Chapter Five

Disclaimer: My thanks to JK Rowling for having such a splendid imagination and for allowing us to play around with her characters in the fanfiction universe. She gets all the credit for anything you recognize; the plot for this story is entirely mine (though I don't get paid).

Chapter Five

Hermione was thankful to have survived the Wedding of the Century, as the Daily Prophet had declared it. She was fortunate to have missed all the photo opportunities...those were reserved for the happy couple and the Minister himself more than the guests, thank Merlin. She had read through the article, searching for any scandalous news, and breathed easier when she found none.

As far as her own bit of scandalous news, Hermione had implored Ginny not to tell anyone yet of her predicament. She figured it would begin showing soon, but she didn't want to have to talk about it with anyone until it was absolutely necessary. Though, she did wonder what Harry would think when he heard through the grapevine that she was pregnant. Undoubtedly, he would shy away from visiting her, considering children made him nervous. In a way, it would make things easier. She had visions of the child looking very much like Harry and everyone knowing upon sight that it was his child. If he didn't visit, he never would have the chance to suspect.

It was a lazy Sunday, and she opened the shop on time, though she wasn't expecting any customers. She almost never got customers on a Sunday, making it a good day for projects. The project of the day was reorganizing the textbook section. The summer term at Hogwarts was due to start, and that meant the professors were already deciding what books they would be requiring the following year. Hermione wanted to get a head start on ordering the books and having them available to any students who planned on buying them before they left for the summer holiday.

Today she was going to pull all the textbooks left over from the current year to make room for those that were incoming. Her one consolation for not having sold all the textbooks was that she could return these to the supplier for a refund. Of course, all that money would go to purchasing the new titles.

With the books pulled and packaged, she sent an owl off so that they would be picked up the next day. The textbook section was right at the front of the shop, and the shelves looked barren. If it was one thing she detested, it was empty shelves. There was only one thing to do: place the next order as soon as possible.

She looked over the titles. Professor Flitwick was ordering his usual, not having strayed from the same set of textbooks since he was hired. They were good textbooks, no doubt, but Hermione was of the mind that a little variety kept things exciting. She loved Charms and especially Professor Flitwick's teaching style. He was a patient man, and students learned much from him. Even when Lavender Brown had Banished a frog into Professor Flitwick's cup of tea unknowingly...and he had taken a drink before he noticed...he remained as calm and forgiving as ever. Hermione wasn't sure she could have maintained her dignity in such a situation.

Glancing down the list, her eye caught the titles of the texts the Potions professor was ordering. The incoming professor was new...Slughorn was finally retiring, thankfully; he was a good professor, but quite dull in her opinion...and she was ordering the latest in Potions textbooks. For first year, there was A Potions Primer, which Hermione thought was perfect for beginning students, having looked through the book last year. But her favorite was the book for the N.E.W.T. level class: Obscure Potions in Everyday Life. That one caught her attention immediately. It was supposed to be an excellent resource, even for Potions masters. Hermione could feel her fingers itch; she wanted to get her hands on the book so badly.

She remembered her N.E.W.T. level Potions class, the year they had returned to Hogwarts. Slughorn was teaching, and she had been positively bored. All of the potions he had scheduled for the class to work on she had heard of and were not challenging to brew; plus, Slughorn had a tendency to lecture, and her attention would wander. She would half-listen to what he was saying, but it was never anything of importance; though she was sure it would show up on an exam, and it inevitably did. She had passed her N.E.W.T. with an Outstanding and was thankful the class was finally over.

It was sort of disappointing since she had always loved Potions when Professor Snape was the one teaching it. Professor Snape was dreadfully biased against Gryffindor House, but his classes were never boring, and he always challenged her. Sometimes he even assigned her a different potion to brew, knowing that the one they were working on in class was below her ability. He seemed to appreciate her interest in Potions, even though she was a Gryffindor.

