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Chapter Text

Excerpt from The Daily Prophet
Front Page — 5th of April, 2003

“DEATH EATERS WALK FREE: JUSTICE OR BETRAYAL?”

“In the wake of the upcoming fifth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, the Ministry of Magic has confirmed that a number of former Death Eater sympathizers and convicted collaborators will be released from Azkaban this week. The decision comes after years of prison reforms and rehabilitation efforts designed to reintegrate lesser offenders back into wizarding society.

Public opinion, however, remains bitterly divided. Many families of the war dead call this release a “mockery of justice,” arguing that no length of time could atone for the losses inflicted. “Five years is nothing when my brother will never come home,” said Amelia Cartwright in a touching tale from last week’s ‘Lest We Forget’ column. Devin Cartwright perished during torture at the hands of Dolores Umbridge during interrogation from the now defunct Muggle-Born Registration Commission. “The Ministry is handing out second chances that our loved ones will never get.”

In contrast, members of several prominent pure-blood families insist that many of the accused were scapegoated for crimes orchestrated by the late Dark Lord. A member of the Nott family who has asked us to withhold their identity for safety reasons, stated: “These young men and women were children when they were swept up in the war. They have paid their debts. The war is over - why must our sons continue to suffer for the sins of their fathers?”

The Prophet has obtained the official list of names scheduled for release: Theodore Nott, Gregory Goyle, Avery II and several others convicted of aiding or abetting Death Eater activities. Notably absent, however, is one name that has loomed over post-war debate since the trials: Draco Malfoy.

The only son of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy who defected near the end of the war and aided Harry Potter in the final battle - Draco’s case has long been a point of contention. While guilty of aiding the Dark Lord, testimonies during the trials established that he acted under duress, forced into compliance by threats to himself and his family. Others convicted of far graver crimes have since been released or pardoned, leading many to believe that Draco’s unusually harsh sentence was intended less as justice and more as a warning to other pure-blood families about the consequences of clinging to old allegiances. The Malfoy family failed to respond for comment.”

 

She had expected outrage. She had even prepared for it, rehearsed polite phrases for journalists who would inevitably corner her at lunch or on her way home, eager for a quote that would make her sound either merciful or monstrous depending on the day's appetite for scandal. But still, seeing the headline printed so boldly made her stomach tighten.

The photograph beneath the headline was the same tired image the Prophet always used, the thick cloud of smoke from a burning field, black-robed figures caught mid-step as if formed from the smoke. Cruel skeletal masks, burning hateful eyes below them. Nothing new. Nothing accurate. The faces weren’t even the same as the men and women she had interviewed these past months, people broken and quiet, people who wept when she spoke the names of the dead. The Prophet preferred villains to people.

Her gaze slid down the list of names printed beneath the article, those to be released under the Ministry’s Reintegration and Deradicalisation Initiative. She knew each one intimately. She had read their files, memorised their histories, fought for their chance to re-join the world.

Except one.

Draco Malfoy.

A a chill passed through her, slow and certain, and she set the paper down as if it had burned her fingers.

Malfoy.

She had not thought of him in years. Not once since the war had his name crossed her mind. There had been too much to do, too much to rebuild, laws to amend, policies to draft, reparations to distribute. She had given herself to the work with the same relentlessness she once gave to study, until there was nothing left of the girl who had hidden in library stacks, only the woman who sat now beneath the Ministry’s cold lighting, clutching a paper that seemed to rearrange the very timeline of her life.

How could she have missed him?

Her eyes drifted to the top of her desk, where stacks of parchment sat neatly arranged. She had reviewed every prisoner’s file. There was no mention of him. Not a whisper. She rifled through the papers anyway, her fingers moving with mechanical precision, searching for a name that wasn’t there.  No updates on his progress, no record of therapy, nothing. Not a single indication of his existence within the system, not a shred to say that he had ever been imprisoned.

The Malfoys had withdrawn entirely from public life, holed up in their estate, and she had assumed he was lurking in there with them. She had no reason not to believe that he’d been pardoned as his parents had. She hadn’t been in this department at the time, too busy finalising her juvenile, idealistic efforts with S.P.E.W into something substantial and worth passing through the Wizengamot. She’d heard nothing about the Malfoys and her one attempt at contacting them in relation to one of her cases had been ignored. With no reason to think of them as a threat, she had cast them off in her mind.

Hermione gripped the Prophet as a cold weight settled in her chest. How had she missed him? How had no one mentioned it?

Two years ago, she had been asked by Harry, now head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, to lead a new subdivision: the Reintegration and Deradicalisation Department. Its mission was delicate, controversial even: monitoring former Death Eaters and those with close ties for signs of extremism, and guiding them back into society when possible and Azkaban when not. She had hesitated at first. The work was politically fraught and morally complex; it demanded impartiality she feared she might not be able to maintain.

Harry had insisted. “I can’t trust anyone else, Hermione.” he had told her, his green eyes unflinching. “Old allegiances, old grudges run deep. I can’t even trust myself to be impartial. You’re the only one who has the ability to look past all of that.”

And so she had taken the post, quietly proud of the work her team had done. Her previous work for the rights for house-elves had been won, and she had taken what she had learned in pushing the fragile new political landscape towards a more gentle world into policies to ensure fair treatment of rehabilitated prisoners, programs to reintegrate those who had shown genuine remorse. Little by little, progress had been made. The public was not a fan of her, of course, on both sides; the pure-bloods and loyalists insisted her work demeaned and humiliated what little dignity their broken families had left, whilst those she had fought alongside hated her for trying to humanise those they still considered to be murders and monsters. The truth was somewhere in the middle, but it was too uncomfortable for most to face. Whether either of them liked it or not, surviving in this new post-war world required both parties to coexist, lest they fail to learn from the difficult lessons that had been dealt to them all.

She tore through her files, double checking she hadn’t missed him. She hadn’t. She stared at the blank space where his name should have been. The boy she had known was arrogant, sharp-tongued, infuriating. Yet in some corner of her memory, still just a scared child who had gotten in over his head. And now, weeks before the fifth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, the weight of that absence pressed down on her like the walls of Azkaban itself. She couldn’t ignore it.

When she leaned back in her chair, her pulse thudding painfully in her throat, she thought of the last time she had seen him. Pale and haunted in the chaos of the castle, the mark on his arm still dark, his mother dragging him by the wrist toward safety. A boy shaped by fear, not conviction. A boy who had barely spoken as the world burned around him.

He had been in Azkaban all this time.

No one had told her. No one had done anything. If any family were a symbol of what needed to burn in order for the new world to rise from the ashes, it was the Malfoys. If there would be any poster boy for the redemption she was trying to show the world was possible, Draco Malfoy was the perfect fit. So where was he? She had built the entire department meant to ensure that such oversights never happened again, so that the ministry would never be complicit in fanning the flames of another war, and yet this, this single name, suddenly made all of her careful work feel hollow.

She rose abruptly, the chair skidding behind her, the Prophet still spread across her desk, the hateful eyes in the moving photograph glaring at her as shadow engulfed them.

There was only one person who could give her answers, whether he liked it or not.

Hermione stormed through the winding corridors of the Ministry, her skirt brushing the polished floors with each determined step. The chatter of witches and wizards around her felt distant, muffled by the whirlwind of anger and disbelief swirling in her mind. How could she have missed him, someone she’d gone to school with? How had she allowed someone from such a prominent family to slip through the cracks?  Every cubicle she passed, every office she glimpsed through the windows, passed in a whirl.

She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms, and pushed forward, the familiar corridor of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement head office now feeling suffocating rather than safe. Each step echoed her frustration: the bureaucracy, the endless reports, the endless meetings - how had all of it blinded her to what could be such a significant case? What would the media say once she did find whatever hole he was being kept in?

By the time she reached the thick oak door of Harry’s office, her chest was tight, her mind a storm of fury and disbelief. She drew in a sharp breath, steadied herself for just a moment, and then pushed it open, striding in without hesitation. Her green eyes locked on Harry immediately, unyielding. There would be no preamble, no polite exchange today. There was only one thing she demanded, and she would not leave without it. She tried to forget that the man in front of her was her friend and forced her to see only a boss.

“Harry,” she said sharply, eyes flashing, “We need to talk. Now.”

Harry looked up from a mess of papers, startled, and ran a hand through his messy black hair. There was a flicker of nervousness in his green eyes. “Right. I-”

“You saw the Prophet, didn’t you?” she cut him off. “Tell me why there is no record of Draco Malfoy being in Azkaban and yet the Prophet seems to think he is. Why isn’t he on any of the lists? ”

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I—I did see it,” he admitted slowly. “Look, Hermione… I knew he was in Azkaban. I thought you did too. They picked him up when his family attempted to flee to Sweden after the war, they were concerned that Lucius was going to reach out to people sympathetic to Voldemort and rebuild there at the time. They took Draco to stop the rest of the family from leaving. I had just… I had forgotten. With everything else, with rebuilding the Ministry, reforming laws, tracking down active sympathisers, I lost track of him. I assumed he’d been condemned by the previous department head. I never looked into it, he was such a prick I just guessed he’d done something to get himself put in there. You never mentioned him, so I thought maybe he’d gone off the deep end or something.”

Hermione’s hands clenched into fists. “You assumed? You forgot? Do you know what that means, Harry? For five years?”

Harry’s shoulders slumped. “Hermione, I-”

“Give me the correspondence. All of it. Now.”

He hesitated, then sighed and opened the drawer at his side. From within he drew a thick bundle of letters, bound neatly with a pale blue ribbon. He set them on the desk between them.

Hermione reached for them slowly. The parchment was almost crumbling in its age, the top letter on the stack coated with fine dust. The first envelope bore Narcissa Malfoy’s name in delicate ink. Hermione untied the ribbon and flipped through the stack. The first letters that had been opened were formal, polite, inquiries about visitation schedules, requests for confirmation of her son’s welfare. Then as Hermione reached later letters, ones that Harry had not even broken the seal on, the tone changed. The later letters were frantic, the handwriting uneven, as though written through tears.

Please. I have received no word in months. Lucius has cooperated, I have cooperated, why are you doing this? Has something happened? I am begging you for a reply.

Each successive letter grew more desperate, more broken. Hermione could hardly read the final one through the smudges of ink.

She felt sick.

“You kept these?” she asked softly.

Harry looked ashamed. “I read the first few. I asked Bell about it, she just said his case had been closed a long time ago. So I stopped opening them.”

“You stopped opening the envelopes of a mother writing dozens of unanswered letters about her son’s imprisonment?” Her voice was low, trembling now, more dangerous than if she’d shouted.

Harry didn’t answer.

For a long moment Hermione stood there, staring down at the letters. She had spent years building systems to make sure this didn’t happen, to make sure no one disappeared into the machinery of the state. And yet here was proof that someone had. Someone she’d known since childhood, no matter how foul he had been.

She gathered the letters into a stack and straightened them with deliberate care. When she looked up again, her voice was steady.

“I’m going to Azkaban,” she said. “Today.”

Harry’s brows furrowed. “Hermione-”

Hermione’s jaw tightened, fury coiling in her chest. “You’ve been withholding this,” she hissed, voice low and trembling, “because of some personal grudge or because you thought it wasn’t important?! He’s from a prominent family, do you realise the kind of damage that could be done if something has happened to him? If he gains a following?”

Harry held up his hands. “No! Never a grudge, Hermione. I swear. I just guessed that he was beyond help if the previous head hadn’t released him when I first started, I honestly hadn’t thought of him at all since then until today. I should have sent the letters to you, or chased them up, I know. It’s just been rough. The radical groups never stop forming, I’m spreading myself and the department thin chasing ghosts every week.”

Hermione thought back to the hot, terrible flames of the fiendfyre. How she’d flown straight past Malfoy, not even considering it a possibility to go back for him, but it had been Harry who had refused to leave without saving him. There was something sickening in knowing that all these years later, their roles had somehow reversed.

“I’m going to Azkaban. I’m going to find out what has happened to him and if he’s fit to be released, I want him out. I want full leave immediately, and I want you to give me every file, every scrap of information you have. I will not wait for bureaucracy or excuses.”

Harry stared at her for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll give you leave. Take the letters, but I promise you there’s no files about him on my end. I just assumed that if they existed you’d have them.”

Hermione gathered the stack of letters, her mind already racing through what she would need. Every step she had taken through the Ministry corridors felt insignificant compared to what awaited her in that cold, terrible place. She hated going there, tried to avoid it if she could. Even with the refurbishment, the removal of the dementors, and the carefully crafted focus on healing over punishment that she’d work so hard to put into place, the place was still a grim and miserable prison on the North Sea. Still, it was necessary. She’d never backed away from a challenge in her life. She wasn’t going to start now.

The world was illuminated in green flame as Hermione passed through the Floo network entry to Azkaban. The warm and polished floor of the ministry gave way to cold, wet stone that she felt her feet begin to slip beneath. The gentle sound of candles flickering and heels clicking down the halls was replaced by the roar of a starless sea, the tumbling thunder of the north.

She was situated at a strange location. A lone fireplace on a gritted short beach, crescented in tall black stone. Far above her, the tower loomed, its silhouette sharp and merciless against the stormy sky, like a dagger thrust into the heavens. Rain pelted her skin, drenching her hair and running down her cheeks, but she barely noticed. All her attention was on the path winding upward, a narrow stair of uneven stone carved into the cliff, slick and treacherous under the downpour.

At the top of the path, standing rigid against the wind and rain, was Katie Bell. The auror’s cloak whipped around her like a banner in the storm. She raised a hand, a silent greeting, her expression unreadable, though Hermione could sense the tension radiating off her.

“Stay close,” Katie called over the roar of the waves, her voice firm. “It’s worse than you imagine up there.”

Hermione nodded, forcing her legs to move, climbing the jagged steps one by one. The closer she got, the more the tower’s black stone seemed to absorb the light around it, cold and oppressive. Her stomach twisted with a mix of anticipation and dread. Somewhere inside that fortress, behind walls built to hold monsters, was the boy that had bullied her as a child. She wasn’t even sure what she was going to say to him.

Katie’s cloak whipped around her as she descended the final steps to meet Hermione. Her hair plastered to her face from the rain, she smiled warmly when she saw Hermione approaching, her expression bright despite the storm. Still, Hermione felt as if there was something tense in her expression, a weight in the lines and bags beneath her eyes that hadn’t been present the last time she’d seen her.

“Hermione,” she said, gripping her arm. “Merlin, it’s been years.”

Hermione managed a nod. “You got Harry’s message.”

“Yes,” Katie said, brushing water from her cloak, “I was told you’re here for a tour. I always love showing people around. You’re going to see how much we’ve reformed the place, how different it is now.”

Hermione blinked, taken aback by the warmth in Katie’s tone. She nodded stiffly, letting the Bell guide her up the narrow path toward the tower entrance, ignoring the dark spiral steps that wound down into the abyss below. The storm continued to batter them, but Katie seemed almost unbothered, her focus entirely on showing Hermione the upper floors.

Inside the tower, Hermione’s eyes widened at the contrast to the fortress she had imagined. Sunlight filtered in through wide, enchanted windows; the stone was polished and clean; corridors smelled faintly of herbs and fresh air. Prisoners moved about freely, some reading, a couple huddled together playing chess. The reforms were evident everywhere: bright common rooms, private but open sleeping quarters, and even a small library. There were, of course, certain cells in the corners that remained locked, but even those appeared comfortable from the brief glances inside that Hermione got. The prisoners seemed to pay them no notice, far more interested in their books or chess games than the two of them. In fact, it seemed as if they were going out of their way to ignore her - all of them except one.

A young man with messy black hair and nervous posture approached them, book tucked beneath his arm, sheepishly bowing. “Hermione Granger. We haven’t met in person since… since it all happened. I’m Theodore Nott. When Katie told us you were coming I couldn’t believe it. Thank you so much for what you’re doing for us. I… I’m excited to see my friends again soon,” he said, voice hesitantly hopeful. “And I’m thinking about starting a little garden when I get home. A proper one, with flowers and vegetables. Maybe even magical herbs.”

Hermione smiled hesitantly at him. 

“You’ve been doing great, Theodore. We’ll catch up soon, on the outside, ok?”

He nodded, smiling back at her, happier than she’d ever imagined to see someone imprisoned be.

Katie beamed to her as they continued on. “Theodore is doing well. Very responsive. He’s opened up a lot in his therapy.”

Hermione followed quietly, letting Katie lead the tour, absorbing the sights and the gentle, open atmosphere. Yet even as the warmth of the upper floors reached her, her mind kept drifting to Draco and the obvious absence of him. He was nowhere to be seen.

Finally, Katie led her to a bright sitting area where several prisoners chatted quietly. She turned to Hermione. “Well, that’s everything. I hope you can see why I’m so proud of the work we’ve done here. It’s been difficult, with the budget. But we’ve tried our best to implement all of your guidelines.”

Hermione nodded, chewing her cheek, unsure of how to broach the subject. She motioned for Katie aside, lowering her voice. “I need to see Draco Malfoy.”

Katie froze. Her cheerful demeanour faltered, and she just repeated his name, stunned. “Malfoy?”

“Yes,” Hermione said firmly. “Malfoy. The Prophet reported he’s here.”

“Oh. We don’t get the Prophet here, I find it upsets some of the prisoners. Hermione, you know what the Prophet’s like, it’s-”

“Harry confirmed he’s here, Katie. I don’t want excuses. I need to see him. Now.”

Katie opened her mouth, as if to argue, but Hermione held up a hand. “I’m not here for gossip or inspection. I’m here because he’s in this tower, and I need to know why.”

Katie’s shoulders sagged in reluctant acceptance. She gave a tight nod. “Right… okay. I’ll take you down. But… it’s not like the upper floors. He’s dangerous, you know.”

Hermione followed as Katie led her toward the shadowy stairwell winding downward, the cheerful light and warmth of the upper floors slipping away behind them. The deeper they went, the colder and darker it became, the air thick with an oppressive chill. Hermione tightened her grip on her wand, heart hammering, wondering why it was he had been kept in the dungeons of this place. Had he really become so volatile in the short years since she’d last seen him? He’d helped Harry at the end. It was hard for her to believe that he had really become so invested in blood purity and hatred beyond surface level intolerance - he had never seemed to care much about anything other than himself. 

They went down a long wet corridor past a thick iron door with no window and Katie seemed to flinch slightly as she walked past. Hermione could understand why. The chill emanating from the room felt like distilled misery, as if the cold itself was enough to strip away joy. There must have been some sort of damage there that let the cold in, she could see the faint mist of her own breath in front of her. The hallway narrowed, becoming lower, and they finally stopped at the end, a tight spiral staircase with no light. Hermione looked at Katie, who seemed to be avoiding her gaze, and waved her wand. Hermione heard a clunking noise below.

“Well. He’s down there, I’ve unlocked the door. You can head down. He’s not very responsive though. I’m not sure you’ll get much information out of him.”

Hermione blinked. “You unlocked the door? Is that safe?”

Katie almost laughed, and it sounded unusually cruel in contrast to her usual light demeanour.

“He won’t do anything. He’s very docile these days.” 

Hermione turned, trying to ignore the disturbing feeling the comment had given her, and stepped carefully down the spiral staircase. The walls curved close around her, slick with damp. The air grew heavier the lower she went, thick with salt and mould and something faintly metallic, like the tang of old blood. Her wand light flickered weakly across the stones, illuminating the trail of condensation that trickled down them in long, shivering lines. Every step echoed, soft but certain, swallowed almost immediately by the vast, airless quiet of the place.

She could feel it pressing on her chest, the weight of every year he’d spent down here.

Why was he down here, and who had he become to warrant such a thing?

Azkaban had been emptying itself for years. The Ministry’s campaign for rehabilitation and deradicalisation had seen dozens of war-adjacent offenders released early or relocated to halfway houses. There was no lack of space in the warm halls above.

There was no reason, no reason at all, that anyone should have been kept down here unless they had done something terrible. Least of all someone with the name Malfoy. The air grew colder still as she descended. At the final turn, the steps ended abruptly, opening into a small landing and a heavy iron door left slightly ajar. It creaked faintly, as though breathing. Hermione stopped just short of the threshold. The smell hit her first: rot and seawater and something sour that made her eyes sting. She lifted her wand higher and stepped inside.

The room was wrong.

She had expected a cell, but this was more like a crypt, vast and bare, its walls slick with a perpetual grim and stinking moisture. The light barely reached the corners. There was no bed, no chair, nothing at all to suggest habitation. Only a rusted bucket in one corner, half-filled with stagnant water that reeked, and in the other corner lay a mound of rags and metal, like discarded refuse. Chains, by the look of them, tangled around old cloth and rust. For a moment she thought she’d been brought to an abandoned cell, some unused relic of the old prison, its former occupant long since gone. She felt an absurd flicker of irritation at Katie. Surely this couldn’t be it.

She took a cautious step forward. The light shifted. Then the pile moved.

It was slight, almost imperceptible, a shudder, a twitch of fabric, as if something underneath had exhaled. Hermione froze. Her wand hand trembled, the beam stuttering against the far wall.

“Malfoy?” she whispered.

Chapter Text

The heavy thunk of metal echoed as the pile stirred, uncoiling into the emaciated figure of a silver-haired man huddled on the floor. Hermione gasped involuntarily. He was near naked, wearing only filthy striped trousers and a frayed blanket barely covering his shoulders. Thick manacles clamped around his wrists and ankles, biting into dark, scarred flesh crusted with old blood. The proud, arrogant boy she had once known was gone. What was left behind was hardly recognisable as human.

“Who is it this time?” His voice was a rasp, brittle and hollow, as if it hadn’t been used in years. He stared through her, not at her, as though she were a hallucination.

“It’s Hermione. Hermione Granger,” she said slowly. “I… I work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I’ve come to speak with you.”

He recoiled, pressing himself against the wall, clawing at his face as if trying to erase the image of her from his eyes. “You’re not real. Leave me alone.”

Hermione’s throat tightened. “I am real. I promise.”

He flinched again, as if the sound of her voice were like a whip across his back. “It never stops. Why does it never stop? Please… just kill me.” His silver eyes, red-rimmed from years of evident torment, darted around the room like a wounded animal. Hermione noticed the tremor in his hands, sluggish trails of dried and fresh blood running down his bruised forearms as the chains clinked dully.

“Who?” she asked, voice low and gentle. “Who’s tormenting you?”

His gaze flicked to hers, bitter and hateful recognition sparking in some dark place within him, then away. “Don’t show me her. I was a child. I didn’t know better.”

Hermione advanced slowly, crouching low. Any sudden movement, she feared, would make him retreat, yet he remained still, staring at the wall. She knelt beside him, keeping her voice calm. “Malfoy, I don’t know everything yet, but I promise I’m here to help. I swear I will not hurt you.”

He let out a shaky laugh. “They all say that.” His voice cracked and faded into silence. He leaned forward, pressing his face into his knees, utterly still.

Carefully, Hermione reached for his forearm. The chain rattled dully as she guided one wrist into her hand. It felt impossibly small, so thin against the iron she had expected. For a moment she hesitated, then drew her wand and whispered the opening charm. The metal gave with a brittle, corroded sigh and fell away.

What was revealed under the manacle made her breath stop. His wrists were a grotesque map of injury. Thickened ridges of old scar tissue circled like the rings of a tree, and between them fresh, angry slashes crisscrossed. The skin was mottled, patched with the dark lacquer of old blood and the wet gleam of new wounds. In places the flesh had been chewed down so near to bone that Hermione could see pale knuckles and the faint white hollows beneath. His hands trembled where they lay in hers, each pulse a fragile drumbeat.

She unlatched the remainder of the restraints, one by one, each lock giving up what appeared to be years of rust. Draco’s shoulders did not raise when his wrists fell free; his arms simply dropped, papery and slack, as if unfamiliar with the notion of freedom. The silence of the cell pressed close, the faint drip of water from the walls a metronome. Once the last shackle clattered to the floor, she expected motion, gratitude, anger, anything. He simply lay still, inert as a thing washed ashore.

When he finally dared to speak he looked up at her with a foreign, hollow intensity. Spasming fingers brushed the places she’d touched on his forearms. “You’re…warm,” he murmured, bewilderment threaded through the words. “It burns.”

Hermione swallowed. “You’re alive, Draco. I’m getting you help.” She slid an arm under his shoulder and felt, with a cold lurch, how light he had become. His bones knifed under her fingers; his skin, where it was not bruised, was thin and papery. She tried to steady him and felt shards of dried matter flake onto her sleeve from where his blanket hung. His hair, once sleek and silver, had caked salt and grime into its strands.

As she helped him to his feet his legs buckled. He clung to her as if she were a cliff. Each movement convulsed his body with old reflexes, as if muscles that had not been used for years protested their sudden demand. He swayed, lips parting, eyes watering.

“Are you taking me to the red room?” he whispered suddenly, the question like an animal’s whimper. There was naked pleading there. “Please. Please, don’t. I’ll do anything. You can do anything to me. Just not there.”

A chill slid through Hermione. “I’m not, I promise. I’m taking you to the infirmary. You’re coming with me, Draco.” Her voice was firmer than she felt. She would not give up on him now; not if she could carry him. She wrapped her other arm around his waist and guided him, step by slow step, toward the spiral stair.

The stone below their feet was slick with grime and old water. His bare soles left pale, desperate prints on the steps, like footprints in snow. Once he slipped and she felt him lurch; the sharp clench of his ribs, the raw hollowness beneath her palm, answered to the motion. He flinched at the light where it struck his shoulders; he flinched at drafts that were nothing more than the tower’s breath. Things that she did not even notice seemed to claw at him: the scuff of a footstep, the wrong angle of shadow, a drop of water from the bitter wetness outside.

His silver eyes flicked toward her, wide and uncertain, and then darted away. He flinched at a shadow on the wall. Hermione frowned, noticing the subtle shiver that ran through him. The way he recoiled at nothing, the blank, haunted look in his eyes… it wasn’t just fear. Something was lingering with him, something unnatural. She shifted slightly, giving his arm a gentle squeeze as she hoisted him up the staircase. “It’s okay. I’m here. Nothing can hurt you right now. Not with me.”

He flinched, pulling slightly against her touch, but didn’t pull away completely. 

Hermione looked over her shoulder to the shadows at the corners of the cell behind them, where the tower’s darkness pressed in. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, of a presence hovering just out of sight. Draco’s words made strange sense to her.

When she looked back she was startled to notice that he was staring at her with wide disbelieving eyes, as if he’d only just noticed she was there. He let out a hollow laugh, almost a sob, and some of the weight of the world that seemed to have been crushing him lessened just a fraction. “Can’t believe it. Granger here, concerned for my treatment. Of course it would be you.”

It was small. It was tentative. But it was something. She smiled at him sheepishly.

“You know I love a lost cause. That hasn’t changed. Come on Malfoy, let’s get you out of here.” 

The spiral stairs seemed endless as they climbed, each step agonisingly slow and careful. Hermione’s hand never left his shoulder, her wand tucked securely in her other hand, ready for anything. When they reached the top, Katie Bell was waiting, her cheerful demeanour gone, replaced by taut nerves and tightly pressed lips. She glanced at Draco with a flicker of hesitation, then at Hermione. 

“He needs to be seen,” Hermione said sharply, setting Draco carefully on his feet. “Take him up to the infirmary. Now.”

Katie said nothing but her wand flicked out in an almost defeated motion, and after a minute of uncomfortable silence two figures appeared around the corner. Their eyes widened at the sight of Draco, and one whispered to the other, disbelief in his tone:

“Is that Draco Malfoy?”

The other shook his head, voice low and incredulous. “It can’t be. He’s dead.”

When the guards reached for him he reacted as though startled by his own body. His eyes snapped to her, wild, wide with betrayal. For an instant a terrible animal rage flickered across his gaunt features and he lashed out, not at the men but at the air, at the memory stitched under his skin. “You promised,” he croaked. “You promised you wouldn’t-”

They moved to subdue him and panic took him like a tide. His limbs went rigid as if seized; his panic rose to a jagged crescendo, thin, strangled sounds that would not carry far in the stone corridors. One of the wardens muttered an incantation, not cruel but necessary, and Draco’s body slackened as he slipped into unconsciousness, his head falling forward against the shoulder that held him.

They carried him between them then, the two men and Katie and Hermione, winding upward. In that stilted procession his body seemed more fragile with each step; The stench of the dungeons clung to him like a second skin, iron and filth and the reek of old terror. His breath came thin and uneven, and Hermione counted the shallow rises of his chest as if to anchor herself to the fact that he was still alive. She walked behind as they guided him upward, his limp form slung between two guards, Katie close at hand, all of them navigating the dark passages toward the infirmary.

Hermione had expected the tower to feel cold. She had not expected it to feel like a monument to what she had spent her entire adult life working to fight against. The infirmary, at least, was a small mercy of light and heat, a room that lingered with a medicinal essence. It felt obscene to set such a gentle place against the memory of what she had just seen below. Draco lay on the narrow bed like a figure washed up from the sea, thin as driftwood, every joint marked, every limb a map of past cruelty. The healers moved with professional, muted gestures, not quite meeting her face.

She wanted to break something. She wanted to make the dark cells below crumble into the surf, wanted to put her fist through a wall and collapse the foundations of this place. Instead she kept her voice even, kept her hands steady. The rage that rose in her chest was not theatrical. It was a cold, surgical sort of fury that stripped away whatever charity she had been foolish enough to hold for the place. 

Katie’s confession had not been a stumble. It was a precise, ugly explanation of systematic cruelty. She had been allowing visitors to come and torture him for funds. She had sold his innocence, sacrificed him like a lamb on the altar, all for the sake of galleons. She had used him not to extract truth or to punish a crime, but to make others feel better about their own loss. She had made him a victim of their revenge. She had let men and women whose grief had been raw and misdirected come here and inflict what they could no longer inflict upon the dead. She had turned Azkaban, newly softened, into a theatre for other people's cruelty.

Hermione paced the infirmary floor until the hem of her skirt whispered like a dying thing against the stone. The healers' wands cast gentle arcs, murmuring charms beneath their breaths. Draco’s chest rose and fell in ragged intervals. Once, his fingers twitched and he made a small sound at the back of his throat. The healers continued working, small sparks of healing magic flickering across the worst of his wounds. Slowly, Hermione noticed a faint flush creeping into his cheeks, a tentative hint of warmth returning to the skin. Aside from the angry red wounds covering him, it was the only colour he had. She moved to stand by the bed, feeling suddenly foolish for all the administrative indignation she had been holding. There was no paper that mattered now. There was only the raw, small fighting thing of a human being that might die if she did not make people pay attention.

Katie hovered by the doorway, awkward and broken in the way of someone who had done wrong and could not fully explain why. Hermione had pressed her for hours, and listened with disgust as the minutiae of culpability arranged itself into a terrible pattern. Bureaucracy  had always been a system that could corrupt good intent, Hermione knew that on some level. Never had she imagined that it could be this bad. Money had been given, private access granted, fingers loosened in pockets for a perverse spectacle of power enacted on a body unable to resist. Hermione had listened to her justify it, rationalise it for hours, and had grown to hate this girl she had once considered a friend. She felt contempt as hot and narrow as a blade.

“Was he convicted of anything? Was he tried?” she asked, finally. Her voice did not shake, though it felt like it wanted to.

Katie shook her head. “No. He wasn’t convicted. He- he hasn’t broken any law that would warrant this. Not that we ever thought he would.”

“Then why is he being treated like this? You’ve tortured someone convicted of no crime just for what, money? Petty revenge? How can you live with yourself?” Hermione pressed, fury coiling in her chest.

Katie said nothing, refusing to meet her gaze. Hermione wasn’t having it. She stepped into Bell’s eyeline, eyes blazing.

“How long, Katie. Tell me how long.”

The woman swallowed. “Years,” she said. “Sometimes for weeks at a stretch. They would come in, for a price. They paid well. They wanted to know that someone who had been part of it could be made to hurt.”

Hermione felt bile in her mouth. “Who paid you? Names.”

Katie closed her eyes for a long moment. “I don’t know. Someone else always arranged it, someone who would never show their face. The visitors were always masked too. Some said they were sons or husbands or of victims. Some were men who had lost their livelihoods. They paid in galleons, in person. I funnelled it all back into Azkaban's rehabilitation effort through fundraisers. I did what I had to, to keep the rest of the place running. The Ministry gave us a pittance to meet your standards and legislations. It was always set up for me to fail, always set up for Azkaban to go back to the way it had been when your plan proved a failure. There was no other way. I was desperate. It was sacrifice him to give everyone else a chance. I had no choice.”

Hermione felt the floor tilt beneath her feet, a slow, nauseous turning as she considered the ramification of this stupid girl’s actions. There would be inquiry after inquiry, she told herself. There would be files and accounts and resignations. She would set men and women before panels and watch them squirm. That was consolation of a kind. It would not undo what had been done. She looked at Draco. His body was so pale and gaunt, emaciated. Even unconscious, he was tense, wasted muscles rigid under the thin fabric. His body was a myriad of cuts and scars, some new, others clearly old and poorly healed. Hermione’s stomach knotted at the sight: every rib jutted sharply beneath stretched, taut skin; his collarbones were stark against his chest; even his shoulders seemed to have lost their natural curve. He looked like a corpse. She found herself thinking weakly that no matter how much she hated him, she would have never have been capable of enacting this level on cruelty on another human being, even him.

Hermione thought of every small kindness she had ever offered a person and how many times it had been refused until it was gone. She thought of how much damned stubbornness it had taken to get to this precise, terrible moment and how little of that stubbornness had prepared her for the smell of the stone and the sound of the sea and the sight of someone she had once hated laying almost dead before her. 

At the edge of consciousness there was a plan. She would bring people to account. She would pry open ledger and letter and lock. She would not allow this cruelty to be smoothed over with euphemism. The thought was a hard, cool thing that steadied her. Katie buried her face in her hands, sobbing quietly, and Hermione took a deep breath, letting the words settle in her mind. She felt nothing for Katie, who was clearly more distraught at the imminent loss of her job than she was at what she had done to him. The full scale of the cruelty done to Draco Malfoy and the complicity of those who should have protected him hit her with a clarity that left her cold with resolve. She was going to find these people and put them away for a long, long time. 

Chapter Text

Hermione hadn’t slept.

The candles in her borrowed office sputtered low, parchment scattered across the desk like battlefield debris. Letters from Narcissa. Correspondence stamped with the Ministry seal. A ledger Katie had tried to hide until Hermione threatened to drag her in chains before the Wizengamot. Every page she turned piled fresh weight onto her chest.

Draco Malfoy had never been on the prisoner register. Not once in five years. His existence in Azkaban was marked only in private notes she’d eventually wrestled from a distraught Katie before dragging her to the Ministry. Handwritten marginalia, initials no clerk would dare claim. “Bottom cellar remains as it is. Sub-level containment. No visits this month.” “Maintenance of silence.” “Payment received for repairs.” The words burned against her vision.

She pressed trembling hands into her temples, fury boiling so hot it made her bones ache. Harry’s negligence was bad enough, but this was systemic. Someone had buried him on purpose and Hermione couldn’t buy the story that Katie Bell of all people had been the mastermind of it.

She’d gone to Harry’s house that night to discuss the situation, furious, full of anger, hoping against hope that his incompetence was just that and not something worse. Because she couldn’t cope if it were anything else. If Harry, her best friend for her entire life, had done this to someone deliberately, even if it was Malfoy… she’d never be able to look at him the same way again. Still, he had seemed just as confused and horrified as she was. He’d given her full reign to drop all other tasks and focus on this matter; not like she would have listened to him if he hadn’t.

Hermione had stood in Harry’s kitchen long after he’d gone to bed, staring at the dying fire in the grate. She’d come here half-expecting to find a puppet master pulling strings behind the scenes. Instead she’d found a man fraying at the edges. Hair even messier than usual, dark circles under his eyes, eyes widening in genuine horror when she’d laid the ledger before him.

He had looked at her like she was accusing him of murder. Maybe she was.

He’d sworn, over and over, that he’d had no idea. That yes, he’d known Draco was in Azkaban but had thought the case routine, not buried alive. That the fact he’d been kept there for the torture and amusement of others disgusted him as much as it did her. He’d agreed with her, waved away other duties, muttered something about “do whatever it takes” before retreating up the stairs like a man who had just realised how deep the water went.

Now, back in her own office, the quill marks on her palms like scars, Hermione found no relief in his sincerity. Harry might be telling the truth, but someone wasn’t. She could feel the conspiracy like a splinter under her skin.

She rose, crossing to the enchanted window - they were far too deep in the earth for any real light, but this kept her sane in a way. Beyond the glass, London glowed faintly under the fog. Up above, the streets were empty. Inside Azkaban, Draco Malfoy likely slept under a healer’s charms, still locked in the nightmare she’d pulled him from.

Her fists clenched.

Tomorrow, today, she would begin pulling on every thread she could find. Bank records, visitor logs, Ministry memos long thought sealed. She would walk into the Wizengamot and make them choke on the evidence if she had to. Someone had paid to make him a living scapegoat. Someone had buried a boy who had never been tried or convicted and then let him rot for five years.

Whoever they were, they were about to be dragged into the light.

Hermione turned back to her desk, eyes falling on the final page of Narcissa’s letters, its ink smudged from a clear tear. Please just tell me if my son is alive.

She would find out.

She was awoken hours later to a loud thud hitting the back of her head and the faint noise of an owl’s wings flapping away. She sleepily lifted her head from the desk, neck stiff from having slept in a hard wooden chair. Disorientated she fumbled with the envelope that had woken her from her slumber, and ripped it open. It was damp and cold, and the piece of parchment within was creased, as if it had been crumbled into a ball and smoothed out multiple times. She unfurled it and stared, forcing her blurred eyes to make sense of the scrawled words within.

Granger.

I am not in the habit of writing letters, particularly to people who once felt bold enough to slap me across the face, but you have left me little choice. I would rather you hear from me in writing than remember me only as the pathetic stammering wretch you found crouched in the dark.

Forgive my conduct. I have had no practice at conversation these past five years as I am sure you astutely noted. You startled me, and I am ashamed of my presentation in this matter. Consider this something akin to an apology.

You have done me the disservice of seeing me as a human being in your typical idealistic manner. For that, I am, against my better instincts, grateful. In a manner I am aware this is due to your simpering empathy for futile causes of no matter to anyone else, and find myself mildly disgusted to occupy the same mental space as house elves in your mind. Still, I would thank you aloud if I could do so without sounding like a beggar, yet I doubt we shall meet again. Instead I commit the words to parchment: thank you for coming.

I do not await a reply, even in the unlikely circumstance that the Warden even permit this letter to leave this place. I will not insult your intelligence by pretending that I expect you to return. Hope is a currency I exhausted a very long time ago. But know this, Granger: your presence, however brief, has made my wait for death feel a fraction less torturous. 

Do not mistake this letter for sentimentality. I remain the pariah of this world, even if there is less of me now. Your visit reminded me, however cruelly, that there was once a world beyond stone walls and chains. That will have to be enough. If you feel like it, please tell my mother not to grieve for me. 

Yours (in the most reluctant sense of the word),

D. Malfoy

Hermione let the letter fall onto the desk, fingers lingering on the crease where his hand had pressed too hard into the parchment. She could almost see him hunched in the infirmary bed, forcing his shaking wrist to hold the quill steady long enough to scrawl those brittle words.

Hermione’s fingers trembled as she folded the letter carefully, as if touching it too hard might shatter the fragile thread of life it represented. The words swirled in her mind, a mixture of gratitude, pride, and that familiar, infuriating stubbornness that she remembered from school.

He was alive. He had survived the night. But alive in what state? Five years trapped in darkness, in chains, with people paid to make him suffer. The thought made her stomach twist at the wrongness of it all. She had no love for Draco Malfoy, barely even tolerance, yet he was a human being. Nothing he had ever done deserved this. She’d get to the bottom of it. Names would be found. Payment trails would be traced. Every person who had turned cruelty into a currency would be held accountable. 

Her throat burned. She gathered the parchment back up, folding it with careful precision. Before she could even register what she was doing, she was writing letters of her own.

Malfoy,

I received your letter. Against my better judgement I find myself relieved to see some of the old Malfoy arrogance creep back into your writing, if just for the sake of knowing there’s something left of you in that dark place.

What has been done to you is wrong, both legally and in the sense of broader justice. You do not deserve this. No one does. To be kept in such conditions, abandoned and forgotten, is cruel beyond measure and is the complete of what the Ministry hopes to do in healing the wounds of the war. It is not a question of idealism or empathy. It is simply the right thing to do that I will do everything I can to see you free and well. 

I know you will likely not believe what I tell you as you have no doubt been lied to many times during your imprisonment. I hope to show you that I am not someone who will lie to you with action rather than words. I am part of a new division of the Ministry of Magic; The Department of Reintegration and Deradicalisation. What I offer, on behalf of my department, is the chance to start a new life and a new identity outside of whatever may have happened in the past. 

We will offer you both mental and financial support in becoming someone on your own terms that you are able to be proud of. Typically this would have started prior to your release, but in these circumstances I believe it urgent to remove you from Azkaban at the earliest time possible, as soon as a safe house on neutral ground is established.  Pertinently I will add that this programme gives you full clearance of any prior wrongdoings, even those that may be unknown to the Ministry at this time, on the condition that you complete it. It would also speed your release up by circumventing the requirement for an external investigation. While I do hope to get you justice, I think that in the short term this would be the best solution.  

Please reply at your earliest convenience so that I am able to start putting things into place. I will tell your mother that you are well.

Yours (in the most reluctant sense of the word),

Hermione Granger

She sealed it quickly, not pausing to reread her own words. She hadn't bothered to use Ministry paperwork or official titles in her letter. She doubted Malfoy would be very responsive to that, but she did use the correct stationary for her second letter, this one addressed to Narcissa. With this letter, she was more careful. She couldn’t tell the woman what had happened to Draco, not yet, not until she had all the facts. But she had to let her know he was still alive at the very least. 

Dear Mrs. Malfoy,

I am writing to inform you that your son, Draco, has been found and is alive. He is currently under the care of healers and the Ministry, and steps are being taken to ensure his safety. I hope to be able to begin his rehabilitation as soon as it is safely possible.

Whilst I am not able to facilitate a visit at this time, please take some comfort in knowing that he has survived and is being looked after. This remains a confidential matter, and I trust you will respect this for the benefit of your son. I will provide further updates soon, when appropriate.

Sincerely,
Hermione Granger
Department of Reintegration and Deradicalisation
Ministry of Magic

Hermione rose from her desk, the letters clutched tightly in her hands. Her footsteps echoed in the quiet corridors of the Ministry as she made her way down to the owlery, a place bustling with hundreds of messengers going to every corner of the country. The scent of hay and feathers hit her as she pushed open the heavy doors, and dozens of owls lifted their heads, blinking in the dim light.

Careful not to startle them, she placed the letters gently into the waiting claws of two well-trained birds. One was swift and small, its golden eyes reflecting her own unease, and the other larger, more deliberate in its movements. She whispered softly to each, ensuring they understood the delicacy of their mission. With a light flick of her wand, she tightened the seals and stepped back, holding her breath as the owls spread their wings and shot into the foggy sky, disappearing almost immediately into the sky.

Her chest tightened as she watched them go. There was no turning back now. The words were in the world; the first step had been taken. And yet, the anxiety gnawed at her. Had she done the right thing? Would Draco even respond, or would he retreat further into the shell of fear and distrust that years of Azkaban had hammered into him?

She tried to shake the thought, forcing herself to focus on the practical next steps. Her mind raced as she walked back to her office. He needed a safe place. Somewhere secure, somewhere private. Somewhere he could begin to heal without fear of intrusion. Once back in her office, she pulled up a list of Ministry-sanctioned halfway houses, but every bed was already taken. Her hands trembled slightly as she scrolled through the options, her heart sinking. No one place could offer him the solitude and security he would need.

There were other places, ministry hideouts dotted across the country, but most were remote or impractical. There was the flat in Edinburgh, but the city was full of people that would recognise him and too close to Hogwarts for comfort. Perhaps on one of the concealed ships in the port in Aberdeen… no. That place was too connected to the north sea, too close to Azkaban. Somewhere in England perhaps? No locations that weren’t already in use came to mind, none that weren’t either too far or too close to wizarding communities. She didn’t want to lift him from one desolate prison and put him into another one. He needed to be somewhere out of the way, but still in civilisation, accessible to London so she could monitor his progress.

Then, the thought struck her: 12 Grimmauld Place. Hidden, secure, and unlisted on any official Ministry registry. 20 minutes from Kings Cross, but tucked away in Islington in a muggle neighbourhood. Any death eater that may have once known about it was now either dead or imprisoned. If there had been any involvement from the Ministry in Malfoy’s ordeal, they wouldn’t be able to track him there. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the only place she could think of where he might begin to feel safe, at least for a little while.

She paused, considering the next hurdle: therapy. He would need someone to guide him through the trauma, but who could reach him now? Any stranger would trigger years of conditioned distrust, likely undoing the fragile steps of recovery she hoped to foster. The only person he might be able to trust, at least initially, was her. But she was no therapist, had no training. Any therapeutic technique she was dimly aware of had been learned from second hand reports. She would have to get him trusting enough before she could bring someone else in, but how? He had hated her in school, and she had no love for him either. In fact, now that the initial shock of seeing him had worn off, she wished it was anyone but her that had found him. She didn’t know that she had it in her to treat him as if he was worthy of redemption. Hermione swallowed hard, acknowledging the enormity of what she was committing to: she would be the first person to try to help him find a footing in the world again, on top of everything else. She, someone who he hated and had teased for years.

She took a deep breath, letting her shoulders loosen slightly. The planning, the uncertainty, the weight of responsibility…it all pressed down on her. It was her cross to bear. It was her negligence that had let this happen in the first place and it was her duty to fix whatever she could of the mess that had been made, regardless as to how personally uncomfortable Malfoy made her.

Then there was the matter of untangling the circumstances of his imprisonment in the first place. She would need to find out who exactly put him in Azkaban in the first place and determine why he had been kept there. Katie’s story no doubt had a shred of truth to it, but it most definitely wasn’t the entire picture. If a shadowy group simply wanted a boy to torture in some misguided attempt at revenge, they wouldn’t have kept him in Azkaban. Even with him being off record, they couldn’t conceivably have complete control over him there; too much traffic would create suspicion amongst aurors who weren’t in on it. If they had the resources to buy Katie Bell’s silence and access to Malfoy, then they had the resources to keep him somewhere else if they had wanted to. 

The circumstances of Draco’s capture in the first place made little sense to her. It was common knowledge that many were fleeing to mainland Europe who had been on both sides of the conflict, wanting to escape either repercussions or the memories of what had happened. A smaller number may be trying to rebuild something sinister abroad, but that fell outside of Ministry control, and other governments were still hesitant to rebuild relations with the complex political situation the UK now found itself in. Sure, preventing the Malfoys from making the crossing on paper made sense; Lucius had been a prominent figure in the war behind the sidelines, and she was still baffled at how he had weaselled his way out of imprisonment, how half of the wizarding world had come to his defence, just as they had in the first war. Letting him flee to potentially build a following abroad would be dangerous. Why take the son? Why bother using him as a bargaining chip for Lucius when they could just take Lucius himself? Especially given the fact that Lucius seemed not to have cared for the boy enough to surrender even false information in hopes of his release. How did Narcissia play into this? She seemed to know that Draco was imprisoned and had evidently been begging for his release, which was more than Lucius had been doing. But if she truly cared, wouldn’t she have been able to offer the information to his captors that Lucius was unwilling to surrender? 

Too many pieces, and she couldn’t see the threads between them yet. She sighed, redirecting her steps away from her office. She would start with Katie, pick out what little information she could. Being held in the Ministry, she would no doubt be more forthcoming with her answers than she had been in the tower. 

Hermione’s footsteps echoed hollow against the stone as she descended into the Ministry’s lower levels. The deeper she went, the cooler and more stagnant the air became. She tightened her grip on her wand, telling herself it was nothing. Just stone and stale air. Just nerves. If she was being honest with herself, the cool air reminded her too much of Azkaban, a place she never wanted to see again.

She suddenly had the feeling of being watched, as if someone was behind her, waiting for her to turn around. She stopped once, glancing back over her shoulder. The corridor stretched empty behind her, torches flickering lazily in their sconces. No one. 

She quickened her pace.

At the guard’s station outside the interrogation corridor, a stocky wizard in Ministry blues glanced up, surprise flitting across his face. He rose to his feet, brushing crumbs from his tunic.

“Granger,” he said. “You here for Bell?”

“Yes,” Hermione answered, voice nervous. “How has she been?”

The guard rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw, seeming thoroughly uninterested. “Still in the interrogation room. Haven’t put her in a cell yet until we can get a list of charges and the investigators are finished inspecting Azkaban. She hasn’t said a word since we put her in. Wouldn’t answer questions, wouldn’t even look at us. Just cried. For hours. Said she wouldn’t speak to anyone except you.”

Hermione faltered mid-step. That was quite the change in Katie. At Azkaban she’d been unwilling to tell her hardly anything, saying just enough to stop Hermione from using magic to force more answers out of her. Not that she would have, it had been an idle threat, but still. She remembered Katie’s trembling hands, her evasive answers, the way guilt had shadowed her eyes. She’d been thoroughly unwilling to say anything.

“Take me to her,” she said.

They walked down the corridor, past door after door of iron and wards, each one humming faintly with enchantments. The further they went, the stronger the feeling became. Eyes on her, unseen, cold and deliberate. Hermione kept her head high, refusing to glance over her shoulder again. Whoever was watching wanted her unsettled. She would not give them the satisfaction.

The guard stopped at the final door. His knuckles rapped twice against the wood, more out of habit than necessity. He shifted uneasily, as though the air itself pressed on him. “She’s just through here,” he muttered.

The latch clicked.

The door swung open.

Hermione’s scream ripped from her throat before she even understood what she was seeing.

Katie hung from the ceiling, her body swaying gently with the weight. The leather belt from her trousers was looped tight around her neck, biting cruelly into the flesh. Her feet dangled inches from the floor, her fingers limp. Her eyes, half-lidded, were already dull.

Hermione’s world tilted. The torchlight blurred. For a moment she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Then she was running, shoving past the shocked guard, wand gripped tightly in her hand as she lunged forward.

“No-no, no, no, Katie!” Her voice cracked, raw with horror. She grabbed at Katie’s legs, trying to lift her, trying to ease the pressure. Her fingers fumbled desperately at the buckle of the belt, nails scraping against the leather. “Stay with me-please, stay with me-”

The guard’s shout tore down the corridor. “Help! We need help down here!” His boots pounded away as he raised the alarm, but Hermione barely heard him.

Her arms strained, trembling, as she tried to hold Katie’s weight. But the body was limp, unbearably heavy, the truth pressing in on her with every second: she was too late.

A sob tore free, sharp and broken, but she refused to let go. She clung to Katie as though sheer willpower could force the girl back into her skin. “Don’t do this. don’t-”

Her hands brushed against something clenched tight in Katie’s fist. A scrap of parchment, crumpled almost beyond recognition. Hermione froze, heart hammering, then carefully pried it from the stiffening fingers and shoved it into her pocket. Whatever this was, Katie had meant someone to find it. Meant her to find it. Pounding footsteps thundered back down the corridor.

“Out of the way!” another guard bellowed, wand already raised. Spells cracked through the air, slicing through the belt, lowering Katie’s body gently to the ground.

Strong hands closed around Hermione’s shoulders, pulling her back. She fought them at first, reaching desperately for Katie, tears streaking down her face. “She can’t be. She can’t-”

“Granger, let us handle it,” the guard snapped, hauling her to her feet.

The room swarmed with uniforms, voices barking orders, charms sparking in frantic bursts of light. Hermione’s sobs echoed hollow in her ears as she was pulled away, far out of the room and into an office while she heaved. No matter what Katie had done, she did not deserve this fate. Not Katie, who she’d spent so many hours studying with. Katie, who she’d watched for years with Harry at Gryffindor matches, who had been one of the students brave enough to join Dumbledore’s Army, Katie who had fought with them at Hogwarts during the final battle. She had been good, no matter what current circumstances suggested.

Beneath the grief, a colder thought took root, clear as glass:

If Katie Bell had taken her own life, it was to avoid something much worse than death. Hermione fumbled in her pocket, wiping away her tears, and unfurled the note. In hastily scrawled handwriting, it read; 

“They’ll come for you. Stop looking.”

Chapter Text

Hermione had lost track of how many times she’d told the story.

Again and again, in that same grey room with its stale air and its magically sealed doors, she’d been asked to recount the details: what she saw, what she did, what she touched. They wanted order in her account, neat and tidy, when all she had was chaos burned into her memory. Katie’s swaying body, the creak of the belt, the feeling of parchment pressed into her palm. She had lived it once, and then a dozen times more for the Ministry scribes.

She had thought Harry would be the one to question her. It made sense. He was Head of the Department of Law Enforcement after all, her oldest friend, and the person she trusted most to believe her version of events. But before the questioning began, he’d pulled her aside into a corridor, his face pale in the torchlight.

“I can’t,” he’d said hoarsely. “Hermione, if I go in there, if I’m seen leading this, it’ll look like I’m trying to bury it. Everyone will say I protected you. Or Katie. Or-” He broke off, hesitantly. “Or Malfoy. And when this gets out, it will get out, I can’t afford that.”

Hermione had stared at him, blinking in disbelief. “You’re saying you’re removing yourself?”

“I don’t have a choice.” His voice was pleading. “You’re my best friend. Katie was my teammate, my friend. And Malfoy… Merlin, Hermione, Malfoy was my enemy. How am I supposed to look impartial in any of this?”

They’d fallen into silence, the kind that was more painful than shouting. She saw his eyes shine wet, even though he was clearly trying to hide it. “I can’t believe it was Katie,” he said finally. “She was good. Always good. She stuck by me, you know? Even when others didn’t. And now-” He broke off, shaking his head like he could dislodge the thought. “The war’s over, but it doesn’t stop. I keep losing people.”

Hermione had wanted to comfort him. She knew what the war had done to Harry, how much he carried in that scarred chest of his. But bitterness coiled in her stomach like a snake. You didn’t see her body swinging. You didn’t lift her legs and scream yourself hoarse. You didn’t stand in Azkaban and look at what was left of Malfoy.

Harry had seen none of it. And yet, somehow, he still spoke as if his grief weighed the most, mattered the most. Hermione supposed that it did. It was him, always him, the hero, the boy who lived. The rest of them were just side characters. This was his story and it always had been. Hermione couldn’t even bring herself to be angry at him. It’s not like he chose this, he was born into it. The rest of them just existed to prop him up, just like she had in school, just like she was doing in her career. It dimly struck her that her entire life had revolved around him without her consciously choosing it to.

She’d concealed one piece of information from the investigators though. The note. She couldn’t bring herself to share that one thing. If Katie Bell had been scared enough to hang herself in the Ministry, it meant that the people she was scared of could get within these walls with ease. Hermione didn’t know if they already had, if they’d always been there. 

The questions had dragged on for hours. Every detail dissected, every movement of hers picked apart by men and women who had never stepped into that corridor, who had not seen Katie Bell’s slack face or smelled the iron tang of her death.

“Where were you standing when you first saw the body?”
“How long before the alarm was raised?”
“Did you touch her, Granger? Did you move anything?”

She answered them all, her voice clipped but steady, until her throat was raw. She kept her tone even, professional, though inside she was screaming. I did everything I could. I tried to hold her up. I tried to undo the buckle. I tried.

They didn’t care about that. What they wanted was neat lines for their ledgers, a report that would hold up when the Prophet got hold of the story.

And by the time the day was over, they had one. Katie Bell’s death was officially ruled a guilty suicide, a woman overcome by despair at being caught out in her maltreatment of a prisoner. The narrative was packaged, sealed, and tied off in a neat little bow. A tragic conclusion, but a convenient one.

Hermione hadn’t even fought them on it. She hadn’t mentioned the payments, or the anonymous figures who had bought themselves a piece of Draco’s suffering, or the rot that had run deeper than Katie. Not a word. She didn’t know who to trust anymore. Not here, not now. To show her hand would be to paint a target on her back.

So when they left her with the mess, with Draco Malfoy, they framed it as a punishment, an administrative burden she was uniquely suited for. Her handling of Katie had been ‘unprofessional’, she’d scared her into taking her own life. She’d acted outside of ministry protocol by dragging her to the ministry instead of waiting for other aurors to come and arrest her. They’d be taking the investigation of what was happening at Azkaban from here, though there was little left to do. Hermione nodded, accepted, let them think it was their idea. She even smiled thinly when they told her they would “let her handle the rehabilitation.”

Only when she was alone again did she allow her mask to fall, exhaustion and fury twisting inside her. They had written Katie out of the story, and buried the truth with her. And they had left Hermione holding the last piece no one wanted: Draco Malfoy.

It was late when she returned to her office, late again. She dimly realised that she had not gone home from work in two days now. Waiting for her on her desk was another damp envelope. This letter was longer, much longer than his previous one.

Granger,

Your letter arrived, replete with the earnest solemnity I once might have expected from you; though even in school I knew your righteousness was more a vice than a virtue. I confess myself entertained, if not astonished, that you now cast yourself as arbiter of justice and redeemer of the damned. A most illustrious role indeed, though one cannot help but suspect it is chiefly designed to soothe your own conscience rather than to serve those you claim to rescue.

You speak of “rehabilitation,” of “reintegration,” as though I were a defective cog to be oiled and refitted into the great Ministry machine. How curious that you, of all people, seem to have forgotten that a man is not an object to be refurbished, nor a reputation a garment to be laundered. Five years in a dungeon have stripped me of many things, but not the ability to discern when I am being manipulated.

It is, I must add, profoundly insulting to hear you speak of “rehabilitating” me, as though I were a criminal in need of cleansing. I have committed no crime save one: indulging, for a brief and deluded time at the end of the war, in the notion that good might triumph over evil and that I might, however tentatively, wish to stand on that side. If this new world you represent is the fruit of that so called triumph, then I am forced to conclude I erred. Had I known then what I know now, I would have preferred to die on the battlefield at Hogwarts with my brothers in arms, with at least a shred of dignity, rather than be delivered into the hands of your Ministry’s “justice.”

Do not mistake me. I am not so naïve as to reject the promise of release. But understand this, Granger: if I walk free, it will not be because of your programme or your sanctimonious pity. It will be because you and your Ministry could not abide by the scandal of my continued imprisonment. Do not cloak political expediency in the garb of benevolence and expect me to be fooled.

You accuse me of distrust. How very perceptive. It is true I do not believe you. Why should I? For half a decade the Ministry you serve has conspired to torture me, and now you presume to arrive, halo shining, as my deliverer. You must forgive me if I do not prostrate myself in gratitude at your feet.

Spare me, therefore, your talk of “new beginnings.” I require no redemption from you, nor absolution from a government that condemned me for reasons it refuses to reveal. If you would aid me, then act. Open the door. I may be forced to debase myself through these sham schemes you are plotting for me as a dog being whipped by his mistress, but don’t expect me to be grateful for it.

Should you persist in corresponding, do not insult me with pleasantries or promises. Tell me how you really feel. Until then, confine yourself to silence.

P.S, if you won’t let my mother grieve for me, then don’t contact her at all. She doesn’t deserve to see me like this. She’s been through enough.

Yours, against my will,

D. Malfoy

Hermione dropped into the chair behind her desk, Draco’s letter in her hands. She read it through once, twice, letting the words sink in. The more she did, the more her irritation flared. She had half a mind to screw it in a ball and throw it into the bin. After everything she would have to do to secure his release, to pull him from the very edge of despair, this was what he gave her? A carefully crafted tirade of indignation, pride, and barely veiled contempt.

She pressed her palms into her eyes, exhaling sharply. Of course, she muttered under her breath. Why would he see anything other than himself? He hadn’t thanked her. He hadn’t even acknowledged that someone had fought to get him out of that pit alive. Instead, he lectured her, insulted the Ministry, and somehow turned the entire ordeal into an indictment of her character.

Her patience, already fraying from the weight of the past days, snapped just slightly. Good heavens, he really doesn’t realise how absurd this is, she thought. She was the one bending herself into impossible shapes, navigating bureaucracy, arranging safe houses, and yet he complained about rehabilitation, pity, and her “sanctimonious” intentions.

His words were worse now than when they’d been in school. In school his insults had been cruel but weak, slurs of intolerance instead of any intelligent retort. Now he was a different beast, sharp, cutting, perceptive to all of the wrong things. What infuriated her the most was not that some of what he had said was true, but that he had finally perfected the art of getting under her skin after all of these years. Still. He might be proud, stubborn, and venomous in every line of the letter, but he was alive, and that meant she could work with him, whether he wanted it or not.

Hermione slammed the letter down, letting the paper crumple slightly under her palm. “Honesty,” she muttered to the empty office, pulling her parchment and quill towards her. He wanted honesty? She’d give him honesty.

Malfoy,

If you wish for me to tell you how I really feel, then I shall. You are the last person I would have chosen for something like this. I suspect you will find the fact that I have done so embarrassing, and perhaps you should. But know this: it is equally uncomfortable for me to invest so much time, energy, and thought into someone who spent years making my life miserable, mocking me, and reminding me at every turn that I was a target for your amusement. The fact that I am now in a position to ensure your survival, your safety, and the possibility of a life outside of Azkaban does not erase the history between us. It merely complicates it.

I suppose it should be predictable that your first response to a letter offering a lifeline is to treat it as an insult. I might have expected nothing less from you, though I must admit, I had hoped that time might have offered you some perspective. Clearly, I was overly optimistic.

You find it “profoundly insulting” that I should seek to rehabilitate you. Let me assure you, I am equally insulted that you consider your brief dalliance with morality the only measure of your worth. A noble sacrifice, no doubt, to stand on the side of “good” for all of three seconds before life proved inconvenient. I do not offer to reshape you into someone else. I offer to ensure that what little remains of you is not wasted entirely. If that bruises your vanity, I am genuinely delighted to provide the discomfort.

You speak of dignity, of death on the battlefield, as if the world were a stage on which you might perform grand heroics. I will not deny that Hogwarts was cruel and that war leaves scars. But your indignation at being alive, at being delivered from a cell where others sought to erase your existence, is almost… charmingly melodramatic. I half expect a flourish of your hand and a declaration that you will throw yourself into the Thames next, in protest of my audacity.

I am painfully aware of what has been done to you. I also know that the world is not kind, and that most would have left you to rot without a second thought. That I did not, that I will not, is apparently inconvenient for your sense of pride.

You may distrust me, of course. That would be rational. You may also continue to rail against “the Ministry” and “political expediency” with all the flair of a schoolboy writing detention essays. But the door is open, Malfoy. Step through it if you wish. Or, if it suits your dramatic tendencies better, do not. I have selected a safehouse for you to recover in. I will be coming back soon for you either way and expect you to have practiced a long list of insults for me. I hope you don’t disappoint.  One small concession to your ego, at least.

Yours, with very little patience,
Hermione Granger

Hermione folded Draco’s reply carefully and tucked it back into its envelope, quill still warm in her hand. She rose and tucked the letter into her bag, mind already racing ahead for tomorrow - check and stock the safehouse, remove any evidence from the ministry, find reliable healer contacts, create contingencies in case he refused to cooperate. The weight of responsibility pressed down on her like a physical force.

Her footsteps echoed down the Ministry corridors as she made her way toward the owlery, her thoughts running faster than her pace. He’s infuriating, impossible, and ungrateful… but he’s alive. That’s what matters. I have to make this work. I have to. The owls stirred at her approach, wings flapping, eyes blinking. She placed the envelope in the waiting claws of one sharp-eyed bird, murmuring instructions as she always did, feeling her pulse tighten with both anticipation and anxiety.

The instant the bird lifted off into the foggy night sky, the tautness in her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. The letter was gone, out of her hands, and yet the knot in her chest remained. Every scenario played in her mind: what if he refused to come? What if he mistrusted her so completely that every measure she’d taken crumbled before her eyes?

And then, at last, her body reminded her of its own limits. Her legs ached, her head throbbed, and her vision felt thick at the edges. She hadn’t slept properly in two days; she hadn’t eaten more than scraps, and hadn't allowed herself a moment of reprieve. For the first time in forty-eight hours, Hermione realized she could stop moving.

With a deep, shuddering breath, she leaned against the stone wall of the owlery, closing her eyes. The quiet hum of feathers and distant hoots washed over her like a balm. And then, finally, she allowed herself to let go.

The Ministry would still be there in the morning. The letter would still be traveling to its destination. Draco would still be alive, and she would still do whatever it took to keep him that way even if she didn’t particularly want to. For now, though, she let the tension slip from her shoulders.

By the time she reached the Floo Network and stepped through the emerald flames, Hermione’s fingers ached, her eyes stung, and her mind was fogged with exhaustion. A fragile, desperate sense of relief had settled in her chest. She was going home. Finally, she could be somewhere that wasn’t cold stone and bureaucracy, somewhere that might let her rest before the next impossible day began.

After a long and slow walk home Hermione stumbled through the door to her apartment, keys fumbling in her exhausted fingers. The familiar scent of worn leather and lingering stew hit her, and for a moment she allowed herself the briefest flicker of comfort. Then she heard it: the sharp edge in Ron’s voice, the unmistakable frustration she had been avoiding for months.

“You’ve been gone two days straight!” he barked, arms crossed, eyes flashing with fury. “Do you have any idea what that’s like? No word, no explanation-where the hell have you been?”

Hermione’s shoulders slumped. Her body ached, her brain was frayed at the edges, and the last thing she wanted was an argument. “I… um…” She tried, but the words caught somewhere between exhaustion and exasperation.

“You’re not even listening to me!” Ron continued, voice rising. “Don’t even tell me you’ve been working all the time, Hermione. You think I’m stupid? Is this about Harry? Are you…”

Of course. Of course it was this. He wasn’t worried about her wellbeing, hadn’t noticed the tiredness of her, all he was concerned about was his own paranoid delusions as usual.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been seeing Harry. Sleeping in the Ministry broom closets, laughing over coffee, plotting about how to conceal our grand affair from you.” Hermione cut in, her voice dripping with sarcastic weariness. “You caught me, Ron. Absolutely guilty.”

Ron’s jaw dropped. “Don’t you dare.”

“Go on, keep going,” she said, voice softening to exhaustion. “Call me whatever you like. I’m too tired to care. You’re right. Totally right. If you’ve decided I’ve been cheating on you with your best mate while the world falls apart, Fine. Clearly whatever you think matters more than the truth.”

Ron's face twisted, part disbelief, part fury, part frustration. Hermione gave him a tired, flat look, then pivoted, ignoring his sputtering protests. She dropped onto the sofa, the cushions barely cradling her spent body, and let her hands fall to her sides.

For the first time in two days, she let herself relax. Her eyelids slid closed, the hum of the apartment and the muffled sound of Ron’s indignant muttering fading into the background. The weight of letters, Ministry politics, Azkaban, and Malfoy’s rehabilitation could wait. For a few precious hours, it was enough to simply sleep.

Chapter Text

The early morning light crept through the thin curtains, painting the apartment in a soft, grey wash. Hermione stirred before the alarm, eyelids heavy but mind already churning. She didn’t want to wake Ron, so she slipped quietly from the sofa, feet padding against the worn rug.

The bathroom was cold against her skin as she brushed her teeth and then stepped into the shower, letting the scalding water run down her body. Her mind drifted, but only briefly, as her eyes followed the path of the water swirling down the drain, a fleeting focus in the early morning calm.

Once finished, she towelled off and went to the window where she had hung clothes to dry, slipping into a casual outfit. Something practical, nothing that suggested she was off to the office with anything but routine intent. She packed her bag with care, placing her wand inside, then gnawed on a dry, stale cereal bar from the kitchen while considering the day ahead.

She was about to leave when Ron emerged from the bedroom, shirtless and still wrapped in the thick fog of sleep and lingering anger. His eyes fixed on her, red and accusing.

“Are you going to come home tonight?” he asked..

Hermione froze for a second, then said evenly, “I don’t know yet.”

He tilted his head, studying her as if trying to force a confession from her face. “Is there any point in me asking what’s keeping you at work?”

Her eyes met his briefly, unwavering. “I can’t tell you yet. The situation is delicate.”

He seemed to expect her answer, and his gaze fell, a mixture of frustration and helplessness. Without another word, he muttered something under his breath and trudged back to the bed, pulling the covers up around him, leaving Hermione with a tight, uncomfortable lump in her stomach.

She exhaled slowly, swinging her bag over her shoulder and stepping out the door. The apartment felt heavy in the silence he left behind, but she couldn’t linger. The day and everything waiting at the Ministry would not pause for personal grievances.

Hermione stepped out into the cool morning, the crisp air hitting her like a small, sharp reminder of the world beyond the apartment. Her thoughts immediately drifted back to Ron. The tension between them had been building for months. Her endless hours at the Ministry, the late nights, the unexplained disappearances. She knew he felt abandoned, suspicious, frustrated. And she couldn’t blame him entirely; she had been pulling away, wrapped up in matters he could not understand, matters she could not explain. The rift between them felt uncrossable these days, and the constant arguments and accusations spat at each other made her too tired to even try.

But today wasn’t about Ron. Not really. She turned in the opposite direction, the streets of Islington stretching before her, leading her toward Grimmauld Place. It was walkable from the apartment, if far, but she welcomed the exercise. Her mind wandered to the house itself. The last time she had been here, it had been a tense, echoing space, steeped in memories she hadn’t wanted to revisit. Dimly, she remembered its former owners, The Black family, and the lingering air of rigid expectation and quiet malice that had clung to the walls. It had been so long since she’d been there. She’d returned once or twice since the war had ended, on the nights where Ron had shouted so loudly it had scared her, and slept curled up on the sofa watching the fire die until she could bring herself to fall asleep alone.

Would Draco ever have been here before? His mother’s connection to the Black family made it possible, but Hermione didn’t know how much of it he would recall or if he would even want to. And even if he had never set foot in the house, the very lineage it represented might make it an uncomfortable environment for him. She frowned, imagining the faded grandeur, the portraits with their cold, judging eyes, the whispers of a family history both notorious and suffocating.

Still, she had little other choice. The house was hidden, secure, unlisted on any Ministry maps. It was a space where Draco could be removed from prying eyes, where she could at least attempt to build a semblance of safety. She quickened her pace, trying to push aside the weight of the old memories and the uncertainty of how he would react. Grimmauld Place wasn’t perfect. Nothing about this was perfect. But it was necessary.

Each step brought the house closer, and with it, a mounting knot of anxiety. She was about to cross a threshold into a space that might mark the beginning of a new life for him, or perhaps, merely a different kind of confinement. She forced herself to swallow the thought and focus on the practical: assessing the state of the house, ensuring it was safe, ready. She needed to get Malfoy out as soon as possible, before some other nefarious party got their claws into him, and she had to be prepared. She stopped. Number 11 and number 13 Grimmauld place stood in front of her. She blinked. That was all it took, a mere blink, and number 12 loomed in front of her, as if it had always been there, decrepit and intimidating.

Hermione walked up the short steps and her hand hesitated on the doorknob. The moment she pushed it open, the familiar scent of dust, old wood, and something faintly acrid hit her. Grimmauld Place had always felt alive with history, but now it seemed heavier, oppressive as she stepped across the threshold. The portraits along the walls had been covered in thick white sheets, but she could almost feel their judgmental glare from beneath them. She shook it off, telling herself she was here for a purpose. Like it or not, Draco Malfoy’s safety came before her unease.

The house was quiet. Eerily so. The echoes of her own footsteps filled the empty rooms as she moved quickly from one to the next, inspecting each space. Dust covered the furniture, and sheets were threadbare, but structurally the house was sound. She made mental notes: a thorough cleaning, fresh linens, minor repairs to the cupboards and shelves. The kitchen cupboards were empty of anything that hadn’t expired years ago; she would need to stock up on essentials; food, toiletries, towels. An uncomfortable thought popped into her head, half remembered lines of Draco’s letters. Please tell my mother not to grieve for me. She couldn’t be sure if his talks for death were purely down to the expected execution he had assumed was coming, or out of suicidal ideation. She pulled open a kitchen drawer, emptying all of the cutlery into her bottomless bag. Better safe than sorry.

She opened drawers and found remnants of the old Black household: cloth frayed beyond recognition, thick dust coating everything, and a small selection of clothing that clearly hadn’t been worn in years. Hermione sighed. She could buy new towels, soap, and food easily enough, but Draco’s clothes presented a more delicate problem. Any item she found here likely wouldn’t fit him. She almost considered writing to Narcissa for help, but quickly dismissed the idea. What had belonged to Draco in the past might bring only discomfort. No, she would provide him with the bare necessities and let him choose what felt right when the time came.

Time passed quickly as she worked, her hands moving almost automatically. Cleaning, organising, assessing each room with precision born of long years at Hogwarts and the Ministry. And yet, even with her focus, the old memories crept in, the whispered conversations from the house’s past, the subtle judgments from the Black family portraits, the unyielding quiet that had once felt like safety but now felt unsettling. Being here alone was uncomfortable in a way she hadn’t anticipated.

She paused in what had once been the main hallway, running her hand along the banister of the staircase. The shadows in the corners seemed to stretch further than they should. Hermione shook her head, forcing herself to continue. She had work to do, and there was no room for fear. She needed to get Draco out as soon as possible. To do that, she needed to make this place safe for him, even if it meant pushing aside every unpleasant memory and discomfort she felt within these walls.

It was April 22nd by the time she had everything ready. Two weeks. Two weeks had passed.
She hadn’t expected it to take so long, had been furious with herself at first, but the truth was that pulling Draco out of Azkaban required more planning than she could have possibly anticipated. Every thread she tugged at unfurled into bureaucracy, secrecy, and danger.

Her days belonged to the Ministry. On paper, she was still Hermione Granger, tireless civil servant, head bent over the official Azkaban release profiles. She sorted through the names of men and women no one wanted to look at too closely, piecing together futures for them as best she could. A halfway house in Liverpool for one, a Ministry-funded account at Gringotts for another, therapy schedules carefully staggered to avoid clashes with previous collaborators in the office. She was building fragile lives from rubble, pushing through endless meetings and skeptical glances. The words they don’t deserve this haunted her every time she left a conference room. And still, she did it, because if she didn’t, no one would.

Her afternoons belonged to Draco. That was where her double life began.

When the Ministry’s doors closed, she would go to Grimmauld Place. She’d been dealing with former Death Eaters for quite a while now, so the skill of delicate underhand dealings was something she was used to - this time though, it required transition into the muggle world. She couldn’t bring Draco back into Wizarding society, not yet, not with the unanswered threat of who had funded his imprisonment and inspired enough fear in Katie for her to take her own life. She met with Muggle criminals in pubs where cigarette smoke clung to her hair and the men never asked her name. She bartered confiscated cursed trinkets for galleons, then gallons for thick envelopes of Muggle cash, her wand clenched in her pocket in case the deal turned sour. The documents Draco would need, birth certificate, passport, driver’s licence, were pieced together from counterfeiters who never knew they were dealing with a witch. The contacts had been easy to establish. The British muggle government lived in constant fear of Wizard politics spilling into their world once more, and gave her anything she asked for. Ironically, she found MI5 much more helpful than the Ministry. The few there who did know her true identity for matters of national security stared at her as if she was a bomb that was about to go off every time they met. 

Logistics nearly destroyed her. Azkaban’s prisoners could only be funnelled through Ministry routes. Every apparation point, every Floo connection, every ship tightly monitored. She spent sleepless nights poring over maps, working and reworking viable routes into London. She had to build him an entry into the world that no one would see, a seam through which she could smuggle him alive.

And all the while she lived in fear of discovery. At work, every time a colleague leaned over her desk she flinched, convinced they would smell the forged ink on her fingers. At night, she returned home to Ron, too tired to pretend, too exhausted to lie convincingly. Their rows had become white-hot, ugly things, but she bore them, because the yelling was better than the nights when he wouldn’t talk to her at all.

By the end of the fortnight, she could barely tell which exhaustion belonged to which life. Ministry meetings bled into back-alley trades, prison profiles blurred with Draco’s face in her mind. She had scraped together a foundation for him; documents, cash, a hidden house, a fragile plan. All that remained now was the execution.

And that was the part that terrified her most.

Chapter Text

The boat pitched hard against a swell, spray snapping against Hermione’s face as she stood at the bow, wand lifted high in the air with a spectral blue light that pushed the vessel through the cold waters. She drew her cloak tighter, the salt dampening the wool, though it wasn’t the cold that made her chest constrict. Ahead, rising out of the steel-grey water, Azkaban loomed: a jagged fortress clawing at the sky, its black stone slick with centuries of salt and storm.

She could have come by Floo, but that would have left a trail she couldn’t risk. Not when the Ministry monitored every flame, every log of entry and exit. Portkeys were a waste of time, monitored even closer than the Floo was, and apparating in was impossible this close to the wards. You could only disapparate out, which she intended to do for the return journey. That left this: a boat cutting across rough waters, the oldest and least traceable way in.

Hermione had told Azkaban’s new Warden she would be arriving in three days' time, her paperwork carefully dated and signed to support the fiction. It bought her a window, a thin slice of time where her movements were unaccounted for. Enough to work out how she would eventually explain away Draco Malfoy’s absence when the Ministry realised he had never been processed through official release channels. Well, they could deal with it. It’s not like he’d ever been put in there officially in the first place.

She shifted her position, legs numb from hours of travel. She’d read every one of the Ministry’s interviews from Azkaban staff, combed through them line by line. None of the guards had been off. None of the records hinted at corruption or negligence. Katie Bell had been the sole person to facilitate Draco’s capture, and she had taken every detail of that night to the grave with her. That silence haunted Hermione. Because if Azkaban itself hadn’t been compromised, then someone in the Ministry had to have been powerful enough to pull strings in the dark, powerful enough to bury Draco where no one could find him until it was too late.

She wasn’t afraid of the Azkaban anymore. She was afraid of whoever in the Ministry wanted him hidden, or worse destroyed.

Her stomach knotted tighter the nearer she drew to the island. Every moment Draco was still inside those walls was a moment someone else might move before she did. She pictured arriving in an empty cell, the neat explanation filed away, Draco vanished into some darker place. That fear pushed against her ribs until it was almost suffocating.

The boat scraped against the jetty, the sound like bone against stone. Hermione jumped down quick, her knees stiff, and greeted the auror who had come down to the beach front to investigate what was going on with wandless hands flashing her Ministry ID. She silently followed the auror up the long stone path to the tower, offering nothing but a curt nod when he asked if she was here for Malfoy. Ahead the building imposed grimly, a dark monolith on the sky. Today was lighter than it had been the last time she’d been here and the rain was barely a drizzle, but the cold never seemed to go away, not even as they walked through the entryway. She cast one disturbed look downwards at the steps to Malfoy’s old cell as they walked past it and ascended. The stone walls seemed to sweat with damp, torches guttering weakly against the dark. Her boots echoed with each step, a sound too loud in the stillness. It felt as though Azkaban itself were listening.

Hermione ascended the stone stairs weakly, gripping the railing, each step echoing against the walls. The corridors smelled faintly of sea spray and mildew, a dampness that seemed to seep into her bones and hadn’t been erased by the refurbishment efforts, even as the fixtures turned warmer the higher their ascent went. As she entered the wide open living space at the top for those being rehabilitated, the warmth and crackle of the fire didn’t quite make it through the cold she felt this time. The prisoners, who had mostly ignored her last time, stared at her in shock and confusion as she walked past. She wondered how many, if any, knew about Malfoy. Had he been trying to garner support, a following with them? It had been his go-to method of survival as a boy, but war had stripped him of his boyishness a long time ago. 

Eventually, they stopped in front of the only cell connected to the common area that had its thick metal door closed. The small slot in the iron, presumably for food, was pulled shut.

The auror stepped aside, gesturing. “He’s in there. The door isn’t locked, but he doesn’t like it open. You should probably knock, he gets jumpy when people walk in unannounced.”

Hermione nodded, swallowing the lump of nerves in her throat. She raised her hand, lightly rapped on the door, then pushed it open.

Malfoy sat on the edge of the narrow bed, shoulders slightly hunched, a thick book propped open in front of him on a crossed knee on his lap. The striped prison uniform hung loosely on his frame, too baggy in the sleeves and trousers, highlighting his gauntness. But it was clean and fresh, a far cry from the last clothes she’d seen him in. Thick socks bunched around his skinny ankles and simple slippers padded against the floor. The pale skin of his face now carried a touch of colour, cheeks faintly flushed as if life had begun to creep back, though the dark crescents beneath his eyes remained, etched deep.

Hermione’s eyes travelled down to his wrists. Bandaged, crisp and clean, wrapped carefully around where his skin had been marked. A cup of tea steamed gently on the small desk beside him, next to a neat stack of books. She blinked, surprised to see they were all classic works of fiction by muggle writers Shelly, Stoker, Orwell. Titles that she could have never imagined someone like him reading, though she supposed the macabre subject matters fit him.

He hadn’t looked up at her. “You’re early. They told me you would be arriving on the 25th.” His voice was calm, measured, detached.

“There was a change in arrangements.”

She didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t replied to her last letter, and she’d wondered if perhaps she’d gone too far in her response.

She looked at him, wondering why he seemed intent to ignore her. “Have they been treating you well?”

The silence was awkward, though it seemed to be so only on Hermione’s end. Draco looked like he didn’t care whether she was there or not. He didn’t answer immediately, returning his attention to the page. After a long moment, he closed the book with a soft thump and looked at her for the first time, with scathing and cold grey eyes. 

“Ah, yes,” he said finally, his voice dripping with malice. “The warm ministrations of Azkaban hospitality. I daresay the comfort rivals any country inn. Truly, I cannot contain my gratitude.”

Oh. So it was going to be like this. She forced herself to take a breath, reminding herself that he had been through hell; though it hardly excused the gall when she was trying to help. 

“I assure you,” Draco continued, tilting his head just enough to let a faint smirk ghost across his lips. He seemed to be enjoying her discomfort. “I am quite content whilst I languish in solitude, feasting upon warm lentil soup and my own misery. They’ve replaced the weekly torture with therapy. I suppose they simply wish to torment me psychologically rather than physically for once.”

Hermione folding her arms tightly. This was going to be a touchy topic, she knew that already from his letter. “And has that been… helpful in any way?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady despite the irritation curling in her chest.

Draco’s smirk didn’t falter; if anything, it sharpened. “Helpful?” he echoed, the word laced with venom. “My mind, Granger, is the only part of me they have yet to break despite best efforts, and I am most determined to keep it so. Your little puppets efforts have proven singularly unproductive. I refused to engage in the sessions. Why hand them my thoughts, when I know exactly how they will twist them into tools against me?”

He leaned back slightly, the baggy sleeves of his prison uniform sliding down over his wrists. “What was it you expected to return to?” he added, voice low, deliberate and spiteful. “Did you think to see me pliant and weepy, on my knees, begging for your return? Don’t flatter yourself, Granger.”

Hermione exhaled sharply, her patience thinning. “You make it sound as if you want to stay here. You need to face the world eventually.”

Draco’s eyes flicked to hers, grey and unyielding. “Face the world?” he said, voice dripping with disbelief. “I face no one. I allow observation, I tolerate sustenance, and I read. That is enough. If others wish to stare, they may. I give them nothing more.”

“Fine,” she said finally. “Have it your way. If you really want to remain here, I can’t force you to leave.”

She was lying. She could and she would force him to leave; in fact, there was nothing that was truly keeping him here anymore, and he had to have known this from their correspondence. Theoretically he could have left at any time if he’d really pressed the matter, contacted his parents and demanded to be released that day. She knew that his barbed comments and evasive speech was just a coping mechanism, a weak attempt at regaining control in a situation where he was powerless, but it annoyed her all the same.

For the first time, a flicker of something passed over Draco’s face. A flash of panic, subtle but unmistakable, a tightening around his eyes and jaw. He swallowed it down quickly, forcing his posture back into its usual mask of control.

“I’ll come,” he said, and she instantly felt guilty at her hollow words. He attempted to make his voice smooth, measured, but the rawness of his voice from presumably years of screaming entangled with silence made him rasp. The high whine of his teenage years was gone, replaced by something deeper and rougher. “I can’t say that I am particularly enjoying my current environment.”

He turned his glance away from her, something unreadable on his face. 

“Good,” she said, voice firm, “We’re leaving here. Now.”

He gave her a slow, measured nod, the barest concession of compliance. Not trust. Not gratitude. 

Hermione exhaled, tension still coiling in her shoulders, but beneath it, a quiet determination took root. He was going with her, and that was the first step. The rest would follow, whether he liked it or not. She reached into the bag she’d brought with her, tossing him a pile of clothes. He caught them, staring at her quizzically. 

“Just temporary until you can get something else when we leave. I don’t think you’d blend in on the streets of London looking the way you do now.”

He said nothing, touching the fabric as if he’d never felt it before. Then he began to strip. Hermione went red in shock and turned around, but not before she caught a glimpse of his pale, scarred chest.

“Didn’t they tell you not to turn your back on a Death Eater?”

She whipped around, wand at the ready. 

Draco’s lips quirked, the barest trace of humour flickering across his otherwise impassive face as he stood shirtless. “I thought you’d have learned more during the war. Never trust, never turn your back.”

Hermione ignored the jab, keeping her gaze firmly locked on his face, trying to ignore the rest of him and definitely avoiding looking downwards. She felt the prickling of heat on her neck. “You can thank me later,” she muttered, though her tone carried little warmth.

He pulled the uniform off carefully, his movements almost clinical, as though he were peeling away a second skin. The scars and pale marks along his torso caught the light, sharp reminders of the years he’d spent in darkness. Draco’s eyes flicked to her, grey and calculating, reading her reaction as if daring her to look away. “I do hope you appreciate the spectacle,” he said, but his voice was flat and joyless and couldn’t quite convey the same sarcastic edge it used to. “Stripping me down to my most vulnerable form for your convenience.”

Hermione exhaled, exasperation sharpening her features. “It’s not for my convenience,” she said briskly. “It’s because you need to survive outside this cell. That’s all. Keep your dramatics to yourself, or we’ll never leave.”

He said nothing as he pulled a black pair of jeans over himself and smoothed out the grey shirt. He looked almost normal, if it weren’t for the shallow shadows in his cheeks and the stab of his collarbones against the shirt. 

Hermione fished in her bag again and drew out a black leather jacket and a pair of converse, throwing it at him, watching as he slipped it on. Faintly, she realised she’d never seen him in muggle clothes before. She couldn’t decide whether they suited him or not. If he had any complaints, he wasn’t voicing them.

“Alright. It’s time. Anything you need to grab before we go?”

He stared at her as if she was stupid. She supposed she was, for a question like that.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

Hermione motioned to the door, hoisting her back back over her shoulder. Draco followed without protest, but his silence seemed heavier than the echo of their footsteps against the stone. The Auror stationed outside stiffened when he saw them, but Hermione gave a brisk nod, and no words were exchanged. She could feel Draco beside her, rigid and taut, his gaze fixed straight ahead as though he were walking to his execution rather than release.

The corridors felt narrower on the way out, every shadow a reminder of what lingered here. Hermione’s mind flickered back to her own first visit- the suffocating weight, the despair. But Draco didn’t glance at the walls, or the guards they passed, or even at her. He kept his chin lifted just enough to be defiant, yet his eyes remained locked on some distant point, unblinking, determined. As if he could will himself past this place by sheer force of will.

They descended the stone stairwell in silence, each footstep ringing hollow. Hermione found herself stealing glances at him, but his expression was unreadable, jaw tight, hands curling occasionally into fists as though resisting the urge to tremble. At the entrance, she eyed the passageway down to his old cell wearily. He said nothing, but the tension in his body spoke loudly enough. 

At last, the heavy doors of Azkaban opened with a groan that reverberated through her chest. Cold air rushed in, briny and sharp, carrying the scent of the sea. The light that spilled inside was pale, weak through a bank of cloud, but it was enough to make Draco halt just on the threshold.

He looked up.

For a moment, Hermione forgot to breathe. His chest rose sharply, then again, deeper this time, as though dragging the salt air into every corner of himself. Spray from the ocean caught the breeze, peppering his face and dampening his pale hair. He closed his eyes and stood perfectly still, as if absorbing the entire sky, the sea, the air, all of it, into the hollowness carved inside him.

When he opened them again, his pupils shrank against the grey daylight, a faint wince twisting his features. He squinted, almost glaring at the brightness, though it was nothing more than the weak glow of an overcast morning. Five years without the sun, Hermione realised, had made even this pallid sky too much for him.

She said nothing, only watched, silent as stone, while he breathed in freedom for the first time.

“I had forgotten what the sky looked like,” he murmured. Despite his coldness, his malice, Hermione still felt a warm and genuine joy form up inside her at the sight of him. He was free. Finally, She let him stand there for a good five minutes, until eventually she tentatively stepped forward, gesturing to him to follow her.

“So here’s the plan. We’re too far north to apparate all the way to the safehouse and I don’t want to take you back through the Ministry Floo. That’s the only one that’s connected to this place, it won’t allow us to go anywhere else. I’m going to apparate us to Aberdeen, which is as close to the mainland as I can get. I don’t know if you’ve apparated before, even if you have it will have been a long time, so it won’t be pleasant. Remember to breathe. In the interest of keeping your transport out of the media, we’ll take a muggle plane down to Gatwick, then apparate again to the safehouse.”

“No.”

“No?” Great. He was being difficult already. She hadn’t even finished detailing her plan.

“I want to go to McDonalds.”

She stopped and stared at him in disbelief. In the realm of everything he could have ever said to her, she would have not ranked this one as a possibility. She would have thought to mishear him, but the sentence had been uttered in such a definite manner she couldn’t deny what she’d heard.

“Excuse me?”

“I want a fucking cheeseburger, Granger. Is that a crime?”

Hermione blinked at him, mouth parting as if she might protest, but no words came out. Of all the obstacles she had prepared herself to navigate, resentment, sarcasm, mistrust, Draco Malfoy demanding a cheeseburger had not been on the list.

“A cheeseburger?” she repeated flatly, certain he was mocking her.

“Yes,” he said, tone infuriatingly serious. “With fries. And a milkshake. Vanilla. No, chocolate. No-” He paused. “Surprise me. I’ve been locked up for five years. I believe I’m owed the courtesy of culinary exploration.”

Hermione folded her arms. “Five years of imprisonment and this is the first thing you want to do with your freedom?”

He stared at her, joyless and deadpan. “If this is the brave new world I’ve been released into, then yes. I’ll require sustenance befitting a free man.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, torn between laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation and exasperation. All of her careful planning, two weeks of it, and he wanted to stop to get a cheeseburger. “You’re being ridiculous.”

The look he gave her was genuinely hateful. “Does it sound like I'm fucking joking to to you? I’m not leaving unless I get a cheeseburger.”

Unfortunately to her, it did not sound like he was joking at all. It sounded like he was completely insane and unstable. If she was honest, the way he had raised his voice had scared her.

“I’m afraid I'm not aware of any McDonalds on the North Sea, so you’ll at least have to cooperate as far as Aberdeen. Are you ready?”

He looked at her in mild surprise as if he had been expecting the journey to end here, as if it had all been a cruel trick to show him a glimpse of freedom and then rip it away again. She could see it in his eyes that he didn’t really believe anything she was saying, a tired weariness underlined with fear of where it was she was really taking him. She almost felt bad for him. Almost.

He didn’t reply. She linked her arm around his and grasped his cold hands in her fingers, trying to ignore how his long fingernails were like pins in her, and waved her wand. Crack.

The world went black and Hermione felt herself being squeezed through a long and dark tunnel, no wider than a pipe, the strain of it knocking the breath from her. She hated travelling this way. It felt as if her entire being had been compressed, squeezed into a long noodle, being pushed out of some sort of machine. Light exploded into the darkness up ahead as they hurtled towards it, and with another resounding crack they materialised into a foggy wooded area.

Draco’s fingers, which had been gripping hers so hard she thought he may break her hand, loosened as he staggered to the ground and promptly vomited the contents of his stomach onto the bed of leaves below them. She sighed. She had warned him. He hadn’t been lying. The sludge of half digested lentil soup decorated the ground.

“That,” he said, wiping his mouth in disgust as he staggered to his feet, “Was horrific.”

Hermione arched an eyebrow, tucking her wand away. “I did tell you to breathe through it.”

He shot her a glare, pale and unsteady, his hair clinging damply to his temple. “Forgive me if I wasn’t exactly in the mood for travel advice while being wrung through a fucking keyhole.”

“Better than a prison cell, don’t you think?” she said, voice clipped but laced with just enough smugness to rankle.

Draco leaned against a tree, pulling in a deep breath of damp air, and for the briefest moment, something almost reverent crossed his face. The fog, the smell of earth, the distant call of a bird… it was freedom, raw and imperfect. But as quickly as it appeared, the look vanished, replaced by his trademark disdain. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find myself nauseated in your company.”

Hermione snorted, adjusting the strap of the satchel slung over her shoulder. “Come on. We’re in the park. City centre isn’t far, and if you still want your processed slop we’d best get moving.”

He gave her a long look, one that hovered on the edge of incredulousness. “You’re actually taking me to McDonalds?”

She rolled her eyes. “You asked, didn’t you?”

His lips twitched, not quite a smile, but close. “Careful, Granger. If you continue indulging my whims, I might start believing you’re flirting with me.”

She turned briskly, embarrassed and mildly horrified, as she started down the narrow dirt path. “Keep your fantasies to yourself, Malfoy.”

He pushed himself off the tree, following with uneven steps. “Duly noted. But don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy seeing me chained up. I'm sure you've longed for it for the past decade.”

“You’re disgusting and I hate you,” she shot back without turning.

If she hadn't of known better, she might have thought that she heard a short laugh from him as the fog curled around them.

And so there Hermione found herself, sat in the centre of the city in Aberdeen, watching Draco Malfoy devourer his second cheeseburger. Hermione sat stiffly in the plastic chair, her elbows tucked close as if sheer posture might insulate her from the chaos around them. Children shrieked somewhere near the ball pit, a fryer hissed in the background, and the scent, she didn’t even know what it was, it just smelled like McDonalds - she might never escape it.

Across from her, Draco Malfoy looked like a caricature of himself. Black jacket too broad at the shoulders, jeans slightly sagging at the hips, pale hair falling into his eyes. And yet, with a paper wrapper torn open in front of him and a cheeseburger halfway demolished in his hands, he seemed disturbingly at ease.

He took an enormous bite, chewed with an expression of near-theatrical consideration, then washed it down with a slurp from his strawberry milkshake. Hermione’s choice.

“Well,” he announced, dabbing his mouth with a flimsy napkin as though it were a fine silk cloth, “I can confirm: this is both the worst and best thing I’ve ever eaten. Positively vile. I adore it.”

Hermione pressed her lips together. “You grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth eating the finest the world had to offer, and now you’re sitting here praising something that barely qualifies as food.”

“Exactly.” Draco leaned back, gesturing grandly with the half-eaten burger. “It’s gloriously base. No pretence, no pretentiousness. Utterly based in muggle sensibilities. Just meat, bread, and a suspicious slice of cheese that surely violates several natural laws. It’s revolting. It’s perfect.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “You’re mental.”

He took another bite, speaking around it. “And you’re kidding yourself, sitting there pretending you don’t want one.”

“I don’t,” she said quickly, reaching for her black coffee.

“Liar.” He said, lifting the what remained of his second cheeseburger from its wrapper and holding it out toward her, one pale brow arched in challenge. “Go on, Granger. Don’t let me suffer this cultural experience alone.”

She stared at it, lips pursed, then back at him. His expression was maddeningly expectant, as though he knew she’d give in just to shut him up. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“I’m not sharing your food Malfoy,” she said primly. “Who knows what kinds of diseases you’ve picked up from half of the girls in Slytherin over the years.”

He smirked. “None that are transmissible this way.” He took a bite of the second burger himself, speaking between mouthfuls.

“Suit yourself. You don’t deserve my sloppy seconds anyway.”

Hermione groaned, burying her face briefly in her hands. “Why am I even here?”

“Because,” he said smugly, licking a spot of ketchup from his thumb, eyes on her as he did so, “You once told me that you love a good lost cause.”

Everything he said was a riddle, an insult, a jab, had a double meaning, even when he was being civil. She found it tiring beyond belief, though supposed this was probably a good sign. That he hadn’t entirely remained the half-crazed shadow she’d encountered in Azkaban just two weeks prior was a good sign, it was just unfortunate that she had to be the one to deal with his mood swings. Hermione drummed her fingers against the paper cup, staring into the dark liquid like it might offer her patience. “You know, for someone who claims to loathe me, you seem quite eager for me to share your food.”

And that was it. Without knowing, she’d infringed on some sort of boundary in his head again. “Don’t flatter yourself. Just because you imagine yourself a more benevolent captor than my previous one, it doesn’t make it true.” He waved a hand at the tray between them, now littered with crumpled wrappers and empty fry cartons. “I’m eager to eat in your presence because I have to. I’ve no galleons, no vault, and I rather doubt a Dark Mark affords me the benefits it once used to.”  

