Hello all! This is my first fic, so please cut me some slack if it gets off to a rocky start. That said, if you have any comments/complaints/suggestions leave me a review – I would literally LOVE to hear from you!
This is going to be a longggg fic with some dark themes in later chapters...and it is VERY Dramione, so if you're on board for that buckle up because things are about to get interesting for our two favorite wizards.
Finally, I'm going to do my very best to update biweekly, but don't hate me if life occasionally gets in the way and I forget. Without further aideu...
Initially, she had written off her dreams as PTSD-induced nightmares, brought on by a childhood cut short by violence and hate. Of course, she found it odd that she relived the same sequence of nightmarish events every night – Lucius Malfoy holding court in a room made of steel, Fenrir Greyback laughing maniacally about the "new era" in which only the 'most deserving' wizards would have access to magic, and Nott Sr. going on about purging the Wizarding World of mudbloods and blood traitors alike, followed each time by the same three words – be ready mudblood.
That one phrase had haunted her day and night for nearly two years; it was something about the way it sounded not so much like a threat as a warning, not necessarily meant to scare her but to prepare her for what was to come.
And then, two weeks ago, she'd come home one night to none other than Draco Malfoy lounging on her bed with her favorite childhood teddy bear sitting on his right leg.
Registering his blonde hair and trademark Malfoy smirk, she had instinctively drawn her wand – intending to stupefy him before he'd even noticed her arrival. But, before she could get the spell out, his storm grey eyes narrowed infinitesimally and her wand flew from her hand to his.
"Granger, where are your manners?" He scoffed, feigning offense.
"Malfoy, what the hell?" She responded – trying desperately to hide her fear behind a brave front. He may have been dressed in pitch black jeans and a grey t-shirt, but she knew damn well that the man before her was a death eater. And, now that she thought about it, he was also supposed to be dead.
He laughed mockingly, obviously enjoying her distress, "you're not happy to see me? I'm hurt." he joked, clasping a hand to his chest in mock offense.
"Why are you here?" She asked defensively, slowly edging her way towards the foot of her bed where Malfoy had carelessly tossed her wand. "Scratch that, how are you here?" She amended.
He stopped laughing abruptly, and rolled his eyes at her. "You know, for the smartest witch of our age you really haven't been paying attention."
"Why are you here?" She bit out again tersely, clearly done playing along with his antics.
Sensing this, Malfoy stood up slowly, carefully replacing her bear in its particular place on the bed, before taking two rapid strides towards her until they were face to face.
Hermione's breath hitches at his sudden proximity, and she moved to step back before he grabbed her wrist and spun her back towards him. Bringing his face even closer to hers, gripping her chin to demand her attention, he whispered, "I know that you hate me, but right now I need you to listen to me, because I am your only fucking chance."
Ripping her face from his grasp, Hermione slapped him before taking a wobbly step back. "You're right, I do hate you. And I don't trust you, and I want you to get out of my fucking apartment," she spat angrily.
He slowly brought his hand up to rub at his cheek, smirking at her knowingly – "having any bad dreams lately, Granger?"
She stopped in her tracks, frozen in place. "What the fuck do you know, Ferret?" She asked fiercely, only half wanting to know the answer.
"I know that the war isn't over, and I know that your pathetic excuse for an Order is completely unprepared for what's coming," he spat back with equal force. "But you already know that, don't you Granger? Otherwise, you'd have run to Wonder Boy and the Weasel already."
She crossed her arms defiantly, unwilling to admit that he had hit uncomfortably close to the truth. She had long ago recognized the ministry's incompetence, and had come to a similar realization about the Order. Both were happy to blindly enjoy the post-war bliss and bask in the fame and power that came with their victory.
Eyeing her wand, now less than a foot away, she spoke deliberately, doing her very best to divert his attention from her hand as she reached towards the bed. "Even if that were true, what other choice do I have than to rely on the Order?"
He shrugged nonchalantly, and said "that's where I come in," as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
In one quick motion, Hermione had Malfoy pinned to the ground, her wand jabbing aggressively into his neck. "If you have something to say, say it now, Ferret. Otherwise, I can guarantee you a one way ticket to Azkaban by the end of the week," she snarled.
Even with his back to the ground, Malfoy still refused to wipe that incessant smirk off his face and for an instant she could hardly restrain herself from slapping it off herself.
"If I wanted to kill you, Granger, you'd be dead already. And, if you were going to turn me in to the Ministry we would be in Shacklebolt's office right now." Malfoy drawled from beneath her, rolling his eyes defiantly.
"Now, if you could just stop with the dramatics, maybe I could get to the point and get on with my life," he grumbled as he pushed her off of him and sat back on his heels. "Oh, and I'll be keeping that for the time being," he continued, pointing at her wand and wordlessly levitating it to his side.
Hermione's jaw dropped as she watched him, knowing damn well that it would take a much stronger wizard than her longtime bully and general pain in the arse to successfully perform wordless and wandless magic simultaneously. Before she could think better of it, she mouthed the word "how?" more to herself than to him.
"Jealous, are we, Granger?" He chuckled, winking at her suggestively. "I can teach you, if you'd like."
She snapped her mouth shut immediately, crossing her arms with a huff. "Or, you could just get out of my bedroom before I hex you to oblivion and back."
