A/N: Sorry for another unforgiveable absence, but please take this chapter as my apology! Down to the wire here guys, so hope you enjoy!
~o0o~
"Shite…" Hermione's face fell when she saw that Borgin and Bourke's was closed, locked up, and the windows were blacked out. The second she had seen Lacey fall from the broom and not be able to be helped, she had a sinking suspicion that the broom came from a place like the dark artifacts shop in Knockturn Alley, and the fact that it was closed in the middle of the day all but confirmed her suspicions. She was certain that news of one of England's best Quidditch players falling off a faulty broom was on every radio station and being printed in the afternoon papers at the moment….and it probably would have given the creepy shop owner plenty of time to pack up for the time being. She just hoped that Lacey was at St. Mungo's by now at the very least as she knew she would have plenty of people there to take care of her.
Hermione sighed in frustration as she turned and started walking towards the end of the seedy street and closer to Diagon. She never really liked Lacey, if she was being honest with herself, but she certainly didn't want her to die because of something she could help figure out. This wasn't a trick or a practical joke…this was dark magic. She had taken it upon herself to try and figure things out because as far as she knew…Harry, Ron, nor any of the others knew Lacey was with Lucius Malfoy, and she very much wanted to protect Remus' secret if she could help it. She'd always have a soft spot for him, and if he thought Lacey was alright, then she did as well.
"Draco?"
"Granger?" Draco seemed just as shocked to see her. He was standing in front of the Apothecary, looking up at the apartment above, the one Lacey used to live in. There seemed to be some sort of commotion coming from it, but even though the ratty curtains were drawn on the front widow, there were unmistakable flashes of light coming from the inside. It was starting to cause passersby on the street to look up in confusion.
"There's something very wrong with that broom. Do you know if she's alright?" Hermione asked her unlikely ally in this as he motioned her up the rickety staircase along the side of the building. It didn't necessarily shock her, seeing as she knew Lucius was with Lacey, but she wondered if it surprised him at all to see her.
"I'm not sure. I just thought of coming here…" They were poised outside of the door, taking their wands out and looking at each other hesitantly. None of it made sense, but both knew it wasn't the time to question the other on why they knew what they did.
"Alohamora!" Draco shouted at the door and it flew open.
"Expelliarmus!" Hermione followed with her own defensive spell and the pair walked into the apartment, which looked like it had been ransacked thrice over. In the middle of the mess were Pansy Parkinson, who Hermione recognized instantly, and an auburn-haired girl.
"Astoria?" Draco spat her name as he identified the girl Hermione didn't know. Both looked frazzled, wearing skimpy dresses and too much makeup for their surroundings, which was a hodge podge emptied cauldrons, vials, items that looked like they had been disintegrated into ash, and various other things that no normal apartments usually contained. Hermione kept her want trained on the two girls, noticing her spell had knocked both of theirs out of their hands. Draco lowered his, looking around at the small apartment. It looked like they were trying to scrub it clean of ever being there.
"It's not very nice to just barge into someone's flat unannounced," Astoria simpered, trying to use her familiarity with Draco to stall the situation, but Hermione didn't want to wait around for whatever this was to work itself out. She wasn't naïve to the fact that Draco and Pansy used to be a couple. Their split had been gossip amongst all of her friends, but the connection between Pansy and Draco, Draco and Lucius, and Lucius and Lacey had to mean something.
"It also isn't very nice to cause my friend to fall from her broom…" Draco snapped back and Hermione was quite impressed that his wit hadn't gone to waste after they had graduated. She had just reasoned it out herself that the pair had to be behind it all. Pansy stood there, placing her hands on her hips in her short dress, looking completely unfazed, but it was Astoria's guilty expression for half a second that Hermione caught on to.
"I have no idea what you are talking about, so please don't make deranged accusations," Pansy tried her best to cover smoothly, looking over at Hermione, "Is this your girlfriend now Draco? The mudblood slut? We all know she'll sleep with anything, so why would you even touch her?"
Admittedly, Draco hadn't spoken to Hermione much since after the war, but he certainly wasn't going to allow his ex to say things like that about her, "Playing jealous now are we? Why bother with the act when I know all you both wanted was my father."
"We've already spoken to him. If he wants the counter curse, he'll have to agree to our terms," Astoria said smugly and Pansy turned to her, livid. Hermione rolled her eyes. Pansy had been one of her greatest competitors at Hogwarts, especially in charms, but the fact that she had picked such a flighty sidekick showed her flaws.
