Chapter 6) Midwitching

Selected Listening: Northern Downpour- Panic! At the Disco

Anastasia Dumbledore settled in quite well to life at Malfoy Manor, and the days passed peacefully. In the morning, she would wake up, grab her clothes for the day, and slip through Draco's room that he'd already left for breakfast. Anastasia would close the bathroom door behind her, walking across the cool black marble to the shower filled with gleaming brass hardware, strip, step in, and let the magically perfect temperature of water glide across her skin, warming her from the inside out.

Next to her own pastel colored bar soaps, Draco's liquid green and clear gels displayed in faceted glass bottles looked like they belonged at a grand apothecary rather than a boy's bathroom. She was also convinced that the amount of gold-laced black marble in that room was more than any teenager had a right to own. She told him so on occasion. To which, he responded that he'd had little choice in the matter—the manor was handed down from generation to generation, and it was likely that the décor had been chosen by his 5th degree great grandfather or something of the like.

But Draco admitted he enjoyed the luxury all the same.

Anastasia did not admit that she had tried all his soaps at least once but found them so strong in scent that she had to resort to hiding them in different places. A lock of hair at the nape of her neck, her left shoulder, little spots she could simply lean her head over and sample during the day, because she secretly found it comforting.

She wished she could pluck up the courage to tell him anything. Especially that she didn't mean to call their kiss an accident, at least not in the way he interpreted it, and she wished very much to call off their truce and enjoy the fleeting days together snogging in the forest.

But all her courage washed down the drain with the pungent suds when she considered what the reaction of her godmother might be…or Draco's father if he found out.

After she finished her shower, she would go down to breakfast, where Draco would insist Mopsy make her a single cup of cinnamon chai, even though the house favorite was earl gray steaming from a black teapot. He had done this ever since her first breakfast in the manor, following that awful night she spent crying.

When she emphasized that she didn't want to be any trouble, he insisted that it was no trouble at all. He said all this in front of his mother, who simply kept reading the paper as if she hadn't heard, and the little elf didn't seem to have a problem making the extra cup for her.

"What are your plans for the day, Draco?" Lucius would ask on his last walk through the kitchen.

"Going to Blaise's," he would respond boredly, staring at his apple.

And then Lucius would leave without commenting on Anastasia's presence. And Narcissa would sweep in for her last round, smile at the two, and promise to be back early (though she rarely was) before flooing away and leaving them alone at the breakfast table.

"Are you ever actually going to Blaise's?" Anastasia asked on the third day, and Draco laughed.

"Absolutely not. He's on holiday in Amsterdam. I only say that so I can stay here without being questioned about it. How do you think father would really respond if he knew I were hanging around with you all day?"

Anastasia felt a nervousness creep into her heart and stomach.

"Why are you hanging around me all day?" she asked, certain he had anything better to do.

"Do you not want me to?" he asked, hurt. She reached across the table as if she were reaching for his hand but stopped midway.

"No…I um…I enjoy it. Please. I'm not sure what I would do in this huge house by myself."

And he gave her a devilish smile.

"Don't worry, princess. I won't let the ghosts start haunting you."

"Are there ghosts?" she clarified.

"No," he smirked and looked out the window, and she smirked the other direction, neither willing to look up at each other until one of them broke the stillness by standing from the table and suggesting an activity for the day.

One rainy afternoon, Anastasia curled up on the window seat of the library, her Hans Christian Anderson collection open on her lap. Her trustee cardigan shrugged around her shoulders like a blanket.

"What muggle tale are you reading now?" Draco asked as he strolled in and sat next to her feet on the cushion. He peeked over her knees to look at the bright blue and red illustrations.

"The Little Mermaid," she commented, waiting for him to stop asking questions, but he watched her expectantly. "It's about a mermaid who falls in love with a human prince."

"That's disgusting," he cringed. "Have you even seen a mermaid?" She shook her head.

"They're not like our mermaids. Mermaids in muggle myths are like, half-human, and they can talk like we do." She pointed at the tiny mermaid peeking over a rock in the picture.

"Oh…" Draco said, uncertain if that made it any better. Anastasia grinned and turned a page.

"Anyway, this mermaid wants to be with a human so badly, she trades her voice to a sea witch for legs for the chance to get him to fall in love with her, but she ultimately fails and turns into a seafoam spirit," she told him animatedly.

Draco snickered and hovered closer.

"These muggle tales are really something! If she had just stayed home and found someone of her kind, she would have been fine."

His words struck her like a knife.

