Harvest Moon

Margaritama, Heidi191976, Slytheringriffindor21, I\'m glad you\'re still reading and enjoying.

Voracious Reader: That theory is brilliant! Wish I\'d thought of it.

***



Draco pounded on the door to his mother’s home almost frantically. Then waited impatiently for someone to answer. The door swung open to reveal a house elf who bowed deeply to him.



“Master Draco. To what is we owing this pleasure?”



“I need to see my mother, Riff Raff. Could you tell me where she is?”



“Mistress is in the library, Master. Should I goes and fetch her for you?”



“No, that’s quite all right. I can go find her myself. Thank you.”



“As Master wishes,” Riff Raff said, backing away and allowing him access to the corridor.



Draco made his way down the hall to the library. Though not as massive as his father’s library at the manor house it was still quite spacious and it might take him a few minutes to actually find his mother among the bookshelves.



“You have to go before he comes in and sees you. That would be the shock of his lifetime,” came Narcissa’s voice through the heavy doors.



Draco paused when he heard her voice, she sounded vaguely upset. He frowned a little, starting to get worried. He knocked then pushed the door to the library open.



“Mother?” he called.



She came around one of the bookcases and held both hands out to him in greeting. Draco took her hands and pulled her into a hug. He was so happy to see her unharmed he couldn’t speak for a moment.



“Draco, darling. What a lovely surprise,” she said, kissing him on both cheeks.



“Who were you talking to, Mother?”



“Oh, just one of the house elves,” she said airily.



“You sounded upset,” he said, noticing that she had glanced nervously around the room for a moment.



“I was looking for a particular book but evidently it was one of the ones your father had gotten in the . . . divorce,” she said, it sounded as though she’d had to force the last word out. “At any rate, I was annoyed and I’m afraid I took it out on one of the elves.”



“I see.” He frowned a little because it wasn’t like her to keep secrets from him. But he decided to let it slide without challenging her, thinking maybe she had a lover she didn’t want to tell him about just yet. “I could never figure out why you named the head house elf of this place Riff Raff.”



Narcissa smiled at her son. “I didn’t name him. Your uncle did. Riff Raff was a gift to me, ages ago. One of the few things I came into my marriage with that was mine alone. To what do I owe this pleasure, dear?”



Draco paused for a moment, trying to formulate how to tell his mother that she might be in danger. She was a normally fragile person, even more so since she and his father had divorced and he didn’t want to upset her any more than he could help.



“Mother, come and sit down for a moment,” he said, pulling her toward the chaise in one corner of the room.



Narcissa sat down and Draco sat next to her, still trying to find the right words. She patted his hand gently.



“Please tell me what you’re so worried about, son,” she said.



Draco sighed and cleared his throat. “I’m not certain how to tell you this, Mother. You know what kind of work I do for the Ministry. So, you know the issues that come up when tracing down leads.”



“Yes, I know. Draco, are you worried about one of your cases?”



“Extremely so. It seems that some of Father’s . . . playmates are being targeted.”



Narcissa stiffened slightly before regaining her momentarily lost composure. “Draco, really, what has that to do with me? I’m hardly one of your father’s playmates anymore.”



“I’m aware of that, Mother. However, these things tend to escalate and I thought you should be cautious just in case.”



“That’s very sweet of you, Draco. But if someone is targeting your father’s little light skirts, I sincerely doubt they’ll come after me. I will be careful though. I promise. Now, would you like to stay for supper?”



Draco leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’d love to, Mother.”



***



Hermione sat at her desk, mulling over the conversation she’d had with Arabella Smythe over tea earlier. They had gone to have tea at the Palm Court in the Ritz hotel and true to her word Arabella had paid for everything. During polite conversation they’d found out they had much in common and Hermione had found herself genuinely liking the other woman. When she’d asked how Arabella had initially gotten connected to the Ministry she’d smiled and said that while she might not be a witch by the wizarding world’s standards she was most certainly one by the muggle world’s. She’d told Hermione she’d been able to sense magickal people and things since her early years and her parents had fortunately encouraged rather than discouraged the ability.



They’d also discussed books, politics in both the muggle and wizarding worlds, and of course, Lucius Malfoy. The picture Arabella painted of him was a far cry from the one she personally knew. But as Arabella pointed out, a vast amount of things could change in the span of ten years.



She was startled out of her reverie by Kingsley calling her name from the doorway.



“Huh? I’m sorry, what was that?” she asked.



“A call has come in from the Malfoy manner. No one can seem to contact Draco at the moment.”



“Ah, I see. I’ll be there shortly, Kingsley,” she said.



“Hermione,” Kingsley began. He paused for a moment, seeming to collect his thoughts. “I know that your investigations are leading you around to Lucius Malfoy in certain aspects.”



Hermione nodded. “They are. But at the moment it’s all circumstantial evidence. Nothing solid can be proven one way or another. I do think someone is trying to frame him for these murders somehow. I’m not sure why though.”



“What makes you so confident it isn’t him? He’s certainly proven on multiple occasions the ability and will to torture or kill someone.”



“We’ve no proof of that either, Kingsley. When the members of DA were in the Department of Mysteries while at school, the Death Eaters had us all boxed in. But none of them cast avada even though that would have been the simplest thing to do considering we were still basically children at the time. Lucius himself never raised his wand toward anyone except when the Order showed up. We know he was protecting his family from Voldemort in the only way he knew how by at least halfway following his orders,” Hermione pointed out. She was taken aback as soon as the words had left her mouth. All of that was true and she’d never really thought about it before now. She frowned a little, pondering the possibility of what Arabella had said about Lucius being correct.



“At any rate, someone has apparently stolen a body from the family mausoleum.”



Hermione made a disgusted noise. “Why on earth would someone steal a body?”



“I’ve no idea. The strange thing about it is the body was Lucius Malfoy’s twin brother.”



“Twin? I never knew he had a brother to begin with, much less a twin.”



“He did have. Apparently, he died at sixteen and as is par for the course with the Malfoys was put to rest in the family mausoleum and no more was said of it. Though there were odd rumors about the circumstances of his death as I understand it.”



“What does this have to do with the case Draco and I are working on?”



“Part of the odd rumor was that Lucius’ twin was paralyzed rather than killed. And that Lucius himself did it to get his brother out of the way.”



“Why would he do that?”



Kingsley shook his head. “Hermione, in the old families, murder of an older sibling by a younger one was still somewhat accepted up until twenty years or so ago. As was any other method of rendering one unfit to inherit the family title and wealth. It wasn’t an unusual phenomenon.”