When I met the Malfoys

I was a witness.

I was somehow involved in another person's story – a story that changed my life.

My life changed when I met Mr. Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. He changed my life in a way I never imagined. It didn't happen instantly though and I suppose it wasn't intentional either.

At that time, Mr. Draco Malfoy was with a woman, Hermione Granger was her name. I met them exactly a year after they met. I don't exactly know how since Mr. Malfoy was not one to share. I was three years younger than both of them when Mr. Mafloy hired me as his secretary. He owns tall buildings that were sold as residences or spaces for business.

One night, Ms. Granger arrived at the office and was looking for Mr. Malfoy.

"He's working overtime," I said. I was called into his office when I let Ms. Granger through his door.

"You may go home," Mr. Malfoy said with a wave of his hand and I did not protest. I wanted to go home and I wanted to rest. He had me working overtime for three consecutive days and I reasoned that I needed a break. I nodded and left, closing the door behind me. I cleared my desk and took my bag but when I got to the entrance of the building, I remembered my jacket that I hanged on the back my chair.

I went back to get it and that's when I heard them fighting. Ms. Granger was screaming and I feared that Mr. Malfoy would have done something to elicit this so I opened his door and was shocked by what I saw.

Ms. Granger was throwing things at my boss but without the use of her hands – not touching them, I mean. She had a slender stick in her hand and as if the objects were tied to the stick, they followed the direction they were pointed to. As things flew around the room, my boss was also holding a black stick that he used to destroy everything that threatened to hit him.

The fighting stopped when Mr. Malfoy noticed me standing in the room with them. Ms. Granger turned around to see what stopped him and covered her mouth with her hand when she saw me.

"I'll explain," Mr. Malfoy said to me with a soothing voice, laying the stick on his table. I stared at both of them, too surprised to answer. I wanted to run, fearing that I was losing my mind or that they were in possession of a very deadly weapon that was only available to the rich.

"Sit down," Ms. Granger looked worried as she walked towards me. My reflex was to walk back and stare at her, wide-eyed with fear and surprise. "I'm not going to hurt you."

I shook my head. They eventually got me to sit down on my boss' chair to explain to me what they were. They are humans, just like me but they were special, in a way. They told me about wands and magic and I laughed; I was certain, at this point, that I lost my mind.

"It'll be our secret," Ms. Granger said to me and I guess I was convinced enough or maybe, just dumbstruck enough to nod.

After a week of paid vacation, I accepted the situation and approached the matter with a very open mind. I returned to the office with a small hope that he had replaced me as his secretary. I measured my ability to accept the supernatural and I guess I'm not that good with it.

When the new secretary announced my arrival to Mr. Malfoy, he came out, personally, to greet me and to let me into his office.

"I hope you had a good rest," he said. It was then that he gave me a "sugar quill". He told me it was his favorite and told me that it was from the "other side". I ate the sweet quill that he gave me and told me that I was going to be reassigned.

I was no longer his secretary. I became something more versatile: his personal assistant. I had to attend to everything that didn't involve the office with a much higher salary and with much more of an open mind. I accepted when he told me what my salary will be and that I'll have a flexible vacation schedule.

I also became Ms. Granger's spy. Apparently, the night that I interrupted their fight, Ms. Granger was getting mad about a Pansy Parkinson who was, in my memory, the lady with my boss during that lunch. I didn't think that Mr. Malfoy would cheat on Ms. Granger. They looked great together. I thought no one would dare go between them or that one of them would dare cheat on each other.

One time, she introduced the word "muggle" to me. She told me about her status in their world; she was a muggle-born. A witch born to two normal people, she explained. She told me that there was an offensive word for such but she refused to say it.

After a few months, Ms. Granger's calls to me became more and more frequent and at times, we didn't talk about Mr. Malfoy. It was simply a conversation between two ladies with common interests. She loved books and so did I. It wasn't long before I became comfortable with the idea of a wizard and a witch in my life and it was about the same time that Ms. Granger insisted on being called "Hermione". It was a pretty name and I used to write her name on my calendar often for lunch dates that she scheduled. I found out that she worked in the Ministry of Magic in their world and she heads a department in it.

The falcon's eye that she had set on Mr. Malfoy slowly became more and more lenient. She wasn't as possessive as I first perceived her to be.

After a year, they got married and I was invited to the ceremony.

It was grand. It was what Mr. Malfoy planned and Hermione just gave in. She told me later that Mr. Malfoy 'charmed' her to agree to such a grand ceremony. Charmed, I wondered about it. It was either with or without magic. I find Mr. Malfoy capable of both.

I met some of their friends from both worlds though I could identify some that didn't belong to the "muggle" world.

They spent their honeymoon in France and when I asked where exactly, she said that I wouldn't be able to see it since it was wrapped in magic. It was at this time that I started imagining how it was in their world. Were there goblins and elves? How about leprechauns and a pot of golden coins? Were there dragons and fairies like in a fairy tale for children?

Children. Child. They had one child. Hermione was two-months pregnant when she told me about it. She told me that Mr. Malfoy would be excited but I could not imagine him be. There were some things available to her eyes and not to mine.

