-7-
Elizabeth Granger was sitting in the reception room outside Rufus Scrimgeour's office. The lady was not pleased.
The Order meeting at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place had broken up an hour earlier and somehow Remus had drawn the short straw of speaking to Hermione's understandably distraught mother.
Mrs. Granger had turned up unexpectedly at the Ministry on a Sunday. Scrimgeour was not in situ, nor would he have likely seen Mrs. Granger even if he had been. A note was dispatched to Moody, who was heading the Auror investigation into Hermione's disappearance.
It had been unanimous to keep Ron and Harry well out of the picture for the time being, though both had insisted on personally informing Mrs. Granger of what was currently being done to locate Hermione. After the Order meeting had concluded, Moody had scarcely glanced at Harry's pale face or Ron's red-rimmed eyes before settling on Remus.
Arguably, Remus had the best people-skills of the lot of them, which was a bit ironic considering what a hard time he got for simply not being regular 'people'.
Remus thought it was the least he could do. Scrimgeour was hardly ever at the Ministry, being of the opinion that the best sort of Ministering was done out in the open and not behind piles of bureaucracy. He didn't take meetings very often and tended to treat appointments like horrible drains on his valuable time and attention.
This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, save for the fact that the paperwork building up steadily behind Scrimgeour's office door was threatening to topple over the two, beleaguered secretaries who answered and sorted through the correspondence.
"Dr. Granger?" Remus popped his greying head into the reception area and quickly spotted Hermione's mum.
Elizabeth Granger stood. She was a slim, attractive woman in her early fifties, dressed in a smart, grey wool pant suit. Her hair was just as curly as Hermione's though she wore it short. She looked thoroughly composed, except that her hands were wringing at the soft leather of her purse.
"Are you Minister Scrimgeour?"
"No, I'm not, fortunately. My name is Remus Lupin. I'm here to brief you on what's being done to locate Hermione."
The woman blinked for a moment. Her eyes were a cornflower blue. Remus guessed that Hermione's brown eyes were inherited from her father.
"Lupin," she repeated. Elizabeth Granger nodded, seeming to know exactly who he was. "You're the Lycanthrope working with the Order. Hermione mentioned you. It's nice to meet you, despite the circumstances." She stuck her hand out to him.
It took Remus a moment to respond by taking her hand to shake. It was out of habit that he never offered to shake anyone's hand when he was first introduced to them. Mostly, people who knew what he was tried not to touch him if they could prevent it.
Clearly, Mrs. Granger was cut from the same cloth as her daughter. Her grip was brief but firm.
"Now, maybe you can tell me where on earth my daughter is? And you will pardon my bluntness, but I'm going to start taking heads off if another person tells me that Hermione is merely on some sort of extended bender following a lovers' quarrel and will no doubt surface when she's recovered from her hangover."
Remus frowned. That was the most ridiculous thing he'd heard! "Who told you that?"
"The lady who escorted me to this room. A Dolores Umbridge."
"Umbridge is an idiot," Remus snapped. "Who should not have been allowed back into the Ministry, let alone be given any position of real responsibility." He realized her was scowling at Mrs. Granger and immediately softened his expression. "Hermione is not on a bender."
Elizabeth Granger smiled thinly. "No, she's not." She had perfect teeth. That probably went without saying. "Because this is Hermione we're talking about."
"Yes. Dr. Granger-"
"Just Elizabeth, please. I am only Dr. Granger at my clinic."
"Elizabeth," Remus began again, "I have to be honest with you. Right now we have no idea where Hermione is or why she was taken. But we do believe she has been kidnapped. What makes this baffling is that we have received no note, either for ransom or for any other purpose."
"Her flat was untouched, I am informed," Elizabeth said. Her voice had gone a little hoarse and Remus saw her eyes take on a brighter sheen.
"Yes. Aurors have undertaken a detailed search of her flat and the surroundings. They found her apartment keys beside a dumpster, and also this." he took Hermione's phone from inside his robes. "The last call she made was for a Muggle ambulance, but she didn't get through in time to speak to the operator."
Elizabeth swallowed convulsively. "Dear God. I insisted she keep that with her at all times in case I ever needed to contact her." She cast a fretful gaze back to Remus. "It's Voldemort, isn't it? He's taken my daughter?"
There was no point softening the likely truth. "We suspect so."
"What are you doing about it?"
