Chapter Text
Chapter Twenty-Six: No Sense
TUE, 22 JUN 04, 2200
Love chokes you. Without it too long, and you eat like a starved man, shovelling it in greedily, slurping it down. And when it lodges in your throat, and you’re coughing and gasping and purpling around the edges, all you can do is blame yourself for being too eager.
That’s the way with Trinket. The way that he totters purposefully down the hall to leave plates at the foot of Lucius’s portrait reeks of suffocating love. He still hasn’t thrown away the sheets bloodied by Narcissa and Treasure's bodies. His constant muttering stream of consciousness about his Manor up in smoke. The watery eyes. The smell. Something like decay. Twisted, unnatural. Love has choked him into worrying, malformed shapes.
It’s good that Draco had the Speculum installed in the red bedroom and not the blood-stained spare. Despite still housing Lucius’s theoretically helpful portrait, the room emanates dread. It’s humid with it. Trinket has been sleeping in there, and it’s as if his grief has coalesced slimily along the walls.
Even walking by the room on the way to the loo makes her skin crawl.
Hermione should go in to check on the portrait, but thankfully, she has more important things to do. Even now, Trinket is in there, muttering to himself.
Shutting the loo door firmly behind her, Hermione takes a deep breath. Rolls her shoulders. It’s been a long day.
She whispers silencing spells just in case Trinket or the portraits are listening, and then swipes the silver compact out of her pocket, running the pad of her thumb over the engraved freesia flower design. With a click, it opens.
“Pansy, I need you.”
Astoria’s insomnia-darkened eyes gaze worriedly back at her as she waits. Her lips are dry and torn from biting, and the bruises around her neck—the ones Draco gave her during her first week of OCB—have almost faded completely, now.
What does Draco think when he sees them? Does he think she deserved it? He’s a violent man. Dangerous. She can see that.
He has a code. He told her that he has reasons for the way he is. What he’s done. Can any reason justify strangling his own wife, though? Cursing her. Sending her to an early grave.
He’s easy to judge, but is she really one to talk?
Can any reason justify what he’s done to Hermione, or what she’s done to him? They’ve been awful to each other over the years. Always finding worse ways to harm each other.
Currently, she’s being awful to him. He’ll be furious if he finds out about OCB. How she’s slipped into his wife's skin, blanketed herself in someone else’s life to stave off the trauma of her own circumstances.
Before the mission began, she told herself that he deserved it—whatever hurt her posing as Astoria would cause him. It would be something like justice, for how he wormed his way into her life only to use her secrets against her.
Charity Hearth, 2003.
It was a horrible night.
It started the same as any other. Hermione, slipping away from piles of unfulfilling research to go meet him. Back to Hampstead.
Laying in her childhood bed. With him.
With Draco.
They had begun meeting in late 2002.
(It’s hard to think about. She doesn’t want to think about it, but perhaps it's time she forced herself. Time to dig up the buried volumes of her life, the ones she hid away after Samhain.)
He insisted that they meet that night. It was the first sign that something was wrong. And when she arrived, the room was already blaring with disco and punk, and she saw that he had wheeled in her dad’s record player—that was the second sign. He hated her music taste. Had gone on a rant only a few weeks prior about how if Muggles were going to make music, they should stick to the objectively good stuff, like Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.
But that night, his previous opinions were forgotten, and his throat was heavy with unspoken words.
He twirled her around the room to ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart.’ It was probably on purpose—the prat—that he chose an ironic soundtrack for the end of their short, miserable affair.
He threw her onto her bed, and she landed in a giggling mess. He worked her trousers off slowly, watching the laughter in her face fade to something else. He put his mouth on her knickers and told her to lie back and relax, but she couldn’t.
He had a cloudy, rainstorm look in his eyes, and even if she didn’t know it was the end, she could feel it.
He made her come on his tongue, and then he held her in his arms and fucked her slowly.
After, he had lain on her chest, ear to her heartbeat. She stroked his hair, too cowardly to ask what was wrong.
When Kingsley’s Patronus appeared in the room, Draco tensed.
Her ears rang as the emergency alert played out. Telling her Charity Hearth was gone. Asking for any survivors to report immediately to HQ.
She knew it was him.
What did you do? she accused.
I had to, Granger. I had no choice.
He didn’t apologise. He never apologised.
