Abraxas stirred, feeling a sharp pain in his back. He noticed opening his eyes the sight of stone floor. He tried to press himself upward to sit up but his left arm had fallen asleep.
The hospital doors had swung open, letting an enormous amount of sunlight into the corridor.
He watched as the figure walked past where he sat. She stopped, pivoting slowly around and looked down at him.
"Malfoy?"
He noticed the slight fear in her eyes, as if she was intent on keeping her whereabouts secret.
"Granger?" He retorted.
She crouched down, looking into his eyes. "Are you alright? You seem pale." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear before moving a finger in front of his eyes to check his pupils.
He shifted groaning from the pins and needles in his arm. "It's my normal complexion I wouldn't worry about it." He answered, although was feeling faint.
"Look, Riddle cannot know I'm here."
He looked at her curiously, wondering what she was avoiding to say. "Alright. But why are you here? We all thought you left."
"I can't tell you. Look, I know Riddle has ways of getting things out of people. So I apologize—" She raised her wand, pointing it to his own forehead.
"Wait-" he gripped her forearm and she lowered her wand. "Are you okay?"
"What?!" She asked confused, but in a low whisper.
"I don't need to know your business, but I do need to know you'll be okay. Tom can be very malicious. He isn't hurting you is he?"
"No. Of course not." She shook her head. "I can handle myself."
"Well you can understand why I'm concerned. We all thought you were—"
"What?" She asked out of sheer curiosity.
"—well, dead."
"Malfoy, I'm alive as you can see. Though would you mind?" She asked furrowing her eyebrows together apologetically.
"Alright."He nodded. "You are proficient at these?"
"Yes." She confirmed, and he was glad to see the concentration behind her eyes. "Obliviate" Brown irises with flecks of—
Abraxas stirred, feeling a sharp pain in his back. He noticed opening his eyes the sight of stone floor. He tried to press himself upward to sit up but his left arm had fallen asleep.
The hospital doors had swung open, letting an enormous amount of sunlight into the corridor.
"Here to see Riddle?" The mediwitch inquired.
He furrowed his brow in confusion, to what extent of firewhiskey alotted him to pass out cold on a corridor floor. "Yes?" He nodded, standing up.
He entered the wing to notice Riddle asleep on a cot, bandages wrapped carefully around his head. Strange it was to see him in a vulnerable state.
He left Riddle in confusion, walking instead to the great hall. Surely someone could explain.
"Mulciber, did I come back last night?" Abraxas asked, plucking an apple from a bowl.
He smirked ever so coyly. "Mate, you mentioned a shirtless encounter with Dumbledore the night prior, perhaps you were in the same situation as then."
"With Dumbledore?!" Abraxas questioned, wondering what attempt of a joke this was.
"Malfoy, I believe you were with a certain witch, and we're caught wandering the corridors." Mulciber supplied.
Abraxas's eyes flashed to the Ravenclaw table. He remembered her kisses, the way her hips rocked over him, the slight moan from her lips as his fingers trailed across her thighs.
But nothing else. He had been sober?
Did he fall into a dream so realistic that the end of reality's consciousness was blurred with no means to decipher when sleep had consumed him?
She looked to him but glanced away immediately once his sight found her.
He watched as she exhaled, shoulders shaking, and then rather divergently left the great hall.
He stood up, intent on following her, speaking with her. He quickly swallowed the bit of apple he was chewing as he caught her arm. "Augusta!" He pleaded to gain her attention.
She very obviously was avoiding looking at him.
"What?" She asked in a course tone. She looked up at him as he removed his grip on her arm.
"Is there something I did? I beg of you to inform me." He leaned in closer making a suggestive joke. "I dare say you'd be the most knowledgeable of what affairs took place within the past few nights."
She retracted from his proximity. "Are you mocking me, Abraxas?!" Her face was in a state of shock. He had severely underestimated her state of emotion.
His smirk fell. "No." He shook his head. "I—I seem to have offended you in some manner which is not my intention. But I simply cannot remember how I've done so—"
She looked to him letting out a scoff towards his confused expression. "Are you pretending everything is fine?"
"No."
