Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Chapter 14

A couple of days later, I found myself meeting my mother for lunch at the family estate during my lunch break. That morning an owl had been waiting for me once I'd gotten out of my morning shower with a summons from my mother.

I apparated directly from my office at the Ministry to the entrance hall of Malfoy Manor once the morning session had ended. As soon as my feet landed upon the green carpeted floor, one of the family's house-elves came rushing in from a side-door.

"Good afternoon Master Malfoy." The elf bowed as she came to a stop before me. "Mistress Malfoy is waiting for you in the drawing room. May I get anything for you sir?"

"No thank you, I'll show myself in."

As I left the entrance hall, my gaze took in my surroundings. Not much had changed since my childhood. Malfoy Manor had always been ornately decorated. It stood as a testament to the grandeur the Malfoy family had evoked over the years of Wizarding history. The portraits of the Malfoy progenitors still lined the hallways. And the artifacts collected by the Malfoys over the generations were still proudly displayed.

During the Death Eaters' occupation of the Manor, the house had fallen from grace and lost a little of its splendor. But my mother had been able to repair any damage that had been left once the Death Eaters had vacated the Manor and restored it to its former glory.

I entered the drawing room and immediately felt tendrils of dread begin to creep through my stomach. When the Death Eaters had used Malfoy Manor as headquarters, this room had been cleared out and a large table had been installed. All the Death Eater meetings had taken place here, and I could feel the memories begin to flood me. Screams began to surface up from my memory, flashbacks of heinous things that had occurred in this room. I gave a minute shake of my head and actively began to repress the memories trying to overtake me.

My attention turned to my mother, who was sitting upright in one of armchairs facing the door. I was taken aback by how pallid she appeared. She had dark circles around her eyes and she appeared to have lost weight and strength since last I saw her two weeks ago. Going over to her, I bent down and gave her a kiss on the cheek, before heading over to the armchair across from her.

"Draco, it's so good to see you." She gave me a weak smile as I sat down.

"Mum, are you feeling okay? You don't look so good."

"Oh what a horrid thing to say to your mother." She joked back before being overtaken by a wracking cough. She pulled out a handkerchief from a pocket in her dress and brought it to her mouth. She gave me a weak smile once the cough had subsided, "I might have come down with the flu."

"So you invite me over to catch it too?"

She waved a dismissive hand, but she still clutched onto the handkerchief as if it was a white flag of surrender. "Don't worry about that. I've already had a healer come over and he's given me a draught that should prevent me from being contagious. Anyway I have a favor to ask you."

She was suddenly interrupted when the house-elf from before came into the room. It bowed and in its squeaky voice it announced, "Lunch is served on the terrace."

Narcissa turned toward me, "It's such a lovely day outside I thought it would be nice to eat in the sunlight."

"That's fine with me," I responded as I got up and offered her my arm. She slowly got up from the chair and took the arm I proffered towards her.

Once we arrived to the terrace, we took our seats around a neatly made up table that sat underneath a large wooden trellis shaded by boughs of wisteria that hung over the openings. This had always been my mother's favorite spot in the gardens. My father had had the wisteria trellis built for her as a wedding present, and when the weather was nice she always liked having lunch or tea out underneath the purple blooms and sweet smell of the wisteria boughs.

We sat down and began to serve ourselves from the dishes laid out upon the table. "So what's the favor?"

"You're not going to like it."

My eyes narrowed slightly. "Is that why you had the house-elves make my favorite dish, roast chicken, for lunch?"

A small smile tugged up from the corner of her mouth, "Maybe…"

I sighed, "Well get on with it."

"I volunteered to organize this year's St. Mungo's Charity Ball a couple of months ago. But," she was interrupted again by a series of deep coughs, "I'm not quite up to the challenge." She finished meekly once the coughing had subsided.

I let out a groan, "No way."

"Please Draco."

"No. Why don't you have one of your friends take over the organizing for you?"

"I can't. It's a matter of pride. Cordelia Parkinson was originally supposed to plan the event this year but I kind of… well lets be frank, I manipulated the situation so that the St. Mungo's Board of Trustees picked me over her. If I back out she'll never let me live it down. She already despises me, and the last thing I need is to give her reason to drag my name through the mud."

"Well you know going around society and telling everyone her daughter is a cheap whore won't make you friends."

Narcissa's eyes flashed at me, "Don't get me started about your involvement with that little tart."

I rolled my eyes, "That was never anything serious."

"Please, that Parkinson girl didn't have to be a genius to figure out that one missed infertility charm could tie you down for the rest of your life. To think of that girl becoming the next mistress of this house, I can't even bear the thought."

"You're being melodramatic."

Before Narcissa could responded she was overtaken by another wave of coughing. As I watched my mother struggle to keep the coughs under control, I began to feel guilty about all the stress I'd caused her with the cancelled engagement over the past few months.

"I swear you won't have to do anything in regards to planning the event. I'm still working with the event planner over owl correspondence and you won't have to take any of that responsibility. I just need you to go to the meetings with the planning committee in my stead. I'll owl you everything you need to know for the meetings. But if you won't take my place then I'll have to pull out and that degree of humiliation is the last thing I need in my current delicate state."

I knew I was going to regret this. "Fine."

A wide smile bloomed on her face and there was a twinkle in her eye. But as soon as I caught her eye however the twinkle quickly disappeared and she began coughing again.

"The first meeting's going to be tonight." She informed me later as the lunch was wrapping up.

"Ugh. Really? I have plans this afternoon."

She perked up, "What plans?"

"I have to meet Granger at her office this afternoon."

Narcissa recoiled and I realized to late I probably shouldn't have mentioned it to her. "Granger?! As in Hermoine Granger? What business do you have with that mudblood?"

I tried to appear nonchalant, "I have some business with her this upcoming month since she's been promoted to Permanent Under-Secretary in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"What sort of business?"

"Nothing important," I said dismissively. I glanced down at my watch, "I really need to be heading back to the Ministry."

"Don't forget to go to the planning committee tonight. It's going to be in the St. Mungo's conference room at 5."

"Fine, fine." I went up to her a kissed her on the cheek. "I hope you feel better. If you want I can send you a potion tonight that will help with the coughing once I finish up with everything."

She gave me a warm smile, "You're such a good son." And with that I disapparated.

A/N: Meh. I must confess this is only half of the chapter I originally planned. I was going to add in the meeting with Hermione at the end but I ran out of time. I'm leaving today for a two week vacation to Israel. If I didn't post what I had, it probably would've taken another month to get the other half written and edited. So I decided to just post the first half of the chapter to tide you over since I'd originally hoped to have this out in early July.

Also I apologize for the lack of action in the last few chapters. I've been setting up the plot arches that will bring us up to the end of the story. Astoria will be back in Draco's life soon, I promise. Anyway thank you to everyone who's been taking the time to leave a review. I love hearing from you all. I love hearing all of your thoughts on the story.