“Sorry I’m late. I was with a patient.”
Hermione almost drops the compact as she straightens, jerking out of the memory. “Pansy, thank god. You’ll never believe the day I’ve had.”
“Well, you’re not dead, I see.” She raises a brow. “Draco got you into the Ministry?”
Hermione nods. “Everything worked just like you said. Look. I have a list of compromised Muggles from their Ministry, for you. The Death Eaters have some sort of deal with them—”
Pansy’s eyes widen. “Is it that Crowleson man?”
“No. He’s clean, as far as I can tell.”
“Good.”
“But I found several higher-ups, some of them involved directly with Buckingham—that mission Theo and Daphne were assigned to—and others—lower ranking—that have been Imperiused.”
“Let me grab a quill.”
The view in the compact’s mirror tilts, swooping up the chipped, off-white paint of the wall behind Pansy to dusty, rectangular panels of an industrial ceiling, as she sets it down.
“Where are you?” Hermione asks.
Out of view, Pansy sighs dramatically. “Some hole in the wall they’ve stuck us at—some intermediary space while the Ministry zones a new building for Mungo’s to move to, or some rot. It’s been a nightmare” —the image in the mirror swings back to Pansy’s face, as she props it back up, quill and parchment in hand— “to be honest. Half my patients are dead. I’ve spent the whole day on Floo calls, trying to sort everything out.”
“Hmm,” says Hermione. “Sorry to hear it.”
“Don’t sound so torn up, Granger.”
“Sorry.” She rubs her eyes. “I’m about to fall over, I’m so tired.”
“Not sleeping?”
“How can I?”
“Chin up,” Pansy says dryly. “It’s only the fate of the war on your shoulders.” She waves her quill—a long, pink, and airy feather—to show Hermione she’s ready. “Hit me.”
Hermione pulls a tiny, folded piece of parchment out of her bra, and taps her wand, enlarging it back to full size. She reads name after name. One-hundred and two. And those are just from the stack of memos on Astoria’s desk.
She’d looked for more that afternoon. Astoria, who had so carefully detailed every scrap of information on the Order, must have been keeping track of the Death Eaters in a similar way, as well, but Hermione couldn’t find any trace.
“Any idea what they’re doing with all these Muggles?” Pansy asks.
Hermione sighs, shrugging. “Some of them are enforcing the borders. Their Undesirable list.”
Pansy nods. “Figures,” she says.
“Others are for Libra.”
“You found out what it is?”
“Yes.” Hermione frowns. “It’s fucking dark, Pansy.”
“Well, I’m on the edge of my seat.”
“It took me hours sorting through all the papers Danika compiled for me, but—”
“Danika Dolohov? Isn’t that the witch you said did the failed Libra ceremony?”
“Yes, turns out she’s my—Astoria’s—assistant. Christ, Pansy. I forgot to tell you. Astoria wasn’t a mere secretary. She was the Secretary of bloody Surveillance.”
Pansy looks up sharply from her notes. “What?”
“S&S, it’s divided internally. Two heads. Mulciber and Astoria.”
“Circe,” Pansy says faintly, “no wonder they let you into that Commander meeting.”
Hermione runs a hand over her eyes. “Tell me about it.”
“She must have had insane access, then, if she was—Circe—if she was the head of the whole fucking department. Merlin, I never would have guessed.”
“They’ve kept it under wraps, for some reason. No one outside of S&S knows.”
“That’s strange, though.” Pansy’s head cocks, her slick bob brushing her collarbone on one side. “Did you figure out why?”
“I can only guess. Her blood curse. I think the Dark Lord probably thought it was safer to not put a target on her back when her magic was so unstable. Easier to protect her when no one’s looking.”
Pansy narrows her eyes. “True, I suppose.”
“You have a better idea?”
She shakes her head. “No, but it can’t just be that. There’s plenty of bureaucrats in S&S that aren’t the best fighters. Half the scouts just scrape by, if the amount of times I’ve had to heal them is any sort of measure.”
Pansy’s pink feather twirls, obscuring her face.
“I’m not sure how it connects, but something really weird was going on between the bloody Dark Lord and Astoria.”
Pansy’s eyes flash with interest. “Really? What?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Hermione runs a hand through Astoria’s silky hair. “But he wasn’t upset at all that I didn’t come when summoned—had this weird personal meeting with me, where he had me lay my head on his lap and stroked my fucking hair—” She shivers.
