Chapter Four: Chance Encounter
Hermione went the rest of the week without seeing the waiter. Being curious as she was, she even made it a point to wander past the café at least once a day often eating there with hopes of him waiting on her. However, she was disappointed.
At the times she wasn’t keeping watch of Café Phillippe, Hermione spent her time working in the bookstore. She was given the option of which section she wanted to work in but Hermione chose to work in the wizard part. She was very interested in learning more about Parisian and French wizards in general. She also got to interact with visiting wizards as well.
Hermione loved working at the bookstore because the days were never the same. So many different faces would come in and out of the shop that Hermione’s people watching habit was satisfied at work. Business was booming, too, so her pay check wasn’t too shabby either.
One day Hermione was in the back of the shop stocking books in the Defense Curse section of the store. Every so often she would crack one open just to see what the different authors had to say over the same things. Some, Hermione could tell, were genuine and really worth the money. Others she saw to be just like the old Lockhart books and tended to stack those in a corner or on the bottom shelf so people would find the good books first.
While perusing one of the books, she was tapped on the shoulder. The sudden interruption caused Hermione to jump and send the book flying down the aisle. Luckily, nobody was hit but Hermione clutched her chest as her heart raced.
“Sorry, dear.” It was only Mr. Bontecou. “But there is a British customer who would appreciate your assistance in the Healing Potions aisle.”
Hermione was very curious to find out who needed her help. As she turned down the aisle, she saw the blonde hair and stopped in her tracks. An audible gasp escaped her lips as Hermione clamped her hand over her mouth. The person in need turned around at the sound and Hermione could clearly see that he was indeed Draco Malfoy.
It became obvious that Malfoy didn’t expect to see Hermione come to his aide either because a brief flash of surprise crossed his face before he reset his features into a stony, unreadable expression.
“Hello, Granger,” he said as she just stood there. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Malfoy.” Hermione acknowledged his presence but didn’t make an attempt to move closer or to make conversation.
“I didn’t know you worked here.”
“I just started.” Curiosity was screaming inside of Hermione. There were so many questions she wanted to ask but, since he was keeping it short, she would too. “What do you want?”
The question came out harsher than Hermione meant it. After all, she was at work and she needed to be amiable to her customers no matter who they were. “I mean,” she began again, “how can I help you?”
Malfoy noticed the attempt at friendliness and decided that he wouldn’t provoke her despite the smirk that played on his mouth. He did need her help after all. “It seems I have started to come down with what Muggles call chicken pox. I asked the shop owner if he knew anything about it and said he had an employee who was Muggle born that could help me.”
He looked at her expectantly, waiting for some assistance. However, Hermione was hung up on him having a Muggle disease and wondered how he got it. “How did you get chicken pox?”
Malfoy sighed at the question. He didn’t really feel like going into the story. Nor did he really want to admit to his once enemy about his living conditions for the past five years. “A child who lives near me gave them to me.” Malfoy decided to keep it short and impersonal.
“But you had to have been quite near him to catch it. I mean I had chicken pox when I was little and my neighbors never caught it. It’s highly contagious but you need to be in close proximity to get it.” Hermione looked at Malfoy curiously, her head cocked to the side. She wondered why he was hanging around Muggle children; he hated Muggles.
“Is that really important?” he asked. “I just need a cure.” He unconsciously itched his upper left arm and then behind his ear. Hermione smirked at the sight. She knew how bad chicken pox could be. In fact, it got much worse the older you were. She imagined him lying in bed and itching uncontrollably and whining about it.
“Well?” Malfoy broke her out of her day dream. Despite their animosity, Hermione knew a cure and decided to not let him suffer.
She looked along the aisle and found the book he needed. She slid it from the shelf and flipped the pages until she found the right one. She pointed at the directions with her finger. “That’ll help you out. It’s quite easy to brew too. All of the ingredients are easy to get a hold of and it only takes about an hour to make. You should be cured in no time.” She decided to add a little more information just to help him out. “You are also immune to the virus from now on.”
Malfoy started scanning the potion. “Thank you,” he said as he started towards the counter to buy the book. Hermione was again shocked. Malfoy said “thank you” to her. She didn’t know what to say. She finally managed to get a hold of her senses and she weakly said, “You’re welcome.” However, Malfoy was halfway out the door by the time the words left her mouth.
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That night Hermione sat quietly in her room contemplating the encounter. She still couldn’t figure out how Malfoy caught chicken pox. It wasn’t very common in the wizarding world after all. He must be very close to some Muggles, Hermione thought.
Hermione’s thoughts soon turned to the past and the very limited information she had on Malfoy. She hadn’t seen him since the day Dumbledore died. However, word traveled fast among the Order so she had caught snatches of information about him. That night when he fled the tower, he had been chased by Snape and Harry saw them both Disapparate outside the school grounds. Everyone assumed he headed back the Lord Voldemort. To everyone’s surprise, he showed up at the Ministry of Magic.