"Really? You think so?" she asked in a bitter tone, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Better to accept one's boring fate than end up as seafoam," he suggested with a grin. She barely knew why it upset her so much. And she tried to be brave for a moment.

"You don't have one thing you want…one person…that you would risk everything for?" she asked determinedly.

Draco frowned and looked around at all the shelves in the library, and then back to her. She wasn't certain what she hoped for in his response, but it was certainly not what he chose.

"I have everything I need, why would I take the chance of losing it all?" he asked genuinely. She looked around at the grand house on the grand estate filled with so many things that one could live for months without leaving.

"You're right," she concluded, shutting the book on her lap. "It's a silly muggle story anyway…I need to owl someone."

She walked swiftly out of the room, heart pounding.

Dear Hermione,

Help. SOS. Get me out of here. I'm stuck at the Malfoys until the world cup and Draco is driving me bonkers. If I stay one more day, I swear I'll need to go to the mental ward…please tell me I can come over or something?

Anastasia

Anastasia stared at the note for a few minutes, knowing full well that Hermione would do everything in her power to ensure she could come over immediately…still, she wasn't sure if she could risk disappointing her godmother after all she did for her.

Anastasia folded the note and stuffed it under her mattress in case of an emergency.

"Did you get that owl sent?" Draco asked when they went downstairs for dinner that evening.

"Yes, I did," she answered curtly.

"Liar. None of the owls are gone," he countered.

"Okay, fine. I didn't," she snapped.

Dinner was even more tense than usual. Draco kept looking at her across the table with a stare she couldn't dissect. Why was he so mad? What did it matter if she wanted to be by herself for a while? She finally decided it would be better to avoid him the next day.

"Auntie, could I come with you to work tomorrow?" Anastasia asked when she found her godmother in the library after dinner. Narcissa looked up from her copy of Witches Weekly.

"I suppose you can. It's not pleasant business though, midwitching. You faint at the sight of blood?" she asked. Anastasia shook her head.

"No, I think it will be interesting," she said, and then realizing Narcissa only responded to flattery, added, "I want to learn. It might as well be from the best."

"Alright then." Narcissa beamed. "Wear your robes, and you can come with me."

Anastasia left the room and breathed a sigh of relief.

Anything she could do to avoid Draco.

Anastasia trailed after Narcissa carrying her heavy healer's bag. Narcissa took quick steps, and Anastasia struggled to keep up. "The house is just around the corner. Come along," she said and disappeared around the grey brick of the last house on the block. Anastasia whipped around as well and ran as fast as she could to keep up behind her.

That morning, Narcissa had briefed her by taking her into the study, laying out all her instruments on the table, and teaching her the purpose of each, along with a handful of painkilling potions and other remedies that would be important for Anastasia to know later.

"You know how to draw magic circles?" Narcissa asked.

"The general idea. I haven't done any myself though," she admitted. They were reviewed briefly in arithmancy, getting more complicated each year, but they weren't entirely applicable until one was able to take Alchemy in sixth year.

Narcissa nodded, remembering her own schooling. "You might have the chance today, but it depends on the condition of the patient. Luckily nothing of what I need you to do involves wandwork, so it won't be detected as use of magic outside school."

"Oh, doc yer here, good heavens." The nursemaid said when they reached the stoop of the house and waved them inside. Anastasia followed Narcissa up a narrow staircase and into the bedroom, where the woman lay prone and half-naked, huffing as the family stood around her.

Narcissa approached the bed, dauntless, and asked for Anastasia to hand her things. Hot washcloths, pain killing potions, other herbs and pre-prepared mixes, all of which Anastasia had to call from memory. One by one, Narcissa took the tools and used them for the woman lying in the bed. The nursemaid stared on in worry.

"The baby isn't head down yet…" Narcissa murmured, and then a spark lit her gaze. "Anastasia, my notebook, take it and some chalk and draw this symbol in a circle around the bed. Everyone else, clear the room."

Anastasia picked up the notebook and examined the intricate design, much like the one her father used as a holding ward when they revisited her memories of the obscurus. Quickly, she went to work with the chip of pale blue chalk. She had never been much of an artist but did her best to trace a circle from the headboard, all the way around, and then a series of spirals in the middle, some of which she had to climb under the bed for and beat back spiders that had found a home. When she emerged, Narcissa beamed proudly.

"Good girl, now chant this with me." Narcissa pointed to the phrase underneath the circle in her notebook. Anastasia grabbed her godmother's hand, and one sweaty hand of the witch who was intermittently screaming.

"Infantem invertere, infantem invertere, infantem invertere."