“Was she sleeping with him, too? Circe’s bloody pants, she got around, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know.” Hermione covers her mouth, stifling a yawn. “He didn’t try anything with me today, but Christ. The dynamic was fucking weird.”
“So you’ve said.” Pansy purses her lips. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Hermione says tiredly.
“Tell me about Libra. You said you figured out what it is?”
Hermione straightens. “Yes. I asked Danika, my assistant, to compile a bunch of information for me—”
“Won’t that look suspicious?” Pansy interjects, frowning.
“I don’t think so. I made an excuse, and the woman is startlingly vapid. She won’t see through it.”
Pansy raises an eyebrow, gesturing with the feather for Hermione to continue.
“Anyway, they’re using Muggles for Libra. They’ve cleaned out the streets and Muggle prisons, and are sacrificing them—or rather, are compelling them to sacrifice themselves to power their surveillance system. There are seven anchor points tying Libra to main sectors of land across the British Isles: one in Northern Ireland, one in Ireland, two in Scotland, one Wales, and two in England. Each anchor point has six corresponding supplemental sites, for a grand total of forty-nine Libra locations. I have their coordinates—you should write them down.”
Pansy nods, still scribbling in her notebook as Hermione reads out locations.
“Weasley will want to know how many people they’re killing.” She glances up, quirking a brow.
“Right.” Hermione purses her lips. “It looks like each of the seven anchor points are renewed biannually, so every six months, twenty-six souls are sacrificed on each ritual site.”
Pansy shakes her head. “That’s what? Like four-hundred people per year?”
“Three-hundred-sixty-four per year, but that doesn’t even include the fortnightly maintenance at the supplemental sites. Every two weeks, one person’s blood is fed to the forty-two remaining sites, which adds an additional one-thousand-ninety-two souls per year, landing the Death Eater’s total human sacrifices at one-thousand-four-hundred-fifty-six across all Libra sites per year.”
“Fucking insane. Those poor Muggles.”
Hermione nods.
“But…” Pansy’s eyes narrow. “Why would they need to take so many lives? Have you heard of a ritual that uses so much blood, before?”
Hermione squirms. “Human sacrifice is nothing new, unfortunately, but yes. The sheer amount is certainly unprecedented.”
Pansy stares down at her notes through thick, tired eye-lashes. “One of these coordinates you gave me.” She taps her quill. “Isn’t this the Ministry?”
“Yes, the first of the seven anchors. It’s in the Department of Mysteries.”
Pansy taps her quill against her chin, and the pink plume floats across her skin. “That’s strange, isn’t it? The rest of these locations wouldn’t be as heavily warded as the Ministry, right? Let alone Mysteries—that place is locked as tight as S&S.”
“Right, it’s odd, certainly.”
“These locations—they’re all over the place. Why do you think that is? And how heavily warded are they? I feel like I recognise some of them.”
“That’s because we’ve attacked them before.”
“Really? What did we find?”
“There was a string of empty warehouses we raided, back in ‘99. Eleven of them, mostly supplemental sites, but one of them was the anchor point in Northern Ireland.”
“I don’t remember, but I hadn’t joined yet. I wasn’t hearing much of anything back then. Do you remember anything of note about those sites?”
“No,” Hermione lies, not wanting to broach the subject of her capture in the off chance Pansy never heard. “We weren’t looking for residual ritual magic. We wouldn’t even have known to look for that, back then.”
“You didn’t” —Pansy wiggles her fingers, imitating Hermione’s special skill— “know how, yet?”
“Read my file, have you?”
Pansy smirks. “Look. What should I tell Weasley about all of this? How do these sacrifices actually power their surveillance? If we sack them again, would that work?”
“No. Well, maybe. We’d have to hold the land indefinitely, and even if we did, they could theoretically just move the rituals elsewhere. The real meat and bones of Libra takes place at the Ministry, in S&S. The first anchor point, the one at Mysteries, has extra components to its rituals. I’ll have to look into it more, but I’m thinking that’s the main site, the one everything is tied to. Plus, they have these scrying mirrors—they call them Speculums, if you’ll believe it—that search the land tied to the anchor and supplemental sites. I suppose we could raid them during or right before ritual times—as we have their schedule.”