At the end of her fifth year, Professor Snape asked her to stay after class. Without actually complimenting her...because that would only happen when Hades froze over...he had told her to consider taking Potions as an independent study the following year. He told her that if she studied the sixth-year Potions text over the summer, she'd be more than ready to work on potions beyond what the other students were working on.

She'd studied the text and spent the summer brewing potions, but she never got the chance to ask him about independent study because when the new term started, Professor Snape had become the new Defense instructor. She brought up the possibility to Slughorn, but he looked at her blankly, asked who she was, and insisted that while Professor Snape might have been an excellent Potions professor, he had a different teaching style and she should learn alongside the rest of her class.

Professor Snape never asked if she was taking Potions as independent study, and she didn't offer the information, nor her disappointment that it had never happened. As it turned out, it didn't matter if he knew or not since he disappeared at the end of the year with the death of Dumbledore.

Harry told her what Snape had done. Harry had been there, under his Invisibility Cloak, and had seen the whole thing. At first she refused to believe it; then she slowly came to accept it. And she never saw Professor Snape again. Though Ron had insisted that he had.

During the battle, right before Voldemort had been killed, Ron reported that he had faced a Death Eater whose cloak was torn and mask had slid. He said he saw straight, black hair through the torn hood, and the mouth was set in a sneer that just had to have been Snape's. The Death Eater took one look at him and had lowered his wand, something Ron admitted to freely, calling it an act of cowardice. Ron had taken him down, throwing a Slicing Hex at the Death Eater's legs and a concussive hex at his head. The man had fallen, and Ron became so preoccupied with fending off other Death Eaters in the area that he never saw what happened to the Death Eater he swore had been Snape.

Of course, Severus Snape was not found among the injured or the dead. It was as though he had never been at the battle, and with all the Death Eaters cloaked and masked, it was impossible to say who had been there unless they were among the injured or dead. Ron, however, continued to insist he had been there and that he was definitely injured if not dead. Harry and Hermione chose to believe him because Ron was so adamant about it...and because Hermione knew all about missing Death Eaters and what it was like not to be believed.

Tearing herself away from unpleasant memories, Hermione sent a second owl to her supplier with the order. She decided to place a smaller order this year, hoping that the money she would receive from the return of the old textbooks would cover the new order. She expected that she should receive the books by Tuesday, and she could start planning the display, complete with references to other books related to each subject that the students might be interested in.

She began planning out the reference charms for each title and which books she would link to the textbooks. Before she knew it, the sun was lowering in the sky and her stomach was beginning to complain, half in hunger and half in nausea. She wasn't sure if she could eat, so she took some soda crackers from her desk drawer and began nibbling on them while she continued her work.

~ o ~

The cold, hard marble of the floors did nothing to improve Draco's mood. He and his mother had sold the last of the Persian rugs last week, a necessity since the Malfoy estate assets had been frozen since right after the war. Now the sharp tap of his heels could be heard as he walked down the hallway, and he hated it.

He hated the fact that he and his mother had to live like paupers, though thank the gods the mansion had been in their family for centuries and couldn't be taken from them. He hated seeing the pinched, drawn, pale expression his mother wore day in and day out. He hated how bleeding cold it was in the manor all the time. But most of all, he hated that his father lay comatose two floors up, as good as dead, and he hated the person who put him there...Hermione Granger.

His anger had been building for years, but in the last few months as the last of their pre-war liquidated funds drained away, it had become nearly unbearable. Draco scowled as he traveled the last remaining steps to the laboratory beneath the kitchen. If he thought it was already cold, the frigid breath of air that emitted as the door to the laboratory opened made the house feel positively tropical. He steeled himself against the inevitable shiver and walked over to the cauldron that had been waiting for his return. He wrinkled his nose slightly at the unattractive, muddy potion that still bubbled slowly within and its matching fetid odor.