The witch let out an inhuman sound as the baby shifted.

"A few more breaths." Narcissa said after what felt like hours. The other women of the house returned and stared on anxiously. Anastasia did too.

A cry wrang out as the newborn jetted out onto the dry towels. It made Anastasia feel a bit sick. Narcissa cut the cord with a spell and cleaned the baby in another swift wand motion. Within a few minutes the baby was being rocked in its mother's arms. A healthy baby girl.

Narcissa's office at St. Mungo's was a fan-shaped room with dark wood file drawers lining the rounded wall. When Anastasia entered, it brought on an instant sense of familiarity, but she couldn't pinpoint why.

"What is this place?" Anastasia asked, gazing around.

"This is where all the birth records of every witch and wizard in the United Kingdom and Ireland is kept. It is my office...and it is also where your mother died...and it's where you were born," she said, looking at a particular corner of the room in front of what looked to be the door to a storage closet. "And it's where I cast the lifeline spell to save your life."

Anastasia stared, fixated on that same point.

"Oh," she managed to say.

The two went to lunch in the faculty lounge, and Anastasia cheerfully met all Narcissa's coworkers who thought she was lovely. "Excellent to see young women taking an interest in prenatal healing again!" they chirped. Afterwards, Anastasia cleaned Narcissa's tools while Narcissa managed her correspondence, a St. Mungo's tawny owl hooting intermittently beside her.

"Mm," Narcissa mused hesitantly.

"Something wrong?" Anastasia asked, pausing in her cleaning.

Narcissa sighed, copied the address onto a reply note, and cast a spell to turn the letter to dust that flew off the desk and into the rubbish bin.

"A patient needs me as soon as possible for an intensive treatment, which will be tomorrow, considering I have meetings all afternoon. I'm sorry, but you won't be able to observe this one…can you stand being around Draco for the day?"

"What?" Anastasia asked in surprise and flushed red immediately. Narcissa smirked.

"You can't hide anything from me, darling. I saw you two fighting at the dinner table last night."

"We didn't say anything!" Anastasia protested.

"And that's exactly how I knew you were fighting. Sending glares across the room? Please. I know a cold shoulder when I see one."

At this Anastasia shut her mouth and returned to the chair across from Narcissa's to sulk. Narcissa began writing the reply, scratching across the parchment with her peacock quill, and only when she had sent the letter along with the owl did she speak again.

"Anastasia, if you haven't noticed by now, my methods of midwitching are unconventional…it's important that you keep our use of alchemy today a secret," she clarified.

"Why?" Anastasia said, remembering the excitement of copying the circle and its patterns. She still had the bruises on her elbows and knees to prove it.

Narcissa grimaced.

"Healing alchemy was banned many years ago due to its volatility. The spell we used today was simple, but the spells I use for more complicated matters can go awry quickly. I do not expect you to understand the details, but there is an underground system of witches who understand what I do and know very well that I will take care of them when all normal methods of midwitching have been exhausted. Do you understand?"

"You mean…what you do is illegal?" she asked hesitantly.

Narcissa nodded.

"Yes. If Voldemort hadn't killed my mentor...and then killed your mother," she nodded to the spot, "my methods would be widely accepted in the community by now...but because I had to hide you...too many things had to be kept secret."

Anastasia felt tangentially guilty, although she had no control over the course of events that led to the disruption of Narcissa's research.

"Besides, the original texts were lost, and contained the details for reproducing them correctly. My notebook contains only the ones I bothered to memorize."

"What happened to them?" Anastasia asked, intrigued.

"Perenelle Flamel's original copy was lost after her death. The copy my mentor gave me burned on the day you were born along with half the records in this office," she said solemnly.

At her words, Anastasia remembered why the space was familiar. The news clipping Draco had given her for the trial in June had a picture of the very room burnt to a crisp.

"Last year, when you came to Hogwarts to tell us about the lifeline, you said the way to reverse it was in a lost, illegal book of magic. It's that one? Isn't it?"

"You're more observant than I expected," Narcissa said with a tone of regret. Anastasia ignored it.

"Is that true? It's the only way?" she pushed.

Narcissa took a breath in and nodded, brow creased in worry. "Do you wish it gone?"

Anastasia paused before responding. The lifeline was meant to be a blessing, but sometimes…

"I'm afraid that one day one of us will die, either by accident or by circumstance, and the other will be killed instantaneously. Draco mentioned it too."

Narcissa nodded and summoned two cups of black tea on either side of the desk. She took a sip of hers contemplatively before continuing.

