Starving Works

Chapter One - Audiences and Acting

4 September 1875, London

    Fred Weasley was in an alcohol-induced stupor, lying on the floor of his room above Diagon Alley. This was the sort of thing that happened to him a lot. He was a broken man, overtaken by guilt that he'd failed George and overwhelmed by the fact he single-handedly ruined his best friend's life. He had never forgiven himself for either atrocity he believed he had committed.

    He had spent the past night, as the last year's worth of nights before it, sitting at he bar in the Leaky Cauldron talking to the bartender Horton and telling him the same woeful tale he always told while he drank Wild Augurey and other awful liquors. Horton, unbeknownst to Fred, diluted the drinks carefully so that his liver wouldn't be rotted away before he turned thirty. Sometime after three in the morning, after Fred tapped out on the bar beside his half-full umpteenth glass, Horton would levitate him back to his room above the family bookshop. It was a routine, something Fred depended upon heavily.

    He thought about Oliver, who was three years older than himself. Oliver had been the only decent man who wasn't a Weasley Fred had ever met. He was tall and dark-haired with a roundish face and a wonderful smile. He had sad eyes, the byproduct Fred later found out, of being scorned by his own Muggle society. This scorn was something Fred, being a pureblood, would never fully understand. The two worlds, though undeniably interrelated, were too separate. Muggle-borns would never understand Wizarding society as well as a pureblood, the reverse being the same as well.

    He thought a lot about Oliver, in fact. In his Fourth Year (Oliver's Seventh), he had taken him out for his birthday to Hogsmeade and gotten him drunk to ask him about why his eyes were sad. He hadn't been exactly prepared for what it was he found. Oliver was Muggleborn with a younger sister named Ophelia who was in Hufflepuff, never made waves, and as a result was often overlooked. Their father had never gotten over their apparent pitfall of being Magical. Sir Malcolm Wood was a heavily decorated and famous admiral in the Royal Navy, like countless other Wood eldest sons before him. Of course, Oliver was his eldest son, and nothing had ever hurt Malcolm Wood more than to see Oliver go off to some "magic" school in Scotland. Upon Oliver's leaving Hogwarts, Malcolm approached his son about joining the navy, which Oliver accepted because it was expected of him. He left four years later and returned to Hogwarts to teach.

    Fred knew very well that Oliver and Hermione, who was only sixteen at the time, had begun seeing each other sometime before the Yule Ball of that year. They kept it largely under wraps, but those wraps had cracks and Fred could see in. Not many of the other teachers or students picked up on it, if any of them did. That assistant Transfiguration professor, Albus Dumbledore, might have caught on, but two things they knew Dumbledore to be were kind and subtle. Only three years above Oliver in school himself, not to mention a Gryffindor, he had more than once let Fred and George get away with this prank or the other. Fred had adored him.

    Back to the real world.

    "Fred, wake up."

    Ginny Plather nudged him, frowning. She had just come through the Floo tunnels to find her brother passed out and beyond reason. Frankly, she was growing tired of it. She had a family and a life of her own, and if she and Fred didn't have the same parents, she doubted she would even think twice about ignoring him, even if he were her closest non-related friend. If Hermione was in Fred's position, Ginny knew she wouldn't have time to go coddling her. That's assuming Hermione would ever allow someone to coddle her. She was married to a Malfoy-- she couldn't be a weak little ball of fluff.

    He groaned and rolled over. It was too early to be roused, too early to bother with anything. And, he was still drunk from the night before. Not a stellar combination. "What?" he croaked, eager to just get Ginny out of his flat so he could put his pillow over his face and go back to sleep. She, however, had grown up with him and she knew what he was after. She knew she couldn't let him go back to sleep. For one thing, she had something very important to extricate from him and she didn't especially care if he was willing to give her the information or not. "Fred!" she snapped and flicked his exposed ear much like their mother used to do.

    He opened one eye and glared at her. She smiled sweetly down at him and crossed her arms. She was the least proper lady he knew, honestly. "What do you want?" he reiterated.

    "Get up and I'll tell you." She sniffed and walked over to his wash basin. She lifted the pitcher and promptly dumped all the water out onto her brother's head. He was up like a shot, eyes bleary but wild.

    "You're evil," he told her, earning himself another saccharine smirk, this one a bit more devilish than the last. "I'm up now." He turned his body 'round and set his feet on the floor. "What in Merlin's name do you want now?"

