The Other Gryffindor Girl

Chapter Two

The Double Reunion

The next morning, Neville left a jar of Floo powder on the mantelpiece, saying it was from Jacob and would take me for my interview. It was scheduled for 10:30, but I stepped into the hearth at around 10:15. The trip itself took quite a while for Floo powder. The house must have been far away.

I landed on my feet in the fireplace of what must have been the entrance hall of Malfoy Manor. The ancient designs on it were a quite beautiful mix of copper and silver. Smack in the middle of this grand piece of furniture was woven the Malfoy family crest, a picture of a great snake erupting from a bed of diamonds. The motto, Nulus Secundus was written underneath, in great old-fashioned letters.

I smoothed my hair and looked around. It was an impressive hall, but reminiscent of a medieval castle, with bare gray stone walls covered by tapestries of astounding proportion. The stone, although not releasing the mildew smell of a dungeon, presented such a cold quality that I was taken aback.

The tapestries moved in their sewed, pagan worlds and seemed happy enough among the gloom. The brook that bubbled through the largest tapestry sang merrily in the echoing silence, and the satyrs that chased squealing nymphs under the watchful eye of Aphrodite seemed joyous despite the bland world outside. The entrance hall could certainly not bring a smile to my lips... nor release to the tense knot that had fixed itself like a cyst in my stomach. In fact, my knees seemed to have lost their reliability completely and threatened to buckle beneath me.

I hunted around in the pockets of my robe and dug out my cigarettes again, lighting one with shaking fingers. I took a long drag and exhaled luxuriously and wrapped my arms around myself, waiting for the butterflies in my belly to stop their erratic fluttering. My knees suddenly seemed to agree that letting me falling over during a job interview wouldn't be a good idea and maintained their shaky stability.

I found myself wishing I could have a little something extra, like a good shot of firewhiskey to take off the last remains of my nerves. It was then that I felt a tug at the lower half of my robe. I looked down to see a house-elf below me, head lowered respectfully with a fistful of robe clutched in his minute grip.

The elf's skin was pale as milk, and I spied several swollen capillaries peeking through the white flesh of its broad nose. Its night-black hair was parted dead center, and slicked flat to the crown of his skull, and the elf's parting almost glowed bright white in the gloom. It was dressed, curiously enough, in a miniaturized tuxedo pressed and cleaned to stiff, old-age perfection. It even wore a pair of glistening-black dress shoes on its large feet. I was so accustomed to seeing elves in rags, I was taken aback. Something was not quite right here...

"Miss?" The elf squeaked, still tugging rather forcefully at my robes. "Are you quite well?"

"Oh... yes, I'm here!" I cried, voice louder than normal due to my surprise, and the elf scuttled to the front of me, head still bowed.

"Of course Miss. The Lady-Master of the house knows of your entrance into her house. She bids you into her smoke room, miss, as you seem to enjoy the pastime so." The elf finished its squeaky message with a bow.

I hid my third cigarette behind my back guiltily.

"Oh, of course... but if that's inconvenient, I would be more than happy to see her in her study... or sun room... or wherever..."

The elf gave a little bow. It still didn't look up at me.

"My orders are direct from the Lady-Master herself, miss. If you would please allow me to carry them out miss, this house-elf would be much obliged." It bowed again.

"Of course... please, you can really stop bowing now."

And the elf raised his head instantly. It peered at me through glassy-blue eyes, faded and dulled by a milky film...

And then I realized.

The creature was blind.

"Is that better Miss?"

I was at a complete loss for words. "I--I... I didn't mean..."

The elf continued to look at me expectantly, its sightless eyes gazing out of focus at me, looking no where. It was very disturbing.

"Yes," I finished croaked at last, my stomach turning with nerves and unpleasantness. "Yes, that's fine. Tell me your name, elf. I feel we will be seeing--I mean want to be able to keep an eye--" I took a deep breath and got myself together. The butterflies in my belly seemed to have returned and promptlybegan vomiting.

"Well, anyway, I want to know your name."