When Mr. Malfoy found out, Hermione was right, he got excited – they ran to the "other side". They stayed there for six months and Mr. Malfoy left all the work to the second-in-power in his office. I also had a six-month vacation. When they returned, Hermione couldn't hide the bump of her stomach under thick coats anymore. It was winter and she wore a thick and heavy coat but I still could see how her belly bulged under it.

"He'll come out in a month," Hermione beamed at me, rubbing her stomach lightly. I reached out to touch it and imagined a dragon leaping out of her belly. I pushed away the thought when I saw her serene expression. I asked her about their vacation and she told me that they spent it in Mr. Malfoy's manor and visited old friends to spread the news.

"We could have just owled them but Draco was really happy," Hermione said.

"Owled?" I wondered allowed, imagining owls carrying my mail to my doorstep every morning.

"We use owls for communication," she explained and I nodded thoughtfully as a reply.

"Do you have friends here?" I asked, unable to keep my curiosity at bay.

"Yes, I do. Friends who came from the wizarding world and lived here, you mean?" She asked. I nodded.

"Lavender Brown," she said after thinking for a while. The picture of the billboard that I passed every morning came into mind. The model posing for the fashion line was named Lavender Brown.

"She's a model?" I asked and she nodded.

"She owns a small pub in London and she's married to man who teaches in a school of magic," she said and drank some water.

"School of magic," I repeated thoughtfully. She nodded.

We parted that afternoon with my head swimming with magical creatures, wondering if they existed in their world. I opened my mind completely and believed everything she said about magic blindly.

Soon, the child was born and the child was a "he". Hermione was right. She used to refer to the bump of her stomach as a "he" and I didn't comment on it. I thought that they had an ability to look through their skin.

I guess I was becoming over-imaginative. It's funny that I thought that.

The child was named Gian Camelo (Gee-yan Ka-mee-loh) and Hermione called him Gio (Gee-yo). She came and brought the baby with her a few weeks at a time. I had a chance to play with him twice or thrice.

Several months later, Mr. Malfoy was involved in a fight where he accidentally killed the man but he pleaded that it was in self-defense. He won the case in court and remained free to roam the streets which probably angered the group that the man he killed belonged to. I believed in Mr. Malfoy's innocence though it may seem biased. Hermione told me that Mr. Malfoy wanted a month off so they went, again, to the other side.

I was also, again, on vacation.

When they got back and Gio was barely a year old, it was when it happened. A heart-breaking story.

A group of six men cornered Hermione and Gio in an alley, one winter afternoon, on their way home. I knew of their ability of traveling without the use of vehicles and the more I felt like fate played a hand in this. I saw Hermione do it once. She took me to the alley and she disappeared right in front of me. I don't think she needed anything at that time to travel.

Basing on police report, I imagined what happened that night.

The men took Gio from her and she could not run away without him. She was not able to protect herself from them since they didn't give a chance to. They fired three bullets into her and left Gio beside her. They were found the next morning, Gio was no longer breathing too.

To top the brutality of it, like nature was mocking me, the police showed me the photos of the crime scene and saw the snow that covered their bodies.

I cried hysterically when I found out. I refused to believe that a woman who knew magic could not protect herself and her child. If I reacted to the news like that, you could just imagine how Mr. Malfoy trashed his office, crying and shouting in frustration.

I stayed with him until late at night. Everyone left the building and Mr. Malfoy refused to go home. I stayed outside the door, sitting on the secretary's desk until he calmed down. It was hours before I could speak to him and he didn't say a word. He nodded and shook his head in reply but did not speak. He stayed in a hotel that week and I arranged it for him; I guess he didn't want to return to a house full of their memories. That was the only time that I saw him show emotions.

Painfully, Mr. Malfoy buried his wife and child at the end of that week. He never glanced at the caskets and kept his gaze on the ground or at the gloomy skies that matched his mood. I didn't know that at that moment, he chose to act. I don't know how he did it but when I went to his hotel room the next, next morning to check on him, he wasn't there anymore but he left an envelope with my name on it.

I tore it open and read the short note that he wrote.

I trusted you and I still do.

If something happens to me, I settled everything.

Everything is in this envelope.

Thank you for everything.

Draco

I found out a few days later that he went after the men who killed Hermione and Gio. I don't know how he did it but he found them in an old house in the outskirts and killed them all – six of them. In their autopsy report, it was all registered as 'heart attack' but Draco Malfoy's was different, he was shot eight times in different parts of his body and two pierced his heart which caused his death.

I cried over them for weeks, not believing that bullets could still beat magic. I probably thought of them invincible that death could not touch them.

As I cried, I prayed that Mr. Malfoy be reunited with Hermione and Gio, wherever they are.

=====

When all my tears dried up, I turned to the envelope that Draco Malfoy left for me and when I read through it, I reread it in disbelief. It was his last will and testament.

He left me all their material possessions including all the buildings he owned.

So, you see? My life has changed after that.

I owe everything I own now to Mr. Draco Malfoy.

Draco, Hermione and their son, Gio.

I write this story now as I sit in the cemetery where they are buried.