    She set the heavy stoneware pitcher down with a clunk and crossed her arms over her chest. She looked so very much like their formidable little mother at that moment, with her 'you'd-better-run' glare, that Fred actually had to smother the instinct to swallow a lump in his throat. "He's alive and you didn't tell her."

    "What?" he asked, confused. "Who?" Surely she couldn't be talking about--

    "Oliver Wood, that's who," she snapped off, her words steadily growing more angry. "You nincompoop! You let Hermione go and marry that tosser Malfoy when all this time Oliver's been alive! I ought to have the family disown you!" She was getting going, and like any female in Molly Weasley's family, once she had the momentum built up, the target of her rage was a goner. In school, she'd once turned the nose of a boy who'd made improper advances on her into a rather large apothecary jar of slug slime. It had broken during the night and the boy had woken up covered in the gunk. It wasn't pretty.

    He held up his hands in defeat. "I'm sorry?"

    "You certainly better be! I was talking to Liesl Hertz-- you know, that annoying German bint who comes into the shop to flirt with Bill-- and she was going on about this handsome wizard she'd seen just the day before." Bill, Fred and Ginny's eldest brother, ran a bookshop on Diagon Alley called Spines, Damsels and Dust, and Ginny ran the counter most days just to get away from her husband. Bill was a handsome bachelor and all the marriageable young witches in England had their eyes on him.

    Fred looked pale. "I thought he went to New York never to return."

    Ginny frowned and thunked her brother on the side of the head. "I've been here thinking he died in Spain all this time, since they never reported him alive and poor Hermione didn't see him on Homecoming Day."

    He rubbed his temple and looked at the floor. "I saw 'im after she left through the Floo. Guessing they used Mr. Muggle Royal Navy reject in some special mission that he could only do if they reported him dead-- Spanish wouldn't notice a spy so much if they thought he was dead." He swallowed and groaned. "Bollocks, Gin. Now my head hurts about tenfold. Did you have to hit me?"

    "If my boxing your ears makes you feel a modicum of regret for the folly you committed, then good," she snapped. "Anyway, Liesl Hertz. She was telling me about this dashing wizard she'd spotted around the Atrium at the Ministry. According to her, he's some New Yorker the Ministry called in to help them design a statue or fountain or something to put in the middle there since they only built the new Ministry building fifteen years ago and it's boring."

    "Oliver was always drawing things in school," said Fred grudgingly. "How good on him to be a designer now."

    "Then he walks past the windows on the front of the shop and she squeals, 'Oh, Ginny! That's him!' So I look. And all I see is Oliver Wood, looking very good, I must say, for being dead!" she finished, her cheeks very pink. She glared at her brother and stepped back. "So get up. You're coming with me."

    He did a double take at her. "What? Like hell I'm going anywhere today."

    "It's certainly not my fault you look like you just saw the Grim. Now come on. Put on your shirt and shoes. I have an audience with the older Lady Malfoy and you're coming with me."

*

4 September 1875, Malfoy Estates, Yorkshire

    Draco Malfoy stared from his mother to his wife to his two-year-old daughter in disbelief. "Excuse me?" he repeated, not sure he'd heard his mother's words correctly.

    Lady Malfoy pursed her lips and broke a corner off of her blueberry scone. "Draco, honestly. I have let you do a great many things that as a mother I oughtn't have. However, I refuse to let you go traipsing off after a beast that dangerous with that little girl in tow. Hermione is a grown woman, and if she wants to go with you on this death mission, so be it, but I really must put my foot down about taking Astrid with you."

    "She's my daughter, mother," said Draco through gritted teeth.

    "Yes, and she's my granddaughter. The Congo is no place for anyone, let alone a child." Lady Malfoy took a deliberate sip of tea from a bone china teacup and fixed her son with a piercing look over the rim. "I will take care of her for the year that you are gone and then will relinquish the custody. She's two years old, Draco; do I need to point out to you that she will not remember that you were ever gone?"

    Hermione rocked her daughter back and forth and whispered in her ear. The toddler girl had light caramel-colored hair curling all around her small head and sat quietly in her mother's lap, playing with a doll with a china face. "I think your mother is right, Draco," declared Hermione in a soft voice.

    He rounded on her. "What do you know?" he snapped.

    Lady Malfoy set her teacup down with a chink. "I would advise you to take a good, long sip from your brandy and not speak to your wife in that manner in my presence, Draco. Need I remind you that you are in my home and Rudolph would exact a rather alarming amount of pleasure from putting you out on your coattails?"

