Return to Eden

A/N: I am so, SO sorry about the wait for this chapter. I was so caught up with messing and perfecting the overall plot for the story that I had totally forgotten to post another chapter. I can now say, however, that the entire plot is mapped out and I have everything going exactly the way I want it. So, for that, I hope you´ll forgive me for the delay. The wait won´t be as long next time. I promise. I want to thank everyone who has reviewed so far. Each and every one of you have made this story possible. I truly did not envision getting this much positive feedback, but it makes me ecstatic to know that you are enjoying this story. Now, without further ado, on to the chapter. PLEASE R/R!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Or Draco Malfoy. Dammit.

Return to Eden

Chapter 6: The Dust Settles

Harry, Ron, Ginny, Fred, George, Sirius, and Remus all hurriedly left the twins´ joke shop, courtesy of Floo powder, and arrived back at the Burrow.

They settled down to think where Hermione would have went or where the Death Eaters would have taken her. It was somewhat of a difficult task since they were unaware of everything Hermione did on a regular basis when away from Hogwarts. An owl was sent to Mr. Weasley at the Ministry of Magic to see if they could locate Hermione or come up with another way to see if she was safe. He couldn´t find her anywhere. It was if she had disappeared off the face of the Earth because she wasn´t showing up anywhere. No signs of magic or location of a Muggle-born witch by the name of Hermione Granger. They were beginning to get unnerved in their search.

Harry and Ron were pacing back and forth with heads down in opposite directions across the Weasleys´ living room floor as the others congregated outside to discuss scenarios. Ron held the owl from his father in his hand and kept glancing back at it to see if the words had changed, hoping that it would tell him where Hermione was. This waiting was killing them both. Their best friend was out there somewhere and there was nothing they could do about it.

Harry looked up and glanced at the clock on the mantle noticing that it would soon be time for dinner when, suddenly, a knocking was heard on the kitchen window. Ron raced to the source of the noise to find Rowena pecking on the glass. He immediately unclasped the window to let the owl in. Rowena soared through the opening, across through the living room, and came to a stop as she perched herself on Harry´s shoulder. An ordinary, commonplace letter was tied to her foot by use of green ribbon.

Harry quickly untied the letter from the owl and ripped it open to reveal a short message from Hermione that only served to puzzle them even more.

Harry and Ron,

As you have probably already heard, my parents were killed last night by Muggle robbers. Don´t worry about me because I´m fine. I´ll be staying with some relatives until it is time for the prefects and the Heads to go back to Hogwarts because I am Head Girl. See you at Hogwarts.

Hermione

After Harry had read the letter, he handed it to Ron who snatched it away. He glanced through the contents before letting out a cry of indignation.

"We have to find her! Find out who she´s went to stay with. If it´s a Muggle, she would show up on the Locator."

"Ron." Harry tried to reason with his best friend. "We´ve got everyone we can spare looking for any sign of her. This letter is from her, it´s in her handwriting, and it says she´s fine. I think we can stop worrying now. She needs to deal with what has happened before she goes back to Hogwarts. We´ll see her when we get there."

"Harry! Are you blind?!" Ron screamed with frustration. "This letter is clearly not from our Hermione. She acts like she doesn´t even care at all!!!"

Harry placed a hand on Ron´s shoulder. "Think about what just happened to her. She´s probably still in shock, and you going to look for her when she obviously wants to be left alone will only serve to make her worse. You´re overreacting. Again."

At that moment, Arthur Weasley arrived with an audible pop in the living room. He quickly made his way over to the two boys with a large smile firmly set on his aging face. He was obviously happy about something and spoke with apparent pride. "She´s been found! We found her! She´s staying with her Muggle aunt in London. Her dot showed up on the Locator about ten minutes ago."

Harry turned to Ron and gave him a look that said this clearly proved his point. He nodded his head to Mr. Weasley for the news before addressing Ron. "Come on. Let´s go tell the others."

Ron silently nodded his head and followed close behind Harry to where the rest were gathered outside. He heeded Harry´s words, but he still had a bad feeling about this whole ordeal. An ominous tingling in his bones. Maybe, just maybe, Hermione wasn´t staying with her aunt after all.

*~*~*

Draco blinked at her in disbelief as her words from several moments prior began to sink in.

"WHAT?!?!"

Hermione held the lock of her eyes on his as she repeated her words.

"I´m Regina."

Draco pulled away from her and ran a shaky hand through his silvery locks. He looked at anything but her as he began to pace the length of his room, speaking as he went.

"No, no, no, no. There is NO WAY. You´re NOT Regina. You´re just a Mudblood with Muggle parents. You did not descend from the Rosiers, one of the most pureblooded families in the wizarding world. There´s absolutely no way." He looked up at her with his last words. "You´re insane."