"Of course miss, if that is what you is wanting." Infuriatingly enough, the elf bowed again. "I is called Zeb, miss."

I nodded... but realized he couldn't see me.

"Yes, thank you."

"Think nothing of it miss, please follow me."

I hesitated. How would this creature know the way if he couldn't see a thing? But the elf groped behind him and spun around. It was then I spied a thin, nearly invisible gossamer thread that Zeb gripped tightly in his small, long-fingered hand. It stepped cautiously as we continued down the dark hall, with only torches to light our way. Again, I was reminded of the dungeons, as I passed by huge, forbidding paintings and giant suits of armor and I noticed a few needed more than a good polish. I suppressed a shiver and followed closer to Zeb as he felt is way though the dark corridor.

"We is here, Miss," he announced, halting so suddenly in front of me I almost tripped over him.

We had stopped outside a great big... wall. Yes, it was complete and solid stone wall, and I though the elf must have made some sort of mistake.

"No... I don't think we--" But the elf held up a hand.

"If the miss pleases," Zeb muttered "She will kindly be quiet while Zeb finds the door."

I shut my mouth tightly after that. Zeb took three steps right toward the wall. He put his little hand on the nearest stone, and tapped it. It didn't make a noise, so the elf shook his head and moved to the next stone. This continued for several more moments until he tapped the next stone with his long fingernail. It made a sound like a great Chinese gong and I jumped about twenty feet into the air.

"Ah, here we is, Miss," Zeb yelled over the noise. I caught my breath.

"Alright... thank you!" I shouted, and stood directly behind the elf as he stood quietly in front of the door, hands behind his back. Suddenly, the rock slid away, and a pair of goggling eyes met those of Zeb.

"Yes?" squeaked the elf on the other side of the wall asked.

"It is I, Zeb. Miss Lavender Brown has come to call upon the Lady-Master, Corky. Please open the door for us."

"Are you certain you is the house-elf Zeb?"

Zeb nodded solemnly. "And you is the house elf Corky?" he asked in the same stiff tone.

I just saw this as wholly unnecessary.

"I am," the elf agreed. "Where is the caller?"

I squatted down to eye level with the elf and gave a little wave. I saw the eyes on the opposite side of the wall move up and down as the elf made sure I was indeed Miss Lavender Brown.

"Very well, please, come in."

The stone slid back into place.

"I cannot go farther than this, Miss," Zeb said quietly. "From here you are on your own."

"Oh... alright. Well, thank you."

The elf bowed deeply.

"It has been a pleasure meeting you, Miss. I hope you are able to meet the needs of the Master and Lady-Master. Goodbye."

And Zeb hurried down the hall without another word.

I wondered how the hell I was going to get through the door--until a tiny hand appeared from inside the wall and yanked me in with startling strength.

I stumbled through, nearly falling in my face and blessing the decision I had made to wear flats. Pansy had always hated people taller than her--no need to accentuate my greater height by wearing high heels. I dusted my self off and peered around the rather dim room.

The furniture consisted of leather couches and armchairs, a card table in the center and a great fireplace all in type of forest green. A small house elf Corky stood with curly gray hair respectfully in the shadows, arms folded and eyeing me warily. Despite the looks he was giving me, the creature said nothing. The fire in its black grate was smoldering, and there was an armchair before it, fireplace lights flickering around it.

'Ah-hah!' I thought 'There she is! Back to me, sipping some sort of exotic drink I'll bet. Always about the appearance of things; she probably wanted to impress me somehow, by pretending I don't matter.'

The more I considered this, standing at the entrance to the silent, cold room the more frustrated I became. I stormed over to the armchair and looked over the top, ready to cry 'Hello!' but I stopped myself. The person I saw nestled like an innocent baby in the chair was indeed Pansy Malfoy, but how changed...

Her chest rose and fall in the peaceful rhythm of sleep, though her translucent eyelids seemed as thin as paper. Her ordinarily rosy skin had turned to a sad pale color, although she had attempted to hide this change in her appearance by an abundance of rouge. There were fine wrinkles starting at the corners of her eyes and beneath her mouth, her mousy brown hair hung around her, limp and lifeless, and she had lost a lot of weight.

