Hermione groaned, rolled over, and grunted as she was met with a solid wall of snoring flesh.

Into a shoulder, she slurred, "Should have been you."

The warmth at her back sighed softly, saturated with content, "We talked about this. You're more charismatic." There was silence for a moment, before Harry finished, "They thought I was crazy, once. No way would they go for it. Boy Who Lived or not."

She stretched just a bit, kicking at Ron's thicker legs out of playful spite, "You're their hero. And you're still crazy."

"So are you," Harry shifted slightly, withdrawing his arm from around her hip, which she noticed was devoid of undergarments to cover them, "to both of those statements. But you have a better eye for politics. Have you been reading the books?"

"The boring and mundane accounts of Phineas Black's many lordships and pureblood ideology? Yes. Have you?"

"Of course. I intend to help you, even if it's a slog to get through."

"Quiet," Ron growled, stirred no doubt by their speech, or Hermione's kicking.

They ignored him. "The Olde Ways are very binding, through them we'll control the slighted olde bloods, who the Ministry has harmed either unjustly or not."

"Correct," Hermione whispered, "and the line issue?"

"Should be irrelevant with the power we've gained," Harry mused, "but no worries, Ron has an idea."

"Ron, an idea?" Hermione said, dryly.

"Don't be rude," he grunted at her front. "I'm a master tactician. A strategist. I've got you something. Something good."

She barely heard his muttering through the pillow, "What is it?"

"Dinner. I'll have it all for you then. Gotta ask," here he yawned and flopped until he was on his stomach, "the Venerable Lord Weasley for a favor."

Hermione shifted slightly and reached over, setting cocoa colored fingertips to draw patterns over the scars on Ron's back, curious, "Oh? And he wouldn't be… suspicious?"

"Father is a bit dull but his heart's right," Ron muffled into the pillow. " 'sides, it won't be anything to flag."

That was good enough for her.

"Then you best get up," Hermione said before she twisted about until she was on her back, gazing wearily at the ceiling above - charmed to appear like constantly changing constellations. "They watch the Burrow too, you know. They wouldn't like it if they thought you lived beyond the proper parameters of the average Ministry approved wizard."

"I know," he snorted.

But he didn't move. Not until Harry suddenly shoved him, expressing enough force to cause his body to flop off the bed and onto the floor with a cattish yowl.

Hermione didn't repress her twinkling laughter.

As Ron, tangled somewhat in the sheets, began to curse and buck like a suffocating fish, Harry drew his attention back to her.

"How are you feeling?"

Good, was the first word that came to mind.

Gray was the second.

"Yearning," was the word she settled on, "like there's something else I need. A familiar but different sense of otherness."

"A goal then."

"Or more spellwork, something like that."

When Ron finally came to his feet, flustered and scowling, Hermione spared him a glance. With stubble and wild tangled hair, long and uncombed, he looked rather feral. His expression didn't make him appear any more civilized, especially when he yanked his shirt off a nearby desk with enough force to hear it.

"Don't pout, mate."

"Harry, I would never, without warning, attack you in the manner I have been attacked this morning-"

"-attack you, really? And while we're on the subject I believe you have attacked me, rather viciously might I add. Far more so than the gentle coaxing I gave you to get you out of bed."

"That was a misunderstanding, I was not aware that the spell would ride me like that-"

"-and I," Harry interrupted, speaking in a tone that was very matter-of-fact, "was not aware that you'd gracelessly fall out of bed like that."

She knew he had been. Still, it was wiser not to partake in the morning squabble. She let them have their spat, settling with empty mind into a sense of odd domestication. It was here, in the bed they sometimes shared, unable to be separated and only able to chase their individual terrors away within the grip of one another, that she pondered on their future and her tenuous place within it.

That and the warm pulsing piece of jewelry settled between her breast.

"Don't be late to work today," Ron sneered, kicking one of Harry's shoes into the far corner of the room before, with hands upon his hips, he glared at Hermione, "And you, they keep asking me about you-"

"Ministry work is so very dreary," she responded, casual and cold, "not as exciting as keeping you both sane and alive."

Harry shifted beside her, if only so he could rest the warmth of his palm against her shoulder. "They ask me too."

"And what do they suspect I'd like to do for them? Mandatory Aurorship, with you two?"

Their brief and unsettling vacation within Azkaban hadn't done any favors for their careers. Heroes they may be but working in any sort of political capacity had been ruined by the new gentry. Not sound minds, they'd said. Azkaban changes you, far too much for civilized debate. So, she'd left, a mudblood meant to go unnoticed and remain demure in the face of those who knew better while Ron and Harry had been recruited with subtle threats against their stability into a more physical role. At least that placement had done well for them. They had their gold safely in vaults, Harry more so than either of them, and they had the peace that granted. If Ron and Harry were occupied doing good work for the Ministry, then they didn't need to be watched, did they?

Let them be coddled and smile for the papers, Hermione found enough solace in her personal work and the odd potion commission or two.

"They think Harry and I are catering to your delicate sensibilities," Ron snorted. "They'll ask you again, I bet, 'n real soon too. Maybe try and get you in the creatures department with Luna."

And wouldn't that be fun?

She nuzzled slightly into the warmth of the pillow before her, "Are you sure? Luna didn't spend as much time in the cage as we did. Perhaps they think her properly sane to crawl around in the muck."

She, on the other hand, held no such hope nor the naive assumption that such work would be fulfilling. There was nothing more exhilarating than the weight of her wand and the hum beneath her skin. Nothing.

Except, maybe, the aspect of control.

Her days of naive house-elf savior were over.

"Tell them I'm caring for Grimmauld. Harry is often so busy, and it could use a woman's touch."

"We do," Harry said.

And that was the truth, to be fair. She did spend hours upon hours in the dreary ominous home, combing through various tombs and carefully packing interesting artifacts away to be transferred to the flat at her leisure. The portraits had stopped howling at her some time ago, which made tinkering in the halls a far more lucrative venture. After all, it was difficult to screech at the mudblood when she…

"You'll lose your mind in there if you stay all day talking to those portraits," Ron snorted.

