Questions and Answers

Draco jerked his head away from the probing fingers the searched for something under his jaw. He opened his eyes, then immediately closed them to slits against the light of the lamp next to the bed. 'Well, look who's rejoined the living,' said a soft voice. A soft cloth blotted the tears that leaked from his eyes from the sting of the light. 'Would you like some water?'

Draco nodded and a straw nudged his cracked lips. He eagerly sipped the cold water, reveling in the feel of it sliding down his parched and sore throat. After what Draco felt was too short a time, the Healer pulled the straw out of his mouth. He whimpered, unashamed at doing so, at the loss of the water.

'You'll have to take it easy. You've not been able to eat or drink anything for nearly a week now. You won't want make yourself sick.'

Draco's face twisted in confusion. He blinked slowly several times, letting his eyes adjust to the light.

'You've had dragon pox.'

Draco nodded. I knew that...

'A very severe case, even for adults. We feared you were going to die.'

Draco nodded once.

'Your fever broke last night. And you ought to make a full recovery.'

'Where am I?' Draco rasped.

'St. Mungo's. Been here since Monday morning. It's now Thursday night,' the Healer supplied helpfully. She held the straw to Draco's lips again while he greedily sucked down the limited amount of water she allowed.

'How long do I have to stay here?' Draco asked hoarsely.

'A couple of more days. You can probably go home on Sunday or Monday at the earliest. But most likely Tuesday or Wednesday.'

'That's a long time,' Draco murmured.

'You'll be able to see your wife tomorrow,' the Healer told him. 'She's been here every day since she brought you here. Sits with you until we have to make her leave when visiting hours are over.'

Draco was beginning to visibly droop. 'Are you sure it was my... wife...?'

'If it was your mother, she was an infant when you were born,' the Healer chuckled. 'Said her name's Daphne.'

'Oh...'

The Healer straightened Draco's bedding and waved her wand at the lamp, dimming the light. She guided his hand to a small bronze plate set into the table next to the bed. 'Just press your fingers on this if you need anything. Someone will come see to you. Try and get some rest.'

'Thanks,' Draco muttered, rolling over onto his side and staring at the wall, waiting for sleep to overtake him once more.

xxxxxx

Scorpius gazed at the scarlet canopy over his bed. Ever since he'd read the chapter about his grandfather he'd felt slightly ill, but Madam Pomfrey said there wasn't anything physically wrong with him. 'Al...?' he whispered. 'Albus...?' he hissed.

'Hmmmm?' Al pulled his head out from under his pillow.

'What was it like when you found out about your father?' Scorpius asked quietly.

'Oh...' Al sat up, wrapping his arms around his pillow. 'Confused. Like I'd been hit repeatedly in the stomach with a Beater's bat. Didn't know what to say. Thought I was going to puke, then cry. There was this man sitting in front of me that for my whole life was just my dad, then in less than an hour he was some bloody war hero who'd done more at the age of eleven than most fully-trained wizards. I had to make myself think about him as two different people. That other person, the one that defeated Voldemort wasn't my dad. He looked like him and had the same name, but it wasn't Dad.' Al paused and smoothed the wrinkles from the pillowcase. 'At least it wasn't the bloke I grew up with,' he added. 'Dad's never been one to talk about it. It's as if he'd like to forget it ever happened.'

'Do you wish you didn't know?'

Al fell backward, and propped his feet on the carved headboard, toes gripping the edge of it. 'No,' he said finally. 'When Dad got hurt last summer, knowing some of that made it easier to deal with.' He glanced over at Scorpius, sitting in the middle of his own bed, staring pensively at his toes. 'Do you wish you didn't know?'

'I don't know, to be honest.' He grinned crookedly. 'At least I know what I don't want to be like.'

Al snorted. 'You always knew that, git. It's just now you know why.'

'I suppose.'