She suddenly jumped awake as if she had been scalded, and looked around wildly. Then her pale blue eyes landed surreptitiously on me.

"Lavender," she exclaimed softly, and her voice was hoarse and hushed. "Lavender, my dear, dear friend,"

'Excuse me?' I thought 'Her dear, dear what?!'

But Pansy stood up to face me. Her ivory-white robes hung vacantly around her, as if they once had fitted her properly, and wisps of hair escaped her formal up-do and hung pointlessly down her slender neck. Pansy embraced me and kissed me on both cheeks, smiling faintly. She smelled of chokingly of dead roses. I did not resist, but did not quite return her warm greetings.

"Hello, Pansy," I said with dignity, hands folded in front of me. "I've come here to apply for the job you've offered me."

"Of course," Pansy said quietly, the smile rather sliding off her lips. I inhaled deeply and said my piece.

"I'm willing to take whatever position I can get, so whatever you requirements you have, I'll take them without question."

Pansy nodded. I could see her eyes hardening as she shrewdly surveyed my face in comparison to her own. I was the picture of glowing youth, and she looked as though she was getting older by the day. The familiarity between us vanished in an instant.

"Very well, My only requirements are these;" she rasped imperiously "that you do not socialize with the house elves, and theft of anything from a piece of paper upward will end in instant dismissal. And most importantly," Pansy continued, her tone the slightest bit steelier "You are not to bother the Master while he is working."

I shrugged.

"Okay then, I understand," I said casually, knowing that it would infuriate her, just like I had always managed in school. "How is Draco, by the way?"

"The Master Malfoy," Pansy corrected me. "is doing perfectly well since you were last in school together. He is working wonders for his department, and is earning more and more money by the day."

"I see," I faltered for just a second at the mention of his name. "So the deal is, I can't have any familiarity with him whatsoever, and cannot call him by the name I did when we were schoolmates?"

"Yes," Pansy said solemnly "However, that is only until you can be trusted. When can you start?"

"Um... whenever I'm needed, I suppose," I said, the knowledge that I was once again employed (despite the circumstances) swelling into a happy little bubble.

"Alright then, until Monday, I should think." She peered at a large, dusty grandfather clock behind me. "It's getting late, you should be going home." I nodded and knelt down to pick up my purse, but her cold, claw-like fingers came under my chin. They felt like a grandmother's fingers and made me shiver. I had to wonder to myself how someone could have grown so old in 5 years or so. She could not be older than 22 or 23 by now, just like the rest of us, but she seemed at least 40. When she looked at me, I saw she was remembering our days in school, and gradually watched pieces of ice behind her eyes become more prominent as she remembered what I had done, and who I had been with. My stomach turned over as I realized this was the time for her revenge that she could just deny me the job now in repayment for all of the things I had ever done to make her angry or jealous in school.

A spider web-thin smile appeared on her lips. "You may call me Mrs. Malfoy, if you like. In private. But in front of company and the house elf, I am The Lady-Master Malfoy." Her tone was of such over-puffed self-importance the bubble within me deflated considerably. She acted as though she was being so generous that I was to be able to call her 'Mrs. Malfoy'. It was all rather sickening. "Goodbye, Lavender. I daresay you have to run home to your dingy little flat and celebrate, eh?" Pansy hissed. "Maybe call up some of the old school mates and have a good slosh, will you?" I glanced behind me and her eyes had become slits. The vague blue-grey iris surrounded by whites tinged a painful red appeared watery and vacant. Behind her a spider scuttled from the mantelpiece up to the ceiling.

I flinched slightly, and Pansy mocked my reaction with a final laughing wheeze, waving her hand to dismiss me. Corky (who had been waiting in the shadows) hurried forward to help her back to her chair. "Goodbye Lavender," she said again. "Let's hope you can keep this job down for more than a week. You never were very smart, were you dear?" I heard cloth rustle as she settled back into her chair. "Old Lavvykins coming to work for me... my God isn't it rich!"