"Astoria, shut it…" Pansy hissed.
"So there's a counter curse?" Draco stalled, glancing over at Hermione. He knew she was thinking hard if the way her nose was scrunched up slightly was any indication.
"There might be," Pansy continued vaguely. Her friend had let it out of the bag, so there was no point in denying that bit of information any longer, "But I assure you that you don't want to get Aurors involved if you value your future inheritance or seeing your father again".
"We made sure all of the evidence pointed directly at him." Astoria added, seeming rather proud of herself. Pansy was starting to get uncomfortable as Hermione backed towards the door, her wand still trained on them both.
"All because you are jealous of a woman you don't even know? Lacey is an amazing person…how you could put her in the hospital like this is insane…" Draco told both girls, who then started laughing.
"Oh, have you fallen for her too then? I guess taking her out was even more worth it. Come on Astoria…" Pansy reached her hand out to her friend, who grabbed it, and a second later, with a loud 'pop', they had disapparated.
"Fuck!" Draco growled, frustrated. He knew he would bring those two vindictive bitches to justice if it killed him, but he was angry at the setback. He immediately started going through some of the books on the tables, searching for anything that could be the spell to release Lacey from the curse.
"Astoria may be as vapid as they come, but I know Pansy wouldn't have just left the incantation lying around. She either made up her own spell…which, by the looks of this place is a high possibility, or the curse is a very old and dark one…" Hermione started to pace, looking around.
"A clever idea would be very welcomed right now, Granger," Draco pushed for something, anything to make himself feel more useful.
"I need to get to Grimmauld, and you should find your father…and then make sure Lacey is alright. It's clear you care about her. She's a friend to all of us…and it will be okay," Hermione gave him a small smile, walking towards him and putting a hand on his shoulder. It wasn't time to give up. Yet.
~o0o~
"Lace!" Aislinn ran past the plump medi-witch manning the front desk of her ward and towards the room that Ginny was standing outside of. Her father and older brother weren't far behind.
"Where's Lucius?" Ginny asked, panicked, when she saw the Delaney family, all of them ashen-faced. Her own family had gone home only a few moments before, leaving only her and Remus with Lacey, who was in the same condition as she had been for the last few hours.
"He'll be here in a moment. He sent us along first, can we see her?" Liam asked and Ginny nodded, opening the door to Lacey's room as her father took his first look at his comatose daughter and sadly shook his head, making his way to her side. Lacey was unresponsive to all of them, even when Colin squeezed her hand and Aislin pushed some of her hair out of her closed eyes. Ginny was at her breaking point, sick of looking at her best friend all but dead in front of her for the last five hours.
The last Healer that had visited Lacey was supposed to be a specialist in dark magic and curses, but even she was a bit confused at the cause of Lacey's plight. The Healer had remarked that it seemed to be an odd mix of some curses she hadn't seen in a long time, and that she needed to do some more research before she could attempt anything to help her. It was at this point that Sirius had fixed himself to the chair right outside the room and had stared at the wall, unresponsive for the last thirty minutes. No one could believe this was happening. It was like a horrible, never-ending nightmare with shades of what they all went through in the war.
"I'll be right back…" Ginny said, distracted, to the sleepiest looking Remus she had ever seen, as she headed down the hallway intent on heading off Lucius. Sure enough, she caught him coming right out of the floo and dragged him around a corner and out of sight of the medi-witches and her friends.
"What is this?!" Ginny shoved the crumpled note the Healer had given her earlier into his hand. He looked stressed beyond belief and very rumpled, but his blue eyes turned to stone when he read the incriminating note.
"I didn't give her the broom, Ginevra. Immediately after her fall, I went to her house to gather some things for her," he held up a small bag, "and then to collect her father and siblings. Pansy Parkinson and Astoria Greengrass were there. They threatened me and told me that if I didn't agree to take them as mistresses, then they wouldn't tell me the counter curse needed to save Lacey," Lucius explained. Ginny sighed in relief; she had never really thought Lucius would hurt Lacey in that way, but she was glad to finally have a lead and some substantial evidence.
"So why didn't you drag them into the Ministry? Call for me? Call for the Aurors? Something?" Ginny ranted from hunger and stress; she was anxious for answers.
"My only concern was getting Lacey's family to her and then seeing her myself. They are two foolish women who won't get away with whatever blackmail this is. I promise. Now, can I see her?" Lucius was desperate to see what kind of condition she was in and to see if he could help in any way.
