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Chapter Text

“…and then I said, bloody hell, George, they don’t call it a bath box, they call it a bathtub! And do you know what he said to me?”

Hermione stared out of the window into the bedrizzled moors, dark eyes tracing the droplets of rain, hand slowing running across Crookshanks’ back as he purred.

“’Mione? Are you even listening?”

“Sorry?” She blurted, eyes focusing and hand dropping from her chin as she blinked blankly a few times across from her at Ron.

He raised a ginger eyebrow questioningly and waved his palms around.

“I am, Ron,” Harry said placatingly next to him. He patted his friend’s arm.

Hermione thought that was a bit dramatic.

“Well, at least one of you bloody are,” Ron folded his arms and sniffed, shooting Hermione a look. “You’ll like this too, ‘Mione. It’s about Muggles.”

“Oh, sorry, Ron. Go on,” Hermione said, and made a point to shift in her seat to show her interest, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “Go on. Really.”

He went on.

She couldn’t care less.

No, that was rude, she thought to herself. She cares. Of course she cares. And usually, on any other day, she’d be showing it.

There was nothing interesting outside except the same dreary sights she’d seen every year since she’d first started at Hogwarts. The same slightly yellow stained windows, the same seats with cushions so worn down there was barely any padding between their robes and the hard wood of the seat.

But she was restless. What had happened last year had crawled into her skin and began to weave its way into her veins, across her sinews, between her ligaments and bones and resting in her chest as a heavy weight and reminder of what she’d experienced.

What they all had, really.

Hermione felt her eyes glaze over as she unseeingly watched Ron make a gesture that resembled plumbing (somewhat) to Harry.

Harry laughed, eyes crinkling at the sides.

All Hermione could think is that Sirius Black was dead. And the world knows of Voldemort. And all Hermione can think is of the old saying of bad things seeming to happen in threes.

Her neck felt itchy again, like whatever whisper of memories from what she saw last year was trying to bubble to the surface. Like a fog pressed up against some glass.

Yeah, that was it, she thought. A fog. A black, horrible fog. It was getting bigger.

Hermione itched her neck. Itched it again.

Dug her fingernails in.

And then, quite suddenly, she stood up.

Crookshank yelped angrily. 

“I think I want something from the sweet trolley,” she said abruptly.

That was too loud, she realised absently, as two pairs of eyes swung on her.

“You missed it, like, twenty minutes ago, ‘Mione,” Harry said, and he looked mildly worried. She probably shared the expression as she looked back at him. He’d had dark circles under his eyes ever since they left the Ministry. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, you’re looking a bit pinky,” Ron said, scratching his jaw absently.

“It’s said ‘peaky,’ Ron’,” She snapped, and immediately put the palm of her hand to her forehead.

She promised she’d stop snapping at these two. At Ron.

“Right. I’m sorry. Look, I’m going to go try see if I can get something, maybe the trolley is only a few doors down. I’ll get you some frogs.”

She looked at Ron when she said this and offered an apologetic smile. He looked wounded.

“I’m sorry.”

With that, she opened the door to their compartment and took a long, deep breath as she closed it behind her.

She knew she wasn’t being fair, not really. Realistically, Harry had every right to behave this way. Not her. Sirius wasn’t the same to her as he was to him. And he seemed to be handling it.

Well. Maybe not quite.

Absently dragging her finger along the compartment walls as she walked down the thin corridor, she thought of the mornings after sleeplessness where she’d turned to Hedwig knocking at the glass of her window impatiently to drop a note sent by Harry in the middle of the night. Telling her about the nightmare, telling her he couldn’t sleep, and, as always, finishing with telling her not to worry Ron. Not after what had happened to Arthur, not after the attack from Nagini.

Maybe they were both coping with it differently, she supposed.

Hermione itched her neck again.

The trolley must be near, what with the ‘ooooh’s emanating from a compartment filled with first years as they stare up at what, she muses fondly, must be their first chocolate frog.

God, they looked so young.

“…and Cedric, put it back! That ones mine, yours is the one that’s halfway up the glass, isn’t it? Stop eating it! Spit it-“

At the name, Hermione’s head snapped back from where she had briefly paused, lost in memory, to watch their frogs climb over the walls and back down to their faces.

Cedric? What was-

“Cedric; you’re fat, and you’re ugly, and I hate you,” one of the young girls was fuming towards a young boy as he shoved the last of her frog into his mouth. “Your sister was right about you. You’re disgusting.”

He had dark hair, dark skin, and was unequivocally not the body of the boy she had seen a short two years prior.

His eyes swivelled to hers, most likely feeling the intensity of her gaze.

Hermione walked on quickly, flustered. Her neck itched, and the fog felt pressed against the glass. This corridor was too long, too thin, too stretched. Her nails dug into the back of her neck, itching painfully, and she blinked furiously as she turned into the nearest compartment and slid the door aside jarringly while inhaling a furious gasp of air to control her panic.

First, she feels the crackle of magic. There’s a certain feeling to a room recently charged with spell work.

Her eyes shoot up, and she’s faced with the looming back of Malfoy.

The spell leaves her mouth before she can stop it. Finite Incantatem.

A flicker. A fracturing ripple. The air warps, and for a breathless, disbelieving heartbeat, she sees them - wings, raw and blood-slick, the skin around them grey and wasting. Bone pushing through where no bone should.

She understands in the split-second before Malfoy turns around in horror, wand raised, wordlessly reanimating the Glamour charm: he has wings.

And it's a death sentence.

Chapter Text

“Granger.”

Hermione impulsively reached to the corner of her robes, fingers curling around the mantle of her wand.

“Malfoy,” she replied. Good, she thought. Her voice sounded levelled.

She was anything but levelled right now.

She palmed her wand again and debated whether or not to raise it.

Malfoy’s eyes were wide above twin dark circles, and his forehead beaded lightly with sweat, but he was still. His voice was steady.

“Granger, if you so much as twitched that stick in my direction, I’ll hex you until your eyes crossed,” he hissed.

The perspiration dotted near his brow and his blown, panicked pupils were the only indication the snottiness of his voice wasn’t genuine.

“What the fuck was that?” she whispered. “What the fuck did I just see?”

Malfoy stared at her. His palms were raised slightly, as if to placate her, black ring glinting dangerously off the compartments’ shoddy lighting. She imagined she looked quite wild right then, hand in her breast pocket, interrogating him.

“What did you think you saw?”

“No,” she took her hand from her pocket and pointed a finger furiously in his direction. “No, you are not doing that. I know what I saw. I saw it.”

”Saw what?” Malfoy’s shoulders released some of their tension now both her hands were in sight. He lowered his own slowly, and they fell into his pockets.

”I saw…I saw them. I saw your…” Hermione grappled for words. Out loud, she thought she’d sound rather silly. “I…I saw them.”

“My. The famously quick-tongued Granger is reduced to that very same tongue all caught up in a knot,” he leaned back on his heels, shrugged. “Skeeter would be in fits at the loss of capturing this.”

His voice was snotty, and he raised his eyes to the ceiling as if feigning boredom. Feigning. She knew he was feigning. She could see where his finger tapped in his pocket against his wand, the clench-unclench-clench of his jaw over and over.

Hermione stared at him for a beat.

A second.

He refused to look down at her. A piece of white hair fell into his eyes. He didn’t blink.

“You know what I saw, Malfoy. I know you know.”

No response.

“And I think this is something the Headmaster ought to know, don’t you?” A twitch in his right eye where it remained steadfast on the ceiling. “If not further. If not the Minist-”

Her words were cut short with a shocked gasp as a firm pressure was pointed sharply at her jugular. His wand.

She walked backwards quickly into the carriage door, hitting her back roughly. Wordlessly, Malfoy conjured the blinds of the compartment closed with a snap, his eyes narrowed into thin grey slits as he crowded her against the wall. From there, she noticed how bloodshot they seemed, how frazzled his hair was.

He was nearly baring his teeth as he hissed, “You filthy, meddling, nosey, disgusting Mudblood. You just have to pry, don’t you? You just have to stick your massive beak into everything. You’re worse than Potter. At least he has to work at being a nosey cow. You?” he jabbed the wand sharper into her neck. “You, it’s a natural talent. Isn’t it?”

She could feel her pulse hammering against the sharp prick of the wand's edge.

”Isn’t it?” Malfoy snarled. His eyes were wild.

“Are you going to spill my filthy blood all over this carriage, Malfoy, or just talk about it?” Hermione said quietly. Her hands were limp by her sides as she held his gaze.

He was silent for a beat. She tried for another angle.

“You know what I saw.”

He continued to hold her eyes, and the pressure of his wand didn’t leave the side of her neck.

Distantly, Hermione realised that she could die in this carriage.

“I’m going to kill you,” he said, as if inside her mind, seeing her thoughts. The air in her ears roared. “I’m going to kill you. I just don’t know how to do it. How to hide it.”

It was plain. Toneless. As if he’d resigned himself to this, and this was just an obstacle he needed to figure out.

She swallowed thickly, and tried, slowly, without notice, to reach back into her breast pocket.

Malfoy continued gazing down at her, shuttered expression shutting off briefly as he closed his eyes.

They opened.

“Ava-”

She reached quickly into her breast pocket, slamming her knee into his crotch as he sucked in a sharp breath and wheezed, hands clutching at his groin.

His wand flew onto the compartment floor, and he shoved his foot over the top of it protectively.

Hermione’s own wand was pointed at the apex of his skull as he crouched over, spittle flying onto her shoes as he gnashed angrily.

“You filthy-”

“Don’t finish that, Malfoy,” she said. Her heart was pounding double time, and she felt her voice shake.

She had nearly died.

She had nearly died.

“Don’t finish that, Malfoy,” she said again, willing her voice steady. “Because I can’t be blamed for what my response could be to being threatened with an Unforgivable. The killing curse, at that.”

His cold, grey eyes looked from under his brow at her where he was still crouched over, and he bared his teeth viciously as he spoke.

“If you hadn’t been so stupidly nosey and wilfully absent-minded, we wouldn’t be here,” he closed his eyes against what, she assumed, was the sharp jab of her wand against his scalp. “And I didn’t threaten you with the curse, Granger. I promised it.”

”Give me your wand.”

”Fuck off.”

”Give me your wand, Malfoy, or so help me Godric I will send a calling charm so loud my voice tells everyone in the first third of the train what I saw five minutes ago.”

”You’re going to tell them anyway, Mudblood, why do I care how you do it?” he snapped, and resolutely kept his foot over the wand on the floor where he’d dropped it in the scuffle.

”Stop calling me that,” Hermione seethed through her teeth. “And I said that because you tried to gaslight me.”

”I don’t even know what that word means.”

She rolled her eyes angrily and jabbed her wand harder into his blonde head. He grunted. The carriage swayed.

Both of them froze as footsteps walked past their carriage.

”Pass me your wand,” she said in an angry whisper-shout. “I won’t flag to anyone what I saw.”

”I don’t trust you more than I could throw you, Granger. And get your filthy wand off of me.”

He tried to stand, and in doing so shuffled his left foot.

Hermione lunged.

Grabbing the wand, she stood with it held behind her chest as she turned to him side on, wand still raised threateningly.

Malfoy’s expression was shuttered again. His gaze was trained completely on his prized possession gripped in her left palm.

”What did I just see?”

”You saw me bent over in a very humiliating position many men are faced with at some point in their lives. Usually a ball, sometimes a kick, sometimes even-”

”Your wings.”

There. She said it.

She felt herself flush slightly, feeling foolish for saying those words out loud. It felt quite silly again. She clicked her jaw, and went to rephrase slightly, maybe use a different term…

But Malfoy was still, too still. His expression was frozen, and his back was straight. He still gazed at his stolen wand, but now it seemed as though he saw through the prize, not at it.

So that was the right term.

”Your wings. You have wings,” she continued. Each time she said it, his shoulders seemed to turn in on themselves, as if humiliated.

Draco Malfoy. Humiliated.

Somehow, this didn’t feel like a victory.

Hermione stared at him, and he stared through her hand.

“What happened?” she finally asked after a three second pause. “Is this…were you born like this?”

At this, Malfoy scoffed. He turned his shuttered face and looked out towards the blind covered window.

Hermione guessed that was as much of an answer as she was going to get on that.

”Did someone do this to you?”

Nothing verbal. But she saw the tightening of the skin around his eyes, the slight, further hunching of the shoulders. She knew she was in the right.

”Is this a curse?” she went for the big question. “Is this…is this killing you?”

Silence.

”First years! To me, you need to come down towards the front. No, no. That’s the back, Leigha, that’s the back. Leigha! Oh, for the love of…”

The self-important sound of the Prefect’s voice and corresponding stamping of their feet went past their door.

They were minutes from arriving at Hogwarts.

”My wand,” Malfoy said quietly.

“No.”

”Granger, give me my damn wand.”

”I’m keeping this,” Hermione waved it slightly before dropping it into her robes pocket. “I’m keeping it. And when you need it, then you’ll talk to me.”

”You can’t keep my wand, you conniving little-”

Hermione jabbed her wand point under his neck as he had done to her only moments before.

She hissed angrily at him.

”I’ve not alerted the Aurors, have I, Malfoy? Have I not kept your little secret? Have I not held my tongue from notifying a Prefect or professor?”

He was silent, gazing down at her.

She paused to choose her next words carefully.

“I can’t trust you not to kill me, Malfoy. And so I’m going to keep your wand until I do,” she lowered her own, and pocketed it slowly.

She took a step back from him. And then another.

His cool gaze followed her steps.

“Are you going to tell Weasley? Potter?” he said. It wasn’t haughtily, snottily, or any other kind of disgusting tone that’s strictly and awfully Malfoy.

It was resigned.

Strangely, Hermione didn’t think twice.

”No. I’m not.”

With that, she turned, fled from the compartment, and slammed the door shut behind her.

It wasn’t until 10 steps down that she realized she didn’t feel an itch, nor the fog, for the first time in the entire twenty minutes that exchange had taken place.

It wasn’t until 15 steps down that she realized Malfoy had shown his ability to use wandless magic when closing the blinds. And that he could’ve killed her at any time just then.

Wand or not.

Chapter Text

Hogwarts seemed colder.

That was her first thought as she stepped into the castle, pulling her robes tightly around herself, puffing a visible breath out.

Malfoy’s wand dug slightly into her ribs as she did, and the reminder made her shoulders curl in slightly.

”Cold, ‘Mione?” Harry said easily, and bumped a friendly elbow against hers. 

She looked at him, really looked at him. She’d agreed to lie to him so willingly. And for what? For a blood purist, against the friend who had defended her so much?

His eyebrows started to go from their jovially shocked raise to slightly more concerned, and so she snorted back, rolling her eyes conspiringly.

“I overheard from some third years that there’s a charm when you enter to make you colder so nobody notices the draft in the dormitories as much,” she said, and butted his elbow against his in return.

“Do you lot fancy hurrying up a bit, I’m pretty positive the feast is on in, like, ten minutes,” Ron bemoaned from behind them, lugging his case to dump by the doorway for the castle’s house elves to vanish into their respective dorms. “And I’m bloody starving.”

”Oh, I’ll bet,” a voice sneered.

Turning her head sharply, Hermione caught eyes with Pansy Parkinson, who in turn was casting her own down her nose at Ron. 

“You’ve probably been living off rations for the entirety of student break.”

Hermione glanced behind Pansy to find Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini both looking around the entryway nonplussed.

There was no shock of blonde hair amongst them.

”Oh, shove off for once, Pansy,” Harry snapped back in annoyance. “Or do you just like giving Ron attention?”

Pansy’s eyes flickered to Harry and seemed to pause there for a brief moment, sliding eventually onto Hermione. She folded her arms back at the Slytherin.

An eyebrow quirked back at her.

“Not quite, Potter,” Blaise remarked lowly. Theodore, rather quickly, shoved his elbow into his ribs. There was a resounding hiss.

“Do yourself a favour and leave some potatoes for the first years, Weasley,” Theodore said as the trio walked past them. He walked backwards as he continued his slight. “I imagine they won’t take kindly to their peers squirrelling their food away for the next break.”

”Pricks,” Ron said under his breath. There was a flush up the back of his neck, and Hermione tucked her elbow into his and began a confident walk in the direction of the hall.

”You know Pansy’s only in a foul mood with you because she had to go home to her own lot,” she said easily. “I’d be in a stinker too if my mum worked with the Rita Skeeter on the regular.”

Ron smiled down at her.

“Also, we both know you’re, you know,” Harry joined Ron’s other side and lowered his voice dramatically. “One of the Special Twenty-Eight.”

Ron snorted, “First of all, it’s Sacred,” (to which Harry and Hermione snorted at alike) “And second of all, I don’t know if it counts when you’re a Weasley.”

“Of course it does, Ronald,” Hermione said with a pat to his arm. “And for what it’s worth, I’d shove some potatoes in my pockets on your behalf if you ask.”

The three of them entered the hall, taking their seats.

As she shuffled in, the gap between the bench and table providing nothing but awareness of the food she’d (inevitably) let fall onto her gown, Hermione felt a pair of eyes boring into her from across the room.

She knew without looking up.

She looked up anyway.

Malfoy sat, chin in hand, gazing her way from his seat across the hall. As she met his eyes, he seemed to shutter, jaw pulsing rapidly.

Ah, she thought. Still upset about the confiscation of his wand.

Resolutely, Hermione turned back to the front of the hall to watch Dumbledore take to his podium for the introduction the first years get.

Her peripheral showed her he did not look away from her. Or, she assumed, the pocket where his wand lay assuredly against her ribs below her robes.

“…with the announcement of each name, we ask that each student stands, is seated, and allows the Sorting Hat to be placed upon their heads,” Dumbledore announced. His eyes crinkled. “While it is not compulsory, I expect many of you would be bereft to be left without the loyalty and company of your designated houses.”

Hermione felt heat prickle at her forehead as the first round of students walked up towards the podium.

God. To take a wizard’s wand. Is there a law against this? Is there any kind of enforcement? Can she expect to be detained when she leaves the hall?

Without much thought to it, her eyes flickered towards Malfoy again.

He was speaking quietly with Nott, both heads lowered.

She looked at Ron, who shot her a grin and mimed rubbing his stomach, and then back towards the podium.

She hadn’t really had time alone with her thoughts, not really, and now the knowledge of what she saw floated to the surface of her mind as she gazed unseeingly at the first years ahead of her waiting anxiously to place the hat on their heads.

Wings. He had wings.

No, she thought. Not wings. He had a curse. Something evil was growing from him, something spitefully and taking a cruel irony in the form they were manifesting as.

She looked at him again, and this time he was replicating her position. Chin in hand, gazing unseeingly ahead.

Hermione looked him over.

In a hall like this, so fuelled on magic and spell work, there was most likely no way anybody could feel the warmth inside the compartment as she had earlier. The heat of spell work in an area usually uninhabited by magic.

Unless they had seen it before, nobody in a castle for magical education would be aware of the constant glamour charm Malfoy bathed in.

They were big. Big enough to touch either side of the compartment, and long enough they spanned from 4 metres above his head to 3 metres below his waistline.

Big enough to cause a scene.

Why would someone curse him with that? Why wings? Why-

Malfoy’s cold gaze sliced into hers.

He hadn’t moved an inch, not even his head, only the grey irises that met her own and held them.

Hermione stared back.

Malfoy held her gaze for one count. Two. Three.

His jaw pulsed again, and he turned back down to the table, fist clenching and unclenching over the silverware.

Hermione wondered bleakly if he was thinking about killing her again.

“…and that is what matters. No matter your sorting, no matter your house, no matter your past, your future - all that matters is now. Your present,” she dimly heard from Dumbledore; his arms were raised, and he seemed to twinkle as he said, “And your present now? Food. And plenty of it!”

The tables filled with food, and Ron moaned orgasmically.

Hermione kept her eyes on Malfoy.

She found she wasn’t very hungry.

-

“I need to speak with you,” came a voice.

Ron, Harry and Hermione all went quiet from their animated conversation upon leaving the hall. Harry stopped slowest, his parting sentence on why he thinks Filch is most certainly not a virgin dying slowly.

Malfoy’s lips were turned down in what was very clearly distaste at the topic at hand.

“Look, Malfoy, I’m not speaking with you. And I think who you really need to be speaking with is your dad, because-“

“Not you, you four-eyed imbecile,” Malfoy hissed, and his eyes slid from Harry to Hermione. “You. We need to take a little walk.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“I dunno what you think you’re saying or to who-“ Ron started.

“It’s alright, Ron,” Hermione said. Her hand went to press the back of her palm to his hip. “Just know if I happen to be hexed into 40 different pieces who it was.”

Malfoy snorted.

Nobody else did.

“…right,” said Ron. “You’ll be back in five minutes.”

“I’ll see what he wants,” She said placatingly, and offered a smile.

It wasn’t returned.

“Godrick, you’d think I’m whisking her away for a midnight escapade,” Malfoy drawled, and turned on his heel with his hands dug deeply into his pockets. It was only the ridge of his back that let the tension he was feeling noticeable.

Hermione followed him, shooting one last look towards Harry she hoped gave off some modicum of incredulity, and closed the door behind the empty classroom he’d wandered into.

He didn’t turn around as he spoke.

“Give me my wand, Granger. You can leave it on one of the tables.”

Now she snorted.

“After what happened tonight? You threatened to kill me, Malfoy. Not threatened,” she echoed his words from earlier. “‘Promised.’ No?”

“You know as well as I do that if I turn up to my first class tomorrow without it that I’ll be in detention,” he had turned to face her stonily. His jaw pulsed repeatedly. 

“And you know that if it get’s around what’s going on you’ll face a lot worse than detention. Keeping a curse casted outside of Hogwarts a secret? Who did that, anyway?”

Malfoy’s face turned into the vicious snarl from the compartment earlier as he took two steps towards her. His finger was pointed at her, inches from her chest.

“You told me you hadn’t told anyone. You told me you wouldn’t.”

She stood her ground with her chin pointedly raised, arms folded.

“And I haven’t.”

“What’re you getting out of this?” he said. His finger hadn’t lowered from its accusatory position. “Some sick sense of justice? Are you enjoying this? Do you want me to beg for my wand? Apologise for calling you a-“

“Don’t you dare, Malfoy,” Hermione said. Her eyes burned challengingly down at him, and she clenched her fist. It was quiet, but his eyes glinted back at her. “I haven’t told anyone. And you know that’s the truth, because you’d be in Dumbledore’s office before you could even begin to figure out that I had.”

“What do you want, then? Money? Is that it? For Weasley, most likely,” he scoffed, though there was no venom in it.

Hermione thought this may be the first time Malfoy did not have the upper hand.

“Let me see them again.”

Another weighted pause. Malfoy’s face was a closed, blank mask, watching her from the short distance he’d made while crowding her earlier.

“Why?”

“Because I want to see,” she said. “And I want to know.”

“This isn’t some freakish lesson, Granger,” he sneered down at her. “It isn’t some learning curve you get to put your mind against and figure it all out.”

She raised her chin again and fought the urge to stamp her foot.

“I just want to see. Properly.”

His gaze penetrated hers, and his jaw ticked angrily again.

“You’ll give me my wand?”

“On Godrick.”

“And you won’t…”

She sighed, “I’m not telling anyone, Malfoy. I’m not. Just let me bloody see these stupid-“

Wordlessly, Malfoy removed the glamour.

She sucked in a sharp breath as the wings gave a twitch, almost a thrum, as if they knew they were released from the confines of magic.

Slowly, Hermione took a step to the left. Malfoy remained completely still, facing the wall she just walked from.

On the way past the door to circle his back, she checked the handle of the door. He’d sent a wordless charm to lock the room. A part of her, silent and mildly discomforted at the idea of giving him his dues, appreciated the thought.

As she slowly made her way around towards his back, she drank in the sight of the wings.

They were matted towards the skin. Blistered, almost. Tinged red with the blood that pooled from where the protruded from his shoulder blade. Some wet, some dried. The bone of his shoulder meshed into the coraccid of the wings, meaning the curse, whatever it was, had deeply intertwined itself with Malfoy’s anatomy. Where this was visible was also a multitude of dark, vein-like tendrils that splintered from his shoulder blades and down the planes of his back. They were black.

They were evil.

The further from his back the feathers spanned, the whiter they got. Those that brushed the underneath of his hair, tickling his neck and twitching slightly where they shadowed his arms, looked of the purest snow. The only marking against them, aside from his own blood, was that of the tiny dotting of black shading near the base of each feather.

Numbly, she noted not only the irony of this curse, but the beauty.

Without completely thinking about it (though, belatedly, she knew deep down that she had wanted to do it) she reached out. Her index and middle fingers of her right hand brushed against the trembling feathers nearest to his biceps. They were quivering from the lack of magical constraint, the wings seemingly near vibrating, bending into this foreign touch.

As soon as they made contact, Malfoy sucked in a sharp gasp.

The wings were gone. She stared at his rigid back. His shoulders were curled in on themselves deeply, and she seemed to shake in lieu of the wings.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think. Or ask. I’m sorry,” she said quickly, and took a step backwards.

He was silent.

“Did…did that hurt?”

Another pause.

“Not quite,” Malfoy said quietly. She saw his arms tense under his shirt.

“Are you sure? Let me check again, I’ll see if I touched the wound, maybe it was the-“

“It didn’t hurt.”

He seemed to take a breath. Another one.

Wordlessly, he turned around and held out his palm. He didn’t meet her eyes this time, and she stared at him for a long moment.

She dug in her robe pocket for a minute before silently placing his wand in his out stretched palm.

“Malfoy, if you’ll just let me-“

His shoulder barged hers as he slammed out of the classroom.

She pressed her index finger against her thumb.

Chapter Text

“What the bloody hell was that about?” Ron demanded. “We’re stood here like two lemons and Malfoy just storms past, looking like he’s just seen a ghost, and then you come out here looking like you are the ghost from how pale you are.”

Hermione should really tell them. Now. She owes nothing to Malfoy, nothing to boy who sees her as a lesser version of himself. 

He and people with his views are the reason Voldemort is back in the first place.

Why Cedric is dead.

Why Sirius is.

Hermione felt the fog claw at her chest, and closed her eyes for a beat in an effort to will it away. 

“Is he hurting you? Has he hurt you?” Harry said, and she opened her eyes to see him reaching for her arm.

She puffed out some air in lieu of manically laughing. 

Hurt? She practically had a Dead or Alive poster stuck to her forehead.

”I had his wand, that’s all,” she sighed, and began the long walk from the hall to their dormitories.

Harry met her stride easily as they wandered through the corridors. His brow was furrowed deeply.

Ron seemed to flounder behind them with a voiceless choking noise.

”His wand?” he spluttered, and took a few jogs behind them to keep up. “What does that even mean? Like…no, surely not-”

”Oh, for bloody hell’s sake, Ron. No. That’s not a euphemism. Christ,” Hermione scolded angrily. They were taking the rotating staircases. She noted that some second years seemed too scared to make the jump from one to another, much to the entertainment of the paintings being them, and she turned from the top step to look down at them both.  

“Then how did you manage to get his bleeding wand?”

Come on, she thought. Now’s the chance. It’s easy.

Malfoy has wings. He’s been cursed and won’t report it, which means he’s an accomplice in magical charms outside of school. Oh, and I think it’s killing him.

His haunted eyes as he asked if she’d tell her two best friends swam to the front of her mind.

“I took a tumble on my way to get some chocolate frogs,” she said easily. “Some kids from a couple years below managed to spill hot chocolate all over themselves and I cast a quick Scourgify. Walked away, smacked right into Malfoy’s back, dropped my wand, accidentally picked his up.”

“Malfoy had his wand out?” Harry was still frowning, the jet black of his hair falling across his temple.

She shrugged noncommittally, as if she hadn’t even thought of it, and flipped her hair over her shoulder as she turned to step onto the rotating step towards her.

“Who knows? He might’ve changed this year. Maybe he was trying to beat me to the Scourgify.”

Ron snorted as if she’d told a joke and stepped with her, moving ahead on the steps and making a comment on Scourgifying his personality next.

Harry’s hand gripped her wrist lightly, and she turned to him.

Eyes still questioning, he gave her a squeeze, “You’re sure on that, yeah? He’s not…he didn’t do anything with that wand? After his dad…”

Hermione looked between his eyes, down to where the white starburst of a scar from one of the glass containing the prophecies had shattered on the back of his hand, splitting his dark skin in half as well as his forehead did.

Her neck itched.

She turned her wrist and squeezed his own hand back.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure, Harry.”

Godrick.

-

Ginny and Hermione spent the rest of the evening together in the shared Gryffindor dormitory common room, curled up on the sofas as they spoke in low voices.

Crookshanks spent his time sprawled between them, yowling whenever Ginny left her petting of his stomach to gesture. 

Hermione gave him a sidelong stare and decided her half-Kneazle needed more training.

Ginny was telling her about the lack of progression with Harry. Hermione really wished she had more to advise her friend with.

And more focus on the topic.

“…and whenever I think it’s going to happen, you know, really happen, something comes up. Like, the other day we were talking and getting closer, and it just fizzled. I’ve never had a fizzler, Hermione. I’ve never even used that word before,” she scoffs, and picks at one of the pillows angrily.

“Maybe things are just going slower because of, well. You know,” Hermione shrugged, and rested her knuckles against the side of her head. “It’s been a rough last year, Gin.”

“Yeah,” her friend allowed, and turned to look across the room to where Harry, Dean and Ron where passing Quidditch Collectible Cards around together. She sighed, and blew a strand of orange hair from over her eyes. “Yeah.”

“I need to head out,” Hermione said, reaching forward and squeezing Ginny’s hand gently.

“Library?”

She snorted, “That obvious?”

Ginny smiled an eye-crinkling smile, and unfurled her legs from beneath her, “You’re still Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger. But that’s sweet. I’m going to drag Crookshanks to watch me beat my brother in this round and probably head to bed after. Bump me awake if you need me.”

She walked off towards the boys, and Hermione watched her back before turning and leaving the dormitories.

Technically, she shouldn’t be out around the castle this late. But at the rate she visited the library, especially with the research needing doing the last few years over the prophecies and for Harry’s tournament, it was a well-acknowledged fact that one rule was inapplicable to herself.

She wrapped her robes tighter around herself, and weaved through the twilight soaked castle walls.

Quietly, she thought.

A curse like Malfoy’s wasn’t anything like she’d ever seen. It was obviously intended to kill. But it was a slow killer, painful. And there didn’t seem to be any other stipulations to the curse. Unless Malfoy was bidden to follow someone’s orders, which she doubted, there seemed to be only one layer to this curse.

To kill. Agonisingly.

She turned into the library, gently lifting and floating a candle ahead of her from the doorway as she walked down the racks upon racks of books.

She knew realistically that the restricted section would most likely have the answers she needed. Her eyes shot to it briefly, before putting the thought in the back of her mind.

No. Too obvious and too risky. She needed to exhaust all other options before heading down that route.

Slowly, Hermione walked down the shelves that contained tomes on curses. She gathered two that included the words Fantastical and Beastly on the spines, hoping to hit the topic on the nose, and slid down into one of the long benched tables.

Her candle followed obediently, settling to her right to allow her to crack open the first.

“Granger,” a low voice came from very, very close behind her.

She let out a small screech, and a palm came quickly and firmly over her mouth to stop it reaching a scream.

“You idiot,”  Theodore Nott’s hiss came from beside her ear as he bent down next to her, his hair tickling the side of her ear.

He went quiet for a beat. Another. There was no other sound except the rustling of library books magically putting themselves away after being used the day before.

His palm was fleshy and salty as she sunk her teeth into it.

He let out his own quiet yelp and jumped back from her, cursing colourfully under his breath and shaking his hand. His dark eyes peered up from under his bushy brown eyebrows, letting his mouth curl into a sneer Malfoy would be proud of.

“You bitch.”

“You snuck up on me,” she whispered furiously, and curled her lip back. “You grabbed me, and for no reason at that! You-“

“Oh for the love of Godrick, Granger, I was in the library before you. If you bumped into me you would’ve screamed louder than a Mandrake and it would’ve been more than Mrs Norris coming down here to find us after hours,” Nott seethed, stopping the shake of his hand with a quick glance towards the damage before folding his arms across his chest. “I thought you were meant to be top of the class.”

“Why are you here?” Hermione demanded. She mirrored him, folding her arms so the left of her hand could touch the wand at her pocket.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I’m asking you,” she said hotly. Once again she resisted the urge to stamp her foot for the second time that day. “I’m always here. Everyone knows I’m in the library. Revising.”

Nott arched a dark eyebrow, and unfurled his arms to take a slow step closer to where she sat. His dark suit brushed the desk as he bent over her head, palms flat on the table.

He was so close that she could smell the woodbine scent of his clothes.

“‘Revising’?” he said, and his eyes flickered up from where he read the heavy book titles to meet her own. Hermione had to crane her neck to look at him from her position at the bench.

Nott tapped a finger against the open cover of the one she had sat down to read. His gaze seemed insurmountably darker as he said, “We won’t be touching on these topics for quite some time in our syllabuses, Granger. Not even this year, I’d gamble.”

She lifted her chin and held his gaze as he peered down at her.

“I enjoy being prepared.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

There was another silence, his tapping fingers the only sound between them. Neither looked away.

Nott scoffed, breaking the tense moment, and stood back one pace. Two. He seemed to glance around the dark library and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Being prepared and being nosey are two awfully distinct and different things, Granger,” he said, and kept his eyes peering across the library at a squint. “I’d wager you’re walking a fine line between the two.”

Hermione felt a cold shiver go down her spine.

“What do you mean?” she asked. Her fingers gripped the side of the desk until they were white at the tips.

Theodore Nott turned his gaze back to her, and she felt some of the hairs on the back of her arms stand to attention.

He remained silent as he looked at her. Really looked at her, and then dropped his eyes back to the tomes on the desk.

The darkness of the library was illuminated with his Cheshire cat smile as he did a brief bow in her direction.

He turned on his heel and began to walk away.

“Tread lightly, Granger. For the night is dark and full of terrors.”

Chapter Text

Hermione stabbed her spoon into her food, stirring the porridge slowly as she rest her chin in the palm of her hand.

Dean talked animatedly across from her at Ginny, and somewhere in the background of her mind Hermione knew she should be glad of this after her friend’s current boy issues.

The boy issue in question let out a loud laugh down the table at something Ron was gesturing wildly at, his ginger hair shaking as he animatedly recreated some joke or another.

Hermione watched them dazedly.

She had spent a long time, too long, last night hunched over five different books (with a glance behind her shoulder every ten minutes or so for any sign Mrs Norris or, God help her, Theodore Nott, has crept up beside her).

Nothing.

Zero.

Zilch.

She rubbed a tired fist into her eye and swallowed a mouthful of the thick gloop they called coffee here instead of yawning.

Ginny bumped her shoulder conspiratorially, having cracked one eye open as Hermione shuffled in in the early hours of this morning after her ‘study’ session, and she grinned back at her friend.

“You know, ‘Mione,” Dean said after shovelling a spoonful of his own porridge into his mouth. “If you don’t sleep your brain won’t even remember what you’re taking in. That’s what my mum said.”

“Yeah, Dean,” Seamus chipped in happily. “I don’t know how to break it to you, mate, but she said that to make you feel better about last year’s O.W.L.s.”

Dean scowled back at his friend and pointed a porridge smeared spoon in his direction, “You’re the one who basically begged Neville to tutor you. That’s the only reason you even passed Herbology.”

“And I’d do it again, Seamus!” Neville called from his seat across from Harry.

The table snorted as Seamus slumped in his seat.

“Whatever,” he mumbled.

Hermione bumped her elbow against his.

“Cheer up, Seamus. I helped Ron with his lab work last year and he still barely managed to pass,” she whispered theatrically.

Ron’s head swung to her in betrayal mid-story, and the table erupted at his cartoonish fish mouthing.

Hermione hid a yawn behind her hand again, and blocked out Seamus’ heckling towards Ron as she thought about last night.

Again.

Nothing in the contents nor index of every book she had brought out that even vaguely hinted towards the idea of a wing-sprouting curse remotely resembled what seemed to be growing from Malfoy’s back.

It seemed entirely impossible. And yet…

She glanced from under her lashes towards the Slytherin table.

Malfoy was replicating her again, chin in hand as he ate and listened to whatever Parkinson was muttering to him and Zabini.

She took another sip of coffee and stared at Malfoy, taking full advantage of his distraction while he seemed occupied.

Firstly, he didn’t want to say who had cast this curse. Which, and she supposed this was her second point, meant he also didn’t want to tell her why.

Thirdly, she had no idea why she was bothering herself to care so much.

That thought ticked over into the front of her mind.

Surface level, she knew it was because this was a new frontier. She’d never seen this, never even read on it. And heaven knows she has at least read over most mythical ailments and curses.

Deeper, she knew the real reason. This was the perfect distraction.

Since thinking about this feathered problem, she’d barely given her mind time to take stock of what had happened last year. She never itched.

Well…

She itched minimally. The fog dissipated. She had a fast track into ignorance because finally she had something bigger to think on than Mr Weasley. On Sirius.

On Voldemort.

Her gaze was still trained over on the Slytherin table as she itched her neck absentmindedly.

“You won’t find me over there, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Hermione jolted and coffee splashed down her wrist and onto her arm.

The table went quiet as she turned to see Theodore Nott gazing down at her, hands in his robe pockets.

“What on Earth are you doing here, Nott?” Harry called from down the table.

“Is this some kind of Slytherin twist on SPEW she’s got going on or summat?” Ron muttered, dropping his bacon sandwich.

Nott cast a brief glance in Harry’s direction, slowly looking down the table at each of Hermione’s friends before resting on her again.

“Granger and I left quite the mess in the library last night,” he said eventually after a short pause, and waited another two beats as that sentence rested in front of them all. “Late night studying, you see. I came to ask for a…helping hand, if she’s available tonight.”

Hermione’s mouth dropped open and Harry spluttered a loud cough.

Ginny’s hand flew to cover her mouth and her eyes bugged comically at her friend.

Nott smiled conspiratorially at Hermione, as if she was in on this.

“I-I-“

“Same place, same time?” he continued easily, and bowed forward to reach in front and grab the remnants of her coffee.

He paused right before he took a swill, using the cover of the cup to speak lowly and directly into her ear, “I’ve seen them too.”

Her back stiffened and she impulsively shot a glance towards Malfoy.

He, along with the rest of his inner circle, were burning holes into the pair of them as Nott straightened and put the coffee back into her frozen hands.

She turned, still slack-jawed, towards him. An eyebrow was quirked at her.

“Yeah…yeah. Yeah, I’ll give you a… hand. Wait,” she shook her head and pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut and removing her fingers to flap them about. “Wait, wait. Not like that. I meant-“

She opened her eyes to his retreating back towards the hall’s doors, and then lowered them to the saucepan eyes of her friends.

Ron and Ginny broke the silence simultaneously.

“What the fuck?”

Chapter Text

Hermione’s reflection didn’t look like her. Not quite.

The bathroom was dim and chill, candlelight flickering against old stone, and the mirror above the sink was cracked in the corner. Maybe that was it. Or maybe it was the way her eyes looked too dark, ringed with shadows that hadn’t been there a week ago. Or the way her hand trembled where it gripped the cold porcelain, though she hadn’t felt it move.

She splashed another handful of water over her face, watching the ripples distort her reflection into something she barely recognised.

Get it together, Granger.

It wasn’t the curse. Not her curse, anyway. Not yet. But the fog was back - thick behind her eyes, pressing against her ribs, making her skin itch with the prickling sense of being watched even when she was alone.

Hermione wiped her hands on her robes and forced herself upright. She didn’t have time for this. Not for mirrors, or for whatever phantom things they might show her.

If Theodore Nott wanted to play games, then fine. She was done waiting. He clearly knew something, maybe something she didn’t.

She couldn’t tell if this was an olive branch. Or if she was being stupid.

Maybe both.

“What does he want? What was a mess?” Ron’s echoing voice bounced around her mind.

She’d caught Ginny’s questioning eyes, Harry’s raised eyebrows, and she’d stood abruptly from the table.

Vaguely, stuttering about Arithmacy starting in twenty minutes, she’d locked herself alone in the girls bathroom.

She knew later she’d need to deal with…what had happened.

Whatever it was.

She gripped the sink tighter and lowered her head towards the running taps, closing her eyes briefly before shutting them off and standing to survey herself.

Godrick.

How had she found herself here. This wasn’t her mess.

She knew she’d set off late to her lesson without checking the time.

The classroom was half-full when she slipped in, Vector already scrawling complex runes across the board.

“You’re late, Miss Granger,” she said without looking. “Take your seat. 5 points will be taken from Gryffindor.”

She didn’t argue, and instead scanned the room briefly, her stomach swooping slightly when she scanned the room and found only one empty seat.

Next to him.

Of course, she thought hotly, crossing the classroom.

And if she stamped her feet slightly that was were business and hers alone. 

Malfoy sat half-slouched in his chair, chin propped on his hand, eyes distant. He didn’t look up as she crossed the room, but she felt the flicker of his attention, the way his fingers stilled on the desk as she dropped into the seat beside him.

She kept her gaze forward, reaching for her parchment.

“You’re late,” he said. It would’ve been almost conversational if not for the edge of a sneer. 

Hermione didn’t look at him. “Is that your biggest concern right now?”

A pause. The scratch of Vector’s chalk on the board filled the silence.

“It’s just funny, Granger,” Malfoy murmured, tapping his quill absently against the desk. “I thought you were allergic to breaking rules.”

Hermione clenched her jaw. “Well, I’m sure you’re keeping excellent track.”

Another pause. She risked a glance out of the corner of her eye.

He wasn’t smirking. Wasn’t sneering. If anything, he looked tired. Pale. The dark smudges under his eyes were worse than the night before, and his hand trembled slightly as it traced the spine of his quill.

He wasn’t doing well.

“I heard Nott’s looking for you,” he said at last, voice low. Careful.

Hermione’s thought process stuttered. She forced herself to keep her face neutral and eyes forward.

“Do you eavesdrop on all your friends’ conversations?” she asked coolly.

His mouth twitched and he smiled blandly.

“I’d say my circumstances warrant some level of surveillance. Wouldn’t you?”

There was a lull in the conversation. 

“I don’t care what you do, Granger,” he said eventually, though it sounded less like a dismissal and more like a warning he didn’t want to give. “But don’t be stupid about it.”

The words settled between them like a stone. Neither of them looked at the other.

Hermione didn’t reply. She picked up her quill and forced her attention to the page, but the numbers swam and blurred. And out of the corner of her eye, she could still feel him watching.

Professor Vector didn’t look away from the board as she spoke, runes still blooming under her chalk.

“Today we’re building predictive spell matrices - compound sequences that measure magical interference across time.”

Her voice cut through the classroom like a scalpel. “Each pair will construct a three-point Arithmantic model using the variables on the board: spell class, intent, and magical ancestry.”

She turned, finally glancing over the class, eyes sharp. “You’ll work in partners. And since some of you seem to have already chosen seats based on fate - or poor impulse control - congratulations, you’re stuck with whoever’s beside you.”

Hermione stared straight ahead. Malfoy didn’t move, but she felt the curl of tension in the air.

“Your models should account for the ripple effects of unstable variables - corrupted cores, splintered intent, familial magical debt. Anything that might warp the outcome of a spell days or weeks later.”

A beat.

“This is not theoretical. The Ministry has cited twenty-three cases in the last decade where incorrect Arithmantic forecasting led to lethal spell backlash.”

She folded her hands, satisfied.

“If your model explodes, at least do it quietly.”

Hermione reached for her parchment. “I’ll start with the core classification table, and you-”

“No,” Malfoy interrupted. His jaw ticked and he folded his arms. “You’ll get it wrong.”

She turned, slowly.

”Wrong?”

He added, “You seem like the kind of witch who  always forgets to account for emotional intent. That’s why your models last year fractured past the second variable.”

Hermione’s smile was tight and sharp. “And you always overcorrect for blood magic, like a pureblood complex you can’t shake.”

“Touché,” he muttered, and dipped his quill, rolling his eyes slightly as he bent over his parchment.

The classroom quieted again, filled only with the steady scratch of ink and the occasional sigh of frustration from another pair. Hermione focused on the variables, noting with reluctant irritation that Malfoy’s suggested pattern had stabilised her own projection.

For now.

Forty minutes passed in heavy, prickling silence, broken only by the swish of Vector’s robes as she patrolled between desks. Hermione kept her head down, though she felt Malfoy’s gaze flick toward her more than once.

At the front, Vector cleared her throat.

“Your base matrices will be due next Friday,” she said, “but this project will continue over the next four weeks.”

Hermione’s quill stilled.

“Each pair will submit a weekly progression - expanding on ripple effects, tracking variable volatility, and forecasting long-range spell impact. Final submissions will be presented together. Graded as a unit.”

