Chapter 3

Hermione followed the house-elf into the dining room of Malfoy Manor where candles sparkled upon crystal, silver and a dazzling white tablecloth. A grey-clad wizard turned from his contemplation of the sunset across a large lake, and for a moment, Hermione wondered why Lucius had cut off his magnificent hair.

"Hello, Granger," Draco drawled. "Congratulations."

"Hello, Malfoy," Hermione said coolly, "Congratulations for what?"

Draco contemplated her for a moment, then shrugged.

"Take your pick."

"Hm." Hermione handed her one and only velvet evening cloak to the waiting elf. "I doubt if you're very interested in my work on futharc runes, so it's a toss-up between getting your father out of his self-imposed seclusion or failing to get Snape out of his."

"Why should I congratulate you on a failure?"

"I emerged unhexed and with my memory intact, which is a good start, don't you think?"

"I was thinking more of your decision to dump the red-headed idiot," Draco said casually. "Good move, that."

"For a Mudblood, I suppose."

They stared at each other for a while. Something warmed in the depths of the sea-grey eyes, so like his father's.

"Truce?" Hermione suggested and he gave a sharp nod.

"Why not? I gather you'll be around for a while, at least until you've worked your way through the library." He picked up a small glass from the mantelpiece and sipped before adding, "And satisfied your curiosity about Snape, of course. Sherry?"

"Dry, if you have it."

She almost missed the slight flicker of his smile. "What else? Sweet sherry is an abomination."

"Good grief, that's exactly what my father says."

She surprised a short huff of laughter from him. Draco crossed to a side table and poured the sherry, handing her the glass.

"Is your wife here?" Hermione asked.

He shook his head.

"She's taken Scorpius to visit her aunt in Ireland; I had an important business meeting today, so I'll join them tomorrow."

They seemed to have exhausted the possibilities of polite conversation for a while and stood watching two white peacocks squabbling and chasing one another, flying back and forth across the lake. Hermione drank her sherry (dry but mellow; her father would have approved) and pondered upon fate and Malfoys and why she had allowed Ginny to choose her shoes, which were even more uncomfortable than they were stylish.

"Ah, there you both are. I apologise, I had to prise Severus away from his potions with a pikestaff." Lucius smiled that satisfied smile that always made Hermione think of something cool, sleek and carnivorous. Possibly a cobra. "You haven't killed each other, which is very pleasing."

"We decided that blood-stained carpets are so passé," Draco remarked. His father inclined his head, a gesture that indicated both amusement and mild censure, and went to help himself to the sherry.

"Severus will join us in a moment. No doubt he has recalled that we have guests for dinner and does not wish to join us perfumed with frog guts, rat spleen and armadillo bile." He affected a shudder. "Potions are so very messy."

"I always enjoyed Potions," Hermione said. "At least, when I wasn't being shouted at for being an insufferable know-it-all."

"Yes, I did too," Draco agreed. "Potter-baiting made a grand spectator sport."

"You did your share of it yourself."

He shrugged an impeccably clad shoulder. "It went both ways, didn't it? He gave as good as he got. I recall a firework in a cauldron in our second year."

"That was a diversion," Hermione admitted. "I was able to raid Professor Snape's store under cover of the chaos."

"Really? Goody-goody Granger actually stole from Snape's stores? What in Merlin's name were you doing?"

"Brewing Polyjuice."

"In your second year?" Lucius purred. "My word, what a precocious child you were."

"Harry and Ron impersonated Crabbe and Goyle; they wanted to find out if you were the heir of Slytherin," Hermione told Draco. "We were convinced you'd opened the Chamber of Secrets."

"I'm flattered," Draco said dryly. "Although I wonder if you shouldn't have been in Slytherin yourself. Stealing from Snape, sending your minions into the serpents' den..."

"Ah, well, I was going to come, too, except that instead of Polyjuicing into Millicent Bulstrode, I accidentally Polyjuiced into her cat."

Draco almost spluttered his sherry.

"I'd have loved to have seen that!"

"It was highly embarrassing," Hermione admitted. "And yes, Professor Snape, I do owe you an apology for stealing your Boomslang skin."

Snape glided into the room, drew himself up and said softly, "Fifty points from Gryffindor. I assume the potion worked otherwise?"

