6. Chapter 6

Edited 3/4/2020

Author's Note 2020: Hello friends! This story was finished years ago (2013), and I'm currently (2020) doing a full edit of it. I wrote it when I was 15, and just want to up the writing level, and deal with some typos and such. There will be no plot changes or anything of the like. My edit is also showing respect to how I originally wrote the story at 15, and is not a full rewrite. It's just an edit.

However, in the original version of the story, this chapter started with a section from Hermione's POV. When I wrote it, I thought that it worked, but over the years it has bothered me more and more. This was the only section of the entire story that was told from Hermione's POV, the rest was from Draco's. In doing my full edit, I decided to rewrite this chapter.

This is the ONLY chapter that is getting a full rewrite in my editing process. I'm doing it because the Hermione POV section never fit in well with the rest of the story. The story is told from Draco's and only Draco's perspective, and it always bothered me that I couldn't figure out, at age 15, how to explain Hermione's thoughts here without defaulting to her POV.

This chapter has been completely rewritten to change it to Draco's POV, therefore having it match the rest of the story. All the important information that Hermione revealed in the original version is now revealed while using Draco's POV.

If you want to read the Hermione POV version of this chapter, I'm going to add it to "Love Has Its Ways" after some editing. (If you're new, LHIW is the 'sequel' to FHIW. It's another story that contains missing scenes from FHIW or its extended universe, as well as scenes from different perspectives. The original version of this chapter will be added there, which is a much better place for it to be).

If you haven't read FHIW, I would recommend finishing it before going to LHIW for obvious spoiler reasons.

Whether you have never opened FHIW it before or you're coming back to read it again, thank you so much for the continued support for this story.

Hermione was still staring at him. Little did she know, an intense battle was raging in Draco's mind. Namely, what on earth he was going to do about the situation he found himself in. Hogwarts hadn't exactly had a class on this.

He had found the Golden Girl of the Wizarding World. He understood now why no one ever had. Here she was, without a speck of information about magic in her giant brain, and casually walking around a city on a different continent. If the whole situation wasn't so overwhelming, he would be laughing at the absurdity of the scenario.

But he couldn't laugh. He could barely talk.

He was the only person in the entire universe who knew what had happened to Hermione Granger. How was the for luck? It hadn't been Blaise, the head of her case in the Auror Office, or Potter, her long-lost best friend, or even Weasel, her once upon a time boyfriend, who had found her. No, it was her childhood enemy who she had once punched in the face.

It seemed like a cruel game of fate.

So, what the hell did he do now?

It wasn't like he had found her locked in a fortress somewhere, and he could just free her from restraints and toss her back into the Wizarding World. In fact, if he did that right now, would she be able to survive the shock?

There were so many factors to consider. Too many.

The woman in front of him obviously had a life here in Toronto. She had no conception that it wasn't real, or at least, that it shouldn't have been. Could he leave her here? No, of course not, his subconscious screamed at him, as an image of Potter sobbing in Blaise's office flashed through his mind.

A part of him wondered if her memory was really gone, even though everything he had seen so far pointed to it. How had her assailant managed the attack? This was Hermione Granger, for Merlin's sake. How had someone managed to do this in the first place, and how had the Wizarding World never figured it out? Hadn't Potter scoured the world for his precious Princess? Wasn't this Blaise's job to figure out?

How had he gotten here? And how did he get out?

"So," she said, jolting him out of his internal battle. Her eyes were wide and curious. "Who did you think I was, you know, when you were stuttering that you knew me?"

Draco shuffled uncomfortably, possible answers running through his mind.

"You.. umm… you remind me of somebody that I used to know, years ago. But you obviously don't know me, so you can't be her." Draco said, quickly.

It was somewhat truthful; this wasn't really Hermione, or at least not the one he had known.

"Seven years ago, she disappeared, right out of the blue. We looked everywhere, but we couldn't find her, not even a single trace. She's still considered a missing person. Apologies for my reaction, but I'm sure you can imagine…"

He tried to keep his voice casual but failed spectacularly. As he spoke, he could see the gears in her head spinning. His heart skipped a beat, hopeful.

"Seven years," Hermione mused. She looked thoughtful. "That's slightly ironic. I was in a car crash seven years ago. I woke up in the hospital with cuts and bruises all over my body. I think I had broken every possible bone in my body without actually dying."

Draco winced. "A car crash?"

She nodded, seemingly unconcerned, but Draco saw something brewing under the surface. "Yeah, it was really tragic actually. I had just moved here with my parents from Pembroke…not that you would know where that is. Brit," she gestured at him vaguely.

"How do you know I'm British?" he asked, confused.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Your accent?"

"Ah," he said, a feeling of stupidity washing over him. "Right."

Hermione didn't have an accent anymore, he noticed.

"Where are your parents now?" he asked, trying to shift the conversation back to her, as he started putting the clues together.