A groan echoed from somewhere near the back. Hermione stared at the board. Four weeks.

“If you and your partner can’t cooperate,” Vector added dryly, “you’ll fail together. A valuable lesson, I’d argue.”

She waved her wand, and the runes erased themselves in one elegant sweep. “You’re dismissed.”

Hermione didn’t move immediately. She packed her things with careful precision, keeping her expression neutral.

Malfoy remained seated. His voice came low, barely above the hum of students filing out.

“Four weeks, Granger. I’m touched.”

“Don’t be,” she said without looking up. “I’d poison myself before I let you drag down my grade.”

“Bold of you to assume I’ll be the problem.” A silence. “Though I suppose Nott can’t tutor you through this one.”

That gave her pause. She looked at him fully now - and saw it, just beneath the surface. Not smugness. Not gloating.

Irritation. Tight in his shoulders. A slight twitch at the corner of his jaw.

“You’re awfully interested in my conversations,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m interested in who you trust with your time.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“It is when I’m stuck working with you. And with all…this,” he snapped, too fast. He waved his hand dismissively.

Hermione slung her satchel over her shoulder and stepped out from behind the desk. “If you’re trying to warn me, Malfoy, maybe start by telling the truth yourself. Maybe then I wouldn’t be going looking.”

That hit. He didn’t respond, didn’t rise to follow. She left him there - jaw tight, eyes unreadable - and stepped into the corridor, already feeling the itch behind her neck begin to stir again.

-

She didn’t know why she came. Or rather, she did. She just didn’t like the reason.

The shelves were still. The last of the daylight had gone grey at the high windows. A single candelabra hovered near the Arithmancy section, too perfect to be accidental.

She turned the corner. He was already waiting.

“You’re late,” Theo said, barely glancing up from the book spread in front of him.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “You didn’t give me a time.”

“Still managed to be late to it.”

She dropped into the seat across from him with more force than necessary. He didn’t flinch. 

His dark eyes remained trained on the book.

“You’ve been following me,” she said.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he replied. “I’ve been observing. There’s a difference.”

She crossed her arms. “Observing what?”

He closed the book with a slow, deliberate snap. “Let’s call it… your poor taste in partners.”

“If this is about the Arithmancy project-”

“Granger,” he interrupted, tone dry, “if it were just about runes and calculations, I wouldn’t bother wasting my evening watching you flirt with a corpse.”

Her jaw tightened. “Is there a point to this, or do you just enjoy hearing yourself talk?”

“The point is,” he said, leaning forward, elbows on the table, “you’re in over your head. And you keep pretending you’re not.”

“You know nothing about what I’m dealing with.”

“Maybe not,” Theo admitted, then tilted his head. “But I think we both know now that you’re a student that’s also failed to report a curse cast on a fellow pupil. What kind of reprimand do you think you’d get? Do you think you’d even be allowed that before expulsion?”

That stunned her into silence. For a beat.

”I’m trying to help.”

”Does Draco know that you are? Or are you sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong?”

“Why do you care?” she said finally.

“I don’t.” His smile was razor-thin. “Not about you, anyway.”

“You’re a prick.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But I’m a well-informed one.”

He pulled something from the inside of his robe, a folded scrap of parchment, crumpled but not torn, and tossed it onto the table between them.

Hermione stared at it. “What is this?”

“A title,” Theo said. “One I don’t think our charming friend wants you knowing.”

“You act as if you don’t like Malfoy.”

“I like him,” Theo countered, “I just don’t like how he won’t accept any help on account of his…prejudices. And I hate what’s going on with him.” 

He looked away from her, hand still outstretched, and she realised for the first time that he cared for Malfoy. And that he’d noticed the dark circles, the blood, the shaking too. 

She reached for the parchment. He caught her wrist - not hard, just enough to make her look up.

“You should be careful opening this, Granger,” he said quietly. “That’s the only smart thing you’ll do all week.”

“Noted,” she said flatly, and yanked her hand back.

But it wasn’t a name. Not a confession. Just a title, scrawled in ink: The Seraphim Sequence.

She frowned.

“Never heard of it,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

Theo leaned back in his chair, arms folding loosely across his chest. “I’d be shocked if you had. The Ministry had it pulled from shelves decades ago. Messy history. Obsessive author. Wing fixation.”

Her eyes snapped up. “Wing-“

“It’s nothing concrete,” he said quickly. “Just theory. Symbolism. Magical exaggeration, mostly.”

“But relevant.”

“That depends what you’re looking for.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “Where did you find it?”

“I didn’t. Not originally,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s in safe keeping now.”

She waited. He didn’t elaborate.

“Are you offering to show me?”

“I’m offering to give you a leg up here, Granger.” He tapped a finger against the side of the table. “Let’s call it a test. You find it. You read it. You decide what’s real.”

“And what’s the test?”

He smiled - all teeth, no kindness. “Whether you keep pretending you’re just curious. Or admit you’re already in too deep.”

Hermione stared at him, heartbeat loud in her ears.

“You’re exhausting,” she muttered, standing.

“Get back to me, Granger,” he called after her retreating back. 

She didn’t turn around.

Chapter Text

Ginny was balancing a piece of toast on the edge of her spoon.

It wobbled dramatically as she angled her hand beneath it, like she was daring gravity to betray her. Hermione slid into the seat beside her with a tight-lipped nod and the kind of stiff posture that meant she hadn’t - or, at least, not well.

“You’re late,” Ginny said, still watching the spoon. “Weird of you.”

“I’m not late.”

“You’re not early.” Ginny let the toast clatter back to her plate and reached for the marmalade. “Want some of this?” She gestured vaguely toward the congealing remains of porridge, toast, and half a hard-boiled egg that had a questionable green sheen. “Last of the feast.”

“I’ll just have tea.”

“You’ve said that three mornings in a row now.”

Hermione didn’t answer. She poured her tea carefully, fingers tighter on the handle than they needed to be. She stared at the steam rising from the cup and let it curl, slow and silver, into the air between them.

Around them, the hall moved with its usual rhythm. Ron was deep in a Quidditch debate with Dean, waving a jam-covered knife in what was probably meant to be a strategic diagram. Seamus had already charmed his spoon to do flips. Neville was pretending not to see it. Harry was watching his eggs like they were something he couldn’t remember ordering.

Nothing unusual. Nothing dangerous. Just a normal morning.

So why did her skin feel too tight?

“Did you finish that Arithmancy chart?” Ginny asked, sipping her own tea with a wince. “Ugh. Bitter.”

Hermione nodded. “Yeah. Mostly.”

“‘Mostly’ meaning…?”

“I just want to double-check one of the ratio calculations. The negative volatility spread might not stabilize on the third axis.”

Ginny hummed. “So just your normal levels of obsessive.”

“Exactly.”

“I told Dean you’d let me copy yours if I got him to stop talking about his haunted glove.”

Hermione blinked. “His what?”

“The glove. The one that smokes when it rains? He swears it’s possessed. Could be cursed. I dunno.”

“Lovely.”

“So you might be haunted now. Just saying.”

Hermione smiled - small, tight. But it faded almost as soon as it formed.

The itch between her shoulder blades came back. Not like the fog. Not that same creeping dread that curled around her spine in the quiet. Just… something electric. A fizz of attention. The unmistakable pressure of magic that wasn’t hers brushing through the air.

She looked up - just casually. Just to check.

Her gaze skimmed the Slytherin table instinctively.

And there he was.

Draco Malfoy sat stiffly between Nott and Zabini, one hand curled around a cup, the other pressed flat on the table as if grounding himself.

He was angled slightly away from the others. His posture was tight, too straight, like someone holding their breath for too long.

And then -

It rippled.

She saw it.

The glamour charm around his shoulder flickered. Just for a second. Barely enough to catch, unless you were looking for it. Unless you knew what to look for.

A shimmer of air distortion. The briefest flash of blood-soaked linen, a pale curve of something too unnatural to be muscle or bone. Feathered.

Wrong.

It was gone in a blink. He shifted, clenched his jaw, and took a drink like nothing had happened.

No one else noticed. Zabini kept talking. Pansy was laughing at something down the bench, dark hair around her face. Even Theo looked unaffected. Or, Hermione realised, maybe just indifferent.

But she’d seen it.

The charm had slipped. Already.

Hermione reached for her wand beneath the table. She didn’t draw it. Just let her fingers rest there, where the holster pressed warm against her thigh. It grounded her - not just in preparation, but in purpose.

He was losing control.

“Cold?” Ginny asked, glancing over just as Hermione shifted.

Hermione shook her head. “No. Just thinking.”

“You looked like you were reaching for your wand.”

“I-wasn’t. Just… habit.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow but didn’t question it. “Weird habit.”

Hermione didn’t answer. She picked up her tea again and took a slow sip, but it was lukewarm now.

-

The classroom had already quieted into that particular hush Vector’s presence inspired when the door creaked open.

Draco stepped through the doorway slowly. He wasn’t late enough to be disruptive, but just enough to earn a glance from the front. He didn’t meet Vector’s eyes, or anyone else’s.

His robes hung loose. His sleeves were wrinkled. His pinched, narrow face looked like it hadn’t seen sleep in days.

This was probably the most pitiful she’d seen him since she started Hogwarts.

As he passed through the narrow band of morning light near the windows, opting to take the long route around to try to avoid as much of Vector’s wrath as possible, it happened again.

A shimmer of magic, a fracture along his left shoulder. The air around him warped.

His glamour charm splintered open again like glass under pressure.

Hermione saw everything in an instant.

Blood, blooming through his crisp white shirt.

Feathers — not clean or white or beautiful, but dark around the edges, streaked in red, twisted as if trying to grow out of too-small skin.

The edge of bone. Something wrong, rising beneath.

She didn’t hesitate.

“Obvolvo,” she whispered, wand angled just barely above her thigh.

A concealment charm. Basic, but fast.

A thin thread of silver magic laced through the air between them. The glamour snapped back into place.

Hermione exhaled as it sealed over him again - just in time for him to reach his row behind her and slide smoothly in beside Blaise.

She turned her head slightly, and regretted it instantly.

Two hot, piercing eyes stared back at her. His lip was curled in a small sneer, and his fingers seemed to be gripping his quill so tightly it would break in his grasp.

Hermione nearly gasped at the venom in his gaze before she turned around and faced the front steadfast.

“Five points from Slytherin, Malfoy, for being late. An extra five for not apologising,” Vector said from the front, turning to face the class.

“Back to your partners, please,” she said. “Week two of a four-week matrix assignment. If you haven’t learned to tolerate each other by now, you’ll simply have to suffer in silence. If the task is too tough, I suggest you take on a less rigorous one. Divination may be calling to you.”

A few students snorted. Several chairs scraped as partners shifted to sit together again.

Hermione didn’t move.

“You should already have your decay base from last week,” Vector continued. “Now build the second tier, layering in variable instability factors and hex residue. This isn’t theoretical. It will be tested in your NEWTs, and I’m not interested in watching you struggle through basic numeric logic when the time comes.”

Her voice sharpened, just slightly.

“Submissions for this week’s section are due Friday. No extensions. If your partner’s absent - find someone competent.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then the classroom began to shuffle into motion.

She felt his presence loom over her. The seat was dragged out with, what she could’ve been imagining, was an overly prolonged screech.

His eyes swept over her face like knives as she kept her gaze on her parchment. Then to her hand. It still too close to her wand. And then, finally, he dropped into the seat beside her without a word.

But under his breath, low and furious, just enough for her to hear -

“I don’t need help from a fucking Mudblood.”

She didn’t flinch. Not outwardly.

He sat stiffly, keeping an inch of space between his body and the desk, like even the act of resting his weight might break something open. His hands rested on his thighs, fingers flexing.

She watched him from the edge of her vision.

When he finally did speak again - ten minutes into Vector’s lecture, face still pale and jaw tight - his voice was quiet and cold.

“You had that charm ready.”

Hermione kept her eyes on the numbers forming on the board.

“I was prepared.”

“You were waiting for me to fail.”

There was no mistaking the venom in his tone now.

“I was waiting for you to bleed out in front of everyone,” she said evenly. “Almost like this morning. And after the year I’ve had, I’d prefer not to watch that happen.”

He exhaled sharply through his nose, like the words offended him on a cellular level.

“You think you know what this is.”

“I don’t.”

“Exactly.”

He shifted in his chair, the movement slight but strained - like something beneath his skin pulled tight. He reached for the inkwell with a hand that didn’t quite stop shaking.

She didn’t offer again.

But she saw it. The tremor. The sweat at his temple. The way he clenched his teeth against something he wouldn’t name.

And though he didn’t say it - not then, not aloud -she knew what it meant.

He was getting worse.

-

There was a certain beauty to the castle at night. Silently, Hermione pushed the tome she had been using back into its home and flicked her wrist to extinguish her candle. She gave a small smile to Parvati as she stood and packed her translations of her proto-Celtic runes into her bag.

“Any luck?” she whispered across to her classmate.

Parvati ran a hand through her hair and rubbed her eyes tiredly, “I don’t know why I chose Old Norse. This is impossible to convert into standard English,” she groaned.

Hermione gave her a sympathetic look, “Why not swap to Celtic? It’s much more simple, really.”

Her friend took a large gulp of coffee and shook her head.

“I’m halfway through. I give up now and I’ve wasted a whole afternoon and evening, and about five feet of parchment,” she dropped her quill and squinted at the clock across from them both. “You done?”

“For tonight. I’ll be in here tomorrow evening, though, if you will.”

“Too right. And the evening after that, and the evening after that, and the evening after that you’ll see me walking head first into the Black Lake.”

Hermione snorted and tugged her bag over her shoulder, “I’ll keep you in my thoughts. Don’t stay up too long.”

Hermione sighed herself as she began the long crawl up to her dormitories.

Her footsteps echoed softly on the worn stones as she made her way back from the library, bag heavier than usual with folded parchment, half-read texts, and three (technically unauthorised but extremely helpful) Rune textbooks hidden beneath a Transfiguration manual.

Just because Hermione Granger left the library didn’t mean the library left Hermione Granger.

She imagined a long night of revising and studying ahead of her if she wanted to keep on top of things this year.

And if she wanted to free up any extra time to look into the restricted tome mentioned by Nott.

No, Granger, she thought to herself. Not after today. Not after you saved his ass again to be called a filthy Mudblood. He nearly killed you.

The candle in her hand flickered as she turned past the tapestry of the Three Laughing Witches.

She didn’t know why this part of the castle always felt different. Maybe it was the way the stone grew darker here, or the fact that no matter how many torches were lit, the shadows always lingered just a little too long.

She continued her thoughts absently as she climbed. This year was hers. Hers and her friends. She wanted to swamp herself in her NEWTs revision, she wanted to hear Ginny update her on her boy drama. She wanted to go and watch Harry and Ron play Quidditch, if not a little half-heartedly. She wanted to go to Hogsmeade, eat her way through a mountain of chocolate, and to enjoy her year. To not surround herself with secretive Slytherins and thoughts of curses.

To not think about…last year.

Her neck itched.

She turned the corner near the astronomy stairwell - and stopped abruptly.

There was light ahead. Faint and flickering, slipping beneath the cracked door to the long-abandoned observatory chamber.

She paused. Listened.

Breathing. No. Panting.

Hermione edged closer, wandlight lowered. She didn’t mean to stop. Didn’t mean to look.

But she did.

And there he was.

Malfoy was on the floor, one hand braced against the wall, the other twisted into the front of his shirt like he could physically hold himself together. His wand had rolled several feet away. His knees were drawn up, spine arched as if it hurt to lie flat.

He was shaking.

The Glamour was gone completely.

Feathers pushed through the skin of his back, bloodied and pale, some bent at strange angles. One was cracked straight down the middle, twitching as if it didn’t know what it was supposed to be.

He let out a quiet, strangled sound, half-swallowed in the back of his throat. His eyes were squeezed shut.

She stepped into the doorway.

“Don’t,” he gasped without opening his eyes. “Get the fuck out.”

Her throat was dry.

“You’re not in your dormitory.”

He coughed, dry and bitter. “Fucking Granger. Is there anywhere safe from your nosing.” It didn’t come out like a question, his voice was to strained.

“You’re hiding.”

“Can I not just love sleeping on cold stone floors with a view of nothing.”

He opened his eyes finally. They were glassy and rimmed with red.

“What do you want now, Granger? Come to clock more data points on the slow descent of a pathetic Slytherin?”

“I didn’t come looking for you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“The library.”

She meant to leave it there. She really did.

But he shifted slightly, and the movement made him flinch - sharp, involuntary. Blood soaked through the back of his shirt where the feathers had torn through again. His breath caught like it hurt just to inhale.

She moved closer.

“Don’t-“ he said again, softer now, but still sharp. “Just fuck off, Granger. I swear, if you cast anything on me-“

“I’m not healing you,” she said. “I’m making it stop hurting long enough for you to breathe.”

“Same difference.”

“Not really.”

She knelt, ignoring the way he tensed and spat some choice insults at her under his breath, and drew a stabilising sigil over his shoulder - not strong magic, not invasive, just enough to dull the worst edges of the pain. He tried to twist away, but he didn’t have the strength.

His breathing eased slightly. Not a lot. But enough.

He swallows some air greedily, and turned his pale, furious gaze back onto her.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because you’re going to die on the floor otherwise. And it’ll make a mess.”

“You don’t even like me.”

“That hasn’t stopped you from being in my classes for six years.”

He barked a laugh - cracked and exhausted.

He didn’t thank her. But he didn’t tell her to leave again either.

She let the magic settle, then rose, brushing the dust from her hands. She kicked his wand across so it bounced against his ankle, back within reach.

“You’re not going to ask for help, are you?” Hermione asked plainly.

“No.”

“From me, or from anyone?”

Malfoy scoffed, his head lolling on the wall. The feathers from his back shuddered as he coughed again.

“You’re here every night?”

“I can’t trust the Glamour to last in the dorms,” he said as if that answered her question. She supposed it did.

She looked at him, his weakened magic, and then at the ease of access to the room he resided in.

Hermione Granger then recast the Glamour, bent before he could complain, and dragged her bully of six years to his feet to take him to the Room of Requirement under the cover of darkness.

Chapter Text

The Room opened without prompting.

It appeared like a held breath. They stood for one long pause in the stone corridor before a door materialised, thick wood and brass hinges and a soft hum of magic that pulsed beneath Hermione’s fingertips when she reached for the handle. Malfoy didn’t speak behind her. Didn’t try to pull away. She could feel his body heat like an echo. He was shivering, his weight heavy against her side.

He’d lost the edge that made Malfoy…well, Malfoy.

The door creaked open, and inside it was quiet.

Not the hollow, echoing quiet of a forgotten classroom, but a padded, intentional stillness. As though the Room itself had exhaled.

Hermione stepped inside first.

It was not what she expected.

There was no sterile infirmary. No glittering shelves of spellbooks. No diagnostic crystals floating above a healer’s bench.

Instead, the Room had softened its edges.

A low hearth burned at one end, its flames banked and golden. An overstuffed armchair sat beside a cot layered with folded blankets. A weathered mirror leaned against one stone wall. A basin of warm water shimmered beside it, flanked by towels, a stack of salves, and one old, dust-coloured tome left open to a page on “unclassified magical mutations.”

She swallowed.

The Room hadn’t answered his needs.

It had answered hers.

Beside her, Malfoy made a rough sound in his throat and stepped in, eyes lidded. The door sealed shut without a sound.

Hermione didn’t speak.

She turned slowly, taking him in under the flickering light.

His face was waxy-pale. Blood clung in half-dried streaks down his arms, across the frayed hem of his shirt. The glamour had recast but not well - his shoulder trembled again, briefly exposing the violent swell of red and dark-veined feather. He looked like a ghost wearing his own skin.

He wavered on his feet.

“Sit,” she said, firm and with no room for argument.

He didn’t even try to retort.

He dropped onto the edge of the cot like his knees had finally buckled. The mattress barely dipped. Her wand low, she transformed a potted plant into a cool glass of water and floated it in front of him for his shaking hands to grasp at.

She eyed him cautiously as he greedily swallowed.

Really, she’d done her good deed of the day. More than. She should really be leaving and closing the door behind her. 

The damp collar of his shirt clung to where his hair had began to get stringy from lack of care and sweat, and he dropped the empty glass on the bedding beside him as he leaned forward and combed his fingers into the bedraggled mess, elbows on knees.

Hermione crossed the room, picked up the basin and brought it to his side, and began rolling up her sleeves.

“This’ll sting,” she murmured.

He opened one eye, “What are you doing?”

”I’m cleaning the wound.”

Malfoy let out something between a drained scoff and a breathless laugh. “No you’re not.”

She didn’t answer. She dipped a cloth into the basin and wrung it out carefully.

”Granger, leave it. I’m here, I’ll cast a Scourgify. For the love of-“

When she moved to his back, he flinched.

“Do you think a Scourgify gets rid of the bacteria?” she snapped. Her neck felt hot in frustration, or maybe embarrassment at having to explain why she was helping. “Do you think that wizards don’t get sepsis? Infections?”

“Stop saying words I don’t know to make yourself feel more clever than I am,” he sneered back at her.

“If the curse doesn’t kill you, the germs setting inside of it clearly will.”

He was quiet, head hung again.

“Be still.”

Malfoy didn’t move.

She peeled the shirt away slowly, inch by inch, revealing torn skin and trembling feathers, matted and soaked in dull red. Where the wings joined his back, the skin was split like overstretched seams. Dark tendrils pulsed outward from the wound in fractal patterns, twitching beneath his skin. Like roots. Like veins. Like rot.

Hermione pressed her lips together.

She began to clean them.

Each motion was precise, efficient, slow. She dabbed at the blood. She cast gentle cleansing charms when the cloth couldn’t reach deep enough through the feathers, figuring that as long as the wound was clear of dirt, the feathers wouldn’t matter so much.

Draco sat rigid beneath her hands, but he didn’t stop her.

He clearly hadn’t through of the risk of infection. Some parts of the wound seemed yellow, clearly filled with bacteria. Absently, she thought this could be the reason he was so sickly, if not for the curse itself.

After a while, she reached for the salve - thick and golden and faintly humming - and spread it across the worst of the cracked tissue. The wings trembled. She paused.

Malfoy took a shaky inhale.

“Are you alright?” she asked to his hunched, tense shoulders. “Is this stinging?”

He was quiet for two beats before a quiet, “No,” was given to her as a response.

She spread the salve slightly further, onto the few feathers nearest the infected site.

More shaky inhalations, and Hermione noted briefly that his fingers had curled into vices around the bedsheets.

Clearly, and fairly so, he was in pain, she thought.

“You should have gone to Madam Pomfrey.”

“And explained my part-Thestral situation? Yeah, fat load of good that would’ve done me,” Malfoy responded tightly, and shuffled further away from her so her hands fell uselessly to her lap. “Are we done here?”

“Are you going to explain what’s going on?”

Hermione stood and wiped her hands on the sheets. He deserved it.

Malfoy turned to her and met her gaze coolly. He rotated his shoulder as if stretching, and then cracked his neck side to side. Maybe it was her imagination, or her ego, but she thought he looked as though he had slightly more colour in his cheeks.

He looked her over once and turned to face the fire dismissively.

Apparently, her question didn’t warrant a response.

She clenched her jaw and shoved the balm on the side, dipping her hands in the basin to clean them of any residue and standing abruptly.

The anger she’d felt over the last few days bubbled. She was sick of him, of Nott, of fucking Slytherins ignoring her requests and taking advantage of her silence and help.

Hermione’s eyes flashes as she raised her wand and, muttering ss quietly as she could muster in her furious hiss, flicked it at his winged back.

” Revelare Corporis.”

Reveal the body. An in depth diagnostic spell.

Her wand cracked against the mantelpiece of the fire as Malfoy wordlessly sent it flying, and she had a keen sense of deja vu as he crowded against her space again, hand reaching to grab the top of her shoulder painfully as furious eyes met hers.

“Don’t you ever, fucking ever, do that to me. Do you understand?” His hand shook her shoulder once. She lifted her chin at him and felt the insane urge to spit at him. “I’m not your fucking research project.”

“Maybe you should be. Clearly you can’t manage to even clean a wound like that by yourself,” she furiously spat back. She jerked her arm from his grip and pointed her finger right between his eyes. “You have threatened my life. You have accepted my help. And you lay your hands on me after I give it.”

Her finger shook in front of his face with anger. His gaze moved between it and her face.

Neither of them said a word, the fire crackling in the corner, blissfully unaware.

“Go to hell, Malfoy.”

With that, Hermione left, slamming the door loudly behind her.

-

Harry bumped her shoulder again and she blinked blearily ahead.

“That’s the second time, ‘Mione,” he said quietly, though a small smile played on his lips. “If you manage to nearly nod off a third time, I’m taking that as a sign to ban you from the library.”

“You can’t do that,” she said between a yawn, and fisted her eyes as she squinted at what she’d missed this Transfigurations lesson from the scrawling writing on the board.

“I’m the Chosen One. I can do anything,” he smiled cheekily at her as she shoved her fist into his thigh with a quiet snort.

Hermione blinked a few times again and dutifully began writing notes down, shaking herself internally. This wasn’t like her, the brightest witch of her age.

She needed to get a grip.

The lesson seemed to pass in a blur of note scrawling and Harry’s restless fidgeting to be out of class and into the first Quidditch practice of the season. Not that there was much of the lesson left, what with her on-again-off-again snoozing.

By the end of it, she was nearly ready to conjure her quill into a pint of coffee just to survive the final two minutes of the lesson before they were, thankfully, dismissed.

“…and it’s gonna be a great first game, ‘Mione, you’ve got to come. Ginny’s finally taking the role of…”

Harry’s chattering floated in and out of Hermione’s train of thought as the two left the class, her feet trailing heavily as another night of barely any sleep fogged her mind and clouded her vision.

The only thing that snapped her to attention was what was, under any other circumstances, completely random and unintended.

Hermione cut Harry off briskly, “Look, I’ve got to go to the library, yeah? I’ll…I’ll be there for the first game, of course I will. Just…just need to run off.”

Harry had paused mid-sentence and was eyeing her strangely.

“Are you alright?” he said, and he said it quiet seriously.

Oh no, she thought. He thinks she’s getting bad again.

“I’m alright, Harry,” she said, and winced a little. “I’m just…adjusting.”

His face took on a look of acknowledgment and understanding, and she felt a sickly swirling in her stomach at lying, once again, to her best friend.

“Yeah. I get it, Hermione. I do,” he reached out a friendly hand and squeezed her shoulder, eyebrows clearing from their frown into a look of sympathy. “I get it.”

With one last squeeze, he turned, “You’ll tell me if you need me, yeah?”

“Of course,” she said quietly, and he smiled again.

Her stomach flipped.

Watching him retreat for a few seconds, she turned again and cast a glance either side of the corridor before reaching down and taking the pure white feather from its resting place on the corner of the corridor.

A small, brown-tinged splatter of day old blood was at the corner of it.

The only revealing piece of information as to whose it was.

She stared at it a moment longer and then, so quietly nobody would have been able to hear unless they were stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her, she whispered, “Revelio.”

A small, ivory tag attached to the spine of the feather by a green string dangled in the light breeze.

“I hope this aids your studies and opinion of me. Meet me tonight. M.”

Chapter Text

“It’s getting worse.”

“What is?” Theo asks blandly, and doesn’t raise his gaze from where he idly turns the page of his book.

Hermione looms over him with her hands on her hips.

“It’s been three days. It’s gotten worse in three days.”

“It’s been a lot longer than three days,” he says, and scratches his jaw absently before resting his chin back in his palm.

Hermione smacks her hand in the middle of the page he’s about to turn again.

He pauses.

“Careful, Granger. If you rip a page you might end up reporting yourself to the Ministry, or whatever self-flagellation you’d take it upon yourself to do for ruining a book this old.”

She bends down and hisses between her teeth, “What is The Seraphim Sequence, Nott?”

At this, he whips his flashing eyes around the section of the library he’s made a study hole in for his free period.

She, on the other hand, has about 20 minutes until she needs to make her way to her next class.

Theo gestures vaguely to the empty seat next to him and she slides in, elbows on the table.

“I told you to find it yourself.”

“You know it’s off-limits already. You can at least tell me where to begin.”

He leans back in his seat and regards her coolly. His blue eyes sweep from her toes to the tip of her head, and she tries not to squirm under his stare.

“You saw them again,” he says, leaning back, and it isn’t a question. “Pretty bad, huh?”

“What is happening? What is going on with this…this…”

“Winged conundrum? Feathered situation? Pinion problem?”

“This isn’t a joke, Nott.”

He scoffs.

“And I don’t know why you think it’s fair to play games while-“

It’s his turn for his hand to smack down on the table as he leans forward suddenly, crowding her personal space, as he sneers, “You think I don’t know how serious this is, Granger? You think I’m laughing it up?” His eyes penetrate hers furiously, his face contorted as he continues to hiss. “You’ve come into this situation blindly and forced your way into things you cannot begin to understand. Nosing in. Sticking your beak places it shouldn’t be.”

Hermione holds his eyes. Her hand grips the edge of the table as she also leans forward.

“What is the Seraphim Sequence? Where can I get it?” She pauses. “Does Malfoy know?”

Nott’s hand drops from where it had bracketed the back of her seat as he wipes a hand under his nose and shifts his weight. He breaks their gaze to look across blankly at the rows of books.

“He doesn’t know,” she breathes. “You have information on this, and he doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t need to know, Granger. And you can’t tell him. Look,” Nott turns in his seat again and meets her gaze. It’s cool, calculating. She finds she prefers this to the angry heat he’d given off moments before. “I’ve given you your lifeline, haven’t I? I’ve helped you out to help him out. He won’t ask, why would he?”

He turns back to facing the books, absently bending and straightening a page corner as he pauses.

“He won’t ask, so I am. And what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. I also think two heads are better than one. Don’t you?” Nott turns back and graces her with a charming smile.

Hermione is beginning to think she’s going to get whiplash.

“Why can’t you just tell me?” She finally asks. Her ankles fold beneath the table as she braces her elbows on the desk in front of them. “Why can’t you just tell me what you’ve read?”

“It’s complicated. And I don’t know if I’ve translated half of it right. I don’t even know if I have the original copy, the unedited version.”

“Try me.”

He studies her for a beat, his jaw working for a second.

“It’s just a theory from what I’ve translated. That’s all,” Nott begins. He’s talking with his gaze trained on her left shoulder. “Or it was, before it’s started proving itself.”

They’re both silent as a student shuffles behind them.

Hermione channels Ginny as she glares at the brunette child who swallows and suddenly decides that whatever book they need can clearly wait till the two are done speaking.

“The wings aren’t the…problem. They’re the side effect.”

“Of what? Of a curse?”

“Of transcendence. The Sequence…that isn’t a curse. It’s a ritual,” he’s murmuring quickly, quietly, arm returning to the back of her chair as his other hand waves between them as if to help explain. “Something’s been rewritten with a magic that was never meant for mortals, for human flesh. Draco is being…rewritten. Like a script.”

“A script?” Hermione’s brow furrows, and she glances up from his hand to where his face is centimetres from hers. “What do you mean, a ‘script’?”

He holds her gaze for a beat and then leans back, shrugging casually, the intensity gone from his posture.

“I don’t know. That’s all I’ve managed to get. If that’s even right.”

“You have this? The book?”

“My family’s library does. At home.”

“Can you get it for me?” She’s the one leaning towards him now, bent into his space. “You know it’s restricted everywhere else.”

He regards her quietly.

“You’re going to be late to class,” he says finally.

“Shoot,” Hermione hisses. Her chair scrapes loudly as she stands, feeling the heavy gaze of angry studying pupils at her back.

She begins to gather her robes from where she’d haphazardly thrown them on the table, picking her bag up off the floor to sling over her shoulder and turn to try and make her class within the allotted 5 minutes she has left to run halfway across the castle.

“And Granger?”

Hermione half turns, gripping the strap of her bag with her feet still pointing in the direction of the door.

Nott pauses, and then continues lowly, “The Sequence has an alternate title. It’s known in another tongue as Alatus Mors.”

“What does that mean?” she asks, turning to face him fully.

His tone is flat and he’s turned back to his book with a blank expression.

“The Winged Death.”

Chapter Text

She was nearly late.

The conversation with Theo had gone on longer than she’d planned, and the fog had already started scratching at her thoughts before she’d even left the library.

Now, as Hermione stood outside the History of Magic classroom, she had to take a second to catch her breath. The world had a slight blur to it - not dramatic, not painful, but like it was seen through water. Her fingers tingled faintly as she adjusted the strap of her bag.

Inside, the room was warm, crowded, and filled with the soft murmur of students not paying attention to anything Binns had yet to say. The ghost was late (not uncommon) and Ginny had saved her a seat near the back.

“Finally,” Ginny muttered, sliding her bag off the bench to make room. “Thought you’d decided you were above education.”

“I was studying,” Hermione said, trying to keep her tone light.

Seamus glanced over from across the table. “Studying more? What for? You already know everything.”

“Clearly not,” Hermione snapped, then caught herself and rubbed her temple. “Sorry. Just…tired.”

“You’ve been tired all week,” Ginny said, poking at her lips with the end of a Sugar Quill. “I’m starting to think you’re brewing Polyjuice again.”

“Or doing secret dueling lessons,” Seamus said brightly. “I bet you’re preparing to hex someone into oblivion.”

“Don’t worry, Seamus. She’s releasing stress another way. With Nott,” Ginny supplied casually, which made Hermione choke.

“I am not - !”

“I mean, you’re always together,” Seamus added, nodding. “It’s suspicious.”

“I’m not dating him. I’m…I’m interrogating him,” Hermione hissed under her breath.

“Ooh, interrogation kink,” Ginny whispered. “Now that makes sense.”

Hermione jabbed her own quill at her friend’s bicep, earning a laugh, but the pressure at the edge of her consciousness didn’t abate.

It was like being pressed against something she couldn’t see. Something just outside the walls.

And then Harry’s voice cut in from her opposite side, too calm for how sharp it felt: “You’re not sleeping, are you?”

She blinked. “What?”

“You look…worse than usual,” he said bluntly, eyes narrowing. “And I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just-“

“I’m fine,” she interrupted, too quickly.

Ginny gave her a sidelong glance.

Harry didn’t let it go. “Last time you looked like this, you stopped eating and ended up hexing Marietta Edgecombe for breathing too loud.”

“That was during OWLs,” she snapped.

“It was after the Department of Mysteries,” Harry said softly. “After Sirius.”

The air left her lungs in a quiet rush. She didn’t respond, because what was there to say?

Cedric. Sirius. Too many ghosts and too much guilt. The fog inside her was thicker now - familiar in a way that was almost comforting, if only because she knew it.

Grief wore many faces.

She dug her nails into her palm. “I’m not spiralling, Harry.”

He looked like he didn’t believe her.

The silence passed all the same.

-

They filed out together, Ginny talking about the upcoming match, Seamus making predictions for who would pass out during warm-ups.

Hermione nodded when prompted, made the right noises, smiled when it was expected. But by the time they got back to the dorms, her chest was tight with the need to move . To do something.

She faked a yawn, begged off under the excuse of being exhausted, and curled up on top of her covers until the others had drifted off.

Then, in the dark, she got up.

Her wand slipped easily into her sleeve. Her shoes didn’t make a sound. The corridors were shadows and cold stone and the scent of damp magic.

When she reached the stretch near the Room of Requirement, she didn’t need to walk the corridor three times. The door shimmered into place before she even asked.

He was already inside.

It was warmer this time. A fire flickered in a small hearth, and a low table had been conjured in the centre with two mismatched chairs on either side. Malfoy sat in one, elbow propped on the arm, head tilted like he’d been waiting long enough to consider not waiting at all.

He didn’t move when she stepped inside. Just sat there, still as stone, one ankle crossed over the other, wand dangling between his fingers like he might snap it clean in half if he squeezed hard enough.

“You’re late,” he said, without looking up.

She was getting sick of that line.

Hermione arched a brow. “Didn’t know I was expected.”

His gaze flicked toward her, sharp and glinting. “If you weren’t, the Room wouldn’t have opened for you.”

She ignored the implication. “Well, aren’t we cryptic tonight.”

He leaned back, one arm draped over the edge of the chair like he owned the bloody place. “Cryptic keeps me alive.”

Hermione dropped her bag with a decisive thud, then folded her arms. “I’d argue you’re barely alive. Look at you.”

“I’d rather not,” he said blandly, then, voice dripping nastily, “You’re free to gaze as much as you want, though. I know you’ve been dying for a second look.”

“You’re bleeding through your shirt.”

“You’re obsessed.”

“And you’re insufferable.”

His lip curled faintly. “It’s charming, really, how you think this matters. That poking around and scowling and getting your hands dirty will make a difference.”

She crossed the room, close enough to catch the faint, coppery scent of blood. His knuckles were white where he gripped the chair.

“You asked me to come. Remember? Or do those fancy wings block circulation to your memory?”

He didn’t flinch. Just gave her a slow, deliberate look, and then stood.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said, low and dangerous. “I asked for quiet. And a place to breathe. You decided to play Florence fucking Nightingale.”

“I’m not here to coddle you,” Hermione said coolly. “Believe me, if I were looking to waste time, you’d be last on my list.”

He stepped toward her once - not aggressive, just enough to test the air between them.

“And yet,” he snarked, “you keep coming back.”

Hermione’s hand twitched at her side, itching for her wand, her dignity, her common sense. Anything.

“Because you’re going to die,” she said bluntly.

He rolled his eyes. “Aren’t we all?”

“Not usually before their N.E.W.T.s,” she snapped.

Something in his mouth tightened at that. She watched him closely, saw the flicker - the moment he looked tired instead of cruel. It passed fast.

“Take off the glamour,” she said.

“No.”

“Take it off, or I’ll rip it off myself.”

“Oh, please do,” he sneered. “I’d love to see how you’d manage that without slicing something open.”

“I’m willing to risk it.”

He looked at her for a beat and then reached for his wand.

The glamour dissolved in a shimmer of air.

Hermione still wasn’t ready.

The wings were worse. The feathers, still streaked with blood, were matted and frayed, some curling unnaturally. The skin at the base was blackened, not from rot but from something deeper - like magic that had turned on itself. There were more ruptures, new bruising, and the stretch of the membrane beneath the feathers was taut, angry, raw.

“Merlin,” she breathed, then immediately bit the inside of her cheek.

Malfoy turned away.

“Save your saintly gasping, Granger,” he said. “You’ve seen worse.”

“Not like this.”

She conjured a small workbench behind her with a flick of her wand and began pulling out what she’d brought - powdered willowbark, tincture of clove, dried daisyroot, wolfsbane for inflammation, dragon scale for magical compatibility. He watched her like one might watch a volatile spell: silent, but tense.

“What is this?” he asked, not impressed.

“A healing salve,” she said shortly. “Customised.”

“For freaks?”

“For stubborn bastards who refuse to get actual help.”

He gave a cold laugh. “And here I thought you were too noble for name-calling.”

“I was. Then I met you.”

She ground the dried ingredients with more force than necessary, the mortar cracking slightly under her palm. Her magic pulsed through the paste as she added each component, coaxing them together into something thick and slow-burning. She murmured a stabilisation charm under her breath, then glanced over at him.

“Turn around.”

Malfoy didn’t move.

“Are you always this difficult,” she asked, “or is it just with me?”

He smirked without humour. “Only with people who play at being saviours. Don’t worry, Potter gets it too.”

“I’m not trying to save you, Malfoy,” she said. “I’m trying to keep you alive long enough to make you talk.”

“Charming.”

But he turned.

With his back to her, shirt discarded and shoulders hunched, he looked less like a boy and more like a battlefield. The wings shuddered with each breath, and the skin stretched thin between bone and muscle.

Hermione stepped close and dipped her fingers into the salve. The moment she touched his back, he jolted, just slightly, and she heard his breath hitch.

“I haven’t even started,” she murmured.

He was silent.

The balm began to glow faintly as it made contact. Her magic responded to his. It was resistant at first, then reluctantly accepting, the way you might pull back a fist only to extend a hand.

Hermione dipped her fingers into the balm. The moment she touched the edge of one wing, he jolted visibly, letting out a quiet grunt through his teeth.

She froze. “Did that hurt?”

“No.”

Her hand hovered. “You’re sure?”

“I said no.”

But his posture told a different story. The wings twitched where her fingers passed, and when she dragged the balm lower, toward the base, his breath hitched. Barely audible, bu t definitely there.

Hermione worked silently, methodically, but she wasn’t blind. Every touch made his spine pull taut. Every movement seemed to set something off. Not pain, or at least not quite. Godrick knows he’d tell her about that.

She thought while she massaged gently.

Oh. Sensitivity.

He didn’t say it. Of course he didn’t.

But the way he avoided her eyes, the way his hands clenched into fists…

He looked nearly ashamed.

She kept going.

“This should reduce the inflammation,” she said quietly. “Ease the tension around the membrane. You’ll need more applications.”

“Brilliant. A lifetime of Granger visits. Just what I dreamed of.”

“Would you rather I let you rot?”

“I’d rather you stop acting like you care.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why are you-“

“Because this is wrong ,” she snapped. “This shouldn’t exist. No one should have to…” She trailed off.

There was silence for a minute or two. 

“You’re bleeding again.”

“News to no one.”

“Shut up. Just… hold still.”

She pressed the balm in deeper. His hands twitched at his sides.

She worked in silence again, the balm sinking in slowly. He didn’t speak, his head hanging between his shoulders as his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. Neither did she. The crackle of the fire was the only sound.

“Who cursed you?”

He turned half toward her, slow and tense. His eyes were knives where they glanced at her from his peripheral. 

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be stood here bleeding out on a conjured rug with you making herbal soup on my back.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

They stared each other down, brittle as glass.

Then she asked, quieter now, “Does anyone else know?”

His jaw tightened. He looked away.

“No.”

“No friends? No family?”

“Not a soul.”

The lie echoed.

Hermione didn’t challenge it.

If he was telling the truth, if he believed only she knew…how did Nott know?

Her thoughts trailed from her as she kept rubbing the ointment into his back, moving away from the tips of the wings.

This seemed safer. His breathing had slowed, as if exhausted. She paused her movements again and tapped him on the shoulder.

“It’s done. It should already be helping. It’ll hopefully keep working overnight.”

Malfoy turned to face her. She resisted the urge to let out a started sound at his expression. For the first time since they started back for the new term, his face seemed lax, peaceful. His eyes were half closed and he rubbed a tired hand across his face.

His limbs seemed thick with sleep.

“Malfoy?”

“This is the first time I’ve been…well. It’s not been Hell for the first time in a fortnight,” Malfoy said. He shut his eyes for a moment as if to savour it.

When they opened, he clenched his jaw and held her eyes for a beat.

“Thank you.”

The words came out rocky, as if he wasn’t used to saying them. Wasn’t used to saying them to her.

Hermione took a step back and busied herself with wiping her hands on her nightdress to rid them of the ointment, giving a stern nod and vanishing the empty ingredient pots.

She surveyed the room one last time. She surveyed him.

His eyes were closed again as he wandered sluggishly over to where the bed lay waiting beside the fire and landed with a loud huff on the mattress. He hadn’t even moved the sheets down to climb in properly.

Silently, Hermione shut the door behind her and began the walk back to her dormitory.

Chapter Text

“So…you and Nott, huh?”

Hermione turned to Ron and tightened her winter jacket further over her shoulders, squinting at him through the snow as they trekked through the beginnings of the pathways into Hogsmeade.

“Nott and I..?” she supplied for him with a raised eyebrow.

Harry snorted, and, with a scathing sideways look from Ron, suddenly seemed very interested in the bobbles at the end of his hat.

“You two are…” he floundered for a bit before settling lamely on, “…friends.”

“We have some…mutual interests, I suppose. Yes,” she said carefully as they walked through the thick iron gates, avoiding a snowball fight between some second years to the left of them narrowly.

“Mutual interests,” Ron muttered.

“What’re you getting at, Ronald?”

“I don’t like it,” he said with a puff of his chest.

Hermione and Harry both eyeballed him.

“And I don’t think he’s a good sort for you to be hanging out with.”

Harry swung his eyes to Hermione.

“Oh, you don’t, do you?” she said, and kicked her toes into the thick snow as she snorted. “And what is the right sort? Do they happen to wear only red and have a coincidental love of lions?”

“Well, no,” Ron started. He paused. “Luna likes blue.”

“Godrick, Ron, just say you don’t like him because he’s a Slytherin and be done with it.”

Harry swung his eyes back to Ron.

