Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

A Matter of Time	By : AdaraB Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 7796 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns everything in the Harry Potter universe. I own nothing and I make no profit off of this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
Chapter 10 - Answers

Ashleigh and Draco walked side by side at a leisurely pace down to the dungeons. Neither spoke a word to the other. Ashleigh was wondering how to approach the subject, should she just come out with it as she usually would have? Or should she beat around the bush and use a more Slytherin, cunning way for him to spill the information she wanted. She supposed that Draco would probably appreciate a Slytherin attempt more but there was something to be said about bluntness. That had always been her way with her closest friends. But she had to remember; she knew Draco for less than two days and didn’t know how he would react to such a personal question being asked of him by someone he barely knew. With those thoughts, she decided that the Slytherin way was her best chance at getting a straight, honest answer out of him.

While Ashleigh was busy with her thoughts, Draco was going over a few things in his mind as well. He had so many thoughts as to what her question was. He thought of everything that could possibly cause her to act in such a way towards him. She was new but she was already acting like a true Slytherin. With a half smirk Draco thought, ‘I bet those bloody Gryffindor's aren’t too happy that she’s in Slytherin. They probably don’t want anything to do with her now even though they did spend the day together in Hogsmeade.’

Draco almost stopped short. Of course! Those Gryffindorks probably went and filled her head with all his past transgressions against them, not to mention everything about the Dark Lord and his father being a Death Eater. ‘Bloody Hell,’ he thought. He had wondered what she was getting at during dinner, all those questions about why he hated the Golden Trio so much. He really ought to have seen this coming, he scolded himself. Well her question may not be as bad as all that, he reasoned with himself. I’ll take this one step at a time and see what happens so I don’t make a mistake and freak out.

Draco was pulled out of his thoughts when Ashleigh suddenly stopped in front of what Draco was sure was the only painting in the dungeons and said “Wild Orchid.”

He was mildly impressed that she found her way through the dungeons on her own when it was only her second day in the castle. It had taken him nearly a week to learn how to navigate through the halls, although he would never tell her that.

Walking though the portrait hole, she led them over to the two overstuffed chairs in front of the fire place. At her insistence, he took a seat finding the chair extremely comfortable although he realized it would probably be terrible for his posture that he had worked hard to maintain since the moment he could walk. A Malfoy did not have bad posture, it was simply unheard of.

Ashleigh took the chair across from him and made herself comfortable, kicking her shoes off and curling her feet up underneath her. The house elves already had a roaring fire going on account of her not knowing any magic yet.

For a long moment they just stared at each other, Ashleigh with her head cocked to the side, studying him silently.

“What did you want to ask me?” Draco asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“I wanted to ask you about your family. I don’t really know anything about you and if we are to be friends we should know something about each other’s pasts. I will answer any questions you have for me as well.” She said in a serious manner.

Draco looked a bit relieved but also a bit scared at what might be revealed.

“So tell me about your family.” She said an interested look in her eyes.

“Well, I am the only child of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. What else would you like to know?” He asked, at a loss of what she was looking for.

“What do they do for a living?”

“Father works for the Ministry of Magic and was, for a time, one of the Governors of Hogwarts. Mother doesn’t work. She mostly hosts and attends balls and charity events. I suppose you could call her a social butterfly, parties are the only things she cares about other than Father and me.”

“Where do you live?”

“Our mansion is located in Wiltshire; it’s a lovely town, very small and secluded. So what about you?”

With a smile she answered, knowing just when he was going to attempt to gain control over the situation by turning the questioning on her. Things were going just as planned.

“I too am an only child. My father Kent raised me for most of my life since my mother, Mary, died when I was five. I was adopted by Kent and Mary Grey, it was impossible for them to conceive. They treated me just as if I had come from their own blood.” She said with a smile of remembrance.