"I'm working for Draco," I said steadily, my back to her.

"Yes, and he's my husband isn't he?" I heard her lean forward, staring at me, and I could hear the smile in her voice. "Yes that's right Lavender, he's mine, until death parts us, eh? How does that make you feel Lavvy, hmm? Does it hurt?" Her voice became babyish. "Does it hurt ickle Lavvypoo Brownieboo to know that I snagged and married her lover? How does it feel, to know that you lost?" My teeth began to grind into one another. I could feel my temper rising as she took dig after dig at me. "Oooh, did you say something?" she mocked. "Come on, tell us then!!"

"Oh Lady-Master Malfoy, yes, I did say something," I said sweetly, turning slowly to look at her. "And I want you to listen very, very carefully to me, alright?" I put one hand on the doorknob. Her eyes were glinting as she gave me a sugary smile. She leaned forward to hear me better. "Go. Fuck. Yourself."

And I yanked the door open and left her alone by the crackling fire.

---

I stormed down toward the entrance hall, growing more furious the more I considered the ordeal before me. I blindly reached for my bag and yanked open the main door. I opened it so blindly in fact, that I ran into the person on the other side.

"Sorry," I mumbled absently, and started to continue walking.

"Well well well," said a deep drawl behind me "Is it really Miss Lavender Brown back in our presence again?"

I froze. I knew that voice as well as I knew my own, and there was no mistaking it. I had just knocked into Draco Malfoy. A sudden, odd convulsion gripped my muscles and I spun around.

He stood just as I remembered, even taller than me with platinum blonde hair glistening around his proud dome of a head, elegant robes of black and silver swimming around what I knew to be a slender physique. His straight nose sat between two high, defined cheekbones, sumptuous, clever mouth capable of everything from the iciest insults to the smoothest kisses you would every taste. His gray eyes glistened in the light.

I temporarily forgot to breathe and the butterflies that had just calmed themselves down sprang up again and multiplied asexually by the thousands.

"It is you, then!" Draco exclaimed, the famous slow smirk finding its way across his face. "I thought you'd disappeared or since Hogwarts. I haven't heard a thing from you."

I gave a shuddery smile and wavering, silly laugh. I seemed incapable of forming a proper sentence

"Well... I've been... busy..." I finally managed to spout out. God, he looked as good as I had remembered back in school.

"Getting drunk, I hear. Have you always been an alcoholic?"

Well, he was as much of a prick as I remembered too.

"Must be the Irish blood," I said stupidly, not able to take my eyes off his face.

Draco stared at me.

"I though you were Greek." I blinked rapidly and he met my fluttery gaze incredulously. "I saw you there summer of sixth year. You were with your grandparents, weren't you?"

"Umm, yes... Greek...on my mum's side... my dad was British," I admitted. I started fiddling with my fingernails, a nervous habit from my youth. I picked at my painstakingly-grown fingernails and looked at the ground.

"That doesn't explain the--"

"Well, isn't it good to see you too!" I said brightly, dragging subject kicking and screaming to a change "Lovely weather, isn't it? Well, I really must be going--you know, dinner and... things. Bye bye then!"

"No wait," Draco commanded, and I obeyed instantly. You know what they say, old habits die hard. "Come in for a little pick-me-up, I've got some good liquor just aging away in the cabinet. Pansy doesn't drink, you know." Hmm, very persuasive.

I checked my watch. 5:40 pm, it read. Dinner was at 7, I had no excuse. I nodded slowly, but my insides had turned to acidic, intestinal jam. Ew.

My legs were leaden as I followed him up the stairs and through corridors. A million memories came flooding back to me as I stared at his leading back, so careless in his forbidding beauty. I licked my lips, remembering the taste of his mouth on mine... how long had it been? Four years? More? I couldn't remember properly, because the though that he had gone and married Pansy Parkinson sat like a squidgy pot of rotten meat on the back of my brain.