“I’m not saying that, ‘Mione. I just don’t understand what’s with all the charity cases you’re giving out to all these…people…this year. It’s like you’re infected with the snake bug or something.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and hitched her bag further on her shoulder, reaching into the front compartment for the list of items  she’d made the night previously for what to collect from Hogsmeade to aid with her and Malfoy’s shared Arithmancy project.

And their private project, also.

“Hate to say it but I’m kind of on Ron’s side here, Hermione,” Harry started, moving from the far left of Ron to stand on her right. “It’s a bit of a left field here. I mean…Nott? Really?”

“It isn’t anything like that. You two both know you’d be the first I’d tell if it was anything remotely along those lines,” she said, rummaging around for her list. “And if not you two, Ginny would’ve blurted something out by now.”

“Would you, though?” Ron’s stopped in his tracks.

Great, Hermione thinks privately as she finally clutches the parchment she had been rooting for. Here we go.

“Because I think you wouldn’t want either of us to know if you had a thing with…one of them lot.”

“I really think that you’ve got to stop making this an us versus them situation, Ron.”

“So it’s an ‘us’ business? There’s an us?”

“Ron,” Harry says quietly.

“There’s an ‘us’ as in we are all at Hogwarts, yes,” Hermione’s tone had dropped slightly. She was getting annoyed, knowing they only had a couple of hours free time and knowing it was being used consoling him.

“You know that’s not what I mean,” Ron says hotly.

There’s a small shift in the crowds around them as a few students begin shooting glances at his slightly raised voice.

Harry touches a hand to Ron’s shoulder behind her, and she scoffs angrily back at her ginger friend.

“You know we’re just worried, ‘Mione,” Harry says gently. His dark green eyes are beseeching. “We just want to know if you’re okay. You’ve been distant lately.”

She feels one of the touches of guilt she’s been feeling the last two weeks since they returned, since she decided to begin keeping secrets from her two best friends. And she also feels one of the many pangs that remind her she should be telling them the truth behind it all.

Malfoy’s wild, frenzied eyes swim to the forefront of her mind as he asks who she’s told.

Hermione shakes her head slightly to wave the image away.

Ron, she assumes, takes this as a response.

His cheeks are starting to get splotchy and red as he starts up again, “And I’ve been pretty alright with this, all things considering, but I think your mates deserve to know why you’re in cahoots with Nott.”

“I really don’t think that it’s any of your business, Weasley,” a smooth voice cuts in behind her as the scent of coffee and tobacco fills her nose.

Ron’s eyes flash as he straightens to his full height, and Harry shoots Hermione a quiet look.

“And be careful with the word ‘cahoots’. People usually find that has some connotations to it, don’t you think?” Nott continues, and Hermione turns her head to see him give a sharp smile, all teeth, directly over her shoulder and at her ginger friend. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Somehow, Ron flushes an even deeper shade of red.

“Back off, Nott,” she says hotly. As if him joining in is going to make anything going on right now even remotely better. “The both of you are being completely ridiculous.”

Ron’s clenching his jaw and gazing over her shoulder. She takes a meaningful step sides ways from between them as if physically removing herself from their altercation.

Nott is smiling nastily back at Ron, expression almost lewd as he keeps his hands in the pockets of his trench coat. Ron removed his long ago to fold across his broad chest.

“This is the most entertainment I’ve had all year,” Pansy’s voice drawls from behind Nott, and Hermione looks to see her, Malfoy, and Zabini all seemingly coming to support their friend, snow dotted along all of their hair. “Pray, what on Earth is going on that can’t wait until we’ve all had a nice day at Hogsmeade?”

“Here, here,” Zabini mutters, nose slightly red from the cold, and Nott snorts, eyes still trained on Ron as more students both glance and walk around where they’re all stood still and very much in the way.

Malfoy is silent. He looks vaguely worse for wear, jaw clenched and shoulders rigid.

“Nothing is happening,” Ron says pointedly, muscled arms tensing under his jumper as he juts his chin out towards Nott.

Nott’s grin widens as he leans in, “Is it not? Because I thought I overheard you implying something about Granger and I, Weasley. And I don’t think I like when people make implications about me.”

Zabini snorts.

“Depends what he was implying,” Pansy says, and cocks her dark hair from over Nott’s shoulder. She smiles wickedly. “Was it something…fun?”

“Piss off, Parkinson,” Harry snaps, immediately backing his friend and turning to face the four of them behind Ron. His dark green eyes narrow on her angrily.

Pansy’s gaze holds steadfast onto Harry with, Hermione realises distantly, a surprising amount of intensity.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Malfoy seems to nearly gnash his teeth in Harry’s direction.

The pair of them glower at each other.

“What’s happening?”

Oh, for the love of god. That was Seamus, who is now walking over to them with Dean and Neville close on his heels.

“Stop! Stop,” Hermione says loudly, and raises a hand to her forehead. She can feel her cheeks hot from humiliation. “This is absolutely absurd. Ron, stop pulling your wand behind your sleeve. Nott, piss off being…how you usually are. Everyone just stop.”

All pairs of eyes swing on hers except Malfoy’s.

There’s a tense pause as they all look from her to each other, eventually being broken as Nott barks a short laugh and stands back from Ron, palms raised in a seemingly innocent suggestion of surrender.

“All good fun, Weasley. I’m not trying to steal your girl. Am I,” he turns his laughing eyes onto her, a glint in them as he winks in her direction. “…Hermione?”

Nott’s use of her first name makes Ron clench his fists at his sides and stalk off towards the Three Broomsticks, Seamus and Dean glancing at her and then following behind him.

“What’s your problem, Nott?” She can barely contain her anger at his purposeful stirring of the pot that is the seemingly precarious friendship she now has with Ron. Her own fists curl to her sides and she feels her sneer in his direction.

Zabini is still glancing between them, Parkinson tracing Harry’s movements to where he now stands beside her.

Malfoy has his hands in his pockets and is staring blankly, head turned towards the forest to the left of them.

“Not too hasty there. You know you need me,” Nott takes a step away from his group and jerks his head towards the Hog’s Head. “I’ve got what you need, after all.”

Her eyes snap down to the book bag across his chest, and he quirks an eyebrow.

He’s brought The Seraphim Sequence. Her heart jolts slightly.

She glances and Harry and his furrowed eyebrows, and then at Neville.

“It’s alright. I’ll…I’ll explain later,” she says quietly. Harry nods slowly, eyes taking a slow gaze between her and Nott, before he pats Neville’s back. They walk after Ron.

Nott turns to his own friends and echoes the movements with a nod and a smile of dismissal.

Parkinson and Zabini begin to walk away.

He turns back to her.

“It’s a date!” Nott says, grin firmly back on his face as he walks towards Hermione and guides them both towards the Hog.

Malfoy’s expression shutters further as he turns on his heel and walks swiftly after his group.

Hermione, for what it’s worth, wishes they’d just compare sizes and call it a day, as she trudges after Nott angrily.

Chapter Text

The Hog’s Head was quieter than she remembered.

Dust hung in the air like it didn’t trust the floor. The walls peeled in strips behind old framed Quidditch articles, and the room smelled faintly of goats and something more medicinal. Not antiseptic, just aged. Like this place had been mended with poultices and whisky in equal measure.

Hermione slipped through the door with Theo behind her. He didn’t say anything, just nodded once to the bartender, a man who looked like he’d slept in his boots, and headed toward a small table at the back after holding up two fingers. He seated them well away from the hearth and what little amount of customers were here.

She followed.

They hadn’t sat willingly together before. Not at meals, not at pubs, not in the castle. They didn’t share spaces; they collided in them. And now, in the low amber glow of a mostly empty tavern, it felt strange. Too quiet. Too personal.

Hermione shrugged her bag from her shoulder and dropped it on the bench beside her. “Why here?”

“Neutral ground,” Theo said simply. “No Weasley to kill me. No Slytherins to report back.”

“Comforting,” she muttered.

They sat in silence for a moment as the bartender thumped two glasses on the table and sloshed something into each. It smelled sharp, bitter.

Theo took a sip, grimaced, and didn’t complain. Hermione fingered the handle of her own before raising it.

She watched him over the rim of her glass.

“You’ve got to stop doing that.”

He looked up, eyebrow raised.

“Making everything worse on purpose.”

Theo blinked and scoffed. “You’ll have to narrow that down slightly. I’ve been told that I’m excellent at that.”

“At breakfast. At lunch. At dinner. Whenever you’re near us - you’re needling Ron, giving Harry a reason to start watching you again, dropping lines like you want me to hex you.”

He shrugged one shoulder and looked around the pub in boredom. “Your friends are easy to rile.”

“That’s not a good enough answer.”

Theo leaned back in his chair. The candlelight caught on the line of his cheekbone, the hollow of his collar.

“Because it’s a distraction,” he said. “And because Draco is more likely to believe I want to fuck you than help you.”

Hermione’s mouth opened and closed.

She stared.

Then, quietly: “Excuse me?”

Theo didn’t even glance her way, still scanning the sketchy inhabitants around them.

“He’s watching. He always is. He hasn’t said anything yet, which means he suspects something. But he hasn’t asked. That’s good.”

“You’re telling me…you think it’s safer for him to believe-”

“-that I’m sniffing around you?” He nodded, a slight, deprecating smile playing at his lips as he looked at her. “Yes.”

“That’s disgusting,” she snorted.

“Not really.” Theo reached for his drink again. “I’m not touching you, am I? I’m protecting you. And him.”

“You’re using me.”

“I’m using what he expects.” He set the glass down with a soft clink. “He doesn’t believe that someone would offer their own goodwill to him. He barely believes in allies. But he does believe in jealousy. He believes in ownership.”

Hermione stared at him.

”I’m not some kind of dog, Nott.”

“I’m not offering to buy you a collar and chain, Granger. Unless that’s what you’re…nevermind,” he says with a snort at her darkening expression, palms raised in surrender at her. 

She takes a large gulp of the liquid in front of her, muttering angrily. Something in Theo’s expression changes, just slightly, as he watches her. Not warm. Just less cutting.

“Doesn’t mean I’m not still an enemy, Granger. Not to him.”

There was no time to answer. Theo reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a tightly bound bundle of waxed parchment. He slid it across the table like he was passing contraband.

Hermione would found it humorous if she wasn’t so intrigued at the thought of holding the Sequence herself.

“You took notes?”

“Pages,” he corrects. “Not the book itself. That thing’s warded to absolute hell. But the back few chapters were loosely sewn in. I swapped them with a glamour. Won’t hold long.”

He sits back and takes annother swig as he watches her undo the cord carefully, fingers tingling at the edges. The parchment was old, ink stained, margins filled with dense slanted notes. Not in one hand, but three, maybe four. A chorus of obsessive minds all trying to crack the same code.

A bold title was inked at the top of the first page:

‘On Anchors and Apparitions: Seraphim Sequence IV’

Her eyes darted across the opening lines.

‘The anchor must emerge through magical response. No charm can simulate it. It is formed by need, pain, and proximity - the body knowing where to survive.’

She glanced up. Theo was watching her carefully.

“What does this mean?”

“There’s more,” Nott says, tapping a page deeper in the stack. “Something about stabilising the deterioration. Slowing the rejection symptoms.”

Hermione flipped it open.

‘In cases of uncontrolled transmutation, a sympathetic fragment - a piece freely given from the transformed - may serve as a magical balm when suspended in redroot and vervain.”

Her fingers paused.

Her coat pocket felt heavy all of a sudden.

“He gave me a feather,” she said aloud, before she meant to.

Theo paused, and then nodded. “That was my original problem, getting that. But I suppose it’s keyed to you now. If he really gave it willingly. That’s the bond.”

Hermione swallowed. She glanced around the pub as if someone might be listening. They weren’t. But the air still felt too close.

“You’re sure?”

“No,” Theo said and threw back more of his drink. “But the author was. She spent twenty years researching winged metamorphoses. The Ministry thought she was insane.”

Hermione folded the pages gently. Her thumb brushed over the edge of the feather drawing inked in the margin. Below it, a scrawled note added in different ink:

“Feather or bone, suspended in a sympathetic vessel may preserve the connection. Should not be worn unless bound is stabilised.”

‘Not’ is underlined and scribbled over a few times. 

She paused.

“Why are you giving me this? I don’t understand.”

Theo hesitates, his dark eyes hesitant as he leans further into her space.

“We can slow it down. Whatever you’d call this - a curse, a transformation…whatever it is, we can slow it. Someone just has to take that plunge,” his fingers jab into the first paper in her hands. “Stabilise him. It. Whatever.”

”You’re going to be his anchor.”

He holds her gaze. 

“No. Absolutely not.”

”Granger-”

Hermione leans back and snorts, pulling her bag onto her shoulder and preparing to stand.

”We don’t even know what this thing is, and you want me to tie myself to it. What does being an anchor entail? Do you know? Because I bloody don’t and if you think I’m going into something with zero knowledge on-”

Nott grabs her wrist and holds her eyes. Her arm jerks as he holds steadfast.

”Nothing happens. Nothing. Read it,” his gaze is pleading and he tugs at her to sit down properly. 

She remains stiff but quiet. 

“I took everything out of the book on anchoring. It’s there. Read it, really take it with you. I can keep it unknown they’re missing for a day or two while you make your mind up. But it’s all there.”

”How can I trust you?” Hermione finally says. His hand squeezes around her wrist and he bends in towards her space again, expression verging on desperate. “Why won’t you do it if it’s so easy?”

“He hasn’t given me a feather, Granger. He doesn’t even know I know.”

She pauses and looks between his eyes for a beat. Another.

Nott is silent across from her, and, with a last look, sits back in his chair. His arms fold across his chest as he looks out the small window to the left of them at the snowy landscape.

“And because he’s dying, Hermione.”

-

They took the long road back to the castle, walking in near silence.

Hermione stopped first at the back door of a small apothecary tucked beside the Shrieking Shack. The owner, a middle-aged woman with her hair in a wand-charmed knot, recognised her instantly and waved her through without small talk.

Hermione asked for powdered redroot and vervain tincture under the pretense of brewing a fortifying draught for coursework. The woman added a sealed jar of scilla oil, slipping it into a brown paper pouch with a muttered warning: “Don’t brew it near silver.”

Hermione paid in coins and silence.

The next stop was more intentional, at a small shop named Scrivenshaft’s. The back aisle shelves were mostly dust and duplicate quill cases, but she found what she needed after a glance at her crumpled parchment:

A pack of tracing vellum with spell-anchoring.

A refill for her mapping quill.

A trio of miniature vials designed to hold flux residue.

All the standard items needed for their layered Arithmancy project. She added a new parchment cutter and blank charmplate for the modelling phase just in case.

Theo waits outside, blowing hot hair into his cold hands.

The last stop was accidental. They passed a weathered cart selling secondhand trinkets, items such as silver chains, old wand holsters, warped cauldron rings. She spotted it hanging crooked from a charm hook: a small feather-shaped pendant on a thin chain, slightly tarnished but intact.

She didn’t think. She just reached for it.

The old witch manning the cart didn’t ask questions. Five sickles. Sold.

Hermione slipped the chain into her satchel and didn’t look at it again. 

By the time they reached the castle gates, her pockets were heavy with too many things she wasn’t ready to name.

The stolen pages burned a hole in her bag and her mind as she turned each thought over again and again as it was summoned to the forefront of her mind.

”Make sure you read it over, yeah?” Nott says lowly, head bent near her shoulder. “I can only keep the Glamour going for about two days before someone will probably notice. We have routine checks in there.”

Hermione snorts a laugh, looking up at him as he cocks his head.

”Routine checks? Just how much contraband are you holding in your library, Nott?”

He grins mischievously. “If you’re including my mother’s pornographic novels? Too much.”

They entered the castle doors and Nott paused in front of her, thinking. 

“Do you have a secure place for those?” 

“Under my pillow?”

“Right. Follow me, I’ll loan you something else,” he turns swiftly on his heel in the directions of the dungeons, muttering something under his breath along the lines of ‘brightest witch of her year my ass.’

Hermione pretends not to hear.

The dungeons smelled like old stone and ambition. The torches flickered green, casting Theo’s face in dramatic villain-shadow as they turned another corner. Hermione tried not to wrinkle her nose.

“Do you all live down here, or just molt during the day and slither back at night?”

Theo smirked. “Careful. The walls are sensitive. They might take that personally.”

“Good. Maybe they’ll file a complaint with McGonagall.”

Theo leans in and whispers to the door, Hermione turning and looking the opposite way as the entryway opens and he ducks his head inside.

”Wait here.”

”Gladly,” she replied haughtily. It was nearly as cold here as it was outside. 

She paces slowly, waiting, when a slight movement makes her jerk her head up.

Malfoy stands just inside the threshold by himself, one shoulder leaned against the stone archway. The light from the nearest torch casts sharp shadows across the hollow of his cheek. His uniform is impeccable, as always, like it would physically pain him to look dishevelled.

His face doesn’t change its bored expression as their eyes meet.

Hermione’s hand flies to her throat in shock, and she exhales, flustered. “Jesus, you scared me.”

“Loitering, Granger?” Malfoy asks smoothly, raising an eyebrow. His gaze is cool as he looks her up and down deliberately.

“No,” she says, straightening. “I was just getting supplies.”

“For?”

She frowns. “Arithmancy. The project Vector assigned. It’s due in two weeks.”

Malfoy makes a noncommittal sound. “Right. The one you’re somehow under the delusion I’ll fail if you don’t personally supervise every step.”

“You didn’t write anything down in class.”

“I don’t need to.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, I do. And I bought the modelling parchment and mapping quill for both of us, so unless you’ve suddenly developed the ability to plot magical decay vectors in your head-“

“I have,” he says dryly, “but I’m touched by your concern.”

Hermione narrows her eyes. “We still need to meet to sketch out the sequence. It’s not going to build itself.”

Draco glances down the hall, then back at her. “When?”

“Tomorrow night. After dinner.”

He studies her for a beat too long. Then gives a sharp nod. “Fine.”

She opens her mouth to say something else, maybe something vaguely cutting, but Theo’s dark head shows over Malfoy’s shoulder then, the swing of the door catching behind him.

Without breaking stride, he bumps Draco’s shoulder with his own on his way out, entirely casual and calculated.

Malfoy remains neutral yet, gaze not leaving her own even as Theo angled his shoulder just slightly toward her.

“Thanks for the company,” Theo says too casually. “Same time tomorrow?”

Hermione shoots him a look.

”I’m…busy tomorrow evening. I can’t.”

Draco’s eyes flick between them once, then away again. His jaw sets and he sniffs. Unreadable.

“Hurry up, Nott,” Malfoy says, arms folded across his chest.

Theo glances between them both, and he smiles conspiratorially at her, back to the dungeon entrance.

“I see. Well, here’s the gift I promised you. Run along, little lion.”

Hermione wants to hex him.

She turns on her heel without another word, the stone corridor far too quiet behind her.

-

In the Gryffindor common room, Ron was hunched forward by the fire. A game of Exploding Snap lay abandoned on the table beside him. He looked up when she entered, something quick and wounded in his expression.

“You’ve been gone ages,” he said, too easily.

“I had errands,” she replied. “Potions things.”

Ron nodded. Didn’t meet her eyes again.

Harry glanced up from his textbook, gave her a half-smile, and returned to reading. Ginny tracked her with a look but said nothing.

Hermione didn’t stay long. She climbed the girls’ staircase, shut the dormitory door behind her, and leaned back against it with a shuddering breath.

She unfurled the package Theo had given her in the dungeons to find a very highly warded and expandable file. Clever. This way she could keep the pages safe whenever she wasn’t around them without having to worry someone might go snooping.

Then, slowly, she reached into her pocket.

The feather was warm. Warmer than she remembered.

It pulsed once, faint but certain, like something sleeping that had just turned over.

She curled her hand around it and let her eyes close.

Tomorrow, she’d brew and think. Tomorrow, she’d read the rest of the pages.

Tonight, just for tonight, she let herself hold the proof.

Chapter Text

The morning air was knife-sharp with winter's bite, each exhale showing as clouds as Hermione trudged across the frost-rimed grounds. Beneath her boots, the snow crunched, the sound unnaturally in the lull of her, Harry, and Ron’s conversation.

Things had been mildly awkward since the last run in with the Slytherins. 

To say the least.

The three of them trampled alongside each other in the crowd of third years, sniffling with the cold.  Hagrid's massive silhouette loomed ahead, his breath pluming in great gusts as he gestured toward the paddock. "These beauties jus' arrived from the Romanian reserve las' night. Bit testy from the journey, so mind yer manners! Walk up to the one nearest to you, don’t be shy! Ron, Harry, over here, if you would…”

The Draigwyrms were nothing like the docile creatures Hagrid usually favored. Six massive, wingless dragons stood in individual pens, their serpentine bodies coiled with barely restrained power. Sunlight fractured across their metallic scales, shimmering gold, burnished copper, deep emerald, casting prismatic reflections that danced across the snow like scattered jewels.  

“Wingless dragons,” Ron muttered as he walked away towards where Hagrid was gesturing, eyeing the closest one’s lashing tail. “Because regular dragons aren’t deadly enough.”

Harry adjusted his glasses, squinting at the nearest specimen - a hulking male with scales the colour of oxidised bronze and a tail that ended in a wicked, spiked club. "That one's tail looks like one of Fred and George's Bludgers."  

Hermione barely heard their distant conversation as they crossed to the other side of the paddock. Her attention had been captured by the pen at the far end, where Draco Malfoy stood motionless before his assigned Draigwyrm; a sleek, silver-blue male with eyes like molten mercury. The creature's nostrils flared as it scented the air between them, a thin tendril of smoke curling from its flared nostrils.  

The silver-blue male was smaller than the others but moved with liquid grace, its muscles rippling beneath iridescent scales that shifted color like oil on water. When it exhaled, the steam carried a faint metallic tang, like a forge or fresh-spilled blood. Its claws, black as obsidian, scored deep grooves in the frozen earth as it paced, the spiked tip of its tail twitching like a scorpion's stinger.  

Theo Nott's voice cut through her observations. "See something you like, Granger?"  

She turned to find Theo leaning against the fence of his own pen, his Draigwyrm, a massive, onyx-scaled beast with eyes like smoldering coals, watching her with unsettling intelligence. Unlike the others, it stood perfectly still, its tail curled possessively around Theo's ankles as if marking territory.  

Hermione ignored the jab and approached her assigned creature, a female with jade-green scales that darkened to emerald along her spine. Unlike Draco's restless male, this one stood calmly, her golden eyes tracking Hermione's every movement with eerie focus.  

"Righ' then!" Hagrid boomed, scratching the thick neck of the largest Draigwyrm. "These Romanian Draigwyrms here burrow in a nice old iron-rich soil from their homeland - that's why their scales got that metallic sheen. Now, the  underbellies are softer'n the rest of 'em, perfect fer absorbin' minerals from hot springs. But that makes 'em prone ter scale rot if not kept dry."

He demonstrated the proper technique, his massive hands surprisingly gentle as he rolled the creature onto its side. "Yeh'll be usin' a Stabilisin' Charm first - Firmamento - ter keep 'em calm. Go ahead and cast a rope charm, nothin’ too heavy on their necks, and follow with a modified Scourgify, said Tergum Revelio. This’ll part the belly scales without irritatin' the skin. Look fer any discoloration or weepin' between the plates."

The class watched as Hagrid revealed the Draigwyrm's pale underside, the scales there more like overlapping petals than armor. "See how these grow in concentric rings? That's how yeh know they're healthy. Any black streaks or crustin' means we gotta treat 'em with a copper salve."

He straightened up, wiping his hands on his moleskin coat. "Now, they don't much like bein' rolled over, so mind their tails and keep yer wand at the ready. First sign of agitation, back off slow-like. They're quicker'n they look!"

The female was smaller than Theo's behemoth but radiated quiet power. Her scales were smoother than the others', overlapping like armor plates, and when Hermione reached out, the creature lowered her head to sniff her fingers. A warm puff of air, scented like lightning and wet stone, washed over her skin. The Draigwyrm's tongue, forked and black, flicked out briefly before she allowed Hermione to mutter quickly and wind the thin rope around her neck.  

“Hello, there,” she whispered quietly, and the beast tittered back at her, shaking its head and stamping a foot. She smiled and it before quietly beginning the charm sequence required. 

The accident happened with terrifying speed.  

A panicked yelp came from the neighbouring pen, where a third-year Hufflepuff was struggling with his Draigwyrm, a smaller but high-strung bronze female.

”Sh-shit!” the girl yelped, leaping backwards and covering her face with her arms as the animal snorted and huffed like a horse kept in its stable for too long.

”Woah there!” Hermione heard Hagrid shout across the field, right as the creature's tail lashed out, shattering his poorly cast restraining charm like glass.  

CRACK.

Hermione barely had time to raise her arms before the spiked tail connected with her ribs. The impact drove the air from her lungs, pain exploding through her side like a fork of lightning.

She stumbled backward, distantly aware someone was yowling.

Oh, God. That sound was her.

Her eyes squeezed closed against the pain, she braced blindly for the heavy hit to the floor as more pain blossomed along her side.

Strong arms caught her before she hit the ground.  

"Breathe."

Hermione opened her eyes with a gasp at Theo's voice, calm but edged in contained panic. She heard his beast of a Draigwyrm let out a warning rumble, its tail lashing, but Theo didn't so much as glance at it. His grip was firm but careful as he steadied her. "In. Out. Don't faint on me Granger, that would be terribly undignified."  

She inhaled another gulp of air again, her vision swimming with black spots, and clutched at her side. Warmth seeped through her robes, blood or just the aftermath of the blow, she couldn't tell.  

Then-

"Move."  

Draco shouldered Theo aside with surprising force, his colder left arm reaching around her uninjured side as his right hand patted down where the heat was radiating from her ribs. His face was paler and more taut than usual, his grey eyes burning angrily. "Can you stand?"  

Theo didn't release her from where he supported her beside him. "She's not a ragdoll, Malfoy. Give her a second."  

She closed her eyes again and Draco whipped his head towards Nott. “Remove your hands, Nott, and go steady those godforsaken animals behind us.”

As if through a tunnel she vaguely heard the screeching of her Draigwyrm, along with the stammering of the Hufflepuff who had lost control of her own.

She felt a pair of arms leave her and Malfoy twist her in his hold.

”Stop your fucking stuttering and get your beast, you imbecile. What kind of steadying charm was that? Do you use it on broken teapots?” 

“I-I didn’t mean-” 

The standoff shattered as Ron's voice cut through the paddock.  

"Hermione!"  

She turned her head, too fast, the motion sending fresh pain lancing through her ribs, to see Ron and Harry sprinting toward them, wands drawn. Ron's face was ashen beneath his freckles, his eyes darting between Draco, holding her at a crouch, and Theo, muttering charms at wild animals, like he couldn't decide who to hex first.  

"What happened?" Harry demanded, skidding to a halt. His gaze locked onto the blood now visibly staining Hermione's robes.  

"Draigwyrm tail," Theo muttered, though his clenched teeth made it barely audible. "Direct hit."  

Harry's eyes narrowed at Draco. "And you're helping because...?"  

Draco's lip curled. "Because unlike some, I don't enjoy watching people get trampled by overgrown lizards."  

Ron bristled. "Yeah? Well, I'll take her to the infirmary. Thanks for your help and that."  

“Back off, Weasley. I’ve clearly got a better grip of the situation here,” Draco gritted back, and Hermione felt the arm under her shift to support her weight slightly, pushing her upright as he leaned in towards her ear, speaking lowly and much more encouragingly to her: “Yeah?”

She let out a long moan but nodded, grateful for the support upwards as she pressed the back of her head on his shoulder.

Ron gestured wildly, “You’re clearly hurting her, ferret. Just fucking move your-”

”Take another step and make this messier with your meaty fists, Weasley. Go on. I’m sure everyone will be much happier for it.” Theo said over his shoulder, palms raised to the animals and Hagrid alike, who stood stammering.

”You watch your tone, Nott,” Harry began, taking a step forward towards Hermione. His finger pointed at Theo angrily. 

"Enough," Hermione gritted out, pushing herself upright with her palms. Her vision blacked briefly and the world swayed alarmingly, but she locked her knees. "I can walk."

“No,” five male voices replied.

Hagrid bent and picked her up. 

-

Madam Pomfrey's diagnostic charm shimmered gold over Hermione's ribs before dissolving into angry red tendrils. "Bruising and a minor fracture," she tutted, summoning a vial of pale blue potion. "Honestly, Miss Granger, you're supposed to be the sensible one."  

Ron dropped into the chair beside her bed, his ears still flushed with anger. "You should've seen Malfoy's face when we got there. Thought he was about to murder that Hufflepuff,” he muttered. 

"I was going to," Malgoy muttered from where he leaned against the far wall, arms crossed. His silver-blue Draigwyrm's scales had left faint iridescent smudges on his sleeves.  

Harry's frown deepened. "Since when do you care what happens to Hermione?"  

Draco's smirk was all sharp edges. "There’s a small angel over my shoulder telling me my good deeds of the day."  

Theo, who had followed at a distance, chuckled from the doorway. "He's lying. He just hates competition."  

Hermione groaned, letting her head thump back against the pillow. Harry reached over and squeezed her hand, and she gave him a pulse back gently. 

“Right. Out. She needs some silence and clearly you boys aren’t ready to give it,” Pomfrey said dismissively, patting a damp cloth to Hermione’s forehead. “The potion will take some time to really heal you up, dear. If I’m honest, most likely the whole night.” 

Hermione shot a glance at Malfoy, who was watching her impassively.

”We need to make a dent in our project.”

All except Malfoy groaned.

”It’s one night, Miss Granger.”

”It’s nothing strenuous. Not really. We just need to compare our notes.”

Madam Pomfrey gave her a long look, and then looked to the clock on the wall.

”You have around an hour while the intensive pain relief curbs the worst of the pain. Then before that comes back you get a sleeping draught to get you nice and knocked out for the rest of it. One hour. Am I clear?”

She nodded, and Pompfrey looked each boy in turn before signalling their leave.

Ron gave her a worried glance over similar to Harry’s as they both turned and left, Theo taking a minute to make sure she saw him look theatrically between her and Malfoy, busy rooting in his own book bag, before the infirmary door clicked shut behind them.

Hermione, propped up against her pillows, conjured her bag towards her and laid their Arithmancy notes across the blanket. The pain potion had dulled the worst of her injuries to a manageable throb, but every breath still carried the metallic tang of blood at the back of her throat.

Draco lingered near the foot of her bed, his fingers drumming an uneven rhythm against the cover of Advanced Magical Matrices.

“This is absurd," he muttered. "You look like you got trampled by a herd of Graphorns."

Hermione adjusted the parchment on her lap, wincing as the movement pulled at her bandages. "And yet my calculations are still neater than yours. Page seventeen - you've transposed the decay ratios again."

He snatched the parchment from her hands, his scowl deepening as he scanned the figures. The candlelight caught the faint tremor in his left hand before he deliberately stilled it. "Your variables are outdated. The new edition of Borage's Arithmatic Principles revised the-"

"-the harmonic resonance theory, yes, I know." She reached across her bed for her beaded bag, ignoring the way his eyes tracked the movement. "But Vector specifically said to use the 1973 coefficients for this project. Here."

Their fingers brushed as she passed him the dog-eared reference text. Draco recoiled as if burned, the book slipping from his grasp to land with a thump on the mattress.

A beat of silence.

Hermione studied the tense line of his shoulders. "You're in pain."

"I'm fine.” He bent to retrieve the book with forced casualness, but she saw the way his breath hitched when his sleeve pulled taut across his back.

"You're worse than Ron when he's got Spattergroit," she muttered, summoning her wand from the bedside table. "Episkey might not work on curse damage, but I can at least-“

"Don't." His hand closed around her wrist, his grip just shy of painful. The contact sent an unexpected jolt up her arm. His jaw clenched. "You're in no state to be casting healing charms."

She didn't pull away. "And you're in no state to be standing."

Their eyes met, and Draco's thumb moved almost imperceptibly against her pulse point before he released her as if scalded.

"Your concern is touching, Granger," he drawled, retreating to the chair by her bedside. "But I'd rather not have you pass out mid-charm and blame me for botching your precious equations."

"It's not concern. It's practicality. If you collapse during our presentation, it reflects poorly on me too."

A smirk tugged at his lips. "Of course. It’s fine to admit you’d miss me, your little pet project."

"As much as I'd miss a toothache."

The quip came automatically, but when she glanced up, Draco's expression had slipped from casual smirking into something unreadable.

The sound of quills was all that was audible for the next ten minutes.

“You’re writing slow tonight.”

“Maybe because I was almost eviscerated by a wild beast this morning,” she replied dryly, licking the end of her quill to continue writing.

“You shouldn’t be around beasts without a secondary shield. That’s first year knowledge.”

“I had one up for my one Draigwyrm, Malfoy. There was a second beast unleashed and unaccountable for that Hufflepuff should’ve had hers up for.”

He scoffed, pausing and looking at her. His eyes were dark and tone sharp, “You can’t rely on other people’s charms.”

She paused also and arched an eyebrow in his direction.

“You mean, like yours?”

The faintest twitch crossed his face before he bent back to his notes, scribbling in silence for a beat.

“Nott’s been hanging around a lot lately,” he finally said. His tone was offhand.

Hermione glanced up at him and saw him still working diligently, and turned back to her own.

“He is,” she replied simply. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

Malfoy sniffed and straightened his back in his chair.

“Only that he’s not exactly the altruistic type,” Draco said, eyes on the page. “If he’s helping you, it’s for his own reasons.”

She considered him. “And you’re what? Warning me out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said with a snort, and turned his page slowly.

The infirmary door burst open before she could pry. Madam Pomfrey bustled in, her arms laden with vials that clinked together like wind chimes. “Alright, Miss Granger, time for your sleeping draught. And Mr. Malfoy-" She fixed him with a stern look. "-unless you fancy explaining to Professor Snape why you're out past curfew again?"

Draco stood so quickly his chair screeched against the stone floor. "We're done here anyway." He gathered his books, his gaze never leaving Hermione’s injured side. "Try not to dream up any more ways to nearly get yourself killed before tomorrow."

He gave a stiff nod to Pomfrey, turned and nodded at Hermione, and clicked the door shut behind him, leaving only the faint scent of frost and something distinctly, inexplicably Malfoy lingering in the air.

Hermione thought she could nearly get whiplash from the change in his demeanour.

Madam Pomfrey pressed the sleeping draught into her hand, clearing her notes away for her. "Drink up, dear. You need rest."

Hermione swallowed the potion in one gulp, lying back.

As the world began to blur at the edges, she thought, inexplicably, of Malfoy.

Chapter Text

“And be sure to please, please, ensure you don’t put strain on the area of the fracture,” Pomfrey reiterated for what felt like the 20th time that morning.

Hermione just nodded, the potion from the night prior still leaving her sleepy-eyed and duller than usual as the nurse wrapped her ribs tight for extra support with a bandage.

“Thank you,” she said, standing and reaching for her bag after shucking her robes over her head sleepily.

Pomfrey tittered slightly and took a step back with a final critical once over.

“And try get back to your dorms before the rest of the castle is awake. Avoid the crowds so nobody bumps into you.”

Hermione nodded and smiled, rubbing her eyes as she left the infirmary with a slight limp.

“Gods,” she groaned to herself quietly, pushing open the heavy doors to enter into the hallway.

Her hand left her face and she stopped still in the hallway, the door slowly creaking shut behind her in the silence of the pre-rush of the castle.

Malfoy lent against the wall opposite her, hands deep in his pockets as his gaze looked from her ribs to her face.

“Granger,” he nodded once, and his foot scraped the wall as it left its perch against the stone. He jerked his head to the left.

Hermione stared at him until he paused again and gave her a faux-shocked look of his own, mouth dropping open to mimic her.

She scowled.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to begin walking.”

“Where?”

Malfoy rolled his eyes skyward and seemed to begin moving his mouth silently.

“What’re you doing? Are you about to hex-“

“I’m counting down from ten. I heard it’s a good way to keep your patience,” he intoned, and then turned on his heel to begin down the corridor.

She paused, looked around, and then took three quick steps to match his stride, hitching her bag up her shoulder.

“I’m walking you to the Room of Requirement,” Malfoy finally said after a few seconds of silence.

She turned to look at him again. He looked pale, his forehead blotting slightly with perspiration. The circles under his eyes were still there, even if slightly reduced.

His eyes slanted sideways to meet her own, and she turned back to face straight ahead.

“You need help? The salve ran out? I can reapply it.”

Personally, she thought to herself, she found it a bit rude he would take her straight from her own hospital bed to aid with his own maladies. But he’s Malfoy. What else could she expect.

He sighed next to her, taking a sharp left to where the room lay at the end of the corridor, and said nothing else as their shoes slapped quietly against the concrete.

Hermione thought of the ingredients she’d need to recollect to make more of the salve, or if it would be worth attempting a duplication spell. Would it work on that kind of item? Possibly. The ingredients didn’t take that long to source, not now she had a vague plan too. Maybe Nott could find something else to help from whatever else he’s hiding away in his library.

Malfoy wasn’t looking too well. She shot him another glance from under her lashes.

His jaw clenched and relaxed repeatedly.

Not too well at all.

He reached towards the doorknob of the Room, seeming to hold it firmly for a second as he thought of what he expected to find in there, before throwing a short glance around at if anybody was around.

He pushed the creaking wood open and held it as she stepped past him, already opening her backpack for the salves’ ingredient list inside.

When she finally looked up, clutching the paper, she stopped short for the second time that morning already.

The Room wasn’t the bedroom and makeshift infirmary she previously summoned when she brought him here last. A large mirror sat directly across from her, with an open door beside it that led into where a clawed bathtub sat in the middle beside a great basin and toilet. A vanity table sat to the right. Three different hairbrushes and potions she couldn’t quite decipher from this distance sat atop it, and a small bag she assumed contained more toiletries.

The door shut quietly behind her, and she turned to see Malfoy clinically looking over the room with an air of disinterest.

“What is this?” She said.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be brought out when this place would be too busy to risk bustling you around to your dorms, considering they’re about two flights of stairs away,” he said, and put his hands in his pockets like earlier. “And it’s nearer to the Great Hall. Less movement.”

At this, he shrugged and scratched his jaw, finally meeting her eyes again.

She stared at him a moment longer before it slotted into her mind at a rate she knew was because of the draught from last night. God, it had made her so slow.

“You’re doing this so we’re even, aren’t you? Because I showed you the room?”

Malfoy’s eyebrows creased in the middle slightly.

“Can’t I just do something because I’m a kind-hearted and giving person, Granger?”

At this, they both snorted slightly. 

She turned back to look towards the bathroom and then glanced back at him.

“Thank you,” she said, her tone a lot softer than before. Malfoy’s eyebrows smoothed out, and his jaw cracked once as he rubbed it again and nodded jerkily.

“I mean, it’s not as if I really did anything,” he shrugged, and turned on his heel swiftly, striding towards the door.

“I won’t be long,” Hermione suddenly said, her voice coming out slightly too strange and slightly too loud. “If you wanted to…if you wanted to wait. It’s still early, I won’t be long, really. I can apply some of that salve or…”

Malfoy’s eyes looked past her to the bathroom and he was quiet for a few beats.

”Or not. In fact, just-“

“I’ll take you to the Great Hall in case it gets busier. I can put the salve on myself while you’re…washing.”

He coughed and she felt a humiliated prickle at the back of her neck. She reached to scratch it and looked away awkwardly.

“Right, well. Thanks.”

Swiftly, and without looking back, she walked into the open bathroom and shut the door behind her.

Hermione took a steadying breath and ran the hot water tap. The tub was a beautiful deep green in the middle of the room, silver taps and inside glinting in the faux-open window conjured to beside her. She walked over to the large mirror on the wall above the tap, and set off the cold stream of water there to wet her wrists slightly.

Her bedraggled reflection met her eyes. Gods, had she looked like that out there?

“Jesus,” she whispered accusingly to her dark circles and mane of curly hair.

She splashed water over her face and down her tired eyes, rubbing them roughly. Opening the cupboard under the sink, she was pleased to find her regular Muggle face wash and moisturisers, running through her skincare routine after shrugging the thick robes off quickly.

The bath water was causing the room to steam, and after one last critical look at her hair and a too-rough yank of it into a bun to keep it dry, she turned to stop the taps from running.

Laying a spare towel on the ground, she lowered one left toe into the hot water up to her calf, stepping her right foot also into the water and standing in the bath.

“Shit,” she said, looking down at the bandage around her middle. She had a feeling that releasing some of the pressure around her ribs was probably going to cause some residual pain, especially as soon as she takes that first breath in without restriction.

Hermione unwound the fabric, dropping it to the side of the bath and holding the bruised skin as she took a deep inhalation, her ribs seeming to crackle in sharp stabbings of pain.

She closed her eyes and reached for the sides of the bath to lower herself down into it, the heat of the water seeming to pinprick in the sensitive area of her side.

Against her bidding, she moaned aloud in pain.

“Granger?” A voice came from the other side of the door.

She kept her eyes closed and made a shooing motion with her hands.

“Granger?” It came again, louder.

Malfoy tried the doorknob once.

“I’m alright! Shit, sorry. Forgot you couldn’t see me,” she called back in a panic, the water sloshing as she turned her head and very-much-more-awake eyes to the door.

She froze and counted to five before settling back into the water.

Her heart was beating faster. Christ, Malfoy seeing her like this was not on her to-do list this morning.

She hastened her wiping of her arms in the bath with the soap that matched her own in the dorms upstairs. Thank God for that, at least, she thought blandly, the smell of lavender filling the room and her nose. A good perk of the room, knowing exactly what the user needs.

She rubbed the bar under her arms and at the back of her neck, slowing slightly as she frowned at the water.

She hadn’t willed her desires at the door, though.

That was all Malfoy.

She sat silently in the water for a few beats, thinking on just what him knowing her choice of soap quite implied, before the drop of the soap on the bath clanged and made her jerk.

Swearing for the 100th time that day, she rushed to finish washing herself before standing and beginning to dry off.

The lavender moisturiser that matched her soap was on the side, and she eyed it warily before applying it across her body, slowing herself as a spasm hit her ribs.

Gown and fresh underwear on with her hair still messily up, she opened the door to the bathroom.

Her questions died on her tongue as she stood across from Malfoy.

He was strewn across the lounge chair in the side of the room, chin in hand, eyes closed. All perfectly normal…sans the large wings that spread from behind his back and spread across the back of the small sofa.

They twitched lightly.

Hermione drank in the sight of them. From this angle, she couldn’t see the mess they were making of his back, only the purest of white feathers that spanned a good four feet lengthways either side. Tip to tip, they were easily the size of her and then some.

They match his hair, she thought distantly.

Malfoy opened an eye blandly, and closed it again after giving her a critical once over.

“Hurry up.”

Hermione stood still, gaze boring into him.

“You have 40 minutes until breakfast is over.”

“Shit,” she said, and turned to the vanity table to try and tame some of her unruly hair.

Running some hair oil through her tightly coiled curls, her eyes kept drifting from her own reflection to where he sat in the corner behind her, wings still brazenly showing.

“You don’t mind me seeing them?”

Malfoy opened an eye again, watching her through the mirror.

“It’s nothing you haven’t already seen,” he said, and his voice sounded laden with the desire for sleep already. “The Glamour is draining to keep permanently up anyway.”

“You don’t have to have it up when you sleep in here, though,” she said, running a comb lightly through the ends of her hair to try and detangle slightly without encouraging even more frizz. “That’s the point.”

“Well, I wasn’t here for a lot of the night.”

She turned and looked at him as she rolled a fresh stocking from the drawers under the vanity table, noting silently again of their size matching her usual stockings perfectly.

“I told you I didn’t know when you’d be coming out,” Malfoy stood and wiped his trousers for invisible dust, shoving his hands roughly into his pockets and turning his gaze resolutely from where she sat in realisation.

He’d been stood outside the infirmary for…for hours? The whole night?

They were both silent for a beat.

“Are you ready?” He asked nastily, turning his back to her and folding his arms. “Because we don’t all wait on the time schedule of Hermione Granger. And I’m hungry.”

“Yeah. Yes, ready,” she replied, shoving her feet into her shoes and grabbing her rucksack before meeting him, casting her gaze around the room one last time before following him out into the hallway.

He closed the door behind them both, and she eyed his now wingless form shrewdly as he continued to resolutely not look in her direction.

“You didn’t have to wait,” she said, noting the tick of his jaw and his steadfast march to the hall. “I’m not some damsel in distress.”

“I know that,” Malfoy bit out.

“Is your good deed of the day done now, then? Are you back to regularly scheduled Malfoy rudeness?” Hermione snapped back. “If you were that hungry you could’ve gone.”

“I’m not that bloody hungry, Granger.”

“Then stop acting like a dick.”

Once again, his ridiculous moods had ruined the conversation. She fought the urge to stomp and point in his face.

Again.