Pansy nods. “But in the long run, in order to take down S&S completely, we would have to destroy their scrying mirrors and this first anchor.”
“Right.”
“And do they have a plan for reinstating the Wales anchor? Neville tells me it’s been brilliant working with a twenty minute buffer.”
“I’m supposed to fix it. By Sunday.”
“You?”
“Head of Surveillance, remember? Astoria did all of the Libra rituals and maintenance. I think it’s why the Dark Lord liked her so much.”
“Circe,” Pansy breathes. “I can hardly believe Tori got mixed up in all of this. Killing over a thousand people a year to keep all this going. It just—” Pansy blinks, shaking her head.
Hermione looks at her.
“It just doesn’t seem like something she would have been capable of.”
“Really?”
“I know you never really knew her back at Hogwarts, but, Circe, she was so kind. Millie and Blaise and I used to make fun of Daphne because of her—we always thought she was mis-sorted. Always acting the bloody Hufflepuff. She even wore one of your SPEW badges for a while—until Daphne burnt it.” Pansy chuckles, then clears her throat, seeing Hermione’s stony expression. “I guess you can never really know someone.”
Hermione shrugs. “War changes people, I suppose. It changed you.” She raises her eyebrows.
“Me?”
“It’s made you tolerable.”
Pansy smiles. “Wow, high praise, Granger. If only I could say the same about you.”
Hermione scoffs, and Pansy chuckles.
“Alright,” Pansy says. “Good talk, but I need to go. Any other news? Any luck with the cup?”
“No. I’ve been swamped today. I’ll keep working on Draco.”
“And Theo.”
“Right.” Hermione winces. “And Theo.”
“Don’t rule him out,” Pansy warns. “We still don’t know which one of them has it.”
WED, 23 JUN 04, 0000
Death is a god who, if you ask nicely enough, will grant your wishes. He gave trinkets to the three brothers. A wand, a cloak, and a stone. But those wishes came with a price; he took each brother for his own, in the end. They suffered and died for their wishes.
The Tale of the Three Brothers is meant to be cautionary, a warning not to pray to him—a belief so ingrained in Wizarding society that his real name has been lost to the ages. Only titles remain, Death and Blood being the most prominent.
But Hermione never respected cautionary tales. She spent years calculating the exact sacrifices required for her own ritual because she needed a wish granted. By the time she was smearing datura paste in runic shapes on the foreheads and chests of Thestral foals, she had convinced herself that she knew what she was doing, and any price required would be laid entirely on her sacrificial victims.
Of course, she was wrong. It was her pride that got in the way. She had underestimated Death’s bloodlust.
That night, Samhain, is a blur in her memory.
That whole week is a blur.
But even now, she could do her ritual with her eyes closed. She could do it backwards, forwards, in fucking morse code. Some things become ingrained in you, deeper than muscle memory.
It had become a part of her. Pulsing in time with her heartbeat, moving sluggishly through her flesh. It ached in her bones. It crawled beneath her skin. It would never let her go.
That’s what Neville said, that it would never let her go. That it would bleed her dry. Leave her empty. That if she wasn’t careful, it would take everything from her.
He would. Take everything from her. Death is a fickle master.
Voldemort serves him too. Libra is simple. Deja vu. It’s eerily similar because she’s done almost the exact same ritual several times before; Libra is the inverse of Hermione’s Samhain ritual. Instead of breaching borders, Libra enforces them.
Magic supplied by sacrifice. An inordinate amount of blood for the god of blood.
Too much blood.
Pansy is right—other dark rituals rely on human blood, sometimes a lot of human blood, but never as much as Libra.
It’s strange. Hermione knows the principles that guide sacrificial magic like the back of her hand, and it’s clear that Libra uses far more blood than necessary to power itself.
Some back-of-the-napkin Arithmancy indicates it's almost double the amount than should be required.
It’s sickening, but more importantly, it makes no sense. Why waste resources? The Muggle prison systems are large, but not large enough to keep this up indefinitely.
It’s unsustainable.
Voldemort is heartless, but he’s not stupid. If the last few days have taught Hermione anything, it’s that. He’s strategic. He wouldn’t waste resources unless it was necessary. And he’s not calculating for an empire of fifty or even a hundred years. His goal has always been immortality. If he’s smart, which unfortunately, it seems he is, he would account for resources to span several lifetimes.