He spat a half chewed mouthful onto the tray in front of them. “Take it back if you don’t want to share.” He looked at her as if she’d been the one to tell him to spit it out.

“You’re disgusting,” she muttered, taking a scalding sip of coffee that did nothing to mask the heat rising in her chest.

He leaned forward, lowering his voice just enough to make it feel like a whisper. “Disgusting? What’s disgusting is your attempts to tame me.”

Hermione blinked, caught off guard. “Huh?”

“She feigns innocence, of course. You dragged me out of my hole, dressed me up like a Muggle, and took me to a Muggle fast food place. You can’t tell me this wasn’t exactly what you wanted all along.”

She set her cup down with a little more force than necessary, the coffee sloshing dangerously close to the rim. “Believe it or not, Malfoy, my ambitions run a bit higher than babysitting you through your first Happy Meal. Besides, you wanted to come here.”

His face twisted into a hateful snarl. “Of course. I’m sure your little do-gooder heart leapt at the idea. ‘Malfoy wants to go to a Muggle food place! Malfoy is going along with the plan, I’ll win his trust this way, he’s being such a good boy.’” His sneer curled sharp as a blade. “Tell me, Granger, do you write all your case notes like that? Pat yourself on the back while you drag me about like a dog on a lead?”

Her mouth dropped open, stung more than she wanted to admit. “That is not what this is.”

“No?” His voice remained low, biting and brittle. “Then what is it? You, parading me through the streets, buying me food like a charity project. Do you enjoy it? The power, the leash, the little thrill of proving to yourself I’m human after all? Or are you happy you finally clawed your way above your betters?”

Hermione’s fingers clenched around her coffee cup so hard she feared it might crack. She fought to keep her voice even. “Malfoy. You need to get over yourself. You’re alive because of me. You’re sitting here, eating, free, because I went to bat for you when no one else would. If I wasted as much energy as you seem to on resentment, I’d have left you there to rot. And this,” she gestured at the demolished wrappers, the sticky table, the strawberry milkshake sweating condensation between them, “again, was your idea.”

He gave a short, humourless laugh, eyes flicking toward the glass front of the restaurant, scanning the passersby with sharp suspicion. “Yes, but whose idea was it to let me have it? You always get the last word, Granger. Don’t think I don’t see it. This is about control.”

She stared at him, stunned. “Control? You asked for a cheeseburger, Malfoy.”

“And you gave it to me.” His pale eyes snapped back to her, gleaming with something bitter, paranoid. “What’s the angle? Hmm? Do you write it in your report? Subject shows improvement, subject assimilates to Muggle culture, subject is docile enough to be paraded before the Wizengamot.” He spat the words with venom, his hand tightening around the limp paper wrapper like it was a noose.

Hermione opened her mouth, closed it, then drank the last of her coffee as if it was a shot. Her patience, thin as gossamer, frayed dangerously close to snapping. “You think I went through hell at the Ministry for that? To humiliate you? To write glowing bloody progress notes? Merlin’s sake, Malfoy, you’re just not that important.”

That made him flinch. Just barely. A flicker of something wounded beneath the spite.

He masked it quickly, standing so abruptly his chair screeched against the tile. A few heads turned. Draco ignored them, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his ill-fitting jacket, shoulders hunched. “Finished?” he asked, voice clipped.

Hermione pressed her lips together, gathering her things with precise, deliberate movements. “Yes.”

They left the bright chaos of the restaurant behind, stepping into the damp, fog-heavy evening. Hermione pulled her jacket tighter around herself, the cool air biting after the greasy warmth inside. Draco stalked a few paces ahead, his posture radiating unease. Every shadow, every passerby seemed to draw his sharp gaze.

And despite her frustration, Hermione felt the root of why he was acting this way. He wasn’t just being difficult. He didn’t trust her, didn’t trust anyone, and every moment of freedom must have felt like the floor was about to be pulled from under him. It didn’t make him any easier to live with. But she understood. For now, she let the silence stretch between them, heavy as the fog curling through the Aberdeen streets.

They arrived at the Aberdeen Dyce airport later than she’d intended, almost missing check in. The further north you went into Scotland, the later the buses always seemed to be. It was a small and remote terminal, tucked on the outskirts of the city, with little to no staff. She held her breath as she handed the check-in officer their fraudulent passports, praying her muggle contact had at least made them semi-believable. The man squinted at the passports, then up at them, then back at the passports.

“Mr and Mrs Specter?”

Hermione almost felt herself die in that moment. She’d seen the matching surnames, but hadn’t noticed the titles. She’d asked the forger to make them related to one another, but this hadn’t quite been what she’d meant. Malfoy looked at her as if he was going to kill her there and then, but quickly changed his demeanor as the passport officer eyed him warily. Hermione’s lips trembled into what she hoped passed as a casual smile, though her pulse thudded at her throat. “Yes,” she said briskly. “That’s us.”

The officer’s gaze lingered, suspicion flickering across his lined face. He glanced at Draco again, who stood taut beside her, grey eyes wide with incredulity. Hermione prayed he’d hold his tongue.

And then, miraculously, he did, his mouth twisting into something resembling charm. “Honeymoon,” Draco said smoothly, his voice exaggerated, just shy of mocking. He wrapped a lanky arm around her and to her horror, kissed her check with cold soft lips. “Rather last-minute. But love finds a way.”

Hermione’s jaw tightened so sharply she thought she might crack a tooth, but the officer chuckled, shook his head, and stamped their passports. “Enjoy your flight, Mr and Mrs Specter.”

Draco plucked the documents from the counter with a graceful flourish and stalked away before Hermione could breathe again. She hurried after him, clutching her satchel like a lifeline. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and grimaced, seeming to regret his decision to taunt her for his own sake.

The moment they were clear of the desk, she hissed under her breath, “Are you insane? Honeymoon?”

He didn’t slow, weaving through the thin crowd of travellers toward security as if he was the one leading her out of this place. “You’re the one who signed us up for marital bliss. I merely embellished. Pick a better cover story next time, the thought of being your husband is more repulsive than a hundred years at Azkaban.”

Hermione’s nostrils flared. “You could have just nodded and said yes.”

Draco shot her a sidelong glance. “Where’s the fun in that?”

They joined the short security queue, the line inching toward the metal detectors. Hermione slipped off her coat, forced her breathing steady. Her forged documentation might have passed the desk, but there were still scanners, guards, questions. Any slip could bring the entire charade crashing down.

Draco, meanwhile, looked everywhere but forward. His gaze snapped from uniformed guards, their guns, to the fluorescent lights overhead, to the man behind them adjusting his suitcase. Every muscle in his body coiled tighter with each step.

“Stop glaring,” Hermione muttered from the corner of her mouth.

“I’m observing,” he replied sharply.

“You’re drawing attention.”

“I don’t give a fuck.” His fingers twitched at his sides, restless. “I don’t trust this. Muggle checkpoints. No escape routes. What’s to stop them from handing me back to the Ministry the moment they realise what I am? Why are there guards here with those metal muggle wands? This place makes me want to rip my skin off.”

Hermione kept her eyes forward, her tone low and deliberate. She didn’t really feel like explaining the cause of why airport security had become so much more restrictive in recent years. How do you explain 9/11 to a pureblood wizard? “Airports make everyone want to rip their skin off. They won’t do anything. They don’t know who you are. That’s the point of the passports. You’re Daniel Specter. Forget Draco Malfoy.”

He gave a harsh laugh under his breath. “There’s nothing to forget.”

The line shuffled forward. Hermione forced her posture calm, even as his words dug under her skin.

When they reached the trays for belongings, Draco stared at the instructions on the sign like it was written in a foreign language. Hermione had to elbow him into compliance, hissing, “Shoes off. Jacket off. Empty your pockets.”

His glare could have flayed her alive, but he obeyed, slamming his trainers into the tray, shrugging off the black jacket with a violent twist. “Degrading,” he muttered.

“It’s security,” she snapped.

“It’s below me,” he bit back, stepping through the metal arch warily as though it might electrocute him. For a moment Hermione thought it might, but he was cleared through without trouble, as was she. 

The moment Hermione’s feet hit the linoleum on the other side of the checkpoint, she glanced at her watch and swore under her breath. Boarding had already begun. “Come on,” she muttered, snatching her coat from the plastic tray and bolting forward.

Draco snatched his jacket with less urgency, straightening it with the care of a man who had nowhere to be. “What possible consequence could there be if we-”

“Final call for passengers Specter, Daniel and Sarah. Gate 6,” the announcement boomed over the speakers.

Hermione froze for only half a second before grabbing his wrist and yanking. “That!”

They broke into a run, weaving through clusters of slow-moving travellers. Draco stumbled once, still unsteady on legs that had only just remembered what freedom was, but pride alone kept him from collapsing against her. “Specter?” he hissed as they careened around a corner, as if he’d only just realised that the fake name given prior applied to him. “You saddled me with Specter?”

“Shut up and run!”

The gate loomed ahead, the attendant standing with arms crossed and a face like thunder. Hermione skidded to a halt, breathless, thrusting the passports forward.

“You’re late,” the woman snapped, snatching the documents. “The whole flight’s been waiting on you.”

“Apologies,” Hermione said quickly, trying not to sound as ragged as she felt. Beside her, Draco was panting like he might collapse, but still managed a condescending jab.

“Truly, madam, the fault lies with my bride. She has a terrible sense of direction.”

Hermione nearly stomped on his foot. The attendant shoved their passports and tickets back into her hand with a glare sharp enough to cut glass. “Gate closes now. Move.”

They stumbled down the jet bridge, Draco smirking despite his breathlessness. “She bought it. Imagine that. Just married, lost, and late, how very romantic.”

Hermione didn’t dignify that with a reply.

The cabin was already packed, faces turning toward them as they squeezed down the aisle. A chorus of sighs and mutters followed in their wake. Hermione kept her head down, ignoring the pointed glares, until at last she located their row.

“Sit,” she ordered under her breath.

To her mild surprise, Draco slipped into the window seat without argument, pressing his forehead briefly to the cool glass as though he might vanish into it. Hermione slid into the aisle seat, her heart still racing, and only then noticed the miracle: the middle seat was empty.

A small blessing.

She buckled herself in, fingers fumbling more than she cared to admit. Draco, by contrast, lounged back in his seat, stretching his long legs into the space as though he owned the plane. His profile was unreadable in the dim light, but his knuckles drummed an anxious rhythm against his thigh.

“You look ridiculous,” Hermione muttered, eyes flicking to the window where his reflection wavered in the glass.

“I feel ridiculous,” he said, not looking at her. “And exposed. We’re surrounded, nowhere to run, and if this contraption falls out of the sky, all because you thought it wise to trap me in a tin can with two hundred muggles- ”

“It won’t fall,” she interrupted, sharper than she meant to. “It’s safe.”

His grey eyes slid to her then, cool and mistrustful. “So you keep saying.”

Hermione exhaled slowly, leaning her head back against the seat. The engines began to hum, the air heavy with anticipation. She’d wished that she’d snuck diazepam onto the plane with her to shut him up with, given him a real taste of the full gambit of the muggle experience. 

By the time the plane had levelled out above the clouds, Hermione had almost convinced herself she might survive the ordeal without throttling him. Almost. That changed quickly.

“I hate you. I hate you so much. I’ve been smuggled out of that place, dressed in charity-shop rags, and now I’m caged in with,” his lip curled briefly, “-Muggles eating rehydrated pasta. The Ministry calls this rehabilitation. I call it a humiliation ritual.”

“It’s survival,” Hermione said tightly. “Unless you’d prefer to go back.”

His laugh was sharp, bitter. “Back? If you make that idle threat one more time I'm going to snap your neck, and I don’t need magic to do it.”

Hermione’s patience thinned to a thread. “You’re alive. You’re out. That’s what matters.”

Draco’s face was humourless. “And what exactly do you expect from me in return? What exactly are the terms of this little rescue plan?”

“I expect,” Hermione said, low and clipped, “that you don’t make this harder than it already is.”

He stared at her in contempt. “Heavens forbid I inconvenience you..”

The words sat between them, sour and heavy. She turned away, resolute, refusing to rise to the bait. But out of the corner of her eye she caught him watching her again, restless, suspicious, fingers drumming against the armrest. He looked like a trapped animal in a cage, thrashing at the bars. Again, she forced herself to remember that he was probably going through things in his mind she couldn’t even begin to understand.

Two hours to London. Two hours of this.

A few minutes later, the plane hit a patch of turbulence. The cabin shuddered, overhead bins rattled, and a collective groan rose from the passengers. Hermione gripped the armrest, exhaling slowly to keep herself calm.

Draco’s weak composure faltered immediately. His hand shot to the empty space where his wand would have been, eyes darting toward the ceiling as though the turbulence were some malevolent spell rather than physics. His jaw tightened, and for a split second, Hermione saw it: the raw, unguarded panic of a man who had spent five years with every second bearing the potential of sudden pain, every movement punished, every escape impossible.

“Control yourself,” she muttered, voice low, though not unkind.

He ignored her, fingers twitching, gripping at the armrests until his knuckles were white. “Do you think they’d let me fall? Just throw me out of a window, or-” He cut himself off, shaking his head as though trying to expel the thought.

Hermione leaned slightly toward him, her tone firmer now. “No one is throwing you out of a plane. Except me, if you keep being such an asshole. You’re alive, and you’re breathing. That’s all that matters.”

His pale eyes met hers, sharp but shadowed with something fragile, like ice cracking under heat. 

“I hate feeling like this,” he muttered, seemingly to himself. “This is just a larger cell.”

Hermione’s fingers hesitated, half a reflex to touch his arm to offer comfort, but she stopped herself. Instead, she leaned back, letting him see she wasn’t going to scold or push him, just bear witness. “Then stay alive, if only to spite me. That’s your rebellion. Survive until the next step, and the one after that. We’ll get there. I promise you’ll be safe.”

He said nothing, staring out the small oval window, hands still twitching, jaw tight. But the tension in his shoulders eased just fractionally.

For a long while, neither spoke. The plane hummed steadily beneath them, the city lights far below. Hermione sipped her water, eyes flicking to him now and then. He was still poised to snap at her for the smallest thing, still dripping with suspicion and spite, but he at least wasn’t staring out of the window as if he was imagining jumping to his own death anymore.

After what felt like a lifetime, The plane began its descent. Draco’s gaze darted everywhere, hands gripping the armrests like he expected the world to snap apart around him. The hum of engines, the rattling of the landing gear, the low murmur of passengers, every slight noise seemed to add to his agitation. 

“... and you really think let me just walk off this plane?” he asked, voice tight.

“They won’t even know who you are,” Hermione said firmly, gripping his shaking hand briefly for emphasis, just enough to anchor him. “You’re Daniel Specter. We’re stepping off like normal people. Nobody is coming for you.”

He snorted and ripped his hand away, but there was no mirth in it. 

The cabin bucked slightly as the plane touched down. Passengers jostled, luggage rattled, and Draco’s hand twitched once more toward his non-existent wand. “Eyes forward,” she whispered, watching him until the plane finally came to a stop. They let other passengers go first, then rose. They navigated the narrow aisle, Draco trailing behind her like a wary shadow, scanning every flight attendant and security camera as though plotting escape routes. Hermione’s heart thudded with each glance he threw around the cabin. And then, finally, they were out and on solid airport ground.

Hermione led him swiftly through Arrivals, weaving past clusters of passengers at baggage claim, keeping a brisk pace that barely allowed him time to scan the crowd with suspicious, darting eyes. Draco’s shoes landed firm against the tile floor, each step tense, precise, as though he expected the world to collapse beneath him.

“You know,” he started, gearing himself up to say something unpleasant, “I usually get to be the one dragging girls a-” 

“Malfoy, for once, can you just shut up.”

Hermione didn’t glance at him. She ignored the remark entirely, heading towards a disabled toilet door at the far corner of the airport. Once there, she ushered him inside, pressing a hand to the door as she locked it. The small space smelled faintly of disinfectant and stale air, but it was private, secure. Draco’s eyes narrowed at her, suspicious even in this confined area.

“Prepare yourself,” she said, voice firm. “We’re almost done. Just one more step, and then you’ll be safe. We apparate one last time, then we’re in the safehouse.”

He let out a long, humourless sigh, running a hand over his face, hair mussed from the journey. He didn’t seem to have the energy to argue with her anymore, and for that she was glad. His eyes flicked to hers, something unguarded slipping through the mask of disdain. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he muttered.

Hermione took a deep breath, and grasped his arm gently. “Then let’s get there.”

She raised her wand, stepping back slightly, and whispered the incantation. The familiar crack of displacement echoed in the small, tiled room, and the world went black.

Draco’s fingers gripped hers instinctively, rigid with tension, knuckles white. Hermione held on, anchoring him as tightly as she dared, feeling the familiar tug and pressure of apparition. His breathing came fast and shallow, and for a brief second, she saw the boy he had been before Azkaban, the one shaped by fear and caution, hardened into something brittle and sharp.

And then, as abruptly as it had begun, the motion stopped. Hermione opened her eyes.

They were in the safehouse. She scanned the surroundings quickly, then Draco, to ensure she hadn’t spliced anything off of him as much as she was tempted to. He was pale and shaky, but no vomit this time. That was a plus. Everything was quiet, controlled. Grimmauld Place’s long hallway and staircase loomed in front of them. She exhaled slowly, releasing the tension coiled in her chest.

“Welcome to your new home,” she said softly, letting go of his arm. Draco didn’t move immediately, still staring around with narrowed eyes, calculating, suspicious. 

Hermione glanced at her watch and walked into the living room, him trailing behind her. The little hands glowed faintly in the dim light of the safehouse’s living room. Past seven. Merlin, no wonder her stomach felt hollow. The whole day of dealing with Draco and she hadn’t stopped once, her body had been running on adrenaline and black coffee.

She rubbed her temples and looked over at Draco, who was now perched rigidly on the edge of the sofa, as if he couldn’t remember how to sit and relax. “It’s after seven,” she said finally, her voice lighter than she felt. “I’m starving. You’ve already put away two cheeseburgers, fries and half a milkshake. Do you think you’ve got room for more?”

His gaze flicked up to hers, pale and sharp. No smirk this time, no lazy drawl. Just a flat stare. “I’ve got five years worth of room in my stomach.”

The words landed heavier than she’d expected. She swallowed, then forced a small, pragmatic smile. “Fair enough. I can cook something if you like. What do you want?”

That earned her a glimmer of the old Malfoy, his mouth curling faintly, but there was no warmth in it. “I’m not prepared to eat anything you cook yet. I’ve only just been released from Azkaban, I’d like to live long enough to experience my new life, however pathetic it is.”

Hermione huffed. “Charming as ever. I’m perfectly capable of cooking a decent meal.”

He leaned back a fraction, seemingly too exhausted to argue with her. “Get whatever you want. You haven’t eaten all day. You look weak and you’ve apparated us across the country twice today.”

“Is that your way of expressing concern?”

“It’s my way of stating facts,” Draco said tiredly, looking back at the floorboards as though their conversation had already ended.

Hermione hesitated, watching him for a heartbeat. His constant mood swings were giving her whiplash, and she felt as if every word exchanged between them required her to walk on eggshells. She reached for her satchel and pulled out her blackberry, thumbing the power button. Draco looked at it curiously.

“What is that?” he asked. 

“It’s a muggle device, it’s called a mobile telephone.”

“I know what a telephone is Granger. I’ve just never seen one so small.”

Numbly, she realised the last phone he would have probably seen before his imprisonment was the old bricks that businessmen around Canary Wharf used to carry, complete with antennas. He’d missed a lot. Jesus. She really did need to explain 9/11 to him at some point. And The Matrix.

“Well you’ll have to get acquainted with them, even the Wizarding world uses them these days. Here.” She reached into her bag and tossed him a small black device. He let it fall into his lap, staring at it blankly for a second. Then he picked up the mobile gingerly, holding it between his thumb and forefinger as though it might sprout fangs and bite him. He turned it over once, twice, frowning at the smooth black screen. “This looks like something the Weasley father would make in his shed. Are you sure it isn’t cursed?”

Hermione slid into an armchair opposite him, thumbing through the buttons on her own phone and trying to ignore that his mention of the Weasley’s had brought uncomfortable thoughts about Ron into her head. “It’s not cursed, Malfoy. It’s technology. Perfectly safe. Well, unless you throw it in water.”

He pressed experimentally at the keypad, watching the numbers glow green. He almost dropped it, scowling as though it had personally offended him. “Merlin’s balls. How does it do that?”

“That’s the point,” Hermione said patiently, biting back a smile. “Muggles found ways to achieve things we use magic for. Electricity, circuits, signals. Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the details.”

“You already are,” he muttered, though his gaze lingered on the screen, fascinated despite himself. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Eventually? Call people. Text people. Keep yourself from drawing attention by not looking like you’ve been in prison for half a decade. For now, don’t lose it. It has my number saved, which you can use to call me.”

He gave her a withering look. “Of course it does.”

Hermione ignored him and keyed through the contacts of her own phone. There were only two numbers saved into her new burner phone’s memory: Draco’s and a pizza place down the road from the safehouse. She dialed, holding the phone to her ear. Draco’s eyes followed her movements with wary curiosity.

“You’re summoning food with that thing?” he asked incredulously.

“It’s called ordering takeaway,” she said, waiting for the line to connect.

“That is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. What’s the point? Just conjure it.”

“Because conjured food is unstable and unsustainable,” she shot back automatically, her voice taking on the clipped cadence of a lecture. “Basic magical law. You can transfigure, multiply, summon, but you can’t conjure from nothing. Unless you’d like a meal that tastes like sawdust and vanishes halfway through your first bite?”

His mouth curled faintly. “You really can’t help yourself, can you? You’d lecture the Dark Lord himself if he got his wand movements wrong.”

Hermione glared at him, cheeks warming as the voice on the other end picked up. She straightened. “Yes, hello, I’d like to order a large meat feast, and garlic bread. Collection please. For Specter. Yes, 20 minutes is fine.” She rattled the order off, rehearsed, then hung up.

Draco’s eyes were closed. “Pizza. How pedestrian of you.”

She exhaled, setting the phone down on the arm of the chair. “You said I could order whatever I wanted.”

His smirk faded a fraction, cracking one eye open and looking at her. “True.”

Hermione’s brows arched. “That’s it? No cutting remark?”

“I can’t be bothered anymore, my wit has faded in your company,” Draco said tiredly, leaning back into the sofa as though the exchange had drained him.

For a moment, Hermione just watched him. It was as if he’d let his body relax for the first time in five years, and doing so had exhausted him. She realised that she’d never seen him fully untense what little muscle remained on his gaunt frame, and what remained was weak, dangerously so. It was obvious to her that he was struggling to continue the conversation.

“Well, I need to go pick it up. Try not to do anything evil while I'm gone.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I only deal in the dastardly and nefarious,” he muttered, half asleep.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but a faint smile tugged at her lips. She stood, slipping her bag strap over her shoulder. For a moment, she hesitated. He looked…fragile. That was not a word she’d ever have applied to Draco Malfoy in their school days. Malicious, smug, irritating, yes. Fragile? Never. But Azkaban had carved fragility into him whether he admitted it or not.

She pulled a blanket from the arm of the chair and tossed it lightly over his lap. His fingers twitched, almost tightening around it, though his eyes never opened.

“Don’t burn the place down,” she murmured, softer this time.

There was no reply, only the faint shift of his breathing evening out into something steadier. Hermione lingered just long enough to be sure, then slipped out into the cool night.

The takeaway shop was brightly lit, warm air spilling into the darkened street when she pushed through the door. The smell of garlic and oregano hit her, making her stomach twist with need. She collected the pizza, paid quickly, and stepped back outside into the brisk air, balancing the box against her hip.

On the walk back, her thoughts wouldn’t leave Draco. The way he’d studied the mobile, wary but captivated. The bitter humor lacing his words. The exhaustion carved so deep into his features that even sarcasm, his last shield, had dulled.

She tried not to dwell on it, but the truth pressed against her ribs: she didn’t know if she was meant to save him, guard him, or simply keep him from slipping back into the abyss Azkaban had left behind. He was clearly a mess, clearly in need of months, maybe years of therapy, yet all he had was her. She really had no idea what she was doing. She’d have to be enough, for now.

When she re-entered 12 Grimmauld Place the house was silent as ever. She kicked the door shut, hoisted the pizza box up, and turned into the living room.

Draco hadn’t moved from the sofa. The blanket had slipped half off his legs, and his head rested against the back cushion at an awkward angle. His mouth was parted slightly, but he didn’t stir at the sound of her return.

She stood there a moment, pizza box still warm in her hands, caught between irritation and sympathy. 

“Merlin help me,” she muttered under her breath, setting the pizza down.

Then, because she knew he’d mock her endlessly if he ever found out, she quickly tucked the blanket up around his chest before it could wake him, and sat down to eat.

The sound tore her out of half-dreams.

Screaming. Not sharp, not clear, muffled, strangled. Familiar, though she couldn’t place it, a sound that gnawed at the edges of her memory. Hermione jerked upright, her neck aching from the awkward angle of the armchair. The lamp beside her was still on, casting a weary pool of light into the otherwise darkened room. Outside the windows, night pressed thick and absolute.

She blinked blearily, trying to orient herself. The screaming hadn’t stopped. Hermione jolted awake in the armchair, heart hammering, her mind thick with sleep. It took her a split second to realise the sound wasn’t in her head. It was real and it was in the room.

Her eyes snapped to the sofa.

Draco was thrashing violently, tangled in the blanket like a trapped animal. His face was contorted in terror, sweat pouring down his temples. His lips moved rapidly, words spilling out broken and frantic, fragments of pleas and curses all twisted together: “-don’t-please-stop-no, no, NO-” before dissolving into a strangled cry. His nails scraped at the upholstery, clawing, as if trying to dig himself free from invisible hands.

“Draco!” Hermione lurched forward, stumbling to the sofa and almost sending the half eaten pizza flying, barely awake herself. She gripped his shoulder hard, shaking. “Wake up! You’re dreaming! Wake up!”

He didn’t. His body jerked beneath her hands with unnatural violence, his head thrashing side to side. For one horrifying moment, his eyes flew open but they were unfocused, wide and unseeing, pupils blown. He looked straight through her as if she weren’t there.

Her stomach dropped. 

“Draco!” she snapped again, panic edging her voice. She grabbed his face between her palms, forcing him still, though his body fought her, convulsing, sweat-slick skin slipping under her hands. “It’s not real! You’re not there!”

A guttural cry ripped from his throat, so raw it made her flinch. His hands shot up suddenly, seizing her wrists in an iron grip. His fingers dug deep into her skin until she felt the pinprick of blood against them, desperate, as though she were the one dragging him under.

“Let go-please-don’t-” His voice broke into a sobbing gasp, muscles rigid, breath tearing from his chest in shallow bursts.

Hermione’s heart pounded painfully. She wanted to wrench away, but she didn’t dare leave him like this. She leaned down, forcing her words through the chaos. “It’s me! Hermione! You’re not in Azkaban, you’re here, with me, at Grimmauld Place. Listen to me!”

His grip tightened, cutting off her circulation. His gaze snapped up to hers again, wild, trembling, uncomprehending.

Hermione drew in a sharp breath and slapped him across the face. Hard

“Draco Malfoy, wake UP.”

The name, sharp, commanding, sliced through.

He gasped, the sound shuddering out of him like a drowning man breaking the surface. His eyes focused at last, though they were wide with terror, chest heaving as if he couldn’t pull enough air into his lungs. His hands loosened on her wrists, falling limp into his lap.

Hermione stayed close, panting herself, trying to slow her own pulse and ignore the biting pain in her wrists. His entire body shook with the aftershocks, sweat plastering his shirt to his chest.

And then she saw the tears on his face. 

“Draco. Are you ok?”

What a stupid, stupid question. He looked up at her, dazed and surprised, as if this was the first moment he’d noticed she was there. For a long moment he didn’t answer. His lips parted, but no words came, only a shuddering inhale that rattled in his chest. Hermione could see it, the war inside him, the instinct to sneer, to push her away with something cold and cutting, fighting against the sheer weight of exhaustion dragging him under.

“No,” he whispered finally. His voice was hoarse, broken. “No, I’m not.”

Well, at least he was finally being honest with her. She shifted slightly, still crouched in front of him, unsure whether to reach for him again. “Do you…want to tell me what it was?” she asked softly.

Draco’s eyes flickered, grey and storm-dark, then fell to the floorboards. His jaw locked hard enough she thought he might crack a tooth. “You don’t want to know,” he said. The words weren’t defensive. They were hollow, flat, like he was trying to spare her.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t,” she pressed gently, though her heart was hammering.

His breath caught, a violent hitch, and his shoulders hunched as though he were bracing for a blow. His attempts at restraint were betrayed by the trembling in his slight frame. “It’s always the same,” he muttered, voice barely audible. “The red room. Sometimes it’s my mother. Sometimes it’s my father. Sometimes it’s Dumbledore. Sometimes it’s me.”

Hermione felt cold. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t real, that he was safe, that it was over, but she knew how useless those words sounded. She had lived through her own nightmares; the body couldn’t be convinced so easily.

So instead she said, steady and firm, “What did they do to you in there? Can you talk about it?”

He finally looked at her again, and the torture in his eyes almost made her wish he hadn’t. His breathing was still ragged but slower now, tears streaking pale cheeks he hadn’t even bothered to wipe clean. 

“I… don’t know. They did lots of things. I try not to think of them. The red room was always the worst. That’s where they kept the dementor.”

Hermione froze. For a second she thought she’d misheard him. A dementor.

“Draco… what did you just say?”

His gaze slid away again, down to his trembling hands, his voice a rasp. “The dementor. They liked to watch it feed on me.”

Hermione’s stomach lurched, a sick, twisting disbelief clawing at her. “That’s not possible. They left after the war, the Ministry said every last one either fled or was destroyed. Azkaban was supposed to be-”

“It hollowed me out. There’s nothing good left anymore. Every single memory I ever had that mattered is gone. I can’t remember what joy feels like. Not my mother holding me when I was a boy, not flying for the first time, not even…” He trailed off. “It took all of it. The warmth, the light. There is nothing there anymore.”

Hermione’s hands curled into fists against her knees, nails biting her palms. “Merlin.” She tried to steady herself with a hand against the sofa. She wanted to tell him it was over, that he’d never face it again, but the words turned to ash on her tongue. Because if the Ministry had allowed that thing to remain, had known it was there… she couldn’t be sure it was over.

Draco’s gaze stayed fixed on the floor, but his fingers twitched as though the shadow still lived in his skin. When he spoke again, it was clearer, more stable, absolute. Which made what he said all the worse.

“In the beginning, I fought it,” he said. “Every time they brought it in. I clawed the walls, screamed at it, screamed at them. Begged them to stop.” He laughed bitterly, as if the thought of his own suffering was amusing. “But you can only scream for so long before you realise it changes nothing.”

Hermione held her breath, unable to look away.

His next words came out flat. “After a while I stopped begging it to stop. I started begging them to let it take me. To let it finish. I wanted it to take whatever was left of me, rip out my soul, anything so I wouldn’t have to feel the cold anymore.”

Draco let out a slow, deep breath and dragged a shaking hand across his mouth. “They never did. They liked watching me break. They liked the way I would beg. That was the point. To them, I was a Death Eater. They wanted me hollow. They got what they wanted.”

Hermione’s heart pounded against her ribs, rage and grief swirling so violently she thought she might be sick. She reached out without thinking and caught his hand where it trembled on his knee. It was cold, far too cold.

“Draco,” she said quietly but fiercely. “You’re here. With me. That thing didn’t take you. It didn’t.”

He avoided her gaze. “Doesn’t feel like it,” he murmured. “Feels like there’s nothing left.”

“Then we’ll build something from what’s left,” she said, steady even as her own eyes burned. “Piece by piece if we have to. But they get to win. Not anymore.”

Draco stared at her for a long moment. His expression gave her the impression that she didn’t believe a word she was saying.

Chapter Text

Hermione sat at the dining room table, a mug of black coffee warming her hands, the rich aroma barely piercing the fog of exhaustion clinging to her. The events of the previous day weighed heavily on her both emotionally and physically. Even now, hours later, her muscles ached, her thoughts felt sluggish.

After Draco’s nightmare, she had at least managed to convince him to sleep in the bedroom. She had retreated to a separate room, hoping the space might offer both of them a moment to recover. She’d woken first, before him, and had caught a brief glimpse through the slightly ajar door. He had been curled beneath the blankets, pale features slack in sleep, chest rising and falling in even rhythm.

With a quiet exhale, she had slipped downstairs, careful not to wake him, and started breakfast. Now, sitting alone in the dim morning light, she let herself take a single, rare moment of calm, sipping the coffee and listening to the soft hollow ticking of the grandfather clock away in the drawing room.

“Morning,” she muttered to herself.

From upstairs, a muffled voice replied, gravelly and flat. “Morning.”

Hermione set her mug down, taking a deep breath. The tone was distant, controlled, a wall Draco had already begun to raise, even in sleep.

She glanced toward the stairwell, debating whether to attempt conversation now or wait until he fully surfaced. Her eyes wandered back to the table, to the plates of toast, eggs and fruit she’d prepared, and she sighed. She knew he wasn’t ready to talk about last night, and she had no intention of pushing him. Not yet. 

Minutes passed in quiet, broken only by the occasional creak of the floorboards upstairs and the shower running. Hermione sipped her coffee again, the bitterness grounding her in the present. Eventually, she heard the soft thud of feet on the stairs. Draco appeared in the doorway, his dark eyes bleary, hair tousled in a way that made him look younger, softer, more human. Yet the hardness around his gaze remained. He’d evidently chosen to ignore the pyjama top she’d set up there for him, wearing only the plaid bottoms, but it was plain that he did this not to make her uncomfortable but simply because he didn’t realise it might. Still, Hermione found herself embarrassed to be in the room with him shirtless.

“Don’t know why you’re looking so cheerful,” he muttered, voice low.

“Coffee helps,” Hermione said simply, nodding toward the pot she’d brought through from the kitchen for them to share. “You should have some. You’ll need it.”

He lingered in the doorway, hesitating as though the small domesticity of the scene was foreign to him. His eyes swept the room once, twice, as if trying to commit the layout to memory. Only when he’d catalogued it all did he step inside. His bare feet made almost no sound, but she could feel the suspicion trailing with him. Eventually, he crossed the room, and lingered next to the chair across from her. He didn’t sit down, hands gripping the chair back so tightly his knuckles were bone-white. His eyes flicked to her, sharp and guarded, then away again.

Hermione studied him, her own exhaustion giving way to careful observation. His eyes lingered on the food, then back to her, wary. “You can sit, you know,” she said softly. “It’s a dining room, not an interrogation room.”

For a moment she thought he might snap at her, but instead he pulled the chair out and lowered himself onto it with deliberate slowness, like the act of sitting itself was dangerous. His shoulders stayed high, stiff. He looked at the food on the table, eyes lingering on the plastic disposable cutlery.

“You don’t have to talk about last night,” she said gently, keeping her tone light, neutral. “Eat first. Get some strength back.”

He just stared at her blankly, as if he couldn’t even be bothered to try upholding basic social interaction. “I don’t need breakfast.”

“Sure,” she said. “If you’d rather starve while I drink all your coffee, be my guest.”

Draco’s lips twitched, almost a smirk.

"I prefer tea."

He finally reached over and picked off a bunch from the plate of grapes in the centre, and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot. Well, at least he was still eating. Another small victory.

Hermione leaned back slightly, letting herself watch him without comment. He sipped the coffee carefully, almost as if measuring the temperature against some invisible standard, then popped a grape into his mouth. 

“You didn’t wake me,” he said finally, voice quiet, almost defensive.

“I thought it better you get some sleep,” Hermione replied evenly. “You looked exhausted.” She didn’t mention that he still did. It was obvious.

He shrugged, a small, almost imperceptible movement. “I’m fine,” he said, indifferent.

Hermione took another sip of coffee, letting the warmth ground her. She set the mug down and cleared her throat, trying to summon the courage to admit something she hadn’t planned on saying.

“I need to run a personal errand today,” she said carefully, choosing her words. “It shouldn’t take too long, but I’ll be gone for a few hours.”

Draco’s eyes flicked up from the plate of grapes he was picking at. “And what do you intend to do with me while you’re gone?” 

Hermione hesitated, feeling the weight of the question. For the first time in a long while, she didn’t have a ready answer. “I… I don’t know,” she admitted honestly. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

Draco blinked at her, then let out a short, sharp laugh that startled her. Not mocking, not cruel, a genuine and pleasant sound that she’d never expected to come out of him. She watched as some of the white hot tension eased from him. “You meticulously staged a heist from the most secure wizarding prison in the world and now you don’t know what to do?”

Hermione felt her cheeks warm in embarrassment. 

“Well it was hardly a heist Malfoy, I work for the Ministry.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed slightly, amusement still flickering alongside suspicion. “You work for the Ministry,” he said slowly, “but yesterday you went to great lengths to keep us off their radar. You didn’t want anyone to know we’d returned, remember? I can’t help but be curious as to why.”

Hermione winced, caught off guard by his sharp recollection. “Well… yes,” she admitted, shifting in her chair. “But that was a precaution. I couldn’t risk- look, it’s complicated. The head of the department knows you’re with me at least.” She neglected to mention that said head was Harry. She had the distinct feeling that it wouldn't go over too well.

Draco said nothing for a long, silent minute. After a while, his voice broke the silence. 

“How is it,” he asked, looking around the room wearily, “that we are here?”

Hermione glanced at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

He gestured vaguely at the walls with one hand, eyes sharp and restless. “This house. The décor, that hideous umbrella stand in the hall. The serpent carvings on the stair rail. I hadn’t been here before, but my mother described it often. This is the house she grew up in. Is she involved in this?”

Hermione froze, her mouth half open, then shut it again. She should have anticipated this. Of course Narcissa would have spoken of it. “No, she’s not.” she said carefully. “It belonged to the Black family, but it has been in use by a group that resisted Voldemort for a long time now. After Sirius Black died it passed to Harry. He was Sirius’s godson. Harry, Ron and I stayed here for a time during the war.”

Draco turned his head so quickly it was almost a snap. His expression hardened, pale features sharpening into something darker. “Potter?” His lips were pressed into a hard line. “Potter owns this house?”

“Yes.” Hermione’s voice was even, but her stomach felt tight at the hatred flaring in his eyes.

“Of course he does,” Draco spat, looking disgusted.

Hermione lifted her chin, fighting to keep her tone level. “Sirius hated this place, and everything it stood for. If it were up to him, the house would have been destroyed entirely. Harry didn’t ask for it, didn’t want it. He inherited it. And now it’s being put to use for something better than dust and prejudice.”

Draco’s jaw clenched. He turned away sharply, as though looking at the room itself angered him. Hatred still flickered across his face, but beneath it there was something else: a flicker of loss, of something taken that he hadn’t even known could be his. In all honesty, she wasn’t sure she could blame him. She’d seen the family tree tapestry upstairs. Draco was right. Under normal circumstances, with all other viable descendants and male heirs deceased, Malfoy would have been next in line to inherit the place.

He looked around as if the walls themselves had wronged him, a mixture of anger and raw grief of something she didn’t understand. Hermione let the silence stretch a moment, giving him space.

Finally, she sighed and stood up. “Well, since we’re here… let’s start the tour.” 

She left the room and walked back into the main hall, perceiving Draco’s shadow following her. As she turned back to speak to him she stumbled, toe catching hard on something heavy and cumbersome. She looked down. 

Crash.

The troll-leg umbrella stand she’d walked into toppled, clattering against the ground. From somewhere in the hallway came a sudden shrill and deafening shriek.

“FILTH! PERVERSION! VILE MUDBLOOD IN MY HOUSE AGAIN-”

Draco staggered back in shock, eyes wide in confusion, darting around the room trying and failing to trace the source. He didn’t have to look for long. A dusty pair of velvet curtains adorning one of the walls had flown open, and he stared up at the screaming portrait of Walburga Black. 

Hermione sighed, rolling her eyes. “And that’s your welcome committee.”

The portrait, for the first time that Hermione had ever seen, seemed to have been stunned into silence by the sight of Draco. Small beady eyes painted with sharp brushstrokes regarded him with curiosity. They drifted from Draco, to Hermione, to Draco again, then narrowed into hateful slits.

“BLOOD TRAITOR! You dare to disgrace the hall of my fathers by tracking this muddied blood through my carpets?!”

Draco spun to face the portrait full on. Draco’s lips twisted into a cold, deliberate smile, as if he’d been waiting for this moment. “Ah. You must be Walburga Black. I’ve heard about you. Truly, you are even uglier than I'd imagined you to be. If this is your best portrait, I dread to think of how you looked in real life.”

The portrait shrieked, flaring as if the very walls themselves were alive with her rage. “How dare you! TRAITOR! You shame my bloodline by daring to shelter that animal under my roof again!” The portrait looked at Hermione, as if she wanted to leap from the painting and strangle her.

Draco’s eyes glittered with contempt, though he seemed to be enjoying himself more than anything. “Do not give way to delusion by imagining yourself to hold any power, hag. This house is my dominion by bloodright. Your opinion is thoroughly inconsequential.”

“You dare call thyself master here, boy? Whilst consorting with common blooded whores? My forebearers-”

“I consort with whomever I will,” Draco snapped, cutting her off with the precision of a fine sword. “And you will learn your place. You exist to decorate these walls, nothing more. If you dare to speak another word of insult toward my guest or I, I will eviscerate you so completely that your shrieks will never echo through these miserable corridors again.”

The portrait quivered. Hermione realised incredulously that this shade, this imitation of Walburga, almost appeared afraid. Yet Draco did not relent. He leaned slightly forward, gaze locked on the artwork like a cat eyeing it’s next meal. “Do you understand, you screeching, poorly painted cunt? You are here only because I allow it. Every inch of this house will learn to bend to my authority, whether you will it or not. So submit whilst you still can.”

“I will never submit to a filthy blood traitor. Decades of fine breeding wasted. What an immeasurable disappointment to both of your noble houses,” the portrait hissed, voice shrill and suffocating, though it seemed nervous.

Draco didn’t blink. He held the portrait’s painted gaze like a snake charmer pinning a viper, his cruel eyes glinting cold silver in the dim hallway. Hermione felt the air change hotter, thick, as though the pressure of a storm was building. The hairs on the back of her arms stood on end.

“A disgrace to your bloodline-” Walburga’s hiss cut through the hall like a blade, but it faltered as Draco tilted his head, his expression sliding from amused contempt into something colder, darker.

“Silence.”

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the canvas itself began to smolder at the edges. Thin tendrils of smoke curled up from the ornate frame. Walburga’s painted face contorted, her small black eyes going wide with something Hermione had never seen in them before: fear.

“No-no! You wouldn’t dare-” the portrait screeched, but the sound cracked, distorting, breaking into a warbling, sickening noise as the flames spread like oil across the canvas.

“I dare anything,” Draco said. He laughed at her screams. “I am a Malfoy. I am a Black. And I don’t tolerate parasites in my house.”

The fire leapt, devouring the portrait in great sheets of orange and gold. Walburga’s voice pitched high, twisting into something inhuman - a keening, sick sound, like a scream fed through broken glass. The velvet curtains blackened and curled, her painted hands clawing at the frame as though she could drag herself free.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, it ended. The last shreds of her form disappeared behind the flames, leaving only a charred, empty frame and the acrid smell of burned canvas. The portrait slid to the ground, and fell face down on the floor. The noise died, swallowed by silence so complete it rang in Hermione’s ears.

She turned to Draco. The glow of the firelight danced in his eyes, silver and molten, like some dangerous creature barely restrained. His hands hung at his sides, perfectly still. He wasn’t smirking now.

Hermione swallowed. “You-” Her voice caught, and she had to start again. “You don’t have your wand.”

Draco finally tore his eyes from the portrait, looking back at Hermione plainly as if what he had done was normal. “I don’t need one to do some things.”

The hallway still smelled of smoke, though aside from a few soot marks, the wall remained undamaged. Hermione took a slow breath, coughing.

“It had a permanent sticking charm on it. I don’t understand how it was possible for you to do that.”

He shrugged.

“Sticking charms don’t make things immune to fire, evidently.”

"You seemed to be familiar with her?"

Draco's face was sit in a grim mask.

"My mother spoke of the portrait from when she was a child. It made several comments about her I will not repeat."

Hermione took a slow breath, still coughing lightly from the smoke. Draco stood across from her, arms loose at his sides, expression unreadable. For a heartbeat, the only sound was the faint noise of ash floating softly to the ground. She’d assumed that with no wand he wouldn’t be able to do magic, at least not anything substantial. She’d barely met anyone who could do wandless magic. This development troubled her.

Finally, Hermione cleared her throat. “Well… shall we continue?”

Draco’s eyes flicked to her, silver glinting in the dim morning light. He inclined his head once, curtly, as though conceding the point, and followed her down the hallway. The air between them was taut, charged. Not just with the aftermath of magic, but with an unspoken acknowledgment of the power he had just demonstrated. Hermione felt a strange flutter of nerves and fascination. She could feel him, in a way she never had before: dangerous, untethered, on the edge of a knife.

The next room they entered was the study. Rows of bookshelves stretched to the ceiling, some filled with dust-laden tomes, others housing carefully catalogued volumes on magical theory. Hermione’s eyes lit up despite herself. “This is where the Black family kept most of their records,” she explained. “I’ve organised what I could. There are historical records, financial books, and a few personal diaries. If there was anything of interest, someone must have gotten rid of it a long time ago.”

Draco’s gaze swept the shelves, eyes searching as he examined each spine with almost obsessive scrutiny. His hand brushed over a worn leather-bound book and pulled out a copy of Wizarding Wars in Northern Europe, skimming the pages.

Hermione let him linger, knowing better than to push. “You can read anything you want, though I doubt there’s much beyond one or two that might be half interesting. I tried to keep everything in a state that would be usable.”

He didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he walked slowly down the aisle between the shelves, fingertips grazing the bindings, reading the titles quietly to himself. Hermione followed, her footsteps careful, almost reverent. She caught herself imagining him here as a boy, younger, wandering these same stacks with a different kind of weight on his shoulders.

The tour continued with them in silence, Draco hardly giving a reaction at anything in particular. As they ascended up the stairs, Draco’s hand brushed the railing. His fingers lingered on the carved serpent for a fraction longer than necessary. Hermione noticed, but didn’t comment. Upstairs, the halls were quieter, lined with portraits of long-dead Blacks, each with an air of judgment Hermione felt certain they had not yet relinquished. Draco’s presence seemed to silence them; even the painted eyes seemed to track him more carefully now, wary.

The first bedroom was simple, spare, with pale curtains filtering the morning sun. Hermione gestured toward the bed. “You already know this room. If there’s any problem with it just let me know and I'll see what I can do.” Draco’s eyes swept the room, then back to her. “It’s… adequate,” he said. He ran a hand along the headboard. “I suppose it will do.”

Hermione gave a small smile, resisting the urge to adjust something, to make it perfect. She had learned by now that with Draco, perfection wasn’t what mattered. Not feeling trapped was. “We can move things later, if you want. I just wanted to make sure you had somewhere comfortable.”

For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, his gaze met hers, sharp and calculating. “You’re cautious.”

Hermione blinked, caught off guard. “I… try to be.”

“It’s strategic.” His eyes held hers a beat too long. “Don’t think I don’t notice.”

The rest of the tour continued in a measured silence, Hermione pointing out rooms and features while Draco observed, occasionally commenting in his low, precise voice. Each space felt like a small negotiation between them, a push-and-pull of authority, curiosity, and cautious trust. By the time they returned to the first floor, they went to a room that Hermione had skipped past initially. Hesitant, she opened the door. The drawing room was dimmer than the others, curtains half-drawn to soften the light. Dust motes drifted lazily through the air, turning golden where the morning sun managed to slip through. The smell of old fabric and faint smoke still lingered, the kind of scent that clung to places steeped in history better left forgotten.

Hermione stepped aside to let him in, her voice low. “I didn’t think you’d want to see this room.”

Draco didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. His gaze had already found the tapestry that dominated the far wall. The Black family tree. The woven gold thread caught the light, shimmering faintly against deep green fabric. Generations of names curled and branched, elegant and merciless in their permanence.

He moved toward it slowly, as if approaching something sacred. Or poisonous. Hermione stayed back, unsure if she should speak, or simply let the silence breathe.

Draco stopped in front of the tapestry. His eyes travelled the long stretch of the Black lineage and then to the dark, scorched places where names had been blasted away. His own mother’s name still gleamed there in perfect gilt thread, delicate and defiant. And below her, near the bottom, his own. Draco Lucius Malfoy. 

He stared at it for a long time.

Hermione shifted, the quiet unbearable. “I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to keep this room as it is,” she said finally. “It’s not… exactly a pleasant reminder for anyone. But it felt wrong to erase it completely.”

Draco’s voice, when it came, was low and oddly calm. “You think I’d want it gone?”

“I thought maybe-”

“You thought it would hurt.” He turned slightly toward her, his expression unreadable. “I have been forced to recall my lineage so often that I could recite it from heart.” His gaze flicked back to the tapestry. “Destroying this wouldn’t change anything save from losing the ones worth recalling.” His eyes lingered on his mother’s name.

Hermione’s throat tightened. “There’s been enough loss already.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “There has.”

He took another step forward, close enough that the faint embroidery of his name was inches from his face. His fingers hovered near it, not quite touching. “I used to think this mattered,” he murmured. “The prestige of lineage. My father used to say with both of our noble houses joined, we were the roots of something eternal.” He gave a small, humourless laugh. “Eternal. And now half of them are ashes on the floor.”

Hermione didn’t move, didn’t dare interrupt.

Draco’s voice dropped lower, almost to himself. “Mother used to tell me stories about these people. As if they were heroes looking down on me. I used to believe her.” He tilted his head, studying the empty burn mark where Sirius’s name had once been. “She used to say this tapestry was the proof that we were meant to be something great. I wonder if she still believes that.”

Hermione took a hesitant step closer. “I think she believes in you,” she said softly.

Draco shifted away from her. “Then she’s a fool.”

Hermione didn’t reply. She let the silence stretch between them again, heavy but not suffocating. After a while, Draco exhaled, a slow, deliberate release, as if he’d been holding his breath since he walked in.

“I should burn it,” he said finally.

Hermione blinked. “What?”

“This tapestry.” His tone was flat, distant. “I should erase the rot entirely. I had considered dropping my father’s name and taking my mother’s, but this was a well needed reminder that the Malfoy’s and the Blacks are two sides of the same coin.”

“You could burn it,” Hermione said carefully. “But then there’d be nothing left to remind anyone what not to become.”

He looked at her then, really looked at her. “You think I need a reminder?”

“I think everyone does,” she said simply.

Draco turned back to the tapestry, eyes tracing the long, fraying threads again. His hand lifted once more, this time resting briefly against the embroidered letters of his name. Then, with a quiet sigh, he dropped it and stepped back.

“Let it stay,” he said finally. “Let it rot on the wall, like everything else they built.”

Hermione nodded once. “Alright.”

They stood there for a while longer, side by side, both looking up at the ancient cloth. The light shifted slightly through the curtains, catching on gold thread, turning the air between them warm and strange.

Chapter Text

It had been three days since she’d brought Draco back from Azkaban.

The days since had blurred together into a relentless rhythm. Mornings at the Ministry, afternoons at Grimmauld Place, nights with Ron.

Her hours at work were consumed by the logistics of the upcoming release program. Pansy Parkinson had agreed to take Theodore Nott in at Hogsmeade and would bring him along to the weekly support group she ran out of the back room at the Three Broomsticks. It was a fragile experiment in reintegration, one Hermione had championed from the start, but lately, her conviction felt stretched thin.

The rest of her days belonged to Draco. Managing him, monitoring him, trying to balance empathy with vigilance. He was raw and unpredictable, and every time she left him alone she felt the uneasy prickle of risk that he might set more than a portrait on fire in her absence. He didn’t ask for much, mostly books, but anything he asked for she provided. When she’d floated the topic of clothes again, he’d only asked for sweatpants and plain black or grey shirts. He didn’t look right in them, not at all, but when she’d pressed on why he didn’t want to wear anything else, he’d mumbled something about being too scrawny to fill out suits right now. 

And at night she went home. To Ron. Their fight, the one that had once left the flat in near silence, had finally subsided into something gentler. Ron had been patient, careful. He’d started talking about normal things again: dinner with friends, a weekend away, “something nice” to remind them of ordinary life. Hermione said yes to everything, though she had no idea how she’d make time. The peace between them felt so fragile, she didn’t dare test it.

When Harry returned from his trip to Estonia chasing leads on a new pureblood extremist group forming, he walked straight into the storm.

Susan Bones had gone to Azkaban earlier that morning expecting to meet Hermione there, collect Draco Malfoy and escort him to a Ministry-approved halfway house. Only when she arrived, there had been no Hermione. And no Draco.

By the time Hermione arrived at the Ministry that afternoon, Harry was waiting.

He stood at an enchanted window of his office, arms folded, shoulders tense, watching the streams of muggles walk through central London. When she entered, he didn’t turn right away. “Hermione. Would you like to tell me why Susan Bones thinks you disappeared with a war criminal?”

Hermione closed the door behind her with a quiet click. “Because I did. Though he isn’t a criminal, technically.”

Harry’s jaw went slack. “You what?”

“I took him from Azkaban myself. I had field clearance-”

“You had conditional clearance,” he snapped, whirling to face her. “Hermione, that’s not the same thing! You were meant to plan the transfer, make it happen through official channels, not orchestrate an unauthorised extraction!”

Hermione didn’t flinch. “The halfway house wasn’t ready. You know that. The wards were unstable, and the tracking charms were glitching. I wasn’t about to throw him into a containment wing that barely functions-”

“So you decided to vanish with him?” Harry’s voice rose, sharper now. “Hermione, do you have any idea what that looks like? The Head of DMLE’s deputy disappears with Draco Malfoy and doesn’t tell a soul? Do you know how many bloody owls I’ve had from the Wizengamot today? Do you realise what the prophet will look like tomorrow morning?” She wasn’t sure that she wanted to.

She met his glare evenly. “Then tell them I acted under your supervision.”

He laughed, short, humourless. “I can’t keep doing that.”

Hermione’s throat tightened. “Doing what?”

“Covering for you.” His voice dropped, weary now instead of angry. “Every time you go off-script, I’m the one who cleans up after it. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been keeping this place from tearing itself apart? I’ve got corruption hearings, pure blood families lobbying ministry officials every other week, and now a missing prisoner who happens to be Malfoy. You can’t keep expecting me to save you from the fallout.”

Hermione took a step forward. “I’m not asking you to save me.” She wish she could. She wished, that for once, he would be the one to save her. She’d saved everyone else so many times, him more than anyone else.

“The hell you aren’t!” Harry slammed a hand against the desk. “You think I don’t see what’s happening? You bend the rules because you think you’re the only one who knows what’s right, and I let you because-” He stopped, the words catching in his throat.

“Because what?” she pressed, voice soft but trembling.

He stared at her for a long, heavy moment. “Because more often than not it’s true,” he said finally. “Because you’ve been right more often than anyone else I’ve ever met. But this?” He shook his head. “This isn’t you being right, Hermione. This is you crossing lines you used to draw for everyone else. I don’t even know where you’re keeping him, for starters.”

She swallowed hard, fingers tightening around the strap of her satchel. “I didn’t do this for him. I did it because I don’t trust the ministry not to chew him up and spit him out more than they already have. I have him in Grimmauld place.”

Harry exhaled sharply and sat down, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You’re babysitting Draco Malfoy in my safehouse.”

“I couldn’t wait for you to get back from Estonia. By the time I filed everything, there would be dozens of people interfering and trying to sink their claws into him for their own agendas. He wouldn’t have survived another week in that place, Harry. Besides, I know you hate Grimmauld place, and he needs a place to live that is quiet, that no one knows about.”

He looked up at her, eyes tired and pained. Grimmauld place was a sensitive topic. It always reminded Harry of Sirius. “You know what? You can take the house, I don’t want to see it anyway. Lord knows the Malfoys own enough property as it is, I’m sure they’ll enjoy getting a new one, even if it is a shithole. Is that the only thing you need?”

“No,” she said, too quickly. “I need a week of annual leave, to make sure he’s settled. He’s my responsibility, I can’t keep leaving him all day like I have been.”

“Responsibility,” he repeated, ignoring her request. “You’re not responsible for him, Hermione. You don’t owe him. If anything, the prick owes you.”

“I owe the truth,” she said. “And the truth is that someone kept him in there for a reason and there’s someone at the ministry trying to interfere. Unless you still believe Katie Bell killing herself was a last minute act of guilt. They were using a dementor on him, Harry. All of the dementors were supposed to be gone. None of it is adding up.”

Harry leaned back, staring at her for a long moment. His face had gone pale at the mention of dementors. If she could get him to understand even a hint of what Draco had been through, maybe he would make him realise why she had done all of this. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, defeated. “You’re burning yourself out trying to save someone who might not even want saving.”

“Maybe,” she said softly. “But I’d rather burn out doing that than sit behind another stack of forms pretending it’s enough.”

The room remained still. The dying embers in the fireplace crackled softly.

Finally, Harry reached into his drawer, pulled out a sheaf of parchment, and slid it toward her. “I’m not letting you use your annual leave doing more work,” he said. “I’ll assign you confidential field-work to keep eyes off of you, if you really think this was an inside job. Bones can pick up the rehab for the ones being released soon, you’ve got too much on your plate.”

Hermione nodded, relief flickering briefly across her face. “Thank you.”

Harry shook his head, looking at her. Pleading, tired eyes. “Don’t thank me. Communicate with me next time. Tell me what’s going on. If there is some sort of conspiracy going on it’s something I need to know about. Just remember I can’t keep covering for you forever. I’ve got enough fires to put out without you lighting new ones.”

She hesitated at the door, looking back. “I know.”

“Do you?” he asked quietly.

She didn’t answer. The door shut softly behind her.

The lift ride down from Harry’s office felt longer than usual. The hum of Ministry chatter pressed against her skull, but Hermione barely heard it. Her mind was still replaying Harry’s words. You’re not responsible for him. You don’t owe him.

But she did. Not in the way Harry thought. Not out of guilt or penance, or even to put right something that the ministry had clearly gotten very wrong. She owed him out of the same sense of obligation she felt when she held doors open for strangers. She owed him like she owed saying thank you to muggle bus drivers, she owed him in the way she smiled at babies being pushed past in their prams.  She owed him the same obligation of being seen as a human being that she gave everyone else, and worthy of care because of that, personal feelings aside. 

By the time she Apparated outside Grimmauld Place, the late afternoon light had turned murky. The townhouse loomed like a bruise against the row of identical facades, its wards whispering faintly as she stepped forward. The old magic still recognised her; the door creaked open without a sound.

Inside, the air still smelled faintly of smoke, but now with a new scent of half rancid cleaning supplies. Kreacher’s touch, she suspected, though the elf had made himself scarce since Draco’s arrival and she’d hardly seen a glimpse of him save from a long ear darting behind a doorway at night. Hermione closed the door behind her and took her coat off then hung it, tugging at the knot of tension in her shoulders.

“Malfoy?” she called, softly at first.

Silence.

She frowned, walking through to the drawing room. The fire was burning low, embers casting restless shadows across the walls. Draco sat in the armchair nearest the hearth, one leg crossed over the other, pale hair catching the flicker of light. He didn’t look at her as she entered, just stared into the fire with that same distant, unreadable expression that unnerved her.

“You’re late,” he said finally. His voice was quiet.

Hermione set her things down on the side table. “I had work to finish.”

“I gathered.” His eyes flicked toward her now, silver and cold. “Potter finally catch up with you?”

Her stomach tightened. “How do you-”

“Educated guess. You left your notes on the counter.” He nodded toward the parchment she’d been using the night before. Ministry forms covered in her handwriting. “They mentioned he was returning today. You’re not very good at hiding things, Granger.”

Hermione drew in a slow breath. “If you were reading through my private paperwork-”

“Relax. I only read enough to know you’re in trouble,” he said, leaning back in the chair. “And that you broke me out early when you weren’t meant to.”

“Someone had to,” she muttered, moving toward the fire. Her hands were far too cold. She didn’t have the warmth or energy in her to argue with him tonight. 

He gave a short, humourless laugh. “You think that makes you noble?”

“I think it makes me right,” she said sharply.

For a moment, the silence between them was taut and stretched, like a wire pulled too tight. Draco’s gaze was steady, unreadable, but something in his face softened by the tiniest sinew, almost imperceptibly.

“You look tired,” he said.

Hermione blinked, thrown off. “I’ve had a long day.”

“Long week, more like.” His eyes flicked toward her again, assessing. “You shouldn’t keep running yourself into the ground. I imagine it makes people suspicious.”

She shot him a dry look. “You’re one to talk about appearances. And as Harry told me today, I don’t owe you anything. Especially not looking presentable.”

That earned the faintest smirk. 

She turned away, pretending to fuss with the fire poker, but the quiet pressed in around them again, heavier now, charged. The crackle of the flames was the only sound.

Finally, Draco spoke again. “You shouldn’t have come back for me.”

Hermione froze and turned her head over her shoulder to look at him. “What?”

“You heard me.” His gaze was still fixed on the fire. “You’ve tied yourself to something that’ll ruin you if you’re not careful. Potter’s right, loathe as I am to admit it. You don’t owe me anything.”

She straightened, looking at him quizzically. She couldn’t tell what angle he was playing this time, but whatever it was, she was sick of hearing this phrase today. “Don’t presume to tell me what I owe, Malfoy. You weren’t there when they paraded the rest of your lot through the hearing rooms like livestock. You didn’t see what was left of them before we started trying to reform the system.”

Something flickered in his expression; pain, anger, memory. “I was there,” he said softly. “Just because I was behind a different door doesn’t mean I didn’t hear the screaming.”

Hermione exhaled, the air trembling between them. “Then you understand why I had to do something.”

He looked at her for a long time, eyes shadowed and searching. “You really believe you can fix this, don’t you? Fix me.”

“I believe that if the system is broken, someone has to at least try to put it right.”

Draco tilted his head, studying her as though trying to solve a riddle. “And you think that someone is you.”

She met his gaze evenly. “If not me, who?”

For a moment, neither of them moved. The fire popped, sending a trail of sparks up the chimney. He was watching her now, not with malice, nor pity. Just quiet understanding. As if they were two people standing on the edge of the same cliff for different reasons.

After a moment, he rose from the chair. “You should eat,” he said. “You look like you’ve been arguing with the entire Ministry.”

“I have,” she said, half a laugh escaping her.

Draco’s mouth curved faintly, the barest ghost of a smile. “Then you won’t win tonight.” He turned toward the door. “There’s tea in the kitchen.” As he left, Hermione sank into the chair he’d vacated. The cushion was still warm. She stared into the flames, Harry’s words echoing in her mind. You don’t owe him. Maybe not. But someone should.

Hermione wasn’t sure how long she sat there after he’d gone. The fire had burned low again, down to the last thin shivers of flame, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. Her mind was a tangle of Harry’s disappointment, Draco’s hollowness, the gnawing sense that she was juggling far too many things and that one of them was bound to come crashing down soon.

When she finally stood, the silence of Grimmauld Place felt heavier than usual. Every floorboard creak sounded too loud, too aware. She found Draco in the kitchen, standing at the worn counter with his mug of tea, untouched. His sleeves were rolled up, hair mussed, the faint shadows under his eyes darker than ever.

He looked up as she entered. “You should sit before you fall over.”

“I’m fine,” she said automatically, though she wasn’t. She sat anyway, hoisting herself up on the kitchen counter. For a long moment, neither spoke. The tick of the old clock on the mantle filled the silence.

Finally, Hermione cleared her throat. “We need to start working seriously on your recovery.”

Draco didn’t react at first. Then he turned his head toward her, expression unreadable. “Recovery,” he repeated, as though tasting the word.

“Yes,” she said firmly, forcing her tired voice into something close to professional. “We’ve taken the first step, you’re out. But that isn’t enough. You need to begin rebuilding some kind of routine. Physical therapy, trauma therapy, memory work, emotional stabilisation-”

“I don’t feel like doing anything,” he interrupted, quiet but blunt. “Except sleeping.”

Hermione frowned. “You can’t sleep through the rest of your life, Draco.”

“Watch me.”

Her patience thinned at the edges. “You can’t hide in Grimmauld Place forever. Eventually the world is going to start asking questions, and you need to be ready to answer them. The Wizengamot will want a statement, the healers will want progress reports-”

He looked at her then, really looked, and something in his eyes made her stop mid-sentence. The usual sharpness wasn’t there; only exhaustion, a rawness that pulled the breath out of her chest.

“I don’t want to argue today,” he said quietly.

Hermione blinked, startled. “I’m not trying to argue, I’m trying to help. Malfoy, if I don’t produce some sort of evidence of what we’re doing in here, they’re going to investigate me.”

“I know,” he said, voice soft. “But I can’t. Not tonight.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “I don’t want to be him right now.”

She hesitated, unsure what to say. Suddenly the reluctance for him to don his old attire made sense. He was avoiding thinking of himself as who he was, because that person had far too much for anyone to cope with on their shoulders. “Then who do you want to be?”

His gaze lifted to meet hers. “No one. I don’t know. Maybe just someone sitting in a kitchen who doesn’t have to explain himself.” He paused. “And maybe you could forget you’re Hermione Granger for a few hours too.”

The words hung between them, strange and fragile.

Hermione felt something twist inside her chest: sympathy, fatigue, maybe even relief at the thought of not having to carry the mantle of responsibility for a little while. Slowly, she exhaled.

“Alright,” she said finally. “Just for tonight.”

Draco nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and reached for his mug of tea.

They sat in silence after that. No talk of therapy, no talk of the Ministry or Azkaban or what came next. Just the low hum of the old pipes, the flicker of candlelight across the cracked tiles, the faint rhythm of their breathing in sync. They were simply two people sitting across from each other in the half-light, too tired to be anything else. They lingered in the kitchen a while longer, each lost in their own thoughts, until the silence grew too heavy to hold. Hermione rose first. “Come on,” she said, her voice hoarse with tiredness. “It’s warmer in the drawing room.”

Draco hesitated, then followed her. The fire had burned down to a low glow, embers pulsing faintly like the heartbeat of the house itself. Hermione crouched to stoke it back to life, coaxing the flames higher until they licked against the grate. The warmth spread slowly, softening the edges of the shadows.

Draco lowered himself onto the rug in front of the hearth, legs folded beneath him, hands braced loosely on his knees. He looked… not relaxed, exactly, but present. Grounded in a way she hadn’t seen since he’d arrived. Hermione sat opposite him on the floor, cross-legged, careful to leave a comfortable space between them.

For a long while, neither spoke. The quiet was companionable, filled only by the crackle of firewood and the faint hum of the house settling around them.

Eventually, Draco said, “I’ve been reading the novels you left in the study. I know they’re not new, they’re all filled with your pencil marks. You clearly have too many books.”

Hermione smiled faintly. “There’s no such thing.”

“You say that,” he murmured, glancing toward a stack he’d piled beside the fire, “but most of them are either about social justice or some moralising fiction.” His gaze flicked back to her, amused. “You read like someone trying to fix the world by understanding it. So idealistic.”

“I suppose that’s accurate.” She tilted her head. “And you? What did you used to read?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Whatever was forbidden.”

Hermione’s lips curved. “Naturally.”

He smirked faintly, but it faded as he turned his eyes back to the fire. “Mother used to hide certain books under the floorboards. Muggle literature, mostly. Poetry, novels. She said they were ‘too dangerous’ for polite company, which of course made me devour them at twelve.”

Hermione’s brows lifted in surprise. “What sort of books?”

“Milton. Dante. Dostoevsky. Shelley.” His voice was soft, reflective. His hands trailed over a book at the top of his pile. He opened it, the pages whispering like brittle leaves. “The Portrait of Dorian Gray was one of the last things I read while at Hogwarts. My mother said it was a lesson in vanity much needed.”

Hermione snorted. “She sounds like a wise woman. I can’t imagine Hogwarts you getting the message though. What did you think it was about?”

He looked up at her, the firelight catching in his pale eyes. “About what happens when you let someone else define your soul for you.”

Hermione blinked. “That’s not the usual takeaway.”

“I suppose not.” He closed the book carefully. “But isn’t that what happens? He becomes the portrait they paint of him. The monster, not the man.”

Hermione tilted her head. “You think he didn’t choose that?”

“I think he stopped believing there was a choice,” Draco said. “Once enough people tell you what you are, it’s easier to live up to it than fight it.”

Hermione watched him for a long moment, her throat tight. “I used to hate that book,” she said softly. “It made me angry. How selfish he was, how cowardly. But I read it again, years later, and it didn’t feel like a story about vanity anymore. It felt like a story about shame.”

Draco’s gaze flicked to her again. “You’re too empathetic for your own good.”

“And you’re too cruel to yourself.” Hermione studied him, the firelight dancing across his face. “Wait. You said you were reading Dostoevsky at twelve? And I’m supposed to be the nerd?”

Draco looked at the fireplace. “Well. Crime and punishment didn’t make sense to me until I read parts of it again in Azkaban when they let me upstairs. What about you? I assume you weren’t smuggling romantic poets under your pillow at Hogwarts.”

She laughed quietly. “No. I was too busy rewriting my Charms essays. But when I could read for myself during summer holidays… Austen. Woolf. A little Brontë.”

“Woolf?” he repeated, tilting his head. “Of course. Melancholy, introspection, an excess of moral conviction. You’d get along.”

Hermione gave him a mock glare. “You sound like you’ve read her.”

“I have.” He hesitated, gaze dropping briefly to the fire. “Mother liked To the Lighthouse. She said it was the only book she’d ever read that felt like remembering a dream.”

“That’s beautiful,” Hermione said quietly.

“It was the only time I believed she wanted more than what she had,” he mumbled. The words seemed to slip out unguarded, and for a moment he looked almost startled by his own honesty.

Hermione didn’t press. Instead, she said, “I doubt you’ve heard of my favourite book.”

“What is it?”

She gave a soft, tired laugh. “You’ll think it’s dull.”

“I already do,” he murmured.

“Middlemarch,” she said, ignoring him. “By George Eliot.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Never heard of it.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said lightly. “It’s a collection of different books. There’s a woman who wants to do something meaningful with her life, but she keeps getting caught in… smallness. Small people, small expectations, small compromises. She tries to change the world and ends up changing herself instead.”

Draco pulled a face. “Sounds depressing.”

“It’s not,” Hermione said, though her smile was wistful. “It’s honest. Dorothea, she’s not perfect, but she tries. She thinks she’s destined for something grand, but what really matters is the quiet good she does that no one ever sees. It’s about the way one person’s choices can ripple through other lives, even if the world never notices.”

Draco looked at her for a long minute.

“You are so utterly predictable.”

She didn’t fight it, because he was right.

The fire dimmed and flared again, casting long shadows that stretched and shifted across the walls. For the first time since she’d brought him here, the house didn’t feel haunted. Hermione realised she was smiling. Not the polite kind she wore at the Ministry, but something real, quiet, unforced. Draco noticed too, though he said nothing. His gaze lingered on her a fraction longer than necessary before he looked back to the fire.

Neither of them spoke again after that. The silence wasn’t awkward this time. 

Chapter Text

Hermione almost dropped her cup of tea when she heard a knock at the door. For a long moment she held her breath, hoping against hope that her exhausted mind had been playing tricks on her. No. Another sharp tap. A tap that should not exist. As far as she knew, the only people who were aware of the safehouse were her close friend circle, and none of them save Harry knew the place was still in use. The thought of Narcissa at the doorstep filled Hermione with a slow and creeping sickness, but she pushed the thought aside. Narcissa had no reason to think Draco was here and even less reason to return after all of these years.

Her fingers tightened around the mug, knuckles whitening. She desperately needed to investigate, but standing up would make it real. A rush of dread coursed through her. If it was Harry, she was in no position to explain Draco’s current state and Draco certainly wouldn’t be receptive to him showing up unannounced. What if it was worse than Harry? What if it was someone who had somehow found their way past the wards? Her mind raced through possibilities, each more alarming than the last.

With cautious steps, she moved quickly toward the front door, each creak of the floorboards underfoot amplified in the otherwise silent house. She paused just short of the door, hand hovering over the handle, listening. No further sound came. No footsteps, no voice. Just the faint whistle of wind outside, or perhaps the echo of her own anxiety.

Taking a deep breath, Hermione pulled the door open.

Outside, perched on the doorstep, was a familiar owl. Its feathers were sleek and bright, and Hermione recognized it instantly: Ginny’s. The bird clutched in its talons two sleek black envelopes and a neatly folded copy of the Daily Prophet. Hermione’s brow furrowed, a small mix of relief and surprise washing over her.

She crouched to untangle the owl, scratching it beneath the beak murmuring softly. “What are you doing here?” The owl blinked at her, bobbed its head once, and dropped the envelopes and newspaper at her feet before launching skyward in a flurry of wings. Hermione bent to retrieve the items, her hands trembling slightly as she lifted the paper. A small note was tucked atop it, written in Harry’s unmistakable messy scrawl:

Hermione. Thought you should see this. Best if you stay out of the office until there’s something you’re prepared to show people. Keep me updated. - H

Hands trembling, she retreated back inside, shutting the door and murmuring an additional ward under her breath. She rushed to the living room and unfolded the Prophet on the coffee table. 

GOLDEN GIRL GONE ROGUE? MALFOY HEIR FREED IN SECRET MINISTRY OPERATION
26th of April, 2003

Sources within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement confirm that Draco Lucius Malfoy, imprisoned on unpublicised charges likely due to the use of Malfoy Manor as a hideout for He Who Must Not Be Named during the war, has been quietly released from Azkaban under mysterious and highly irregular circumstances.

Ministry officials refuse to comment, though one insider described the situation as “an unauthorised extraction orchestrated by an unnamed senior staff member.” As of this morning, no public record exists of Malfoy’s transfer to any Ministry facility. His current whereabouts are unknown. The revelation has thrown the legitimacy of the Ministry’s Deradicalisation and Rehabilitation Programme into crisis, with several Wizengamot members demanding a full inquiry. “If the Ministry is withholding the crimes of this boy, the public has a right to know,” said Councilor Tiberius Selwyn.

The controversial Deradicalisation and Rehabilitation Programme, or DRP for short, has long been a point of contention amongst the wizarding community. The initiative, spearheaded by Deputy Head Hermione Granger, has consistently divided public opinion. Critics claim it represents an unacceptable risk to public safety by “reintroducing violent offenders into society under the pretence of reform.”

“What message does this send to the victims of the war?” asked Councilor Octavia Muldoon of the Wizengamot during the initial debate on whether the programme should be formed. “That redemption is a matter of bureaucracy? That the rest of us must open our doors to those who would have seen us dead?”

Yet discontent is not limited to those who suffered under You-Know-Who’s regime. Several old pure-blood families have also voiced outrage, though for entirely different reasons. “Families like the Notts and Parkinsons have been coerced into participating in this farce. My brothers and sisters are being taught to be ashamed of their own heritage because of the misguided actions of a few,” complained Ernest Macmillan, head of the Ancient Families Preservation Council. “We are breeding self-loathing instead of pride. Is this the unity the Ministry promised?”

In the wake of the Malfoy revelation, many are calling for the programme to be suspended pending investigation. A Ministry spokesperson declined to comment.

Skeeter’s sources allege that Hermione Granger, Deputy Head of the Department, was last seen entering Azkaban the morning of the transfer.

More on page 3: “Golden Girl Gone Dark?” A History of Hermione Granger’s Radical Sympathies.

 

 

Her fingers dug into the edges of the paper, crumpling it slightly. Her mind raced: How did it get out so quickly? Who from the ministry had told on her? How will he take this? How do I fix it before the ministry explodes? The weight of responsibility pressed down hard, and for the first time, she felt as if the whole lot of it was finally something that even she could not manage.

She ran a hand over her face, tugging at her hair. Her chest was tight, stress coursed through her arms. Every worry she’d tried to manage in the last few days, Draco’s recovery, the release programme, Ron, her work at the Ministry, crowded together into a single, overwhelming knot. She could feel her pulse in her temples. She felt like she was going to be sick.

Draco appeared in the doorway, as if her turmoil had drawn him like a magnet. Hermione looked up at him, trying to steady her voice.

“I’m fucked,” she said, words rushing out before she could stop them. “I’m so unbelievably fucked.”

He didn’t respond but rushed forward with a hard face, leaning over her to peer. Hermione watched as Draco reached for the Daily Prophet, his movements deliberate but tense, fingers lingering over the crisp edges as if bracing for impact. He unfolded it slowly, eyes narrowing at the headline. The corner of his mouth twitched, a brief, dry smirk that didn’t reach his eyes.

His gaze fell to the photograph the paper had chosen to accompany the article: a yearbook photo of him from his last year at Hogwarts, face pulled into a dark-circled grimace, frozen in a time that now felt impossibly distant. The Prophet had altered it, overlaying a skull across his face. Draco’s lips thinned, and he let out a low, harsh breath, one hand clenching around the paper as if he could squeeze it into submission.

He read quickly, hunched over the table, shoulders stiff, jaw tight. His other hand flexed, knuckles pale, and he pressed the paper down as though trying to pin it, to hold the world at bay. Hermione could see the tension ripple across his frame. The rigid set of his shoulders, the way his foot kicked against the floor, the subtle flick of his gaze toward the door, as if expecting someone to appear at any moment. The further he read, the more unfocused his eyes became, until it seemed to her that he was no longer present in the room with her at all.

“Of course,” he muttered under his breath as if in a dream, almost to himself, voice low, clipped. “I should have expected this.” He straightened suddenly, placing the paper flat in front of him, leaning on it with both hands as if he could push it into the wood His silver eyes lifted to Hermione, sharp and wary. “Well. I’m in the viper pit now.”

He leaned forward, fingers drumming against the table, restless. “They all have an angle. They always have a fucking angle, even you. At least yours is pathetic enough to be transparent.” The words were quiet, but the tension in his body made them feel louder, each syllable measured and dangerous. She let him get his jab in. She’d expected much worse.

His eyes flicked down again to the photo, lingering longer than necessary. The skull seemed to mock him, a symbol of judgment and death he couldn’t escape. His hand twitched toward it, then he scraped a hole into the image until his face had been ripped out. He let out a bitter, humourless laugh, fingers curling inside the rip. “I suppose I should be grateful they haven’t broken the doors down yet.” He looked again at the door, face pale. 

Hermione staggered back into a chair and sat, dazed. She didn’t bother to ask him if he was ok. He had said enough without saying very much at all. He didn’t move for a long time. The newspaper lay in tatters before him, his fingernails had dug it to pieces. The shredded edges fluttered faintly from the draught in the hall. Hermione sat across from him, her pulse hammering in her ears, watching the stillness creep over him like frost.

When he finally exhaled, it came out thin and uneven, as though he’d forgotten how.
“We need to move,” he said flatly. His eyes were fixed on the wall beyond her. “They’ll trace the wards. Or the owl. You shouldn’t have opened the door. Someone could have followed it.”

“Draco-”

He was already moving. His hands trembled as he gathered the remnants of the Prophet into a neat pile, aligning the torn corners with mechanical precision. Every motion was too exact, too fast, as though stillness might invite disaster.

“I need a wand. I can dismantle the protective matrix. Start over. Different energetic compound, layered with false signatures-”

“Draco,” she said again, more firmly this time.

He stopped, half-turned, his shoulders taut. The whites of his eyes showed too clearly.
“You don’t understand,” he said, voice sharp. “The ministry will find me. They’ll take both of us and throw us in Azkaban. You think you’re clever, but you left a trail the moment you walked into that prison. You must have. You’ve already done this wrong.”

Hermione felt the sting of the words but didn’t answer. His breathing was shallow, quick. He wasn’t attacking her, he was drowning.

She stood, taking a slow step toward him. “No one’s found us. Harry sent the Owl, he’s the only one who knows you’re here. I’ve been given full reign of handling this. You have no charges, they can’t hold you.” 

Draco went still. For a moment, the only sound was the faint rustle of the torn newspaper between his fingers. Then, very slowly, his gaze slid up to her. Eyes wide, unfocused, as though he hadn’t heard her correctly.

“What did you just say?” His voice was quiet. 

Hermione frowned, mid-breath. “That you have no charges,” she said, distractedly, still trying to find the right words to calm him. “They can’t hold you legally, Draco-”

The look on his face stopped her cold.

He was staring at her as if she’d just driven a blade into his chest. The colour drained from his skin, leaving him ashen. His mouth opened once, then closed again, as though language had deserted him.

“What?”

Hermione’s stomach dropped. “I never told you.”

Something fractured behind his expression. A flicker of disbelief, then confusion, then a kind of slow, dawning horror that rooted her to the spot. He took a step back from her, one hand lifting in the air, as though warding her off.

“No,” he said. “No, I didn’t know.” His voice cracked on the word. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Hermione’s lips parted, but nothing came out. She’d spent so long buried in paperwork, pulling empty files, trying to put the pieces together, that she’d neglected to tell him.

“You were never formally charged,” she said finally, voice faint. “There was no sentencing. You were apprehended attempting to cross into Sweden with your parents, they were supposed to just keep you temporarily for questioning to try to force some information out of Lucius. You were never processed.”

He froze mid-movement, the rhythm of his breathing uneven. For a moment Hermione thought he hadn’t heard her, but then he turned his head slowly toward her, eyes pale and sharp as splinters of glass. Draco blinked, hard, as if the words themselves didn’t make sense. He gave a short, breathless laugh. “You’re saying I was in there by accident.”

“Not an accident,” she said quickly. “Someone made a decision. They kept you there deliberately. I’m trying to find out who.”

He was shaking his head. “Five years.” The laugh came again, sharper now, empty. “Five years in that place. With no hearing. No trial. No reason.”

Hermione stepped forward. “Draco, please, listen.”

“No.” His voice rose suddenly, raw and trembling. “You’re telling me I wasn’t convicted of anything, and you thought that wasn’t worth mentioning?”

She flinched. “I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t think,” he spat. “You didn’t think I might like to know that I wasn’t supposed to be there?” He let out another hollow sound, something caught between a laugh and a gasp. “You thought I’d what, just known? That I’d been given the courtesy of an explanation before they shoved me into a cell and stripped me of every shred of humanity?”

Hermione tried to speak, but her throat had gone dry. She could see the way his hands shook, how he kept looking to the walls like they might start closing in again.

“I asked them,” he said suddenly. “Every week, I asked. When the hearing was. When I could speak. When anyone would come. Bell said-” He swallowed, voice faltering. “She told me I'd been sentenced for life. That all of us had. That the hearing had happened, that I must have forgotten it. Repressed it.”

Hermione’s chest constricted painfully. “Draco, I’m sorry. I-”

He cut her off with a sharp, brittle sound. “Don’t. Don’t tell me you’re sorry.” His breathing was fast, uneven. He backed away until the edge of the chair pressed into his legs. “You knew. You knew I wasn’t charged, and you let me sit here for three days thinking I was a convicted criminal.”

She felt the words like blows. “I didn’t mean to keep it from you. I just-”

“Just what?” His voice was shaking now, the anger bleeding into something much more dangerous. “Forgot? Or did you decide it would be easier if I didn’t know? If I still believed I deserved it?”

The silence that followed was unbearable. Hermione couldn’t meet his eyes.

Draco let out a ragged breath and turned away, bracing himself against the wall. His shoulders hunched as though under invisible weight. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, stunned. “Five years of thinking it was penance. Five years of trying to remember what sin I hadn’t paid for yet.”

Hermione took a step closer, then stopped when he flinched at the sound. She watched him sink down onto the edge of the chair, hands pressed against his knees like he needed to feel something solid beneath him. He looked like a man untethered, as though the world itself had turned to air and he was falling down, down, down into the abyss. She wanted to reach for him, to say something, anything, but the words caught in her throat. Because in that moment, she realised that what she had just taken from him wasn’t ignorance. It was the one illusion that had kept him from collapsing entirely: that his suffering had a reason, a purpose. And now, even that was gone.

“No charges.” The words scraped out of him, almost soundless. “Then why-” He cut himself off, fingers curling inwards until his nails bit into his palms. “Why was I there, Granger?”

“Draco, listen to me-”

“Why was I there?”

The question detonated between them. His voice was no longer controlled; it cracked and ricocheted off the walls, raw and hoarse. 

Hermione’s throat went dry. “I didn’t mean for this to be so jarring for you.”

He let out a choked sound that made her flinch. “Of course you didn’t. Because everything you do comes wrapped in good intentions, doesn’t it? Saint Hermione, saviour of the broken.” He rose from the seat, frantic, took a step toward her, voice lowering. “You think you can scrub the filth off what they did to me with your paperwork and apologies?”

“Stop it,” she said, but her voice shook.

“You think you’re helping?” he hissed. “You can’t even admit what you’ve done. You took one look at me in that place and thought, perfect project. I was convenient. I made your guilt useful.”

“That isn’t true.”

He barked a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all. “Then look at me, Granger. Look at me!”

She did. And for a moment she wished she hadn’t.

She saw him, truly saw him, for the first time since Azkaban: not as the trembling, half-starved man she’d dragged out of a cell, but as something terrible and magnificent. There was a strange, ruined grace to him, the kind that came only from surviving the unimaginable. His skin was still too pale, stretched thin over sharp bones; a myriad of white and red scars ran like pale threads and veins along his forearms where the years had eaten into him. The hollows beneath his eyes were shadowed bruises, but the eyes themselves, those cutting, metallic eyes, seemed almost inhuman in their clarity. Empty in the middle, like the light was burning through him from behind. They gleamed with fury, but beneath it was something older and deeper, something that shimmered with both brilliance and decay.

It struck her then that Draco Malfoy had become a kind of fallen angel: beautiful, in the desolation of innocence and grace. A figure carved from grief, the loss of self, gleaming faintly at the edges with the ghostly ectoplasm of his old life, his bloodline, his arrogance. All of the sum of his parts had corroded away into a being beyond death. Anything remaining had coalesced into something else entirely. She got the sense that she was standing before something that would shatter at the touch and leave her hands bleeding.

“I am looking,” she whispered.

He shook his head slowly, a cruel, tired smile twisting his mouth. “No, you’re not. You’re cataloguing. Assessing. Making notes in that brilliant little mind of yours about how best to manage the damage.” His voice softened into something almost tender, which made it worse. “Tell me, what box do I go in? Or am I just another poor bastard you can’t save?”

She stepped forward despite herself. “You don’t need saving.”

That earned her another laugh, cold this time, edged with hysteria. “No. Apparently I never did. Isn’t that what you just said?”

He turned away, moving to the window, shoulders drawn tight as wire. “All that time,” he murmured. “All that time convincing myself I deserved it, that I must have done something terrible that i’d pushed into my subconscious. That’s the funny thing about guilt, you know. If you give it long enough, it grows teeth.”

Hermione’s vision blurred. “Draco-”

He lifted a hand, cutting her off without looking back. “Don’t. Just don’t.” The silence that followed was thick, suffocating. When he spoke again, his tone had gone flat, too calm. “You almost had me fooled last night, Granger. Almost.”

And just like that, the room felt smaller. The air heavier. The fragile connection they’d built the night before, those few hours of delicate trust, lay shattered between them. When he finally turned back to face her, the sarcasm had sealed itself back over the rawness. His eyes were cool again, his expression distant.

“Well,” he said, his mouth twisting into a thin smile, “now that I know I’m a free man, I suppose I’ll start packing. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience my rescuer any longer.”

“Draco-”

But he was already walking away, avoiding her gaze. “Don’t worry, Granger. I’ll find somewhere else to rot.”

The door to the study slammed shut a moment later, and Hermione stood there, the weight of the world crashing down around her. The slam seemed to echo far longer than it should have. Hermione stayed standing, the silence pressing in around her, until her knees finally gave way and she sank down onto the sofa. Her hands were shaking. She pressed them to her temples, trying to slow the rush in her head, but all she could hear was his voice, raw and splintered: Why was I there?

She drew in a long, shuddering breath. The air in Grimmauld Place felt stale, heavy, suffocating. Somewhere down the hall, the faint groan of floorboards betrayed Draco’s pacing. Every step sounded like an accusation. She rubbed her face, forcing herself upright. The letters. She’d forgotten about them. They were still sitting on the table, black envelopes stark against the torn remains of the Prophet. Ginny’s owl had brought two. How they could contain anything worse than the prophet was beyond her, but she steeled herself for it regardless.

She reached for the first. The handwriting was familiar: narrow, elegant, practiced. Narcissa Malfoy.

Hermione hesitated for a moment before breaking the seal. The parchment inside smelled faintly of lilac and old ink. A single small white rose petal was pressed into the paper. The script was delicate, but every loop and flourish felt precise enough to cut.

Dear Ms Granger,

Firstly I must thank you earnestly, with all that is in me. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I write this with tears in my eyes. Thank you for saving my son. 

Secondly, as I am sure you are of no doubt aware, the matter of his release no longer appears to be a confidential issue. I know my son. I know he is likely disturbed by these developments. I wish not to pry nor to push where not appropriate, though I must state that I doubt he is taking this news very well. The press has always bothered him. If he is amicable to speaking with me, I would very much like to see him. I do understand that this matter is delicate, though you must understand that as a mother I am finding all of this quite torturous.

Thirdly, I wish to inform you that under absolutely no circumstances should he be allowed to return to Malfoy Manor of current. Whilst I love my husband dearly, I fear his involvement in this matter would complicate matters irrevocably. I write now in full confidence to you, without my husband’s knowledge, as a show of trust.

Should you wish to meet, simply inform the innkeeper of the Leaky Cauldron that the white rose returns in bloom. 

With endless gratitude,

Narcissa Malfoy

Hermione held the folded letter in her hands, staring at the familiar script as if to absorb the words more fully. Narcissa’s letter was measured, gracious even, but Hermione knew better than to accept civility at face value. Gratitude could be genuine, but it could also be a weapon. A soft veil over cunning and calculation.

She leaned back into the sofa cushions, closing her eyes for a moment, letting the silence press against her. Could she trust Narcissa? She had seen enough of the Malfoy family to know that loyalty and self-interest were often interwoven in ways that made the lines impossible to untangle. Narcissa had always been careful, protective of her son, but protective in a way that had, at times, aligned with her husband’s ambitions and not her child’s wellbeing.

Hermione ran a hand over her face, pinching the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t keep this from him, not anymore, but the thought of showing him was not an appealing one. The very idea made her stomach tighten. She could imagine Narcissa’s voice, soft but compelling, drawing Draco toward her with promises of comfort and security, only for the boy to find himself trapped in old family dynamics all over again.

Her gaze drifted to the fire, the glow flickering across the room, and she felt the weight of responsibility settle deeper in her chest. Trust wasn’t something she could offer lightly here. Not with Draco’s fragile state, not with the press breathing down their necks, and certainly not with the Ministry already questioning her judgment.

She exhaled slowly, forcing herself to reason. If Narcissa wants to meet, it could be a chance to gauge her motives directly. But it could also destabilise Draco further. I have to consider him first.

The letter felt heavier, the edges crisp but laden with implication. Hermione’s fingers flexed around it, her mind racing through every possible scenario. She could not, would not, let the situation spiral into something even worse than it already was. Yet, beneath it all, a small, stubborn hope flickered. Maybe Narcissa really did want only what was best for her son. Maybe. Hermione’s gaze landed on the second letter. Numbly, she realised the stationary was identical to the first. Upon opening it, the contents were however, decidedly different.

Deputy Head Granger,

It seems congratulations are in order. You have succeeded in accomplishing what even the most ambitious politicians at your Ministry could not. The public ruin of your own reputation, and the reckless endangerment of my family line.

I have read the Prophet. That my son should become the unwilling centerpiece of yet another of your self-righteous crusades is intolerable. You, Ms Granger, the perpetual champion of lost causes, have taken it upon yourself to decide, without consent, counsel, or comprehension, that my heir, Draco Lucius Malfoy, required your particular brand of mercy.

How admirable. How naïve.

Let us dispense with the pretence of altruism. Whatever delusion of salvation you are labouring under, it ends now. My son is not an experiment, nor a symbol for your Ministry’s misguided attempt to launder its conscience in the wake of war. You will release him into my custody immediately.

Failure to comply will constitute not only an act of unlawful detention but a personal insult to the most noble house of Malfoy, one for which I will seek full legal, magical, and social retribution. Make no mistake, Miss Granger: you are alone in this. The Ministry will not shield you when the tide turns. It never does.

You have three days to respond.

Lord Lucius A. Malfoy
Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire

 

Somewhere distantly, as if she were at the end of an endless tunnel, she heard the letter thud against the carpet. The creak of the floorboards outside the study echoed through her mind. She didn’t look up immediately, but she could sense him before she saw him. Draco’s presence carried that peculiar kind of stillness marred with frantic energy, sharp-edged and deliberate. When the door opened, it did so quietly, but the sound seemed to reverberate through the room all the same. He stood in the doorway for a moment, half-shadowed by the dim light from the corridor. His face was unreadable, his eyes pale and cold, but his posture was coiled, wary, the way someone looks before they strike. He stepped inside, unhurried but precise, the soft sound of his feet on the carpet unnervingly measured. There was no trace of fatigue in his movements anymore, only control, that rigid, almost theatrical composure that he’d worn like armour since the moment she’d taken him from the prison.

For a fleeting second, she thought he was going to speak, to demand an explanation again, to lash out the way he always did when confronted with an uncomfortable reality. But he didn’t. His eyes flicked from her face to the letter beside her on the sofa, to the one abandoned on the floor. Hermione braced herself, fingers curling slightly against her knee. He said nothing, but the silence that followed was far more dangerous than raised voices. Draco crossed the room. His hand hesitated only briefly before he picked up the first letter beside her, Narcissa’s. The movement was careful, deliberate. Hermione watched him unfold the parchment, eyes tracing each line. His face didn’t change at first, but then something subtle flickered through his expression: a softening of the mouth, a faint pull in the corner of his eyes. If she hadn’t been watching so closely, she might have missed it entirely.

He read to the end, then lowered the letter slowly. His thumb brushed the edge of the parchment once, a small, thoughtful gesture, before he folded it with meticulous care and tucked it into his pocket. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t say a word. But Hermione could feel the shift in him, the quiet ache buried under his composure, the instinctive recoil of someone who wanted to feel and couldn’t allow himself to.

Then he reached for the second letter on the floor.

His jaw tightened the second he unfurled it. He read only a few lines before his lips pressed into a thin, almost disdainful line. Then, with a sharp, efficient motion, he tore the parchment cleanly down the middle and dropped the pieces onto the table. He turned from the table and looked at her, expression carefully blank. For a heartbeat, she thought she saw something in his eyes, weariness, maybe grief, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared.

“My mother is hiding things from him,” he said, his voice flat and quiet. 

“It seems so.”

He let out a long breath, then closed his eyes. His words were hesitant, as if he already regretted saying them.

“I’ll stay.”

Chapter Text

It had been a week since the Prophet article, and the world hadn’t stopped shaking beneath Hermione’s feet. Ron had moved out of her flat three nights ago after a fight that had scorched the air between them. He’d stood in the doorway, jaw tight, eyes red with anger and judgment. “You’re hiding him, aren’t you?” he’d said. “After everything, after Fred, after the war, you’re still protecting him? Where is he?” Hermione hadn’t answered. She couldn’t. The words I can’t tell you had repeated over and over, making her sound like a broken record. He’d stared at her for a long, silent moment, then muttered something about staying with friends and disapparated. The space he left behind still felt hollow.

The Ministry hadn’t been much kinder. Harry had done what he could, quiet favours, quiet files, but even his help carried weight. He’d appeared at her door late at night, eyes rimmed with fatigue, a weathered folder in his hands.

“This is all there was,” he’d said, voice low. “Two names. Merton and Carroway. Aurors on rotation in ’98.”

The report was skeletal.

Subject apprehended attempting to cross via illegal portkey with family, suspected evasion of post-war surveillance.

Transferred to Azkaban under temporary provisional detainment order.

 Suspect unresponsive to questioning. Malfoy senior also non-compliant. 

Case dismissed due to lack of evidence.

When Hermione tracked down Merton, he’d looked genuinely bewildered. “The Malfoy boy? I had no idea he was still in there until I saw the prophet. We sent him in for questioning, sure, but nothing came of it. We informed the Warden to release him.”Carroway had been the same. confused, defensive, eager to insist that Azkaban had been ‘temporary custody.’ Both had sworn they’d passed the release notice to the prison’s warden before being reassigned. Harry’s next discovery had been worse. When Hermione asked who had been monitoring Lucius Malfoy if his suspected crimes were bad enough to warrant kidnapping Draco over, Harry had come back with his face set into a grim line. “They dropped it,” he’d said. “St Mungo’s got a flood of donations from the Malfoy accounts. Enough to fund an entire ward. He still funds it. The condition was that Lucius remain in-country. Kingsley said his hands were tied, that they desperately needed the money at the time with so many injured. He thought Draco had been at home too.” He hadn’t looked her in the eye after that.