The papers said a new Death Eater turned himself in with critical information on Voldemort’s whereabouts and immediate plans. Soon the Order raided Voldemort’s hiding place. They caught a lot of Death Eaters but Voldemort wasn’t seen until that fateful night when Harry finally defeated him.
Hermione occasionally heard news that Malfoy was in hiding. She never knew where he was living, just that he wasn’t in Britain and constantly on the move. The Ministry felt that he was in danger for divulging such important information and they were constantly hiding him.
Hermione figured that it would be easier to hide him among Muggles and maybe that was how he got chicken pox. He was working at a Muggle café so it sort of fit in the puzzle. She just had so many questions; like why he turned himself in. She could never get around that thought. He was never her favorite person and he never showed a liking for Dumbledore but something happened on that tower and Hermione was dying to know what. So Hermione did the thing that she always did and decided to find out some answers.
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The day dawned just as gorgeous as it always did in Paris. Hermione was starting to wonder if there was a spell on the city to keep it from raining. The perfect day seemed to mirror the perfect opportunity for her to do some research because it happened to be Hermione’s day off. She worked six days out of the week and usually had Fridays off. So Hermione seized the opportunity and found the nearest wizard library.
The Bontecous directed her to one that was within walking distance. It was only about five blocks away but Hermione decided to take the scenic route and walk past that café, just in case. However, she was disappointed by not seeing a blonde head waiting on customers.
Slightly disgruntled, Hermione almost walked right passed the library. She had to do a double-take to make sure she saw right. The library was hidden quite like the Leaky Cauldron in London. Most pedestrians just walked right by without noticing it but Hermione stood and stared at the dilapidated building for a moment. She took a deep breath and walked through the double doors that separated the knowledge within from the unknowing people outside.
The entrance hall and circulation desk was in a huge room. Again, she was reminded of something from Diagon Alley, Gringott’s. The floor was marble and the ceilings were high and her footsteps echoed loudly around her. Using her knowledge of French, Hermione consulted the floor chart on the wall by the circulation desk to find where they kept old newspapers. Hermione hoped that they would carry some British papers since she didn’t really know too much French.
The newspapers were kept on the bottom floor of the library, which just so happened to be about five floors down. Hermione couldn’t fathom how many books were kept in this library because it went five floors down and then five floors up from the main level. Though she was itching to dive into some of the texts she had to focus on the task at hand, which was finding out what happened to Malfoy.
Hermione laid her bag on a big table and then went to consult the archives. She was very excited to find that the library carried the Daily Prophet but was a little sad that that was the only British wizard paper that they carried. Deciding that she would do the task justice, Hermione grabbed all of the papers from two weeks ago to five years ago from the end of that school year.
Hermione started to scan all of the headlines and not just the ones on the front page. Anything that looked like it might offer a nugget of information she read. Soon the table was covered with discarded papers that she tried to keep in order. She tried to hold it together when she saw the article that proclaimed that Voldemort had been defeated but as she scanned the list of the dead she just couldn’t hold it in.
Hermione silently cried as she stared at the laughing picture of Ron that had been taken a few months before that his parents gave to the newspaper for the article. Her fingers brushed the side of his face in the picture as he happily waved up at her, not knowing that he was no longer around.
She tried to hold in her tears and continued her search. She went back a lot of months until she finally saw the name of Malfoy in a headline. It read: Malfoy Succumbs in Azkaban, Funeral on Friday. A small part of her felt some sympathy for Malfoy to lose his father like that but another part knew that he deserved to die in Azkaban.
The article said that he died from madness more or less. Narcissa had died the year before from grief. It had been the year after Draco disappeared. Lucius and Narcissa were both buried in the family graveyard at Malfoy Manor. The only mention of Draco was that he was the only family member left and that he would inherit the property but they didn’t say when he would or where he was.
It took a while longer but Hermione finally found something about Draco in the newspapers. The article had come out a month after the night on the Astronomy Tower and didn’t really divulge too much information. The title read: New Information on You-Know-Who Comes to Light.
The article told that a former Death Eater came to the Ministry of Magic to give out new information on Voldemort (though the paper still used You-Know-Who) and his whereabouts. The article didn’t blatantly use Draco’s name but Hermione just knew it was about him because it mentioned something about Dumbledore’s death. The article said that Malfoy was in protective custody and would soon be moved to a new, undisclosed location.
Hermione wondered if he had been living in Paris all these years without anyone knowing. She wondered if he had to live with Muggles all these years too and maybe that’s how he got chicken pox. But Hermione’s thoughts were interrupted as a shadow fell across all of the newspapers and startled her out of her thoughts.
Second Chance by WebSpinner
Chapter Notes: I am so happy with all of the great reviews I've been getting. They really make me want to write non-stop. However, writer's block doesn't always allow that. I hope you all like this brand-new chapter and please feel free to leave a review. They really inspire me to write more. *hint, hint*