She licked her lips, "They're starting to respect me."

"Only because you act so odd in there. Like you know something. And now I feel like they know you know something."

She rumbled a bit, a husky laugh, "I'm not me in here, not all the time. There are some things I know, and some things I forget. But the portraits have been talking to me… lately. Telling me what I've forgotten."

And, sometimes, she remembered that too, even when she fell into one of her moods. But the house, that house and those that haunted it, spoke to her on a level far too metaphysical for her to logically decipher.

"And I really don't like that," Ron grumbled, but didn't push further.

"If you were nicer to them they might stop screaming at you too. I'm sick of hearing it, is all. Blood traitor this, blood traitor that."

Ron huffed and turned his back to them, hopping on one foot as he shimmied into his pants, "And they are still calling you muddy, you know."

"Aunt Wally said it's endearing. I'm the only muddy she'll speak with. She's not even that nice to Harry and he's got some of that Black blood shifting his brains."

"Aunt Wally?" Ron twisted around so fast he almost fell on his arse. "Great Godric, Harry! She's calling the bag Aunt Wally now?"

Harry sniffed, more amused than horrified, "She's the one who helped us find the olde Lord Black's grimoires. She thinks teaching, ah, Hermione some culture is a noble action."

"Furthermore, if we really want this to work, I need to be…"

For a moment they were all silent as Hermione wrinkled her nose, searching for the right word.

"A certain way," Ron finished the statement instead. "Yeah, better you than me."

"We all need to know it, the cultural stuff, if we want to appeal to them."

Ron bobbed his head, but Hermione wasn't sure if he had processed Harry's statement, not until he-

"Oh, bloody hell! Really? You want me to study and you want me to study that? I'd rather dig around in the blood ritual books again-"

"Right. No way on that. Not after the last thing you wanted to try."

Hermione laughed, knowing the sound followed Ron's pouting form all the way to the floo.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Breakfast was the usual affair.

Ron, pretending to have slept at the Burrow for the night and not just a portion, had come down the stairs fresh from his shower with a wave and a brilliant smile. He welcomed her with open arms, playing his role with startling perfection-

"I'm so glad you could come, 'Moine! I wasn't sure if you had time to accept the invitation. Haven't seen you since…"

Here he waited for a moment, while she basked in the heavy sense of domestication and ancient magic that consumed his family home beside a solemn faced George, who looked unfocused as he struggled, even now, to maintain a balance between emptiness and grief.

She tried not to stare at him, to become entranced by his sorrow. As even this was beautiful to her, his torment, and she wondered what it would feel like to know… no, she craved to feel more than the sickness that hovered on the edge of her mind, twisting up all her thoughts and making her arm ache.

Instead, she smiled, something slight and shy, "Three days before this one, wasn't it? When I went to have tea with Luna."

"And how is she? Luna?"

"Doing well enough, she says the Ministry is thinking of vault compensation after the year she spent in Azkaban."

George twitched beside her as his expression slipped from apathy to disgust with an underlying fury.

"Should have been faster," he mumbled under his breath, "nobody should have been there. But we didn't have any power. Lost my mind and-"

"Now now," Ron said, though his tone was odd and strained. He lifted his hands, one for George shoulder and the other for Hermione's as he turned them from the foyer and toward the kitchen proper, where the smell of food began to waft forward. "Best not to think about the past, right brother? What's done is done-"

"It wasn't right," George hissed under his breath. "They didn't have the right to take any of you-"

"-The Ministry is understanding, George. And we did break the law," Ron's smile didn't waver, but there was something that twisted in the shadows of his gaze, something hungry and wild.

And furious.

"You were all… we were all just kids and-"

Hermione lifted her hand, heard the choke in George tone and knew he suffered from more than just delusions of mistreatment and a lack of justice. She gently took one of George's in her own and took great care to rub her thumb across the knuckles of his balled fist.

"Let's not talk about any of that. Not here. Not now," she whispered, eyeing Ron who gave a subtle nod, just enough to let her know she could continue, "I've missed you, everyone really. Let's have breakfast, I can't stay long."

With a shiny gaze George lifted his other hand, his smile weak, false, filled with the mistakes of his past. "I've missed you too, I ah… sorry, it's not gentlemanly to lose oneself in that sort of talk before a lady."

Hermione played her part, giggling girlishly, "Oh, I'm not a lady, George. I'm just me."

Charming and ravenous. But a lioness nonetheless.

"Nonsense," he muttered, leading her to a nearby chair, "you're more of a lady than the common filth chewing on the power of their silly little lords-"

"-George!"

With a gaggle of plates floating behind her, Molly was quick to interrupt George's frank and, if Hermione was honest, somewhat treasonous tirade.

"We don't talk like that at the table," The Weasley matriarch scowled, brows furrowed, "It's not a space for… for that."

Opinions and politics, Hermione figured.

But she didn't have time to ponder it, for she was soon swept up in a crushing hug, one she returned with little reluctance. It was pleasant to be touched, even if it was done so with a sense of desperation. Despite Molly's pretty high-blood robes and lily smelling perfume she was still bound as tightly as any other. Being the Madam of the Venerable Lord Weasley was no doubt more of a headache than not.

"Hermione! Praise be to the Empire! I haven't seen you in so long."

"Praise be," Hermione answered casually, though the words felt heavy on her tongue and crude, burning like acid, "I'm glad to be here this morning. Will Lord Weasley be joining us?"

"It's just Arthur, dear," Molly muttered, as if nervous, "You don't have to do that. Not here. Not ever."

Hermione made a soft sound, a curious hum, "It wouldn't be proper, you know. Now that the Ministry has returned his seats. What does he do again?"

As Molly let her go Ron, with a flick of wand, began to redirect all the various plates from hovering to on the table, "He's the ah, Esteemed and Honorable Head of the new and improved Department of Muggleborn Affairs."

"A bunch of rubbish, that," George croaked.