    Draco grudgingly (and wordlessly) raised his glass to his lips and drained it. "It's cognac," he argued childishly and set the empty glass on the sideboard.

    "I have wanted to study the Nundu since Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts," insisted Hermione, one small hand on the top of her daughter's head. She did not look up at her mother-in-law's face. Lady Malfoy decided that must have been because she knew what she would see. It stung Lady Malfoy to see the strong girl her son had first brought home from Hogwarts as his friend, the one who was all but engaged to Oliver Wood and happy. It was almost frightening to see just how much had changed in Hermione's world in ten years "We had a really great teacher and she really made me love dangerous creatures."

    Lady Malfoy's lips quirked ironically. "Is that why you married Draco over that other one?"

    Draco glared at her fiercely. Hermione looked at her blankly for a moment, then smiled vaguely. "No, I married Draco because Oliver was dead. Draco's not quite as dangerous as he'd like us to think." She smiled sweetly at her husband over Astrid's head. Lady Malfoy swallowed a laugh and drowned it with a sip of tea.

    Draco cleared his throat and adjusted his cravat with a fair measure of indignity. "If the two of you are quite done making a joke of this," he hissed.

    "Draco, I strongly suggest you begin making arrangements to have Astrid's things sent over here, along with whatever legalities. I have more political pull than you do, not to rub your nose in it, and I've got a mothering instinct that won't allow me to stand by quietly and let you take Astrid with you."

    Evidently realizing they were discussing her, Astrid stirred and pushed her doll, Belle, at her mother. "Bula," she said, pointing at her grandmother. "Bula."

    Hermione smiled and smoothed out a cowlick on the girl's head. "All right, Miss Astrid," she said, setting her down on her feet. "Go see Bula."

    Hermione watched her mother-in-law in awe. The woman was maybe fifty; probably younger. She had left her family's estate in fair Verona at nineteen to marry some English nobleman she had never met. She learned English quickly, and after thirty or so years in England, her voice barely bore a taint of an Italian accent. She sat with her back impossibly straight. Her hair was magnificently coiffured. But all her impeccable breeding and training aside, she still behaved like any serving woman with a child. She reached down and scooped Astrid into her arms and firmly planted her in her lap. Even Draco had to admit his mother's form was flawless, though he didn't know why. His father had shuddered at the thought of her coddling him as a child and she rarely had tried go against Lucius.

    "Why does she call you 'Bula?'" asked Draco a moment later, watching Lady Malfoy shed all her strict etiquette rules to play with a two-year-old child. "Did you teach her 'grandmother' in Italian?"

    Lady Malfoy glanced up at her son over Astrid's head, gray-green eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "No, it's not. As to where 'Bula' came from, I can't venture a guess, but it's a pretty name. Much prettier than being called 'Grandmother.'"

    "It's so personal, though," argued Draco. Generally speaking, he knew Lady Malfoy to sneer at anything somewhat less than perfectly dignified. He would have expected her to adore being 'Grandmother.'

    She smiled graciously at her son with the same sort of look she gave to Astrid, if a little more belittling. "I will agree that I am a lover of etiquette, but it is a pleasure to relax with a child. And, need I remind you that I am not yet an old woman, so you can't fault me for not wanting to be called Grandmother quite yet. Hermione, dear, would you pass me that doll. I think Astrid would like to show Belle to her Bula."

    Astrid reached out to get the doll. Hermione straightened the apron Belle wore. "Belle comes from Paris. I bought her at a quaint little store off the Champs Elysées."

    "When were you in Paris?" asked Lady Malfoy, eyebrows raised at Astrid who hugged the doll tightly.

    "Back in February," said Hermione.

    "You remember, Mother,"added Draco, "when I had to go meet with Alain Montclair about building Hermione's house in the Congo. The French have their eyes on that land, so I figured it might not be unwise to contract a Frenchman to do the work. At least if we end up in French-controlled territory, my house won't be incomplete."

    "If there was any doubt as to whether you are Lucius' son or not," mused Lady Malfoy in a rather sour tone of voice. Then she jumped a little at her own candor and apologized profusely. She turned and fixed Hermione with a piercing look. "What do you think?" she asked.

    "What do I think about what?" replied Hermione, confused.

    Lady Malfoy exhaled a bit more heavily than was necessary. "What do you think about dragging poor little Astrid off to the Congo with you?" she posed patiently.

