What If.....? | By : valkyrie136 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Lucius/Hermione Views: 4461 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I Do not own the rights to Pillow Book or to Harry Potter or anything in that universe nor do I not make any profits from it. J.K. Rowling does. Please support the author by reading her books. |
Prologue.
Hanging wisteria hung over the witches and wizards lucky enough to earn an invitation to the end of summer wedding of Fleur Delacour and Bill Weasley. It wasn’t that the bride or groom belonged to a prominent family; anyone with even half a brain would agree that the Weasley family was made up of a rather peculiar group. This of course was all because of Arthur Weasley’s strange fascination with muggle artifacts. Furthermore, they lacked the prestige of some of the other great wizarding families. And the bride was from France. She was extraordinarily pretty, a gem among women, but still, she was from France.
No, the excitement stemmed from the number of prominent wizards and witches who would be present. Everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of the popular Harry Potter. And for anyone uninterested in tracking the movements of Harry Potter, there were rumors that several important dignitaries both foreign and abroad would be present because the occasion presented an opportunity to exchange information openly and safely. These were dangerous times and private meetings always fell under the watchful eye of investigators, be they death eaters hunting blood traitors or aurors searching for dark wizards.
As the guests arrived, everyone present agreed that the wedding was long overdue. Interestingly, this delay was not because of any conflict between good and evil but rather evil and evil--the split within the dark wizard community created so many problems for the wizarding and muggle communities, not even during the time of Grindelwald could it be said that things were this bad. The underlying reason for all the violent battles was related to the paranoia gripping the dark wizards--what they really wanted was to make sure their soldiers were loyal to the dark lord. But who was the Dark Lord? This was not a simple question to answer. Was it the young and charismatic Tom Riddle or the malformed and ruthless Lord Voldemort?
The guests chatted amongst themselves and reflected on the current situation. 'Can you believe it's been five years since poor Ginny Weasley died? And then the young man calling himself Tom Riddle appeared, spreading mayhem and misery. Who would have thought that so many people would be persuaded to follow him, people who never called themsleves death eater.' Soon this kind of chatter died down as the guests took their seats and prepared to support the young couple.
Nevertheless, these two lovers met in the middle of a ministry fighting a battle on two fronts and for many it was a rare opportunity to experience joy and celebrate love. Not many felt safe to hold large gatherings. Perhaps this was why the Minister of Magic, who was present, insisted upon the highest level of security. Everyone knew that the Minister had a tendency to be excessive, but in this case it was very excessive. Not only were the aurors present but he even somehow managed to convince Lucius Malfoy to attend. Of all the guests present, none was more controversial and feared than Lucius Malfoy. The former death eater--and some wondered how accurate that description was, rarely deigned to mingle with the low ranking witches and wizards in attendance; as a result, much of what was known about him was the result of rumor and speculation.
Perhaps some guests secretly hoped to discover more about this enigmatic and aloof individual but they were to be disappointed. Lucius Malfoy sat off to the side, quiet and disengaged; indeed he was so quiet one almost forgot he was even there.
After the ceremony, which everyone agreed was beautifully executed—to watch someone as enchanting as Fleur Delacour who had the glow of a bride (though some insisted that was not Ms. Delacour but rather the jewelry in her hair which literally glowed)—was quite dazzling. Even the normally pretentious and rigid Minister of Magic, concerned about rules and appearances, forgot himself for a spell and made a great fool of himself in taking her hand to kiss it—this was all well and good but the problem arose when he would not stop kissing the new bride. His aid had to literally yank him away, and the guests all tittered at this little display—they indeed had something to gossip about.
After the ceremony, a simple celebration followed.
Although Fleur came from a middle class family the Weasley’s finances were quite stretched. The bride and groomed reasoned that a modest celebration was best, and perhaps anything to extravagant was inappropriate given the fact that many of their guests might be mourning the loss of a victim of the war. Everyone agreed this was best and the two received a reputation for being modest and considerate.
Among the fifty or so guests were a group of rarely seen individuals, and they certainly never were seen together—Maggie Knight was a retired receptionist at the ministry, almost eighty, and purportedly met anyone you could think of and knew enough gossip to blackmail many prominent families ten times over. Cecil Hook was a friend of Arthur Weasley, but a somewhat peculiar individual since he had a nervous habit of blinking constantly, and finally to complete this little group was a man simply known as Tallot. Tallot, a friend of Hagrid, seemed to need no introducing since ‘friend of Hagrid’ said it all. Suffice to say, he was rather quiet and was not really well known to anyone else at the party. But everyone he met him agreed he was very patient and quiet. These three sat off on their own, far away from the rest of the guests. Next to their table was Lucius Malfoy, who sat alone, nursing a glass of wine. He appeared as he always did—disinterested, unapproachable, and cold.