He just scoffed and shoved his hands deeper into his pocket, walking them towards the hall.

The corridors were much more busy now. She hadn’t thought she’d taken that long in the bathroom at all. But now it seemed every student was ambling too and from breakfast.

Malfoy’s jaw ticked again as an influx of students left to get an early start to the morning classes.

She turned to comment on how they might be late and she’d just wait for dinner before a sharp, bony elbow slammed into her side from.

Hermione cried out loudly, hand flying to her side.

“Fucking watch where you’re going,” a voice came from above her as Malfoy’s arm flew in front of her towards the source.

“Godric, man, I didn’t mean to!” The Ravenclaw that had barged past her said loudly back, batting at Malfoy’s hand that gripped his robes tightly.

“Were you born in a hole? Do you know how to say sorry?” He bit out, and shoved him at his chest before yanking him back.

His knuckles were white where they gripped the fabric.

Hermione looked between them.

“It was a mistake! I very obviously didn’t mean it!”

“Well say fucking sorry then.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Not to me, you imbecile,” he gritted out from behind clamped teeth.

The moving body of students seemed stifling.

Hermione reared back slightly to give him a once over.

A vein seemed to throb at the side of Malfoy’s neck, and a hot prickle hit the back of Hermione’s scalp. She peered at him as he opened his mouth and reached up to point in the Ravenclaw’s direction.

His pupils were tiny, and the sweat beading at his forehead had doubled. His mouth was open in a snarl and, as she looked closer at his hair, which was beginning to dampen from perspiration, she noted he was shaking. His arm flexed under his own robes. His jaw clicked as he snapped something else, eyes taught around the corners.

This wasn’t usual Malfoy being Malfoy.

Something was wrong.

“Malfoy. Hey!” Hermione snapped her fingers loudly in front of his face, inches between where he was opening his mouth to spit something else at where the panicked Ravenclaw was staring wide-eyed back at him. “Malfoy!”

His eyes snapped to hers.

He looked almost reptilian.

A bead of sweat dropped from his forehead to his nose, which he ignored. His gaze was unsettling her. It was almost unseeing. 

She looked between his pale eyes and shook his upper arm where her hand gripped him painfully. And then she shook again when he continued to say nothing.

“What on Earth are you doing? I’m alright. You’re scaring him and every first year in a five mile radius.”

Malfoy looked back at the Ravenclaw and released his grip jerkily. He shut his eyes for a second and pushed a hand against his wet forehead.

“Malfoy?” Hermione said. It was a lot quieter and cautious. She shot a glance in the Ravenclaw’s direction, who shook his head incredulously before merging back into the sea of people. “What was that?”

“I don’t…I need to go,” he bit out. He took a step backwards into a student, who shot him a glare.

His pallid face glanced back at hers, and he shook his head before turning and taking off as fast as he could in the crowd of students.

She watched him go, losing him after only a few seconds, and with each step the sinking feeling in her stomach grew.

Chapter Text

Hermione’s shoes scuffed softly against stone as she crossed the Entrance Hall, rubbing her knuckles across her tired eyes till fireworks burst behind them.

Draco’s face flashed behind them too. Ashen, trembling, eyes gone almost black.

The fog hovered at the edges of her mind: warm, silvery, muffling the world until even her own heartbeat sounded distant.

The Great Hall’s doors were already open, the smell of porridge and strong tea drifted through the cavernous space along with the chatter of the stragglers no longer concerned about barely making it in time to class.

Hermione slipped inside, hoping for a few silent minutes with her thoughts before the start of lessons.

She was halfway to the Gryffindor table when a familiar voice called, “Hermione!”

Ginny’s red hair caught the light like a flare. Harry and Ron followed close behind, faces bright from the brisk walk down from the tower.

“There you are,” Harry said, relief edging into reproach as they converged on her. “We went to the hospital wing first thing. Pomfrey said you’d already left. So we checked the dorms again, and…” He traded off uselessly with a gesture towards her.

Ron gave a lopsided shrug that failed to hide his irritation as they sat at the edge of the table. “We were planning to walk you back. You might’ve waited.”

Hermione forced a small smile and sat next to Ginny. “I felt fine. Pomfrey cleared me before dawn, so I thought I’d save you the trouble.”

Ginny slid a teapot toward her. “Still, we would’ve liked to be there,” she said gently. “We were worried.”

The quiet hurt in her voice landed harder than any scolding.

Hermione busied herself pouring tea, hoping the clink of porcelain masked the tightness in her chest.

Harry rested his forearms on the table, chin on the back of his knuckles as he regarded her. “We tried to sneak out early this morning with the cloak, too. Couldn’t find you.” His tone was offhand but searching as his eyes caught hers under his dark lashes. “At about 5am.”

Hermione paused and coughed, looking back down to concentrate on spooning her sugar. “Arithmancy. Professor Vector’s project is brutal this year.”

Ron snorted. “Surely even you know not to push yourself in the state that Draigwyrm left you in.”

He seemed less suspicious than Harry did, already loading his plate with the residue toast left after this morning’s hungry stampede of students.

Ginny nudged Hermione’s bandaged arm. “How’s it doing? Pomfrey said the Draigwyrm claws were nasty.”

“It’s mending well,” Hermione said, flexing her fingers for proof. “Just sore.”

“Good,” Harry said quietly. He studied her face a moment longer before looking down at his plate.

Hermione felt a pang of guilt, and stretched her foot out under the table to knock the side of her shoe against his ankle. He pressed his own foot back gently.

The fog thickened, a soft shimmer behind her eyes, blurring the edges of their concern.

Don’t tell him. Don’t pull them all into this.

She swallowed hard and reached for toast.

The conversation drifted to Quidditch practice and Hogsmeade weekends.

Hermione added the occasional comment, forcing laughter when Ron made a joke about Vector assigning essays in her sleep.

She made sure to only itch her neck twice, lest Harry’s sharp eyes catch her own once more in concern.

After Hermione managed to swallow the last of her tea, they gathered their bags and headed toward Transfiguration.

The corridors buzzed with the last shuffle of students, but Hermione barely registered the noise.

“I reckon once you show your arm and explain we won’t get in any shit for being late, ‘Mione. It’ll be, like, five minutes max-“

“How’s the arm?”

The drawl slid from a shadowed archway.

Theo Nott leaned against a column, tie crooked, eyes bright and staring at her alone. Ron’s mouth snapped shut with a click, and his jaw pulsed once as he clenched his teeth.

Hermione stopped. “I need a word,” she said quickly.

Four pairs of eyes looked at her, and Harry raised a questioning brow. 

“We can talk,” Nott said easily. He swung his eyes to Ron. “If she’s allowed to, that is.”

Ron took a step forward and Nott raised his palms, smiling nastily. 

She put a hand to her forehead. “Stop antagonising my bloody friends. Ron, don’t rise to it. Please. Harry,” Hermione turned to him, holding his eyes beseechingly, hoping he’d let her have this.

“We’re actually running behind, and so are you, so-“

“We’ll wait by the staircase,” Harry interrupted Ginny, glancing at her briefly before steering Ron and Ginny a few paces ahead.

Theo’s dark smirk widened and he lent in, hands deep in his pockets. “Skipping your entourage for me? Is class next? I’m flattered.”

“Not now,” Hermione hissed, catching his sleeve and pulled him a little too roughly into a recessed alcove with her good arm.

He let himself be dragged, still wearing that insufferable smile. “Feisty. Is this where you ask me, ‘is that your wand or are you just happy to see-‘”

“It’s worse,” she interrupted, voice low and tight. She glanced around the empty corridor before continuing at a heavy whisper. “He’s losing it.”

The teasing drained from Theo’s face. “Losing it?”

She folded her arms across her stomach and shrugged, looking quickly between his eyes before back out at the corridor. She addressed the empty wall across from them resolutely. 

“He looks like he can barely stand. This morning, he nearly ripped a first year Ravenclaw apart for nothing. His face is…changing. He looks bad.”

Silence for a beat.

“How bad?” Nott said quietly, and she flicked her eyes back to meet his. He looked as tired as he sounded.

“Bad enough that I don’t know if he’ll last the week.”

There was a stretch of quiet between them where Theo straightened slightly and ran a hand through his messy hair. He looked over her head, eyes distant.

“Nott.”

His shuttered gaze snapped back down to hers, and the hair on the back of her neck seemed to bristle. “What do you want me to say, Granger?”

“He needs help,” she stuck her chin up and tightened her hold around herself.

“And you’ve read the pages?” 

“Of course I have.”

“And?” Nott had lent back into her space, ducking slightly to keep her eyes on his own. He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Hermione’s throat tightened. “What do you want me to do? What are you asking from me, Nott?”

For once, Theo Nott said nothing. He flexed his jaw and leaned back against the opposite side of the alcove, looking aged as he scrubbed one hand down his face and returned it to his pockets.

The silence grew again until it became its own answer.

Her stomach dropped. “Theo-“

He shook his head, slipping his mask of indifference back into place with a dismissive wave in her direction and scuffing his shoes as he stood straight, taking a step from the cove and into the empty classroom. “You already know. Class awaits, Granger.”

And he was gone.

⸻

Transfiguration was a blur. Harry glanced at her more than a few times, brows drawn, but thankfully said nothing.

She knew what Nott wanted her to do, and that knowledge seemed to be burdening her every movement. No matter what she did, her thoughts drifted slowly back to their conversation in the alcove, back to Malfoy’s behaviour this morning.

Arithmancy was slightly worse. Draco’s chair sat empty, quill and parchment untouched.

Hermione copied Vector’s notes with mechanical precision while the fog pressed against her skull, dulling sound and light.

Ginny teasing Ron about Quidditch strategy; Neville asking after her arm; Ron offering quiet smiles when she faltered.

Harry briefly pressed his thumb to her wrist during Charms, and his gaze met hers while the others continued chattering.

“It’ll be better, ‘Mione. We’ll be fine. This year isn’t last year,” he’d said with a smile and another press of his thumb.

Her throat felt tight. He thought she was struggling the same as he was, with the death surrounding them, with what they had seen last year. And she was going to allow him to be deceived.

God.

Hermione slammed her chair back much too quickly as the end of class circled them, and glanced around before running a hand through her unruly hair.

“Forgot that I needed…to return my book,” she said haltingly, and opened her mouth to think of a better excuse, before snapping it shut again. She shot her friends’ knowing glances an apologetic look.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She turned on her heel.

Stupid.

Bypassing the library entirely, she ducked under and into the stairwell that took her to the first floor.

She needed to be more social, less noticeable, and to stop drawing any and all attention to herself. More importantly, she needed to be a friend. She realised, distantly, that she situation with Malfoy was taking over her life more than she’d have previously liked. 

The Room of Requirement appeared as she approached. As she opened the door, the smell of iron and ozone hit her like a wall.

It was just as she had conjured the first time for him when she first decided to drag him here, and her gaze flickered briefly over the furniture before landing on the bed in the centre of the room.

Draco lay half-curled on the cot, shirt discarded, wings unfurled and magnificent and trembling. Blood slicked the ragged feathers, some of it darker, even black, where it was a few days old. Sweat beaded on his greying skin.

“Malfoy,” she whispered into the room, shutting the door behind her with a heavy, final thud.

He didn’t move. Only the faint, stuttering rise and fall of his chest betrayed life.

Hermione crossed the room, heart hammering as she summoned the salve from where he had clearly tried to apply it last, and drawing a stool next to the bed.

The heat radiating beneath her palms from his back was terrifying. She dipped her fingers into the pot and applied it lightly, cringing at the scent and sight of rotting skin. It was useless. The salve hissed pointlessly against fevered flesh as she stroked it against the torn and feathered pieces of him at his spine.

He was so fevered he was burning the potency of the salve to nothing more than a moisturiser. 

He barely stirred, too lost in pain to register her touch, and a bead of sweat dropped from his matted blonde hair. 

Panic clawed at her throat as she applied more to no benefit. It’s not enough.

She adjusted her fingers to spread across his back and muttered quietly while attempting another stabilising sigil. It fizzled slightly, and Malfoy swallowed a greedy breath of air before it seemed to peter out into nothingness.

God. It was stopping him breathing properly.

She glanced up to his pale and clammy face, reaching behind her to pat his forehead with a flannel left conveniently by the room. He barely stirred.

Theo’s quiet voice echoed in memory as she gazed down at the twitch of a frown between his eyebrows: You already know.

The fog surged, warm and blinding, until thought itself blurred along with it.

Sirius. Cedric. Voldemort.

Her decision was settled.

With one last glance at him, and a final mutter of the sigil to grant some small reprieve, she fled the room, heart pounding, the castle a blur of staircases and torchlight. She heard the chattering of voices from the hall as she ducked past it with a brief glance inside.

Almost every person in the castle was in there right now. This was as secluded as she could get.

In the dormitories, under Crookshanks’ knowing gaze, she gathered what she needed with mechanical precision: the stolen pages, a silver knife, the sealed feather, and shoved them all recklessly into her bag, shooting a look around the room for anything she could’ve possibly missed.

”Don’t watch me like that,” she hissed to Crookshanks, whose tail flicked twice on her bedding. His eyes were narrowed.

Realistically, she thought to herself as she left again and began the steps back down into the corridors, if she gave herself time to rationalise, the more likely she was to poke holes in this plan.

She shook the thought from her head and took a sharp left.

The girls’ bathroom was silent except for the slow drip of a leaking tap. Moonlight leaked across cracked tiles. Hermione laid out the ingredients in a careful circle in one of the puddles of light.

Her breath came in short, jagged bursts, and she nearly smacked her forehead in annoyance as she walked back to the entrance of the toilets and whispered a locking charm quickly.

She needed to be more careful.

Her hand came to rest over her erratic heart as the fog pressed tighter. It felt warm, metallic, almost alive. It pressed until she could feel her heartbeat in her teeth.

She took three steadying breaths and lowered herself to the floor.

The cool tiles brought some sense to her, and she paused briefly before open the folded notes in a particularly long stretch of moonlight.

Hermione shot a glance around the room again, and at the items around her. Silently, and something she knew she’d never admit aloud, she said a silent prayer to anything that was listening for some semblance of luck.

And then she bent over the pages to begin reciting.

“Sanguis pennarum os spiritus.”

Blood of feathers, mouth of spirit.

Memories surged: Draco on the train in first year; Draco sneering in classrooms; Draco bleeding beneath her hands, wings black against moonlight.

She sliced her fore and middle fingers with the knife, jaw clenching resolutely against the pain.

“Animam eius a dolore et morte liga.”

Bind his soul from pain and death.

She drew the first sigil on the tile with her trembling sliced fingers.

“Aufer a me quod eum retinere debet.”

Take away from me what must hold him back.

She whispered harshly as the hair on the back of her neck rose, and she hunched her shoulders against the cold. The second rune followed in the same crimson ink.

“Expergisce in me quod dormire non potest.”

Awake in me what cannot sleep.

Pain flared as she raised and sliced her palm deeply with the same knife, blood spilling bright and hot. It dripped between the two runes wetly.

“Cor ad cor coniunge.”

Join heart to heart.

She lifted the feather in her bloody palm, and squeezed it tightly in her fist as more of her blood dripped into the concrete.

“Et casum profundum siste.”

And stop the deep fall.

Hermione let the feather fall into the pool of blood in front of her, and it landed softly.

The feather swam lightly on the blood and, for a solitary moment, fear spiked her throat that it hadn’t worked.

There was a beat of silence. Two. 

The feather flared bright with flames, and she yelped and scuttled back, palm smacking the tiles wetly the flames rose steadily in a crescendo before disappearing completely.

Hermione took a breath, and looked down at herself to see if anything felt…different. It was only when she lifted her hand to see the wound did the intense surge of magic slam from her and into the room.

She felt as though she began drowning within her own veins as her stomach bottomed out.

Distantly, she heard a loud smack, and realised belatedly it was the sound of the back of her head cracking against the tiles while her spine arched, her eyes rolling as her lashes fluttered against her cheeks. Pain enveloped her, and she opened her mouth in a silent scream as she clawed at the cold tiles uselessly. Tears began pooling and wetting her cheeks. 

The fog fractured into flashes of memory:

Train smoke. Library dust. A boy’s sharp laughter. She saw Harry, Ron. She thought she was dying. Her parents. Cedric. Sirius. She saw Malfoy. The wings, the blood, the moonlight, breath.

The magic raised her further from the ground, and her knuckles scraped the floor. The residue of the wound continued to trail blood along the tiles.

She moaned, low in her throat. The memories kept coming. Childhood trips away, singing in the school choir. The first Christmas she ever remembered as a child. 

Pages of notes she’d brought down into the lavatory flipped in the cold breeze that flooded the bathroom. The steady drip of her wound continued as the magic in the room slowly turned her twitching body. Her tears landed alongside the bloody markings.

Her brain cycled her back to Cedric’s body, limp. She saw Harry’s first letter describing his night terrors to her, of the first time he cried to her. She saw Ron, petrified of what had happened to his dad, what the snake bite had done to him. She held them as they cried.

She saw herself old. Withered and pale, curled up with a dog eared book, bent into herself…content. The elderly Hermione’s eyes snapped up, as if seeing her, and the pupils seemed too large, too dark, as if a caricature of herself. She opened her mouth.

A blinding light swallowed the room, and Hermione’s eyes snapped open as she drew in one sharp intake of air.

The magic that had lifted her spine towards the ceiling rushed from the room like one great, swooping wave. As it left, it dropped her back onto the floor heavily. She landed in with a grunt.

For a heartbeat, she fluttered her eyes back closed. She felt, for a breath…everything: Malfoy’s heartbeat, slower and weaker, along with her own. Both were echoing in her chest, the pace of them slowing and speeding up alike to finally merge as the one she now felt. The sharp agony of his wounds littering her own back, the pain in her palm, fighting one another before becoming a general ache she felt in her bones. She felt an alien, slow drag of breath in her throat. His breath. She swallowed it in a gasp, and her oxygen returned to her own.

Then…silence.

The fog broke like a wave. Hermione slumped back, and felt the hot press of phantom wounds littering her spine.

She turned her wet gaze to the feather that now lay fused to the sigil in a dark, glistening smear. The embers of the fire crackled lightly before expelling themselves, and she lolled her head back to the ceiling to breathe deeply.

She rose on trembling legs and arms, hand pressed to her forehead that throbbed from taking the hit of the floor so roughly. 

A strange tug coiled low in her abdomen, something subtle but undeniable. A strange magnetic pull swimming and swirling inside of her, all whispering toward the boy suffering in the Room of Requirement. Not intense, not desperate, just aware.

God. It worked.

She had anchored herself to Draco Malfoy.

She pressed a shaking hand to her stomach and fisted her jumper, breath catching as she swallowed down her panic. She closed her eyes and pressed her shaking hand tighter to her head.

And then, because she was Hermione Granger, she straightened her shoulders, glanced again at the mess on the floor, and crawled to the bathroom to begin cleaning it up before dinner was over.

Chapter Text

Really, she’d expected something more obvious. Something permanent, like a tattoo, a scar, something on her that told the world what she’d done and marked her for all to see. Maybe a big one on her forehead, so whatever level of illegal magic she’d conjured in that bathroom could be identified and the Wizengamot to match her from her dorm and into a cold cell.

There was nothing.

The first day she’d woken up after a night of fitful sleep, soaked in the residual sweat from whatever nightmare she’d suffered from the night prior.

Crookshanks was nowhere to be found.

Malfoy had been excused from class on account of illness. She knew because Vector had informed her briskly to continue their project as best she could on her lonesome until ‘Malfoy recovered.’ But she’d have known regardless; the low pulling, almost yearning, in her stomach told her he wasn’t anywhere near. It felt as though parts of her pawed at her insides, in a way. Letting her know that a part of herself wasn’t nearby, was down the hall, was asleep, had left the Room of Requirement and entered the Slytherin dorms.

She’d side-eyed Nott quietly in the halls, him making sure to duck and catch her eye long enough for her to give a sharp, cutting nod. His jaw had clenched and his hand flexed twice before he turned and showed her his back.

He hadn’t tried to catch her eye after that.

The second day was the same, him absent, her feeling the strange swirling in her stomach that reminded her of her deed.

Professor Vector’s chalk scratched briskly across the board, runes layering one after another in clean white lines.

“Monday,” Vector said crisply, “you were asked to calculate the second tier of your matrices, accounting for the destabilisation of external magical residue. This week, you’ll build your third, layering intent fluctuation. The most common source of volatility is emotion. Rage, grief, lust, fear. These often surge faster than rational thought and fracture stable casting.”

Her gaze flicked, sharp as glass, across the room. “Fail to account for this and you will find yourself back in St. Mungo’s spell damage ward faster than you can say ‘Arithmantic miscalculation.’”

Hermione’s quill was already scratching across her parchment, her notes immaculate. The seat next to her remained empty, and she dutifully copied notes in brief, simple terms to relay it to Malfoy when, and if, he was better.

She didn’t know if she’d made the right choice. Not quite.

She left her class with her bag tucked up over her shoulder, heading directly towards the library. The knowledge she was shouldering this project alone was not lost on her, and she knew she needed to dig herself in deep for what time they had already lost to put them behind the others in their class.

A pair of footsteps fell into sync beside her.

“Granger,” Nott said evenly, and followed her loyally from the room. She felt his gaze on her and snapped her own up to meet it.

“Nott,” she replied. “What do you want?”

He leaned past her to open the double doors of the corridor, and watched her walk past him. His eyes seemed brighter than usual.

This discomforted her more than she’d like to admit.

“Interesting few days, wouldn’t you say?” He continued, and tilted his head slightly. She reminded him of a snake when he got in these moods, when he knew something she didn’t and revelled in that knowledge.

“Has it been?” Hermione replied, and opened the doors to the library for them both in return.

He sucked in some air between his teeth and pretended to ponder for a moment, dropping his bag in an empty seat and gesturing to her to take the other one.

Hermione paused, met his eyes again, and heard her jaw click shut as she watched him.

She hated this game.

Folding her arms, she raised her eyebrows at him.

He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged, rocking back on his heels before turning to enter one of the many rows lined with books to their right.

She followed.

“Malfoy seems…quite improved. Healthy, even.”

She sucked in a breath, her steps faltering slightly.

God. It had worked. It had really, truly worked. And it had helped, too.

Catching her footing, she hissed as she followed him with a glance towards where the librarian sat behind them, near the entrance, “I wouldn’t know.”

Nott hummed, and roamed deeper into the rows of books.

She coughed, “I suppose he’s improving. I mean to say, I haven’t seen him.”

He turned when they were deep into a section on wild magical beasts and took a glance over her head briefly before his gaze met hers again. His eyes shone in a way that reminded her of a magpie, one that had spotted something in the distance and had begun greedily flying towards it.

He ducked his head into her space, smelling of mint and tobacco, and grinned in a boyish way.

“Don’t insult me, Granger. You did it, didn’t you? You did it.”

She squared her shoulders and lent slightly back from where he invaded her personal space, shooting a glance over his shoulder quickly.

God, this must look dodgy.

He bent further into her and she looked back at his face. His dark hair shone from where the library light hit it from behind, and she scoffed lightly.

“We’re not doing this here. Not the library. Anyone can hear-“

“We’re in the kissing corner, Granger.”

She blanched, “We’re what? What on Earth is the kissing corner?” Hermione was hissing angrily now, and she felt heat creep into her cheeks. “And I don’t know if I’ve given you the wrong impression somehow, Nott, and maybe I have. I don’t know. But you can’t-“

She was interrupted by him laughing quietly, head bobbing down again to muffle his snort. Her blush rose in her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant this is the most secluded spot. Nobody is going to bother us here. Obviously.”

“Oh. Right.”

She felt like a fool, and pressed the slightly cooler skin of her wrist to her cheeks.

“I mean to say, you anchored yourself, didn’t you? It’s done? Because I don’t know what else would’ve done this, unless someone else intervened.”

“No. I mean yes. Yeah, I did it,” Hermuine’s voice was hushed, and she tapped her nails against the book across from her on the shelf. The spine read something along the lines of banishing demonic serpents.

“How does it feel?” Nott said. He sounded almost in awe, and her eyes met his dark ones. His eyebrow was raised, and he balanced his hands either side of the shelves to the left and right of them. “This is unheard of magic, Granger. Unheard of.”

She nodded silently, and gave a soft shrug.

“Nothing’s changed,” she said quietly, and took another glance behind her before continuing in a whisper. “It didn’t mark me, I doubt it marked him. I just…feel him. Not all the time, just sometimes when I really concentrate I can just…know what he’s doing, where he is. I can feel how he feels.”

Nott snorted quietly, and he shook his head in quiet disbelief.

“Godrick, Granger. You are one ballsy son of a bitch. I didn’t think you’d do it, not really.”

“I had to, didn’t I? You saw him. What was happening to him.”

She felt defensive, all of a sudden. She didn’t want to begin worrying about the choice she’d made, about if it was the right one.

“No, I’m not saying that. I mean it like-“

“Cozy.”

A voice came from behind Nott, drawling, vaguely haughty. Nott’s head whipped around, and his left arm fell from where he was branching Hermione into the corner shelves to reveal Malfoy at the end of the aisle.

He looked…

Hermione felt her mouth drop slightly.

He looked…better. Healthy, even. There was more colour in his cheeks, his eyes, even his hair. The pastiness that had been washing him out every day since they started term was still there, but less so. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for two nights rather than two weeks. He was dressed in his usual smart attire, the black suit that emphasised his height, his shoes polished, and Hermione found herself actually happy to notice that Malfoy had managed to regain his distinct Malfoy-ness.

His gaze was bright, and it flicked between Nott and herself quickly.

“Malfoy,” she breathed.

Nott’s shock turned quickly into an easy, mildly sleazy grin, and he relaxed against the book shelf his right arm still leant on.

“Malfoy,” he echoed, and he crossed his ankles casually. “If you hurry over quick I’ll save you a peck or two.”

Malfoy looked unimpressed.

“I thought you had class, Nott. Or are we taking liberties now?”

Nott scoffed and looked skyward for a moment, then back at Hermione and towards Malfoy knowingly.

His gaze slanted back to hers as he reserved a silent smirk in her direction.

“I’m not the only one taking liberties lately. Am I?”

Hermione reserved the urge to sneer at him for a later date and just sighed.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Malfoy replied to her.

“How’d you even know I was here? I thought you stopped using the kissing corner way back when Pansy-“

Malfoy jerked his chin sharply at Nott, interrupting him. “Leave.”

“Me?”

Malfoy only clenched his jaw once.

Hermione, vaguely, was reminded of how he behaved with the Ravenclaw. She peered in the dim light towards his pupils searchingly, trying to gauge if he had that same reptilian look about him as last time.

It wasn’t.

Nott glanced between them quickly.

His arm dropped from the shelf and he turned to give her a quiet, poignant glance as he slipped past Malfoy with a lazy grin. He patted him on the shoulder twice as he left. “Try not to bite,” he murmured as he went, low enough for only Draco to catch.

Malfoy’s jaw caught on itself.

Then it was just the two of them.

There was an awkward pause.

Hermione shifted first, tugging her sleeve down over ink-stained fingers, the silence pressing too thick. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Do what?” Malfoy’s voice was sharp, but the way his shoulders moved, like he hadn’t decided whether to stay or walk away, undercut it.

“Send him off like that.”

He snorted. “Nott doesn’t need an invitation to crawl over people. He thrives on it.” His gaze flicked toward the spot where Theo had been standing, then back to her. “Though I suppose you don’t mind, apparently.”

Her spine stiffened angrily at the implication. “It wasn’t-“ She cut herself off, jaw tight, and blew out a sigh. “It’s pointless me even explaining to you.”

Something passed across his face then, quick as lightning. Not anger. Not disdain. Something caught between. He shifted his weight, then seemed to catch himself, as though confused at being rooted in place at all.

Hermione forced her eyes back to the shelf. “You look better.”

Her voice, she thought quietly, sounded mildly choked.

Malfoy coughed and looked to the side, shrugging slightly. “I guess the balm you made worked or…something.”

“Or something,” Hermione repeated, nodding.

Another tense silence passed between them.

She looked back at him at the same time his cool eyes glanced back at her. Her stomach tugged and curled, and she felt…settled. As if the part of her she had given out was comforted in the knowledge it was near the rest of her. She realised, belatedly, that the swirling in her stomach she’d felt the last few days wasn’t any form of anxiety or panic over the anchoring, nor a feeling of guilt or anger. But rather a feeling of separation.

Malfoy’s expression looked confused, and he frowned at her before looking down back at his shoes.

“Did you…did you need anything from the library?” She tried haltingly. Even to her own ears, she sounded pathetic.

“No, no, I just,” Malfoy paused, and sighed before running a stressed hand through his hair. He looked around at the books, at the corner they were in, and then shot another glance at her. “No, I didn’t, actually.”

Hermione remained silent at that, and hoisted her bag up on her shoulder. The air felt awkward, tense. But she didn’t have even the first thought to cancel it out by walking away.

Malfoy, apparently, thought the same, for they lapsed into a quiet silence again for another beat.

“I didn’t at all,” he seemed to mutter to himself, before taking a step back. He waved his hand dismissively in no real directly before turning swiftly on his heel and leaving the corner.

The smell of him remained, and Hermione felt her gut tug subtly as she was left alone in the corner.

-

The fire was low, crackling lazily. Ginny lounged across the floor, hair spilling like copper over the quilt. Ron sat on the sofa, fiddling with his deck of wizard cards collected from an abundance of chocolate frogs over the years. Hermione perched on her trunk, socks pulled over her pyjama pants in an effort to contain any warmth inside her from the cold of the dorms. Parchments filled with notes spread in front of her on one side, and a larger piece to the left for revision was left blank of ink.

The clock ticked quietly as they all remained in companionable silence, Harry having left shortly before to speak quietly with Luna about some Ravenclaws having been giving her a hard time.

Ginny broke the silence. “So. What’s with Nott?”

Hermione’s stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Ginny rolled onto her side, sharp-eyed. “He’s been sniffing around you like a Kneazle with a new toy. Malfoy doesn’t look happy about it, either.”

Ron frowned, looking up. His hair was messy with the expectation of sleep soon as he started filing up his cards. “What’s Malfoy got to do with it?”

“Exactly,” Ginny said, smirking.

Ron looked lost.

Hermione felt a slight tug in her gut at the mention of his name, and shook her head at both it and Ginny alike.

“It’s nothing. It’s definitely not what you’re thinking. He just…Nott just likes being difficult. He thinks it’s funny to make me uncomfortable. Funny to make you uncomfortable, too.”

She rubbed her forehead and swore softly as some ink dabbled into her hairline. Ron passed her a self-dampening tissue without comment on it, muttering darkly, “He’ll find it less funny when I hex his balls off.”

Ginny snorted and rolled onto her stomach, reaching for her Quidditch card collection.

“Ron,” Hermione snapped while dabbing her head, but the warmth in her chest was heavy - their concern, their trust, their friendship. And her lie. She murmured her thanks as she passed it back and slid from the trunk to plop next to him on the sofa, sighing as some of his warmth leaked into her arm. He bumped it into hers companionably, and she tucked herself in tighter to leech from his radiator-like self some more.

He snorted and tucked his cards to the sides to make away for her slightly, reaching to open a fresh packet of chocolate frogs and see what card was inside.

She happily ate the chocolate offered, the quiet leaving her free to think more. Her unused quill absently moved between her fingers.

Anchored. She could focus on him right now, know where he was if she really put her mind to it, and could feel him breathing evenly as he lay in his bed. Bed? Maybe. The connection wasn’t so strong that she could exactly envision what he was doing and exactly where, but she could feel his sleepiness down whatever bond she had forged between them, and maybe because it was a phantom of what had happened in the bathroom, but she could swear if she focused she could feel his heartbeat alongside her own.

Without that focus, without that knowledge of the bond, she thought absently, chewing, it just felt like a sort of tether. Like she was just…aware of him. Like she wanted to be more aware of him. That thought unsettled her more than she’d like to admit.

Ginny glanced up, narrowing her eyes as she flicked her page slowly. “You’re not telling us something.”

Hermione blinked a few times and forced a smile, knowing it most likely seemed brittle at the edges. “I’m fine. Really. I can handle Theo Nott.”

Ginny snorted and rolled back with a sigh, clearly having found no useful information from her hypothesised sordid romance between her friend and the Slytherin.

Ron shifted beneath her, adding a card to his deck, and muttered, “Not if Malfoy’s hovering around too. Who could handle both of them at the same time? Sounds like hell to me.”

Hermione’s quill snapped in her hand.

Chapter Text

Hermione’s gut knew he was in Arithmacy before her eyes did.

She entered the classroom and her stomach did the swooping, weaving motion it always did when they were in any kind of proximity, even partially down the corridor from one another.

She swallowed thickly as his eyes snapped up to the doorway, holding hers slightly, before looking back down at where he was dipping his quill.

Could he feel it too? Or was it just her, as the caster of the spell?

She didn’t know. And really, truly, she didn’t want to know. It all seemed quite mortifying to dwell on.

She slid into the seat next to him and tensed her shoulders against the rippling in her stomach coming to a flat, sudden stillness. She hadn’t been this close to him since when he’d caught her and Nott in the library two days ago.

Malfoy breathed slowly and evenly, and his hand retracted from the ink pot.

“Granger,” he said quietly in greeting, and went to begin writing the date and the title of the lesson on the top of his parchment.

Subtly, Hermione looked at him from the corner of her eye.

He looked even better than he had two days ago. Colour warmed his face, and his lips looked more pink than how they previously had been perpetually walking the line between grey or blue. His jaw worked rhythmically as he wrote, tensing and slackening repeatedly.

His gaze slanted towards her in her silence.

“Hello,” she said dumbly, and turned back to her back to begin getting her supplies out.

Stupid.

Blaise slinked into the classroom and took the row behind them both, nodding quickly in Malfoy’s direction.

Vector followed shortly after, shooting a knowing look in Zabini’s direction at his near-tardiness, and slammed the windows open with a flick of her hand.

“You should have your notes by now,” Vector said briskly, and wandlessly the chalk began to take notes behind her.  “Third layer. Remember, and I cannot emphasise this enough, to mark down any cells filled with unstable magic. This will be catastrophic to your life, and even worse, to your grade, if unchecked.”

Hermione could not agree more.

The class shuffled slightly, and Vector shot a glance around the room.

“Only one more week of these matrices, class. You’re almost there. Begin.”

Hermione looked down to her parchment and pulled the notes she had jotted down from Monday’s lesson to hand to Malfoy. He waited until she put it down on the desk before reaching for it, murmuring a quiet thanks.

She opened her mouth to ask who should begin, but he had already wordlessly began building their matrix from their shared notes. It was a tower of magic, built brick by brick, on the foundations of their previous lessons. Hermione swallowed down the pang of annoyance at his assuming the role of building, and instead began circling the desk slowly, looking for anything that would set off alarm bells.

He built precisely and efficiently, glancing down at their shared notes only a few times before going back to building their matrix.

She realised, begrudgingly, that he was rather good at it. Possibly just as good as her, if not slightly better.

Not that she’d ever tell him that.

“This side is unstable,” she said plainly, and raised a finger towards the left.

Malfoy’s eyebrow twitched, and he looked to where she marked.

She revelled slightly in his brisk nod, despite it not being a mistake of his own.

“Write it down. We’ll get back to it when this is built,” he said, and turned his back to her to focus on their notes again.

“No. It’ll get lost then and we’ll be in a sorry predicament. Just pause a second while I go over it quickly,” Hermione began reaching for her wand, finding it to be more precise with this level of magic.

Malfoy scoffed. He turned back to her.

“Stop being finicky. We can fix it after. It makes no sense to essentially tear down the matrix to fix a single brick that’s barely near any kind of risk zone.”

His tone was waspish and haughty.

Back to usual Malfoy, indeed.

Her jaw clenched as she gazed at him across the table. He held her eyes.

“If we don’t fix it now we’ll keep building and lose it. And then we risk it exploding. You know that.”

“I know it’s nowhere near being critical right now. And I know we can afford two more placements, putting us ahead of everyone else in this classroom that’s being just as finicky as you, before we can circle back to it before presenting it to Vector.”

His arms folded across his chest, and she mirrored him petulantly. Her tone was testy as she said, “You’re being messy.”

“And you’re being a swot, as usual,” he snapped back, leaning over the desk. She realised, belatedly, she was leaning over it to raise her finger from her arms and sharply in his direction also, the pair of them most likely looking fairly ridiculous.

Her ears felt hot.

“You’re going to cause a mistake because you can’t be patient and compose yourself enough to pause the matrix for five seconds, all while I do the heavy lifting of running a quick diagnostic to sort something out that can save our project,” Hermione hissed, and she felt the back of her neck get hot and prickly in anger.

“Compose myself?” Malfoy ground back, and took a step from the other side of the desk to get slightly closer to her. His eyes sparked angrily as he jabbed a violent finger in the direction of the matrix. “You need to compose yourself enough to stop forcing your way so far into Vector’s ass-“

“You watch what you’re saying to me, Malfoy.”

“You’re acting like an imbecile.”

“I’m following the rules of the book, Malfoy, which is-”

“‘I’m following the rules of the book, Malfoy,’” he mimicked in a nasally caricature of her voice. She flushed angrily, and took a step in his direction.

“Are you five years old?” Hermione said brusquely, shaking her finger at him. She fought the urge to stamp her foot.

He just smiled nastily down at her.

Her chin jerked up to him, and she squeezed her fist together so tightly her nails cut small half-moons into her palms. This, of course, was in lieu of smacking her knuckles into the side of his face.

He was looking especially punchable today.

“There’s more ways than one to do something. Or is the textbook still your Bible?“

“The textbook is more right than you are, seeing as you haven’t been here for half these lessons, anyway. What would you know?” Hermione growled, and she had the almost animalistic urge to bare her teeth at him, gnash in ways her words couldn’t.

“You haven’t changed since first year,” he sneered down at her, his face twisted cruelly.

“And maybe you’ve changed too much,” she hissed pointedly, a wicked and low blow. Malfoy’s eyes narrowed further.

Hermione felt a crackle between them, like static, and realised the hair on the back of her neck and gone from just prickly and hot to standing on edge.

She took note of their situation. Inches from one another, her hand gripping her wand in her fist, him reaching for the inside of his pocket to palm his own in response. He looked clammy, face still in an angry grimace, eyes slanted down into her own. She felt perspiration on her own forehead, and her nails on her left hand had been digging into her palm so much she thought she was inches from drawing blood.

This wasn’t natural. Not at all.

She forced herself to take a deep, deep breath, and swallowed thickly. She felt too hot.

Malfoy opened his mouth to say something nasty back, sneer marking his mouth as he began crowding into her space even further, and Hermione bit out her next words in a controlled sentence that took every ounce of her willpower.

“Malfoy. Pause the matrix,” she said firmly. Her eyes still held his, and her lip began to curl slightly as more of that ridiculous anger coursed through her.

She flexed her left hand on the desk, and hissed lowly to ensure that only he could hear, “Can you just bloody behave for once in your life?”

Malfoy’s gaze snapped into something different, more dumbfounded than angry, and Hermione thought distantly of a wild dog being told to sit for the first time mid-pounce.

Christ, maybe she’d die this year after all. And all over a stupid matrix.

He blinked down at her for a beat, again for another, and he seemed to also take a moment for pause as his throat worked roughly.

His cheeks were pink and blotchy, and he shot a glance around the room before taking a step back, jaw flexing as he ducked his head and moved towards the desk again.

Hermione felt something then, something swirling and cut off, a feeling of…of give, a surrender, and also a feeling she couldn’t place. One that was certainly a sharp contrast to the frustration he had just been pushing down their connection.

Almost…what was that...

Hermione blinked twice at Malfoy, who was staring straight at the matrix.

The feelings she noticed were very quickly swamped by the thick weight of shame.

She shot a glance also around the room, thanking Godrick quietly that nobody had thought to glance in their direction, before looking at the very still, very uncompleted matrix.

He’d paused the building of it and turned it slowly to face her to begin the diagnostic spell.

Hermione coughed slightly, and stood forward to raise her wand at the errant cell of magic.

“Thank you,” she said primly.

Malfoy only swallowed again, eyes trained on the matrix.

They continued to work together in silence.

-

Clearly, the bond was heightening one another’s emotions.

That was her only thought as she left the classroom as soon as she could, barging ahead of anyone in her way to walk briskly to the girls’ bathroom to breathe and cool off from whatever the hell had happened in class.

Hermione splashed cold water over her face and pressed it into either of her wrists, resting her hands either side of the sink and allowing the water to drip from her eyebrows and eyelashes.

He had to be feeling this too. He had to think something was up, surely.

Resolutely, she’d made the firm decision that the anchoring didn’t need to be his business, not if it wasn’t affecting him. Nott had already had to employ her help because he’d said himself Malfoy wouldn’t accept help from a…a Mudblood like herself. For her to then tell him that he was bonded intrinsically to one, and for how long that would be she didn’t know?

Her jaw worked as she looked at herself in the mirror, wiping some of the excess water from her mouth.

She isn’t sure if she’d just sever the bond and prefer to die slowly and painfully, or if he’d just kill them both and be done with it.

But now, she knew, it was binding them together more than she was previously ready for.

She knew it would be a bonding, of course. She expected some of this, the increased awareness of him, possibly. Maybe even to feel some of his pain, to alleviate it somehow.

But not the intensity of this. Not the spiralling that just happened in that classroom, both of their shared emotions adding to the other’s to create a crescendo of anger that would’ve led to one of them hurting the other physically.

At least he’d listened to her, towards the end.

She thought of his embarrassed expression and the feeling of shame and sighed.

She’d tied herself to one of the most confusing people she’d ever met. Brilliant.

A small feeling of panic overcame her.

Hermione willed the creeping feeling of the fog in her mind to leave, bending more over the sink to press the bottom of her palms into her eyes until she saw fireworks behind her eyelids.

She felt the tendrils of it climb into her stress and upset, whispering of more things to worry about, of the things she’d seen, she’d felt, trying to expand on the thoughts of hopelessness and confusion already hitting her in the gut from the anchoring.

Swallowing and straightening herself, Hermione refused to look again at her reflection before leaving the bathroom with the resolve of a woman running from her ghosts.

As she walked, she felt the tugging in her gut return, pulling her down towards the library.

Giving in gave in with a sigh, she allowed her legs to follow suit. Her free period may as well be spent doing something useful, anyway.

The knowledge that being in the vicinity of Malfoy would calm the mildly uncomfortable pressure in her naval was an afterthought.

Or so she told herself.

She entered the library sluggishly and shot a customary glance around to see if any of her friends were nearby, honing in on Harry sat by himself at a table, chewing unpoppable gum as he lazily flicked a page of a tome he was clearly not interested in whatsoever.

“Strange to see you in here,” she said as she approached, his eyes meeting hers and crinkling in a smile when she took the seat across from him. “Where’s Ron?”

Harry rolled his eyes and shut the book all too readily, leaning forward on his elbows to speak in hushed tones.

“He’s in his own head again about Quidditch. Nott said something to him earlier, something about being replaced soon. I told him it was all bollocks, of course, but,” he shrugged, offering her some gum. She shook her head. “He’s got Ginny running circles around him on the pitch right now. Felt too awkward to go with.”

“Awkward around Ron?” Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Awkward around Gin.”

“Ah,” she said, and took two of her books from her satchel.

“She’s talked to you about it, I guess?” Harry said bemoaningly, and put his chin in his hand.

She shrugged delicately, and opened her tome. “I think the term ‘fizzled’ was thrown about.”

He groaned and moved his hand to cover his forehead.

She took some pity on him and reached across the table to put a hand on his own.

“She’ll understand, Harry. I said the same to her. We had…well, it was a tough year just gone by, to say the least. And it was ages ago her snd I talked about it, too. She doesn’t bring it up often.”

Harry flipped his hand to hold hers and gave it a knowing squeeze. He smiled at her and she gave one back, squeezing twice.

She retracted her hand to shrug playfully and bring out some parchment also, smiling. “Plus, you’re really the problem here, Harry. You know that she called you the, erm…’fizzle-er,’ I think she said. Which makes her the ‘fizzle-ee’.”

Harry barked a loud laugh, hand coming up to cover his mouth as the librarian in the corner stood from her desk to eye them over the rows of books.

She ducked her head and snorted with him, happy to see him finally showing another emotion than concern or his usual bland stoic front used with everyone else.

Suddenly, a poison feeling coiled in her belly, nasty and serpentine.

She felt her stomach curdling vaguely before it was replaced by a scathing feeling of annoyance, and she paused to stare at the wall to identify what was going on.

Malfoy was somewhere here, she knew. That’s what the feeling in her stomach was.

“I’ll speak to her soon. Maybe tomorrow, or after she’s burned off some…fizzle on the pitch,” Harry laughed quietly again, and rested his chin in his hand more happily, looking around the library.