    Hermione swallowed and did not allow herself to look at Draco's expression. She knew he was telling her what to say like she was some sort of puppet and there was still enough Gryffindor spunk left in her to ignore him. "It pains me," she said in what she hoped was an effortless voice, "but I agree with you. As much as I want to go to study the Nundu myself, I'm rather reluctant to delve into such an intemperate climate. I've never exactly been in a real jungle before. I can't really even imagine what it will be like for myself and truthfully, I agree that such a place is not fit for a child born this far north. She would probably catch cold and die."

    "Morbid way to look at it," muttered Draco. He was still bitter at losing the argument.

    "I think it's a brilliant outlook," said Lady Malfoy. She stooped her neck and looked into Astrid's face. "What do you think, Miss Astrid? How would you like to live with Bula for a while?"

    Astrid stared at her grandmother with huge dark brown eyes for a moment then grinned and clapped her hands. "Stay here with Bula?" she asked.

    "Yes, darling, stay here with Bula," replied Lady Malfoy. She straightened her back and looked squarely at Draco. "I think that all but settles it, Draco," she said. "I expect someone to be bringing me documents within the week. If you don't, I think my barrister might be paying you a visit." She set Astrid on her feet and back to her mother. "If you'll excuse me, I have another meeting at two o'clock to discuss some business. I believe you know the way out, but feel free to call an Elf in here to get you some tea or the like before you go."

*

    Ginny Plather, youngest daughter of Arthur and Magnolia Weasley and wife of Marion Plather, stood on the stoop of Lady Narcissa Malfoy's London townhouse gathering her wits before entering. She had always been rather intimidated by the Malfoy matriarch, but she refused to show it in front of her older brother. Fred Weasley stood behind and slightly to the left of her with a dour look on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

    "Oh, come now, Fred," snapped Ginny, not even turning around to look at her brother, "look a little bit animated. This is one of the most influential witches in the country and we ought to be honored to speak to her."

    "Why, because we're just Weasleys, born in a bin?" sneered Fred.

    "I can't say anything for your birth, but I was born in the new St. Mungo's building and it was lovely. Joshua was born in the same room I was," she said of her five-year-old son. "And, no, it's not because we belong to a lower class than her. This meeting is about Hermione."

    "Hermione?" choked Fred, staring at Ginny open-mouthed. "As in formerly-Granger, currently-Malfoy?"

    Ginny rolled her eyes. "Yes, that Hermione. I'm worried about her, and Lady Malfoy sees her more often than I do, sadly to say, so I want to talk about it with the Lady." She wrapped her fingers around the heavy pewter knocker, shaped peculiarly like a serpent (was she especially surprised?). "You're here to back me up." She knocked.

    "Why me?" whined Fred. "I get that you've got to talk about the girl. I think she's been unbalanced since Ol left for Spain, but I don't see why I've got anything to do with--"

    The heavy mahogany door slid inwards, its massive hinges utterly silent and the air wafting out from inside smelling strangely like spice. Just inside the door stood a House-elf. "Welcome," it said, nodding them into the entrance hall. "Is you Ginny Weasley, Miss?"

    "Well, haven't been in some years, but yes. Ginny Weasley," she replied.

    The Elf stared at her for a moment, not moving save for once blinking its beady cobalt eyes. It was the strangest Elf Ginny had ever seen, and she'd spent much time in the Hogwarts kitchens. "My name is Aminelle and I is to lead you to the Emerald Parlour. Lady Malfoy is not wanting you to have to be crossing paths with her wicked son in the Opal one, so I is apologizing for it being not as pretty." Ginny smiled. Female Elves were exceedingly rare in private homes because they often proved to be unstable.

    "Oh, Aminelle," said Ginny, "that is just fine." The Elf looked at her with some note of sadness and Ginny wondered if perhaps it extended from the way most Wizarding households treated their Elves.

    "And who is you, sir?" Aminelle had just noticed Fred hiding half behind his sister.

    He cleared his throat and made to speak but Ginny cut him off, "This is my older brother, Fred Weasley." He glared at her and then nodded to the Elf.

    Aminelle seemed alarmed. "I was not being informed they would be having more than one person meeting with the Lady," she said. "This is bad, very bad. Aminelle is having to apologize more grievously still for the state of the Emerald Parlour--"

    "Can you just lead us there, possibly?" interjected Fred, not feeling up to a typical House-elf sobfest. He'd met the Elf Hermione's father owned enough times during Oliver's and her relationship to know distinctly how annoying the creatures could be. Sometimes they had less capacity for human interaction than a bloody jarvey.