"George," Molly grunted, but seemed more or less distracted with smoothing Hermione's purposely wrinkled clothing out. "He's repairing the damage that woman did, Umbridge. He is making some change, able to check the Muggles for damage to any Muggleborn children they have, so that nothing… untoward can happen to them-"

Like how it happened to Harry.

"-And," she cleared her throat, "it allows the Ministry to keep better track of them. In tandem with Hogwarts he's able to provide preliminary education so they don't come here bamboozled and such…"

Or with the belief that they were better than the powers in charge. Brainwash them young, endear them to you as they fumble, lost and vulnerable, in a world beyond their imaginations.

"But enough of all that, sit sit!" Molly waved her hands as if she could wave away the discomfort of the conversation.

Arthur's job put galleons in their vault and gave them a sliver of power, power that they had used for years attempting to free them. She could respect that, at least. But ultimately, Sacred Twenty-Eight or not, they were still lesser nobles and maybe content to be such.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Molly croaked, "E-either way, he won't be joining us, deary. Not today, I'm afraid. He left early, to look into some records for Ronald."

"Oh?" Hermione took her seat, napkin unfolded and upon her lap and allowed George to serve her with thin-pressed lips.

"Oh yes, what was it again?"

Ron didn't bother looking up from his plate as he began to shove an unnecessary pile of eggs onto it, "Eh? Oh yeah. Some line stuff. You know, they're looking more closely at that sort of thing these days, Mum. I think they're going to push it."

With a softly uttered 'thanks' to George, Hermione pulled her plate closer, distracted momentarily by the rich smell of bacon. Her stomach grumbled, greedy, but she repressed the urge to devolve into a pig. No matter how… hungry she was, she knew it would do little to end the ache in her being. Using more potent magic, dabbling in wilde arts, had a way of making someone always feel ravenous.

"You don't really believe that, do you? It's atrocious, not to mention a tad unfair."

"The Ministry runs on efficiency, not fairness, Mum." Ron snorted around a mouthful of eggs.

Disgusting.

She kicked him under the table, hiding a smile behind her glass as he choked and huffed like a beast. She ignored his returned sneer.

"As I was saying," Ron said, guttural and displeased, "there's been a lot of missing wizards and witches to account for. Also, the rehabilitation program-"

George snorted.

"-hasn't been running as smoothly. They need guidance to assist with reinstatement. Society is weary because they have no-"

"They aren't," Molly lifted a hand, mostly to pinch the bridge of her nose, "t-they aren't dogs, Ronald. They don't need leashes."

Only the Golden Trio had to have those.

"No no, they aren't dogs but, the Ministry feels that they would be more… comfortable… Ah, good, if they were…"

Ron paused, shrugging listlessly and placed a piece of bacon in his mouth, sentence left unfinished. That was the end of that conversation. Hermione would have to get him alone later, to ask what wasn't being said behind false-loyalty to the Empire. She really should subscribe to the Prophet again, but would the owls be able to find the flat?

"It doesn't matter," George rumbled. "In the end they'll do what they want to do. Whose line do they have you investigating?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes for a moment, head tilted as she bit into a piece of toast. So, the Ministry were investigating bloodlines now. Had they always done that?

"Patil, the twins? Do you remember them? Ministry heard word that a great-grandmother or something is possible royalty back in India. They want confirmation and then a discussion with the Head. Probably just want to know how many vaults they've got at Gringotts."

Hermione wasn't sure if that was true or not, but it seemed irrelevant to ask. Ron knew what he was doing when it came to his family. She'd leave him to his masquerade.

"Hermione," Molly said, drawing her attention away from her plate, which was probably going to need a second helping, "are you bothered by it?"

Her silence had been mistaken for discomfort, she cleared her throat, "Oh no. They must know what they're doing. Harry says the program does work well for some. It's all about introducing the patient to a new line of thought, I hear."

It was about control and conditioning. Withholding family heirlooms and vaults until one adhered to a Ministry-Empire stated mandate. When obedience was won they were rewarded, returned the aspects of their being that had always belonged to them through might and magic. They were the first to be introduced, the children on the other side, to such actions. Those who were deemed untrustworthy and crazed, burdened by the order of the Dark Lord with the desperate need to be cleansed. The bulk of them, with their seized properties and cultural shunning, were little more than trinkets for the Ministry to dangle. 'Look at them', the Ministry said, 'Look at what we've done to them. For you! Look at what we make them do!'. Sacred or otherwise, those who did not bow were pushed aside to the general populous, or worse, while the Ministry families continued to hoard more and more power to themselves, twisting themselves into the Order of Nobility.

The high and the lesser gentry.

But those seized galleons did little for the people themselves. Their buildings were still crooked, their streets warped and stained. At least the Weasleys, despite their status, gave as much as they got. Even if they still dressed the part and attended court among the Wizengamot, nodding their heads and making no real change. But then, what power did they have to do so, with their meager two seats?

The tolerated laughing stock within the House of Lords.

It was enough to make her wonder how many galleons within their vault belonged to others who could never reclaim them.

"Malfoy's doing well enough," George said, if only to keep the conversation going and keep back the overwhelming silence.

"He is," Ron confirmed, "Harry had a vested interest in their family, with what his mum did and all."

"It was very kind of her," Molly said, though she seemed somewhat uncomfortable, "donating so much to help us. W-when we started losing hope."

She had never been told the amount of gold it had taken to get the Ministry to release them. When marching in the streets had only ended in lost numbers and slaughtered wizard-meat. Far more than the Weasleys owned, that much was sure.

"It was half, I hear," Ron croaked, "half the wealth and a bit more beside, eh?"

"Harry was able to give some back," Hermione said, gaze carefully upon the Weasley madam, "when the Ministry allowed him to reclaim his vaults he did the transfer as Lord Black."

Donations for non-house members weren't heard of otherwise, not if you didn't want them to be tracked and snatched.

"Won't give him his seats though, will they?"

"Not yet," Hermione said. "They wanted him to focus on his work and recovery-"

George suddenly slammed his fists on the kitchen table, causing Molly to squeal and the new fine china – for visitors only, Molly had once said - to rattle, "We've been recovering for years! When will they let us breathe?!"