"At this stage the DMLE, that's the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, is not entirely convinced that she's been abducted. The Auror Unit operates separately from the Order, though our work overlaps. It will take a few more days to get the ball well and truly rolling."
"Aurors are your police?"
"Yes, essentially, they are. They keep the peace. The Order, meanwhile, has commenced its investigation, with the grudging assent of the DMLE. You have to understand that until recently, the DMLE did not know that the Order even existed, though we do have members who are also Aurors. In any case, we have begun by sending feelers out into the wider community to pick up any useful currents."
"In short, you have absolutely no leads," Elizabeth Granger surmised, grimly. "My daughter has been missing for more than three days now and I am stupefied that you know nothing! Don't you have…" she searched for the appropriate term, "informants? Spies? Moles? How could a young girl as well known as Hermione is in this community, vanish into thin air and no one knows a thing?"
"Believe me," Remus began, "I understand your frustration-"
"Do you have children, Mr. Lupin?" Elizabeth asked, her voice steely.
Remus hadn't expected that question. He was taken aback for a moment. "No, I don't."
Mrs. Granger sucked in a fortifying breath before she next spoke. "When Hermione received her Hogwarts' letter, we of course assumed it was some kind of joke." She looked around, at the Minister's reception room with its eccentric, mismatched decor and moving pictures on the walls and the steady influx of fluttering messages that landed on the secretaries' desks behind her.
"All this…to think that an entire world has been present alongside us all this while, and we didn't have a clue. My husband and I went along with the wonder of it, you know, magic," she said, "and my daughter can be very tight-lipped about what goes on here. I didn't even know about Voldemort until her third year at Hogwarts and the only reason she told us then was because she was worried that we would become likely targets. Imagine my horror, Mr. Lupin, to learn that my only child has regularly been dodging lethal curses since she was eleven years old. Now, I've been extremely patient with Hermione and with the choices she's made, but not anymore. If you do not produce some sort of helpful information within the next few days, I will go to the highest Muggle authorities available to me and to hell with your wizarding secrets."
The impassioned speech was ruined a little by Mrs. Granger's loud sniffle at the end of it. Remus understood the threat for what it was. He was dealing with a terrified parent. Sadly, this would not be the first or the last time.
"Elizabeth, if we honestly uncover nothing before the end of next week. I will personally escort you to Scotland Yard," Remus stated plainly. Whether they believed her wild claims was another matter however. It wouldn't have been the first time a Muggle had tried.
That seemed to take the edge off her angry frustration. Now, she just looked distraught again. He gave her a contact address to write to, should she require near- instant updates and instructed her to come to the Ministry if she caught wind of anything potentially useful. At the end of these instructions, she bid him a parting thank you and left the reception room.
The younger of Scrimgeour's two assistants peeked out from behind the small mountain of papers stacked on her desk.
"Wow," she said to Lupin. "She's…something."
"She's Hermione Granger's mother," was Remus's dejected response. That was probably the quickest explanation.
Outside, in the corridor, Elizabeth was halfway to the lifts before Ron caught up with her. He'd been waiting.
"Mrs. Granger!"
"Ronald!" Elizabeth Granger dashed a tear from her cheek and stepped forward to hug him. "I'm so sorry. I hope you didn't hear all that…"
"Please, it's alright! Really…" Ron looked utterly miserable. He stared down at the ground for a moment before seeming to pull himself together. "Look, I thought I should tell you… Hermione and I," he sighed and then looked Elizabeth Granger straight in the eye. "I asked her to marry me in September and she said yes," he blurted.
Mrs. Granger's hand went to her mouth in a gesture that was so reminiscent of her daughter that Ron had to visibly swallow his anguish. "Oh, you dear boy!" she gave him another hug. "She didn't tell me!"
Ron thus found himself hanging over Hermione's mum's shoulder. "My family doesn't know yet either," he said, his voice slightly muffled. "We were waiting for the right time to break the news to everyone."
Mrs. Granger pulled away. A thought occurred to her. "Could this have anything to do with why she's been kidnapped?" she asked.
Ron shook his head. "I don't see how. Nobody knew besides the two of us."
Mrs. Granger took a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her face. She was about to put it away when she offered one to a sheepish Ron.
"We'll get her back," Elizabeth Granger assured, sniffing once. "Hermione is tougher than she looks. Hogwarts had proved it, if nothing else."