Why had he done it? He could have married me I had wanted him to marry me, longed for him to marry me. For God's sake, I would have been a better wife to him than Pansy ever could have been. 'Just look at this,' I thought to myself, examining the fine mahogany of the banister on the grand staircase 'You could have had this! You would have made more of this than she ever will.' Silly, wasted little thing she was now. She was no proper wife to him. True, Draco had always had a lust for dominance, and that was something Pansy could give him that I could not.

But Draco also craved a kind of fierce passion to satisfy his own. Pansy, as far as I could see, seriously lacked that. One episode of rough loving, it appeared, would shatter her into a thousand fragile pieces. Pansy seemed hardly a wife at all. She was like an ailing mother.

He opened a small wooden door to a small study. There were only two chairs within and a sofa for two. Between them was a small, old fashioned table of oak complementing to various shades of blue and silver in the room. A charming liquor cabinet stood to the left of the fireplace, and the light caught on the deep purples, blues, greens, reds and whites of the alcohol within. It sent little shards of light here and there, a pleasant, warm effect.

Draco sat and took the larger armchair to the right. I noticed it shift to suit his shape, and sat down on the comfortable, if slightly harder, chair next to his. He surveyed me with his sharp gray eyes, and I knew he was assessing my blooming beauty, the easy blush in my cheeks and light in my eye. I knew he was comparing me to the wasting, fast-dwindling looks of his wife, Pansy. I stood erect, silhouetted against the firelight, as tall and stately as a mistress of any house. However, despite my aloof disposition, my eyes were carefully examining him as well.

They traveled up from his well-polished boots to the rich velvet of his cloak to the ivory clasp that held it to his robes. My eyes rested for a second on the first spot of exposed skin in its perfect alabaster, the shallow hollow of his throat and continued up his face and fine features. My keen vision noticed him giving the tiniest swallow. But his voice betrayed nothing to me.

"So, you've been keeping well, have you?" He said breezily, pouring two glasses of sherry. He held out a crystal tumbler to me with an assured hand. Draco's manicured fingers gripped it with assured steadiness, and the sherry within did not even ripple once. The perfume of it warmed the room, and I hesitated. Wasn't I supposed to be off alcohol? What if Neville and Jacob found out? Would I have to back to the hospital for more treatment? But it was just one glass! But then what if I wanted more, and drank too much?! I took the glass from Draco with a much less steady grasp.

I ran a long thumb across the rim of my glass, staring into the ruby liquid as if it possessed some answer. I sensed at the back of my brain Draco was watching me. I allowed myself the slightest glance at his face, and his eyes were indeed glistening with telltale challenge and biting curiosity. He had never been good at hiding his eager and strong emotions.

I realized quickly that he was testing me. He wanted to see if I had the courage to drink with him, and perhaps compromise my new position before I had the chance to begin.

My mind raced as I stalled, buying time by looking around the room. Should I drink it or put it down, or smash it against the floor? Did he still love the independence of my occasionally unfeminine qualities? Or did he prefer the feminine look of his frail new wife? I waited for him to give me some clue, some hint at what he wanted me to do. But he didn't say a word, just watched me, waiting like a beautiful cobra about to strike. The smell of sherry was teasing the very sensitive part of my brain and in one smooth impulse I brought the glass to my lips and drank. The rich alcohol burned the back of my throat and I shut my eyes for a moment.

"So I see you've met Pansy," he mused, settling back into his chair. I set down my tumbler and nodded.

"You could say that."

"Let me guess... you met her in the 'smoking room', correct?" I shrugged, but I wasn't sure how to reply.

"I suppose. Your house elf Zeb showed me in, at any rate. Does she spend a lot of time in there?"

"I've no idea really. I remember Father had it built about a year before he and mother were killed," he said 'He and mother were killed' was said with so little emotion, you'd almost think Draco hadn't cared a stitch about his parents. He probably didn't either. Draco took care of Draco, and that's all there was, or ever would be, to it.

