It was 6 o'clock in the morning and Molly Weasley is pacing back and forth in her kitchen, folding her hands over themselves in nervousness. A loud Click sounded from behind her, and quickly she turned to her clock. The hand with the picture of Ron on it suddenly turned to "Home" and a moment later, so did Ginny's. Taking a deep breath in, she ran straight to the door. Flinging it open, it revealed Ron, Harry, Ginny and Luna standing on the other side of it.
" Oh thank heavens!" She said, dashing to hug her children.
By now they were all her children. She took care of every single one of them and loved them equally and truly. Giving each of the children a sqeeze she pulled back from Ron last, peering past them.
" Where's Hermione and her um, companion?" She asked, with true concern.
" Not sure Mum. " Said Ginny, turning around to look over her shoulder, " But if they aren't here in moment I'm gonna get worried."
Thankfully the moment they shut the door behind them, Hermione and Draco had appeared before it. They stood there for a moment, listening to the joyous greetings going on inside. Draco looked terrible. After Hermione woke up, they both stayed up all night, sitting there in each others arms. Hermione, with a look up to Draco's zombie like appearance, knocked on the door of the burrow. Again, the door flung open, and suddenly she was being hugged tightly by Molly Weasley.
" Oh Hermione my dear. Thank goodness, we were getting worried." Smiling at Hermione she gave her a peck on the cheek.
" It's good to see you Mum." She said, with a great smile to her.
Molly turned to Draco, " Dear boy, you look like you have had a terrible year!" Taking him by the arm, " Come in. I have coffee ready and I have some breakfast cooking."
Draco tried to smile as much as he could, but he was considerably greatful. Coming into the kitchen, Harry walked to Hermione, giving her the is everything ok? look.
Smiling she gave him a little hug, " We're ok. It was just a crazy night. " She said. No one thought to question her.
There was a sense of unease in the air as they all stood around the kitchen, no one spoke.
That was until Draco, with a terribly raspy voice asked, " Where is your bathroom, Mrs. Weasley?"
His voice was so broken from crying all night, it gave her a start.
" what? oh goodness dear, up the stairs and to the right, first door." she said, walking to him and pointing.
Just as he had cleared the kitchen, she took him by the shoulder, giving him a smile. Draco mustered an actual smile this time. As Draco disappeared, Molly quickly bustled back into the kitchen.
" What happened?" she said, headed straight for Hermione, " Why does he look like he was beat up?"
" Yeah 'Mione, " Said Ron, " He does look a little bit less Malfoy then usual"
Hermione stood there for a second, bringing her hand to her face, she found it hard not to cry a little.
" Oh it was awful" She blurted out.
Ginny came rushing to her side, for comfort. " What happened?" Ginny said, taking her arm and bringing her to the table.
" I woke up in the middle of the night and he was screaming. Screaming like someone was murdering him. He started saying a lot of things that weren't making sense. It was hard to figure out, but the jist was that he had a sister, and his father said she ran away. But Draco said his father had killed her. and he just cried and cried and oh my god it was horrible. We sat up all night and he just cried and cried. I was so terrified. " She was now sitting, head in her hands.
No one said anything for a moment, until Harry finally spoke up.
" He had a sister?" Harry spoke quietly, " that's so crazy. I wonder what she was like?"
" Her name was Adorabella Lyvia Malfoy", said a raspy voice from behind them, " but I called her Xuxa, and I loved her with all of my heart"
Everyone's jaw dropped a little in sadness as Draco entered the kitchen once again. He walked himself over to Hermione, sitting down next to her and taking her hands in his.
" My sister Adorabella. Hmm. Spitting image of me, and I should say so, she was my twin. Even though I was only 4 minutes and 17 seconds older, I still felt it was my duty to protect her." He said, looking into Hermione's eyes.
" Well what happened?" Ron said, pulling out a chair for himself.
" I should think it was quite obvious that i didn't do so well, wouldn't you say?" He said this in a cocky manner, realizing it, he was quick to apologize to Ron. Putting his hand up he said, " I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."
Ron nodded in agreeance, while Draco sat back in his chair. Thinking it all over in his head for a moment, he took a sip of his coffee. It was time, he thought to himself.Taking a deep breath in, he began for them.
" My sister Adorabella was the most amazing person I have ever known in my life, " He started, glancing over at Hermione, " That is, one of the most amazing people I have ever known! We were identical. Like I said, I was 4 minutes and 17 seconds older, and boy, as a kid, I let EVERYONE know that. We did everything together, completely inseperatable. But I'm sure you guys know what that's like, with your brothers." he pointed to Ginny.
" I remember when we were 6 we both decided we were going to run away together. Go live in the forest and be tree folk. My god I haven't thought of that in ages. We loved playing out in the great garden at the manor. Always getting into trouble. Oh and you guys think I have a mouth on me. She was worse. Always telling the staff to stick it when we were in a restricted part of the manor. Always disobeying my father." He trailed off slightly, glancing at his wrist.