“My father died of cancer two years ago. My mother had been killed in a car accident. She was a teacher, he always told me how much she loved math, she was a high school Algebra teacher. My father was a high school Chemistry teacher. That’s how they met. I didn’t learn that I was adopted until I was eight years old. I always thought that I was so good at math and science because of my parent’s gifts for the subjects until that day. Dad told me that my real parents had been killed but that their real names would not be released by the authorities by their request. They didn’t want me to go looking for them once I was old enough. So I grew up happy and healthy with wonderful parents while I had them. We lived in Baltimore, Maryland. Before I came to be here, I had about a year and a half before I graduated from John Hopkins University with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering.”

Draco looked dumbfounded; he didn’t think she would ever disclose such information to him. He had no idea what to say.

“I’m sorry.” He simply said. It was the only thing that came to mind.

“It's ok. I’m sort of glad that they passed before I came here. It saves them the heartache of losing their only daughter to whatever horror their minds could have cooked up. Knowing my dad as I did, he probably would have thought some mad man would have kidnapped, raped and killed me…Speaking of mad men, what’s all this I keep hearing of some guy named Lord Voldemort?” She asked in a somewhat innocent voice, looking at him curiously.

“He’s the Wizarding Worlds latest crazy bastard. Well I do have to say that he made since to me when I was younger about pureblood supremacy and all that rot until last summer. I’m sure you’ve heard by now from the Golden Trio that my Father is a Death Eater. Well he is, was, and he was ordered to take me to my first meeting to see what it meant to be in the Dark Lords inner circle, what an ‘honor’ it was he said. Honor my arse!” Draco said with a sneer. “He made me watch as they tortured some innocent Muggles, I mean, they’re not my favorite people in the world but I would never go and torture and kill them just for being Muggles. It’s not like they can help that they weren’t born with magic. I never understood why Granger took so much offense to the term Mudblood until then. And then on top of it all, I find that our ‘Dark Lord’ is nothing but a half blood. What a hypocrite!” Draco sneered.

“I can’t believe I actually wanted to become one of those blasted Death Eaters just a year ago. I could never do those things to innocent people and my father knows it.” He said pushing up his sleeves as the heat from the fire was making him overly warm.

Ashleigh then got a good look at his arms. They were pure white, not a trace of the dark mark on either of his forearms as he leaned back, resting his hands behind his head.

“What did you mean when you said your father ‘was’ a Death Eater?”

“Well he did join when he was younger, when he thought that what the Dark Lord was doing was right, that he was a pureblood who had the right ideas about the world. When Potter defeated him when he was an infant…you know about that right?”

She nodded the affirmative.

“Well, he still supported him up until his return but when he learned the truth about him being a half-blood, Father realized he had been following a crazy man all along. When the Dark Lord returned, he lost many followers because of the fact that he wasn’t really a pureblood. Father didn’t renounce the dark ways because you don’t leave the Dark Lord’s service and live to tell the tale.”

Ashleigh nodded, accepting the information and took a minute to digest it.

“Thank you for answering my question.” She said with a grin.

“Well you wanted to know about my family didn’t you?”

“Yes. But my real question was if you were a Death Eater or not.” She answered with a sly grin.

Draco looked shocked. He hadn’t even noticed that he had revealed that tidbit of information. Bringing his arms down and looking at his rolled up sleeves, then over to the fire, he thought about her line of questioning. He decided that it was a very Slytherin thing to do to completely get his guard down and attack at an adjacent angle, very Slytherin indeed.

“I’m impressed; you really do belong in Slytherin don’t you?” He asked with an amused smirk.

“Would the Sorting Hat have put me here if I didn’t?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Autumn Leaves,” Ashleigh said, remembering that the password will not change until the following day. The Fat Lady gave her a look however; she must have found out that she was sorted into Slytherin somehow. In spite of that the portrait swung open to admit her since she did have the current password.

Ashleigh walked into the crowded common room amongst many stares over to where Hermione was sitting with Harry, Ron and Ginny. They were all in deep discussion about something when she arrived at their side.

“Hey guys, how’s it going? Ready to help me lug all of those lovely, obscenely heavy books down to my room?” She asked with a cheeky grin, her question directed at Harry.