She gave a small chuckle at his reaction because it hadn´t been too far placed from hers. Of course, it sounded much more believable when it was coming from Dumbledore.

She took a step towards him. "Draco, it´s true. I´m Regina Anjolie de Altair-Rosier. I was adopted by Muggles at six months old after my father was killed and my mother was driven insane by the Ministry. Dumbledore took me from their offices and placed me in an orphanage, but it burned down after I was adopted so nobody traced me to Regina. They thought I was just another Mudblood."

Draco cocked his eyebrow skeptically. "How did you find out? Who told you all this?" His voice taking on a disbelieving tone.

Hermione, once again, undid the clasp of the locket and handed it to him. She watched closely as he opened it and his eyes grew wide. "I went to see Dumbledore after my parents told me that I was adopted and gave me this. Dumbledore is the one who told me who my parents were."

During her explanation, Draco´s jaw dropped. He knew that Hermione was not the type of person to lie about anything concerning the headmaster. If Dumbledore was involved, then it must be true. He tried to respond, but found that no words were forming. What do you say to a person who you thought was a Mudblood actually has purer blood than you? Draco had absolutely no idea.

Hermione watched him bewildered. Silence from Draco Malfoy was a strange thing indeed, and it slightly unnerved her. "Well, aren´t you going to say something?"

The familiar smirk, used to infuriate her, began to slowly spread over his lips and across his face as he cocked his head to one side to study her meticulously. "Congratulations."

It was Hermione´s turn to raise an eyebrow as she gazed at him curiously. Her tone was very skeptical as it was wary, but it held an air of amusement as if his answer couldn´t be anything but derisive. "For?"

He smiled at her. Not a smirk, but an actual, genuine smile as he spoke with pleasantness. "You´re a pureblood."

She rolled her eyes at him with discernible exaggeration as she spoke, her voice dripping like honey with sarcasm. "Thank you, Mr. Obvious."

He shrugged his shoulders with the full-blown grin still in place as he gave back the locket. He stood there for a moment with his arms crossed over his chest and, with his head still cocked to one side, examined her as if she were some great enigma that needed solving. "Well, look on the bright side. I can´t call you `Mudblood´ anymore. In fact, you may be more pureblooded than I am."

Hermione took the locket and fastened it back around her neck. She let out a sorrowful sigh as she sank back down on Draco´s bed and brought her knees up to meet her chin. "I would take joy in that, but I don´t think I can. Everything that has happened to me today is just too much to deal with at once. It´s more than I´ve ever had to deal with in my entire lifetime, and that´s even when Harry and Ron are running around trying to get themselves killed."

His expression took on a touch of weariness as he sat next to her on the bed. He turned to her cautiously and chose his words carefully. "I don´t understand. You found out that you were adopted and that you´re a pureblood. What else happened today?" His tone was prodding, but not overly so.

She had her head bent over her knees, and when she looked back up, the tears were once again threatening to fall. "My parents, well, my Muggle parents were killed tonight. I know that they´re not my real parents, but they´re the only ones I´ve ever known. I didn´t find out until today you know."

Draco solemnly nodded his head as he looked away from her. He was staring at the floor, lost in thought, before he spoke next. "Who killed them? Dark wizards?"

She shook her head vigorously. "No." She took a deep breath. "It was Muggles. Muggle robbers to be precise." She looked away for a moment before speaking in a quiet voice. "I hope they burn in hell."

Draco now completely understood her reaction upon first stepping out of his fireplace. He was totally stunned about everything that had happened to Hermione in one day, but there was one question he had to ask that was nagging him in the back of his mind. "But, Hermione, why would you come here? Why not go to Potty or Weasel?"

At the mention of Harry and Ron, Hermione slid off the edge of the bed and crumpled down on the floor with her arms tightly hugging herself. The tears that were hanging started to fall, but Hermione stood and forcefully pushed them back while remembering what Dumbledore had told her. How their fathers had tried to use her, how they had hurt her mother, how they had killed her father. It was enough to replace the sadness with anger as she turned to meet Draco´s curious gaze.

She spat the words out as soon as they came to her with a tone so bitter, it surprised Draco with its cutting edge. "Those people aren´t my friends anymore. They were never my friends. They will never be my friends. Ever."

Draco, who had stood when it looked like he would have to console her again, took a step back as a look of complete astonishment set into his face. He would have bet his new Firebolt 5000 against the Golden Trio ever breaking up. And here he was, seeing it happen before his very eyes. An evil grin began forming as everything set in. His greatest dream was becoming reality.

