The Mists of Memory

Chapter 4 - You Called me Marion

'Nervous, huh?' Draco sneered. This was starting to amuse him...it cost him a lot not to insult them, but it had its advantages. 'It happens that I haven't spent the last two years working in this place, as some of you have pointed out earlier. I don't know what you've been doing, but I can see that there's a lot of material around here, even Forbidden volumes. You probably just haven't tried the right sort of book yet.'

Harry stood from his chair, his eyes shooting daggers at Draco as he moved closer. He grabbed Draco's shoulder and forced him to turn.

'Look there,' Harry snapped, pointing to the other side of the library and showing Draco an enormous book-case, filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of volumes. 'They're all the books that we've read over the last two years. There's quite a few, right?'

He let go of Draco and went back to his seat. Draco massaged his shoulder and sneered at Harry, but was truly impressed. The bookcase covered the length of the wall and extended all the way up to the ceiling which was three times higher than normal.

Draco went to the other side of the big room, trying to find something more interesting to read. Eventually, he sat on the floor with his legs crossed, and looked through some books that he remembered seeing in the Restricted Section of the library at Hogwarts.

Damn. I'm sure that there's something I should remember. Why do I have this horrible feeling? he thought as he skimmed through the pages of a volume. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't lose the bad feeling. The books he was scanning talked about a completely different subject to the one that he was looking for: he put them back in their places and stood, cleaning the dust from his robe and going a bit farther.

'I'll go check on dinner,' said Ginny. Harry watched her leave the room as he closed one of the books he was checking and picked up another.

'There are also school books about how to use Tarot Cards,' Draco said, amazed by the detail, 'why did the Ministry think they would be important?'

'I've no idea,' replied Sirius and gave him a glance while skimming another volume, a Muggle one. 'There's only one way we can be sure...checking its content.'

Draco sighed and started to read said school book, but it didn't mention a Torch at all.

He leafed through another two or three books, until he saw Hermione coming back to the library, tying her hair in a ponytail and approaching him to take some other books to read. She picked up another pile and went to her seat.

Every hour seemed to last an eternity. Being now used to always looking over his shoulder, Draco found that he couldn't concentrate on reading and was quickly growing bored. At last, he heard the sound of footsteps in the hall.

'Ron! You're back!' exclaimed Hermione. Throwing the book that she was reading onto the table, she stood and ran to her husband, wapping him in a tight hug. 'What took you so long?' she asked, before giving him a soft peck on the lips.

'I couldn't Apparate or I would've been back earlier,' Ron admitted. 'There were too many Muggles on the streets; I didn't want to take the risk.' As he returned the hug, Hermione cleaned the soot off his nose and began brushing the ashes off his cloak.

'Fred and George are at the Burrow. Mum isn't feeling well and she needs help,' Ron started explaining. Then his gaze met Draco's and the blond wizard saw the tall redhead straighten his back, his jaw tightening as his lips pursed. 'Oh, he's awake,' he said eventually.

'Yes, he promised to clean up his act and Sirius gave him permission to stay,' Hermione replied. She leaned in and whispered something else into Ron's ear.