So why would he include so many extraneous deaths for Libra? It just doesn’t make sense for him to be sacrificing double the amount needed.
One thing is crystal clear, though. No one could officiate so many dark rituals, sacrifice so many souls, without extreme consequences. It’s no wonder Astoria’s magic was so unstable. How had she survived so long channeling the dark magic required for Libra? She was smart enough to know it would kill her, so why would she ever agree to do it?
Neville had been worried when Hermione told him she’d attempted her ward-breaking ritual at Malfoy Manor in the wake of Samhain.
It’s magically degrading, he had said. I was worried for myself doing the ritual once. I hated that you had to do it twice. And now you’ve risked it again, even knowing it wouldn’t work?
At the time, she hadn’t cared. She knew the ritual would only work on holy days, but something had spurred her to try, anyway.
She was driven by a consuming rage to end the war. She had to get in, get back at—
At… who?
At Draco?
But how does that make sense?
The memory dissolves like a drop of blood in a bathtub, leaving Hermione slick with uneasiness. She hasn’t been sleeping well, but she’s never been so tired before that her Occlumency has failed her.
Why was she so angry at Draco? Yes, she was angry at him for Charity Hearth. Yes, she remained angry at him until—well, until now. But… why was she angry at him specifically after Samhain?
She had been torn apart by worry that week. Hadn’t been sleeping. It was when she’d been poisoned.
Hermione turns her pillow over. She needs to sleep. She’ll sort out her Occlumency in the morning, when her brain isn’t as fried.
What had Draco said when he taught her? That mind magic requires dedication and focus. Stamina. A good night’s rest. That’s how she had convinced him to give her the blanket and pillow after her first week in his cellar.
After a week of nothing but cold, bare floor, the simple luxury of a pillow and blanket made her sleep like a stone, even if it meant she had to breathe in his scent all night.
Weeks bled into months. In the damp silence of the cellar, Hermione’s mind crystallised. Her thoughts hardened with Occlumency practice. It became easy to lock herself away, to become lost in her own head. It was like a labyrinth lined with shelves. She spent her days laboriously duplicating books of memories and hiding them away, then snipping and pasting new volumes of false memories. She kept them close, right by the doors and windows to her mind—in the easiest places for an attacker to steal.
She sat in silence in her cell. Memorised each crack in every stone, each imperfection of orange rust on the bars, every thread in the weave of Draco’s transfigured blanket.
She walked in circles until her feet ached, kept her arms in front of her until her muscles groaned with strain as she felt for the wards caging her.
It was cold and monotonous, and it never ended. Even now, it’s hard to remember the specifics of those long months locked away, because nothing really happened besides the slow progress of her Occlumency and sensing magic.
She began to recognise the magic surrounding her.
It was like a switch flipped somewhere in her mind. Magic traces were tangible, real things. She could see the wards as easily as the weave in Draco’s blanket. She spent days feeling each thread of the wards, following them with her fingertips. She pulled at them, unravelled them—but as quickly as she could tear them down, they reasserted themselves.
That was the benefit of having a ward stone. It replenished the magic she destroyed too quickly for her to escape.
The most she could do was reach a hand through the bars before the wards snapped back into place and repelled her back into her cell.
It became clear that she would need more than her wits and her newly acquired skills to escape. She would need a wand.
And there was only one wand that ever came close to her, and there was no way she could steal it from under Draco’s nose.
He would check on her daily, stroll over to her cage, and dive into her mind. She became talented at driving him away, at twisting her memories into fabricated illusions to taunt him. She had hoped that once she mastered memory alteration, he would let her go, but it had been weeks since she made a mistake, and Draco gave no hints to his plan.
She asked him, and when he wouldn’t answer, she screamed at him, tried to provoke a response.
She began to wonder if he even had a plan, or if he intended to let her waste away in his cellar until the war ended. Or longer.
It was clear that he got some sort of sick satisfaction from seeing her there, locked away. As if he believed he could possess her as long as she was hoarded in his cellar like a dragon’s treasure.
Their last day together progressed just as all the previous ones did. Hermione, sullen, slumped against the wall and curled into a ball. Draco, cocky, striding jauntily toward her, cigarette hanging from his lips.
Honey, I’m home, he said, and Hermione glowered up at him.
She hated his jokes.