"As if that morning never existed?" She was growing frustrated, with the emotion of overwhelming sadness that she was trying to surpress. She had avoided him. And he made a joke of it.
"Well, Augusta, surely whatever I said you can explain, because I cannot remember anything."
"That's rich, Malfoy!"
He bit his inner cheek, not knowing if he was deserving of such harshness. "Is it rich? Because my memory is poor."
How could he articulate he did not understand anything? "My brain is foggy. I woke up on a corridor floor outside of the hospital wing this morning, and have no intimation of how I got there."
Augusta's pout lightened slightly. She crossed her arms. "What like a confundus charm or something?"
Abraxas shrugged his shoulders. His eyes then darted around to notice the collection of students. Her suggestion of his memory being tampered with made sense. And with Riddle being unconscious, Perhaps they were in greater threat than just a lapse of memory.
His hand reached for her's, but she didn't interlace their fingers.
"Can we talk somewhere?" He stuffed his rejected hand back into his pocket.
She looked at him with almost sympathetic eyes. Whatever she was upset about seemed to fade. She nodded. "Yes, of course."
He walked further down the corridor until finding a broom cupboard, he held open the door.
"Is this necessary? Augusta asked. Letting a hand land on her hip.
Abraxas looked between the cupboard and her. "I'd say it's sufficient in a private word. And I don't bite."
Her eyes flicked between the apple with his teeth marks, then subconsciously her hand found a space on the back of her neck marked slightly with a maroon love bite.
He followed her into the cupboard, first the smell of her shampoo filled the space, before she lit her wand and light shed into the dark corners, revealing cobwebs and a heap of used brooms in the corner.
"I think this might be more serious than a confundus charm. An entire day has gone missing from my memory. And this morning I found Riddle unconscious in the hospital room with his skull cracked. I do not remember anything, so you'll have to fill me in."
She shifted slightly but was concentrating on what he said.
"What's the last thing you remember?"
He met her eyes, and he watched as she furrowed her brows suspiciously in response. "Er—"
"Well?"
His pale skin seemed to flush. "The night with you."
Augusta tore her gaze, looking to something instead on the floor.
"And from context, something happened that morning to upset you." Abraxas continued.
She shook her head, looking up to him and her face softened, lips pulling into a warm grin. "No. It doesn't matter now."
"So we're okay?" Abraxas asked, knowing witches minds' could never really be understood, so it was always important to confirm.
"We're okay." She hummed.
"Would you be willing to help me figure this out? Also I wouldn't wander the corridors at night."
She flashed him a concerned look. "What is there to figure out, Abraxas?"
His mind started racing of all the things that had been happening. True, Westbrook had been rather uninvolved in his social realm of dark arts, and purebloodist anti-Grindelwald agenda. Though for Malfoy, this was about one thing. Tom Riddle and Hermione Granger.
He tried to figure out what it was that made Granger so important strategically to Tom Riddle. That was why they ended up fancying each other in the first place. The school thought it was just an odd fling. But Granger had left. And after not solving her disappearance, Riddle is mysteriously injured in the hospital wing, and himself without a memory.
"Someone purposefully removed the events of last night from my mind." Abraxas stated in a pointed exclamation. She wasn't understanding the seriousness of the matter.
"Perhaps it was Riddle." She shrugged.
"And you weren't with me?" Abraxas asked.
She shook her head. "No." She glanced to her wrist watch. "Look, I've got to get to lessons, I'm sure everything will clear up once Riddle's back to his consciousness."
She was avoiding his gaze again.
"Nox." she incanted, and the cupboard was consumed in darkness again.
"Wait, Augusta." He reached out, his fingers slipping between her tresses to rest at the nape of her neck. He heard a slight gasp from her lips.
The Malfoy name did suit him. Confident in all realms of attraction.
"I have lessons." Her voice was in a whisper, as though she was trying to convince herself she wanted him to let her go.
"I know. This may sound strange, considering I have no memory of time passing—But, I've missed you." His thumb traced her jaw softly, till the pad of his fingers met the softness of her warm bottom lip.