He saw a flash of pain behind her eyes before her lips thinned out into a tight line.

"They died in the car crash," she answered, her voice emotionless.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Draco replied before she shook her head.

"Don't worry about it, it's not like I can remember them anyway," she chuckled slightly, but still no emotional shone through.

At her words, he felt his heart stop. "What?"

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "The car crash caused trauma-induced amnesia."

Was she speaking German? "It caused what?"

She gave him a strange look. "Memory-loss. The car crash caused memory loss."

The final puzzle piece fell into place.

So, she had no false memories then of a muggle childhood here in Canada. These parents… they weren't hers, at least not really. Names on a death certificate. She had probably woken up here in Canada, and some muggle healer had explained the story that she was now telling him.

And of course, what muggle would think the doctor was lying and the actual answer was magic?

Hermione sighed, breaking him out of his reverie. "Sorry, I have no idea why I'm telling you any of this. I haven't thought about the crash in a while."

He shook his head, desperate for her to keep telling him what had happened. "Don't even worry about it, I don't mind. So, you… you have no memories from before the car crash?"

"Not really," she answered, her eyes glazing over slightly. "Sometimes I think I can remember the crash, but it's just flashes of pain. It's weird, I mean, it feels like distant pain, something from a past life or a nightmare, you know?"

He nodded. He understood her perfectly.

"The doctor said that the memories would probably come back with time and stimulation, but that turned out not to be the case." She shrugged. "I even visited the town that I grew up in, but alas. Nothing. Turns out I was homeschooled, so not many people knew me."

Something about her tone was bothering him. "You seem rather blasé about losing your entire life after a car crash."

She smiled, something playing at the corner of her mouth. "I did my time of suffering…Draco? That was your name, right."

He nodded, heart pounding.

"I've had years of wondering," she continued. "No point anymore. I was able to rebuild a life for myself. I honestly don't even think about it that much anymore." Her voice broke slightly on the last word.

Granger had always been a terrible liar.

"That's a crazy coincidence, though," she continued, eyeing him again.

"What is?" he asked.

"The girl, your friend," she replied. "The one who disappeared seven years ago."

"She wasn't my…" he said, before trailing off. "Yes, it is a coincidence."

No point trying to explain his tangled history with Hermione Granger to… Hermione Granger.

She shrugged, and let her eyes wander for a moment. "Life is like that sometimes. Strange and hard to explain."

He nodded. She could say that again.

She sighed. "But I'm not your girl, sorry."

What was that in her voice? Was that… resignation?

"When I woke up in the hospital, they gave me all my identification, birth certificate, passport, driver's license, the works," she continued. "My name is Hermione Mason, has been since 1979. I don't even think I've ever heard the surname Granger. It sounds too British for my North American heritage."

She laughed.

"It seems a little insane that we're having this conversation, but IDs don't lie. I would love to be the surprising solution to your mystery, but life's not like that. Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence, Draco."

The sound of his first name on Hermione Granger's lips was not something he had ever experienced before, especially without hate or malice attached.

It was…nice.

"Wouldn't it be wild if that was the case, though?" she continued, her eyes brighter than they had been before. "If fate had just brought us together like this?"

He nodded. "Wild indeed."

Wasn't that just the perfect word to describe the whole situation. Wild.

He watched Hermione's eyes wander over him once again, as his brain frantically tried to piece together everything that she had said with what he knew about the case.

Someone must have kidnapped her, that was the only explanation that made sense. There was no way Hermione Granger would have self-obliviated and dumped herself in Canada, of all places.

So, she had been kidnapped and then tortured. Her description of injuries after the supposed car crash was evidence enough. Bruises, cuts, broken bones. He wondered how long it had lasted, wincing at the possibilities.

Then, once her kidnapper had had their fun, they had brought her over to the Great White North, erased her memory, and planted her in a muggle hospital, sending her on her merry muggle way. And Hermione, with no idea that there was a magical world or a non-muggle explanation, had heard the words 'trauma-induced amnesia', taken it as gospel, and rebuilt her life without a foundation.

And now here he was, seven years later, desperately hoping she would remember the pillars hiding beneath the ground.

As the puzzle pieces fell together in his mind, rage temporarily blocked his vision. He saw red as he realized the extent of the horrific crime. It was unbelievable.

However, he had learned at a young age that the word 'unbelievable' had no place in the Wizarding World.

His sudden protectiveness of Granger took him by surprise. Realizing he had much bigger problems, he let it slide. Anyone with a heart would feel for the girl once they realized what she had to go through. It was a wonder she survived at all.

But of course, she had. This was Granger.

"I'm sorry Hermione," he said. His words were filled with more truth than she had ever heard from him.

Not that she knew that.

"It's fine," she shrugged, nonchalantly. She was so casual about the whole affair. "It was hard at first, but seven years is a long time to recover from a car crash. I got there."