"Yes, but then you'd never have the pleasure of hearing what it is I have to tell you." he replied mysteriously.
Despite her better judgement Hermione sat back and inclined her head slightly, deciding to hear him out before turning him in to the Ministry. After all, she reasoned, if Malfoy really did have information pertaining to the Death Eaters she had a civic duty to hear him out and report back to the Order. Or, at least, that was the flimsy excuse she used to justify her curiosity.
Upon her silent agreement to listen, Malfoy continued – "I assume that you've heard about my recent suicide, along with those of the other eighteen Death Eaters that made up the Dark Lord's inner circle?"
Thinking back through the list of Death Eaters that had been found dead over the past two years, Hermione nodded her head thoughtfully. It was obvious now that Malfoy's death had been staged, which meant that all of the other alleged suicides could have just as easily been fake.
The color drained from her face, leaving her almost as pale as the man sitting across from her. "Go on," she whispered in a voice so low she wasn't even sure he could hear.
"Yes, well, as I'm sure you've pieced together by now the chronic suicides are, in fact, a ruse. A decoy of sorts, meant to keep the Ministry off of The Circle's trail."
Seeing her upheld hand, Malfoy stopped speaking long enough for her to ask: "The Circle?"
Nodding in understanding, he responded "first of all, Granger, we are not in potions class any more so there really is no need to raise your hand like the bucktooth schoolgirl you used to be." Sensing her angry retort, he quickly continued, cutting her off before she could even get a word out. "Second, to answer your question, The Circle is a sadistic group of the eighteen Death Eaters that previously comprised Voldemort's inner circle."
She raised her eyebrows at him pointedly, remembering that for a time Malfoy was suspected to have replaced his father as Voldemort's right hand. "I assume that you are included in the 'sadistic inner circle' category?"
"To most," he replied darkly, averting his eyes briefly. "But you can be sure that I most certainly would not be sitting in the same room as a mudblood, attempting to have a pseudo-civil conversation if my loyalties lied with the Death Eaters."
As much as she hated him, and wanted to believe that he was the vile monster he seemed, she couldn't argue with the logic. He had somehow managed to get past her intricate web of wards, break into her apartment, confiscate her wand (twice, no less), and still he had left her alive.
Still, she had trouble believing that the man sitting across from her had undergone such a monumental transformation as to have grown a conscience. "Then where do your loyalties lie, Malfoy?" She questioned uneasily.
He shrugged, looking intensely into her chocolate brown eyes as he explained, "My loyalties lie only with myself, they did during the War and they do now. The whole world can burn for all I care, I just want to make it out alive." He paused for a moment, looking at her with a look she couldn't quite identify. "Right now, our interests align, so I'm here to offer you my help...and to ask for yours in return."
She couldn't help the uncontrollable girlish laughter that bubbled out of her in that moment. Holding her side and struggling to catch her breath she rasped out "I'm sorry, but did Draco Malfoy, the man who has always treated me as a subhuman piece of shite really just have the audacity to ask for my help?"
He frowned, obviously unamused, and moved to stand. "Fine then. If you really think your pathetic little Ministry is equipt to
go up against the Death Eaters when they come for your magic, go ahead and give it your best shot."
Without thinking, she grabbed his wrist to keep him from leaving. They both froze for an instant that seemed to last much longer than it actually did before she let go abruptly, letting her hand fall limply to her side. "What do you mean, when the Death Eaters come for our magic?" She whispered softly, unable to find her voice.
He looked at her for a long moment before whispering back in an equally hushed tone, "before Voldemort fell, he unleashed one final curse – unlike anything else I've ever heard of – a curse meant to punish the Wizarding World, a curse meant to eradicate magic from all but his inner circle and thus give them unlimited power."
Her limbs turning to jelly beneath her, she fell back onto her bed gracelessly, tears springing from the corners of her eyes and threatening to spill over. Glancing down at her, Malfoy continued, "but you already knew that, didn't you Granger?"
Shaking her head in denial, Hermione refused to meet his eyes. There was no way it could be true, she thought. But then, when she thought about it realistically, there was really no way it couldn't be true. Malfoy, back from the dead, sitting in her bedroom, somehow privy to her dreams, was warning her of the very group he belonged to – you couldn't just make something like that up.
"So then what's your plan?" She asked, still only half believing that he was telling her the truth.
Lifting her chin with a finger so their eyes met, he spoke with a determination that shook her to her core "I'm going to destroy them from the inside out, and I need you to help me. But first, I need you to become someone else – something else."
They stood their for what felt like a small eternity, neither one willing or able to move until Malfoy pulled out a small piece of parchment from his pant pocket, and folded it gently into her hand.
"Goodnight, Granger." He whispered before apparating from the room without any sign that he had ever been there in the first place.
The parchment consisted of only one line – an address scrawled out in perfect script:
167 Walnut Blvd.
Without another thought, she crumpled the paper in her hand and threw it violently across the room, determined to put the entire exchange behind her.
She had gone to bed that night with a plan: she would report her conversation with Malfoy to the ministry first thing tomorrow morning, inform the Order of her series of seemingly-prophetic dreams and the looming threat posed by Voldemort's inner circle, and she would do her damn best to forget all about her bizarre encounter with Malfoy and his cryptic parchment.
Of course, things never really did go according to plan.