Draco drew an envelope from an inner pocket and opened it, revealing a ragged lock of dust-blond hair. Its donor had been quite willing to part with it...and a few Muggle pounds...with one easily pronounced, "Imperio!" It was so simple to strip Muggles of their valuables this way; he figured it would be the perfect way to make a living of sorts once the small amount they received from the rugs ran out.

Checking the antiquated watch on his wrist and seeing that it would soon be nightfall if he didn't hurry, he measured out some of the potion into a small flask and capped it. Polyjuice Potion lasted an hour, though the exact amount of time really depended on the brewer. He held himself in some esteem when it came to potion-brewing, and it wasn't the first time he had brewed Polyjuice Potion after all. Still, it was always good to be safe and wait to drink it until the very last possible moment.

He would Apparate from the old, abandoned servants' quarters on the fringes of the considerably large plot of land the Malfoys owned. He hadn't had the energy to refresh the anti-Apparition wards on the entire property; they had been satisfied with merely keeping the manor safe from Apparating vandals these past few months. Not too many paid them much attention anymore, like they had right after the end of the war, but one was enough to cause considerable damage.

The hair-filled envelope found its way back to the inner pocket of his robes along with the flask of potion, and Draco climbed the staircases to find his mother to let her know he was leaving. Not surprisingly, he found her bent over his father's bed; praying or asleep, he knew not which.

"Mother?" he called out softly, not wanting to wake her if she were indeed asleep.

Narcissa's head and shoulders slowly straightened at the sound of her son's voice. It was the only indication that she had heard, for she didn't turn toward him and she rarely bothered to speak any longer.

"Mother, I'm going out. I shouldn't be long, one or two hours tops," he added. She always worried about him, that she would lose him as she had Lucius.

The only reply from Narcissa was a slow, brief nod of her head, and then she resumed the same position he had found her in when he had entered the room. Draco backed through the doorframe and began to pull the door shut. The sight of his father's face, illuminated by the soft light his mother had lit next to the bed, made him pause briefly. It shone gently upon the angular, aristocratic face of Lucius Malfoy, placing half of it in shadow. He watched for a brief moment, looking for the gentle rise-fall of the blankets that covered his father's chest, holding his breath so that he'd be able to detect even the slightest of movement. When he could finally see it, Draco exhaled and closed the door all the way.

The walk down to the empty servants' quarters was quick and uneventful. He welcomed the opportunity to get out of the too-big, too-quiet house. For all the determination and otherwise unemotional look on his face, his stomach made little leaps every so often. He was finally going to exact revenge for the joke his life had become. If his father were not frozen in a state of forever-sleep, life would be different for his mother and him, for all of them. It might not be everything it once was, but it would definitely be better. It was high time he thank the person responsible for his father's condition.

~ o ~

The sun hung just above the horizon, casting long shadows of pre-dusk, as a dark-blond man of average height, average looks, and presumably average wealth approached the door of the Strega Letteraria. He peered through the window, protecting his eyes from the slanting sunlight with his hand. Seeing no one within, he checked the small placard that stated the hours the bookshop was open and saw that the doors should still indeed be unlocked. Pulling on the door did in fact prove that the bookshop was still open, and with a look to the right and left, and then a glance behind, he walked inside.

"I'll be right there!" a voice called cheerily from somewhere in the back as a little bell made his presence known.

"Take your time," he called back, choosing to browse through a small display of sale items placed next to the door while he waited. His nose wrinkled at the number of Muggle books there were in the pile.

Hermione extricated herself from the stacks, a notepad in one hand, her wand behind her ear, looking very dusty. She figured she must look quite a sight when the stranger waiting for her by the entrance stared at her in surprise. It only took a second to say the proper charms, de-dustifying herself and tidying up her hair.

"There now, I believe I look to be the proper shop-mistress," she quipped with a smile on her face meant to put her customer at ease. "What can I do for you, sir? Looking for something in particular?"