Now Hermione sat in the dining room of Grimmauld place, papers spread around her like a jigsaw, trying to fit the puzzle together. Someone had buried Draco Malfoy alive in Azkaban and made the records vanish. The Aurors had moved on, the Ministry had taken its bribe, and Lucius had walked away untouched. The one person who might have answered the missing questions, Bell, was gone. 

Draco, meanwhile, had gone quiet again. After reading the letters, he’d withdrawn back into that cold, unreachable distance she was beginning to recognise as his attempt of self-preservation. He barely spoke, his movements deliberate and economical, his tone even. When he did talk, it was only for things that mattered. Food, security, the logistics of his confinement. The brief flash of emotion she’d seen when he’d read his mother’s words had vanished as though it had never been there. The fragile, unspoken understanding they’d built in those first days had calcified into a wary truce.

The night of the prophet being released, she’d found him at the dining room table, writing under the faint light of a single candle. He didn’t hide the parchment from her, but he didn’t offer it either. She caught only a glimpse of his precise, elegant handwriting before he folded it. The letter to Lucius was short. Brutally so.

Do not contact myself or Granger ever again. I am not returning. If you attempt to involve yourself in my affairs, you will find a full account of everything they didn’t catch you on in the following day’s Prophet. Consider this the final courtesy you’ll ever receive from me.

He’d sealed it without ceremony and thrown it at her. No anger, no visible satisfaction, no grief. Just finality. Hermione realised that whatever thread had connected him to his father had been cleanly severed.

Since then, he had spoken little beyond necessity. The only thing he spoke of with any conviction was his wand. “You can’t keep me here unarmed,” he said one evening, standing in the doorway, his voice low but vibrating with restrained anger. “If they find us, I’m useless without it. I refuse to visit my mother like a dog with a muzzle.”

Hermione hadn’t disagreed. He was right. Every part of her logical mind recognised the danger of leaving him defenceless. Recognised, too, how humiliating it must feel for him, a wizard stripped of his last piece of agency. And yet, the thought of handing a wand back to him, watching magic flare from his fingers after every volatile reaction he’d had, made her stomach twist. He was still unpredictable, still all sharp edges and buried fury.

“You’re not a prisoner,” she’d said carefully. 

“Then stop treating me like one,” he’d spat back, and walked away before she could respond.

In the end, she’d relented.

The argument about the wand had stretched for days, a cold, looping discussion that went nowhere until Hermione began to see that keeping him unarmed was doing more harm than good. The longer she refused, the more he withdrew, and there was a flicker in his eyes now that unsettled her. Not anger, but something heavier, dangerous in its silence. He was right, of course. He was always right when he forced her to admit uncomfortable truths. If anyone came for him, he’d have nothing to defend himself with. As much as it pained Hermione to admit, he would probably do a better job in fending off their invisible foes than she would.

The logistics were difficult. Getting both herself and Draco into Diagon Alley without prying eyes was nearly impossible, but this wasn’t the first time she’d done it. Olivander’s had long been one of her quiet allies after the war, a necessary one. Over the years, she’d brought other rehabilitated purebloods in for private appointments, men and women who’d lost their wands in the aftermath of the war. Olivander never asked questions. He only nodded, his pale eyes soft with the sort of understanding that required no words.

This time, though, secrecy mattered more than ever. She booked a private session and he shut the shop for the afternoon, the shutters drawn tight, the wards layered thick around the door. Hermione had taken every precaution.

She’d even turned to polyjuice, though she still hated the taste of it. That cloying, viscous heaviness on the tongue that seemed to coat her throat for hours afterward. A single hair from Ginny, taken with her permission and no explanation. Ginny hadn’t asked; she never did. The transformation had left Hermione taller, leaner, her freckles scattered like constellations across unfamiliar skin. She caught her reflection in the mirror before leaving and didn’t recognise herself.

Draco had been more difficult. She’d offered him polyjuice, but he’d refused.

“I’ve worn enough faces,” he said flatly.

In the end, she’d fitted him in a long, dark Auror cloak, the kind she’d requisitioned months ago and never returned. It came with a deep hood and a half-mask for patrol work. He’d hesitated before putting it on, the material heavy and familiar in his hands, and for a moment Hermione thought he might refuse. When he did slip it over his head, his posture stiffened, his expression shuttering. It reminded her too much of the way he’d looked when she’d first seen him in Azkaban, like every movement was something he had to force. It was obvious to him, that these robes were all too similar to the ones his father had once forced him to wear.

“It’s temporary,” she said quietly, but he didn’t answer.

They’d chosen a secluded alleyway in Islington as their apparition point. The air had been cold, sharp enough to sting her lungs, and Hermione found herself gripping his arm tighter than she meant to as they vanished.

They apparated straight into the shop. The faint crack of displaced air echoed softly off the walls, then was gone. The room was dim, lit only by a few dripping candles vaulted near the ceiling. The blinds had been drawn tightly across the windows, muting the orange glow of the lamps outside. The air smelled of dust and varnish, of old wood and faint traces of polished cedar. Hermione felt her eyes adjust slowly to the gloom as she looked around.

Ollivanders had always seemed smaller when empty. The narrow aisles of shelving climbed towards the ceiling, stacked floor to rafters with boxes of wands, each one neatly labelled, each holding a secret. She reached for the door handle out of habit, testing it. Locked. Of course it was. Garrick wouldn’t risk anyone walking in while they were there.

Still, she couldn’t help smiling.

For the first time in what felt like months, something inside her eased. The scent, the silence, the faint creak of the floorboards, it all carried her back to another morning, another life entirely. Eleven years old, nervous and awestruck, standing in this very shop while the old wandmaker measured the sum of her character as easily as turning the page of a book. The memory softened her shoulders despite herself.

She turned slowly, running her fingertips along the counter’s worn edge. “It feels exactly the same,” she murmured, almost to herself.

Behind her, Draco said nothing. She glanced back to see him standing a few feet away, still hooded, his gloved hands clasped loosely before him. He looked like a ghost against the soft light, out of place and out of time.

Before she could say more, a quiet creak came from the back room, followed by the slow, deliberate shuffle of footsteps.

“Miss Granger I presume,” came a voice, papery and precise. “I wondered when you’d arrive.”

Ollivander emerged from the shadows, his silver hair catching the candlelight, eyes bright with recognition. His gaze lingered on Draco longer than Hermione expected, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his thin lips. “Well, well,” he murmured, voice gentle. “It’s been a very long time. I remember the proud boy who first walked through that door, as well as the one who spoke to me through the bars of my cell. You’ve grown.”

Draco’s jaw flexed, his posture stiff, but he didn’t speak. Hermione could feel the tension radiating from him like a shield. Evidently the mention of the wandmakers imprisonment in Malfoy Manor had struck a nerve, and she cursed herself for be stupid enough so as to not consider whether this had been an appropriate reunion. 

“Complicated indeed,” Ollivander said softly, focusing on Draco for the moment, “but not beyond hope. Come, let us see what we can do for you now.” He gestured toward the counter as if inviting an old friend rather than a distant ex-jailer.

Draco hesitated, then stepped forward reluctantly, removing the hood of his cloak and pocketing the mask. He kept his eyes on the polished wood counter, voice low and clipped. “I don’t see why you should care. I have given you ample ammunition not to.”

Ollivander chuckled, not unkindly. “Ah, yes. Spikey as ever. But it is relevant to me, young man. I remember the first wand you held, how your hands trembled, how well it responded to you, the smile on your face. I prefer to recall that over the dark days I spent in your father’s dungeon. You have not forgotten that, have you?”

Draco’s fingers twitched at the mention of the memory. “I haven’t forgotten. Father was most displeased that I’d selected a wand with a unicorn hair core.”

Ollivander tutted. “You know as well as I do that the wand chooses the master, Master Malfoy. I can offer you another wand,” Ollivander continued, “perhaps one similar to your previous? But you must handle it with care.” He drew a slim box from the drawer, the velvet inside gleaming softly. “Hawthorn, Unicorn tail core. Eleven inches. Flexible, but with… character.”

Draco took the wand, weighing it carefully in his hand. He turned it, tested its balance, all while keeping his expression neutral, unreadable. The candles flickered lightly as if acknowledging the connection.

“You were always particular, Master Malfoy,” Ollivander said, voice warm. “But cautious need not mean cold. You’ve grown into a different boy, though there’s still goodness in you. Remember that first spark of magic? It’s still there.”

Draco’s hand tightened slightly on the wand, a subtle acknowledgment, and for the briefest moment, Hermione thought she saw a flicker of an excited young boy again. Then, as quickly, he looked away, voice low and measured. “I am aware of what I am. Spare me the sentimentalities.”

“Very well,” Ollivander said, his tone soft but unwavering. “But I would remind you, sometimes it is the small, remembered kindnesses that sustain us when the world is less than gentle.”

Draco lifted the wand, and gave it a hesitant flick, then cried out. The wand clattered to the floor and Draco held his palm. Wincing. “It burned me.” When he unfolded his palm however, there wasn’t a single mark to be seen. Olivander picked the wand up and put it back in the box, tucking it away on a shelf. 

“Unsurprising, you are not the same boy you once were. This core may no longer suit your needs. Let’s try, hmmm,” he reached down low to one of the far walls, pulling out a plush velvet green box. “Dragon heartstring, Elm, ten inches.”

Draco shot the elder man a withering look. “No thank you.”

Hermione frowned, glancing between Draco and Ollivander, uncertain. She felt the tension coiling tightly around him like a living thing.

“Simply try it, Master Malfoy,” Ollivander said softly, leaning closer, his eyes keen and patient. “There is no harm in seeing how it responds. The wand may surprise you.”

Draco’s lips twisted in a cold, dismissive line. “And why should I?” His voice was low, clipped, dripping with bitter disdain. “It is the same core, the same wood as Father’s wand. I have no desire to follow in his footsteps, nor be tethered to his legacy in any shape or form.”

Hermione bit her lip, a flush of frustration and helplessness rising. She knew the logic, knew that on paper he was right, but the way he spoke, the rigid finality in his tone, was uncalled for towards someone that was simply trying to help him. Ollivanders gaze softened, but he did not push. “Ah,” he murmured, almost to himself, “that is very clear. A sharp and decisive mind, yes, and one that will not be swayed lightly. Still, the wand has a way of speaking to those who will listen, whether they wish it or not.”

Draco’s jaw flexed, and he made no move toward the wand. Hermione exhaled slowly, trying to calm the restless swirl of anxiety pressing against her ribs. She had thought choosing a new wand might bring some small relief, a tiny thread of control in a world that had been spinning wildly out of their hands, but now she realised it might take far longer than she had imagined.

“Very well,” Ollivander said at last, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “We shall see what else may suit you.” He moved to another shelf, scanning thoughtfully. Hermione watched, a knot of tension in her chest, as Ollivander began pulling wand after wand from the shelves. Draco took each one with measured reluctance, and each wand responded worse than the last.

A curved oak wand with a unicorn core shivered violently in his hand, sparks jumping off it like tiny lightning bolts. Draco yelped, throwing it onto the counter. Next, a sleek ebony wand with dragon heartstring twisted and pulsed, sending a gust of frigid wind that made him stumble backward, clutching at his cloak. Hermione winced, holding her breath.

“Try this one,” Ollivander suggested gently, a little too cheerfully. Draco barely lifted his eyebrows, his mouth a hard line. The wand was cherry wood, thunderbird tail feather. It flared, crackling and sending small shocks into Draco’s arm. He dropped it with a dry, muttered curse, glaring at the old wandmaker as if daring him to comment.

Finally, Ollivander produced a long, blackened wand, with the core of basilisk horn. Hermione felt a shiver run down her spine even before Draco’s fingers closed on it. The moment it left Ollivanders hands, a violent resonance echoed through the shop. Draco’s grip tightened instinctively, and Hermione felt the air hum, like a storm just beyond the walls.

The sound of an angry crack shot through the blinds. Another followed, subtle at first, then louder, splintering noises from the windows behind the curtains. Draco froze, knuckles white, as a faint ringing buzzed through the air, making the hairs on his arms rise.

Ollivanders brows drew together. “I do not typically have so much difficulty,” he murmured, pacing slowly. Then he paused, his hand stroking his long chin. “A matter of transformation, perhaps.”

He pushed a small rolling ladder to the side, mounted it carefully, and reached high, fingers brushing against dustridden boxes. After a moment, he descended, holding a slim, unassuming box. He did not speak of its contents. He simply extended it toward Draco.

Draco’s eyes narrowed, wary, but he lifted the lid and took the wand into his hand. It was long and pale, with a sleek notched handle. Elegant carved tendrils extended from the handle up the length of the wand, curling around it.

Immediately, the tension in his body melted, a slow exhale escaping him. A gentle breeze swirled around the shop, carrying a harmonic sound, soft and clear, that seemed to vibrate with his very bones. Hermione’s heart lifted as a ribbon of blue and red light shone around him, washing over the walls and floor in a quiet, ethereal glow. For the first time in years, Draco’s lips lifted, his expression softening, a genuine smile touching his eyes. The rigid mask of defiance and suspicion cracked, replaced with something fragile and real.

Ollivander gave a subtle nod, almost to himself. “Ah… I believe we have found it. Very interesting. Phoenix feather, yew, twelve inches.”

Hermione stepped closer, careful not to break the moment. Draco did not look at her immediately. When he did, he was still smiling. Truly. Earnestly. It was a sight that brought relief waving through her. Hermione’s eyes widened as Draco’s guard, so carefully maintained, began to crumble. The glow from the wand cast flickering patterns across his face, softening the sharp angles that had been carved by years of fear and anger. For a brief, suspended moment, he seemed more present, vulnerable, real in a way she hadn’t seen since she first pulled him from Azkaban.

Without a word, he stepped forward, closing the gap between them, and pulled her to his chest in a tight embrace. Hermione froze, stiff, caught off guard by the raw, desperate weight of the gesture. She could feel the tension in him, the tremor of muscles she had only ever seen coiled for defence, now finally releasing.

“Draco-” she whispered, uncertainty threading through her voice, unsure whether to move or stay.

His head tucked into the crook of her neck, and for the first time, he let himself lean fully on someone. Hermione felt the shock ripple through her, her mind racing, but instinct took over. She slowly returned the embrace, hands pressing against his back, grounding him, grounding herself. “Thank you,” he whispered into her ear. 

It was not a gentle hug; it was fierce, tight, almost clinging. It carried months of fear, anger, grief, and relief all at once. Hermione could feel the faint tremor running through him, and she murmured softly, letting the words thread into the quiet: “You’re welcome.”

Draco’s arms lingered around her, a tension slowly giving way to something almost fragile. After a long, shuddering breath, he tilted his head slightly and pressed a soft kiss to the top of Hermione’s head. It was brief, understated, but somehow heavier with meaning than words could carry. Hermione didn’t know how to react for a heartbeat, then let herself inhale the moment, the warmth of it sinking past her defences.

“Thank you,” he murmured again, voice low and rough, carrying gratitude that had no audience but her.

Hermione’s throat went tight. She could only nod against his shoulder, letting the silence hold them together a moment longer. It was simple, almost mundane, but after every abuse he’d hurled at her, it felt like the changing of the tide. She swallowed, heart hammering as they separated. The smile that ghosted across his face in that moment was a quiet miracle, and for once, she allowed herself to believe it might last.

Hermione spoke with Garrick a while longer, then thanked him and paid. She twisted the lock on the door of the shop open and they stepped out into the cool afternoon, the soft glow of the streetlamps casting golden light over the cobblestones. The door of the shop fell shut behind them with a faint click, sealing away the warms. The air smelled faintly of spring and roasting chestnuts from a cart further down the street. The air was still chilly, but the pale light of spring was reaching out its faint arms towards them as they walked down the street.

Hermione adjusted the hood of his cloak, making sure it stayed low enough to shadow Draco’s face, though for once he didn’t seem to care much about being seen. The grim, hollow silence that had followed him for weeks was gone. In its place was something lighter, almost boyish.

“It’s strange,” he said, turning the wand over in his hand as they walked. The wood caught the lamplight, glowing faintly in the dusk. “I’d started to think it was gone. Magic, I mean. That I’d used it all up, or that it had decided I wasn’t worth the effort anymore. I almost thought that burning the painting had been a fluke.”

Hermione glanced at him. The usual sharpness in his voice was softened now, worn down by quiet wonder.

“But this-” he held the wand up slightly, eyes shining, “-it doesn’t just feel right. It feels alive. Like it’s breathing with me.”

She smiled faintly, keeping her eyes ahead as they passed Flourish and Blotts, its window display stacked high with glittering spell theory volumes. Another day, she’d go in there and explore, but today wasn’t about her. It was about him. “That’s what it’s meant to be,” she said. “It’s supposed to choose you. Maybe it was just waiting for the version of you that could hold it properly.”

He gave a small huff of laughter, the sound quiet but real. “You make it sound like it’s been sitting in that dusty box, waiting for me to have a moral epiphany.”

They passed Madam Malkin’s; bolts of silk and deep green velvet gleamed in the display, mannequins slowly rotating in the light. Beyond that, the warm amber glow of Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, its tables mostly empty in the cool air. The street was near empty, and those who did pass them were far too preoccupied with their own lives to pay them any notice. The world felt muted and calm, as if Diagon Alley itself had paused to catch its breath.

Hermione stole a glance at Draco again. His shoulders were looser, his expression softer. Every so often, he twirled the wand in his fingers with the easy familiarity of someone rediscovering an old language. He couldn’t control the small smile on his face.

They slowed as they neared the soft glow of Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. The shopfront looked much the same as it had years ago, frosted windows glowing amber from within, pastel chairs stacked neatly beneath the awning, a chalkboard sign by the door boasting Butterbeer Ripple and Treacle Tart Swirl. The faint scent of sugar and warm waffle cones drifted into the street.

Draco’s steps faltered. He glanced at the display window as they passed, the corners of his mouth twitching in something like surprise. “You know,” he said quietly, “I always wanted to go in there when I was younger.”

Hermione turned to look at him. “Really?”

He gave a small, almost embarrassed laugh. “Father never approved. Said it was ‘common,’” he muttered, mimicking his father’s drawl with a sneer. “But Mother… she’d find excuses. Pretend she’d need ingredients from the apothecary and come home with a carton of Fortescue’s in a charmed cooling box. Green apple, usually.”

Hermione felt something soft tug at her chest. “That’s sweet of her,” she said gently.

Draco gave a small nod, still watching the light glint off the glass. “She used to say everyone deserves a small indulgence now and then.” He paused. “I didn’t really understand it at the time.”

Hermione hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Do you want to go in?”

He blinked, caught off guard. “No,” he said automatically, shaking his head. “No, it’s fine.”

She studied him for a long moment, then smiled faintly. “You know you can do whatever you want now, right? No one’s watching. No one’s going to stop you.” She nodded toward the door. “If you want ice cream, Draco, we can have ice cream.”

For a second, he looked as though he might argue, but then something changed, something small and bright flickered across his face. His expression softened, a glint of something boyish and unguarded surfacing in his eyes.

“Alright,” he said, the word coming out quieter than he probably meant it to. Then, a half-smile tugged at his lips. “Alright. Let’s go in.”

Hermione pushed open the door, and a soft chime rang overhead. Warm air spilled out to greet them, thick with the scent of sugar and cream. Inside, the shop was cosy and mostly empty, lit by a few flickering lanterns. A young witch behind the counter straightened up, smiling politely as they entered.

Draco stood just behind Hermione, glancing around the shop with cautious curiosity, as though stepping into forbidden territory. The air was warm and sweet, carrying the faint hum of magic that kept the ice cream from melting in its display case. Rows of silver tubs gleamed beneath starlight-coloured glass, each filled with something decadent, swirls of gold, pale blue, deep maroon. Behind the counter, a witch barely older than them smiled in greeting, a smudge of chocolate on her apron.

“Evening!” she said cheerfully. She looked at Draco, took in his clothes. “Always happy to serve the ministry.”

Hermione returned the smile.

Draco hovered near the counter, gaze flicking from flavour to flavour with wary fascination. It was such a small, ordinary thing, but to see him standing there, this man who had survived Azkaban, who still carried its shadow in his eyes, gazing at tubs of ice cream as though they were relics of a world he’d forgotten, made something in Hermione’s chest ache.

The witch behind the counter tilted her head. “Can I help you decide?”

Draco hesitated. “Er. what’s that one?” he asked, nodding toward a tub of emerald-coloured swirls flecked with black.

“Green apple and liquorice," she replied brightly. “Not for everyone. Bit of an acquired taste.”

He looked almost uncertain. “Right. And that?”

“That’s treacle tart swirl. Very sweet. One of our bestsellers.”

Hermione bit back a small smile. He looked completely out of place, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders drawn up, like he’d been asked to perform a task he hadn’t studied for.

“Two scoops,” Hermione said gently to the witch, nodding toward the green apple. Then, to Draco, “Unless you’d rather pick something else?”

He blinked at her, then gave a small, awkward shrug. “No, that’s fine.”

They took their bowls to a small table by the window. Through the glass, the lamplight from the street bled softly into the shop, catching faint glints of frost on the panes. Draco sat stiffly at first, as if unsure how to inhabit the quiet. Then he took his first bite.

The change was almost imperceptible at first, a slow exhale, his shoulders relaxing, the faintest crease of disbelief between his brows. Hermione couldn’t help smiling when he took a second spoonful, faster this time, his expression softening into something she hadn’t seen in him before: contentment.

He looked up at her then, a trace of amusement in his eyes. “You know,” he said, “I think this might actually be better than I imagined.”

She laughed softly. “I’ll take that as high praise.”

He glanced back down at the ice cream, his spoon tapping lightly against the bowl. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? How something so small can feel so-” he broke off, searching for the word, “-human.”

Hermione met his gaze, her smile quiet. “Not ridiculous at all.”

For a long moment, they sat in comfortable silence. The world outside seemed distant, almost unreal. Hermione rested her chin on her hand, studying him as he took another bite. The faintest smile still played at his lips, hesitant, but real. It softened him, stripped away the brittle pride and the guardedness that usually surrounded him like armor. She was struck with just how attractive he was, even in his current state. Joy suited him more than she’d have ever imagined. 

“I’m glad to see you smile,” she said quietly, almost without meaning to.

Draco looked up at her, surprised. The spoon paused halfway to his mouth. For a moment, he seemed to actually think about it, then his brow furrowed slightly. “I never see you smile, not really.” he said. Not accusingly, more as if he were just realising it for the first time.

Hermione’s lips curved faintly, but not quite into a real smile. “I’ve had a lot on my mind,” she said.

He watched her for a few seconds longer, the earlier lightness fading to something more reflective. The realisation seemed to hit him then, that she’d been the one carrying everything, shouldering him, the secrecy, the risk, while he’d been too wrapped up in his own fear and anger to see it.

“I’ve been…” He trailed off, eyes flicking to the window, where the streetlamps cast a dim gold over the cobblestones. “I’ve been insufferable, haven’t I?”

Hermione blinked, then laughed softly. “You said it, not me.”

Draco gave a quiet, pained huff. Not quite a laugh, but close enough. “I suppose I have. You’ve done nothing but help me, and all I’ve done is snap at you like some wounded dog.”

She shrugged, stirring what remained of her ice cream. “You’ve been through a lot. You’re allowed to be difficult.”

He tilted his head slightly, eyes still on her. “That doesn’t make it right.”

The light from the window caught on the silver streaks in his hair, and Hermione thought how strange it was that this was the first time they’d looked like two normal people sharing dessert in the evening glow. Draco sat back in his chair, spoon abandoned in the half-melted bowl. His gaze had drifted, thoughtful, again to the frost-touched window, the street beyond painted in warm, hazy light. When he finally spoke again, his voice was quieter, stripped of its usual sharpness.

“I think,” he began slowly, “I was too caught up in all of it to see what you’ve been doing. For me.”

Hermione looked up, startled slightly by the sincerity in his tone.

He kept his eyes fixed on the glass, as if it was easier to talk to the reflection of the world than to her directly. “I’ve been angry and hopeless for so long that I stopped noticing anyone else’s reasons. You’ve been trying your best. And I don’t think I ever really saw that until now.”

Hermione’s chest tightened. She wanted to say something, a reassurance, a deflection, but for once, the words wouldn’t come.

Draco turned back to her then, the faintest trace of something vulnerable in his expression. “I’m not going to start trusting the world any time soon,” he said, his tone soft but steady. “But…” He paused, the corner of his mouth twitching as though the admission cost him something. “I almost trust you.”

For a long moment, Hermione didn’t move. The noise of the street outside, footsteps, laughter, the faint clang of a closing shop, all faded beneath the quiet weight of his words.

Her eyes appraised him. “Almost?” she asked gently, a teasing note slipping through despite herself.

A ghost of a smile flickered across his face, smaller this time, but truer somehow. “Let’s not rush things, Granger.”

The moment lingered between them, fragile and real, like a thread stretched between two people who had both forgotten what gentleness felt like.

Chapter Text

Two weeks had passed since their trip to Diagon Alley. Since then, a rhythm, not quite peace, but something close enough to resemble it, had settled over Grimmauld Place. Draco had taken to rising early, often before Hermione. She would often find him standing in the kitchen at dawn, hands wrapped around a cup of tea he never quite finished. Sometimes, there was a warm mug waiting for her too. Other times he was already at work with his wand, coaxing the old house back into shape.

Bit by bit, he taken himself to stripping away the ghosts. The wallpaper had been repaired, the scorched portrait of Walburga Black had been removed, and the flickering lamps burned steady for the first time in years. The house no longer felt haunted, not by spirits, nor by memory. It began to feel cosy in a way she hadn’t expected. 

He was doing better, Hermione tried to convince herself. His colour had returned; his voice, though quiet, no longer rasped like broken glass. He was gaining weight quickly. Still, there were the nights. The screams that split the silence like cracks in glass. Sometimes she woke to them, other times she didn’t, but she always found the signs the next morning: the half-drained tea on the table, the scorch marks in his room, the hollow look in his eyes.

And yet, she thought, progress was progress.

When an owl forwarded by Harry arrived one afternoon bearing a note in Theo’s spiky handwriting - Still alive. Staying at the Three Broomsticks. Parkinson insists on mothering me. You should come check I haven’t died of boredom. - Hermione had decided she should make the trip to Hogsmeade.

Draco hadn’t protested, only grunted in mild disapproval and reminded her not to “get sentimental.” She ignored that.

Hogsmeade was quieter than she remembered. The war had left its marks here too, even after all these years. Scarred buildings, empty shopfronts, patches of cobblestone still blackened by spellfire. The Three Broomsticks, though, was warm as ever, a constant in a shifting world.

Hermione stepped inside, brushing off the chill. The scent of butterbeer and a warm fireplace greeted her, along with the unmistakable murmur of conversation.

Theo was easy to spot near the back. He looked well, healthy, though had noticeably lost some weight since she’d last seen him. Sitting across from him was Pansy Parkinson, quill in hand, hair twisted neatly at her nape, a small badge pinned to her cloak that read Pansy’s Flowers - Growing Together.

“Granger,” Pansy said, her tone polite but cool, eyes flicking over Hermione’s travel-worn robes.  Her tone was polite, cautious, as she looked over Hermione as if assessing her intentions.

 “You made it.”

“I did,” Hermione said, managing a small smile. “Theo looks almost human again, so I’d say you’re doing something right.”

Pansy’s lips curved, just slightly. “He’s an easy project. Some of the others, less so. He’s tolerable company when he remembers to eat,” Pansy said dryly, though there was a hint of fondness there. She gestured to an empty seat. “We’re about to start.”

The group gathered around three tables pushed together, a mix of people Hermione recognised from both sides of the war. There was old Marta Baird, who had lost two sons in the Battle of Hogwarts; beside her sat Rosier’s cousin, his left arm still marked faintly with the shadow of a burned-off Dark Mark. There was a young woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, nervously twisting her napkin; and a grizzled wizard in a Ministry cloak who kept his hat low, as if ashamed to be seen here.

Pansy tapped her quill against her parchment, her voice calm but firm. “All right, everyone. Same as before. No interruptions, no shouting. You share, you listen, you respect. It’s not about agreement, it’s about understanding.”

She nodded to a witch across from her. “Marta, you said you wanted to start?”

Marta nodded shakily. Her voice trembled at first. “My brother was an Auror,” she said. “He he died in the first raid on Knockturn Alley. I thought they couldn’t take anything else for me, then my sons died and it felt like the world had ended. I spent years thinking I hated all of you,” she said, looking at the ex-Death Eaters on the opposite side of the table. “And then… when I was attacked by a vampire last spring, it was one of you who helped me. One of the ones I used to call monsters.”

Hermione noticed a man across the table, tall, narrow-faced, with a faint scar along his jaw, dip his head slightly, eyes downcast. Marta gave a watery smile. “I suppose I’m here because I don’t know what to feel anymore. I just don’t want the only thing to come from losing my boys to be me spending the rest of my life hating everyone so much. I’m tired.”

A murmur of quiet agreement rippled through the group.

The tall man, Anderson, Hermione remembered vaguely, spoke next. “I was one of those monsters,” he said evenly. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I told myself I was serving order, protecting the world from chaos. Building a better future for my family. But when the fighting ended, I realised I’d only made the world smaller and crueller. My wife won’t speak to me. My son won’t look me in the eye. So I come here, because it’s the only place where people will face me.”

Pansy shifted slightly, glancing at Hermione as if to say see what we’re trying to do here.

A few others spoke in turn. A young witch admitted she’d been a sympathiser, not a fighter. “I made coffee and filed papers for the Muggle Born Registration Commission,” she said, her voice small. “I told myself that if the Ministry was saying it, it had to be true. They didn’t see it that way when it all ended. I was punished for following orders. Now I don’t know what to believe.” Another, an older wizard, confessed he’d spent ten years hunting Death Eaters with such hatred that he struggled to see them as people. That it had stopped being a matter of justice and had turned into an obsessive revenge.

Hermione found herself speaking before she realised it. “I used to think justice was simple,” she said quietly. “But it isn’t, is it? It’s not a line between guilty and innocent. It’s… a web. We’re all tangled in it somehow.”

For a moment, the room was silent. Then someone said softly, “We’re tangled together.”

Pansy looked around the table, her expression uncharacteristically gentle. “Progress is slow,” she said. “But it’s still progress. You’re all here. That’s something.”

There was a small hum of agreement, though it was fragile, like something made of glass.

And then, the door banged open.

A group of witches and wizards stumbled in, loud, laughing, reeking of ale and cold air. Their voices cut through the quiet warmth of the room. Hermione felt her stomach twist as their gazes locked onto the table and they stumbled over, shattering the calm.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” one of them sneered. “Didn’t realise they let Death Eaters run self-help groups now.”

The laughter that followed was sharp and cruel. Pansy’s jaw set. Theo started to rise, but she caught his arm. “Don’t,” she whispered.

Another voice, slurred and bitter, added, “You think holding hands and weeping with the people whose families you killed changes anything? You lot should still be rotting in cells.”

The room went deathly still. The innkeeper, who’d been polishing glasses behind the bar, slammed one down hard enough to crack. “Out,” he barked, his voice ringing through the tavern. “You’ve had your fun. Out before I hex you to St Mungo’s myself.”

The intruders jeered but left, their laughter echoing long after the door had slammed shut.

The group sat in uneasy silence. One of the younger witches, the one with the napkin, looked exceptionally pale. “I don’t think I can come back next week.”

Theo reached across the table, resting a hand over hers. “You can,” he said softly. “You should.”

Hermione exhaled. “Does this happen often?” she asked quietly.

Pansy’s mouth thinned. “Often enough to make people lose heart,” she said. “But not enough to make me stop.”  Pansy’s gaze flicked to the door where the hecklers had gone. “They have their own little club that likes to meet and talk about how pathetic the world is for choosing forgiveness. Someone has to do something. The Ministry talks about unity, but it’s all words. No one wants to sit across from the people they locked up, or from the people who killed their loved ones. So I make them.”

For the first time, Hermione found herself oddly respecting her.

Theo smirked faintly. “Don’t let that shock you too much, Granger. She’s actually a decent human being now.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Pansy murmured, but there was warmth in it.

Hermione smiled.

The meeting broke apart slowly, chairs scraping, murmured thanks and quiet goodbyes filling the air. The older Auror wizard clasped Anderson’s hand before leaving, and Marta lingered at the door as if afraid stepping out might undo what they’d built in the last hour.

When the room finally thinned, Hermione found herself sitting across from Pansy and Theo, the dregs of butterbeer cooling in their mugs. The candlelight flickered low between them, throwing gold across Pansy’s sharp features.

“Well,” Theo said, leaning back, “that went better than usual. Only one shouting match.”

“That’s progress,” Pansy murmured dryly, but her gaze was far away, fixed on the door, the echoes of the jeers that had cut through her work. She drew a slow breath, then looked back at Hermione. “You were good there. People listen to you.”

Hermione shook her head. “They were listening to each other. That’s what matters.”

Pansy’s lips twitched faintly, almost a smile. “Still, it helps when the war hero shows up. Gives the rest of us a bit of borrowed legitimacy.”

Hermione stiffened at the faint edge in the words, not unkind, but aware. Pansy noticed, of course she did. All Slytherins seemed to have that razor perception. They sat in silence for a beat, Theo absently tracing the rim of his mug. Then Pansy spoke again, quietly:

“How’s Draco?”

She froze. The question landed like a jolt of cold water down her spine. For a moment she forgot how to breathe. She should have expected it, was surprised even, that it wasn’t the first thing she had asked. The Prophet hadn’t outright said that Hermione had him, but anyone with half a shred of cognition would be capable of reading between the lines.

“I-” Hermione started, then stopped. The instinct to deflect, to protect, rose fast. “We’re… managing.”

“Managing?” Pansy’s brow lifted. “I can’t imagine he’s very happy with being managed.”

Theo glanced between them, curious. “I hope he’s doing better than before,” he offered carefully. “He looked close to death in Azkaban. He wouldn’t talk to me.”

Hermione’s fingers tightened around her mug. “He’s surviving,” she said, too quickly. “I don’t know. Everything with him feels like one step forward and two steps back.”

Pansy studied her, expression unreadable. “And the nights?”

Hermione’s throat closed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Pansy said, voice low, “does he wake up screaming?”

Theo flinched, a knowing look on his face. Hermione didn’t doubt that Theo felt some of the same struggles.

“How do you-”

“Because I know him, Granger,” Pansy cut in. “I’ve known him my whole life. He’s not the type to sleep easy. Never has been, even before all of this. I worry, for some reason.”

For a long moment, none of them spoke. The hum of the fire filled the silence.

Finally, Hermione managed, “I don’t think he’s the same person anymore. I’m not sure what he is now.”

“I don’t think he ever really was who people thought,” Pansy murmured, tracing her finger along the condensation on her mug. “You spend your whole life being told what to believe, what to be, what to do. Some people snap under that. Others bear it, but it costs them.”

There was a weight in her voice that Hermione recognised. Guilt, maybe, or grief.

Theo looked between them again, then leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You could visit him, you know. When Granger eventually lets him out of his cage,” he said to Pansy, half teasing, half testing. Hermione felt something in her chest tighten, but she didn’t know what. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Pansy, as much as anyone could be trusted these days at least, but the thought of facilitating a meeting between the pair made her feel uncomfortable and wary.

Pansy huffed softly, but didn’t look up. “And undo all of Granger’s hard work? No, thank you. He doesn’t need ghosts from the past turning up with well-meaning pity.”

Hermione’s stomach twisted. “He might appreciate knowing you care,” she said, almost grudgingly.

Pansy finally met her eyes, a sharp, assessing look. “Would you tell him that? Or are you just his minder?”

Hermione’s breath caught.

Theo winced. “Pansy-”

“No,” she said, still holding Hermione’s gaze. “I’m not judging. I know you have a job to do. I’m just saying that he’s spent his entire life being handled and managed by different people. It’s difficult to believe that has changed now.”

The words lingered, sharp as broken glass.

Pansy rose, smoothing her cloak. “We’ll have another meeting next week, if anyone still shows up.”

Theo stood as well. “They will.”

As Pansy passed Hermione, she paused, resting a hand briefly on her shoulder. “Tell him I said hello,” she murmured. “And that he’s not as alone as he thinks.”

Then she was gone, her perfume fading with her, cool, expensive, and somehow mournful.

Hermione sat for a long time after, staring at the flickering candle, her heartbeat unsteady.

Theo gave her a sidelong glance. “She’s not wrong, you know.”

Hermione didn’t look up. “About which part?”

“Any of it,” he said quietly.

The lamps had burned low by the time Hermione returned to Grimmauld Place. The quiet struck her first, the kind of heavy, waiting silence that seemed to thicken in the air here after dark. She closed the door softly behind her, setting down her cloak and bag, and hesitated. The faint smell of old books and tea lingered, along with the faint tang of recent spellwork.

The sitting room glowed in the half-light of the fire. Draco was there, stretched along the sofa, one arm crooked behind his head, the other resting across his stomach. A book lay half open on his chest, its pages rumpled from where he’d drifted off. Tools and scraps of parchment littered the low table beside him, restoration spells half-finished, sketches of charms and wards scrawled in his sharp hand.

He looked peaceful. The harsh lines of tension that usually carved across his face had softened, leaving something younger, gentler. In sleep, he looked less like a man rebuilding himself from broken pieces and more like someone who might have been whole once.

Hermione stood there for a long moment, unsure whether to wake him or let him rest. She took a step closer, then another, meaning only to drape a blanket over him. The soft rustle of fabric must have stirred him, because his eyes opened, unfocused at first, grey shifting to silver as they found her in the low light.

“You’re back,” he said quietly, voice rough with sleep.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.” His eyes flicked toward the clock, then back to her. “How was it?”

Hermione hesitated, setting the blanket aside and perching on the edge of the armchair opposite him. “It was better than I expected,” she said finally. “Theo’s doing well. Pansy Parkinson has started something, a sort of discussion group in Hogsmeade.”

His brow lifted slightly, the faintest sign of disbelief. “Pansy? Leading a discussion group?”

“It’s actually-” she stopped, realising the defensive tone she’d taken. “It’s good work. She’s trying to help people from both sides talk to each other. Understand each other.”

Draco made a low, noncommittal sound, his gaze sliding toward the fire. “That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”

“It almost was,” Hermione admitted, a tired smile tugging at her mouth. “But she handled it. She’s different now.”

Something flickered across his face at that, too quick to name. Maybe scepticism, maybe something sharper. “Different,” he repeated softly, as if testing the word.

“She asked about you,” Hermione said before she could stop herself.

That got his attention. His eyes snapped to hers, alert now. “Did she.”

“Yes.”

A long silence followed. He sat up slowly, resting his elbows on his knees, his hair falling into his eyes. “And what did she want to know?”

“Just how you were,” Hermione said. “She seemed worried.”

Draco let out a quiet, humourless breath that could almost have been a laugh. “Worried. That’s rich.”

“She seems like she cares,” Hermione said gently. 

He leaned back again, expression unreadable in the firelight. “Pansy cares about the past,” he said. “About what it means for her now. Not about me.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Hermione said.

“Maybe not,” he said, voice low. “But it’s true.”

The silence that followed wasn’t hostile, but it was heavy, the kind of silence that revealed the depth of old wounds more than words ever could. The fire cracked, a spark leapt, and Hermione found herself studying him, the way the light gilded his hair, the pale scars that crossed his hands, the stillness he wore like armour.

“She told me to tell you hello,” Hermione said finally.

His mouth twitched faintly, not quite a smile. “Did she?”

“And that you’re not as alone as you think.”

This time he looked at her fully. Something in his gaze wavered, not anger, not quite disbelief, but a tired sort of ache. “She always did have a flair for the dramatic,” he said, though his tone had softened.

Hermione didn’t reply. The silence settled again, gentler this time. She rose quietly, pulling the blanket up and draping it over him.

He didn’t move, but when her hand brushed his shoulder, his voice came, quiet and careful. “Thank you. For telling me.”

She nodded. “Goodnight, Draco.”

Chapter Text

Hermione smoothed her palms over her skirt for the fourth time, as if she could iron her nerves flat with the motion. The Leaky Cauldron was quiet this afternoon, the din of midday trade had faded to the occasional clink of glasses below, the scrape of a chair. The small upstairs room she was holed away in was dusty and dirty. The window was cracked, letting in a thin stream of grey London light that illuminated the grime of her environment.

It had taken three days of careful conversation to persuade Draco. Three days of measured arguments, firm reasoning, and quiet persistence, and in the end, she thought, he’d agreed less out of faith in the idea and more from not having the will to resist her further on the matter. He’d looked at her long before answering, as if measuring the risk in the lines of her face. When he finally sighed and muttered, “You’ll do it anyway, won’t you?” she’d only smiled faintly and said, “Not without you saying I can.”

That small concession had seemed to matter to him. Now, though, she wasn’t sure she’d been ready for this.

Her eyes flicked to the door as she remembered the odd exchange with Tom downstairs, the deliberate phrasing, the coded language, the almost theatrical secrecy. It made her feel foolish, though she supposed these were the sort of theatrics typical of the Malfoy family. “The white rose returns in bloom,” had been the passphrase, and the innkeeper had given her a thoroughly unimpressed stare before ushering her wordlessly upstairs.

The soft knock came precisely at the hour agreed upon.

Hermione’s heart skipped, though she’d been waiting for it. She rose quickly, straightening her shoulders.

“Come in,” she said.

The door opened without a sound. Narcissa Malfoy stepped through, bringing a faint chill of the outside air with her.

She looked as though she had stepped from another world. Tall and composed, her long velvet coat of deep plum falling in perfect lines, the fabric rich even in this dim room. Her silvery-blonde hair was pinned in an elegant twist, secured by a dragon-shaped brooch with an onyx clenched between its jaws. It gleamed darkly as she moved.

Hermione felt an odd sensation deep within herself stir, as if there were an animal that had long laid dormant finally waking from its slumber. The sight of that pale hair, the sweep of the cloak, it was a dissonant echo, something her body remembered before her mind did. Narcissa’s perfume smelt just as it had all those years ago, lavender and tonka bean. Hermione had thought deliriously that such a cruel creature should not carry such a gentle fragrance. It had swirled through her breathless lungs as she screamed. She had thought she’d buried that memory so deep it could never reach her again, but now it stirred, a faint shimmer of remembered fear under her ribs.

For a moment, the contrast was almost absurd: Narcissa Malfoy, immaculate and poised, standing amid the scuffed floors and smoke-stained wallpaper of the Leaky Cauldron. Yet there was something quietly defiant about her posture, as though she refused to be diminished, no matter the setting. Hermione caught herself staring. The tilt of Narcissa’s chin, the smooth command in her movements, it was impossible not to recall the same stillness in that room years ago, when she’d been the one on the floor and Narcissa had stood above her. She had barely spoken then. She’d simply watched. It was strange, now, to see those same eyes and not feel hatred, only the faint, unsettling press of memory. 

Hermione managed a small, respectful smile. “Mrs. Malfoy.”

Narcissa inclined her head slightly, face stiff. “Miss Granger,” she said. “I trust I’m not late?” If Narcissa recalled that night, nothing about her demeanour expressed it. Hermione wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or not.

“Not at all,” Hermione said, gesturing toward the small table. “Please, sit.”

Narcissa’s gaze swept the room once, a subtle wrinkle of distaste at the state of the curtains, before she sat with the grace of someone raised to command attention even in silence.

For a moment, neither spoke. Hermione busied herself pouring tea from the small pot that had been left for her, grateful for something to do. She didn’t like tea, not really, but it was something to keep the chill away. The clink of cheap porcelain steadied her. She hated that her pulse was unsteady, that her palms felt clammy. She had faced worse than this woman. Faced the war, the fighting, the aftermath, and yet here she was, half undone by a face that reminded her of pain she’d thought to have forgotten. Narcissa watched, expression unreadable, her hands folded in her lap.

When Hermione finally looked up, she found those pale eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her spine straighten.

“I believe you know something about the whereabouts of my son.” Narcissa said softly.

Hermione nodded. “I do.”

Narcissa’s expression didn’t change, but her hands tightened slightly around each other. “Then you have my full attention.”

Hermione hesitated for only a breath. “Before I say anything, I want to thank you for coming, for your patience,” she said. “And I want you to know that I understand this can’t be easy.”

The older witch tilted her head slightly. “My son has been gone for years. I’ve written letters to the Ministry every month for nearly five of them. There is very little, I assure you, that could be more difficult than that.”

The words struck Hermione harder than she’d expected. Their calm delivery only made them more devastating.

She took a breath. “He is in a safehouse under my supervision. He has been through something of an ordeal, but is recovering slowly but surely. The situation regarding his imprisonment is a complicated one. I believe there is a third party who attempted to keep him imprisoned in Azkaban, a third party that probably isn’t happy that he has been released. Due to the secrecy required surrounding this, I am acting outside of Ministry regulation. He is staying somewhere safe, somewhere that no one will be able to find.”

Narcissa’s lips parted slightly, but she didn’t speak. Her gaze sharpened, glimmering faintly, something trembling just beneath her composure.

“I came to you,” Hermione went on carefully, “Because I believe you may have information that could help me to uncover this third party and protect Draco from them. I can’t, in good conscience, let him wander around when there is still danger. But this has to remain completely confidential. Your husband…”

At the name, Narcissa’s chin lifted.

“…has already made it clear he’ll make things difficult for me if he suspects interference. So if this gets out, if anyone even knows that I’ve spoken to you, I won’t be able to help Draco at all. I am aware you said that Draco shouldn’t return to the Manor, and I won’t ask why that is today. All I am asking you to do is to withhold any knowledge of his current situation or whereabouts for the time being. If you are willing to agree to this, I can facilitate a visit with him.”

The silence after that was taut, humming with contained energy. Hermione could almost hear the sound of her own pulse.

At last, Narcissa said quietly, “You’re asking me to choose between my husband and my son.”

Hermione found the strangeness of it all leaving a bizarre taste on her tongue. This woman was a riddle of contradictions: someone who had lived in gilded halls while she had fought in forests, who had upheld prejudice while Hermione had built her life in defiance of it. Narcissa Malfoy had stood on the opposite side of everything Hermione had ever fought for, and yet here she was, meeting alone with a person she’d let her sister torture.

How much of it, Hermione wondered, had been conviction? How much had been circumstance? Had Narcissa believed as strongly in the things her husband preached, or had it been a slow series of concessions? Hermione couldn’t decide which was worse: to have wanted it or to have simply allowed it, indifferent, because the world she’d been born into deemed it acceptable. Perhaps complicity born of comfort was its own kind of cruelty. And still, for all of that, here they were. Two women who should have had nothing to say to each other, bound by the same man, standing on the same side.

Hermione met her gaze steadily. “I’m asking you to protect the one who still needs you.”

For a long time, Narcissa said nothing. Then slowly, deliberately she reached up and unclasped the dragon brooch from her hair. She turned it in her hand, the onyx catching the light.  Hermione realised, with a flicker of discomfort, that she had never truly looked at Narcissa before. Not as a person. During the war, she had been a shape in the background, the soft echo to louder cruelties. It was easier that way, to make her a symbol rather than a woman. 

“I have already made my choice,” she said. “If secrecy is what you require,” She lifted her eyes to Hermione’s, cold and resolute. “Then I will give you the Unbreakable Vow.”

Hermione froze. 

But Narcissa was already standing, the brooch gleaming darkly between her fingers. “If it will protect my son, I will swear it. That I will share no information of his whereabouts, his condition, or your involvement, to anyone.”

There was steel beneath the velvet.

Hermione rose slowly, her pulse roaring in her ears. She hadn’t expected this. Not the gravity, not the quiet fierceness. She saw the slightest glimmer of something in Narcissa’s eyes, a ruthless and possessive devotion that she couldn’t begin to understand.

The room felt smaller when Narcissa stood. The last of the daylight had drained from the window, and what little glow remained flickered dimly from a single candle on the table, its flame throwing light across the walls, the edges of Narcissa’s hair, and the black sheen of the onyx in her hand.

Hermione swallowed. Her instinct was to argue, to say that such a thing wasn’t necessary, but one look at Narcissa’s face silenced her. There was no theatrics in her proposal, no manipulative grace. Only solemn intent.

Narcissa turned her wrist and held out her hand, slender and pale in the candlelight.
“Do you know the incantation, Miss Granger?”

Hermione hesitated, her throat tight. “Yes. But-”

“There are no half measures when it comes to my son,” Narcissa said steadily. “If you wish to protect him, you must accept that I will do the same. This is how you’ll know that you can trust me.”

Her voice trembled faintly at the last word, but it steadied again almost immediately.

Hermione drew in a quiet breath and nodded. Her fingers brushed the wand in her pocket. “All right.”

Narcissa inclined her head once in approval, then extended her right hand fully, palm up. “Then let us begin.”

Staring at Narcissa’s extended arm, Hermione hesitated a fraction longer than she should have. There was something irrationally difficult about touching her, her mind conjured, unbidden, the cold floor, the echo of screams that weren’t Narcissa’s doing but had happened under her roof. She forced the thought away and reached forward anyway. The contact was cool, fine-boned, deceptively delicate. The skin was smooth but her pulse beneath it was rapid.

With her other hand, Hermione drew her wand. “Who will cast it?”

“I will,” Narcissa said. “I have done it before.”

There was a pause. The weight of those words hung between them. Hermione wondered what oaths Narcissa Malfoy had sworn in her life, what promises she had been forced to make to survive. She thought, fleetingly, of all the years she had spent hating this family. Hating what they’d stood for, what they’d allowed. And yet, sitting here, the divide between them felt paper-thin. Love and hate were just two sides of the same coin that they had all been dealt in the end. 

Narcissa lifted her wand, her eyes focused on Hermione’s. “Speak the terms, Miss Granger.”

Hermione took a slow breath. “You will swear that you will never reveal Draco’s whereabouts or condition to anyone unless I have given you express permission. That you will not speak of my involvement, nor of his release. And that you will do all in your power to protect him.”

Narcissa’s expression softened almost imperceptibly. “Gladly.”

She tightened her hold on Hermione’s hand and whispered the incantation.

A thin, bright ribbon of light burst from the tip of her wand, coiling around their joined hands like molten silver. It shimmered, alive, pulsing faintly in time with their heartbeats.

“Will you, Narcissa Malfoy,” Hermione said, her voice steadier than she felt, “swear upon your life that you will never reveal his location unless I have told you that you can?”

“I will.”

The band of light tightened, glowing fiercely for a moment before another thin thread split off and snaked around the both of them.

“Will you swear that you will share no word of him or me with anyone, not friend, not family, not the Ministry, unless I give you permission to do so?”

“I will.”

The light flared as it split again, casting silver shadows across the ceiling.

“And will you swear,” Hermione said, her voice soft now, “that you will prioritise the wellbeing of your son, no matter the cost?”

Narcissa hesitated, just for a heartbeat. Then her chin lifted, and she said, with quiet, unwavering conviction.

“I will.”

The thinnest thread, a spiderweb, split off and wrapped around them. The last vow was sealed with a burst of golden fire. The light wound once more around their hands, then sank into their skin and vanished. Hermione gasped faintly at the warmth that lingered, a deep, electric hum beneath her skin that faded slowly to nothing.

When the light disappeared, Narcissa didn’t release her immediately. Her fingers lingered around Hermione’s hand, almost a silent gratitude. Then she drew back and let out a quiet, shuddering breath.

“It is done.” 

 Hermione watched the older woman, saw the minute tremor in her hands as she pinned the brooch back into her hair. Something in that simple gesture, the careful composure, the determination to look untouched, struck her as almost unbearably human. There was a kind of nobility in Narcissa’s restraint, a sorrow held so tightly it had crystallised into elegance. Watching her now, she could see how Draco was like her in so many ways, though his restraint was much rawer, far less composed. Hermione wanted to say something, to acknowledge the quiet cost of what she had just witnessed, but the words refused to come. There was too much history here, too much that language could not cleanly touch. Narcissa’s eyes flickered towards her, and for the briefest second, the mask slipped. In that instant, Hermione thought she saw her not as a Malfoy, not as the name that had haunted her youth, but as a mother.

They spoke little after the vow. Hermione’s voice felt too small for the moment, the words emerging in careful fragments as she arranged for Narcissa to come to Grimmauld Place in a week’s time. She would have preferred a neutral location, something less weighted with ghosts, but the vow made secrecy absolute, and there was no risk of Draco being seen by unwelcome eyes there. When she mentioned the address, Narcissa had looked genuinely surprised. Then, to Hermione’s astonishment, a small, wistful smile softened her mouth. The Black family house. Perhaps it was sentiment, or the irony of it, but for a heartbeat Hermione thought she saw something like fondness in her expression. Narcissa inclined her head, rising with that same quiet grace, and when she turned to leave she rested her hand lightly on Hermione’s arm. The touch was fleeting, but it sent a shiver down her spine all the same.

When the door shut behind her, Hermione sat for a long time, staring at the space where Narcissa had stood. Her thoughts moved in circles she could not easily escape. She realised, with a strange disquiet, that she knew almost nothing about the woman she had just bound herself to. Nothing real. She had always imagined Narcissa Malfoy as a woman of cold conviction, as complicit as the men around her. She wondered what Draco had been like as a child with this woman. If he had once known gentleness in her arms, if she had brushed his hair from his eyes, taught him his first spell, pressed kisses to his temple before bed. It was strange to think that the boy who had sneered at her across classrooms had once been loved so fiercely. Stranger still that, after everything, it was that same love, twisted, tempered, unyielding, that now bound the three of them together.

Hermione found him in the sitting room just after breakfast the next morning. She had gotten back later than she’d intended, walking through Diagon Alley aimlessly for many hours, ignoring the curious stares and scurrying footsteps of witches and wizards who had no doubt read about her many insanities in the Daily Prophet. When she had arrived at Grimmauld Place, Draco had been asleep. She’d hovered by his bedroom door, almost tempted to wake him, but seeing the soft embrace of peace swarth him in a dreamless sleep, no fitful screaming for the first time in many nights, stopped her. The morning light was weak and cold, spilling across the threadbare rug in pale ribbons. Draco was in the armchair by the window, long legs drawn up, the spine of a journal pressed flat against his knee. He wasn’t writing. His eyes were somewhere far beyond the glass, following something only he could see.

She stood in the doorway for a moment, taking him in, the set of his shoulders, the slow, mechanical rhythm of his breathing, before she spoke.

“Draco?”

He blinked and turned his head slightly. “Granger.” His voice was flat, cautious, as if even the smallest surprise might splinter the fragile calm he’d built around himself.

She took a breath. “You know that I met with your mother last night. Can we talk about it?”

His expression didn’t change, not at first. Then a small, imperceptible tightening around the eyes.

“She will come next week. To visit you.”

He said nothing. The air between them seemed to grow heavier, taut. The muscles in his jaw flexed once, twice, before he exhaled and looked away from the glass.

“I suppose I knew this would happen.” His tone was careful, measured, but the white of his knuckles on the armrest betrayed him.

Hermione hesitated. “You did agree that I could reach out to her.”

“I know,” he said quickly. Too quickly. He rubbed at his temple, as though he could press the thought back into something manageable. “I just… I don’t know. It’s different, hearing it aloud.”

He pushed the journal aside, stood, and paced to the fireplace. “It’s ridiculous. I should have expected it. Of course this was coming.” His words were too fast, his breathing shallow. “But it’s been so long. And she’ll-” He stopped, letting his words die as he stared into the flames.

The telltale signs of one of his episodes were all there; the sudden frantic energy of him, his refusal to meet her gaze, the way he seemed to be painfully present and far away in some distant and unreachable place all at once. She wasn’t sure if he was getting easier to read, or if she’d simply grown accustomed to recognising the feeling of the wind changing and the pressure rising before his storms. “Draco.”

He cut her off with a sharp movement, hands raking through his hair. “I’ve spent weeks imagining this. How it might go, what I’d say, how I’d look her in the eye.” His voice was uneven, a hint of the high boyishness of his teenage years creeping through his usual low tones. “And now that it’s real, I wish it wasn’t.”

He broke off, staring down at his hands as if they didn’t belong to him. “She must have assumed that I had died. I’m not sure that the alternative is any better.”

She felt her patience begin to fray. A thin, trembling thread pulled too tightly between them. Guilt followed swiftly on its heels, sharp and immediate. The two emotions had become inseparable now: irritation and remorse, exhaustion and tenderness. She knew why he was the way he was. She could list the reasons, name them, explain them as if reciting something from a department manual: the trauma, the guilt, the years lost to silence and shame. She could rationalise him, could make sense of his every retreat, his flinches and tempers and long, blank stares. She could understand it all. And yet, understanding did not make it easier to bear.

His pain was not a wound he carried, it was a landscape. Vast and endless, a country she had been forced to navigate without a map. It had no borders, no moments of respite, just darkened valleys and sudden storms that left her exhausted from the journey. It lived in everything he did, every look, every hesitation, every tremor of his voice. It had consumed him utterly, so that there was nothing left untouched by it. She knew he couldn’t help it, that he was trying, in his way, but the truth of that did not make it any less heavy to carry beside him. Living with him was like standing on the edge of a lake where someone was drowning, and knowing that every time she reached out to pull him up, he would take another piece of her under too.

Every conversation had become an exercise in restraint. Either she was tiptoeing carefully around the cracks in his mind or forcing her way through them, trying not to get caught on the jagged edges. Even the silences were fraught, heavy things that pressed against her ribs. She had once thought that she could fix him, could remake him in her own image, even if she hadn’t admitted it to herself until now. She had done it with so many others. That’s what she was known for, wasn’t it? Fixing other people’s problems. That was what she’d built her childhood, her career on. Being useful. She’d always been so good at it. She didn’t know if she still believed that anymore. 

He had told her when he had his first night terror that he was empty now. She had believed him then, mistook the distant gaze of his eyes and his detached demeanour as something hollowed out. But he wasn’t empty. He was overflowing. All of the unspoken things, all the hurt and memory and fear that refused to die inside him. He was all-consuming, relentless in the grief of his own innocence, until there was no room left for her within her own life. His presence filled every quiet moment, every thought she tried to have that wasn’t about him. She had built her days around the shape of his pain, and now it was impossible to tell where his sorrow ended and her own began.

And still, in the quietest part of her, she realised she cared for him. Not as a responsibility, not as a project to be mended or a debt to be paid, but as something frighteningly human. It didn’t make sense. There was no part of him that should compel her, no reason she could summon that would justify the ache of empathy that rose in her chest when she saw him flinch or falter. He had been wretched to her his entire life and the only kindness he showed now was restricted to fleeting moments in which she’d done something he wanted. But she cared for him anyway. Against her will, against reason, against every argument she could make to herself. It wasn’t just a job anymore, though she couldn’t tell when it had stopped being such. 

“Draco.”

Draco turned, his voice quiet but frayed. “She won’t recognise me,” he said flatly. “Not really. I wouldn’t recognise me either.”

“Draco.”

He shook his head sharply, as if the sound of his own name was intolerable. “You don’t understand. The last time she saw me, I was still her son.”

Hermione felt the weariness raise in her, pulse thrumming in her ears. “You are still her son.”

He turned on her then, quick and suddenly raw. His constant changing gave her whiplash. “You think that means anything? You think she will look at me and think all of that wasted energy was worth it?”

The sharpness in his tone startled her. Not because it was cruel; it wasn’t, but because it was desperate. He wasn’t fighting her, he was fighting the thought itself. She took a half-step forward, then stopped.

“She’s been waiting for you,” she said, trying to be patient, though she realised an edge she hadn’t intended had crept into her voice. “All this time. She never gave up. She’s been searching for you endlessly.”

His mouth twisted. “Then she’s a fool. Just like you are.”

Something in her cracked then. Not cleanly, but like glass under pressure, hairline fractures spreading slowly. She had spent so long being patient, being careful, choosing every word as if it might detonate. And for what? Nothing she said ever seemed to reach him. Every attempt to soothe or reason or mend slid off him like water from stone.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t angry; it was tired, bone-deep tired. “Every time someone tries to care, you push until they stop trying.”

Draco finally met her gaze, eyes wide with surprise at the frankness of her words, but she couldn’t stop now. She didn’t even know if she wanted to. “You think that if you keep hating yourself hard enough, it’ll save the world the trouble of doing it for you. But it doesn’t work like that, Draco. It just-” Her voice wavered. “It just makes it impossible to be near you.”

He stared at her as though she’d struck him, and for a moment she hated herself for saying it. For letting him see that exhaustion that had been building for weeks. But it was the truth, and she was too tired to keep swallowing it.

“I know you’re trying,” she said after a long while, almost pleading. “I know that none of this is your fault. But Merlin, Draco, it isn’t mine either. I don’t know how to do this anymore. Every day feels like trying to hold the world together with my bare hands.”

He looked smaller, as if the conversation was draining his resolve. “I never asked you to.”

“I know,” she said, frustrated. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I am.”

The quiet stretched thin between them. She realised her hands were trembling.

From the way he was looking at her, he could see that he was already clamming up, already going to that distant unreachable place that was more comfortable for him than daring to feel. She was so, so tired.

“Don’t do that,” Hermione said quietly.

He blinked, brow furrowing. “Do what?”

“That,” she said, voice still trembling but steadying with every word. “That thing where you disappear. You disconnect the moment someone challenges you.” The air between them was humming with something fragile and electric. “You think that shutting down protects you, but all it does is leave everyone else standing here, trying to talk to a ghost.”

Draco’s mouth tightened. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

“No,” she said, a brittle edge creeping into her tone. “Maybe I don’t. But don’t pretend this is only hard for you.”

He stared at her, frowning still, as if he didn’t understand what she meant, or didn’t want to.

“This-” she gestured helplessly between them, “-this thing we’re doing. It’s hard. Meeting your mother, facing your past. It’s hard for me too. Had you ever stopped to consider that, or does the revelation only come to you when I do something you want? You scream in your sleep, and I come running. But when I wake up in the middle of the night shaking, there’s no one to come for me.”

Her words landed like stones, one by one, soft but heavy. “I know you think I don’t understand pain,” she went on, her voice shaky, “But I do. You think you’re the only one who wakes up remembering. The only one who can’t forget.” Draco’s expression flickered, some faint unease passing through him. “Hermione-”

“No,” she said sharply, cutting him off. He’d never called her by her first name before, not so honestly at least. She didn’t like it. “Don’t. I am so sick of you having the last word, of silencing myself because I know it’s easier than telling you the truth. So here it is.”

She rolled up her sleeve. Her hand shook as she did it, but she didn’t look away from him. The skin of her forearm was pale under the morning light, almost as pale as his, and the word was still there, faint, but unmistakable.

Mudblood.

Draco went very still. All the colour drained from his face.

“You’re not the only one who was marked,” she said. “You carry yours? Well I carry mine. You think I don’t know what it’s like to look down and remember exactly who did it? Where I was? What it meant?” Her voice broke, but she forced herself to keep speaking. “You think I don’t remember that you were there every time I look at you?”

His lips parted, but no sound came out.

“I remember the sound of her laughter as she did it,” Hermione said, caught somewhere between anger and pain. “I remember the way you stood there, watching. And I remember thinking, Merlin help me, that maybe you were going to stop her. That maybe there was something in you that could. Sure, you’d been a hateful prat in school, but surely there were limits to your juvenile cruelty. Maybe you would at least try, even if it would just be a single word of resistance.”

He turned away sharply, a hand rising to his mouth. “Don’t.” His voice was barely audible.

But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. It had been sitting in her chest for too long, festering in silence. She hadn’t even dared to think about that night, but seeing Narcissa again had brought it all back in violent waves she’d been too busy to acknowledge until now. 

“You haven’t even said sorry,” she said, her voice trembling with both fury and sorrow. “You think your own pain is so large and unique that you can’t see anything past it. But you can’t keep acting like I’m the villain for trying to help you live through it. You didn’t deserve Azkaban, Draco. You didn’t deserve to be a pawn in a hate group’s crusade. But I didn’t deserve to be tortured in your home, and then have to live with the man who watched it happen berating me as if I’m the one who should apologise because I didn’t break in the same way you did.”

He flinched, a visible, visceral reaction, as if she’d driven a blade into him. When he turned back to look at her his silver eyes were shining, one arm still raised covering his mouth as if he was going to be sick. His other arm was pressed tightly into his side, fingers gripping at himself. They dug into his legs, clawing. For a long moment, the only sound in the room was his breathing, ragged, uneven.

“I didn’t-” he started, but his voice cracked. He swallowed hard, tried again. “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t move. I wanted to-I wanted to-I couldn’t-my mother-i was so afraid-”

Hermione closed her eyes, the ache of it pressing hard behind her ribs. “I know,” she whispered. “I was too. But knowing doesn’t make it easier.”

When she looked at him again, he was trembling. His face had gone so pale, his mouth drawn in that same expression of boyish horror she’d seen only once before, in the room of requirement, burning fiendfyre reflected in haunted pale eyes, staring at her as she’d flown away and left him to his doom.

“I see it every time I look at you too,” he said hoarsely. “Every time. That night. The look on your face. When you showed up at Azkaban, I thought the dementor was just playing the memory back to me again. I’ve watched it again and again, hundreds of times. I can’t forget.”

Hermione didn’t answer him. Couldn’t.

The room seemed to shrink around her, sound collapsing inward. Her pulse roared in her ears, but everything else was muffled, as if she were sinking underwater, air thick and unbreathable. She watched him from somewhere far away, her own body suddenly alien, disconnected.

She could feel herself folding inwards, retreating to a small, dark corner of herself where things were quiet and still. Where she didn’t have to remember. Where she could pretend, just for a moment, that she was fine.

Draco’s face changed when he saw it, the way her eyes went blank, the way her shoulders drew in. Horrified recognition. 

“No,” he said, shaking his head, stepping forward. “Don’t leave. Don’t-”

He reached for her before he even seemed to decide to. His hands found her shoulders, tentative at first, then desperate, gripping hard enough that she could feel the tremor in him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. The words broke apart as they left his mouth. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I’m so-Fuck, I’m so sorry. For doing nothing, for just standing there-”

She blinked at him, dazed. His face was too close, his breath unsteady. His eyes were rimmed red, half crazed his voice unraveling.

“I didn’t move,” he said, the words spilling too fast now, uncontrolled. “I should have- I could have- I thought if I did, she’d hurt me. Or my mother. I can’t stop seeing it- you screaming, the blood on the floor, me standing there like-”

He broke off with a strangled noise. He was gripping her so tight, searching her face desperately as if he could force her to see him.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, louder this time, almost frantic at her silence. “For everything. For school. For-I liked it, ok? I liked making you miserable.”

Hermione twitched at that, broken slightly from her haze, and he shook his head quickly, eyes wild. He jolted her lightly, like he was trying to force his words to sink into her. “No,-listen, listen to me, you have to listen to me- it’s true. It made me feel good. It made me feel real. Like I could hold something above you, like it made me live up to my name. It felt good to hate you. To laugh at you. It felt safe. ”

His grip tightened further, though he wasn’t hurting her. She couldn’t have felt him even if he was.

“You were lesser,” he went on, voice cracking. “You weren’t even human. You didn’t deserve to be where I was. My blood and my family and my names mattered more than whatever you were. When I believed that, it made me the way I was supposed to be. It would made me something.”

He gave a broken laugh, harsh and self-loathing. “For a time at least. Then it just made things more confusing. And when everything went to hell, when I saw my mother on her knees and my father begging, when I saw you laying there, it was the first time I realised what a pathetic coward I really am.”

He looked at her then, eyes wide and glassy. “You were right, you always were. I just couldn’t bear to see it. So I punished you for it. Let you be punished for it. And I didn’t care.”

She still hadn’t moved. Her breath came shallow and uneven, her eyes fixed somewhere over his shoulder.

“I feel it now,” he said, desperate. “All of it. The guilt, the shame- It doesn’t stop. It keeps getting bigger. It’s eating me alive and I don’t know what to do with it. Tell me what to do with it.”

He was shaking her now, lightly, almost pleadingly, as if movement might bring her back. “Granger. Say something. Please.”

But she couldn’t. Her throat felt locked, her chest constricted. There were too many things she could say, too many jagged truths, too many versions of forgiveness she didn’t know if she could offer. So she just stood there, his hands on her shoulders, the both of them trembling in the wreckage of everything they’d been too afraid to name.

The silence that fell was unbearable.

Finally, Draco let go. His hands dropped to his sides. He took a step back, his expression hollowed out again, but not in the usual way. It wasn’t detachment this time, it was devastation.

He looked at her as if she’d taken the air from his lungs, as if her presence had suffocated him and he would never be able to breathe again.  

“I never deserved you even standing here.”

Hermione closed her eyes. She wished she could tell him that wasn’t the point. 

Chapter Text

The house had changed. Not in sound or shape, but in texture. Something in the air had turned immaterial. It all felt so fragile and fake, and she drifted through it aimlessly. Hermione no longer went looking for him. She didn’t have it in her anymore. The compulsion to monitor him, the feeling of obligation in ensuring he was coping, had vanished. She told herself it wasn’t because of the argument. It hadn’t even been their worst.

He had said worse things to her before. Much worse. And she had borne them with her usual, moralistic composure, had drawn herself up, answered calmly, reminded herself that he was damaged, that she could withstand him. But this time had been different, and she didn’t know why. There had been no screaming, no slammed doors, no cruel words that jabbed at her. He hadn’t even done anything except be honest with her about his feelings. That was what she had wanted all along, wasn’t it? For him to finally open up to her? But now that he had, she couldn’t bring herself to listen to it. The quiet violence of truth slipping through was louder and crueller than anything he’d ever said to her, and now she felt as though something inside her had been quietly severed. It made no sense. None of it did. She kept turning it over in her mind, testing the edges, trying to find what exactly had broken, but everything inside her felt dulled, blunted, as if she were pressing against the surface of something that refused to give. He had always been the ghost in this house, not her. He seemed almost solid now. More real than he had any right to be. His very presence unsettled her, was too loud. The sound of his footsteps, the flick of his pale hair as he passed her in the corridor, it all pressed too sharply against her senses. The weight of him in the world was unbearable.

She, meanwhile, was slipping. Her body went through the motions. Eat, write, sleep, wake. Her mind lagged several steps behind, as if she were walking through someone else’s dream. Sometimes she would find herself standing in the hallway without remembering how she’d come there. The candlelight shimmered across the warped mirror at the end of the corridor, and she would catch sight of her reflection, her face pale, her eyes ringed and hollow, and she would think, absurdly, there’s supposed to be someone in there. Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe she had left some part of herself behind, back in that cursed manor where her skin had been carved into a word she would never escape. She had spent years convincing herself that she was fine. That she was strong, logical, above it all. She had folded her fear neatly, pressed it flat, locked it away like a file in a drawer she would never need to open. But now, for some reason she couldn’t understand, it had begun to bleed through the seams.

The fight shouldn’t have been enough to undo her. Nothing about it should have mattered this much. And yet she was adrift, exhausted, slipping out of herself while he burned too brightly beside her. Draco’s pain haunted the house by filling it; she haunted it by retreating from it. It used to be his restlessness that kept her awake, the sound of his pacing, the clatter of his glass against wood. Now it was the stillness, hers, that made sleep evade her. She lay awake most nights, staring at the ceiling, feeling the dark press close around her. Her bedroom didn’t feel real. It felt as if she were a toy being dragged by small invisible hands through a playset, combing her hair, brushing her teeth, eating dinner. It felt as if she were disappearing into his shadow. And she didn’t know why. She couldn’t understand why this, him, had undone her now, when she had survived far worse. She only knew that the world felt thinner, quieter, and that some essential part of herself had gone missing.

Hermione had expected it to pass. The fog, the weight, the strange sense of being a fraction out of sync with the world, she had thought it would lift once Narcissa arrived. She had been so certain that the reunion would help him, that it would mean something. That all of this, his recovery, her patience, the long weeks of delicate work, would culminate in that moment and justify everything. He’d get his family reunion, she’d get a chance to seek the answers that had been evading her for so long. But when the time came, she could barely stomach being in the room.

She had arranged the visit with care, rehearsed every step in her mind: Narcissa would arrive mid-morning with Hermione. She would leave them for a moment, bring tea. Draco would be nervous and conflicted but ultimately relieved, and Hermione would stand quietly at the edge of it all, unobtrusive, content to witness something good happening at last. Narcissa’s gentle presence would lift Draco from his mental cell, Hermione would be able to get some answers out of her and focus on the looming disaster of the press, and the story would end. It wasn’t like that.

The moment Narcissa stepped through the door, Something inside Hermione went very still. She had forgotten the sound of her voice, the cold grace of it, the way even silence seemed to follow her like a shadow. Narcissa’s presence carried the echo of the manor with it, the same perfume, the same cadence, the same sharp, elegant restraint.

Hermione felt it before she understood it: that visceral, animal recoil in her chest. It was as if the house around her had shifted shape and become something older, darker. The walls were the wrong colour; the floorboards creaked with the wrong sound. Draco had gone pale, of course. Pale and trembling, eyes wide and wet in a way that hurt to look at. Narcissa had taken one look at him and made a small, broken noise that didn’t sound human. She went to him at once, reaching for his face, whispering things too soft to hear, both of them sobbing. Hermione watched numbly as Narcissa placed a kiss upon Draco’s dishevelled head. He retreated into her as if she could protect him from everything the world had done to him, and from everything both of them had done to it.

“My boy… My strong, brave boy… I missed you so much… I love you so much...”

It should have been beautiful. It should have felt like victory. But Hermione couldn’t feel anything at all. Her body had turned cold and tight, like a bow drawn too long. She stood at the edge of the sitting room, watching them, and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Every sound was sharp, the soft brush of fabric, Narcissa’s delicate weeping, the crack of the fire. The air itself felt wrong, dense, hard to breathe. They looked the same way they had the last time she’d been in the same room as the pair of them, but that time she’d been bleeding on the floor. She could still hear their last conversation in front of her, in the cold dark room of their estate, ringing in her ears.

“Look, Draco, isn’t it the Granger girl?” 

“I . . . maybe . . . yeah.” 

She wanted to leave, but she couldn’t. She had wanted this. She had made this happen. And yet all she could think about was the echo of footsteps on black wood, the feeling of broken glass under her, the cold, merciless eyes that had looked down at her as she screamed.

Hermione pressed her palm against the doorframe, willing herself to stay grounded, to be present, to be fine. She had been fine for so long. But her skin felt wrong, too tight, her heart beating somewhere deep and unreachable. She realised, distantly, that she hadn’t drawn a full breath in minutes.

Draco said something then, something small and fractured, something that made Narcissa’s face crumple, and Hermione felt a violent, inexplicable pang of envy. For what, she couldn’t say. Maybe for their grief, their clarity. For the fact that despite everything, they got to have this moment, and her own mother didn’t even know who she was anymore. She wanted to cry but couldn’t. She wanted to comfort him but couldn’t move. It was like her body had turned into an uncontrollable vessel for something she didn’t understand.

When Narcissa’s hand reached out to touch Hermione’s arm in quiet gratitude, so light, barely a brush of fingertips, it was all she could do not to flinch. Narcissa’s hands looked so much like her sisters. Narcissa’s eyes met hers, and she heard it again.

“Look, Draco, isn’t it the Granger girl?” 

She made an excuse about tea. Her voice sounded far away, not hers at all. She left the room before either of them could stop her. In the hallway, she gripped the wall and tried to breathe. The wallpaper pattern blurred and shifted under her gaze. Somewhere behind her, she heard Narcissa sob, a soft, wet sound. She gave them space.

It should have been a relief, seeing them together again, that faint, uncertain joy sparking between them. But as their conversation unfolded through the walls, the quiet, tender rhythms of their reunion, Hermione found herself hollowing out inside.

She stood at the sink long after the tea had gone cold, listening without meaning to. She couldn’t remember when she’d started drinking tea so much. She’d always preferred coffee, more a tool for her late nights and early mornings than something to drink out of comfort. She’d started drinking it when he’d started brewing large pots, not wanting to let it go to waste, and the habit had stuck. She poured the rest of it down the sink.

The sound of Narcissa’s laugh, light, airy, human, struck something raw in her. For weeks, she had tried to coax Draco into moments like that, to draw him back toward life. And now that life had returned, it excluded her entirely.

When she went back to the sitting room, they looked almost ordinary. Narcissa’s hand rested lightly on her son’s sleeve; Draco sat forward, eyes bright with a kind of shy hunger. Hermione stopped in the doorway, the sight twisting something deep in her chest. He looked up at her, almost embarrassed. 

“Granger.” he said.

She didn’t meet his eyes. “Would you mind going upstairs? I need to speak to Mrs. Malfoy.”

He hesitated. He looked at her, then at his mother, as though unsure which of them he was meant to obey. But in the end he nodded, brushing Narcissa’s hand once more before rising. There was guilt in his glance toward Hermione, but she turned away before she could decipher it.

When the door closed behind him, silence pooled.

Narcissa exhaled softly. “He has changed,” she said. “Not entirely for the worse.”

Hermione gave a small, strained smile. There was a pause, then she asked quietly, “Can I ask you about that night? When he was captured.”

Something stilled in Narcissa’s expression. “If it will help. I suppose he hasn’t told you?”

“He’s never spoken of it. Not properly.”

For a moment, Narcissa said nothing. She rose, crossing to the window. Outside, rain had begun to streak the glass, fine, silvery lines running down into the dark. It was too similar to the way Draco liked to watch the outside streets.

“It was supposed to be simple,” Narcissa said at last. “A crossing. We had arranged for a portkey, paid far more than it was worth. Sweden, of all places. Lucius said it would be quiet, out of reach of the media. We donated generously towards the efforts of rebuilding, but it merely purchased a small modicum of breathing room. I knew it would only be a matter of time before public opinion would incline the Ministry to prosecute.” She shook her head. “I have never liked Stockholm. So cold in the winters. The families there are very involved in modern investments. The nouveau riche. I told Lucius we should have settled into the summer house in Bordeaux, but he was incensed by the concept.”

Her reflection in the window shimmered, translucent, like something half-remembered.

“Some snivelling little sycophant arranged it,” she continued, disgust evident on her haughty features. “A smuggler. We knew he had been playing both sides. I suppose we had hoped the galleons offered would have purchased a modicum of discretion, if only for a single night.”

Hermione could see where he got it from, and it wasn’t just Lucius.

“They were waiting for us in the treeline,” Narcissa said. “A mere two aurors. I would have thought that the Ministry would send greater numbers, though I suppose resources were thin at the time. They attacked in the last few seconds.” She stopped. A faint tremor ran through her voice. “There was no use in fighting them. Lucius and I knew it would only make matters worse once we were captured.”

The words hung between them, soft and mournful.

“Still, we had hoped to evade them. The fight scattered Draco from my side. It was dark. There was confusion in the chaos. With every spellflash I feared that Draco would be hurt. Lucius found Draco, then myself.” She shook her head delicately. “He apparated us back to the manor, but it wasn’t until the haze cleared that we realised he had not caught Draco’s arm at all. Only the sleeve of his coat. Draco had been left behind. When I went back for him, he was gone.”

Hermione’s breathing felt slightly painful, as though the memory pressed against her ribs.

“Lucius refused to admit the truth at first, blamed the smuggler, but there was nothing he could do. Nothing we could do. Afterwards…” Narcissa’s voice grew colder, steadier, though still tinged with sorrow. “Draco was detained. They refused to release him until Lucius explained why we had been making the journey. The Ministry didn’t believe his claim of wanting a fresh start, and refused to release him. No matter what we said, no matter what Lucius offered, they would not release him.”

She exhaled slowly, gaze fixed somewhere beyond the glass. “Lucius donated more, offered names of our peers for leverage, and still the only concession he won was that the Ministry would stop considering him a flight risk and refrain from pressing charges. I assumed… I assumed they were holding Draco as punishment. They could not touch Lucius directly; his status, his connections, protected him. So they took what they could.”

She shook her head again, faintly, bitterly. “Lucius told me not to get involved. That my interference would only complicate matters. That he was the one who had caused this, it was his issue to resolve. So for six months, I did nothing. I sat and I waited. Eventually I wrote letters. It was the only thing I could think to do, I could not show my face at the Ministry with Lucius thinking me to be overstepping him. Hundreds of them, over the years. There was never a reply.”

Her tone was calm, almost analytical, but her hands had tightened into fists. Her mannerisms were so similar to Draco’s that Hermione found her presence almost familiar. 

“Eventually, the new Warden came to the manor to inform us that Draco had passed. That he’d gotten into a scrap with another inmate.”

Narcissa’s hands trembled slightly as they rested against the sill, pale fingers tightening into themselves. “I went mad with grief,” she said quietly, her voice faint. “I could not eat. I could not sleep. I could not think. Lucius… he tried to convince me to leave, to flee to Sweden with him, to start again, to live. But I could not. I could not make that journey without Draco. I knew it was irrational. I knew he was gone. But some part of me, some foolish part, refused to accept it. Every street, every window, every shadow of the manor became a shrine to his absence. I could feel him everywhere I could not reach him.”

She could see the image of Narcissa in her mind, pale and rigid, caught in that blackened fog of grief, unable to move forward, unable to leave the manor that now felt more like a mausoleum than a home. A small, cruel part of her found some small satisfaction of Narcissa being tortured in the same home that she had been, but she pushed it down with shame.

“Then…” Narcissa’s voice faltered, a flicker of disbelief creeping in. “Then I received a letter. From you.” Her eyes met Hermione’s, a soft smile creeping in. “I thought… someone was playing a cruel joke. It made no sense. He was dead. I could not even imagine otherwise. My hands shook in rage as I held the paper, thinking someone had been vindictive enough to torment me with my son’s death in some sick mockery.”

She pressed her lips together, blinking back something raw. “It wasn’t until the Prophet confirmed it. Until it was announced that you had broken him free, that I realised the letter had been true. That he was still alive. Because of you. Of all people.”

Hermione leaned against the door, the words Narcissa had spoken echoing in her mind. They mostly matched what she had been able to piece together from Harry’s scraps, but there was a gap she hadn’t understood before. Bell had told the family that Draco had died. She hadn’t known that. The implications of that lie, of what it had clearly done to Narcissa, were grim.

The Ministry’s suspicion of Lucius gnawed at her. The question had been in the back of her mind whilst the woman had spoken, like a stone she hadn’t yet dared to lift. 

“Is it true? That Lucius was planning to align with radical pureblood forces in Scandinavia?”

Narcissa’s hands went still. For a long moment, she looked away, gazing at the rain streaking the window, her expression tight and unreadable. Hermione waited, the silence stretching between them, heavy and brittle.

Finally, Narcissa spoke, voice low, measured, but betraying a trace of discomfort. “I asked him the same question,” she said, as if it pained her. “Repeatedly. I never received an answer that satisfied me fully. As far as I could gleam, he only intended to start afresh. To build a life somewhere unobserved, somewhere quieter.” She shook her head gently, a gesture of resignation. “The cause has cost us enough as a family. I am not willing to sacrifice my children, my family, for ideology, no matter how compelling it might seem.”

Well. At least she was being honest. “There’s more sympathy for pureblood ideals in Scandinavia. I know there’s been troubles,” Hermione pressed.

Narcissa’s eyes darkened, briefly flashing. “Yes. That was part of the calculation. It was considered a safer place to live. Especially in light of the attacks on purebloods in the past few years. But safer does not mean without risk. It meant less visibility. Less danger. For Draco.”

Of course. They would always get to have their happy ending, surrounded by bigots. 

“You mentioned in your letter that Draco should not return to the manor. You’re meeting Draco today behind your husband’s back. Why? What is it that you fear?”

Narcissa’s hands flexed at her sides, fingers curling and uncurling, betraying her calm tone. She avoided Hermione’s gaze. “It is not a matter of fear.” She said finally, voice tight. Hermione wasn’t entirely convinced. “If Draco returns to the Manor, Lucius will immediately insist that we depart. He would push for us to flee, for the family to relocate. He has been making preparations for him and myself to go for years, and visits most summers.”

That caught Hermione’s interest. Clearly the eldest Malfoy had not spent the past five years under a self imposed house arrest as everyone had assumed.

“It is not the right time. I do not wish to lose both of them again. Not when the Ministry would take it as a sign of suspicion. My husband is… most displeased with the circumstances of Draco’s release. He has become rather erratic and paranoid. He suspects everyone of being complicit in his capture, Sometimes even myself. Often I have been followed by unknown wizards in the streets of town, contacts, acquaintances, and I suspect they were his doing, keeping tabs on me, on what I do, on what I might know about Draco. He is relentless at home, Miss Granger, furious at the idea of losing control, of losing him again. Returning Draco to the Manor whilst he is in this state will not be beneficial to either of them.”

Hermione thought back to Lucius’s scathing letter. Displeased was surely an understatement. 

“Draco doesn’t seem to want anything to do with him, as far as I can tell.”

Narcissa’s gaze softened, though a shadow lingered behind her eyes. “Draco blames his father for everything that happened to him during the war. I cannot fault him for that. He is right in many regards. The capture, the detention, the fear, the things he was forced to do… the Dark Mark, the… punishments inflicted by the Dark Lord. Draco cannot forgive him.”

Forced by circumstances engineered by his own father, and yet Narcissa continued to love the man? She blinked rapidly, trying to process. She couldn’t keep the incredulity from her voice, the absurdity of the situation softening the numbness she’d been walled off in. “How can you continue to love him after everything he did to your son?” The question was surely inappropriate and hardly relevant to Draco’s protection, but she couldn’t stop the words from falling out of her.

Narcissa’s lips pressed together. “He is my husband,” she said. “I loved him before all of this, and my love has not disappeared. That is how our family loves, Miss Granger. I would not expect you to understand. It is not always gentle, it is not always just, but it is love.”

Hermione’s stomach twisted. She felt a visceral, almost physical recoil. She could not reconcile it. She wished she hadn’t asked. The idea that someone could forgive, or simply continue to love, after such betrayals, such direct destruction of a child’s life. And yet, here Narcissa was, calm and measured again, as if the thought of Lucius had soothed her. It made Hermione feel ill. The depth of the family’s possessiveness over each other, their ability to love through cruelty and error, wasn’t something she could comprehend. Love was supposed to be something pure and good, not whatever this was. 

“I’ll be in touch,” Hermione said, her voice calm, almost formal. “We’ll arrange the next meeting soon.”

Narcissa inclined her head in acknowledgment. She stood for a moment, hands clasped before her, gaze tracing the familiar lines of the hallway, the dark wood, the intricate mouldings dulled by years of disuse.

“It feels strange,” she murmured, half to herself. “To be back in the halls of my fathers. And yet fitting, somehow. I had wanted to bring Draco here, once upon a time. I’m glad that you have done it for me.”

Hermione didn’t answer. The words seemed to reach her from a distance, muffled and indistinct, as though the air itself had thickened between them. She merely gave a small, polite nod, the kind one might give at the close of a meeting.

Narcissa turned then to her son. The poise in her posture faltered, just slightly, and she reached for him, her fingers trembling where they touched his cheek. Draco leaned into her touch, his face breaking with an expression so soft, so unguarded, that Hermione had to look away.

They embraced. It was a fierce, desperate thing that seemed to collapse the years between them. Narcissa whispered something low against his shoulder; Hermione couldn’t hear the words, only the tone, the aching tenderness in it. When Narcissa drew back, she lingered a moment longer, smoothing his sleeve as if reluctant to let go. Then she turned and left without another word, her footsteps echoing down the narrow hallway, fading into the rain outside.

Draco closed the door behind her slowly, the latch clicking into place with an almost final sound. He stayed there for a moment, his forehead resting against the wood, before turning toward Hermione.

She was standing at the foot of the stairs, hands in the pockets of her cardigan, her face unreadable. The light from the sitting room brushed against her hair but left her eyes in shadow.

“That went well,” he said, eyeing her uncertainly.

“It did,” she said, though her tone was flat.

“You didn’t-” he began, then stopped. “You weren’t in the room for long.”

“I wasn’t.” She looked past him. “I thought you should have that time with her.”

“Right.” He hesitated, the word awkward between them. “She said she was grateful to you.”

Hermione nodded once, a mechanical motion. “That’s kind of her.”

He almost took a step closer, and she didn’t move away, but something in her stillness made him falter. For once, it was Draco who searched her face for entry, and found none.

“Are you all right?” he asked, almost softly.

“I’m fine.”

The lie sat between them like fog.

Draco looked at her for a long moment, as though he might say more, something gentle, or foolish, or true, but then seemed to think better of it. He nodded, absently, his gaze fixed on his knuckles as he twisted his hands together.

“I’ll be upstairs.”

“All right.”

She waited until he’d disappeared down the corridor, until the quiet swallowed his footsteps, before she let herself exhale. 

The door to her flat stuck a little when she turned the key. She’d half expected the place to smell stale, perhaps rotten with rubbish she’d forgotten to take out, but it didn’t smell like anything at all, as though it had stopped belonging to anyone. The lights came on too bright, revealing everything she’d left untouched: a half-dead plant on the windowsill, a coffee mug furred with mould, unopened post scattered at her feet from where she’d pushed the door into it.

She stood there a long time without taking off her coat.

She had imagined that getting away from Grimmauld Place, from the weight of his grief and history, would feel like a breath of air. But now that she was here, the silence pressed too hard against her ears. The quiet was different from the quiet there. There, at least, the house seemed to breathe with her. Here it was only absence.

She sat down on the edge of the sofa, pulled her phone from her bag, and stared at the screen until it lit her face.

Ron’s name sat near the top of her contacts list. She scrolled past it, then back again.

It would be easy. One message. Are you awake? And he would answer. He always did. He’d come, if she asked. He’d still look at her the same way, as if she were something solid in a world that kept slipping out of shape.

She exhaled through her nose, thumb hovering over the screen. Then she pressed the button to lock it again and set it face-down on the table.

He didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve to be her refuge simply because she couldn’t stand the echo of her own mind.

The truth, the quiet, unlovely truth of it all, was that she had used him long before things ended. She had used his steadiness, his warmth, the loud gravity of his presence that made the world seem briefly bearable. She had mistaken gratitude for affection, safety for love. Perhaps he had done the same. Perhaps they had both been trying to build something simple out of the wreckage, something small enough to hold without shaking.

But Ron had never really loved her. Not her. He had loved the idea of her, the careful fiction everyone else had written first. The brightest witch of her age. The girl who fixed things before they could break, who found the way forward so others could claim the victories. The clever one. The patient one. The one who saved him, and Harry, and the world, over and over.

The world had loved her that way too. They had loved her for her usefulness, for the certainty she carried like a torch in the dark. They had built their safety out of her labour, had called it virtue, had worshipped what they considered in her to be idealism. None of them knew that she did it because that was the role she fell into. No one had asked who she was when she wasn’t repairing the damage. No one had wanted to know what remained when the work was done. 

Even Ron, kind, ordinary Ron, had looked at her and seen a symbol instead of a person. He had loved her like people love monuments, with awe, with habit, with familiarity. He had loved the idea of her he had built in his head. In his eyes she was unchanging, incorruptible, good.

And she had let him. It had been easier that way, to be admired for the rightness of her actions rather than the mess of her thoughts. Easier to be seen as something clean and solid, instead of something trembling and human. To be loved for what she could give rather than who she was. He had put her on a pedestal for all of the things she had done for him, for Harry, during the war. He, like everyone else, had turned her into the idea of a woman, the concept of the dutiful saviour. Then, for some reason, he’d been surprised when she continued that work into the ministry. The surprise had turned into resentment when the wars she continued to fight were no longer for them. She’d become exactly what they had all made her into, someone who lived to carry the story on for others. Then they had all grown to hate her for it. 

She had built her life on that quiet exchange. Her usefulness for their love, her exhaustion for their peace. 

Sometimes she wondered if anyone would ever love what was left behind, the quieter, unproductive parts of her that did not save anyone. Perhaps those parts were already gone, worn thin from years of holding everything together. Perhaps there was nothing left of her at all, only the echo of what she had been to everyone else.

A gust of wind rattled the windows. Somewhere below, a car door slammed. Hermione opened her eyes. The world outside went on. Blurred lights, thin rain, the noise of ordinary life. She thought about staying the night. About opening a bottle of wine, about letting the numbness settle. But the thought of waking up here, of waking up alone in this room that no longer felt hers, was worse. Before she could second-guess herself, she stood, grabbed her coat again, and turned off the lights.

The flat disappeared behind her as easily as if it had never belonged to her at all.

Outside, the city was drenched in rain. She didn’t bother with an umbrella. The water soaked through her hair, her collar, her sleeves, but she kept walking. The streets were empty, the air cold and metallic. Every streetlamp seemed too bright, every passing car too loud. It was the hour of ghosts, when the world turned thin and forgiving.

She didn’t remember deciding to go to Grimmauld Place. Couldn’t rationalise why she hadn’t just apparated. Her body simply knew where to go, as if her feet had been walking that path all along. When she reached the door, the wards shifted to let her in, and it almost felt like coming home. The house smelled pleasant, the faint sweetness of something simmering in the kitchen hours ago. She stepped inside and closed the door softly behind her.

Draco was sitting on the stairs.

The light from the hall lamp caught the pale line of his throat, the sharpness of his profile, the silver of his eyes when he lifted them to her. He didn’t speak at first. He looked exhausted.

Hermione hesitated. Her hair dripped onto the floorboards. She didn’t take off her coat. The silence stretched between them, thin as glass. She thought about walking past him, about pretending she hadn’t seen him. She couldn’t bear the thought of another conversation, of another fragile moment that might break beneath them.

She moved to step around him.

His hand caught her wrist.

It wasn’t harsh, but it was firm enough to stop her. His skin was cold. She looked down at his fingers where they circled her, pale against the wet wool of her sleeve. When she met his eyes, there was no anger there, only something taut and restrained.

He held out a folded piece of parchment, its edges damp and softened.

“It came for you,” he said. His voice was quiet. “From Potter.”

She took it, her fingers trembling despite herself. The seal was already broken. She unfolded it and read in silence, her eyes moving slowly across the familiar messy scrawl of Harry's writing.

Hermione,

I don’t have much time to explain, but the Wizengamot has called for a full inquiry into Malfoy’s release. The order comes from above me, and I can’t stop it. You’ll be summoned at some point tomorrow. They want a complete account of what you’ve been doing with him and why you bypassed official procedure.

They’re also demanding evidence that he’s alive. Lucius has filed a formal accusation, claiming you’ve taken his son hostage to shield the Ministry from scrutiny, or worse, killed him. They’re threatening to press charges if you don’t comply.

You’ll have to bring Draco in person. If you refuse, they’ll issue a warrant for your arrest under Section 5. I’ll try to buy you time, but there isn’t much.

Please be careful. Don’t give them anything they can twist against you.

Harry.

 

The words blurred slightly as she reached the end. The paper crinkled in her grip. She looked up at Draco, the letter still between her fingers.

He looked just as tired as she was. 

“That’s it then,” he said softly. “They’re coming for us.”

His eyes flicked toward the door, as if anticipating aurors to swarm into the building already. Then his head sagged, only by the slightest degree. A shadow crossed his expression, not surprise, not fear, but the muted acceptance of someone who had been waiting for the world to punish him again. It was the look of a man who had expected this all along, as though the universe was simply setting right what it had momentarily forgotten to destroy.

He was still gripping her arm. Eventually, his hand slowly loosened, then fell, as if he’d forgotten why he had reached for her in the first place. Hermione wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that she hadn’t failed him, that she could still make this right, but the words wouldn’t come. His silence accused her more than anything he could have said aloud.

Then she looked away, folded the letter once more, and said, very quietly, “Get some sleep. We’ll need to leave early. They have a habit of changing hearing times around when they can’t get what they want.”

He didn’t answer.

When she turned to go, she could feel his eyes on her back all the way up the stairs.

Chapter Text

Hermione awoke to the soft, insistent tap of claws against the windowpane. Her eyes fluttered open, first to the thin grey light of early morning and then to the small, feathered silhouette perched on the sill. Harry’s owl peered at her through the glass, its chest puffed, with two letters clenched in its talons. The world was still half-dream as Hermione groggily pulled herself up and creaked the old window open. She reached out, her fingers brushing the parchment, and the bird hopped lightly in acknowledgement before vanishing into the pale dawn.

The first letter was from the Ministry. 

To: Miss Hermione Granger
Address: Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Cubicle 4
Date: 23rd of May, 2003

Subject: Mandatory Attendance – Inquiry Regarding Mr. Draco Malfoy

Dear Miss Granger,

You are hereby summoned to appear before the Department of Legal Oversight at the Ministry of Magic, in full compliance with the authority vested in this office, on Friday, 23rd of May, 2003, at 2:00 PM, to provide a comprehensive account of your actions regarding Mr. Draco Lucius Malfoy, formerly of Azkaban incarceration.

