Thin Lines

Questions Unanswered and a Death Relived

"It can't be." Draco whispered. A sharp lightening bolt of pain made its way to chest as he tore his gaze away and looked back at Harry. He only shook his head at him and Draco turned back to the broken person across the room. "Wh-how?" was all he could say.

"I...I don't know. She hasn't said anything since we brought her here." Harry bit his lip and looked down at his feet uncomfortably.

"Hermione?" Draco began slowly edging further into the room toward her, but Harry gently caught his arm.

"She doesn't know us, Draco. She's in a state of shock." Harry said quietly, pulling him back through the door. As Ron pulled the door shut behind then, Draco wrenched his arm from Harry's grip and wheeled around to face him.

"How the HELL is that possible? How can she be in there right now?" Draco stood rigid, fists clenched at his sides. He wasn't really sure whom he was angry at or even to whom he was spewing his questions. Ron and Harry looked at a loss. He could see with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that they knew no more than he did.

"We shouldn't do this here." Ron stated monotonously. The men trailed silently back down to the office.

"She is dead! I watched her d--I was there. Where did she come from?" His head was swimming as he struggled to comprehend what he had just seen. He sat down in a chair somewhere behind him, staring up at the other two men in wide-eyed confusion. Harry and Ron exchanged glances before trying to answer him.

"We don't know anything more than what we've told you. She won't speak. She won't go near anyone that goes into the room. She doesn't seem to recognize this place or any of us. Ginny and the other Mediwitches can't get a full sense of what shape her memory is in. Ginny doesn't think she even knows her own name at this point." Ron seemed to be pleading for understanding as he finished speaking. Draco bent his head and massaged his temples. Harry's feet came into view as he began speaking above Draco.

"I know it's not pleasant, but we need to go over what happened the night she disappeared. Is there anything you can recall; anything you can remember that might help us figure out what happened to her?" Draco shot up out of his seat, his face inches from Harry's.

"Potter, do you honestly think that if I thought for one second that she was alive, that I wouldn't have acted on it. That I wouldn't have done everything in my power to bring her back? I thought I buried her. I had to watch them put my wife in the ground!" He glared at each of them in turn, their mouths agape. "I need to go check on Dominic." Ron started to say something in reply, but Harry held his hand up, motioning for him to be quiet.

"He's in the study, on the couch." Harry said, holding open the door. Mechanically, Draco left without another word to Harry or Ron, and made his way down the hall to the study.

~~~

Somewhere in America, 3 years earlier

Draco smiled at Hermione as he pulled into the driveway. She was standing in the front yard in dirty overalls and gardening gloves, shielding her eyes from the setting sun.

"Back Already?" she asked, walking over to the car to give him a kiss hello.

"By the time I got to the store from the park he was asleep. I didn't want to wake him up, so here we are." As she reached for the car door to get Dominic, the familiar shrill ring of the telephone carried out through the open windows.

"No matter how long I live this life, I'll never get used to that horrible noise." He said, cringing with each ring. Hermione patted his arm affectionately and turned toward the house.

"All right, then. You get him and I'll get the phone." As she rushed up the porch steps, he opened the car door and unbuckled Dominic. Passing through the living room, he glanced at Hermione who was standing in the kitchen, talking animatedly on the telephone, and couldn't help the smile the pulled at his lips.

Once in Dominic's room, he placed the sleeping two-year-old in his crib and closed the blinds. He began untying the little boys shoes to take them off, but was interrupted by a blood-curdling scream. He sprinted back out to Hermione, instinctively pulling the bedroom door shut behind him. The scene that followed played itself out in slow motion as he looked on in horror.

Draco arrived in the kitchen in time to see Hermione fall to the floor, her eyes wide and her body stiff. In panic and shock, his eyes followed the invisible trail of magic to its origin. His eyes opened wide in fear as the cruel shadow of the elder Malfoy darkened the doorway.

"If it isn't my pride and joy, my only son. Draco, my boy, aren't you glad to see me?" The staggering grin that followed his statement turned Draco's blood to ice. He wanted to lunge across the room at the monster; to go to Hermione; to grab Dominic and run; to move anywhere; but there he stood, rooted by the heartless, sadistic glare of Lucius Malfoy.

"What have you done to her?" his voice came out much quieter than he had intended as the return of a hatred he thought he'd lost welled up inside him. Lucius only winked maliciously in reply and rushed back out the back door. Their property and house being charmed to prohibit apparation to or from it made Draco think he could still catch him. Glancing briefly at the crumpled, lifeless Hermione, he hastened after his father, wand at the ready. He caught a tiny flick of movement to his right as he stepped out onto the back porch and quickly followed after it. At the bottom of the porch steps, he looked to his right, toward the house, where he could see the black swish of robes as his father headed toward the front yard.

Rounding the corner of the house, Draco watched in blind panic as Lucius cast a charm and disappeared before his eyes. Haphazardly, Draco began throwing hexes and curses out into the well-lit street a half of a dozen meters in front of him where he had just watched the elder Malfoy vanish. The sudden pop of an apparation from the neighbor's yard echoed like a gunshot in his ears. He fell to his knees, exhausted and defeated. He felt his face fall, devoid of all expression and his eyes glazed over in grief. He stared blankly in front of him in shock until the sound of voices floated out to him from the open windows behind him.

Mindlessly, he burst back through the front door causing the hectic scene in front of him to grind to a halt and fall silent. Hovering in the kitchen in front of a composedly weeping Ginny and a stone-faced Snape, Draco saw what he could only assume was Hermione's body. Snape waved his wand over it and muttered a few words and the white bundle vanished. Draco lunged toward them.

"Draco! Draco, she's gone! Don't!" Neville exclaimed as he and Seamus moved to restrain him. He had no will to fight them and, instead, just stood securely in their grasp. Snape stalked up and placed himself firmly in front of Draco, speaking sternly and quickly. His voice sounded distant and muffled to Draco, as though he was listening underwater. He caught something about an alert from the Order of the Eagle and Hermione being sent away for the proper arrangements to be made. It was at that moment that a limp and unconscious Lucius Malfoy came floating through the back door, closely followed by Ron and Harry. Draco's eyes widened and a curtain of sheer loathing fell over his face.

"You son of a bitch! You killed her. You killed my wife!" he screamed at the unresponsive man across the room, struggling with all his might against the hands that held him back. He stopped suddenly, his knees wobbling as a sensation of blackness and warmth fell over him. The last thing he remembered as the spell took full effect was the taste of his own tears.