"She looks really bad…" Ginny warned him as she lead him to room, wincing a bit when Lucius and Remus connected eyes awkwardly before they entered the room and closed the door.
"No…" Lucius breathed as he walked over to her and Aislinn moved from where she was sitting next to her sister so that Lucius could sit beside her. He held her hand, which was colder than he had ever felt it. He took in her pale face, closed eyes, and bruised cheeks and arms and was filled with anger towards those two women he wished he had never had in his life in any capacity.
"The Healer said its dark magic, some sort of curse was put on the broom that transferred to her and it's causing her to be in this coma," Ginny repeated the last message to all of them.
"And what exactly does that mean? Is it fixable?" Colin asked.
"They don't know yet. They had a specialized Healer come in trained for this and she couldn't recognize the curse…"
"She's really cold," Aislinn said, "Maybe we should get the Healer back in here?"
"I'll go find one…" Liam said, even though he had never been to a wizarding hospital before, but they all knew he couldn't miss one in their stark white uniforms.
"Why is the werewolf here?" Lucius asked Ginny, still looking at Lacey.
"Erm, well he's Sirius' best friend and all that…" Ginny half-truthed. She knew Lucius and Sirius didn't get along at all, but she certainly didn't want him asking questions about Remus right now. That conversation was supposed to happen that very day, but she knew it couldn't in this capacity.
Before Ginny could think up some more excuses, Liam came back into the room with a medi-witch and a Healer, with Sirius and Remus tailing behind them. The Healer politely but firmly asked Lucius to move, and then waved his wand over her.
"Her vitals are dropping slowly…" he told the medi-witch, who noted it and checked for Lacey's pulse.
"Excuse me?! Her vitals are dropping?" Ginny nearly shrieked.
"Miss Weasley, I'll have to ask you to calm down if you are going to be in the room," the Healer shot a serious look over his shoulder at her, "Whoever placed the curse on the broom was skilled, but not skilled enough for this type of magic. The purpose of curses of this type are to keep their victims static, but not to kill them. It was what gave me hope in the first place…but now…it looks like Lacey is reacting very badly to the curse, and we are going to have to take some preventative measures to keep her body from shutting down while we can figure out the spell".
Aislinn clung to her older brother, who hugged her back. Ginny's hand searched for her boyfriends', but even his warm grip could not shake the coldness tugging on her heart. As the Healer and medi-witch surrounded Lacey, poking and prodding her with their wands, she was watching her best friends' life bleed out of her. She had never thought a man like Lucius capable of having enough emotions to have a broken heart, even if that was what his wife had hoped for in this whole scheme, but one glance at him told her she had just been proven wrong.
"Everyone needs to leave the room while we perform a few tests," the Healer asked the small crowd standing at the back of the room, but no one immediately complied, even when the medi-witch started to shoo them out. Ginny didn't want to budge.
"Gin, come on, she's in good hands," Sirius whispered into her ear and finally led her out of the room. Remus offered to go and get some coffee for the Delaneys after introducing himself, and Lucius stood, removed from the group. Ginny willed herself to detach from the comforting hug Sirius was giving her and walked over to the blonde.
"Can we speak in private?"
"I don't think now is the best time," he replied, his voice very low and full of emotion, "I really need to try a few spells on her. Both Pansy and Astoria have been in my Manor with access to my books. It should come as no surprise I have some that are particularly unsavory that they could have found. I need to at least try…"
Ginny saw the fear and sadness in his eyes. The moment she had saw her best friend fall, almost agonizingly slowly, to the ground, she had panicked, but figured it would all be okay…nothing that a few bottles of Skele-grow couldn't solve. But the very best Healer's had seen her and were just as stumped as they were; reality was setting in that there was a possibility she wouldn't pull through. And she certainly didn't know how kindly they would take to wanting a former dark wizard to start performing spells on their patient.
"Let them get her stable…what I have to tell you is really important. And I know Lacey would want you to know. Just in case," Ginny told him, making the decision on her own. As far as she was concerned, Narcissa, Remus, and Sirius didn't need to be involved right now. She saw the love Lucius had for Lacey, and whatever the outcome, he needed to know the truth, even if Lacey couldn't tell her himself.
A/N: More soon! Will Ginny really spill it all? Will Draco and Hermione figure out the counter curse? Leave a review and tell me your thoughts and predictions!