The inquiry will require you to:

1. Detail the circumstances under which Mr. Malfoy was released from Azkaban, including any deviation from official Ministry procedure.
   
   
2. Justify your involvement in facilitating Mr. Malfoy’s release and your ongoing oversight of his well-being.
   
   
3. Provide corroborative evidence demonstrating that Mr. Malfoy is presently alive and not subject to harm or duress under your supervision.
4. Present Mr. Malfoy for psychological review to determine his current levels of risk to both himself and the wizarding public.

 

Please be advised that failure to attend this inquiry without lawful excuse will result in the immediate issuance of a warrant for your arrest under Section 5 of the Magical Legal Statutes, and may incur additional disciplinary action.

You are expected to present yourself with Mr. Malfoy in your custody, and any documentation pertinent to the inquiry should be brought in original form. Be advised that the Department reserves the right to proceed with or without your full compliance.

This notice constitutes a formal and binding order under the authority of the Wizengamot through the Department of Legal Oversight. The gravity of non-compliance cannot be overstated.

Yours faithfully,

Ignatius Wren
Senior Inquisitor, Department of Legal Oversight
Ministry of Magic

 

The script, official and clipped, demanded their presence at 2pm. She read through it, the words scraping against her chest like nails on a chalkboard.

The second was from Harry. The difference in tone made her anxiety lessen some. The hearing had been moved forward to 11am, an attempt, he wrote, to mislead and manipulate them. He would be at Grimmauld Place soon, and she felt a spark of relief ignite in her chest despite the oppressive fog of exhaustion that had followed her since the reunion with Narcissa.

Hours later, the sound of hurried footsteps reached her ears. Harry stepped through the door, tall, certain, carrying a large garment bag slung over one shoulder. He closed the door behind him and immediately wrapped Hermione in a careful, urgent embrace. The weight of him, solid and familiar, pressed into her, and she exhaled a weighted breath.

“Harry,” she murmured into his shoulder, voice small. It was silly really. They’d been through worse, so much worse, together. He rubbed her back, giving her a light squeeze before breaking apart. He looked almost as bad as she did. He’d clearly gotten very little sleep if the dark circles beneath his eyes were anything to go by, and his hair was dishevelled, as if he’d been running his fingers through it for hours. 

“I came as soon as I could. It’s all moved so fast. I’m sorry Hermione, I tried everything I could, but the Wizemagot was accusing me of using my position to cover up a scandal. Not that they minded that at first, but the second Lucius started pushing they all caved in one by one.”

Lucius. Of course. Hermione tried to pull her grimace into a smile.

“Well, they weren’t exactly wrong. Thank you, Harry. For everything. I know you’re not meant to be doing any of this.”

He gave her a pointed look and grinned, the same reckless grin that she’d seen so many times in all of their years together and it was almost like they were children again. There were lines around his eyes to the smile now, but they were still kind in their weariness. 

“When has that ever stopped us?” 

It was so familiar. It was like they were scheming in the library at Hogwarts again, or planning a DA class together. It was almost like they weren’t two defective cogs in a machine that was trying to crush them. So much had changed and so much hadn’t, but at least they still had each other. Hermione found herself feeling almost remorseful for being so distant from him. 

From the top of the stairs, a shadow detached itself from the dim morning light. Slow, measured footsteps traced the worn wood as he descended, and both Hermione and Harry turned instinctively, caught off guard by the figure that seemed to emerge from the gloom. Draco lingered there, the pale light of the hallway brushing the sharp planes of his face, illuminating the hollow of his cheeks, the tension in his jaw. Hermione had long practiced the art of averting her eyes from him in moments like these, a learned caution against the raw intimacy of his presence and his insistence on always traipsing around the place shirtless, yet something in the anxiety of the morning made it impossible.

Her gaze traced the line of his shoulders, once frail and narrow, now bearing weight in a way that suggested a slow reclamation of his body. He was no longer the painfully thin boy who had staggered from Azkaban’s shadow; he was growing into the contours of a man, muscles beginning to fill out the frame that had been so long starved, limbs uncoiling from the rigid tension of trauma.

And yet the scars were everywhere, etched into his skin like a map of his suffering. Twisted lines of old burns, jagged gashes, faint, puckered indents and darker, fresher tracks, all layered atop each other in a cruel lattice of memory. There were rough holes where the press of a wand had blackened and burned his flesh, skin puckered and uneven. Hermione’s stomach turned as she noticed the bandages wrapped around his wrists, delicate linen soaked through with the stubborn, lingering seep of blood. On one arm the linen went further, covering his Dark Mark entirely. The manacles that had bound him in those months past had left wounds that refused to heal fully even now, the injury a physical echo of captivity.

She realized, suddenly, that she had not been paying attention, truly attending, to his body. Her focus had always been on the fragile edge of his mind, on coaxing him back to safety, and in doing so, she had neglected the tangible evidence of his suffering, the physical cost of the war and of Azkaban. The recognition struck her with sharp, cold clarity.

Harry’s eyes were fixed on Draco now, wide and still, betraying a disbelieving shock Hermione had rarely seen from him. She followed his gaze and felt a flicker of guilt at the unspoken acknowledgment in his expression, the way his eyes lingered on the oldest scars across Draco’s chest, the remnants of the curse Harry himself had inflicted upon Draco at Hogwarts so long ago. The weight of that guilt pressed visibly into Harry’s shoulders, the emotion written all over his face. He’d never been a good liar.

And yet, even through the damage, the brutal history carved into his flesh, there was something undeniably present in Draco: the slow, quiet assertion of life. He was transforming, imperceptibly but irrevocably, from the boy who had been shattered into the man he was becoming. Hermione’s chest tightened again, both in awe and in the sick, twisting ache of guilt and regret.

She knew, as she watched him descend the staircase, that she had failed in the smallest, most fundamental way: she had been getting her own feelings get in the way of her job. Draco stopped just at the foot of the staircase, eyes trained on Harry. His lips curved.

“Morning, Potter.” he said, voice a ghost of the sarcastic drawl she’d heard leveraged against Harry so many times.

Harry nodded, and shifted the garment bag in his hand. “Malfoy. Long time no see. We need to prepare to leave. I’ve got a suit for you.”

Draco scoffed, the movement sharp. “You’re dressing me now? How domestic.”

Harry’s eyes remained steady, fixed on him. “Somehow I doubt you’ve been to Madam Malkin’s to get the latest trends recently. Do you really want to go into the Ministry dressed like a muggle?”

Draco scowled and took the suit from Harry without another word, his expression unreadable save for the faint downturn of his mouth. His fingers brushed the fabric briefly, testing its weight, and for a moment Hermione thought he might drop it out of sheer obstinacy. But instead, he turned and padded soundlessly back up the stairs, shoulders rigid, the bandages at his wrists stark against the pale skin.

When he was gone, the silence he left behind was heavy, taut. Harry exhaled slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. Hermione’s pulse had not yet steadied.

“You didn’t tell me it was this bad,” Harry said softly, eyes still fixed on the stairs.

“I supposed I had just gotten used to it,” she replied. “He actually used to look-” She stopped, not sure how to put into words the level of ruin she had found him in.

Harry nodded faintly, his expression folding inward. The guilt in his eyes deepened; it was the same look she had seen when they’d stood over bodies after the war, when Harry had been forced to face what his victories had cost. He didn’t have to say it aloud, she knew exactly which of Draco’s scars his mind was lingering on.

“I didn’t think,” he murmured after a moment, almost to himself. “Back then. I just wanted him to pay. For Katie. I didn’t think I’d… leave something like that behind.”

Hermione wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that no one could have known how his actions would echo years later, but the words felt pointless. The damage was there, written into Draco’s skin, and any reassurance would ring hollow. The first of Malfoy’s many scars had been given by the people now attempting to save him. There was a cruel irony in that.

The sound of footsteps drew their eyes upward again.

Draco descended the staircase with the same measured, reluctant pace as before, but the transformation was startling. The dark grey suit fit him perfectly. Surely he must have altered it in some way. The black turtleneck beneath softened the austerity of the look while still casting him in elegance. The fabric framed the pale column of his throat, hid the worst of the scarring that crept up his collarbones. He’d combed and styled his usually unkempt hair into refinement, yet it was still too long, getting dangerously close to casting resemblance to his father. She’d have to take him for a haircut if they both made it through this.

He looked different. The same man who had been pacing Grimmauld’s dim halls barefoot and unshaven now seemed suddenly older, composed. The change was not so much in the clothing itself as in the way he wore it: the straightness of his posture, the composed calm in his expression.

Hermione felt heat rise unbidden to her face. She turned her eyes toward the window, pretending to fuss with her sleeve. It wasn’t attraction, really. It was recognition, perhaps, of something resurfacing in him. A remnant of who he had been before Azkaban hollowed him out. He looked like someone almost capable of standing before the world again, though she could see the cost of it in the tension of his jaw, the haunted stillness in his gaze.

Harry cleared his throat first, breaking the spell with a low suggestive whistle. “Looking fit, Malfoy,” he said, lips twitching.

Draco scowled. “Shut up, Potter.”

Harry ignored the jab, already turning toward the door. “Let’s go,” he said simply.

Outside, the sky was grim, low clouds pressing down on the rooftops. They walked through London in silence, the early traffic blurring around them. Draco kept his gaze forward, every movement taut with the quiet tension of a man being led back toward his execution. Hermione stayed close enough that their shoulders almost brushed, though they didn’t touch. She wanted to say something, anything, to cut through the silence, but the words refused to form.

When they reached the small, dingy pub that served as a hidden floo point for Ministry officials, Draco hesitated at the threshold. The smell of stale floo powder hit them all, and Hermione saw the flicker of something behind his expression. Dread, resignation, memory. Harry pulled three pairs of dark sunglasses from his pocket, handing a pair to Hermione and Draco. 

“Put them on. It’s going to be a circus in there. After you,” Harry said quietly, gesturing toward the fireplace.

Draco gave a low, humourless laugh, slipping the glasses on. “How chivalrous.” He stepped forward, took a handful of floo powder, and spoke the destination clearly: “Ministry of Magic.” The flames rose green around him, swallowing his silhouette whole. She could see a flash of panic in his guarded eyes staring into her through the shades as he disappeared. 

The moment her boots struck the polished floor of the Ministry Atrium, light and sound assaulted her all at once. Flashbulbs exploded in a violent sea of burning stars, white afterimages searing across her vision. Shouts rose from the crowd, a cacophony of questions, jeers, and the rustle of enchanted quills scribbling in midair.

“Granger! Miss Granger! Is it true you’re being put on trial?”

“Over here, Malfoy! Look this way! Merlin, he really is alive-”

“Potter! Potter, did you sanction this? Is this a ploy to run for Minister?”

Dozens of witches and wizards pressed in around them, cameras flashing, voices overlapping into a senseless roar. Hermione flinched, her hand instinctively rising to shield her face from the flare of a floating lens that zoomed far too close. She hadn’t realised there would be so many of them. Rows and rows of the curious and the hungry, circling like vultures around a scandal not yet cold.

She turned to Draco.

He looked wrong in the light. The marble gleam of the atrium threw every hollow and every scar into stark relief, draining the colour from his skin. The chaotic sound, the flash, the crush, the flashing white, seemed to strike something primal in him. His pupils had gone wide, unfocused. His hand twitched toward his chest, then froze midair, as if even the instinct to protect himself had long been beaten out of him.

For an instant, Hermione thought he might bolt.

Harry was the only one who didn’t freeze. His jaw tightened, years of experience in dealing with this charade forcing his expression into cool, decisive focus, and before either of them could move, he had stepped between them and the crowd.

“Keep your heads down!” he yelled over the cacophony of noise. “Don’t stop. Don’t look at anyone.”

Then his hand closed around Hermione’s wrist, the other gripping Draco’s shoulder, and he began pushing forward through the swarm.

The noise surged. Flashbulbs burst. Questions became accusations.

“Hermione, is it true you’ve become sympathetic to the pureblood cause?”

“Malfoy! Did you bribe her for your release?”

The scent of sweat and perfume and bodies filled her lungs. Someone’s cloak brushed her arm. Someone else shouted her name again and again, the syllables slicing through the din.

Draco stumbled once, and Harry’s grip tightened on him, dragging him back into step. Hermione glanced sideways just long enough to see the tension in his throat, the way his eyes darted frantically, trying to locate the walls, the exits, anything solid in this flood of bodies and noise. He was trembling. The lift loomed ahead like a sanctuary. Harry slammed the brass gates open with his shoulder and shoved them both inside, kicking out a young red haired wizard with a camera shoved in their faces who had attempted to follow them in. The doors clanged shut, cutting off the sound so abruptly it felt like surfacing from deep water.

Hermione gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. The silence roared in her ears after so much noise. Draco had retreated into the corner, eyes closed, sagged against the walls with his hands gripping the walls as if the metal itself might steady him. His breathing came quick and shallow, too measured to be casual. He looked like he was going to be sick.

Harry opened her mouth to speak, looking at Draco, but Hermione lifted a hand without looking at Harry. “Don’t,” she said quietly. “He needs a minute.” She turned her attention to Draco and stepped in front of him, crouching slightly to reach his eye level and placing her hands on his upper arms, trying to stabilise him. She could feel him shaking even through the layers he was wearing.

“Hey. Look at me, Draco. It’s ok. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, alright?”

He looked down, avoiding her gaze.

“Don’t lie to me Granger. We had a good run. Sorry I was such a cunt.”

She shook her head, almost wanting to cry. He looked completely defeated, as if he’d already given up. She wanted to kick herself. She’d wasted so much time arguing with him, so much time avoiding him lately because of her own issues, she’d forgotten why she’d been at Grimmauld place with him in the first place. This wasn’t about her wounds. She had a duty of care to him, and she’d been falling spectacularly far from the mark in fulfilling it. She lifted one of her hands from his arms and took his sunglasses off. His eyes darted up to her, questioning.

“Draco. I’ve been a cunt too. We’ll argue over which of us is worse when this is over, ok? I promise, if they even try to touch you, i’m going to fucking kill them.”

The harshness of her words seemed to bring him out of his despair slightly, and he looked up at her with an almost amused expression, but there was something deeper. Relief. Relief that she was talking to him again, she could see it in his eyes.

“I’ve never heard you swear like that, let alone issue death threats. I think I'm rubbing off on you, Granger.”

A nervous smile crept onto her face. “You’ll have plenty more time to corrupt me further.”

The lift began to descend, humming lowly, and for several heartbeats none of them spoke. The greenish light flickered over their faces, painting them all in shades of exhaustion. Harry was looking at Hermione, looking at both of them, with a strange and uncomfortable expression on his face. She dropped her arms from Draco, suddenly self conscious, and leaned against the lift beside him. Hermione stared at her own reflection in the metal wall opposite as she tore her own sunglasses off, eyes red, hair tangled from the morning, and barely recognised herself.

When the lift finally juddered to a stop, Harry exhaled. “Right,” he muttered. “Eyes forward. Let’s get this over with.”

The doors slid open onto a long, dim corridor,  the air cooler, quieter, the smell of parchment and wax replacing the chaos they’d left behind.

Hermione stepped out first, and Draco followed. The doors to the corridor opened with a hiss of stale air and enchantment, and the three of them stepped out into a narrow antechamber lined with pale stone and iron sconces. The air was too cold, too still, the kind of institutional chill that carried no scent of the outside world. It had barely been a month since she’d last been back, but the place no longer felt like her refuge anymore.

At the far end of the room sat a witch behind a wide reception desk, her robes the neutral grey of Ministry clerks, her wand moving briskly across a ledger that glowed faintly gold. Without looking up, she said, “Granger, and Malfoy. You’re early. Please wait in Room Three until you are called.” Harry cleared his throat and the woman looked up, seemingly surprised to see him. “Sir. I didn’t realise you’d be here.” He gave her a hard look. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

She waved her wand, and a side door swung open to reveal a waiting area lit by a single flickering torch and the faint blue glow of surveillance charms along the ceiling. The air inside smelled faintly singed. Warded.

Draco hesitated in the doorway. Hermione felt the movement, subtle but sharp, like a falter in rhythm. She turned to him, murmured softly, “It’s just a waiting room.”

He didn’t answer, just followed her inside.

There were a few chairs, cold and steel-framed, arranged along the wall, and a low table covered with old copies of The Daily Prophet and several Ministry pamphlets. One of the pamphlets bore the cheerful heading: Rehabilitation and Reintegration: The New Era of Magical Justice! in bright teal lettering. The slogan’s optimism felt almost cruel against the sterile silence. Hermione looked away.

They sat in tense quiet. Harry had taken the seat nearest the door, his knee bouncing with barely contained impatience. Hermione sat beside Draco, her hands knotted tightly in her lap.

Draco was still, too still. His gaze fixed on the far wall as if counting every stone on its surface. Every now and then his hands flexed and stilled again, a restless, contained agitation.

The door opened without warning. Two wizards in dark robes entered, their insignia marked with a thin silver circle. Their movements were brisk, rehearsed.

“Mr. Malfoy,” one of them said. “You’ll accompany us for preliminary review before the inquiry begins.”

Draco’s head snapped up. “Review?”

“Standard procedure,” the other replied. “All former inmates must undergo brief cognitive and emotional evaluation before testimony. Alone.”

“Alone? No one mentioned that,” Hermione said sharply, rising from her chair.

“It’s mandatory,” the first wizard said, his tone bland. “And confidential. Miss Granger, you and Mr. Potter will wait here.”

Harry stood too, his voice low and steady. “He doesn’t go anywhere without one of us.”

“Protocol requires-”

“I don’t give a damn about your protocol,” Harry snapped. “This man’s barely reacclimated to sunlight, and you want to interrogate him alone?”

Draco had gone pale, not the usual aristocratic pallor but the ghost-white of panic barely masked. His fingers gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles blanched, and when one of the officials stepped closer, he jerked away, the movement instinctive, almost feral.

Hermione moved between them without thinking. “He’s under my supervision,” she said. “You can perform your evaluation here, in my presence.”

The first wizard’s polite expression didn’t change. “That won’t be possible, Miss Granger, given current circumstances. He will be taken to a room and reviewed securely."

Draco gave a short, hollow laugh. “Securely,” he repeated, voice tight. “That’s a lovely word for ‘Trapped.’”

Hermione turned toward him then, he wasn’t meeting her eyes, and she could see the tremor in his hands, the faint sheen of sweat on his temple. He was rubbing at his bandages beneath his suit sleeves. The room was too small, too bright, too quiet; she could almost feel the memories pressing in on him, the scent of damp stone, the snap of iron closing back around his wrists.

“Draco,” she said quietly, “it’s just a screening. They can’t-”

“Yes, they can,” he cut in, the words strained. His eyes flicked toward the door, the only exit, and then to the two officials. His breath was coming fast now. “They’ll take me down some corridor, lock the door, and you’ll never see me again.”

“Stop,” she said, voice trembling. “That’s not going to happen.”

Harry stepped forward, every inch the Auror now, his stance protective. “You’ll keep the door open,” he told the officials. “You don’t touch him unless absolutely necessary, and if this takes more than ten minutes, I’ll be filing an immediate complaint with the Minister himself.”

The first wizard hesitated, eyes flicking between them. “Forty-five minutes maximum,” he said finally. “You may wait here. He’ll be returned before the session begins.”

Draco’s face twisted. Disbelief, fury, fear all warping together. “Don’t make me go down there alone.” The words slipped out raw, quieter than a whisper, meant for her. He looked at her desperately, as if he wanted her to save him, as if she believed she actually could this time. 

Hermione felt her heart break as she realised she was going to fail him. She reached out and pressed his hand between hers. His skin was cold, his hand spasming, but it stilled to her touch. “You’ll come back,” she said. “You hear me? You’ll come back, and I’ll be here waiting.”

He didn’t answer, but the pressure of his fingers around hers lingered a heartbeat longer before he let go. Then the officials each took one of his arms,not roughly, but firmly, and led him through the far door.

Hermione stood frozen until it closed behind him.

The silence that followed was unbearable. The blue light of the surveillance charms pulsed faintly overhead, marking every second that passed.

Harry paced. Hermione sat, her hands gripping her knees so hard her nails dug into the fabric of her skirt. Every minute stretched like wire. At one point she thought she heard something, a muffled sound, a clatter, from the corridor beyond, but when she rose, Harry only shook his head.

“Don’t,” he said softly. “If they see you panic, they’ll use it.”

She sat back down. The clock on the far wall ticked through forty-five long, stifling minutes.

When the door finally opened again, Draco was between them, upright, but glassy-eyed. The two officials escorted him wordlessly back inside, released him, and left without explanation.

Hermione rushed to him. “What did they-”

“I’m fine,” he said, too quickly. His pupils were blown wide, and there was a faint tremor in his jaw. “Just questions. Lights. They wanted to know if I dream.”

He sank back into the chair beside her, staring at his hands as though they weren’t his.

A moment later, the witch from the front desk appeared in the doorway. “The Inquisitor will see you now.”

Hermione rose slowly, her heart still hammering. She looked at Draco, at Harry, then toward the dim hall beyond the door.

“Ready?” Harry asked quietly.

Draco gave a dry, brittle smile. “No.”

Hermione swallowed. “Then we go anyway.”

And together, they stepped through the door.

The tribunal chamber was colder than the waiting room, lit with that sterile, humming brightness that always made Hermione think of the hospital wing at St. Mungo’s. Magic pulsed faintly behind the walls, invisible wards thrumming like a heartbeat. Three panelists sat behind a curved desk of dark elm: Inquisitor Wren in the centre, immaculate in his robes and younger than he had any right to be; to his left, an elderly witch with ink-stained fingers; to his right, a heavyset wizard whose face might once have known kindness but had long ago settled into habit.

Hermione, Draco, and Harry were directed to a narrow table facing the panel. There was nowhere to hide. No friendly faces in the benches behind them, only rows of empty chairs like ghosts of an audience that had already passed judgement, with a few clerks in the high benches primed with quills and parchment.

“Miss Granger,” Wren said, with a polished civility that made her skin crawl. “Mr. Potter. Mr. Malfoy. Please be seated.”

They sat. Hermione could feel Draco’s tension beside her, the shallow rhythm of his breath, the slight tremor in his fingers where they rested against the polished surface of the table.

Wren leaned forward, parchment sliding into place before him. “This inquiry concerns the circumstances of Mr. Malfoy’s release from Azkaban and his subsequent supervision under Miss Granger. The Ministry seeks clarity on his present condition, living arrangements, and compliance with oversight regulations.”

Hermione inclined her head slightly. “We’re happy to provide what’s necessary.”

“Excellent,” Wren said, smiling faintly. “To begin. Where is Mr. Malfoy currently residing?”

Hermione’s throat went dry. She had known this question would come, and still, hearing it spoken aloud struck her with a flash of dread.

“I’m afraid that information is classified,” she said carefully. “Due to the sensitivity of Mr. Malfoy’s circumstances and the hostility he continues to face from the public, I deemed it unsafe to make his location public or private record.”

The older witch frowned, quill scratching briskly. “Unsafe in what sense?”

“In the sense that the last person employed by the ministry who looked after him is now dead,” Hermione said. “And I still fail to believe it to be suicide.”

Wren’s expression didn’t change, but the witch and wizard seated by him shifted uneasily. “Bell's actions were not sanctioned, you know this. She took her own life out of guilt. The appropriate measures have been taken and control of Azkaban has been monitored by Mr. Potter’s team. You wrote the very legislation you are currently defying. Surely you know that the Ministry could have provided suitable housing under controlled security?”

Hermione’s voice cooled. “Yes, because the Ministry’s oversight on Malfoy’s wellbeing worked out so well the first time.”

A silence fell. Somewhere above them, a clock ticked faintly.

Wren’s eyes flicked toward her, a mild interest gleaming there. “So, you’ve taken it upon yourself to determine what’s best for the subject, without oversight? ‘Rehabilitation and reintegration requires a strict multidisciplinary team for each individual, with monthly check-ins on both the individual's physical and mental wellbeing.’ These are your own words from the program manual, Miss Granger. Not mine.”

Harry cut in before she could respond. His tone was level, but his stare could have burned through marble. “She acted under my authorisation, we both deemed this to be a unique case that required unique measures,” he said. “And before you ask, I know where he’s being kept. That should be sufficient for the record.”

The heavyset wizard shifted uncomfortably. “Even so, Mr. Potter, protocol demands-”

“Protocol,” Harry said evenly, “demands that you don’t publicly endanger a man the Ministry illegally left to rot in a collapsing tower. Given that half of the media mysteriously seemed to know we’d all be here today, I don’t trust any of our departments to keep his whereabouts secret, not my own, least of all yours.”

The words landed like stones dropped into water, the ripples silent, but wide. The panel looked shocked, as if they hadn’t expected Harry to say the quiet part out loud. Hermione glanced at Draco. His eyes were fixed on the table, the muscles in his jaw tight. He looked at once furious and faintly humiliated, as though the room itself were peeling him open.

Wren was the first to recover. “We know the circumstances of his imprisonment were misguided and have made efforts to provide restitution to Mr. Malfoy appropriately. Given that he was, as you put it, ‘left to rot’, by the failure of your own department to ensure Azkaban was up to code, I think you should understand why we need further clarity. The Ministry,” he said smoothly, “only seeks transparency.”

“Transparency is not safety,” Hermione replied. Her voice was quiet, but the steel beneath it was unmistakable. “If you want to discuss the failures of oversight, we can start with the condition in which I found him. The fact that he should never have been there in the first place. The fact that all of the evidence of him being there for no reason at all was buried by the previous department head and nothing was passed on to us. The fact that the ministry has very clearly been compromised by bad actors in all of this. That he is even willing to comply with rehabilitation in the first place is nothing short of a miracle.”

The elder witch’s quill hesitated mid-scratch. “You claim this situation occurred because the ministry is compromised?”

“Not entirely,” Hermione said. “But someone has his blood on their hands.”

Wren smiled. Thin, deliberate, the smile of someone who liked to watch others strain for composure. “Your passion is admirable, Miss Granger. But I see no evidence of bad actors here. If there is blood on anyone's hands, you must accept the responsibility that it is on yours. You were, after all, the architect of the Reformed Azkaban initiative. Its failure implicates your policies directly.”

Hermione felt the blood drain from her face. “You’re suggesting-”

“That the Reform project may not be as successful as we’d hoped,” Wren said, still mild. “And that your personal involvement within this case is clouding your objectivity. We question whether your role as head of this department remains appropriate.”

Draco’s head lifted sharply. “She saved my life,” he said.

The statement was quiet but crystalline, slicing through the chamber like a blade. Wren’s quill stopped dead.

“I see,” he said, tone unreadable. “You feel indebted. You are complying out of obligation, not wish for reintegration."

Draco’s gaze flickered toward him, pale eyes rimmed with exhaustion. “I comply because I wish to,” he said. “And I don’t trust anyone else to do it.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Hermione could feel the shift, the subtle leaning of the panel, the sense that Wren had scented blood. She forced herself to breathe evenly. “If you’re trying to imply that I’ve acted with impropriety,” she said, “then you’ll need evidence. And considering how few Ministry officials survived the war without skeletons of their own, I’d advise against going looking for mine.”

Even Harry blinked at that.

Wren’s smile faltered. “We’re not enemies, Miss Granger.”

“No,” she said. “But I’ve seen how you treat the ones you call friends.” Her eyes flicked to Harry.

The heavyset wizard cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should move on.”

Wren nodded faintly, regaining his composure. “Yes. For the record, Mr. Malfoy’s current location remains undisclosed, by order of the supervising Auror, until further notice.” His eyes lingered on her, almost with amusement. “Very well. Let’s proceed to the matter of his psychological evaluation.”

At the mention, Draco stiffened beside her, so sharply Hermione could feel the air change. She reached for his leg beneath the table, which was bouncing erratically, and squeezed. The bouncing stopped.

“Our psychologist concluded earlier today that Mr. Malfoy’s mental state remains unstable,” Wren said. “I assume you object to this?”

Hermione drew in a slow breath. “I do. He’s traumatised, not unstable. And I’d question the integrity of any evaluation conducted after dragging him from his guardian without explanation or consent.”

“He has been deemed a risk to himself,” Wren said.

“If he is not a risk to anyone else, then you have no right to hold him. He’s my responsibility,” Hermione shot back.

For a moment, no one spoke. The clock ticked. Quills hovered.

Then Harry’s voice came again, low and dangerous. “This is bordering on harassment. You have no legal grounds to detain him, or Hermione, and you know it. He was never convicted. If you move against him, the Wizengamot will have to answer to the press and to Mr. Malfoy himself. I imagine he has some talented family lawyers he can splash out on with those restitution funds.”

That seemed to land. The older witch’s hand wavered mid-stroke. Wren’s eyes narrowed, considering.

“Very well,” he said at last. “The record will defer to your position on this manner.”

He shuffled his parchments, tone resuming its casual smoothness. “For now, Mr. Malfoy may remain in the public.”

Draco stared at the wizard, who nervously looked away. “How kind.”

Wren flushed, the colour creeping up his throat like spilled ink. He adjusted his robes, paper fluttering in a small, nervous wind that seemed to have sprung from nowhere and landed only on his desk. “Miss Granger,” he said carefully, “There is a further matter before the panel. Given the extraordinary nature of your actions, the unauthorised extraction of a detained subject, the concealment and relocation of that subject, and the Ministry’s lack of knowledge of either your or Mr. Malfoy’s whereabouts for over a month, this body must evaluate your fitness to continue in the office you presently hold. Your programme, which you have championed and led, was founded on principles of transparency and oversight. To appear to flout those rules invites, at the very least, the appearance of impropriety.”

The words landed with legal neatness, the kind of tidy cruelty that bureaucrats practised when they had to take a scalpel to someone else’s reputation. Hermione’s mouth went dry. She had expected this move, had been arranging counter-arguments in the midnight hours, but naming it aloud gave it teeth.

“It was not a flouting of rules,” she said. Her voice, when it came, was steadier than she felt. “It was the only way to guarantee his safety. I didn’t know who had access to him in Azkaban, or whose hands moved to keep the records buried. I still do not know the full extent of that conspiracy. If I had followed procedure in good faith, if I had placed him into a Ministry wing that was under-resourced and compromised, I would have handed him back to the machinery that hurt him. I could not do that.”

A murmur from the clerks at the back, a small rustle of parchment like a secret spreading its wings. Wren’s expression hardened to slate. “You released him three days prior to his scheduled transfer. The Ministry was not informed of his location. For over thirty days the Department could neither account for his wellbeing nor exercise its statutory responsibilities. That is a failure of communication and custody-”

“It was a failure of trust,” Hermione interrupted, unexpected bluntness biting through the room. “The fact you now gather in these halls to lecture me on accountability after letting the prime suspect in this case die within our walls is nothing short of obscene.”

Wren’s jaw worked. He attempted to smile; it came out as a grimace. “Whether one finds the Ministry’s actions distasteful or not, Miss Granger, governance requires adherence to process. We will not set a precedent where departmental heads conduct unilateral extra-judicial extractions. The motion, then, pending a full inquiry into both the Department and the Reformed Azkaban programme, is that you be suspended from your executive duties until such inquiry is complete. Furthermore, it is proposed that Mr. Malfoy be placed in Ministry-provided rehabilitation housing for the duration of that review.”

Draco’s face contorted as though struck. He pushed up from his chair with a movement that was at once sudden and raw, the suit creasing where his hands had gripped it. “No,” he said, small and broken and edged. “No. I will not go back. I will not be caged because you want to tidy your paper trails.”

His voice had an animal edge now. The recounting of Azkaban had hollowed him until even the mention of it looked like an offence. He staggered as if the words themselves had weight. Hermione lost the breath in her chest for a second; she could see, there on his face, the old panic that had made her steal him away in the first place. The room tilted, a slow nauseous list.

Wren’s fingers found the quill at the edge of his desk and he jabbed it into paper with the clinical patience of a surgeon. “Mr. Malfoy’s refusal to comply with recommended Ministry housing is precisely the kind of behaviour that suggests ongoing risk. The psychological reports we have, and I will remind the panel that they were performed by accredited examiners, suggest Mr. Malfoy presents a variable profile, one which could become liable to self-harm, under provocation. The sort of provocation Miss Granger seems to often dish out.”

A clerk coughed politely in the alcove, the sort of sound that asks: do you wish to be recorded as having said this? Draco’s nostrils flared. The idea of being argued about, decided upon, catalogued by strangers stirred something like white-hot fear in him. He swung around, eyes blazing, voice rawer than before. “‘Miss Granger’ is the only reason I haven’t ended the miserable life you’ve carved out for me already. You will not lock me away because you need a scapegoat.”

Hermione could feel the room’s attention like teeth pressing into her arms; the panel’s faces moved through polite fury, thin sympathy, and bored application. It felt, horribly, like an examination of her moral anatomy, not of whether she had acted rightly, but whether she could be made to appear unfit.

Wren opened his mouth, ready to close the motion, to tick the box that let bureaucracy swallow a person whole. “Given the testimony and the report-” he began.

Harry did not wait for the formalities. He rose, the chair protesting under his movement, and the room watched the shifting of a different sort of gravity. He had been silent for most of the proceedings; now his voice filled the chamber in a calm that was anything but. “That’s enough.”

Heads turned. Wren’s smile thinned further into something that could be called wary. “Mr. Potter.”

“I will accept responsibility for this,” Harry said. He looked at Hermione with an expression that mixed weariness and iron. “I authorised Miss Granger’s field action. If suspension is what it takes to satisfy the chamber’s appetite for process, then I will take the consequences with her.”

A polite, almost clinical whisper passed in the benches behind them. The room assumed Harry was making a sacrifice, a protective act. Wren inclined his head as if happy for the theatrics; he had dealt with hero-saviours before.

“Mr. Potter, you understand that we could not place any consequences on your head. Due to your unique standing and history, it would be wholly misguided in both the eyes of the Ministry and the public.”

Harry continued, and the tone changed, not supplication but calculus. “Or,” he said, “I can do something else.”

“Which would be?” Wren asked, too smooth, perhaps beginning to smell the shape of a threat.

Harry’s eyes searched the chamber as though finding the ledger that calculated reputations. “I will run for Minister.” The sentence was a single, cold bell. The hum of the room dropped a degree. People liked to believe the Wizemagot was impervious to individual will; Harry had always been the exception to that belief.

Wren’s face, for the first time, betrayed more than the efficient stoicism of an inquisitor. For a breath, a single, brief exposure, the young official looked as if someone had pulled back a curtain and revealed the machinery it concealed. His skin drained of colour.

“You can’t mean that,” he said, throat small.

Harry smiled, but it was not an amiable expression. “I mean it,” he said. “You all know my record. You know what the press do when they have me to write about. You know how many allies I have, still. You know I don’t crave the office. But if this rotten centre will not reform itself, if you intend to punish the people who tried to rescue the ones you abandoned for the sake of appearances, then I will take the office myself and I will remove the rot.”

There was a little intake of breath around the room. Wren’s fingers tightened on his pen until the knuckles went white.

“How far are you prepared to go?” Wren asked, as dry as a magistrate.

Harry’s gaze did not waver. “I will make departmental funding contingent on compliance. I will reassign those who have used their positions to shield cruelty. I will not be a Minister for the same old men who have tolerated corruption. I can promise you this: with my name attached to an inquiry, the press will eat you for breakfast; with my signature on a budget, the roots that support every cosy little patronage will wither. And if Hermione is suspended while those who looked the other way are not held to account, I will not stand aside and let the Ministry pretend it is still fit to govern.”

A low, almost inaudible sound ran through the chamber. Someone at the back put a hand to their mouth. The elderly witch’s quill trembled so much her ink smudged.

Wren found his voice, but it had gone small. “Mr. Potter. That would be politicising the judicial functions of this body.”

Harry’s reply was a flat line. “I don’t care about your politics. I care about whether people live or die under your little rules. I’m not threatening you. I’m offering you a choice: reform will be cheaper than civil collapse, and you can either be part of it or part of the pile it burns. If you think you can afford to gamble on the Ministry surviving a public scandal, on the legal fallout if Mr. Malfoy brings this before international courts, then vote to suspend. If you think you can withstand muddy press, a lawsuit that ruins your budgets, and a Minister who wants to clean house, then do what you will.”

Wren’s face was ashen. The room was a study in petrified civility. The heavyset wizard to his right exchanged a glance with the elder witch: both were making rapid, private calculations. The motion to suspend was there on the lips of all of them, simple, neat, a legal talon to lock down a messy problem, but Harry’s words had rearranged the ledger.

Silence hung for a measured beat. Then Wren sighed, a little sound like someone closing a ledger on the edge of a cliff. He turned his head slowly, as if seeing the assembled panel anew. “This body requires time to deliberate,” he said finally, each word chosen to stall and to calm. “The motion will be put to a vote… but the panel notes the impropriety of immediate suspension in light of Mr. Potter’s statement and the extraordinary public interest and potential legal ramifications.”

Hermione felt Harry’s hand at the small of her back, a quiet anchor. The motion had not been defeated, merely postponed, the worst sort of reprieve, but every second it remained unresolved was a small victory against the tidy machinery that ate people with paper knives.

Draco sagged into his chair as if he could no longer hold himself upright. Wren’s clerk smiled thinly and began to read the notes, the official version of events. The panel moved on, because bureaucracy needed the sensation of progress, but the atmosphere had altered: threats had been acknowledged and returned in kind. The room hummed with an animal caution.

When the formalities resumed, Hermione turned her head and met Draco’s eyes. They were rimmed red, hollowed by the strain of bearing judgement in public. He held her gaze with something like a plea, not for her authority but for the reclamation of his own agency. She squeezed his hand, a small, defiant answer in a place where all of the brave words he’d dare to speak had been weaponised.

Wren’s voice rose again, procedural and pale; the hearing was concluded. Draco was to remain in Hermione’s care, her role was to remain in place; pending monthly updates on Draco’s mental health over the next six months. Hermione almost thought she’d misheard him. As they rose to leave, she expected every second for Aurors to come and take her, take Draco. None of it felt real.

Outside the chamber the Atrium breathed like a thing that had swallowed a storm and now tried to steady itself. Harry’s promise, or threat, depending on who named it, would hang in the Ministry’s corridors for weeks. Hermione still couldn’t believe he’d done it. She knew he didn’t want to be Minister, that he’d denied every faction that had vied for it for their own agendas in the past. The fact that he felt all of this and made the threat regardless made something warm unfurl in her. He was finally the one to give her the path forward for the first time in their friendship. Someone was fighting for her and not the other way around, for once. The doors of the chamber shut with a heavy thud that seemed to seal away the tension they’d left behind, or perhaps trap it inside, still simmering in parchment and whispers.

They didn’t speak. None of them could, not yet. The corridor ahead stretched long and sterile, lined with framed decrees and portraits that followed their progress with avid curiosity. The faint hum of conversation from the waiting rooms stilled as they emerged, and then the hush rippled outward. They stood in silence in the lift, and when the doors to Harry and Hermione’s floor opened, they said nothing as they exited.

Every head in the Department for Magical Law Enforcement turned. The noise of quills stopped. The air seemed to tilt toward them, drawn by the weight of rumour and disbelief.

Hermione felt it first, the heat of a hundred eyes on her back. She saw flashes of faces: familiar colleagues half-pretending to work, a few lowering their gazes as if burned by guilt. Others simply stared, openly fascinated. Draco’s shoulders drew tight beside her; he looked carved out of composure, his jaw set hard enough to ache.

Harry walked a pace ahead, chin high, expression unreadable. The crowd parted for him as if on instinct, the way they always did.

“Keep walking,” he murmured over his shoulder, voice low but steady.

They did. Step after step through the maze of desks, through the suspended moment where gossip began to bloom like spores. Not a sound from any of them until the large wooden door to Harry’s office closed behind them with a soft click.

For half a breath, silence. Just the sound of their own breathing, shallow, disbelieving, looking at each other.

Then, suddenly, Draco moved.

He crossed the small space between them in a rush, arms wrapping around Hermione before she could even react. The force of it startled her, she gave a small gasp as he lifted her right off the ground, spinning her once, twice, the air filling with the sound of her laughing, real, unguarded laughter that burst out of her like something she’d forgotten she was capable of.

“You did it, I can’t believe it. Hermione-” he was saying, his words half-broken by laughter of his own.

“I can’t believe- did you see Wren’s face? I thought- oh, I thought it was over-”

“They’re all so fucking awful! Why do you work here? You were brilliant-”

“Merlin, put me down-” she managed between laughter.

He set her down but didn’t let go, pressing his head into the side of her neck. Their words tangled together, overlapping in sheer relief, the giddy, breathless kind that comes after weeks of dread finally snap and fall away. For a few seconds the office felt bright, alive with something almost childlike: disbelief that hope could still exist.

Harry stood awkwardly by his desk, rubbing the back of his neck, watching them with a crooked, uncertain smile. “Well,” he said after a beat, “I’d say that went… slightly better than expected. Though I’m fairly sure I just threatened a coup.”

Hermione turned toward him, still breathless, her curls half-loose from where Draco’s embrace had dishevelled them. She laughed again, a sound that was too full of gratitude to be tidy. Then she crossed the room and threw her arms around Harry, hugging him tight.

“Thank you,” she said into his shoulder. “You didn’t have to do that, Harry. You didn’t have to-”

He returned the hug, clumsy but genuine. “Yeah, I did,” he murmured. “You’d have done the same for me. And besides, someone had to put that smug git in his place.”

Draco, behind them, gave a low, amused scoff. “I heard that, Potter.”

Harry grinned. “I was talking about Wren. But if the shoe fits, Malfoy.”

Hermione pulled back, still smiling, her eyes bright with exhaustion and something dangerously close to tears. For the first time in weeks, the air didn’t feel like it was pressing down on her chest.

She glanced at Draco, at the faint, incredulous grin ghosting his face, at the tension that had finally loosened from his frame. She looked back at Harry, who looked more like himself than he had in months.

For the briefest moment, she let herself believe they’d actually won something.

Not everything. Not yet. But enough.

Chapter Text

The air in Harry’s office had gone still again once the laughter faded. The three of them sat where they could Hermione on the edge of Harry’s desk, Draco half-slouched in the visitor’s chair, Harry leaning against the filing cabinet by the enchanted window. None of them spoke for a long while, slipping into a comfortable silence.

Hermione tried to focus on the rhythmic clink of the clock on the wall, counting seconds like it could anchor her back into herself. She hadn’t realised how tightly she’d been holding every breath until now. The inquiry had lasted only an hour, yet it had carved through her as cleanly as a blade and released weeks worth of tension.

Through the quiet, her mind replayed it all. The accusations, Wren’s cold stare, Draco’s trembling hands, and then, at the last, Harry’s voice, hard and unyielding, threatening to burn down the Ministry itself. It had been reckless, brave, and entirely like him. She knew what it would cost him, politically and personally.

Harry broke the silence first. “You know,” he said, tone light, “I think that’s the first time I’ve openly blackmailed the Wizengamot before breakfast.”

Hermione gave a small, grateful smile. “You made it look rather natural.”

He laughed under his breath, shaking his head. “Not my proudest political moment.”

He shifted where he stood as if considering something, crossing his arms, his eyes flicking between the two of them. “When’s the last time you ate something that wasn’t coffee Hermione? You look peaky.”

Hermione frowned, opening her mouth as if to argue, then hesitated. She searched her memory. Last night? The night before? There had been tea, at some point. Always tea. Her silence was enough of an answer.

Harry fixed her with a pointed look. “That’s what I thought.” He pushed off of the cabinet. “We’re getting lunch.”

Hermione blinked. “Now?”

“Yes, now,” he said, his tone making it clear there was no room for negotiation. “I’ve barely seen you in a month, and when I do it’s always because of some world shattering event. I think we can all afford an hour to eat and just be human.”

Hermione let out a weak sound. Human. She hadn’t felt like that in a while. There was no space to be human in the shadow of her own reputation and the valleys of Draco’s grief. “Harry, I don’t think I’m capable of being human right now.”

“Then fake it,” he said cheerfully, already reaching for his coat.

She glanced sideways at Draco, who was watching them both, still half-slouched in the visitor’s chair. His brows arched in silent question.

Harry caught the look and rolled his eyes. “Yes, he’s invited too. Merlin forbid we leave the man who nearly caused government collapse alone in my office.”

Draco gave a soft, unimpressed huff, but Hermione caught the faintest flicker of relief cross his face.

“I’m not especially partial to polite company these days,” Draco muttered.

“Good thing I’m not going to be polite company,” Harry replied, already opening the door.

Hermione hesitated a moment longer, torn between exhaustion and the simple, strange comfort of the two of them in the same room again with her. It felt as if two different sides of her life were colliding in an odd way, though it didn’t necessarily feel wrong. Just different. She stood, smoothing her skirt as if to push the thoughts into the fabric.

“Fine,” she said. “Lunch.”

Harry grinned, victory shining in the small cracks of his fatigue. “That’s the spirit.”

As they stepped into the corridor, Hermione found herself sandwiched between them, Harry’s confident stride on one side, Draco’s quieter, more measured pace on the other. It was absurd, really, after everything that had just happened, to feel so calm. Almost suspended from her position, her reputation in tatters, and yet she felt something like ease unfurl in her chest for the first time in weeks.

He snuck them out through a dilapidated elevator that claimed to be out of order, but in actual fact, deposited them directly into a phone box just paces away from their destination. The pub Harry chose was on the street across from the HM treasury building, a dim but cosy place called The Red Lion that most definitely had not seen a hygiene inspection in a long time. Whilst it’s fixtures were made of study old oak, the walls were freshly painted vermillion and the taps looked pristine, the floors were slightly grubby, and portraits of old muggle politicians and early photographs of parliament lined the walls in grime coated frames. Still, it was warm and inviting, in that busy sort of central London way. It was the kind of spot that was clearly popular amongst the older generation of muggles but not so much the wizarding world, one that only the long-timers knew about, busy enough to afford quiet, out of the way of wizarding politics, where conversations could happen without being overheard.

They slid into a booth near the back. Harry ordered fish and chips and a pot of tea without asking anyone’s preference, as well as an extra tart for Hermione, earning a faint look of protest from her and an amused smirk from Draco.

The silence stretched at first. Draco sat opposite Hermione, wordless and awkward, as if he didn’t know what to do with himself. Harry leaned back, arms crossed, studying him in that unflinching manner he’d developed in his adult life, the same way she’d seen him study dark wizards across interrogation tables.

Hermione busied herself with the teapot, grateful for the distraction.

It was Harry who finally spoke. “You know,” he said, tone deliberately casual, “for someone who’s been accused of being unstable, you kept your head well in there.”

Draco’s mouth twitched. “High praise, coming from the Chosen One.”

“Christ. Don’t call me that,” Harry muttered.

“Would you prefer Minister Potter?”

Harry glared at him over the rim of his cup, but the corners of his mouth were fighting a grin. He had mastered the art in not giving in to Draco's bait by now. “You’re lucky I like Hermione,” he said dryly.

Draco gave a small shrug. “A fact I’m becoming increasingly grateful for.”

The food arrived. Battered fish, thick-cut chips, a Bakewell tart for Hermione, the tea steaming gently between them. It wasn’t much, but after weeks of tension, it felt almost domestic. Hermione hadn’t realised how starved she was until she’d already eaten half of hers.

For a while, conversation drifted between Hermione and Harry, neutral things, safe things. The state of the Department, the weather, the ridiculousness of bureaucracy, Ginny’s latest crochet project. It felt strange, almost unreal, to have a conversation that wasn’t fraught with tension for once. Draco said nothing, simply staring down at his food.

Then, when the plates were nearly empty, Draco set down his cup. “Potter,” he said quietly.

Harry glanced up.

“I never said it before,” Draco continued. His voice was steady, but there was something honest beneath it. “You did not have to do what you did today. I know it could cost you politically. Perhaps more than that. So-” He paused, as if the words physically resisted leaving his throat. “Thanks.”

Harry blinked, clearly surprised. “Well,” he said after a moment, “don’t make me regret it.”

Draco’s lips curved faintly. “I’ll do my best.”

The scene was so bizarre. Harry and Draco, coexisting within the same space, without resorting to physical violence as she’d so often seen the pair of them do. She realised that Harry had been honest with her when he’d said he wasn’t holding grudges anymore, and felt a creep of embarrassment knowing that she had been the one to find it more difficult to acclimate to Draco’s presence than he had.  

That had changed though, somehow. The impenetrable numbness she had started to feel around him had been shattered by the hearing, and to her surprise, the rest of her weariness had left with it. Something had shifted, something she couldn’t name, but it felt as if the barrier between them had dissolved almost completely. She could only guess that the unspoken weight of the Ministry’s inevitable interference into both of their lives had been the trigger for many of their stressors on a subconscious level, and now that the pressure of imminent doom had lessened, it felt as if they had both gone through the ordeal as a united front. Perhaps it was something in her that had realised despite his protests and denials, she’d become a person he could rely on, and he was finally letting her do it.

Draco pushed his chair back, muttering something about needing to find the loo, and disappeared toward the back of the pub.

Hermione sat back, tracing a finger along the rim of her cup. The clatter and hum of the pub filled the space he left behind. When she finally glanced up, Harry was looking at her. Not in judgment, not even in curiosity, but with a strange expression that she couldn’t place at all.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He shook his head, but the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth betrayed him.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “Harry.”

“Really, it’s nothing. It’s just good to see you again.”

But his gaze drifted past her a moment later, and she knew he was lying.

Draco returned, rolling out his shoulders as he dropped into the seat beside her, pulling over his plate from where it had been next to Harry and picking at the last few chips. Harry just looked at him. The faintest tension in the lines of his eyes, the flicker of something unspoken. He cleared his throat, reached for his tea, and said nothing at all. He finished off the cup, glanced at his watch, then let out a soft sigh. “I should get back,” he said, pushing his chair out. “There’s a pile of paperwork waiting that will probably take me the rest of my life to get through.”

Hermione smiled faintly, but the gesture didn’t quite reach her eyes.

He hesitated before standing fully, looking at her for a moment. “Listen,” he said, tone shifting to something gentler. “It’s Friday. I’m sure you’ve had a long week. Why don’t you come out later? Just for a few drinks. It’s been too long, and the others keep asking after you. You don’t have to stay long, just show your face.”

She looked uncertain. “Harry-”

He cut her off with a grin. “Ginny’s going to track you down eventually if you don’t. I’m trying to save you from that.”

Hermione huffed, rubbing her temples. “Fine. Just for a bit.”

“Good,” he said, straightening. “Usual place. Usual time.”

For a moment, his attention shifted to Draco, who’d been silent through the exchange, idly turning a spoon between his fingers. Harry opened his mouth, perhaps to offer a hand, perhaps to say something polite, but then thought better of it. Whatever words hovered there never came. He gave a small, awkward nod instead and left, the bell above the pub door chiming softly as he disappeared into the London light.

Hermione turned to Draco. “Well,” she said, brushing a crumb from the table, “What a strange day.”

He gave a half-smile, faint but genuine. “Quite. I can’t say I ever imagined myself in this position.”

There was a lightness to him now that hadn’t been there before, something looser in the way he sat, the guarded edges of him softening. The past weeks had let pressure build on top of him, pressing every detail of his existence; now, finally, she could almost see the shape of a new diamond forming in the space grief had left behind.

They left the pub together, the London streets grey and bright all at once, slick with last night’s rain. The traffic hissed past, and every so often Hermione caught the faint glint of light through the murky clouds, leaving warm spots on the pavement. Neither of them spoke much at first. The Ministry hearing still felt like a dream, or perhaps like something that had happened to someone else entirely.

As they turned off the busier street and started the slow walk back towards Grimmauld Place, Hermione found herself glancing at him. He moved with careful precision, hands tucked into his pockets, eyes down on the pavement as though measuring every step.

“I owe you an apology,” she said finally.

Draco’s head tilted slightly, though he didn’t look at her. “For what?”

“For-” she paused, searching for the words, “For the other night. For snapping at you. And for being so… distant, lately. It wasn’t fair.”

He gave a small shrug. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

The wind caught a loose strand of his hair, sending it into his eyes. He blew it away impatiently, scowling. The movement was so boyish, so unguarded, that Hermione felt a smile tug at her lips.

“You need a haircut,” she said, almost before she’d thought to.

He glanced sideways at her, deadpan. 

“I could do it,” she offered, feigning casualness.

“Absolutely not.”

“You think I can’t?”

That earned a soft huff of laughter. “Correct. I’d sooner let Potter do it.”

“Suit yourself. Just don’t complain when you can’t see anymore.”

He shook his head, rolling his eyes. “I’ll see to it soon enough. Right now, I just want to sleep.”

Grimmauld Place was quiet when they stepped inside, though decidedly less gloomy than usual. Draco muttered something about being done with the day and disappeared up the stairs, his footsteps receding into silence. Hermione stood in the dim hallway for a moment, staring at the worn carpet runner, before letting out a long breath. The exhaustion she’d been keeping at bay since dawn came rushing in all at once. Her legs ached, her eyes burned, and the emotional weight of everything, the Ministry, the hearing, the faces in that chamber, settled over her like a thick fog. She wanted to sleep too, but there was one thing still niggling at the corner of her mind. 

Hermione stood for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, hesitating, then resigned herself to it and followed after him up the stairs. She let her hand hover over Draco’s door, and then, almost guiltily, knocked.

A low grunt came from within. “What is it?”

“I… I need to check on your wounds,” she said softly, almost afraid to disturb the fragile peace they’d created. “They shouldn’t still be bleeding.”

The silence that followed stretched long enough for her to wonder if he had fallen asleep again. Then the faintest rustle of movement came from inside, a gentle hiss of magic, and the door creaked open.

Draco lay on the bed, suit still buttoned, his eyes closed as if he were trying to sink into the mattress and disappear. His hand was still curled around his wand from letting her in. The tension in his posture was subtle but palpable; every muscle seemed braced for a sudden attack. Hermione’s chest tightened at the sight.

“I need to check,” she repeated, her voice steadier this time.

His eyes flicked open, sharp and wary, catching hers in the dim light. There was a long pause, his gaze unreadable, a mix of caution and reluctant trust. Finally, he exhaled and sat up slowly, running a hand down his face. “Fine,” he said quietly. “But it isn’t a pretty sight.”

He rose from the bed, unbuttoning his suit jacket and draping it on a chest of drawers, and moved toward the large connected bathroom. Hermione followed, careful not to make any sudden noise. He sank onto the chair against the wall facing the sink, hands resting on his thighs. He made no move to roll up his sleeves.

Hermione’s stomach knotted, but she forced herself forward. She turned his arms slowly so that his forearms rested upwards on his legs. He didn’t resist, just stared past her silently. Gently, she reached for his right sleeve and rolled it up. The bandage wrapped around his wrist was frayed in places, stained faintly with dried blood. Her fingers brushed the fabric lightly as she began to unravel it, careful not to hurt him. When the last of it fell away, she forced her face to remain composed.

Hermione’s hands lingered over his right wrist, afraid to touch. The skin beneath was painfully exposed, pale pink and almost translucent, stretched taut over the sharp contour of bone where muscle and fat had long since atrophied. The manacles had left a deep indentation that ran around the wrist as a permanent scar, an angry groove carved into flesh.

In places, the skin was so thin that even the smallest movements, turning his wrist, flexing his fingers, had broken it, leaving faint, weeping lines along the length of the indentation. Hermione’s fingers hovered, torn between the need to clean and redress the wound and the instinct to shield it from further touch. It looked fragile, like porcelain that might crack beneath the gentlest pressure, a cruel echo of the months he had spent restrained, every moment leaving its mark.

She brushed her thumb lightly over the worst of it, careful not to press too hard, noting how the thin, almost translucent skin revealed the midnight blue of veins beneath. He twitched at her touch, but didn’t pull away. Even now, after all this time, the injury hadn’t fully healed. It was a constant reminder of the brutality he had endured, the slow erosion of his flesh and will, and Hermione felt her chest tighten at the sight.

Draco sat still, quiet except for the faint intake of breath whenever she touched a particularly tender area. He didn’t look at her, didn’t flinch, but she sensed the tight coil of control he maintained, as if even the act of letting her see this vulnerability required effort.

“Does it hurt?” she asked softly, though she already knew the answer.

He shook his head once, sharply, and muttered, “Not really.” The words were clipped, almost too casual.

“Draco.”

“It… it’s not so much painful, just sensitive. My hands ache if I do too much. I can’t really grip anymore without it hurting, and I keep dropping things.”

Unbidden, the memory of when he’d clawed at her arms and shook her days prior flashed in her head, the strength in his grasp. She didn’t want to think about how much that must have hurt him. Her hands lingered for a moment, hesitating over the worst of the marks, before continuing. She was careful, deliberate, treating each wound with whispered spells as if speaking them too loudly would make him pull away. The intimacy of the act, of touching him in a way no one else had, no one else could, made her pulse thrum in her ears.

Hermione moved to his left arm next. The bandage was tighter here, layered over itself again and again, as though he’d been trying to hold something in rather than keep something out. She unwound it slowly, her fingers gentle, the soft rustle of fabric against skin the only sound in the room.

It wasn’t his wrist that caught her attention, not at first. It was further up, his forearm, where the Dark Mark lay, faint now, its once‑sharp edges warped and softened by time and by pain. The skin around it bore the faint shimmer of old scarring, a network of thin white lines that crossed and tangled like broken threads. But it was what lay atop them that made her breath falter.

Newer lines. A dozen of them. Redder. Raw. Seeping. Too recent to be remnants of his imprisonment. Her mind refused to process what her eyes had already told her.

Draco went stiff. His fingers curled slowly into a fist, the tendons in his arm standing out beneath her gaze. He turned his head away, eyes fixed on the far wall, and the motion alone told her everything she needed to know.

For a moment, Hermione couldn’t move, didn’t dare to take a single breath. The truth of it, the quiet, desperate truth, was written all over his face. He’d never been an active or willing participant in the fighting, not really. He had been denied his own agency for his entire life. First by his parents, then by Voldemort, later by Azkaban. Eventually on some level, even by her. Now that he finally had a choice in whether he wanted to fight or not, in his first act of violence that was not meditated under the intentions of someone else, he’d chosen to turn the war against himself.

When she finally found her voice, it was barely a whisper. “Draco…”

He didn’t answer. His shoulders rose and fell in a shallow, deliberate rhythm, as if he had turned the act of breathing into a fine and rehearsed art. He looked smaller, despite the sharp line of his back, as though the strength he’d clung to had unravelled with the bandage she’d peeled off.

Hermione’s throat tightened painfully. She wanted to reach out, to close her hand over his, but the impulse felt almost violent in its intrusion. 

They were silent.

When he finally spoke, it was immaterial, barely more than air, flat and quiet. “It doesn’t help,” he said. “In case you were wondering.”

Hermione’s heart ached at the bluntness of it. “I wouldn’t have thought that it would.”

He gave a faint, bitter exhale that might have been a laugh. His gaze stayed fixed on the wall, but his fist slowly loosened, fingers uncurling until his palm lay open on his knee.

She reached out then, slowly, and placed her hand on his upturned palm. His fingers wove between hers, closing on them.

“I think,” she said softly, “We should go to St. Mungo's to get your wrists seen to. It’s above what I can heal. And I also think… you might need to talk to someone. Properly, I mean.”

He glanced at her then, just briefly. The look in his eyes was wary, but there was no anger in it. Only exhaustion. “I… fine,” he said, after a pause long enough that she’d begun to think he wouldn’t answer. “Only if you do.”

Hermione blinked, startled. “What?”

His mouth twitched, something between a smirk and grimace. “You’re not exactly fine yourself, Granger. I’m not stupid.”

His impersonal and familiar use of her surname softened the moment somehow, made it bearable. She let out a shaky breath. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll both go.”

Hermione worked slowly, deliberately. She re‑wrapped his wrists in fresh bandages, the soft linen smooth and comforting beneath her fingers. When she was done, she rolled his sleeves back down, brushing the fabric lightly against the skin beneath. Draco sat still, silent, the faintest tension still clinging to his shoulders.

“I need to know where it is,” she said finally, her voice quiet, almost uncertain.

He stiffened, eyes narrowing slightly. “Where what is?”

“Whatever you did this with,” she said, hesitating, as though saying the words aloud made them more real. “I can tell this wasn’t done with magic. I need to know where it is.”

He didn’t respond immediately. His jaw worked once, twice, and she held her breath. Finally, he gave a faint nod, rising slowly from the chair. There was a weight to his movement, as though each step carried the remnants of the day’s exhaustion.

He gestured with the slightest tilt of his head toward the set of drawers in the bedroom. “There,” he said, voice low. He sank onto the edge of the bed, leaning back until he was laying down and closing his eyes, as though the act of surrendering even this small piece of himself demanded all the energy he had left.

Hermione watched him for a moment, the vulnerability in his posture so foreign and so familiar all at once. He wasn’t pretending anymore, it almost seemed as if he didn’t have the willpower to do it. She stepped lightly into the bedroom, careful not to disturb him, and closed the door behind her. The room was quiet, apart from the faint hum of the wind outside and the soft rustle of his clothing as he shifted.

She moved toward the drawers, carefully, silently, and waited for him to speak if he wished, her presence steady and patient. Hermione stood for a moment by the chest of drawers, her fingers hovering just above the handle. She glanced once at Draco, still lying back on the bed, eyes closed, one arm draped loosely across his stomach, and then opened the drawer.

It didn’t take her long to find it. A small, black box sat tucked into the corner, inconspicuous enough that she might have missed it if he hadn’t told her where to look. Her pulse beat high and fast in her throat as she lifted it out and set it down on the dresser. The lid creaked faintly when she opened it.

Inside, a neat collection of razor blades glinted under the low light of the room. Not many, but enough. A few of them still bore the faint stain of rusted red, the unmistakable trace of dried blood. For a moment, the world tilted slightly, her stomach lurching as the reality of it hit her with brutal clarity.

She had asked him before, absentmindedly, whether he needed anything when she went to the shops. He’d always said he might need more razors soon for shaving. She had thought nothing of it. They dulled quickly, after all, she’d told herself. And of course, at the time, he hadn’t had a wand. He would have had to shave the muggle way.

The grim understanding spread slowly through her, tendrils of dread seeping through her bloodstream. How many had she bought him? Two packets? Three?

She felt sick.

Hermione raised her wand with a shaking hand, murmuring a spell under her breath. The air shimmered faintly, and the box vanished with a soft pop, transported to her own room. She’d dispose of them later, when he wasn’t looking. When she could bear to. Behind her, she heard the faint rustle of sheets as Draco turned his head, eyes half‑open now, watching her through the dim light. But he didn’t speak.

Hermione turned back to him, her heart still hammering, trying to wrestle her expression into something calm, something that wouldn’t make him close off entirely. She eased herself down onto the bed beside him, letting her back fall against the mattress with a quiet sigh. The day’s emotional weight pressed down on her all at once. Suddenly she was so tired, bone-deep, soul-deep tired. All of the lightness and joy she’d felt in the morning felt far away. She stared up at the ceiling, tracing the cracks and shadows with her eyes, letting the silence envelop her.

A faint movement drew her attention. She turned her head slowly, and found him watching her, the storm in his eyes surprisingly calm. His gaze was unguarded, morose, stripped of any of the usual defences or sarcasm. It was raw, honest, the sadness in his eyes laid bare without protest, without flinching. Gone was the anger, the guard, the pain. The only thing that remained was a grief so solemn and vast that Hermione could barely stand to look at him.

Her voice came, weak. “Is there anything I can do?”

He shook his head slowly, never looking away, but the faintest tremor in his hand betrayed the depth of what he felt. Then, almost of its own accord, his hand found hers and closed around it. She couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. It was too raw, too uncomfortable, too much. She pressed her eyes shut, a single tear escaping and sliding down her cheek.

Slowly, his other arm reached across her, brushing the hair from her face and dabbing at the tear with the pad of his thumb. “Granger. Don’t waste your tears on me,” he said softly.

She let herself rest against the gesture, letting the tightness in her chest ease fractionally. Eventually, the day, the grief, the fear, and the relief combined into the soft, merciful blanket of sleep. She could still feel Draco’s fingers making circles on the back of her hand. Hermione’s breathing slowed, the tension in her muscles released, and rest claimed her at last.

Chapter Text

When she woke again, it was to the sound of her name and the firm pressure of a hand on her shoulder. She stirred, half-conscious, confused.

“Granger. Wake up.”

She stirred, groggy, and opened her eyes to find Draco peering over her. His hair was mussed, long strands falling into his eyes as he looked down at her, and he was holding something out, her phone, which was vibrating and ringing insistently.

“It’s Potter.”

She groaned, flopping an arm over her eyes and turning over. “Hang up.”

“Tempting,” he murmured, then to her surprise, he flipped the phone open and answered. “Granger’s personal secretary speaking. She’s terribly busy at the moment-”

Whatever came through the speaker next cut him off mid sentence. She turned around to look at him, curious. The colour drained from his face.

“Oh,” he said flatly. “You’re not Potter.”

Hermione sat up fast, dread jolting her from her fatigued state. “Who is it?”

A flicker of guilty amusement crossed him. “Some Weasel variant. The female one.” He thrust the phone toward her like it might bite.

“Ginny?” Hermione asked, snatching it from his hand.

“Oh, thank Merlin,” Ginny’s voice burst through the line, crackled and distorted from noise in the background. “Why is he answering your phone? What on earth is going on? Why are you all over the papers? Is this why you’ve been avoiding me all month? And more importantly, why aren’t you at the pub yet?”

“The pub?”

“Yes, the pub,” Ginny said, exasperated. “The pub Harry invited you to? That you were supposed to arrive at twenty minutes ago?”

Hermione’s stomach sank. She glanced at the time on her phone. Ginny was right. Somehow, she’d managed to sleep half the day away.

“I-” Hermione rubbed her face. “I must have-”

“Fallen asleep, yes, Harry said you would say that. Get moving, ‘Mione. Everyone’s almost here.”

She hung up before Hermione could reply.

Draco crossed his arms. “It seems you do not have a choice in the matter.”

Hermione sighed, running a hand through her hair, dishevelled from sleep. Her back hurt from the awkward position she’d been sleeping in, and looking around the room she realised she’d fallen asleep in Draco’s room. She tried not to let embarrassment creep onto her face. She hoped she hadn’t been snoring. “Apparently.”

“Well,” he said, lips twitching, “don’t let me keep you. I wouldn’t want to anger your charity projects.”

“She’s not-” Hermione began, then stopped herself, too tired to bother. “You could come, you know. If you’re…ok.” The memory of what she’d seen in the bathroom was still painfully close to her chest, and she forced herself not to think about it. She wouldn’t cry in front of him, not again. 

Draco blinked, but if he knew what she was alluding to, he made no sign of it. “To a pub full of Gryffindors? Don’t you think we’ve had enough cosy reunions with Potter for one day?”

Hermione rolled her eyes, pushing herself to her feet and heading for the hallway. She paused, glancing over her shoulder at him. “You’re coming,” she said firmly.

“I am not,” Draco replied immediately, though a faint glint in his cool eyes betrayed amusement.

“Yes you are. You owe me,” she said, tilting her head. “If it gets too much, you can pretend to hate it, feign an episode, and we’ll leave. If anything you’re coming as my escape clause so I can leave before they start getting rowdy. Deal?”

Draco’s pale eyes narrowed, and he gave her a long, considering look. “Are you sure you were sorted into the correct house? This is awfully manipulative.” 

Hermione pressed her lips together to hide a smile. “Positive. Now?”

Finally, he exhaled through his nose and muttered, “Fine. I’ll come. Though I will add that out of all of the torture that has been inflicted upon me, this is perhaps the worst.” A sparkle in his eye told her that he was joking. Mostly.

Hermione grinned, and hurried to her bedroom to touch up her hair and apply a little light makeup. Just enough that she felt like herself again, not the frazzled, raw person she had been before she’d fallen asleep.

Draco lingered below, pulling on a woolen grey coat, waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase.

Hermione came back downstairs and he opened the door, holding it out for her. “Ready?”

He gave her a faint, stiff nod. As they stepped out of the threshold and the door closed behind them she grabbed his arm, and with a crack Grimmauld Place had vanished, replaced with a grimy back alley somewhere in the city. Draco staggered, gripping her to steady himself. His face twisted, looking almost as if he was about to vomit.

“You did that on purpose,” he spat, face turned on her in anger, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“What can I say? I couldn’t be bothered to walk.”

He muttered something under his breath, but allowed her to steady him as the world snapped back into focus and they walked out of the alleyway. She guided him around the front of the pub, where the familiar sounds and smells drifted through. He took a long, slow breath, straightening his coat.

“I can’t be held responsible for what I will say to these people under the influence of alcohol.”

“It’s fine, I’ll hold you responsible. Come on.”

Together, they stepped into the pub, the myriad of different voices and clinking glassware filling her ears. It was warm. Familiar. It was nice, not to be embroiled in the tension within Grimmauld place or the stress of the Ministry. It was comfortably crowded, the air thick with the scent of alcohol and potential.

Hermione scanned the tables until she spotted them, Harry, Ginny, and George at a booth near the back. Ginny was mid-laugh, eyes closed and showing teeth, red faced. George had just slammed his glass down after evidently telling some story. The moment Hermione approached the table however, the laughter was cut short. Three sets of eyes turned toward her first. Then to Draco.

Ginny’s smile faltered. George cocked his head. Harry just blinked once, slowly, then exhaled as though this was somehow expected. Hermione felt Draco go still beside her. His chin lifted a fraction, expression schooled into the guarded defiance of a man outnumbered.

“Evening,” Hermione said, forcing brightness into her tone as she approached the table. “Sorry I’m late.”

Ginny’s eyes flicked between them. “Hermione. That’s Draco Malfoy.”

“Yes, I’m aware.”

The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut through the ambient noise of the pub. Even the sound around them from other tables seemed to dip beneath it. Draco stood half a step behind her, pale and composed, but she could feel the tension in him, the stiffness of his shoulders, the way his hands were tucked neatly behind his back.

George let out a low whistle, leaning back in his seat. “Well. I must be drunk already, surely. There’s no other explanation.”

Ginny shot him a warning look but didn’t take her eyes off of Hermione. “You’ve been in the papers,” she said, voice tight. “For weeks. Harry said you couldn’t tell me anything, but Merlin, Hermione, they’re saying you released him illegally. I was worried, I went to your flat and Ron was moving out, said you hadn’t been coming home anymore. And then you vanish for a month and turn up here with him-” She stopped herself. “What’s going on? Shouldn’t he be in one of the program houses?”

Hermione hesitated. She’d expected some awkwardness, yes, but the worry in Ginny’s voice caught her off guard. 

“I can’t talk about most of it,” Hermione said carefully. “Not yet. But I’m fine. And he’s-” she glanced back at Draco “-he isn’t a danger to anyone and I'm helping him get back on his feet. That’s all.”

“Reassuring,” George muttered into his pint.

Harry, who had been quiet this whole time, finally spoke. “Sit down, Hermione.” His tone wasn’t unkind, just steady, the voice of someone long accustomed to balancing impossible situations. His gaze flicked briefly to Draco. “You too, Malfoy.”

Draco met his eyes for a second before looking away, expression unreadable. “If you insist.”

They slid into the booth opposite Ginny and George, Hermione pressing her hands together on the table awkwardly. For a long moment, no one said a word.

George leaned forward, studying him. “Well, I’ll say this much, Malfoy. You’ve really got some nerve showing up here.”

“I was blackmailed into it. I don’t like this situation any more than you do,” Draco said evenly.

That earned a startled huff of laughter from George, though he tried to smother it behind his glass. 

Hermione shot Draco a look, but he just raised an eyebrow, as if to say What? I’m being honest.

Harry caught the exchange, a faint ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. “Pints?” he asked quietly, signalling the barman.

Hermione nodded gratefully. “Please.”

The drinks arrived quickly, a row of pint glasses. Ginny’s hand still hovered protectively near hers, as though trying to decide if she was angry or relieved or both.

“So,” Ginny said, finally breaking the silence. “How long’s this been going on? The Prophet’s been making it sound like you’ve thrown away your career.”

Hermione swallowed hard, her fingers curling around her glass. “Just over a month,” she said softly. “And yes. I might have.”

Ginny frowned, her eyes trailing to Draco, then back to Hermione. “Why?”

“I can’t talk about it,” Hermione said quickly. “It’s complicated, Ginny.”

Ginny’s face softened slightly, but Hermione could tell she was hurt. It made her feel guilty. “You should’ve called,” she murmured. “We were worried.”

“I know,” Hermione said, and her voice came out weaker than she’d meant it to. “I just… couldn’t.”

The table went quiet again. 

Draco, of all people, was the one who broke the tension. “Well,” he said, tone perfectly level. “This has been remarkably uplifting. Shall we discuss the weather next?”

Ginny scowled at him. “You haven’t changed much, have you?”

“Believe me,” Draco said, taking a measured sip of his drink, “you have no idea.”

Something in his tone took the sting out of the words. Ginny tilted her head, studying him for a moment, and then turned back to Hermione with a sigh.

“I suppose we’re stuck with the miserable git then?”

Hermione smiled weakly. “It wasn’t entirely voluntary.”

“She keeps a short leash,” Draco added.

Ginny laughed begrudgingly, as if she hadn’t meant to, the sound loosening the air around the table.

George raised his glass, smirking. “So what’s the arrangement then? Does he make the dinner, or just brood in corners until you tell him what to do?”

Draco gave him a thin lipped smile. “Brooding’s a full-time occupation. I wouldn’t lower myself to do a servant's job, though I suppose for your sort it must come naturally.”

He was lying. In fact, he’d made every one of the few meals she’d eaten at Grimmauld Place.

George blinked, then barked a surprised laugh, nearly spilling his drink. “Blimey, he’s got a tongue after all.”

An hour and two rounds later, the atmosphere had softened, if not quite relaxed. The table had filled with empty glasses, the occasional echo of laughter, and the kind of uneasy truce began to form. Or well, perhaps not a truce, she thought, but at least they weren’t punching each other yet. Ginny still shot Draco the occasional narrow-eyed look, but she’d stopped glaring quite so openly. Even George’s barbs had grown lazier, more teasing than defensive.

Hermione leaned her chin on her hand, the buzz of the evening settling somewhere comfortable in her chest. “So what have you been up to?” she asked Ginny, grateful for the idea of a safer topic. “Since stepping down from Quidditch, I mean.”

Ginny opened up at that. Hermione watched as bright excitement crossed her face. “Oh, all sorts. I’ve been painting, doing photography, mostly. Opened a small gallery in Covent Garden, just late March, actually. It’s doing all right.”

“I didn’t know you’d branched into photography,” Hermione said, smiling. “That’s wonderful.”

Ginny nodded. “We did an exhibition for the five-year anniversary, you know. Portraits, stories, personal effects. For the people who didn’t make it.”

The table went quiet.

Hermione’s gaze flicked toward George, whose eyes had gone distant, a smile ghosting across his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He took a slow sip of his pint, staring into the liquid as though it might give him an answer to a question he hadn’t asked. He’d never been the same since Fred had gone. Not really. It was evident from the way he drifted into their occasional social gatherings, always there physically but never really present, the odd one out in the crowd.

“You’ll have to take me sometime,” Hermione said quietly. “It sounds beautiful.”

“Thanks,” Ginny murmured. “It was hard. But good.”

Draco said nothing. His glass was half-empty, untouched for several minutes now. His face was unreadable, composed, his eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance, but Hermione was oddly grateful for that. It would have been worse if he’d tried to say anything at all.

The conversation drifted onward in slow, uneven waves. More drinks came, and with them came a faint, reluctant warmth that loosened Hermione’s tongue and dulled the sharper corners of being alive. She almost felt normal, for once. The evening had dissolved into something almost enjoyable. A thickness of the blood, thoughts soft and muffled. Hermione swirled the last inch of cider in her glass and thought dimly that it was time to leave, before she lost control of keeping herself level in front of them. It had been nice, but difficult. She found it almost impossible to keep up the persona she knew they wanted to see, and each bright remark or positive comment drained her more than it should have.

Across from her, Harry suddenly straightened, his mouth forming into a startled smile. “Ron, I didn’t think you’d make it,” he said, lifting a hand in greeting.

Hermione blinked, sluggishly following his gaze. Ron was standing at the edge of the table, framed by the dim light and the moving crowd. He looked the same as he always did, the one constant in all of their drifting lives. Tall, a little unshaven, hair messy around his face. Something in it made her chest ache. It had been so long since she’d seen him. It would be nice, to talk. Comfortable. They might be able to find some common ground again, some closure.

Then his eyes landed on Draco. He froze. His face, so open a moment ago, shut down entirely, replaced by something furious and burning.

“What the fuck is he doing here?”

The words hit her like a slap. Ginny flinched. George looked up sharply, his half-smile vanishing. Even Harry looked startled, as if he’d never seen this side of Ron before.

Hermione’s mouth opened, but before she could form a single word, he cut across her, turning on her in a fast movement that startled her.

“‘Mione,” he said, his tone furious. “Tell me this isn’t what it fucking looks like. Tell me what the Prophet’s been saying isn’t true. This is why you didn’t come home for a month? You’ve been babysitting him? What the fuck is he doing here? He’s a crimminal!”

“Ron-”

The look on his face was unlike anything she had seen before. Sure, they’d had their share of arguments. She’d seen him angry, seen him frustrated, heard him yell. But she had never seen him like this, looking at her as if he hated her. “You’re unbelievable, do you know that? You brought him here? To our table? To my fucking seat?”

Draco folded his arms, face curling into the same hateful mask she’d seen him wield against her so many times in the past. His eyes flicked up, cool and cruel.

“I didn’t realise this seat was so sacred, Weasel. Would you like me to kneel instead?”

Hermione shot him a look, but it was too late. Ron’s face went red, the kind of red that meant there was no pulling him back now.

“Don’t talk to me, Malfoy,” he spat. “ Do not fucking talk to me. We should have let you croak it when we had the chance. You shouldn’t be here. They should have left you to rot in that place, done the world a favour.”

Draco sneered, any hint of warmth that he’d held over the past few hours gone in a heartbeat. “Still trying to prove yourself, are you? Funny how you always need an audience for it. Speak to me like that alone and see what happens.”

“Enough,” Hermione said, standing up. Her voice trembled despite her best effort to steady it. “Both of you.”

Ron turned to her, and she flinched away as he hovered a step closer. “You’re defending him?”

“I’m asking you not to make a scene,” she said carefully, aware of every eye in the room that had turned toward them. “He’s here as my guest. Whatever problems you have are with me, not him.”

Ron gave a snort. “Your guest.” His voice cracked on the word. “Fuck off.”

He shook his head once, sharply, then turned and shoved past a man at the bar. The door swung open, a burst of cold air cutting through the warmth of the pub as he strode out into the street.

Hermione stood, frozen for a second, the sound of the door slamming reverberating through her chest. Ginny’s hand twitched as if to reach for her, but Hermione had already moved, muttering a quick apology as she pushed after him.

Outside, the air was biting, the sky dark and starless from the city smog. Ron was a few steps ahead, pacing off near the curb, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. His shoulders rose and fell with sharp breaths.

“Ron, please, wait,” Hermione said softly, coming up behind him. “Don’t do this.”

He turned. The anger in his face wasn’t clean. It was muddled, tangled with pain, confusion, betrayal and something deeper and more hateful than she’d ever known him to be. Hate didn’t suit him. It never had. She couldn’t comprehend how someone with such a capacity for friendship and doing what was right could possibly look so cruel. “You let our relationship die over Draco Fucking Malfoy, Hermione. I knew you were selfish, but this is too much.”

She shook her head, desperate. He didn’t understand. How could he? She had never told him anything.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione said, trying to find the words, but none of them were ever going to be good enough. “There’s so much going on with his case, it just took over everything.”

Ron’s laugh was hollow. He looked at her, eyes narrowed in suspicion.  “What makes it so complicated that it requires you fucking living with him? You must be, I asked around at the Ministry, I know you weren’t doing lates anymore.”

Hermione swallowed hard. “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

For a long moment, he just stared. It was worse than the shouting, worse than the fury. He looked at her as if he was seeing her, properly, for the first time, and he didn’t like what he saw. Then he exhaled through his nose, the sound harsh and final.

“I can’t do this,” he said. “Not with him there. Not tonight. Just piss off.”

She watched as he turned and walked away. She could have gone after him, should have. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. A small, cold part of herself said that it would be easier this way, that she could fix whatever remained of their friendship once she’d sorted the rest of the mess in her life out. Something in acknowledging that weakness, that selfishness, brought everything out then. Before she could even process what was happening, the tears were flowing, one after other, sobs escaping from her chest. Ron was right, after all. She’d been putting her own goals over any feelings she had for him for a long, long time.

She sank down onto the pavement before she realised she’d done it, the rough stone biting through her tights. The sound that left her throat was small, ugly, a broken gasp that startled even her. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes as if she could keep it all in, but the tears kept coming. Her chest ached with a hollow pressure, her breath a strain to force through her shaking frame.

Footsteps approached, measured, deliberate. Then, a faint exhale above her.

“I’d say ‘he’s not worth it,’” Draco said quietly, “But he must have some inexplicable scrap of relevance that I am unable to divine if he has you crying like this.”

Hermione gave a weak, hiccupping laugh that dissolved immediately into another sob. “He’s right,” she managed, voice splintering. “I ruin everything. I always-”

“Don’t start with that,” Draco interrupted, sinking down beside her. His movements were slow, a little awkward, as if he didn’t really know what he was doing with himself. “He shouldn’t have spoken to you in that way.”

She shook her head, unable to look at him. “You didn’t hear what he said.”

“I didn’t have to.” His tone was dry, but it was gentler than usual. “The little temper tantrum made it fairly obvious.”

She made a choked unintelligible sound and he shifted closer. After a moment’s hesitation, he lifted an arm and settled it around her shoulders, pulling her in with a kind of hesitant care. It surprised her, how natural it felt. How warm. She didn’t resist, she just let herself lean into him, her face pressed against the rough wool of his coat. His body was tense at first, uncertain, but he didn’t pull away.

“I can’t believe you were dating that moron,” he said eventually, his voice low against her hair.

Hermione gave a broken sound of protest. “He’s not that bad, usually.”

Draco snorted. “He’s ugly, he’s ginger and I just watched him scream at you. Not to mention that he’s terrible at Quidditch. Forgive me if I’m struggling to find his redeeming qualities.”

That earned a small, wet laugh from her. “He’s right, though,” she whispered. “I always put work first. I never learned how to stop, after the war. Every case felt like life or death. It still does.”

Draco’s thumb brushed her shoulder absently. “If I had to come home to that temper, I’d bury myself in work too.”

Hermione’s laughter dissolved into another quiet sob, and then words were impossible because everything just spilled over. She cried until it emptied her, until there was nothing left but a dull ache and the steady rhythm of his hand rubbing slow circles on her back. When she finally lifted her head, her cheeks were blotched and her eyes raw, but the pressure in her chest had eased a little. The night air felt cool, almost welcome on her flushed cheeks.

“I don’t think I can go back in there,” she said softly. 

Draco tilted his head toward her. “Probably for the best.”

She hesitated, staring at the wet patch her tears had left on his coat. “It’s so exhausting to be around my friends. I think you’re the only one out of all of them I don’t have to pretend with right now,” she said, almost to herself.

That made him pause. He looked down at her, his expression guarded, though something flickered there, surprise.

“Friends? We’re friends now?”

Hermione blinked, realising what she’d said. “I didn’t mean-”

But he caught her hand before she could pull it back, his fingers threading through hers. His skin was warm, surprisingly so.

“I suppose you’ll do,” he said after a moment, his lip twitching into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I’m short on options these days.”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a weak shove that barely moved him. Then she leaned her head against his shoulder, exhausted, their fingers resting loosely between them. Hermione stared down at their joined hands. His grip wasn’t tight, but it was steady, warm in a way that startled her. The strangest part was how natural it felt. How easily the shape of him seemed to fit into the space beside her, as if this had always been inevitable, somehow.

Friend. The word echoed in her head, soft and uncertain.

It wasn’t that she didn’t mean it. She did, she realised that with a faint, shameful jolt. She did think of him as a friend. But it was an uneasy sort of friendship, born out of circumstance and proximity, stitched together from shared pain and long silences rather than common ideals or joy. There was something unhealthy in it, something that fed on their shared isolation and pain, on the quiet knowledge that they were in this together because no one else would understand.

Still, she couldn’t bring herself to let go.

Shared suffering made strange allies of people. Maybe that was all this was. A collision between two broken lives that happened to fall into the same orbit at the right time. But when she thought about it, about him, there was more to it than pity, or duty, or even guilt. There was curiosity. Lightness. He made her laugh, just as all of her other friends did. That had to count for something, surely it must.

She wondered, for a moment, what it would have been like if things had been different. If he hadn’t been born the heir to the Malfoy name, if she hadn’t spent her childhood being reminded of her blood status like it was a stain she could never scrub clean. If none of that had ever mattered, if they’d met as equals, somewhere ordinary, somewhere far from war and legacy and shame.

Would they have liked each other?

Probably not. The boy he’d been had been cruel, narrow, brittle with arrogance. But the man sitting beside her now, he was something else entirely. Quieter. Introspective. There was a maturity in him now that the boy from her memories had never possessed. It made him difficult to despise, even when she tried.

Hermione dragged her sleeve across her face and forced herself to stand, the motion unsteady but decisive.

“I need a drink,” she said hoarsely.

Draco rose after her, brushing the dirt from his coat and falling into step beside her as she turned back toward the glow of the pub. She didn’t look at anyone as she walked straight to the bar, especially not Harry.

“Double vodka,” she told the barman. “Two.”

Draco raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He accepted the glass she handed him, watching her over the rim as she downed half of hers in one go.

Hours blurred after that.

The pub thinned as the night wore on, but their corner stayed loud. Hermione found herself laughing too hard, too often, at things that weren’t funny at all. Harry had tried to talk about Ron, but she’d cut him off instantly with nothing but a look. Ginny and George had rejoined them, equally loud, equally flushed. Draco sat back with the lazy sort of grace of someone who was quite clearly drunk but trying not to appear so. His cheeks were pink, eyes bright, mouth curved in something dangerously close to amusement.

Hermione was on her fourth, or maybe fifth, vodka. The world had softened pleasantly, the edges of things going a little blurry, a little easier to bear. She didn’t have to think about Ron, or the look on his face, or the hollow ache in her chest. She just had to keep talking, keep drinking, and she wouldn’t have to think anymore. She was so tired of all of the thinking, always. Her thoughts never seemed to stop.

George was telling a story that she couldn’t remember the beginning to, and Ginny was howling with laughter. Hermione leaned forward on her elbows, pulling her face into a smile, because it seemed to be implied that she should be.

“You’re, you’re not serious,” she managed, though the words tangled halfway out of her mouth. She wasn’t sure what he was or wasn’t serious about.

“I’m deadly serious,” George said, eyes glinting. “Nearly took off Ron’s eyebrows.”

“Nearly?” Draco drawled. “Shame. Would’ve improved them.”

Something, maybe a beer mat, sailed through the air. Ginny was shouting, Draco was smirking with glassy eyes, and Hermione couldn’t stop laughing, the sound bubbling out too loud, too bright. Everything was soft and spinning in the right kind of way, and she could almost forget the weight in her chest.

She laughed again, tipping her head back, the sound too loud. She was aware, dimly, that Harry, across the table, wasn’t laughing. He was watching her, his brow furrowed in that particular, careful way of his. She knew that look. He was worrying. He always worried. She squinted at him, blinking through the haze.

“Harry,” she said, pointing at him. “You have that face. Stop having that face.”

She reached forwards and mushed his face in, as if trying to pull him out of whatever he was thinking about. He winced, pulling his head back. “What face?”

“The one that looks like you’re about to arrest someone. Don’t. I’m perfectly fine. See?”

She lifted her glass in a wobbly salute. Draco gave a soft snort beside her, the sound curling at the edges of her hearing. “You’re ruining the mood, Potter. Granger’s finally found a vice that isn’t work. Let her have it.”

Harry’s eyes cut to him, sharp. “And you’re encouraging it, are you?”

Draco shrugged, though looked away quickly. “I find it amusing.”

Hermione pressed her lips together to force a  smile. “See? He finds it amusing.”

Harry’s tone sharpened, something low and cutting, but Hermione wasn’t really listening anymore. The room felt heavy and slow, her laughter drifting somewhere ahead of her. She reached for her drink and missed. The glass tipped, rolled, and the sound it made, sharp, ringing, seemed to echo far longer than it should have. Liquid spilled across the table, spilling across her fingers, though they were too numb to feel it.

“Oh-sorry,” she mumbled, her laugh a half-beat too loud, too fragile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

Draco caught her wrist before she could try to mop it up with a napkin, his reflexes still quick even through the blur of alcohol. But when she looked up, the humour had drained from his expression. He was looking at Harry. Whatever faint mirth had lingered in his eyes was gone now, replaced by something heavy and sombre.

He dropped her wrist, and his voice came from somewhere just past her ear. “All right. That’s enough.”

It took her a second to process the words. Enough? She couldn’t understand what he meant.

Hermione frowned, blinking blearily at him. “Enough what? We were-” She waved vaguely at Ginny and George, who were still giggling over something at the other end of the table. “We were having fun.”

“You’ve had enough fun,” Draco said. Enunciation failed him as the words fell out all at once, lacking his usual sharp cadence. His voice wasn’t unkind, but there was a firmness in it that cut through the noise. He stood, a little too fast, catching the edge of the table for balance before steadying himself. The movement made Hermione laugh again.

“See?” she said, pointing. “You’re drunk too.”

“Probably,” he muttered. “All the more reason we should leave before I say something honest.”

His hand was under her elbow, steadying, guiding, and she let him pull her upright. Her knees didn’t feel like her own. The night tilted sideways. They were outside, but she didn’t know when they’d gotten there. Draco was saying something to Harry, or maybe Harry was saying something to him; she couldn’t quite tell. Voices blurred together. Everything was so loud, but she couldn’t distinguish any of it. She stumbled on the curb, and the ground lurched up too fast. Draco caught her by the waist, his grip soft, his breath warm against her hair. “For fuck’s sake, Granger. You’re being sloppy.”

She wanted to snap back, but the words tangled somewhere on her tongue. “Sod off,” she shot back, voice muffled against the collar of his coat.

Then there was the sound of a car, which was strange, because she could have sworn she had been inside moments earlier. Draco was opening the door, trying to coax her inside.

“I’m not getting in that,” she said, shaking her head, curls falling in her eyes. “I can apparate.”

“You can’t even stand upright,” he snapped. “You’d splinch yourself before you made it to the door.”

She tried to step away just to prove him wrong and immediately tilted sideways. He caught her again, muttering something to a figure behind them as he wrestled her into the cab. She was laughing and protesting all at once, her limbs uncooperative, her voice a blur of words that didn’t make sense.

“Stop-Draco-” she protested, though her words came out as muffled giggles.

“Get in the fucking car,” he said, his patience thinning. He half-lifted, half-pushed her into the seat, shutting the door behind her with a dull thud.

She could feel her cheeks burn, shame twisting in her gut even through the fog. She didn’t need looking after. She wasn’t a child. She should have been the one helping him, that was how it was supposed to be.

She turned her head toward the window, the glass cool against her temple. “I don’t need looking after,” she mumbled. “He’s the one who…” The thought slipped away before she could finish it.

The cab’s motion lulled her, a rhythmic sway that pressed her deeper into the seat. The city outside passed in streaks of yellow and blue, streaming across her fading vision. Hermione blinked slow, heavy. Her head lolled against the window. Every time she closed her eyes, the lights smeared a little longer, lights burned blinding against the dark.

Draco said something. She wasn’t sure what. His voice came through thick and low, the vowels stretched, like he was speaking underwater.

“Huh?” she murmured.

“I said, you’re going to have one hell of a hangover.”

She replied, but had no idea what she said. She was sure that he’d gotten the general impression though, because in the haze of his features, each one melting into one another in her gaze, she saw the silver of his eyes flick in a roll.

She turned her head toward him, but her neck didn’t quite obey. He was just a blur of pale and shadow beside her, sharp edges softened by the streetlights. She blinked again. “You’re very blurry,” she said after a moment, then frowned. “Stop doing that.”

“I’ll try my best.”

The driver said something to Draco, something about directions, maybe, but Hermione’s thoughts had already started to wander. The world tilted again, and she realised she was sliding sideways in the seat. Draco’s arm moved automatically, catching her, steadying her against his shoulder. 

“Don’t,” she mumbled. “Don’t be nice. It’s weird.”

He didn’t answer. His hand stayed at her arm.

Her eyes fluttered. The hum of the car seemed to fill her whole body, a low vibration in her ribs. She thought about saying something, something serious, something true, but her thoughts slipped like hot sand through her fingers.

“Draco?” she whispered.

“Hm?”

“I think…” She trailed off, lost the thread, found it again. “I think you’re… alright.”

That made him turn his head. “Alright? What is that supposed to mean?”

She struggled to find the words, her tongue refusing to push out what she wanted to say. “I don’t know. You’re not…” She waved a hand weakly, couldn’t quite land on the right word. “Not the same. As before.”

He was quiet for a long moment. “Neither are you.”

That made her laugh, though it came out wrong, and she felt a shiver of nausea, stomach acid pooling at the back of her throat. “That’s… not a compliment, is it?”

“No,” he said. “But it isn’t an insult either.”

She wanted to ask what that meant, but her eyes wouldn’t stay open. The taxi stopped at a light and the stillness of it made her stomach swoop. 

“Do you ever think,” she murmured, barely audible, “Any of it ever mattered? Any of it at all?”

His breath caught, just faintly. “What do you mean?”

She went on, unaware of the crack she’d just opened. “I think about it sometimes,” she murmured. “Who I would’ve been if it hadn’t all happened. If I hadn’t spent years trying to prove to everyone that I was worth keeping around.” Her laugh came out jilted. “But you-” she turned her head toward him, but she couldn’t see his face now at all, “You worked it all out before me. It’s all just another cage, isn’t it?”

If he replied, she didn’t hear him. The car jolted as it started moving again, and she winced, groaning softly. The world tilted sideways again, and suddenly they were stopping. She hadn’t even realised how far they’d gone. Her eyes flitted closed.

Everything slipped by her in disjointed fragments. It felt as if time had been stretched out, chopped up, rearranged in a way that she couldn’t make sense of. 

She was on cobblestones. She was on carpet, the fibres sharp through her ripped tights. Her knee were on cold tile. Her throat was burning. Her hair was wet. Something smelled rotten and acidic. Her teeth hurt. She couldn’t hear anything at all. Her chin was resting on hard porcelain. She was so hot. There were cool, mercifully cool fingers pulling her hair back. She couldn’t open her eyes, because when she did, the world spun so violently that she felt as if she would slip through it.

She couldn’t seem to breathe. Air rasped in, shallow and useless. Every muscle in her throat burned. Her face was wet, and she couldn’t tell if it was tears or water or something else. There were hands on her. Firm, shaking, a sharp sting on her face from contact. A voice cut through the blur, sharp and urgent, right by her ear. “Granger! Open your eyes!”

She tried, but the lids were too heavy. Her lungs spasmed. The burn in her throat felt endless. Her fingers scrabbled weakly at the tiles, but it felt as if she’d never be able to feel them through the numbness in her hands.

Her head lifted and she felt her jaw in a grasp, then a long finger force its way through her lips to the back of her throat. She retched violently around it, a surge of liquid torrenting out of her mouth. The finger left her mouth but the retching continued, involuntary, uncontrollable. The corners of her eyes watered. She took a long, hungry breath, as if she’d been drowning. Cool glass touched her lips and she felt clear, cold water fill her mouth, trickling out from the sides, but she couldn’t keep it down. 

She couldn’t tell if she was upright or sideways or somewhere in between. There were flashes, a door slamming, the crash of running water, the scrape of shoes against tile. The world had narrowed to sensations: the metallic taste in her mouth, the sting of bile in her nose, the throbbing skull that pulsed in time to her heartbeat. Someone was talking, but the words kept disappearing, dissolving before she could hold on to them. Every time she blinked, the colours changed, black, white, silver. Her own words sounded far away, like they belonged to someone else entirely.

He was saying something, something important, but she had no idea what it was. The words sank through her like a stone to the bottom of a lake. Her vision swam. White-blond hair, the blur of a sleeve, the reflection of the bathroom light traced on porcelain. Then darkness.

Chapter Text

Consciousness clawed her from the blissful peace of oblivion. Viscous claws of agony spiked through her brain, dragging her unwillingly towards the pink light filtering through her closed eyelids. The air in her nostrils was rancid, the sandpaper scrape of her tongue in her dry and bruised throat tasted poison on her cracked lips. No matter how hard she rallied against it, she was being dragged back towards the world of the living, her resistance to the light futile. 

