The Girl who Survived (Fred Weasley)

CH 66. Unexpected

A/N: Longer chapter this time around. With a decision to make about the trial, an unexpected conversation throws Elodie off center. After an unexpected article and a stronger shift taking over, the truth about Elodie's childhood is revealed.

Songs used for this chapter:

The Targaryen Wolf - Peter Gundry

Davy Jones - Hans Zimmer

Rooftops - Melissa McClellansand

~Elodie's POV~

The cold marble bench underneath my bum made me regret not bringing a coat with me. It sent a wave of nerves that I didn't need, washing through my entire body. I couldn't think of what to wear as a witness so I squeezed into my funeral dress, but I didn't think to bring my coat. I knew the ministry was almost entirely marble, and that most people worked better in a cooler environment. I knew it was probably just the nerves, and that it was something so minor. But I wasn't cold, I was damn near freezing.

I sat sandwiched between Sirius and Remus. Everyone else was at the joke shop, just as I wished I was. We sat in silence, I couldn't think of anything to say that would take my mind off of the cold feeling. But it felt like we'd been waiting out here for hours.

"It won't be so bad, all they ask is that you tell them the truth," Sirius reminded me. He didn't understand how it was two completely different things. The truth, and my truth.

"I'm going to go see if they'll call you in soon," Remus said and disappeared behind a corner.

I sat with Sirius who would give my shoulders a squeeze from time to time. My eyes fixed on the marble cracks of the tile. Counting and following the pattern. The way they sprawled out like tree roots. Every now and then someone would walk down the hall and step on the trail, making me follow a different route. So maybe it was more like water. Forging a new path when an obstacle came in it's way.

"What are you doing here?" I heard a woman's voice say a few feet from us. I hadn't noticed the clicking of her heels on the floor. But the company she kept made me aware of who she was in a fraction of a second.

"I am here with my daughter," Sirius said angrily.

"Your what?" She said back to him.

"Mrs. Malfoy, you shouldn't talk to them," Her lawyer said as he tried to coax her into walking away.

"They're ready for y-," Remus said coming around the corner, stopping once he saw the scene in front of us. I rose to my feet quickly, Sirius's hand firmly on my back, and began walking passed them.

"Come on mum," Draco said as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Draco?" I said and turned around quickly. I marched to stand in front of him and handed him the envelope that had been slipped in with the documents I'd received. "No matter what happens..." I couldn't think of what I wanted to tell him. To what? Never write to me again? To never ask me to do him a favor again? To tell him I'm doing this all for him? My mind went blank. So instead, I turned around, and began walking back towards Sirius and Remus.

"Wait," Narcissa called. "Please, I know you're a kind girl," She whispered and stepped closer to me, face as soft as any mothers would be. "Draco tells me you're extraordinarily smart, and you're unusually kind. You're friends, of sorts, and now you're cousins. So please, name your price, anything."

"What?" I felt my heart stop. What was she asking me? Was... Was she really asking me how much my silence would cost?

"Get away from her," Sirius said, stepping over to me defensively. "What is wrong with you Narcissa?"