**
If they ever made it out of the Balkans alive, Hermione thought they could probably write a book about the whole experience; 'Survival in a Snowbound Wilderness: A Tale of Unlikely Heroism and Anger Management', by L. Malfoy and H. J. Granger.
She imagined Malfoy at the book singing at Flourish and Blotts, sneering over the plebs that deigned to approach him to autograph the book. He'd scowl at her co-authorship. She pictured him crossing her name out on every copy he could get his hands on. Then, he'd have a stern word with the bookshop manager about placing his book next to anything by Gilderoy Lockhart, seeing as Lockhart had only ever written fiction.
Hermione snorted. She knew she was smirking to herself and quickly regained some composure. This was no laughing matter.
It must have been the hunger. It was getting to her. She was so, so hungry, having finally turned her nose up at yet another can of peas. They had food, however basic and horrid, but she could not bring herself to eat it. Truth be told, she wasn't feeling very well, but given their circumstances, it was lucky enough that she hadn't come down with a bad cold or worse, a lung infection from her bout with hypothermia on the night they arrived at the cabin.
Currently, Hermione was trudging behind Malfoy through the snow.
They were looking for trees to climb. Now, if this didn't sound like a terribly odd thing to be doing with Lucius Malfoy, then Hermione did not have a sound understanding of 'odd'.
She felt the lactic acid building up in her muscles and the inevitable slowing-down of everything physical. Even her breathing was sluggish. She'd certainly had enough sleep the night before, but she reckoned that she could still lay down on top of the snow, under the pleasant midday sunshine, close her eyes and…
Be dead in an hour.
He'd already snapped at her twice for slowing him down. Not everyone was so fortunate as to have home-made snowshoes. She scowled at his broad, cloak-covered back and then swore at him, mentally of course.
Malfoy was moving much more efficiently. This was because he was moving across the snow, rather than through it, as she was doing. He'd made himself a pair of snowshoes the day before, using even-length twigs he'd smoothed over with a knife and then tied together with strands of twisted bed sheet. The end result looked a lot like giant bird's feet. The snowshoes may have looked crude, but they distributed his weight across the deep snow and that was all he required. He didn't have to endure the step-sink-step-sink torture. Hermione decided she'd have a go at making a pair for herself too.
Provided he would lend her his knife. She'd asked already, but he'd said no.
And that was about all he'd said to her in the two days since their touchy conversation after he'd killed and roasted the second bird.
Malfoy kept busy doing whatever he did during the daylight hours. It wasn't like he gave her a rundown of his activities, so she was left to simply assume. Hermione therefore assumed that he was undertaking a survey of the area. She also assumed that he did not like what he found, because he never failed to be in a foul mood when he returned to the cabin.
Or then again, that could have just been her effect on him.
After several attempts at drawing him into basic conversation, she'd simply given up trying.
It got terribly uncomfortable when they were both in the cabin together after the sun went down, which it did rather early in the day. He said nothing, and either ate or sat before the fire, or worked on his projects.
There was hardly anything left of the bed sheet from the Revel. Any cloth they had in their possession was valuable and she noted that he sought to make the best use of scraps before resorting to cutting up the sheets or blankets they had left. There were quite a few items of children's clothing in the suitcase from the loft, but the pieces were small and of limited use.
Still, he was able to utilize a pair of tiny, denim overalls to handle the cooking pot and roasting rod over the fire. Hermione had also taken a small cardigan to tie her hair back. It honestly did feel like a desecration, but better to put these items to use, rather than let them just sit there in the suitcase and remain part of some sad history.
Malfoy made long, thin strips from the leftover sheet scraps and then braided them so that their tensile strength was increased dramatically. By the end of their fourth evening there, he had a series of skinny, braided cords which he then tied together to form a pair of small nets.
Hermione had stared at the nets and predicted the imminent demise of more, small animals.
Curious, she asked what he planned to do with the nets. He'd been in the middle of testing how much weight they could handle, when he responded with a clipped, "whatever the hell I want."
In his glorious absence, during the daytime, Hermione did the only thing she could do in their situation - she tried to make the best of it. It was not in her nature to sit and mope.
Their sleeping arrangements left a lot to be desired. The fire was their lifeline, and so they slept in front of it, next to the dangerously teetering pile of firewood. Hermione organised the pile according to size and congratulated herself on her fortitude in not cringing when she spotted several mummified-looking dead mice at the bottom of the stack. They honestly looked old enough to be carbon-dated.