Her eyes cracked open and it was blinding, excruciating, how bright the room was. She tried to lift her head but the world tilted wildly, sending her crashing back against the pillow. She groaned, muffled and weak, wishing for anything but consciousness.

A chair scraped softly against the floor. Through the haze of pain, she registered him dimly through half-closed lids. Draco, slumped in the chair next to the bed, hair disheveled, pale and gaunt-looking, a shadow of last night’s sins written in his expression. He had a glass of water in his hand, half-finished, almost dropping to the ground in his half-consciousness, his eyes shadowed and exhausted. He sat there hardly lucid, plaid pyjama bottoms tied low, the glow of early morning catching in glints on the whites of the scars across his chest.                                                                                                                                                 

The room was silent except for the occasional low, uncontrollable groan escaping her lips. Her limbs felt like dead weights, her muscles stiff and tight. Each second stretched painfully, her thoughts sharp and fragmented. Somewhere in the blur, she realised she had been drinking last night. Drinking with her friends. And Draco. Who she’d called her friend. She remembered arguing with Ron, sitting with Draco, then everything after that was distorted into faint fragmented memories, like seeing a thousand reflections in a broken mirror. The bathroom. The smell of vomit. Cold fingers in her hair. She should feel ashamed, she supposed, but shame was an abstraction in her current state.

She curled tighter, eyelids fluttering, and drifted back toward the edge of sleep, the pain of being awake unbearable. Draco stirred slightly in the chair, but didn’t make a sound. She let herself slip, the room tilting in and out of focus, trapped somewhere between agony and unconsciousness, wishing fiercely that it would all just stop. The need for water, the desperate thirst she felt however, wouldn’t let her rest.

Slowly, agonisingly, she dragged herself upward, muscles trembling. Her bare legs moved against the cool sheets, and the sensation, soft, oversized fabric pooling around her waist, hit her with a jolt, as if a splash of cool water had been thrown over her. She sat up and wrenched the sheets back, looking down. She was in an oversized t-shirt, one of the ones she had bought for Draco to wear to bed, though she’d never seen him actually wear it. She wasn’t wearing anything else, save from her underwear.

Her eyes widened, blazing hot embarrassment burning through her cheeks, though the full implications barely reached her muddled brain. The headache, her nausea, the relentless pounding in her skull, made it hard to focus on anything else. She tried to move further, only to feel the weight of exhaustion pressing her back against the headrest. Every inch of her body ached, every motion sent shivers of pain through her. Something in her movement must have woken him, because when she turned her head slowly so as not to make the room spin again, he was looking at her through slitted eyes.

“Don’t get your purple knickers in a twist, Granger,” he rasped, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead. His voice was rough, cracked at the edges, the dryness of too many drinks cutting through the words. “Your clothes reeked of vodka and vomit. I wasn’t about to let you decorate my bed with it.”

Hermione blinked, the meaning sinking in slowly, her sluggish mind struggling to connect the dots. “My-my clothes?” she croaked. Her voice was barely a whisper, hoarse and thin. Oh god. He knew what colour her underwear was.

“Still in the bathroom,” he muttered, head dropping back against the chair with a thud. “Or what is left of them. You fell over so many times that the tights may not be salvageable.”

The words might have been dry humour, but the sharpness behind them undercut anything funny about the situation. He looked awful. Even through her haze, she could see the hollowness beneath his eyes, the pallor of his skin. There was a sluggishness in his fingers as he rubbed his temples, a faint grimace twisting his mouth.

“Why am I even in here?” She couldn’t understand why he hadn’t just thrown her into her own room, left her to deal with the consequence of her own mess in the morning instead of sleeping in a chair next to her while she laid in his bed.

He gave her a cold look. “Because you stopped breathing. Several times. I couldn’t go to sleep, couldn’t even leave the bathroom until 3am, because every time you would fall unconscious you would lose the ability to throw up by yourself, and I would have to stop you from biting your own tongue off. Thanks for that, by the way. Exactly the sort of restful night I had been hoping for after spending my day being interrogated by the Ministry.”

“Oh, Merlin,” she murmured, burying her face in her hands. The motion made the room tilt violently, and she groaned. “I can’t believe-”

“Believe it,” Draco interrupted, his tone too sharp to be smug. “I have never seen a person so drunk from so little in my life. So unbelievably reckless. I suppose you conveniently blocked out the part where I had to shove my fingers down your throat because you were choking on your own vomit?”

Hermione froze, her hands slipping from her face. The words landed dully at first, like stones sinking into water, before their weight registered and dragged her under. She could almost feel the ghost of his fingers, the bruising and rawness in her mouth.

Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. “You-what?”

Draco gave a low, humourless laugh, raking a hand through his hair. “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he snapped, though there was a faint sense of anxiety beneath the irritation. “You were half-conscious, slumped over the toilet, completely unresponsive. I thought I was going to have to drag you to St Mungo’s. I’m sure the press would have loved that.”

She stared at him, her mouth open, but nothing came out. He didn’t look at her; his eyes were fixed somewhere beyond the floorboards, jaw tight, the muscle there flickering as if it took effort not to shout.

“I’ve seen a lot of stupid things in my life,” he went on, voice low, frayed at the edges. “I’ve had my fair share of drunken nonsense. But this-” He gestured at her, a sharp movement of his hand. “This was something else.”

“I didn’t mean-” she began, but her throat seized around the words. She swallowed, wincing. “I didn’t realise-”

“Obviously not,” he cut in, cold now. “You couldn’t even stand up. You kept trying to laugh everything off. Potter thought I had put you up to it. I thought you weren’t going to wake up.”

Hermione’s stomach turned, not from nausea this time, but from shame so sharp it made her ache. She pulled her knees to her chest beneath the sheets, curling in on herself. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. It was a small sound, hoarse and useless.

Draco exhaled, long and uneven, the sound scraping through his teeth. “Don’t be sorry,” he said finally, forcing it through his teeth. “Just don’t be so stupid again. I don’t need to watch anyone else die in front of me.” The last line slipped out brittle, as if he hadn’t intended to say it.

Hermione looked up, startled. His face had gone still, taut. He stood abruptly, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m making tea,” he muttered. “Lots and lots of fucking tea. Don’t move unless it’s to drink water. There is a bucket by the side of the bed if you need to vomit again.”

The chair legs scraped against the floor as he pushed away from the bed. Draco had barely reached the doorway when a sharp vibration broke the silence. It buzzed once, then again, insistently, the sound grinding through Hermione’s skull like a drill. He stopped, jaw tightening, and turned toward the nightstand. The dim green screen of the phone she had given him lit up against the dull morning light, Potter flashing across it in pixelated letters.

He stared at it for a beat, the muscle in his cheek ticking, then exhaled through his nose and reached for it. “Potter,” he said flatly, flipping the phone open and pressing it to his ear.

Hermione blinked blearily at him, her mind sluggish, trying to reconcile the image. Draco Malfoy answering a call on a muggle phone from Harry Potter. Somewhere in her fogged mind, the thought almost made her laugh, but she couldn’t quite find the energy.

Draco’s eyes cut briefly toward her before sliding away again. “Yes,” he said, his voice curt and edged. “She’s still alive. Despite her best efforts.”

Hermione flinched, shame pricking hot at her chest. The words weren’t cruel, not exactly, but they carried a weary bitterness to them. There was a pause, a faint crackle of Harry’s voice on the other end, too quiet for her to make out. Whatever he said made something sharp flicker across Draco’s face, a flash of disgust, cold and instantaneous.

“No,” Draco snapped. “I’m not that fucking depraved.” His tone had that old aristocratic bite now, precise and cutting. Another pause. His jaw tightened. “If you want to verify her condition, speak to her yourself.”

Without warning, he turned and tossed the phone at her. It landed on the blanket beside her thigh with a dull thud, skidding against the sheets before coming to rest near her hand.

Hermione blinked at it, her fingers hesitating before she picked it up. Looking down at it had sent another wave of nausea crawling up her throat, but she pressed the phone to her ear anyway.

“Harry?” she croaked, her voice hoarse, barely more than a rasp.

There was silence on the other end, and then a relieved sigh sharp and audible. “Hermione,” Harry said. “You scared the life out of me. Are you alright?” The line was difficult to hear, so she put the phone on speaker, pressing it hard against her ear.

Her gaze wandered instinctively toward Draco, who had turned away, one hand pressed against the back of his neck. His shoulders were stiff, his profile unreadable.

“I’m fine,” she lied softly.

Harry didn’t sound convinced. “Right. And Malfoy didn’t… hurt you or anything?”

At that, Draco gave a quiet, incredulous snort without looking around. Hermione managed the faintest, most humourless laugh imaginable. “No,” she said. “The opposite. Though I'm sure he’d love to strangle me after last night.”

“Good,” Harry muttered, though his voice softened. “Drink water. Sleep. And… tell Malfoy thanks.”

She blinked, caught off-guard. “What for?”

But the line had already gone dead.

Hermione lowered the phone slowly, staring at it for a moment before setting it back on the nightstand. Draco still hadn’t turned around. His knuckles were white where he gripped the door handle.

After a long silence, she said, voice still raw, “You told him?”

He exhaled, short and sharp. “He gave me his number before I dragged you back here. I felt it prudent to call him when you stopped responding to being slapped. I thought it might be useful to have a second opinion on whether or not you were dying.”

She winced.. “I wasn’t dying.”

Draco turned, eyes cool and pale in the light. “You were doing a convincing impression.”

He left without a word, the faint drag of his footsteps echoing down the hallway before the sound of him descending the stairs faded entirely. The silence he left behind was oppressive, broken only by the dull roar of blood in her ears and the rhythmic pounding of her own pulse.

Hermione lay there for a long moment, trying to steady herself against the spinning world. The light still stabbed behind her eyes, and her throat felt like she had swallowed glass, but the taste of bile on her tongue was unbearable enough to force her movement.

Slowly, she swung her legs out of bed. The cool air hit her bare thighs, and for a moment, she swayed, gripping the bedpost to keep herself upright. Her legs felt unsteady, foreign. She moved across the room in small, deliberate steps until she reached the adjoining bathroom.

The door creaked open to the sour, unmistakable stench of vomit and vodka. Her stomach turned instantly. There, in the shower stall, was the evidence of her humiliation: a pile of her clothes, damp, crumpled, and reeking. The sight made her cringe so violently she had to grip the doorframe.

Her hand rose, trembling, to the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. The strands were tacky, damp. Cold dread tightened her chest. 

“Merlin,” she whispered to herself. The thought hit with slow, dawning horror.

Her heart pounded as she reached below his shirt on her, fingertips brushing over her chest, and felt fabric. Her bra. Slightly damp from the shower she couldn’t remember happening, but still on. Relief flooded her so hard her knees nearly gave out. So he hadn’t seen…

She pressed her palms to the sink, bowing her head over it. Her reflection was ghastly, eyes bloodshot, hair a matted mess, skin pale and waxy. A groan escaped her. She turned on the cold tap and splashed her face, gasping at the shock of it, the icy water dragging her just a little closer to lucidity.

Then she found a glass by the sink, filled it shakily, and drank it in one desperate swallow. The water hit her stomach like a blessing. She filled it again, and again, downing two more cups until she felt a fraction more alive.

When she made her way back to the bedroom, she climbed onto the bed and folded her legs beneath her, pulling the sheets loosely over them. She tried to make herself small, compact, as if that could somehow erase the night before.

The sound of footsteps came again, steady this time, and then Draco appeared in the doorway. He looked marginally more composed, but the exhaustion still clung to him. His hair was damp now, slicked back haphazardly, faint droplets of water dripping from his arms. She tried not to look at his wrists, especially not at his Dark Mark, feeling another wave of nausea. In his hands, he carried a silver thermal flask, two mugs, and a plate with two pieces of toast.

“Hydration and sustenance,” he said flatly, setting the items down on the nightstand. “You’re welcome.”

Hermione opened her mouth to thank him, or at least to say something, but his eyes flicked toward her before she could. Just briefly. A small, almost imperceptible glance that still made her pulse trip. His gaze caught on her bare legs, on the hem of his oversized shirt slipping over her thigh.

Instantly, she drew her legs in, tugging the fabric down, her face burning. “I didn’t-”

Draco sighed, the sound full of long suffering irritation. He rolled his eyes. “Calm down, Granger. It’s not anything I haven’t already seen.”

Her face went crimson. “You… What?”

He smirked faintly, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You were covered in vomit. Someone had to handle it.”

Hermione buried her face in her hands again, mortified. “This is humiliating.”

Draco poured tea into one of the mugs, the motion brisk and unbothered. “Good. Maybe it will discourage you from being such a fucking idiot in the future.”

She peered up through her fingers, glaring weakly. “I can’t believe you did that.”

He handed her the mug anyway, his tone dry. “Yes, I’m a cruel and nefarious villain because I gave you a wash. How terrible of me. Drink.”

Hermione cupped the mug carefully, the steam curling against her face. Her hands were still trembling faintly, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the hangover or from the mortification still burning through her veins.

She took a sip, it was scalding, and she winced, but she didn’t care. The heat was something tangible, something that pulled her further back into herself. “Thank you,” she said finally, voice small, thin around the edges. “For last night.”

Draco didn’t answer right away. He just sat on the edge of the armchair again, elbows on his knees, his gaze unfocused somewhere near the floor. When he exhaled, it sounded like the weight of several lifetimes leaving his lungs.

“To some extent,” he said at last, rubbing at his temple, “It is my own fault. I should’ve known you wouldn’t be able to handle that much. I should have stopped you. You don’t exactly strike me as the type who keeps vodka in her cupboard.”

Hermione frowned faintly into her mug. “That doesn’t make it your fault,” she murmured. “I’m supposed to be the responsible one. The person who helps you. Not the other way around.”

At that, Draco’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite bitterness either. He looked away, running a hand through his hair. “You’ve decided we’re friends, haven’t you?” he muttered, so quietly she almost didn’t catch it.

Hermione blinked. “What?”

He shrugged, still not meeting her eyes. “The help doesn’t just go one way if that’s the situation.”

Something twisted in her chest, something she couldn’t quite name. The words, for all their casualness, landed heavier than he probably meant them to. She watched him for a long moment, the pale lines of exhaustion under his eyes, the way his fingers tightened absently around his own mug, knuckles white.

Her voice was soft when she spoke. “I suppose not.”

Draco poured his own tea without a word, the liquid sloshing unevenly into the cup. He lifted it to his mouth, gulped the whole thing in one go, and set the empty cup down with a quiet clink on the side cabinet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Hermione blinked, still halfway through her own cautious sip, as he stood up. Before she could speak, he crossed the room, tugged the covers back, and climbed straight into the bed with her. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t do anything, really, just dropped forward, face-first into the pillow with a faint, muffled groan, as though the mere act of existing upright had been too much effort. The mattress dipped under his weight, and she went rigid when one of his long legs brushed against her hip under the sheets.

“I can go back to my own room,” she managed after a moment, her voice coming out a touch higher than intended.

Draco turned his head toward her, one grey eye barely visible through his dishevelled hair. The look he gave her was of someone who was exacerbated beyond words.

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” he rasped, voice rough and low. “You’re surely past the point of being shy by now? Nice set, by the way. You’ll have to tell Pansy where you got it from next time you see her, she always did like to match.”

Hermione flushed scarlet, gripping her mug tighter. “I just thought-”

“I don’t care,” he cut her off, his words slurred faintly with exhaustion. “Seriously Granger, I do. Not. Care. I may as well be laying next to Potter. I just want to sleep. You shouldn’t go anywhere unless you have another ill turn and I’m not there to stop you choking on your own stupidity.”

That last bit came out too sharp, too weary to sting properly, but the undercurrent of concern wasn’t lost on her. He rolled onto his side, back half-turned to her, and within seconds, his breathing evened, slow, deep, the kind that came only when someone was too tired to keep up pretences.

Hermione stared at him, lips parted around words she didn’t quite have. Her head was still pounding, but the absurd warmth of him beside her, solid, human, alive, seemed to anchor the agony. She set her mug down and laid back against the pillows, careful not to move too much, staring at the ceiling until the slow rhythm of his breathing lulled her toward sleep too.

They slept most of the day. When Hermione woke next, the light outside had shifted, no longer bright and scattered but a deeper gold that spilled across the bed, warming the sheets. Draco wasn’t there. The indentation on the pillow beside her still held the faintest trace of warmth, the sheet slightly rumpled where he’d been.

The flat was silent. She sat up slowly, stretching, the ache behind her eyes dull but manageable now as she poured herself another cup of tea. The thermal flask on the nightstand had gone cold, but not stale. She disposed of her wet pile of clothes, nostrils flaring against the reek of them, then showered again. In her own room this time. She changed into a comfortable long sleeved shirt and jeans, then padded downstairs in pursuit of something that wouldn’t make her stomach turn.

When she wandered into the kitchen a while later, a note sat on the counter in Draco’s sharp, slanted hand:

Gym.

Hermione stared at the word for a long moment. The idea of him, a pureblood aristocrat, all sharp angles and withdrawn from the world, in a Muggle gym, was almost surreal. She tried, briefly, to imagine him on a treadmill, pale and furious at the indignity of it, and felt a laugh rise in her throat before she could stop it.

He must usually go late at night, she realised. It made sense. No one to see him there, no eyes to recognise the ghost of who he had been. Still, she couldn’t shake the strangeness of it. Him, voluntarily submitting himself to fluorescent artificial lighting and the reek of sweat and metal.

It was nearly an hour later when the front door opened again.

Hermione turned from the sofa, half-risen, and froze. Draco stepped in, breath shallow, shirt sticking to his skin, hair damp with sweat. But what caught her first wasn’t his exhaustion, it was the way he held himself. His hands were clutched at his wrists, bandages wrapped thicker than she’d ever seen them, stark against the angry flush of his skin. His jaw was tight, his expression rigid with a kind of silent fury.

“What happened?” she asked.

He brushed past her toward the kitchen sink. “Nothing.”

“Draco-”

“Nothing,” he repeated, too fast, too sharp. He turned on the tap, running cold water over his hands, but she could see the tremor in his fingers, the way his shoulders hunched slightly as if bracing against pain.

Hermione crossed the room, every trace of her hangover forgotten. “Show me,” she said quietly.

He didn’t move.

“Draco.”

The sound of her voice, low, firm, seemed to force something in him to relent. He exhaled through his nose and turned, reluctant, slowly lifting his forearms to her. The bandages were soaked through, the edges tinged faintly red. Even through the layers, she could see the swelling beneath, the angry flush of inflammation.

“What did you do?” she whispered. Surely he hadn’t…

“Apparently,” he said with a thin, bitter smile, “lifting weights designed for teenage girls and prepubescent boys isn’t conducive to long-term scar tissue management. Who would have guessed.”

“Let me see,” she said again, and before he could protest, she took his wrist in both her hands. He flinched, barely, but didn’t pull away. The skin beneath the bandages was hot to the touch, angry and tight, she could tell without even taking them off. When she pressed her thumb lightly against the joint, he hissed, the sound sharp and involuntary.

“Rotate your wrist,” she said quietly.

He tried. The motion was stiff, jerky. His left wrist barely moved at all, while the right twitched, spasmed, and then fell limp. The fingers on his left hand cramped, two curling inwards, the rest shaking so violently that he had to squeeze them together until they stopped.

“Draco. You need to go to St Mungo’s.” 

She felt sick, this time it wasn’t just the hangover doing it. She’d let this go on for so long, let him destroy himself even in his silent attempts to rebuild, all because she hadn’t wanted to deal with the awkwardness of facing the physicality of his suffering. Ron was right. She was the most selfish person she’d ever known.

His eyes flicked up to hers, cold and dismissive. “No.”

“You could have torn something. You might have damaged the tendons. You-”

“No.” The word cracked like a whip, but his voice lacked real strength. He sank down onto the nearest chair, head in his hands. “If anyone finds out I can’t defend myself, it will be feeding season the second I step into the public eye.”

“I don’t care how it looks,” she said firmly. “You’re not going to lose the use of your hands because you’re too proud to let a healer look at you.”

“They’ll talk.”

“Then I’ll find someone discreet.”

There was a long silence, then a bitter exhale.

“Fine.”

By the time they arrived at St Mungo’s, the sky had deepened to dusk, a midnight-grey that pressed low over London. Hermione had arranged the appointment through one of her previous cases, Tilly Milne, a quiet young woman who owed her several favours and, more importantly, understood the word confidentiality.

Draco hadn’t spoken the entire way there. He had walked rigidly beside her, gaze fixed somewhere distant, bandaged hands resting motionless against his sides. When she tried to say something, anything,he didn’t answer.

An hour later, Hermione sat in the waiting area outside the private treatment room, leg bouncing unconsciously. It was a stupid habit, a nervous one. She hadn’t noticed when she had started doing it, but it increased her impatience. The minutes crawled. Tilly had come to collect him with a clipped, polite nod, and that had been the last she’d seen of him.

She tried not to imagine him behind that door, but the image of him backed against the wall with no escape like a crazed animal caught in a snare would not leave her mind. She trusted Milne, as much as she could trust anyone these days, but letting him out of her sight filled her with anxiety. When the door finally opened, Hermione looked up so fast she nearly knocked her knee against the table.

Draco stepped out into the corridor, the white light from the treatment room cutting around him like a frame. His arms were bare, save from a dressing placed over his Dark Mark that she suspected was less to do with his cuts and more to do with Tilly’s reluctance to look at that particular memento of their shared dark past. The bandages were gone.

Hermione’s breath caught.

The skin there was unrecognisable. Smooth. Pink. Whole. For a second, her mind couldn’t make sense of it. Before, it had been as if someone had flayed the flesh from his very wrists, large indentations that left him perpetually looking as if he wore a grim pair of cuffs. Now they were gone. The flesh gleamed faintly, too new, tender and smooth like the skin of a newborn. The skin was noticeably thinner than the rest of his arms, and it was obvious that they would never look quite normal again, but it was better than she had hoped.

“Draco?” she said, the word uncertain in her mouth.

He didn’t answer. He was staring at his own hands as though they belonged to someone else. Milne said something quietly, something about salve schedules and rest and follow-up appointments, but Hermione didn’t hear a word. Her eyes were fixed on him, on the stillness in his shoulders.

When Tilly disappeared down the hall, the silence that followed was suffocating.

“Draco.” she said again, more softly.

He blinked, and his eyes, blank, grey, and flat, lifted to hers.

“There’s nerve damage,” he said finally. The words were dull and almost toneless, as if he’d already repeated them in his head a dozen times and they had lost all meaning.

The phrase hit her like a physical blow.

“I might…” He stopped, his jaw tightening. He looked down again at his hands, flexing his fingers experimentally. The motion was slow, stiff, like the movement of a puppet whose strings had been frayed. “They said I might have trouble with fine motor work. Complex wand movements. Anything that requires precision.”

His eyes caught hers, more defeated than she had ever seen them. “I might never get it back.”

Hermione took a step forward before she even thought about it. “Oh, Draco…”

He gave a low, mirthless huff of breath. “I suppose this is my final penance. To be neutered for life.”

His hands dropped to his sides, hanging uselessly. She noticed, now, how his posture had changed, the faint hunch in his shoulders, the tension at the corners of his mouth. It wasn’t just pain. It was surrender to the inevitable. 

“She said she’d never seen such extensive damage, that she was surprised I could move my hands at all,” he went on, quieter now, eyes unfocused. “There might be a chance, a slim chance, with practice. But I’ll be prone to fits of numbness for life. Some spells might not respond at all.” His lip twitched, a small, bitter echo of a smile. “Imagine that. A wizard whose magic can’t find his hands.”

Hermione felt something crack in her chest. “Draco, that’s not-”

But he was shaking his head, his voice sharpening slightly, though it was still quiet. “Don’t. Not right now.”

He looked up at her then, and the sheer emptiness in his expression silenced her. The faint lines beneath his eyes seemed deeper, the numbness carved into the pale planes of his face.

“I just-” He stopped, as if the words caught somewhere in his throat. “I just don’t know what else I need to give. Nothing is ever enough.”

Hermione didn’t move. The silence pressed down so thickly it felt like dust in her lungs, clogging her throat until even breathing hurt. Draco stood a few feet away, the sterile white light of the corridor washing him out until he seemed almost translucent, a ghost caught between one world and the next.

He’d stopped looking at her. He was staring again at his hands, those trembling, unfamiliar things, flexing his fingers with the mechanical rhythm of someone testing whether they still exist. The war would never end for him, she realised that now. There was no fixing him. The damage was more than skin deep. He carried it, an eternal part of the emerging man he was becoming, fused permanently into his body and his soul. A slow, grinding afterlife where the body kept moving out of habit long after the soul had stopped knowing how.

The world had already taken everything from him. His innocence, his youth, his potential. Now his body. Still, it kept reaching back for more. A little more of his dignity. A little more of his will. He’d been remade in the image of his punishment.

She blinked hard, but the edges of him shimmered. She wanted to tell him that he’d done enough, that it wasn’t fair, that he didn’t deserve to keep bleeding for sins that weren’t all his to bear. But the words stayed locked behind her teeth.

Because maybe he had deserved some of it. Maybe they all had. But he was right. He’d given so much. They both had, on different ends of the spectrum. And look where it had gotten them, in the end. Two sides of the same coin. Two people drifting through the ruins back towards the same spot again. In the end, it hadn’t mattered which side they had been on. They had both lost. 

“I just don’t know,” he said, almost gently. “How much more of me there is left to lose.”

Hermione’s throat burned. She knew exactly what he meant.

Chapter Text

“Draco. Let’s start by talking about what brought you here. How have the past few months felt for you?”

Draco sat stiffly in the chair across from the therapist, his arms folded, jaw tight. Hermione had chosen a spot beside him, close enough that her knee brushed his. He didn’t move. His eyes were fixed on the coffee table, and for a moment she wondered if he was rehearsing what he would say, if he had prepared some careful, practiced lies to keep the story plausible.

“Fine,” he said finally.

The therapist looked up from her clipboard, her expression unimpressed, as if she’d seen this exact performance before a thousand times. With a slow, deliberate motion, she set the clipboard down on the table, turned it around towards him and leaned forward slightly. “‘Fine’. You’ve agreed to come to therapy, because you feel fine?”

Draco’s eyes flicked toward her briefly, sharp, almost defiant. “Yes.”

“Alright,” she said flatly. Then she added, “Tell me Draco, what do you see?”

He frowned, confused. “What do you mean?”

“The world in front of you. Right now. Look at the clipboard and tell me what you see.”

Draco’s gaze fell to the questionnaire the therapist had insisted he fill out before the session. The edges of the pages were smudged from his impatient scribbles. “This,” he said finally, voice clipped, “the questionnaire.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, and what’s the point of it?”

“To determine someone’s mental instability,” he replied evenly, as if reciting a fact.

“Not exactly. It’s to determine how much of an impact poor mental health is having on your day to day life. Tell me Draco, what was your score?” she asked, voice light but probing.

“Twenty-seven,” he said.

“And the maximum score?”

“Twenty-seven,” he said again.

Hermione, sitting beside him, pressed her lips together to keep from laughing, a faint twinge of amusement she couldn’t entirely suppress. Draco shot her a sideways glance, catching the hint of expression, and his mouth twitched. 

The therapist let the silence hang for a moment, then leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “I’m sure you’re an intelligent man. Would you conclude that someone with this score is ‘Fine’?”

He smirked. “I suppose not.”

“Good,” she said slowly. “Because I’m going to be honest with you, Draco. Whether or not you decide to be honest with me doesn’t matter. You can sit there twiddling your thumbs, sneer at my questions, roll your eyes at me, whatever you want. Doesn’t make a difference to me. I get paid either way, and if you want to waste an hour twice a week, that’s your prerogative.”

Draco blinked slowly, as though he hadn’t anticipated this outcome. His jaw was tight, hands pressed into his thighs. She leaned forward slightly, voice softer but still firm. “What does matter, though, is what you do with your life outside this room. You scored at the maximum on a test designed to flag someone who is barely surviving. That’s a pretty miserable existence, Draco, whether you like it or not. I can’t fix you, let’s be clear about that. But what I can do is give you tools to make it slightly more bearable to wake up in the morning. Enough that it doesn’t crush you entirely, and enough that it doesn’t spill over onto the people around you.”

Draco’s eyes flicked to Hermione, then back to the therapist, as though weighing whether to interrupt or to simply let her talk. He said nothing.

The therapist tapped her pen against the table, her gaze sharp. “We can start by naming some of the things that brought you here. Just the basics. No judgment, no ‘right’ way of answering. Tell me what it’s like, Draco. Just… be honest. As far as you’re willing. And if you don’t feel like talking today, that’s fine too. You don’t have to lie for me.”

Draco’s shoulders shifted minutely, almost imperceptibly. A long exhale escaped him. “…Fine,” he muttered again, but this time there was less defiance in it.

The therapist waited, staring at him pointedly. Draco avoided her gaze, his thumb still rubbing slow, restless circles against his forefinger.

Finally, he said, almost lazily, “You want to talk about torture?”

“If you’d like to.”

He smiled, thin and humourless. “You really think I’d like to?”

“I think you’ve lived through things that have twisted the way you see the world. And if you keep them buried, they’ll keep twisting.”

Draco’s gaze didn’t touch her. He looked at the floor, detached, as if he were preparing himself to recite lines from a play he’d already grown sick of performing. “I…” He tensed his fists, and sat silent for almost a full minute before continuing. 

“I don’t know. One thing they did was play images in my head of people dying. Because of me. Made me watch again and again until I started to believe they were memories. It got hard to remember who I had killed and who I hadn’t. That was the point. They wanted me to see what I was part of. To realise it was all my fault, whether it was my wand doing the killing or not.”

He gave a half-hearted huff, casting a fractured smile on his face. “Do you know what’s funny? The worst part wasn’t when it happened. It was after. The quiet. You can’t imagine what the quiet sounds like after someone stops screaming.”

Hermione’s throat felt tight.

The therapist’s pen had stopped moving. “And what did you feel, when that quiet came?”

He took his time answering. When he did, the words were jagged. “Sadness. At first,”
He swallowed, eyes unfocused. “Because it meant I couldn’t hear my mothers voice anymore. And then guilt. Because it meant I’d gotten used to the sound of her screaming.”

His voice caught somewhere around the last word. He covered it by leaning back, smirking, folding his arms again, the performance of control. “Does that get me points on your little empathy test?”

The therapist didn’t take the bait. “It gets you closer to something honest,” she said softly. “You mentioned in the introduction interview that you feel great anger. I think that’s true. But I also think you’re afraid of what comes after anger.”

Draco’s eyes flicked up, sharp and glittering. “And what’s that exactly?”

“Grief,” she said.

The word hit him like a stone breaking the surface of still water. Hermione saw him flinch. small, almost imperceptible, but it was there. He looked at her for a long time, then at Hermione. His expression was unreadable, but his voice had lost its earlier bite. “I’m done talking,” he said.

“That’s fine,” the therapist replied, calm and unbothered. 

He stood. Hermione followed, unsure whether to speak. His hand brushed the back of the chair, a small tremor in the movement that only she noticed. They left the office in silence. Hermione kept her eyes on the pavement as they walked, giving him the quiet he clearly needed. It wasn’t until they reached the street corner that she felt his hand slide into hers. His fingers wove closely, not tentatively, not testing, but with a kind of desperate certainty, as though something in him might disintegrate if he let go.

Hermione didn’t look at him. She just let him hold on. He’d started doing this more and more lately. At first it had been in moments of quiet collapse, the days when his thoughts had sunk too deep, when he’d grown pale and tight-lipped, lost somewhere behind his eyes. He’d reach for her hand like a man clinging to the last solid thing in the world. And she’d let him, because it wasn’t about affection. It was survival.

But then it began to happen at other times too. In the soft mundanity of their evenings, while they sat reading on opposite ends of the sofa, when he wrote in his journal by the fire, or when she handed him something in the kitchen. He’d curl his fingers around hers, absent-mindedly, like a reflex, and wouldn’t let go. She’d feel the faint tremor fade from his hand, his shoulders loosen just slightly, the restless tension that lived in him easing for a heartbeat. She never mentioned it. She had learned that to name something tender and real that he did was the quickest way to make him retreat from it. There was always that faint tension before he reached for her, that half-second of hesitation, as if he were bracing himself for her to flinch, for her to tell him not to.

She’d come to realise where it came from.

Narcissa.

Unlike the distant and reserved image the world had of her, Narcissa’s love was overwhelmingly physical. Whenever she visited, her hands were always on him. Fixing his collar, smoothing a wrinkle from his shirt, placing a kiss upon his forehead, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear as if he were still a boy. There was something fiercely protective in it, the kind of touch that said, You are still here. You are still mine to keep safe. I love you.

At first, Draco flinched at contact even when it was meant kindly, his body remembering a thousand other times when touch had meant pain, control, humiliation. But then, something in him had begun to thaw. Hermione had noticed the change, how his posture softened when Narcissa rested a hand on his shoulder, how his breathing evened when she brushed her thumb along his temple. It was as though his body had finally remembered how to feel warmth without being burned by it.

He had been a man starved of gentleness, who hadn’t felt a hand upon him that wasn’t one of violence in years. Now, he seemed to crave touch constantly, quietly, almost shamefully. Not in a romantic way, never that, but as someone who’d rediscovered the simplest human reassurance and was terrified of losing it again. It occurred to her that the fingers interlaced with hers were more honest than anything he’d said in that therapist’s office. Lately, she’d found herself doing it too.

Sometimes, while she was on the phone with Harry, discussing the latest surge of extremist activity, the Ministry’s failures, the disappearance of another former Death Eater from the rehabilitation program, she’d feel her chest tighten with that old familiar pressure, the kind that came before panic. The news never got better. Those loyal to the old bloodlines were getting bolder, using the collapse of her program in the press as leverage to demand that their children be freed from it. It was becoming impossible to tell who was fleeing north for nefarious purposes and who was being hunted down by the wizarding community in acts of revenge.

Several of her former cases had simply vanished. People she’d sworn would never return to that life, gone, without a trace.

And in those moments, she would catch herself reaching sideways for him, without thinking, her fingers brushing his, seeking the same grounding he always sought from her. The simple warmth of skin against skin would slow her breath, pull her back from the void. Eventually, she didn’t even need to reach. At the faintest sign of tension, a sharp exhale, the pause in her voice as she argued with Harry over what to do, his hand would already be in hers, silent and steady. Somehow, his presence had become just as necessary to her as her own presence seemed necessary to him. 

He wrote after therapy, always. Every session ended the same way: Draco walking out without a word, heading straight home, taking up his journal. At first Hermione had thought it was avoidance, another mask to keep her at a distance, but she’d begun to realise it was the opposite. He wrote because he needed to drain something out before it drowned him. The less he said in the session, the more he would write, sitting for hours in front of the fireplace. She didn’t ask to read it, and he didn’t offer, but sometimes she’d catch accidental glimpses over his shoulder, see his hand transition from desperate scrawling, disturbing drawings, to tightly refined entries.

‘I am less theatrical these days. Rage has cooled into a dull, reliable ember that burns without drama. There is a melancholy composure that sits in the place where fury used to reside. I suppose this is better. It is certainly less exhausting.

Thus remains the recurring self-argument: Do you deserve tenderness? No. Do you require it anyway? Yes. These rhetorical tussles are boring and infinite. I tire of conversing with myself in this manner, but I have not found a better interlocutor on the matter.’

 

Narcissa’s visits were always on Wednesdays, brief but precise. She would arrive with a basket of his favourite sweets, fashionable and expensive clothes to account for his rapidly growing figure, and sharp-eyed glances that took in everything. Her affection for her son was unwavering, and every time she would leave, Narcissa would turn to Hermione by the door and say the same thing in soft words. Thank you. Hermione noticed that they never spoke of the past, nor of Lucius. It was an unspoken rule, a skeleton in a closet neither of them were willing to open.

Between Narcissa’s visits and twice weekly therapy, life settled into a rhythm so ordinary it almost felt like fiction. Some evenings, they cooked together. Or rather, Draco cooked and Hermione stood and complained that he was doing it wrong, until he shoved a wooden spoon into her hand and told her to make herself useful. One night, after dinner, she found him on the sofa, her well-worn copy of Little Women balanced on his knees.

He read aloud, voice flat and deliberately scornful. “‘I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.’” He snorted and threw the book to the side.

Hermione frowned. “It’s a nice line. Inspirational, even.”

He rolled his eyes. “Inspirational? It’s disgustingly cliché. Honestly, it makes me want to gouge my eyes out.”

Hermione crossed her arms, leaning against the doorway. “You’re so dramatic. It’s metaphorical, she’s learning to cope with life’s challenges.”

Draco looked up at her, expression flat. “Hermione, she spends half of her life in a parlour sewing curtains. If that’s a storm, I dread to think what she’d make of an actual crisis.”

“It’s not about that,” she said, exasperated. “It’s about growing up. Taking responsibility for yourself.”

He gave a sharp, incredulous laugh. “How enlightening. Why, I do say that I feel the urge to pull myself up by my bootstraps already.”

“You might learn something from it,” she said primly, though the corner of her mouth twitched.

Draco rolled his eyes. “I learned that you have terrible taste in books.”

She gasped, feigning offence. “Excuse me, Little Women is a classic.”

“It’s drivel. Sentimental nonsense for people who’ve never had a real problem in their lives.”

Hermione crossed the room and picked the book up, smoothing its creased cover. “You don’t have to mock everything earnest, you know. Some people find comfort in things that aren’t bleak.”

“Comfort,” he repeated, testing the word like it tasted foul. “Yes, I suppose that’s what you like about it. It’s simple and easy.”

She sighed. “You’re doing it again, Draco. Being deliberately cruel.”

He froze mid-gesture, the smirk faltering. “Am I?”

“Yes,” she said, her tone firm but calm. “You’re mocking me because you can. That’s unnecessary.”

He blinked, as though processing the idea for the first time. Then, in a quieter voice, he muttered, “I suppose you’re right.”

Hermione let a tiny exhale of relief escape. “You can critique things without being cruel. You’re allowed to have opinions, but you don’t have to weaponise them.”

Draco hesitated, then nodded once. “Alright. I’m sorry. I’ll try. Not to throw books, either.”

Hermione allowed herself a small, approving smile. “That’s all I’m asking.”

It was a strange existence, a quiet domesticity that she had never experienced before but somehow held both of them together. She made infrequent trips to the ministry, observed grimly as Lucius pulled more and more of his funding from St. Mungos and the rebuilt Hogwarts, her concern growing greater and greater by the day. Harry was attempting to monitor him, but it had been met with heavy resistance within the DMLE, primarily from families of those who had benefitted from his donations to the curse breaking ward, to the point that several of their best aurors had simply refused to do it. Narcissa had insisted he was simply doing it in retaliation for Draco refusing to see him. Draco meanwhile, went out more and more often, to muggle art galleries, to get coffee, just to simply walk. Mostly he would be at the gym, more than she wanted him to be, trying to force his fragile but slowly strengthening form to cooperate with his mind. 

Draco had been working on rebuilding strength in his wrists. A slow, painful process that tested his pride more than his body. The tendons, weakened by months of strain and malnutrition, trembled under precision movements. Most days he went to the small muggle gym several streets over and worked with a physical therapist, returning covered in sweat and grim faced, his hair damp with exertion. Afterwards, they would practice wandwork together in the kitchen. Hermione’s idea, though he had protested at first.

At the beginning, it humiliated him. He’d been bright, gifted in school, just as good as her if he’d have bothered to put the work in. Now, even simple spells left his hand shaking. The frustration simmered under his skin like a fever. One evening, she walked into the kitchen to find him standing a few feet from the counter, wand in hand, eyes fixed on a cup of tea.

“Wingardium leviosa,” he said, jaw tight.

The cup lifted, for a moment. Then it trembled violently, wobbled in mid-air, and fell. The crash echoed sharply in the small room, scattering porcelain across the tiles, a splash of tea bleeding across the floor. Draco’s face tightened. He clutched his wrist, breathing through the pain, and bent to clean the mess.

“Leave it,” Hermione said softly, stepping forward.

He ignored her.

“Draco,” she said again, firmer this time, shoving him back.

When he looked up at her, his face was red, burned with humiliation and anger. She raised her wand and murmured, “Reparo.”

The shards knit themselves together briefly. She mopped up the tea from the ground with a cloth, then opened the bin. Her stomach sank. It was full of broken cups, at least a dozen of them. She turned back to him, quietly. “You’ve been doing this a lot, haven’t you?”

He said nothing. The silence was answer enough.

After a long moment, she opened one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out a fork. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s fix the form first.”

He watched her warily, still nursing his wrist.

“Here,” she said, stepping closer. She placed it on the table. “Lighter object. Less strain.”

He raised his wand again, but she could already see the tension in his grip. Without thinking, she stepped behind him, sliding her arm over his to guide the movement. His body went rigid at first, then softened with an exhale. The proximity startled her more than she expected. He was warm, so warm, the smell of sweat still clinging to his shirt from training. Her hand brushed the fine scar tissue that ran along his wrist, almost invisible in the low light, and she felt him hesitate, though he didn’t pull away. The breath between them seemed to shift, something delicate and sacred. She swallowed, focusing on the fork.

“Relax your shoulder,” she murmured. “It’s not about force. You’ve been trying to overpower it. You’re supposed to direct, not control.”

He breathed, the sound shallow, unsteady. She moved her hand along his forearm, adjusting the angle of his wrist. “Like this.”

They tried again. Once. Twice. The fork rattled on the counter, then fell still. He muttered something unintelligible, frustration curling at the edges of his voice. She didn’t respond, just stayed there, guiding the motion again. The third time, the fork lifted. Slowly, shakily, until it was suspended in the air above them. 

Draco froze, disbelief flickering across his features, then a low laugh escaped him, startled and breathless. The fork floated a few inches higher before he let it fall gently back to the table. He half turned and leaned into the crook beneath her jaw in relief, his head rested against her shoulder, his breath warm against her neck.

“Finally,” he murmured.

Hermione felt her own breath catch. Without thinking, Her hand slid up into his hair, combing her fingers gently through the strands once, twice, as she’d seen Narcissa do so often in her visits. He didn’t flinch this time. If anything, he leaned into it, eyes closed, the tight line of his jaw finally easing.

Months passed in routine, a slow unwinding of tension, the rhythm of ordinary life stitching itself into something that almost resembled peace.

Then, one morning, that fragile rhythm broke.

It was early, barely light, the her bedroom still dim with the grey wash of dawn. Hermione’s phone buzzed against her bedside table. She was still half-asleep, hair loose and tangled, when she answered.

“Harry?”

His voice was rough, too awake for the hour. “Sorry to call so early. I wouldn’t, but, well, something’s come up.”

She frowned, pulling herself up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What is it?”

He hesitated. “Pansy Parkinson contacted me. She’s been running that post-war talking group, the one for mixed participants, you know, both sides of the war.”

“Yes,” Hermione said, frowning. “I know it.” She’d spoken to Pansy a few times since the program began and recalled the visit to her and Theo, recalling the strange, brittle camaraderie between people who had once tried to kill one another.

Harry continued, voice clipped. “Two of her regulars haven’t shown up in weeks. She’s been by their works, no sign of them. One’s an ex-Auror, Will Delvins. The other’s a former Death eater, Crowl Anderson.”

Hermione straightened, fully awake now. “Delvins and Anderson?” She could vaguely remember seeing the two of them shake hands when she’d visited. 

“Yeah. Pansy said it’s unlike either of them to miss a session. They were apparently getting along well. Friends, even. She’s worried something’s happened.”

Hermione exhaled slowly, pressing her fingers to her temple. “Do you think they’ve fled?”

“I don’t know,” Harry admitted. “But given the way things have been, I don’t want to assume anything.”

There was a pause. Hermione could hear the faint clatter of dishes on his end, the sound of Ginny saying something in the background.

He went on, more carefully this time. “You met both of them, didn’t you? Pansy said you did.”

“Yes,” Hermione said. “A while ago now. They seemed to be doing alright. Both of them.”

“Good. Then I’d like you to come with me,” Harry said. “She asked if you could, said you left an impression last time. Might make the other members be more forthcoming.”

“Of course,” Hermione said immediately. “When do you want to leave?”

“We should aim to make it to the meeting in time, so I'll meet you in Hogsmeade at six?”

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll bring Draco.”

The silence on the other end stretched just long enough for her to feel the weight of it.

Finally, Harry sighed. “Hermione… maybe you shouldn’t.”

She stiffened. “Why not?”

“Because you’ve been gone for three months,” he said, blunt but not unkind. “You barely come into the office. You don’t see anyone. You’ve gone all unreachable again. I’ve hardly spoken to you except about Ministry stuff. You know I had to manually send payroll this month because HR thought you had quit? It’s not just him who’s withdrawn.”

Hermione swallowed. “I’ve been busy.” She hadn’t.

“I know,” he said. “I get it. But maybe this isn’t the thing to throw him into. It’s sensitive. There’ll be Aurors, possibly press if it leaks. He’s still technically under your observation.”

“I’m aware,” Hermione said, her tone sharpening. “But it would be good for him to talk to people who aren’t me. You said yourself, he needs to reintegrate.”

“Reintegrate, yes,” Harry said, dry. “But not into a missing persons investigation involving another Death Eater.”

Hermione pressed her lips together, the faint irritation beneath her exhaustion surfacing. “He isn’t a Death Eater, Harry. And he deserves the chance to prove that.”

Harry sighed again, that resigned sound she knew too well. “You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”

“No,” she said simply.

“Fine. Bring him. But, Hermione…” His voice softened. “Just… keep your head. Both of you.”

“I always do,” she said.

Harry was silent for another long moment before he said, almost reluctantly, “There’s something else you should know before you come.”

She felt a prickle of unease. “What?”

“Ron will be there.”

Hermione froze. “Why on earth would Ron be there?”

Harry exhaled, the sound heavy. “Because I’m running out of people I can rely on in the Department. Half of my team’s either quit or been reassigned. No one wants to work these cases anymore, too messy, too political. I asked him to come back on, just for this one. I needed another wand I could trust.”

Hermione’s voice cooled. “Harry…”

“He’s just there as backup, for protection,” Harry interrupted quickly. “You don’t have to talk to him. I’ll handle the coordination. He knows to keep his distance.”

She hesitated, her heartbeat suddenly loud in her ears. “Will you tell him Draco’s coming?”

Another long pause. “I’ll make sure he behaves,” Harry said finally. 

Hermione rubbed her forehead, feeling the dull pulse of an oncoming headache. “Fine,” she said. She hung up before she said something she knew she would regret. She sat in bed for a long while, phone still in her hand, staring at Harry’s name on the screen. In the next room, she could hear Draco moving about, beginning to wake up. The sound of a drawer closing, the faint scrape of his chair. It was strange, how easily she could track him now, how she knew the rhythm of his life by sound alone. The thought of Ron seeing him, seeing them, filled her with a dull, sick anxiety she couldn’t quite name. Maybe Harry was right. Maybe this wasn’t wise. But she also knew that if she told Draco to stay behind, he would take it as proof that she still didn’t trust him. And that would undo months of work in a single breath. She couldn’t risk that.

The quiet safety of their little world had been fragile from the beginning. Maybe it was foolish of her to think it could last forever.

Chapter Text

The air in Hogsmeade was thin and cold, and Hermione felt a northern breeze brush its cold fingers across her cheeks as tugged her scarf tighter around her throat. The ends fluttered behind her, dancing in the mist as she and Draco advanced up the cobbled path toward the village. He walked beside her in silence reluctantly, his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, pale hair catching in the late summer light. Ahead, at the entrance to the village, Harry waited, dark leather jacket, Auror’s badge gleaming in the fading day on his lapel, with another figure standing just behind him. Ron.

He had changed, and he hadn’t. His hair was shorter, freckles scattered more prominently across the bridge of his nose that were no doubt brought out by the odd abundance of sunshine that the south had been experiencing of late, but the familiar slope of his shoulders in his scruffy sherpa jacket made something ache in her chest. He looked older in a way that Hermione could not quite reconcile, not aged by the passage of time exactly, but by a distinct lack of the easy, juvenile warmth and joy she had always loved about him. As they approached, he looked away quickly.

“Hermione,” Draco muttered under his breath. “You didn’t mention we’d have an audience.”

“Behave,” Hermione murmured, her voice barely above the wind.

A few people glanced their way as they crossed the main street, shopkeepers pausing mid-sweep, a witch pulling her child a little closer by the hand. Recognition flickered across faces. Here stood four people who had once defined the war now meeting together, uneasy and unsmiling. But this was Hogsmeade, too far north for gossip to spread like wildfire as it did in London, too used to the peculiar. The villagers watched, curious but quiet, and then went back to their business.

Harry stepped forward to meet them, grasping Hermione’s arm in greeting. “You made good time,” he said, tone neutral, though his eyes flicked briefly to Draco, assessing.

Draco nodded once, polite but cool. 

“Right,” Harry said. “Malfoy. I’m sure you remember Ron. If there’s any sort of incident, you’ve got to leave. Understood?”

Draco’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “Understood.”

Ron’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Hermione dared a quick glimpse at his face, and the glacial blue of his hard eyes gave her as little insight into what he was thinking as his words had. 

“Let’s get moving. Parkinson’s group is about to start.”

Hermione fell into step beside Harry, Draco close enough that his sleeve brushed hers. Behind them, she could hear Ron’s uneven footsteps, the quiet scrape of his boots against the cobblestone. Out of habit, her hand almost drifted to Draco, but she stopped herself just in time, flattening her palm against her thigh. 

The Three Broomsticks loomed ahead, light spilling from the windows, promising respite from the strange absence of warmth in what had been an unseasonably hot and humid summer. As Harry pushed open the doors, Hermione spotted the group, seated around a long wooden table near the hearth. Ron drifted to the door, still not looking at her, and kept vigil there. She frowned. The group numbers were considerably lower than they had been last time, roughly only half of the weary and anxious wizards and witches remained. Pansy stood at the head of them, roll of parchment in hand, Theo leaning over her shoulder to read something.

Hermione had known, before they even stepped through the door, that bringing Draco had been a mistake. She’d told herself she was overthinking it, that Draco was an adult, that he could handle himself, but the moment Pansy Parkinson’s eyes snapped up and widened, she felt her stomach sink. In truth, Hermione knew that Draco would be able to handle meeting his old friends. It was her, wracked with constant anxiety and fear of losing the fragile peace they had established, that selfishly wished she had kept him squirreled away where he was safe, and where she was safe. Pansy’s shock was quick, but it wasn’t subtle. Hermione felt herself straighten without meaning to, hands tightening around the strap of her bag. She couldn’t tell what exactly the sensation that coiled low in her gut was, but she knew it was something unpleasant and irrational. Pansy blinked as if trying to reconcile the man in front of her with the boy she had known so well.

“Draco? Fucking hell!”

Draco froze. Hermione studied him, that flicker of discomfort in his shoulders, the minute shift in his stance before he plastered on a lazy, practiced smirk. It was the same one he always used whenever he didn’t know what else to do. Then, as if deciding on a strategy mid move, he stepped forward quickly, and pulled Pansy into an awkward half hug.

“Pansy,” he said, tone slightly too high to be casual.

Hermione watched them, a pulse of unease flaring in her chest. She didn’t know why she cared, but seeing him slide back into that old Slytherin rhythm, that world she would never quite belong to, made something in her uncomfortable. He had so much in common with them that she could never, would never understand. Pansy pivoted slightly in his arms, eyes darting toward Theo, her lips moving in a silent what the fuck? Hermione caught it, and heat crept up the back of her neck. Maybe this had been a terrible idea. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought him.

Pansy patted him stiffly on the back and stepped away, wrinkling her nose. “Alright. You’re a hugger now. You’re hugging. What the hell has Granger done to you? You look like shit, but you’re beefy. It’s weird.”

Hermione’s lips parted, words rising and dying before they reached her throat. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to defend him or herself.

Draco snorted, pulling back. “Fuck you too. I was trying to be nice.”

Theo tried to stifle a laugh. Hermione caught the gleam in his eye, the same look boys had given each other in school when someone pushed a line just to see if they could get away with it.

“Trying to be nice? Mate. I think the Ministry’s rehabilitated you a little too much. Pans doesn’t make me be ‘nice,’ so long as I’m not killing people.”

Hermione glanced at Draco, searching for any sign of irritation, but he only exhaled dramatically and leaned back against the table, masking everything behind a cool veneer of practiced ease and apathy.

“You two are ones to talk,” he said, voice edged with a dry drawl. “Support group, Pansy? Really? Acting like a therapist to a bunch of egos somehow more fragile than your own now, are we? I never thought I’d see the day.”

Pansy bristled, but before she could reply, Theo cut in smoothly, “You’ve missed your audience. This isn’t Hogwarts, mate. No one’s scared of you here. But it is fun to watch you try.”

Hermione’s breath hitched. For a moment she thought Draco might actually snap, his jaw ticked, his fingers twitched against the wood, but then his eyes flicked over Pansy and Theo, slow and assessing. She saw the calculation form behind his gaze, saw him take in their closeness, the comfortable way they leaned together. He tilted his head, evaluating, and a gleeful and wicked expression crossed his face.

Then he laughed. Loudly, manically, in a way she had not heard him laugh before. The sound cut through the chatter of the pub, echoing up into the rafters, until nearly every face nearby turned to stare.

Pansy’s pointy brows knit together, lips thinning. “You’ve really lost your bloody mind, haven’t you?”

Draco’s laughter faded into a crooked grin. “How long have you two been fucking?”

Well. Hermione had not been expecting him to say that. Pansy went bright red, sputtering, clutching her parchment like a shield. “What?” Theo, caught mid-sip of a butterbeer, choked so violently that Hermione felt a fleck of it hit her forehead from where she was standing. 

Draco tilted his head, eyes glinting. “Tell me Theo,” he said, tone low and gleeful, “does she still do that thing in bed where-”

Before he could finish, Pansy smacked him hard across the temple with her parchment, making him flinch and almost snarl. “Shut the fuck up, Draco. Do not say another word,” she snapped, glaring. “If you dare finish that sentence, I’ll personally tell Granger about how you like it when-”

Harry cleared his throat sharply, stepping forward. “As thrilling as this reunion is,” he said, voice tight but controlled, “we’re actually here on business.”

Hermione looked at Draco with a raised eyebrow, but he sheepishly looked away. Slytherins. She would never understand them.

Pansy exhaled sharply, rolling her shoulders back into composure. “Right you are, Potter. Let’s get started,” she said, voice firm, calling the group to attention. She straightened, her sharp gaze sweeping over the group. “Alright, everyone,” she said, voice firm. “I’m sure you all recognise our guests today.” Her eyes flicked toward Hermione, Draco, and Harry. “Joining us for this session are Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Draco Malfoy.”

A ripple of murmurs ran through the table. Several attendees leaned forward, curious glances darting between the three of them. Hermione noticed the subtle, almost reverent recognition in some of the faces. For many, Harry was more than just another face at the table. He was a symbol of the war, of the conflict that had transformed the lives of every person sat at the table into something entirely different from what they had once been, for better or for worse. Hermione couldn’t begin to feel the weight of that, but she could see its effect on people, especially him. For some, Harry represented justice, heroism, and hope. For others, he was a reminder of loss, of the chaos and violence that had torn down everything they had ever held dear and left them forced to rebuild it all into something else.

Pansy gave them a small nod before turning back to the group. “Let’s begin. As always, this is a safe space. If you’d like to share something, anything, do. There’s no judgment here.”

Harry cleared his throat, adjusting his posture. “I’ll go first,” he said. “I want to share something that’s been on my mind lately.” He paused, scanning the group. “During the war, I, like all of us, made choices I can’t take back. I lost people I loved. I saw friends die. Die for me. I fought against people I’d grown up alongside. The fighting is over for most of the world now, but not for me. I thought that when Voldemort died things would end, but they didn’t. Everything just stopped being as black and white as it used to be, and now I have to navigate the grey areas every day. It’s exhausting. The world always expects me to make the right decision, but I’ve only ever done what I thought was the best thing to do based on the help other people have given me.”

Hermione felt a dull ache settle in her chest as Harry spoke. That same soft and weary exhaustion she had seen creeping into his expression over the years that she knew all too well. She knew what he meant, the feeling of always being measured, of having every decision picked apart and fed back to you through the distorted lens of reputation. But she could never truly understand the kind of pressure that followed him. Harry’s fame was inescapable, a modern mythology, a thing of legend that consumed and defined him. Her own, well, hers was a refraction of his glory caught in glass. Every article written about her work, every Ministry headline that mentioned her name, always came with the same tag line: Friend of Harry Potter. Whatever she did, however much she accomplished, she would forever orbit around the magnitude of his world.

A part of her envied him, sometimes. The rest pitied him.

Around the table, the silence was heavy. A few of the group members nodded slowly, faces ranging from sympathy, confusion and curiosity. Pansy cleared her throat. “Thanks for sharing that, Potter,” she said, in a tone that was uncharacteristically upbeat. “That’s sort of the point of all this, isn’t it? To make peace with the things you can’t undo.”

A man at the far end spoke next. “You talk about hard choices,” he said, his voice rough. “For some of us, there weren’t any choices at all. I followed orders. Thought I was doing my job, keeping people safe. Then one day, the people I was supposed to protect were the ones I was told to arrest.” He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Did it anyway. Still don’t know how to live with that.”

Across from him, a witch in her fifties twisted her hands in her lap. “My daughter was a Slytherin,” she said softly. “She was killed at Hogwarts. She wasn’t a Death Eater, none of our family were, she was just… there. Wrong place, wrong time. They sent her to the dungeons, the whole house, but she left trying to come home to me. Every time I come here, I try to forgive the world for making her a casualty for a ‘greater cause’. But I can’t. Not really.”

No one spoke after that. The air in the room felt heavy, thick with the familiar residue of old grief. Hermione caught Draco’s profile out of the corner of her eye, his expression unreadable, his jaw set tight. His eyes flicked down, away from the woman, then to the table, and for a moment she thought he might say something. But he didn’t.

The rest of the session went on quietly. Pansy guided it with more gentleness than Hermione expected, cutting off only the occasional bitter remark with sharp precision. Theo didn’t speak, but he listened, fingers drumming softly on the wood in front of him. The other attendees were subdued, worn down, perhaps, or wary of what they’d revealed. The emotional energy in the room had shifted since Hermione’s last visit; the gentle trust, the desire to open up, all of it was far dimmer now.

When it finally ended, Pansy stood to thank everyone for coming. The group dispersed in slow waves, a number of them lingering to talk to Harry, who had found himself surrounded by a small knot of people, all asking questions he answered with weary patience.

Hermione stayed back. She, Draco, Pansy, and Theo settled at the end of the table as the crowd thinned. The fireplace crackled behind them, throwing shadows across the wood. Pansy leaned back in her chair, exhaling sharply. “Well,” she said, “Now you see what I have left to work with.”

“Barely anything,” Theo murmured, but he smiled faintly, clinking his butterbeer bottle against hers.

Hermione tried to focus on the conversation, on whatever sharp, easy rhythm existed between them as Theo turned to chat to Draco, but her mind was elsewhere. The urge to reach for Draco’s hand had been relentless all evening. She had spent the entire meeting suppressing it, curling her fingers around her own wrist, tucking her hands under the table, forcing herself to focus on Harry’s words, Pansy’s voice, anything but him.

She told herself it was for appearances. That Theo and Pansy didn’t need to see, didn’t need to start speculating, didn’t need to make it something it wasn’t. But then, just as her resolve began to fray, she felt it, a light brush against her fingers, cautious, deliberate. Draco’s hand found hers beneath the table. His fingers slipped between hers as it had countless times before. His thumb traced a slow, grounding line along the edge of her palm. She didn’t look at him, didn’t dare, but she felt him watching her, his body still angled slightly toward the others, his expression perfectly composed. From the outside, it would look like nothing at all. But under the table, his grip tightened.

Harry waited until the last of the group had filtered out before stepping toward them. His expression was composed, but there was something sharp behind his eyes, alert, assessing. He glanced once at Draco, then at Hermione.

“Hermione. Parkinson. A word.”

He shifted his weight and gave Draco a look, a silent, unmistakable one that said stay here.

Draco’s brow arched in faint irritation, but he didn’t argue. Hermione could feel his hand linger against hers for just a fraction longer before he let go, fingers slipping away like he was reluctant to. She stood, smoothing her skirt, and followed Harry and Pansy toward the door.

Theo raised his bottle in farewell as they passed. “Have fun with the saviour brigade,” he said dryly.

“Shut it, Theo,” Pansy muttered, tugging her coat on as they stepped into the cold.

Outside, the night had deepened. The street was mostly empty now, lanterns glowing warm and low along the cobblestones. The wind came down in biting gusts. Ron was still standing by the door, arms folded, posture rigid and watchful. He didn’t look at Hermione when she approached, didn’t even twitch in acknowledgement, just fell into step behind Harry as they filtered outside.

Harry’s voice cut through the quiet. “So Anderson and Delvins. You think something has happened to them?”

Pansy exhaled sharply, her breath clouding in the cold. “Maybe. They stopped coming to group a few weeks ago. Both of them at once. Thought maybe they’d had enough. People do drop off all the time, especially these days, but this felt wrong. I wrote them both letters, but neither replied.”

Ron’s voice was low, practical. “You check their homes?”

Pansy nodded. “Anderson lives just outside town. I went by once, about a week ago. Curtains drawn, lights off. Knocked for ten minutes straight, nothing. Whole place looked dead.” Her voice faltered, uncertain. “He’s got a wife. And a little boy. She never came to the meetings, but I’d seen them around. I would have expected them to come to group and ask where he is, but I haven’t seen them at all.” She shook her head, swallowing hard. “It’s not right, Potter. They wouldn’t just vanish. Not with the kid.”

Hermione’s heart sank. If this was uncommon enough to rile Pansy Parkinson of all people, then it meant trouble. “And Delvins?”

“No fixed address,” Pansy said grimly. “Couch-surfer type. But he and Anderson were close, if one’s missing, odds are the other’s tied up in it.”

Harry ran a hand through his messy hair, breath fogging around him. “Can you take us to Anderson’s place?”

“Yeah.” Pansy shoved her hands into her coat pockets and started walking, her boots crunching over the frost-bitten path. “It’s not far. Ten minutes that way.”

The group fell into step behind her. The silence between them was uneasy, punctuated only by the wind and the sound of their footsteps. Ron walked beside Harry, slightly ahead of Hermione, as if Hermione wasn’t even there.

Harry spoke to him, quietly. “You think it’s connected to the others?”

Ron shrugged, eyes fixed ahead. “Could be. Disappearances this clean usually are. It’s the family going missing that I’m worried about though. Doesn’t usually happen.”

Hermione hesitated, then tried to join in. “If Anderson’s local, someone must’ve seen something. Maybe the shopkeepers or-”

Ron’s posture tensed, just enough to cut her off without saying a word. He didn’t look at her. The silence that followed was heavier than before, stretched thin and uncomfortable. Hermione pressed her lips together. She glanced sideways, catching Harry’s quick, flicked look, a mixture of apology and warning, and said nothing else.

Pansy led them past the edge of town, where the cobbled road gave way to dirt and grass. The houses here were smaller, older, some long-abandoned after the war. The moon had come out now, and cast a silver sheen to the dewdrops on the grass.

Pansy stopped at the edge of a narrow lane. A lone house sat at the end, its windows dark and empty.

“There,” she said, nodding toward it. “That’s Anderson’s place.”

Hermione stared at it, a looming, silent shape against the pale night, and felt a prickling unease crawl up her spine. She felt as if she had never seen a house be so still, which was a ridiculous thought as houses didn’t exactly move, but it appeared as if even the air itself that surrounded the place was hung in an unsettling suspension.

Harry’s hand brushed the wand at his side. “Alright,” he said quietly. “Let’s see what we’re walking into.” He turned to Pansy. “Parkinson, go back to the pub.”

Pansy looked like she wanted to argue immediately. “Like hell I’m-”

“Go,” Harry cut in sharply, voice low but firm. “If something’s wrong, you’ll just get in the way.”

Her lips pressed together in frustration, and after a tense pause and a considerably long glare at Harry, she turned on her heel and stalked off, muttering something under her breath about bloody Gryffindors.

Harry watched until she was gone, then nodded toward the house. “Alright. Wands out.”

The three of them advanced slowly. Gravel crackled beneath their shoes, and each step made the hairs on Hermione’s arms stand up further and further. The house loomed ahead, its windows dark, curtains drawn. No light, no movement. Just stillness.

At the door, Harry gestured to Hermione. She understood immediately. Raising her wand, she murmured, “Alohomora.”

The lock clicked open with a faint click. The door creaked inward on hinges that groaned like something waking from a long and dreamless sleep. A rush of stagnant air spilled out, warm, heavy, and nauseatingly thick. It slid over Hermione’s skin like a living thing. Hermione felt it prickle across her skin, unnatural in its depth, disturbingly warm.

They stepped inside.

The front room was drowned in shadow, the gloom thick and velvety, the corners gathered like drapes with darkness. She hardly wanted to breathe, afraid on some absurd level that there was a hidden rot to the place that would seep into her lungs if she dared. There was dust and mould and something else, something faint and sweet that curdled at the back of her throat, like fruit gone soft in the sun.

“Split up,” Harry murmured. “I’ll take the kitchen. Ron, upstairs. Hermione, look through here.”

She nodded. Harry disappeared toward the back of the house, Ron’s footsteps creaked up the narrow staircase. Hermione turned to the living room. It was small, cluttered but still. Toys on the floor, a bowl of soup on a side table congealed with thick lumps of fuzzy stagnation. A coat hung over a chair as if someone might return at any moment to shrug it on. Yet everything was coated in dust, the kind that takes weeks to settle. She crouched, picking up a small wooden toy, a spinning top, the paint chipped along the edges. It was cold to the touch. She turned it over in her fingers, her stomach tightening. No sign of a struggle. No overturned furniture, no blood. Just abandonment. A house sealed off from the world, left to decay in silence.

Her boots left shallow prints in the fine grey dust that blanketed the floorboards. The silence pressed close, dense and intimate, as though sound itself had been banished. 

A flicker of movement caught her eye. Hermione’s head snapped up, heart leaping against her ribs.

At first, she thought it was a trick of the light. Then she saw it, a dark blur in the dim. She lifted her wand quickly, body alert, and illuminated the space with a hasty lumos. 

There, pressed against the glass, a single fly. She jolted as it suddenly flew backwards and slammed violently against the glass. It threw itself at the pane again, in a way that almost looked desperate. Crooked wings buzzed frantically. Tap. Tap. Tap. Again and again and again, until eventually it dropped with a muted thud into a pile of black dots.

Along the windowsill, were dozens of others. Dead. Their small black bodies lay scattered like ash, legs curled inward, wings torn. The sill was a graveyard of them, the glass streaked with the faint residue of their struggle.

The sweetness in the air thickened, syrupy and oppressive. Hermione’s throat constricted.

Then-

“Hermione!”

Ron’s voice, loud, sharp, urgent, cutting through the silence from above.

She jumped, dropping the toy. “Ron?”

“Get up here! Now!”

Her stomach dropped. She sprinted for the stairs, wand raised, feet pounding against the wood. The higher she climbed, the worse the smell became. Not faint anymore. Heavy. Sickly sweet. Fetid. A heavy syrup that clung to the back of her tongue, that seemed to seep into her pores. There were more flies here, everywhere, clustering on the walls, crunching beneath her shoes, buzzing faintly, wings twitching. Some dead, some crawling sluggishly across the banister. The sound was constant, a low, ceaseless hum that seemed to vibrate through the bones of the house.

Hermione’s pulse was thunder in her ears.

She found Ron standing in the doorway of a small bedroom, his face pale bone-white, his wand hand trembling raised in front of him, illuminating the horror in his face. He didn’t look at her. Just stared.

“Hermione-” he began, but his voice caught.

She stepped forward anyway.

The moment she crossed the threshold, the smell hit her full force, cloying rot, sweet and thick, human and unmistakable.

Her vision swam.

The bed was against the far wall. The woman lying on it was barely recognisable as human anymore, skin rotted and grey, hair matted, eyes half-open but glassy and white. Her arms were wrapped protectively around a smaller form pressed into her chest.

A boy. No older than six. Flies crawled over his face, clustered along his eyelids, his mouth, the hollow of his throat. Hermione’s hand flew to her mouth. She turned away, choking back bile, her vision blurring with tears she hadn’t realised she’d started to shed.

Behind her, Ron spoke in a low, unsteady voice. “Bloody. Hell.”

Hermione gripped the doorframe to steady herself, the wood digging into her palm, her mind reeling. Somewhere behind the walls, a fly buzzed lazily. Then another. Then another. The sound filled the silence, relentless and hollow, like something whispering beneath the floorboards.

Harry’s footsteps thundered up the stairs. He appeared in the doorway, his face drawn taut with alarm. The moment he saw, he reeled back, gagging, pressing his sleeve to his mouth.

“Christ,” he managed, voice breaking. “That must be Anderson’s wife and kid.”

No one spoke. The only sound was the low, endless hum of flies.

For a few seconds, the three of them just stood there, frozen in a kind of horrified paralysis. The air was thick and wet and wrong, the smell seeping into their clothes, into their skin. The flies hummed louder now, as though the house itself had found a voice, low and unceasing. It filled the silence with a sick choir of frenzied rot, as if death delighted in the horror of it all and had raised a chorus of gleeful decay at the discovery.

Then Harry exhaled shakily, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out his phone. His fingers trembled as he dialled. “This is Potter,” he said, his voice clipped, professional, but tight with strain. “I’m at 14 Pendal Close in Hogsmeade. We’ve got two deceased, adult female, juvenile male. Looks like they’ve been here a while. I need people, immediately.”

Hermione barely heard him, barely noticed anything. Dimly she was aware of Harry closing his phone and saying something to Ron, then Ron leaving, but her eyes were inescapably locked on the sight in front of her. Her gaze was fixed on the woman’s face, the way her eyes had caved inward, her jaw slackened open, her hair matted slick against her temples with the fluid of decay. The child’s small hand was still clutched at her sleeve. The sight rooted Hermione to the spot, a horrible stillness spreading through her chest.

“Hermione.”

Harry’s voice cut through her haze. He was looking at her now, concern flickering beneath the tension. “Go join Ron. There’s a basement hatch in the garden. I told him to check it out. I can handle things up here.”

She couldn’t speak, could only nod. Her throat felt raw.

Turning sharply, she stumbled out of the room, one hand on the wall to steady herself. The staircase blurred as she descended, her wandlight flickering in the dimness. Flies brushed her cheeks as she passed, their wings catching in her hair. She had to bury the urge to scream, she had to get out, now. She clawed at her face, swatting them away, eyes burning.

By the time she reached the kitchen, she was shaking. She shoved the back door open and stumbled into the garden, sucking in deep lungfuls of blessedly cool air that burned her throat. The night was freezing and clean, but she couldn’t get the smell out of her nose, that cloying sweetness.

She doubled over and vomited into the grass. Her body heaved, emptying itself of everything it could, until all that was left was a shivering silence. She stood there, hunched over, breathing hard, the cold wind cutting through her coat. Then, slowly, she straightened, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and turned toward the open hatch at the far end of the garden.

It gaped in the dark like an abyss. She forced herself forward, step by step.

The ladder creaked as she descended. The air grew thicker, warmer, fouler. Dead flies carpeted the floor below, crunching softly beneath her shoes as she stepped down. She didn’t want to go down there. She couldn’t. She couldn’t face what she had just seen again, she wouldn’t be able to stop seeing it for the rest of her life. How could she bring herself to look? But she had to. Ron was down there. She couldn’t leave him, not now, not like this. She wouldn’t let her cruelty and selfishness go even that far. Eventually, she reached the bottom of the stairs, eyes blurred with tears.

“Ron?”

Her voice was barely a whisper.

He was there, one step ahead of her, wandlight trembling in his hand. His face was grey, his jaw tight. When he turned toward her, his eyes were wild.

“Don’t look,” he said quickly. His voice was shaking. “Seriously this time, Hermione, don’t l-”

But she already had.

Her breath caught.

Anderson sat tied to a chair in the centre of the room. He was shirtless, his skin a map of horrific scars, jagged and deep, some still raw. Hermione knew those marks, recognised the artistic cruelty of them. She’d seen them before, carved into Draco’s back. But Anderson was long past saving like she had saved Draco. His head hung to one side, rotting eyes glazed open in fury, mouth slightly open. His tongue lulled out of his mouth, swollen with the bloat of decay, flies crawling out from the corners of his lips. One of his arms had torn free of its restraints and was inexplicably rooted in place, the hand stiff and frozen in mid-air, reaching-

Hermione followed the direction of the rotten fingers. To the second body.

The man, she assumed it was Delvins, was slumped a few feet away, half-collapsed against the wall. His head wasn’t there anymore. The wall behind him was painted in viscera and gore, splattered in a sickly sheen of tissue and scarlet. Blood had soaked into the stone, congealed in a thick pool beneath him.

In one hand was a knife. Not an ordinary one. Long, curved, cruel-looking, etched with something she couldn’t identify. The kind of weapon that wasn’t meant for combat, but for ritual. Hermione’s vision swam. She stumbled back a step, her hand flying to her mouth again. Her brain scrambled to make sense of it, to find logic in the horror, but there was none.

She was dimly aware of Ron saying something, of him tugging on her, but she could only stare, at the bodies, the crawling haze of the insects, the knife, the blood, and think of Draco. Draco sat in that chair. Draco’s cold, dead, rotting eyes. Flies feasting on his corneas, spilling from his lips. 

That was what the world wanted for him too.

Hermione sat on the curb outside, elbows resting on her knees, a paper cup of coffee cradled between her hands. Someone, she couldn’t remember who, had wrapped a scratchy wool blanket around her shoulders. She wasn’t cold anymore, not really. The shock had settled deep, numbing her from the inside out.

The street was crowded now. Ministry officials moved in and out of the garden gate, their dark robes snapping in the breeze. Aurors were stringing up wards and cordons, sealing off the house from curious eyes. Villagers had gathered behind the glowing barrier, their voices low and uncertain. Hogsmeade rarely saw this kind of commotion anymore.

She stared down at her coffee. It had gone cold.

She’d already given her statement, to three different Aurors, in fact, and each time her voice had sounded more detached, as though she were describing something that had happened to someone else. Now, Harry and Ron were still inside, combing through what was left of the house, though she didn’t know what they expected to find.

She already knew what had happened.

The pieces fit together too cleanly, too horribly.

Delvins had likely killed Anderson’s wife and child. He had imprisoned Anderson in his own basement, tortured him, brutally, methodically. And then, somehow, Anderson had broken free. Maybe just for a second. Long enough to turn the tables. She could still see it, the frozen arm, the knife, the explosion of blood against the wall. Wandless magic, raw and uncontrolled, but powerful enough to end it.

Hermione rubbed her forehead, pressing her palms into her eyes until stars burst behind them.

She couldn’t make sense of it.

She tried to remember what they had been like at the meeting, but nothing of note would come to mind. There had been no tension, no unease. Nothing to hint at the monster lurking beneath. The idea of Delvins doing this, slaughtering a family, torturing someone Pansy had said was a friend, almost too much to comprehend. But what truly unsettled her wasn’t the act itself. It was the familiarity of it. The precision. The cruelty. She’d seen it before.

She thought of Draco. The scars carved across his back. She tightened her grip on the coffee cup, the cardboard creasing under her fingers. She didn’t want to believe it, but the similarities were impossible to ignore. The same method. The same marks. Her gaze flicked toward the dark silhouette of the house, lit by flashes of wandlight through the broken windows.

Ron sat heavily beside her, elbows on his knees, his face drawn and grey under the streetlight. For a long time, neither of them spoke. The wind toyed with the edges of the blanket around her shoulders. Somewhere down the street, someone was crying. The murmur of conversation from the Aurors and the soft hum of wards behind her was grounding in its mundane noise.

Finally, Ron exhaled, a low, shaky sound that misted in the cold. “I’ve seen a lot of bloody things,” he said, voice rough. “But nothing like that. Not ever.” Hermione’s eyes stayed on the cracked pavement. She didn’t trust herself to look at him. He swallowed, hesitant. “I wish you hadn’t seen it either.”

Her throat closed. She didn’t mean for her reply to sound like a blade when it came out, but it did. “It’s not your responsibility to care about that anymore.”

Ron’s head turned sharply. For a moment, she almost wished he’d snap back, give her the fight she’d half-invited, but he didn’t. His eyes were steady on hers, blue and terribly sad. “I know,” he said quietly. “But I wish it could be.”

That hurt more than anything else could have. She bit the inside of her cheek and looked away, blinking against the cold that wasn’t really from the air anymore. The noise around them rose again, and Hermione numbly found herself hoping for him to scream, shout, anything to assuage the guilt that was suddenly curling around her.

“I don’t want Harry to drag you into this.” 

Hermione gave a faint, humourless huff. “He didn’t drag me into anything. I make my own choices.”

“Yeah, and they always lead you straight into the worst of it.” 

For a second, she let herself glance at him. His shoulders were hunched, hands braced between his knees, peering at her.

She sighed. “I don’t even know where things went wrong.” She wasn’t talking about the house, or the murders, and he knew it.

Ron’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Yeah, you do. It’s when you started prioritising work over everything else.”

“That’s not fair,” she said, voice low. “I always have to do that. You know I do. I can’t prioritise one person over an entire population of the community that is being abandoned. Not even you. Even if I wanted to.”

“I know. Or well, I think I do. You can’t stop yourself from rooting for the underdog, even when they don’t deserve it.” His voice cracked slightly, gentler now. “It’s not that you didn’t prioritise me, Hermione. It’s that you stopped prioritising yourself. You were always working, always saving someone or fixing something. But when you were just you, when you were laughing at some stupid thing I said, or arguing about dinner, you were alive. You were the woman I loved. I don’t even know who you are these days, because you won’t tell me.”

She stared down at her cold coffee, watching the thin layer of foam swirl into strange, broken patterns.

 “I don’t know who I am either,” she admitted, the words feeling strange to admit out loud. “There’s a version of me, somewhere, deep down, that I’ve never really known. But I feel closer to her now than I have in years.”

Ron’s brow furrowed slightly, confusion flickering there. Hermione turned toward him, eyes bright but steady.

“There’s so much inside of me that you never knew,” she said. “You wouldn’t have wanted to. I packed it all away, all the anger and fear and darkness. I thought if I kept it buried, I could be the person you wanted, the person everyone wanted. That’s my fault. Maybe I made you love a version of me that didn’t exist.”

Ron looked at her for a long time, harrowed, and it seemed as if he was watching the years they had spent together flash before his eyes in waves, dying right before him.  “I would’ve loved every version of you. If you’d just let me.”

The words hung there between them, honest and heavy, stripped of anger. Hermione couldn’t answer. Her throat burned too much. She could only nod, faintly, as if acknowledging a truth that had come far too late to mean anything at all. Somewhere behind them, Harry’s voice cut through the air, calling their names from the garden. The spell of the moment broke. Ron stood first, rubbing the back of his neck.

 “Guess that’s us,” he said quietly.

Hermione could barely remember the order of things after that. It all blurred, faces, voices, the cold air thick with noise and grief. When she’d made it back to the Three Broomsticks, the pub was in chaos. Half of Hogsmeade had been herded inside by Aurors, all wide eyes and frantic whispers. Pansy was in the corner, shaking and crying so hard her whole frame trembled, Theo crouched beside her, rubbing small circles on her back while Harry knelt opposite, speaking in a low, steady voice that didn’t quite mask his own grim-faced dread.

And then she saw him.

Draco was near the door, half-restrained by an Auror twice his size, fury and fear twisting together across his face. His coat was half open, his hair disheveled, his voice raw as he shouted something she couldn’t make out over the noise. He looked completely undone, but when his eyes found hers, he stopped fighting.

“Granger!”

He tore free of the Auror’s grip before anyone could react. Wands were drawn immediately, half a dozen of them, all pointed at his chest, but he didn’t even flinch. He grabbed her by the shoulders, hands trembling, searching her face, her hair, her arms for any trace of injury.

“Are you hurt?” he demanded, voice unsteady, eyes wide and frantic. “Tell me you’re not-”

“I’m fine,” she said quickly, though her voice cracked halfway through. “I’m fine. Please, Draco, let go.” His hands dropped immediately, though twitched, as if he was barely in control of them.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, more sharply this time, when the Aurors didn’t lower their wands. “Stand down.”

They hesitated, glancing between her and Draco, and after a moment, obeyed begrudgingly. The pub fell into a tense silence. Pansy’s sobs still shook through the air.

Hermione could feel herself unravelling, the edges of her composure fraying by the second. She didn’t remember the walk back. She only remembered his hand tight around hers, dragging her along the dark road, the noise of the villagers fading behind them, the sensation of being carried through the motions of something she no longer controlled.

It wasn’t until reality slimmed down through the twisting keyhole of apparition and Grimmauld Place loomed into view that the world caught up with her. She stumbled over the threshold, the heavy door shutting behind them, and the moment she felt the safety of the familiar walls around her, she broke.

Her knees hit the floor before she even realised she’d fallen. A sound tore out of her, quiet at first, then loud and uncontrollable, a deep and terrible moan echoing through the empty hall. Draco was there instantly, dropping beside her, catching her by the shoulders, pulling her up before she could crumple completely.

“Hermione, please-” His voice was low, urgent, his hand finding the back of her head. “It’s alright, you’re alright, just breathe.”

But she couldn’t. The memories wouldn’t go away. The sweet smell of rot burned in every breath she took. The ghosts of flies were crawling up her legs. Small cold fingers were tugging at her sleeve. Decay had found root in every crevice within her and was eating her alive. She wanted to rip her skin off, to pull the sensations from her sinews until it would go away. 

She choked out fragments between sobs, her words shaking apart as she told him what she’d seen. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t say anything at all. He just pulled her to the sofa, lifting her when her legs gave way, settling down with her trembling and hopeless in his arms. She ended up half curled in his lap, her face buried against his chest, clutching fistfuls of his shirt as though it were the only thing tethering her to the world.

His hand stroked through her hair slowly, again and again, the rhythm steady and grounding. He said nothing, just held her, his heartbeat strong beneath her ear. It took a long time for her sobs to slow. Her breathing hitched softly against his chest, uneven but quiet. She wanted to say something, say anything, but she was scared that the slightest movement would drive him away from her. She had never unravelled like this, not in front of anyone.

When she finally spoke, her voice cracked and burned from how much she had been screaming.

“I keep seeing him.”

Draco looked down at her, but she didn’t look up. Somehow, seeing him of all people looking concerned, would have made her tears come all the quicker. “Not Anderson,” she said. “Not Delvins either. Not even Anderson’s wife.” her throat caught, “The child. He didn’t deserve that. No one does. I should have known. I should have been in contact with Pansy. I should have been there to seen the signs, the connections, something. That’s what I’m supposed to do. That’s why Harry put me in this department. If I’d been doing my job properly, if I hadn’t been so focused on-”

“Don’t,” Draco said softly.

Her head lifted a fraction, tears making him a pale ghost in her vision. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t turn this into your fault.”

Tears welled again, stinging. “You don’t understand. I’m supposed to stop things like this before they happen. And seeing him, seeing what was done to him-” Her voice cracked. “It reminded me of you.”

The words hung between them like a fragile wire. Draco’s expression changed into something rawer.

“I just-” Hermione pressed a shaking hand to her mouth, trying to hold back the trembling in her voice. “It was the same kind of cruelty. The same evil, senseless… and no one was there to save him, like no one had been there to save you. And I thought… Merlin, if I’d have gone to more of Pansy’s sessions, paid more attention, checked in like I’m supposed to…”

Draco shifted suddenly, his hand finding hers, pulling it away from her mouth. 

“Stop.” The word came out rough. “You can’t carry that kind of weight. Not mine, not his.”

She shook her head helplessly. “Then who will? Someone has to.”

The words left her like splinters, torn, pointless things.

He looked like peace, and she wanted to die for it. Suddenly, she couldn’t help but to break. The grief wasn’t clean. It wasn’t cathartic. It was a slow, poisonous flood that rose inside her until she could hardly breathe. Her body felt foreign, like she’d been forced to inhabit something too small, too fragile to contain what she carried. Her thoughts didn’t come in sentences anymore, only sensations: agony behind her eyes, the hollow ache in her ribs, the leaden weight at the base of her throat. She could feel despair moving through her like a parasite, eating her from the inside. It was unbearable. She wanted to tear her skin open just to let it out.

Every breath came sharp and wet, and with each one, something inside her splintered further, the careful scaffolding of reason, the illusions of control, the thin membrane of professionalism that had kept her from falling apart for months. Gone. All gone.

She thought of the boy. The small, ruined body. The look on his face, that impossible stillness that no child should ever wear. That’s what was going to happen to Draco because she wasn’t strong enough to save him. Anderson. His wife. The war. The victims. The families. Her parents. All the ghosts she’d buried under the cold, bureaucratic language of her reports over the years. She’d written their deaths into tidy, bloodless sentences. “patient deceased,” “evidence insufficient,” “cause undetermined.”

She had written their suffering out of existence.

And for what? For a Government that filed tragedy under pending review and called it justice. For a world that kept turning, blind and beautiful and plastic, indifferent to the constant ouroboros of misery and suffering that was at the true heart of everything.

Her vision blurred. She pressed her hands over her mouth again, choking back a sound that felt too large to name.

What have I done?

It was the horrible rush of clarity, the drowning of all of her pretences. She saw herself as she truly was now, a machine dressed as a woman, formed by the hands of an indifferent creator to catalogue ruin. A person who had wasted their entire life under the illusion that they had any power whatsoever to make a difference. Someone who had never been fit to do any of this in the first place, who had never chosen to, but had fallen into a lifetime of servitude to a series of causes that had never been anything but doomed. A body carrying too much grief to be human anymore.

The thought came gently, almost kindly: I don’t want this anymore.

She wanted to stop. Just stop. The endless cycle of trying, failing, trying again. The exhaustion that had become her only constant companion. She was so tired of trying to be good. So tired of being alive. If she could have dissolved then, quietly, without spectacle, she would have. She imagined the stillness of it, the exquisite relief of no longer thinking, no longer feeling. The world would go on without her, unchanged, unbothered. And wasn’t that proof enough that she didn’t matter?

Tears ran hot down her face, pooling under her chin. She barely felt them.

“I can’t,” she whispered. Her voice sounded far away, like it belonged to someone else. “I can’t keep doing this. Every time I think I’m helping, I only make it worse. Every life I touch just breaks.”

She couldn’t tell if the shaking in her hands was grief or the echo of her own heartbeat. Everything inside her hurt. Her ribs, her throat, her lungs. Even her thoughts were tender, bruised.

She looked at him and felt something like envy, not of his past, but of his stillness. The way he could sit there, unflinching at her words, as if the world’s cruelty couldn’t find a way inside him anymore.

“I don’t think I’m meant for this world,” she said softly. “It’s too cruel. Too endless. I just… I don’t know how to bear it anymore. I don’t know how you do it.”

The words left her, hollow and final.

He didn’t answer immediately. The silence stretched, heavy and uneven, filled only by the faint, rasping sound of their breathing. His hand was still on hers, the smallest tremor running through his fingers, as if something in him was fraying. When he finally spoke, his voice was almost unrecognisable, because it was more honest than she had ever heard it be.

“I used to think I was the only one who felt this way,” he said slowly. “The only one who felt this corrosion. Like the world had worn me down until I wasn’t a person anymore, just a collection of reflexes and reactions to stimuli.”

Hermione didn’t move. His words were a pulse in the air, steady and terrible.

“I’ve lived with it for so long. Even before Azkaban.” he continued, “I stopped noticing it was killing me. You don’t wake up one day and realise you want to die. It’s slower than that, it was for me at least. It’s just that one day, you look around and nothing means anything anymore. Food tastes like dust, laughter feels like punishment, and you can’t even tell if you’re breathing because you want to, or because your body’s forgotten how to stop. Then participating in the great fucking circus of it all just becomes unbearable.”

He sighed, pulling her closer to his chest. “Did you know that after Hogwarts, I was happy for you? When I saw you in the papers. I didn’t like you, I think I still loathed you really, but I was happy for you. That you’d gotten out of the manor in a way I never could. That at least one of us found a reason to keep going. But I’ve seen it in you for a while now. The same knife that twists in me. You hide it better than I ever did, but I know it. I know it because I’m bleeding with it every day.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, eyes darting away from her past her head, as though he couldn’t stand to see his own reflection in her grief.  “I think I didn’t want to admit it to myself at first because of what it meant,” His voice cracked. “It’s the only thing that’s kept me here. Knowing that if I go, it will just be one more corpse for you to carry. That I’ll leave you with even more pain, because you’re so good, you can’t help but care for things that you shouldn’t.”

His mouth twisted, bitter and exhausted. “You don’t know how many nights I’ve come close. The only thing that’s stopped me is the thought of you finding me. You’re the only one who would bother looking. And I couldn’t do that to you.”

There was something almost pleading in his eyes, though he couldn't seem to bring himself to meet hers with them. “I can’t tell you that it gets better. It doesn’t. Some days it’s smaller. But I can help you carry it. I think that’s all that I can do. You don’t deserve to drown in it alone.”

He reached out, brushing her cheek with the back of his fingers, tentative as if his touch would hurt her. “There’s no saving me. I think you know that, even if you don’t want to admit it. But there’s still a way back for you, even if you can’t see it. Not because the world is kind. It isn’t. But because you are. And I need you to stay. For as long as you can. Because if you don’t,” His breath faltered. “I won’t either.”

He let out a shaky exhale, his hand falling back to his lap. “You are the last thing keeping me tethered. So if you go, I’ll follow. That’s not a threat, it’s just the truth.”

He looked back at her then, and there was nothing left in his expression but ruin.  “Stay. Please stay with me. Even if it feels pointless. I’ve never had anyone to stay with before. I’ll stay too. Until it stops hurting, or until it kills us. Whichever comes first.”

She could not do anything but stare at him. His admission had taken any remaining air from her lungs. Her eyes traced the sharp line of his jaw, the pallor of his skin, the silver burn of his eyes, and saw in all of it reflected the terror and grief that had haunted her for her entire life. She didn’t understand how she’d gotten here, when her purpose had eroded into this quiet ruin, when the act of saving others had become indistinguishable from losing herself.

Perhaps it was him. Perhaps it was the recognition of his pain, the mirror of it, that had awakened something unbearable inside her. She was supposed to be the one protecting him, that had always been the agreement, the shape of her duty, and yet here she was, crying in his lap, unmade, a failure draped in their shared anguish. And still, for reasons she couldn’t explain, the surrender of her pain to him didn’t feel like failure, even though it should. It felt like home. As if all her years of struggling, of clawing toward light that never lasted, had been leading her here, to this strange, terrible kinship, where her grief finally had a face, where the depths of his own torment mirrored her own, and for the first time, she could feel it all without being entirely undone.

He was staring back at her. His eyes held hers like a mirror to the parts of herself she had long buried, and in that unflinching recognition, she felt the strange, aching relief of being utterly known.

“I don’t think I will ever know what joy feels like again. Not really. But… if I had to guess,” He hesitated, a ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “It would probably feel something like reading with you on a Saturday afternoon. Or walking through the park and listening to you complain when you get water in your boots, even though you insist on kicking through every single puddle. Or watching your miserable attempts at cooking.”

Hermione made a sound that was tangled somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“And if that’s all there ever is,” he said, “If being your friend is the only good thing that I will ever get to experience in this wretched life, then that is enough.”

Chapter Text

Hermione woke slowly, as if surfacing from a depthless, black sea. For a few disoriented seconds she didn’t know where she was, only that there was warmth at her back and the steady rise and fall of breath against her spine. Then the weight of an arm tightened slightly around her waist, and memory came flooding back. Grimmauld Place. Her spiralling. Him.

His bare chest was warm against her back, his heartbeat slow, steady. She could feel his head against hers, buried somewhere in the mess of her hair. At some point in the night he must have come to her room. She tried to recall hearing the door, but everything after the crying had blurred into silence and exhaustion. Maybe she had called for him without realising. Maybe he had simply known.

Her first instinct was to pull away. To sit up, try to manage the wild tangle of her hair, rebuild the thin scaffolding of distance that made her feel like she was in control. But the thought of leaving the safety of his arms made her chest ache. She didn’t want to wake him. Didn’t want him to move, or to see her awake and realise what they’d done, not the physical closeness, but the terrible honest intimacy of the night before.

She knew she shouldn’t let this line blur any further. It was dangerous, reckless, and unprofessional. He was a fractured mind under Ministry supervision, a thousand complications wrapped into one impossible man. She was supposed to be the fixed point, the one who held the structure. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to care about what she was ‘supposed’ to do anymore.

His presence was an anchor against the slow return of thought, the intrusive clarity of morning. The world outside that small, dim room still existed, corpses, ruined families, societal indifference to it all, but here there was only his breath stirring her hair and the warmth of the blanket pooled around them. It was wrong, all of it, but the wrongness felt right. It felt alive. Maybe she could stay like this a little longer. Just until the light filled the room completely. Just until she could stand again.

When she next opened her eyes the room was considerably brighter than it had been before. Draco had left the bed and taken the warmth with him. She ran her fingers through the cold sheets where he had been. The indentation on the pillow was still there, faint but visible, and the blanket still carried the distinct scent of his skin. It felt strange, to wake into the space he’d left behind. She sat there for a moment longer, suspended between sleep and the reluctant pull of morning, until the stillness grew too much to bear.

The floorboards were mercilessly chill under her feet as she stood. She felt heavy, displaced, like a fallen tree in a forest. In the bathroom, her reflection startled her. Puffy eyes, rimmed red. Her face was blotched in places from where she’d let mascara tainted tears remain. Her hair, bad at the best of times, was tangled and wild. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days, though she knew she had, even if only in fits.

The shower hissed to life, steam rising to fog the mirror. She stepped under the spray and let the hot water hit her skin. For a moment, the sound drowned everything else out, the house, her thoughts, the memory of his arm around her waist. But the quiet pressed in soon after, as it always did. There was nowhere to hide in the silence. Nothing to do but feel. She tilted her face up into the water, eyes closed, and thought about how she’d woken pressed against him. How natural it had felt. How wrong that was. The warmth of him had seeped into her bones, and now, standing here beneath the water, she felt its absence like a chill. 

It was unbearable. Not the heat of the water, not the ache of her body, but the way her thoughts could not stop circling back to him. The steadiness of his heartbeat. The way his breathing had evened hers out in the dark. She had always thought of him as so very cold, almost glacial, an iceberg adrift in her sea. But he was nothing of the sort. He had a bonfire deep inside of him, and Hermione found herself imagining that to be engulfed in the flames of it would be quite a lovely way to burn.   

She turned off the water before her thoughts could lead her to any other disturbing conclusions.

She dressed, barely paying attention to what she was pulling on. Shirt, jumper, jeans. The fabric clung to the damp of her skin, her fingers slow with fatigue. She tied her hair back, though the strands wouldn’t behave, and left the bathroom without looking again at her reflection. Downstairs, the house was still. She hesitated in the doorway of the kitchen, expecting, hoping, to find him there. But the room was empty. There was no note, no sound, no trace of him except the lingering sense of space that was missing some key element. Her stomach tightened. He could have gone anywhere. For a run, to the gym, to the corner shop. But still, the absence of a note tugged at something low and uneasy inside her. It wasn’t distrust. She trusted him, absurdly, completely. It was the not knowing that unsettled her, the way silence could shift so easily from peace to worry.

She went to the counter, half reaching for the coffee tin before she stopped herself. Her hand hovered, then dropped. She stared at it a moment longer. Then she reached for the teabags instead and turned the kettle on.

Tea, she decided. She didn’t even want it. She had never liked the aftertaste of tea, how it just felt like a weaker version of coffee, but there was something steady about it. Predictable. It was his thing, the endless cups he brewed throughout the day, always left half-finished on the nearest flat surface. Somehow, drinking it felt like keeping him near. The kettle’s light turned off with a click, the sound soft and domestic. When she poured the tea, her hands stopped shaking. She hadn’t even realised that they had been.

The quiet had almost become comfortable again when she heard the faint groan of the front door opening in the hall. Her heart stumbled, ridiculous in its sudden leap. Footsteps followed, steady, unhurried, the distinct sound of leather soles against old wood. She could tell it was him immediately. She knew his tread now, could recognise it as easily as the rhythm of her own heart.

She forced herself to turn back to the counter, to lift her cup as if she hadn’t been waiting, listening. Casual. Calm. Nothing out of place. But her pulse betrayed her, fluttering too fast in her throat. The door to the kitchen creaked open a few moments later, and he stepped inside.

She blinked, momentarily wrong-footed. He was dressed, properly dressed, not in the lazy sweatpants and tshirts he’d been wearing for a long time now, in a way that looked almost foreign on him. A cream button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled to his forearms, a brown vest neatly fastened over it. Dark grey trousers, a thick black leather belt, polished shoes, and a camel-coloured raincoat slung carelessly over one arm. A black tie, slightly loosened, hung against his chest. He was carrying a large wicker trunk with a handle in his other arm.

