Trop Tard
Story: Trop Tard
Storylink: http://hp.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600008597
Category: Harry Potter
Genre: Het - Male/Female
Author: absumoaevum
Authorlink: http://members.adult-fanfiction.org/profile.php?no=1296797574
Last updated: 01/10/2007
Words: 962
Rating: Adult+
Status: Unknown
Content: Chapter 1 to 1 of 1 chapters
Source: Adult-FanFiction.org
Summary: One more chance to set things right. The question is: What is right? (Not too much of anything yet, just a prologue) M/F
*Chapter 1*: Prologue
Please R&R. I need to know if this idea is worth seeing through.
***
Prologue:
The library’s bookshelves were tall, books piling on books in neat little rows. Narcissa sat at the end of a long table, proper as ever, reading an old grayish leather-bound volume. Bellatrix LeStrange paced the narrow spaces between the shelves and the table. “Je ne sais pas d’accord. C’est une mauvaise idée.”
Narcissa did not look up at her comment, but instead spoke calmly and abscently to her book. “Bellatrix, you always say that.”
“Ce n’est pas vrai. Je le dit quand tu as un plan stupide, c’est tout.” Narcissa raised an eyebrow, but otherwise did not respond. Bellatrix scoffed, her anger boiling over, and she shoved a stack of tomes off the table. They scattered their pages on the floor, sprawling open like the dead.
Narcissa acknowledged her this time, slamming her own book shut on the table before her, and the anxiety and pain she had been feeling welling up inside of her. “Well, what do you want me to do? Kill them all myself?” She stood heatedly and gathered up the dispersed pages nearest her into her arms.
On the other side of the table, Bellatrix grinned. “Oui! C’est ton première bonne idée aujourd’hui.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen. With his father gone, he needs strength around him, and frankly I do not care anything about blood or good or evil. He no longer trusts me, and I have no strength for him, so it might just as well be them. He is dead to the Dark Lord, besides. What good is he here but dead?”
Bellatrix ignored Nacissa’s words about Voldemort, and leaned over the table, her eyes gleaming wickedly. “Pourquoi pas? Tu est sa mere, mais peut-être cela est rien à toi. Ils sont l'ennemi! Comment peut tu fais ceci?”
Narcissa dumped the ruined books on the table again and slammed her palms on the hard wood. The sound thundered through the tall stone room, and only after it had completely dissipated did she speak again. “He hates this place. He hates me for allowing his father to use him and corrupt him. There is nothing for it, nothing to do but await forgiveness.”
“Mais pourqoui? Prende ta remission, et ton fils. Le fait juste. Êtes-vous une souris ou un Malfoy?”
“What can I do? I cannot follow him to where he has gone. I am powerless against the whims of the Dark Lord. Besides, the Malfoy name means nothing. The only name that matters now is Potter.”
***
It was raining in that light but drenching way, the kind that didn’t make much noise but could soak to the bone, and the flimsy trees lining the street trembled under the downpour. The windows fogged quickly, condensation mingling with grime, until only the patter of the droplets on the panes could prove the storm to the senses. Hermione used what little light she had to read, tilting the book toward the dim window. Somehow, the rain helped her concentrate better.
Suddenly, a head appeared silhouetted in the window. Hermione jumped backward and stared as a hand wiped the miasma from the glass in a crude little circle and the face of a dirty and worn young man emerged. His eyes shifted pointedly toward the door to Hermione’s right, and she nodded, setting the book down and crossing to it. Whoever was at the door, they had obviously had Dumbledore’s trust. She whispered the spell to unlock it, and the doorknob turned immediately, the door opening to reveal a distinctly haggard Malfoy. He stumbled inside, coughing and sputtering, the pack over his shoulder falling to the ground with a thud.
Hermione, for once in her life, was utterly speechless. Draco had made it all the way to the fireplace before she got out a “You!?”
He turned and smiled weakly at her. “Yes, me. Oh, bloody hell Granger, there’s no need for that.” Hermione had been rummaging around on the cluttered foyer table for a wand. Hers was upstairs. Mind racing, she leaned backward on the wall. She was left alone to guard the house while the Mrs. Weasley did some grocery shopping and the rest were at Diagon Alley fetching school-things or off doing Order business. No one was there to help her now. “Come off it, the very fact that I’m here clears me, and you know it. Think, Granger, use your little bookworm brain.” Hermione stared, clarity finally coming to her.
“But Dumbledore…”
“Yes, yes. Snape gave it to me.” He procured a wet bit of parchment from a cloak pocket and handed it to her unceremoniously. There, in emerald green ink was Dumbledore’s unmistakable loopy handwriting spelling out “12 Grimmauld Place, and keep it well, Draco.”
“So you’re…”
“…not such a bad guy after all? I wouldn’t go that far, Granger, but seeing as the Dark Lord wants me dead, I think this is a better place to be than many, don’t you?” He threw her a wry grin. “Now, what does a bloke have to do to get some grub around here?”
***
Please do not correct my French. Thank you.
Translation:
“I don’t agree. It’s a bad idea.”
…
“That’s not true. I say that when you think up a stupid plan, that’s all.”
…
“Yes! That’s your first good idea today.”
…
“Why not? You are his mother, but maybe that means nothing to you. They are the enemy! How can you do this?”
…
“But why? Take your forgiveness, and your son. Just do it. Are you a mouse or a Malfoy?”
…