She picked up the desiccated remains up with two sticks, using the sticks like chopsticks and tossed them out of the cabin.
Malfoy's habit had been to sleep nearest to the door, on the dusty rug with only one of the three, thick blankets from the small, single bed in the loft. Hermione didn't think this was nearly enough to ward off the cold, particularly since he wasn't yet using any of the clothing they had found in the suitcase. Not that she was likely to mention this to him. If he wanted to be cold and eventually smelly, that was entirely his prerogative.
She was happy for him to have the mattress, but since he didn't seem interested, she didn't use it either. From the look of the short bed, a third of his legs would probably hang over the edge.
Hermione was also curious about another aspect of their stay there, but she would have rather chewed on nails rather than ask Malfoy what he was doing about their…toilet situation.
Basically there was no 'situation'.
You just found a spot in the trees and tried not to think of luxuries like heated toilet seats and three-ply toilet paper, lest you start to weep from self pity.
Snow, especially fresh, powdery snow, had its uses. Necessity really was the mother of invention. In the absence of toilet paper, Hermione made do with fresh snow. And if she was unlucky enough to develop frostbite of the arse, she'd quite happily die from the effects, rather than tell Malfoy.
Since his dig about contamination of their mutual water bucket on their first morning there, Hermione had decided to claim one of the three buckets for herself. Using the axe blade, she tore a flannel shirt from the suitcase into two pieces. She used her bit off flannel as a teeth and face washer, and draped Malfoy's over his water bucket to do 'whatever the hell he wanted' to do with it.
Hermione longed to heat some of the water up and wipe herself down with her cloth, but the idea of Malfoy making a possibly unexpected return to the cabin put her off the idea. She'd have to broach the topic with him soon, however. No doubt he'd not be averse to the idea of a good scrubbing.
The cabin was dusty, so she gathered some thin twigs and tied them together to make a broom. Then she shoved open the cabin door and spent the morning sweeping out dust and soot. It was now possible to walk barefoot across the floorboards without the soles of her feet turning black. When this was completed, she turned her attention to the bedding, giving all of it a thorough shake outside, before airing it out over the table and chairs for an afternoon.
It was only noon by the time all these tasks were completed.
Hermione had then sat in the armchair by the fire and stared into it. There were tinned sardines re-heated on the stove, floating in aspic. After she had defrosted them earlier in the morning, they became sardine mush rather than actual fish pieces. Malfoy had eaten half of it for his breakfast at sunrise and Hermione had taken two bites before realizing that her appetite was well and truly missing in action.
What else could you do with nothing else to do? She allowed herself to be acutely homesick.
Her parents would be beside themselves with worry. Her father, Phillip, tended to call around once a week, usually on a Sunday night.
That was going to be tonight, Hermione realized, with a grimace. Her mother, Liz, would assume that Hermione had simply forgotten to charge her mobile battery. They'd try again on Monday morning, and probably again after that. She wondered where her phone was and if it would actually ring itself out. To even think about the possible whereabouts of her wand made her eyes sting. She'd only ever had the one wand and was very attached to it.
Harry and Ron might have been able to stall the Grangers for a few more days if Hermione hadn't already missed a dinner date with them on that fateful Wednesday. They were not stupid and lately, they were becoming less willing to subscribe to Hermione's 'the less you know, the less you'll worry' motto. There had been enough of that during her Hogwarts' years. With Hermione living on her own and working with the Ministry, her parents made a point of keeping themselves informed of her activities.
Hermione loathed thinking about what Harry might be going through, though she thought she had a fair idea. He'd be positively wracked with guilt and tossing about every foolhardy notion of how to go about searching for her. He'd try and be stoic for Ron, however.
Ron.
She missed him. She missed his voice, his smile, the warm way he looked at her. She missed holding his hand. She missed the smell of the horrid aftershave Ginny had given him last Yule. She missed the Floos she got from him after work to complain about his day. She missed how passionate he was when she accompanied him to Quidditch matches. She even missed the glazed expression he sported when she told him about her work. She missed his hugs. He gave great hugs. It was inevitable, coming from such a big, wonderful family.
She missed the Weasleys. Not a week went by without Molly inviting her over for a noisy family dinner where you had to shout to be heard over everyone else. Hermione would sometimes catch the comparatively docile Arthur giving her a good-natured wink from the head of the table, as if to say, 'this is what you're in for'.
And she had been. In for it, that was.