And Hermione was here. At Malfoy Manor. With him. It was obvious that she had come to him for something else other than information about her newfound family. She could have looked that up in some of her beloved books. No, she was here for a reason she had yet to reveal, but all that mattered was she was here in the flesh instead of an enchantment in his mind. Draco - 1, Potter & Weasley - 0.

Draco pulled himself back into the teasing and insulting enigma that the members of the Trio were familiar with. He cocked an eyebrow as the blank show of emotions slipped over his face just as his father had taught him. "Is something amiss amongst the ranks of the Three Musketeers? Do tell."

She was in front of him in two short, quick steps and gave him a sharp slap across the face before he could react. His hand flew to his cheek where a pink hand-print was fast becoming noticeable. He couldn´t stop the rush of memories back to that day in third year and also to only a few months prior where on both occasions she had done the same thing. He had always thought she was a spitfire.

"What did you do THAT for?!" His tone was slightly taken aback.

Her face was seething with fury and power was radiating from her like heat from the sun. Her voice was firmly controlled on the edge of breaking. "This is not a laughing matter. You don´t understand what has happened. You don´t understand what is happening. I have no one. Everyone in my life that ever mattered to me is gone. My Muggle parents are dead. My real parents are insane and dead. And my best friends´ fathers tried to use me as bait, probably for your father, when I was only six months old."

Her voice was quickly rising in pitch to a hysterical level as she continued her tirade while hot tears of frustration burned in the back of her eyes. "Do you understand what I´m trying to tell you? There is no one who can help me." She took a deep breath knowing she had to try and calm herself. She´d already lost control more times than she could count today. "Draco, I have no parents and nowhere to stay. The only possessions I have are those that I brought with me and what I still might be able to salvage from my house." With a deep sigh of resignation, Hermione sat back down on the bed. "What´s left of it anyway."

Draco stood in silence looking down on her as he processed this information. He was digging deep into the recesses of his memory for something he knew was there. Something important. Something he should have remembered at the beginning of this whole ordeal. Then, it clicked. All the puzzle pieces came together and a roguish grin began to spread across his lips. A chuckle escaped from deep within his chest and erupted in booming, full-blown laughter.

Hermione was watching him with deep indignation for two main reasons One, she found nothing funny or even slightly amusing about the predicament she was now in; and two, she had never heard Draco Malfoy, in all her years at Hogwarts, laugh. She would never admit it, but she found it was oddly comforting to know that through all the scowls and sneers, he could laugh. However, these thoughts were distracting her from finding exactly what it was he was laughing at. He was nearly out of breath when he looked back up at her with what could only be described as exhilaration as she addressed him with a bemused expression. "You´re mad."

He shook his head at her as he grabbed her hands and lifted her up from her seat on the bed. "No, I´m not." He held tight to her hand as he pulled her out through the double-doors of his room and dragged her behind him down the ornate corridor to the stair landing.

"Draco! Where, in Goddess´ name, are you taking me?!" She was trying to pull her hand out of his grip without success. It was useless since he was much stronger than her so she tried her best to keep up with his quick pace.

He turned his head towards her as he kept moving with a grin still thoroughly in place. "I think it´s time you met my mother, Narcissa Malfoy."

*~*~*

Contrary to popular belief, Narcissa Malfoy was anything but a trophy wife. For those who were friendly with the Malfoys, it was more likely to be said that Lucius was a trophy husband. Narcissa had been quite the bookworm back at Hogwarts and was one of the top students in her class and in her house, Ravenclaw. The thing that set her apart from all the rest was that she had magnificent beauty to match her brains.

Cordelia de Altair had been her best friend while at Hogwarts. They had both been so happy after they got married because their husbands were friends as well. Things seem to be going smoothly until the unthinkable happened. After Cordelia was driven insane, Narcissa thought she would die. She knew that she couldn´t have prevented it from occurring, but she felt entirely responsible for not keeping her promise. That she would take care of Regina should anything happen. It took Narcissa months to get over what had happened to Delia, but she never forgave herself for losing Regina.

Once a month, Narcissa would go visit Delia in St. Mungo´s and then come sit in her garden to reflect on the events of the past that could not be changed. It was the only time that Narcissa let herself submerge in the pain. Then, she could think of what might have happened to Delia´s lost daughter. The garden was where she was as Draco and Hermione tore through the house to get to her.

It was night out. The moonbeams reflected off Narcissa´s silvery locks making it glisten in the twilight. She was sitting upon a marble bench with her face raised to the stars giving her an ethereal glow. Her pale blow robe flowed around her like a silk waterfall and the light of the stars emulating in her clear blue eyes. She was breathing in the scent of the night-blooming jasmine planted next to the bench and thinking of Regina. The guilt she felt could never be redeemed by anything she did.