“Sure.” Harry said, standing up from his seated position next to Ginny.

“Hermione already brought out all of her books, shrunk them and put a feather light charm on them so that we’ll be able to get them all in one trip.”

“Oh great! I was afraid it was going to take all night considering Hermione’s over obsessive love of books.” Ashleigh said with a smile.

“Hey.” Hermione said with a shocked expression on her face. Confused as to why she would say something like that to her.

Harry, Ron and Ginny were trying to keep their laughter at bay. Noticing everyone’s reactions, she decided that she’d better clarify her meaning before she lost one of her friends.

“That came out wrong.” Ashleigh said with a cringe. “I just meant that you have so many, and I know that you love books, maybe almost as much as I do. I always refer to my own love of books as over obsessive. I was comparing you to me in a way; I didn’t mean it as a bad thing by any means.”

“Oh, okay. I was sort of afraid that the Slytherins had gotten to you and turned you against us.”

“As if anyone could tell me who to be friends with. You all were my friends before all of this with the Slytherins came about and you’re going to be my friends long after. Hopefully.”

“Come on Ashleigh; let’s get these books down to your rooms before I’m late for curfew.” Harry said, the conversation was a little off base for him and he didn’t wish to continue. He hated all of those girly emotions that were sure to come in the very near future if he didn’t separate them.

“Oh, yeah, almost forgot.” She said, starting to pile the weightless books in her pockets.

As they left the common room, no words were spoken between the two until they were at the bottom of the staircase.

“So why did you offer to help me carry all of these books down to my rooms?”

“I thought you could use some help, there are quite a few of them.”

“Yes, but as you can see, not to mention feel, that they are quite tiny and weightless. I could have easily carried them all on my own. You wanted to ask me something didn’t you?”

‘Damn it!’ Harry thought; he was hoping to find out more about her slowly and in his own way. He should have realized that she would figure out his motivation for wanting to help her on his own, she is a Slytherin after all. Hermione would have been the obvious choice to help her seeing as they are her books and she is the one who offered them in the first place.

“Uh, yeah, um.” Harry was very unsure of what to say and in what manner he should say it. It wasn’t exactly every day that you interrogated someone to find out if they were related to you, was it?

“You can just spit it out you know. You don’t have to try and find a cunning, Slytherin way of asking me a question.”

“Who were your parents?” He asked anxiously.

“Kent and Mary Grey were my adoptive parents.” She replied casually.

“You were adopted?” He asked slightly confused as to why she didn’t tell him who her paternal parents were.

“Who are your paternal parents?”

Ashleigh suddenly stopped. She knew where this line of questioning was going. He wanted to know if they were related or not. She had been having some of the same thoughts concerning how much they looked alike.

“I don’t know. They died shortly after I was born. They put in their will that I was to be given to the Grey’s and that my paternity should never be revealed to me or them. They didn’t want me to go looking for answers about who they were. I don’t know, maybe they were horrible people that I am better off not knowing. I hope not though.” She said with a sad thoughtful look upon her face.

Harry suddenly felt like pond scum. Had he known that her answer would have contained any of that information, he surely wouldn’t have asked her that question. He would have waited until she was ready to share it with him.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know. Am I correct in believing that you wanted to find out if we are related?” She asked as they started walking again.

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“I had the same thoughts. We do look quite a bit alike, don’t we?”

“I’ll ask Dumbledore if there is a way we can find out if we’re related. It would be nice to find out that I have a relative who is alive. My parents were killed by Voldemort when I was a year old and my Godfather, the only family I had left was killed in my fifth year by a Death Eater.”

“Where do you stay during summer vacation?”

“At the Dursleys. They are actually my Aunt and Uncle on my mother’s side but they don’t treat me very well. They think that I’m some sort of freak because I can do magic. I don’t have to go back there ever again after this year, now that I’m of age.”

“Tough break; it sounds like we’ve both had a pretty rough time. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if we are related.” She said with a knowing smile.
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A Matter of Time