Ron was up and out of his chair so fast it flew back, scratching across the wooden floor and creating a ghastly sound. He stomped over, grimace in place and cheeks flushed before he reached out and hooked his hands under a sobbing George's armpits. He pulled him up and out of his chair with a strength she hadn't known he possessed and hobbling, began to lead his brother to the stairs.

"Alright, that's enough of that." Ron's voice came from the hall, "That's not how we behave in front of a lady."

"I just want to be free," she heard George wheeze, voice thick with his sorrow, "they follow us everywhere. They dictate what we do! I just want to be free!"

Soon the sound of Ron speaking in low soothing tones began to fade, leaving Hermione alone in the kitchen at the table with a quietly crying Molly, who reached out for a tablecloth to dab at her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione. I didn't want you to see this," Molly made an odd sound in the back of her throat, the sound of a mother trying to be strong for her children. "It's been almost ten years and we're still a bit…"

Broken.

"That's alright," Hermione chirped, expression chipper in startling contrast to the atmosphere around her as she lifted her plate.

She'd give Molly something to do, to take her own mind off the madness and the laughter that rattled about her head.

She'd free them all very soon.

"May I have some more? It's all really good."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

They heard her voice before they saw her, a honeyed tone of aristocratic nature, soft and musical. Hermione swallowed thickly, her chest tight as her heart rattled against her ribs. She felt awake, afflicted by sudden brilliance and the cascading wash of memories and voices. She flared her nostrils and fought against a sickening twist of emotions, the response to fight, run, or… or something else, something worse. Her skin crawled with sudden longing, and for one split moment she forgot who she was, where she was. All she could think about was going to that voice and… and something, but she wasn't sure what. She just knew that some portion of her, that part that wasn't her, missed the sound of that voice something bad.

But then Harry was there, Harry with his hand against her back. Harry, who kept her in the massive elaborate foyer of spiraling gold and silver patterns.

"Are you there, Hermione? Do we need to-"

She reached out and clutched his shoulder, her gaze flickering through shadows and visions tinted in red and gray, shadows she didn't understand, memories that flashed then vanished. Memories that teased her knowing she wouldn't remember experiencing them-

"It's me… I'm fine," she whispered, sighing softly when Harry's hand tugged lightly on the Turner about her neck, reminding her of the constant heady beat of magic there – her own and something more.

"Alright. I wasn't sure what would happen if we came here, there's so much about the curse we don't know, won't ever know, and magic lingers here. You're body needs-"

"It's fine," she said, firm and determined. They had work to do and soon Ron would join them. She swallowed past the odd churn in her belly and focused on the voice. "She'll be in a mood, won't she?"

"I don't like when she talks to it. She forgets everything else, sometimes." Harry mused.

"Then we should remind her that we're here for dinner."

"Of course."

Taking her arm in his own Harry led them forward, forgoing the call for a house-elf. Instead he took them down a winding pathway of glaring portraits and golden sculptures of flaunting peacocks.

It was only when they reached a room-

"Library," Harry muttered.

-that they paused.

"This is the right thing to do," the voice said.

"A foolish venture, if you ask me," another replied, gravel and plum.

"And who asked you, dead and gone as you are?"

"The lonely widow, I suspect, who has no one but the dead and gone."

There's a sharp intake of breath from the first voice, feminine and soft, and during the break in conversation, Harry escorted them in.

"Madam Malfoy are you talking to the portrait again?"

She twisted around, startled with gaze somewhat wide in guilt - like a child caught with their hand in the chocolate frog jar.

It gave Hermione the moment she needed to access the space, to note the bookshelves that seemed to consume the room, taking up residence on every wall. The only blank wall was where the fireplace sat, lonely with one or two pictures upon the mantle. It was, instead, mostly home to the massive silver-framed portrait of one Lucius Malfoy, whose expression was twisted up as if he'd eaten something sour.

"What's all this? Again, Narcissa?"

She cleared her throat, a graceful act of hidden coyness, "Oh dear, again? Well, I cannot deny Lord Bla - ahem - Auror Potter into the manor, Lucius. That would be improper."

"Auror Potter surely has better things to do than tromp about my estate with his mud-"

"-Ms. Granger, Mr. Malfoy-" Harry greeted smoothly.

"That is Lord Malfoy-"

"-I think not," Harry interrupted, rocking heel to toe in his expensive shiny shoes, "Draco is Lord Malfoy now. Draco, my sweet Draco."

Harry's sing-song tone was not endearing. Lucius, especially, seemed cross at being addressed in such a way. Hermione only hummed in slight amusement, her gaze not upon the fuming portrait - that Harry shuffled over to cover with a laugh that seemed more cruel than not - but upon the woman in the room.

The woman who returned her gaze. The woman who looked as if she had aged not one year in the last few Hermione had sat rotting away. It should have been a great shame to remain as beautiful as she had, with a full crown of two-toned hair, black and white and horridly luscious. Only the slight bags beneath her gaze said anything else, and she knew they spoke of endless nights and a lack of sleep. To many evenings spent alone with nothing more than broken thoughts and a canter of firewhiskey.

"Cute," Narcissa said, her sudden address enough to make Hermione inhale sharply, "you seem to know a lot about broken thoughts. Though, I appreciate that you believe I'm still beautiful."

Hermione smiled then, something lopsided and off as she clicked her tongue against the back of perfect teeth, "You read my thoughts? That's terribly impolite."

"Your thoughts are loud, and…" Narcissa's voice trailed off before she swallowed harshly, "Well, it matters little. I thought Potter was going to teach you how to shield properly."

"We've a great deal to do, I'm working on it." Harry grunted, drawing the curtain closed upon Lucius portrait and lifting his wand to mutter a quick charm upon it, "I thought I told you frequent conversations with Mr. Malfoy would be frowned upon by the Ministry. They don't like the idea of you cooped up in here, with no witch or wizard interaction."

Narcissa, with all the haughty airs of someone born into nobility with the ideals they could do no wrong, only stalked to a nearby armchair where an untouched bottle of elven brandy sat, "Lucius is a wizard."

