“As you can hear,” Dr. Silver said, and shrank slightly at Hermione’s fourth scream and the sobs that followed. “Your daughter is very much awake. Naturally, she is very confused; she keeps on rambling about pig warts, magic, and she has several times asked to see a ‘Ronald Weasley’. Does that name sound familiar to you?”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Granger shook their heads wordlessly.

“Draco Malfoy?” Hermione said testily and watched the young man's, Malfoy’s, face whiten until it was the color of newly fallen snow.

“Dear Ron,” she wrote. “Perhaps we used to be the bestest of friends, or maybe we never met at all. A few months ago I woke up on a hospital in London, full of memories of a boy the doctors tell me never was. That boy was you. I woke up calling a single name: Ron Weasley."

“Draco Malfoy,” Hermione spoke, once the shock of recognition had faded away into confusion, into thrill. Before he could turn on his heel and escape she grabbed him by his wrists and gaped up at his face, so real it could not be a dream.

He was really there.

"What do you want me to say? I don't know where he lives! I don't know anything, except for that he married that Mudblood. And I only know that because his ugly face was all over the newspapers for months!"

"Don't call him ugly!" Hermione shrieked, pointing the wand at its owner; a gesture which made Malfoy snicker.

"What are you going to do, Muggle-girl? Hex me? Why don't you give it a shot?"

Her expression changed immediately, like ice-cream washed away by hot coffee. Her almond-shaped, dark eyes narrowed and her lucius, pink lips became a dangerous, white line. "Malfoy." she said, in a cold voice which did not suit her.

"Beckett." Draco said, in a voice dripping with unpleasantness and dislike.

Hermione gasped and Malfoy stomped on her foot, hard and not very subtly, as though he was trying to squash a cockroach beneath his sole.

"Who are you and what were you doing together with Malfoy in our house?", Ron demanded, successfully calling Hermione's attention back onto him. He was glaring at her, and though he had glared at her many times before, during all of their quarrels and heated arguments, Hermione couldn't help but notice that this was a different glare. A glare deprived of any underlaying affection beneath the hard blue.

"So, enlighten us," the Chief Warlock spoke, his voice as hard and unpleasant as its owner. "How do you know the offender?"

Malfoy had finally stopped ogling her and settled back into his chair, but Hermione’s next utterance brought his stare back with interests. "I am Draco Malfoy’s fiancée."

"I thought-" Malfoy said frostily, contemplating her through narrowed eyes. "-you wanted to hear my theories. But if you came here to lecture me about Elf-rights and proper language you might as well leave right now, because I’m not interested in taking advise from a Muggle."

"I’m not a Muggle," Hermione responded automatically, ignoring the stabbing pain near her heart. "But I’m sorry, please go on."

Hermione felt completely and utterly speechless. She was officially a missing person, Malfoy was a suspect in her kidnapping and all of London were on the look-out for the pair of them.

"Who reported you missing?" Malfoy demanded, his cheeks flushed from either anger or cold, or possibly a combination of the two.