    The Elf bowed so low her prominent cheese wedge of a nose surely scraped on the tiled floor. The downtrodden race of House-elves could tolerate impatient orders better than simple humanity. Ginny frowned at her brother. He shrugged and scratched his chin. He needed a shave.

    Despite Aminelle's numerous tripping apologies that the Emerald Parlour was substandard as far as Malfoy parlours went, Ginny quickly found the room to be opulent and gorgeous. Looking around, Fred had to wonder how spectacular the Opal Parlour must be if it was more splendid than the Emerald one. The Weasley family was middle class if there could be considered such a thing in their society. They had money to have a comfortable home in Stratford and none of the seven children had ever wanted for anything. But they had no House-elves (the Ministry required a large tax for ownership of them and they enforced it rabidly) and Molly, their mother, would have died to have a room such as a parlour (or even the time to entertain anyone).

    The walls were paneled in a dark stained wood from the midpoint down and papered in a beautiful almond-colored baroque print from the midpoint up. There were photographs of grim-faced Malfoys fidgeting on all the walls and above the fireplace was a portrait of the elder Lady Malfoy with her husband and Draco when he was a boy, all wearing Slytherin green. The furniture was very period, made of a sturdy tropical wood and upholstered in rich natural-dyed velvet, all green to garner the room the name "Emerald Parlour." The Oriental carpet on the floor, a family relic brought back by Lucius Malfoy's father after some expedition in India in the thirties, its main color was a rare jungle green instead of the customary Oriental Fireball red. Out of style in a way, but elegant enough Ginny supposed even Queen Victoria would approve of it.

    "Sit down, sirs," said Aminelle, bowing again. "Two o'clock comes and I is having to go before the Lady comes to be speaking to you." And then she left the room with a crack.

    "It must be lovely to be able to just pop yourself out of existence and reappear somewhere else," said Ginny, awed. She looked at Fred who was situating himself on one of the ornate, round-backed chairs. "Someone ought to invent a way for us to replicate that ability House-elves have."

    "I much agree," another voice agreed, and both Weasleys looked up to see the elder Lady Malfoy standing in the doorway in all her glory. "I've been looking for someone to investigate the theory behind the power for years but no one seems interested. I'm not sure of it's because I'm a Malfoy trophy wife or because no one wants to actually study something so strange as a House-elf."

    Fred recovered first, "My Lady," he said, standing.

    "Mr. Weasley, a pleasant surprise. I haven't seen you since Hermione and Draco's... wedding day." She said the words 'wedding' and 'day' with disdain heavy in her tone, rather uncouth for a lady of her standing. "Your sister's letter didn't say you would be accompanying her."

    He glanced at Ginny, but she had her back to him and was examining the painting above the fireplace. "Well, I hadn't intended to come either," he said with some forced propriety.

    Ginny turned and looked at Lady Malfoy admiringly. She curtsied and smiled. "My Lady, I must thank you for granting me this audience," she said. "Forgive me, it was presumptuous of me to bring him along, but you see, he knows something and the whole purpose for us to speak is something regarding Hermione."

    Lady Malfoy sat down on the short couch directly across from Fred and spent a moment arranging her skirts before cocking her head to one side and regarding Ginny with a small smile. "Nonsense, my dear girl. Nothing on earth could seem quite as presumptuous after one lives with my son. Anyway, I'm very much interested in anything anyone can tell me about my daughter-in-law. She's so unhappy lately."

    "That's why I'm afraid," said Ginny, sitting on the second chair beside her brother. She kneaded her hands in a way Fred found reminiscent of their mother but he felt it might be out of place to mention it; not to mention the fact he was sure Ginny would pick up the Ming vase to her right and bludgeon him with it if he said any such thing.

    Lady Malfoy narrowed her eyes. "I'll have Aminelle bring us some tea to calm us down. Once you're feeling more like yourself you can tell me," she said to Ginny. "I assure you, I'm most interested in what ever it is you've come to tell me."

    Ginny nodded. "Of course," she said. Then she laughed nervously and shortly. "Of course. I'm sorry, Lady Malfoy, I've just come into some knowledge that could ruin so much of this elaborate performance we're all putting on and I'm not so sure I feel comfortable knocking it all on its head."

    "Let me tell you, the truth is infinitely preferable to a fantasy," said Lady Malfoy wisely.