He clearly did not wish to be discussing the contents of the package and even before she could pester him about it, they were summoned by Lady Fawley.
"I know you both are extremely busy, but I feel awful that you have been working so terribly hard on my account. You have also taken over the healing of the village folk in a few cases! So you must be thanked well enough. I have told Hector that we must host a dance in your honour."
The old lady gave the couple a kind smile as she sat tall and proud in her chaise once again. Her condition was better now that Draco was gradually administering the potion that he had created, combined with Hermione's knowledge of what should be the ideal diet for her. Balls were rare occasions in the modern world, and thus held, even more charm for the attendees. Both knew that a ball would serve as a distraction, but neither wanted to dishearten the aged dame. So, they beamed at her instead, meaning to show their thankfulness and excitement at the prospect.
"The ball will be on the day after tomorrow. Dress robes will be sent over for the two of you. The seamstress might like to look at your measurements once more dear Hermione. Consider all this a token of my deep gratitude for the two of you."
Hermione was really humbled but she just could not take all this! To top it all, the guilt of actually trying to figure out a way to return to the present and not working on the cure washed over them.
"My Lady, we are already honoured! This would be too much! I am sure I can arrange for appropriate clothes for the two of us by then." Draco assured.
"Precisely. Lord Fawley has compensated us enough that we can not only afford it all, but also afford other luxuries that we couldn't have before! We are already deep in your family's gratitude for us."
"I thought my life was over, but you gave me a second life. This is the least I could do! So listen to this old lady you both. These are my orders, not a request and you can't deny my request while on Fawley grounds." the older Lady Fawley admonished fondly.
They two reluctantly agreed. Draco left while Hermione was to go see the seamstress.
"Lady Zabini." The seamstress bowed. She hurriedly measured Hermione up and down. Hermione felt like a ragdoll but obviously, couldn't say that to her.
"What colour would you like your dress to be? Might I suggest a dark colour? It's highly in fashion for a new bride to wear deep hues."
A flash of smoky silver eyes crossed her mind and she recalled the conversation the old Lady Fawley had had with Hermione in the past. How she did not appreciate her husband's efforts. She decided maybe this was the perfect time to show her efforts to him as she picked the colour of her dress.
Dinner was humdrum with talks of the upcoming ball.
Once back in the confines of their bedroom, Hermione decided to start showing her appreciation for him by thanking him.
"Draco I was meaning to say this for the past few days."
He looked up from the potion ingredients that lay on the table. With Adelia missing, they would brew the potions secretly in their room and work on them at night. Hermione or Draco would then carefully pass them on to Lydia so that she could pretend that she got them from Adelia in the Marshlands.
"What Hermione? Is something troubling you?"
"Quite the opposite on the contrary. I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for understanding my need for the Dreamless Draught and yet trying to help me out of it. The other potion you gave me really worked, yet I don't feel compelled to take it every night. I have been sleeping peacefully each night without any nightmares. Have even seen a pleasant dream or two." Hermione couldn't help but smile. She really was impressed with whatever potion he had made for her. It did not have the dependency of the Dreamless Draught potion, yet was exceptionally good at putting Hermione to sleep. They had not woken up tangled in each other's arms after that fateful night but were now comfortable enough to not need a huge space between them.
Draco looked conflicted. Certainly not the reaction that Hermione was expecting. He should have either been too smug and made a haughty comment or simply appreciate her effort and say thank you. But when had anyone ever been able to decipher Draco Abraxas Malfoy?
"I am glad you have been sleeping peacefully, Hermione. But it has nothing to do with my potion, really."
"What do you mean? Of course, it has everything to do with the potion, silly!" His sudden humbleness had surprised Hermione.
"No really. What I gave you was a few petals of Azalea, with the crushed roots of some Acacia Blossoms and a little of Turm oil."
"I have literally never heard of these ingredients being used in potions before!"
"That's because they aren't. They have no magical properties."
Draco now looked at her with a guilty expression while Hermione was baffled.
"The potion I gave you was basically Gurdyroot infusion transfigured to be a turquoise-green in colour. I added the other ingredients to simply change the taste."
"So it wasn't a potion, but a less disgusting version of the Lovegood's favourite drink?"
Hermione was appalled. How dare he fool her! How dare he give her a false potion!
"What makes you think that you can fool people Draco Malfoy! How dare you!" Hermione said in a quiet but extremely angry tone.
"Granger, calm down. It worked, didn't it? You just told me how it has helped you! And you should understand it better, I used the Placebo effect."
She was the muggle. She knew about it, of course, she did! She just couldn't believe that Draco actually understood and used muggle medical methods too! But she still felt betrayed and fooled. She was stunned that a disgusting drink had made her feel that secure in her mind that her nightmares had stopped on their own.