The sound of running feet snapped her out of her retrospective thoughts and brought her back to the present. She turned just in time to see her son skidding to a stop in front of her followed closely by a girl that she did not know. She studied Hermione with a carefully guarded expression before giving her son a look that clearly said explain yourself.

Draco struggled to catch his breath from the long run through the house and then the gardens while trying to piece together what to tell his mother. Hermione decided to just stand there and wait to be acknowledged.

"Mother, I´m sorry to interrupt you, but I have some exciting and rather surprising news." He turned to Hermione while gesturing. "I´d like for you to meet Hermione Granger. Hermione, this is my mother, Narcissa Malfoy."

Hermione stepped forward and took Narcissa´s outstretched hand giving it a gentle squeeze. "It´s nice to meet you, Mrs. Malfoy."

Narcissa gave her a small smile as she stood. "Please, call me Narcissa. The only Mrs. Malfoy is Lucius´ mother." She turned her gaze back upon Draco with a curious expression.

Draco was busting at the seams to tell his mother exactly what was happening, but he knew it would be too much for her all at once. "Mother, I´m sure you´ve heard me mention Hermione in a very unflattering manner, and I´m sure you´re wondering why she is here."

"Yes, Draco, I was. You better be glad your father isn´t here." After giving Draco a stern look, she turned back to Hermione with a comforting smile. "My husband has a tendency to overreact to certain things."

Draco cleared his throat to get back to the matter at hand. "Yes, well, Father aside, there are more important things to discuss." Draco took a deep breath. "Mother, you might want to sit back down before I tell you this."

Narcissa raised a skeptic eyebrow in a motion identical to her son with a disbelieving gaze. "Draco, I think I´ll stand. Just tell what you need to tell me."

Draco stepped towards his mother and took her hands in his. "Mother, Hermione is Regina. She just found out today."

Narcissa felt her knees give out and she flopped back down hard on the bench. Her eyes went wide and her mouth formed a perfect `o´ shape. She turned her eyes back to Hermione and could now see the resemblance. She did look like Delia. In a moment of thought, she sent up a silent thanks to whoever was responsible for this wonderful news. After sitting silently for a few moments with the two watching her, Narcissa gathered her wits about her and stood back up. She pulled Hermione into a motherly embrace before taking her hand to lead her back inside the manor. Draco trailed behind them with a knowing expression upon his face.

"My darling, Regina, or would you rather be called Hermione?"

"Hermione is fine. You believe that I´m Regina?"

"Yes, of course dear. It´s quite obvious that you are Delia´s daughter. I´m surprised I didn´t see the resemblance to begin with. I´m just happy that you are returned to us." Narcissa turned around to address her son. "Draco, have you chosen a room for our Hermione yet? I think the Red Room would be quite lovely."

"No, Mother, I haven´t, but I must agree with you. I think that the Red Room would be perfect for Hermione."

The subject of this conversation was watching the exchange between mother and son with a great amount of interest. She felt like she was missing something extremely important, like being in a play, but not knowing your lines. "Excuse me, I don´t mean to be rude, but what do you mean by choosing a room for me? Am I to stay here?"

Narcissa stopped in her trek back to the manor and whirled around to face her son. She regarded him questioningly which he gave a mischievous shrug in reply. She switched her attention to Hermione reassuring her with a smile.

"Cordelia and I had an arrangement. It was if anything happened to either one of us what would become of both you and Draco."

Hermione appeared confused. "I don´t understand."

"Hermione, I am your legal guardian and I´d like to welcome you to your new home. Malfoy Manor."

*~*~*

Blaise Zabini was not happy.

Before she left to go to Malfoy Manor, her mother had asked her to pick up her little cousin for her Aunt Agatha and take her home. It ended up taking a lot longer than she expected. It was kind of late to be visiting, but Blaise decided to sneak over there while wearing her invisibility cloak. She had not been prepared for what she found.

After arriving by Floo powder, Blaise had went about looking for Draco, but he was nowhere to be seen. Narcissa was also not around and Blaise began to worry. She made her way to the veranda door that looked out upon the garden. Through the light coming from the house, she could make out three figures walking back towards the manor. Blaise was grounded to the floor in shock as one thought passed through her mind.

What the HELL is Draco doing with HERMIONE GRANGER?!?!

A/N: Ok. Let me just grovel before you. If you are reading this now and have been a continuous reader, I am eternally grateful to you for it. This chapter has been finished for about 3 weeks now and the day I go to post it, my internet service goes out and then we had so many problems. Ugh, I won´t bore you with the details, but I offer this chapter in humble penance for my sins as a writer. I promise to never make you wait this long again. Otherwise, I would really love to know what you thought of this chapter. PLEASE R/R!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!