Al flung his pillow back in place and scrambled under the bedding. 'Go to sleep. Otherwise you'll look like something the hippogriff dragged in at breakfast and Izzy'll hover.'

'Yeah, why do all the girls in your family do that...?'

Al snickered. 'Dunno. Even Mum does it, and she swears she doesn't.' He sobered and turned his head to look at Scorpius. 'I'm sorry you have to find out this way,' he said quietly.

Scorpius slid under the quilt and pulled it over his shoulders, taking care to hide his worn teddy in its folds. 'Yeah. So am I.'

xxxxxx

Harry watched Ginny settle at the small desk he'd put in the office for her, once she'd become the Quidditch editor and needed a space to work that wasn't the kitchen table or his desk. Firelight glinted on her hair, making deep copper sparks glimmer in its lengths when she moved or tucked a stray lock behind an ear. His eyes closed and the image of Ginny frowning in concentration was replaced by the image of Lavinia Malfoy cradling Fabian Prewett's head in her hands, leaving bloody smears over his face while she closed his blank eyes. Harry's eyes popped open and he yanked his glasses off and dropped them on the scarred surface of his desk, then scrubbed his hands roughly over his face.

He had a tendency to work a case over and over in his mind, mulling over every detail in case something might have escaped his notice. While it was an excellent trait in an Auror, it often wrecked havoc on his personal life. Nightmares, cousins with frightened husbands, godsons writhing with guilt, sons retreating behind walls of silence and fear, daughters who were too young to view the world with such suspicion.

Without realizing that he'd moved, Harry found himself standing in front of the broom shed with his hand clamped around the handle of his Firebolt. He mounted the broom and kicked off the hard ground, streaking into the darkened skies. He turned into the woods behind the house, dodging tree branches with ease until he pulled up and shot through the trees, the ends of the bare twigs scratching at his face as he emerged from their canopy.

Harry hovered over the trees, letting his feet dangle, breathing in the achingly cold air, his fingers tapping impatiently on the broom handle. 'Right. She's not in the files for either the Order or the Ministry,' he murmured. 'People just don't drop off the face of the earth and nobody notices... Even Dean's father was in Muggle papers...' He trailed off, then smacked himself in the head. 'Of course! The one place I haven't looked! Bloody hell!' he bellowed, turning the broom back to the house, barely pulling up in time to avoid crashing spectacularly on the ground. 'I've got a bloody newspaper employee in my own bloody house!' He burst through the back door, making it hit the wall with a loud crash. He nearly bowled over Ginny, who'd come out of the office to investigate the noise.

'What's wrong?' she snapped, running for the kitchen, wand out, the tip already glowing with an arrested spell.

Harry reached out and grabbed her free arm. 'Nothing.'

Ginny's wand arm fell and she glared at Harry. 'Then do you mind explaining why you scared six years off me?'

'Does the -Prophet keep an archive?'

'Of course. In the basement. Files are organized by year.'

Harry lifted Ginny off her feet and swung her in a circle, setting her down, before kissing her full on the mouth. 'Brilliant.'

'Why?'

'Well, if someone found an unidentified body, with a wand, don't you think it would have been in the paper?'

Ginny looked at Harry thoughtfully, before returning to the office. She picked up her quill before she looked at Harry over her shoulder. 'What makes you so certain she's dead? And what makes you think she's going to be in the wizarding paper?'

'I'm not,' Harry admitted. 'But there's bound to be something there. Whoever wrote the society column back then was bound to have noticed she wasn't at the next posh do. Or maybe there's something about her in the Muggle papers. Maybe she was found and, I dunno, claimed she couldn't remember anything,' he said desperately.

'How do you plan to research through the Muggle papers?' Ginny scoffed. 'There're loads of them. It could take months,' she pointed out.

'Or minutes,' Harry countered. 'If I look on a computer.'

Ginny's mouth turned down at the corners. While she had grown accustomed to certain Muggle devices like televisions, toasters, and telephones, the idea of a computer made her slightly uneasy. 'Where would you find one? One where you can be assured of your privacy?'

