"How could you be so foolish, Malfoy? Do you have any idea what seeing the castle could have done to her?"
"Do you?" Draco hissed.
The man—at least Draco thought it was a man, he could never be sure with all this damned secrecy—scowled, the thin line of his mouth twisting grotesquely below the shadowy hood of his cloak. Honestly, Draco thought wryly. It's like they don't trust me.
He'd waited three days. Three days since he'd come back from Scotland to make his report on Granger's progress, three days to inform them of her breakdown, and this was precisely why. The wankers wanted to hold him accountable for something, to chew him out, and now he was being scolded like a child. He'd made a judgement call for Merlin's sake. As Granger's supervisor, progressing with a more radical form of treatment was his prerogative.
He said so. The eyeless hood whipped around to face him with what he was sure was disdain.
"The fact that you were bored does not give you the right to expose her to that kind of trauma." The lips beneath the cloak snapped. "The shock could have sent her into a downward spiral, and we would have lost everything we need. She won't hold onto it for much longer." Draco snorted inelegantly. Confused Granger might be, but flaky she was not. He was sure her mind was there somewhere, trapped under layers of enchantment. She was just being obstinate.
The cloaked figure paced back and forth across the dingy room, footsteps silenced in a decade's worth of dust, and Draco decided to try again.
"Just because she couldn't see the castle—"
"Doesn't mean she's a muggle?" the man's voice was mocking. "Of course not, Malfoy. It does mean, however, that her treatment must proceed even more delicately than ever, if we are to extract what we need from her." He stopped his pacing and turned to face Draco. "No more little jaunts into the wizarding world. No more heroics."
"Then what do you suggest I do?" Draco spat, his temper finally rising to the surface. "Hold her hand? Give her bedtime stories to read? I can't spell her, I can't even call her by name—Merlin! She's not going to get any better just sitting in that bookshop, no matter how many spells I put into the books!" He was breathing heavily, but he didn't care. The man in the cloak tilted his head almost imperceptibly, and when he spoke it was not without amusement.
"Well then, Malfoy, I say it's time you got creative. Find some other way to stimulate her mind."
…
Hermione had not left her bed in four days.
At least, that's what Nora had said when Draco asked at the counter of the Tea Room.
"Honestly, I don't know what to do about her." Nora fussed quietly over a fresh pot of Earl Grey. "I let myself in every morning to check on her, like you asked. I clean her bed linens, water her plants and scourgify the dust from the corners but…" Her bosom heaved in a heavy sigh.
"There's been no change?" Draco asked, but Nora's face said it all. Draco frowned.
"Do you think I might have a look myself." He phrased it like a question. It wasn't.
"Of course Master Malfoy, of course." Nora looked pleased to be of assistance, bustling over to the back and unlocking the door to the stairs. "Down the hall and to the left. But of course you already—"
"Thank you, Nora," Draco cut in neatly, easing past her into the tight stairwell. "I'll see myself up."
Granger's apartment was just as he remembered it: small, smelling of cinnamon, and decorated with rather too much yellow. The tiny sitting room was—of course—covered with books, the very cushy armchair and worn loveseat nearly hidden under volumes of every size and subject. The rug, a horrid saffron shag affair, seemed to be devoted to Granger's Electus studies. Draco recognized more than one book he had recommended to Granger, plus a detailed map of Scotland spread out across the floor.
Soft light poured in from a bay window, casting long shadows from the living room into the open kitchen, where an endless parade of mugs waited by the sink. Draco picked his way across the minefield of books and throw pillows to the other end of the room, stopping just outside Granger's bedroom door. He leaned in, closing his eyes as his nose brushed up against the wood. His hand rested against the bronzed handle and Draco allowed himself to hesitate, just for a moment.
Why in Merlin's name had he convinced himself to come here again? He'd only actually been inside once, on a blustery evening in early September. It was his first day on assignment, and he had been waiting for her in the back of the Tea Room, sipping an espresso and watching the door for her arrival.
His plan was simple: he would present himself in front of her and recite the counter curse, using both visual and magical stimulus to break the obliviation cast on her two years before. It was clean, quick, and mostly painless, and Draco liked the poetry of it. After all, it only made sense that he'd be the one to break it. He'd been there when the original spell was cast.
Draco had no doubt that he would succeed. He'd done the research—obliviation was a speciality of his. There would be just a moment of confusion and then the real Granger would resurface, and he could take her back to them and he'd be rid of her. There was no way they would doubt his loyalty after tonight.
