New Beginning

Chapter 17


Draco waited patiently for his father, he had several men in his office and Draco stood outside the door. Just off to the side, old Slytherin habits die hard.

“Run this by me again,” Lucius said. Draco could hear the frustration in his father’s tone of voice. “For the last month and a half, Potter hasn’t picked up his mail that comes every Friday to the head office of the Apartments.”

“Yes, Minister.”

“He could be on vacation. People do it all the time, it doesn’t constitute he’s missing or any foul play has happened.”

Draco agreed, if had been Potter, he would have ran like the devil was chasing him. He’d seen what it was like that last month at Hogwarts, Potter couldn’t go anywhere without anyone watching his every move. Would make even Draco himself want to disappear. Draco started listening again.

“The tenants of the apartments went to go check Mr. Potter’s apartment. According to Mr. Stagger, the apartment had been in a war zone, he said things where totally shredded. If that doesn’t sound like foul play Minister I don’t know what does.”

Draco heard his father sigh. “Anything could have happen. It doesn’t mean Harry Potter is missing or gone or dead. No one else has reported him missing, the boy is probably gallivanting around the globe, doesn’t even know about his apartment. If anyone would have reported him missing it would have been Dumbledore.”

Draco rested his head against the wall. Hogwarts was searched, that had been what Severus said, Draco thought.

“No one has seen him, or the Granger girl he was living with something could have happened to both of them.”

Lucius groaned, “Now you’re going to tell me next it was all the Granger’s girl doing for Potter to go missing.”

“That’s what we think.”

“I’ve heard enough, get out of my office.” Draco knew that tone of voice, that tone was voice meant everything was closed, no further discussion till his father had time to think about it.

“But, Minister. We want a formal report filed.”

“I said out.”

The door swung open and two wizards came out at almost a run. Draco smirked at them. They should have left when he had told them too to begin with, Draco thought. He waited for the wizards to be in the lift before he knocked softly on his father’s door.

The door almost flew off the hinges, “I told you two too…” Lucius stopped when he saw his son and heaved a sigh of relief. “Now maybe I can have a decent conversation for a change.” He ushered his son in his office and shut the door.

Draco sat in one of the chairs in front of his father’s desk. Eagle owl’s sat roosted to the right near the windows; his father used them for owl posts that had to be delivered in a hurry. Draco saw his father slump in his chair, something his father rarely did, and he looked to be under stress, a lot of it.

“Bad day?” Draco asked, testing the waters.

Lucius snorted.

“Tristin sends her love,” Draco reached into his robe and pulled out his daughter’s half eaten chocolate bar, and placed it on his father’s desk. “She said she wanted you to have the rest, she said you needed it.”

Lucius picked up the bar and studied it. “What did she put on it?”

Draco shrugged and grinned, “I don’t think she put anything on it, but I wouldn’t put it past her. You haven’t been to the house in awhile.”

Lucius put the snipped off a piece of the bar and tossed it to one of the owls. Draco and Lucius both waited as the owl ate it, watching with fascination and horror. Tristin was a clever little thing, she had found a way in one of Lucius’s old rooms in the Manor and had poured powder on a picture she had drawn him and put in an envelope, Draco had brought it to him innocently giving his father the gift his daughter wanted to give him. Lucius had warts on his hands for the rest of the day from her little stunt, he went and saw her that night, she was demanding her grandfather’s attention, she said the wizarding world could have him later, she wanted him then. The owl nibbled at the chocolate and then it appeared all was normal, Lucius was about to take a bite of the chocolate until he noticed the owls feathers turning bright orange. Lucius immediately threw the chocolate away. “Tell her I’ll be there tonight, and search her rooms again.”

Draco was shaking his head, “I have.”

“Then do it again. She’s hiding this stuff somewhere. Merlin, even you used to pull stuff like this when you were little, wait until she does this to you.”

Draco smiled, he remembered some of the stuff he used to pull. His father coming home being angry, ranting and raving, then all was well after the chastisement, his father always showed affection even when he had gotten in trouble. “She is my daughter.”

Lucius smiled, “I know. Was there anything you needed?”

Draco pulled the parchment out of his robe and pushed it across his father’s desk for him to read, he could see his father rolling his eyes.

“Fudge was beyond stupid, why didn’t you just throw this out. It’s useless.”

“Maybe not…” Draco started, and then he started telling him of the interesting lunch he had Severus and his son. Lucius frowned, the more he heard the more his frustration grew. Lucius was pacing by the time Draco finished.

“You want me to sign this.”

“Yes, sir. I want to give Weasley the assignment. He needs to be paid back for what he’s done to her. This will make up for some of it, but not all of it. And one other thing, Severus said Hogwarts was searched for Harry Potter.”

Lucius’s head snapped to Draco. “What do you mean searched? Only Auror are allowed to do any searches when it comes to Hogwarts.”

“I never assigned one. I think we have a couple of rouge Auror on our hands, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be Weasley and his two henchmen.”