"He's a memory," Harry answered pleasantly, hands now shoved in his pockets. "Did you owl Ms. Tonks like I asked you too?"

Her shoulders twitched, the only sign she was not as perfect at apathy as she tried to be, as she poured herself a thimble of amber liquid.

"Madam Malfoy?" Harry said, patient.

"I… have, yes."

There's something anxious in her tone, barely covered by the mask Hermione knew all Slytherins wore so well.

"And what did she say?"

"She wants me to visit."

"And have you?"

"No," Narcissa said, and Hermione could practically imagine the older woman pouting - had she less control over her facial features.

"You should do that. Next week, I think."

She glared at him from over her shoulder, eyes somewhat narrowed in introspection while Harry smiled thinly, calm as the shadows swam among his gaze.

She lowered her own first.

How curious.

But not more so than Harry's magic. A magic that rose around them, thick and cloying. Hermione swayed slightly as she felt it touch her own, calling to something deep and dark. Now she could hear it, something thumping in the walls like a stuttering heartbeat, corruptive and heady. It was him, Harry, spilling his intention out in a manner she had only known one figure to do before. The wards reacted to him, flashing briefly in symbols of gold before they settled, accepting and familiar. If Lucius had ever had power here, if his magic had once been infused in any of the property, it had been absorbed some time ago, replaced by Harry's presence and the blanket that covered them.

She inhaled deeply and shook herself as Narcissa quickly swallowed her shot of liquor.

"What can I get for you and Ms. Granger?"

"A glass of wine would do, any wine."

Narcissa nodded, a bit pale as she began to leave the library, "Then I'll return with something… red."

And she slipped through the door.

It quickly occurred to Hermione that Narcissa hadn't used a house-elf for the simple fetch and pour task and she wondered why…

"She left to breath," Harry said.

Hermione nodded, "What is that? What have you been doing here?"

Harry left his place at her side to trail fingertips along the spines of several books stacked upon the coffee table at the center of the cozy space. Some of them trembled, twitching between their more lifeless counterparts, "I saturated the house."

"With your magic?"

"Oh yes," Harry grunted as he eased his bulk onto the couch and motioned her over.

"Why would you do something like that?"

"Curious, are you? It's something you'll have to do."

"Oh?"

He waited until she was beside him, attentive and interested.

"They need this, a Lord, a Lady, someone to control them."

"Like dogs," Hermione said, suddenly reminded acutely of the conversation at the Weasley household.

"Like sophisticated beasts, I think. They're used to following order, a Head. Malfoy - Lucius, that is - is dead. Sirius is dead. Draco and Narcissa are my responsibility. With my magic dominating the space, it in turn makes them feel…"

"Smaller. Vulnerable." Hermione answered.

"Yes, and I suspect protected to. Still, it's easier to condition someone to obedience when they constantly feel the weight of your rule. I think that's why… He lived here. Much easier to control the wayward and crazed when they cannot escape the influence of your magic. That's certainly how the lords of olde kept their courts in line."

She nodded as understanding dawned within her mind, "And did you learn that from Lord Black?"

He chuckled then, something soft, "Aunt Wally, actually. She was muttering behind the curtain, upset that Narcissa doesn't visit, let loose a few Black secrets in the meantime, and some interesting tidbits on how the last Black - her father, I suspect - kept them all in line. I considered making a smaller portrait for her, actually. I wonder if Narcissa would keep it."

"And Ms. Tonks?"

"It is much healthier to be around living people, Hermione. And they are sisters, they should bond. Besides, Ms. Tonks loves me."

Hermione bobbed her head. Yes, of course.

"Madam Malfoy saved my life, twice if I'm honest. She also, by proxy, saved you and Ron. She'll go stir crazy here alone, even if Draco skulks about every so often. Lucius died for his sins, he freed Draco in doing so, I'm trying to keep them both alive long enough to see a far better reality."

For a moment they sat in silence, Hermione digesting his words, Harry listening to the crackle and pop of the fireplace before them.

"How much does she know?"

Harry hummed softly, "Enough that I heard her calling me 'my lord' when I startled her the last visit. But, that might just be the taste of my magic. It is everywhere, and probably a little subjugating. It's a much better method than whatever hooey the Ministry tries to do. Worthless rehabilitation, done all wrong. It's power they want, power that keeps them safe. Not gold or trinkets, and barely freedom, though that helps too. Either way, she'll be useful when it's time to spread particulars about your existence and what we plan to accomplish."

She closed her eyes, waiting for a sliver of doubt, a hint of rejection of the words Harry spoke or the idea that he had slowly begun to work on this family beyond her knowledge. She idly prodded her memories, shivered under the phantom weight of the woman that had carved into her flesh in one of the many numerous manor rooms and…

And couldn't find the sense of disgust and rage she should have felt. There was only the idle hum of excitement and magic in her blood, in the idea of something else.

"I want her," Hermione said, tasting the words on her tongue.

"Good," Harry whispered, "because as the leader of our little group you'll need to replace my magic here."

"This is a lot of… raw potential saturated in the walls."

"You'll be here long enough to accomplish it. It's all very subconscious. They'll be calling you my Lady in no time."

"Ah, so that's what this all is."

Harry didn't bother glancing to the threshold, where Draco stood, leaned against the open doorway with a familiar sneer and an upturned nose. He was a pale thing, dressed in his fitted shirt, vest, and black slacks. His hair was longer, much longer, bound at the back of his neck in a manner so tame that it made Harry's look that much wilder in comparison.

"Potter, I thought I said you aren't to come by here and hover around Mother when I'm at work."

Harry stuck out his tongue, an action so childish she failed to repress a sharp bark of laughter at the juxtapose of it.

That certainly got his attention, and, as if seeing her for the first time he jerked back, "You brought Granger here?"

"That's Ms. Granger, Draco. Remember our manners."

But Draco seemed somewhat flabbergasted by her presence, "I thought you were going to get Ginvera or something, not Granger."

Harry stood slowly, a careful and calculate manipulation of his bulk and, glancing briefly to his hands he said, "Is there an issue, Lord Malfoy, with my decision?"