The man returned a book to the sale cart and tried to draw himself taller than he actually was. "Yes. Yes, as a matter of fact, I am," he answered, clearing his throat a little at its tightness. "A couple of things, actually. I've been shopping all day, and I just cannot seem to find the final two texts I need for my research."

"Please, come to the front desk, and I'll do my best to help. If I don't have what you're looking for, chances are I know where to get it." She motioned to the customer side of the counter while she took perch on a stool behind, facing a square black panel with writing seemingly lit up from within.

"Is that one of those Muggle contraptions, a...what do you call it?" he asked with just a touch of disdain. Apparently, it wasn't the first time she'd happened across a reaction like that, for it did not seem to bother her one bit.

"A computer, yes. It helps me keep inventory on everything in the shop, and while there are certain charms that I could buy for that express purpose, I am under a budget. This," she pointed to the glowing screen in front of her, "was a present from my parents a couple years ago." Hermione smiled at the man, whose look of pure loathing of everything Muggle still sat firmly in place. "So, what can I help you find?"

The man visibly shook himself back to the topic at hand. "Right. Let's see," he said as he drew a piece of paper out of his robe pocket. "I'm looking for two titles: Malefic Magical Maladies by Myrddin Wyllt and The Mortal Magus by Cygnus Black."

Hermione's eyes widened. "Boy, you don't want much, do you? The first, I can tell you now was last in print in the early 1700s; only ten reprints were made at the time. The second, I can tell you I don't have ... though it seems familiar to me ... but let me check the pre-owned lists for you on the Wizard-Wide Web." Her fingers clicked across little black buttons.

The man leaned in over the counter to look at the screen. "You mean wizards use these things?" he asked incredulously.

"It's more common than you think," she answered, smiling at him appeasingly. She wasn't about to tell him that it was founded and ran by Squibs.

Her eyes darted across the screen, and she tapped a small elongated stone, which was connected to this 'computer' of hers by a long, thin cord, a few times. Finally, her eyes lit up in recognition.

"Well, here is the one by Cygnus Black ... of course," she said more to herself than to the man in front of her. "The other isn't listed here, but then again, I didn't expect it to be. Let me try one more list."

Again, the tap-tapping and click-clicking with a little bit of muttering under the breath. The man took great interest as a new box zoomed to the forefront of the lighted screen. When she again spoke, he straightened himself up suddenly, the interest disappearing and the look of disdain reasserting itself upon his features.

"I found the Black book on a new list, opened by one of the oldest wizard families in Great Britain. It's called 'Aunt Elladora's Reading Room.' It's the Black family, of course. If anyone would have that book, it would be them. Apparently, it's not in print anywhere at the moment, but they can have one duplicated for you, for a price." She jotted down a figure on a piece of paper and returned to the screen.

"This second book it appears I can get for you, also for a price. I have a few connections with a certain place I'd rather not name, and I've just put in an inquiry. It'll be just a moment before I receive a reply..."

"That quick?" the man asked, surprised.

"Yes, it's sort of a magical version of e-mail, sort of like computer post. Quicker than using an owl, actually. It only works, though, if the person you are trying to contact has a computer like this one. Well, actually, there are larger and more expensive models out now, of course." That got the man's attention. "Here it is. Wait a minute while I read their reply. Hmm ... well, Mr...?"

"Burke."

"Not of Borgin and Burkes?" she had to ask.

"Very distantly related. His branch of the family uses an 's' at the end of their name, I don't," he replied quickly, hoping she wasn't going to go off on a tangent at his prolonged explanation.

"Anyway, Mr. Burke," she continued, "this place informs me that a copy of the book can be found to the tune of this amount."

Scribbling another figure onto the piece of paper, she slid it over and turned it around so he could read it. If the amount surprised him, he didn't let on.

"Very well," was his reply. "Of course, there will be mark-up on your end, won't there?"

"It's already figured in," she replied inscrutably.