"I have been trying to find potions that heal the mind. One can heal the body, but how does one heal the mind of the scarred? I have been studying the mind in great detail with books by muggle mind healers. Psychology and psychiatry if you please."
Hermione was too stunned and stirred. "Thank you." she landed up saying with a slight smile as she got back to powdering the moonstone for the Draught of Peace that they were preparing tonight. Draco Malfoy's mind was a strange place, she mused.
The next day they were back at the Manor and left in peace when at around noon, Draco sat down beside Hermione and placed the package that he had bought from Knockturn Alley next to her.
"If you have bought me any jewellery from there, then you can forget it. I am not even touching the box."
Draco laughed. "Open it. It's not for you silly witch. It's for us. And it's not charmed. I checked. Promise." She looked at him with a suspicious look he knew has fake as she removed the uninteresting wrapping from the box. Inside were two little crystal bottles with a muddy liquid in both of them. The crystal bottles were beautiful with opulent and gilded designs on each.
"Polyjuice potion?" Hermione gasped.
"We cannot be searching the Manor as ourselves, now can we?" The true nature of the Slytherin Prince shone with brilliance in that moment. "But, how did you get them!?"
"I just used the Malfoi card again. I know that Moribund is a French man. He came here after his English lover. He married her and settled here and opened that store. His equally shady and prejudiced grandson runs the store in present day Knockturn Alley. They only serve purebloods, and being a French is just brownie points with them."
"But who are we planning to impersonate?" asked a perplexed Hermione.
"Remember I went to the loo yesterday? I caught hold of a maid. You can say I seduced her a little and while we kissed, I nipped a few hair off her head with a pair of shears."
Jealousy flared up within Hermione. "You kissed a maid?" The words flew out of her mouth before she realised. The only relief was the fact that her envy did not shine through. Draco put down the box that he was holding and looked at her intently before breaking into his signature smirk. "Envious, are we? You don't need to be. You were the best snog of my life dear wife."
Hermione knew there was no going back so she might as well dive into it headfirst. "So, I was the best snog of your life, eh?" Her left eyebrow shot up.
"The maid was just a chaste kiss and snog sessions at Hogwarts don't really count. As for the rest, all such kisses have always ended in my bed or some place more interesting usually, much more than just a snog. You were the only snog that didn't end up there."
Hermione looked a little hurt at the implication.
"You were the best snog Hermione. Including the snogs that ended up in my bed and otherwise." He looked dead serious and she blushed and looked away. She tried very hard to control her heart rate that had suddenly spiked up by deep breathing, but nothing seemed to be working. She needed a distraction.
"I go as the maid, who would you go as?"
Draco loved to see her blush like that. He loved to see the effect he had on her, but he knew that deep down he wanted to do a lot more than just make her blush. He wanted her writhing below him begging and pleading for more of him. He would oblige, obviously. Draco tried to stop his straying chain of thought and tried to remember what she had asked. He could not shake off the image of her under him, all flushed.
"A butler, of course."
"Did you kiss him too?" She teased.
"Nope. Just stunned and obliviated." he winked and Hermione was sure her heart fluttered. What was happening to her!
Draco pulled out two small paper envelopes, each tidily labelled with the names 'Clio' and 'Gerrard'. He handed the one labelled 'Clio' to Hermione with a bottle of Polyjuice potion and asked her to add the hair to it.
As soon as Hermione added 'Clio's' hair to it, the potion bubbled and turned a shade of yellow, almost as if it was sunshine personified. She briefly wondered how would Polyjuice look like if one was to try and duplicate her. Draco stood beside her and added the butler, Gerrard's hair to his potion, which took a warm brown tone.
"We shall drink them after lunch, once we manage to capture the two when they come to serve us food." He said pocketing his potion.
"How do you know that they will be the ones here?" Hermione asked while storing hers carefully.
"Because I might have suggested for the maid to come visit me and put a charm on the butler to do so?"
"You put an Imperius on him!?" Hermione shrieked.
"What? NO! I just used legilimency on him and planted the thought in his head. That's it."
"Oh. Sorry."
Hermione looked away guiltily. "I was a Death Eater Granger, I know. But give me a chance, will you? I am not exactly jumping at every opportunity to use dark magic!" He seethed.
"I really am sorry Draco."
"Of course you are but please let's not discuss this anymore. All that constantly reminds me is of the horrible things I did. So thanks for that and don't apologise for fuck's sake. It does not help."
He turned and moved away. As if being near her burnt him. She knew she had crossed the limit by accusing him of using an Unforgivable. Hermione decided she would make it up to him soon. She had no idea how, but she would.