Draco swallowed audibly, a gulp that seemed to echo in the sudden silence. He cleared his throat and schooled his expression, one hand tight upon the grip of a cane carefully constructed in homage to Lucius own. Perhaps, despite Lucius wand having been a part of it, that was a Malfoy aspect, a family heirloom.

"N-no, of course not, Lord Potter, I'm just concerned with how… we will get the olde blood to follow. Penniless some of them may be, but desperate they are not."

"Do you believe that, truly? Oh, they are desperate. Desperate enough to follow a half-blood-"

"But not a mud-"

"Draco," Harry said, his voice soft but the implication was oh so chilling, "what have I said about using that word."

Slowly Harry clasped his hands together, his gaze a steady reflection of intensity, "I've asked you, time and time again, if you were ready to be more than a slave of the Ministry. If you were ready for change and to reclaim the prestige of your birthright. The prestige that your father shamed, the prestige that you were told you'd never wield again."

Harry made a soft sound then, some cruel hiss of laughter, "Or, maybe you enjoy working for the Magical Maintenance Department, toiling about in the garbage of those who claim to be your betters."

Draco held himself so tightly it looked painful. His hands were wrapped about the head of his cane knuckle-white, the snake unable to open its mouth and hiss with displeasure. Though something in Draco had gone terribly cold and still, and while his expression was blank with Slytherin apathy, his gaze was tumultuous, a shifting storm of humiliation and trembling fury. His throat flexed and his Adam's apple bobbed, but his lips did not open and his tongue did not move. Everything felt frozen, stuck in a manner Hermione had yet to witness. Magic sparked between them, Harry's thick and oppression, Draco's burdened but strong - a hot whip across her flesh, a test of her own authority.

So, she gave him an answer, one silent but tempting, a curl of magic from her body that hissed of need and bestiality. She let them both feel it, the untapped geyser she'd become. The fountain of darkness that pooled low in her belly like so much fire only to beat against her skin, contained but oozing. She watched Draco's nostrils flare and she enjoyed the shadows that swam within widening eyes. There's a flicker of something, perplexity, concern, and she knows he can feel it, the tempting flame, the starving burn she represents, the ideal of constant destruction - of devouring force - meant to sweep upon them eating and eating and eating.

And oh, oh, how hungry she was - for knowledge, for power, for blood and bone - while her skin grew flushed and her mentality began to twist. It pulled upon words that blurred into nothing, words she knew she'd read, words she knew she'd forgotten, words that had grown her ability and stretched her potential for growth until something behind her chest had grown sore and heavy. Her lips parted, her throat moved, and she cackled, wild and ready-

But warmth that held an origin beyond her ribs invaded her senses, warmth that spilled in from the back of her neck - from the firm grip Harry kept there - and soothed the feral drum that beat beyond her heart. She took a deep breath, then another, but Harry only murmured a soft, "Keep it out."

Her magic, the magic that made Draco wheeze and his knees buckle.

"It's easy enough, isn't it? To dominate another?"

Easy wasn't the word Hermione would have used to describe what she was feeling, what she was doing. Addictive seemed close. It was as if she could touch Draco in a way far far too intimate and all at once damaging. His magic retreated from her own, casting off a sense of reluctance that made Hermione wonder if he felt it to, this idle pull.

"You'll have to tell me later," Harry mumbled, drawing his hand away from the back of her neck to rest casually across her shoulders, his placement now back upon the couch, though she didn't remember when he'd sat "You didn't tell me you'd been learning that much."

Granted, some portion of herself hadn't even known, to be fair.

Draco parted his lips, speaking behind a tight throat with a croak more befitting the desperate and dying, not the noble and pure, "H-how? How could someone like you feel like that?"

She licked her lips, hands flexing as Draco stepped past the threshold, his gaze far too wide and his chest heaving. "It's difficult to explain."

"Try," Draco said, breathless and trembling.

Harry gave her shoulder a heavy-handed slap, an act of mirth that triggered a flashing of teeth in his direction, "She's magic, that's how, and much more besides that."

"But it's impossible for her to feel…" Draco smacked his lips for a moment, searching for the words that slipped from his mentality, shifted aside by the pressure of her magic, "M-muggleborns don't have the capacity, their bodies… t-the core isn't able to generate such thick potential due to a lack of established magical saturation within the initial breeding."

"And who told you that?" Hermione drawled, "The Muggleborn Registry? The Dark Lord?"

Draco staggered to a halt, brow furrowed as he stood before them alone and bewildered on the other side of the table, "It was…" He struggled for a moment, but it was clear he didn't remember. Was it his father, that had spoken such poison? Dolohov? Yaxley?

"The Ministry, most likely. They still don't feel as if Muggleborns have the capacity, mentally or physically, for greater expressions of magic, the sort that a pure or even a halfblood could manage. When you show potential for such they begin to investigate the cause."

Hermione snorted and curled a finger, beckoning Draco closer. The boy, now man, jerked forward, practically crawling over the table until he spilled before her, on his knees, with an unfocused glassy gaze of budding admiration. His chest expanded, his breathing quickened, and she felt otherworldly with his face held between her grasp and her power coiled about him.

Harry shifted until he was on the edge of his cushion, his fingertips lost among the locks of Draco's hair, "But I have little faith in the propaganda of the Ministry. They are ruled by their caste and the royalty they've stolen but refuse to share. The potential for magic has little to do with self-proclaimed blood and proper breeding, two wars could tell you that. The core is what matters, strengthened through the will of the wilde."

Draco shivered in her grasp, "The Olde Ones blessed our lines to be perfect. Those of the pure and olde. Lady Magic herself -"

"-but who is to say Lady Magic does not bestow other blessings to the olde and faithful? That Her gifts aren't the reemergence of our slumbering lines? To solve the foolish infertility and fleeting magic of the pure?"