It wasn’t the Malfoy aesthetic from before she was used to, no sharp tailoring, no black-on-black austerity. There was something gentler about it, the muted colours softening him, giving him an air almost academic. He looked like he’d stepped out of some forgotten university library, all intellect and quiet precision. But that wasn’t quite right either, because there was still something in the way he held himself, that underlying tension in his posture, the faint exhaustion in his eyes, that reminded her exactly who he was. Still, she couldn’t deny it. He looked good. Almost too good.

And that, somehow, made her more uneasy than the dark suits she’d seen him in. The suits kept him at a distance, untouchable, unapproachable, safe behind their armour of propriety. But this this made him look human. Warm, even. Someone who could belong here, in this quiet kitchen. She wasn’t sure she liked it.

He stopped in the doorway, studying her for a moment with that same unreadable gaze. Then his mouth curved into a boyish smile.

“Afternoon. How are you feeling?” he said softly.

The word hung between them, delicate as a thread.

She gestured vaguely toward the kettle. “Good. The kettle is boiled. For tea.”

His eyes flicked to the kettle, then back to her. A small flicker of amusement passed over his face.

“Good,” he murmured, and crossed the room.

He moved past her to the counter, shrugging off his coat and draping it over the back of a chair. He turned to reheat the kettle. The faint smell of the countryside clung to him, far too fresh to be reminiscent of London’s perpetual smog, or maybe that was just the sharp, clean scent that always seemed to linger around him. She watched him in silence for a moment, fingers curled loosely around her mug.

“I should…” Her voice sounded thinner than she meant it to. “I should probably apologise. For last night.”

He stilled, half-turned toward her, one eyebrow lifting. “Apologise,” he repeated flatly.

“Yes. For-” she gestured vaguely, words failing her, “-everything. The way I fell apart like that. I shouldn’t have-”

He let out a short, incredulous laugh, cutting her off. “For fucks sake, Granger. Of course you’d apologise for acting like a human being.”

Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

He turned fully then, leaning a hip against the counter, eyes narrowing slightly in that familiar way that always made her feel both studied and seen. “You do realise,” he said, “that you’ve seen me in far worse states.”

“That’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same,” he said, and for once his voice wasn’t sharp, it was gentle, almost weary. “Except I deserved most of mine.”

She looked away before he could see her expression. The kettle clicked softly in the background, the only sound in the room.

After a beat, he straightened, scanning her face again. “Have you eaten anything?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t really hungry. I just got up.”

He sighed, as though that answer had been inevitable. Without another word, he rolled up his sleeves, crossed to the cupboards, and began pulling things out.

“What are you doing?” she asked, though she already knew.

“Making you something before you faint and hit your head on the table. It’s past lunch already.”

“You don’t have to-”

“Don’t start,” he said without looking at her, reaching for a plastic knife. “It’s easier than listening to you apologise again.” He turned it in his hand, grimacing. “Can we please get some real cutlery? I think we’ve established that I don't need a butter knife to do harm at this point.”

She fell silent, watching him, faintly embarrassed that she hadn’t gotten around to doing that. There was something almost domestic in the picture he made, his hair still slightly mussed from wind outside, the veins in his arm straining as he unscrewed a jar. He turned slightly, though not quickly enough for her not to see him rubbing at his wrist.

It wasn’t until he made a noise of disgust that she realised what he was spreading on the bread.

“Marmite.” he said, nose wrinkling. “And peanut butter. Honestly, Granger, you are revolting.”

Her eyebrows rose. “How do you-?”

He didn’t glance up, only shook his head as he spread the mixture with evident distaste. “You’ve mentioned it before.”

She frowned. “I don’t think I have.”

That made him pause for a fraction of a second, the knife hovering mid-air. Then he shrugged and went back to work. “Then maybe I just guessed. It’s exactly the sort of abomination you’d like.”

She watched him quietly, a strange ache forming in her chest. He didn’t look at her when he handed the plate over, just set it on the table in front of her, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth.

“Eat,” he said. “Before I change my mind and throw it out of the window.”

She smiled despite herself. “You really don’t have to-”

“Granger,” he cut in, sitting opposite her. “Shut up. Just eat the fucking sandwich.”

So she did. In between bites, she studied him curiously. “Where were you?”

He didn’t answer right away. His mouth twitched, almost like he was suppressing a smile. Then, after a moment, he shook his head. “You’ll see.”

There was a small flicker of something, excitement, mischief, she couldn’t tell. It looked foreign on him. It softened his face in a way that unsettled her.

She frowned. “You’re being cryptic. Again.”

“I’m allowed my mysteries.”

She sighed and went back to eating, though the question lingered between them. When she finished, he leaned back in his chair, folding his arms loosely.

“Get your coat,” he said.

She blinked. “What?”

“Your coat. We’re going somewhere.”

“I don’t really…” she trailed off, glancing at the cold remains of her tea. “I don’t feel like doing anything today.”

“Neither do I,” he said, standing and reaching for the wicker trunk that he’d set down by the table. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re going.”

“Draco…”

“If you really want to apologise,” he interrupted lightly, “consider this your penance.”

Her brow furrowed, but the faint glint in his eyes told her there’d be no use arguing. He wasn’t giving her an option. And something about the steadiness in his tone, that quiet insistence, made her want to give in, just this once.

So she did. Begrudgingly, she stood, fetched her coat and purse, and followed him out the door.

The air outside was warm, warm enough that they needn't have bothered with their coats. Draco said nothing as they walked, only adjusted the strap of the trunk and kept his pace even beside hers. She wanted to ask again where they were going but thought better of it. They turned into a narrow park hemmed by tall, lush green trees. The air beneath the branches was thick with midges circling around the damp branches. He stopped near a clearing, glanced around, and then turned back to her.

“Give me your hand,” he said.

She eyed him warily. “We’re apparating?”

He nodded. “It’s quicker.”

“Is that… safe?”

He smirked, faintly. “I got us back last night, didn’t I?”

“I don’t know...”

“Do you see yourself splinched? No. So we’ve established I’m capable of doing it, even if it is wholly unpleasant.”

He held his hand out, palm open. She hesitated, staring at it, pale fingers, the faint trace of old scars, a single ink stain near his thumb. Then she reached out and took it. His grip was firm, grounding.

“Trust me,” he said quietly.

And before she could reply, reality folded in on itself, air itself vanished, the ground fell away, and everything dissolved into the brief, breathless darkness between places. The world settled back around them with the soft crack of apparition, damp air, gravel underfoot, the faint scent of heather carried on the wind. Hermione blinked against the sudden brightness, steadying herself before the scene fully took shape. A narrow road wound through a quiet village; ahead stood a small church, with a crowded graveyard. Beyond it, a path led upward through the hills, toward a large house nestled against the wild expanse of countryside.

She turned to Draco, confused. “Where are we?”

But he was already walking, the wicker basket in one hand, his other still loosely holding hers as she found herself yanked along.

“Come on,” he said, tone maddeningly casual.

Hermione followed, her shoes crunching through gravel as they climbed the winding path. The air felt different here, clean, untouched, heavy with the scent of past rain and soil. It was peaceful, achingly so, as if the rest of the world had been placed on pause. She tried to piece together why he’d brought her, but it wasn’t until she saw the sign that her breath caught.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Her mouth fell open. “We’re at Haworth House?”

He gave a small, uncertain nod. “That’s what it’s called? I didn’t know.”

She stopped dead, and Draco was almost wrenched back from it. Her throat closed, and for a long moment she couldn’t speak.

“Oh,” she breathed, the sound almost a gasp. “Oh, Draco.”

He turned to look at her, brows knitting in mild concern. “What?”

Her hand went to her mouth. She could feel the sting of tears before she could stop them. “I can’t believe you remembered,” she said quietly. “I told you about this place months ago. When we were reading. I said I’d always wanted to come. My parents were going to take me, but then-” her voice caught on the memory, “then everything happened. With the war. And I never found a reason to come back.”

Draco exhaled, long-suffering. “Don’t start crying,” he said, his voice a groan, though there was no real edge in his tone. “We can leave if you don’t want to be here. I just-” he rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly defensive, “I wanted to do something for you for once. You’re always-” he gestured vaguely, “killing yourself doing things for everyone else. Including me.”

Hermione shook her head, tears already slipping free. “No, no-Draco, this is-” she laughed weakly through the tears, pressing a trembling hand to her chest, “this is perhaps the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

He blinked, startled, like he wasn’t sure what to do with that. Then, slowly, he looked away, the faintest pink rising in his cheeks. “You need to get better friends,” he muttered, almost under his breath.

She laughed again, watery and quiet, wiping at her cheeks with her sleeve.

He nodded toward the estate. “Come on, Granger. Before you start quoting Little Women at me.”

“That’s Alcott, not Brontë,” she corrected automatically, and he rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

As they walked through the front of the grounds toward the house, her heart felt lighter than it had in months. Inside, the museum was smaller than she’d expected, narrow corridors, low ceilings, every inch of space lined with glass cabinets and gentle plaques. But to Hermione, it was magic. Real magic. Not the kind that required a wand, but the kind that hummed in her chest and made her fingertips tremble.

“Oh-look!” she gasped, tugging Draco forward by the sleeve before he could so much as protest. “That’s Charlotte’s desk! The desk! She wrote Jane Eyre right there.”

Draco blinked at the small wooden writing table. “Looks uncomfortable.”

“It’s perfect,” she said, almost breathless, her eyes shining. She darted from one case to the next, her curls bouncing with each quick step. “And this, see the bracelet? It’s made from the sisters’ hair, and look, there’s a ruby inlaid. Oh, it’s even smaller than I imagined.”

Draco followed at a slower pace, his hands shoved into his pockets, watching her with an expression that shifted between bemusement and something much softer.

She pointed to a diary page, leaning close to the glass. “Emily drew this herself,” she said, her voice lowering with awe. “Look, that’s her and Anne at the table. You can see the marks where she must’ve smudged it.”

He glanced down at the faint, childlike sketches, then back at her, the way she bit her lip to keep from smiling too wide, the light in her eyes brighter than he’d seen in months.

“You know,” he said dryly, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look at a table with quite this level of adoration.”

Hermione laughed, her voice bubbling out like something she hadn’t realised she still remembered how to do. “That’s because you have no appreciation for beauty, Draco.”

“On the contrary,” he murmured, watching her flit across the room. “I’m appreciating it right now.”

She was too engrossed in a pencil drawing of the countryside by Anne to pay attention to him, peering at the faint drops of water on the paper. “Look! She must have drawn this outside, there’s raindrops on it. Oh it’s all so charming.”

“Yes. It really is.”

By the time Hermione finally tore herself away from the last display case, the light outside had shifted to a honeyed gold, spilling through the small museum windows in soft bands across the floor. She hadn’t noticed the hours slip by, only that each artifact seemed to open another thread of fascination, another detail she needed to share with him. 

Draco didn’t interrupt once. He followed her through the narrow rooms in uncharacteristic silence, nodding where it seemed appropriate, his gaze half on her and half on the faded letters and sketches. When she launched into an enthusiastic tangent about Wuthering Heights, something about the duality of love and destruction and why it was deeply misunderstood, he leaned against a doorframe, his mouth quirking faintly, eyes warm with quiet amusement.

She was mid-sentence, gesturing animatedly, when a loud grumble broke the rhythm.

Hermione blinked. Draco stilled. The sound echoed in the old room.

Her head turned, incredulous. “Was that you?”

He gave a small, resigned sigh. “Perhaps.”

She laughed, pulling her phone from her pocket, and nearly dropped it when she saw the time. “It’s almost six! Draco, why didn’t you say something?”

“I was waiting for you to take a breath long enough for me to,” he said dryly.

She rolled her eyes, shoving the phone away. “You should have stopped me.”

He shrugged, and the faintest smile tugged at his mouth. “Didn’t have the heart. You get… this look when you talk about that sort of thing. It’s-” He stopped abruptly, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face. “Cute.”

Hermione felt the heat of embarrassment creep up her cheeks. The word hung between them, impossibly soft in the quiet air.

He grimaced immediately, turning away as if he could undo it by sheer will. “Right. Food.”

She followed him downstairs and out through the museum’s narrow door, the dusk air cool on her skin. She expected him to lead her back towards the village, but instead he turned down the side of the building, where the path curved out of sight into a line of trees.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

He only gave her a maddening, secretive smile, one that tilted at the corner like he was in on a joke she hadn’t heard yet. “You’ll see.”

Before she could protest, he reached for her hand again, his grip warm, steady, and the world folded in on itself as they disappeared.

The wind struck her immediately, wild and clean, rushing over her face, filling her lungs with brisk, living air.

They were standing on the crest of a hill that rolled endlessly into others, all clothed in muted golds and browns. Grasses bent like the sweep of a painter’s brush. The moors stretched in every direction, vast, unbroken, luminous beneath the dimming sun. In the distance, a dark line of country fences stitched the earth together, and the horizon shimmered faintly in the wind. A few heather bushes still clung to life, their purple buds faded to ash-blue. The air smelled of peat and salt.

“It’s beautiful,” Hermione whispered, her voice nearly carried away by the wind.

Draco only smiled faintly, watching her take it in.

She let her eyes drift across the tranquillity of the landscape, dazed. The moors seemed to breathe around her, the kind of place where the world felt enormous and time felt small.

She almost didn’t notice the soft clink of glass behind her until she turned.

Draco was crouched on the grass, coat collar turned up against the wind, methodically unpacking the old wicker trunk she’d seen earlier. Inside, neatly packed, were plates, cutlery, and small glass jars. He spread a blanket out, its corners held down by stones, and began laying out grapes, little triangles of sandwiches, slices of cheese, a small bottle of wine.

For a moment Hermione could only stare. The absurdity of it, Draco Malfoy, her former schoolground bully, kneeling on windswept Yorkshire grass with a picnic kit, hit her squarely in the chest.

He was so serious about it too, adjusting things like the alignment of cheese mattered deeply.

And then, something clicked, and once it did, she couldn’t unsee it. It wasn’t just endearing.  It was achingly tender. She felt it like a physical thing in her ribs. When she’d been younger, she’d always imagined that someone doing something like this, thoughtful, romantic, entirely unnecessary, would be enough to make her want to marry them on the spot. It was ridiculous, over the top… and yet, here she was. And here he was.

Draco straightened, brushing his hands on his trousers. He glanced at her with a faintly self-conscious smile, as though expecting her to mock him.

But she couldn’t. She was too engrossed in what she was seeing clearly, as if she had worn glasses for the first time and was able to see things she never could in the past. Not the pale, haunted man he’d been when she first found him, but the person he was becoming. He’d filled out, his face no longer gaunt but strong and sharply cut. His torso was becoming muscular. His eyes, always storm grey, always assessing, seemed lighter somehow. The wind had caught in his hair, pushing it into disarray, and a lock fell over his forehead.

He looked handsome. Startlingly so.

Draco caught her gaze and tilted his head, puzzled. “What?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, a little too quickly, heat rising to her cheeks. “I just.. you’ve gone to a lot of trouble.”

He shrugged, looking away. “It’s just dinner.”

“Just dinner,” she echoed softly, sitting down on the blanket beside him.

The grass bent around them like a protective wall, the wind carrying their laughter off into the emptiness of the moor.

For the first time in a very long time, Hermione didn’t feel heavy. She just felt alive.

Draco handed her a small plate, careful not to meet her eyes. “You’re going to eat,” he said, tone gruff. “No arguments.”

Hermione took it, biting back a smile. “I’m hungry. You don’t have to order me around.”

“I know,” he said, flicking her a glance. “But you do need to be told when to stop brooding.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Brooding?”

He picked up a grape, rolling it between his fingers. “That’s what you’ve been doing since last night. It doesn’t suit you.”

Despite herself, she laughed, a sharp, startled sound that carried on the wind. “That’s rich coming from you. You’ve probably been brooding since you came out of the womb.”

Draco’s mouth twitched. “True,” he admitted. “But at least I look good doing it.”

He did, but she wasn’t going to dignify him with a response to that. He leaned back on one hand, smirking faintly as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, and for a moment she hated how easy he made it look, that abrasive personality that still somehow managed to be charming.

They ate in comfortable silence. The air was cool and gentle, the kind that made her cheeks flush. The moor stretched endlessly around them, the grasses whispering like the sea. In the distance, a pair of red grouse coasted along the landscape, calling softly to one another. Every so often, the clouds shifted and sunlight spilled over the hill, turning everything to gold.

It felt like they were the only two people in the world.

“Do you remember,” he said suddenly, fingers idly twirling the stem of a grape, “when you told me people can recover from anything if they’re given enough patience and tea? You’re such a liar. You don’t even like tea. I know you don’t.”

Hermione smiled faintly. “I said that after you threw a chair across the room. Besides, tea is growing on me.”

He nodded. “Coffee is growing on me too.”

“I just said it because I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction of knowing you’d scared me.”

Draco huffed a quiet laugh. “Come on, Granger. You’ve never been scared of me, even when you should have.”

She looked up, the breeze catching her hair and sweeping it across her cheek. “Maybe that’s why you trust me.”

His eyes flicked to hers. He was still smiling, but it was small now, real.

“I do,” he said simply.

He looked away first, pouring them both a glass of wine. “Fuck,” he muttered, clearing his throat, “you’re going to start thinking I’ve gone sentimental.”

“You have gone sentimental,” she teased lightly, grateful for the escape. “You took me to the Brontë museum and made me dinner in the moors, Malfoy. You’ve set a precedent. It’s disgustingly tender.”

He made an agonised noise. “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my reputation.”

She snorted, but her smile faded when she realised how close he’d shifted. His knee brushed hers, just lightly, and neither of them moved away.

Hermione could feel her heartbeat in her throat. Draco’s gaze flicked to her mouth, so quickly she might have imagined it. She forced herself to look away, pretending to study the horizon, but her cheeks burned. The sunlight had turned his hair almost silver, his eyes pale and clear. She could feel the warmth of him beside her, steady and impossible to ignore.

The afternoon melted slowly into gold. They lingered, picking lazily at the remains of the food, trading stories that had nothing to do with the war or the Ministry or the constant strain of trying to fix what couldn’t be fixed. Draco told her about the time he had been trying to brew a sleeping draught out of class to impress Professor Snape the next day, but had made the fumes so strong that he had knocked himself out and slept through the entire next day's classes. Hermione nearly choked laughing. She told him about the embarrassment of having to explain what her parents did as a career to Professor Slughorn, how everyone at the dinner party had looked at her as if she was mad.

By the time the bottle of wine was nearly gone, the sun had sunk low on the horizon, turning the whole moor into a sea of soft pinks and molten orange. The light stretched long shadows over the hills, catching in the heather. Even the air seemed to hold its breath.

Hermione wrapped her arms around her knees, gazing out over the view. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

Draco followed her gaze. “You know, it’s easy to forget that England can still look like this. Peaceful. Like it’s forgiven us.”

There was something softer about him, the edges worn down. He’d taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, and the wind tugged faintly at his hair.

“This is…” She hesitated, swallowing against the lump in her throat. “I meant what I said earlier. This is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“You’re surely joking.”

She shook her head, a small, earnest smile tugging at her lips. “No. I’m not.”

He looked away, down at the half-empty wineglass in his hand. The corner of his mouth twitched. “People clearly haven’t been paying enough attention.”

Hermione laughed quietly, the sound a little wobbly. “Maybe not.”

He shrugged lightly, eyes still on the horizon. “Well. Their loss. I get to be your favourite now.”

“My favourite what?”

He looked at her, a lazy grin finally returning. “Your favourite person. Obviously. Don’t ruin the moment by being literal, Granger.”

She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hide the warmth spreading through her. “You’ve become Malfoyish again. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“And yet you insist on spending every waking moment with me. Strange world.”

They fell into another stretch of quiet, comfortable, easy. The wind sighed across the hill, rustling through the grass, and the last of the sunlight painted their faces in amber.

Hermione rested her chin on her knees. “It is strange though, isn’t it?” she said softly. “If someone told me a few years ago that you and I would be friends, best friends, even, I would’ve laughed in their face.”

“I’ve been upgraded to best friend now? All it took was a dusty old house and some cheese, who knew.”

She played with her hands anxiously. “You’re allowed to have a best friend. It won’t kill you. Consider it personal growth.”

“Personal growth,” he said dryly. “Sure, why not. I’m told it’s very fashionable.”

The sun dipped fully below the horizon, leaving only a wash of rose and violet in its wake. Neither of them moved. The breeze grew cooler, but Hermione didn’t feel it; she was too aware of him beside her, the steady sound of his breathing, the faint scent of his cologne, the warmth radiating from where their shoulders brushed.

If she turned her head, just slightly, she could have kissed him.

What a strange and ridiculous thought.

Draco turned his head at the same moment she turned hers, and for a heartbeat, they were inches apart. His eyes were soft, searching. Hers, uncertain but steady. Her breath caught. The silver of his irises shimmered like molten metal, reflecting the burnished sky behind her, a sunset caught in liquid mercury. The light washed over his face, painting his pale skin in a dozen different hues of orange and red, his hair glowing faintly gold where it caught the dying sun, and fading to an almost indigo sheen at the edges.

She thought he might be the most beautiful person she had ever seen.

Not because of symmetry or perfection, though he had plenty of that, but because of what remained. Because he had been broken and built himself again. Because the boy who had once been made of cruelty and self-preservation had become a man of quiet wit and surprising tenderness. The troubles he’d endured hadn’t hollowed him out like he had claimed, they had reshaped him into something rarer, more fragile, more human.

And beneath it all, the best parts of him had endured: the quick, sharp intellect, the dry humour, the same voracious hunger for understanding the world that had once made her feel alone, until him. She knew, with a heavy kind of certainty, that she would never be able to fix the melancholy that lingered in him, that eternal shadow behind his eyes, that quiet ache he carried even when he smiled. But she also knew that if anyone on this earth truly deserved peace, if anyone deserved not to suffer for the sins of their fathers, it was Draco Malfoy.

Draco blinked, his gaze flicking down to her lips again for the briefest instant before he caught himself and looked away, breaking whatever spell had settled between them.

Hermione’s chest felt too tight. She tore her gaze away, blinking hard, as if she could physically shake the image of him loose. “We should… we should probably go,” she said, her voice thinner than she intended.

She went to stand, desperate to ground herself, but before she could straighten, Draco’s hand shot out and closed around her wrist.

“Wait.”

His voice was soft, almost hoarse.

She froze. His fingers weren’t tight, just enough to keep her there, but she could feel the faint, rapid beat of his pulse against her skin. It thrummed in time with her own, quick and unsteady. Slowly, he tugged her back down beside him.

“Draco,” she started, but the word came out as little more than a breath.

He swallowed, his thumb brushing over the inside of her wrist before he released it. 

“Hermione,” he said quietly, and her name in his voice sent something electric through her.

“Draco.” she managed, though she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to whatever question she was asking by saying his name.

He hesitated, searching her face. “I want to do something really fucking stupid.”

The world seemed to narrow to a single point, the wind, the distant rustle of heather, the golden spill of the last light fading into violet. She couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe.

Then his hand moved, tentative, trembling, sliding up to her face, into her hair, fingers threading through the curls as if testing reality. He cupped the back of her head, his touch reverent, and she felt the sharp inhale of his breath as she didn’t stop him. He was looking at her with something she’d never seen before, not in any of her fleeting relationships, not in anyone’s eyes, ever. It was raw, unguarded, tender and terrifying all at once.

And before she could think, before she could stop herself, her lips found his.

The contact was feather-light at first, hesitant, questioning, but then something in him broke loose. He caught her face fully in his hands, deepening the kiss, slow and consuming. His other arm came around her waist, drawing her firmly against his chest until she could feel the frantic rhythm of his heart against hers.

He kissed her like he was memorising her, slow, deliberate, agonisingly careful, as if he was afraid she might vanish if he let go. Her hands slid up into his hair, and he exhaled against her mouth, a shuddering sound that made her dizzy. The world seemed to dissolve around them, the hills, the fading sun, everything, until there was only this: the taste of him, the heat of his skin, the feeling of being so intimately known and wanted all at once.

When they finally pulled apart, breathless, the silence between them felt fragile and vast.

Draco’s forehead rested against hers, his breath uneven. “Are you sure-” he started, then stopped, a faint, incredulous smile ghosting over his lips.

“Yeah,” she whispered, voice trembling. “I am.”

Neither of them moved. The sky above them had turned a deep, bruised violet, and somewhere far off, a bird called out into the dusk.

It felt like the end of something, and the beginning of something much, much more dangerous.

Draco’s hands didn’t let her go as he softly pressed his lips back against hers. Instead, he guided her gently backward, lips never leaving hers, until she sank fully onto the soft blanket. The scent of grapes and fresh grass mingled faintly around them, but she hardly noticed, lost entirely in the pressure of him.

He hovered above her, his weight careful, and broke the kiss only long enough to trail a path of soft, deliberate kisses along her jawline. Her breath hitched as his lips travelled lower, brushing along her neck, his tongue teasing, tasting, while the tip of his teeth grazed her skin in fleeting, delicious flashes.

Hermione’s fingers twined into his hair, holding him close even as her chest rose and fell in ragged, excited breaths. Every kiss, every brush of lips, was an echo of the quiet care and unspoken longing that had built between them for months.

He paused only to look at her, his silver eyes glinting in the dying sunlight, reflecting a light that made her stomach flutter. Then he resumed, slow, unhurried, worshipping every inch of her neck and shoulder with a mix of tenderness and need that made her shiver beneath him.

She could feel the steady heat of him above her, the strength of his body pressing lightly against hers, grounding her in a way that was almost dizzying. Every horror of the world that had chewed both of them up and spit them out was gone. There was only this, only him, only the way he made her feel known, cherished, and dangerously alive. Draco’s hands moved with gentle certainty, one pressing lightly against the small of her back, the other brushing along her ribs, hand sliding up her shirt, memorizing the curve of her body as if committing it to memory. Hermione’s lips parted under his, her pulse hammering in her ears, every brush of his mouth making her feel fragile and feral at once.

He paused at her collarbone, his silver eyes meeting hers for a fraction of a second, searching, asking without words if she truly wanted this. The answer was written in the way her fingers curled into his chest, in the shiver that ran through her at his touch. Without breaking the connection, he trailed his lips lower, nipping gently, tasting the skin just her breasts, and she arched instinctively, her breath catching in a ragged gasp.

Hermione’s mind swirled. Everything was raw, picturesque, and achingly beautiful. The moors stretched around them, anointed by violet threads of heather decorating sloping hills. The last embers of the sun’s slow descent back to the underworld painted the sky in shades of burning orange and indigo, but all she could see was him. His face, pale and luminous, the sharp elegance of his features softened by the warmth in his gaze. For once, there was no past, no grief, no impossible weight of expectation, there was just the present, and the way the silent longing in his eyes ignited something in her, the peculiar joy of being wanted for the sake of herself and not for what she could do for people. For the first time in her life, Hermione felt the world bloom into a wash of colour. rich, sharp, and alive and it was reflected in the silver of his eyes, the bruised pink of his lips, the rosy blush of his cheeks. It transcended beauty; his touch was a pure revelation that reminded her that she was alive, a quiet miracle she had not known that she had been praying for.

Draco’s lips moved back to hers, this time with a slow, consuming passion, his tongue teasing hers gently at first, learning the rhythm of her, savouring the taste of her. Hermione responded in kind, letting herself melt into him, her hands roaming his shoulders and back, feeling the lean strength beneath the fabric of his shirt. Every kiss, every touch, felt like a promise, like the universe had shrunk down to this single, perfect moment.

He shifted slightly, pressing closer, and Hermione could feel the heat of his body, the rapid beat of his pulse echoing her own. She felt safe, despite the intensity, as if every sorrow she’d carried, every fear, had been lifted in the space between his arms. He pressed a trembling kiss on her forehead.

Draco’s hand cupped her cheek, thumb brushing gently across her skin, and he leaned in again, lips claiming hers with a deep, slow hunger that left her breathless. Her hands threaded through his hair, tugging him closer, urging him to stay, to never stop, and he responded in kind, holding her against him like he couldn’t bear to let go.

Draco’s lips trailed down her jaw again, teasing her neck and shoulder, teeth grazing lightly, leaving trails of heat in their wake. Hermione moaned softly, the sound muffled against his chest, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she allowed herself to be completely, utterly vulnerable, trusting him with her body, her heart, and the delicate shards of her soul that had been bruised too long.

He looked at her again, silver eyes glinting with a mix of need and tenderness, and whispered, “You’re so beautiful.”

And in that moment, Hermione knew she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

Eventually, he broke from her, drawing back just enough to press his forehead against hers, both of them gasping softly, breaths mingling. He collapsed onto the blanket beside her, one hand still gripping hers, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Hermione rolled onto her side, brushing a strand of hair from his face, and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to his cheek.

Draco let out a small, shaky laugh, the sound warm and relieved, and adjusted his arm so that Hermione could curl against him. Her head rested on his chest, listening to the steady, powerful beat of his heart, and she felt a sense of calm wash over her for the first time in days, maybe weeks.

They lay in breathless silence, hearts beating as one, the countryside quiet and golden from the last light of the sunset. The moors stretched around them, endless and wild, but here, in each other’s arms, they had found something steady, something that felt like coming home.

Chapter Text

When Hermione woke up, the world was blissfully comfortable and quiet. The only sensation was the heavy warmth pressed along her back, the gentle rise and fall of breath against her spine, the weight of an arm slackened around her waist. She drifted there, hovering in some liminal space between unconsciousness and waking, hazily aware that she was not alone, not cold, and not afraid.

Then the noise came.

BANG.

She flinched.

BANG. BANG.

Her eyes snapped open.

The third blow rattled the front door so hard it reverberated through the floorboards and into the walls of Grimmauld Place. Hermione pushed herself up on her elbows, disoriented, heart thudding. She barely had time to register the dim of the room, the tangle of the blankets, the heat of him next to her, before Draco moved.

His arm jerked away from her, and in what seemed like a single motion he was upright and by the window, breath sharp, wand already in his hand. Hermione had never seen someone go from sleep to full, violent alertness so quickly. He didn’t speak. Didn’t look at her. His entire body had gone cold, taut, coiled.

Another slam downstairs.

His scarred back was to her, posture rigid and tense in the horribly familiar way it always went when he perceived a threat.

Hermione struggled upright, dizzy, head spinning.

“Draco?”

He didn’t answer. He lifted the edge of the curtain by only a finger’s width, just enough to see the street below. She watched his shoulders rise and fall in a single, sharp breath. He exhaled.

“It’s Potter.”

Hermione’s racing heart stuttered, then steadied again, but Draco’s seemingly didn’t. He was still frozen, muscles tightened like every nerve in him still expected a wand aimed at his throat. Hermione kicked the blankets aside and tried to stand. Her legs wobbled beneath her. She didn’t think she’d slept deeply, and her limbs felt heavy with the residue of exhaustion, both the good kind and the terrible kind.

“I need to go let him in,” she said, already making for the door.

Draco turned sharply.

The movement was almost involuntary, his hand closing around her wrist before he seemed to fully realise he’d done it.

“You may want to put something else on,” he said tightly, not meeting her eyes. “Unless you want Potter asking questions that he absolutely won’t want the answers to.”

Hermione blinked at him, confused.

“Why?”

Draco looked pointedly downward at her. 

She followed his gaze. She was wearing one of his shirts. Barely buttoned. Soft, pale, smelling faintly of laundry soap and him. Too long to belong to her, and too short to hide the fact that there was nothing underneath it but underwear and skin.

“Oh.”

Her face went incandescent with heat.

She yanked her wrist free, bolted across the hall and slammed the bedroom door shut behind her. She leaned against it for a beat, heart pounding wildly, her mind catching up only now to the absurd intimacy of the situation she’d woken into. His shirt. His arms around her. His breath sending shivers up her spine. Hermione sucked in an inhale, grabbed her dressing gown from the banister and threw it over herself, cinching it tight enough to bruise her ribs. The collar of Draco’s shirt was still visible above the neckline. She swore under her breath, fussed with the fabric, then gave up and fled.

Harry thumped the door again just as Hermione reached the bottom of the stairs, fumbling with the catch chain, before eventually yanking it open. He stood on the doorstep, windswept, flushed with urgency, steam rising from his breath in the cold morning air. His hair looked like he’d run fingers through it a dozen times, and the redness of his eyes made it evident to her that if he had slept, it had not been very well.

“Hermione,” he breathed, pushing past her immediately. “Sorry for, God, sorry for the hour, but I’ve got something. I’ve finally got something, and I think it’s relevant to Malfoy.”

He strode straight into the kitchen, boots leaving wet tracks on the stone floor. Hermione shut the door and followed, pulling her dressing gown tighter, as if the crush of it on her ribs would constrict the panic of the unknown that was threatening to burst from her chest. Harry didn’t sit. He unrolled a piece of parchment across the table and tapped it with his wand. It reacted instantly, inking itself, forming lines, columns, names. Row after row of handwritten names flared across the parchment, familiar in a way that felt wrong, invasive, unimaginable. Friends. Allies. People who had stood beside them during the war. Even George’s name was on there, to Hermione’s absolute horror.

Angelina Johnson

Alice Tolipan

Alicia Spinnet

Anthony Goldstein

Cormac McLaggen

Dean Thomas

Dennis Creevey

Ernie Macmillan

George Weasley

Hannah Abbott

Justin Finch-Fletchley

Lee Jordan

Luca Caruso

Maisy Reynolds

Michael Corner

Neville Longbottom

Nigel Wolpert

Padma Patil

Parvati Patil

Romilda Vane

Seamus Finnigan

 

The list went on. More. A dozen more. In several parts there were names that had clearly been removed, scorched into a blackened smear.

Hermione stared, pulse skittering.

“Harry, what is this?”

Harry braced both hands on the table.

“I found it on Delvin’s body.”

The kitchen seemed to shrink suddenly, the air pulled tight around her. Hermione lifted her gaze from the parchment to Harry’s face. His expression was grim. 

“Are these…” she forced out, “Victims? Potential victims?”

“No,” he said immediately. “Or at least, I don’t think so. None of them are Death Eaters. None are suspected of having ties. It doesn’t fit. You were right about that knife we found, though. I compared the autopsy to photographs of some of Draco’s wounds and it looked right, so I had the department run some diagnostics on the blade. It was cursed, to leech magical energy from the victim it is used on. More painful that way apparently. It came back with trace residue of energy of six people. One was obviously, from Anderson. Four of them were from former Death Eaters that have all vanished.”

She already knew the answer to her question before she asked it.

“The sixth?”

Harry almost looked like he didn’t want to tell her.

“Malfoy.”

So that was it then. By some horrible miracle, they had stumbled upon one of the people responsible for his current state. The thought should have brought Hermione relief, or clarity, but all she felt was a low and consuming anger rising from somewhere unpretty inside of her.

“So then do you think the list could be... conspirators?” Conspirators. The word tasted like poison. “Harry, that’s impossible. Neville? George? They wouldn’t. Never. None of them would ever be part of something like that.”

“I know,” Harry said quietly. “I know. Which is what makes it worse.”

Hermione stared at the names again. She felt as though she were looking at strangers dressed in the faces of people she trusted. The scorch marks made her skin crawl. What were they hiding?

“What are the burned-out names?” 

“No idea. But I think the erased ones were the most important.”

Hermione pressed her hands flat on the table, steadying herself.

“This is something,” Harry said, voice pitched low, urgent. “Finally. We have something to work with now. A connection. A pattern. Something Delvins didn’t have time to destroy before Anderson slipped out of his restraints and killed him. I’ll need to work my way through the list, see if anyone on here knows something.”

Hermione nodded sharply.

“I’m coming with you.”

Harry hesitated.

“Hermione. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

She blinked at him.

“What? What do you mean?”

Harry rubbed his forehead. Avoided her eyes.

“You’ve spent months caring for Malfoy.”

He said this as if it was an answer to her question. She frowned. How was that relevant? Surely that should be more of a reason for her to help.

“That’s not a criticism,” he added quickly. “You did the right thing. You did what no one else would. But at the Ministry, you haven’t… been on top of it. You’ve been submitting the monthly reports for Malfoy, yes, but everything else? Susan Bones has taken on almost all your cases. To be frank, I can’t involve you in this investigation when you haven’t been managing the responsibilities you already have.”

Hermione felt the world tip sideways.

“That’s not fair, Harry. You told me I could take time out for this. I have been working-”

“I know I did. But to be honest, I expected you to be back in the office by now. He shouldn’t need watching this closely after almost four months. Even if you had to stay here, I would have expected you to pass on some of the week to week tasks to someone else, to make a plan for your absence. But you just dropped everything else and left Bones to pick up the slack. Kingsley cut the department’s funding weeks ago,” Harry said gently. “Public pressure. The Wizengamot’s scrutiny. Did you even know?”

Hermione went cold. She didn’t know. She hadn’t known any of it. The entire department had apparently shifted around her, and she hadn't even noticed.

“You haven’t failed,” Harry said, as if reading the panic in her eyes. “You set everything in motion. The legislation, the protections, the structure, it was all you. But maybe it wasn’t the right role. Or maybe it was only the right role for a while.”

She felt like she was going to be sick.

“I don’t know how to tell you this Hermione, but this morning I had to make a hard decision. Bones is going to be taking over the deradicalisation department. You can finish up with Draco, but after we finish this case… we’ll talk about transferring you to another department. Something more stable. Something less political. Because I don’t think they’ll allow you to return to your post after all this, and honestly, I’m not sure that you really want to.”

Hermione felt something twist inside her. Anger, shame, grief, and, to her horror, a thin thread of relief. She sat down because her legs no longer seemed interested in holding her up. The chair felt cold beneath her, solid in a way she no longer did. Harry remained across the table from her, hands braced on either side of the parchment, watching her with that mixture of concern and apology she had always hated, not because it was unkind, but because it was too kind. The kitchen felt too bright. Too revealing. She wanted the shadows back.

Shock settled in first, like a thin sheet of ice sliding over her nerves. Embarrassment followed quickly, hot and raw, burning under her skin. She could feel it in her cheeks, in the tremor of her fingers as she pressed them against her dressing gown, in the tight, traitorous heat climbing up her throat.

And then guilt bloomed, thick, suffocating, heavy, because Harry was right. She’d let things slide. She hadn’t been present. She had been submerged somewhere deep and private, somewhere where the Ministry, her colleagues, her responsibilities could barely reach her. Worst of all was the feeling that rose beneath all of it. The release of a weight she hadn’t known she had been carrying. Small. Sick. Unwelcome. It disgusted her.  She pushed a hand to her sternum as if she could press the pressure and stress back into herself, as if she could force herself to carry it, like she deserved to.

“I’m sorry,” she said flatly, the apology tearing its way up her throat. “Harry… I’m so sorry.”

Harry shook his head at once. “Hermione. No. You don’t owe me an apology. I put you in that department. I handed it to you with a thousand expectations and a mountain of politics attached, and when you said you weren’t sure, I pressed it. If anyone should be apologising, it’s me.”

She looked down at the parchment. The list of names that felt like a betrayal of every version of the world she believed in.

“I still want to follow the Anderson case,” she said, words coming out before she could second-guess them. “I want to help with the investigation.”

Harry’s mouth tightened. “Hermione…”

She cut him off, lifting her hand slightly. “Harry, listen. If I’m no longer running the department, then there’s nothing else pulling me in ten different directions at once. I can focus entirely on this. Fully. Properly. I promise.”

Harry hesitated, evaluating her in the quiet way he was prone to doing that she always hated, not suspicious, but searching for the truth beneath the surface.

Hermione swallowed, her voice softer now. “And this investigation is tied to Draco’s wellbeing. That’s not conjecture. That’s a fact. Delvin’s knife marks aren’t the only scars on him.  There’s others out there, people that will hurt him if he ever tries to live a normal life again, I know it. Part of the reason I stayed so close, so vigilant, was because I was terrified someone would come back for him. I’ve been saying this since day one.”

Harry’s expression shifted.

Hermione pressed on. “If this case is connected to the people who made him the way he is, then this is not separate from my role. It’s part of it. And I am more familiar with his circumstances than anyone. I know what the consequences look like.”

Unbidden, the memory of the self-inflicted cuts on his arms re-emerged in her head. She pressed her eyes closed, hard, as if she could squeeze the image out of her brain. Harry exhaled slowly, sinking into the chair opposite her. 

“You’re saying this because you want to help,” he said. “Not because you think you owe him anything, right?”

“I don’t know what I owe him. But I know I can’t step away from this. Not when it’s tied to the truth. Not when it’s tied to him.”

Harry ran a hand through his hair. He looked exhausted, conflicted, but ultimately, resigned.

“All right,” he said quietly. “You can work the investigation with me. But Hermione, only the investigation. You can’t tell Malfoy anything about it. And you have to promise me you won’t bury yourself again. If it gets too much, just tell me, and you can pull out. You don’t have anything to prove anymore.”

She almost wanted to laugh at that. What had she managed to prove in the first place, other than that she was a failure in every regard? She nodded, almost blindly, relief and fear colliding in her chest with equal force. “Harry hesitated, then reached across the table and squeezed her wrist gently, grounding her in a way she didn’t realise she needed.

“We’ll figure the rest out later,” he said. “For now, we work the list.”

Hermione nodded again, though her gaze drifted upward, instinctively, toward the stairs where Draco was still upstairs, warm in her bed. Her heart squeezed hard enough to hurt.

Harry saw the flicker of her eyes.

“How are things with him? Is he doing any better these days? The reports seem promising.”

“He’s… better in some ways,” she said carefully. “More stable. More present. But it’s difficult to tell how much of that is real progress and how much is him pretending. Half the time it feels like he’s performing normality because I’m in the room. Like he thinks he owes it to me to behave.”

Harry frowned slightly, as though trying to map that onto the Draco Malfoy he remembered. “Strange,” he murmured. “Hard to imagine him bothering to put on a show for your sake.”

Except he clearly didn’t fully believe that. His eyes were too sharp, too calculating, watching her with the quiet, cautious assessment of someone piecing together a larger pattern. She lifted a shoulder in a vague shrug, trying not to let anything show. “We get along well most days.”

“Do you?” Harry asked, tone mild, but the question landed with an unexpected weight.

Hermione felt a thin thread of dread spool through her ribs. “Should we not?”

Harry leaned back in his chair, studying her with a seriousness that made her skin prickle. “I expected him to hate you,” he admitted. “Like he did at school. Like he probably hates most of us. In the beginning I kept waiting for an owl from you saying he’d attacked you. But every time I’ve seen the two of you together, I don’t know. There’s something bizarre about him. About both of you, actually.”

She felt that if she moved, breathed, did anything, Harry would know. Harry always seemed to know, not in the intellectual way that she dove into problems, but almost out of instinct. She had often found herself frustrated and jealous at his innate ability to know things without the gruelling work she had always needed to get to the same conclusion.

He went on, voice softening, not unkind. “That day at the ministry, it was like the only thing that could stabilise him was your presence. And you knew exactly what to say and do to calm him down, which was pretty weird to watch.”

Hermione’s fingers tightened around the edge of her dressing gown.

“And twice now, I’ve watched him look after you when something went wrong. That time you got wasted, he called me in the middle of the night and was almost losing his mind. Then again after we found Anderson, when I went to come find you afterwards, I watched him drag you out of The Three Broomsticks. I almost went after him because I thought he was up to something, but when I saw the look on his face, he was terrified. Concerned, even. Not for himself, but for you. I can’t work out why that is.”

Hermione’s throat closed.

Harry’s gaze softened even further. “The way you are around him, it’s almost like you’re friends or something. I don’t know, not even that. It’s like you’re on the same wavelength, like you’re seeking comfort from him. Like he’s stabilising you.”

Her heart gave a painful, traitorous lurch.

“That’s not true. It’s just…” she began, but the word fractured as it left her mouth. It was true.

Harry didn’t look triumphant. He didn’t look angry. He just looked sad. And tired. And like he finally understood something he’d been hoping wasn’t true.

“I’m not judging you,” he said quietly. “I can’t pretend to understand why it is that you seem to get along with him, because he’s the biggest prick I've ever met. But you’re not really detached from him professionally. And he’s not as detached from you either. The boundaries seem a bit blurred.”

He didn’t know the half of it. Hermione felt the truth of it hit her like cold water. A shiver worked its way down her spine, not from fear, but from the unbearable clarity of it, the reality she’d been avoiding, the gravity she’d been pretending wasn’t pulling the two of them closer with every passing day.

Her voice was small when she finally managed to speak.

“He’s different now. He isn’t like he was in school at all. I don’t know, I suppose he just needed someone. And I suppose I was there.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t think it’s just that at all. I think it’s more complicated than that.”

Hermione swallowed hard, staring down at her hands as if the answers were written in the creases of her palms.

Before she could respond, a presence filled the doorway.

Both she and Harry turned.

Draco stood there, fully dressed now, hair damp, wand tucked somewhere she couldn’t see. His expression was unreadable, but something in his posture suggested he’d heard enough. Harry reacted instantly, snatching the parchment up, rolling it into a tight cylinder with a sharp flick, and sliding it into the inner pocket of his coat.

“Malfoy,” Harry said with a curt nod. “Morning.”

Draco’s pale eyes tracked the pocket where the parchment had disappeared, then lifted to Harry’s face with a slow, deliberate narrowing. “What was this cosy little conversation about?”

Harry kept his tone neutral. “Ministry matters.”

Draco didn’t respond to the words. He only let silence stretch, a long, thin thread of disbelief. Then his gaze shifted to Hermione. Whatever he saw there, the faint tremble at her shoulders, the way she was clutching her dressing gown, the slight tightness around her mouth, made something sharpen behind his eyes.

He turned back to Harry, expression hard. “Are these ministry matters important enough to make her sit there shivering in her dressing gown?”

Hermione startled, looking down at herself with sudden awareness. She hadn’t realised she was trembling. She hadn’t realised she was cold.

Harry exhaled sharply, guilt flickering across his features. “I was just leaving.” Harry stood, but shot a pointed look at Hermione. He reached into his coat again and withdrew an envelope, thick, cream parchment, sealed with the Ministry’s insignia.

“Before I go,” Harry said, stepping toward Draco, “these are the restitution funds. They finally cleared. Took the Ministry long enough, but you should have had them weeks ago. The rich always do seem to get richer.”

He handed the envelope to Draco.

Draco didn’t take his eyes off Harry as he accepted it, sliding the envelope between two fingers coolly. Harry nodded once more, lingering only long enough for Hermione to feel the weight of what had been left unsaid.

“I’ll be in touch,” he told her softly.

Then he stepped past Draco, opened the front door, and disappeared into the cold morning beyond. The latch clicked shut. Silence fell. When Hermione pulled herself out of her thoughts, she realised that Draco had been looking at her as if he were cataloguing every detail of her, every tremor, every uneven breath, every trace of whatever had been said while he wasn’t in the room.

“Come on,” he said softly. “You’re freezing.”

He gestured toward the living room, toward the low fire crackling in the grate. Hermione hesitated, then nodded. The living room was dim, warmed by the dying embers of the hearth. Draco flicked his wand and the flames roared higher, lifting the cold from the corners of the room.

He motioned for her to sit. Hermione sank onto the sofa, the heat a welcome shock against her chilled skin. Draco sat beside her, not too close, but close enough that the shift of cushions gave away the weight of him. He turned toward her fully, looking her up and down, eyes fixed on her with quiet intensity.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Hermione felt her heartbeat skip, then stumble. She knew she could not tell him about the investigation, about the list, about any of it. The lie would sit between them and be one more thing she had to carry alone. But this, this she could tell him.

She exhaled slowly. “Harry removed me as head of the department.”

Draco’s expression softened at once. The sharpness melted from his features, replaced by something gentler.

“Are you alright?”

He reached for her hand hesitantly, as if he were giving her time to pull away. She didn’t. His fingers closed around hers, warm and steady.

Hermione swallowed hard. “If I’m honest… yes. It’s a relief.” Her voice shook despite her best efforts. “I think on some level, I knew this was coming. But I’m also embarrassed. Ashamed. I should have been able to handle things better. And now I feel like a complete and utter failure.”

Draco studied her for almost a minute before he spoke. “How many people did your department successfully rehabilitate?”

“Seventy-four.”

He blinked once, then let out a soft, incredulous snort. “Of course. Only you could fundamentally change the lives of seventy-four people and still sit here calling yourself a failure.”

Hermione’s lips lifted in a faint, brittle curve. “It doesn’t matter. If I can’t change the system itself, then people will keep getting hurt.”

“Then that’s not your job,” he said curtly, thumb brushing the back of her hand. “You’ve given the world enough of yourself. If you keep giving like this, there won’t be anything left.” His gaze held hers, steady, unflinching. “People have to choose to change, Granger. You can’t make that choice for them.”

“Have you? Made that choice?”

He didn’t answer. His jaw worked once. His gaze flicked away, then back again. Then he leaned forward towards her slowly, fingers still entwined in her hand. His other hand lifted hesitantly before settling, with exquisite care, against the side of her head, thumb brushing her cheekbone in a gesture so gentle it made something inside her chest twist painfully.

“I’ll consider it,” he finally said.

Hermione drew a breath. “I should get dressed.”

She rose, turned toward the doorway, but his hand caught the edge of her dressing gown.

Slowly, she turned back to him.

He stepped towards her, looking down at where he’d grabbed her gown. Slowly, delicately, he slipped his fingers beneath the fabric and pushed the knot of the gown loose. It fell open, and he tugged it to the ground. When he lifted his gaze, there was something unmistakably dark simmering there, something that made her breath catch in her throat. 

Draco’s eyes dragged over her, slow, appreciative, utterly unhurried.

“Why? I prefer you like this,” he murmured. She swallowed, heat flooding her cheeks.

“Draco. We really should talk about yesterday.”

A soft scoff left him, barely audible. “I’ve never liked talking much,” he said.

His hands lifted, finding her hips, firm, pulling her a fraction closer.

“Draco…” she breathed again, because she needed to say something, needed to stop her knees from shaking, needed to stop whatever she felt rushing toward her with too much momentum.

His gaze dropped to her mouth.

She couldn’t quite recall what exactly it had been that she’d wanted to talk about, because suddenly his lips were on hers, and his tongue was there, his delicious tongue, swirling the taste of his peppermint toothpaste in her mouth. One of his hands began to fumble with the few buttons that were pathetically holding his shirt onto her body, the other slid down from her hip to her ass, squeezing roughly and pulling her flush against him. She was powerless to prevent the shudder that ran through her at this, she could feel him smirk against her lips at it, and she almost wanted to beat him for being so smug.

It must have been someone else in control of her body, not her, because surely she wouldn’t be the one sliding her fingers into his hair and tugging, surely she would never be the one running her hand across his chest, absorbing his warmth, as if she could carry it within her. His touch was burning her, burning away all of the complicated feelings that were screaming in her head that this was wrong, that she shouldn’t be doing this. The sensation of his hands on her body sent butterflies to her stomach that dissolved the anxiety of the morning in a blissful wave.

His eyes were so dangerous, and she felt like she would drown in the rough endless tides of them every time she caught his gaze. There was something in them, something almost frantic, that hadn’t been present in the gentle tenderness he’d shown the day before. He broke the kiss with a low growl, his mouth trailing hot and demanding down the side of her neck. His teeth grazed her skin first, teasing the pulse that hammered there, before he nibbled on her skin, biting just hard enough to make her gasp and arch against him. The sharp sting bloomed into heat, radiating through her body like fire, and she clutched at his shoulders, nails digging in as pain twisted into something filthy and urgent. He sucked at the mark he'd left, his tongue lapping roughly over the tender spot, while his hands gripped her hips tighter, steering her backward with unyielding force.

Her calves hit the edge of the sofa, and she perched there, heart pounding wildly in her chest. She expected him to shove her down and climb over her, to pin her beneath his weight, and she wasn’t sure if she was really, truly ready for that. But he didn't. Instead, he sank to his knees in front of her, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a wicked intensity that made her stomach flip. The room felt too exposed suddenly, the morning light filtering through the curtains casting shadows over his sharp features, highlighting the feral hunger in his gaze.

His hands slid down her body, palms rough against her bare skin, tracing the curve of her waist, her hips, before reaching her knees. She trembled under his touch, every nerve alight, as he gripped her there and tugged her legs apart maddeningly. The air hit her inner thighs, cool and shocking, and embarrassment flooded her hot and fast. She was aching, aching with a need she did not even know that she had, but the vulnerability of it all made her want to snap her knees shut, to hide from the way he stared at her like she was his next meal.

Draco's eyes narrowed at her, that feral expression pinning her in place, a silent command that screamed she wasn't going anywhere. No closing her legs, no backing out, his gaze wrapped around her like chains, and she couldn't look away, couldn't move. Her breath came in shallow pants, cheeks burning as he held her open, exposed.

His fingers hooked into the waistband of her underwear and he yanked them down her thighs with a slow, teasing drag. She lifted her hips instinctively, letting him pull them off completely, the cool air kissing her in places she had never imagined it would. Draco dangled them from one finger, lifting them to his face while keeping his eyes locked on hers. He inhaled deeply, nose buried in them, drawing in her scent like it was the sweetest drug. Then, with deliberate slowness, he dragged his tongue along the fabric, licking a spot that to her mortification, had already been damp, tasting her essence right there in front of her.

“You smell delicious,” he said with an almost wicked glint in his eye, voice thick and rough, the words sending a fresh wave of heat through her body. His words sent a dreadful tingle down her spine. She opened her mouth to protest, to say something, anything, but before a single word could form, his head was between her legs.

His tongue hit her like a strike of lightning, flat and broad, licking up her from bottom to top in one agonizingly slow swipe. She moaned his name without thinking, the sound raw and desperate, her hands flying to his hair as her hips bucked. Draco didn't rush; he savoured it, his tongue circling her with lazy precision, dipping lower to probe at her entrance, lapping up every drop of her. The wet sounds of his mouth on her filled the room, obscene and intoxicating, mixing with her ragged breaths.

“You taste delicious too,” he whispered against her, the vibration of his words making her shiver. His hot breath fanned over her sensitive skin, and she felt exposed, teased in the worst way, like he was putting on a show just for them. Then his pace quickened, arms wrapping around her thighs to hoist her legs over his shoulders, pulling her flush against his face. His mouth devoured her now, tongue thrusting inside her, fucking her with quick, urgent strokes while his lips sucked hard on her clit. She writhed on the sofa edge, the rough fabric scraping her, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Pleasure coiled tight in her belly, building with every flick and suck. His teeth grazed her inner lips lightly, a teasing bite that echoed the one on her neck, dominance in every motion as he held her legs wide, refusing to let her squirm away.

Her moans turned to cries, body tensing as the orgasm crashed over her violently. She came hard, clenching around nothing as waves of ecstasy ripped through her, almost pulling his hair out with the force. Draco didn't stop, licking her through it, consuming her, his grip bruising her thighs as she shook and gasped his name again.

His tongue slowed but didn't retreat, eyes flicking up to meet hers in the most sinful expression she had ever beheld. The sensation was overwhelming, she could not take anymore, and wrestled against him, crawling back into the sofa, panting heavily. He just sat there on his knees in front of her, staring at her in a way no one ever had, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and laughed, as if she had just said something mildly funny.

Fucking. Hell.

She could barely see straight. Her legs were still trembling with aftershocks, and it took her longer than she should have to realise they were still open in front of him, that his gaze hadn’t left the most private place of her. She brought her knees up and curled against the sofa, dazed. He stood up, clicking his jaw casually, and sat down next to her.

“What was it that you wanted to talk about?”

“Mmrf..”

Words. She knew what words were. At least she thought she had, at some point. His face was so satisfied, as if he’d won a game she hadn’t even known they’d been playing. 

“That’s what I thought. I’ll make tea.”

And then he was gone, and she was breathlessly rebuttoning his shirt with numb fingers, scrambling to find wherever it was he’d flung her underwear. She found them, and with shaking hands pulled it back up her legs, but they were still damp in the place his tongue had been. And so was she. She was going to lose her mind.

Time seemed to pass unnoticed for her, and before she could even register that he had left, he returned, stepping into the room with two steaming mugs, the faint clink of the mugs impossibly steady compared to the chaos still detonating in her chest. His eyes found her instantly, taking in her flushed cheeks, the way she curled into the corner of the sofa, the trembling she was desperately trying to hide.

There was a glint in his expression, sharp, pleased, unbearably confident. He placed one cup on the table beside her with careful precision, as if nothing at all was out of the ordinary. Hermione stared at it. Stared at him. Her brain was still misfiring.

Draco sat down beside her, not touching her, but close enough that she felt it anyway. The heat of him. The awareness. The aftershocks in her body answered like a reflex. She opened her mouth, closed it again. Nothing. Not one coherent thought would assemble itself in her head. Draco arched a single eyebrow, smug in a way she’d never seen on him before, not cruelly smug, not schoolboy arrogant, but the quiet satisfaction of someone who knew precisely what he had done to her and was still savouring it.

“Here,” he said, sipping his own tea, infuriatingly casual. “You look like you need it.”

Hermione made a helpless noise that was absolutely not a word.

He smirked into his cup.

She dragged in a breath, pushed hair from her face with a shaking hand, and finally managed, hoarse, “You… you can’t just do that every time I want to have a serious conversation with you.”

Draco hummed in amusement. He didn’t look remotely apologetic.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Because I intend on doing it regardless of the conversation. Serious or not.”

She gaped at him.

He went on, elegant and infuriatingly calm. “As often as I can, actually.”

She knew she should be mortified. Ashamed. Horrified at how fast every flimsy boundary she’d constructed had been incinerated. She should be reprimanding herself, lecturing herself, citing every ethical code she was currently violating just by breathing near him. But all she could see was him. The way he leaned back on the sofa, one arm draped along the backrest, posture loose and self-assured in a way she’d hardly seen. The faint, wicked curve at the corner of his mouth. The pale fall of his hair, the silver spark in his eyes, the sharpness of his jaw, the quiet glow of triumph on his face.

Her embarrassment, her panic, her guilt, they were all still there, but pushed to the edges by something far more dangerous: the sheer, overwhelming fact of how beautiful he was. How alive. How warm. How devastatingly close. She tore her gaze away, dizzy.

“This is-” she tried again, but her voice cracked. “This is not how things are supposed to go.”

“No,” Draco agreed, soft and casual. “Tell me you didn’t enjoy it though.”

She couldn’t. She couldn’t bring her mouth to form the lie. She couldn’t even pretend she wanted distance. Not after everything they’d been through. Not after the way he’d looked at her, in a way no one ever had. Somehow, that had been more intimate than any of the reckless things his tongue had done.

Her silence was answer enough. Draco’s eyes glinted.

“I thought so,” he murmured again.

Hermione pressed a shaking hand to her mouth. She took a long, unsteady breath. She needed to focus. She needed to steer this back to rational ground, to the thing she’d meant to say before. She tugged her dressing gown tighter around herself, even though it was pointless, the shirt beneath it still smelled like him, felt like him, and Draco was still sitting there sipping tea.

“I really do need to talk to you,” she said, forcing her voice into something resembling coherence. “About everything.”

Draco turned his head slightly toward her. He wasn’t even trying to hide the smirk anymore.

“By all means,” he drawled. “Talk.”

Hermione swallowed.

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

She glared. “Draco.”

He lifted his brows innocently. But there was nothing innocent about him. About the way he watched her. About the memory of his lips on her.

She tried again. “I need to explain something-”

Draco leaned in just a fraction.

“Granger,” he said softly, “you’re still trembling.”

He was right. She was.

She looked away quickly, too quickly, which only made his mouth curve in that maddening way he did when he knew he’d won something.

“Stop doing that,” she muttered.

“Doing what?”

“That,” she snapped, gesturing vaguely at him, at his eyes, his posture, his everything. “Being so- so-”

“Handsome?” he suggested.

“Evasive,” she hissed.

“I’m versatile,” he said airily. “Keep going.”

Hermione shut her eyes and inhaled sharply through her nose. This was impossible. Every time she tried to drag the conversation toward sense, he nudged it back into the dangerous, molten territory. He was doing it on purpose.

“Right,” she said tightly. “I’m trying to tell you something important.”

Draco nodded with exaggerated patience. “I’m listening.” The way his eyes were flitting over her told her a very different story than his words did.

“You’re not.”

He tilted his head. “Maybe I’m just very easily distracted.”

“Stop.” She pointed a finger at him. He moved before she could finish. A slow, deliberate lean toward her. Hermione backed up instinctively, spine hitting the arm of the sofa.

“Draco!”

He lowered his voice. “Yes?”

Something inside her snapped.

“No.” She pushed against his chest, not hard, but firmly enough to stop him, to make him pull back a few inches. Her hands shook. “Just stop.”

Draco froze. The shift in him was immediate, sharp as the crack of ice splitting. The satisfaction drained from his face, along with the teasing warmth. In its place came something harder and colder.

He leaned back slowly, studying her with a stony expression.

“This isn’t a game,” Hermione whispered, breath unsteady. “I think things have gotten out of hand. You can’t just just smooth-talk your way around important conversations. Distract me. Manipulate me out of my own thoughts.”

Draco’s jaw clenched.

“Manipulate you?” he repeated, voice quiet in the way a dagger was quiet. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

Hermione faltered. “I didn’t mean that. This is complicated, and you’re not taking it seriously.”

A long, tense silence stretched between them. The longer Draco looked at her, the further she could see him retreating back into himself, until it felt as if she was sat with a stranger. His mouth was set into a thin, almost furious line.

“It’s rather ironic,” he said at last, voice low, “that you’re accusing me of manipulation.”

Hermione swallowed hard.

“Draco. I just meant that you kept distracting me. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“No.” His tone hardened. “Let’s be honest for once, shall we? Because I’ve been honest with you from the beginning.”

Any trace of warmth that had been on his face before had vanished. He was looking at her as if she’d shoved a knife into him. She had no idea how she was supposed to pull it out without causing him more pain.

“You,” he continued, “are the one who keeps changing the rules.”

“Draco, I’m not-”

“First,” he said, counting calmly on his fingers, “You made yourself my government appointed saviour. A good little worker drone fixing another Ministry fuck up.”

She looked away at the cool edge in his eyes.

“Then, you insisted you were nothing but my caretaker. Professional. Detached. Here out of obligation because no one else was enough of a martyr to do it. ”

Her face flushed.

“Then, when you needed support, you insisted you were my friend.”

Hermione pressed her lips together.

“Then,” he said flatly, as if he was saying something unpleasant, “my best friend.”

She stared at her knees, heat prickling behind her eyes.

He leaned forward, voice quiet but unflinching.

“And then you kissed me.”

Hermione’s breath hitched.

“You were the one who leaned in,” Draco said. “Not me. You. I even asked you if you were sure. You had every chance to say no, but you didn’t. Not once did I make a move you didn’t answer. Not once did I cross a boundary you didn’t step over first.”

She opened her mouth to deny it, but the memory rose up, her hand on his jaw, her lips finding his like a confession ripped out of her. He wasn’t wrong.

“You’re the one who could have pulled away last night,” he said. “At any moment. At every moment. You had the power. Not me. I did not take you to that house intending for any of it to happen. I was trying to be nice,” He forced the words through his teeth, “Trying to repay you for all of the good you have done for me, even though I never asked for it and certainly never fucking wanted it.”

Hermione felt like she was unravelling.

“And now,” Draco said quietly, “you’re surprised by the consequences of the world you built.”

“What world?”

“The one where I have no one but you.”

Hermione’s breath shattered in her chest.

“The one where you force me to keep dragging my corpse around because if I don’t, you will feel bad. The one where you made me dependent. On your time. On your choices. On your mercy. On your presence. On whether you’ve decided if I've been good enough to warrant a trip outside that day, whether I'm stable enough to have a wand, whether I deserve any fucking agency at all.”

She shook her head, eyes burning.

“That’s not fair. I never wanted you to be that way. I didn’t plan that.”

“I know,” Draco said. “But it happened. And now you don’t know what to do with me.”

Hermione felt herself closing in on panic. Her hands trembled in her lap.

“I am not manipulating you,” he said, and his voice had curled into something crueller than she had ever heard. It was almost like they were back in school, like at any minute he would spit out at her that she was a mudblood, but worse, because now there was no mirth or mocking to his coldness. “I don’t need to.”

Hermione looked up at him, eyes wet, throat tight.

“You’ve already made me your dog. So forgive me if I heel like a good fucking animal, if I take enjoyment out of pleasing my master,” His lips curled into a twisted smile at that, “because that is what you have turned me into.”

She had known that he depended on her. Of course she had. She had known that she was his only consistent presence, his only advocate, his only thread connecting him to the living. But hearing it like that, twisted through his bitterness and clearly still-ragged trauma, felt like being gutted. Her throat constricted. Every ugly, desperate thought she’d tried to bury clawed its way back up: What if I’ve made him worse? What if I trapped him without meaning to? What if every kind thing I’d done was just another chain I didn’t see myself forging? Her fingers dug into the fabric of her dressing gown, knuckles white. She was so selfish. She had wanted to be the one to fix what everyone else had broken. She had done this, on some small level, because she was selfish, and wanted to feel like what she was doing mattered. She had let herself become his axis. She had let him orbit her. She had not stopped it when she should have.

“Draco…” Her voice cracked. She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”

A bitter, tight breath left him. He rose, and then looked at her as if they were strangers.

“So am I.”

He turned and left the room without so much as a further glance, heading up the stairs. Hermione remained where he had left her for a long time. She couldn’t bring herself to get up, to think, to do anything. If she started to think, she would start to feel, and the vague concept of that was almost unbearable. Her eyes drifted to the cup of tea on the table beside her. It had gone cold.

Time passed in the way it always did, though not in the gentle and soft blur that she’d become accustomed to in Grimmauld Place. Not in the way time was supposed to, with mornings and evenings and some sense of rhythm tying the days together. These weeks moved like sand through a clenched fist, grain by grain, with nothing to show for their passing except the raw imprint of absence.

Draco avoided her.

Not subtly. Not cruelly. If there was anything in him that wanted to fight her, he wouldn’t even give her the grace of showing it. Every time she returned home, he was leaving. Gym bag in hand. Hood up. Head down. He moved like a shadow slipping through a crack in the wall. The front door would click shut behind him before she even finished hanging up her coat. If she left earlier, he returned later. If she tried to wait up, he apparated quietly to the hall upstairs and disappeared into his room like he’d never been there at all.

He’d started attending therapy sessions alone. She only knew because appointments vanished from the shared calendar she’d set for him. He didn’t tell her he was going. Didn’t tell her how they went. Didn’t tell her anything. Any attempt at conversation fell to the floor between them like a dead thing.

Are you okay?
Fine.
Do you want tea?
No.
Is there anything I can-
I said no.

The contrast between this and the impossible intimacy of Haworth House left Hermione feeling unsteadied, stripped of bearings. She hadn’t realised how much she’d been relying on his presence to anchor her. How his footsteps in the corridor, his breathing in the next room, even his scathing remarks had formed a rhythm she’d synced herself to. Now she came home to silence so complete it pressed against her ribs like a hand.

She lay awake at night listening for him, for any sign that he was still in the house, still alive, still real. But all she heard was the hollow shifting of the pipes, the haunted old sighs of Grimmauld Place, and the thin scrape of loneliness settling in. Work gave her something to do with her time, to fill the void, but offered no refuge.

She and Harry tore through names on the list day by day, sometimes interviewing people so late into the afternoon that she wouldn’t return home until Draco was already asleep. They worked from the top down while Ron worked from the bottom up, but neither parties were able to come back with anything conclusive.

Angelina Johnson.
Alicia Spinnet.
Alice Tolipan.

All of them outraged. Confused. Defensive. Angelina, heavily pregnant, had looked insulted at the implication that she’d ever condone torture. “My back feels like it’s on fire, my ankles are the size of Quaffles, and I’m married to George Weasley. Believe me, that’s punishment enough,” she’d snapped.

They’d interviewed her and George together. George had started the interview joking, perched on the edge of his seat. But the longer they spoke, the more his face closed in, shutters dropping over his expression. He kept glancing at Angelina, not unlike a man waiting for something terrible to happen just behind her. Hermione had caught it. Harry had caught it. No one said it aloud. It left a metallic taste in her mouth anyway.

Days dripped into each other, and Narcissa missed a scheduled visit with Draco. No warning. No excuse. Just absence.

When Hermione returned home that evening, Draco was sitting at the bottom of the stairs staring at the front door like he still expected her to walk through it. Or like he was weighing whether he should walk out of it. She froze on the last step above him. He didn’t look at her. Didn’t acknowledge her at all. He sat there for an hour, unmoving. Then he stood, went upstairs, and slammed his bedroom door so hard the frames rattled.

An owl arrived the next morning, addressed to Hermione. Narcissa apologising. Saying she’d missed her visit. Saying Lucius had grown suspicious. Saying she had to be careful now. Hermione cornered Draco in the kitchen to give it to him. He took the letter, stared at it for a long, unmoving minute. His jaw clenched. His eyes flicked up to hers with an expression that might have been hurt, might have been exhaustion, but mostly looked like hatred.

“Of course she addressed it to you,” he said, as if this was one final insult he could not bear. “And not me.”

“Dra-”

He walked away before she finished saying his name. Nothing she said reached him anymore. He wasn’t cold. He wasn’t cruel. He was simply sealed off. A locked room with no keyhole. By the time she and Harry reached the final name on their list, whatever hope she’d been gripping with bloodless fingers had slipped away entirely. Half the people had refused to talk to them. Two threatened legal action for harassment. Another sent a letter claiming to be “out of the country indefinitely,” which Hermione suspected was a lie. Harry tried to reassure her, saying he’d file the paperwork to force interviews. But the gears of the Ministry turned slowly. Painfully slowly. And she didn’t know how much time they had left.

Not with Theodore Nott attacked in Hogsmeade two nights earlier. Masked figures. Multiple assailants, who had disarmed him and attempted to clamp restraints over his wrists. He had only escaped because Pansy had been with him and hexed the closest attacker in the throat, forcing them to apparate away. Hermione sat in Harry’s office staring at the report, the world around her narrowing to a sharp, breathless point.

Someone was closing in on them. Yet Draco was drifting away from her one silent day at a time. The combination carved something hollow and terror-shaped inside her. She’d lost people before. She’d survived loss. But this was different. This was losing someone who was still breathing. This was losing someone she’d pulled out of hell only to watch him walk into a different one. This was losing someone whose absence echoed louder than his presence ever had. 

And she didn’t know how to get him back.

Chapter Text

It took Hermione longer than she thought it would to realise just how much she missed him. She missed his eyes, his voice, the feeling of his fingers threaded into hers. She missed how he complained about the sheer volume of her books. and yet she still would find a stack of them by the fireplace every morning. She missed cleaning away the trail of empty cups he left in his wake, the faint impression of tea-stained lips on their rim.

He was spending more and more time out of Grimmauld Place, to the point that it was becoming increasingly obvious that he was doing anything he could to avoid being there when she was. She supposed he was probably blowing through his restitution funds in five star hotels, but somehow, she couldn’t quite picture it. The anxiety of not knowing where he was going or what he was doing was eating her alive, but he was never there to ask anymore. The thought of someone finding him, hurting him, and her not knowing because she had pushed him away, made her almost mad with an unsubstantiated grief. 

Every day she would walk through the house, hoping to find evidence that he’d been there, but their distance had made him tidier than he had ever bothered to be before. There was not so much as a teaspoon left in the sink whenever she returned in the afternoon. He had become a ghost in the home, in their home, because that was what Grimmauld Place had become to her, only she had come upon the revelation too late. She hadn’t realised what a constant, stabilising calm his presence had become to her until she lost it; every disturbing report from Harry regarding the rise in political tension left her hands twitching for a grasp that wouldn’t come, her heart beating erratically, waiting to be soothed by the feeling of a warm chest that was not present to alleviate the cold in her. 

She could not bring herself to maintain a consistent schedule of anything with him so distant. Before, she had risen when he had, eaten when he had, brushed her teeth when he had. To need to look after him had been easy, startlingly easy, but to care for herself felt like an insurmountable task that she had no wish to put energy towards. To care for him had been an escape, one she had enjoyed whilst she had been capable of it. Now, bereft of it, the feeling of being present and truly there in her own life had come back to her, and she hated it. No matter how many people her and Harry interrogated, no matter how much she quizzed Theo about the abduction attempt that had been made on him, she could not outrun herself forever. Every night, sat in silence, she was forced to return to the ugly truth of herself, and she found that individual much more difficult to harbour any regard for than she ever had with him. 

In the recesses of her heart, she wanted to stay. Intellectually, she wanted to leave. Like him, she seemed to have formed a habit in the cold pleasure of punishing herself, though her methodology was different from his. The tender ache for him was something comfortable, something familiar in the way it made her bleed, a cross she bore willingly. If he couldn’t bear to be in her presence, then she would languish in the absence of him. Even if her sadness was a dark shadow, it was at least one that his figure cast.

When Hermione and Harry had gone to speak to Theo, it had just made her imagined grief worse. The same terror of something happening to Draco she felt constantly was a manifested reality for them, in the desperate panic in Pansy’s eyes, the hollow defeat in Theo’s, as if it had always been inevitable. Pansy had spent the entire conversation half angled towards the door, wand in hand, eyes flicking to the handle constantly. The only time her gaze lingered somewhere else was when it rested upon the bruises on Theo’s neck, the bandages on his chest, and she seemed to never be able to keep her focus there for long.

 Pansy had left him alone for five minutes. Five minutes to go get coffee, and that was all it had taken for the three figures to attempt to subdue and shackle him. Hermione could barely cope to listen to the story, because she was too busy counting the never ending multiples of five minutes Draco was spending away from her, thinking of all of the disgusting opportunities those could entail for people that wanted to hurt him. 

It was made even worse when Theo suggested that he should let himself be captured again.

“Granger, surely you see some sense in this? Pansy’s group members are dropping like flies, and it’s not just them. There aren’t going to be enough of us left to stare wistfully into the fire and feel bad about the past soon enough. Someone has to do something.”

She could see some sense in it. The clarity of the sense she saw in it was so dazzling that it burned away any moral thought in her head. It was clear that they wanted to capture him alive. And if he was willing… it could be the lead they needed. A subtle tracking charm. A few hours of hardship for him for a real, meaningful chance to find out who these people were and destroy them. And that ever growing sick, twisted part of her saw in his offer the potential utility of using him to keep Draco safe. 

It was only when Theo said the words plainly that Hermione realised how very far she had drifted from the person she had liked to think that she was.

“If you’re willing to let me be bait,” Theo said, and he spoke seriously in a way she hadn’t heard before, “I’ll do it. I’ll let them take me for a bit. My life is good now, Hermione. Really good. You did that for me.” He looked at Pansy, who wouldn’t meet his eyes, face turned away in anger. “I want to make sure the others get their chance too.”

Pansy’s hand curled white around the arm of her chair. “Absolutely not,” she said. The word came out small and taut. “Theo, you are not doing that. Do you hear me? I will not let you be used as bait. If Granger even so much as considers letting this happen, I’ll fucking kill her.”

Theo looked back at Hermione, and for a moment he looked younger than he had any right to be. “You already gave me my second chance,” he said. “Why won’t you let me do the same thing for everyone else?”

Pansy’s face was almost despairing in a way Hermione had never seen before. “If they take you, they will hurt you. I can not watch anyone else be hurt by this war. It never ends. I’m sick of it. I’m so, so sick of it.”

Hermione watched them both and felt the coarse, culpable part of herself, an animalised logic that she didn’t like, lean forward in her chest. She could see how desperate Theo looked as he offered himself. She could see the small eagerness in his eyes that had nothing to do with courage and everything to do with being useful again. Harry didn’t need to be asked twice to be angry.

“I’m not letting anyone play martyr,” he snapped, and though the words were aimed at Theo, they landed heavy at Hermione’s feet. His eyes flicked to her, guarded and unblinking. 

“Hermione, I know that look. Forget it. I won’t have civilians risk themselves because you want revenge.”

Her heart reacted before her head could step in. The single, reflexive answer she had for every conversation of late rose hot in her throat. “It’s not about me wanting revenge,” she said, calm as she could keep her voice. “It’s about finding them before they find someone else. If we can get them to take someone alive, we can trace them. We can stop them.”

“You’re talking about putting a person in harm’s way,” Harry said. “My responsibility is to keep people safe. I’ll get warrants to investigate the rest of the list. I’ll get-”

“You’ll get paperwork that takes weeks,” Hermione cut in, the words sharper than she intended. “Weeks we might not have. You know how quickly these things escalate. We’re not playing at bureaucracy for the sake of our consciences. We’re trying to stop torture, kidnapping, murders. How many more people need to suffer before you see that what we’re doing isn’t enough? Or was Draco’s five years of torture in Azkaban not enough to convince you?”

Harry’s jaw flexed. “Don’t twist this into some sort of pragmatic rhetoric to justify putting someone at risk.”

She fell silent, because his words were simple and true but not the whole thing, not by half. She felt the argument unspool under her feet. 

“You’re not going to listen to anything I say about this,” she said finally, so quietly Harry almost didn’t hear her.

He did. “No,” he said. “I’m not.”

Her fingers tightened on the copy of the list she’d been holding, and for a second the edges of the world sharpened into glass. “Then we have to find another way,” she said numbly.

They left Theo and Pansy with no resolution, the room thick as if the idea itself had made the air harder to breathe. On the way back to the Ministry, Harry tried to broker alternatives, but Hermione’s mind had retreated down an anxious corridor. Her hands were cold in her pockets. Every time she blinked she saw Draco, again and again, slumped in the chair Anderson had died in, one arm suspended, dead cold face contorted in the horror of a silent scream.

“I’m going to Grimmauld place,” she said. “I need to speak to Draco. He has a right to know what’s happening.”

“Hermione, don’t. You promised me.”

“Please.” She looked at him. There was a particular pleading she did not give often, and Harry seemed to realise it, because there was surprise in his expression. “I need him to know that someone is trying to make him a target. He’s avoiding me, going out all of the time. What if someone takes him Harry? I couldn’t live with myself.”

He clearly didn’t like it. But with a long, unhappy exhale and half a dozen failed appeals he let her go, and Hermione had the curious sensation of being granted a release and a burden at the same time.

Grimmauld Place felt like a familiar stranger these days, something she was supposed to know, but didn’t anymore. Hermione slipped off her shoes, her bones aching with exhaustion. She had to talk to him. Had to try. She couldn’t bear another night with the silence between them stretching and stretching until something inside her snapped.

 When she walked down the hall she told herself she’d be matter-of-fact and brief. Draco stood by the window in the living room when she found him, outline pale against the panes of glass just starting to mist at the corners, his back a rigid shadow. When she called his name he did not turn.

“You weren’t at breakfast earlier today,” she said, and the sentence came out more like an accusation than she intended it to.

He said nothing. She moved to his side because she had no other rituals left. She had learned to read him the way people read weather, and tonight the forecast said storm.

“Draco. Did you hear me?” she tried.

He wouldn’t turn, but she could see his reflection in the window. His face had a kind of neutrality that wasn’t neutral at all, but a carefully arranged absence ready to be weaponised. 

“You said I wasn’t at breakfast. That is a statement.” he said. The phrasing had the dullness of someone returning an order. He didn’t move. 

Hermione hesitated, afraid that if she spoke, if she broke the quiet, he might vanish into it. “I’ve barely seen you lately,” she said, softly.

“That is also a statement,” he replied. His tone wasn’t cruel, just flat. He turned his head to the smallest degree. “Are you planning to keep making astute observations at me, or did you have a question hidden somewhere in there?”

She swallowed. “Where have you been?”

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t followed, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It’s not,” she said. “Not only that.”

Silence. Tentative. Living glass, waiting to see which of them would shatter it first. Her.

“Theo was attacked.”

That got his attention. He turned his head to her sharply. “What?”

“In Hogsmeade,” she said, words quick, tumbling out before she lost her nerve. “Three men, not identified yet. They tried to take him alive, Pansy managed to fight them off. He’s bruised, shaken, but alive.”

The mask of disinterest that had clung to Draco’s face slipped in an instant. The air seemed to darken around him. “They tried to take him?”

Hermione nodded. “Yes.”

His breath hitched once, and then he moved, not far, but suddenly, pacing a few short steps before stopping again. His hands came up to his temples, fingers pressing hard, as if to push the thought back into his brain. “Alive. They tried to take him alive.” 

She nodded again, helplessly. She felt that everything she was telling him was making things worse, but at least he was finally talking to her. He had a right to know, no matter how unpleasant it was for the both of them.  “We think it’s connected. Harry found something when we were investigating Anderson’s house. A list. Names. We think it’s connected to the same people who…”

She couldn’t finish. The words fell apart before they reached the air. But she didn’t have to. He froze, the restless pacing cut short. “The same people who what, Hermione?”

It was so strange that Hermione had become the word he would use for her when being distant now. She was Granger to him. Always Granger. It was their one constant. She forced the words through her throat. “Who tortured you.”

It was like striking flint against steel, the electric feeling of dread that seemed to radiate from him. He turned away from her, one hand braced hard against the window frame as if he needed it to remain standing.

Hermione’s hand hovered towards him, cautious, but stopped when she saw his reflection in the glass. He laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. Not quite laughter, no, something more akin to the sound an animal caught in a snare might make. “You think.” He dragged one hand through his hair again, and seemed to almost be speaking to himself as he addressed his own reflection. “And what exactly does your thinking amount to this time? Another heroic crusade?”

The switch in his demeanour gave her whiplash. He hadn’t been like this in months, and for him to be acting in this way again made her wonder just how much progress she’d destroyed in him recently without meaning to. “I know this is probably difficult to hear, Draco. I’m sorry. ” She almost could have laughed at how corporate she sounded, if the circumstances had been anything to laugh about. 

“You have no idea,” he said, voice pulled taut. “You have no idea what they did to me. You’ve sat in a few useless fucking therapy sessions, you know the injuries, but you don’t know.” He turned on her then, eyes alive with an almost manic despair. “You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know.” 

Then, suddenly, he was banging his fists against his head, hard enough for her to hear his knuckles cracking against his skull. She flinched at the sudden violence of it, taken aback. She had never seen him like this, not even when she’d pulled him out of Azkaban. She moved quickly, reaching for his wrists to make him stop, but the second her hands touched him, the contact detonated through him. His whole body recoiled, a violent shudder, and he tore himself free, stumbling back into the corner of the room as if the walls behind him could offer some form of protection. In the starless, stormy seas of his eyes it was horror, all raw, cold horror.

“Don’t touch me!”

He looked utterly terrified of her now, as if it was her who was suddenly holding the sickly blade of torture against him. His chest was rising and falling in shallow breaths. She couldn’t understand why he had recoiled to her touch so much, after so many months of finding quiet comfort in it, and the sight of his vulnerability cut through her in jagged stabs to her chest.

“Draco, please. Please breathe. It’s ok. I’m sorry. I’m not going to touch you unless you tell me I can, alright? But you can’t hit yourself like that.”

He pressed himself against the wall, chest heaving. The colour had drained from his face. His eyes darted between her and his own hands, as if trying to decide which frightened him more.

“You can’t touch me. You can’t. You can’t…” It sounded to her more like he was trying to convince himself than her. 

“I won’t,” she said quickly, though the words scraped against her throat. “I won’t, I promise.”

He nodded once, or maybe it was a tremor, and then pressed both hands over his mouth like he was trying to stop himself from being sick. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He kept repeating it, over and over again, until it was just his lips mouthing the words silently. 

“You don’t need to say sorry, Draco. I’m just worried about you. What can I do?”

He ran his fingers through his hair again, pulling at the roots until it must have hurt. He dropped his gaze to the floor. “It’s nothing. Just…” he paused for a while, face caught in a grimace, trying to force the words out. “I… had a rough session yesterday in therapy. I can still feel their touch sometimes, like it’s under my skin. No matter what I do, it won’t come off.”

Her throat tightened. “Does that happen often?”

He stood there, breathing through it, shallow at first, then deeper, more deliberate. The sound of the elastic band on his wrist snapping against his skin filled the space in short, irregular beats. A grounding ritual, she realised. Each flick brought him closer to the present until the tremor in his hands eased, until his shoulders stopped shaking.

“Not really,” he said finally. “It’s… it’s not often. But when it happens-” he snapped the band again, lighter this time, “-it’s bad.”

Hermione stayed where she was, watching him with careful stillness. “What made it happen now?”

He hesitated, eyes unfocused. “It started again when you pushed me away the other day. When you said I was manipulating you. But just now, I think it was the thought of them capturing me again.”

Her stomach twisted. “Draco, I didn’t mean-”

He cut her off, weary. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.” He took another breath, but it came out fractured. “It’s not about blame. It’s just… it hit something I didn’t know was still alive in me.”

Hermione frowned, trying to understand. “I don’t follow.”

His eyes closed, pale lashes fluttering against skin. “When I was inside,” he began slowly, “Sometimes they did… certain things.” He swallowed, words catching. “And sometimes, I initiated them.”

She felt her pulse in her throat. “Things?”

He nodded once. He seemed unable to meet her eyes, or perhaps it was that he was no longer in the room with her at all, because his gaze seemed transfixed on some distant and desolate place within his own mind. “When I started it, it was my choice. It meant they couldn’t take it from me again, because I was giving it to them.” He let out a shaky, humourless breath. 

“It was the only way I could convince myself I still had a say in what happened to me.” He smiled, but there was nothing in him, as if he had washed both the broken and the whole parts of his being down the drain. “I think that’s why everything is so confusing for me right now. When you said that, it reminded me of when I did have to manipulate in… that kind of way. Made me feel like I was back there.” 

Hermione’s heart cracked open. “Draco… I’m so, so sorry.”

He pressed the heel of his hand against his chest, as though trying to scrape something out from under his skin. “I can’t wash it off. I’ve tried. I’ve tried so many times. I just want it gone.” His lip curled in self-disgust, and he looked down at his palms, turning them over and rubbing at them. “These hands…” 

Her own hands twitched uselessly at her sides. The urge to reach for him was unbearable, but so was the knowledge that touch had become a language of threat for him, a language she could no longer speak. The sight of him, the trembling fingers, the hollowed face, the quiet devastation, made something inside her fracture. She remembered mornings when his touch had been steady, deliberate, grounding. When she’d woken to the heat of his hand on her wrist, his thumb brushing her pulse as though confirming she was real. That same hand now shook like it belonged to someone else entirely.

“Draco,” she said softly. “You don’t have to keep punishing yourself for surviving.”

“Surviving was the punishment.”

Hermione wanted to tell him he was wrong, that he wasn’t what they had made him, that he was still whole somewhere beneath the ruin, but she couldn’t. Because she wasn’t sure he would believe her. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure she believed it herself. She took a slow step forward, careful to keep the air between them calm, deliberate. “You’re not dirty,” she whispered, but the words came out almost soundless, because on some level, she knew he would not hear them.

He shook his head without looking up. “I’ll never be clean again. It is what it is.”

Hermione’s heart felt heavy enough to crush her lungs. She wished, absurdly, that she could peel the pain from him and take it into herself, absorb it, burn it away. But there were some wounds you couldn’t take from someone else. You could only stand in the smoke of them, breathing it in.

He dragged in a breath and forced it out again, slower this time. “It’s better now,” he murmured. “I can breathe. Just… not when I think about it too much.”

Hermione nodded, even though he wasn’t looking. “Alright. You don’t have to talk about it anymore.”

He finally lifted his gaze to her.

“You shouldn’t have to see me like this.”

She’d heard him say that so many times, and each time the words were uttered, they were more and more unbearable to listen to. “I want to,” she said before she could stop herself. “I don’t care what you’re like, as long as I get to see you. I’d rather see this then not see you at all.”

There was a quiet, subtle spark in his eyes, a certain softening of his brow, the ghost of a smile. It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was the closest thing to it he seemed to have left.

The days folded into one another with an uneven and weightless quality. Draco still came and went like a shadow, and Hermione found herself mimicking him, drifting through the rooms without touching anything, without leaving so much as a fingerprint. There was something decidedly less frosty in their interactions now however, as if the absence between them was made of tentative gentleness instead of cold. It felt as if they were two ghosts that would dematerialise should they ever touch, yet could not help but remain in a tense and uneasy orbit around one another.

It was during one of these still, hollow days that Narcissa arrived. Hermione heard the knock first, soft, almost hesitant. When she opened the door, Narcissa stood tall in the doorway, composed but wan, the kind of pallor that came from sleepless nights rather than winter cold. “Is he here?” she asked gently. Hermione nodded. Narcissa did not step inside until Hermione moved aside, and even then she entered as though the house were a chapel, something sacred, something breakable. She said nothing more, simply ascended the stairs with an eerie, floating grace, her heels barely whispering against the steps.

Hermione did not follow. 

The muffled voices upstairs stretched for nearly an hour, indistinct, impossible to read. Sometimes she caught the cadence of Narcissa’s voice, soft, imploring, and sometimes Draco’s, lower, strained, frayed around the edges like cloth worn thin. When Narcissa eventually came back down, her expression had been smoothed into a flawless poise. But her eyes were reddened. She touched Hermione’s arm in passing, a light, trembling press of fingers, then disapparated from the front step without a word.

A few minutes later, Draco appeared at the foot of the stairs.

He looked drained, as if whatever had been said had wounded him further. Usually Narcissa’s presence was a calming balm to him, bringing a quiet to his tremors that even Hermione could not hope to instil in him. Not today. He had something in his disposition that she couldn’t place, but instinctively recognised as a precursor to shutting down entirely.

“What happened?” she asked softly, careful not to sound like she was asking too much of him.

He didn’t meet her eyes. He shook his head once, a small, brittle movement. “She wants me to come home.”

“Oh,” Hermione whispered. By home he meant Malfoy Manor. Not Grimmauld place. Of course he did. Of course his mother would call him back eventually. She wondered if the woman had finally grown tired of lying to her husband, or if she had grown tired of lying to Hermione herself about keeping Draco out of that house. There was nothing in the Unbreakable Vow, after all, that forbade Narcissa from asking Draco to come home. If he really wanted to go, there was nothing Hermione could do to stop it. Despite any misgivings she had about Lucius and any resentment Draco harboured against him, the man was still his father. It would only be natural that Draco return eventually. Whether that was a good thing or not, she wasn’t sure. 

He nodded again, as if confirming it to himself. Then, without another word, he crossed into the kitchen. The sounds he made there were subdued, the soft clink of a teacup, the faint hiss of boiling water. Every motion seemed measured, almost ritualistic, as though the act of making tea was all that kept him tethered to the room. When he returned to the hall, he held the steaming cup in both hands. His eyes flicked toward her once, a brief, fragile acknowledgement, then he turned and went back upstairs. The house swallowed him again.

Work offered no comfort. Harry collected her early the next morning, and together they revisited two of the more willing names on the list. Lee Jordan greeted them with a broad grin and absolutely no useful information. He paced as he spoke, leaping from theory to theory with manic enthusiasm, everything from a list of potential wedding invites to someone slipping his name there as a joke.

“I mean, sure, I’ve annoyed people,” he said cheerfully. “But enough to kill people? Or to be killed? Hermione, Hermione. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. Harry wrote something in his notebook purely out of habit, but when she glanced over, it was just the wordless scribble of his pen.

Hannah Abbott, who had declined their initial request to talk, was different. Polite, warm on the surface, but evasive. Strangely so. Her eyes flickered around the room, and several times she redirected questions with a practiced ease Hermione did not like at all. After they left, Harry closed the file with a sharp snap.

“She’s hiding something,” he said flatly.

Hermione nodded. “Clearly. Start digging. Family, employment, friends, anything you can get.”

“I will.”

The day was far from over. They still had Neville.

Harry, wanting to strike whilst the iron was still hot, had disappeared to gather information on Abbott. To Hermione’s surprise, Ron was waiting for her outside of Neville’s house, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Their greeting was stiff, not hostile, but edged with the brittle politeness of people who used to know each other too well. Neville, by contrast, lit up the moment he saw them. He ushered them inside, brushing soil off a table so they could sit, smiling that earnest, open smile that had never changed.

He was cooperative. Friendly. But confused. Thoroughly confused.

“I don’t understand why I’d be on a list like this,” he said, brow creasing. “I haven’t done anything noteworthy in years. Unless overwatering mandrakes is suddenly a crime.”

Ron snorted. “Well, Jordan and Abbott weren’t much help either-”

Hermione shot him a sharp look. “Ron.”

Ron blinked. “What?”

Of course he’d just dropped two suspect names casually. She wondered how on earth he’d ever been an Auror in the first place - he had never been good at keeping secrets. 

Something flickered across Neville’s face. Barely a muscle, barely a shadow, but Hermione saw it. A pause. 

“Who else was on the list?” Neville asked quietly.

Hermione’s stomach tightened. “I can’t tell you that.”

Neville stared at them for a long moment. Then he nodded. 

“I see.”

It was the first time Hermione had ever felt unwelcome in his home.

By evening, the weight of the day, the useless interviews, the fracture in her oldest friendships, pressed down on her shoulders so heavily she could barely take one step in front of the other. The thought of returning to Grimmauld Place felt unbearable. Going back to Grimmauld Place felt, in a way, like facing her many failures. The guilt, the tension, the distance between her and Draco, the knowledge that every day she was failing him a little more, twisted inside her like a blade. She’d already failed him emotionally, now she couldn’t even feel like he was safe anymore.

So she didn’t go home. She went to her flat instead.

The door clicked shut behind her with a hollow finality. The air was cold. Still. Quiet in the wrong way. She stood in the middle of the living room, coat still on, and felt the emptiness settle around her like dust.

Grimmauld Place had felt like a home she wasn’t allowed to admit she needed. This place felt like nothing at all. She sat on the cold edge of her sofa, hands folded in her lap, staring at the blank wall as though it might rearrange itself into an answer if she looked hard enough. For a moment she simply breathed, trying to adjust to the stillness of a flat she had all but abandoned, trying to reconcile herself to the truth that if Draco decided to leave Grimmauld Place, truly leave her, this empty, echoing quiet was what she would return to each night.

She would have to relearn the shape of solitude. She would have to relearn how to sleep without the faint reassurance of footsteps somewhere in the house, or the restless shifting of floorboards in the early hours, or the knowledge that a closed door upstairs meant he was there, safe, present, reachable.

The thought of losing that, losing him, rose in her like a tide, hot and sudden, an ache that caught her off-guard and climbed up her throat with the dizzying force of panic. She pressed her palm hard against her ribs, willing herself to breathe evenly, to keep the edges of the anxiety from fraying into something unmanageable. She told herself she was being absurd, irrational, dramatic. But her body didn’t care about logic or restraint; it recognised loss before her mind did, and recoiled from it with sharp instinct.

It wasn’t the flat that felt wrong, she realised. And it wasn’t Grimmauld Place that felt like home. It was living alongside Draco. The strange, fragile domesticity they’d stumbled into, the steady pulse of his presence, the way the air in a room shifted when he entered it and somehow eased. Home had crept up on her quietly, unnoticed, and now that she was standing here without it, she felt its absence like a bruise pressed from the inside.

Her thoughts, treacherous and unbidden, drifted to the moors. To the wind lifting the hair from her face, to the sunset painting him in those impossible colours, gold deepening into rose, rose softening into violet, and the look in his eyes when he leaned toward her, something vulnerable and open and unbearably human. She remembered how that kiss had tasted of cold air and longing and the sense, just for a moment, of stepping into a version of herself she hadn’t known she could be. She’d been happy, truly, quietly happy, in a way she never had before.

And the morning in Grimmauld Place, heat pooling in her cheeks as the memory rose unbidden. The warmth of his body against hers, the hesitant reverence of his hands, the way he had touched her like she was something breakable but also something he wanted, something he’d been starved of without realising it until that moment. It had been a kind of intimacy she’d never experienced, not transactional, not dutiful, not performative. It had been human, messy, real. That had felt like home too. Not the bedding, not the room, not the house. Him.

A tremor slipped through her as she wiped hastily at her eyes. It was humiliating to cry alone in her own living room, but she couldn’t stop the truth from settling in. She had never felt so thoroughly seen by anyone in her life. Not Harry, not Ron, not even the friends she trusted most. Draco understood her in ways she didn’t understand herself, saw the architecture of her fears and the fault lines in her composure without needing to be told where they ran. They fit together with a strange inevitability, two halves of the same whole, shaped differently, fractured differently, but moving in the same direction.

And yet she didn’t know what he felt. Not truly. She could guess at it, the way he softened around her, the way he looked at her sometimes as though he was trying to memorise something he didn’t believe he was allowed to keep, but desire born of deprivation was not the same as choice. Attachment formed in the dark was not the same as fondness shaped in the light. She knew that. She reminded herself of it often.

But still, she wondered, in some quiet part of herself, whether it mattered at all. Whether two people who had survived enough ruin to break a lesser pair were allowed to find something halfway between comfort and need and call it enough.