Harry's eyes darted to his desk and the drawer that held their seldom-used mobile. 'Dudley,' he pronounced triumphantly.

'What if she's not in the Muggle papers?' Ginny persisted.

Harry's smile faded. 'Then I'm back where I was...'

'It won't hurt to look, will it?' Ginny said quickly.

'No... It won't.' Ginny bit her lip at dashing Harry's hopes. She put her quill down and rose from the chair, wrapping her arms around his waist. Harry buried his face in her hair, rocking them slowly on their feet, whispering something Ginny couldn't quite hear. His head shifted and then she heard him. 'What if I can't find her...?'

Ginny's arms tightened and her head tipped back slightly. 'Then it'll feel like things of this sort did before the war,' she said. 'It doesn't make you a failure at your job. Narcissa surely knows how difficult it's going to be to find out anything. She'll have to see that even if the only thing you can tell her is what you found in those memories,' she said urgently.

Harry nodded. 'She could have gone anywhere, Transfigured her appearance, assumed a new name...' He snorted. 'Even lived as a Muggle.'

'That won't keep you from trying, though, will it?' Ginny asked, even though she already knew the answer.

'No.'

xxxxxx

Draco watched Daphne sprawl in the chair in the corner of the hospital room, with a book propped on her knees. 'Why do you stay here?' he asked.

Her eyes flicked from the text and glanced at him over the edge of the book. 'I'm your wife,' she said, as if it explained everything.

Draco snorted. 'Do you think it would be unseemly if you weren't outwardly devoted to my care?' He folded his arms over his chest. 'I don't recall you ever having much use for convention. At least where I'm concerned.'

Daphne idly turned the page and continued to read. 'I'm not completely without regard for your health,' she said calmly. 'Did you think I was going to let you suffer?'

'They told me you were here every day.'

'I was.'

Gritting his teeth because Daphne hadn't completely answered any of his questions, Draco glared at her. 'You're infuriating,' he ground out.

'Thank you.'

'Have you reached a decision yet?' Draco continued. 'About our marriage?'

Daphne marked her place in the book with a ribbon and closed it, her movements slow and deliberate. 'No,' she said.

'Bloody hell, woman,' Draco hissed. 'How long does it take for you to make up your mind?'

Daphne set the book in the windowsill and straightened. 'I didn't want to talk about this until you'd recovered,' she began.

'They're letting me go home tomorrow,' Draco spat. 'I'm recovered.'

'I'd like for us to try and get to know each other,' she said. 'Before we consider attempting to dissolve our marriage contract.'

'What difference does that make?'

Daphne's eyes bored into Draco's. 'For myself, I would very much like to discover if you really are the cold-hearted bastard I've known since I was eleven years old.' She picked up her handbag and book and stood, her expression softening a bit. 'But something tells me I don't know you at all.' She walked to the door and let her hand rest on the doorknob. 'I heard you talking to me through my bedroom door before you got sick,' she admitted, keeping her face toward the door. 'Talking about Scorpius.' Draco could see her shoulders draw back and she twisted the doorknob. 'I'll return in the morning with a change of clothes for you,' she said, as if she hadn't uttered her previous statement.

Draco gaped at the door as it closed behind Daphne. 'Get to know each other?' he repeated to the empty room. 'How am I supposed to go about doing that?'

xxxxxx

Hermione sat at her desk in the sitting room, writing letters to Rose and Hugo. Hugo had dropped a few oblique hints during their holiday from school that they didn't receive much news from home. Ron was admittedly a terrible correspondent. Even now, time was something of a fluid concept to him. He often lost track of what day it was and the last time he sent a letter to the children. It hadn't surprised Hermione. He'd been the same way with his homework when they were in school.