Our conversation continued well into the hour. Draco had done well after he left school--far better than me (though that wasn't really worth comparison). His father had left his spot in the ministry to one of his associates, Tobias Stafford, and Mr. Stafford had given Draco a nice, cushy job to begin with.

"But I wanted more," Draco continued breathlessly. His speech had suddenly become animated, as if he hadn't had the chance to speak his mind in a long time.

Draco had then proceeded to become a supervisor of overseas trade and interactions, where he could travel and pay was better with frequent raises. For a time he was the supervisor of British and Rumanian trade, which gave him a good position and an office. His dream was now to become supervisor of Britain-American trade teams, and he was close to making that a reality.

"Not long now," he decided, leaning back in his chair with the stance of a man who knows he is going up in the world. "All I have to do now is wait for old Weatherbee to step down... or die of old age. I don't care really, as long as the spot is mine. The Head of Department, Edgar Molewich is keen to have someone young in the position, and I daresay I fit the bill. Wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I think you would," I agreed automatically. "Just don't get your hopes up too much you just need to brace yourself for a bit of disappointment sometimes."

But Draco waved away my comment with a flick of his hand.

"There's no one else to take it. Well, What's-her-face... Andrea Maltin... she's head of Iraqi interactions... I suppose maybe she could. But she wouldn't abandon her post. Not with all that's been going on lately."

"I see..." There was a silence.

He shifted in his chair to look at me better. "When do you start, Lavender?" I couldn't look at those gray eyes of his, I just couldn't. I looked down at my hands.

"I don't know. When would you like me to start?"

He slapped his hand against the leather of his armchair. "Monday then. Sharp at nine, I've got some accounts for you to do, so we may as well get started. Here," he said gaily, filling up my glass and holding his own in a toast. "To you're new job!"

"To ambition," I acknowledged with a tilt of my head.

When I strolled out of the house it was eight minutes to seven.

---

Neville threw open the door an instant after I knocked. I stared calmly, into his concerned eyes which suddenly changed to little slits of anger. Well, he had no reason to be too mad at me, I wasn't that late. About five minutes only, by my watch. I straightened up my robes and waltzed past Neville, deciding that I had wrongly interpreted his strange mood. But he grabbed my forearm like an angry father and held me in place.

"You've been drinking," He accused me instantly, and I recognized the Jacob was behind him.

"And you've been smoking." Jacob also diagnosed, but less with anger than with curiosity. He looked just like his picture.

I froze for a millisecond, then gave a casual shrug. "And you've been snogging," I countered, eyeing Neville's mussed shirt and slightly-swollen mouth. I wrenched my arm from his grip and turned on my heel out the door.

"Stop," Neville ordered his voice suddenly sharp and cold, and guilt suddenly began running through my every vein. "Weren't you expressly forbidden to do either of those things while you're in my care? Do you know how bad they are for you?"

I tossed my head defiantly. "Yeah well, I'll die early and leave a beautiful corpse then. Jacob, get out of my way, I don't want to hurt you." He was standing between me and the door.

"No," he said calmly, shaking his head slowly. "I think it's time we all had a little talk."

"Fine," I spat, my nonexistent patience ending. Well, I was a little drunk, you know. "You want to talk? Let's talk then, boys. You want to know about me, and why I can't be perfect like you want me to be? Okay, I'll tell you. My life has been a wreck over the past few weeks, and no one has been lifting a finger to help me because they don't care," I cried passionately. "And I have to take a stupid job with some stupid woman who thinks she's queen of Sheba. And on top of it all, now you're all telling me that I can't enjoy myself a teensy, weensy bit, and reassure myself that the world is NOT in fact the fucking living-hell it seems to be??" I clapped my hands in a slow, mocking manner. Self-pity tears were stinging the corners of my eyes, and suddenly I realized that all the world was against me and everything I stood for. "Well done lads, well done. Where can I sign up for your little 'let's talk' therapy again?"

And with the strength born of being the hard-done-by victim, I shoved Jacob out of the way and lunged for the door handle... but my fingertips never even made contact with the cold metal.