The air in the flat pressed in around her, stale with neglect. She inhaled and winced at the faint undertone of rot that lingered. The windowsills were flecked with mould, the wallpaper bubbled in places from trapped damp, and the dust on the furniture had thickened into a visible film. She drifted to her bookshelf on instinct, fingertips brushing the spines as though the books might ground her. She reached for one, paused, returned it. Reach, pause, return. It took her several minutes to realise she wasn’t choosing anything she wanted to read, her hand kept gravitating toward titles she thought Draco would like, or might have mocked gently, or might have stolen from the shelf to prove her ‘tragic taste.’

In the kitchen, the fridge greeted her with the sour, decaying stench of long-forgotten milk. She recoiled as the smell hit her, breathing through her sleeve as she fumbled the swollen carton into a bin bag. When she lifted it, a cluster of sluggish black flies crawled from beneath the bottle, their wings buzzing dully in the dim light.

Her stomach lurched. Suddenly she was back in Anderson’s house, the cold dead eyes of his child, the cloying smell of rot and stillness, the sickening knowledge that she had arrived too late to save anyone. Her vision wavered and she snatched the bag closed with shaking fingers, as though sealing it shut could banish the memory.

She fled into the corridor, the bag clutched at arm’s length, her breath shuddering as she pushed through the door into the biting evening air. The cold hit her like a cleansing shock, sharp and mercifully real, and she stood there for a moment beside the bins, letting the wind strip the last of the panic from her lungs.

When she finally dropped the rubbish into the bin and let the lid fall closed with a dull thud, she pressed both hands to the metal and bowed her head.

She didn’t want to go back inside. She didn’t want to be in this flat, or Grimmauld Place, or anywhere that wasn’t shaped by the sound of Draco’s laughter or the weight of his silence.

The thought hadn’t fully left her, the cold metal of the bin lid still beneath her palms, when the world tore itself apart.

A soundless pressure bloomed behind her. A sudden, violent swell of heat and force, and then the explosion hit her like a giant unseen fist. The earth ripped out from under her feet. She was airborne for a breathless, impossible instant before the ground surged up to meet her, slamming her down so hard the shock punched the air from her lungs.

Her back lit up in a searing, molten agony, as though someone had pressed a branding iron straight into her spine. All around her the world became fire and shrapnel and impossible brightness. the night ripped open by a light so fierce it turned her vision white. Glass rained from the sky in fractured rain, fragments skittering across the pavement and slicing against stone with delicate, sharp whispers.

A high, piercing ringing filled her head. She couldn’t hear her own gasp, couldn’t hear anything at all. The world spun wildly, tilting on an axis she couldn’t find, and there was so much pain, blooming, expanding, devouring her thoughts until she was reduced to nothing but instinct.

She forced herself onto her side, the movement tearing a ragged cry from her throat as her back screamed in protest. Something wet ran down her leg, warm and steady and wrong. She looked down and choked. A length of jagged glass, as long as her forearm, was embedded high in her thigh, glistening darkly as blood pulsed around it, spilling hot across her skin, soaking her trousers, the ground, everything.

In the delirium, she forced herself to wrench her swimming eyes upwards and blink through the tears. Her flat, the home she’d barely stepped into, the space she’d tried to reclaim, was completely gone.

A roaring inferno devoured its remains, flames clawing up into the night sky. The air wavered with heat, the smoke roiled thick and black, and the building sagged inward like a dying creature, windows vomiting fire where glass had once been.

Through the distortion, something moved.

A figure stepped out of the smoke, slow, deliberate, robed, wand raised, their silhouette carved into the flames behind them. For one terrible heartbeat Hermione couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but stare.

Then they raised their arm. Green light surged toward her in a violent arc.

Hermione screamed, not a cry but a raw, primal sound ripped from deep in her chest, and rolled on instinct, dragging the shard deeper into her leg as the curse hit the pavement beside her with a crack that vibrated through her bones. Her back hit the ground and stars burst across her vision, pain flooding every nerve. She tasted blood. She tasted smoke. She tasted the metallic terror of knowing she was going to die.

She didn’t think. She didn’t have time to think. If she thought, she would die, and there would be no one left to protect him. She apparated, and agony cleaved through her.

The world folded around her with a sickening twist, and when she hit the cobblestones outside Grimmauld Place the pain was amplified a hundredfold, an electric, ripping detonation across her body that made her whole vision blacken at the edges. A wet, tearing sensation ran along her side and she realised dimly, distantly, that she must have splinched herself. The blood that had been soaking her thigh now saturated her entire hip, her hands, her clothes; she was slick with it, trembling, her thoughts dissolving like ash in water.

She tried to stand but her leg buckled, the shard grinding sickeningly deeper, and she collapsed to her knees. The world swayed. The houses around her shimmered and blurred, stretching into strange crooked shapes as her consciousness flickered.

She crawled. Inch by inch, dragging her useless leg behind her, fingers slipping in the thick trail of blood she was leaving across the pavement. Every movement sent a bolt of torment through her spine, ripping another breathless cry from her lungs. The cold stones scraped her palms raw. The night around her tilted and spun, but she kept going, because stopping meant dying here, alone, on the street, and leaving him with no one.

Reaching the steps of Grimmauld Place felt like reaching a mountain. She grasped the edge of the first step and hauled herself upward, her arm shaking violently beneath her. Then another. Then another. Somewhere along the way she lost track of her breath, lost track of her limbs, lost track of anything but the next inch forward.

Her mind was a thin, flickering thread. She reached the top step and slumped against the door, her fingers fumbling uselessly at the handle. Her vision was swimming now, dark spots flickering in and out like dying sparks. She managed to lift her hand once, leaving a wet, red print across the black wood. Her strength failed her on the second attempt.

She banged her fist against the door. a weak, pitiful sound compared to the roaring in her ears, and the shock of movement sent a spike of agony up her arm so sharp she nearly blacked out right there. She tried again, another dull thud of knuckles against wood, and felt her body sway, fading, sinking.

A crack of light. A voice, or maybe she imagined it. She couldn’t hear anything through the ringing now. Hermione lifted her head with the last scraps of will she possessed. She saw a blur of pale hair, a familiar shape, a silhouette she had spent months memorising, and then the world slid sideways.

Chapter Text

Consciousness returned to her in drifting, trembling waves, not rising, not falling, but unfurling, like smoke stirred by the slightest breath of wind. The world blurred at the edges, colours bleeding into one another until everything was red and white and unbearably bright. And there, in the centre of it, the only fixed point in the spinning universe, was Draco.

There was red everywhere, on him, on her, on the floor, seeping into the very air. Crimson blooming like violent flowers across her vision, too bright, too much, swallowing the shape of the hallway. For a moment she thought she’d fallen into that colour entirely, lost inside it. She heard a voice, a low, frantic murmur, trembling with spells cast too quickly, syllables tripping over one another. Draco’s magic pulsed weakly, flickering like a candle in a storm. He was trying to heal her. Trying everything. She could feel it failing.

He held her as though he had been born to do so, as though the space between his arms had always been waiting for her to fill it. His grip was fierce and frantic, fingers digging into her back, pressing into wounds that burned like stars collapsing. Yet even the pain felt distant, muted, softened beneath the weight of his desperation, as if her body understood before her mind that hurt and safety had never been mutually exclusive with him. She was in his arms, the world heaving around them, and some small, foolish part of her nearly smiled. His grip was agonisingly painful, but wasn’t it always with him? Of course it hurt, even when he was trying to save her; of course she would still lean into it. Pain always came with him. Pain always meant she was still alive.

Her blood was everywhere, dark, shining, pooling in obscene rivers beneath them, but all she could see was the way his hands trembled as he touched her, the way his breath shook as it ghosted across her cheek. The hallway seemed to tilt and sway, swallowed by ribbons of crimson that pulsed like a living thing. She was drowning in the tides of her own death, yet she felt anchored, tethered to him by something stronger than pain for the first time.

She resurfaced from the deep pool within herself with a gasp when agony knifed through her thigh. A sob tore from her without permission. Draco’s voice fractured beside her ear.

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry. Stay with me, please, stay. Keep your eyes open, don’t- don’t go, I can’t- You can’t leave me like this, you can’t-”

His hands, slick with her blood, cupped her face, stroked her hair, pressed against her wounds in helpless rhythm. His palms left smears across her ribs, her throat, her collarbone, painting her in the colours of fear and devotion. It should have been grotesque, but instead it soothed her like a lullaby, the warmth of him, the weight of him, the way he touched her as though trying to map every last inch before she slipped beyond reach.

He bent his head and pressed a trembling kiss to her forehead, a quiet, shattering benediction. His tears fell with it, silver beads catching in her hair, blending with the blood, with the smoke, with everything breaking between them.

He kissed her again, harder this time, a sob tearing itself loose against her skin.

“Please,” he whispered into her hairline, voice splintering. “Please, Hermione, please. I’m begging you, stay with me, I can’t- I can’t do this alone-”

A rustle, a frantic fumbling, and then she heard the faint echo of Harry’s voice through Draco’s phone, startled, urgent.

“Malfoy? What’s-”

“Potter, please!” Draco choked, swallowing a sob. “She’s dying, I don’t know what to do, my magic isn’t enough-it’s not enough-tell me what to do-please, I’ll do anything, anything- just save her-”

Hermione wanted to reach for him. Wanted to tell him she was here, that she was trying, that he didn’t need to beg because she’d stay for him, she would always stay for him. But her body was heavy and her thoughts too sluggish to push the words through her lips.

She hadn’t even noticed that she’d fallen asleep again until she felt the warmth of his breath on her face. He pressed his forehead to hers, breath ragged, lips brushing her brow.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, so soft it might have been a prayer. “Don’t leave me, please… I don’t know how to be alive without you.”

And suddenly, through the haze of agony and the creeping chill of shock, clarity cut through her with exquisite precision.

She had wasted so much time. So much, and now it was too late. So many hours tangled in fear and pride and the belief that caring for him was somehow dangerous or foolish or unwelcome. She had built walls to protect herself from the very thing she needed. She had caused him pain, and herself even more, because she had been too frightened to admit that she wanted him, simply, quietly, wholly.

Wasted time.

Wasted hurt.

Wasted chances.

In the end, it had never been complicated at all. She was just a woman who had fallen for a man. A woman who loved the way his eyes softened when he let his guard slip. A woman who cherished his silence and his sharpness and his smiles and his sorrow. A woman who felt more at home in the curve of his neck than in any house she’d ever lived in. 

That was all.

That was enough.

It had always been enough.

That was all. That was the sum of everything: And now here, in his arms and covered in guilt and blood and regret, she was realising too late that none of the reasons she’d held herself apart had ever mattered.

Her vision flickered again, white to silver, silver to grey, grey to black, grey, grey to black, but she forced her gaze upward, toward him. His hair hung around them like a curtain of pale silk, his eyes molten with terror, his lips parted in a soundless plea.

She breathed his name.

“Draco…”

He jerked closer, clutching her hand so tightly she felt the echo of his heartbeat through his palm.

“I’m here, I’m right here. Don’t go… please…”

His hair had fallen forward, dripping into his eyes, sticking to his forehead with sweat and blood. His face was ashen; his jaw clenched so tightly she could see it trembling. His eyes, his luminous eyes, argent and liquid, spilling with a panic she had never seen in him before. Tears streaked clean paths down his blood-marked cheeks. Her lips curved, faint and tremulous, shaped by instinct, by truth, by the last thing she wanted him to know.

“You’re… so beautiful…”

His breath hitched, a wounded animal sound, and tears fell from his lashes onto her cheeks like rain.

“Hermione, don’t. Please don’t-”

But the world was folding inward, soft and dark and irresistible, and she felt herself slipping beneath it like a stone sinking into deep water. The last thing she knew was the warmth of his hands on her skin, his voice fracturing against her name, and the taste of regret and love and longing on her tongue.

Draco’s voice followed her as she sank.

“You can’t… Hermione, look at me, please… please…just live...”

His words dissolved into the dark with her.

Warmth reached her first.

It wrapped around her like a heavy blanket pulled up to her chin, dense and soothing, and for one suspended, drifting moment she thought she must be dead. Death, she decided hazily, wasn’t frightening at all. It was soft. It was quiet. It was a cosy bed on a winter morning, a place where burdens finally loosened their claws.

If this was the end, she didn’t mind it. She could rest here. She could finally rest.

But then the warmth shifted, and a small splinter of discomfort pierced through it. A pressure. A throb. A memory of sensation she hadn’t invited in. The faintest echo of pain. No. Not an echo. The beginning. A creeping heat coiled up her spine, then burrowed into the muscles of her thigh, tightening with slow insistence. Another sharp sting flared across her hip, travelling up into her left arm like a whispered warning. The pain grew in her, heavy roots that blossomed into agonising trees within her lungs.

Oh, she thought with a dull, weary disappointment. Not dead at all. This was life. This was always life. The fragile illusion of comfort shattered by the inevitable return of pain.  A rhythm she knew too well, softness, then truth. Warmth, then the cold. A moment of quiet followed by the dreary disappointment of being alive.

She breathed, or tried to. and her chest pulled against something tight. A bandage. A restraint. A reminder. She attempted to open her eyes, but light speared straight into her skull, crude and merciless. She hissed softly and closed them again, waiting for the world to shrink back into something she could bear. A minute passed, or perhaps a lifetime; time was for other people now.

She twitched a leg experimentally. A dull ache radiated up her thigh, deep and bruised, but present, responsive. Her hip throbbed beneath her, raw and tender. When she flexed the fingers of her left hand, something warm pressed back. A heavy, warm hand in hers. Even through the fog, even through the pain, she knew who would be holding her hand, the instinctive curl of it around her own. Her heart stuttered and settled, something inside her loosening in quiet relief.

Him. Of course Draco would stay. Of course he would hold on even when she couldn’t. No matter what he said, he’d always been so much stronger than her. Something in her unlatched. Some anchored part of her exhaled. She relaxed into the mattress, letting the rhythm of his imagined breathing lull her back toward the living world.

She tried her eyes again, slowly, letting the blinding glare soften into shapes and then into colours and then into the sharp, sterile angles of a hospital room. St. Mungo’s. She turned her head to the right, ready to find him, ready to see him slumped in a chair beside her, exhausted but unmovable, ready to meet those bottom eyes and say anything, everything. But it wasn’t Draco. It was Ron.

Ron, folded awkwardly into a small hospital chair, head bowed against his chest, arms slack at his sides. Ron, whose freckles stood out sharply against skin gone too pale. Hermione’s lips parted, a small sound catching in her throat. Ron’s hand, warm, broad, familiar in a different way entirely. She stared at him, her breath catching in a strange, uneven rhythm as the world realigned itself around the absence of the one person she had expected, the one person she’d wanted to be there when she woke.

As she shifted, only slightly, barely breathing, the hand slipped from her grasp and he jerked awake. He straightened in the chair beside her bed, blinking hard, a groggy frown etched into his face. When his eyes met hers, she was shocked at how morose he looked. His breath left him in one uneven exhale.

“Hermione. Bloody hell. Thank God. We thought you weren’t going to make it. How do you feel?

Her throat felt sanded and raw when she tried to speak. “What… what happened to me?”

He stiffened. A slow, dawning paralysis that moved through his face like a shadow. His eyes flickered through a range of emotions so quickly she couldn’t track them. Rage, fear, helplessness, disbelief, and underneath it all, something else, something she’d come to identify easily from studying Draco’s features. Guilt. His jaw clenched. He opened his mouth twice before anything came out.

“They… we don’t know,” he said finally. “But it must be the people we’re trying to find. Someone we interviewed must’ve told them about you.”

Hermione blinked slowly, letting that settle. She swallowed, her throat burning. “Ron… that’s good.”

He stared at her, aghast.

“Good?” he echoed. 

“It means,” she rasped, wincing as she pulled herself upright in the bed, “We’re close. Close to something important. If they’re willing to go this far-”

His face twisted like she’d slapped him.

“You’re absolutely mental, do you know that? You were almost killed,” Ron spluttered. “By work. By this case. By them. And you think that’s a good thing because it means you get to work more?”

His voice rose, sharp, brittle with panic dressed as anger. She watched the fracture running across him and felt strangely detached.

“You shouldn’t even be on this anymore,” Ron said, breath trembling now. “Not after this. Harry agrees. This will be the end of it for you.”

“I can’t,” she said, forcing calm through the broken glass in her voice. “Ron, they’ll come for Draco next. If they went for me, he’s next. I know he must be. He’s not safe.”

Something in Ron snapped.

His expression twisted, wounded and vicious at once. “Of course,” he said quietly, almost laughing, face bitter. “Of course it’s about him. It’s always about Malfoy with you lately.”

Hermione’s stomach went cold.

“What has he done,” Ron continued, voice growing brittle, “to deserve you nearly dying in the street? To deserve you tearing yourself apart? Besides clinging to you like some useless, pathetic leech-”

“Ron.” Her voice trembled, but her eyes sharpened. 

“He’s pathetic, Hermione, honestly. And Harry, Harry had to threaten to arrest him just to make him leave the room so the Healers could work on you. Do you realise how weird that is? Do you see how twisted he is? Spends his whole life treating you like dirt and now he gets off on you babysitting him. It’s got to be some sort of power thing. At least in school he’d just call you slurs, now the sick git has got some sort of obsession with you.”

Hermione’s pulse spiked. “He was scared. I appeared on his doorstep covered in blood, Ron.”

“He isn’t scared, he’s fixated on you,” Ron snapped. “Anyone with eyes can see it. He’d crawl after you if you let him. Hermione, he wants to fuck you. It’s probably a funny little game to him, chasing a mudblood. I bet his cronies put him up to it.”

Shock burned through her like a slap. Mudblood. It was an ugly word, too sharp, too crude for Draco’s trembling hands on her face, for his tears falling into her hair, for the way he had begged her to stay alive.

“You don’t get to speak about him like that,” she said, voice low and trembling. “And you don’t get to say that word. You don’t have the right to. He’s changed.”

“No,” Ron said, shaking his head. “He hasn’t. You’ve just changed for him.”

She inhaled sharply.

Ron pushed on. “You know what? I don’t even see why we’re investigating all of this. These people are doing us all a favour, right? Doing what the Ministry is too scared to do. These bastards made their choice, they should get the consequences for it. We should let them take him. If they want him, if they want him that badly, maybe we should let them have him. He deserves whatever happens.”

For one still, perfect moment she didn’t feel the pain in her body. She didn’t feel the bandages or the heartbeat monitor or the ache in her thigh. Just a cold, precise disgust.

“Ron,” she said quietly, “get out.”

He blinked at her, almost sheepish, as if he didn’t realise how harsh his words had been. “Come on ‘mione, I didn’t mean it like that. You just shouldn’t be in danger because of people like him.”

“You did. You meant every word. And I don’t want to look at you right now. So get out, or I'll call the healers.”

His face crumpled, guilt, shock, stubbornness all tangling into one wounded expression, but she looked away.

After a long, quiet minute he stood. But she still didn’t look at him. Ron had barely cleared the doorway, the sound of his hard footsteps fading down the corridor, when the silence closed in around her. 

It didn’t last a minute. The door slammed open moments later as though someone had thrown their entire body weight into it. Draco stood in the doorway, breathless, hair dishevelled, shirt rumpled, chest rising and falling in fast, uneven bursts. His eyes, those sharp, aching silver eyes, locked onto hers with such force it felt like something inside her ribs jolted awake. For a heartbeat, he just stood there, staring at her. Then he was across the room in an instant.

He lunged, stumbling the last step as though his legs had finally given out from everything he’d been holding together. He reached her bedside and collapsed into the chair Ron had vacated. He grabbed her hand in both of his as though anchoring himself to the world. Hermione nearly sobbed. The difference was immediate, visceral, like her body recognised him before her mind could. His hand felt right, familiar, necessary in a way that Ron’s hadn’t, like her fingers had been made to slot into his. Warmth bled into her palm, into her wrist, into her bones. His arm trembled as he reached up and pushed shaking fingers through her hair, smoothing it back with a tenderness so fierce it almost hurt. Then he leaned in, pressing his forehead against hers with a soft, desperate thud, and his breath broke against her lips.

Tears fell onto her cheeks, hot, relentless, and she couldn’t tell if they were his or hers, or both blending together into something indistinguishable.

When he finally spoke, his voice was ruined.

“I thought you were going to die,” he whispered. It broke halfway through, splintering like brittle glass. “I thought-” But the rest strangled itself before it could leave him.

A raw, helpless sound escaped his throat, and he collapsed forward, his body shaking against her, his forehead still pressed to hers as his sobs tore free. He clung to her hand as though holding her was the only thing stopping him from falling apart completely. His tears wet her skin, her hospital gown, the pillow beneath her head, each drop a small, shattering confession in its own right. Hermione closed her eyes, letting his breath tremble across her face, letting his hair brush her cheek, letting the quiet devastation of him settle into the space between them like truth rising to the surface.

Her fingers tightened in his. It felt like coming home.

“Draco.”

Her voice was a thread, thin, frayed, still tasting of smoke and hurt, but it cut his sobs off immediately. He stilled instantly, as if the sound of his name in her mouth had reached some instinct beneath his panic. He lifted his head just enough to meet her eyes. His breath stuttered, catching on every inhale, his shoulders shaking not with fresh sobs but with the effort to contain them. His fingers rubbed gently over the back of her hand, small circles of reverence and fear, as though afraid the slightest pressure might shatter her all over again.

“You’re alive,” he said, like he needed to hear it aloud before he would believe his eyes. “You’re alive.”

Hermione swallowed, wincing. The movement pulled at her bandages. Pain flared, sharp, biting, but she didn’t care. She lifted her left arm, dragging it upward through a thick, syrupy resistance. It trembled violently. For a moment she thought she wouldn’t make it. But then she reached him.

Her fingers brushed the edge of his jaw, then settled softly against his cheek. His eyes fluttered shut, not in pleasure, but in pain, as though the simple act of being touched with tenderness threatened to unravel something inside him. Yet he leaned into her palm, his desperation softening into something unbearably fragile.

“Draco,” she croaked again, and this time his eyes opened, wide and wounded. “I thought I was going to die,” she said, the words trembling out of her, raw. “I thought I was going to die, and I never told you.”

He stared at her desperately. “Tell me what?” His voice was barely sound.

Her fingers slid faintly along his cheekbone, the motion weak but certain.

“How sorry I am,” she breathed. “For everything. For hurting you. For pushing you away. For wasting so much time that could have been-” Her voice broke. “That could have been this.”

His lips parted, a sound escaping him, but it was wordless.

“And-” she swallowed, painful and determined. “I’m sorry I never told you how much I care about you. More than I should. I don’t… I don’t care about the rules anymore, or what’s right or wrong. I don’t care about anything except you.”

His breath stuttered violently. His eyes filled again, silver liquefying at the edges.

She tugged his face downward.

It was hardly strength, it was gravity. A faint pull,  a plea more than a motion, but he followed instantly, desperately, like he’d been waiting his entire life for her to want him close. Their lips met. The kiss was deep, trembling, soaked in months of their intermingled pain. It was grief and relief and desire and apology all tangled together, his tears and hers mingling warm between their mouths. He cupped her face with shaking hands, thumbs brushing her damp cheeks, as though anchoring her to the world through sheer force of will.

She clung to him as best she could, her fingers curling weakly at the nape of his neck. The taste of him, salt, breathlessness, fear, was so familiar. She felt him breathe her in, like he was terrified she might vanish again if he didn’t take the chance while he could. The kiss deepened, broke, returned, each connection a desperate promise. I’m here. You’re alive. I can’t lose you. I care for you. I choose you. Two people who had always been circling this, circling one another in a never-ending ouroboros of each other’s pain. Two people who had always been circling this, silently and helplessly, finally let the orbit close.

Hours passed for her in a kind of suspended fugue state, drifting in and out of her like a tide that refused to recede. Time lost its edges, its shape, it stretched thin and translucent, a silk veil she drifted beneath while healers moved in and out of the room like murmuring ghosts. They cast their diagnostic spells with hushed urgency, their faces wearing the tight, brittle expressions of people who had seen something they had not been prepared for.

Hermione watched them without truly watching, her mind sinking into the haze of exhaustion and relief and the lingering echo of Draco’s mouth against hers. She felt their magic slide over her skin, cool and prickling, and somewhere beneath the layers of potion fog she understood how close she had come to slipping beyond reach entirely.

Her injuries, she learned, were severe enough that two separate healers used the word miraculous with an honesty that unsettled her. The burns across her back were angry and deep. The ends of her curls had been singed clean away. A piece of glass the size of a dinner plate had buried itself so far into her thigh that the healer removing it had apparently had to brace their entire forearm against the bed for leverage.

But none of that compared to what she had done to herself in the panic of escape. The splinching was the worst of it. Chunks of her side were simply gone, torn from her body in violent strips that almost made it appear as if she’d been maimed by a wild beast. Her shoulder, the slope of her ribcage, the soft line of her waist, the curve of her hip, even the length of her thigh, missing pieces, lacerations, ragged edges. The healers had done extraordinary work, but beneath the fresh bandages she felt the strange, numb pull of skin knitted imperfectly together, flesh reborn but not quite whole. She would scar, they’d told her. For life. Some part of her, a quiet, dark part, found comfort in that. Her and Draco weren’t so dissimilar anymore. The thought warmed her in a way it shouldn’t have.

A healer stepped out, murmuring something to a nurse about structural stabilisation and nerve regrowth, and Hermione drifted again, sinking into the soft lull of warm blankets and the rhythmic hum of magic weaving itself around her like a cradle.

From Draco, she learned that Harry was away at the Ministry. He was knee-deep in diplomatic chaos, arguing with the Muggle government about the explosion in the street, trying to explain away the impossible devastation she had left behind. One of the nurses who checked in on her in the afternoon had been listening, and growing more grim faced by the second. The woman had looked pale as parchment and whispered that this was how it had started last time before turning to leave the room, and Hermione had been too exhausted to answer, the guilt swelling in her chest.

Draco hardly left her side. He stayed perched on the very edge of her bed, curled delicately as if afraid to take up too much space, as if she might slip through reality entirely if he pushed his luck. He leaned toward her, always toward her, his posture bent with the strange, frantic reverence. He spoke softly to her, voice low and warm and trembling, telling her over and over how frightened he had been, how certain he had been that she wouldn’t open her eyes again. The words repeated themselves in a loop; I was so worried, I thought you had gone, I thought I would never hear you breathe again, until they became their own kind of litany, a prayer he kept remaking because he didn’t know how to stop.

When he ran out of words, he always leaned forward to kiss her.

Softly, tentatively, with a devotion that felt too gentle for someone who had been raised in a house like his. Each kiss was slow and careful, barely pressure at all, as if he feared he might hurt her if he breathed too hard. Yet every brush of his lips lit her nerves with warmth.

If kissing Viktor had been a pleasant flutter of teenage sweetness, and kissing Ron had been the familiar comfort of a childhood memory, familiar, known, unchanging, then kissing Draco was something else entirely.

Kissing Draco was coming in from a storm and stepping into a house lit by a crackling fire, warmth seeping into your bones until you remembered what safety felt like. It was the softness of a rose petal pressed between the pages of a favourite book. It was the feeling of a towel wrapped around her after plunging into cold water, the shock replaced by enveloping heat. It was the familiarity of knowing someone’s scars by heart and letting them know yours. It was the smell of old pages, the ones she had loved enough to crease and reread and memorise, the ones that felt like home no matter how long she had been away, and she could recall him just as vividly as the words of her favourite novels. 

She could close her eyes and still see the pearlescent flecks in his irises, could trace the exact curve of his mouth, could recall the delicate lines on his hands even when those hands weren’t holding hers. Every kiss felt like the first page of a story she had been terrified to read, and the last page of one she had never wanted to end. Every kiss felt like coming back to herself.

As the day stretched on, Hermione felt the hours begin to itch beneath her skin. The pain potions softened the worst of the agony, but they also made her restless, light-headed, unable to sink fully into stillness. There was too much in her mind, too much in her chest, too much of him sitting close enough to touch her and yet seeming to drift like a moon orbiting a planet that pulled him too fiercely. She tried to sit still, tried to pretend she was content under the blankets, warm and safe. But the moment Draco slipped away to fetch her a glass of water and returned to find her already swinging her legs off the bed, he exhaled a soft, bewildered laugh.

“You’re meant to stay lying down,” he murmured, though the admonishment was gentle, almost fond. “You nearly died, remember?”

“Nearly dying is boring,” she said, breath puffing out in a soft huff as she tried to stand on trembling legs. “I want to walk.”

The first step was agony. A line of fire travelled up her thigh and across her hip, the remnants of splinching tugging at nerves that weren’t sure which direction they belonged to. Draco’s hands snapped out instantly, catching her around the waist, steadying her with a quiet, startled sound.

“Hermione-”

“I can do it,” she snapped, though her voice trembled as much as her legs.

He hesitated only a moment, eyes troubled, before he stepped closer and guided her so that her feet rested lightly on top of his. His hands lifted hers carefully, their fingers interlacing as though they were woven together by instinct rather than choice.

“Lean on me.”

She did.

Softly, tentatively, like a bird adjusting its wings after falling from the sky. It was clumsy at first, small swaying steps that jarred her wounds, but Draco’s hands steadied her hips, balancing her as he led her in fragile circles across the room. Her hospital gown whispered around her ankles with each movement, and for a moment, in the harsh hospital light, in the hush of the secluded ward, it almost felt like a dance. His front pressed lightly to hers, guiding her, protecting her. Her fingers curled in his, warm and uncertain.

Her hair, uneven and singed at the ends, floated around them like charred silk; her feet resting on his made each step feel ceremonial, as though they were moving through the remnants of a dream. A ballgown of wrinkled sterile cotton. He stopped only when her knees trembled too violently for her to hide it. He set her back on the bed with the slow, reverent care one might give a priceless artifact, brushing her hair from her face with fingertips that lingered longer than they needed to.

She tried not to let disappointment show. As soon as he released her hands, the restlessness returned.

“I want to go home,” she murmured.

“You’re not ready.”

“I don’t feel safe here.”

“You’re surrounded by healers.”

“I still don’t feel safe.”

As if summoned, a healer entered, glancing at her chart with pinched lips. Hermione asked again, voice sharper this time, if she could at least be discharged to finish recovery at home.

The healer sucked in a slow breath. “It’s not medically advisable, Miss Granger.”

“But it’s possible?”

A longer pause. A resigned sigh. “…Yes. Technically. Auror Potter has requested that you remain under observation, but with signatures and a stabilisation charm-”

Hermione snapped upright. “So you are saying I can go home.”

The witch pinched the bridge of her nose. “Technically, yes.”

Hermione glanced at Draco. “Good.”

Draco didn’t look good. He looked torn, lips parted faintly, silver eyes flickering like he wanted to protest but was reluctant to break the peace.

“Potter won’t like it,” he said eventually.

As if the universe wanted to mock her, Hermione’s phone buzzed a moment later. She flipped the phone open.

Harry:
Sorry I couldn’t come. Ministry’s on fire.
Literally and politically.
I’ll come by first thing tomorrow morning.

 

Hermione’s fingers tightened around the device. Tomorrow morning felt too far away. Too exposed. Too dangerous. The attack replayed behind her eyes, a looping coil of fire and smoke and the sound of shattering glass. The thought of lying unconscious in a place that didn’t feel like hers…

Eventually, exhaustion pulled at Draco, finally puncturing the terror-fuelled adrenaline that had kept him awake. He settled in the chair beside her bed, curling awkwardly to fit, head tilted at an uncomfortable angle. His eyes fluttered shut, the tremor in his breath one of a man who had been held together only by fear for far too long. But his hand never left hers. Not even in sleep. Hermione watched his chest rise and fall in small, uneven waves. Her fingers rested warm in his, his thumb brushing lightly with each shift of his dreams. A strange sense of peace threaded through her, until a soft, polite knock sounded on the door.

Hermione lifted her head, expecting the healer she’d asked for, already preparing her arguments about leaving. But the moment the door opened, the first sound was not the rustle of medical robes or the scrape of quills parchment.

It was the tap of a cane. A smooth, deliberate rhythm. Followed by the soft, polished click of expensive shoes. Hermione felt every muscle in her body go rigid. Her eyes travelled downward from the silver ferrule of the cane to the immaculate black leather shoes. Up the tailored fall of fitted black slacks. Up the long, dark sweep of a dress robe so perfectly pressed it seemed carved rather than sewn. And then to the velvet cloak, heavy and rich, embroidered with silver whorls so intricate they looked like smoke curling across the fabric.

Her gaze rose the final inches and collided with cold grey eyes she had last seen in nightmares.

Lucius Malfoy stood at the foot of her bed with the quiet authority of a man who had never once been denied entry anywhere in his life.

His eyes flicked to Draco, then lingered for a long moment on his hand, which was still held slack in Hermione’s. His lips curled into a thin, terrible smile.

“Well, well, well.”

Chapter Text

Out of every person Hermione could have imagined stepping through that door, Lucius Malfoy was the last man she had expected, and the one she least wanted to see. The moment his featherlight drawl slipped into the room, soft as a blade sliding from a sheath, she felt Draco’s entire body stiffen beside her. He went rigid before he even woke, as if the mere sound of his father’s voice had been enough to disturb his peace even in unconsciousness. The tension snapped through him, and the sharp gasp he released as the day flooded back into him was of a man who had woken to find himself drowning.

He tore his hand from hers in an instant, the sudden loss of warmth making her fingers curl reflexively in the empty air.

“Father,” he intoned, voice stripped of every fleeting spark of warmth she had grown used to.

He shot upright from the chair, shoulders locking into a perfect, unnatural line, spine straightening so quickly it looked painful. His hands moved behind his back, habitually, his limbs contorted by some subconscious inflection upon his will. The shift was so stark, so absolute. She had expected Draco to be shocked, be angry, or wounded, even quietly furious. This rigid stillness, this careful posture, this quiet, brittle obedience, was something far worse. It was a resignation of himself.

Lucius regarded his son with a cool, appraising glance that made Hermione’s skin crawl. It was the kind of look one gave a servant, or a pawn, or something expensive that had been left out in the rain, not the gaze that should have fallen upon a son that had not been seen in years. Draco stood beneath it without flinching. Seeing the two of them face to face like this, Draco rigid and pale, Lucius looming like a carved statue of power and precision, she was struck by just how much Draco resembled him. The same bone structure, cut sharp as if with a sculptor’s chisel. The same fair hair, like spun spidersilk. The same piercing grey eyes that saw too much and rarely gave anything back. They were unmistakably father and son. And yet…

There was something softer in Draco, something delicate at the edges that no refinement of his posture or measure in his tone could fully conceal. It was in the slight tremor of his breath, in the way his shoulders tensed with the memory of too many years flinching from the wrong kind of touch. In the warmth that threaded his gaze when he looked at her, warmth she doubted Lucius had ever allowed himself, if he was ever capable of it.

The subtle softness in Draco, that tiny, human deviation from the cruel perfection of the Malfoy line, was suddenly, painfully visible. Hermione realised, with a slow ache blooming through her chest, that this minute difference had likely carved fault lines through Draco’s entire life. It had not been allowed. It had not been forgiven. She saw it now in the way he stood there, brittle as frost, bracing himself as though Lucius’s very presence was a storm he needed to detach himself from to withstand.

Lucius’s eyes drifted over her the way one might examine a stain on an otherwise perfect rug. His cane clicked against the floor as he took another step into the room, the sound soft but carrying an unmistakable authority, like a judge entering a court he already knew he owned. His eyes drifted toward her with a predatory calm, the faintest curl to his mouth.

“Imagine,” he began, his voice smooth as polished obsidian, “my surprise, when I decided to deliver my final donation of the year to St. Mungo’s this afternoon. I was speaking with Healer Archibald Gallowright - a fine man, of noble fibre and impeccable discretion, I might add - when I happened to overhear the most fascinating news.”

Lucius lifted a brow, the gesture elegant and sadistic.

“That a certain Miss Granger had been admitted,” he continued, drawing out each syllable with languid delight, “following a rather… terrible… incident.” He made a thoughtful hum deep in his throat, as if he were savouring an exquisite wine.

“As you had not granted me the dignity of replying to my previous correspondence directly,” his gaze slid toward Draco, slow and disdainful, “and instead chose to send your new servant to do it on your behalf, I had hoped to find an opportunity to speak with you in person.”

Hermione’s pulse hammered with fury. Lucius’s attention returned to her with a glacial smile, one that did not reach his eyes, sharp and pale.

“And as it happens, fate has delivered an opportune moment indeed. Dire, of course…”
his lips parted in a smile that displayed just a hint of pointed teeth, “…but opportune.”

He swept further into the room with deliberate grace, his cloak whispering behind him like smoke trailing a fire’s edge. Hermione instinctively tugged her hospital gown closer over her chest, a ridiculous gesture considering everything she had survived, but something in the way he moved made her skin itch. He reached the foot of the bed. Draco shifted, just slightly, stepping half in front of her, a small, unconscious movement, but Lucius’s eyes slid over his son as though he were a piece of furniture slightly out of place. In a single fluid motion, Lucius turned, extended his wand from his cane, and with a soft flick sealed the door behind him. 

Lucius’s smile unfurled with a softness so carefully cultivated it almost resembled warmth, though Hermione could feel the chill coiling beneath it like a serpent shifting under silk. He tilted his head with leisurely grace, as though the entire room existed merely to frame him in its dim light.

“But listen to me,” he murmured in that refined, weightless drawl, “I seem to be forgetting myself. Before all else, I should attend to my son.”

He turned toward Draco with a smooth, measured elegance that set Hermione’s nerves on edge. She watched Draco’s spine tighten further, the vertebrae locking into alignment as though pulled by invisible strings, his shoulders drawing back into a posture that looked less like refinement and more like the submission of hanging upon a crucifix. Lucius closed the distance between them  and placed both hands on Draco’s shoulders with the effortless entitlement of a man touching something he believed he owned. The gesture held the shape of affection but none of its soul, and Draco’s body responded with a rigidness so absolute Hermione felt a cold echo of the courtyard in Hogwarts all those years ago, that awful moment when Voldemort had drawn Draco near, the young boy standing stiff and pale beneath the shadow of a monster who wrapped him in something pretending to be an embrace. She had hated him then, hated that when it really counted, he had been too cowardly to say no to evil. Seeing him now, she was starting to understand that it had never been as simple for him to say no as it had been for her.

The memory rippled across her mind, and when Lucius pulled his son closer into a brief, rigid approximation of a hug, Hermione saw Draco’s eyes hollow in the same quiet, frightened way they had when he was seventeen and drowning in a life he had never chosen. “My dear boy,” Lucius said as he drew back, keeping his hands on Draco’s arms as though his son were a mannequin he was adjusting into the correct pose, “I had almost thought you lost to me. It is a relief to see you looking so well.”

His gaze slipped down Draco’s sleeve with a slow, clinical curiosity. Without seeking permission he caught Draco’s wrist in a swift, proprietary grasp. He lifted the pale arm toward the light of the room, examining the faded scarring with the cold scrutiny of someone assessing damage to an heirloom rather than flesh.

A faint, dissatisfied line ghosted across Lucius’s mouth. “Well,” he murmured with a contemplative hum, “there is, perhaps, still room for improvement.”

Draco’s lips tightened, his jaw setting with a tremor that came from somewhere deep and exhausted. Then, with a sudden flicker of defiance that seemed painfully small against the weight of his father’s presence, he jerked his hand out of Lucius’s grip.

“I told you to stay away,” Draco said quietly, though the tightness in his voice betrayed the strain beneath it. “I don’t want to speak to you anymore.”

Lucius regarded him with a measured stillness that made the air feel viscous, the corners of his mouth lifting with the faintest flicker of amusement, though nothing in his eyes reflected it.

“What a surprising sharpness you’ve developed,” Lucius observed, voice smooth as glass. “It cuts close to the bone, I admit. I never imagined my only son would choose to disappear for months on end, evading every attempt I made to reach him.” He sighed, a soft, airy sound devoid of sincerity. “Especially after I worked so tirelessly to secure your release from that wretched place.”

Draco inhaled sharply, the movement shallow, as though the very memory constricted his lungs. Hermione saw the subtle flinch, saw how Lucius tracked it with predatory precision, cataloguing it with the same interest he might give a crack in fine china. Lucius turned his gaze away from Draco just long enough to let it drift toward Hermione, like the brush of a cold finger across the back of her neck.

“And now,” he continued, “I find the situation quite curious indeed. You seem to prefer the company of your captors over that of your own family.”

The implication floated between them, heavy and deliberate. She tried to will herself to say something, anything, but the scene before her was so consuming she couldn’t find the words. Draco’s chin lifted a fraction, enough to be noticeable only to someone who knew him or someone who owned him. His voice, when it came, was low and defiant, though Hermione could hear the fragility beneath it.

“I learned from the best, father,” he said. “After all, wasn’t it you who taught me how to abandon family in favour of pleasing a master?”

Lucius released a slow, elegant sigh, the kind that suggested profound disappointment rather than anger, as if he had expected this exact reply and had been hoping for something more creative.

“I had hoped,” he murmured, brushing an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve, “that my fears would not come to fruition. But it appears the situation surpasses even what I had imagined.”

His gaze travelled over Draco’s face with detached scrutiny. It almost seemed to Hermione that Lucius was making an inventory of all of the sum of his parts, and had found them lacking.

“My only son. My heir.”  His voice softened in a way that felt colder than ice.  “Stripped of all dignity and so thoroughly indoctrinated that he now rejects his own blood.”

Draco’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

Lucius’s eyes flickered, catching the quiet tremor in his son’s hands, the way his weight had shifted almost imperceptibly backward, the slight collapse of his posture that would have gone unnoticed by anyone who hadn’t spent a lifetime training him to hide it.

Lucius made a soft, thoughtful hum.  “I see,” he said. “I see that you do not wish to fight. It seems, in truth, that there is little fight left in you.”

Every word seemed to target some hidden part of Draco, sharp needles driven directly into the chinks in his armour that would do the most damage. He did not flinch, but something deeper in him recoiled, and she could almost feel the echo of it in her own sternum. Lucius stepped closer, folding one hand over the serpent-head of his cane, the silver catching in the light.

“If not for your own sake,” he continued, “then surely you will consider returning home for the sake of your poor mother.”

“Mother can contact me if she so wishes.”

“Oh, but I don’t think she can, Draco. We have all been… exceptionally worried,” Lucius went on, his tone light, almost conversational. “These attacks on pure-blood families have made travel quite inadvisable, and have left her quite fearful of sending owls, lest they be intercepted. Your mother and I have hardly been leaving the manor.”

He paused.

“In fact…” he said, turning his head slightly, letting his gaze slide toward Hermione with a slow, surgical precision, “I fear your mother will not be leaving home for quite some time.”

His eyes, pale as winter, locked onto Hermione as he spoke the final words. He knew. He knew about Narcissa’s visits. Hermione’s stomach twisted in cold horror, understanding flooding through her. If Lucius knew that Narcissa had come to her son alone, had kept secrets from him… she remembered the way Narcissa had spoken of Lucius, the edge of fear tangled with adoration in her voice. Would Lucius hurt her for going behind his back? Had he already? Most of all, how could it be possible that he knew? The vow Narcissa made had not been broken, Hermione knew that much, the faint tug of the chords always present around her arm, so slight that it felt as if there were three small hairs pressed against her skin. Lucius noticed her panic. Of course he noticed. He savoured it, a faint smile curving at the edge of his mouth.

“Family unity is so very fragile,” Lucius said softly, turning his eyes back to Draco. “And so very precious. I would hate to see it weakened further. Come home, where you belong, Draco.”

Draco closed his eyes. It was a slow, weary lowering of his lashes, like someone extinguishing a lantern to retreat back into darkness. The tension in his posture sagged. Hermione felt something in her gut twist, because she recognised that movement, the way his shoulders yielded a fraction as if his body had been trained, from childhood, to fold inward in the presence of disapproval. The gesture held the shape of surrender carved into bone.

It was the kind of posture one only learned from years of walking the tightrope between fear and duty, from being shaped by a household where affection was indistinguishable from expectation, and expectation indistinguishable from control. His whole life was written in that one exhale, that one soft collapse, that one moment where the boy he had been, frightened, lonely, desperate for approval, reached out through the man he had become. Draco had learned to survive by diminishing himself until almost nothing remained visible. Under Lucius’s gaze, it seemed that old instinct rose again as if it came naturally.

His voice, when it came, was soft and strained.

“I will visit,” he said. “Nothing more.”

Lucius clicked his tongue with a delicate, disappointed sound, though the faint smile that formed afterward was almost pleased.

“No matter,” he said, smoothing the front of his cloak with a graceful sweep of his hand. “You will come to see reason in time. You always do.”

He said it fondly, and the fondness was worse than cruelty. At last, Lucius turned his attention fully toward Hermione. Whatever mockery of paternal warmth he had allowed himself to perform with Draco drained from his face, leaving only cold calculation behind.

“Leave us,” he said to his son.

There was no raised voice, no command, nothing sharp, simply a quiet expectation, steady and immovable as stone. Draco’s eyes flicked to hers. It was a single second, a breath, a flicker, a tremor, but it struck her with the full force of memory. A terrible déjà vu rolled through her, and suddenly she was back on the floor of Malfoy Manor, wrists bound, lungs burning, screaming while agony tore through her body, and above her Draco had stood with this same expression, the same hollowed helplessness, the same tortured stare that begged forgiveness he did not dare voice. The boy then, the man now. The same despairing silence. 

He held her gaze for as long as he dared, and there was something devastating in that stare, a plea for understanding, a silent confession of every fracture in his soul. It was a look that said he wanted to stay, that he wanted to protect her now in all the ways he couldn’t then, but the long shadow of his father’s will still bound him like a chain he had never truly broken. He only dipped his head in the slightest, wounded acknowledgement, and with a faint, shuddering breath he unlocked the door and slipped out. Once again, he had left her in the Manor. She saw the shadow of his feet pause outside the threshold. He was listening. Or perhaps he simply couldn't bring himself to walk farther away.

Lucius didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

He turned back to her, and the air around him seemed to shift into something colder still, the temperature dropping as though someone had opened a window into deep midwinter. “Now,” he said with the calm of a man discussing a tedious estate matter, “Perhaps you can explain to me what precisely you have done to my son to make him so weak. So pathetic.”

Hermione felt heat rise in her, sharp and furious.

“I haven’t done anything to him,” she said, voice tight but steady.

Lucius raised an eyebrow at her again, the movement effortless, elegant, dripping disdain.

“Nothing?” he hummed. “Curious, then, how years of careful cultivation could be undone so quickly. I spent decades shaping a paltry strength from his frailty. He was always a pathetic, simpering boy, but at least he could be relied upon to follow orders. And yet now, after a few months in your company, he has become something far worse. A disappointment.”

Hermione’s blood simmered.

“Maybe,” she said, voice trembling with suppressed fury, “You don’t know him as well as you think you do.”

Lucius laughed. It was quiet, poisoned velvet, the kind of laugh that curdles rather than cuts.

“My dear girl,” he said, “I know things about Draco Malfoy that would make your blood clot in your veins. He has always been too much like his mother. Too sentimental, too emotional. Such traits are acceptable in a woman, of course, even charming, but not in the boy meant to inherit my name.”

Hermione’s hands clenched into fists.

“Leave,” she forced through her teeth. “Or I’m calling the healers.”

Lucius smiled, small and cold.

“Gladly,” he said lightly, “I have no desire to waste any more time on banal conversation.”

He turned, cloak whispering as he reached for the door. His hand paused on the handle. His head tilted, ever so slightly, as though a final thought had just occurred to him.

“Oh,” he said softly, almost pleasantly, “and before I forget… I hear someone else has been appointed as head of the Deradicalisation Department.” He clicked his tongue. “Such a pity for you, Miss Granger. One might have expected a witch of your… ambition… to cling to that position with every shred of influence she possessed.”

Hermione’s heart thudded. Lucius went on, his tone almost sympathetic.

“To lose such standing must be a rather exquisite humiliation. After all, if even this tender post-war world cannot stomach the illusion of tolerance you so desperately grind yourself into… what hope is there for your cause at all?”

He opened the door. “Do take care,” he said quietly, “not to mistake pity for progress.”

And with that, Lucius Malfoy slipped out of the room like a lingering shadow finally withdrawing its hand. When the door finally shut behind him, the room did not feel quieter. If anything, the silence seemed to thicken, as though his presence had left a residue that clung to the air and settled in her lungs like dust. Hermione stayed completely still, her fingers curled into the fabric of her sheets, her breath caught in a tight knot somewhere between her ribs and her throat. She had thought she might feel relief when he left, but she felt only the echo of his coldness, a lingering tremor in the walls, the aftershock of something terrible.

She expected Draco to return immediately, to push the door open with that frantic urgency she had come to know so well, to take her hand again, to offer some wordless reassurance that he was still here and that she was still safe. Instead, he did not come back. The faint outline of his shadow had vanished from the gap beneath the door, and the quiet in the hallway had become charged.

Moments stretched, long and thin, until her ears caught the sharp trill of voices in the hall. Painfully tense, the clipped hiss of a confrontation fought between clenched teeth. Lucius’s cold refinement and Draco’s strained, brittle replies blurred together, their words muffled by the walls, but the cadence alone set her nerves ablaze with worry. Her pulse fluttered in an erratic rhythm, every beat a reminder of how fragile the world felt when she was confined to this bed.

Five minutes slid into fifteen, then sank into thirty. The clock on the wall seemed to mock her by moving too quickly and too slowly all at once. Her imagination, exhausted and erratic as it was, still found enough strength to conjure horrors; Lucius dragging Draco back to the manor, Lucius striking him, Draco being taken again and Lucius letting it happen to teach him some sort of sick lesson. She gripped the metal rail of the bed and began pushing herself upright despite the jagged pull of pain through her abdomen, determined to go after him, to find him before anything worse could happen, even if she had to crawl down the hallway with her hospital gown trailing behind her.

But before she could lower her feet to the cold floor, she heard something approaching. The soft, rhythmic churn of rubber wheels on linoleum turned the corner, and in the next moment Draco stepped through the doorway, pushing a wheelchair. He was visibly shaken. His face held strained pallor, his jaw was taut, his shoulders rigid, and though he stood tall, there was something fractured in the way he held himself, as if his father had left fingerprints on his skin that he could not wash off. Yet when he looked at her, something gentler flickered through the cracks.

“You were right,” he said quietly, closing the door behind him with his foot. “It doesn’t feel safe here anymore. Not for you. Not for me. As much as I want you to stay and recover like a normal patient, the thought of my father knowing exactly where both of us are is…” His voice faltered with exhaustion. “It’s too much.”

Hermione swallowed. “So what are we going to do?”

Draco’s lips twitched. “We’re going to sneak you out.”

She tilted her head in question, or tried to, though the movement tugged painfully at the healing skin around her temple. “And how exactly do you suppose we do that? Considering we’re arguably two of the most high-profile people in wizarding Britain?”

He smirked. “Quickly.”

He rolled the wheelchair up beside her bed and reached out to her with both hands, steadying her as she shifted her weight. She bit back a groan as pain seared through her ribs and hip, but his grip was steady, warm, grounding. He moved with careful precision, guiding her to the edge of the bed and lowering her down into the chair in slow, patient increments, murmuring soft encouragement under his breath in a way that made her throat tighten.

Her coat was folded around his arm. He had also brought socks and shoes, and set them gently on the bed beside her. With a tenderness that felt almost indecent, he knelt in front of her, sliding the fabric over her ankles with a care so deliberate it made her chest ache. His fingers lingered against her skin, brushing warmth into places that had been bruised and cold for hours.

“Don’t look at my feet,” Hermione muttered, embarrassed. “They’re ugly.”

He rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Granger.”

And then he bent forward and placed a kiss, light as breath, on the top of her left foot, then the right, as though he were blessing each one before slipping the socks over them. She felt the warmth of him radiate through her skin even after he pulled back, even after he eased the shoes onto her feet with gentle fingers and tied the laces slowly. When he finished, he reached up and lifted her coat around her shoulders, smoothing the lapels, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. His hands lingered at her collar, trembling just slightly, the way they always did when he had been pushed to his limits.

“Ready?” he asked, though his voice held a tremor that suggested he was asking himself as much as her.

She nodded.

The escape happened too quickly, too breathlessly, for her to hold it in neat order. What remained instead was the faint impression of it. The sharp medicinal smell of the ward dissolving into the cold dusk air, the hush of the upper corridors giving way to the frantic rush of the atrium, the surreal sensation of being pushed at speed while her lungs and ribs throbbed uncomfortably.

She could recall how the healers had been too distracted to notice them at first, how the lift had seemed to descend slower and slower as her anxiety had increased, how the tide of crowd noise on the ground floor had washed over her in a blur of movement and murmured names. She could remember the moment people started recognising them, the faint widening of eyes, the ripple of whispers that spread like a chill draft across the room. To be seen had felt suddenly dangerous. To be known, fatal.

And then there had been the shouting, her name hurled through the air like a net meant to catch them, and Draco’s decision to run. The jolt of the wheelchair had torn a gasp from her throat, pain ripping up her side, but the sheer absurdity of it, the wildness of being smuggled out of a hospital in plain sight, had sparked a thin, breathless laugh that trembled through her even now. They had careened past startled witches and wizards, leaving a trail of indignant exclamations behind them, the whole scene tinted with the strange, dreamlike quality.

It wasn’t until they were several streets away that the laughter truly overcame her, and it was painful on her bruised insides, but it was a sanctifying hurt that was worth the crinkle at the corner of Draco’s eyes and the pleasant ring of his real, unguarded laughter mixed with hers, devoid of cynicism and edge. He only stopped running when they reached a narrow side street. The cold nipped at Hermione’s ears, and every breath she took was threaded with pain, but Draco inexplicably seemed to know the area well enough to push forward without hesitation. After several turns, he led her into a dingy, half-forgotten greasy spoon wedged between a newsagent and a barber.

Even by her standards, which were fairly low from years of late-night studying in dodgy cafés over the summer holidays, this place was grim. The lights buzzed overhead like irritated insects, bathing the cracked dirty floor in jaundiced yellow. The tables were laminated in that dreadful pattern of thick faux-marble that never quite concealed the stains beneath it. A kettle hissed somewhere behind the counter.

Two half-drunk plastic cups of tea sat cooling in front of them. Greyish, bitter, utterly unredeemable. The sort of tea that made her long for the familiar taste of Draco’s cups of tea at home, for the steady, wordless ritual of him pressing a mug into her hand. How strange it was, she thought, to miss something so domestic, so absurdly gentle in contrast to everything else their lives had become.

The wheelchair sat folded beside their table. Draco sat next to her on an uncomfortable plastic chair with a cracked back, the both of them angled toward each other, sharing warmth. Her head rested against his shoulder, and his fingers were threaded through hers, their joined hands resting in her lap.

She did not know what this was between them. It was tangled, a knotwork of circumstance and trauma and yearning, of wounds bleeding into each other. But she had long since lost the strength to fight the pull of him. For the first time in weeks, possibly months, she felt a semblance of quiet settle inside her. And that small, precious stillness made the question of something else rise, something she had never dared address. A question that had festered silently, burrowed deep beneath her ribs, pulled out by the cold long hand of Lucius Malfoy’s presence. Her blood status. It was one more thread in the web that bound and complicated them. One she had avoided tugging for fear the whole fragile structure might break.

Draco shifted slightly beside her, enough to glance down. His brow furrowed, a soft crease between his eyes.

“You’re thinking,” he murmured, his voice low, nearly lost beneath the buzz of the dying lights. “I can tell. Stop.”

The knot inside her tightened until she felt short of breath. So many times, their peace had been disturbed because she had said something she shouldn’t have, something that set him on edge. But she couldn’t help herself, not over this. If any of the restless thoughts plaguing her at night needed to be voiced, this was one of them.

“I need to ask you something.”

His fingers tensed around hers. 

“What is it?” 

Hermione drew in a slow breath. The question felt heavy in her mouth, as though saying it aloud might change the shape of whatever it was that existed between them.

“Have you ever…” Her throat failed her, and she tried again. “Have you ever thought about the fact that I’m a muggleborn?”

He didn’t answer. His thumb moved once along her knuckles, slow, deliberate, almost absentminded, as though he were considering how to shape his answer. His stare drifted toward the cracked table surface, eyes unfocused. Finally, he spoke.

“Why are you asking me this?” 

“Because I need to know.”

He inhaled.

“Do you really want the answer?”

A cold thread of fear trailed down her spine. Did she? She wasn’t sure. Still, she nodded. She did not look at him, she didn’t dare. Her eyes stayed fixed on the tea she would never drink.

“At first, yes. I thought about it.”

It took all of her effort not to react, to keep her gaze away from him and her body next to him. How pathetic she felt. Here he was, admitting that he still thought she was inferior, and all she could do was cling to him.

“When you first took me to Grimmauld place, I did.” His jaw tightened. “The people who… the ones who visited me in my cell. They told me stories sometimes. About being muggleborn. Or about the muggleborn partners or friends they had lost to Death Eaters.”

She said nothing, convincing herself that if she stared at the ketchup packet on the table for long enough, she could undo bringing the topic up.

“It made me hate them,” he continued, voice flat with old exhaustion. “More than I ever had. It made me think that my father had been right about how dangerous they were. How uncivilised. How vicious. It was easy. When you’re in pain, you look for somewhere to put it. How could I not? What they did to me was everything I’d ever been told that they would do if they had power.” His fingers loosened on hers.

“The anger I felt at being at your mercy, you, a muggleborn, made me feel sick. It was an inversion of how I’d always thought the world was supposed to be. Being a pureblood was all I had left of myself. Then I came out into a world that despised purebloods, and suddenly even that didn’t fit anymore. Everything I had ever been praised for was suddenly hated. I felt like I didn’t know who I was. Truth is… I don’t think I ever did. Not really. I still don’t. Every piece of myself I thought was mine was just inheritance and fear.”

Hermione’s eyes blurred. She blinked them clear.

“That realisation has made me resent everything my family believed. Not because the ideals horrified me on some righteous or moralistic level, I’ve never been noble enough for that.” A shadow of self-loathing coloured his tone. “I was just sick of it. Sick of belonging to something that had ruined my life. Sick of being told who I was supposed to be.”

He finally looked at her, slowly, cautiously, as if he were expecting her to leave.

“You were different, though. Made me think that perhaps I hadn’t understood muggleborns at all. You weren’t what I’d been raised to expect. You weren’t anything like the stories I’d been fed by my father.” Draco’s gaze softened, in a way that felt carved from something old and aching. “The more I watched you, the more I saw how much our lives mirrored each other. The same loneliness.”

He swallowed.

“If you and I weren’t so different… then none of the rest of it mattered. Blood, lineage, all of it. I just don’t have it in me to care anymore.”

Hermione felt her lips part, but no sound came.

“So no,” he said finally, quietly. “I don’t care that you’re muggleborn. Not anymore. And I don’t care that I’m a pureblood either. That’s brought me nothing but misery.”

His voice dimmed into something colder, more bitter.

“But I can’t lie and say I’ve found some moral clarity. I don’t care about rehabilitation. Or reintegration. Or earning forgiveness.” His hand released hers only to slide up her forearm, thumb brushing gently at the inside of her wrist. “After everything they did to me, to my mother, after everything Azkaban carved out of me, I’m tired of both sides.”

He looked away.

“I don’t want to be part of any of it anymore. I just want to exist outside of the system, for once in my life.”

A small ghost of the girl she had once been, so idealistic, so consumed with the easy black and white of what was wrong and what was right, flared somewhere within her. Of course. Of course he didn’t empathise with what people like him had done to people like her. His life until the rise of Voldemort had been one of luxury, even if it had been spent inside a gilded cage. He had the option now to choose to simply not think about the consequences of what the rhetoric he’d swallowed without issue for the majority of his life could do. She didn’t. Her blood status was a permanent stain on her psyche, on her reputation, on everything she touched. It wasn’t that she felt any real shame for it, why should she? She knew her worth didn’t come from something like that. It was more that it was an inescapable part of her condition. She couldn’t just choose not to think about being a Muggleborn. It was a definition of herself that she had never chosen but had been born with, a lens that the world would forever see her through, for better or for worse.

But… the more she thought about it, the more she wondered how important it truly was for him to care. If she, like the world, was expecting him to be on his knees with remorse not out of a desire for the world to heal, but of revenge. If he was to be a figure struck from a neverending tide of apologies and pleas for forgiveness, would she even accept it? Would anyone? No. No amount of apologies from him, from anyone, could undo what had been done. He hadn’t been an influential figure in the war, he had been an unwilling accomplice in the sins of his father. Did it truly matter whether that unwillingness was borne out of compassion for the other side, to believe in what was right, or whether it was simply from not wanting to take part at all? 

He had only bothered to stop clinging on to hateful ideas because she had shown him kindness. Because she ‘wasn’t like’ the others he had imagined in his head. The thought of that made her nauseous and angry. But was she not guilty of the very same thing? Hadn’t she cast her eyes upon so many lives in judgment, had she not been the very person who had taken it upon herself to be the arbiter of whether countless lives were worthy of redemption through the prejudices of them that she held? Rehabilitation. Reintegration. Deradicalisation. None of these words meant that he had to spend the rest of his life in atonement, even if he should. If she was truly honest with herself, she no longer had the energy to care either. They had all suffered enough for what was right and what was wrong. Life, as always, existed somewhere in the mess between the two.

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Ok.”

She didn’t want to talk anymore. 

The walk, or in her case, roll, back to Grimmauld Place blurred into a low hum of exhaustion and cold air pressing against her skin. He didn’t dare mention apparating them, and she didn’t dare to ask. She wasn’t sure that she’d be able to bring herself to do that again for a very long time. Draco’s hand was warm at the back of her wheelchair, then at her elbow, then hovering near her shoulder. The streets swam by in muted colours. The smog and noise of London’s nightlife breathed over them in long, sharp drafts, a tangle of distant drunken voices and the smell of kebab around every corner. She felt every jostle in her bones, but she didn’t complain. She didn’t need to. He seemed to sense every shift of her breath.

Returning to Grimmauld place felt strange, in a way. She was coming home, but the home she had once had before this place was gone. This truly was her only refuge left, and it had been for a long time, but acknowledging the sudden practical truth of that was peculiar. He helped her up the stairs slowly, carefully, his hand sliding beneath her arm, his body angled to catch her if her knee buckled. She could feel him trembling, though whether from anger or adrenaline or fear she couldn’t tell.

He led her to his bathroom, and began to run the bath without a word, flitting in and out of the room to gather towels and clothes. Steam curled into the air, warm and lavender-scented, something he must have grabbed from her stash. The water lapped quietly against the sides of the porcelain tub. The room was warm, comfortable, for the heat and for his presence within it, and the haze of it made the dangers of the world feel far away.

Hermione sat on the closed lid of the toilet, stripped down to her underwear. Her skin felt foreign. Patchworked. A stranger’s map of pain and healing. The scars tracked across her ribs and hip in angry, raised lines; the bruises sprawled like strange constellations blooming beneath the surface. The cold air prickled over every inch of exposed skin.

Draco knelt in front of her again.

It should have been funny, in a small, distant way, how often he ended up on his knees in front of her lately, as though gravity itself conspired to make him soft around her. But the sight of him like this felt almost inevitable. He unwound the first bandage slowly. His fingers brushed her side. Light. Careful. Like touching her too firmly might hurt him more than it hurt her. His touch was warm, reverent, unbearably gentle. It felt like being read. Like being known. Hermione turned her face away, heat flooding her neck.

“You shouldn’t have to see me like this,” she mumbled, barely audible. “I don’t want you to.”

His hands paused. And then they resumed, slower, deliberate, unshaken.

“Don’t look at me,” she whispered. “Please.”

His fingers slipped under her chin.

Soft. Firm enough that she couldn’t retreat. He tilted her face toward him, and she resisted for half a second before her gaze snagged on his. His eyes were devastating, in the way they always were, because they were earnest, and terrified, and miserable, and his. And beneath all of it, something warm and desperately human, a thin line of humour trembling at the edges like he was holding himself together by the smallest thread.

“That’s my line, Granger,” he murmured.

His thumb brushed her jaw, a ghost of a touch so gentle she nearly broke.

“But seeing as we’re stealing each other’s words now…” His voice cracked on the softness of it. “You should know that I don’t care what you’re like, as long as I get to see you.”

His breathing faltered.

“I’d rather see this than not see you at all.”

Something in her chest gave way, quietly, almost politely, like a door clicking open. She didn’t know what they were. Couldn’t name it. Couldn’t force it into the neat boxes she had once placed people into. But whatever this was, his hands on her skin, his voice trembling, the distance in his eyes as he studied every scar on her body as if they transported him somewhere else, she needed it. Needed him.

A soft tear slipped down her cheek before she felt it. He caught it with the pad of his thumb, as if she might shatter if it fell.

He raised slightly, hovering over her, and placed a kiss on her forehead. 

“Let me take care of you for once. Just tonight. Please.”

Exposed, scarred, exhausted, terrified, aching, despite it all, she finally let herself nod.

Chapter Text

Hermione didn’t sleep. She drifted, flitting back and forth across the jagged edge of consciousness as the pain in her body and the tumultuous peril over the past few days coalesced into a stinging dread within her. Every time her eyes closed, Lucius’s voice threaded through the dark, soft as silk pulled tight around her throat, jerking her from any brief reprise she began to feel in breathless jolts of terror. Every time her limbs slackened, she felt again the sensation of fire burning through her, the sting in her ribs, the blur of the hospital atrium. Her body, exhausted beyond reason, tried to wrestle her under, her mind clawed its way back up every time.

She lay on her side, turned toward him.

Draco slept on his back beside her, one arm crooked loosely between them as if he had been reaching for her before exhaustion finally claimed him. The scars that mapped his chest were illuminated, almost shining, in the thin line of streetlight seeping in through the curtains; pale ridges and sunken hollows carved into skin that had once been soft and untouched. His mouth, ordinarily fixed in a tight, cutting line, had eased in sleep. Without the armour of expression, he looked young. Too young for any of this. She wondered if he, like his body, had once been soft and pure, and whether the damage within him would ever truly heal, whether it was possible for the hurt to relent just enough for that small boy on the inside to be at peace.

Every so often his fingers twitched. A small, involuntary flinch. The shadow of some nightmare that never fully reached the surface. She watched the way his chest rose and fell, slow and steady, the way his lashes shifted against his cheeks when his eyes moved beneath them. She spent the night afraid of what morning would bring, afraid that she’d wake to fire, and blood, and that she wouldn’t be able to escape this time before he was the one that would fall. Afraid that if she closed her eyes for too long, she would wake to find the space beside her empty again, just a cold indentation where he had been, that she would never see him again.

When sleep finally took her, it was a shallow, brittle thing. She woke what felt like minutes later to the low rumble of movement downstairs and the faint, familiar echo of Harry’s footsteps in the way the house absorbed it. She would know him, know the sound he made, anywhere. Once it had brought her comfort, and it mostly still did. But the dread that had collected in her stomach overnight hardened.

“Stay here,” Draco murmured hoarsely beside her, already pushing himself upright, wand raised. “I’ll see who it is.”

“It’s Harry,” she whispered, throat dry. 

He sighed, the sudden tension in his posture easing, if slightly. “Of course it is,” Draco muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face as he reached for his shirt. He buttoned his shirt with twitching fingers and left the room before she could respond. Hermione forced herself upright inch by inch, biting back the throbbing rush of pain that flared along her skin. Every movement was a painful reminder that things were not going to be the same. Not anymore. By the time she’d shrugged on the dressing gown looped over the bedframe and made it downstairs, Harry was in the kitchen, and it seemed that Draco was too. The door stood half-open, drifting on its hinges. Voices spilled into the hallway.

“…doesn’t change the fact that you should have called me,” Harry was saying, every word strained. “She’s-”

“-a person they just tried to kill,” Draco cut in flatly. “In a hospital you know they can walk into. Your little guard dog had a fit and stormed off, leaving only me to deal with the situation. You’re welcome, by the way.”

She crept into the doorway. Harry stood at the opposite end of the table, coat still on, scarf hanging loose around his neck, glasses fogged at the edges from the difference in temperature. His hair stuck up more wildly than usual, and there were shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been there a year ago. The empty mug in front of him suggested Draco had at least tried to offer civility. Harry turned when he saw her.

Relief flicked through his face, the tension in his shoulders loosening just a fraction at the sight of her upright. 

“Hermione,” he said. “First of all, Are you alright? Secondly, are you out of your mind?”

“Good morning to you too,” she replied, voice rough. She shuffled to the chair opposite him, every step an exercise in not grimacing. Draco moved toward her quietly, pulling the chair out, steadying her elbow as she lowered herself down. The muscle in Harry’s jaw ticked at the sight.

Hermione pushed through it. “I’m fine. Mostly.”

“You’re not fine,” Harry said gently. “You were attacked, Hermione. Your entire flat is gone. They had to glue your insides back together. You were supposed to be under guard. Under protection. What possessed you to-”

“Lucius came,” she said.

Harry’s mouth closed, whatever reprimand he’d been winding up dying on his tongue. His eyes slid to Draco for a second, then back to her. “Lucius Malfoy was at St Mungo’s?”

Hermione nodded once. “Yesterday. He turned up in my room.”

Draco stiffened where he hovered by the counter, arms folded, as if he were bracing himself against a wave. He didn’t speak.

So she told Harry. Not every detail. Not the way Lucius’s hands had settled on Draco’s shoulders like he was adjusting a mannequin. Not the way Draco had given in, just a fraction, under the weight of his father’s disappointment. Not the way her own chest had felt like it was fracturing watching him fold around old habits. But she told him enough.

She told him about Lucius’s earlier letters, about his interest in Draco, about the way he had spoken of Narcissa, with something that sounded too much like a threat to be dismissed. She told him how Lucius had sealed the door with a flick of his wand and spoken to her about Draco like he was an inconvenience he was trying to decide whether to remove or exploit. She told him that he knew she’d been removed from her position at the Department, that he knew things he shouldn’t have known, that his presence had taken what little sense of safety St Mungo’s had offered and snapped it cleanly in half. He listened without interrupting.

By the time she finished, he looked troubled. His eyes had settled into that flinty focus she recognised from the war, the look he got when he was seeing things that even she couldn’t.

“So,” he said slowly, when she fell silent. “Someone arranges to have you attacked in your own home. And Lucius Malfoy conveniently appears the next day, delivering ‘charity’, having a casual chat with the healer who admitted you.” His eyes cut again, to Draco.

“Malfoy. Do you think your father did this?”

Draco regarded in him hostile silence. He said nothing.

She sighed. “It doesn’t look good. I don’t think he’s involved, though. I think at the worst, the healer who admitted me is in his pocket and told him Draco was there, and he took it as an opportunity.”

He exhaled heavily. “Lucius aside, We must have gotten close to something. Something they don’t want us anywhere near.”

Hermione’s fingers curled against the grain of the table. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

“All the more reason why you should not be on this case anymore.”

She blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“You heard me.” He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, then placed them back again, a familiar gesture she’d seen a thousand times after hours of reading reports. “Hermione, this isn’t just political anymore, isn’t just an investigation. They are actively trying to kill you. I won’t keep you involved in something that’s turning you into a target.”

Across the room, Draco shifted, but he didn’t speak. Hermione shot him a quick look, silently asking him not to make this worse. He rolled his eyes and leaned back against the counter, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“This isn’t your choice,” Hermione said quietly, turning back to Harry. “It’s mine.”

Harry’s eyes flashed. “You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t watched you make terrible, self-sacrificing choices for the last decade and a half?” His hand sliced through the air, gesturing at her. “I’m not saying this as the Head of the Auror Office. I’m saying this as your friend. You almost died, Hermione.”

“A lot of people could already be dead, and we don’t even know where they are,” she mumbled back. “Some of them did die, Harry. Someone is hunting people down. People who trusted us to make their lives better. How am I supposed to walk away from that?”

“By staying alive,” he said. “By letting me handle this. You’re off the Department anyway, you have an excuse. You can focus on-” His eyes flicked involuntarily towards Draco, then back. “On anything else.” He looked at Draco again. 

“Malfoy, I need to have this conversation in private. I’ll talk to you later.” Draco gave him a withering look, but relented and left the room. Talk to him later? Since when had Draco and Harry been so chatty? She shook herself out of the observation and forced her tired mind to focus.

“What else do you want me to focus on? Knitting? Gardening? Pretending I don’t know that somebody out there tried to blow me apart to send a message?”

Her voice rose without her meaning it to. Pain pulled along her scars, sharp and insistent, and she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from hissing.

Harry’s gaze softened, but he didn’t budge. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, low and fervent. “Because I’m the one who sat across from the people disappearing. All of them. I’m the one who looked them in the eye and promised that if they cooperated, if they tried, they would be safe. I wrote the programmes that were supposed to keep them out of cells and graves. And now they’re gone, Harry. My people. People we were supposed to protect. If I walk away, and more of them vanish, I will always wonder if I could have stopped it and chose not to. I can’t do that. I won’t. I’ve failed the ministry, I've failed the program, I’ve failed everyone. I get it. But I can’t continue to let my failures get people hurt.”

Harry stared at her for a long moment, then exhaled slowly, a frayed sound.

“Of course you would say that,” he muttered, almost fond in a way that made her want to hit him and hug him in equal measure. “Fine. Fine. I’m not saying I’m happy about it. I’m not saying I’m letting you go after anyone. But I know better than to think I can actually make you stand down. At least tell me you’ll stay inside long enough for your wounds to half heal before you go and rip them open again.”

She almost smiled. Almost.

He sat down opposite her fully, shrugging off his coat at last, the argument settling into something more focused. “If you’re staying in, then we stop wasting time. We’re missing something. There’s a connection we haven’t seen yet. Something obvious.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out a thin folder, dropping it onto the table. The familiar stack of parchment slid free, the list of names she knew by heart now, ink blurring slightly where she’d traced the letters too many times with her thumb.

“We go over everyone again,” he said. “Every name, every interview, every detail you remember. We write it all down until the pattern shakes loose.”

Hermione nodded. The next hour blurred into the scratch of quills and the rustle of parchment. They spread the list across the table, pinning the corners under mugs and an empty jar of sugar. Hermione read each name aloud, tasting them, letting them drag memories with them, faces across tables, the tremor of certain voices, the odd flickers of defensiveness or indifference.

Hannah Abbott. She wrote the name down on a separate scrap of parchment. Underlined it. Twice.

“She was nervous,” Hermione. “More than she should have been. Avoided answering questions directly. Kept glancing at the door. It might have just been the setting, but-”

“Yeah, I know. I did some digging. She worked at the Leaky for years,” Harry said, brow furrowing. “Then moved to Hogsmeade. No known associations with radical groups on either side post-Battle. But her name’s on the list, and she was definitely holding something back.”

Next name.

George Weasley.

Hermione hesitated, then wrote it anyway.

“He made jokes,” she said quietly. “Too many. The way he always does when something hurts. But there was something else, I don’t know. He looked worried.”

Harry’s mouth tightened. “George has been… different, since the war,” he said carefully. “You know that. I don’t want to-”

“I’m not saying he’s involved,” Hermione cut in quickly. “Just that something felt off.”

“Alright,” Harry said. “Put him on the ‘odd’ pile.”

She did.

Neville Longbottom.

Hermione’s quill hovered.

She could still see him across the interview table, scarred and steady, that strange mixture of gentleness and hard-won steel in his eyes. The way he had listened to her outline the situation, posture tense. The moment Ron had, in his usual spectacular fashion, let slip that there had been two other names on the list already. The way Neville had gone still, then asked: Who else?

She remembered the way the question had landed. Heavy. Intent. Hermione wrote his name down beside Hannah and George. Her chest ached.

Harry watched her. “Neville?” he asked quietly.

“He asked who else was on the list,” she said. “None of the others did. Not like that.”

“He’d be worried,” Harry said. “If he knew people were being targeted. It makes sense he’d want to know who was at risk.”

“Maybe,” she said, but the word felt thin. “Maybe.”

They kept going.

She made another column. Names she’d circled only once. People who had been curt or hostile or oddly unconcerned. People who had been too eager to please, as if reciting lines rehearsed in advance. By the time they were done, the table was a mess of parchment, names listed and relisted, small arrows connecting them, ink bleeding where the quills had lingered too long over certain letters.

Harry sat back, rubbing his eyes. “This isn’t helping,” he muttered. “We’re drowning in details. There has to be something simpler. Something fundamental that links them.”

“They were all Hogwarts students,” Hermione said automatically. “Most of them in our year or around it. Or younger. We know that.”

“Plenty of people were Hogwarts students,” Harry replied. “Half the country went there. That’s not enough.”

She stared at the list, pulse thudding in her ears.

Hannah Abbott. George Weasley. Neville Longbottom. Angelica Johnston. Names that tugged at her with a peculiar kind of familiarity that went beyond shared corridors and classrooms.

“What else?” Harry muttered. “What connects all of them? Other than being pulled into the War in one way or another?”

Hermione pressed the heel of her hand to her temple.

“They were our classmates,” she said. “People we knew directly. Or people adjacent to us. People we fought alongside, or around. Maybe it’s connected to us specifically, maybe that’s why they targeted me. But that’s true of half the people from our year. Why these ones?”

Her mind flicked back through time, recalling each interaction she’d had with the people mentioned. Then something. The smallest thread, connecting dots one by one in her mind. Surely not…

“Neville asked who else was on the list,” she said again. “Ron had let slip that there were two others. That stuck with him. Those specific two. Why?”

“Because he’s Neville,” Harry said tiredly. “Because he takes responsibility for people that shouldn’t be his burden. Because he-”

Hermione’s hand shot out, closing around his forearm so sharply he flinched.

“What?” he demanded, startled.

She didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze ran down the list, heart suddenly pounding, a terrible, hopeful dread rising in her chest. Neville. Hannah. George. Others. Faces flickering up from the parchment like ghosts in smoke. What was it about Neville that was different? What made him hear two others and immediately want to know who else? Because if you told Neville people were being targeted, he’d want to know if they were his people. Because he’d protected all of them in the past. Her throat went dry.

“Hermione?” Harry prompted. “What is it?”

“What is it about Neville,” she said slowly, more to herself than to him, “that’s different from the rest of us? From the rest of the people on this list? What would make him react that way?”

Harry frowned, chewing the inside of his cheek. “He’s a war hero? So are half the people on there. He was tortured by the Carrows? So were others. His parents-”

“No.” She shook her head, frustration spiking. “No, that’s not it, that’s too broad, too general. Think, Harry. Think about the list itself. The shape of it. The names. What do they have in common with Neville? Not with you. Not with me. With him.”

She could see him rifling through memories, but it wasn’t snapping into place for him yet. His eyes moved over the names again, brows knitting.

“I’m not following,” he admitted.

Hermione let out a breath that was almost a laugh. It came out shaky and thin.

“Oh, I am an idiot,” she whispered, almost giddy with the horror of it. “We both are.”

She pushed herself to her feet on instinct, adrenaline spiking through her like a spell. Pain ripped through her abdomen so viciously her vision went white at the edges, and she sagged back down into the chair with a sharp hiss.

“Hermione!” Harry half-rose, hand darting toward her, but she waved him off, gripping the edge of the table until her knuckles whitened.

“I’ve got it,” she said through her teeth. “I’ve got it, I know what this is.”

Harry stared at her, bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

She jabbed a finger at the list, breath coming fast.

“Ask yourself,” she said, each word slow and deliberate, desperate for him to see it before she named it, because if she named it, she felt as if she would be sick. “What do all of the people on this list have in common with Neville? What connects them all that doesn’t necessarily connect them to us?”

Harry followed the line of her finger across the parchment, eyes skimming the names. His brow furrowed deeper.

“I don’t-”

She could barely sit still. Memories surged up, bright and sharp. The Room of Requirement filling itself with cushions and dummies at her whispered request. Neville smiling with dazed pride as he disarmed Harry cleanly for the first time. Hannah’s nervous laughter. The parchment in her hand, charmed to reveal names. The thrill of each new signature blooming across it. Then again, the collection of students bruised, bloodied and broken, but all gathered together again right before the Battle of Hogwarts. Gathered together by him. Dumbledore’s Army. 

“Oh, Merlin,” she breathed. “It’s so simple. It’s been in front of us the whole time.”

“Hermione,” Harry said, slow, cautious. “Please. Start making sense.”

She looked up at him, feeling a warped, exhausted grin tug at her mouth despite everything. 

“Harry,” she said. “We should have recognised this list the moment we saw it. Even with the extra names. It’s a list we made.”

Realisation flickered over his face, tentative, uncertain.

“In school,” she finished softly. “Every single person on that list either joined Dumbledore’s Army with us in fifth year… or fought under Neville later on when Hogwarts fell.”

Silence dropped over the kitchen. Harry stared down at the parchment.

One by one, she could see on his face that the names seemed to rearrange themselves in his head, no longer a collection of loosely connected ex-students and war strays, but something much more specific. Much more intimate. People who had signed their names on a piece of parchment in a crowded pub and vowed to fight back. People who had stood in front of the Carrows and refused to bow. People who had answered Neville’s call when the castle burned.

He went pale.

“Someone,” Hermione said quietly, the words feeling thick in her throat, “is reforming Dumbledore’s Army.”

Neither of them dared to speak. It had been so obvious, so painfully obvious; the answer had been under their noses the entire time. It was sick, it was twisted, but it made more sense to her than it should have. Both her and Harry had recruited these people as teenagers, encouraged them to fight from an early age, taught them the skills to hunt death eaters. So many of them had lost people in the war that they’d kept the fight going. After seeing what they had, going through the things that they had gone through when Hogwarts was occupied, she could see how frustrated they would be at the concept of people they had fought against being given a second chance that their loved ones had never been granted. 

“Half of the people on the list had no idea what we were talking about though, Hermione.”

Hermione nodded. “Don’t you see? Whichever member is orchestrating this knows that half of the people from the DA wouldn’t have the stomach for this sort of thing. I’d bet anything that this was just a… I don’t know, a recruitment list? Possible members? But now we know. Whoever is doing this, it’s someone who was in the DA, or at least someone who fought with Neville. Maybe…” Her words trailed off. Neville. She didn’t want to say it, she didn’t even want to think it, but who else would have the motivation to do this more than he did? If anyone had the right to be furious at the post-war world, at its soft leniency, its bureaucratic mercy, it was him. Who else had the connections in the same way he did? He, who had been tortured by the Carrows, whose parents had been tortured by Bellatrix. Him, who had kept fighting even when it had been hopeless. 

Harry dragged a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “Alright,” he said quietly. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll speak to Neville again. Properly this time. Not just to get a cursory impression. I’ll tell him enough to see how he reacts.”

Hermione’s throat felt dry. “Carefully,” she said.

“Carefully,” he echoed. “And after him, I’ll go back to Hannah. And George.” His jaw tightened slightly around the last name. “If someone is reforming the DA for this, I need to know what’s going on in their heads. All of them.”

“I’m coming with you,” Hermione said immediately.

Harry shot her a flat look.

She tried to push herself up, ignoring the way the room tilted. Pain flared bright and hot through her ribs, crawling up her side like fire. Spots danced at the edges of her vision. For a moment she thought she might actually throw up on the table. She sank back down, breathing hard.

Harry raised his eyebrows like he’d just won an argument without having to open his mouth. “Are you finished?”

She glared at him, swallowing down humiliation. “That was purely for demonstrative purposes.”

“Mm.” He didn’t bother to hide his scepticism. “You can barely make it down the stairs, Hermione. You’re not traipsing around the country interrogating people in your condition.”

She hated how reasonable he sounded.

“I’ll be fine in a few days,” she muttered.

“And in a few days, if I need you there, I’ll drag you along myself,” Harry said. “But right now, you’re more useful not bleeding through your dressing gown in public, thanks.”

She bristled. “I’m not fragile.”

“You are,” he said, not unkindly. “Look, I’m not shutting you out. I’ll contact you after I’ve spoken to Neville. I’ll be as detailed as you want, I promise. But you stay here. You rest. You and Malfoy ward this place so thoroughly that if anyone breathes too hard on the front step, they combust. Understood?”

The thought of being left behind made her skin itch, but another spike of pain lanced through her when she shifted, punctuating the argument. Even she had to admit defeat.

“Fine,” she ground out. “But if you so much as summarise anything with ‘it was fine’ or ‘he seemed normal’, I will hit you.”

“That’s fair,” he said, a small smile on his face.

For a moment, the tension eased. Harry tapped his fingers against the table once, twice, as if counting through thoughts. Then he stopped. His gaze shifted, assessing her in that way she’d always found vaguely irritating, like he was working himself up to something.

“What?” Hermione asked warily.

He hesitated.

“Now that we’ve done the whole ‘someone is quasi-resurrecting our secret student army’ bit,” he said slowly, “we need to talk about something else.”

She narrowed her eyes. “If you’re about to suggest I take up meditation, I swear…”

“Malfoy,” Harry said.

The name dropped into the space between them with all the subtlety of a Bludger. Hermione felt heat crawl up the back of her neck, blooming hot and immediate beneath the exhaustion. “What about him?”

Harry just looked at her. It was not the look of a man who had no idea what was going on. It was the look of a man who had walked into too many rooms mid-argument, seen too many almost-touches, caught too many glances. She tried to hold his gaze, tried for bland, academic confusion. The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Honestly,” he said. “You’re supposed to be the clever one.”

She dropped her eyes to the table. “Harry, we have more important things-”

“Sure,” he said. “Which is why, when he called me, I genuinely thought he had lost his mind. Or whatever is left of it.”

Her head snapped back up. “What?”

Harry let out a slow breath, leaning back in his chair, studying her. “When Malfoy called to tell me about the attack, I thought it was some kind of sick joke at first. Or that he was having some sort of episode. I have never…” he put a hand across his chest in a vague gesture “...never heard him like that. Never heard anyone like that, really. I honestly didn’t think he was physically capable of it.”

A sick knot tightened in her stomach. “Like what?”

“Like he’d been skinned alive,” Harry said bluntly. “I could hear him shaking so hard he could barely hold onto the phone. Half the things he said came out in pieces. I had to make him repeat your name three times because I couldn’t understand him. He kept saying you weren’t moving. That you were covered in blood. That if I didn’t get there in ten seconds he’d…” Harry trailed off, swallowing. “I’ll spare you the rest.”

Hermione stared at the table, cheeks burning. She wished, with sudden ferocity, that the house would present her with some reason to leave the room. 

“It must have been traumatic for him,” she said stiffly. “Seeing me like that.”

Harry made a small, disbelieving noise that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so tired. “Sure. That would make sense if he hadn’t spent the entire time at St Mungo’s fighting with me and Ron to get into the room with you.”

She frowned. “He was just worried.”

“Worried,” Harry repeated, nodding slowly. “Because you’re the only thing standing between him and being able to do whatever he wants, right? That doesn’t make much sense.”

“Because I’m the only one he speaks to,” she insisted. “I’m his handler. It makes sense he’d panic if he thought that was going to be taken away.”

Harry stared at her, then sighed, long and deep, like he was bracing himself.

“Alright,” he said. “If that’s the story you want to tell yourself. But explain this, then.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile, thumb keying the buttons with practised ease. He tapped something, then turned the device toward her. He’d scrolled all the way to their first messages.

Lines of text lit the screen. Dozens of them. The contact name at the top simply read MALFOY 😡.

Hermione blinked. Some of it was clearly mundane, which was perhaps the strangest part. 

You still fly like a Gryffindor, Potter. Heard you at that charity event on the radio last night. All bravado, no finesse. - M

Bravado catches snitches, Malfoy. I wouldn’t expect you to understand, I know that’s something you can’t relate to. - P

I at least make turning look intentional. You corner like a wounded Hippogriff. - M

You’d know a lot about Hippogriffs, would you? - P

Fuck. Off. - M

She snorted, and kept scrolling.

Stop writing ‘none of your business’ in the ‘special accommodations’ box. You realise I’m not the only person who reads these reports, right? - P

Stop asking stupid questions and I’ll consider it. - M

That plant you left for Granger is dead. - M

How? It’s been there one day? - P

Yes. Tragic, isn’t it? - M

She could picture Draco typing them, back stiff, expression tight, as if each message was a concession he despised making but couldn’t quite stop himself from sending. But interspersed between the sardonic commentary were others. She felt her throat go tight as she scrolled.

What does it mean if she hasn’t come home yet but said she would be back by ten? - M

That she’s busy, Malfoy. And so am I. Stop texting ME past ten. - H

She keeps insisting the headaches are ‘manageable.’ You know she lies when she says that. What can I do? - M

She does this sometimes. Probably isn’t eating or drinking enough. But keep an eye on her for me. - P

I always do. - M

She told me what happened at the Anderson house. - M

Well, she wasn’t supposed to. Don’t ask. You know I can’t tell you anything. - P

I have no interest in your little investigations. What’s her favourite food? She’ll stop eating again if I don’t find something. - M

Peanut butter and Marmite sandwiches. - P 

That is absolutely disgusting. - M

You asked. - P

Oh. She remembered that morning, how he’d made the sandwich without her even asking, insisted she’d told him about it in the past. She had no memory of doing so at the time, and couldn't understand how he could have possibly guessed. It made sense now. “I didn’t know you spoke this much.” The concept was almost absurd. She wouldn’t have believed it if the evidence wasn’t in front of her. Their messages were almost friendly.

“Neither did I,” Harry said dryly. “At first I thought it was some elaborate ploy to annoy me. But then I started noticing a pattern.” 

She scrolled further, curiosity getting the better of her, all the way down to more recent messages when her arguments with him had been at their worst, and a collection that spanned the same day then crossed into the next that caught her interest.

17:19 I fucked everything up. - M

17:25 You can come over, you know. I won’t tell anyone. I won’t tell her. - P

18:01 I didn’t ask for an invitation. - M

18:02 It’s still there. - H

19:23 I just can’t be in this house with her right now. I don’t know what to do. I have nowhere else to go. - M

19:26 You’ve got my address. Spare key under the flower pot. Ginny is away tonight. If you want to sit downstairs for a while, I’ll be back after eight. - P

19:27 Fine. But i’m not staying long. - M

19:30 Didn’t say you had to. - P

11:23 Did you make it home alright? - P

11:24 Yes. - M

15:19 Thank you. - M

 

She tore her gaze away, a strange feeling filling her. All of the times he’d been out of the house, even overnight, all of the times she’d come home and he wasn’t there. He hadn’t been up to something, or blowing through his restitution funds like she had assumed. He’d been with Harry. Draco. With Harry. Why? 

“You…you could have told me.”

“And said what, exactly?” Harry asked gently. “Hey, Hermione, just so you know, the Death Eater you’re living with has been quietly having a breakdown over your wellbeing for months? Also, I’ve been letting him have sleepovers with me every time you both have a domestic?”

She flinched. “He isn’t a Death Eater.”

He sighed again. “Look. I’m not saying this to embarrass you. Or him. Merlin knows he’d probably try to kill me on sight if he knew I’d shown you those. I’m saying it because you keep talking about this like it’s administrative. Like you’re his handler and he’s your obligation and that’s all.”

Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table.

“But that’s not what it looks like from where I’m sitting, frankly.”

She made a small, abortive gesture. “It’s complicated.”

“Of course it is,” he said. “It’s you.”

That almost made her smile. It hurt.

“I’m not here to tell you what to do,” Harry went on. “I’ve made enough questionable choices in that department to last a lifetime. I just need you to be honest with yourself about what this is. Because from my vantage point?” He tilted his head, meeting her eyes. “He’s got feelings for you. I don’t know what exactly they are, but he has them. And you are far too clever to have not noticed it.”

Hermione swallowed, hard.

“Harry…”

“He called me screaming,” Harry said simply. “Over you. He’s been sending me panicked texts every time you two have a row, asking how to fix it without making things worse. He looks at you like…” He broke off, shaking his head. “I don’t know. Like you’re the first real thing he’s seen in years.”

The air in the kitchen felt too thin.

Hermione stared down at her own hands, pale against the worn wood, at the faint tremble moving through them. “We are not-”

“Label it however you want,” Harry said. “All I’m asking is that when you’re making choices about this case, about putting yourself in danger, you remember there’s someone upstairs who is going to take it badly if you don’t come back. I know you have no issues dying for a cause, but at least think about the people around you who would suffer for it.”

She exhaled slowly. “I would have hoped that someone was going to take it badly even before Draco.”

Harry’s mouth twisted. “Yes, well. I like to think I’ve developed a slightly thicker skin to your heroics over the years. Malfoy, on the other hand…” He gestured vaguely at the phone. “is a work in progress.”

Despite herself, a soft huff of breath slipped out of her. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it was close enough that something in Harry’s shoulders eased.

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his, warm and solid and familiar. “Just… be careful,” he said. “With him. With yourself.”

“I’ll try,” she said.

Down here, in the kitchen of a house that had once belonged to a different generation of revolutionaries and before that, blood purists, Hermione Granger sat at a table with the boy who lived and a phone full of frantic messages from the boy who was left behind. It was a strange, strange life.

Hermione climbed the stairs slowly. The house felt strangely hollow after Harry’s departure, as if a draft had slipped through the walls and carried the noise away with it. She paused outside the bedroom door and listened to the faint sound of Draco speaking quietly as he strengthened the wards, his voice a low, precise murmur that brushed faintly against her skin as she entered.

He stood by the far window, one hand raised, the wand held with an elegance that appeared effortless only because he had spent weeks attempting to make it so, though the tightness in his grip betrayed the pain it was causing him. When he turned, his posture was immaculate again, his face pale but composed, the wreckage of the previous day locked safely behind a calm exterior.

“You should not be on the stairs by yourself yet,” he said, in a tone that did not scold so much as observe.

“And you shouldn’t be reconstructing half the house’s protections before breakfast,” she answered, nodding toward the shimmer still lingering over the glass.

He barely allowed the smallest pull of his mouth in response, not quite a smile, as though even that would suggest too much ease. She crossed the room and sat down carefully at the edge of the bed. He stepped forward as though to help her, hands lifting instinctively, then lowering again before they could reach her. The gesture was so quick it would have been easy to miss, but she saw the flicker of uncertainty beneath it, the moment where he fought to decide between caution and concern.

She eased herself back against the pillows and let out a quiet breath. “Harry told me something,” she said.

Draco did not move. He simply stood very still, as if bracing for something unpleasant. “Oh?” he replied. “Do enlighten me.”

“He said you and he are… friendly,” she ventured, watching him closely. She wasn’t going to mention the messages. Calm as Draco seemed to be today, she didn’t want him to murder Harry the next time he saw him.

Draco let out a soft sound, one with no amusement in it, merely an attempt at distance. “Potter tends to dramatise.”

“That is not what he made it sound like,” she said.

Draco looked away for a moment, studying some invisible point on the far wall. “His interpretation is his own. I do not encourage it.”

Hermione hesitated, then continued quietly, “He also said that when we argue, you sometimes go to him.”

Something shifted subtly in Draco’s posture. His shoulders tightened, and a faint flush rose at the tops of his ears, as if embarrassment had reached him before he could school it away. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, but the edges were taut.

“That is not information I expected him to share,” he said. “Nor information I wanted anyone to possess.”

“Draco,” she said, leaning forward slightly, trying her best not to laugh, “It’s fine. Good even. You could have told me, I wouldn’t have minded. It’s better than not knowing where you were going.”

His jaw tightened. “No. The entire purpose of leaving was to prevent further damage. I preferred to remove myself rather than escalate matters.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” she said, forcing her lips not to betray just how funny his embarrassment was to her. “I just didn’t know.”

“Which was intentional,” he replied. “If you knew, you might have felt obligated to fix something that was already beyond repair in that moment. It seemed better to step outside than remain here and make both of us miserable.”

She watched him silently. He kept his gaze averted, and she suspected he was doing so to maintain the composure he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep if he looked her in the eye.

“I am not mocking you,” she said softly.

“I know,” he replied. “It is still not something I wished you to hear. Not from him, and certainly not now.”

“You are allowed to need someone that isn’t me.”

He gave a small shake of his head, not dismissive, but helpless. “Need is an uncomfortable word. It implies imbalance. I am trying to avoid being a burden. You already have enough to shoulder without adding my instability to the list.”

“You are not a burden,” she said.

He finally met her gaze. His eyes were cool and clear, controlled as ever, but beneath the surface she could see the faintest shadow of doubt.

“Perhaps not today.”.

Hermione exhaled, long and slow, feeling something inside her soften. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop the smile forming on her face. “I can’t believe you’re friends with him. It’s sweet.”

Draco’s expression seemingly folded into displeasure at Harry’s entire existence. “If you are asking whether I enjoy his company, the answer is no.”

“That is not what he implied.”

Draco narrowed his eyes slightly. “He is insufferably persistent. That is all. A person can become accustomed to the presence of a persistent nuisance. I tolerate you, don’t I?”

