No matter how many occasions Hermione had come to meet Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, their looming figures never ceased to give her a sense of overwhelming anxiety. When she saw the notorious couple, sitting elegantly in the far corner of the Malfoy Manor solarium. They were poised like they were sitting for a portrait, seated in wrought iron chairs and surrounded by bouquets of gardenias.
Lucius was dressed in he and the younger Malfoy's signature color of black, but his clothing was of rougher textures, such as the quilted leather vest he wore. His long, white blond hair was carefully parted, and in his hand was clenched around his notorious serpent headed walking cane. His hands, weathered a bit with age, were covered in rings, including a Malfoy signet ring and a Slytherin house ring. They matched his sons.
Narcissa Malfoy looked as elegant as always, clothed in a stunning midnight colored set of dress robes. A pair of simple pearl earrings adorned her ears, and a matching pendant necklace hung at the hollow of her throat. Her signature particolored hair was swept into an impeccable chignon, and her piercing blue eyes filled with an expression that Hermione could not yet read.
"Father, Mother, Granger has arrived." Malfoy said stiffly as the pair came to a halt in front of his parents.
"Draco, darling. It isn't proper to call a young woman solely by her last name. I thought I'd taught you better." Narcissa scolded her only child, and the younger Malfoy male lowered his head in shame from his mother's reprimand. Narcissa then turned to Hermione, and offered her a surprisingly warm smile.
"Hello, Hermione. Please have a seat." The elder woman greeted Hermione, and motioned with a graceful hand at the other wrought iron chairs that surrounded the table. Hermione nodded, before gently sliding herself into one of the black metal chairs. She placed her hands gently on her lap, and tried not to fidget with the hem of her chiffon skirt.
Looking around nervously, Hermione tried to decipher what was going to happen from her surroundings. Lucius still had not acknowledged her, Draco was now casually leaning against an ornate glass table filled with specimens of plants, and Narcisaa was watching her with a keen eye. It was like they were trying to gage her reactions, and the eerie silence except for the slight chirping of birds filling the background.
"Shall we discuss what Miss Granger is doing here?" Narcissa finally broke the awkward silence that filled the air with a gentle suggestion, and Lucius gruffly nodded before speaking.
"Miss Granger, I suppose you've become aware that there has been a halt placed on your Gringotts account?" Lucius' deep voice questioned her, his sense of aristocracy and poise oozing from every word he spoke.
"Yes, I am aware of the claim that you placed on my vault." Hermione had to hold back the sarcasm that wanted to fill her words, instead speaking with a clear and clipped tone. She stared at the patriarch of the Malfoy family with a steady glare, ready for anything he might throw towards her.
"Am I to assume that by your known legacy of being a skilled academic that you understand the Latin term for which said claim is referred to as?" Lucius was trying to press her buttons, and Hermione knew it. Though, she wasn't going to let the patrician of a man get under her skin, and once again answered his inquiries with unwavering direction.
"Dotis nomine. The term means a dowry." Hemione responded, with no emotion filling her face, and her words bland. Draco watched her carefully, a bit impressed by how level and unaffected she sounded saying such things.
"Correct, Miss Granger." Was all that Lucius said. Though it was now Hermione's turn to speak, she decided. She was getting tired of the petty games that Lucius Malfoy was known for playing.
"While I appreciate your...hospitality, may I just ask what I am doing here?" Hermione had decided that she just wanted to get to the point. She was growing more and more uncomfortable by the minute.
Lucius looked at her with a sly smirk, and Narcissa gave her a soft smile, and Draco still held a look of smug disinterest. All of them were refusing to speak, or were trying to find the words in which to respond to her sudden point of directness. Lucius was the one to say the words that would change her life, though.
"The name of the claim is very direct, Miss Granger. It is a dowry claim, to be filled before the contents of your vault are returned to you. Once the claim is fulfilled, you will have everything that belongs to you back in your sole possession. In short, you must marry Draco before the claim will be dismissed."
The words hit her like a ton of bricks. It didn't seem real. She thought, just maybe, that this had been an elaborate ruse to lull her to the manor. A plot by Lucius to request something of her, such as a release of a dark artifact from the Ministry or to ask a favor from Harry. Never in a million years did she think that the word marriage and Draco would be the real reason she had been summoned here, to this awful and dark place. She was lost for what to say. The thought of being married to the pale blond man that sat only a few feet away from her at that very moment sickened her. Married Draco Malfoy...what a sick and cruel joke, even from Lucius Malfoy himself.
"You've got to be bloody kidding me." Were the words that finally escaped from her mouth. Hermione looked to the Draco, who now held a small smirk on his angular face. He had known.
"I'm afraid not, Miss Granger." Lucius shook his head, his long hair moving with such a motion. His face was smug.
"Why, in Merlin's name, do you think I would ever marry that...thing." Hermione pointed to the young Malfoy, and was finally letting her emotions flare. White hot anger coursed through her veins.
"Because you always do the right thing." It was the first time since the conversation had begun that Hermione had heard Draco Malfoy speak. She turned to face him, giving him such a look that you could see the poison pulsing through her glare.
"And why would you ever think that me, marrying you, would be the right thing?" Hermione asked viscously.