She kept the tone of the letter light, glossing over her mother's condition. She'd taken them to visit Jane a few times over the holiday. It hadn't gone well. Rose and Hugo had squeezed themselves into one chair, wide-eyed and silent, unable to think of anything to say. Jane had been sleeping when they arrived. She roused several minutes into the visit and gazed blankly at the three of them, mumbling incoherently. Even Hermione was incapable to making out what Jane said anymore. Hermione and Ron had managed to deflect Rose's persistent questions about Jane, but Hermione didn't think Hugo had been fooled by their explanations that Jane was just under the weather. But he seemed to sense that his parents didn't want either him or Rose to be upset, so he held his suspicions to himself. As she sealed Hugo's letter, Hermione felt he might have guessed the truth of the matter, but as usual, didn't feel the need to discuss it until he'd worn the subject down to a nub. She slid Hugo's letter into the envelope where Rose's already rested and sealed the envelope. She went into the kitchen and began to attach the letter to their owl.

The mobile trilled shrilly from their bedroom. She could hear Ron jerk awake, muttering rude things about people who rang at ungodly hours before he went quiet, then answered the mobile. Hermione could hear his voice rumble as he spoke, husky with sleep. Suddenly he stood behind her and held the mobile out to her. 'Hermione...'

She sent the owl through the window, watching it disappear into the early morning sky until it was gone, then turned to Ron. She took the mobile from him with a soft intake of breath. 'Hello?' she said shakily, half-hoping it was one of the calls the nursing home made if Jane stubbed a toe. 'Of course. Yes, I'll be there as soon as I can. Yes. Thank you...' Hermione closed the mobile and gently laid it on the table. She looked at Ron and tried to speak, but the words stuck in her throat.

Ron nudged her toward the bathroom. 'Go get washed and changed,' he said softly. 'I'll call Mum and tell her we won't be at lunch today.' Hermione nodded and swallowed heavily. She stepped into Ron and wound her arms around his waist, clutching handfuls of the back of his t-shirt. They stood there for a moment, until Hermione forced herself to let go of Ron and tried to make her heart begin to accept what her brain had done weeks ago. 'I'll be right behind you,' Ron murmured.

She nodded and stumbled to the bathroom, tripping over the hems of her pajama bottoms. She quickly stripped off the t-shirt and let it fall to the floor while she twisted the tap and held her hand under the water, waiting for it to reach the scalding temperature she preferred. When the water was hot enough, Hermione pushed the pajama bottoms down her hips and kicked them aside. She snatched the face cloth draped over the edge of the tub and hastily washed. As she wrung out the face cloth, Hermione felt her chin tremble, and bit her lip, breathing heavily through her nose. Don't have time for that,' she told herself sternly. You can do that later. She draped the face clothe over the edge of the bathtub to dry and pulled the shower curtain aside to find Ron leaning against the edge of the sink, holding a towel. 'Thank you,' she murmured, taking it and wrapping it around herself.

'I laid some clothes out for you,' Ron told her in a muffled voice as he began to pull his t-shirt over his head. 'They're on the bed,' he added, ducking into the shower.

'Thanks,' Hermione called over her shoulder sliding down the corridor, her still-damp feet skidding slightly on the polished wood floor. Ron had left her a pair of jeans and the new jumper she'd received from Molly that Christmas. He'd even put a Warming charm over them. Hermione pulled them on and found a pair of socks and her trainers. By the time she'd finished dressing, used her wand to dry her dripping hair, then bind the frizzled mess into a neat plait, Ron was already out of the shower and dressed, waiting for her by the bedroom door, his wand in hand.

'Ready?' he asked.

Hermione wanted to say, No, of course I'm not ready... but instead she nodded and took his hand in hers. He wrapped his long arm around her shoulders and turned her so she faced him. 'Let's go...' she muttered.

xxxxxx

The sounds of gasping met Hermione's ears before she even entered Jane's room. They weren't the soft gasps of slumber, but harsh, greedy attempts to infuse oxygen into a body that was shutting down in stages. It made Hermione's chest ache in response. She stopped just outside the door, listening to shallow breaths, counting the space between each one, until Ron nudged her in the small of her back. She took a tentative step into the room and stood at the foot of the bed, her hands gently wrapping around Jane's feet. Even through the layers of bedding, the chill of Jane's feet startled Hermione. 'Mum,' she breathed, almost hoping the mere sound of her voice and the touch her hands would calm the labored breathing.