Lunch hour rolled in and as expected, Gerrard and Clio walked in with their food. As soon as they started to set the lunch table, Draco and Hermione shot silent Petrificus Totalus at them. They froze in mid-action and Draco started looking through their mind for any details they might need, like the location of Silvius' room and the tapestry's location.
Next, they made the duo sit on chairs, with their back to the door. Hermione quickly switched her clothes with Clio while Draco switched his with Gerrard.
They transfigured their hair and built slightly so to anyone who appeared at the door, they appeared to be Draco and Hermione deep in their research.
Before leaving, Hermione cast her field protection charm that would tell her if anyone tried to enter the library or if either of their hostages managed to break free. They took their wands with themselves and left.
"No matter what, stick together. In case you get into trouble run for your life. Run towards the kitchens or any secluded area and summon an elf. Show them your ring and say you are married to a Malfoi, and tell them you need help, they can apparate you away."
Hermione silently nodded as they made their way towards the Drawing room where Draco knew the Tapestry hung above the grand fireplace. He did not like the idea of Hermione being there, but they had no other option.
"I am sorry but we must do this, together." Draco whispered as he opened the door to the drawing room through the butlery.
She knew that she had to put her fears behind if she ever wanted to see the faces of her friends and family back in the modern era. The two walked in with dusters in their hands. If anyone questioned them, they could say that they were cleaning.
Up above the fireplace, they saw the ornate and huge silk tapestry with the Malfoy family tree on it. There were no mentions of Lucius or Draco on the tree. The tree did not even have any mention of Draco's grandfather Abraxas, meaning that he was yet to be born.
The traced the tree down to Brutus Malfoy and saw that it just went down to Septimus. There was no mention of Silvius anywhere except for the blank space they had seen back in the present. No Adelia, no child, no Silvius. They knew they had to make their move quickly, so they checked the tapestry for any charms on it and when they found none, they left.
Draco offered her his hand and she took it gladly as he took her and slipped behind a portrait. "Where are we Draco?"
"Somewhere where no one will ever find or look for us, come let's go. These walls have secret passages through them that open behind different portraits. I doubt anyone has used them in centuries. I found out about them as a child. Only my Mother and the elves knew about it. Even my Father knew nothing about them. They were probably used to transport things and for the servants back in the day. Probably fell into disuse as more and more elves were employed and they can apparate anywhere, so now they do all the moving around."
They kept moving ahead in the bleak light of the lumos that Draco's wand was casting.
After passing through long tunnels and a few turns, Draco finally pushed open a portrait and stepped into a lit hallway that Hermione instantly recognised as the one where Draco had his bedroom in the present day. They quietly made their way to a room where the doors seemed locked. Draco quietly cast an Alohomora and when it didn't work he tried to think of other ways to open the door.
"Like that would work." Hermione moved him aside and cast an Aberto with a flick of her wrist. They heard a click but the door had still not completely unlocked. She cast a Dunamis but to no avail. She was beginning to give up when suddenly it struck Draco that they might have unlocked the door, but that did not mean she had unbound the lock. With that, he gave an excited try with a quick Emancipare and the door swung open.
They had done it! They broke into the room and shut the door. Hermione quickly cast an Anti Unlocking Charm on the door with a Colloportus.
They rummaged through the room silently and found nothing out of the ordinary. No diary and definitely no suspicious notes. Hermione was going through his clothes when suddenly she slipped on a stray tie. She flayed her hands to grab onto the first thing that she could reach to break her fall. Her hands grabbed something that felt like a tiny shelf built into the wall and she managed to pull herself up. She had not noticed the shelf before at all. It seemed rather strange and secretive. Yet it was empty.
"Draco?" She called.
"Come have a look at this. You think he could have kept something over here?"
Draco moved into the cramped space behind the clothes that hung in the dressing room and tried to look at the shelf. He placed his hand to feel it for any other trap doors or shelves when suddenly a box started appearing in the shelf. A familiar box in fact.
When he pulled it out and opened it, Hermione visibly blanched next to him.
"It is the box and those earrings!"
(A/N)
Hello everyone, hope you all are liking the plotlines and don't think the characters are too OOC? If yes, then you can always write back to me.
Also, I try to keep the information as close as possible to the Potterverse so all the spells mentioned in this chapter are added after research. Although, *hint hint*, there is something that I have created in this chapter. Almost how the great JK Rowling herself leaves clues and hidden meanings that continue to baffle us till date.
Let's see if any of you can pick on the clue and decipher it :D
Love,
Mili
P.S. mega700210 thanks for your wish and the review! I can't leave you a personal message so here it is. And for those that I haven't replied back to, I still cannot see the missing reviews so I am really sorry for that.