The proposal had come out of the blue.
"Let's get married."
Ron had probably been just as surprised as Hermione was when he'd blurted out the words. She might have preferred a more memorable location than a Quidditch match, however. It hadn't been sentimental or well-planned, by any stretch of the imagination (which she often accused Ron of not having), but it was a quintessentially Ronald Weasley sort of proposal. Which was romantic, in its own way.
There were obviously two possible answers to this question and because she was Hermione Granger, she managed to run through the next fifty or sixty years of her life, as it related to either a 'yes' or a 'no' response.
She loved Ron. She'd loved him since his valiant effort in the game of life-sized Wizard's Chess during the Philosopher's Stone fiasco in their first year. It wouldn't take her much time at all to tell you why she loved him. He was dependable, loyal, trustworthy, honest, kind-hearted and understood commitment better than anyone else, except perhaps Harry.
The Weasleys were the blueprint for how families ought to be. She'd gravitated towards that warm, soft, glowing beacon of family life. Not to say that her upbringing as an only child had been a lonely affair devoid of affection. Far from it. Her parents had indulged her, but somehow, she'd always felt that she'd been cut out to be a sibling, to be part of something larger and more… argumentative?
'Yes' meant being absorbed into the Weasley fold. That sense of otherness, of being a Muggleborn and being sometimes too clever for her own good would go away. She would not just be a friend, she would be one of them. She wouldn't be offered the best bits of a roast at dinner, she'd have to fight with the rest of the family for it. The Weasley boys wouldn't have to watch their language, which Ginny and even Harry assured never happened when Hermione was absent at the table.
Also, battling evil would be a less complicated affair when you were really part of the family, and it wasn't just a metaphor.
It'd been easy to quash the 'no' voices or the 'no, not right now' voices.
Now this was the part of her that had started S.P.E.W, even though she knew she was in for ridicule and opposition. It was the part of her that recognized the safe spots to stand in at Hogwarts and then had still gone to stand next to Harry 'Come and Get me' Potter instead. It was the part of her that used the Time Turner to rescue Sirius with Harry. The 'no' voice insisted that the war was coming to an inevitable end and maybe, just maybe, she might want to do things with her life other than live a plump, contented existence with Ron and their children.
Everything was put on hold because of Voldemort. You daydreamed at your own peril. Her career ambitions and her ideas about continuing her education in Magic were all indulgences while the war continued.
She never confided in Ron about any of this. It wouldn't have done either of them any good because Ron would have assumed it was her way of saying she didn't think he was good enough. Nobody liked hearing that they were picked because they were an option. You wanted to be told that you were picked because you were someone else's idea of It. You wanted to know that someone else had been looking all their life for you and miracles upon miracles, had found you.
She knew she was Ron's It. Just like Harry was Ginny's and vice versa. Now there was chemistry you could start a fire with. Ginny and Harry's love involved chemistry that was made of deep, dark truths and looks that were more meaningful than a year's worth of conversation. Sometimes, just being in the same district as them felt like you were intruding.
Meanwhile, it wasn't unheard of for Hermione to be eyeballing Ron for a good twenty-minutes during a function or across a dinner table, unsuccessfully trying to put a single thought into his head - I'm awfully tired and I'd really like to go home now.
Ok, so he wasn't the most astute of men. It seemed a small price to pay for everything else that he was to and for her.
All this mental gymnastics had taken mere moments, because Ron had been staring at her, awaiting her answer. And everyone knows that in a post-proposal situation, every normal second is multiplied by ten and then squared by the expression on the face of the person that is supposed to say yes.
She'd grinned at him. That was also easy to do with Ron.
"Yeah, why not!"
In hindsight, perhaps her response left a lot to be desired, but Ron had been ecstatic nonetheless. He'd kissed her long and hard just as fireworks went off, marking the end of the Quidditch match and the Canon's win.
Lovely bit of timing, that.
For the life of her, Hermione still could not work out how Lucius Malfoy could have possibly found out about something that only she and Ron knew. MacNair had clearly not been aware of her engagement. She rather suspected Voldemort had been equally clueless.
Unless Ron told someone else? That was unlikely. The engagement was highly private, especially for him.
Hermione racked her brain.
There was the one time she'd sent Ron a cheeky inter-office memo, signing it off as 'wife-to-be'. Goodness, that had to be it! Malfoy must have someone in the Ministry mail room! Dear God. If that was true then what else did Voldemort know about? Sensitive, DMLE information didn't travel via the mail room, of course, but plenty of other things did.