"As am I," she admitted. "Unfortunately, there's no reversal spell available outside of those lost texts. Until a new way is discovered or the old way remembered, you'll have to live with that unfortunate consequence and benefit."

"And how exactly is it a benefit that we both die at the same time?" Anastasia asked curiously, and immediately wished she hadn't. Her godmother's dark umber gaze bored into hers with a unique melancholy.

"Those with a lifeline will never know the pain of outliving their complement."

At the end of the day, Anastasia lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. A knock came at the door.

"Can I come in?" It was Draco.

"I suppose…" she said hesitantly. Draco opened the door, saw her, and immediately started laughing. Anastasia shot up and caught sight of her face in the mirror, her hair fluffed around her head like a frizzy halo.

"What? It's not funny. If you're going to make fun of me, you can leave."

"You look like you've been through hell," he commented, smirking.

"I've never seen someone being born until today…it was really gross…"

"Yeah…I've never been to work with mum, for many reasons."

Anastasia shook her head.

"What do you want?" she asked. Draco cleared his throat and tried to suppress his smile.

"I came to apologize, for yesterday…I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry I called your muggle stories dumb," he said earnestly.

"Oh…" she said, disappointed that he didn't understand why she was mad to begin with, "…you didn't do anything wrong…I'm sorry for lying about the owl."

"It's alright. Quidditch tonight?" Draco asked with a hopeful gleam.

"I think I'm genuinely too tired this time." she said, thinking about all she'd seen and heard.

"Alright then," he said and turned away.

"Mind if I shower?" she asked, feeling horribly sticky and gross.

"Sure," he said, and kept walking.

She walked back into Draco's bedroom in a cloud of steam, hair still wet, wearing her new robes of sage. Draco was sitting in his armchair reading a book with a black cover. He looked rather uncomfortable, like he were trying to avoid thinking about something.

"Are you okay?" she asked hesitantly. His ears turned pink as he avoided eye contact.

"Just reading. What's it any of your business?"

She shrugged and crept over to peek at the title, hovering over him as he had the day before.

The Study of Dark Magic

"Why are you reading that? That's old Grindelvaldian propaganda."

"Um, what? Really?" he asked, feigning surprise as his voice cracked, and stuffed it under a pile of metallic junk on his side table. "Didn't even notice. I mean…dark magic is just another kind of magic."

"No…no it's not…do you really believe that?" she asked looking dumbfounded at the book he was doing a poor job of hiding. She reached over to grab it, but as she did, he leaned in and took a strand of her hair and breathed. Her hand landed on the arm of his chair rather than the table as she leaned on it to stay upright. A shiver wandered down her spine.

"Is that my soap?" Draco asked defensively. "Are you using my soap?"

Anastasia paused, caught. She knew trying to lie would be pointless. He would probably find it creepy and avoid her for the rest of the visit.

"I-I…yes," she admitted. "I'm sorry."

To her surprise, Draco gave a soft smile.

"It's nice on you. Use as much as you like." His touch wandered to the scar on her neck that had lightened considerably since she received it as a child. She shivered again. "I never told you…I felt this when you got it," he said, gently rubbing over it with his thumb.

"You did?" she asked, remembering the dark days of her kidnapping. His eyes flickered gently to hers and back.

"Of course, I did. We felt everything with the lifeline…even before we knew what it was….so what happened? And don't give me the tall tale about falling on a stick," he warned, letting his hand drift through her tresses.

Anastasia had forgotten all about the pathetic excuse she had given him three years prior.

"I…" she started and sat down on the ottoman to explain the rather horrid event. Draco leaned in closer to listen, continuing to play with her hair as she spoke. "I was held for ransom by magical poachers during a trip with Newt Scamander. One of the men held a knife to my neck to threaten a ministry official into sending money. I escaped before it was necessary, but the blade was cursed, so the scar remains."

Draco's gaze never left hers as she explained and turned to anger strong enough to kill, his fingers knotting tightly in her locks.

"They nearly murdered you."

"Only nearly," she replied with a playful smile, gently removing his grip from her hair and holding his hand over his leg. She found, much like the scar, her feelings had faded, but Draco, newly learning about the situation, felt everything at once.

"You could have died," he whispered, dumbfounded.

"I could have died a lot of times," she shrugged, "Technically you would have died too."

He shuddered, grabbed her around the shoulders and pulled her to his chest as he murmured into her neck. She drew a quiet breath in.

"If we died back then…I would have never known why."

Anastasia released her breath, relaxed in his arms.

Draco held her, breathing the scent of his shampoo in her hair, feeling their synchronized heartbeat.