"Hmm," Draco replied, trying to hold back from grabbing her shoulders and shaking sense into her.

That's because there was no crash, Draco thought cynically, shouting at the top of his mental lungs.

"Hey," she said interrupting his thoughts. A faint blush appeared on her cheeks. "Do you want to get coffee sometime? If you say no, I'm sure you'll run into me again. Fate has its ways, apparently." As she spoke, a smile appeared on her face. She chuckled slightly.

Draco's eyes widened at her statement, as something occurred to him.

This wasn't a coincidence. This wasn't a chance meeting. The world was too wide for that, and life was too complicated for the answer to ever be so simple.

What were the chances that Seamus had chosen Toronto for the new office, instead of New York or Los Angeles as Draco had originally hoped? What were the chances that of all the places in the world, this was where Hermione Granger had been sent? What were the goddamn chances that he had run into her here, not once, but twice?

No. This couldn't be chance. There was something much bigger going on here.

Fate. That's what it was. This day was fateful, not a chance encounter. It was fate that had brought him to the bookworm. It was fate that allowed him to realize what had happened to her.

It had been seven years. How likely was it that someone would just stumble upon her, on a different continent, with a different name?

Draco Malfoy was not superstitious. He had no faith in some God above or even magic itself to lead him from point A to point B. But this…this was something else.

He felt himself waiver, as every option ran though his mind.

Fate had brought him to her. It was now up to him to do something about it.

"Sure," he responded, mind set. This was the first step. "A coffee sounds fantastic."

Her brown eyes lit up again.

"Here's my number," she smiled, handing him a slip of paper, which she pulled out of her pocket.

"Thanks," he said, looking at the various numbers written down. He tried not to let the confusion on his face show. He'd have to figure out what to do with it later.

"Well, it has been lovely meeting you, Draco," she said. "As bruised as my behind is."

"Right," he said, chuckling slightly.

She gave him a slight wave before turning and continuing down the street.

He watched her disappear into a throng of people. He clutched the piece of paper with the mystery numbers tighter in his hand.

The walk back to the hotel was like a dream to Draco. Everything was blurry and he wasn't paying much attention. His mind was too occupied. He couldn't believe that after all this time, he had just run into Hermione. More questions and thoughts raced through his mind. Who had done this? Draco pondered. Who had ripped her life away from her?

Once he got back to his room, he found two owls waiting for him. Curious, he walked over and ripped off the tawny owl's letter. It was from Seamus.

Hey boss,

I've been getting your reports on the new place. It sounds great. However, I think, if you really want this to work, you should be there for a little while longer, and then you can come back. Good luck though, I'm sure the cold is competing with your icy soul.

-Seamus

Draco snorted. He would have to talk to Seamus about boss to employee relationships once he returned. He turned to the other messenger, a barn owl. It carried a letter from Blaise.

Hey mate,

I hope the cold isn't killing you, but really, it's probably just competing with your icy soul.

Why did everyone keep saying that? He wondered, annoyed, before continuing to read the rest of the note.

Anyway, I thought you should know, Harry's finally lost hope. I'm surprised it took this long, but I can't lie, I think it will be better for him in the long term now that he's finally accepted the truth. He's holding Hermione's funeral in several weeks. It's on the twenty-fifth. I don't know if you want to come or not.

Hope the beavers are being kind.

-Blaise

Oh, for the love of all that was holy, could he not catch a fucking break?

Draco threw the letter down, horrified. Potter was holding her service? Wasn't he the one who was never going to give up hope? And what a time to give up, just when Draco had found her. Now what was he supposed to do? How could he solve this situation? Draco still barely even understood what was happening himself.

He couldn't just up and bring her back, could he? Could he go meet her for coffee, grab her arm and apparate her straight into Blaise's office? They would force her to understand.

No, the idea was dead on arrival before he had even finished the thought. He didn't understand enough about the situation to risk it. Even more so, the irony of taking Hermione back to Britain against her will to save her after being kidnapped was not lost on him. He wouldn't be able to bring himself to do it.

It could only be a last resort.

And maybe, just maybe, her memories were still in there somewhere. Maybe he could tease them out? Get her back onto steady footing before having her life upended again? Bring her back as the Hermione he had once known, not this muggle shell she had become?

Something nagged at him. Was it curiosity, or just plain want, but he found himself hoping to get to know her a little bit before her world came crashing down.

Again.

There. The decision was made, he thought, nodding to himself. He wasn't going to tell Blaise or Potter about Hermione until he understood more about what was going on now, and the incident seven years ago that had brought them all down this path in the first place.

He picked up a quill and wrote down a quick reply.

Hey Blaise,

I'll be at the service.

-Draco

Yes, he would be at the service, he thought, sitting down as the scope of his task became apparent.

By the time he arrived, it would no longer be a funeral. Instead, Draco was expecting something a little bit more lively.

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