Draco sucked in a rattling breath, "R-rebirth? You mean to say core… bloodline reincarnation. It can't be true. They'd burn, you know, the wilde-touched. Muggleborns… the magic of our rituals devour them. The idea of purification through ancient service… has been long tossed aside for centuries and even talks of it has been heralded as gibberish, especially by Dumbledore-"

Hermione sighed softly, enjoying the feel of Draco's smooth skin - and submission - between her hands and the way his magic bowed to her own. "What do you mean?"

"Wizards do everything in riddles and fables, especially the olde bloods-"

Despite the way Draco leaned against her legs and rested his hands - somewhat tentatively - upon her knees in subservience, he still snorted cheekily, "It's not that difficult to understand-"

"Then tell me," Hermione whispered as she watched Draco's pupils shift and shrink, his entire being stimulated by her presence.

"We were forsaken, once upon a time. The Muggles used our magic, our secrets, and our ambitions to fuel their own. Then, we were slaughtered, consumed by the fires of their petty paranoia, metaphorically and literally." Though Draco was held in her thrall he snarled, giving her the perfect view of straight and shiny teeth, "They took a great deal. Our status, our wealth, our land - and the power held there. But they also took our olde, those who were first, our strongest witches, our most determined wizards, burned by greed during our vulnerability."

Hermione nodded knowing that this was the core of pureblood ideology, that Muggles would wrought their destruction and hoard their gold forevermore. Their exposure was their greatest fear. That the Muggleborns would cause the erasure of their magic and might even more so.

"The Olde Ones began to die, our magic began to weaken, and we hid like rats among the filth." Draco spat, "But Lady Magic, though She slumbers, never left. She gave us our power, our growth, and blessed our lines-"

"But it is not a story told often, is it?" Harry interrupted, his tone a soft whisper.

"No," Draco sneered, "The Olde Ways and the stories that accompany them are not always remembered. Our culture has been… diluted. Dumbledore saw to that."

Hermione closed her eyes and ignored the twisted boil of chilled fury that swam in the depths of Draco's gaze. "The Muggleborn-"

"Do not worship despite the gift of their magic," Draco interrupted, "so we are all cursed. With squibs and sickness, with madness and Her rage. They remain weak and we grow weaker. And now, now the Ministry refuses to acknowledge that they have made our numbers so much worse through their systematic crazed slaughter and suppression."

There was silence for a moment, a silence only interrupted by Harry's rolling purr - "But what if that could be changed?"

Hermione opened her eyes in time to watch Draco draw back and away from her, his brow furrowed, "You keep claiming it's possible."

"And it is, you can feel it, can't you?"

Draco refused to meet her gaze, his eyes pointedly focused on the tops of Harry's polished shoes, "One suspiciously powerful Muggleborn, especially in our current political climate, means nothing."

"It means everything," Harry replied, his hand curled around her shoulder now gently caressing the side of the Turner about her neck.

She moaned, surprised by the ping that ebbed deep within her, by the fact that Harry felt so intertwined with her essence just by touching that sacred part of her.

Draco's eyes grew far too wide, "S-she… y-you made one?"

"I told you, Draco, that I'd prove it," Harry smiled thinly, "She made one, she was able to do it-"

"She shouldn't have the capacity for such magic, the raw potential necessary for it alone - ! Only a handful of wizards have accomplished such actions, only… only He was able to do such a thing successfully in the many centuries of its reemergence."

"And yet," Harry said as he rubbed his thumb across the bottom of her Turner, drawing a deep groan from her person, "Hermione has managed it."

Draco drew a shaky breath, "Then they were wrong-"

"-not entirely," Harry said, though his words only hovered at the edge of Hermione's perception. Only his hand, his magic, mattered as it gently pushed against her separated shard, "Some are more equal than others. Those are the touched lines, I think. The olde ones at least-"

"-and he stole them, for years?"

"-manipulated them, I think."

"And your mother? Was she-"

"It would be impossible to know, but I assume-"

"-shit!"

"Language," Hermione mumbled, lifting a hand to remove Harry's distracting one, "and you're both talking about me, around me. Rude."

"We'll be punished if we truly disregarded Her gifts-"

"-then make it up to Her and take care of this one," Harry said, though his eyes were no longer on the kneeling Draco, pale and grimaced. It was on the threshold of the library, where an equally pale Narcissa stood with wine bottle and glasses in hand and one smiling Ronald Weasley at her side.

"Talking philosophy without me? That's-whoa…" Ron stumbled slightly as he crossed the threshold, his throat bobbing.

From one breath to the next Hermione drew her magic, calling the essence back to her flesh despite the odd discomfort she felt for doing so. Suppressing it, denying it… it seemed so wrong.

But Ron was functional, and all to soon he was stalking toward the couch with briefcase in hand and tie undone, brow furrowed but amused as he flicked his wand at a nearby armchair and floated it over to the table proper.

"You'll have to excuse me for not kneeling on the floor," he drawled.

That and Narcissa's 'tch' was enough to make a flushed Draco stand quickly. With his head held high he ignored Ron's snigger and instead moved to his mother with a shaky grip to take the wine and glasses.

"Will you be needing anything else?"

"No, Mother," Draco said - and it was difficult to deny the affection he held for her in just those two words, especially as he leaned down to kiss her cheek, now so much taller, "I can take all this."

She drew a soft breath but nodded, "Good. Dinner will be served shortly. Try not to… kneel in front of anymore women this evening."

Now Ron laughed, some glorious sound at Draco's expense as he grumbled and walked stiff-backed in their direction.

So, if Draco was a bit sloppy with pouring their wine into their glasses, Hermione couldn't blame him.

"Open the case, Harry," Ron leaned back, one leg crossed over the other, expression relaxed, "I've got some good news for you."

Harry set his glass to the side and leaned over, unclasping the clips that had once sealed the case closed.

"And also some bad news," Ron chirped, but his expression never changed from playfully amused.

Harry, on the other hand, only frowned, "Bad news?"

While Hermione sucked on the side of her fingers, licking up the wine that Draco had purposely spilt over her hand when he'd poured, Harry began to empty the case of its contents, his expression pensive if a bit curious.

"This was your plan?"

"It's good, isn't it? I told you, I'm a master tactician."

