Chapter Text
There was no reason for her to feel awkward all of a sudden as Charlie embraced her again. The heat that grew in her cheeks from his kiss was not one of excitement. Suddenly, she felt an odd sense of embarrassment from his affection. It no longer seemed private or intimate. Perhaps it was because she knew the pair of silver eyes that watched them were that of Draco. What did he think of Charlie? Of the way the older Weasley slipped his fingers through hers and led her up the path? That dimpled smile he flashed her? What did Draco see in this situation and why did Hermione suddenly care what he thought?
Because she didn’t.
She was no longer with Ronald from the moment she had stumbled upon him in their home with her replacement, and she was free to be with whom she chose.
And Charlie was a dear friend and easy convenience.
As well as the fact that he soothed her pain, albeit temporarily.
Because Hermione was no fool to think that any relationship with Charlie would be long-term. It was a silent understanding between them. She would leave Romania to return to London, and he would stay here.
She squeezed his hand unconsciously, the feel of his warm palm pressed to hers and the rough calluses of his fingers soothing her.
Perhaps she felt disquieted by Draco’s continual observance because it reminded her that this was not her husband. The hand she held belonged to someone who was essentially her brother-in-law. Someone she should not dally with. That perhaps… Perhaps Hermione was in the wrong. Maybe she should have given Ron a chance to explain. A chance to fix their marriage.
They had been in love. Once.
Love could be rekindled.
Hermione glanced over her shoulder towards the dragon who followed them, his head tipping slightly as their eyes met. A heat flowed through her body at his unwavering attention and she turned away to look forward again.
The rest of Charlie’s team was sprawled out around the hot springs, all of them greeting them in some fashion or another. They were still disheartened. Downtrodden. The loss of their camp had been a blow. Hermione knew that if word got back to the Ministry, the funding for Charlie’s research program would be at risk. The Sanctuary would be fine, but there was the potential to lose his benefactors and support with word of a dragon attack.
While they stepped into the clearing, Draco lingered and seemed to melt back into the forest around them. His scales mimicked the colors around him, and had Hermione not known where he stood a moment before, she would have lost him. His outline was just visible. A mass, a mere shape, moving lithely through the trees. The movements were smooth, silent. A reminder that in this form, he was a predator. Dangerous and deadly.
And while she might know his identity, no one else did.
To them, he was a beast. A creature. Something capable of snuffing the life from them in one breath of fire– Hermione paused her thoughts. Was Draco capable of breathing fire? She had yet to see even a puff of smoke from him. He had made no indication he participated in… Dragon activities, whatever those all may be. Breathing fire? Flying? Hunting? Mating? She cringed; Gods, she hoped he wasn’t out there mating with other beasts. That might be crossing a line. Was there a line?
Bloody hell.
Questions she didn’t need answers to.
Questions she should not ask.
Especially as the dragon in question seemed to melt away, unnoticed, by everyone but her. Even Charlie barely seemed to make note of their large companion’s disappearance. Perhaps because he was aware that, as a dragon, he would be dissuaded from being near so many humans. Hermione, on the other hand, was aware of the fact that that particular dragon was not at all as he seemed, and his discomfort came from an entirely different place than just instinct. Perhaps a bit of it was some animalistic instinct that haunted him, but Draco avoided people out of his own need to wallow in his self-pity of being such a beast.
Hermione glanced once more behind her to where she could just glimpse the form of a dragon slipping through the trees. While dragons were not inherently magical creatures, it was as if he moved with the aid of it. Unseen. Unheard.
“So why do you need to go home?” Charlie was asking and she turned her attention back to him, their hands falling apart. “I’m assuming not to speak to Ron. You made it fairly clear you were done with my brother.”
“No, not for Ron,” Hermione admitted quietly. “I need to access my books. I think there might be something I need to research.”
“Well, unfortunately going home is not an option. Not easily, at least. We managed to find a single broom to take one of us to town, and there we can send an owl back to London.”
“How long does that usually take?”