“Seeing sights you’ve never seen before?” Hermione quipped, the cloudy feeling circling her stomach, slightly muted now.

“Hey. Just because I don’t practically live in here,” He was silent as they both turned to watch two blushing students walk behind the sheltered entrance to the kissing corner behind a row of books. “I can’t believe some first years still do that.”

Hermione’s gaze shot back to him, and her mouth dropped open slightly.

“You knew about the kissing corner?”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t?”

Hermione scoffed primly and busied herself with writing a title on her parchment, steadfast ignoring any heat in her cheeks.

“Well, it seems everyone knew about it before I did, apparently. And actually, I don’t believe in defacing a school library. It’s…immoral.”

“‘Immoral’,” Harry snickered. “I mean, if you’re 13, sure.”

She kicked him under the table.

“Who did you go there with?”

“Ron,” Harry said easily, and Hermione stared blankly at him.

He stared back, and then his face contoured as he waved his hands around quickly. “Not like that! Not like that, God. I meant that we just went down there to find out who we’d find snogging a couple years back. Nothing interesting, really. I don’t see the appeal.”

“It is a very small cubby,” she nodded noncommittally, writing out some vague notes.

Harry paused, and she kept writing before sitting straight to dab her quill on her tongue. This ink always ran out. She swore under her breath and reached for the ink bottle.

Harry was staring at her again when she glanced up.

“You’ve been there?”

She flushed.

“And recently, too? If you only just knew about it?”

Oh, God. He had that look in his eye, glinting like when he thought he knew something and was going to try and needle it out of you. He leaned forward on his elbows, wagging his eyebrows slightly.

“Is it who I think it is?”

She sighed sufferingly, and put her quill down. She’d known him long enough to know he wouldn’t let that go.

“It wasn’t for what you think it was for,” she began, and sat back in her seat with a huff.

Harry’s grin just stretched wider.

He kicked her under the table again, and he looked shrewdly at her.

“It’s natural, Hermione, honestly. You’re getting no judgement from me.”

He sat back with his palms up in surrender, and she smacked them away.

“I said it wasn’t for what you think it was for, Potter, stop needling at me,” she whispered in a rush, glancing up at the librarian, who stared angrily back.

“So what was it for?”

She rolled her eyes and flushed again, shrugging. He laughed quietly.

“Nott just took me there to show me-”

“Because Ron isn’t in the library on the regular-”

Both spoke at the same time, and both went silent at the same time too.

They blinked at one another.

“Nott?”

“Ron?”

“You went back to the kissing corner with Nott? I mean, I knew you were close, I didn’t think it was like that,” Harry hissed, looking slightly hysterical.

“Oh my God, Harry, it’s not. There’s actual books back there, you know, like actual, real books with-”

“Did you want to go? Did he drag you? He did, didn’t he? I swear-”

“Harry,” Hermione snapped, clicking her fingers in front of his eyes. “There’s a book back there on magic beasts. I went there after my injury. He showed me it.”

The lie came easy. She swallowed, fought the urge to shake her head at herself in disappointment. When had she become this, so quick to bend truths to her best friends?

Harry’s eyes jumped between hers searchingly before he blew out a breath, sitting back in his seat.

“Well, thank Godrick for that. I told Ron he’s still got a chance here, I swear I did. You two have always been inseparable, really, and it was just a matter of time before-“

Hermione’s brow furrowed and Harry’s rushed muttering, tapping the desk in front of him for his attention.

“Harry, what on Earth are you talking about?” Hermione whisper-shouted. She was beginning to get frustrated, the annoyance swirling in her stomach again.

Harry stared beseechingly at her, and then glanced away at their surroundings.

“Ron…well, come on, ‘Mione,” Harry said, shrugging and putting his hands loosely in his pockets. He looked back at her. “It’s obvious Ron likes you, isn’t it?”

Hermione’s mouth dropped open at the same time there was a scraping of a chair behind her and footsteps left the library at a quick pace.

Chapter Text

Breakfast in the Great Hall was noisy, spoons clattering against bowls, owls swooping through high rafters with parcels and letters. Hermione sat between Ginny and Harry, porridge untouched, one hand wrapped around her tea as she used the other to rub her forehead tiredly.

She hadn’t slept properly last night.

After Harry had left after one of the very few stilted, awkward silences they’d shared in their friendship, she’d gone straight to what she does best and buried her nose deep in her notes as a distraction.

It hadn’t really worked.

She sighed again and raised her hot tea to blow the steam from the top, eyes jumping over to the Slytherin table.

Her gaze roamed from Zabini, mouth in a downturned frown as he replied to whatever Nott, sat across from him, had just said as he gestured wildly. The side profile of Pany’s laughing face, looking at Nott gleefully, and finally to Malfoy, who sat across from the former.

His clear eyes met hers, cool, guarded, and flickering in her direction almost simultaneously.

He held her there for a beat before his surveillance of the room continued down her table before he looked back at Parkinson also.

Hermione rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck either side, feeling the weight of her late night library session.

“You look knackered,” Seamus directed towards her around a mouthful of toast, grinning. “Don’t tell me you’ve already read through the Transfiguration text three times for fun.”

“Four,” Dean put in, pointing at him across the table with a jammy knife. He managed to splatter most of it across the table.

Ginny sighed and wiped her now red-streaked sleeve.

“And she probably rewrote the answers too, just incase the textbook was wrong,” he continued.

Ron snorted next to her.

Hermione glanced from the corner of her eyes in his direction, then towards Harry, who had an innocent expression on his face.

No doubt they were both thinking of his fumbling confession on Ron’s behalf last night.

“Don’t know what you’re agreeing with, Ron,” Ginny interrupted. “You apply half that commitment to Quidditch and we might have a half chance of beating Ravenclaw after Christmas break.”

“Oi!” Ron said, outraged around a mouthful of porridge.

Dean sniggered.

“Ron, don’t listen to them. I know you’re amazing,” Harry said placatingly. He smiled at his friend. “It’s not your fault your skills are…sometimes hidden.”

“Right,” Ron said, throwing his hands up. “I’m not having this.”

Hermione hid her smile in her shoulder as her friends began chattering again, Seamus rushing to Ron’s defence as the table erupted in debate.

Her smile developed quickly into a large yawn.

They were right about it all except it being Transfigurations.

It had been Arithmacy. A useless endeavour to find any faults in the matrix due to be presented in 3 days time, after the weekend and right before they broke up for Christmas.

She’d found very little. Whatever was there she could’ve altered herself in the library well before bedtime and still had time to double, and even triple, check the adjustments.

But she’d kept digging for more faults, more inconsistencies, more errors.

A tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered why she was so focused on hers and Malfoy’s project.

She wholeheartedly ignored it, as well as the swimming in her stomach that notified her happily that her and Malfoy were close enough for the bond to be both noticeable and uncomfortable.

Neville’s eyes were kind as he spoke quietly to her. “You should give yourself a rest, Hermione. We’ve still got a week before it’s due.”

Hermione blinked at him, then at her tea, and forced a small smile, head cloudy from sleepy thoughts. “I just wanted to be sure the calculations held. You’d hate to get to the final check and realise something’s fractured.”

Ron gave an exaggerated groan as he snapped from arguing with Ginny over his skills to twist in his seat and gesture at Neville.

“Of course she would. Hermione doesn’t know the meaning of leaving things alone.”

Harry leaned in, grinning. “I think she knows the meaning. She just doesn’t practise it.”

“Too right,” Ginny chimed in helpfully.

Hermione elbowed her lightly, though her mind was already drifting.

Harry’s brow furrowed as he studied her. “Seriously, you don’t look well. If it’s the project, you’ve got time. Vector said alterations are due right after break, remember?”

Hermione nodded, voice brisk. “I know. I just… I need to go over something with Malfoy. There are variables he needs to adjust before the holidays. And I’d rather not have to adjust them after Christmas. I may as well get it all done before.”

Ron dropped his fork with a clatter.

“Malfoy? Now? Bloody hell, Hermione, it’s breakfast.”

“And?” she snapped, sharper than she meant. “We can’t exactly leave it. One mistake ruins the entire table.”

Dean whistled low. “Malfoy’s getting the Hermione Granger treatment. Poor bloke won’t survive it.”

Seamus smirked. “Maybe he likes it.”

Hermione shot him a look, cheeks warming.

She shot a wayward glance towards the Slytherin table without really meaning to, and resolutely refused to look to see if Malfoy had the same idea.

She trailed her gaze along the wall behind where the group of them sat and coughed, tuning back in.

Neville cleared his throat. “When we come back, there’ll be Quidditch as well. Season starts properly after Christmas, and the first match starts with us, too. You’ll want to be rested for that, Hermione.”

Hermione grinned, rolling her eyes exasperatedly.

Everyone knew she was probably the only one who only went to cheer on her friends, not for any semblance of house pride.

“Exactly. I can’t have myself getting distracted by Arithmancy while we’re wiping the pitch with…Ravenclaw?”

“Slytherin will be the first match, actually,” Harry quipped easily, and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

She scoffed at whatever challenge he was making towards her right now and sipped her tea.

Harry smiled faintly, though his eyes flicked across the hall behind him as he casually turned his head.

Hermione noticed, and apparently so did Pansy Parkinson. She lingered a moment too long, dark gaze fixed on him before curling her lip and turning away.

Harry turned back to the table slightly flushed and poured a large glass of orange juice.

Ginny stiffened beside Hermione, noticing, but said nothing.

Hermione stood, feeling rather awkward, and began gathering her bag, half listening to Seamus recount the last time they’d apparently beaten Slytherin into the mud during a game.

Ginny rose with her, coughing and swinging her bag easily over her shoulder.

In the corner of her eye, Hermione caught Draco already rising from the Slytherin table. Blaise trailed lazily behind him, Theo beside, Pansy clinging to Nott’s sleeve as they bent their heads to hiss whispers at each other.

She hesitated only a moment before stepping forward.

“Malfoy,” she called, voice steady.

His head turned sharply, not needing to look around to locate her in the large hall, grey eyes locking on hers.

He raised an eyebrow.

The other three Slytherins seemed dumbfounded at one of their own being beckoned so loudly and from such a distance, and she felt her flush hit her ears.

Christ.

Nott’s grin was wolfish as they trailed over to her group’s table, which had gone fairly quiet.

“Granger,” Nott greeted happily, arm still firmly gripped by Pansy. “You summoned us?”

Hermione sighed inwardly.

Her eyes focused back on Malfoy. “We need to meet later. The volatility coefficient still isn’t stable, and I want it corrected before break.”

Harry chewed his toast slowly, looking between the two of them. Ron had gone slightly pink, eyeing up Nott as if preparing for some kind of hex.

Malfoy cocked his head, almost serpentine, and she felt a simmering of doubt and disbelief run down their bond.

Please don’t call this bluff, she thought to herself quietly. Please still have your arrogance and think I need this help.

“Alright. I have a free period next.”

A part of her breathed a sigh of relief, and the whispering voice from earlier that pointed out she could’ve done the adjustments herself seemed to laugh.

“I do too.”

He said nothing, so with a resolute nod she turned to Theo.

“I need to see you later too, while you’re here. Or tomorrow.”

“Oh?” Theo said, arching a brow, interest flashing.

“I have something of yours.”

Malfoy rolled his shoulders and turned to his friend at the same time Zabini and Pansy shared a look.

“Your notes. I need to return the notes you lent me,” Hermione coughed, feeling the inexplicable urge to clear herself of whatever thoughts they were having.

“Ah. So you’re arranging liaisons in the open now.” His smirk deepened when she glared at him. He gestured with both hands, as if making a title of a movie in the air. “But, really, Granger. Two in one day? First Malfoy, and then me? My, my.”

“Give it a rest, Theo,” Zabini intoned, looking skyward with a long suffering sigh.

Ginny let out a snorting laugh, as if the day couldn’t get any weirder, and folded her arms from where she stood behind Hermione.

“Right, steady on there, Nott-” Ron began, the bench scraping slightly as he rose to his feet.

Pansy sniffed, loud enough to interrupt as if she’d just spoken, and her simpering voice was enough to carry around those walking past them.

“I mean, it is true, isn’t it? You and your trading of lions for snakes, Granger? It really must be desperate times.”

Her hand tightened on Nott’s sleeve before she let go, casting one last look towards Harry that made Ginny’s laugh dry up.

“Give it a rest, Parkinson,” Ginny hissed.

Hermione glanced at her friend briefly.

“Oh, goody, are you all her chaperones now?” Blaise said, expression amused in the way one would watch children playing. “Can we expect all the Gryffindors in a certain vicinity come to Granger’s aid from here on out?”

He gestured vaguely to the table.

Ron bristled. “Better than trailing around like lapdogs.”

Pansy took a step forward.

“Alright. Enough,” Harry said firmly, looking up from where he sat between the standing groups. “I’m getting deja-vu.”

Draco hadn’t moved. His eyes were still on her, a steady, assessing weight.

“Meet in our usual spot?” He said lightly. Only his eyes shooting in Ron’s direction gave hint at his knowledge of what that implication meant.

Theo snickered.

“Yes,” she said tersely, and Malfoy nodded, looking over her friends once more before turning on his heel to leave the hall.

Hermione rubbed her forehead and turned towards her friends.

“Alright. Have at it.”

Immediately they began chattering as they lifted their bags.

“‘Our usual spot’,” Ron mimicked Malfoy’s nasally tone with unusually good talent. “What the bloody hell does that even mean?”

“He’s just trying to get under your skin, I’ve said this. It’s just the library,” she said, guiding them all from the hall.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Harry said cheerfully, knocking his elbow into hers knowingly.

She shot him a scowl and felt like calling him a traitor.

“Who knew Parkinson had the hots for Potter, though,” Seamus said, dropping one of the grapes from the bunch he’d smuggled from the into his mouth.

“What?” Three pairs of voices came.

Ron, Harry and Dean.

Ginny sniffed.

“It’s pretty obvious,” she said, and shuffled her bag up her shoulder. Hermione gave her a small bump on the arm with her own to show solidarity.

“I don’t think it is. What do you mean?” Ron’s head was swinging between Harry and Seamus, the latter shrugging.

“It is pretty obvious,” Neville said, catching up to them after pausing to speak to Luna briefly in the corridor.

“How can Neville see this but I can’t?” Dean demanded.

Ginny and Hermione exchanged a look, and she did a quick assessment of her friend to see if she was upset.

“Okay?” Hermione mouthed.

Ginny didn’t look upset or angry, just vaguely put out. She gave a half shrug and mouthed back, “Talk later.”

Fizzled out indeed, Hermione thought.

She continued with her group down the corridor until she took the left into the library, Ron and Seamus still loudly debating Parkinson and Harry (to Harry’s mortification).

As soon as the chatter of her friends became distant, she promptly looked around the library briefly, turned on her heels, and set out for the Room of Requirement.

Her stomach settled as she passed the last stragglers on their way to class, shooting a glance to her left and right quickly.

She knew he was in here as she turned the knob, feeling a slackening from the tightness of the string she’d followed directly here from behind her naval.

Malfoy was bent over the careful construction of the matrix, silently working.

The room was a perfect replica of Vector’s lab, if slightly smaller, with a faux window in the corner shuttling in natural light. The sunlight glinted off his hair as he squinted down at their notes from the previous day.

She was actually quite impressed with the illusional skills of the room.

Malfoy shot her a small nod of acknowledgement before focusing again.

“I’ll be glad for this project to be over,” she said, dropping her bag on the small chair near the doorway after removing her newest notes. She placed them on the desk beside their other ones. “I feel like it’s all I do.”

“Why were you rehashing the notes?” Malfoy asked, eyes flitting to the improvements she’d written down in the library the night before. “We have an hour before presentation slots to make final tweaks. A presentation that’s in three days, I might add.”

She shrugged.

“And anything minor like this,” he pointed at her notes. “You could’ve sorted yourself before bothering me.”

At this he did face her, and she folded her arms across her chest defensively

The whispering voice laughed again.

“I expect two people to work on a partner project,” she said primly, and went to analyse the matrix again.

He hummed, and cracked his neck as he worked. His jaw worked tersely.

She watched him drag his finger down to her notes again as he shook his head, rebuilding one of the cells with a frown.

His shoulders were tense, and she pulled her wand to quietly begin diagnostic cells on the matrix itself.

There was a companionable silence for a time, only the scratching of their quills and small mumble of diagnostic spells.

She was scribbling down the adjusted formula being used for them to replicate for Vector when there was a slight shimmering in her peripheral.

Hermione lifted her head in time to see Malfoy’s Glamour fall back, the silky shimmer unveiling his two enormous wings.

He didn’t seem to pause his work, also bent over the desk, writing down, and Hermione covered her intake of breath with a slight cough and shuffle of her feet.

They were much, much healthier looking. There was no black stain towards the ones reaching his shoulders, no wilt at the tips. They were actually a lovely gossamer white, unfurling slightly with a shiver across them, as if a weight had been lifted.

Actually, now that she thought on it, and especially with the sun hitting him directly from that fake window the room had given them - the feathers really did match his hair.

She watched the tendrils of sun work their way across the span of them, palms flat on the desk.

“You can at least keep up the pretence of doing work,” Malfoy murmured, still bowed over his parchment.

“They look…I mean to say, they seem a lot better.”

She didn’t feel a hint of shame at her blatant staring.

“Well, I suppose it’s thanks to your special balm. Or maybe the curse is receding. Maybe I’ve been taken pity upon,” he peered up at her, quirking an eyebrow.

She swallowed.

If she was going to mention the anchoring to him, now was the time.

It took her all of two beats, two beats filled with memories of Malfoy spitting the word Mudblood at her - and really, that was not too long ago, all things granted.

Thoughts of Nott having to ask for her help because his friend would never accept a person of her ilk’s offer, even if it meant slowly dying.

Thoughts of the potential risk of breaking this splintered agreement of mutual peace they’d come to silently accept.

She looked back down at her quill and held her tongue.

Guilt knocked her in the back of the throat.

”I can make you some more of the balm,” she said instead, and kept her eyes down.  

Malfoy muttered something that she chose to translate as ‘please, Granger! That would be amazing, thank you!’

“We’re basically done here,” Malfoy announced a few more minutes later and stood, stretching his arms above his head with a crack of his back.

“I don’t know,” Hermione mused, and frowned at the matrix.

“What do you mean, ‘I don’t know?’” Malfoy said incredulously. “You’ve taken three quarters of my free period already. Are you trying to go for the full hour?”

Another flash of irritation swept across her as she straightened up herself, and she pointed at a barely-orange cell.

“If it’s not green, it’s a failure to me. This needs to be perfect.”

“It is perfect.”

“Clearly not!” Hermione picked her wand back up and pointed it towards the instability. “Stop cutting corners and write down the diagnostic for this piece.”

“Cutting corners-” Malfoy bit his sentence off violently and folded his arms, surveying her darkly. The wings behind him rustled as they seemed to stretch out behind him along with the movement.

Hermione refused to be distracted by them again.

“You’re demanding too much of this project. Leave it. This,” he gestured at the matrix, floating a few inches above the table and circling slowly. “Is going to impress Vector.”

She was getting sick of this.

“I don’t want to impress my professors. I want my grade to be Outstanding.” Her words were hot with the vexation of having to constantly repeat herself. “And honestly, Malfoy, it you don’t help me, I’ll tell Vector you were a shoddy lab partner.”

His jaw clicked. “I am not a shoddy lab partner. I’m being practical, Granger.”

She jerked a finger at his quill in frustration.

“Can you just write down-”

“Granger, I want to have just twenty minutes of peace before-”

“Is it really so hard to just be in a room with me for an hour?” Hermione snapped heatedly, nearly at a shout. It reverberated slightly in the room, being mainly sterile, white walls of the faux laboratory.

“Sit. Down.” She commanded angrily, not giving him a chance to respond. She didn’t want to hear it. “Write the fucking diagnostic. It will take you all of five minutes, and that’s only with your pompous, ridiculous handwriting anyway.”

The room was silent except for the ticking of the clock in the corner wall.

They stared at each other for five, six, seven seconds.

Malfoy sat down.

The same feeling from yesterday travelled slightly down the bond, but Hermione was too angry and slightly humiliated by her chasing him down with issues (and he was right in saying this) she could’ve sorted herself, all for him to hate every minute of it, to delve into what that feeling was.

She silently cursed this foolish bond, of how it was in turn making her behave foolishly, of how it made her stomach feel so restless that inventing problems to be in his proximity to just calm it down was-

Malfoy’s quill scratched against the parchment as her wand moved, gripped so tightly her knuckles were white.

He finished writing and placed it beside his notes.

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Look, I’m sorry for snapping. That wasn’t-”

“You’re right,” Malfoy interrupted her. His eyes were dark, and he watched her across the table. His jaw clenched once, relaxed, and he swallowed.

Clearly, she thought, he struggled with saying that.

“Right. Well, it’s sorted now, isn’t it?”

She rose from her seat and gathered her notes, putting them into her binder and walking over to her satchel.

Malfoy sat still at the desk, eyes trailing after her as she packed up.

She paused by the door, looking at him.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Her voice sounded slightly nasally and begrudging even to her own ears.

He was quiet for a second.

“I don’t struggle to be in a room with you for an hour.”

His voice was tight, and Hermione thought this was the closest to embarrassed Malfoy could possibly sound.

Her cheeks flushed.

God, this whole situation was mortifying.

She flapped her hand, waving him away as her ears went hot.

“No, it’s fine, just…I’m leaving now. I’ll see you for the presentation. Or before.”

He didn’t respond, hand still poised just below his quill, cheeks slightly flushed, and Hermione felt the inelegance of her sentence lie.

“I’ll just see you around. Jesus.”

She twisted the handle, taking one last glance behind her at the lab, at Malfoy sat at the desk, his darkened eyes still looking directly at her with an openness to his expression she hadn’t seen in him ever before.

The wings flickered as if saying a goodbye to her as she let the heavy door shut behind her.

Chapter Text

The following Monday dawned clear and bitter, frost feathering the castle windows. By the time Arithmancy began, the whole room buzzed with end-of-term restlessness.

The air smelled of ink and cold parchment; even Vector looked faintly festive, a sprig of holly pinned to her robes.

Hermione smoothed the corners of her parchment, heart thudding as she and Malfoy stepped up to the front together. Their matrix floated above the desk, rotating in pale green light.

Vector gestured them forward.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Draco inclined his head slightly, deferential but prideful, and began explaining the stabilising sequence they’d built. His tone was crisp, controlled.

Hermione joined in, tracing the runic flow mid-air with her wand as she clarified the layered coefficients.

Halfway through, Vector leaned closer, eyes bright behind her spectacles.

“Very elegant,” she murmured. “You’ve used inverse balance to reinforce the framework?”

“Yes,” Hermione said, pulse quickening. She fought to contain her eagerness while replying. “We linked the resonance points rather than neutralising them. It created a self-supporting structure.”

Malfoy span the matrix wordlessly to show Vector points in the build that supported what Hermione was saying.

When they finished, Vector stood silent for a beat, examining the work.

The class rustled, impatient.

Then Vector spoke:

“This,” she said slowly, “is the strongest matrix I’ve seen in a long while. Outstanding. For the both of you.”

Hermione exhaled, dizzy with relief, as Vector went on the point out something else they had done well.

Beside her, Malfoy nodded gravely and knowingly at Vector before he shot a glance from the corner of his eyes at Hermione.

When their gaze met, he rolled his slightly, conceding defeat with an amused flicker of expression that sent a tiny, reluctant smile across her face.

As they took their seats again and the next pair stood at the front to begin their own presentation, he leaned closer, elbow pressing into hers as he muttered,

“Maybe being a snob has some merits.”

She gave him a sidelong look.

“Maybe it’s the only reason we didn’t fail.”

His grin was brief but genuine before he looked away, quill scratching across his parchment as if nothing had been said.

The bond felt warm and honey-like.

By that evening, the corridors thrummed with energy. Boughs of evergreen hung from the ceiling, candles hovering in glittering spirals, the smell of pine and mulled spice drifting from the kitchens. Suits of armour hummed carols badly out of tune.

Hermione was in her dorm room. She took the small tin of never-ending shortbread she’d conjured earlier from her bag, and positioned them along with a note on her bedside table.

For the elves. Merry Christmas.

Then, she sighed loudly and floated her trunk open, beginning the boring ritual of packing.

Directing her books and quills neatly into compartments with a point of her wand, she paused at the expandable, warded file Nott had loaned her - still containing the pages she needed to give back to him, too. Swearing softly, she rubbed her forehead and charmed them back into the top drawer.

Crookshanks was watching from where he was curled on his pillow.

Since the ritual, he’d been slightly distant. Disappearing when she walked in, curling into her briefly before jumping off and walking out of the common room.

Vaguely, she wondered if it was the anchoring. Wondered if maybe he could feel a second presence inside of her right now.

The door opened loudly behind her, and she half turned as Ginny flopped into the armchair in the corner, Quidditch robes still creased from training.

“Can’t believe you’re basically packed already,” she said. “I’ve been chasing Ron around the pitch all day. Again.”

Ginny bit into an apple and surveyed her own messy bed, nose wrinkling. She smelt like the outdoors, grassy and windy.

“He’s convinced saving three more goals will win him the Cup after Christmas.”

Hermione snorted faintly. “He’s enthusiastic, at least.”

“Obsessed,” Ginny corrected.

Lazily, Ginny kicked open her own case at her feet, and began charming items from her wardrobe to fall into it.

She sighed, putting her chin into the palm of her hand as the two packed in companionable silence.

Hermione cleared her throat. “We haven’t had time to talk about…you know.”

Ginny paused mid-levitation, shooting her a glance.

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to ask or not.”

“Even if you had, he’d have probably heard it. The girls dorms is the only place he can’t snoop, I reckon,” Ginny said, floating some more times down.

Hermione put down her wand and crawled onto the end of her bed, legs crossed.

“How’re you feeling?”

Ginny shrugged, expression a mix of irritation and resignation. A pair of underwear landed too heavily in the case with a smack. “I’m… not really interested anymore. I know that.”

“Fizzled,” Hermione said sagely, nodding.

“Fizzled,” Ginny echoed, mouth cracking into a small smile. She played with a loose piece of fabric on the seat as she continued to pack. “It still feels strange, though. Especially with Parkinson watching him like a starving Kneazle.”

Both of them shared matching faces of disgust for a beat.

“Harry seemed more dumbfounded than anything else, if it helps. I wouldn’t worry too much.”

Ginny huffed a laugh.

“I’m just being childish. Like I’m annoyed I’ve dropped a toy and someone else has picked it up.”

“Did you just compare Harry to a toy?” Hermione snorted, rolling onto her stomach, and began levitating more of Ginny’s items into her case to help her.

“What about your toys?” Her friend asked innocently.

Hermione shot a look in her direction.

“My toys?”

“Well, I heard from a little birdie that you’ve collected my brother, now, too. Along with the Slytherins already on your shelf…?” Ginny trailed off, eyes dancing as she raised an eyebrow.

Hermione was going to murder Harry when she next saw him.

“I didn’t know I was Fred’s type,” she said lightly, and sniffed pointedly.

Ginny snorted a loud laugh.

“You play coy if you like, Granger,” she waggled a finger in her direction. “As long as you’re practicing safe-“

“Alright!” Hermione barked. “I do not want to think about your brother and…”

Her cheeks flushed and she slammed Ginny’s packed case shut with a flourish of her wand.

It did nothing to drown out her friend’s exaggerated retching noises.

-

When she woke at dawn, the tin was gone, replaced with a sprig of mistletoe tied with a silver ribbon.

The castle gleamed with frost as Harry and Ron met her in the Entrance Hall, their trunks hovering behind them.

The rest of their friends were stood waiting on the Threstral carriages that took them down to the station, chattering loudly and rubbing their hands together. Hermione stood with them, laughing with Neville over the less-than-favourable feedback he and Hannah Abbott had got from Vector on their matrix.

She spotted Theo Nott near one of the tall windows of the hall, winter sunlight slanting across his face.

He was alone.

Small mercies, she thought, as she took a cursory glance around.

“Theo,” she called, approaching. “Here.”

She held out the file and the pages inside.

He took them with an exaggerated bow. “A Christmas miracle. I half-expected you’d keep them hostage.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Mm.” His grin sharpened. “Leaving us all for your Muggle friends, then?”

She rolled her eyes, “I’m going back to London to see my parents, yes.”

He gave a low whistle. “Brave woman. I’ll be in Nice, thanks for asking. My father keeps a villa there. Sunshine, champagne, very little self-reflection.”

Hermione snorted despite herself. “Sounds dreadful.”

Theo laughed loudly, and shoved the pages deep into his shoulder bag.

“Try not to study the entire holiday, Granger. You’ll make the rest of us look bad.”

“Impossible,” she said, and smiled despite herself.

“I’m coming now. Put those evils away, they haven’t worked on me since third year,” Nott shouted over her shoulder, and Hermione turned at the same time her stomach stopped to see Pansy and Malfoy stood side-by-side, waiting on Theo a small distance away.

He bumped his elbow into hers and whispered, “The evils absolutely still work on me.”

She laughed again, and he gave her a quick wave before lightly jogging towards his friends.

He and Pansy began their usual bowing of heads and frantic whispering as Malfoy held her gaze for a beat, nodding once.

She nodded back, and gave him a small wave of her own.

He didn’t dignify it with a response.

The three of them walked towards the waiting carriages, and she turned to reunite with her own friends.

Small flecks of snow began to drop into her hair.

She chanced a glance behind her shoulder as her stomach tightened uncomfortably, feeling the distance between them span already.

Belatedly, she realised this would be the farthest apart they could possibly be since she had enacted on the anchoring.

She tried not to let the thought get to her.

The train was already steaming when Hermione and her friends neared. The sky was overcast and dreary, the dusting from the clouds becoming more wet rain than solid snow.

Through the light sheen of rain she shot an automatic look towards where Draco stood next to Zabini, the two talking quietly.

His posture was relaxed, but she felt the faint pull low in her stomach: awareness, magnetic and unwelcome.

Hermione saw a few bright shocks of red hair through the crowd of parents meeting their children and students seeing their friends off.

She faced her friends resolutely.

“Ready for the Burrow?”

Ron’s grin was wide. “Mum’s already sent a letter about the feast. You sure you don’t want to come?”

Selfishly, she was rather jealous of the option of the portkey Harry and the Weasley’s had, rather than the long journey that faced her home.

“I promised my parents I’d be home this year,” she said, smiling a little sadly despite herself.

Ron leaned in and wrapped an arm around her, giving her a tight squeeze.

“I’ll bring your jumper back after the holiday.”

Hermione snorted and buried her face in his familiar smell, wrapping her arms tight around him.

“You’ll write, won’t you?” Harry said, wrapping his arms around her next. His eyes were bright.

“Of course, don’t be stupid,” she sniffed, aiming for haughty, but ending it with a wet little laugh as they hugged again.

Ginny squeezed her shoulder as Mrs Weasley bustled nearer, and Hermione ducked into the nearest train doorway before she could start convincing her to come to the Burrow.

Knowing the Weasleys, they’d ‘accidentally’ let her miss the train just to kidnap her into their home.

A small part of her whispered the rawest truth.

Truly, she wasn’t ready to face Mr Weasley yet. To see his injuries, to talk about Nagini’s bite, to recount what had happened the year prior.

The fog swirled at the sides of her mind as she dropped into the first empty compartment she saw and resolutely refused to look up.

Just in case.

For most of her solo journey home she stared out at the white-covered scenery, chin in hand, eyes sleepy. Other parts she spent reading quietly, Crookshanks finally gracing her with curling up in her lap.

Maybe the distance would be good for him, the anchor less strong and intense upon him.

She stroked him fondly, quietly muttering to his unmovingly hard gaze on how he couldn’t always hide in the castle.

The final part was spent with the two of them snoozing together until the train came to a standstill.

Home was warm and bright, her parents fussing over her in the car ride back to their street until she laughed again.

She craved these moments - her favourite hot chocolate was waiting for her, the fluffy socks she got given to wear on the buildup to Christmas day, her grandparents travelling down to visit her and spoil her (and Crookshanks) silly.

She thought vaguely of Nott, in Nice, and if he got this same nostalgic feeling. Or Malfoy in the cold she imagined the Manor to be.

Her nose wrinkled and she felt a new soft spot emerge for her tacky Christmas bedding and matching slippers.

But as the days stretched, an ache began to sharpen beneath her ribs.

At first, it felt like cramping, and she counted herself unfortunate that she’d have her period right on Christmas.

But it never came.

Her stomach felt fizzy and popping, and the pain curved from her naval up to her chest.

Her parents noticed when her head begun to dot with perspiration. Even after medicine she felt too hot, too cold, too sweaty, too clammy.

She pressed her damp forehead into her sheets, curled up into the fetal position, and moaned agonisingly.

At night she woke dizzy and nauseous, pressing a hand to her abdomen as if she could still the pulse of something missing, and it was only when she felt the residue of this feeling the following morning, finally less delirious after some soup and needs she realised.

She could’ve throttled her past self, then Nott for even suggesting this, and then Malfoy just for being involved.

Because she knew it was the bond.

Hermione collapsed back in her bed, the one she’d been writing in for the last few days, and rubbed sweaty hands over her face, groaning loudly.

The distance clearly did not agree with her.

Letters arrived on Christmas morning, one from Ginny full of gossip, one from Harry describing the chaos at the Burrow, one from Ron smudged with gravy stains. She read them by the tree, smiling faintly, but the gnawing sensation beneath her skin wouldn’t ease.

By evening she was sick in the bathroom, the nausea spreading into the day, her mother’s worried voice calling through the door.

She blamed the food, said she ate something dodgy, but she knew better.

The emptiness was him, the distance stretching the bond until it, and she, frayed at the edges.

She left her parents with apologies for ruining the holidays with her ‘flu’, which they dismissed with a kiss to her forehead and a bag full of Muggle cold and flu remedies, reminding her to drink water and sleep as much as her body needed, before helping her onto the train.

She pressed the cold flannel she’d brought from home to her forehead and slumped in her chair, closing her eyes tightly, and just groaned in response to Crookshanks’ meowing.

The train back to Hogwarts chugged through the snow-covered fields, and the air in Hermione’s compartment felt too thin.

Each mile closer sent a pulse through her stomach, sharp and electric.

She stood, steadying herself on the seatback, the hum under her skin building until it almost hurt.

She left Crookshanks curled on the seats of the compartment and stepped into the corridor as her stomach tightened, clenching and unclenching, almost pulsing.

God. She was going to be sick.

She held her hand over her eyes and dragged her sticky palm downward as she stumbled down the rickety corridor and to the back the train.

Her forehead felt damp, and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly and felt around for the handle to the girls bathrooms blindly.

The chatter of the students in the distance added to her disoriented feeling, and she felt the telltale build of saliva she developed right before she had to puke.

Don’t be sick, she told herself furiously. Don’t be sick, don’t be sick.

The sliding door opened, and she stumbled into the empty compartment.

Hermione paused, eyes darting around, confused.

Hadn’t she meant to reach the…?

The smell of cold metal and steam filled her lungs, and her stomach swooped dangerously for a beat, swirling, before coming to a complete standstill.

The door slid shut behind her with a soft click.

A breath. Then another, close, just behind her shoulder.

Suddenly, hands grasped at her waist tightly, flinging her forward into the seats.

Hermione yelped, cursed, and twisted around, hands bracing against the broad shoulders of her attacker.

“Malfoy,” she breathed, and the hands turned from pushing to grasping at the tops of his arms.

Her stomach had gone still, and the nausea fell from her like a cloak.

She squeezed at his arms as his sweat-covered head pushed into her neck, and intensity thrummed down the bond.

It was clear now, without the distance making his feelings murky.

Need.

“Malfoy,” she said, firmer, and gripped him tighter. “Malfoy, look at me.”

Something felt slightly off-kilter.

He pulled his head back and she sucked in a sharp breath at his face.

The grey of his iris was swallowed by dark, blown open pupils, his mouth slack-jawed, lips wet, red, as if he had been biting at them. Two high spots of pink were over his cheeks and at the bridge of his nose, and his hands still scrambled at her waist. Malfoy’s usually styled hair was damp, askew, some sticking to his forehead in wet tendrils.

Distantly, she noticed his untucked shirt, crumpled, and loose tie.

He looked a mess, the messiest she’d ever seen him.

She felt her own feelings become swamped, lost in the intensity of his. Her stomach swooped again, but this time not from sickness. She felt hot, but this time not from fever.

“Malfoy, what on Earth…”

Hermione trailed off as Malfoy pushed his too-hot face back into her neck, and her back went stiff as his lips began to mouth wetly at the skin there.

He was keening, making desperate, cut off sounds that fell just short of whatever he was trying to say.

Her spine pressed against the rough fabric of the compartment’s seats as he crowded himself almost completely on top of her, mouth working, sounds taking a miserable edge.

Shakily, her ears roaring, she raised a hand to the back of his head, holding him there lightly, and he groaned.

“What-”

There was a sharp sting as his blunt teeth worked just over too-much on the thin, sensitive area of her neck, and she jolted slightly, gasping, as she felt him break skin.

The miserable sounds, the miserable feeling, coming down the bond took a hysteric twist, and he shuddered on top of her as his tongue began laving across the wound.

He was acting like an animal.

Like a dog.

Hermione moaned, long and wanton, and arched herself into him, her eyes falling closed at the sensation. 

She gave in to the hot and pulsing feeling at her navel.

Her other hand roamed across his lower back, pressing him in closer to her, and she stretched her neck out for him. Her fist tightened to a point she knew must feel painful in the hair at his nape, twisting between the tendrils, and she held him to her tightly.

He suckled greedily, his moans turning pleading as he ran his tongue over her neck, messily combining his saliva with what she assumed was her blood.

The tangy, rich smell of metal hit her nose, and she knew her assumptions were right.

Malfoy’s hips twitched against her as she adjusted herself, and her legs fell open.

Her head felt full, heady, almost drunk with dizziness as she stretched her legs so far apart it was almost painful.

She could feel her heartbeat in her ears. Or maybe it was his. She couldn’t tell where he started and she stopped. 

He made another sound, and Hermione realised, in some distant part of her mind not obstructed by what was going on, that this was just the same as what fuelled their arguments lately.

Just like their anger, their lust was building on one another’s, putting them at a frenzy point.

Her neck ached painfully, following a rough wave of his teeth scratching at her skin, the sweet release of his tongue gentling the angry mark he’d been making, the bite of the cold air as he pulled back to work at a new patch.

Every time she flexed her hand in the damp hair at his nape, his movements stuttered, pausing as he let out a quiet, drawn out whine.

His hips jerked desperately against where he was settled between her legs, not finding friction at the angle they were positioned in.

His breathing jittered.

A nasty part of her mind enjoyed hearing him get more and more worked up, more needy.

Malfoy’s hands left her hips to work shakily at the buttons of her shirt, and she met them, both of them attempting to allow him access to more of her skin, even as he continued to suckle at her neck urgently.

She groaned loudly as one popped open, right as felt a thick droplet of her own blood land just above her breast. 

There was a slam of a body against the compartment door as students walked past, laughing and shoving each other.

The very unlocked compartment door.

Her eyes flew open.

Malfoy scampered off her, the thud of his back in the seat across from her as he jumped back promising him a bruise.

The train continued chugging along as the pair of them stared across the compartment at each other, panting.

Malfoy’s hair stuck up at different ends, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his shirt crumpled more-so than even what she’d noticed beforehand.

His eyes were still consumed by the blacks of his pupils, and his nostrils flared as he inhaled and exhaled sharply, catching his breath.

And his mouth…

His mouth was covered with a smearing of her blood, from just under his nose to across his chin, messily staining his pale skin. Some had even managed to soak into the collar of his shirt

Her breath hitched tightly in her chest.

She lowered her right leg from where it had been raised on the seat next to her, feeling the cool breeze against her collarbones where her own shirt had been yanked open.

Where Malfoy had bitten stung in the cold air.

She wished his tongue was back on it, soothing the ache.

“Malfoy-” Hermione began, pushing her messy hair back.

He shot to his feet. His eyes stared down at her neck for one beat.

Another beat.

Then he turned, yanked his tie off to cover the mess of his lower face like a napkin, and ran from the compartment.

Chapter Text

The soft scrawl of her quill in the empty library was the only sound, except for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.

The castle was full, she could hear some vague chatter in the distance, but not one student had thought to come to revise just yet, not so soon after the break.

Well. Except her.

The sickness that had hit her over the holidays had meant her usual note-taking had been swapped out for nightly cold compresses on her forehead and throwing up at all hours, and now the nausea had subsided, she felt antsy with the lack of preparation she had usually completed by now.

Annoyingly, she knew the cause for her health was due to her proximity to…him.

She felt a jab in her stomach as the thought drizzled in the haze of her mind and she glanced out the window, distracted again.

She felt a jab at her neck, too.

Hermione’s jaw clenched as she shifted in her seat and resolutely looked back down at her parchment.

She’d casted a Glamour over her neck where the mark was, but it didn’t stop the feeling of it. Her collar was constantly irritating the raised skin, making it impossible for her to turn without poking at the bruise, for her to crack her neck without feeling where the wound had begun to heal itself break open slightly.

Harry, Ginny, and Ron were yet to arrive, and she thanked her blessings for some time to gather herself before they did.

She hadn’t seen Malfoy since the train, and she was sure that was due to him making sure he avoided her at all costs.

Luckily, she supposed for him, the anchoring meant he wouldn’t accidentally bump into her.

Hermione swallowed down the guilt that had been ebbing and flowing over her and dropped her quill with a sigh, scrubbing her hands over her face.

She was going to have to tell him what she’d done.

What had happened in that compartment wasn’t from his own choice. She knew that, and knew deep down Malfoy was swept up in the increasingly worrying shit storm she’d brought them both into.

Her mind clouded as she wrote mechanically, blinking at her parchment. 

What did this make her?

Was she any better than someone who used an Unforgivable? Could she go to Azkaban for this, the same as someone could if they used the Imperius? Malfoy wasn’t in his right mind, surely they could-

She ran a hand into her own hair and yanked at it sharply to bring her out of the long path her mind kept trying to pull her down. 

“No surprise finding you here,” a female voice came from in front of her.

Hermione clenched her jaw and sighed inwardly, at least marginally grateful for the fading of her thoughts.

She looked up, hoping her eyes conveyed her weariness.

“Parkinson.”

“Granger,” Pansy smiled saccharinely, sliding into the bench opposite her and pulling out her own satchel.

“What are you doing?”

Pansy looked around the library and down at where the large tome sat in front of her, widening her eyes with a comical shrug.

Hermione’s jaw clenched.

“I meant, what are you doing sitting here?”

“It’s a communal student area,” Pansy said decorously, and opened the book. Her eyes flashed as she shot Hermione a look under her fringe. “Or is it only the Slytherin boys that are allowed to speak to you?”

They both stared at each other, Hermione silently counting downwards to avoid spewing something nasty this soon after arriving back at school.

Pansy took this as a win, smiling again, before looking down at the page she was on.

The two worked in an uncomfortable silence.

At least she was getting something other than thinking done, Hermione thought bitterly, her quill scratching slightly too loudly as she pressed the nub into the parchment just shy of breaking it.

“Did you have a pleasant Christmas?”

Hermione went completely still and felt her mouth go slightly agape as she stared at the girl across from her, who continued to look down at her book.

“Are you feeling well, Parkinson?” She asked, and felt genuinely concerned the girl was under some kind of spell for her to have asked something like that to anyone outside of Slytherin.

Pansy’s gaze was tinged with something sour as she folded the corner of her page.

She cocked her head in that serpentine way the lot of them all seemed to have spent hours in the mirror practicing, by the looks of it.

“I had quite a nice one. My mother always spoils my father and myself. She usually takes us somewhere nice with family friends. France, Switzerland…” Pansy licked her bottom lip, continuing as if Hermione hadn’t spoken. “But sometimes, we’ll travel to one their estates, instead. Mother holds amazing company. Her friends own some beautiful ones near us.”

Hermione sat back in her seat with a long exhale, folding her arms.

She figured there was no interrupting this.

Her neck zapped with a sharp ache with the adjustment of her position, and she firmly ignored it.

Parkinson’s long, black fingernails rapped at the table gratingly.

“We visited my mother’s best friend this year. Her estate is quite handsome. We took their gifts, and I made sure to bring something for their favourite pastime. We play it whenever we visit, you know. It’s really rather juvenile, so I’m sure you’ll have heard of it. Exploding snap?”

“Get on with it, Pansy. You’re boring me,” Hermione felt a prickle of chagrin.

The girl simply sighed, and put her delicate chin in the palm of her pale hand.  Her gaze wandered across the empty library.