At last she came in, her arms filled with shopping and her hair whipped into a frenzy by the late summer wind. He readied himself to confront her, and was just rising to approach her when she turned from unlocking the door and met his eyes. They froze, grey boring holes into brown—
And then she lost it. Completely, bat-shit, fucking lost it.
Shopping went everywhere as she dropped to the floor, writhing in what looked to Draco to be unspeakable agony. He glanced down at his wand, still hidden safely in the palm of his hand. Surely he hadn't done this? It looked, for lack of a better comparison, like she was being hit by a silent version of the Cruciatus curse.
He took a cautious step forward, and then another, sinking to one knee at her side. He reached for her shoulder and grasped it tightly—
"Granger?"
That, it became immediately clear, was the wrong move. Granger's eyes flew open and she let loose a bloodcurdling shriek. She screamed and screamed, her nails clawing at her temples and her feet kicking out towards any part of Draco she could reach.
There was a clatter from the kitchen door and Draco was on his feet, pointing his wand at a flour-covered woman with a wand in her left hand and a rolling pin in her right. This had to be Nora, the proprietress of the Tea Room. But a witch? Draco had no idea that the woman was a witch. Nora, on the other hand, didn't seem surprised to see Draco at all.
"Ah, Master Malfoy. They told me you'd be coming today." She glanced down at Hermione, who was now convulsing violently, having abandoned her screams for soft choking noises. "It seems you've made an impression."
Nora leaned down to Hermione, placing three thick fingers on the girl's neck just below her jaw. Within moments Hermione went limp, sagging into Nora's hand. Draco stared, open mouthed, as the woman rose to her full, if not considerable, height, to fix him with a stony glare.
"You'll have to carry her, I'm afraid. I can't even leviate her for fear of damage."
Hermione had been unconscious for almost three days in September, and Draco hadn't left her side. Instead, he owled for his books to be sent to him and he began working furiously through the texts, trying to find what he had missed.
Draco had been sure to leave before she woke, leaving her in the care of Nora and her muggle neighbor. Now he received owled notifications from Nora any time Hermione had an episode, but he made sure not to approach her during them. If that first encounter, and now the incident in Scotland, had taught Draco anything, it was that he made Hermione's episodes worse.
Draco huffed out a sigh against the door. This brought him back to his original question—what in Merlin's name was he doing here, standing outside her bedroom? He had no business meddling with Granger's mind. And yet, they had made it his business.
At first they had been so sure that it would be simple, and so had Draco. But ever since the incident in September, he'd been thrown back to the drawing board. It had taken him until November to solidify the Wheedles and Budgery plan, and when Hermione had practically collapsed at their first meeting, he was sure he had blown it all to hell once again. But then they had started working in earnest, and Draco had allowed himself to hope. It was all there—the spells, the names, even maps of magical places and endless hints and jibes—just waiting for her. But time dragged on.
Hours and hours of working with her at the bookshop, plus countless subliminal spells and sensory cues woven by himself and Nora, and they had nothing to show for it but an increasingly delicate Granger. With each new cue Granger's reactions became increasingly volatile; it seemed that failure was inevitable, and each day led to the disintegration of her mind.
But Draco was not convinced. If Draco knew anything about Granger, it was that she was stubborn. A born fighter. Some people couldn't see past her famed intelligence but Draco saw it for what she truly was: a witch with a force of will so strong that it could not be contained. And Salazar be damned if he couldn't draw it out.
Before he could change his mind, Draco opened the door to Hermione's bedroom. It was airy and light, dust motes drifting in the early sun that drifted through the curtains. Hermione was barely visible over the top of her enormous duvet, which was thankfully blue instead of matching the hideous yellow of her pillows. The smell of cinnamon was even stronger in here, mixing with light notes of lavender and the musty comfort of old pages. Draco inhaled deeply then froze, contorting his face violently as he fought the sneeze that had firmly lodged itself in his sinuses. Damn Granger and her dusty books!
Working his facial muscles furiously, Draco picked his way over to the chair by the window, grateful that it was facing the window and not her bed. He didn't think he could stand watching her sleep.
"You're being ridiculous, Granger. You can fight harder than that."He muttered over his shoulder and settled himself into the chair to wait.
…
She was warm. Too warm.
Hermione shifted drowsily under her covers and felt the weight of what must be every blanket she owned shift on top of her. Groaning softly, her vision still foggy from sleep, she worked her arms up to her waist and slowly pushed herself up to a sitting position. She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and tried to think. How did she get here?
She forced her brain to rewind. Right. The field trip to Scotland. There had been the train ride—Malfoy smirking the whole way—at least two hours of slogging through mud—a perilous trek down a hillside—a lake—and a missed appointment.
