especially for a Malfoy.

Lucy had to conclude, though, after calling Scorpius' name numerous times, that he really wasn't there. The only other place he could be was at his parents' house. Malfoy manor. That was one place Lucy's Uncle Ron had always told them, the younger generation, gruelling stories about. Even though she was pretty nervous because of this, Lucy was determined to go there. So she did.

Taking a deep breath, she disapparated and found herself staring at the huge house that was now in front of her. Well, she thought, here goes nothing.

Before she had even rung the doorbell, the door flew open already, and Lucy was dragged inside by a House-Elf. She had to admit, this was a little frightening.

"Wait here, miss, please," the Elf told her, and Lucy nodded wordlessly. She looked around; everything looked expensive and old and it made her wonder why Astoria was even working.

"Lucy Weasley. Why doesn't it surprise me to see you here?" Speak of the devil, there was Astoria.

"Astoria," Lucy greeted, "I – "

"It's Mrs Malfoy," Astoria corrected her. Lucy blinked.

"What?" she asked.

The other woman's lips curved into a smile; no, not a smile. A smirk was more like it. "You're in my house, Weasley, at my property, and therefore you should address me as Mrs Malfoy."

The stupid wench. She clearly enjoyed being in power; now Lucy understood better why she had been so keen on the promotion: to be able to exert power over her minions. Lucy was glad that she'd never attended Hogwarts with Astoria Malfoy.

"Sure, whatever," Lucy said, trying to cover up that Astoria's tone had caught her off guard. "Anyway, I'm here to – "

"I know why you're here," Astoria said, and Lucy figured that it was rather obvious why she, a Weasley, would come to the Malfoy manor, of all places. She could think of many places she'd rather be at the moment, but unfortunately, that was not where Scorpius was and finding him was her mission for the night. "You want to see my son – speak with him. You want to contaminate him some more with your Weasley germs."

Ignoring the insults directed at her, Lucy tried to speak again. "I only want to tell him – "

"I don't care," Astoria interrupted her again. "You're not going to tell him anything, Weasley. You've done enough. Thanks to you, my son is in bed, whimpering and crying like a little girl." Biting her lip, Lucy remembered how she had been in a similar state the previous night. She, however, had managed to pick up the pieces this morning and put herself together again, to go to work. If she hadn't had to work this morning, she was sure that she would still be crying, too.

"Please," she said, "it'll only take a minute." Less than a minute, even.

Astoria's eyes narrowed now, and Lucy knew that this couldn't mean any good. "Alright," she said after a couple of minutes of very painful silence. That was an answer Lucy didn't see coming. "But," Astoria continued. "You're going to have to do a few things for me first. Things I don't have the time for."

Knowing that this was probably the only chance she had, Lucy nodded slowly. "Alright," she said, "what do I have to do?"

A/N: Well, wow. I've no idea what took me so long, but I'm really sorry. Hopefully you enjoyed the chapter anyway :) Let me know what you think about it, please leave me a review!