“It was all for naught, though. You see, my mother’s friend told me that all the players wouldn’t be up for a round or two before we had a drink. Apparently, a member of the household had fallen completely, thoroughly, wholly…sick.”

Hermione felt her stomach twist slightly.

Parkinson kept her eyes on the doorway to the library, shrugging gracefully.

“Of course, I wondered what could be wrong. I asked to go and see, to try and possibly help. My mother’s friend was concerned I’d fall ill also and forbade it. But when we had all eaten, and when my mother and father and hosts had drank one too many, I nipped upstairs to take a peek.”

Her eyes flashed towards Hermione abruptly, “And do you know what the funniest thing is?”

Her nails stopped tapping the table, her other hand still supporting her chin.

Her smile was mirthless.

“All the way down the hallway, I heard something so ridiculous you’ll probably laugh. You see, walking towards the bedroom, all I could make out was a name. Over and over, over and over. It was like a mantra.”

Hermione controlled her breathing as Pansy stared into her eyes deeply.

“Your name. On repeat. Hermione, Hermione, Hermione…”

She scoffed, as if it were the most ridiculous think she’d ever heard, as if she didn’t believe it herself, even.

“I opened the door, half-expecting to see bloody Weasley. But no. It was still Draco, in his room. And he looked-”

Her lip curled as she broke off, and her expression was one of such vexation that Hermione fought the urge to recoil.

Pansy’s gaze shuttered, and she levelled her with another flat stare. She peered across the table, eyes roaming slowly.

Internally, Hermione knew she tracked the dark circles of her eyes, the pastiness of her complexion, the flat, stringiness of her hair - all residue from her time at home, where she was ill herself.

They were both silent as they stared at one another.

Hermione’s heartbeat felt hitched, increasing in pace slightly, and she dug her nails into her sleeves, refusing to look away.

Pansy scoffed, leaning back and laughing prettily. She swiped her dark bob behind her ears and slammed the tome shut, shoving it into her satchel.

The bench creaked as she stood and graced Hermione with a saccharine smile.

“I don’t know what you’ve done, Granger.“

Her eyes were bright.

A part of Hermione was reminded of a hyena: tracking its prey, hunting for pleasure rather than necessity.

“But I’m making it my foremost job to find out.”

Her heels of her polished brogues clicked from the library.

-

Harry and Ron came into the library around shortly after.

Ron handed her the parcel from his mum, the sweater no doubt, along with a small bag-full of gifts.

“From Harry, Gin, and I. Didn’t want to weigh down the delivery owls with it all, bless them,” he said as he slid onto the bench next to her, smiling broadly.

He smelt of the cold wind and of the Burrow, and she flung her arms around his shoulders despite herself, Harry waiting behind her to give her a hug of his own.

Partially because she had missed them so much, but mostly because of the horrible feeling swimming around her stomach, she felt tears pop into the corners of her eyes.

Harry slid into the bench opposite them both.

“Oh, don’t you start,” he said teasingly, and kicked her softly in their own way under the table.

She kicked him gently back.

“I have your gifts here, too. Ron, the pink one is for your dad.”

She’d collected some bits from the stores nearby, and when she’d seen the bright rubber duck in the shop window, she knew Mr Weasley would have a field day with it.

Hermione wiped at her eyes and laughed as she pulled out the embellished Gryffindor tie personalised on the underside with moving, stitched cartoons of her, Harry, and Ron from Harry, and the Ever Fillable Notepad, adjusted to hold parchment instead of paper, from Ron.

They’d got a personalised golden snitch, perpetually still, of course, and a pair of Chudley Cannon’s Keeper’s gloves.

Ron seemed chuffed, trying them on.

“This’ll have us winning every match of the season, you know,” he said.

She tucked her smile into her shoulder.

“How is everyone?” Hermione asked, swapping her usual tie for the new one.

Harry shrugged, opening a packet of jellybeans (human, remarkably) onto the desk.

There was no librarian here this early in the term to stop them from chewing, and she helped herself.

“All good. Mr Weasley is healing great,” he said. She felt a pang in her chest, and stuffed her face more. “Bill’s doing great. Percy nearly cried when he brought him home a quill that never needs refilling. Said it’s a godsend in the ministry.”

“Loser,” Ron mumbled around a mouthful, and even Hermione snorted her agreement. “How was your Christmas, ‘Mione?”

She swallowed, already reaching for more to keep her hands busy as she nodded.

“Alright.”

Ron and Harry shared a look.

She looked between them in turn.

“As in, nothing new. Everyone’s alright. My nana still has her dodgy hip.” 

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for the detail there.”

She rolled her eyes, kicking him rougher under the table. He yelped.

“Where’s Ginny?” Hermione asked, hastily stuffing the last of the jellybeans into her mouth to avoid saying more about her holidays.

“Still with Seamus and Dean. Something about a bet on snowball ammo,” Ron said, rolling his eyes. “Dunno.”

They fell into easy chatter about the Burrow, about Mr. Weasley’s new obsession with a "self-stirring cauldron" that had nearly redecorated the kitchen in pea-green soup.

Hermione laughed in all the right places, asked the right questions, but it was as if she was watching the scene from the other side of a thick pane of glass.

Her mind was circling around what Pansy had said, hot like boiled honey. She had a small worry it was leaking from her ears, her actions showing in the drip, the proof of her guilt in completing the anchoring without Malfoy even knowing.

She stayed with them for nearly an hour, the weight of her friends' normalcy a heavy cloak on her shoulders.

Finally, the compulsion to move, to act, became unbearable.

“I should go and unpack,” she said, rising and gathering her new things.

“Already?” Ron groaned. “We’ve only just got back!”

“It’s Hermione, mate,” Harry said, grinning. “She probably started next year’ syllabus over the break, saving unpacking for longer than an hour is her limit.”

She managed a tight smile, her heart a frantic bird against her ribs. “Something like that. I’ll see you at dinner?”

She left them there after their mid, in their pool of golden, uncomplicated light, and stepped back into the dim, silent corridor.

The guilt in her stomach lay heavy, thick. The swirling of the hot honey heated her head as she pressed the back of her hand to her forehead in an attempt to cool it down, and made her way towards the dormitories.

Chapter Text

The following day felt like more of a blow to her than the first had.

Sleep hadn’t come easy. Not with Pansy’s voice in the back of her mind.

Not with her own needling of guilt pricking at her thoughts.

Hermione moved through her classes like a ghost, her body performing the motions of taking notes and raising her hand while her mind was a thousand miles away, trapped in a web of her own making.

In Charms, she saw him.

He sat two rows ahead and to the left, his posture impossibly straight. The sun glinted off his hair, which looked brighter, healthier, than it had that day in the train.

He never once turned, never once acknowledged her existence, but she felt his awareness of her like a physical pressure against her skin.

It was in the slight stiffening of his shoulders when she answered a question, in the way his quill stilled for a fraction of a second when she dropped her satchel next to Ron’s.

Every time he acknowledged awareness of her presence, the seed of guilt at keeping information from him buried itself deeper.

Later, passing a window on her way to Transfiguration, having left Neville at the greenhouse for his free period, she saw a flash of movement on the rain-swept Quidditch pitch.

Through the sheeting grey, she made out the Slytherin team, a blur of emerald green.

Training, she supposed belatedly.

She knew he was there before she saw it, the streak of blonde, flying with a fierce, almost desperate precision.

He wasn't the languid, arrogant seeker she had pictured him as from where she’d shot cursory glances his way during past games. He shot through the air at a speed that made her own fingers clench around her textbooks, diving down, up, back, forward at such a pace that made her actually feel a pang of sympathy for Harry.

She stood and watched until he was just a speck in the gloom, the anchor in her gut straining with the distance.

It was until the corridor after lunch that she saw the cabal.

Huddled in a recessed doorway, partially hidden by a large statue of a one-eyed witch, were Pansy, Theo, and Blaise.

Pansy was doing most of the whisper-talking, her gestures sharp and staccato as she hissed furiously.

Theo was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, that infuriating, slow smirk plastered on his face as he watched Pansy.

But his eyes, sharp and calculating, betrayed him.

They weren't amused; they were analysing.

His hair was messy from Quidditch training, and he cocked his head at whatever Parkinson had just said. A piece of hair flopped onto his brow, and he flickered it away.

As he did, his eyes slid over Pansy’s shoulder, meeting Hermione’s.

His expression didn't waver.

His stare seemed dark, and his jaw flexed repeatedly as he watched her, nodding to whatever Pansy was saying now.

Hermione had a feeling she knew what she was talking about. 

Pansy didn’t seem to notice Theo’s lack of attention, turning to Zabini. Blaise, as ever, looked profoundly relaxed, hands lazily in his pockets, but his face was attentive.

Theo said something low, eyes still on Hermione, and Pansy’s head whipped around, her eyes narrowing to slits.

The hatred there was so pure it was almost impressive.

Theo’s smirk widened as Hermione quickened her pace, her heart thudding.

The sight cemented her resolve.

The secret was clearly a tumour, and the only choice was to operate herself, lest Pansy try and take over.

Dinner came quickly, as did it all when her mind felt swamped in its own debate.

The internal back-and-forth was a silent war in her head, fought not with her usual lists, but with visceral, gut-wrenching arguments.

She refused to write any of this down.

She didn’t need more eyes prying.

He’s healthy, one part of her said as she ripped bread apart to dunk it into her vegetable soup. Look at him. He’s flying, he’s in class. You did that. You saved him. Telling him now will only destroy that. It’s selfish. You’re trying to clear your own conscience at the expense of his peace.

Dean shouted something over her head at Ron, and she chewed slowly. The bread felt like sawdust on her tongue.

But what peace? The peace of ignorance? The peace of a prisoner who doesn't know he's in a cage? Is that peace?

Tendrils of fog wrapped around her mind as she dunked the bread again.

Her neck felt prickly hot, and she idly itched at it.

He’ll never forgive you. You’ll see that hatred in his eyes every day for the rest of your life, for however long this bond lasts. You’ll lose whatever this is.

What is this? It’s nothing, an intense voice whispered back. It sailed around her mind as she chewed. It’s built on a foundation deception. It’s already lost. You lost it the moment you performed the ritual.

She lifted her spoon to her mouth and blew.

You could be expelled. Azkaban. You’ve performed highly restricted, likely illegal blood magic on another student without consent. You’re no better than-

Her spoon shook against her teeth as she slowly removed the spoon, dropping it into the bowl and swallowing down some ice cold water.

It didn’t help.

You did it to save his life. He was dying! You watched him bleed, you felt his fever. It was the only way.

Was it? the cold, logical part of her whispered back. 

The other voice had no response.

“-Hermione?” Harry’s voice cut through her thoughts, and her head slammed up.

“Huh?”

“I said, are you coming to the game tomorrow, Hermione?” He repeated patiently. Ginny was looking at them both from her seat next to Seamus.

Harry sat across from her, and passed her the jug of water to refill her glass as she rubbed her face roughly to wake up.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course I am.”

His face broke into a smile, and he pretended to cheers his own glass of orange juice in her direction.

She smiled limply.

-

Back in the Gryffindor common room that evening, the fire was roaring, casting long, dancing shadows.

Ginny was braiding Parvati’s hair, and Ron and Harry were locked in a violent game of wizard’s chess.

The normality of it was a physical ache.

“Ginny,” Hermione said as soon as Ginny came to sit next to her, Patel going to the dorms.

Her voice sounding strange to her own ears.

“Can I ask you something… abstract?”

Ginny started on her own plaits, her expression curious. “Sure. Shoot.”

“Do you think…intention matters more than the action?”

Ginny blinked, tilting her head with a snort.

“Blimey, Hermione. Getting deep on a Tuesday. You sure you mean to ask me this?”

Hermione only watched her friend, stroking Crookshanks absently where he purred in her lap.

Ginny went quiet for a moment, her brow furrowed as her eyes grew distant with thought.

“I dunno. I think it… complicates it. It doesn’t make an action okay, but a person sometimes does, right?”

Ginny tied her plait absentmindedly, beginning a twin braid on the opposite side of her head as she spoke.

“A bad person does bad things because they want to. A good person who does a bad thing…they have to live with it. That’s their punishment, I reckon. The living with it.”

She shrugged.

“Why?”

Her friends gaze was penetrating

“A Muggle book I’m reading for our cross-cultural essay,” she said, scratching behind Crookshanks’ ear. “About all these…revolutionaries that have to make brutal choices. Assassinations and whatnot.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow.

“Is your essay on if it’s okay to stab a politician depending on whether they deserve it or not?”

“Something like that,” Hermione said, giving a small laugh.

She looked at her friends, at their easy camaraderie, and felt the gulf between them widen into a chasm.

-

As dusk began to bleed into proper night, a fine, cold rain started to fall, tapping against the windows like impatient fingers.

Her own hands clenched across her abdomen where she lay in bed.

The anchor in her stomach, which had been a restless swirl all day, moving from room to room, gave a demanding tug.

Hermione sat in bed, glancing towards the window for a brief moment.

She listened silently to the bond.

After a pause, she swung her legs over the bed and stuffed her feet into her slippers. She didn't bother to stop for a cloak on the way from the dorm room, didn’t risk reaching near Lavender Brown’s bed which lay next to the coat rack.

She supposed the rain was a fitting punishment for what she was about to do.

The castle doors groaned shut behind her, muffling the warmth from the castle.

The grounds were washed in shades of grey and black, the air sharp and mossy with damp grass. Hermione folded her arms along her midsection and took a cursory glance around the area before following the invisible string at her navel.

The Black Lake was a vast, dark void, its surface shivering under the onslaught of rain.

Her stomach slowed as she approached the solitary figure at the edge of the lapping waters. Malfoy stood with his back to the castle, his head bowed against the weather.

Surely, she thought absently, he had to have felt it too, this inevitable pull.

She approached slowly, her shoes sinking into the sodden grass.

The rain had immediately plastered her hair to her head and soaked through her pyjamas, and when she exhaled it was to the puff of her breath at how cold the air was.

He didn’t turn, but his shoulders stiffened.

They stood in silence for a long moment, the only sound the relentless patter of rain on the lake.

Malfoy turned his head slightly, his profile a sharp cut against the darkness. Raindrops clung to his pale lashes.

“I don’t know why that happened,” he said, his voice low and rough, carried away on the wind. “On the train. I don’t know what came over me.”

Hermione said nothing. Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs.

He coughed, and pushed his soaking hair back from his forehead.

“I’m sorry.”

She felt the whoosh of her stomach, not the bond rippling between them, but at his expression. He looked slightly haunted.

“I know I grabbed you, I basically-“ Malfoy cut himself off, and wiped a hand down his dripping face. “I need to tell you, it wasn’t because of anything other than how these weeks…I haven’t been able to stop thinking about-”

“I stabilised you,” Hermione interrupted, her voice cutting through the rain and whatever he was going to say next.

He went completely still. Then, slowly, he turned to face her fully.

His expression was unreadable, eyebrows furrowed.

“What did you say?”

The dam broke.

“You were dying. The salves were just a temporary fix. The curse was…it was consuming you. And I found a way to stop it.”

Malfoy stared at her blankly.

She took a steadying breath, and curled her toes in her slippers, trying to root herself.

“I found an anchoring ritual. It tethers my life force to yours. It shares… we share the magical burden.”

The silence that followed was heavier than the waterlogged earth beneath their feet.

The confusion on his face cleared, and she watched as it smoothed into a blank slate as a minute ticked by.

“You did…what?” The words were a whisper, but they carried the force of a shout.

“I anchored us,” she said, her voice steady, though her entire body was trembling. She raised her chin. “That’s why you’re better. That’s the pull you feel. That’s why when you were sick over the holidays, I was too.”

Malfoy took a step back, and he looked her down from the soaked tendrils of hair curling on her forehead to her childish Christmas slippers.

“You…bound us? Without my knowledge? Without my consent? Those rituals, they…they demand-”

“You would have refused!” she shot back, her own anger flaring, a desperate, defensive weapon. She swallowed thickly. “You would have chosen to die in agony rather than let me help you, Malfoy. This wasn’t a choice. This was a necessity.”

“A necessity?” The hiss he spat in her direction was raw, guttural, tearing through the quiet patter of the rain.

His composure shattered and he fisted his own hair tightly, panicked.

“You arrogant, meddling-” Malfoy cut himself off, and his eyes were wild as he dropped his hands.

Hermione had thoughts to when she had first caught him with his wings, in the compartment. To how he had spoken to the Ravenclaw weeks ago.

His eyes had the same dangerous glint to them.

“You think you have the right? To touch my magic? To tie your life to mine? Do you have any idea, any at all, as to what you’ve entangled yourself with? What this means for you, too?” Malfoy was shaking now, finger raised to point in her direction. His shoulders were stiff, his other hand in a tight, angry fist at his side he continuously clenched and unclenched.

”Do you?” He shouted.

As his fury erupted, the air around him shimmered.

The Glamour charm fractured.

For a breathtaking, horrifying second, his wings erupted into view, a shocking burst of white in the grey twilight.

They were not as pristine as they had been. The feathers near his shoulders were matted, tinged with a faint, ominous grey, and they trembled violently, mirroring his rage, before he wrenched the Glamour back over them with a visible, painful effort.

His teeth were bared, whether from the spell or from his anger, she didn’t know.

Hermione felt her own shoulders stiffen at the sight of them, and she felt the waves of indignance wash over her. 

She’d expected anger, betrayal, upset. What she didn’t expect was to be spoken to as if she had no idea what she was doing.

“I saved your fucking life,” she snarled, and she took a step forward, hands tensed at her sides.

She felt days, weeks of fear and guilt coursing through her.

“You’d be dead right now if I hadn’t helped you.”

She was refusing to back down, the rain running in rivulets down her face as she jabbed her own finger into her chest and then down at where he stood.

Droplets poured from him as Malfoy threw his hands up, his palms resounding with a wet smack as he let them fall to the thighs of hjs own drenched pyjamas.

“I didn’t ask for this, Granger. I didn’t ask for you to even find out. You’re a plague of moral superiority, of nosiness. Once you got your little interfering claws in, you just couldn’t take them out, could you?”

“You were rotting from the inside out!” Hermione knew she was yelling now. The roaring anger in her ears, the heavy sheet of rain, stopped her from hearing it properly. But her throat ached.

“You were dying and you were too prideful to ask me for help. Pretending nothing was wrong all because you’re too superior to ask for any advice from fucking anyone. You could try and act grateful for the lifeline I threw to you.”

“A lifeline?” Malfoy spat back. His cheeks had gone flush with anger. “This is a leash, Granger. I’m tied to your side like a goddamn dog. I bet this-this…thing, isn’t affecting you nearly as much as it is me, is it?l

Malfoy’s lips were curled over his teeth still, and he raised himself up to his full height.

The wind howled around them.

“You have ruined me. You’re no saviour. You’re a conniving fucking-”

The word he had used on the train hung between them, unsaid but heard by both.

She saw it in his eyes - the automatic, hateful reflex.

His throat worked furiously, his chest heaving.

He didn’t say it.

Hermione stared and stared, feeling so hot with fury she half-expected the rain to sizzle off her.

She yanked her wand from her pocket and jammed it into his jugular.

Their first interaction, all those weeks ago, swum in the background of her mind.

“Say it,” she whispered furiously. Her eyes glanced between his as her lip curled. “So help me, Malfoy. Call me it.”

He took a furious step towards her, her wand digging in to the point it dented the skin of his neck.

His smile was nasty as he looked down at her.

“Whatever you do to me now, you’ll wind up doing to yourself, too,” Malfoy’s eyes were dark, endless, as he held her gaze. “If I bleed now, Granger, so will you. If I die, you’ll not be far behind me. You can do it if you really like.”

His cold hand came to her elbow and he pushed her hand further up, the wand tip pressing harsher against his throat.

Taunting her.

As soon as he touched her, her stomach spiked, swooped, reacting to the connection between them.

Hermione yanked her arm away and flung herself back, releasing the breath she’d been holding.

Malfoy’s jaw was tensed as he breathed shallowly in front of her, the rain still blanketing them.

His gaze ran from her hand, still gripping the wand rigidly, to her body, where his eyes roamed with cold, calculating fury.

She couldn’t tell if he was thinking on how to kill her, and her spine tensed defensively. If this is what it was going to come down to, she wasn’t letting him get the upper hand so easily.

Her stance shifted and she began to raise her wand.

“And if you die, I’ll die too.”

The bond flooded with…disappointment. His voice did, too.

Ah, she thought stupidly, blinking rain from her eyes. He was judging how easy she was to kill, but not by him. By anyone else.

Because now, she was a risk to him.

Malfoy’s breath was still so hard it was near panting.

They stared at one another for a beat, then two, before he scoffed, throwing a nasty, disgusted look at the floor beside her. 

Hermione’s own inhalation stuttered, in both anger and at the cold of the rain, as he turned and stalked back to the castle.

She lost sight of him after only a few seconds.

The state of her pyjamas and the frigid water bleeding into her set her shoulders into shaking as she wrapped her arms around her midsection. 

He knew what she had done, and she was sure that he didn’t have to kill her to ruin her life from here on out.

Her stomach clenched itself into knots.

Chapter Text

The bond had become a sickness, a parasitic thing that fed on her vitality.

The constant, low-grade nausea was now a familiar companion, but this was different. It felt thin and sour, like a string pulled too tight and beginning to fray. A persistent, magical dyspepsia had settled in her core, making the world feel off-kilter.

Since their confrontation by the lake, Hermione had felt a constantly throbbing ache behind her eyes that made the world feel blurred at the edges, like a migraine. Food had lost its taste, and the vibrant tapestry of Hogwarts seemed muted, as if she were viewing it through a pane of smoked glass.

She wasn’t sure whether it was the bond experiencing turmoil, or if it was the distance Malfoy had been ensuring was kept between them at all times.

Possibly both.

The Slytherin contingent had become a fortress, and she was the besieged enemy at the gates.

Malfoy’s avoidance was a masterclass in tactical retreat. In every shared class, he had relocated to the farthest possible point from her, his back a permanent, rigid line of rejection. In Arithmacy, he now sat at the front with Blaise. Defence Against the Dark Arts had him relocated next to Nott on the opposite side of the room, staring steadfast ahead at the board.

Whatever he had told them about her had led his cohort to follow suit.

Blaise’s cool indifference had hardened into cold and blatant disregard. Pansy, of course, seemed elated. Hermione couldn’t count on one hand the amount of gloating, satisfactory glances shot her way.

Theo was the only anomaly.

He never spoke to her, but in fleeting moments, his dark eyes would meet hers, and the usual mocking glint was gone, replaced by something unreadable and unsettlingly solemn.

Really, though, she could handle not being liked by the same people she’d hated all through school herself.

No, that wasn’t the worst of it at all.

The worst of it all was emotional seepage from across the bond.

It didn't come as a constant scream, but in sharp, unexpected jabs that left her reeling. She could be in the middle of a perfectly normal moment, like now, walking to class with Harry and Ron, or lying in bed with Crookshanks and Ginny, eating with Neville, when a cold, sharp shard of pure betrayal would lance through her, so potent and alien it would make her steps falter.

It was a feeling of violated trust so profound it felt like a physical wound.

It would coat the inside of her mouth with a bitter, metallic taste, and her own chest would ache with a hollowed-out sense of violation that wasn't hers.

In these moments, she wasn't just feeling his anger; she was feeling the raw, unvarnished injury beneath it, and the bond was forcing her to feel every ounce of it.

It was this lingering, bitter aftertaste that made the craving so much worse.

This was almost as bad as the seepage.

A deep, physical pull, a hollowed-out yearning that felt like a phantom limb; she knew it was from the distance he was now forcing between them.

It was more than just a need for proximity to soothe the nausea; it was a desperate, bone-deep wanting that shamed her.

Her magic, her very cells, seemed to have developed a dependency on his presence, and the enforced separation was a brutal withdrawal.

Hermione hadn’t realised just how much the five metres between them had settled her stomach as they attended class a small distance from one another until it stretched into thirty.

In a pathetic, subconscious attempt to self-medicate, her mind began to latch onto the only intense, close-quarters memories she had of him.

The Room of Requirement, her hands on his wounded back.

Working together in the labs on the project for Vector, quite nearly shoulder-to-shoulder.

The train compartment, and…whatever had happened then.

These moments, once terrifying, were now tinged with a twisted nostalgia because they had been moments of potent, undeniable connection.

Her own emotional seepage wasn’t the only she had to account for, either.

“Another?” Ron asked, putting the bag of Christmas chocolates under her nose again as they walked towards Transfigurations.

Hermione took three for herself and dropped them all into her mouth as Harry reached across her front to grab some for himself.

“Do you think these have been charmed to never end?” Harry wondered absently as he jogged to catch up from dropping half of them on the floor accidentally, falling into step with her. “I’m getting a bit sick of them. It’s been a week.”

“Don’t have to have them then,” Ron grumped, shoving the bag in his pocket. “Just being nice, really.”

“Can I have some more?” Hermione said, pushing some of her damp hair back from her clammy forehead.

The chocolate was a welcome distraction, a burst of sugar to fight the bitterness his emotions left behind.

Some spilled out in Ron’s eagerness to get them back out, and she rolled her eyes not unkindly as Harry bumped her shoulder knowingly.

The three of them were chewing, Ron making a loud comment about the magical character knitted onto her gifted tie from Harry looking like it had gained weight, when they entered the classroom.

Hermione’s stomach bottomed out as she took her seat, and she felt no shame as she swept her eyes across the room.

She knew that feeling. That meant he was slightly closer than usual.

Malfoy looked…well, he probably looked as good as she did. That is to say, pretty awful.

His dark circles had returned, and she knew that was from his pacing somewhere outside, the tug of her stomach last night urging her to fling open the castle doors and follow the invisible string. His cheekbones seemed slightly sharper too, most likely from avoiding the Hall as much as possible, and he had a vaguely pallid complexion in lieu of the pinkness of his cheeks last week.

Her stomach rolled as she got the prickling heat that tightened the bond and her navel.

"Maybe it’s just true to life, Ron," Harry was remarking, elbowing his friend.

Ron scoffed, elbowing him back as they shuffled into the seats either side of her.

He leaned in and squinted at the tie, flipping it over to watch the characters dance around.

It really was a beautiful gift.

“Be honest, though. You’d tell me if I had, wouldn’t you?”

"He’s just being a twat, Ron, honest," Hermione smiled, looking down at her tie too. She pretended to pause for a moment. “He has got your awful haircut, though.”

Ron squawked.

"Trading up, Granger?” Nott‘s voice came from behind.

She twisted in her chair at his voice, pathetically tethered to it and his connection to Malfoy.

Silently, she reprimanded herself.

Ron sat up straighter, tightening his hold on the tie reflexively.

Nott stood there, a placating smile on his face.

“Wouldn't want to choke on all that... Gryffindor pride." He waggled his eyebrows, gaze lingering on Hermione's soberingly.

She felt Harry’s jaw click shut next to her, and she kicked him under the table to stop an argument.

She would not be rising to this.

The comment made Malfoy, who was already seated, look up from his parchment.

As Hermione faced the classroom again, rolling her eyes, she felt his cold gaze swept over the scene: Ron's hand still on near her tie, Harry's proximity, the garish red and gold fabric itself as the three sewn characters danced in a circle together.

His eyes narrowed, and that familiar, faint sneer twisted his lips-a flicker of something that looked like pure, unadulterated anger, before it was schooled into blankness.

There was a pang in her stomach that was most definitely not her own.

Blaise leaned in, whispering something that made Malfoy's jaw tighten, but he gave no other reaction, simply dipping his quill and returning to his notes as if they were all beneath his notice.

Hermione’s stomach churned with a fresh wave of that sour nausea-anger combination that hadn’t left her for days now.

She put her parchment down heavily, the brief spike of fury at Nott’s comment and Malfoy's sneer quickly drowned out by a wave of guilt that she couldn’t begin to sort out now in class.

He would be dead, she reminded herself, pulling out her quill. I did what I had to do.

Ron and Harry were whispering furiously about Slytherins over her head, their voices a distant buzz.

She stared blankly at the spot on Malfoy's desk where his own quill was moving, the sharp, precise script she recognized from their Arithmancy project.

The physical distance between them was an ache, the craving a hollow pull in her abdomen that yearned to be filled. Seeking a pathetic comfort, her mind, exhausted and defenseless, drifted back to the train.

It was her favourite. The first and last time they had really, really touched.

Her stomach flexed slightly as she gazed distantly ahead.

The wounded sound he’d been making…like it had been painful to be away from her. It had, she supposed distantly, dipping her quill one too many times as she thought.

Her chin found the palm of her hand, and distantly she heard McGonagall walk in.

How embarrassed he’d been. She thought of his blown open pupils and humiliated face, the usual Malfoy, so full of pride, stripped down to the complete desperation of it all, completed undiluted. When he’d finally given up and began biting at her neck, the noise he’d made when she’d put a hand to the back of his head, how he’d began-

SNAP.

The sound was shockingly loud in the classroom, or at least it was to her.

Hermione jolted out of her reverie, the sound of Malfoy’s eagle-feather quill shattering in his grip shocking her out of her thoughts as much as the splattering dark ink across his pristine parchment and the cuff of his white shirt had, where her eyes had been staring unseeingly.

Had something happened?

She took a quick glance around the room, where nobody stared in their direction. Zabini, sat between Malfoy and Nott, stared down at his friend’s ruined parchment, and Nott’s face had just began erupting into a jeer.

Confused, she looked at Malfoy. Half of her expected to see the eruption of wings behind him.

He was staring right at her.

It was the first direct eye contact they’d had in days, and it felt like a physical blow.

Her stomach swooped violently, the bond tightening like a fist, as she stared back.

Malfoy’s ashen face was a mask of stark, unguarded horror. Two bright, feverish spots of colour burned high on his cheekbones, a stark contrast to his previous pallor.

He looked…utterly humiliated, as if she had just stripped him bare in front of the entire class, as if she had exposed his most shameful secret.

For a long, suspended second, the world stopped.

The chatter of the classroom, Professor McGonagall’s voice - it all faded into a dull roar.

There was only the shattered quill, the spreading ink, and the devastating look of fresh betrayal in his grey eyes.

Hermione widened her eyes at him, as if to say, ‘what?’, and Malfoy shot a flighty glance around the room.

Nobody else was looking at him.

Shakily, he swallowed, and swung his head at Nott’s low taunting. Zabini was still glancing between the ruined parchment and his friend.

Malfoy shoved his chair back with a loud, grating squeak, so violently it nearly toppled over.

Ron and Harry’s heads both snapped in his direction, as did everyone else’s.

Without a word, without even attempting to clean the mess, he turned and slammed out of the classroom, leaving a stunned silence in his wake.

“Zabini?” McGonagall finally said, and Blaise nodded jerkily as he followed in his friend’s wake.

Chapter Text

The warmth of the Hog’s Head, with its crackling fire and low, beamed ceilings, was crowded. The air was thick, soupy with the scent of burning wood, spiced mead, and too many bodies.

It pressed in on her, a stark contrast to the cold, sharp clarity of the memory that had been playing on a relentless, punishing loop in her mind for the past twenty-four hours.

It was yesterday’s Transfiguration class, but in her mind, it was now.

The scene was etched behind her eyelids in hyper-realistic detail. She could see the dust motes dancing in the slants of pale sunlight cutting through the high classroom windows. She could feel the smooth, worn grain of the wooden desk beneath her fingertips. She could hear the soft, rhythmic scratch of a dozen quills, the calm before the storm.

Then, the sound. Not loud, but catastrophic in its precision. A sharp, dry snap that cut through the classroom’s hum like a shard of glass.

Her eyes, of their own volition, had been drawn to the source.

Draco Malfoy’s hand, frozen in a white-knuckled grip around the splintered remains of his eagle-feather quill. Dark, viscous ink was already blooming across his parchment, a Rorschach blot of pure shock, consuming his neat, slanted script.

She had glanced for a sign of the wings, of the Glamour falling. There was nothing.

But it was his face that held her, captive and horrified.

He hadn’t cried out. He hadn’t sworn. Surely, she thought, that meant he hadn’t been in pain. Surely the anchoring hadn’t done this.

But his eyes - a stormy, wide, devastated grey -had held hers across the room. Accusing, raw, the unvarnished look of a person who had just felt the most private fortress of their self violently breached.

He looked exposed. Flayed.

And in that single, suspended second, a hot, sharp lance of pure, shared humiliation, an emotion that was unequivocally his, despite being in her mind, had shot down the bond and seared itself into her own chest, leaving a phantom ache behind.

So it had to have involved her.

The silence he and Zabini had left behind was a physical weight.

Then, the second grating scrape of a chair.

Nott was on his feet, his face a mask of urgent concern, already moving to follow.

“Sit. Down. Mr. Nott.”

Professor McGonagall’s voice, final and absolute.

Theo had frozen mid-step, his body coiled like a spring. Every line of him screamed his desire to give chase.

Slowly, reluctantly, he sank back into his chair. But his head remained forward, and his eyes, usually so full of mocking levity, were now dark, flat, and terrifyingly serious.

He leaned across the aisle, his movement fluid and predatory, and his whisper was a venomous hiss that bypassed her ears and went straight to her core.

“What did you do to him?” Nott had hissed through the excited chatter.

“-and if he thinks that’s a proper Sloth Grip Roll, he’s clearly been reading too many Lockhart books!” Ron’s voice, booming with indignant passion, shattered the memory like a stone through glass.

Hermione jolted, the grimy pub swimming back into focus.

She was here. In a sticky booth. A half-finished butterbeer was warm in her hand. Seamus Finnigan was laughing uproariously, and Ginny’s solid, warm presence was pressed against her side, a grounding anchor in a sea of sudden disorientation.

“Sorry, what?” Hermione mumbled, her voice sounding thick and far away to her own ears.

She rubbed her forehead and pinched the bridge of her nose to bring her out of her thoughts.

Ginny nudged her firmly under the table with a booted foot. “I said,” she repeated, her voice dropping to a more intimate, concerned register, “that I think it’s officially over. Me and Harry.”

She took a long, deliberate swallow of her own drink, her gaze tracking the boy in question as he chatted with Dean and Neville by the crackling fireplace.

“It’s been… lovely. Safe. But it’s not… this.” She gestured vaguely between them, at the easy, uncomplicated friendship. “But there’s also no spark. And honestly,” she added, her tone turning wry, “it’s not like there isn’t other interest brewing.”

Hermione snorted knowingly, Parkinson swimming to the forefront of her mind.

Ron, who had overheard, choked spectacularly, spraying a fine mist of butterbeer across the table.

Hermione dabbed off the beer on her parchment.

“Other interest?” he spluttered, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Who? Don’t tell me it’s that bloody Nott! I saw him looking at you in the corridor, Ginny, I swear I’ll hex his bollocks into next week. He’s got a thing for Gryffindor girls, honestly-”

“For the love of Merlin, Ron, will you get your mind out of the gutter? It’s not Theo Nott,” Ginny snapped, her exasperation a familiar, comforting rhythm.

“But speaking of Slytherins… have you noticed Parkinson lately? She’s been… intense. And it’s weird. It’s not just focused on Harry anymore. It’s like she’s developed a personal, laser-guided vendetta specifically against you, Hermione.”

A shiver, completely unrelated to the pub’s draught, traced an icy path down Hermione’s spine.

She knew all about it.

She pulled her thick woollen robes tighter, as if she could physically shield herself from the observation.

“She’s just being Pansy,” she deflected, the lie feeling brittle and transparent on her tongue. “She probably blames me for Malfoy’s little…episode yesterday.”

It was a convenient, plausible excuse, a fig leaf to cover the terrifying, budding truth; that Pansy’s sharp, malicious eyes were trying to decipher a dangerous puzzle whose pieces were hidden inside the locked rooms of her and Malfoy’s minds.

“Speaking of the gits,” Harry said, sliding back into the booth and handing out fresh, frosty bottles. “Slytherin match tomorrow. We need to finalise the pitch times. Madam Hooch is being a right stickler for the schedule this year. Won’t tolerate a minute over.”

He winked across the table at Hermione and clinked the lip of his glass bottle on hers.

The conversation gratefully veered into the familiar, noisy territory of Quidditch.

Ron puffed out his chest, launching into a detailed, and almost certainly flawed, explanation of a new defensive formation he called the ‘Weasley Wall.’

Harry listened with a patient, slightly amused smile, and Ginny interjected with sharp, tactical corrections that made Ron scowl and flush.

Hermione nodded at all the appropriate junctures, she even managed a faint smile, but her mind was a radar dish, silently and frantically scanning the castle’s vast magical imprint for one specific, furious, and absent presence.

Draco Malfoy had, in essence, become a ghost. A void in the fabric of the school since his dramatic exit.

Nott, too, had vanished from sight, his empty seat in their shared classes she took as a silent accusation. Only Zabini and Parkinsin remained, their indifference towards her now a polished, impenetrable wall of pure contempt.

Later, as their boisterous group trudged back up the winding, moonlit path to the castle, the cool night air did little to cut through the static fog of anxiety in her head.

The towering, magnificent silhouette of Hogwarts, usually a sight that filled her with a sense of belonging and wonder, now felt like a beautiful, inescapable prison. Its every stone seemed to whisper of the secret festering within its walls.

They were just crossing the vast, torch-lit expanse of the entrance hall, their footsteps echoing on the flagstones, when they collided,both physically and socially, with the very epicentre of her turmoil.

Blaise and Theo were standing near the glittering emerald hourglass that tracked Slytherin house points, engaged in a low, tense negotiation with the Slytherin Quidditch Captain, Miles Bletchley.

The Slytherin Quidditch team, it seemed, was assembled in a loose, intimidating cluster behind them.

Hermione sighed inwardly as Harry took the casual stance he always did before an argument. She eyeballed him reassure himself his wand was still in his pocket, and he caught her gaze, smiling wryly.

“-told you, Bletchley, we had it confirmed for seven,” Zabini was saying, his voice a study in bored condescension that didn’t quite mask a thread of genuine irritation. Only the pulse of his jaw gave him away

“Well, I have it down for eight,” Bletchley retorted, his face flushed as he consulted a slightly crumpled scroll. “We need to sort this now, or we’ll have Gryffindor muscling in on our practice time.”

“Too late.” Ron announced, his voice carrying with bullish confidence across the hall. His strong arms were folded across his chest.

“We’ve got the pitch from seven till nine. Signed, sealed, and delivered by Madam Hooch herself.” Ginny continued, and brandished her own, neater piece of parchment like a trophy from under her robes.

The two groups turned to face each other, a sudden, silent standoff in the cavernous space.

The air, already cool, seemed to drop a couple more degrees, crackling with the weight of years of bitter rivalry.

Hermione shot a look towards Nott, who sent an amused glance her way at the same time.

Only they had no horse in this race except the potential for their friends to complain for the next month.

It was then, from the deep, shifting shadows of a nearby stone archway, that he emerged.

Malfoy detached himself from the darkness as if he were a part of it. He must have been standing there, listening.

He looked… ravaged.

The word came to Hermione unbidden, but it was the only one that fit. The handsome, sharp angles of his face were too pronounced, the pallor from the classroom having deepened to a waxy, translucent quality. The shadows hollowing his cheeks and bruising the skin beneath his eyes were so dark they looked like they’d been painted on. His posture was straight, but it was the rigid, brittle straightness of someone holding themselves together by sheer force of will, a dam on the verge of catastrophic collapse. His gaze, heavy-lidded and exhausted, swept over their group with a profound lack of interest, a dismissive flicker, until it landed on her.

And stopped.

The breath caught in Hermione’s throat.

There was no sneer. No glare of pure, unadulterated hatred.

His eyes, a stormy, exhausted grey, held hers, and the expression in them was so unnervingly complex it made her head spin.

She saw a deep, weary confusion, as if he were trying to solve an impossible equation.

She saw a fresh flicker of that haunting, classroom humiliation.

And beneath it all, something else, something that looked terrifyingly like a desperate, unspoken question.

It was as if he were looking at a stranger, a dangerous and unpredictable creature who had inexplicably taken the form of Hermione Granger.

He was studying her, searching for a clue, a reason, and finding none.

The intensity of that silent interrogation lasted only three heartbeats, but it felt like an eternity.

Hermione held her breath for all three of them.

Then, he blinked, a slow, deliberate shuttering of that unsettling vulnerability, and his focus snapped away, fixing on a point somewhere near Blaise Zabini’s left shoulder as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

Hermione’s own confusion swelled into a turbulent, nauseating whirlpool of guilt, a strange, protective ache, and a healthy dose of fear.

Nott, who had been watching the entire silent exchange with the sharp, focused attention of a chess master, broke the stalemate.

“Seems there’s been a clerical error, Weasley,” he said, his voice devoid of its characteristic playful lilt. It was flat, factual. “A simple misunderstanding.”

“Simple for you to say, Nott,” Ron shot back, his fists clenching at his sides.

As the two Quidditch captains launched into a heated debate over schedules and signatures, Hermione found herself trapped in the no-man’s-land between the two hostile factions.

The noise of their argument faded into a dull roar, and she tried to follow what was going on with a severe lack of interest that made it impossible to keep up.

This is utterly ridiculous, she thought absently. To argue over a single hour. Bletchley’s scroll is clearly an outdated copy, you can see the faded date in the bottom corner from here, it’s from last month. If they’d just stop posturing for five seconds and actually look at the evidence, they’d see that Ron’s permit is obviously the valid one. It’s such a waste of everyone’s time. Typical Slytherin behaviour-

Across the entrance hall, Malfoy flinched.

It was not a subtle movement. His entire body gave a sharp, involuntary jerk, as if he’d been struck by a sudden, violent cramp. His hand flew to his temple, fingers pressing hard against the bone, and his eyes squeezed shut in a grimace of acute pain.

A harsh, hissed breath escaped his lips, audible even over the arguing.

Hermione stared, her internal monologue stuttering to an abrupt halt.

What was that? A sudden, severe headache? It must be the sequence, surely. The bond? Surely not. Is he in pain again? The wings weren’t visible, or at least she couldn’t see them from here.

She peered in the dim light to see if anything was visible.

Malfoy lowered his hand slowly, his knuckles white.

His expression was now a carefully constructed, impenetrable blank, but a fine tremor was visible in the hand he shoved deep into his pocket.

“This is a pathetic waste of time,” he announced, his voice rough, scraped raw with an exhaustion that seemed to go far beyond the physical. “Let them have the damn pitch. I’m going to the dorm.”

He didn’t wait for agreement or argument from his teammates as turned on his heel, his movements stiff and deliberate, and strode away towards the dungeons without a single backward glance.

His retreat was a silent, powerful dismissal of them all, but to Hermione, it felt like a flight.

Theo watched him until he disappeared from view, then his gaze swung back to Hermione.

This time, there was no direct accusation, only a dawning, unsettling comprehension that was somehow worse.

He gave her a slow, deliberate once-over, his eyes narrowing slightly as if he were recalibrating his entire understanding of her, of the situation, of everything.

Then, without another word, he turned and followed his friend.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur of forced normalcy that grated on Hermione’s frayed nerves.

She and Ginny went to the library, but the words in Ancient Runes and Their Modern Applications swam meaninglessly before her eyes, transforming into Malfoy’s pained grimace.

She spent most of it writing blindly, knowing most of the answers, but thinking of what she was missing with Malfoy.

Later, in the profound, velvety silence of the Gryffindor dormitory, long after Lavender’s soft snores had begun and Parvati’s sleep-talking had ceased, Hermione lay curled under her blankets, staring into the darkness.

Her thoughts continued.

The events of the day cycled through her mind with the relentless, sharp-edged clarity of a nightmare.

Malfoy’s exhausted, ravaged face.

The way his body had jolted.

The complex, questioning look in his eyes.

Theo’s silent, terrible understanding.

The constant, low-level thrum of the bond was no longer just an awareness; it was a live wire in her gut, a physical manifestation of their inescapable, terrifying connection.

She thought about him intensely, nearly obsessively, her mind picking over every detail like a scavenger bird.

What is happening to him? And why can’t I feel whatever pain he’s in? I thought the bind was designed to split it. Unless it’s the bond causing this? Is it my fault? What did I actually do when I cast that ritual? I should ask for more papers from Nott. Can he even take them out again, or will his family know? Who wards a library anyway? Why does Malfoy seem so… afraid of me? What does he know that I don’t? Is he in pain because of me?

She was so lost in the frantic, circular, deafening chaos of her own thoughts, that she didn’t notice the subtle shift at first.

It wasn't a sound, not an emotion. More the crawling feeling people sometimes get when a new person walks into a room and stands behind them, unspeaking.

The presence of a person in their space.

Then, a sensation, broken and staticky, like a radio signal fighting through a storm, fizzed down the bond and erupted directly into the heart of her consciousness.