“A couple hours flight, the owl can take a couple days depending upon whether and if it stops, what have you. If it reaches London–” Hermione wondered how she had expected Ron to even owl her as often as she had demanded; maybe she was part of the problem. Charlie continued, unnoticing of her internal plight, “we are looking at a couple days before the owl— possibly supplies or aid— returns. So—”
“Another week?”
“Yep. Give or take a few days, of course,” Charlie responded lightly.
A week with minimal supplies and no comforts of home beyond the bag on her back? She groaned at the thought. Hermione had never truly roughed it in the wilderness. Even hunting horcruxes, she had simple luxuries in their charmed tent.
To which she felt terrible, because Charlie had been living like this for the days she had been missing with Draco.
Would he return to his cave now that she was here? Just as he always had before? Had things really changed at all beyond the fact she knew his secret?
“So come morning, Horus is going to fly down to town and get that note home for us. We salvaged a couple of those muggle MRE meals that will get us through a couple meals, but Horus will bring us some supplies from town. He can’t carry much so…”
Which would buy them a couple days. They could ration their food and be fine. Hermione turned to look at the others, taking in their bedraggled state. The way they spread out whatever they had to cushion the ground. They were kept warm by the heat coming off the hot spring, but it was just enough to chase away the chill that was settling in as night crept closer.
Night was creeping closer.
Hermione snapped out of her thoughts as she looked up at the sky. How long had it taken them to descend the mountain? How long would it take Draco to return to his den? She had slowed him down greatly; would he make it back in time? She had not witnessed his actual transformation yet and that only created more questions.
A need to locate him urged her to turn away from Charlie. Somehow she knew he still lingered nearby. She could feel him, watching.
“Hang on for a second, Charlie. I’ll be right back,” Hermione excused herself as she turned towards the trees.
She followed along the edge of the treeline until she stepped into the shade of the forest. The subtle shift of movement caught her eye and Draco seemed to materialize before her, still fully in his draconian form. He lowered his head through the branches to be eye level with her.
“Are you going back to your… Home?” Hermione asked quietly. She felt odd calling that cave his home, but it was just that. He had lived there for months, or even years. He hadn’t revealed when he had come to Romania, but he had made that trip sometime in the last five years.
He tipped his head, his silver eyes scanning the sky that was visible between the trees. Calculating the time remaining in the day. Figuring how long it would take him to make that trip back up the mountain. She had never seen him fly, nor had Charlie or anyone else. So that meant he made that journey on foot; albeit, his steps without her slowing him down would take him through the forest much faster.
When he returned his attention to her, it seemed as if he were saying yes to her. She somehow doubted he lingered in his human form, at night, in the forest. Without magic, it was a dangerous place. Or so Charlie said. Hermione had yet to run into anything more terrifying than the bloody Horntail but she had the feeling that creatures did indeed lurk in the trees, coming out at night to hunt. To feast. With no camp and no fire to keep those creatures at bay, would they be under threat? The thought of having to sleep out in the forest, without shelter, made her uncomfortable.
As if sensing her discomfort, Draco stepped forward until his muzzle brushed her forehead. He exhaled as he lowered his head, warmth wrapping around her as she reached up and slid her hand along his cheek.
In a moment like this, she felt confused.
Because the dragon before her provided an odd sense of comfort. Security. Protection, even. While simultaneously, her mind now realized that this was no mere dragon, but Draco Malfoy.
This was a man before her.
A man trapped in the body of a beast.
Her body hummed with contact, their magic entwining together and creating an unexplainable tether that bound them. It was odd, this. The connection that leapt between them. That made her palms sweat, her heart race, in some unknown anticipation. His scales were smooth beneath her fingertips. Warm and cool at the same time, the same way a coin might be. With her eyes shut, she could hear his breathing. It was a slow and shallow breath, from somewhere deep inside his barrel chest.
A part of her wanted to go back to that cave. To the safety it offered. Hermione wasn’t sure why she would have such an urge, a feeling. She had been so eager to come back to Charlie but suddenly she was questioning herself, questioning things she did not understand.