'Mrs. Weasley?' Hermione's head turned and she found one of the younger nurses standing next to her.

'Can we bring you anything? Some tea, perhaps? Or maybe a bit of breakfast?'

Hermione squinted at the young woman, searching through her memory for her name. What is it...? She's one of Mum's favorite nurses... 'No, thank you, Supriya.'

'If you need anything, just let one of us know.'

Hermione nodded, her eyes closing.

Ron grasped her shoulders and steered her to a chair. 'Let's sit down, eh?' he suggested. The sounds weren't what unnerved him. It was the way Jane seemed to have collapsed on herself, the way her cheeks hollowed and her lips folded into a thin line. He lugged another chair across the floor, wincing at the discordant screech it made as the legs dragged across the linoleum floor. Doing some mental calculations, he realized while his own parents were less than ten years younger than Jane, but seventy wasn't even considered old by wizarding standards. Dying before the age of one hundred was an early death, and a witch or wizard wasn't even seen as elderly until they'd reached one hundred and twenty.

He picked up Hermione's cold hand, and began to chafe it gently between his hands, trying to warm it. He'd not seen a great deal of death by old age in his relatively short life, aside from Auntie Muriel - and that had been greeted with more relief than genuine grief from the rest of the family - and Kreacher. He supposed he could add Dumbledore to his list, but didn't, since he hadn't died a natural death. It was a strangely pleasant sensation to witness a death that wasn't surrounded by violence.

Hermione huddled in what seemed like numb paralysis, unable to tear her eyes away from her mother. Ron could hear her counting the pace of Jane's breaths. -In, one, two. Pause. Out, one, two, three... The pause between her inhalations and exhalations gradually grew longer.

At some point that morning, a trio of nurses gently shooed them into the corridor. They closed the door, and Hermione leaned against the wall on the opposite side, glaring at the door, until it opened again, and the younger one slipped out. 'You can come back in now,' she said. It was apparent they had tidied Jane's hair and changed her pajamas. They'd smoothed the bedding and tucked it around her. The three women stood clustered at the foot of Jane's bed, their hands lightly resting on top of the cheery quilt. Supriya, the youngest one, blinked back tears. It seemed to be an unspoken signal for them to take their leave.

Hermione returned to her chair. She leaned forward until her head rested on the edge of the pillow. 'It's all right, Mum,' she whispered. 'You can go. Dad's waiting for you.' Her eyes drifted shut and a tear slid out of the corner of one eye and into her hair.

Jane's breathing slowed and grew shallower until it seemed as if her chest no longer rose and fell. 'Mione... I don't think she's breathing...' Ron said in a hoarse murmur.

Hermione lifted her head and stared at her mother, as if she could make her breathe with sheer force of will. After several tense moments, Hermione shook her head. 'No, see? Look...' Jane's chest rose and fell imperceptibly. Ron joined her in the intense staring. Waiting. Hermione's hand pressed against Jane's throat, just under her jaw. She reached for one of Ron's hands. 'See if you can feel a pulse,' she demanded, placing his fingers where hers had been.

Ron waited for several moments, then shook his head. 'I can't feel anything,' he said. He eased out of his chair and darted into the corridor. One of the nurses was walking toward him. 'I think she's...' He trailed off and gestured to Jane's room. The nurse hurried into the room, pulling a stethoscope from the pocket of her scrubs. She fitted the earpieces into her ears and rested the round disc of the chestpiece against the front of Jane's pajamas. She listened intently, then straightened slowly.

'She's gone...'