“Sometimes.”

His brow furrowed. “You are not angry?”

“Of course I’m not angry,” she said. “If anything, I’m relieved you didn’t stay alone somewhere and tear yourself apart.”

A brief, quiet silence fell between them. Draco cleared his throat, a soft sound, almost shy. “For what it is worth, I would prefer to resolve things here in the future. With you. Rather than flee to Potter again. It was a last resort.”

She nodded. “Then let’s try to make fewer last resorts.”

She rested back against the pillows for a moment, allowing the quiet to stretch, then lifted her eyes toward him. When she spoke, her voice carried a quiet steadiness that surprised even her.

“Come here,” she murmured.

Draco’s brow lifted in a small arc of question, the instinctive doubt flickering through his eyes, but he rose without argument, crossing the space between them stiffly. He sat on the edge of the mattress, close enough for her to feel the faint warmth radiating through the fabric of his shirt, and waited as if unsure of what she truly wanted from him.

Hermione shifted slightly, turning so she could see him clearly. The tension in her ribs protested, but there was an ache within her beginning to develop that was far more painful than anything her body could do to her. She opened her mouth once, then closed it again, gathering courage in the stillness between them.

“Draco,” she said quietly, “may I kiss you?”

For a moment, she thought he hadn’t heard her. He looked at her blankly, as if she had said something in a foreign language. Then all of a sudden, the question seemed to pass through him like something physical, unbalancing the careful composure he had constructed for himself throughout the morning. His breath halted, then deepened, and the reserve in his expression cracked apart just enough for her to see the truth beneath it. Hunger. It was a longing held in check for so long that it had begun to carve itself into the lines of his face, something he had buried under restraint and fear, now rising so quickly he looked as though he hardly knew what to do with it.

He leaned toward her slightly, as if drawn without choice, but stopped just short, hovering above her with a tension that made every inch of the air between them feel charged. His eyes searched hers, lingering over every minute shift in her expression, and the closeness of him, the faint warmth of his breath brushing her cheek, made her heartbeat trill painfully in her chest.

“You may.”

But he still seemed hesitant, unable to breach the final inch, Hermione reached for the front of his shirt and curled her fingers into the fabric, pulling him down with a quiet, decisive need. Their lips met with a tenderness that bloomed almost painfully through her, the kind that felt like a long awaited exhale after holding her breath for days. Draco’s hand braced beside her head on the mattress, steadying himself so he did not collapse his weight onto her healing body, while his other arm slid around her waist in a slow, reverent motion, gathering her gently against him.

The kiss deepened gradually, like something unfolding rather than igniting, the warmth of his mouth moving against hers in a rhythm that felt both careful and fiercely assured. There was nothing rushed in the way he kissed her, yet there was a quiet urgency beneath it, a profound relief, as if he had been waiting for this permission without admitting he had wanted it at all. Hermione lifted her hand to his jaw, her fingertips brushing the faint roughness of stubble there, and felt the slight shiver that ran through him at the contact. His lips parted softly against hers, drawing a quiet breath from deep in his chest, and the sound vibrated through her with a tenderness that made her eyes sting.

He shifted closer, not pressing, only gathering more of her into the circle of his arm, his hand settling at her waist with a featherlight touch. She felt the warmth of him radiating through her dressing gown, the steady rise and fall of his breath brushing her cheek, and the world felt warm and alive again, because there was nothing left but the sensation of him, the steadiness of his touch, the slow unfolding warmth of the kiss that held none of the jagged pain that had shaped their proximity until now.

When he finally drew back enough to breathe, his forehead rested gently against hers, and she could feel the faint tremor of restraint in his body, as though he was fighting the desire to pull her even closer, to bury himself in her warmth, to let the kiss consume him entirely. His voice, when it reached her, was low and raw at the edges.

“Tell me if this hurts.”

“It doesn’t,” she replied, her own voice thin with breath. “I love kissing you.”

He closed his eyes at that, the smallest, quietest reaction, but one that told her more than any words could have. His thumb traced her waist with a slow, thoughtful movement, and he lowered his mouth to hers again, this time with a deeper certainty, allowing himself a little more of what he had been holding back. The kiss lingered, unhurried and warm, a promise shaped in silence, a careful, steadying reminder that they could build something here that was not born of fear, not carved from wounds, but chosen deliberately, gently. He could choose to be gentle, it seemed, when he wanted to.

When he pulled back again at last, only far enough to see her face, Hermione felt the echo of his lips against her own, and Draco looked at her with a quiet, unguarded intensity that made her whole body feel alive with a fire very different to the one that had burned her before. He remained close enough that his breath warmed her, and something in his expression shifted again, as though the ground under his feet had tilted and he was still adjusting to the new landscape of it. When he finally spoke, the words emerged quietly, almost wonderingly, as if he had not intended to say them aloud at all.

“I… I love kissing you too.”

His eyes searched hers with the faintest shadow of uncertainty, as if he was bracing for her to pull away. Instead, she rose slightly toward him, her voice slipping out in a whisper that trembled with want.

“Then you should keep doing it.”

Something in him seemed to unspool at those words, some fragile tether of restraint releasing, and he leaned in with a deep, quiet hunger that startled her with its sudden intensity, though his touch remained careful, almost painfully gentle against her healing body. His mouth met hers again in a kiss that had more fire in it this time, more longing, his lips moving with an urgency that felt like truth, as if he had been holding himself back for far too long.

The taste of his toothpaste lingered faintly on his tongue, unexpectedly sweet, almost like sugar dissolving slowly against her own, and the familiarity of it amidst all the chaos that had shaped their lives, made something warm and fragile expand inside her chest.

He lowered his mouth to the side of her throat with a deliberate slowness, as though he was giving her every chance to stop him and trusting her entirely when she did not. His lips brushed her skin with a warmth that made her pulse leap beneath the surface, soft at first, then deeper, almost decadent in the way he lingered there, tasting the place where her pulse fluttered so insistently under his touch. Each kiss felt like a word he was unable to articulate, a series of soft, luxuriant touches that made her breath unsteady and her fingers helplessly cling to him.

She slid her hand upward into his hair, threading her fingers through the soft pale strands, massaging his scalp in the way she knew that he loved, and Draco made a quiet sound against her throat, something low and involuntary that she felt more than heard. He tilted his head slightly into her touch, and the faint tremor that ran through him made her hold him more firmly, as though she could steady the ache that had been living inside him for so long.

His hands tugged at her dressing gown, pushing it open and off her shoulders with fervent need that seemed to rise through him before he could temper it. He fumbled with the buttons of the shirt she had been wearing beneath, struggling at first, until it fully opened, and her breasts were fully exposed to him. If she had been in her right mind, she might have been embarrassed, or shy, but she wasn’t in her right mind, because suddenly his mouth was there, hot and indecent on her nipple, tongue lapping and teeth lightly teasing in a way that sent shocks right through her. His hand dragged slowly from her waist to her other breast and grasped it, his fingers pressing into her skin and slowly, teasingly, in a way that made her almost delirious. But the movement pressed against the half-healed bruises along her ribs, and pain flared sharp and immediate through her chest. She inhaled sharply, the sound escaping her in a tangled moan of pleasure and pain that she could not contain.

Draco froze.

Every muscle in his body went still, the hunger in his touch extinguished as swiftly as if someone had snatched a flame from his hands. He pulled back quickly. His eyes searched her face with a look that bordered on alarm, his hand lingering just above her waist, suspended there as if he no longer trusted his own touch.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, looking away, the words shaped with a sincerity that cut through all of his usual composure. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” she whispered, though her voice trembled slightly from the lingering ache. “It was good, Draco. Really good. I’m still sensitive, that’s all.”

He looked unconvinced, his brow tightening just slightly as he studied her, so she shifted with slow deliberation, turning onto her side despite the dull pull of discomfort that moved through her. She inhaled softly at the ache of it, but she managed the movement until she was facing him completely, the two of them lying close together in the same way they’d fallen asleep with one another so many times now.

Her hand found his, their fingers brushing in a hesitant glide before she guided his hand upward, bringing it slowly, gently, until she could rest her cheek against his palm. His skin was warm, his fingers trembling almost imperceptibly as they curled instinctively along the curve of her jaw, holding her as if she were something precious.

“I won’t be sensitive forever,” she said quietly.

Draco’s eyes locked onto hers, and something shifted in his expression with such depth that she felt it like a pulse beneath her own skin. The tenderness in his face darkened, not into anything harsh, but into a richer, deeper hunger, one sharpened by restraint rather than eclipsed by it. His gaze traced the outline of her cheek resting against his hand, then followed the subtle movement of her lips as she drew a slow breath, and the longing that rose in his eyes made her cheeks flush.

The warmth of his palm under her cheek steadied her heartbeat, and the closeness of him, the weight of that new hunger in his gaze, made her whole body feel attuned to him in a way that had nothing to do with fear or obligation, and everything to do with want.

Hermione kept her cheek resting in his palm, still feeling the faint tremor that still moved through his fingers, and for a long moment she simply studied him. She let her gaze travel slowly across his face, tracing the high lines of his cheekbone, the tired half-moons beneath his eyes, the lines of strain that had been carved there over years of holding himself rigid against the world, all of it softened now by the quiet of the room and the closeness of them. He watched her with an expression that seemed both curious and wary, as though he could not quite understand why she was looking at him this way, or what she saw when she did.

She brushed her thumb lightly over the knuckles of the hand supporting her cheek, then, almost before she knew she was speaking, her voice slipped out in a quiet question that startled even her.

“What would you have done,” she asked, “if the war had never happened?”

Draco blinked, as though the question had caught him off guard, and his eyes drifted upward toward the ceiling as if he thought answers might be written there for a long moment. His breathing evened out into something contemplative.

“I imagine,” he said eventually, “that my parents would have found a suitable wife for me by now, someone from the right family, with the right name, the right expectations. I would have taken over the estate, managed the properties and the vaults and the investments, and I suppose I would have entered politics sooner rather than later. That was what had been planned when I was younger.”

Hermione watched him, her heart tugging with something complicated and heavy. “And what did you want to do?” she asked softly, “Not what they wanted, Draco. You.”

A faint frown touched his brow, not irritated, simply puzzled, as if the question itself were speaking a language he had never learned. “I never thought about it,” he admitted, shifting slightly on the pillow. “It was never presented as an option. Wanting something else was not part of the equation. I did what I was supposed to do because there was nothing else.”

Hermione let the silence sit for a moment, gentle and patient, before she spoke again. “But you must have liked something. Something you were good at. Something that felt like yours.”

Draco tried to answer, but no words formed. His mouth opened slightly, then closed again, and he looked almost embarrassed by his own uncertainty. Hermione felt a wave of affection rise within her, quiet and aching.

“You could have gone into potions,” she said. “You were brilliant at it. Better than me, and I can admit that now because I am too tired to lie about it.”

A small smile broke over his face, faint but real, softening some of the tension in his features. “It used to drive me insane,” he said, settling more comfortably onto his side so he could see her fully. “Trying to beat you in every subject. You were like a storm that kept growing, and I could barely keep up. I had something of a one sided academic rivalry with you, and it consumed far too many hours of my childhood. I think that’s part of why I hated you so much.”

Hermione laughed quietly, a warm sound that fluttered between them. “I never noticed.”

“Of course you didn’t,” he replied, rolling his eyes just enough to make his point. “You were breezing through everything while I was drowning in a sea of textbooks, desperately attempting to keep pace. You were the mountain, and I was the person foolish enough to believe I could climb it.”

“Would you have been a potions master then,” she asked, her tone gentle, curious. “If life had gone differently? If you had been allowed to choose.”

He considered it, his gaze drifting for a moment as if he could almost see a version of himself in some old classroom, sleeves rolled, hair mussed, stirring a cauldron. But then he shook his head slightly, a gesture that carried a hint of sadness.

“I have a life now. Or something like it.” he said. “A strange, fractured life, but one that no longer belongs to the Malfoy plan. I could do anything, I suppose, but I don’t know if potions would be part of that anything.” He exhaled quietly, a soft, thoughtful sound. “I am not sure who I am meant to be now that I am not being told.”

Hermione looked at him carefully. “Then let me ask you another way. If you weren’t Draco Malfoy, if you were someone else, what would you do? What would your life look like if it were entirely yours?”

He said nothing for such a long time that she almost would have thought that he had fallen asleep, if it weren’t for his eyes. His eyes drifted as if he were walking through some uncharted place in his mind, seeing things he had never allowed himself to imagine. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and almost tentative, as though he feared the fragility of his own answer.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that I might write. Something quiet, something no one else would ever have to read unless I let them. Perhaps I would own a small bookshop somewhere in Diagon Alley, something tucked between larger things, easy to miss unless you were looking for it. I would get a cat, because I always liked them and they never liked me. I would spend summers in France, near the coast perhaps, somewhere peaceful, and I would eat ice cream without feeling as though someone was watching me to make sure I did not embarrass myself.”

A small smile curved his lips, faint and wistful.

Her chest tightened, warm and aching. “You can have all of that,” she said.

There was something in his eyes suddenly that unsettled her. Something familiar. A resignation. He shrugged, pulling back a fraction, suddenly so distant from the intimacy he’d shown moments before. “It’s too late for me now. That life is meant for someone else. I hope they are enjoying it.”

“No,” Hermione whispered, her fingers curling gently around his. “Draco, that life is yours. You get to want something that belongs only to you. You get to have a dream that no one can take. I can help you make it real if you let me. Even if you never pursue it, even if it remains only a vision, it is still yours. You are allowed to imagine a future that doesn’t hurt.”

He looked at her with an expression that almost broke her heart, because it was filled with something hollow and yearning and disbelieving, something that said he wanted to believe her but did not know how, as though the idea of being allowed a hope was more foreign to him than living without it.

“If only it were true,” he murmured.

She held his hand tighter, willing him to feel the sincerity in her touch. “It is true,” she said softly. “It can be true. Let me help you believe it.”

His eyes softened. He was looking at her as if she were offering him a door he had never imagined could exist, but would never have the right key to. She could tell that he didn’t believe it at all.

Chapter Text

Hermione healed quickly. Far more quickly than even she had even dared to hope, though the lingering pain was a cruel and constant reminder of the danger they still had not managed to locate. If she twisted too far to the right, or lifted her arms too high, a spasm of stabbing numbness radiated through her nerves in a cold, electric bloom that made her fall short. Still, after a week she could walk steadily, and that was enough for Harry to finally, reluctantly, relent in allowing her to return to the investigation. He had fought her on it at first, with the kind of stubborn protectiveness she normally found reassuring, but this time it chafed. She needed purpose more than she needed rest. All of his protests however, quickly faded away, when other matters began to take his attention, and his time, away from the interviews.

MASS TRAGEDY ON THE ÖRESUND BRIDGE 

British Pureblood Marcus Flint Linked to Scandinavian unforgivable use horror!

The wizarding world awoke this morning to what may be the gravest breach of the International Statute of Secrecy since the fall of You-Know-Who; a mass-enchantment event on the Öresund Bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden, leaving Scandinavian authorities looking to the British Ministry for much needed answers.

Shortly after dawn, Muggle authorities reported a scene of unprecedented chaos as dozens of motorists abandoned their vehicles, climbed over the railings, and threw themselves into the waters of the strait below. The incident, initially labelled ‘collective mass delusion’ by Muggle experts, was quickly identified by the Danish Defence Service as a catastrophic misuse of the Imperius Curse, cast, according to early findings, on a staggering number of individuals at once. The death-toll is of now, unknown, though is predicted to be in the dozens.

The General Wizarding Assembly of Scandinavia, confirmed in a statement following the attack that a cadre of dark wizards is believed to have orchestrated the event, and that British-born Marcus Flint, a former Hogwarts student with well-documented ties to Death Eater sympathisers, was sighted near the scene.

Flint, despite having no known convictions, was believed to have fled the United Kingdom shortly after the fall of You-Know-Who, joining the growing population of British pure-blood expatriates who have resettled across the Scandinavian magical territories. His alleged involvement has reignited long-standing political tensions between Britain and the northern wizarding states, with Scandinavian officials publicly condemning the UK for ‘failing to contain its extremist diaspora.’ A representative of the Swedish Wizarding Royal Guard (known locally as Högvakten) remarked that “the current crisis is the inevitable consequence of Britain exporting its radical element without proper oversight.”

The British Ministry of Magic has yet to issue a formal statement, though a high-ranking DMLE official conceded that the situation is “deeply concerning,” and confirmed that Head Auror Harry Potter has left the country to assist in the international task force convened to locate Flint and any associates connected to the attack.

While the Ministry has, in recent years, taken a stringent stance toward pure-blood supremacist ideologies, prompted in part by increasing public hostility toward former Death Eaters, Scandinavian territories have earned a reputation as a politically “neutral” region. Their refusal to fully align with post-war British reform has made the area a haven for individuals seeking distance from the UK’s tightening ideological climate. This neutrality is now under scrutiny. International analysts say that the rising concentration of British-born extremists in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway has reached a “critical mass,” emboldened by local governments hesitant to enforce strict measures on foreign-born wizards. One Scandinavian official, speaking to the Prophet on condition of anonymity, admitted, “We expected discontent. We did not expect an attack of this magnitude.”

Although the Ministry has denied any culpability, the political consequences are already beginning to unfold. The European Wizarding Alliance has called an emergency union to address the “escalation of extremist magic in the north” and the “cross-border risks posed by displaced British dark wizards.” Britain’s detractors have wasted no time reviving long-standing criticisms of the country’s rehabilitation systems, deradicalisation policies, and perceived leniency toward former Death Eaters. Whether the UK will be held formally responsible remains to be seen. The Prophet will continue to provide updates as this story develops.

If Harry still had any misgivings about Hermione conducting the interviews, he wasn’t around to voice them anymore. The Scandinavian crisis swallowed him whole, dragging him from London to Copenhagen to Malmö with barely a night’s rest between journeys. His calls were brief and exhausted, and presented Hermione with more questions than answers. The absence left Hermione with time, too much of it, and the horrifying sense that all of a sudden, everything was rapidly fraying at the seams. The attack on her flat had become an inconvenience rather than a crime to solve. The Daily Prophet revelled, the Ministry shirked responsibility, and every lead she requested was met with bureaucratic fog.

So she took matters into her own hands. First was George. He had been strangely pale when she arrived at the shop, as if he had been expecting her long before she’d walked through the door. The conversation had been strange, fractured, George oscillating between dark humour and profoundly uncomfortable silences. He hadn’t known anything concrete, but he warned her, in the tone of someone who had seen too much, that “old loyalties die slower than people think, Hermione. And some never die at all.” It was hardly evidence, but it settled in her mind and stayed there deep until the night.

Neville was next. He welcomed her into the greenhouses behind Hogwarts with the same soft, earnest kindness he had carried since the war, but even before she spoke, she sensed it, the dread blooming from him like some poisonous plant he'd failed to prune. He made tea for her, but his hands shook as he poured it. When he asked if she would like sugar, she declined. He added two spoonfuls regardless, seemingly too distracted to realise what he was doing.

“Neville,” she said gently, “I’m not here to cause trouble. I just need to know if anything strange has happened in the last few years. Anyone suspicious reaching out, especially if it was someone from the Battle of Hogwarts. Someone from the DA, even. Anything you can-”

“There was someone,” he admitted. “A few years back.”

“Who?”

Neville didn’t answer immediately. He looked down at the steaming mug between his palms as if the memory were floating in it, waiting to be dredged up. When he finally spoke, his voice was weak, shaky, too much like the small boy he had been before he had found his courage.

“They said they were going to form a group. A sort of social club, I think they called it. Ex–DA members. Some younger aurors too. They said the Ministry wasn’t doing enough.”

Hermione felt her pulse shift. “And they approached you?”

Neville nodded.

“I was told I’d been the inspiration for the idea, that day when…” His eyes drifted, and closed briefly, as if he could blind himself to the memory if he squeezed hard enough. “That day when Hagrid brought Harry out of the woods. When I spoke against You-Know-Who to his face. They said if anyone had seen the damage that Death Eaters can do, it was me. That I would be the figurehead, the leader, an inspiration for everyone. I said no. Immediately. Something about it just felt wrong, Hermione.” 

He swallowed. “I just want to get away from all of that, you know? I’m not like you, or Harry, or Ron. I don’t want to keep being brave. I just want to have a peaceful life. When I declined, they told me if I ever mentioned the conversation again, even to other people who were in the DA, something would happen to Hannah. This was back when we were dating. They said the decision wasn’t theirs to overrule.”

Hermione felt a horrible, familiar feeling slide through her stomach, coiling in her gut.

“Neville. Who was it that approached you?”

He looked up at her with a gentle, sad smile.

“Katie,” he said quietly. “Katie Bell.”

Hermione’s stomach turned. Katie, who had been cursed by a dark artifact in their sixth year by Draco. Katie, who had fought bravely in the Battle of Hogwarts. Katie, who had always spoken about justice with a clear, unwavering certainty. Katie, who had facilitated Draco’s imprisonment and torture. Katie, who was dead. Her one lead, the one answer she’d gotten, and it was a dead end again.

Hermione sat back, the implications spreading outward like cracks in ice.

“How long ago?” she asked, though she already knew the answer didn’t matter, only the direction it pointed.

“Five years,” Neville said. “Maybe a little more. It was a few months after the battle. When you and Ron came to me the first time, I didn’t realise what you were talking about at first. Then when Ron mentioned Jordan and Abbott it clicked for me. It has to be them, I’m sure of it. It seemed dodgy at the time, but if I’d have known they’d be involved in murder…” He shook his head, swallowing. “I should have done something, told someone. I’m sorry.”

“Neville, I don’t blame you. I’m just trying to stop more people from getting hurt. I’m sure you know that Katie… passed away. Do you know anyone else who was involved? If any of the other DA members took them up on the offer?”

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t just one person, Hermione,” Neville added softly. “I’m certain of that. Katie looked terrified when she said it. Like she was already in over her head.”

Hermione nodded slowly, feeling the ground shift under her. She closed her notebook, thanked Neville, and stepped back out into the cold air.

In the midst of all of this, the Ministry had unsurprisingly, all but abandoned her. 

The investigative team sent to inspect the magical residue at her flat had produced a report so infuriatingly clinical that she’d wondered whether any of them had ever seen an actual crime scene before. No one had breached her wards. Wards she had personally built, layered, and calibrated so meticulously that even she would have struggled to dismantle them without significant effort. They had been designed to bar entry to anyone holding the intention to harm her. And according to the official assessment, they remained perfectly intact.

The building did not. Their conclusion was almost insulting in its certainty. The blast had originated from inside, based on the trajectory of the debris. There had been no magical trace within the rubble at all. Nothing to suggest who, or what, had been in her flat when her world had torn itself apart, despite the fact that she herself had been in there moments before it had happened. The only lingering evidence that could be located was outside on the street; the disrupted echo of a Killing Curse, the remnants of the spell she had barely dodged as she apparated. But the fire and heat had fractured the ether around it so violently that no signature could be recovered.

So it was ruled unsolved. Pending further investigation. Which, Hermione knew, meant forgotten. No one would find anything. Whoever orchestrated the attack had done so with a level of precision that suggested planning, intelligence, and a deliberate desire to leave no trail behind.

The Daily Prophet had treated the entire situation as though Christmas had arrived early. Their headlines had veered wildly between salacious conjecture and targeted propaganda. One article suggested that the attacker was ‘a grieving parent of a war victim,’ another that she had been targeted by a ‘radicalised former deradicalisation-program participant,’ a line of speculation so shamelessly contradictory that she could not decide whether to laugh or tear the paper in half. The implication, however, was consistent and vicious; that the attempt on her own life had been, in some way, her fault. That by creating the program pushing the public to consider the possibility that former Death Eaters could change, she had provoked the anger of the wizarding world. That her reform work had stirred old resentments, made pure-blood families uneasy, enraged the grieving, and emboldened the violent.

She had always known the public was fickle, but there was a deep, cold sickness in realising that the world had taken its first opportunity to blame her for surviving. Even now, after months in Grimmauld place, away from it all, everything she did or didn’t do seemed to be the wrong choice to make. She folded the paper shut and placed it aside, her fingers stiff with the effort of not tearing it. The flat was gone. The case was going nowhere, but she had something now, at least. 

Harry answered on the third ring when she called him, sounding like he had been dragged out from beneath an avalanche.

“Tell me quickly,” he rasped. “I’m due in Malmö in fifty minutes and they won’t stop staring at me like I’m responsible for the entire continent.”

Hermione didn’t bother with pleasantries. She recounted both interviews to Harry, and listened to the long silence of his heavy breathing on the other end of the phone when she was done. “The threat against Hannah Abbott wasn’t abstract,” she said. “Neville told me that when he refused recruitment, Katie warned him that Hannah would be hurt if he spoke of it again. But I don’t think the command was coming from Katie, it was from someone higher up.”

Another pause. Not surprise, weariness sharpened into something grim.

“That fits,” Harry muttered. “Too well. Katie never seemed the type for all of this. I’m willing to bet she was pushed into joining. Hannah’s interview was inconsistent. Nervous, evasive, overly rehearsed. If someone threatened her, it makes sense. She may have panicked and folded into joining too. She might be the next lead we have.”

Hermione’s instinct rose before she could stop it. “I should go speak to her then.”

“No,” Harry said, hard enough that she flinched. “Absolutely not. I’ll send Ron. The last thing we need is you walking into that situation blind if we think she’s directly involved. For all we know, she’s still involved. She could be the one who facilitated the attack on your flat. I was fine with Neville and George because I know they would never have gone for something like this, but I draw the line at Abbott.”

“It seems unlikely,” Hermione said, though even as she said it, she heard the uncertainty in her own voice.

“Unlikely, but not impossible. It’s the most probable lead we have at the minute. I’m done entertaining possibilities that get you killed. I have enough on my plate right now without worrying about you too. Ron will handle it. Meet him at my place tomorrow and he’ll brief you on what he manages to get out of Hannah.”

“I could invite him to Grimmauld Place myself, Harry. I’m an adult. I’m still capable of talking to him civilly.”

“You might be, but sometimes he isn’t. I don’t really want to test his willingness not to punch Draco when he finds out where he’s living, do you? There’s a reason I haven’t told him, Hermione.”

She wanted to argue. Not because Ron was incapable, or that she didn’t think that Ron would cause issues with Draco, because he probably would, but because she hated the implication that she herself wasn’t enough to handle it. But Harry’s tone left no room, and beneath it, she heard the fear that had been eating at him since the explosion.

So she nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “Fine. I’ll keep you updated.”

He hung up with a sigh that sounded like he really didn’t want her to.

She met with Ron in Harry’s house the evening of the following day, shadows carved beneath his eyes. He looked older than she remembered him ever looking, not older in years, but older in the way the war had made them both, once upon a time.

“Hi,” she said lightly, because she didn’t know what else to say. The awkwardness of their last meeting still hung between them, a painful elephant that would not leave the room. 

“Busy day?”

“Something like that,” Ron muttered. His voice was hoarse, and he rubbed his face as if the act of being awake pained him. “When Harry asked me to come back to the Ministry, I thought I’d be doing paperwork. Maybe answering owls. Not-” He gestured vaguely, as though the enormity of his sudden responsibilities could not be conveyed by language.

Hermione attempted a smile. “Not running the entire DMLE while Harry chases extremists across Europe?”

She expected a huff of laughter. A grin. Anything. Instead, Ron stared at her, blank and exhausted, as though humour itself had become a decadence he was incapable of. The silence between them settled. They made small talk, carefully, cautiously, avoiding the topic of Draco as though their friendship were fractured porcelain held together by cheap glue. But Hermione felt the absence beneath the words, a hollow ache of knowing that something vital had eroded between them. She didn’t know whether to blame herself, or the war, or the terrible way people sometimes drifted even when they tried not to.

Ron finally got to the point.

“Hannah wouldn’t answer her door,” he said. “So I forced entry.”

Hermione pressed a hand to her forehead. “Ron-”

“She’s gone,” he continued flatly. “Half the flat was emptied out. Clothes, papers, personal items. She’s fled.”

Hermione felt the slow, cold spread of dread beneath her ribs. “Do you know where she’s gone?”

“No. But I’ll find her.” His tone held something frightening now, not anger, but determination stripped of warmth. “If she’s involved, we need her.”

She had not intended on talking during Draco’s session. She never did. She had come that day simply because he had asked her to, and he asked so carefully, cautiously, as if it meant nothing to him at all. Which was how she knew it meant something important this time. It felt almost like routine was back, being there with him again. He would sit across from the therapist, she would sit slightly to his right, and she would try not to cry as he struggled to vocalise things so horrible she could never quite bring herself to visualise them, if she had wanted to try. The session was familiar in the way the habitual ache of pain always was with him, and everything, on paper, was back to normal.

But sitting in on the session that day, she could not escape the unsettling feeling that this time, something had changed. The axis had tilted by a degree minute enough to be imperceptible, but substantial enough to ripple into his behaviour. Draco was quiet. It wasn’t the quiet of his anger, or the quiet that came when the grief within him became so overwhelming that all he could do was lay on the sofa at home, and cry for hours into her lap as she stroked his hair the way she had seen Narcissa do. It wasn’t the quiet of his anger, that filled the room with a vibrating tension that she always feared would snap if she said or did the wrong thing. It was a conflicted quiet, a sort of inner struggle she could read on his face, as if he was torn between the urge to say everything and the urge to say nothing at all. 

The therapist, if she had concerns, did not voice them. She asked Draco a series of routine questions about the week, about his sleep, about the warding compulsions he’d been struggling with. He answered politely, almost uncharacteristically so, only abrasive in the way exhaustion sometimes frayed the edges of his sentences, but he notably avoided looking at Hermione whenever the subject edged too close to fear. Then the conversation turned in a way Hermione had not been expecting.

“Draco, you mentioned the encounter with your father at St Mungo’s. He has been a recent theme in our sessions. This is why I asked Draco to bring you along today, Hermione. I’d like to return to that moment and discuss how it impacted both of you. But only if the two of you are comfortable doing so together. And to be clear,” The therapist turned her look to Hermione now, “What I mean by this, is that I will be broaching the topic of what occurred in Draco’s family home several years ago while you were present. Draco’s perception of this event may not meet the reality that you experienced, and I would like him to have the chance to see that.”

Hermione had never seen herself as someone who belonged in therapy. She could catalogue symptoms, define diagnostic criteria, identify the need for it in others with precision, but the idea of sitting in a room and discussing her own emotions felt strangely illegitimate. Other people fell apart. Other people needed gentle voices and patient silence. She solved things. She repaired them. She compartmentalised and reorganised until the situation became manageable enough to continue functioning. That was, after all, the only way she had survived everything that came before. When she wasn’t doing that, she was failing, and that was her fault, not something that talking could fix.

She watched the smallest flicker cross his expression before he smoothed it away again. If the topic of Lucius had been a constant, it certainly hadn’t been so in the sessions she had attended. When she came to think of it, she couldn’t recall a single time that Draco had mentioned Lucius in the weeks prior to St Mungo’s, inside therapy or out of it. 

“I’m fine discussing it,” he said, almost too calmly. “If she is.”

Hermione nodded, though her throat felt suddenly reluctant. How this would help him in any way, she had no idea.

“Hermione, how did it feel to see Lucius again, given your history with Malfoy Manor?”

“It felt… fine,” she began, choosing the word because it was vague enough to keep her safe while still sounding cooperative. But even as she spoke it, she realised how dishonest she was being. She inhaled and tried again. “It was unsettling. I wasn’t prepared for him to show up like that. It affected me more than I had anticipated. It brought back more than I realised it would.”

The therapist nodded. “More in what way?”

Hermione folded her hands in her lap to stop them from fidgeting. “I hadn’t seen him since the war, and I thought I’d moved past everything that happened there. But when I saw him again, it…I don’t know.”

A small shift ran through Draco, though he didn’t look at her. His hand tightened around his knee.

“Did you have the same reaction when you met Draco’s mother?”

“No. With Narcissa…” Hermione began, letting her eyes drift briefly to the window, “it wasn’t the same. Not really. When I met her again, it was on my own terms. There was… it brought back some of it, but I could manage. I could look at it without feeling like I’d been yanked backwards in time.”

She felt Draco’s attention sharpen, quiet and tentative, but she kept speaking.

“It only caught me off guard when I saw Narcissa with Draco. That opened the wound a little. The last time I was in a room with both of them…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “I dealt with it. I could move through it. I could see that Narcissa had changed. Or… I don’t know, that she at least wasn’t a threat.”

The therapist nodded. “And with Lucius, that feeling of him not being a threat wasn’t there?”

That was an understatement. Being in the same room as Lucius Malfoy felt like playing a game she had never learned the rules to, a game he had been mastering for years. A game where she’d been destined to lose from the start. It felt inevitable. 

“No,” she admitted, finally. “With Lucius....” Her fingers curled tightly around each other. Why was this so difficult? What had it been about Lucius that had unsettled her so much, aside from the obvious? He was a former death eater and evidently a terrible father, but none of that pertained to her. She swallowed lightly. “It was Draco’s reaction, I think.”

Draco said nothing beside her, but Hermione pressed on, because the truth had already begun unfurling and she couldn’t stop it now.

“He sort of folded into himself. It was like watching a ghost of him I had tried so hard not to remember. The boy in the Manor. The one who stood still and...” Did nothing. She hadn’t said it. But flicking a hesitant glance at Draco, seeing the way he was looking anywhere he could except her, told her that he had heard the words regardless.

“I didn’t think it would hit me like that. It felt disproportionate. Like I was right back there, even though logically I knew I wasn’t.”

“And when you say ‘right back there,’ what comes to mind?”

Long, dirty nails clawing into her skin. Coarse black hair sticking into her eyes. The metallic oblivion of drowning in a mouthful of her own blood. The knowledge that a world that had once felt like living in a walking dream had measured her and found her filthy, disgusting, a rot that needed to be purged. The feeling that every happy moment she had experienced, casting her first spell, holding her wand for the first time, crossing the waters of the lake by lamplight and looking at the stars, knowing in that moment that magic was real and a part of it was in her, that she was destined for something better, had all been a lie. Watching a room full of adults, the people who were supposed to guide her generation, look out for young people, turn their backs as she screamed. Realising that death was the only thing she could hope for now, because the alternative would be so much worse. And more than anything, looking up at the boy who had bullied her for years, thinking that this would be the moment that his cruelty would reach its limit, that he was her classmate, even if he hated her. That it had to mean something that they’d watched each other grow up. Thinking he would do something. Say something. And finding out that she was wrong.

Her lips parted for a moment before she managed to form words. “Bellatrix. Pain. Fear. Betrayal.” What else could she say? There was no one who could ever, ever understand. Because she still didn’t. She still didn’t understand how the world could have allowed what had happened to her and so many others, and she didn’t think she ever would.

“Thank you, Hermione. I can tell that this isn’t an easy topic for you. We don’t have to get into specifics today.”

She nodded, relief flooding her, sitting on her hands. She didn’t want Draco to see the way that her fingers were trembling. 

“Do you remember what feelings surfaced most strongly in that moment with Lucius when you saw him?”

Fear, certainly. Anger. Helplessness. But beneath those tangled feelings, something murkier. Shame.

She swallowed. “I… felt small again. It was irrational, I know, but I did. I felt like a… ” she looked down at her arm absently, and rubbed at the scar through her clothes.

This time, she caught Draco flinch from the periphery of her vision. Hermione finally turned her head enough to see the tension in his jaw, the rigid set of his shoulders, the way he stared at the floor as if he did it long enough, he would be able to throw himself through it. 

The therapist’s gaze moved between them. 

“Hermione. When you think about Malfoy Manor, and specifically that day… is there something you’ve never voiced to Draco? Something you would like to?”

There was nothing about that day she wanted to share, ever again. She would prefer to lock it away in a drawer in her mind, throw away the key, the same way she had dealt with everything else. It had kept her going all of these years, and if she left the draw locked for long enough, she was almost certain that one day the key would be lost forever, rusted, corroded deep at the bottom of the black waters at the edges of her consciousness. It had to be. There was nothing else she could do but hope for that.

“There is something,” she said quietly. “But it’s complicated.”

“Complicated often means important,” the therapist said. “You can take your time.”

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, her vision blurred slightly at the edges. If she just kept still, perfectly still, and forced the words out, she wouldn’t cry. She couldn’t cry, not now, not here, not over this. Because if she did, she would never be able to stop again. 

“I’ve spent years telling myself I understand what happened. That the Manor was a prison for both of us, and Draco couldn’t have intervened, and even if he had tried, it wouldn’t have achieved anything except getting him hurt too. We were just children. I know all of that. Intellectually, I understand it completely.”

She didn’t dare to look at him. She continued, her voice starting to catch. “But there’s another part of me. An younger part. A frightened part. And that part…” She swallowed, the words bleeding at the edges despite her effort to keep them whole. “That part sometimes wonders why he didn’t even try. And thinks that if we were back there again, he still wouldn’t. I would just lay there, and he would just stand there, and I would just die. Even though it’s unfair. Even though it makes me feel unkind and irrational.”

Hermione looked down at her hands, because she couldn’t bear to see the reflection of her own grief in his eyes. “I hate that I feel it. I hate that it sits there, I can’t make go away. I hate that it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with what the war did to me. But it’s real. And I’m ashamed of it.”

The therapist nodded. “Thank you for saying that aloud. It sounds like that part of you has been holding something very heavy for a long time.”

She pressed her fingers to her temple, steadying herself. “It isn’t fair to him. Because he suffered too. I know the truth. And the truth is that he couldn’t have saved me.”

Finally, she forced herself to look at him properly, to face the damage of the words she’d thrown at him. He had gone very still, in that way he did when his instinct was to retreat somewhere far beneath the surface of himself. There was no anger. No flicker of indignation. No shield rising to protect himself from the implication that he had failed her.

Instead, there was desolation so consuming it appeared almost tranquil, the peace of finally giving in to the collapse of devastation after trying to resist it. In his eyes she saw it, the acceptance of the verdict she’d given him, and it was obvious that it was one he had already sentenced himself to long before she ever spoke it aloud. It was the hollow, echoing truth in him of someone who had always believed he deserved the very worst version of her thoughts on him, and was now merely absorbing confirmation of what he had carried alone for years. He didn’t appear to be wounded by what she had said at all. It was as if he’d been expecting it all along.

“I understand,” he said, but the words landed flatly, as if they had passed through a long and dark corridor before reaching her. 

“I don’t blame you.”

He looked away from her, face contorted in disgust, as if not blaming him was the worst thing she could do.

“You should.”

Hermione tried again, her voice softer. “I don’t blame you, Draco. Please. I never have.”

He didn’t answer. The therapist eyed him, and cleared her throat.

“Draco,” she said. “Can we talk about what that moment meant to you? Seeing your father. Seeing Hermione see him. What came up for you?”

When he spoke, his voice was empty.

“I suppose,” he said quietly, “it reminded me of what I truly am.”

Hermione tried to catch his gaze, to offer him some pathetic sort of comfort, but he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, pupils dilated, seeing into a distant place that she knew she would never be able to reach, no matter how close she got to him.

“When I saw him,” Draco continued, “I didn’t think of the present. Or the distance between us now. I didn’t think of the years that have passed, or what I’ve… tried to become.” A small humourless breath left him. “All I felt was recognition. Like looking at a reflection.”

The therapist’s voice remained calm. “Recognition in what sense?”

“In the sense that he’s a monster. And a coward. And people like that breed more monsters and cowards.”

Hermione tensed, but the therapist lifted a gentle hand, inviting him to keep going.

“I have spent a lot of time lately trying to pretend that I’m not like him,” he said, and there was a bitter smile on his face now, as if the concept was amusing to him in some sort of grim manner. “Thinking if I just suffer enough, or apologise enough, or rot quietly out of sight, maybe the stain of him will fade.” His eyes remained flat, fixed on the opposite wall. “But when I saw him, I remembered.”

“Remembered what?” the therapist asked softly.

“That I’m not better than he is,” Draco said. “I never was. I never will be.”

The woman wrote something down, and then looked back up at him, tapping her pen at the corner of her mouth. “What do you mean by that?”

“I stood in the Manor for years, watching the things he approved of. I watched as he threw the doors of our home open and welcomed the people I had been told were fighting to put the world in its natural order. The supposed upper echelon of society. Dozens of murderers, criminals and rapists that he cowered before.” His face contorted into a loathing sneer.

“I sat and dined at the same table as the Dar L-” He paused, wincing. “As You-Know-Who, with the corpses of whoever he’d captured for sport that week as the centrepiece. I watched my aunt torture people. Dozens of them. Sometimes I heard it. Sometimes I saw it. It didn’t bother me. I didn’t know who any of them were, so I didn’t care. I’d been told they were hardly human, and I believed it. I was sixteen the first time I saw her do it. I remember the noise more than anything else, she always liked to make them scream until their throats gave out. But it never kept me up at night. Because I thought they deserved it.”

The therapist nodded slowly. “And when it happened to Hermione?”

A thin, brittle silence stretched.

“When it happened to her,” Draco said, “I realised how pathetic my family is. How weak we all are. I’d always believed I was superior,” he continued, voice level. “Smarter. More important. More valuable. Every lesson my parents ever gave me pointed to the same conclusion. And I accepted it. Why wouldn’t I? It made life simple. It felt good. It felt right.”

His hands tightened, but the rest of him didn’t move.

“But when I watched my aunt torture her, I understood what that ideology looked like outside of theory. What it required. Because if they would do that to her, to a child, then what would they do to me when I didn’t live up to their demands?”

“I see. And what do you imagine the ideology demanded of you to become?”

His answer came at once, as if it was natural, instinctive.

“A coward,” Draco said. “Just like my father.”

“Was that when you started to feel compassion for the other side?”

“It wasn’t compassion,” he said flatly. “Don’t romanticise it. I didn’t feel sorry for her. Not until later on. I didn’t suddenly grow a conscience or a moral backbone. I didn’t even like her. I thought she was beneath me. I thought they all were.”

Hermione closed her eyes, a slow ache twisting through her.

“It was shame,” Draco said. “Seeing what everything I’d ever believed in actually amounted to. Seeing what it meant to align myself with them. And realising that if she died there, I would still have done nothing.”

“So yes,” he said quietly. “Seeing my father again brought it all back for me as well. I know I became exactly what he made me. A weak, obedient, pathetic coward. A boy who watched people bleed. A boy who watched her bleed, and did nothing. The worst part is, she’s right. If it happened again, I don’t know if I could stop it.”

She couldn’t let him keep doing this to himself. He was on a spiral, tunnelling into some dark place within himself. “Draco-” but the sound died in her throat when he finally turned to look at her.

“You talk about being pulled into the past,” he said to her quietly. “I never left it. I walk around with it every day. Every time I look at you, I remember how much I didn’t care. How I was only horrified because of what it meant for me. When I started to care, when I started to use all of that delightful free time in Azkaban between torture sessions to think about the consequences of my apathy, it was too late. I have to carry the guilt around. Seeing him only reminded me that whatever I’ve been pretending to be isn’t real. The man who sits in this room, the man who-” he stopped himself sharply, jaw tightening, “-it’s all a performance. The real version is still the coward who didn’t move.”

After that, he refused to say anything else at all.

Hermione wasn’t naïve enough to expect an immediate conversation when they returned together in silence to Grimmauld Place, not after everything she had dredged up in that room, but she had hoped, foolishly, maybe, that he would at least look at her. He didn’t. He walked several steps ahead of her, spine rigid, movements too precise, too careful, as if he were walking on a tightrope. When the door closed behind them, she tried. She could not bear the thought of leaving him alone with what he had said.

“Draco. You are not your father.”

His laugh was almost manic, disturbing.

“Hermione,” he said, her name landing on the air like a warning, “please don’t insult both of us. You are far too intelligent to believe that, and I am far too obvious.”

“You’re not. You aren’t. You were never like him, you know you weren’t! Even if there were parts of you that were, they’re gone now. You’ve changed.”

“No,” he said sharply, turning from her. “I’ve adapted. That’s different.”

“You’re better,” she insisted, the panic and stress of trying to prevent him from unravelling causing something in herself to unspool. “You aren’t who you were. You make different choices now. You’re trying so hard every day, I see that, why ca-”

“If trying were enough,” he interrupted, voice soft with a corrosive resignation, “people wouldn’t still flinch when they hear my name. I would be able to walk down Diagon Alley without having to use polyjuice potion. There wouldn’t be people trying to kill you because you’re protecting me.”

“I don’t flinch.”

“Because you’re kind,” he said, bitterness folding itself calm again, his lips curling around the word as if it disgusted him. “Your kindness is not proof of my virtue. It is proof of your delusion.”

She shook her head. “You choose differently now. You choose kindness too, even if you don’t think you do. You’re kind to me. That isn’t your father.”

“The only reason I carry on at all is because it would upset you if I didn’t. If you weren’t here, I don’t know what I would be.”

The more she tried, the more she reached out, insisted, reasoned, begged, the further he seemed to drift. It was like trying to grasp him through fog. Every time she thought she had touched him, he withdrew, slipping into that unreachable place where shame insulated him from even the suggestion of hope.

“Hermione,” he murmured at last, sounding unbearably tired, “you don’t know what you’re defending.”

“I know you.”

“No,” he said, voice sounding earnest for the slightest of seconds, then flattening into something that felt like a door closing. “You know the version of me that exists because you’re in the room.”

“That version is real, Draco.”

“Only because you want it to be.”

She didn’t have an answer to that. Not one he would believe, or one that she was even sure she believed.

Night fell heavy around them. He lay with his back to her, body curled inward, shoulders drawn tight. She could hear his breathing, unsteady, strained, uneven in a way that suggested he was fighting himself more fiercely than anything in the world outside. She reached out tentatively, fingers hovering a moment before they touched his shoulder. He flinched. 

“Draco,” she whispered. “Turn around.”

He didn’t move.

She swallowed, slid her hand down to find his forearm, and tugged him gently.

“Please,” she said. “Look at me.”

It took several seconds, long enough for her heart to fracture once, twice, and then again, before he finally rolled toward her. And when he did, when he lifted his face even slightly toward hers, she saw that he was crying.

Not the silent, restrained tears she had seen before, not the tight, embarrassed wiping of his eyes, not the subtle tremors he tried to hide. His breath stuttered once, twice, and then the sob tore through him before he could swallow it down. He pressed a hand over his mouth as if ashamed to let the sound exist, but it escaped anyway, ragged and helpless. The font of grief that he had been drowning in for months, it seemed, had finally overflowed.

“Oh, Draco,” she breathed, pulling him into her without hesitation.

He collapsed against her chest, fingers gripping at her as though he were drowning, and she was the only chance of escaping the cold waters of suffocation he believed he had. His entire body shook. His face pressed into her sternum, breath wet and uneven, and she could feel each sob like waves breaking directly against her ribs. She kissed his hair over and over, soft, steady, grounding.

“You’re not him,” she whispered into his hair, even as he shook his head violently against her. “You’re not him. You’re not.”

His sobs went on a long time, long enough that her own eyes burned, long enough that she thought he would collapse entirely from the force of it. But slowly, incrementally, his breathing began to settle, the tremors easing as exhaustion weighed down his limbs. Eventually, he shifted, just enough to curl toward her rather than into himself. His arm slid around her waist, clutching her with a desperate kind of gentleness. She kept her arms around him until his breathing evened out completely, sleep finally tugging him under. Even then, he didn’t loosen his hold. 

She held him long after he drifted off, staring into the darkness above them, realising with a slow, painful certainty that nothing in the world had prepared her for the magnitude of what it meant to care for someone who had spent his entire life believing he was unworthy of being saved.

The news from abroad seemed to hollow Draco out further, in incremental, invisible ways, ways Hermione only recognised because she had learned to read him with greater ease than she could even read herself. He followed each new report with a peculiar, suffocating attentiveness. It wasn’t the sharp, jittering vigilance of his early recovery, this was quieter, deeper, rooted somewhere far older than Azkaban.

Worst of all were the articles that speculated, even obliquely, about the possibility of extremist orchestrators still embedded within the UK. She could practically feel the way his gaze flicked toward her when he read them, as if he were bracing for her to disappear the moment he blinked. He grew protective, then possessive. Not in the cruel or controlling sense, Draco did not have the energy or even the arrogance left in him for that, but in a way that revealed the jagged place inside him where affection and terror had fused when it came to her.

He hated when she left the flat. He never said it outright, he rarely said anything direct when it came to his own fears, but she could see it in the way he lingered by the doorway while she put on her coat, fingers flexing compulsively as though fighting the instinct to reach for her arm. Sometimes he would pace, sometimes he would go very still. Sometimes he wore this expression of raw, silent pain, so vast that she would be tempted to not leave at all.

“Text me when you arrive,” he would say, voice low and taut, even if she was only walking to the corner shop.

“Draco.”

“I just…” He swallowed. “Please.”

And when she returned, no matter the hour, no matter how late or early or exhausted he was, he was always waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. Always. His eyes would sweep over her immediately, searching, tracing every line of her face, every crease in her clothing, as if he expected to find her broken in tiny, imperceptible ways. He would check her hands. Her wrists. Her arms. Sometimes he would circle behind her, fingertips skimming the back of her coat as though trying to sense injury through fabric.

“Are you hurt?”
“Are you sure?”
“Did anything happen?”
“Anything at all?”
“Hermione, look at me, are sure you are alright?”

He never stopped after the first reassurance. Or the second. Or the fifth. She tried logic at first. Tried to reason with him. It never worked. The only thing that ever quieted him, the only thing that unfurled the tension in his shoulders and loosened the frantic set of his jaw, was when she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. It seemed to be the only way she could convince him that she had really returned to him, and nothing terrible had stolen her away while his back was turned. The moment her lips met his, he would exhale. His hands would settle at her waist, gripping as if anchoring himself to the present.

Only then would he whisper, “Okay,” as if this act would be enough confirmation for now.

He had stopped going to the gym. Stopped going to the bookshop. Stopped doing anything at all, unless she was there with him. The world had become terrifyingly small for him, condensed into the few square metres in which she existed. The only place he did go to was to Malfoy Manor, the one place she wished more than anything that he wouldn’t. 

The first time he went, he returned so quiet and subdued that Hermione barely recognised him. He walked straight past her, locked himself in one of the guest rooms, and didn’t respond when she knocked. She gave him his space. But she couldn’t sleep without the scent of him anymore, so she settled in his room, his pillow, his blanket, something familiar holding her together. When she woke, he was wrapped around her, arms tight around her waist, forehead pressed into her back. The skin there felt tacky, as though tears had dried in the night. She didn’t mention it when he finally stirred.

She could not shake the off-putting feeling that Lucius had instilled in her, which was only intensified when the urge to uncover the truth behind his barbed words became overwhelming and she decided to act on it. She slipped into the Ministry close to midnight, preferring the anonymity of darkness over the pitying or angry looks she knew would come from her colleagues with daylight. It felt strange walking the corridors again, almost as if she was an intruder. She didn’t even dare to go to her old cubicle, the thought of doing so was too painful. She went to Gringotts the following day, bearing a requisition form into Lucius’s  financial records that she’d swiped from Harry’s office, much to the displeasure of the Goblins. The various accounts, titles and holdings of Lucius Malfoy, of which there were many, painted a grim picture that unsettled her further. All charity donations now halted. Long-standing contributions severed. Business holdings quietly liquidated.

Then the trail shifted, across borders, across currencies, until there it was. Large-scale investments in Sweden. Property acquisitions, with redacted addresses, which should not have even been possible on legal documents such as the ones in front of her. A pattern of movement that pointed not to the planned retreat into a quieter life abroad away from the difficulties of the past, but to the foundations of a new position of influence. A man repositioning himself. 

The information that Lucius intended on going to Sweden wasn’t new. It was, after all, his initial clumsy attempt that had been the catalyst for Draco’s imprisonment. There was nothing inherently sinister about the relocation; countless pureblood families had made the same move due to the post war political climate, and were well within their rights to do so, if they were not guilty of any crimes. If Hermione was truly honest with herself, she almost wanted him to do it sooner rather than later, to spare Draco from having to see him out of the obligation he felt to Narcissa.

The sudden timing of a newfound urge to go, however… Hermione felt ice along her spine. She dimly remembered the first time she had discussed the matter with Harry, the foul taste in her mouth at hearing that Kingsley had dropped the order to monitor Lucius due to his ‘generous contributions’. Enough time had passed that she doubted he would be willing to reopen the issue simply because the donations had stopped, that much was evident from the backlash Harry had faced within the DLME the last time he’d attempted to keep tabs on Lucius. Despite hardly appearing in public at all in the past five years, despite the public’s ever growing hatred and intolerance of anyone formerly or currently associated with pureblood ideology, Lucius had somehow wormed his way into an untouchable position once again.

“I have to ask you something,” she said gently to Draco one day.

He stiffened, as if he already knew the question.

“Is it possible,” she continued, “that your father is involved in what’s happening in Scandinavia?”

His reaction was immediate, a flicker of something sharp, defensive, almost betrayed. “No.”

“Draco-”

“Do you honestly think my mother would still stand by his side if he were involved?” he snapped.

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it. Because yes, she would. Narcissa had endured it once. Narcissa had chosen her husband over righteousness in the past, but she had also chosen to protect Draco from him. Until recently. The Vow remained unbroken, she could feel that, but Narcissa had made no efforts to contact her at all. Hermione didn’t know what that woman would or would not tolerate anymore. Draco saw her hesitation. His expression shuttered.

“My mother is afraid,” he said, tension rippling through each word. “People have been trying to break into the Manor. You think that has anything to do with him orchestrating extremism? People hate us. They always have. He’s spent years throwing money at people to make them like us again, not that it’s done any good.”

Hermione blinked. “Wait, people have been trying to break in? Draco, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it doesn’t matter,” he said flatly. “It could be anyone. Everyone hates my family.” The words looked as if they tasted strange in his mouth, like something he had not meant to say. My family. He hadn’t said my mother, or even my mother and I. Hermione felt her unease settle deeper. 

“Draco,” she said quietly, “we need to consider the possibility-”

“No,” he said sharply. “We don’t. And I’m done talking about him. I hate him, Hermione. I’m visiting only to see my mother. If he was involved, I would be the first person to turn him in. I would have thought that you would trust me enough by now to know that without me having to say it. ”

The silence that followed was brittle, painful. But eventually, slowly, they both softened, an apology exchanged in the quiet way they often did, with touch rather than words, his forehead pressing against her temple, her fingers curling around his wrist. Draco hated his father. She knew he wasn’t lying about that. And yet, there had been a note in his voice, defensive, reflexive, almost protective, that Hermione had never heard before. And she had no idea what it meant.

She was fully healed now. Or well, mostly. Sometimes, reaching for a mug on the highest kitchen shelf sent a sudden flare of pain up her side so sharp she’d lose her grip. The mug would slip from her fingers, shatter across the tiles, and she would stand there with her teeth clenched, furious at her own body while shards glittered at her feet. Draco would rush in at the sound, face pulled into a grim line, and try to fix it.

The wand movement would tug at something raw in his arm, and the spell would falter mid-cast. His fingers shook with a violence that seemed to startle even him every time, the wand slipping from his grasp, and the two of them would abandon the attempt to pick up the interwoven pieces of their shared wounds entirely. They would retreat to the sofa, settling into each other’s company instead. She would take his trembling hand gently into her own and massage the tightness from his palm until the shake subsided. He, in turn, would trace slow lines across her hips, where he knew the scars on her body lingered, fingers warm through the fabric of her shirt, as though reassuring himself that she was here, alive, breathing, safe. Neither of them talked about what it was between them, but they drifted closer nonetheless, inch by inch, day by day.

The helplessness of everything gnawed at her. So she kissed Draco instead of thinking about it. They didn’t talk about it, what it meant, where it was going, why it felt so unbearably necessary, but she lay on the sofa with her head on his shoulder, reading to him in soft, steady tones, and whenever his attention drifted or intensified, a familiar, urgent look would move through his eyes. He would lean over her, crowding gently into her space with a need that surprised her, and he would kiss her until her lungs seized painfully and she had to tap his shoulder for air.

Kissing him had become its own kind of refuge, a delirious ritual. She kissed him on the way home from therapy, breathless against his mouth beneath the dim streetlamps. She kissed him against the front door as it swung shut behind them. She kissed him in the kitchen, perched on the countertop with her legs looped loosely around his hips as they waited for the kettle to boil. She kissed him as soon as she woke, and right before she fell asleep, and in every sliver of time between.

The more she kissed him, the less she had to listen to her own thoughts, the ones warning her that this was the worst possible thing she could do to the friendship they had been building, that he was in danger, not just from the world, but from her. She knew, deep down, that those thoughts would eventually catch up with her. They always did. So she kissed him while she could still pretend they didn’t matter. She kissed him because the taste of him drowned out doubt. She kissed him because she could.

Grimmauld Place thickened with wards as the weeks passed. Draco spent hours reinforcing every corridor, window, and threshold, weaving protective magic so densely the air itself seemed to hum with it. Hermione trailed after him sometimes, leaning against doorframes and watching him work. There were moments when his hands shook so violently that the wand slipped from his grip. She would step forward then to catch it, take his wrist gently, and insist that it was enough.

He never believed her. “I don’t feel safe,” he kept saying, voice thin with exhaustion, and his eyes would keep darting to her, as if he thought she would disappear if he looked away for long enough. Even when he lay with his head in her lap, her fingers moving through his hair in slow, steady strokes, he repeated it until sleep dragged him under.

By the end of the month, nothing had been defined, with the investigation, with her flat, with Harry, or with whatever it was growing between Draco and her. But Hermione’s toothbrush sat in his bathroom. His shoes waited beside hers by the door. And she had not slept in her own bed once since the explosion. She tried to draw him out of whatever frightened place he seemed to be trapped in. Little things, mostly. Teaching him Monopoly, for instance, which went about as poorly as she should have expected. Within ten minutes he was furiously competitive, leaning over the board to triple-check every rule, of which there were few, with suspicious intensity. She kissed him when he sulked, which usually ended the argument, and sometimes the game entirely.

One evening she tried to tempt him into some semblance of lightness by suggesting they go out for dinner. Draco looked at her as though she had suggested they host a Death Eater reunion in the sitting room. His gaze flicked to the window, to the invisible line where the wards met the world, then back to her. He didn’t say no. He didn’t have to. She let it drop, and they ordered takeaway instead, eating it cross-legged on the living-room floor while the wireless muttered news that seemed to tighten his posture further and further, until she got up and turned it off.

Time blurred. The world outside boiled with scandal and outrage as it always did, but Grimmauld Place was their uneasy refuge. She learned the subtle signs that meant it was going to be a bad day for him before he even got out of bed. They still did not call it anything. Hermione had the uneasy sense that if she tried to name it, it would fracture both of them.

The question came one morning at breakfast. The sky outside was a flat, colourless grey. Hermione sat at the kitchen table with the Prophet folded beside her plate, its headlines turned face-down as if she could mute the world simply by denying it eye contact. Draco moved around the kitchen with a careful, practised efficiency that tried very hard to look calm. He set a mug in front of her, the exact right shade of brown he knew she liked now, and for a while they ate in silence, the scrape of cutlery filling the room.

Then, while she was buttering toast and trying not to think about bridges and falling bodies and the way the Prophet’s measured words could not disguise panic, she saw it. That expression she had come to recognise in him, the one that looked like he was thinking something, and it was costing him to do so. His shoulders tightened, his hand flexed once where it rested around his mug, and he looked up at her.

“Hermione,” he said quietly, as if her name was fragile. “There’s something I want to ask you.”

She put the knife down. A real knife, now. She’d removed the plastic cutlery. “What is it?”

For a fleeting second he looked almost boyish, like the boy she remembered from school. Only this time there was no arrogant mask or cruel sneer, only a naked, miserable sort of resolve.

“I want to take you out,” he said, and when she opened her mouth to tell him again that she was perfectly happy to go to the bookshop with him or to do groceries or anywhere at all, he shook his head, a tense, jerky movement. 

“Not like that. Not for errands. I mean…” His throat worked. “A date. If that is something you would want.”

The word sat between them, dizzying in its simplicity. A date. Hermione stared at him, her heart stumbling oddly against her ribs. It felt dangerous in a way that secret societies and exploding buildings somehow did not, as if the simple act of naming what had been unfurling between them quietly for weeks had the potential to destroy whatever precarious peace they had built together. They had been living in a sort of limbo, a dream of denial of the outside world held together by touch and avoidance, by kisses in doorways and late-night confessions that stopped just short of the one truth that terrified them both. To move it from the shadows into something as mundane as a date felt reckless. Wholly inappropriate, given everything that was happening.

And yet. She thought of the nights she had held him while he shook apart in her arms, of the way he waited for her at the stairs, of the fact that his entire world seemed to have shrunk down to the space she occupied. She thought of herself, too, of the way she had been running on obligation and crisis for so long that the idea of wanting something just because it might be good felt almost obscene. All of their interactions revolved around pain, around managing it, soothing it, surviving it. Perhaps, whispered a small, stubborn part of her that still believed in some distant version of fairness, they were allowed one thing that was not about enduring.

For his sake, she told herself, because it was easier to dress it up as something she was doing to stabilise him rather than admit that she wanted it too. For his sake, to remind him that he could be part of something that wasn’t war or guilt or therapy. For her sake as well, though she could not quite bear to look at that thought directly. She realised he was watching her now with a terrible, braced stillness, as if he had already accepted her refusal and was simply waiting for it to land.

“Is that all right?” he asked, voice roughened at the edges. “If it isn’t, just say so. We can forget I said anything. We can pretend I never-”

“Yes,” she said, surprising herself with how steady it sounded. “All right.”

His eyes widened, a flicker of something bright and disbelieving cutting cleanly through the exhaustion.

“‘All right’?” he echoed, as if he needed the confirmation spelled out.

She felt her mouth curve, helplessly, despite everything. “I would like to go on a date with you, Draco Malfoy.”

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then, slowly, tension bled out of his shoulders. He looked away, down at his hands, and a small, incredulous huff of air escaped him, something that might have been a laugh if it had not sounded so close to breaking.

“Good,” he said at last, very quietly. “That’s good.”

Hermione reached for her tea, if only to have something to do with her hands, and felt the world tilt under her feet. Her flat was still ash, her work still in ruins, the future still a series of unanswered questions. But here, in the kitchen of a grim old house that had become home, Draco Malfoy had asked her on a date. She took a breath, let the warmth of the mug seep into her palms, and allowed herself, for the first time in a very long time, to feel the fragile, terrifying possibility that something good might be possible in a world like this.

“Where are you taking me, then?” she asked lightly.

He looked up, a spark of something almost like mischief in his eyes for the first time in weeks.

“I thought,” he said, carefully, “that perhaps you could tell me. It seems only fair you choose the scene of my impending humiliation.”

She rolled her eyes, heart unexpectedly buoyant. “We’ll work it out,” she said. “Later.”

Later. A small, simple word. A promise. As she met his gaze across the table and felt the echo of it settle between them, Hermione realised that for once, later did not feel like a threat.

Chapter Text

In truth, she had expected him to refuse her suggestion. For him to make an anxious or worse, sullen, comment about how he didn’t want to leave the flat, that he had changed his mind, that now was not the right time with everything going on. She was braced for it, already rehearsing the patient explanations she knew he would make her work for. But when she said, over breakfast, “I was thinking we could go to the British Museum,” He merely set down his cup with an air of mild resignation and said, “If that’s what you want, then that’s where we will go.”

She looked up from buttering her toast. “You do know what it is, right?”

His expression soured, but not with ignorance. “My father owns a storeroom of contraband artefacts that Ministry curse-breakers deemed too volatile for Muggle curation from that place. I haven’t been, but I assure you, I am perfectly aware of what the British Museum is.”

“…You mean owned?”

“Fine,” Draco muttered. “Owned. Past tense. If that makes you feel better.”

“It doesn’t. At all.”

He didn’t answer. He was suddenly very interested in folding his napkin with unnecessary precision.  

By the time they reached Bloomsbury, the early winter light had sharpened into a pale, glassy brightness, buffeted by the familiar roll of grey clouds that always seemed to linger above London in an oppressive cocoon. The museum rose ahead of them in all of its neoclassical solemnity, pillars, pediment, endless crowds of tourists spilling together in a slow moving river across the steps. 

Draco paused at the base of the stairs. Hermione stopped too, instinctively turning to gauge him. There was a subtle anxiousness about him, whether it was from the crowds of people or the ridiculous concept of them going on a date of all things, she couldn’t tell. She wanted to comfort him, her hands itched to pull him towards her, to drag him back to the safety of Grimmauld Place where no one could hurt him ever again.

The compulsion to look at him and assess him for signs of distress was rooted so deep within her now, sometimes she was afraid that she’d never be able to stop. This was supposed to be a happy day, she told herself. Something that belonged to them, something that his pain and her need to calm it shouldn’t have a claim on. He had told her, so many times now, that she couldn’t fix him. Yet as she observed him, she couldn’t separate the desire to soothe whatever wound he was carrying that day from the desire to kiss him, couldn’t look at the clean, handsome lines of his face and the deep silver pools of his eyes without thinking about what it had taken to get him here, now, with her, and what else it would take from him to walk any further.  

She forced the thought out of her mind, took his hand and led him up the steps. His anxiousness was more evident as they purchased their tickets, eyes flicking nervously at the tangle of different voices and accents around him, but when they crossed through the threshold and into the central hall of the museum, the shift in him was instantaneous. The atrium opened to crystalline heavens above, glass spiralling overhead in a fractured dome, the white floor gleaming beneath the wash of winter sun. The air hummed with soft, echoing footfalls and layered languages, the murmur of hundreds of visitors circling around the central pillar.

There was a soft halt in his breath. His eyes swept upward to the lattice of the ceiling, to the halo of daylight cascading around them. Try as he might to obscure it, he was unable to contain the shift in his expression quickly enough to hide it from her. A flicker of awe, pure and wondrous, like the last small flame on a candle; one small piece of him the world had yet to extinguish. There was something in his gaze, something familiar that formed a sort of beautiful ache to flourish somewhere within her heart. All of a sudden, she could feel the faintest taste of salt on her tongue, the sound of crashing waves against rock echoing somewhere in her memory. Moisture in her hair. His eyes held the same unchartable swell of emotion she’d seen in them so many months ago when they had left Azkaban together, and he had looked at the sky again for the first time in five years. 

“It’s… larger than I expected,” he said finally, because he seemed to have become aware that he needed to say something to fend off the curious suggestion of joy on his face.

“You’re allowed to like it,” she said.

He shot her a narrow look. “I didn’t say I liked it.”

“But you do.”

He huffed, but was unable to fight the smile that was creeping its way onto his face. “I do.”

She threaded her fingers lightly through his.

“Come on,” she said. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Onwards they went towards the galleries, passing school groups, elderly couples with guidebooks, teenagers taking bored photos. Draco walked with a wary elegance, as if he was unsure of how much space he was permitted to occupy. Hermione noticed his eyes dart toward every artefact display label. He was supposed to be the one taking her out, she knew that, but the urge to guide him was a habit that was too difficult to kill, and one that he was seemingly too comfortable with to realise was happening.  He slowed briefly near a statue they passed, tilting his head at a fragmented relief of a lion, the angular cut of his eyes slanting.

“They really shouldn’t have stored this in such dry air,” he murmured absently. “The limestone is porous. It will degrade faster here.”

She smiled. He was so quietly serious, even about things that he didn’t have to be. She had thought it was a result of his circumstances at first, but as the months had worn on, she realised he was like that with everything, constantly flitting between constant, almost clinical observation about things that intrigued him, and complete disinterest and mockery for things that didn’t. His behaviour was always so paradoxical, a constant tug and pull between intense over-analysis and complete withdrawal, swells of emotion and brittle restraint, but the whole painting of it all coloured him in such an honest light. She liked that. She liked that he didn’t seem to care to pretend in front of her anymore, even about things she sometimes wished he would.

They moved with the drifting crowd, gliding past the Rosetta Stone only because Hermione thought he might enjoy it, though he seemed completely disinterested. 

“Three languages saying the same truth and still people managed to misinterpret it for a century. You have to wonder if they even tried.”

She fought the urge to laugh at him. There was just something so endearing about his scathing assessments, like a child who had tasted a particularly unpleasant sweet. She couldn’t stop looking at him. He wasn’t doing anything remarkable, simply reading a placard, one hand in his coat pocket, the other drifting absently to push his hair back from his forehead, but somehow the simplicity of it made a tingle of warmth flush through her face.

She somehow always managed to forget how handsome he was. Looking at him now made her question how she didn’t notice it more often. The black wool of his coat fit him beautifully, a gift from Narcissa, cut in that quiet, expensive way that suited him; the collar framed the sharp line of his jaw, drawing her eyes along the elegant angles of his profile. His hair had fallen slightly out of place, a blond lock brushing the edge of his brow, softening the severity of his features just enough to make him look almost boyish. And when he shifted his weight, the movement drew her attention to the length of him, long lines, lean muscle that had begun to accumulate since he had become more active. She felt a warm twist low in her stomach. It was startlingly uncomplicated, for once. She simply wanted him. Wanted the curve of his mouth, the heat of his body beside hers, the particular way he looked at art as if he could see exactly how it was constructed if he stared hard enough. 

They meandered on through the galleries, hands joined, to a new room where the air grew cooler and quieter, the noise of tourists fading into soft echoes against stone. Painted panels lined the walls, gilded altarpieces, tempera on wood, fractured scenes of angels and demons and saints. Something caught Draco’s eye and he turned, tugging her slowly towards a large piece in the corner of the room.

Before them stretched an enormous painting, towering, stark, almost luminous in its contrasts. A colossal cross radiated from the centre, circled by a halo of angels, cleaving the composition in two. Beneath it, the broken figures of antiquity lay toppled and hollow-eyed in an unforgiving shadow. A frantic struggle of deities from countless different pantheons, bodies contorted and writhing, ruin at the feet of a thousand faceless angels. The myths and legends of the old world scattered below, their forms small and shadowed, swallowed by the harsh and unforgiving light of divine judgment.

Hermione watched him, watched the way something in the piece seemed to arrest his gaze, the way interest flickered across his features like a match struck in a dark room.

“You know this one?” she asked.

He stepped closer, not bothering to answer at first. Hermione watched the shift in his expression, recognition, revulsion, and something else she couldn’t quite place.

“It’s Doré,” he murmured, wide eyes scanning the art. “I’ve seen other work by him, illustrations in my copy of the Divine Comedy. But they weren’t quite like this. Judgment and punishment, salvation beside degradation. Dante’s influence is everywhere in this room, all of these years later. His Comedia reoriented the imagination of the entire continent.”

Hermione blinked. “Excuse me?”

He gave her a sideways glance, the barest hint of amusement tugging at his mouth. “What? Did you think my education consisted solely of slurs and ballroom etiquette?”

“Sometimes,” she said. “Yes.”

He rolled his eyes at her and looked back at the painting, and something intricate unfurled in his expression.

“Do you know what always fascinated me most about depictions like these?” he asked, voice soft. “It wasn’t the violence. Or the sanctity. It was the proximity.”

Hermione tilted her head. “Proximity?”

But he was hardly paying attention to her now, his entire focus pulled into the carnage on canvas. “Look. Christ stands in the centre, elevated, luminous, supposedly the embodiment of all that is divine and good. And yet, beneath him, inches away, a hell on earth of his own making yawns open. Eternal punishment rendered in grotesque detail. As if Doré needed viewers to understand that salvation and damnation share a border so thin it is almost invisible.”

She wasn’t sure what to say. His words were, as ever, grim and melancholic. But there was something unbearably attractive in listening to him talk about something he was well versed in. She found it very difficult to pay much attention to the artwork at all; he painted a far more captivating picture to be observed.

“The theological edge of a knife,” he went on, eyes fixed on the angel in the centre, sword pointed at a depiction of Zeus. His eyes trailed down, to the crown that had fallen from his head, enveloped in darkness. “As if being good, or being redeemed, or being forgiven, depends entirely on balance. A single misstep, and you fall.”

“You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

“No, I don’t.” Draco said quietly, “I believe it takes effort far greater than any I can possess to ascend to something holy, or to descend to a level of depravity that would grant any power worthy of damnation.” 

He was brilliant. Unequivocally, in a way she hadn’t noticed before, in a way that made a hunger for him rise so unexpectedly that she had to control the expression on her face. He never spoke much, but when he did, she felt like she could listen to him talk for hours. She had never met anyone before that had felt so much like her, but so different too. She had always thought of herself as intelligent, had been told so by countless people, but there was a subtle spark in him that wasn’t the same as hers, and that fascinated her. She retained information, consumed it, and was constantly struck with the urge to learn more, though often without any real purpose. She hoarded knowledge like it was something precious, but in him, it seemed almost as if the act of knowing was painful. The price of his quiet brilliance always seemed to be at the cost of something within himself.

“You’re brooding, Draco. I can tell. What are you thinking?”

He was still looking at the crown, suspended in shadow, fallen. Forgotten.

“It reminds me of the souls Dante described who wandered in circles before the gates of hell, forever,” Draco murmured. “The price of weakness. Not even granted the final conviction of a sin worthy to suffer for. Cowards placed before the damned because they held no allegiance to good or evil. The indifferent. The ones who refused to stand for anything. No part of them worthy enough for the heavens, no part of them fallen enough for the hells.”

His throat bobbed, and then he turned to look at her.

“‘These have no longer any hope of death; And this blind life of theirs is so debased, They envious are of every other fate. No fame of them the world permits to be; Misericord and Justice both disdain them. Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass.’”

Hermione just looked at him. He had quoted the verse calmly, the words shaped with tired precision, as if he’d already spoken it to himself countless times before. She didn’t tell him he wasn’t one of those souls, because she could see in his face that he believed he was, had always believed he was, long before she ever arrived at his side. His behaviour seemed to be a reflex. A habit. As if even when confronted with beauty, with history, with something most people would look at and enjoy, he could only ever find the door that led back into his own condemnation.

“The offence of cowardice is the first real sin in the Inferno,” he added. “There was always something within that resonated in me. Cowards don’t inherit the kingdom of heaven, nor the fires of hell. We race through the mist in the eternal pursuit of our own fickle self interests.” 

It struck her that he didn’t even seem to realise he was doing it. He had asked her on a date. He had tried to close the gap between their shared longing and misery. But even here, surrounded by centuries of human innovation striving for something better, it was him that grasped first for punishment. She wondered if he would ever truly, finally, let himself rest. Would he allow himself to stand still in any moment without dissecting it for evidence of his own failures? Allow himself to want something? Enjoy something? Enjoy her, even? 

He called his life a cage, often. But not all of the bars were made by Azkaban, or Lucius, or the war. Some he had forged himself, piece by piece, until the only thing preventing him from seeing daylight again was the architecture his own hands had built.

“All right,” she said softly, breaking the spell with a small, uneasy smile. “That’s enough infernal circles for one afternoon, don’t you think?”

He blinked, as though waking, eyes clearing just slightly, and let her tug him, almost unwillingly, onwards.

The museum café sat on the rooftop terrace overlooking the streets below, its glass balustrades catching the pale light and scattering it across the neat rows of tables. The air was crisp, but not uncomfortable, a temperate day that offered little discomfort save from the faintest chilled suggestion of the dark days of winter that loomed ahead. A few heaters kept the space pleasantly warm. Hermione chose a table near the edge, under a narrow strip of awning. When the waiter approached with menus, she reached for her bag, but Draco’s hand closed gently around her wrist before she could pull out her purse.

“I’m paying,” he said.

“Draco, no. I can get it.”

He gave her a look so affronted she might as well have slapped him.

“I am not letting you pay for our first date,” he said flatly. “Do you want these muggles to think I’ve fallen into destitution? I’ve already suffered enough humiliation for one lifetime.”

“Draco, be serious. I don’t want you wasting your restitution fund on me.”

He laughed, an incredulous, unexpectedly warm sound.

“I couldn’t waste it if I tried. The Ministry practically threw Galleons at me in a blind panic to prevent Potter’s threats of campaigning for Minister if they didn’t. I’ve had more than enough converted to cover this, and anything else you want to do today. One could argue that you’re doing them a favour by accepting lunch.”

She didn’t want to mention just how much that this relieved her. After so many inconsistent working hours in the past few months, her paychecks, whenever she did receive them, were paltry. They had mostly been living on her own savings, the miniscule quantity of galleons that she had been allotted for casework use dwindling to nothing a few weeks ago now. 

There was still something of the small tremor that seemed to run through him at all times as if he were a live wire, perhaps well hidden at times, but always present. He kept glancing around them, at the other tables, at the crowds below on the street, at any sudden movement that might signal threat. Even up here, ensconced in sunlight and chatter and clinking cutlery, he could not entirely relax. She forced herself to, for his sake. She ordered a cappuccino and let the warmth of it settle into her palms. Draco ordered something he didn’t look particularly interested in, and after the server left, he shifted in his chair with visible discomfort.

“I haven’t really…” He gestured vaguely between them. “Done this before.”

“Had lunch?”

“You know what I mean,” he muttered, shooting her a sour look. “A date. Purebloods do not do dates. My parents were supposed to arrange courtship meetings for me when I came of age. There were protocols. No one was supposed to improvise.”

“That sounds quite miserable.”

“It would have been. But that’s how it works in old families. You didn’t date. You married.”

“Well,” she said, lifting her cappuccino, “you certainly acted like you were dating half of Slytherin in school.”

His eyes snapped to hers, almost offended, but he couldn’t contain the smirk that was tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Please,” he said. “I was a teenager. I was only interested in one thing, and it wasn’t their personalities.”

Heat surged into her face so abruptly she almost dropped her cup. There was something devious in his expression, something that made her not want to look at him, but she couldn’t look away. His eyes, stormy and intense, were always so arresting. 

She hadn’t, she really hadn’t, considered Draco Malfoy having sex as a teenager. The concept had never even crossed her own mind to do things like that until she was an adult. Intellectually, of course, she knew most students did, but her brain had never made that leap where Draco was concerned, despite the entourage of nasty girls that she’d seen following after him like lost puppies. He saw her expression and smirked, slowly, like a curtain being drawn back to reveal something wicked behind the surface.

“That’s what did it?” he murmured. “Out of everything we’ve discussed today, that was the line that horrified you?”

She looked away, mortified, pretending to be consumed by the swirl of foam in her cup. “I wasn’t horrified."

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re blushing like I’ve said something scandalous.”

“You did,” she hissed.

“I didn’t. But when we get home, I’ll make sure to do something that really scandalises you.”

She almost choked on her drink. He laughed, openly, richly, and without restraint. A warm, unguarded sound that startled her with its brightness. It felt like sunlight breaking through heavy cloud.

She swallowed, trying to recover her dignity. “Draco! You can't just say things like that in public.”

“I’m certain people say much worse on these rooftops,” he said, still amused, seemingly  enjoying her discomfort.

Hermione lifted her cappuccino again, trying, failing, to ignore how warm her face felt. Draco was still watching her across the small café table, a half-smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

“You have a little foam on your lip.”

“Oh. Where?” She reached up automatically.

But he caught her wrist gently before she could touch her face.

“Let me,” he said.

He reached out with his other hand, fingertips brushing her chin as he tilted her face up toward him. Hermione went still. His touch was feather-light, yet it held her in place. His thumb swept across the corner of her mouth. Then it hesitated, slid down, pausing against her bottom lip. She looked at him through her lashes, dazed. His gaze dipped to her mouth. Something in his expression shifted, like a door opening just long enough for her to glimpse something that he usually kept locked behind it. Her lips parted. Only slightly. Draco inhaled sharply.

The first brush of his lips was firm, deliberate, the taste of the tea he had been drinking lingering at the corners of his mouth. Then his thumb skimmed her jaw, angling her slightly, and the kiss deepened, slow at first, as if he wasn’t quite sure that he was supposed to be doing it, then surging with a restrained urgency. 

Being kissed by Draco was, perhaps, one of the most pleasurable things she had ever experienced. There was something deliriously light about it, something that made her feel as if the husked air he would breathe into her mouth was ephemeral, thinner, so thin that if she breathed enough of it in she would drift far, far away. She relaxed into him, floating into the sweet sensation of it. Draco felt the release in the tension she’d been carrying, unwitted, and his other hand came to her waist, fingertips pressing through the fabric of her coat as though anchoring her from sailing up into the sky entirely. The pressure of his palm, the warm slide of it around her middle, pulled her closer until her knees brushed his and the table between them felt insufferably, stupidly in the way.

She made a small sound without meaning to when he parted his mouth wider against hers, a lament of the entranced. His tongue swept against hers, careful but insistent, sending white hot fingers of heat trailing down her spine. Despite the dreamlike effect his kisses seemed to give her, there was always something so present in the physicality of it. His tongue, his delectable tongue, was so hot, oh so hypnotising in the manner in which he used it to captivate hers in endless decadent spirals. Her fingers curled in his coat, tugging him closer, because somehow, he had become the centre of all gravity in the world that spun around her. 

When they finally broke apart, their noses brushed. She realised distantly that she was breathless, that she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to take a full, steady breath in his presence without him stealing it from her again. He was not doing much better. His chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven pulls, his pupils wide, his lips faintly flushed where she’d kissed him. A single strand of her hair had fallen across her face. Draco tucked it behind her ear with a gentleness that contradicted the intensity of the kiss entirely.

“You’re very dazzling, you know. Like staring at the sun. It blinds me, sometimes.”

Hermione’s stomach twisted, embarrassment rising sharp and immediate, shattering the warm place he had entranced her within. She pulled back a fraction, enough that the warmth of him broke at her front. “I’m not,” she said stiffly, unable to hold his gaze.

He looked at her as though she had said something deranged. “I thought you were intelligent,” he said flatly. 

“I’ve seen the girls you used to talk to,” she muttered. “I’m not anything like them.”

“No,” Draco said. His fingers tightened fractionally at her waist, his brows drawing together in something close to disbelief. “You are not.”

The vehemence of it made her swallow. He wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t trying to charm her. He looked almost offended by the suggestion that she would even want to place herself in the same category as them. 

“Surely people have told you you’re beautiful before? This can’t be news.”

She looked down at her hands. “Not really.”

He stared. Hermione gave a humourless shrug, forcing a small, brittle smile. “You did a pretty thorough job of making it clear I wasn’t much to look at in school.”

Draco leaned back slightly, studying her with an expression she couldn’t quite decode.

“You know,” he began, almost idly, “the night of the Yule Ball… I genuinely thought something was wrong with me.”

Hermione blinked. “Because you had to witness other people having fun and it disagreed with your delicate sensibilities?”

He gave her a scorned look. “Hilarious. No. Because I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.”

“You’re joking, surely.”

“Not at all. At the time, I thought I was losing my mind. I hated you. I genuinely did. Not in the childish, pointless way I hated Potter, but in a way that felt-” he hesitated, searching for the word, "instinctual. So I was very confused and angry regarding the whole matter.”

He continued before she could speak, tone too casual for how dizzy his words were making her. “It was deeply inconvenient. And frankly, very inconsiderate and rude of you.”

“Rude of me?”

“Yes.” He gestured vaguely. “I had plans. Specifically, spending an evening feeling superior to everyone in the room because I knew I was the one who looked the best in it. And then you walked in with that ridiculous dress and ruined everything.”

Her cheeks warmed. “And how exactly did me wearing a dress ruin everything?”

He shrugged. “I hated you, remember? You were not, how shall I put it, approved material for admiration.”

“That’s one way of saying ‘Muggle-born,’” she muttered.

He winced, then sighed. “Yes. That too. But that didn’t stop the part of my brain that was connected to my cock.”

She let out a startled laugh, and he gave her a small, crooked smile. She was used to his elegant, serious conversation. She’d never heard him say anything so base and boyish before. 

“And for the record,” he added, “Pansy was furious. She spent the entire night whispering about how you’d done it on purpose to upstage her.”

“Done what, exactly?”

“Had the audacity to look better than every girl there. Very inconsiderate of you.”

Hermione shook her head. “You’re lying.”

“Absolutely not. She was livid. So was I. I had the most confusing erection of my life, and spent years trying to bury the memory in my head out of shame and disgust.”

Hermione snorted, amused and horrified. “Draco! You’re vile.”

He looked delighted at her discomfort. “Utterly.” He looked at her, a touch softer now beneath the humour. 

“Alright,” she said, steadying her breath. “If you’re done embarrassing both of us, can we talk about something normal?”

“Normal? I might need guidelines on what you consider normal.”

“Something that doesn’t involve you objectifying me as a teenager or talking about your… thing.”

“That narrows my conversational repertoire significantly.”

She nudged his shoulder. He nudged back, gently, as if testing how much lightness he was allowed.

“So,” she tried, “what did you actually do with your time at Hogwarts? Besides, you know… brooding and bullying and plotting world domination?”

“That’s a broad accusation.”

“Fine. What did you enjoy?”

He stared at her.

“Enjoy,” he repeated slowly.

“Yes. Enjoy, Draco. People do that.”

“I’m unfamiliar with the concept.”

“Oh, come on. Something. Don’t sit here and pretend you’ve always been so aloof and uptight. I know that somewhere deep in there beats the heart of a silly little boy.”

He sifted through his memories like he was browsing unpleasant files.

“…I liked flying,” he said finally. “The quiet of it. The height. When I was a child I used to think that if I flew high enough I would be able to touch the sky. I always imagined it would be like touching the surface of a lake, that it would make all of the clouds ripple. I would fly so high that my head would spin, and I would have to come down again, but I always told myself that I would touch it one day.” He looked upwards, eyes squinting slightly from the sun, a small smile on his face.

“That’s so sweet.”

He looked back down and made a face. “Don’t call it ‘sweet.’ Makes it sound sentimental.”

“Not this again. What is it with you and not wanting to be sentimental? You are quite possibly the most sentimental person I have ever met. You were quoting poetry an hour ago. You’re living in denial.”

He scowled into his tea. She hid a smile.

“And you?” he asked, a little less defensive now. “Did you enjoy anything at school, or were you too busy ruining the grading curve for the rest of us?”

“Excuse me, I did many enjoyable things.” She paused. “…Eventually.”

Draco smirked. “Oh? Read a lot of books in new and exciting locations, did you?”

“I had friends!”

“Yes, Potter and Weasley. Riveting company, I’m sure. They were definitely stimulating your intellectual capabilities.”

“Oh, don’t pretend you and your friends weren’t even worse.”

“Fair. Theo did spend most of third year trying to convince me to let him charm breasts onto me so he could practice for when he was with a real girl.”

She could have gone her entire life, really, without hearing that. A long and much happier life. 

“There is something seriously wrong with all of Slytherin House.”

“By ‘something wrong’ I am sure you mean innovative, visionary and ahead of our time?”

“Disturbed,” she corrected firmly.

He leaned back in his chair, the winter sunlight catching on the fine edges of his profile. Something about him looked different now. Looser, uncoiled. The anxious tautness he’d carried all morning seemed to have eased, as if laughter had loosened some unseen knot inside him. He almost looked as if he was considering the possibility that he could enjoy himself, and for once, did not hate the concept. Draco’s eyes lingered on her a moment longer than necessary, a faint, almost private smile touching his lips. “This is nice,” he said. He sounded surprised by the admission, quietly pleased and a little shy about it.

Hermione felt warmth bloom in her chest. “It really is.”

They talked a little longer, about nothing in particular and little she could recall later when she thought back to it. Just comfortable things. Food they liked. Classes they’d hated. Stray memories from childhood. The kind of soft, drifting conversation she’d never imagined she could have with him in her life. The afternoon slid easily around them, golden and quiet.

There had been something brewing in him during the conversation, and as the hours passed, he appeared more and more distracted. Eventually, Draco finished the last sip of his tea and rose to his feet with a subtle shift in energy, focused, intent, as if an idea had taken root behind his eyes.

“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand for her. “We’re not done yet.”

She blinked, surprised. “We aren’t?”

“No. I have something else in mind.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see.” He avoided the question with practiced elegance. He led them out of the café, down into the galleries, and eventually to a bathroom. The look on his face almost had her worried that he had led her here for more illicit snogging, not that she would have minded that much, but there were certainly nicer places they could be doing it.

 “Do you think you will be alright to Apparate?”

“I’m fine, Draco. I told you-”

“Yes, but are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“You’re absolutely certain the strain won’t-”

“Draco.”

He paused.

“If you don’t just apparate us,” she said sweetly, “I will do it myself.”

That ended the argument.

They arrived into air so clean it felt like an intrusion, as if her lungs, adjusted to the smog and pollution of the city, did not know what to do with it, and Hermione’s feet met earth that was soft with grass and damp with winter, the ground springy beneath the soles of her shoes, the scent of peat and rain rising up into a fragrant kiss upon her face. Once again they were in the place where it had truly started to begin for her, for both of them, the serene vastness of the moors, the landscape rolling out in long, solemn swells of heath and bracken, the coarse grass shivering in a steady wind that threaded through everything. The sky was broad and high and mercilessly open, already tipping toward evening, the sun sinking toward the horizon in spills of golden light, staining the lower clouds with honey that thinned into lavender and the distant smoke of farmhouse chimneys in the distance.

Hermione stood for a moment without moving, because it felt like stepping outside of time, or stepping back into it, walking back into a fragile dream so perfect it felt as if she had no right to belong there. There were no walls here, no enclosed rooms, no tight corridors leading to fear, no headlines pointing towards some inevitable tragedy, and the absence of those things did not feel like relief so much as it felt like the blessed reprise of silence after a long ringing.

Draco was quiet beside her, though there was no tension in him anymore. His quiet fit the place. He stared out across the moor as if the horizon might offer him a different version of life that he could conceivably exist within. 

“You brought me back,” she said softly.

He nodded without looking at her, his gaze fixed on the distance.

“I’ve wanted to,” he said at last, and the words came with carefulness, as if he were holding something fragile within them. “For weeks, actually, and I kept thinking about it in the same way you keep thinking about a melody. I don’t understand what it is about this place, but it makes me feel something I can’t explain.”

“You don’t have to explain it,” she said, because there was something about the beauty of this place that didn’t need to be vocalised, and neither did he, not here, not in this wind and this light where the world felt like it had been rinsed clean. She understood without language anyway, because she could feel it in the way the open sky unfastened something in him, in the way his eyes seemed less hunted, in the way his breath came more evenly now that the air had space to move. He looked at her properly, and there was something almost shy in the softening of his expression, a brief, disarming vulnerability.

“I wanted to show you something,” he said.

He took her hand again and guided her across the shifting grass to a low rise where the ground curved into a mossy bank crescented by dark rocks. The stones were old and heavy with lichen, their surfaces slick with damp and softened by time, and the moss that clung to their seams was thick as velvet. The wind tugged at Hermione’s hair and pulled at Draco’s coat so that it moved around him like a dark banner, and behind them the sky continued its slow descent into colour, the gold deepening into rose as the sun sank lower.

Draco crouched at the curve of rock and reached behind it, feeling along a hidden hollow. He dragged out a folded tarp, weathered and damp at the edges, and peeled it back with a deliberate care that made Hermione’s curiosity grow, because whatever was beneath it was clearly important to him. A broom lay there. It was sleek and polished and unmistakably well made, the handle dark and elegant, the bristles bound tight with fresh twine.

Hermione blinked, and then looked at him with dawning comprehension. “You want to go flying? Where did the broom come from?”

“I borrowed it,” he said, and the faintest glint of mischief threaded through his seriousness. “From Potter. A while ago now. I can’t say I intend on giving it back. I’m sure he’ll survive.”

She stared at him. “I thought you said you didn’t have any ideas about what to do today?”

“I lied,” he said simply, as if the answer were obvious, and the corner of his mouth twitched as though he were battling a smile. “I know you’re not the biggest fan of flying. I needed to at least let you do something you wanted first, in case you refused.”

She almost laughed, but it faded into nerves almost immediately, that old fear of flight stirring in her stomach with a familiar, unwanted flutter, because she had never been great at it, never loved the sensation of height the way Draco seemed to, never felt entirely at ease with just how vast the sky was, like an ocean above her that felt as if it could come crashing down at any minute.

“I know,” he said, as if he had heard her thoughts without her giving them voice, and there was no judgement in for once, no scathing remark or biting comment. He lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her knuckles, the kiss brief, and his gaze stayed on her as if he were asking permission for the tenderness he was offering.

“Trust me. Please?”

Hermione swallowed, heart tripping, and nodded once. “All right. I trust you.”

Something eased in his face, and when he smiled it was small and real, so quietly pleased. He set the broom down to hover above the grass and guided her onto it, instructing her with an almost meticulous gentleness, and Hermione could feel his care in every word, in every adjustment of her hands on the handle, in the way he made sure she was balanced before he climbed on behind her. When he mounted the broom, he was close enough that she felt the warmth of his body pressing against her back through their coats, close enough that her spine tingled with the awareness of his body aligned behind hers, his knees bracketing her legs, his hands settling over hers.

“Ready?” he whispered near her ear, his breath warm against her hair.

“No,” she breathed, and then laughed weakly, because she had to, because the honesty was absurd. She had faced so many terrifying things in her life, yet the concept of this struck a sort of nervousness into her that nothing else had before. “Yes.”

He nudged the broom forward with a careful ease, and they lifted, not sharply, not with the sudden rush that she had feared, but with a slow inevitability, the ground falling away as though the earth itself were gently releasing them. The grass shrank beneath them into a rippling texture, the crescent of rock becoming a curve, and the wind caught at Hermione’s cheeks, clean and cold enough to sting, alive enough to make her eyes water.

Draco’s arms tightened around her, and his voice was low and steady. “Breathe,” he said. “Just breathe.”

Hermione did, and in the act of breathing the fear loosened, as if her body remembered that it had done this before and survived it, as if her mind could not quite sustain panic in the face of such open, indifferent beauty.

They rose higher, but Draco did not race, did not cut the air like a blade the way she could feel that he was itching to do. He flew gently, as though the sky above them was something sacred and he did not want to disturb it. The moor rolled beneath them in copper and shadow, the heath catching the last light in small, trembling sparks, and the horizon looked impossibly far, so far it felt like a border to another world.

The sky widened above them, immense and burning, and Hermione’s throat tightened as she stared at it, because she had not realised how long she had lived inside rooms, inside ceilings, inside enclosed places and an enclosed life. Up here, the wind moved freely, and the space around them was so vast it felt almost merciful.

Draco leaned closer behind her, his chin resting on her shoulder, and she could almost feel him watching the sun as it sank, drinking in the colour as though he were starving for it. The light turned molten, the gold bleeding into coral and rose and then into a deeper, aching crimson at the edges of the clouds. Something came out of her, half breath and half the beginning of a sob she couldn’t explain, and Draco responded not with words but with touch, pressing a slow kiss into the side of her neck, warm and lingering, the kind of kiss that said I’m here again and again without needing to be vocalised.

Onwards they went, higher and further into the coming night, chasing the sun as it descended, moving with it in an unhurried glide, as though following it could postpone the end of the day, and she felt then how easy it could have been to live like this, with him, in another world. How simple life could have been if they had both been granted any of the grace that everyone else seemed to live with. Draco’s hands guided hers on the broom handle, steady and certain, and every so often his mouth brushed her skin again, soft kisses against her neck and jaw, grounding her in the beauty of the moment.

When the sun finally slipped beneath the edge of the world, the sky did not go dark at once, but held onto the afterglow in a slow, furious burn, violet bleeding into smoky rose, the last line of gold thinning until it was only a thread. The first star appeared, pale and stubborn, and Hermione’s chest ached at the sight of it, because it was so small and yet it was there, insistently there.

Draco’s voice came quietly. “This,” he said, and his hand tightened over hers, “is one place that nothing can take from us.”

Hermione’s breath trembled, and she turned her face a fraction, not quite able to see him, but needing to feel the nearness of him behind her.

“No past. No future.” His mouth brushed her hair. “This belongs to us. This sky. This wind. You.”

She could sense it was something he was telling himself really, but sharing it with her in an intimate confession, letting her catch a glimpse into his private and unreachable world. “It does,” she whispered, and the words tasted like a lie, but a beautiful one. 

For a while they flew without speaking, because language felt too clumsy for what the world was finally giving them, this brief but breathtaking moment, and then she thought about the things they had spoken about earlier in the day, and a smile pushed through to her lips.

“Did you ever manage to touch the sky?” she asked, her voice small in the vastness.

Draco’s breath warmed the top of her head. He kissed her hair slowly, carefully. “I don’t need to,” he said, and the softness in his voice did something to her, something that felt warm and gentle and private. “I touch the sun every day. It burns, but I quite like it.”

Her mouth moved, but she found that she could not answer, because the words lodged in her like a bright, painful thing. She held the broom handle with shaky fingers and the wind and the colour soaked sky, and she held the warmth of him pressed behind her like a shelter, and she let herself believe, for as long as the twilight lasted, that they were allowed this, that beauty could exist without being punished for it, that the world could be wide and quiet and kind, and that for one evening at least, they were like the heavens they danced through together. Endless and eternal.