Perhaps she should have stayed.
But her own mind scolded her for that stupidity. Hermione knew she had to come back to find Charlie, to see the status of the camp and of course, she had hoped to return home for a short period. Without that access, things were at a stand still for figuring out Draco’s curse. The only information available to her was that of what was trapped inside his own mind.
Which she could work with.
“I need to see your memories,” Hermione said quietly as her fingers stroked along his scales and her fingertips tingled from the magic that rose up. It was intoxicating. “Until I can get my hands on some new information, you are all I have.”
He was silent except for the low rumble that left his chest, a form of acknowledgement from him. Her eyes wandered skyward, just as his had.
“We will need to leave now in order to make it back before nightfall. You never told me what time you… Change . I’m assuming—"
“Hermione?” Charlie’s voice reached her and she could hear him through the trees, the way the leaves and branches rattled as he pushed them aside as he walked.
Releasing Draco, Hermione turned at the sound of her name just as Charlie appeared behind her. The sun shone through a break in the canopy above them and fell across his weathered face. His hair caught the light, a brilliant crown of auburn and red. Blue eyes met hers, like the depths of the ocean. If he were of everything burning and warm, Draco was the glaciers.
His eyes danced between them, his expression shifting from concern, perhaps a flicker of confusion and settled onto a realization. “You’re going with him again, aren't you?”
There was no answer from Hermione as she let her hand slip away from the dragons’ cheek as he lifted his head from her.
Charlie was silent for a moment, his expression softening, “You just got here.”
“I was looking for you,” Hermione replied, “I had to make sure you were alive.”
“And I’ve been searching for you for days, Hermione. Days. Because I thought you were dead,” Charlie said coolly, stepping towards her. Draco’s head swung over hers, a low warning growl coming him. Charlie stopped his advance as he glanced up at the massive beast before him, his words quiet, “I just got you back.”
Hermione lifted her hand, pressing it against the side of Draco’s neck and pushing on him until he relented. He shifted away from them, his head tipping as he looked down at her. She couldn’t understand his sudden flare of aggression towards Charlie, nor the sensation that flooded her at the same time. Charlie claimed it was because he was a male dragon on the cusp of adulthood. That these signs of sexual maturity. But Hermione knew different, and that brought on a sense of confusion. Because he should not feel any sense of protectiveness or aggression around her. He could barely stand her. He merely was tolerating her for his own benefit.
Wasn’t he?
“I told you that he needs me, Charlie,” Hermione said softly, ignoring the chuffing sound that he made at her words.
“I know you said this. And I trust that you think you are doing the right thing, but he is a dragon. Yes, fine, he needs our help but he is still a dangerous creature,” came the response.
A voice of reason, at any other time. Because Draco was indeed a dragon. He, in this form, had dangerous capabilities. But he was exhibiting symptoms that he was becoming more a beast than a man and that alarmed Hermione. Things she had tried to ignore because if she mentioned them to Draco, what little hope he had might shatter. What little determination she had might, as well.
“It’s not like that,” Hermione responded.
Charlie was pointedly looking at Draco now, who was visibly still squared off with him. Defensive, but only because she had pushed him back from that border of aggression.
“Then tell me what it is. I need to understand why you feel more comfortable with him than here, with me.”
A tough question. She had no real answer because even she could not pinpoint the reasoning to her logic. Beyond the simple fact that she needed to help Draco. She wanted to stay with Charlie, she did. But something about Draco… It was like this siren's call to her. Drawing her closer to him, ensnaring her thoughts and mind with a need to remain by his side. She was trying to rationalize it as her drive for answers, a need to uncover everything. But somewhere, deep inside her, she knew that wasn’t true.
“I can’t,” was all Hermione could say aloud to Charlie. “I need you to trust me."
Charlie was silent as his hands slipped into the pockets of his jeans, his expression unreadable as he looked at them.
“You know I do.”
“Then trust me now. You need to let me go,” She said softly.