"Of course."

"Insufferable know-it-all Mu – Muggle-born," Draco muttered.

"Teacher's smarmy pure-blood pet."

They stared at each other, but the old fire had died away. Draco shook his head. "Just doesn't work anymore, does it?"

"You'd better be careful; you'll be polite to Harry next."

"Too late," Draco admitted glumly. "We're both on the Nocturne Alley modernisation committee. Oh, Merlin, the Malfoys are becoming respectable." He glanced aside at Snape. "You're a bad influence on us."

"I'm sure. Have you been forced to be pleasant to a Weasley recently?"

Draco brightened up. "You're right; there is hope for me yet. I had a long argument with one of them about the quality of the line of cauldrons that I wanted to import from Germany."

"Percy," Hermione said.

"Not to mention the one at the joke shop, who simply refuses to let me buy him out?"

"George."

"I'm sure I could pick a fight with the Weasel if I tried. All is right with the world."

Prossy popped up beside Lucius, who nodded once, and dishes appeared on the table. They took their seats, Hermione wondering how on earth she had come to this: dining at Malfoy Manor and conversing politely with three archetypal Slytherins.

"I gather your paper on the uses of dragon's saliva has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Applied Sorcery, Severus," Draco remarked, flicking out his napkin and spreading it upon his lap. "Remind me to warn Daphne." He caught Hermione's curious glance and explained, "Severus publishes under the names 'King and Greengrass'; any queries are directed via my sister-in-law, who handles the correspondence and the accounts."

"King?" Hermione turned to Snape, who sneered at her across the table. "Of course, you're the mysterious Mr Aurelius King, of King's Potions."

"Quite – although hardly mysterious. I'm simply the backroom boy who brews the potions."

"Including the most effective variant ever of the Wolfsbane potion, among others."

Snape gave a wave of one hand, but the gesture was not intended to dismiss her comment; on the contrary, he clearly regarded the praise as no more than his due. Hermione looked down at her plate and her mouth watered.

"Mm, asparagus," she murmured happily.

"Allow me?" Lucius reached across and held up a bottle of wine. "We have pumpkin juice if you prefer, but you might find that this Sauvignon Blanc goes excellently with vegetables and salads. Do let me have your opinion."

"I'm hardly an expert," Hermione said quickly. "Although my father did try to educate my palate. He always shudders when my mother puts lime juice into her lager."

"I'm not surprised," Lucius muttered, filling their glasses. Hermione wondered if his comment meant that he expected all Muggles to be barbaric. Snape wore an expression of supercilious amusement, and she just knew he enjoyed watching her struggle to keep up with the nuances of Slytherin conversation. She was outnumbered three to one – she rather wished she had Harry or Ginny beside her for moral support – and these three had known each other almost all their lives.

The answer came to her not in a flash of light or sudden revelation, but like something she had always known but had temporarily forgotten. She would never out-Slytherin a single one of them; she merely had to out-Gryffindor them.

"Since Muggles don't even know about us," she remarked, "it isn't really possible to have a two-way exchange, is it? The few who do know, like my parents, have to promise to keep the Wizarding world secret."

Lucius nodded politely. Draco, who knew her rather better than his father did, watched with curiosity.

"So," Hermione said, holding her glass of wine up to the light, "knowledge and customs can really only pass one way, from Muggle culture, via the Muggle-borns and half-bloods, into Wizarding society."

"Historically it was a two-way exchange," Lucius protested. "Muggles took knowledge from Wizards in the past."

"Only up until the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy of 1692," Hermione pointed out, "which pre-dates the development of Sauvignon Blanc, for example."

Snape gave a little huff, and when Hermione glanced at him, he smirked at her. "What is your point, Miss Granger?"

"That the Wizarding world takes from the Muggles without giving anything back, and Wizarding society is derived from Muggles – if it wasn't, people like me wouldn't even be able to understand the language, would we?"

"Would such an acknowledgement make you happy, or is the point simply that it would make purebloods unhappy?"

Hermione remembered then that Snape had never played nicely.

"Neither," she responded, "it was merely an interesting intellectual exercise."

"You're suggesting that wizards and witches are no more than parasites upon the Muggle world, Miss Granger."