~~~

Draco sat staring in silence at the innocently sleeping Dominic. He rubbed his hands over his face as if that would make something less complicated, less confusing. What was this going to do to this beautiful little boy? He would start asking questions eventually, just like he did when he'd discovered magic. After all, he is Hermione's son. He thought of the similarity with a sad smile. He shivered as the thought of having her back in their lives ran across his mind. He knew it was too soon to hope, but he couldn't help thinking about it. The other half of his brain kept replaying that horrible night in his mind. What had he missed? There had to have been some indication that she was still alive. He squinted, straining to take stock of all of the people who had been in his house. Let's see. There was Neville, Seamus, Weasley, Potter, Ginny and Sn--the creak of the door opening interuppted his thoughts.

"How's he doing?" Harry asked, carefully closing the door behind him.

"He's still sleeping soundly. He always was a good sleeper." Draco answered, brushing away a silvery blond lock that had fallen across the child's closed eyes.

"Yes, he was. I think I first realized that the night Hermione...he slept through the whole thing. He didn't even wake up when Ginny brought him back to our flat that night. It still strikes me as odd though that Lucius didn't go after him. It doesn't make sense." Harry moved closer to the two Malfoys, looking from one to the other.

"He doesn't know about him." Draco said impassively. "If he had he would have taken him without hesitation." Draco examined the dusty wood floor below him. "I don't remember much from that night. I remember what she looked like in her wonky overalls when I got home. I remember the phone ringing and putting Dominic in his room. Beyond that, I can only see the sight of her body lying motionless on the floor and the horrible look on that bastard's face when he looked at me." He paused as his voice caught in his throat. "The one image I can't seem to get out of my head is her body floating in the kitchen with Ginny standing next to her crying and Snape making her...Oh bloody hell! Snape." He looked at Harry for the first time since he had entered the room. Harry looked momentarily bewildered.

"What about Snape?" Draco frowned, trying to remember the words that Snape had said to him that night.

"He knows something, Harry. He has to. I need to know what he said to me before they cast that tranquility charm on me. Get him here."

"He's already here; he's in the council room down the hall. I still don't understand wh--" Interuppting him, Draco stood up and started for the door.

"He was the only senior member of the Order there that night. I need to hear from him what happened. What he did." He didn't wait for Harry's reply, but quickly headed down the hallway to the same room he had sat in the middle of almost a decade ago. It still looked much the same as it had nine years earlier, only now piles of books and papers covered all of the tables. It seemed smaller to him somehow. In the back of the room, in front of a map of moving dots, stood Snape.

Without turning toward him, Snape spoke, his voice devoid of emotion. "Can I help you, Mr. Malfoy?" His obvious disinterest in the monumental situation unfolding around him turned Draco's frustration to anger. He clenched his fists, trying to maintain his composure.

"What happened the night Hermione disappeared? What did you do with her after you found her?" Draco demanded, keeping his tone cool and even.

"Were you not there? I told you what happened once already." Snape replied, still not turning to look back at him.

"Don't play games with me, Snape. You're not my professor anymore." At this, Snape turned around, an ironic smirk on his face as he looked across the room at Draco.

"Well, well, well. When did you get to be so assertive?"

"Answer the question, damn it!" Draco didn't blink as he stared at him.

"I didn't do anything with her. She wasn't there."