"Ah, a shrewd businesswoman. I can respect that." He paused a moment, looking at the figures one last time as though determining something. "And when can you have these two items for me?" he asked.

Hermione tapped her wand on the magically rotating calendar, which floated above her desk. "Let's see ... I should have them in about two weeks; how about you stop by again around the 20th to be on the safe side? Oh, and I'd need a 20% deposit."

Nodding, Mr. Burked fished in his robe pockets, and unexpectedly came up with a handful of Muggle pounds. He placed them on the counter.

"You wouldn't happen to accept Muggle currency? I mean, since you work with Muggle technology and...I'm totally assuming now...since your parents are Muggles?"

She ignored his assumption, not wanting to offer too much information about herself. His obvious dislike of Muggle technology had her a little leery of letting him know she was Muggle-born.

"I have no problem whatsoever accepting British pounds. Let's see what you have here...." She counted out the pounds he had placed on the counter and performed a minor calculation on the computer. "This is slightly less than the 20%, but I'm willing to make an exception for you, Mr. Burke. Something tells me you will be returning for these two books."

"Most definitely," he answered.

Hermione walked over to her desk to finalize the purchase. "Follow me, Mr. Burke. Have a seat. Could I interest you in a spot of tea?"

"No, thank you. I'm rather in a hurry to get home," he replied.

He took the proffered seat across from her at the desk and watched as she pulled an invoice from a drawer, tapped it, and muttered a few unintelligible words. Words appeared and figures tallied. When the paper was done formulating itself, she handed it to him.

As he folded the invoice and stood to put it in his robe pocket, his eyes fell on a book that lay flayed open, face down on her desk. It was obviously a Muggle book: a still picture of a very pregnant woman sitting in a rocking chair was on the cover, and the words 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' were printed over her head. His eyes widened fractionally, and he scrutinized the bookshop owner from under hooded eyes.

"Well, thank you for your business, Mr. Burke. Like I said, check back around the 20th, and they should be here."

"I will do just that. Thank you, Miss...?"

"Granger. Hermione Granger," she replied, holding out her hand to seal the deal.

He took her hand and shook it, glancing down at her only mildly rounded belly. "Thank you, Miss Granger. I'll see you in a little more than two weeks then."

Hermione watched him as he left the store, suddenly a little self-conscious. She had noticed him looking at her appearance. She smoothed down the front of her jumper, looking to see if she had missed any large motes of dust with that cleansing spell earlier. Perhaps he was a little disdainful of her Muggle clothing? Well, it was easier to climb ladders in jeans than in a robe. Surely, he could understand that.

She looked at the copy of the invoice she had given Mr. Burke. She felt a pull of anxiety as the full realization hit her of the number of Galleons this order was going to cost her. She should have insisted on a higher deposit. Now she was going to have to make yet another withdrawal from her bank vault. Though, she would get it back double once Mr. Burke paid his bill in full. Taking a deep cleansing breath and shrugging, she picked her notepad back up and headed off into the stacks once more.

~ o ~

Mr. Burke exited the shop just as the sun lost its battle with the encroaching night. Hurrying across the street, he slipped into the alleyway and felt the Polyjuice Potion begin to wear off. He Disapparated just as his dusty-blond locks began to lengthen to their usual length.

The shadows hadn't stirred a breath as they watched the strange, average-looking man approach, nor had the Stranger, who had taken up residence just in time to see the man shaking hands with Hermione in the shop. The Stranger performed a silent Disillusionment Charm when it became obvious the man was seeking the cover the alleyway offered.

The shadows swallowed almost all the light that managed to come in from the street. That didn't stop the Stranger from noticing that the man's hair appeared to be getting longer right before he Disapparated. The Stranger remained both Disillusioned and frozen, as if Petrified, for a few long minutes after the man had disappeared, very deep in thought.

The Stranger barely noticed when Hermione finally closed up shop and went up to bed.