********


“Another month,” Hermione shouted in the room. “I can’t believe he wants me to wait that long.”

Hermione paced in her furry, thinking about what it would feel like, just to be free from the spells that Ron put her under. The tears were flowing down her cheeks, angry for what happened to her, stupidity for not noticing it in the first place, and hurting for being denied companionship with anyone else that wasn’t Ron. Harry had been the only one there for her, her only true friend, had given more to her while they were friends and more to her than Ron ever thought about giving.

“Mama.”

Hermione turned to see Darien rubbing the sleep out of his eyes in the doorway, she walked attentively to him, and she didn’t want him screaming or crying because of her. She wanted the best for Darien, because that was something that Harry would have wanted.

“Mama is here baby.” Hermione bent down without touching him, just testing the waters while she was this close to him feeling everything she was.

“Mama sad?” Darien reached out and wiped the tears from her cheek.

“Yes, Mama is sad.” She opened her arms and Darien came to her. She picked him up, he had been like a breath of fresh air in her life, so innocent, well at least as innocent as you could be with all those memories he had floating around in his head.

Darien hugged her around her neck. “Dada make it better.”

She hugged him tighter, yes Daddy’s always seemed to make everything better. She had even thought that about her own Dad. Always seemed to know what to do, even when half the time the didn’t, it was just being with them that made everything better. “Yes, Darien, Dada will make it better.”


********


Severus was in his private lab, cutting up ingredients for the polyjuice potion. The rhythmic slicing abated his temper somewhat. His mind going over what would happen, he wasn’t sure how Hermione would react seeing Ron. The last time she said she froze, was cast back into memories of Ron. More likely of what Ron had done to her. That only fueled his hatred towards him. The Weasel would pay, and a pay a dear price for what he had done too. Severus was going to make sure of that.

Albus came into the lab, “I just had an interesting owl from the Minister of Magic. He said no authorized searches of Hogwarts had been given to any Auror.”

“I mentioned the search while Darien and I were having lunch at the Malfoy Manor.” Severus kept slicing.

Albus sat on the stool that was beside the workstation. “Polyjuice potion, what ever are you brewing that for?”

Severus paused and looked over at Albus. “Pansy had mentioned it. I wouldn’t have to be myself, well I would be, but Hermione wouldn’t have to see me. She would see someone else, maybe it will help negate the effects of the reversal spell.”

Severus had told Albus about what had happen, he told the old man a lot. He looked up to Albus and would do anything for him, he had done everything the man had asked of him or required of him to do.

“Don’t think that has ever been tried before. Might have to submit a paper on that, would be interesting reading.”

Severus smirked at Albus. Albus had Severus write several papers for potions journals, not that he wasn’t thrilled to write them. Severus liked to stay in the background of things, he didn’t like fame, never would, he had seen first hand of what unwanted fame had caused. Not that he didn’t love Darien, he did, he realized he would of even loved Harry if Harry had come to him and asked to do the same that he had asked of Hermione. Granted, Severus didn’t see himself as an ideal father, his own wasn’t much of an example, but he had learned a lot from Albus over the years. Learned enough that he knew he would have to try his best, even if he failed miserably at it.

“You want me to submit a paper?”

Albus’s eyes twinkled. “Only if you want to my boy. But it would work if you didn’t have the other party’s permission. It would be quite useful to know, if shall we say, this ever happens to another female who find herself in an unwanted predicament has Hermione found herself in.”

“I’ll ask her, I’m not promising anything, but I’ll ask.” Severus finished up the slicing and started on the crushing of certain ingredients.

“It never hurts to ask.” Albus paused and watched Severus work for a while. “Poppy, Minerva and I think it’s time now, that Hermione gets some help. It’s been a week, I think she can have some potions now to help calm her.”

“She was under that spell for six years. She needs at least two weeks, you know that, if she has a potion now it’ll throw her back into that spell without being able to come back from it.”

Albus sighed, “Well, you would know. The other professors are taking bets on how long it’s going to be before Hermione will curse or hex someone.”

“Who’s lost already?”

“Sibyll, that was to be expected. The woman doesn’t know Hermione that well. Everyone has different hours for the day before the term starts.”

Severus laughed. “That makes sense. If she’ll do it, she’ll do it before the children arrive.”

Albus rose, “Hagrid’s under the impression she won’t do it all, but then again, he’s been out in his hut and hasn’t been around her in the castle.”

Severus snarled, “Ought to make him move in for the this next week, maybe he’ll change his mind.”

“We shall see,” Albus walked over to the door and turned one last time to Severus. “Oh, before I forget. The Minister of Magic demanded you have dinner tonight at the Manor, he also said something about bringing your son and his mother. Shame on you for not at least telling Lucius, said something about having to find it from his son, who gloated to him that he knew something his father didn’t. Time to make amends.”

Severus groaned, he just hoped Hermione would be in a better mood and that nothing would go wrong. Lucius was going to kill him, and he was going to have to explain things to Hermione, that Lucius would be Darien’s godfather. He just hoped his day didn’t get any worse.