Or was it that Malfoy maintained a secure line of information that only flowed to him and not to Voldemort?
From what she had thus far gathered about Malfoy, she thought this was quite likely. Maybe Lucius did have a few tricks up his sleeve that his former master was not aware of.
Like me, she reminded herself.
Shortly after midday, before the tree-hunting expedition, Lucius had returned to the cabin after a morning spent scouting around their mountaintop. He took a quick drink of water, warmed himself in front of the fire for a bit and then stood to leave once more.
Bugger this, Hermione thought. If she got left behind one more time, she thought she might go crazy from the boredom and her own morose thoughts. Plus, there wasn't anything left to clean apart from the ancient-looking muskets mounted on the wall above the fireplace.
She shot to her feet. "May I go with you?" she asked, hating that she felt she had to ask. It was, however, pointless to give him any more excuses to lash out at her.
Malfoy was kneeling at the door, strapping on his snowshoes. His long hair was unbound that day. It fell forward to conceal his face, so she couldn't make out his expression when he said, in that crisply-enunciated way of his. "You will not be able to keep up."
Sod him. She was a healthy, young woman of nineteen. He happened to be middle-aged. Perhaps he needed reminding of this very real fact?
He stood then, more smoothly and gracefully than she had done simply coming out of the armchair. If he was supposed to be ache-ridden and unfit in this cold place, his body had apparently not got the memo. Or he was hiding it very well. He parted his cloak and retrieved his gloves where he had tucked them into the waistband of his woollen trousers, pulling the gloves on deftly.
Hermione acknowledged, albeit reluctantly, that Malfoy was probably fitter than a lot of the young adults she worked with at the Ministry. She wasn't sure how old he was, exactly, but he couldn't have been that much older than Snape or Lupin, surely?
"If I fall behind, I'll make my way back here," she said, bracingly. She knew she sounded eager. "What were you planning on going out for?"
At first she thought he wasn't going to answer her, but then he replied. "I am attempting, however unsuccessfully, to form a coherent mental map of the area so that I can venture out further without the threat of getting lost after a snowfall. Each time there's a blizzard, everything changes." He sounded frustrated.
Hermione thought for a moment. The solution came to her. "The baby clothes," she said. "Most of it is brightly-coloured. We could tie bits to the trees at regular intervals. For example, we could use 'red' within a certain boundary line around the cabin, and other colours as we venture outwards. That would help identify distance and landmarks, wouldn't it?"
Of course it would help. It was a brilliant idea in a landscape that could change from day to day.
He stared at the open suitcase on the kitchen table. "Fine, bring along the clothing. If you fall behind, don't expect me to wait for you."
It was all Hermione could do not to pump her fist in the air. She pulled on another jumper and stuffed wads of scrap material into her animal-hide boots to keep her socked calves extra warm. Then, she grabbed a stack of baby clothes, bundled them up in a blanket to make a sling that carried the lot.
"I'm ready," she announced, a little breathlessly. Her enthusiasm died a bit when she realized she was openly showing her delight in spending the afternoon with him.
Well, not him, per se.
Malfoy, in turn, was giving her his usual condescending look, but there was a sense of familiarity in that look now. A sort of let's get on with it vibe. It was a welcome change to him just being threatening or unpleasant for the sake of it.
Honest to God, Hermione thought they might actually be starting to become accustomed to each other.
**
So they were looking for the first tree.
It was easy to forget just how spectacular the wilderness could look after a big dumping of snow. She supposed that her view of the location had been affected by the fact that they were essentially trapped there.
It was so still and so quiet that the noise of her own breathing made her self-conscious. There was the stunning and absolute absence of sound and movement, as if the forest was holding its breath. It didn't feel dead, though. There was life and vitality there, just under the surface, literally. Life was sleeping at the moment.
"It's really quite pretty here, isn't it?" Hermione realized she was whispering and immediately felt a little foolish.
Malfoy was staring down the slope. "You will forgive me for not sharing that sentiment. I've been trying to walk through this 'prettiness' for four days without managing to get very much done."
"You don't like the cold, do you?" Hermione could tell that about him now. It wasn't just his dislike of their situation. Despite his colouring and his glacial eyes and his apparent fondness for some very expensive-looking winter attire, he was not a creature that favoured the cold.