After exchanging greetings and general pleasantries the three discussed people in attendance. Maggie Knight’s only passion in life was gossip, and the fact that she knew so many secrets made her a very popular guest wherever she happened to go. But she had a habit of slowly building up the excitement, as if she were telling a story and wanted to milk her audience for all they had. Today was no different.
She folded her hands in front of her and began to discuss what everyone had been thinking but had not felt comfortable saying aloud ‘Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley are not in attendance. I wonder if they did not want to attract any attention.’ She glanced at Lucius Malfoy, and Tallot became more interested as he noticed her obvious glance. ‘All understandable of course. Mr. Potter does seem to draw attention.’
Tallot crossed his arms as he watched this show unfold, ‘I imagine he wanted to give the bride and groom the limelight. Isn’t a third person normally with them?’
Cecil Hook wiped his forehead with his sleeve and was happy to finally have a chance to participate in the conversation, ‘You must mean Hermione Granger. But I thought she was recovering from some kind of illness. I was surprised to see her in attendance and remembered thinking that she looked quite recovered.’
Lord Malfoy did not look up or seem to show any signs that he was listening to the gossip beside him. Maggie Knight took a deep breath and glanced at Lord Malfoy before speaking to her (now) captive audience, ‘That isn’t entirely true. Ms. Granger is indeed close companions with Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter but this illness you speak of is not so simple. Not many people know because it was so sudden and little is known of the origin, but she fell prey to some mysterious sleeping sickness. It came on quite suddenly.'
Hook leaned forward, ‘I never knew; everyone said she was forced to go into seclusion to recover, and we all assumed it might be something like Dragon Pox or something else. A sleeping sickness?’
Knight again glanced at Lord Malfoy, which titillated Tallot’s interest, ‘Ms. Granger was in a coma for two years. Although she awoke more than a year ago, no one knew what illness had befallen her, there were no answers. Even more interesting was that Ms. Granger was very different after this illness. She was much more quiet and less interested in her school work—and even tried to put off returning to school for the moment. Even more shocking was the fact that it didn’t seem to bother her so much, this nonsense of blood purity. She seemed to take it all in stride and when asked she simply said that she felt that it was a sad thing, that these wizards and witch’s were taught to be this way and we should all be a little bit more understanding. Well,’ she paused again for affect, ‘this did not seem to go well with her friends. For a little while there were rumors that she and Mr. Potter had a falling out but this of course was later proven to be false.’
Hook frowned, ‘I thought that the arguments were because of Mr. Potter’s involvement with that odd girl, the Lovegood girl. If I’m not mistaken, everyone said that he spent a lot of time with her in Ms. Granger’s absence and the two were reportedly in love.’
Watching Maggie Knight’s eyes drift back to Lucius Malfoy for the third or fourth time could not be ignored by Tallot. With a smile in his eyes he finally asked, ‘Maggie why do you keep glancing over at Lord Malfoy?’
At hearing his name, Lucius Malfoy’s head remained bent over slightly, so that when he did turn his head slightly, he merely looked up at the group with cold grey eyes.
Knight choked on her wine and laughed a little too loudly, ‘You must be confused I was merely looking around and admiring the general splendor. Please, please pay him no mind my lord.’
Lucius did not say anything; one could never tell what he was thinking because he always seemed to have the same flat, cold affect. He merely glanced away and no one could say with certainty if he was angry or even paying them any mind.
The others were quiet, and Tallot, who among the group seemed utterly unflappable, took another sip of his wine. But he was surprised to hear the unmistakable voice of Hermione Granger form behind them. It seemed throughout their entire talk she had been near by, listening and not saying a word.
Already shaken up by her recent experience with Lord Malfoy, now she turned beat red and began to stutter. ‘M-Ms. Granger I didn’t know you were so near by why didn’t you let us know? It seems I have been letting my mouth run away with me again, I really meant no harm.’
Ms. Granger looked rather pretty in a simple pale pink dress and in her hair she had little flowers woven in. Her demeanor seemed rather distant, as if she were thinking but then she smiled warmly and her entire face lit up, making her look quite beautiful, ‘Does Harry really like Luna?’
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After reading the novel Pillow Book by Tang Qi I became obssesed with the idea that this would be really interesting if merged wih the Potter universe. As a result, this fanfiction is not what I would call an original fanfiction. Many plotpoints are the same as Pillow Book and some dialogue is directly recreated in the coming chapters. Thus, besides a few name changes, a few new locations, and some editing/potter universe ideas, much of what you read is taken from Pillow Book. I encourage others to read it, it is a great novel and can be found online for free if you google it. I do not deserve credit for anything other than editing it down for length (the actual novel is over 800 pages long but if you read it you will see that the text is big, and there are pictures in it so it is a breeze of a read). Anyone familiar with my writing style will know this is not as dark as my normal works, and the style is different. It also is more angsty. But I would appreciate any comments/feedback. Enjoy!
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