"Aren't we? We make use of those parts of it that we want and ignore the rest. We have the power to do great good, and we refrain."

"Ah, but we also have the power to do great evil. Don't Muggles also have the power to do evil?"

"Of course, but they also make excellent Sauvignon." Hermione held up her glass and sipped appreciatively. "You can't claim that this is elf-made either, I saw the label."

"But they have to work so hard at it," Draco protested, "everything is done by sheer physical labour while all we have to do is wave a wand."

"You travelled on the Hogwarts Express, didn't you?"

"What does that have to do with it?"

"Who do you think invented the steam engine? It certainly wasn't a wizard."

"My dear Miss Granger," Snape said, in a tone of repressed irritation, "do you really think you can change the entire world to suit your own rather extraordinary principles and viewpoint? Have you brought along multi-coloured badges stating 'Hug a Muggle Today!', 'Join the Campaign for Centaur Equality!' or 'Vote for Saggy the House-Elf for Minister of Magic!'?"

Hermione laughed. "Thank Merlin for that, I was starting to wonder how far I'd have to go to get a reaction."

"Oh, you were just being irritating!" Draco exclaimed. "I thought there was some kind of subtle plot, but I was forgetting – I'm not used to conversing with Gryffindors anymore."

"Never mind," Hermione told him, "I'm sure you can hire one if you start getting too deficient in Gryffindor characteristics. Everyone needs a sprinkling of the other houses' qualities. I've found that a dash of Slytherin cunning is a great help in the Ministry."

"Your opponents are probably so astonished that they fail to react in time."

"Now, now, Draco," his father chided, "don't be snide to our guest." But the corners of his mouth were twitching upwards.

"Harry and I like to act the archetypical Gryffindors," Hermione said, "because people don't expect it when we do a Slytherin on them."

"I didn't realise that you could."

"Didn't you know? The Sorting Hat wanted to put Harry in Slytherin, but he asked it to let him join Gryffindor, with Ron."

Draco snorted, but Snape cocked his head and stared at her.

"And you? Did the hat offer you Ravenclaw?"

"Well, it dithered a bit between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. Did it think about putting you into Ravenclaw, too?"

Snape nodded.

"Wouldn't the world have been different," Lucius said dreamily, twirling his almost empty glass between his fingers so that the last few drops of pale wine caught the candlelight, "if Severus and you had gone into Ravenclaw and Potter into Slytherin?"

"You would have been my Head of house," Hermione told Snape, but he shook his head.

"I doubt I would have become a teacher."

"Of course. You clearly didn't enjoy it."

"Tell me, do you ever engage your brain before speaking?"

Lucius gave a tiny hiss of surprise or displeasure, but Hermione shrugged.

"It was clear to everyone how much you disliked us and how you resented teaching dunderheads."

"I resented the almost intolerable position I was put into by your beloved mentor."

"If you truly think the three of us idolise Dumbledore," Hermione said, keeping her voice light and steady with an effort, "then you're not using that brain you're famous for, are you?"

"Dumbledore let Potter get away with everything," Draco muttered, his voice tinged with old resentment.

"We were naive," Hermione told him. "We thought it was because Dumbledore thought Harry might die. It was only at the end that we realised it was because Dumbledore knew that Harry had to die."

"He knew?" Draco stared at her. "Potter walked out there, knowing he was going to his death?"

"Gryffindor through and through," Snape sneered but the sneer was half-hearted at best.

"We're good at the big dramatic finish, Professor. It took a true Slytherin to spy for year upon year and still remain true to the very end. We couldn't have succeeded without you, and if Harry was here, he'd echo my every word. Thank you, Severus Snape."

He inclined his head graciously, and Lucius swiftly refilled their glasses, raising his own in a toast to his friend.

"There you are, Severus, perhaps you'll have Gryffindors as well as Slytherins naming their little wizards after you."

Hermione looked at Draco. "You didn't, did you?"

"Scorpius Severus Malfoy," Draco said with satisfaction, and Hermione gave a crow of delight that made all three stare at her.

"Harry and Ginny's baby is going to be baptised Albus Severus Potter," she explained.

If only the Fidelius charm would allow her to show the memory of Snape's horrified expression to the Potters.