Her head throbbed as the bond expanded, her stomach swimming slightly as her eyes flew open to the ceiling. 

It wasn’t an emotion as usual, not the usual flit of whatever Malfoy was feeling combining with her own thoughts.

This was a fractured, disjointed thought-form, laced with a potent, agonizing mix of utter exhaustion, frayed-end patience, and something that felt dangerously, precipitously close to sheer panic.

…for the love of… shut… UP…

Hermione froze.

Every muscle in her body locked simultaneously, and her breath hitched in her throat, trapped.

“Hello?” Hermione whispered into the darkness of the dorms.

She knew it was fruitless. Nobody had said anything aloud. What had interrupted her was…inside her.

Malfoy wasn’t in her room.

He was in her mind.

She sat in the silence of her own brain for a beat as her heart gave a single, violent lurch against her ribs and then seemed to stop altogether.

She jerked upright in bed, heart now thudding rapidly, and she clutched her chest. Her eyes scanned her sheets blindly as she searched her own thoughts.

The only thing she could think or feel was pure, unadulterated shock at the echoing, impossible, earth-shattering reality of those words.

A voice that was not her own, speaking directly into the sanctum of her self.

He could hear her.

He had been listening.

The guilt, the worry, the frantic, pathetic, obsessive spiral of her thoughts. He had been in her head.

The violation was so absolute, so profound, it felt like a physical tearing, a psychic assault.

A wave of hot, mortifying embarrassment, so intense it was nauseating, washed over her, burning her from the inside out as she realised the sheer, unedited volume of mental noise she had been broadcasting directly to him, all night, every night.

The bond wasn’t just a tether of feeling anymore. It was an open channel.

And she had just received her first, horrifying broadcast.

-

The next day, the Quidditch pitch was a cauldron of roaring sound and violent colour, a stark, jarring contrast to the silent, terrified revelation that had hollowed her out.

The Gryffindor stands were a tumultuous sea of red and gold, banners flapping, voices raised in a deafening chorus.

Hermione sat sandwiched between Neville and Luna, trying to anchor herself in their normalcy, but she felt like a ghost at a feast.

Her heart was a frantic, caged bird beating against her ribs.

She couldn’t stop staring at the Slytherin team as they emerged from their changing room, a wave of cool, calculated emerald and silver.

Malfoy looked different out here.

The exhaustion was still there, carved into the lines of his body, but it was overlaid with a sharp, cold focus. His face was a mask of pure concentration, a Seeker’s mask. But she could feel it - a low, relentless thrum of tension through the bond that was all his, a taut wire of anxiety that vibrated in her own core.

"Big game, this," Neville said, his hands clenched nervously on his knees. "If we win, we're in a brilliant position for the Cup. Harry looks focused, doesn't he?"

"He always does right before a match," Hermione replied, her voice a little too tight. "It's the waiting he hates."

The voice of Lee Jordan, their regular commentator, began boasting the win and losses of both teams to jeers en masse around them.

Luna, wearing a pair of Spectrespecs that had tiny, roaring lions painted on the frames, gazed serenely at the pitch.

“The Wrackspurts are particularly thick around the Slytherin goalposts today," she remarked. "They always flock to areas of concentrated ambition. It must be very distracting for their Keeper."

Hermione managed a weak smile in her direction, blowing on her hands to keep them warm. "I'm sure it is, Luna."

Neville leaned closer to Hermione, his voice dropping.

“You alright? You've been a bit... quiet. Even for before a match."

He can hear me. He can hear me right now.

“Just a bit of a headache, Neville," she lied, the words ash in her mouth. "Too much revising in the library. As per usual.”

"Oh, I have something for that!" Neville said brightly. "Made from powdered Dirigible Plum and a touch of Gurdyroot. I can get it for you after the game if you agree to be my guinea pig.”

"That's... very kind, Neville," Hermione said, her eyes already drifting back to the opposition.

In the Slytherin stands, she saw Pansy, her gaze sharp and predatory, and Theo, sat next to her,  massive snake hat on his head.

He caught her looking and gave a wry, exaggerated shrug, running a hand through his already artfully messy fringe in front of the Slytherin cap.

“Can’t play, Granger!” he shouted over the din, a ghost of his old smirk playing on his lips. “The helmet absolutely ruins the masterpiece!”

She could barely hear him, but made out enough to roll her eyes in his direction.

As the game kicked off, Hermione’s paranoia reached a fever pitch.

Can he hear me now? she thought, the question a silent scream directed inward, towards the bond.

If you can hear this, you’re an insufferable, eavesdropping bastard.

There was no direct response, only the constant, agonizing awareness of him in the air, a live wire of shared dread.

She felt another hot flush of humiliation, thinking of all the private, frantic thoughts she’d had about him since last night. He knew.

God.

She barely suppressed a groan.

The game was a brutal, breathtaking ballet of violence and skill.

Ginny shot through the Slytherin defence like a crimson comet, scoring twice in rapid succession, her face a mask of fierce joy.

Ron, a solid wall of ginger in the goalposts, made a spectacular, almost clumsy save that had the stands roaring.

Harry was a darting, elusive shadow, his eyes constantly scanning, searching for the Snitch.

And Malfoy was his perfect, dark mirror, a rival Seeker of equal calibre, his movements sharp, aggressive, and relentless, his own gaze sweeping the pitch with predatory intensity.

Then it happened.

A Bludger, mis-hit by a Slytherin Beater in a moment of frantic defence, went rogue. It wasn’t aiming for Harry. It was a violent, spinning cannonball of iron, rocketing on a deadly, direct trajectory towards the small of Malfoy’s back.

He was turned away, his focus entirely locked on a distant, shimmering speck of gold near the Slytherin goalposts.

He couldn’t see it.

No one in the crowd was shouting a warning yet; the angle was deceptive, the speed too great.

Panic, pure, instinctual, and absolute, seized Hermione. It bypassed all thought, all reason, all secrecy.

It wasn’t a calculated decision. It was a raw, primal scream of warning and sheer, gut-wrenching fear for the life that was inextricably tied to her own.

The mental cry was not a word, but a blast of pure, undiluted impulse, a psychic shockwave blasted directly down the open, screaming channel of the bond.

BEHIND YOU!

In the air, high above the pitch, Malfoy’s body jerked as if he’d been struck by lightning. It wasn’t a graceful dodge; it was a full-body, convulsive spasm, a violent, involuntary reaction to a scream only he could hear.

He wrenched his broom sideways in a desperate, awkward, life-saving manoeuvre he had no conscious time to process.

The Bludger whistled past, the wind of its passage ruffling his hair, and slammed into the Slytherin goalpost with a deafening, reverberating CLANG that echoed across the suddenly silent stadium.

A collective gasp that had been brewing died in a thousand throats. The silence was profound, bewildered, and heavy with the injury that could have been witnessed just then.

Malfoy straightened his broom, his chest heaving.

His face, for a split second, was a blank slate of pure shock. Then, his head snapped towards the Gryffindor stands. His eyes, wide and stunned, found hers instantly in the vast, roaring crowd, as if pulled by the same invisible string that had just saved his life.

The Seeker’s mask was gone. All that was left was the same horrified, devastating understanding from the classroom, now magnified a thousandfold by the public, impossible nature of what had just occurred.

The distance, the noise, the hundreds of people between them; it all meant nothing.

The bond was a conduit, and she had just used it.

They stared at each other across the chaotic expanse of the pitch, a silent, terrifying acknowledgment of the profound and dangerous power they now wielded over each other.

In that single, suspended heartbeat, the world narrowed to just the two of them and the monstrous, inescapable secret they shared.

And then, from the corner of his eye, Malfoy saw it.

The Snitch.

Hovering, tantalizingly, right where he had been looking before she’d saved his life.

He dove.

But he was a fraction of a second too late, his rhythm and concentration shattered by the psychic intervention.

A flash of red shot past him like a bullet. Harry, Seeker instincts seizing the moment of distraction, plunged forward, his hand closing around the tiny, fluttering golden ball just as Malfoy’s fingertips brushed against empty, disappointed air.

The Gryffindor stands erupted.

The roar of victory was deafening, a physical wave of sound and celebration.

Ron whooped, spinning in the air. Ginny punched the sky, her face alight with triumphant fire. Neville, beside Hermione, hugged her so tightly he lifted her off her feet, his joyful shouts lost in the cacophony.

But Hermione wasn’t celebrating.

She was still watching Malfoy.

He pulled out of his dive, hovering mid-air, his shoulders slumped not in the simple disappointment of a lost game, but in a profound, bone-deep exhaustion that spoke of a much greater, more personal defeat.

He looked towards her one last time, his expression a complex, unreadable tapestry of resentment, shock, and a terrifying, grudging dependency, before turning his broom and flying slowly, heavily, back to the ground, a solitary figure in a sea of green and silver dejection.

The game was won. The Quidditch Cup was a step closer.

But as the cheers of her house washed over her, Hermione felt only the cold, isolating, and utterly terrifying silence of the mental channel that was now, irrevocably, and permanently, open.

Chapter Text

“We fucking won!” Ron held Hermione’s shoulders entirely too tightly, in her opinion, as he shook her.

She couldn’t find it in her to pry his grip off, nor the smile fighting at her lips as they walked from the pitch back to the dorms.

“We fucking won.” She repeated, laughing as he yanked her into an arm-crushing hug.

Harry came running up behind them both, jumping onto Ron’s back and almost sending the three of then toppling, laughing easily. His eyes were bright, hair still sticking across all angles over his dark skin at the sweat and wind gathered from the game.

Ron’s freckles arm slung easily over Hermione’s shoulders as he supported Harry easily, strong bicep flexing next to her neck as he dragged her in.

She grinned happily as Ginny joined three of them, all of them erupting into conversation about what had just happened.

It was easy to be swept up in the tirade of happy chatter from the win.

The corridors were filled with babbling students milling from the pitch and also chattering about the match. Hermione’s nose was pink from the cold, and she pressed it to Ron’s arm to gain some warmth. Her ears were cold, too, but the rush of blood she heard after what had happened on the pitch was sure to warm them all by themselves.

“Did you see the look on Bletchley’s face?” Ron crowed, his hair being mussed by an unknown hand from someone in the crowd as he jolted Harry further up on his back easily, walking in long strides. “He was absolutely gutted!”

Harry continued his conversation with Dean, who was gesturing wildly up to his friend.

Hermione overheard him using the word ‘Weasley’s Wall,’ and snorted to herself quietly.

“Malfoy was off his game,” Ginny added, her hair also tousled from the many congratulatory ruffles. Her cheeks were a shade of pink that promised wind bite. “That dive for the Snitch was clumsy. I bet he’s getting it in the neck from Bletchley as we speak.”

Ron scoffed.

“Serves him right. Muppet.”

His name made Hermione’s gut tug ever so slightly, a reminder of the too-abundant space they’d had settle between them as of late. Their interaction on the pitch had seemed to remind the bond of the yawning gap, and she felt restless.

She turned in Ron’s arm to look over his shoulder at the crowd following them, her gut whispering quietly.

Malfoy stalked behind the crowd into the castle, followed closely by Bletchley, with who he was clearly in a very intense argument with.

That’s all she glimpsed before their group turned toward the dorms and Harry bent his head toward her, arms loosely around Ron’s neck as he happily stuck his face between them both.

“Celebrations?”

“Celebrations.” Ron repeated firmly, and Harry jeered, raising himself back up to shout confirmation of drinks in the dormitories to anyone could hear them.

Ginny poked at Ron’s arm till he yelped, walking off with Harry still yelling loudly and pointing from his seat on his back at who should get what for the winning party tonight.

She sighed and replaced Ron’s arm with her own around Hermione’s shoulder, smelling of fresh grass and outside air

“You’re coming, aren’t you?”

“I think I’d be skinned alive if I didn’t,” Hermione responded, grinning at her friend. “And it’s a Friday, I suppose.”

“Granger’s Big Night Off.” Ginny snorted, shouting excuse me’s and thank you’s to people blocking the staircase to the girls dorms, all crowded in the common room.

She gripped Hermione’s hand as they zig-zagged into their room, flopping on her bed with a huff.

“Don’t look when I take my pants off. I think I’ve got a blister the size of an acorn on my groin.”

“There’s my plans ruined for the night,” Hermione said with an eye roll, shucking her thick winter coat off and walking to the wardrobe. “What are you wearing?”

“Dunno. As much as this fresh meat is trying to get marinated,” (Hermione turned and looked over her shoulder in disgust at this.) “I’m probably going to have to go for comfort over anything else.”

Hermione pulled through the hangers from home as Parvati and Lavender entered with flushed faces.

She shot them a smile and a hello as they immediately began chattering with Ginny about the game as she walked into the bathroom for a shower, Crookshanks slinking after them with his tail flicking.

The entire common room had been charmed into a mishmash of Gryffindor colours, shimmering of orange, scarlet, and gold, as she entered a short while later.

Red bunting with roaring yellow lions littered the walls, dancing over the large fire in the middle of the centre wall of the room, and candlesticks floated around the space above their heads. Music was playing, something she couldn’t quite make out, and the atmosphere was hot, crowded. A few second years in the corner had begun shouting in the middle of their laughter, and Hermione took a sharp left to avoid whatever had them yelling like that.

Her cheeks felt flushed, and she relished again in the feeling of unanimous euphoria. It was almost heady, the post-win gathering they had.

She remembered her first one, too, and sent the second years some mental allowances.

Sweat had already begun to bead at the back of her neck, and she swept her hair up to sit at the top of her head, tying it with a loose piece of knotted rope from around her wrist.

To the left, Harry and Ron were both holding drinks, talking with Seamus as she walked toward them.

Harry already held a spare beer waiting in his hand as she approached, sending her a secret smile as she tucked herself beside him, watching Ron throw his head back and laugh.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Hermione asked as she took it, taking a swig and raising an eyebrow.

Harry’s grinned widened, and he held his hands up.

Everyone had gotten changed to fuel house pride, all wearing various shades of burgundy, orange, or yellow.

“Matching,” he said, gesturing between them at his turtleneck and her yellow skirt. The colour complimented his skin tone nicely, and she raised the beer in a toast.

“Matching. And congratulations, by the way. I haven’t seen you properly yet.”

He lent against the back of the sofa and took a swig, white teeth sparkling.

Her chest gave a slight pang at seeing him so happy.

“Cheers. Not that it was that hard, really,” he added cheekily, bumping his shoulder into hers.

Hermione snorted.

“No, really. Malfoy wasn’t all in it today, was he?” Harry said, echoing Ginny earlier. He waggled his eyebrows. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Her stomach tugged, just like earlier, and she took a long drag from her beer.

His face swam into the forefront of her mind, the moment after their first interaction in days. Their first mental interaction…well, ever, really.

Or at least knowingly from her end.

Her cheeks flushed for another reason other than the heat, recounting his lamentation of her to be quiet while her thoughts raced over him.

God. How humiliating.

She took a long drink.

“I didn’t really notice, to be honest.”

“Really?”

Hermione turned to her gaze back to his from where it had strayed towards the door. He had that glint in them again, the nosing kind.

“Why would I have?” She asked evenly, folding her arms across her chest and hoping she appeared casual.

“Fucking roasting in here,” Ginny bemoaned as she came up next to them.

She was right. It was stifling. Hermione had begun wafting her hand slightly for some air.

Harry hummed and kept his eyes on Hermione, which she steadfast refused to meet.

She actually rather had the urge to get drunk and forget the day altogether.

“Just on about Malfoy’s behaviour today,” Harry said, gaze finally going to Ginny, who pointed at him with a fervent nod.

At least there was no awkwardness between the two of them. Grey clouds and all that.

“I said the exact same thing earlier,” she said. “He’ll be lucky to stay on as Seeker, let alone the team, really. Looked like something had grabbed him by the bollocks.”

Reaching behind Harry to pour some of the glimmering, scarlet punch into a glass and swallowing half, Ginny’s beautiful face grimaced.

“Blimey. Who made this?” She dabbed at the corner of her mouth, passing it to Harry. “Try that. It’s practically wand fuel, it’s so strong.”

Harry sniffed it and threw his head back in a long laugh.

“Neville!” He yelled across the room, and their friend’s head popped up from a conversation.

Harry gestured at the glass in his hand, eyebrows raised, and Neville gave a cheery thumbs up.

Hermione watched the interaction noisily.

“Well, give it here,” she said, reaching and sipping at the liquid.

Jesus.

“What on Earth is that?” She said, the liquid fiery down her chest and swimming in her stomach.

After a moment, it made the tension behind her naval ease slightly, and she tentatively took another sip.

“It’s, er. A special brew,” Harry said vaguely, waving his hand. “It’ll just get you drunker, really.”

Ginny and Hermione shared a doubtful look.

“Special brew sounds safe,” Ginny said, rolling her eyes. “Promise it isn’t going to make me blurt my deepest, darkest secrets, or something equally as awful?”

Harry’s eyes sparkled as he poured them both another glass, handing them over before pouring another for Ron and himself.

“Promise.”

Hermione frowned a last time, watched Harry drink to comfort herself it wouldn’t make her do something humiliating (or at least nothing humiliating alone), and then downed her glass.

-

The punch was, as Harry had so eloquently put it, a "special brew."

After her third glass, Hermione had loudly declared it was the best thing Neville had ever concocted.

The world had taken on a soft, golden glow. The tug in her stomach, that constant, nagging reminder of today, of Malfoy, had simply... vanished.

It wasn't just quiet; it was a profound, blissful silence. For the first time in weeks, her mind was entirely her own.

It was liberating.

Harry had come down the stairs with an armful of Muggle games. When Ron had began moaning loudly about how he’d given up trying to learn normal chess after Wizarding Chess was already much better, Harry had just smiled wanly.

“Move a chess piece then, Ronald,” he said, just slightly on the edge of too loud, and Hermione hid a snorting laugh behind her hand.

Ron’s eyes squinted as he frowned and patted his pockets for his wand, pulling it from his trousers and, with a sniff, pointed it at where the chess box was on the table, attempting to unload the pieces from inside.

Nothing happened.

Ginny crowed as Ron squinted harder.

“Idiot!”

“Let me,” Hermione muttered, grappling for her own wand.

She pointed it, one eye closed, at the box, and determinedly said aloud, “Open.”

Nothing happened.

Neville laughed as Harry plopped next to him on the sofa and patted his knee.

“The brew!” He said, reshuffling the games so his favourite sat on top. “Now we have to play like boring Muggles. Eh, Hermione?”

He shot a blink in her direction she assumed was supposed to be a wink.

“You’ve cut off our magic?” Ginny said, and a handful of pupils from the years below shuffled slightly uneasily.

Neville waved a hand, dealing out cards. “It’ll come back in a couple hours, nothing really.”

There was a pause of silence before the room erupted in varying degrees of laughter, some more nervous than others.

Hermione found it hard to care as she held the cards to her chest, sipping her beer.

The warm, honey feeling in her stomach felt sparkly and glowing, just like the punch. The absence of the uncomfortable tug through her and Malfoy’s distance had only added to her feeling of elation, and she smiled around at her friends.

It was freeing.

An hour or so later, and the common room erupted in laughs as Dean, with the bravery of the deeply inebriated, staggered to his feet and accidentally showed his entire suit to the group around him.

The party had devolved into a chaotic, muggle-style revelry.

Wands were conspicuously absent, the magical decorations having flickered out an hour ago, leaving the common room lit by the fire and a few stubborn candles.

Hermione laughed, a real, unburdened sound that felt foreign in her own ears.

She was tucked into a corner of a large sofa, the warm, slightly fuzzy feeling still enveloping her.

Ginny was braiding a section of her hair, her fingers clumsy but determined.

"You're really good at this," Hermione slurred slightly, taking a long drink.

"I have brothers," Ginny said, as if that explained everything.

Perhaps it did.

Hermione nodded sagely at Ron’s short hair, knowing it must hide something.

Harry stood and walked behind the sofa, sitting on the back of it as he looked down at Hermione, smile crinkling his eyes.

He waved a pack of Muggle cigarettes in his hands, an eyebrow raised.

“Ginny, important matters,” Hermione said immediately, waving her hand slightly.

Ginny snorted, shoving at her friend and leaning back into the sofa. Her neck stretched across the back of the sofa, eyes closing.

Hermione knew from memory that meant, without question, her friend would be snoring by the time her and Harry returned.

“Ron?” Harry called across the room, helping Hermione up.

Ron looked from the intense game of Muggle snap going on in light of Dean ruining the last game and gave a thumbs up. “Give me a minute.”

The three of them had garnered this habit whenever they shared a drink together after everything that had happened last year. She supposed there was no harm in it, all things considered.

She swung her head and the thoughts of last year drifting into her mind.

“Go away,” she said aloud.

Harry nodded in agreement.

“Go away,” he repeated.

The two of them walked up the stairs, Ron attempting (and failing) to jog behind them halfway up.

Hermione sat heavily on the floor with a loud huff, opening the window near Ron’s bed and reaching out to where Harry handed both her and Ron their own cigarettes.

Leaning slightly out the window, she lit the cigarette with the accompanying lighter, blowing tendrils of smoke into the night air.

Ron shuffled to sit across from her, back against the opposite wall, and Harry sat with his legs crossed beside them both.

“I’m having a great night, guys,” Hermione said sincerely, and made sure to look between them intensely.

The pair of them shared a look and broke into laughter.

She frowned.

“You’re pissed as a fart,” Harry snickered, leaning across to flick some ash out the window.

“I’m not that bad. It’s that stupid,” she took another drag and waited till she exhaled. “That stupid punch. It’s so strong.”

Ron nodded emphatically.

“I love it. I’ve not felt like this since we got drunk at Bill’s donkeys ago.”

“I think it’s the stuff Neville put in it,” Harry said, putting his chin in his hand. “I think it’s harder for us to get properly drunk since the castle is, like, looking out for us. But that stuff stops us being part of the castle.”

Hermione had no idea what he was on about, but she nodded along.

Ron went into a spiralling conversation on how good he’s realised Muggle chess is as she turned her head into the fresh air outside, taking another inhalation happily.

Her eyes traveled across the bright night sky, the full moon hanging heavily over the Quidditch pitch, and followed the direction of where the girls dorms stood next to them, behind where Ron was gesturing animatedly.

Taking a drag, she looked at the glow of a lamp from her own window. Maybe Ginny or Lavender had finally gone to bed.

Boring.

What time was it, anyway?

As she was about to interrupt Harry to ask, her eyes caught something on the grass below the girls dorms. The moon glinted off something white…what was that?

Her eyes squinted through the smoke she let out of her mouth, and then widened.

It was Malfoy.

He stood there, hands in his pockets, eyes gazing towards the light in the window.

Towards where her and Ginny slept.

Why was he…?

At Ron’s raucous laughter, his quick, sharp eyes jerked in her direction.

She nearly dropped her cigarette.

There was an intensity behind his stare as their eyes caught and held one another’s that made the distance from the ground to Ron’s window become reduced to nearly nothing.

She blinked a couple of times, and not even the darkness could hide the flex of his jaw as he raised a crooked finger and beckoned twice.

Then, he pointed at the ground.

She was dumbfounded.

And, actually, really pissed off, she thought as her brain caught up.

Who on Earth did he think he was, summoning her like a dog?

Resolutely, and possibly a little drunkenly, she turned her head back towards her friends, taking another, firm drag of her cigarette.

Fuck him.

“- didn’t we, ‘Mione?” Ron was chortling, passing her the lighter when no smoke came from the other end after she exhaled.

“Oh. Whoops.” She said stupidly.

Harry laughed and leaned in to take the lighter, holding the flame for her to lean in and inhale over.

Ron passed over his beer and she took a swig, their feet bumping one another’s from where they dangled over the window ledge.

“We’re being very dangerous right now,” Hermione said, hoping her voice conveyed her seriousness.

The hiccup she gave undermined it slightly.

Ron sorted and took a final drag, rubbing the stub outside the wall behind him without looking before flicking the butt to the floor.

“Wanna go back in?” Harry stood and threw his own out the window, wiping his knees as he stood and held his hands to the pair of them.

Hermione took another brief glance out into the darkness.

Malfoy stood still, staring at her from his place on the ground.

He hadn’t moved an inch.

“I need to nip to my dorm first but you go down. I’ll be five minutes.”

She took his hand after dropping her cigarette butt into the bin, conscious of the litter.

The cold outside the castle pricked at her arms, and she folded her hands into her armpits under where she’d haphazardly thrown a fleece over her shoulders.

The warmth of the punch still swam around her belly, keeping at least that area of her toasty.

Her hiccups were still there.

“Fuck off,” she said angrily in a hiss at them.

No dice. She hiccuped again.

Turning she corner towards the dormitories, she let out a yelp as a hand shot out and dragged her into the darkness of one of the alcoves near the fountain in the centre of the grounds.

“What the-”

An icy hand came up over her mouth, firm and strong, and she blinked rapidly in the darkness until her eyes adjusted.

The elegant lines of Malfoy’s Quidditch uniform (which he, apparently, hadn’t had time to change out of yet) were rumpled, his hair askew as if he'd been pulling at it. His cheeks were blotchy, despite the gauntness of the rest of his face.

But it was his eyes that held her - wide, frantic, and burning with a feverish intensity.

She shook his hand off her face, scowling angrily up at him.

“What the hell are you doing, Malfoy? And why were you-”

“Where did you go?” His voice was rough, scraped raw. The sound of it, directed right at her after the days of silence, was a physical shock.

There was a beat of silence. An owl hooted distantly.

“I was…? What? I was in my common room, we were celebrating the win.”

His eyes darkened slightly, and his throat worked as he pressed a finger against his forehead.

“Where did you go from here? You disappeared. I couldn’t-” He cut himself off, and rubbed a hand across his jaw.

“What are you on about? Are you drunk?” Hermione narrowed her eyes to peer at him across the alcove, trying to figure out whether his rambling was because he’d had one too many.

Malfoy snorted, but the sound was slightly shaky.

"You’re one to talk. I haven’t touched even a drop of alcohol tonight.”

“Then what on Earth-”

“It's gone. It's just... gone. It’s been hours, Granger.”

He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in shallow, panicked bursts, despite his nasty hiss.

He looked vaguely like a man who had been drowning and had just had his oxygen cut off.

She blinked at him for a second. Another.

Then she raised a hand to her forehead, “Oh, Christ. Neville.”

“Neville?” Malfoy’s voice was sharp.

She swung her head, the warmth in her stomach curdling slightly, the freedom of before feeling like some kind of betrayal.

“No, no. I mean, did something tonight that blocked us from our magic. I didn’t even think it would…would stop this.”

Malfoy’s jaw flexed as his eyes jumped between hers.

“Something to stop you being able to cast magic? Are you stupid?”

“Oh, shut up, Malfoy,” Hermione said, and kneaded her forehead. “I didn’t realise it would stop…you know.”

“What did you do? Was it a potion? A charm?” His hand shot out, not to grab her, but to brace himself against the wall beside her head, caging her in. He ducked his head so his eyes swam in front of hers.

He looked vaguely manic.

“Do you have any idea what that felt like?”

The roughness in his voice was a mirror of the hollow ache she'd lived with for weeks.

"It was the punch," she confessed, her words tumbling out. "I think it... blocks magic. Temporarily."

He stared at her, his expression a maelstrom of fury, relief, and sheer, undiluted terror.

"You drank something that severed our connection without knowing what it was? You foolish-”

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she shot back, her own fear sharpening into anger. "Was I supposed to check with you first? For the record, I didn’t know what it was before I drank it. But if I did, I’d have drank it anyway. Piss off.”

Malfoy’s mouth snapped shut and he took a long exhale.

“Don’t drink it again. I don’t care what you do, but don’t do that. It was like…” He paused and rapped his fingers on the wall beside her head irritably, shakily. “It was like an amputation, Granger. I thought something had happened to-”

He stopped himself and swallowed, fingers stilling.

They regarded each other silently for a few seconds.

“How long does the effect last for?” He finally said.

“A couple of hours. What time is it?”

He glanced at the clock tower over her shoulder, “A few minutes past midnight.”

Hermione glanced over his uniform, eyebrow raising as she folded her arms.

Malfoy didn’t acknowledge her unspoken question of why he was still in his Quidditch gear.

“It should be done now, unless Neville-”

It was like an electric band snapped inside her navel.

The silence in her head was obliterated by a roaring, desperate torrent from him, a chaotic jumble of alive - fucking idiot - stupid - need- 

Simultaneously, the warm, humming current of the bond flooded her veins, a searing wave of relief so potent it stole her breath. She tried to catch it unsuccessfully, gasping in cold air.

The hollow ache was gone, replaced by a feeling of profound, cellular-level completion.

The static was gone.

The signal was restored, and it was screaming.

The fight drained from them both in an instant. Malfoy bent his head down, arm still on the wall behind her as he exhaled, long and hard.

The bond flitted to life between them. It was as if it was a live animal, sleeping, that had awoken to both its owners in the same room. It purred, the days of distance between them having accumulated into a perpetual, sickly feeling - but it didn’t matter any more.

Hermione became hyper-aware of Malfoy still bent over her, and raised her head to look at him, the moonlight shining on the wall behind him as he stared deeply into her eyes.

She knew he was feeling it too, the liquid gold swamping both their stomachs, veins, minds, like boiling honey, pouring from one to the other.

Malfoy’s throat worked as he swallowed, and she clenched her fists where they were folded, breathing through the waves of heat rushing from her navel to her head, her head to her cheeks, her cheeks to her mouth, which had dropped to let her nearly pant.

It was consuming her.

His own cheeks had flushed further, and he was breathing just as heavily.

It was consuming him, too.

There was a beat.

She isn’t sure which one of them moved first.

With a small sound, he jerked forward, crashed into her, his mouth finding hers with a desperate, devouring hunger.

This was no reluctant surrender. This was a starving man finally reaching food.

It was violent and messy.

Her back slammed against the concrete wall, and his hand came up to cradle the back of her head before it could follow suit, his thumbs stroking against her jawline with a shocking tenderness that contradicted the ferocity of his kiss.

He was making the bitten off, chokingly needy sounds from the train all that time ago.

Hermione gasped, and he took it as further invitation to begin devouring her mouth more.

She kissed him back with equal desperation, her fingers tangling in the soft hair at the nape of his neck, pulling tightly, almost angrily.

Malfoy moaned.

The bond sang in triumph, a deafening, glorious chorus. Yes. This. This is what we are missing.

Hermione’s other hand came to clench at his shoulder, holding him tightly to her as her fingers scrambled against the leather of his Quidditch uniform.

Malfoy broke from her mouth, butting against her nose clumsily, his feet scraping the concrete as he crowded even further into her space.

She tightened her grip against his hair, not ready for this to be over.

His breath, hot and ragged against her skin, began trailing a path of searing kisses down her jaw, each one resulting in another sound being torn from his chest.

“Malfoy.”

One of his thighs wedged itself between her legs, and he nodded helplessly against her neck, understanding.

When his teeth found the tender skin of her throat, she hissed.

He didn't just bite; he sealed the reconnection with a sharp, possessive sting that drew a tiny bead of blood once again. Her neck ached at the repetitive assault on the skin, having only just recovered from the last time this happened.

He laved at the spot with his tongue, and a jolt of pure white-hot lightning arced through her, so intense her eyes saw fireworks from where they were screwed shut.

She rocked her hips against his thigh unknowingly, only aware of the stuttering motions as a sharp blossoming of pleasure began unfurling inside her stomach.

Feeling a tight combination of shame and heat coiling tight in her chest, she slowed her hips, pressing them back against the wall.

Embarrassment coursed through her, finding company with her lust.

Maybe it added to it.

God.

As if knowing what she was feeling, which, she supposed distantly, he did, his head nodded encouragingly against her neck. His tall frame pushed her further into the wall in a way that would be claustrophobic if it were any other situation.

She felt the hard length of him against her hip even through his uniform, and his thigh lifted to press firmly against her underwear.

She could practically feel the roughness of the leather through the cotton, and her eyes rolled back as he pulled at her hips needily, urging her back into movement.

The fire in her stomach was still bubbling, the repetitive feeling of yes, this is right, this is what was missing washing over and over her again and again.

Malfoy worked over her neck, sucking harder, drawing more from her. His hips jerked sporadically, as if he was unaware his body was even doing it.

He whimpered against her skin as she dug the bluntness of her nails against the back of his head, gripping at his hair to pull him from where he had latched on.

His eyes were wild, just like the last time in the train. The pupils drowned out any resemblance of grey as they flitted between hers, looking lost. His mouth was wet with spit and the red paint of her blood, and he blinked down at her, chest heaving.

“What…?”

She raised herself up to take over his mouth again, feeling hot, frenzied, and pushed against the leather on his chest.

Obediently, he moved against the opposite side of the alcove wall, both of their feet scuffling against the gravel.

Hermione possessed his mouth, licking across the inside greedily, swallowing the tiny sounds he made.

God. He tasted of mint alongside the copper of her own blood.

She moaned wantonly as she reached to the top of his hair to yank him downwards.

Malfoy fell to his knees.

His hands clutched at the backs of her knees as he lifted and raised her foot onto his shoulder, the sole of her brogue firmly planted on the padding of his Seeker uniform.

Hermione stared down at him, feeling her own chest heave as he pushed her sock down from her calf, placing bloody, mottled kisses along the dents it had left on her skin.

Each kiss left its own crimson mark behind.

She suppressed a shiver.

Her fingers carded through his hair lightly, and she urged his head further up.

His thumbs dug into her hipbones where he held her steady on the one foot in the ground, and his eyes flashed up to meet hers.

She felt drunk, and not from the punch or the beers, as she tapped the side of his jaw twice.

“Open.”

There was no hesitation as Malfoy’s stained, ruby lips dropped open in response, a long exhalation following.

Hermione pressed her thumb between his lips and held it still on the flat of his tongue, watching for his reaction.

Malfoy’s eyelashes fluttered like white butterflies against his cheeks, flushed a mottled pink.

His eyes opened and gazed up again at her, holding still.

Hermione’s breath caught as she withdrew her finger and carded her hand through his hair to the back of his head again and guided him forward.

The noise he made sounded so desperate, a part of her felt sorry for him.

The heat of the bond was still flooding her veins, her stomach, and the feeling of Malfoy’s hot mouth pressing over her underwear only added to it.

He licked one long, slow line over the cotton, and she raised her own arm to bite into the flesh of her forearm, muffling her groan.

He breathed hotly against the cotton, licking again, again, until the fabric was so soaked she could feel the working of his tongue as if there was barely any barrier between the two of them.

Malfoy made a desperate sound against her and it ricocheted against her clit, her hips jumping sharply. He pressed his nose against her nose sensitive part as he continued his frenzied licks, panting.

One of his hands left her hips, and she jolted in shock at the coldness of his fingertips at the corner of her underwear. He began to pull it aside, his tongue taking on a slight hysteria.

Her hand shot out and gripped his wrist, stopping him.

He pulled his head back, eyes nearly completely black as he stared up at her.

His mouth still had a tinge of red at the corners.

“Please.”

His voice sounded like it was dragged from his chest. His finger was still, but she felt it press against the inside of her thigh ever so slightly.

His chest heaved with heavy, desperate breaths.

Part of Hermione slinked warmly behind her navel. A warmth that wasn’t completely the bond.

“Again.”

Malfoy exhaled shakily at the word, his eyes shutting as he swallowed thickly. He pressed his forehead against the inside of her thigh, pressing a wet, open mouthed kiss to the sensitive skin there.

“Please,” he pleaded again, his voice dripping in need. His finger inched slightly further under her underwear, pulling at it gently.

The wetness his tongue had left combined with her own meant the friction from the fabric moving, even as minuscule as it was, had her clenching on nothing.

“Please,” Malfoy repeated, looking back from where his eyes had closed as he pressed kisses up to her.

He looked…wrecked.

His gaze jumped from one of her eyes to another, his chest still rising and falling sharply. He swallowed thickly and bent back in to press another kiss to her thigh, right beside where his finger toyed with the edge of the fabric.

“Please, Hermione.”

Hermione released a long, swooping breath.

With a tug to the back of his head, pushing him forward, Malfoy let out a long, trembling groan, pulling her underwear to the side finally.

For a brief, horrible second, the cold air settled on her. But only for a second. Malfoy’s mouth closed over her cunt, hot and wet, as the fingers at her hip dragged her impossibly closer to his face.

Quickly, she smacked her forearm to her face, biting down as a long, resounding moan left her.

His tongue licked stripes between her lips, working tight, small circles around her clit in a practiced way that had her hips stuttering in the slow movements she’d been making alongside his tongue. Every noise he made, all of them quiet, quivering, she felt deep in her core.

Malfoy kept his other hand at the underwear, holding it to the side, as his lips worked across her.

He seemed determined to absolutely cover himself in her, she thought wildly, her face impossibly heating up even more in the darkness.

His face buried its way deeper between her thighs, and he sighed as his tongue pressed against her entrance.

Distantly, she was aware the noises she was making weren’t being muffled even remotely by her arm.

She was past the point of caring.

Malfoy worked his tongue over the rim of her entrance, flicking repeatedly, before running back up to suck sharply at her clit. He laved his tongue across her, losing finesse, messily and greedily slurping as she worked herself across his lips and tongue, riding his face and matching his movements.

Her hand scratched at his scalp urgently as she felt herself getting closer.

The warmth of the bond was flooded, and Malfoy let out a wanton, knowing moan as she was accosted by his broken off thoughts.

need - God - close, I’m - it’s going to be - please - taste -

Malfoy was sending her his own lust directly down the bond, directly into her mind.

She threw her head back and dropped both hands to the top of his head, her thigh clenching near his head as her orgasm hit her like a freight truck.

Working her hips across his face still, slightly slower, she felt her toes curl as her calves nearly cramped at how much her legs tensed in their position.

Malfoy kept going.

“Malfoy.”

God, her voice sounded like the gravel they stood on right now.

Her hips jumped and she nearly yelped as Malfoy pushed his face further against her. His tongue continued to press flatly against her, nearly rough in its movements, poking greedily at her entrance again.

Her sensitivity hitting nearly painful points of pleasure, she yanked roughly at his hair.

“Malfoy,” Hermione said sharply, and tugged again. “Stop.”

Malfoy swallowed thickly as he allowed himself to be pulled off of her.

The sight of him was enough for her stomach to coil again.

Jesus.

His mouth was covered in her slickness, and he took deep, heavy breaths, as if he was suffocating.

He probably was.

His eyes were still so dark, and his thumb moved to allow her underwear to snap back into place.

The hand at her ass continued to clench as they stared at one another in the darkness.

The bond felt satiated.

The heat that had peaked inside of her settled into the usual flowing, dull warmth.

It seemed to curl inside her stomach, happy.

She swallowed thickly as the darkness in Malfoy’s eyes receded with every one of his languid blinks.

Slowly, she removed her foot from his shoulder, and took a jerky step backwards.

Malfoy didn’t look away from her as the flush ran from his cheeks slightly, and she realised belatedly that he had a glassy, satiated expression in his eyes.

Had he been under the influence of…

Her breath stuttered as her hand flew to her chest. She was still panting from her orgasm.

Oh, God.

“I-”

Her voice started and stopped, and the cold of the night air seeped into her skin like a wet blanket.

He stayed on the floor.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know, that wasn’t…”

She blinked rapidly herself, and wrapped her goose-pimpled arms across herself as she resolutely moved her gaze from where he was to the grounds around them.

The school grounds.

“Hermio-”

“I need to go inside,” she blurted, and his jaw clicked shut as the gravel crumbled beneath her heel at her spin. He dropped the hand that had reached placatingly towards her.

“I’m…I’m sorry for blocking the bond. It won’t happen again.”

She absolutely, completely, refused to look behind her as she stalked towards the castle doors, letting them slam shut behind her with finality.

She absolutely, completely, refused to think about what had happened, about if he was still out there, about if anyone had seen, about anything, until she ascended the stairs to her room.

It was only until she had sidled past Dean and Harry drunkenly rematching snap while Ron snored beside Ginny, only when she had shakily gotten undressed, only when she lay in bed, gazing up at the moon outside, she’d she allow herself to think.

And in the quiet, a single, devastating thought rose, clear and cold: The bond didn’t make her do this. The bond didn’t make her want it. It had only given her permission to do things she wouldn’t have allowed herself to even consider before.

But what about him?

Chapter Text

The Great Hall on Saturday morning was a monument to collective regret. Sunlight, cheerful and obnoxiously bright, streamed through the windows, illuminating the slumped forms of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and their supporters. The air was thick with the smell of greasy food and quiet suffering.

“If I knew the bastard wouldn’t even be stopped by a Hangover Potion,” Dean groaned, his face buried in his hands, “I wouldn’t have bothered drinking it in the first place.”

A low, pained murmur of agreement rippled down the table. Neville had given up entirely, his cheek pressed to the cool wood as if seeking solace from its unfeeling solidity.

It turned out, as they’d discovered in the merciless clarity of morning, that a punch capable of blocking one’s magic would, rather predictably, block the effect of any other magic too.

No Hangover Potions. No anti-nausea charms. No quick fixes at all.

Hermione focused on the simple, grounding task of spreading raspberry jam on her toast. Each movement was careful, deliberate, her forehead throbbing with each and every too fast motion.

The hangover was hellish.

Really, though, she knew it was a flimsy cover for the true tempest raging within.

She itched at the Glamoured mark on her neck absently as her thoughts drifted.

The alcove.

The desperate heat.

The shattered sound of her name.

She had dissected the memory all night, each fragment turning in her gut along with her mind.

Sleep hadn’t come very well.

The shame was a living thing, coiling tight in her chest. It mingled with her guilt, at how she had behaved last night.

Had it been him? Her? Had he, of his own volition, wanted to press her into that wall, to kneel at her feet?

She swallowed a chunk of toast. It scratched all the way down her throat.

Or had the bond, that ancient magic, simply used their bodies as conduits, overriding his will and her reason with a primal, magical imperative?

The thought that he might have been a puppet, that his desperation was not his own but the bond's starvation, left her feeling violated and strangely, horrifyingly complicit.

She had saved his life, but at what cost to his autonomy?

To hers?

Raising a hand to her forehead, she rubbed the pounding behind her skull lightly, muttering a quiet thanks to Ron as he poured out some orange juice for her.

Yet, beneath the guilt, thrumming in the very marrow of her, was a different, more terrifying sensation. The bond itself was… content.

It hummed in her core, a low, warm, purring vibration of profound satisfaction. It felt fed. Satiated.

And her body, despite the hangover, felt different because of it.

Her skin hummed with a latent energy, her senses were preternaturally sharp, and a deep vitality warmed her from the inside out, fighting the surface-level misery.

It felt as though she was basking in the afterglow of a strenuous workout, or was coming home from a week away at a yoga retreat, healthy and settled.

Even her face that morning after she’d crawled to the bathroom and splashed herself with cold water, expecting her reflection to have at least three new pimples, seemed…bright. Her cheeks had a perpetual glowy, rosy tint to them, and her hair seemed thicker, supple, as thought she’d gone to bead with a silk cap and hair mask dabbed along it all.

There were no telltale eyebags, no dry lips, not even any sleep in the corners of her eyes.

A familiar, electric prickle, separate from the bond’s hum, skated up her spine.

Hermione really, really didn’t want to look, afraid of the condemnation or, worse, the shared shame she might find as she lifted her gaze.

But she was no coward.

She set her jaw and allowed her eyes to jump to the Slytherin table.

Malfoy sat between Nott and Basie, a picture of unnerving composure, staring right at her with his chin in the palm of his hand.

She searched his face briefly, feeling the sinking guilt from last night wrap tendrils around her gut.

But there was no guilt in his expression. No conflict, or none that she could discern, anyway.

He looked…restored.

The grey, wasted pallor was gone, replaced by a healthy, luminous glow. The sharp angles of his face were clean and defined, the shadows beneath his eyes vanished. His platinum hair seemed to catch and hold the light, a gleaming silver crown. Nott and Blaise seemed to fade next to him as he caught and held her attention.

Well, more than he already did.

He looked more than healthy; he looked potent.

He looked how she felt.

The look Malfoy was giving her was one of intense, unnerving focus, as if she were a complex and fascinating equation.

He blinked slowly in her direction and didn’t show any shame in staring so unabashedly.

She swallowed thickly and dropped her attention back to her toast.

“Still sore about the match,” Harry commented, and she turned to see him also looking at the Slytherin table. He took a sip of pumpkin juice, looking smug. “He’s probably just plotting his revenge. Don’t let it get to you, ‘Mione.”

She nodded mutely, feeling her cheeks flush.

It wasn’t the match he was focused on.

Later, bundled in coats and scarves, the group of them trudged out into the grounds.

The world was a crisp, white canvas, the last vestiges of Christmas snow clinging to the edges of the forest.