He tossed a copy of the Prophet through the bars—as he’d begun doing since he became more confident in her memory manipulation skills—and levitated a mug of tea down to sit by her side.
You know the elves think I’ve been replaced by a doppelgänger, what with the double portions of food and abysmal tea taste that you have.
Hermione said nothing. She didn’t look at him.
He was volatile, in those days. Something wasn’t right with his emotional regulation. Magic would burst out of him in fits if she could bait him just right. (It was the only source of entertainment left in a world otherwise devoid of colour.)
He scoffed, and the noise echoed faintly in the stony silence.
He dove into her mind, but she was ready.
She had a plan.
The cell disappeared, and Hermione lay back in Ron’s bed, soft cotton sheets splayed around her which still smelled like sex. Ron’s arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against his body. He yawned into her neck, muttering, still half asleep.
Draco’s annoyance flared at the edges of her consciousness. He swept the memory away and took them back to Hogwarts, sixth year, in the hospital wing.
‘Go on,’ the boy hissed. He jerked his head, inviting her closer. ‘I can’t fight back. Do what you came to do.’
Over his legs, she crawled, carefully avoiding his bandages, until she sat on his thighs. She took his left hand in hers. His pulse was warm in her fingers. His breath echoed shallowly, the only muted sound between them.
The bandage covering his forearm would be so easy to peel back. Her fingers ghosted over the edges. He sucked in a breath, but didn’t try to stop her. His body was taught beneath her, practically vibrating with anticipation.
‘Do it,’ he said. ‘I dare you.’
He pressed further, tearing at the memory, seeing how long she could hide his own face from him. Easily, she switched his features for those of another.
Ron’s jaw flexed. Eyes darkened on her. He shook his head.
Draco ripped her forward in time, to the night before Dumbledore’s death, and the boy stood before her in the library. He was leaning toward her, face still blotchy from anger and devastation. His lips met hers, his mouth tracing patterns across her lips, and the scene melted like ice on a summer night. Hermione would not give him the satisfaction of seeing this memory.
She wanted to punish him.
Ron’s bedroom solidified around them, Ron’s seed still dripping from between her legs. She dragged her fingers through the fluid, up and across her clit. She groaned into her pillow.
The threads of Legilimency broke, fizzling into smoke. Draco gripped the bars of her cell, looming over her.
What the fuck, Granger, he snarled.
Hermione blinked up at him. What? she said innocently. Since you feel entitled to the rest of my memories, I figured you’d want those as well. I was doing you a favor.
He was red around the edges. I don’t want to see you playing with your—your—
My what, Malfoy?
Your cunt, Granger. I’m not interested.
She rose slowly, unfurling herself from her place at his feet, and stood across from him, staring into his furious eyes. Go again, she said, voice as strong and unmoving as the bars separating them. You’ve come to tear through my memories, so go ahead.
The vein in his forehead throbbed as he sneered at her, his gaze a dark passage as he pushed back into her mind.
The library faded as quickly as it appeared, and the four walls of Ron’s bedroom closed down upon them like a cage. She guided him in as she sank down on his lap, and he filled her slowly, inch by inch. He held her waist gently, eyes glued adoringly on her face.
Draco tried to pull back. He tried to whisk away the memory, but she held him steady. At the same time, she reached toward the magic of the cell, feeling for the tangled threads of the wards between them.
She rocked, grinding herself against him. Ron breathed into her shoulder, his hot breath against her neck.
Draco pulled violently away, but she wrapped his Legilimency like a rope around him, and forced him to stay. The wards between them began to slip.
She leaned forward, catching his mouth with hers, and he rolled his hips, thrusting into her from below. ‘I’m close,’ he ground out.
It was getting harder to keep Draco in the memory, he thrashed, and the scene began fading, but she needed more time.
It was Draco, beneath her. Draco, thrusting into her. It was Draco’s ragged breath in her ear, Draco’s lips ghosting down her neck. He flipped them over, and she landed on her back in the pile of pillows. His mouth found her breast, and his hand found her clit.
She could feel his shocked fascination, his disbelief. The lines of magic connecting them sang with it. He wanted to tear the vision away, but he couldn’t bring himself to. And in his moment of distraction, the images of their naked bodies lingering in their minds, Hermione tore through the wards.
She lunged for his wand.
Their mind magic crashed down, Draco’s lust filled specter replaced by his real life, startled counterpart.