"So, you were reading them then? The grimoires?" Harry said, though he was somewhat distracted by Draco's smooth transformation of a nearby globe into another chair.

"I think it holds some merit, but the weight of it will be determined by…" Ron cast a quick glance to Draco, who collapsed heavily into his chair with a scowl befitting his father.

"What is it? Don't look at me, I hate your face and your freckles and your uncombed hair."

Ron stuck out his lower lip for a moment, a mockery of hurt, "Ouch."

Hermione shook her head, more interested in the carefully organized papers Harry began to comb over than the building pressure of magic before her.

"And you're slimy-"

"-I showered this morning, I'll have you know-"

"-and you smell," here Draco inhaled deeply, "poor."

Ron looked just about ready to leap out of his chair but a hand upon his knee - Harry's - gave him pause.

Silence sat between them then, heavy as Harry sucked in a breath between his teeth. When he found cause to break it, it was with a softly uttered, "Is this true?"

"They think so. It was Dad who planted the idea. 'I think she's always been special', he said."

"And they believe it?" Harry muttered, shifting one page to the next.

"Most of them do, those left from…"

Draco made an irritated sound of annoyance, "The Circle? They believe what?"

"Still don't let you go to court, do they?"

"If I were able I'd know all of this by now, wouldn't I?" Draco snapped, his brow lifted.

"You'll attend soon enough," Harry said, distracted as he handed Hermione one of the pages, the page with her name upon it in bright blocky ink with a stamp in the corner that looked awfully official.

"What is this?"

Ron looked incredibly smug, "A reevaluation of your line, a report of sorts. You are suspected of above average performance metrics for someone of registered Muggleborn status. An investigation of your ability, based on Hogwarts tenure and war action, was started four months ago-"

Her grip tightened, the parchment crinkled, "So they are investigating lines."

"They have generated metrics of magical potential, yes, but most of this was instigated by the Senior Undersecretary, Lady Umbridge. You have been… were charged with theft and possible inflation of magical ability."

Her heart rattled in her chest, set to the beat of a simmering hatred that snapped at her belly and made her entire being ache with a sudden ferocity. She sucked in a sharp breath, a poor attempt at hiding the intensity of her emotion, at containing the need that shook her with an unhinged sort of aggression.

"You've been cleared, of course," Ron was quick to say, just as she'd begun to gnaw on her bottom lip with flared nostrils and heaving chest, "and she's mighty pissed about that."

Draco looked between them, but didn't dare comment on her mood, on the seething magic that caused her hair to frizz, "That's good, then? Never liked that cow, but…"

One breath, then another, and the anger was bottled, pushed back behind the rattle of her heart and swallowed. There would be time, more than enough time, to seethe. The paper-

"Well," Ron grinned, youthful and cheeky, "she was cleared because they suspect she might be… something else."

"Creature blood?" Draco chirped, but his insult was half-hearted at best. By the fervent look in his gaze and the sudden eagerness of his tone, she knew he had other ideas.

"Pureblood, you git," Ron hissed.

Draco stared at her for a moment, before his gaze was drawn to Harry, a silver storm of awe, "Rebirth then? Is it really rebirth?"

Harry tilted his wine glass in a manner far to sly while Hermione drew her fingertips down the rearranged structure of her assumed bloodline. She felt off in a way she couldn't describe. Eager that their plan would now move forward, pushed in the proper orchestrated direction all due to pureblood mythos and Ministry bigotry… and yet, as the magic sung through her veins, didn't that make some of it all very real?

"Dagworth-Granger, they figure Mr. Granger is a squib or born from one within his line, not a lot of blokes with the last name Granger-"

"That line has been dead for centuries-"

"And suppose Lady Magic returned them to us?" Harry muttered.

Draco snapped his mouth shut with a squeak.

"Mr. Granger has exhibited some signs of squibhood in the past. He can… see certain magical aspects that Muggles aren't normally able to comprehend. This was shown during his visit to Diagon Alley, oh so many years ago."

"Like runes. He could feel them too, always said something about soft voices," Hermione whispered as she set the paper down, "But Mother was able to see those too, what does that prove?"

"Everything. Nothing," Ron was delightfully cryptic.

"For now, it proves that Mr. Granger, in the eyes of the Ministry, is a squib. We will be unable to confirm or deny it, due to their… status."

Missing, with no memory, too far beyond Hermione's grasp.

"They have also assumed that Mrs. Granger is a squib-"

"-So, they can continue to suppress and disregard the ability of halfbloods-" Harry said.

"Yes. Exactly," Ron said. "Praise be the Empire."

"And her line…?"

Slowly Ron leaned forward, lips twisted in a smile almost unkind as he displayed teeth a little to sharp and eyes a little too wide. "Why 'Moine, dear ol' Dad was a huge help there. He gave them the most fabulous assumptions and they ate it all up."

She licked her lips and felt the thump of her heart against a tight chest, "Oh did he?"

"It was genius, my genius, that did it, you know. It's in the features. The beauty-"

"Why Ronald, you think I'm beautiful?"

"Otherworldly," Ron hissed, gaze predatory in playful manner, "the hair, the passion, the wildness-"

And it was there, in everything he wouldn't say, in the careful manipulation of their company, in the flare of his nostrils and the glassiness of his gaze. The answer, the sway that had nothing to do with her power and yet everything to do with the influence they wished to snatch and the chains they would turn upon their masters.

"I just so happened to be in the room, you know, visiting and all that, when they demanded that investigation. And I, clever boy that I am, happened to also be in the room when they were speculating the lines and 'Moine, you won't believe who they think you are - what they think you are."

She held her breath and felt more than heard Harry's crazed laughter beside her. Draco seemed to shine with a sudden understanding and he sat up straighter, his smile beholden of all the hope he'd placed in Harry - of the hope they'd all placed in Harry - for a grand future.

"What is it then? That they think I am?"

"Why, Hermione, dear. They think you're a Black."

This is a side project story, just something to get out of my head. I write other fiction too, and you can learn or talk about it on my Discord Server, where I'll give updates and chill around with the gang. Discord code: bxhZ9cr