"Because if you don't, he will die." It was Narcissa's quiet, yet steady voice that broke the tension that filled the room. It was a simple statement, but the words it held reamed with power. Hermione turned to the matriarch of the Malfoy family, and looked into her ice blue eyes. They were pooled with a mixture of worry, fear, and anxiety. Above all else though, they were brimmed with sadness.
"What do you mean, he'll die?" Hermione questioned her, her voice no longer holding the sharpness it had previously. Narcissa looked at the younger witch, and then to her husband, before replying to Hermione with a statement meant for Lucius.
"We have to show her the tapestry. It's the only way she'll understand."
Hermione gave Narcissa a puzzled look, before turning to Draco for context. He looked away, not wanting to acknowledge her stare. Lucius gave a deep sigh, and nodded at his wife, before returning his attention to Hermione. His grey eyes held hers in an intense stare, before looking at his son.
"Take her to the gallery, Draco. Your mother and I will follow." Lucius instructed his son, and Draco nodded. He looked to Hermione, and motioned for her to follow him back towards the doors they had entered to the solarium originally. She hesitantly rose from the wrought iron chair she had been seated in, and somewhat cautiously followed the youngest Malfoy.
They walked quickly, back through their original path, but took a few unfamiliar twists and turns. Hermione could hear Lucius and Narcissa's footsteps a few paces behind Draco and herself. Finally, after yet another foreign turn, they arrived at a long hallway with high vaulted ceilings. Portraits covered the majority of the walls, with the exception of a few ancient tapestries, one of which Draco had come to a halt in front of. Hermione approached where the Malfoy heir stood, keeping her distance.
She pointed her attention at the intricately embroidered piece of fabric, scanning each detail with a careful eye. It was a family tree, almost identical in style to the one that occupied a wall at 12 Grimmauld Place. With twining vines and detail stitched names, the history of the Malfoy family tree was laid out before her. She didn't know the significance of her seeing this, but decided to trust the process.
Narcissa and Lucius arrived beside them a mere few moments later, and Hermione looked at them expectantly, awaiting a proper answer to Narcissa's earlier comment.
"This tapestry details every birth, marriage, and death that has built the Malfoy family tree for generations. It details the history of this family." Lucius spoke.
"That's a bit obvious." Hermione mumbled under her breath.
"Miss Granger, you are right when you say it's obvious. But unfortunately, this tapestry has a darker purpose...a curse, if you could label it as such." Lucius continued, and Hermione realized he had heard her earlier comment.
"What's this curse, and why does it somehow condemn him to death?" Hermione questioned, motioning her head in Draco's direction. Lucius looked to Narcissa, allowing his wife to answer the young witch's questions.
"Very long ago, when the Malfoy family began, it was tradition for magic to choose the union of two people. Lucius' ancestors enchanted this tapestry to select the name of who each male member of the family should marry, to keep bloodlines strong." Narcissa began, and Hermione automatically looked at the beginning of the tapestry.
"One day, a member of the Malfoy line refused to marry the woman who the tapestry had designed as his fate, and decided to scorch the name from the tree. When he did so, and married another woman, he died the day of his twenty first birthday. A curse caused poison to course through his veins, and his body was covered in black lines, which were identical to branches of this tree." Narcissa told the tale of how the curse came to be, and Hermione looked at her in disbelief.
"Magic cannot choose who we marry. It isn't right." She tried to argue, but Lucius countered her argument with his own.
"This tree was made with dark magic beyond even your comprehension, Miss Granger. And I will be damned if I will not follow the tradition of my father before me. I will not allow my son to die because of your stubbornness." Lucius snapped, and Hermione had to keep herself from shrinking back at his tone.
"What does all this have to do with me anyway?" Hermione challenged, and that's when Lucius extended a long pale finger, and directed her attention to something that made her stomach curl in nausea.
There, amongst years and years of Purebloods names entwined with leaves, was stitched a portrait of Draco. Extended from him was his birthday, June 5th, 1980, with a dash awaiting his day of death. Though it was what was connected to him in the ancient tapestry that made Hermione nearly faint. Woven with magical precision, connected to Draco's, was her name.
Hermione Jean Granger
b. September 19th, 1979 -
Never in her life did she expect to see her more than Muggle sounding name entertwined with the noble names that filled the Malfoy family tree. She looked to the members of the family surrounding her, and then back at the tapestry. It was like her eyes were playing tricks on her. It shouldn't be real, yet there it was.
"This has to be a mistake...or a trick...it can't be right." Hermione began to stutter, not really believing the sight that was in front of her.
"Hermione, dear, I'm afraid it's not a trick. Either you two marry before Draco turns twenty one this coming June, or he will die at the hands of this curse. Please, Hermione, we need your help." Narcissa tried to approach her, her hands outstretched and pleading, but Hermione immediately shrank back.
She could feel the panic bubbling in her throat. It was a panic attack, she knew. She had experienced them quite a bit after the war, and had gotten better about controlling them. But anytime she became overwhelmed or overstimulated, like right now, it came back in waves. Hermione needed to get away.
"I'm sorry. I need to go." She could barely get the words out of her mouth before she was turning away from the Malfoy family, panic over powering her.
At first she took small steps to escape the pressure that was surrounding her, but soon she began to full out run to the familiar hallway from which she had entered the manor. She needed to escape, she needed to breathe, and she needed to get as far away from this place as possible.