Hermione’s fingers closed around his wand, and she yanked it out of his grasp.
She swiped through the wards, disabling them for good, and the door to her cage swung open.
Draco sprang at her, dodging the red curse she shot at him.
She shielded, and his body smacked against the opalescent light of her Protego .
Granger, he said. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.
She shot another curse at him, rather than answer.
He dodged, and Hermione ran out of the cell. She slammed the door behind her, caging him in. Raised his wand, muttering the warding spells, concentrating with all her might to trap him.
The door burst off of its hinges, and Hermione was flung backward. She landed hard, all of the air leaving her body. Everything hurt. Draco’s wand was rolling away.
She scrambled after it.
She was too slow.
WED, 23 JUN O4, 0300
A crack of Apparition drags her out of the hazy, half-sleep she’s been drowning in for the past three hours. She blinks away an image of Harry sitting on the edge of her bed, and rubs the sleep out of her eyes.
Soon, the door creaks open, and Draco’s silhouette is a void, inkier than the darkness beyond.
“Not asleep yet?” His voice is low, not much more than a whisper.
Hermione raises herself on an elbow and shakes her head. “I’ve been having a terrible time sleeping lately.”
He nods, throat bobbing, then turns, looking down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Are you hungry?” Hermione says.
“Famished.”
“Here.” She yawns. She swings her feet over the edge of the bed. “I think Trinket kept a plate out for you.”
She wraps a blanket around her shoulders and starts to push past him, where he still lingers in the doorway, but he stops her. Fingers on her jaw, turning her face up.
He looks down on her. Tired eyes, soot smeared across his cheekbones. Blood mats his hair and streams down his neck from where a spell nicked his ear.
Hermione frowns, touching the cut as gently as she can.
He hisses.
“You’re hurt. What happened?”
His jaw flexes as he takes her hand, drawing it away from his wound.
“It’s nothing.”
His palm is warm and roughed by calluses. She pulls out of his grasp to draw her wand, which she touches to his wound. As his skin knits together, his bruised, tired eyelids flutter closed.
“Come on,” she whispers, as if the air between them might shatter with any increase in volume.
He sighs, following her to the kitchen. On the battered kitchen island sits Draco’s dinner, still humming faintly with a stasis charm, but he passes it by, wandering instead over to the pantry. After a minute of silent rummaging, he emerges with a tea tin, and then sets the kettle to heat.
Hermione summons a fork and taps his plate, removing the charm. She clears her throat. Why did she follow him out here, anyway?
“I heard about Wales,” she says.
Raising an eyebrow, he scoffs. “Fucking nightmare.”
“The Incendiaries killed your team?”
“Most of them.”
“Will you be punished?”
He meets her eyes, momentarily pausing the tea preparation, his face impassive. “I won’t have to curse you again.”
“Right.” Hermione nods. She lays the fork neatly by his plate, taking a moment to straighten it to a perfect perpendicular with the island’s edge. “I was—I was actually—The Dark Lord, he seems more angry at Mulciber, if anything, right now.”
“He is.” Draco takes the kettle off and summons mugs from the cupboard. Two mugs.
He pours the water. It burbles into the cup, filling the kitchen air with citrus and cinnamon.
“Did you—Are you injured?"
Pushing up the side of his mouth, he taps his newly healed ear. “Not anymore.” He floats her mug across the island to her. It lands gently by her folded hands, a drop flicking off the rim. He summons a bottle of honey from the cupboard, pushing that to her as well. “How was S&S? In shambles without you?”
“Thank you,” she whispers, holding the mug to her chest. Steam wisps over her face. “Danika talked my ears off. I barely got any work done.”
A hint of a smile flickers across his face, gone in an instant. Elbow on the island, he leans over his plate and takes a bite. Hermione watches the muscles in his jaw move. The hint of stubble, the smear of dried blood. Something wells in the back of her throat, and she has to look away.
“The tea is perfect,” she says quietly, before turning numbly and walking back to bed, clutching the mug tightly so it won’t tremble.
He says nothing as she disappears back into the shadows.
A deep breath, a deep sip of tea. In Astoria’s skin, she crawls back into Astoria’s bed. She pulls Astoria’s knees up to Astoria’s forehead, and waits for Astoria’s husband.
It’s hard to remember, sometimes, that she’s not Hermione Granger anymore.