Hermione groaned in earnest. Once again, she had managed to make a complete arse out of herself in front of Malfoy. It came flooding back to her: the panic, the shrill voice, the hands on her face, and her desperate sprint back to the train station, all to find when she checked her calendar on the platform back in London that there had been no appointment at all. Of course.
A flash of white blond caught in the afternoon light streaming from her window and she blinked furiously, trying to clear her head. She had better be hallucinating.
But no, luck was not with her. Hermione watched, horrified, as a sleep-rumpled Malfoy stirred in the chair by the window and then turned round to stare at her.
"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Hermione blurted out, then cringed. Malfoy only looked amused.
"How's about I make us some tea, Doe?" He got to his feet, stretching gloriously, and even in her half-asleep, half-mortified, half-indignant state, Hermione had to admire him. Then she sat up, intrigued.
"You can make tea?" Malfoy's eyes narrowed and she shrank away. "Right. I'll just—" and she scampered into the bathroom without a backward glance.
Twenty-five minutes later Hermione was washed and dressed in her baggiest jumper and leggings, cradling a mug of perfectly adequate tea as she sat on the edge of her couch. Malfoy was staring at her imperiously from her armchair, but the effect was rather ruined by how completely out of place he looked in her sitting room. Hermione's flat was a combination of styles that she had accumulated from a variety of thrift stores and yard sales, mostly in brilliant bright colors, and it was cozy but barely controlled chaos. Even after sleeping upright in a chair, Malfoy was immaculate; his hair was neat again, his steel-colored jumper neatly pressed and his shoes were glinting up from her shag rug. To say he didn't fit in was a definitive understatement.
Finally meeting his eyes, Hermione was surprised to see the intensity burning in them. He seemed to look straight through her, picking her thoughts out of the air without needing to speak. Hermione squirmed under his examination. The silence stretched thinly between them for a few beats until she broke it, unable to hold in her nervous energy.
"Why are you in my flat, Malfoy?" There, that was a solid start. Cool, detached-ish. Perfect.
"Why didn't you show up to work for three days, Doe?" Damn. He was definitely cooler and more detached.
Then she registered what he said, and Hermione gulped. Three days! It was a wonder Nora hadn't busted her door down. And she had missed so much work! Mr. Craggins would almost certainly murder her.
Trying to quell the panic rising in her throat Hermione sat back, considering Malfoy. For the most part she avoided telling people about her episodes. Particularly snobs with shiny shoes. It just didn't tend to end well. And yet, here was the man that she had spent the past two months with. Surely if he could handle her work-related neuroses he could handle hearing about a few headaches. Right?
"I have these...episodes," she began slowly. "Sometimes they're not so bad. Just intense headaches or spotty vision." She stared determinedly at her mug, refusing to meet Malfoy's intense gaze. "But sometimes they're bad."
Haltingly, with much throat-clearing and furtive glance-casting, Hermione told Malfoy everything: the missing memories, the night she arrived on Mr. Craggins' doorstep, the headaches and memory flashes and dreams. Once she began it was like a dam had broken, and Hermione could not keep the flow of information inside her mouth; it bubbled up like lava from inside her, pouring out onto the rug as she clutched desperately to her mug of perfectly adequate tea.
She picked at her cuticle distractedly. How long had she been talking now? She could hear herself rattling off statistics from medical journals and essays on retrograde memory-loss couldn't bring herself to stop. Malfoy was listening intently, a slight frown playing at the corner of his mouth as she listed off source after source, reciting all her possible diagnoses and potential causes—
"What did you say?" He interrupted her, looking surprised.
Hermione blinked. "Head trauma, emotional trauma, drug overdose—"
"No, after that. Your last diagnosis." She ran her list through her head. Imbalance of the humours, blood in the brain, a touch by the evil eye—
"A curse?" Malfoy smiled broadly, and Hermione bristled.
"I know it sounds ridiculous, but I can't disprove it." She glared. Malfoy, however, looked intrigued.
"'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'" Malfoy said thoughtfully. Hermione frowned. "It's Sherlock Holmes," he said, as if that explained his willingness to believe in curses.
Suddenly he stood, startling Hermione into spilling her now-tepid tea across her lap. He sniffed slightly, then reached for his coat.
"Well Granger, you've given me a lot to think about." He shrugged elegantly into his coat, then looked down his nose.
"That book there, on the table. I've left it for you to read." At Hermione's look of horror, he quickly clarified, "It's not for work. It's from my own collection, and I thought you might enjoy it. Just think of it as a little...bedtime reading."
She glanced down at the table and picked up a worn copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
When she looked up again, he was gone.
The plot continues to thicken. Whose side is Malfoy on?
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