" That was the problem. She always disobeyed my father. No matter what it was. He hated her, and she knew it. Man did she know it. And she used it. Making him as angry as possible. No matter how badly he beat her, she never gave in. She was always so brave like that. Always the one to jump into the cave first, to open the mysterious door and venture in. I envied her. I was the older one and I was afraid of everything in this world. ESPECIALLY my father. The night it happened was an important night for Voldemort's followers. They were trying one of their many attempts to bring him back into power. There was this ritual they were performing in the west wing of the manor. We were strictly forbidden to go anywhere near it that night. That wasn't going to stop Xuxa though. We snuck out of our room and made our way to the lower west wing. We nearly got caught twice just getting there."
" Once we got close enough we could hear chanting and such.As quietly as possible we slid the French doors a bit to be able to peek in. There were about 12 of them, standing in a circle with candles everywhere. We just stared, unable to take our eyes off of this. We always knew that Father's friends were odd, but they were the parents of some of our friends, so we never asked what they did together.Like I said, they were mostly talking in some odd language, something we never heard before. My father was reading from a book, one with a large red snake on it.They stopped talking so suddenly that we jumped a little. Then my father turned behind him and said, " Bring forth the pathetic ones. Lets get this part over with. "
"One death eater turned, leaving the room for a moment, then he reentered. He had three people with him. They were struggling heavily, but since they were bound with blindfolds on, they couldn't really go anywhere. The man brought them to the center of the circle, throwing them down to the ground. When they landed the blindfold slid off the child. My sister made a gasping sound. It was Emelia Strout. She was the neighbor girl my sister played with when father wasn't home. She was a muggle. It was easy to figure out that it was her parents she was with in that circle." Draco, taking his hands and pulling then through his hair, took another deep breath in, sighing heavily.
"It all happened very fast. My father was handed a rather large sword, in which he turned to the Strout family. The sword pointed directly at them. One of the other death eaters was holding a large vile of something. Just as my father wound back to strike, Adorabella went running in screaming for them to stop. No one knows who fault it was really, but I say it was the clumbsiness of the death eater that the vile dropped. Never the less my father blamed my sister. For years he told me that they had had a fight and she ran out into the night. A week later, after asking him everyday if he'd had word, he told me our cousins in the west of France were boarding her. Not a day went by that I didn't think of my sister. We meant so much to each other, it was hard to believe that she would leave without saying goodbye to me. I thought I had done something wrong." He could feel Hermione's hand on his again.
She made a slight squeak of a noise, cleared there throat then spoke, " How did you find out that she didn't run away?"
She ask him as sweetly as she could, knowing his fragile state. With a squeeze of her hand, he smiled at her. He knew that she was only trying to help.
" I wish I had some long story of an adventure where I figured out the ceremony and all that occured that night. No such luck. My father and mother have fought since I was a child. He beat her a lot, however, not as much he did to me. One night I could hear her crying her eyes out, screaming. I headed down to the study, and there she was. Sitting in a chair, lips bloody, sobbing still. My father standing in front of her. Blood on the back of his hand. He simply cried out, " Do you see this? Blood on my hands. I already have the blood of my only daughter on my hands."
"My own blood began to boil. I knew right then that it was true. A monster like my father does not tell tales. I barged in the room and called him a coward. I swore I would avenge my sister and the life she would have had. He laughed at me and called me a bastard child. A traitor to my family.The next morning, I contacted the ministry."
For a few moments they all sat there. It would have been silent except most of the people in the room were crying now. There was a loud bang from behind Draco and the door swung open once again. This time it was Mr. Weasley.
" Good morning everyone? Wonderful morning! Oh Molly dear, is there any coffee ready my love?"
Molly quickly came out of her deep gaze she had on Draco's face, rushing to her husband with open arms.
" Oh yes my darling, right away. Anyone else want another cup?" She asked, turning to the table.
A few people nodded, Draco spoke up. " Yes Mrs. Weasley. The more the better." He smiled at her warmly.
Molly walked to his chair, putting her arms around him and hugged him as tight as she could.
" My dear boy, " She said, tears in her eyes, " you can just call me Mum, just like everyone else." and she bustled away to the stove.
He smiled so greatly this time. It was truly hard for him to accept everyone's kindness. He had never had to deal with people like this is in his hole life. He was basically choking it all down. He wasn't sure how this was all going to play out. They had so much to do, this was true. But from the stories that he had heard from them, they all had a reasonable time frame to look at, to keep track of. The scariest part of all of this, was that he had no idea when his father was gaining his power, or if he already had.
Mr. Weasley cleared his thoat loudly, bringing everyone's attention to him.
" I'm glad you're all here already. There is something I need to tell you all." Putting his coffee mug down, he took his hand to the bridge of his nose, rubbing it slightly.
" Granted we only have the early reports, we won't know anything solid for at least another hour or so. but, " he paused, " Azkaban is gone."
The oddity of his statement dumbfounded most of the group in the kitchen. Causing several of them to make very strange faces.
" What do you mean, it's gone, Mr. Weasley?" Asked Harry, stepping a bit closer, like he had misheard him the first time.
" When the Ministry Official Hans Utermann headed to the prison early this morning, he immediately returned, in a panic. Started screaming the prison was gone. They say the whole building is gone, barely even a foundation left."
Crossing the room, he sat himself directly in front of Draco. Leaning in a little closer he whispered in desperation, " My son, they didn't find any of the prisoners. They're all gone. Not even a dead body."
a/n I wrote this chapter in a hurry. I wrote chapter 7 and my mind had a lot still racing and I had to get it down in a hurry. Leave me reviews- loves- Dazen :)