The roiling in her gut had calmed itself, the guilt somewhat subsiding after seeing so upset from Malfoy, and she allowed herself to laugh at Seamus’ obscene gesture towards Ron.

Ron picked up and pelted a snowball in his direction, gaining a yelp.

“Last snowball fight of the year?” Ron questioned, his breath pluming in the air, already packing a missile of impressive size.

The air filled with laughter and flying snow.

Hermione hung back with Ginny, the pair content to watch their friends pummel one another.

The bond’s warm hum was a stark contrast to the winter chill, and she felt comfortably full as the two of them chattered.

“And I said to Seamus that I’d see about going to Hogsmeade with him. I don’t know, doesn’t it seem kind of soon after…you know?”

Hermione opened her mouth to reply right as Ron lobbed a snowball towards a Ginny’s head.

On pure instinct, she flicked her wand, always at the ready for matches like these when Harry or Ron inevitably tried to coat her in snow.

Smile already curving at increasing the size of the snowball and give Ron a taste of his own medicine, she said firmly, “Engorgio.”

It wasn't a shout. Barely a mutter, really.

A bolt of blue-white magic, swift and precise, shot from the tip of her wand. It didn't just hit Ron's snowball; it enveloped it, flash-freezing it into a solid, crystalline sphere of ice mid-air. The frozen ball circled briefly, awaiting direction, and she gave her wand a slight, almost imperceptible flick, slamming the sphere into the ground where it shattered with a resounding thunk.

Hermione didn't drop her wand. Her fingers tightened around the vine wood, a strange, warm thrum of potential energy settling in her gut alongside the bond's contented hum.

She blinked down at the shards.

There was a beat of stunned silence.

“Blimey, Hermione!” Ron stared at the ice ball, then at her. “A bit overkill, isn’t it? Trying to give me a concussion?”

“Sorry!” she said, her voice too high. “I just… I guess I put more effort into the spell than I realised.”

But she knew she hadn’t.

The magic had leapt from her, effortless and powerful. She hadn’t shouted it. She hasn’t even really thought on it.

The hand holding her wand felt as warm as the honey-thick syrup feeling from the bond in her gut, and she dropped it finally, staring at it as it landed with a soft thud.

Ron was already laughing, trudging over to them, making a comment about revisiting Olivanders.

Ginny stared at her wordlessly, questioning.

Coughing nervously, she glanced around briefly as Ron flopped in front of the two of them.

Pansy was quietly leaning against a far-off oak tree, watching their game, as Nott bit into an apple on the ground next to her.

Malfoy had his back to their group, crouching beside Theo and talking quietly.

He stole the apple to take a bite himself.

Pansy’s expression was unreadable from this distance, but as Malfoy stood from crouching beside Nott, wiping his knees and turning in the direction of where she sat, there was a faint, acknowledging pulse through the bond.

-

By Monday, the glow had faded.

The satisfied hum had dulled to a listless murmur, and the vibrant energy had bled away, leaving her feeling hollowed out. A familiar, dreaded chill was seeping back into her bones, and a low-grade headache had taken up permanent residence behind her eyes.

The magic that had felt so effortless on Saturday now required conscious effort, like wading through treacle.

She saw Malfoy in the corridors between classes. The radiant health had vanished. The waxy pallor was returning, the shadows deepening beneath his eyes. He moved with a new tension, his jaw constantly clenched.

It had been two days, and already the bond between them felt thin, strained, and hungry. It had taken much, much longer the time previous to reach this point.

Desperation began to coil in her stomach. She needed answers.

Her answer walked past them as her, Ginny, and Harry sat together in an alcove.

A quick murmur about going to her bathroom to her friends had her following a loitering Nott, who was chewing gum and walking vaguely in the direction of the library.

“Nott,” she called, hurrying her step towards him.

He turned, a wide, toothy smile already sprawling across his face.

“Granger,” he greeted, hands still in his pockets. His eyes twinkled. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Come to finally admit my company is superior to Weasley’s?”

Hermione ignored this. It was always best to do so around him.

“I need your help,” she said, and fell into step beside him. She shot a glance around as they walked into the main hallway. “The notes you lent me before. Is there any way you can get me…more?”

Theo’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes sharpened, turning contemplative.

“More?”

“Well, the whole book would be grand,” Hermione muttered, feeling a twinge of annoyance at the fact she’d have to barter with Nott every time to be fed slightly more information.

They walked in silence for a beat.

“Feeling a bit off-colour, are we? The post-celebration bliss wearing a bit thin?” He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping.

“What?” God, she said that too quickly.

Her gaze shot up to meet his as they stood just outside the library’s entrance, and his smile deepened.

“You’re looking a bit peaky.”

“Oh. Right, well. I guess that’s what happens when it’s your time of the month.”

Hermione held her chin up and folded her arms over her chest.

Nott’s head cocked to the side, and the mint from his chewing gum blew in her face as he chuckled.

“And I suppose yours and Malfoy’s have synced up, have they? Do you guys share tampons, too?”

She didn’t answer, jaw clicking shut.

He sighed, the joviality melting away into something more serious.

“How are you doing? What’s it like?”

Her eyes glanced over his shoulder. She couldn’t hold his gaze as she talked about this; already there was a heat prickling at the back of her neck.

“Intense.”

There.

“And that’s why you need the notes?” He guessed, shoulder going on the wall.

A group of students walked past, and she finally looked up at him again.

“This isn’t a solution. It’s only a placeholder to figure out what’s going on. It isn’t permanent.”

“Have you seen them?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“The wings, I mean.”

“Oh. No. Not for a while, actually,” Her eyes drifted back over his shoulder. “I haven’t asked to.”

Nott stood upright and scratched at the back of his head, taking a deep breath and hoisting his bag further up his shoulder.

“It’s complicated, Granger. My family’s library isn’t a public resource. There are wards. Eyes. But,” he paused, tapping his chin, “for you, I’ll see what I can do.”

He opened the door to the library.

“Thank you, Theo,” she said, genuinely grateful as she stepped in.

“Anything for my favourite lioness,” he winked, holding the door open for her with a flourish.

As she stepped inside, her eyes immediately found Malfoy, already seated at one of the tables in the centre of the room. His gaze was fixed on her and Theo, his expression cold and shuttered.

But as Theo gave her one last, familiar smile before heading to his own table, Hermione saw Malfoy’s jaw tighten almost imperceptibly.

A flicker of pure, unadulterated possession darkened his grey eyes for a single, searing moment before he looked away, the mask of indifference slamming back into place.

It wasn’t anger. It was something far more primal.

The bond, thin and hungry as it was, vibrated with a sharp, discordant note of displeasure.

A warm trickle started at the top of Hermione’s spine and diluted in the base of her back. She couldn’t separate what she felt was Malfoy, and what she felt was the bond.

She swallowed thickly and moved deep into the rows of tomes around her.

By that evening, the hollow feeling had become a gnawing ache.

Hermione retreated back into the library after dinner, finding the secluded carrel she had worked in for a couple of hours earlier in the back.

She pulled the stack of books gathered earlier on advanced magical theory and esoteric bonding rituals from her bag, the titles vague enough to not draw suspicion but pointed enough to hopefully yield a clue, and sighed deeply.

She had a feeling that until Nott managed to shuffle the notes back over to her, if he even could, that she wouldn’t find anything new. But she couldn’t just wait around for something else to happen, she thought, as she sat down and pulled her parchment from her back to begin scrawling out notes.

She was deep in a particularly dense passage on Symbiotic Emanations, writing studiously, when a shadow fell over the page.

She looked up.

Malfoy stood there, his face illuminated by the single candle on her desk.

He looked exhausted, the grey tinge more pronounced in the dim light.

"Find anything useful, Granger?" His voice was low, devoid of its usual sneer, layered with a weary tension.

He dragged up a chair and sat heavily into it, palm stroking along his face and jaw.

"No. It's all theoretical. Nothing about…the practicalities of this." She gestured vaguely between them, the air thickening with the memory of the alcove.

She coughed and rolled her jaw, looking back down at the book before she caught herself staring too long.

He didn't speak for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the dancing flame.

"My magic," he began, his voice barely above a whisper, confessing to the flame rather than to her. "The day after...it wasn't just stable. It was...effortless." He hesitated, his jaw tightening as if the words were physically painful. "Hiding them - the Glamour - felt as easy as breathing. I didn't even have to think about it."

Hermione held her breath, watching the struggle on his face.

This was the first time he had ever openly referred to his condition in front of her without fury or denial.

"And now?" she prompted.

His eyes flicked up to hers, guarded but starkly honest in their frustration.

“And now it's a constant drain. A conscious effort. It's failing faster than it did before you...before the anchoring." He corrected himself, a flicker of shame crossing his features. "The bond got a taste of what it wanted, and now its appetite is clearly accelerated. That’s the only link I can think of. The Glamour is tied to my core strength, the first thing to fray when the magic wanes."

A cold dread trickled down Hermione's spine. "What happens if it fails completely?"

A bitter, hollow smile touched his lips. "Then the entire school gets a front-row view and I become a spectacle."

“I haven’t seen them in a while.”

His eyes shot up to hers, and she held them firmly.

"We need to know more," she insisted, leaning forward. "About the…condition itself. What it's becoming-”

"Don't," Malfoy cut her off, his voice sharp. "Just... don't."

"I saved your life," she reminded him in a hiss, the words coming out more defensively than she intended.

His head snapped up, his grey eyes blazing with a sudden, startling heat.

"Unwillingly!" he bit out, the word a sharp crack in the quiet library.

He seemed to surprise himself with his own vehemence, and took a deep breath, sitting back and visibly forcing his shoulders to relax.

His voice dropped back to a strained calm.

"It doesn't matter. We're tied together now. We can't go days without being in proximity. It's not sustainable. Not until we understand the rules of this anchoring."

The reference to their proximity, so soon after the alcove, made her stomach clench.

The guilt washed over her anew.

“Malfoy, about the other night... I'm sorry if... if the bond made you-”

"We don't have to take it that far again," he interrupted, his voice flat, final. He wouldn't look at her as he said it, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere over her shoulder.

The tension in the air was palpable as they both sat in silence, the clock in the library corner a monotonous tick.

“You can see them,” Malfoy finally said, and rapped his knuckles on the table. “Like I said, the distance is unsustainable. It’s eating at us, and it benefits us when we give it what it wants.”

Hermione crossed her legs under the table.

“You mean when we give into it.”

He shrugged, picking up her quill and twirling it between his fingers. “I said we don’t have to take it that far again. It obviously gave us a…surge. I don’t know if it’s from the proximity or-”

He cut himself off and dropped her quill.

His eyes snapped to her neck, and a faint, almost imperceptible frown appeared between his brows.

"You're not even hiding it," he murmured.

Hermione's hand flew to her neck. She had glamoured the faint marks this morning, checking twice in the mirror.

"What? Yes, I am."

"It's harder to cover something that's a part of you," he said quietly, his gaze becoming distant for a moment, no doubt thinking of the wings. "The magic is weaker now. Dampened. Where it was strong after…” He trailed off, not needing to finish.

After the alcove.

“The Glamour on a wound, even a small one, is always the first to go. It takes more focus than you'd think."

The revelation was a small, intimate shock.

He could see through her Glamour. He could see the faint evidence of his mouth on her skin because their shared magic was now too weak to properly conceal it.

The vulnerability was staggering.

If she couldn’t conceal something this small, what hope did he have of covering the wings for much longer? Is that why her magic had felt so weakened? Did they share that power now?

She needed the notes from Nott more urgently than she realised.

Caught in her own thoughts, it was only until the cool press of Malfoy’s fingertips grazed the point on her neck did she suck in a sharp breath.

His eyes remained on the slowly healing skin, and he pulled her collar lightly to show the extent of it; she held still as Malfoy traced the deepest of the bite marks.

He gave a very languid blink and swallowed thickly.

“I’m sorry.”

Hermione looked between his eyes as he spoke, her skin hot despite the iciness of his touch. He took a long inhale.

“Don’t be.”

Malfoy seemed to shake himself out of the thought, his eyes refocusing on the stack of books next to her from her neck.

Without a word, he reached out and took the top three from the pile: ‘Magical Bindings and Their Consequences,’ ‘The Price of Power: A Study of Symbiotic Magic,’ and ‘Unbreakable Vows and Other Permanent Attachments.’

"I'll take these," he stated, not asking for permission.

Malfoy was in this now, fully.

He stood up, the books tucked under his arm.

“We research. We stay close. We figure this out."

“Give me your timetable,” Hermione said, and tapped her own under her parchment. “I need your free periods, too. We’ll organise when to meet so this,” she gestured at his appearance as well as her own. “Doesn’t happen again.”

He looked down at her, his expression unreadable, the candlelight carving shadows into the newly returned hollows of his cheeks, and nodded.

“You’ll get it.”

Then he turned and started to walk away, turning slightly before he took too many steps, as if to say more, before thinking better of it.

She was left her alone in the flickering darkness with the weight of their shared secret, the ghost of his touch on her neck, and the terrifying understanding that their fates were now irrevocably, and practically, intertwined.

Chapter Text

The shouting of the training going on behind her was caught up in the residue winds of the winter weather as she walked from the Quidditch Pitch and towards the castle.

Leaving had been a physical strain, like walking against a pressure only she could feel.

Ron’s booming laugh, Harry’s focused shouts as he executed a complex feint, Ginny’s commanding voice directed at her brother, all followed her up the steps.

Her feet dragged, and felt the tug at her navel splutter.

A conversation with Harry at lunch just hours before played in her mind as she walked through the too-quiet halls, most of the student body studying, training, or taking the trip to Hogsmeade.

“You’ve been quiet,” Harry had said, his voice gentle as he passed her the potatoes. The concern in his green eyes was a familiar, painful weight. “Again. I thought…”

His gaze flashed around the table as he ducked his head closer to hers.

“I thought you were doing better?”

The fog at the edges of her mind had stirred, a silent, oily presence.

“No,” she’d lied, the word ash in her mouth. “No, I mean I am. Yes. Just… drained. I think I’m ill again.”

It was her go-to excuse now, a flimsy shield.

She’d seen her reflection that morning, the pallor of her skin becoming even worse. The lie didn’t take much convincing; honestly, she looked half-dead. Dark circles rimmed her eyes, her hair seemed half-matted and refused to hold any shine from her shampoos and conditioners. Casting a Scourgify was no dice, either. Too much of her already frivolous magic was spent on keeping the Glamour raised on her neck.

He’d nodded, but his gaze was still searching. “Right. Well. There’s training later, if you want to come down.”

She took a steadying breath. “Yeah, of course I do. How… how is everything with you?”

He’d shrugged. A faint, puzzled frown creasing his brow, he chewed absently, his eyes drifting.

“Weird, actually. Parkinson cornered me by the broom shed this morning.”

Hermione had frozen, a forkful of peas suspended in mid-air.

“What did she do? Are you alright?”

“That’s just it. She didn’t do anything. She didn’t sneer, didn’t call me a foul name. She just… stood there. Asked me what I thought about the new Transfiguration curriculum. Said she found McGonagall’s approach ‘unexpectedly rigorous’.” He’d shaken his head, a bewildered look on his face. “It was the most surreal conversation of my life. She was almost… polite.”

“Polite?” Hermione had whispered, a cold dread seeping into her veins.

Pansy wasn’t just watching; she was engaging. She was calculating, and Harry, bafflingly, wasn’t repulsed. He was intrigued.

“Be careful, Harry.”

“Of what? A conversation?” He’d smiled then, a small, wry thing. “It’s probably a trap.”

They’d both paused, before he shrugged dismissively and threw some more food in his mouth, talking around it.

“Just a weird one.”

The memory was a splinter of ice in her chest.

Another variable she’d not been taking into account while her brain had felt as frazzled as it had the last couple of days.

The door to the Room of Requirement materialised, and as she pushed it open, the air from her lungs was stolen for the second time that day.

The room had accommodated their studying session, giving them a large oak desk with a few scattered chairs around to work on, the room pleasantly warmed by the fire in the corner. It crackled in the soft glow of the room, the yellow lighting casting a shadow over where Malfoy sat on one of the seats at the desk, engrossed in his notes.

His wings were out.

The Glamour was utterly, completely absent - they were fully unveiled, a breathtaking, heartbreaking sight. Their immense span dominated the space, but their glory was faded. The feathers, once the colour of pure, sun-kissed snow, were now a dull, matte ivory, like unpolished bone or a master’s painting dimmed by centuries of neglect. They didn’t glow; they absorbed the firelight, seeming to suck the very warmth from the room.

As she crossed the threshold, they gave a unified, shuddering ripple.

It felt a silent, seismic response to her presence.

Draco turned, his chair scraping noisily as he stood in a mild panic. His expression smoothed over when he saw her, and he swallowed.

This had been the first time they had been able to organise a meeting since the library.

The gauntness of his face was more pronounced in the intimate light of the room. The elegant lines were now harsh, his cheekbones sharp enough to cast shadows. The dark smudges beneath his eyes were like bruises, but his gaze, when it met hers, was unnervingly clear and focused.

“You’re late,” he said, his voice a dry rasp, devoid of its usual sneer. It was a simple statement of fact, weighted with the two days of strained, insufficient proximity.

“Quidditch practice,” she replied, her own voice sounding thin.

Hermione shrugged off her coat, her eyes helplessly drawn back to the wings. The bond, now that they were in the same enclosed space, settled from a frantic, screaming pull to a deep, resonant thrum of need. It was a relief so profound it was almost a pain in itself. “You have them out.”

“The Glamour is a luxury I can’t afford in here,” he stated, turning back to the desk scattered with books. He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s a constant drain. It’s using…our shared magic. Your magic feels thin.”

“It does,” she admitted, moving to the other side of the desk.

The sheer scale of the wings made her feel small.

Hermione sat, him following suit shortly after, and they proceeded to open their respective tomes and notes.

For a while, the only sounds were the soft rustle of parchment and the occasional, whisper-soft sound of shifting feathers. The air between them was thick, charged with the unspoken memory of the alcove, with the knowledge of what had temporarily filled that magical pot to overflowing.

The mere proximity was a physical warmth against her skin, a low-grade hum of awareness that made it difficult to concentrate. She could feel the heat of him from across the desk, a phantom pressure against her side.

Hermione felt her forehead throb.

“The time apart is shortening for what’s comfortable before it takes its toll on us,” she finally said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I feel like I can’t focus.”

Malfoy shuffled in his seat. “I think I’m taking too much from the pot,” he gestured vaguely between them, and then at his back. “I might need to move back here. Overnight, I mean. That way I can cut our magic slack for a few hours, at least.”

Hermione’s jaw tightened as she looked over the wings again, and gave a tight nod, looking back down at where her finger had paused on the paper.

He had a point.

The Glamour was definitely making a huge dent in their magical foundations. It was like she was constantly casting spells with no breaks, no pauses. Her back felt tight, her shoulders heavy, and Malfoy looked no better across from her.

The bond swirled in her stomach. It felt slow at their proximity, less turbulence. But not quite satisfied.

Her finger paused on a passage in Arcane Symbiosis: A Theoretical Framework.

“Listen to this,” she said, her voice cutting through the tense quiet.

She read aloud, the words feeling dangerous on her tongue.

“In bonds of significant depth, the connection transcends the mere exchange of energy. The tether itself can become a tactile entity to the trained mind. Practitioners of high-level soul magic describe the ability to grasp the tether, to assess its integrity, its strength, and its very composition through a focused act of will - a mental touch.”

Malfoy was silent for a moment.

Then, he was there, leaning over her shoulder to read the passage himself.

His presence was a wave of heat, and the scent of him - frost, mint, leather - flooded her senses.

The wings behind him gave another soft, involuntary flutter, and the bond in her gut pulsed warmly in response.

“A mental touch,” he murmured, his breath ghosting the shell of her ear. The vibration went straight through her. “It sounds invasive. Like legilimency.”

“It sounds like a diagnostic spell,” Hermione corrected, her heart beginning a frantic tattoo against her ribs. She fought to keep her voice clinical, despite the rippling of the bond between them. “We’re guessing, Malfoy. We’re reading theories and feeling symptoms, but we have no idea of the bond’s true state. What if it’s fraying? What if the anchor is unstable? We need data.”

Hermione didn’t know about him, but for the most part, she’d gone out of her way to avoid the tethering shared between them. Apart from when it was impossible to avoid, when it churned inside of her despite itself, she steadfast refused to acknowledge the heavy feeling behind her naval.

Really, truly, she had no idea what it even felt like to think about it without quickly shutting the passage of thought down.

Lest Malfoy sense her.

He straightened up, but his gaze remained locked on her, intense and considering.

The silence stretched, taut as a wire, as they looked at one another. She could feel the conflict in him through the bond. A swirl of caution, intellectual curiosity, and a deep, ingrained resistance to such vulnerability.

“Do it,” he said finally, his voice low.

She blinked. “What?”

“You read the theory. You understand the principle. Do it.” His grey eyes shuttered, and he gave a not-quite nonchalant shrug. “Show me what this ‘mental touch’ feels like. Assess your handiwork, Granger.”

His voice sneered slightly towards the end, and he gestured between them.

The challenge, the slight taunt, sealed her resolve.

Nodding sharply once, Hermione closed her eyes.

She blocked out the sight of his weary face, the tragic beauty of his faded wings, the entire room, and turned her focus entirely inward - on the pulsing, living cord of magic that tied her existence to his.

She found it easily. Of course she did. It was her entire gravity lately.

It felt like a braid of shimmering bronze and a cool, deep blue, thrumming with a desperate, weary rhythm. She imagined it not as a feeling, but as a physical rope. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she felt the coolness of the tiles beneath her back, the slicing of the knife across her hand, the crack of her skull as the magic flung her back as she locked herself to Malfoy.

With an act of will that felt like pushing her own soul out of her body, she reached for it the rope.

The moment her consciousness made contact, it was like being swept into the heart of a hurricane.

The first sensation was a vast, hollow emptiness, a magical and emotional fatigue so profound it felt like a physical void, threatening to swallow her whole. Hermione felt her stomach bottoming out, and she gripped the desk beneath her hands to remind herself she wasn’t actually jumping into a black hole.

Malfoy’s end of the rope felt just out of reach, and she danced at the edge of it searchingly.

Anger came unbidden. Anger at her, anger at the wings, anger at her, anger at Theo, anger at his father, anger at her again.

She imagined herself pulling the layers of it apart.

Not anger, but annoyance; at Theo, for meddling, for this morning, when he’d began poking fun at Malfoy for missing his first class through sleeping in.

Not anger, but frustration; at the wings, at being up last night in the bathroom, gritting his teeth to cover the Glamour back over them. At being too weak.

She couldn’t lift the lid on his father. Or maybe, if she really thought on it, it was because she didn’t want to.

Lucius Malfoy petrified her.

Hermione allowed herself to move on, flexing her hands across the table sporadically as she focused.

The anger at her, for tethering herself, was still fresh and pulsing. Anger at her for knowing. For…

Her mind buzzed slightly, as if overcome, as the anger wove itself through the emptiness into a desperate, clawing feeling. It was raw, and shockingly specific. It was a hunger.

The sheer, humiliating depth of the need was a bitter, metallic taste in the back of her own throat.

She backed away from it firmly.

Malfoy.

Her eyes opened, and Malfoy’s mouth dropped open in surprise from where he stood in front of her.

He looked between her eyes, and she felt a wave of dizziness as their shared magic waned and fluctuated.

It took effort to do that.

Granger.

His voice came, crystal clear, in the forefront of her mind.

Slightly giddy, she laughed despite herself. She probably mirrored the slightly manic look in his eyes as he leaned into her space, the discovery of what they could do now, and so clearly at that, generating a shared high.

I can hear you.

Hermione said back into his mind, and he exhaled heavily, eyes bright and excited.

This was a feat.

Apart from legilimency, which was probably the closest thing to what they could now do, this was unheard of. And even then, legilimency wasn’t a two-way connection, wasn’t a direct communication into the mind of someone else.

She felt their magic pulse slightly, sparking, as if realising the burden upon it.   

Driven by a sudden, reckless impulse as their magic spluttered, she closed her eyes and pushed deeper, past the turbulent surface emotions.

She brushed against something darker, older, a memory of agony so acute it was a white-hot brand on his soul.

The echo of a cold, cruel voice laced with malice.

The scent of dark magic, of ozone and burning, and beneath it, the cloying smell of fear.

Her mind, ever the seeker, instinctively followed the pain, trying to trace it to its source.

Who? her consciousness whispered into the maelstrom.

Who did this to you?

Out.

Malfoy’s command was cold, and she opened her eyes again to see the laughing eyes had cooled into a firm wall once again.

His jaw pulsed.

“Don’t you ever do that again.”

“Why?” Hermione demanded, her own pulse hammering in her throat. She had been so close. “You let me in. You can’t trust me yet?”

Malfoy’s gaze was a shard of ice, sharp enough to flay her open.

He swallowed thickly.

“Not unless I can do the same. A fair trade. Your mind for mine.”

The fog.

The Department of Mysteries.

Sirius’s falling body.

The sound of Bellatrix’s laugh.

Voldemort.

The weight of her own trauma, her own secrets, Harry’s, rose up inside her like a fortified wall, ancient and instinctive.

She saw the exact moment he understood her refusal, his eyes reading the visceral denial in her face before she even consciously formed it.

She gave a quick, jerky shake of her head.

He scoffed, a low, bitter sound devoid of any humour.

“Well,” he said, the word dripping with a lifetime of pureblood condescension and fresh, personal hurt. “That’s precisely why I won’t let you.”

The silence that descended was heavier, more profound than before.

He returned to his seat and sighed, the air thick with mutual, understood betrayal. Yet, the bond still hummed between them, a stupid, persistent thing, encouraging closeness despite it all.

“I want to focus on the communication. That can come in handy.”

Malfoy spoke first, and tapped the table rhythmically.

“It takes too much effort. We barely said six words to one another and I felt ready to pass out.”

“That’s because of the distance,” Malfoy said, rubbing his chin and looking over her shoulder distantly. “I bet it would’ve been easier a few days ago.”

A small flush went up the back of her neck, and she looked down at her page resolutely.

“Yes. It probably would’ve been.”

Another hour bled away as they turned to their respective books, the only sound the ticking of the clock and the soft rustle of his feathers.

Then, he broke silence, his voice flat, as if reciting a particularly dull potion ingredient.

“Here. ‘On Lycanthropic Bonds and Sustenance: A Comparative Study.’ It hypothesises that the…vitality,” Malfoy coughed, and she rolled her jaw to keep from letting out an embarrassed scoff. “Exchanged between a werewolf and their chosen mate during the full moon is what fortifies their connection, making it resilient beyond the lunar pull.” He cleared his throat again, the sound awkward. “It’s the closest parallel, of course. It’s probably the mechanism behind why we felt… stronger.”

“The proximity isn’t working, Malfoy,” Hermione said.

She finally looked up from her book, meeting his gaze across the desk.

“Sitting in the same room, passing in the halls - it’s clearly not enough. Not after what the bond was allowed. Well, what we gave it.”

His jaw clenched, a hard, stubborn line. He flexed his hand on the desk, the tendons standing out starkly.

“I won’t do it again.”

“Why?”

Malfoy stared at her.

“Because you don’t want to do it again.”

“What?” she pressed, her voice gaining strength, fueled by frustration and a dawning, terrifying understanding. “If it’s a proven method of fortification, if it’s the only thing that has actually worked to stabilize us, to stop this… this slow bleeding of our magic, why can’t we do it? What is the logical reason?”

He swallowed tightly, the movement tight and visibly painful.

His control slipped for a fraction of a second, and his eyes, against his will, flickered down to her mouth.

To her neck.

To the column of her throat, to the place where he knew, beneath her Glamour, the evidence of his teeth and his desperation lay.

The air in the room vanished.

Hermione felt a corresponding, immediate heat bloom low in her belly, a liquid pull that made her instinctively press her thighs together.

She fought it, clinging to logic, to reason, to the persona of Hermione Granger, the swot, the problem-solver.

“It’s a transaction,” she stated, forcing her voice to remain even, clinical. “A mutually beneficial, scheduled, and controlled exchange of resources to maintain magical and physical stability. We could regulate it. Set parameters. It would be… efficient.”

Malfoy’s expression shuttered further into vague confusion, and he looked between her eyes.

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

“The blood?”

He let out a short, sharp, incredulous laugh and sat back in his seat, scratching at the back of his head as he turned his gaze from hers and towards the wall.

His cheeks had two high patches of colour on it. She isn’t sure she’d have noticed if not for the pasty complexion they both now shared.

“The blood. Of course.”

Hermione blinked across at him and then frowned. Did she have it wrong? It sustained him, it helped them both. Clearly-

“Schedule it,” He repeated and shook his head, a bitter smile twisting his lips. “Only you, Granger. Only you would try to put a blood ritual on a timetable.”

The brief amusement died, replaced by something darker, more vulnerable.

“You’re carrying the weight of a failing Glamour, Malfoy. You’re draining our shared magical core to its dregs just to appear normal. This isn’t about want. This is about necessity. This is the most logical, the only viable solution we have discovered.”

Malfoy was quiet for a long, excruciating moment. His fingers began tapping a silent, frantic rhythm on the wooden desk, the only outward sign of the storm inside him.

The wings behind him seemed to droop further, their dull feathers absorbing the despair in the room. He looked from the open book with its damning passage, to her face, to the empty space between them, a man weighing his last shred of pride against the very real prospect of magical and physical collapse.

Hermione tried another angle.

“The power it gives us can help us too. We can practice the communication. We can research for longer. Our magic will be restored and then some. We can work on this without losing our wits halfway through.”

Malfoy’s gaze lifted and locked with hers. His eyes were dark, stormy, and filled with a terrifying, resigned intensity.

There was a pause.

Finally he gave a single, sharp, definitive nod.

She released a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.

The nod hung in the air between them, a seismic agreement that changed everything and nothing. The air, already thick, became almost viscous, charged with a potent mix of dread, clinical necessity, and a hum of something far more primal that the bond was eagerly amplifying.

"Parameters," Hermione said, her voice a little too high. She cleared her throat, grasping for control. "We need parameters."

Draco's eyes, dark and unreadable, remained fixed on her.

“Parameters," he echoed.

"Yes. A...time limit. Or a quantity." The clinical terms felt absurd, but they were her only anchor.

A ghost of a smirk touched his lips.

"You think you can measure it? Like a potion?"

"If we have to," she said stubbornly, lifting her chin. The movement exposed more of her throat, and she saw his gaze track the motion, his pupils dilating further.

The bond gave a hungry, approving thrum.

“We'll start with one minute. And you'll stop when I say."

Malfoy swallowed at her words, eyelashes fluttering.

He was silent for another beat, then gave another curt nod.

“One minute."

The negotiation was over. The reality of it crashed down upon them. The space between the desk and where she stood seemed to shrink, becoming a vast, terrifying chasm she had to cross.

"Alright then," she whispered, more to herself than to him.

She stood up, her chair screeching in the silence, and took a step forward.

Then another.

Each one was an effort, as if she were wading through setting concrete.

The rustle of his wings was the only sound, a soft, agitated whisper.

He didn't move.

As she drew closer, the warmth of him reached her, a physical wall of heat and his own strained magic.

When she was finally within arm's reach, she stopped. Her heart was a wild, frantic bird beating against her ribs. She could see the fine tremors in his hands where they were clenched at his sides, the rapid pulse at the base of his throat.

He was just as affected, just as terrified.

"Granger..." Malfoy started, his voice a strained rasp, a last, feeble protest.

“Do it," she interrupted. Her voice was firm. She tilted her head, a deliberate, offering gesture, presenting the smooth, unmarked side of her neck to him. The Glamour over the old wounds shimmered, its weakness palpable to both of them now. "The clock is ticking."

For a long, suspended moment, he didn't move.

He just stared at the offered curve of her neck as if it were both salvation and damnation. She could feel the battle within him through the bond - a roiling mess of revulsion, towards himself, towards his situation; a desperate, gnawing hunger; a deep, shameful yearning.

Then, with a sound that was half-sigh, half-surrender, he closed the final distance.

Malfoy didn't grab her. His hands came up to frame her shoulders, his touch surprisingly gentle, almost hesitant. His thumbs brushed the juncture of her neck and shoulders, a shock of cool skin against her feverish warmth. He bent his head, his platinum hair brushing her cheek, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

His breath ghosted over her skin, warm and damp, and she shuddered violently.

She didn’t know if it was from the feel of goose pimples across her skin or the anticipation of the moment.

The bond screamed, a blinding, white-hot need that obliterated all thought.

This was it. This was what it wanted.

What they wanted.

"Malfoy," she heard herself say, the word torn from her, a plea for him to either end the agony or begin it.

It was the permission he needed.

His lips touched her neck first.

A soft, almost chaste press against her pulse point.

It was so at odds with the violence of her memories that she felt a moment of confusion.

Then his mouth opened.

The first touch of his tongue was a lightning strike. A hot, wet stripe that made her fists clench. His hands on her shoulders tightened, holding her upright. He laved at the skin, once, twice, as if tasting her, preparing her.

Then his teeth scraped over the same spot, a delicate, threatening pressure.

Hermione gasped, her hands flying up to clutch at his robes, her fingers twisting into the fine fabric.

Malfoy was trembling uncontrollably, and she felt him down the bond, caught in a riptide of fear and a shocking, unwanted thrill.

He hesitated for one final, eternal second, his body a tense line against hers.

And then he bit down.

It was not the frantic, savage bite of the train or the alcove.

This was different.

Controlled. Precise.

A sharp, piercing pain that made her cry out, a short, sharp sound that was swallowed by the desperate sound against her neck.

It was followed immediately by a warm, pulling sensation as he drew her blood into his mouth.

The moment her blood crossed his lips, the bond exploded.

It was like a circuit completing, a dam breaking. A torrent of pure, undiluted magic flooded through her, so potent it was dizzying. The dull, weary thrum became a roaring, symphonic crescendo. The hollow ache in her gut was filled with a golden, vibrating warmth that spread to the very tips of her fingers and toes. Her magic, which had felt thin and dampened, now sang in her veins, vibrant and powerful.

And through the bond, she felt his own shockwave of relief. The crushing fatigue shattered, replaced by a surge of vitality so strong it was almost violent. The seething anger quieted, soothed by the profound satisfaction.

The desperate craving was, for this single, perfect moment, sated.

A low, pleading moan vibrated against her neck; a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure and relief.

Malfoy’s body, which had been rigid with tension, slumped slightly. His lips ran across her neck wetly, and he pressed a fervent kiss to the side of where he had bitten before the blunt force of his teeth came down on her neck again. His hands slid from her shoulders to her back, pulling her flush against him, and she could feel the frantic beat of his heart against her own.

Hermione felt the connection between them deepening, the magical feedback loop intensifying.

It wasn't just power; it was feeling.

A dizzying rush of his gratitude, his shock, his awe - and beneath it, a terrifying, burgeoning sense of rightness.

This was where he was meant to be. This was what he was meant to have.

Hermione was lost in it. The pain had melted into a strange, hyper-awareness. Her fingers unclenched from his robes, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of his head, her fingers tangling in the soft, cool silk of his hair. She held him to her, an unconscious, reciprocal gesture. Her other hand fisted in the fabric at the small of his back, feeling the powerful muscles shift beneath.

Malfoy’s hands had begun clenching at her waist, and he pushed his face further into the nook of her neck.

She didn't know how much time had passed. Seconds? Minutes? The concept of time had dissolved in the face of this raw, magical symbiosis.

It was the sound that brought her back. A soft, resonant hum. Her eyes fluttered open, and over Draco's shoulder, she saw them.

His wings.

The dull, matte grey was transforming. As if being infused with light from within, the feathers began to regain their lustre. The ivory brightened, shimmering with a soft, internal radiance. They seemed to grow fuller, the listless droop replaced by a gentle, proud arch. They glowed in the firelight, no longer absorbing it, but reflecting it, magnificent and alive.

"Malfoy," she breathed, the word barely audible.

He didn't seem to hear her, lost in the sustenance.

"Malfoy. Stop," she said, more firmly, her voice shaking.

He stilled, and the pulling sensation ceased.

For a moment, he just stayed there, his mouth sealed over the wound, his body trembling against hers.

Then, with obvious, painful reluctance, he pulled away.

The roaring in her veins receded to a warm, powerful hum, but the connection was now vibrant, strong, healthy.

Malfoy lifted his head. His lips were stained a dark, shocking crimson. Just like the other two times, her stomach gave a clench at the sight.

A single drop of her blood traced a path from the corner of his mouth down his chin.

His eyes met hers, and they were no longer bleak or furious.

The grey was almost entirely swallowed by black, and he looked dazed, eyes swimming with a confusion of awe and shame.

He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in ragged bursts.

The gauntness was still there, but it was no longer the face of a dying man. He had colour in his cheeks, he looked healthier, sharper.

Malfoy stared at her, at the fresh, blooming mark on her neck, and something in his expression shattered.

He looked utterly, completely undone.

Without a word, he stumbled back a step, then another. His hand came up, wiping clumsily at his mouth, smearing the blood across his pale skin.

“Are you alright?” His voice was rough. He dropped his hand and looked down to her shoes, chest heaving.

Hermione mirrored him. Her own chest felt tight, and she reached in her bag, taking out some tissues.

Holding them to her neck, she nodded, not trusting her own voice.

Malfoy looked over her. Really looked. She felt her skin flush as his gaze went from her head, down her body, and back up to where she pressed the tissues.

He nodded once and grabbed his own bag, picking the two books up.

The door slammed shut behind him with a finality that echoed in the suddenly silent, charged room.

Hermione stood alone, her legs trembling so violently she had to grasp the edge of the desk for support. The warm, powerful magic still thrummed within her, a stark contrast to the cold dread coiling in her stomach.

She lifted the tissue from her skin and stared at her own blood. Quietly, she whispered, “Terego.”

Instantly, the blood vanished.

Not only that, but the tissue decreased itself, unfurling to land flat in the palm of her hand, unblemished and looking brand new.

It had worked.

It had worked perfectly.

Chapter Text

The magic was a living thing beneath her skin.

Hermione woke not to the sound of Lavender’s snores, but to the buzz of power in her veins, a low, potent thrum that vibrated in her very bones.

She sat up slowly, half-expecting the air to crackle, and looked down at her palms.

Nothing was there. Not the steam she’d honestly thought to see at the heat coursing under her skin. No redness. No bubbling.

She was…different.

The desperate, hollow ache of the last few days was gone, replaced by a feeling of plenitude. A deep, humming well of power that felt both terrifying and intoxicating.

In the bathroom, her reflection confirmed the change.

The pallor was gone. Her skin had a healthy, warm glow, and the dark circles under her eyes had vanished. Her curls weren’t just tame; they were lustrous, crackling with a faint, static energy. She looked… great, actually. Rested. Vibrant.

Alive.

The bond was no longer a frayed, tugging rope. It was a wide, deep channel, flowing with a steady, powerful current.

And at the other end, she could feel a mirroring vitality.

“Blimey, Hermione,” Ron said around a mouthful of eggs, squinting at her. “You look… good. Did you use one of those fancy moisturisers Parvati’s always on about?”

Hermione slid into the bench across from him and reached for a plate, scooping up some of her own eggs.

Ginny, sitting beside her, was quieter, her sharp eyes scanning her friend’s face with a quizzical, almost wary expression.

“You do look better. A lot better. What did you do?”

“Just finally got a good night’s sleep,” Hermione lied, her voice sounding a little too bright, as she sat back down.

She focused on pouring pumpkin juice, her hand trembling slightly with the effort of containing the energy buzzing within her, and inhaled deeply.

This wasn’t good. She wasn’t prepared for this.

Across the hall, she let her gaze drift.

He was there. And he looked transformed.

The gaunt, shadowed look was gone. More than gone. Malfoy looked as if he had never lost a night of sleep in his entire life. His posture was straighter, his shoulders no longer hunched under an invisible weight, and his platinum hair seemed to catch and hold the morning light. His profile was sharp, clean, and radiating a contained power that made the air around him seem to shimmer.

The bond purred in satisfaction at the sight of him.

Curious, almost without thinking, she reached for the connection in her mind. Not to send a thought, but just to touch it. To feel its new, solid strength.

The response was instantaneous, a voice sliding into her consciousness as clear and smooth as if he were leaning over her shoulder.

It’s easier, isn’t it?

Sharp grey eyes slanted in her direction, and she noted the laughing tinge in them as he drank his tea.

Hermione jolted, nearly dropping her goblet. She hadn’t meant to initiate contact.

Don’t look so startled, Granger. You’re the one poking the connection.

Malfoy paused, and she felt his eyes run across her face, her hair. He took what looked to be an uncomfortably large mouthful of his tea and looked back down at the empty cup, shifting slightly, before reaching for the pot beside Zabini.

You look… healthy.

You don’t look so miserable yourself.

She felt the humour run down the bond and drank more of her pumpkin juice to cover her smile.

Next to him, Pansy’s eyes narrowed in Hermione’s direction. She shot a look back at Malfoy, and Hermione could swear she heard her jaw click from over here.

Not in jealousy, or at least Hermione didn’t assume so.

In frustration.

Malfoy gave her a last look and then turned back to his friend, who had begun talking in a bid to interrupt their silent conversation.

There was a thread of shared, awed discovery still thrumming between the pair of them as she turned to join her eating with her friends.

-

Charms class was a pressure cooker.

Professor Flitwick, clapping his hands for attention, announced a practical lesson on rapid-fire defensive and offensive spell chains.

“Agility of mind and wand, my dear students! Gryffindors, you shall practice amongst yourselves first! Slytherins, observe and note the common flaws!”

Hermione’s stomach tightened.

The ambient magic in the room, the competitive tension, it was all feeding the volatile energy inside her. The bond felt like a live wire, humming in tune with her rising anxiety.

She could feel Malfoy’s focused attention from the Slytherin benches, a heavy, watchful presence.

Keep in control. It feels even stronger than last time, doesn’t it?

Hermione nodded without thinking, before flexing her jaw as she realised he’d spoken wordlessly to her again.

She needed to get used to this.

She was paired with Harry, and he gave her an encouraging smile.

“Don’t go easy on me, Hermione.”

“I’ll try not to,” she said, her voice tight.

Gripping her wand, she focused all her will on control, on damping down the roaring river of magic inside her.

“Begin!” Flitwick chirped.

“Expelliarmus!” Harry called, a clean, precise jet of red light shooting towards her.

Hermione’s wand moved. “Protego!”

She put emphasis on limiting as much of the effort she usually put into her wand work as she could, reducing it to be as minimal as possible.

The spell that erupted from the end of her wand cast itself as if she had put 110% in.

Harry’s eyebrows raised to his hairline as he stared at her across the mat.

“Sorry!” Hermione called, and rolled her shoulders.

“No, no. It’s good!” Harry’s eyes turned up in his smile, and he flicked his wand in her direction again.

He didn’t hold back this time.

“Petrificus Totalus!”

“Salvio!”

The two of them began a back and forth.

Hermione’s forehead begun to bead with sweat - not from the effort she was putting in, but at the toll reigning her magic in was taking her.

Harry shot a binding spell her way, and she felt her wrist ache as she repelled it again, her response being just shy of too much.

She refused to go on the attack.

Her wand thrummed along with her heartbeat as Harry’s gaze went from jovial to focused, his eyes narrowing as he began to put her to work.

Three attack spells flew from his wand in rapid succession, and she deflected each with a silent curse to the heavens that her best friend had to have such a competitive streak.

“Flipendo!”

“Obscuro!”

The spell that erupted from her wand was not her usual shimmering blindfold to wrap around the oppositions eyes. Her hand froze as a violent, concussive whiplash of satin flickered like a snake, a golden, semi-opaque fabric that slashed into existence with a sound like a thunderclap. It didn’t just block Harry’s eyesight - it rebounded. Not as a Blindfold Charm, but as a savage, untamed slash of force.

It wasn’t a spell. It was pure, magical backlash.

Time seemed to slow.

Hermione watched in horror as the golden arc scythed through the air. Harry, reacting with Seeker reflexes, twisted away, but not fast enough.

The very edge of the waspish spell caught his cheek, slicing a thin, clean line.

A droplet of blood welled, brilliant red against his skin, and the concussive force of the blast lifted him off his feet and threw him backwards onto the floor, his wand flying from his grasp.

The classroom fell into a stunned, dead silence.

Hermione’s wand clattered to the floor.

“Harry! Oh, God, Harry, I’m so sorry!” She rushed forward, her heart a frantic, painful drum in her chest as she fell onto her knees beside him, hands roaming across his chest uselessly.

She was too scared to touch him.

The intoxicating power was gone, replaced by a cold, sickening wave of regret and fear.

Harry sat up, dazed, touching his bleeding cheek. “Merlin, Hermione… what was that?”