He was surprised, that instead of leaning up to capture his lips, she folded forward into him. He let his arms wrap around her frame, pulling her tightly to his chest. His pinched together his eyebrows, biting his bottom lip in thought. What had happened that morning?
<><><><>
As lessons went on, he excused himself during History of Magic, Augusta looking to him as he walked past. She usually sat next to her Ravenclaw mates. He had mentioned to need the loo, unnoticed by Binns as he lectured on.
A stir of adrenaline passed through him as he made his way through the corridors, passing classrooms full of the chatter of lessons. He reached the hospital wing with determination.
He walked into the open ward, receiving a glare from the mediwitch.
"Malfoy, it is not visiting hours."
He flashed her a charming smile. "Madam Ritcher, please, I won't be long."
His gaze shifted from the mediwitch walking away to tend to another student, right onto the sleeping figure of Tom. First thing he did was dig through the adjacent bedside table. There was nothing but his set out potions for healing.
Abraxas let out a frustrated sigh, until his eyes found a strip of fabric in the waste bin. The material looked rather familiar. The faint pink stained in blood, ripped haphazardly.
He pocketed the evidence. He was delusional. Probably too keen on finding anything at all that this seemed of significance. He could not remember no matter how hard he tried to find the source of the materials familiarity.
Quarter of an hour later he was in the library, walking quickly to the section on memory charms. There were two discussed through all the books and thesis. Confundus, temporarily confusing one's victim. And Obliviate, to which it was well stated could not be undone.
Abraxas looked to the fabric. He thought thoroughly. Hogwarts was indeed strange, as there was a dictionary of spells. The true version with dark magic was stored most likely in the restricted section. He sifted through the dictionary many times in his years, finding nothing too useful.
Yet this time maybe all he needed was a simple spell. He reached for the dictionary, understanding the librarian was watching him carefully.
"May I help you, Malfoy?"
"Actually, yes." He looked to her with a puzzled look. "I have an assignment for charms, and I forgot the charm for ownership."
She sighed. "Well, unfortunatley for teaching purposes we were instructed only to mention ownership charms. The actual incantation is reserved under ministry title for the protection of identity."
"Is there a dictionary that has it?"
She looked at him with a pointed look. "Yes, we have identity charms and spells in our Annexed section, However, you would need a note from a Professor, or a warrant from the Ministry."
Bloody Hell.
"Of Course." He bowed his head in a curt nod. "I guess I'll just use that information about their restriction for the assignment. Thank you."
Surprisingly she smiled back at him, not seeming to judge his character.
Did he really manage to pull off the studious student persona?
He returned to lessons defeated.
"Long trip to the Loo." Yaxley remarked.
"I was in the library." Abraxas added, sinking down in his seat. "Bloody restricted section." He muttered under his breath.
Yaxley's equally blonde hair was shoved out of his face in a confident mannerism as he ran a hand through his locks. He leaned in toward Malfoy with a smirk on his features. "There are other libraries, Malfoy. Have you perused through Riddle's lately?"
By lunch, Abraxas was dead set on uncovering at least something. He headed to the third floor corridor on the right hand side. He had never actually been to the location, only knowing of it's existence from Tom's constant praise for the place.
He walked through the restricted corridor, climbing down the ladder and entered the famous ballroom. His parents had mentioned having their dances there, but the school stopped using it when they knew it was founded by Salazar Slytherin. With reform, the location was off limits.
Luckily, the bookcases had not been concealed. He found the largest book present, and sifting through it's pages his eyes caught the spell.
Dominium Revelare; to identify the ownership of an object.
He levitated the piece of fabric into the air, incanting the charm. It was worth a shot.
A bright light collided with the object, then encased it in a clear bubble of magic. Then slowly, a golden lettering began to outline itself in writing on the surface of the bubble. His eyes watched in amazement, as the words were revealed.
Fingerprint;
Abraxas Lucius Malfoy
Date of Birth; 1927
Blood;
Tom Marvolo Riddle
Date Of Birth; 1926
Jumper;
Hermione Jean Granger
Date Of Birth; 1979
Alright then. The jumper was Granger's, just as he suspected. His jaw dropped slightly when he reread the year.
1979
"Bloody fucking hell!"