They had started down the slope, though he paused halfway to tighten the bindings on his show shoes. His response was delivered dispassionately. "I've spent a lot of time in the cold. I don't care for it."
"Was it cold in Azkaban?" she asked quietly.
He looked at her, and then it seemed he stared through her, as if memory unfocussed his vision. "Deathly," he said, after a moment. And then the focus came back. "You would be happy to know that, I suspect," he added, coolly.
Hermione took offence to that assumption. "Why would I revel in anyone's suffering? Yours included?"
"If you have to ask me that question, you're more self-delusional than I thought."
"Most of the world doesn't have hate and mistrust as their default setting, you know? And for those of us who fall into that trap, it usually just stems from fear." She realized he may not have got that particular Mugglish analogy, but he looked like he understood her. "And speaking of self-delusional, arguably you were in the employ of the most delusional man in all of Wizarding Britain."
Malfoy snorted. "Voldemort is very afraid. On that, we agree."
Hermione was astounded that he so readily admitted this. Her inefficient descent down the slope came to a pause. She paused to catch her breath beside him. "And what do you think he's afraid of?"
"He's afraid of you." Malfoy shot her a derisive look. "Just a slip of a girl…"
"You mean he's afraid of what I represent," she corrected. "His blood purity ideas are just a big pile of gobshite!"
Malfoy blinked. "Four days with you and I fear I am being inadvertently schooled in crass, Muggle insults."
She gave him an acid-sweet smile. "I aim to please."
"Do you?" he murmured, so softly that she almost missed it. And then the cool look was back and he was once again moving ahead of her at startling speed.
She resumed her trudging, not wanting to fall behind because that would mean ending the conversation, which frankly fascinated her. The inner workings of a Death Eater of his standing (former Death Eater, she mentally corrected) was intriguing.
"Voldemort isn't just afraid, though, is her? Like I said, he's self-delusional. Surely you, of all people, see this?" Hermione said to him.
Malfoy kept his eyes on the snow, straight ahead. "His self-delusion only pertains to his unrealistic expectations of victory, despite the odds. He will do anything in his power and quite a few things outside of it, to make sure that people like you don't survive to inherit what should be a Pureblood legacy."
A little chill went through her. She caught him by his sleeve, in her vehemence, not caring about the repercussions. "You really believe in Pureblood supremacy?"
He paused in his stride to stare down at her hand at his elbow. There was no visible distaste in his expression. There was nothing at all. Hermione found she would have preferred hostility. Given her obviously passionate views on a topic that defined the war against Voldemort, the realization that she could not currently move Malfoy, even to anger, did not sit well with her.
"Yes, Granger, I believe in it. I know it's a hard concept for you to grasp, but try not to confuse my departure from Voldemort's service with my defection from his views. I can spot a losing battle. There is nothing any of us can do to stem what is happening. We must simply endure it. If I am fated to become a part of history, then so be it."
"You actually think you're better than me because of the blood that flows through your veins?" She didn't think the question could be posed any clearer than this.
Malfoy moved his arm from her and her slack hand fell to her side. "I do not think it, I know it. But unlike Voldemort, I see no merit in continuing on a suicidal quest to rid the world of people like you." He thought for a moment. "What is that Biblical saying? The meek shall inherit the earth? Majority rules, Miss Granger. And to my everlasting lament, you are the meek."
She guessed her expression said it all. It wasn't that she had been expecting this new Lucius Malfoy to throw his lot in with the Order, buy some Muggle real-estate and marry a Muggleborn. It was just that if someone like him had found the guts to defy Voldemort, then perhaps Voldemort's programming wasn't as thorough as all that.
"I disappoint you?" Malfoy concluded, his voice dipping to a drawl. "You were hoping that in rescuing you, I would see the error of my evil ways, perhaps? Did you think that making your remarkable acquaintance would be enough to change my views? Do you really think so highly of your ability to affect others the way you want?"
He looked amused. Not contrite, not unsure, not serious and sober from what he said. He was just run of the mill amused. It seemed he couldn't resist stepping forward and then grabbing her chin so that she faced him. It wasn't a hard hold, but nor was in gentle. Hermione flinched and tried to take a step backwards, but this was difficult considering her legs were in the snow, up to her shins. She could, however, turn her eyes away from him as he moved closer, so close that his nose brushed against her forehead.
"Or is it just your effect on me that you were hoping would be more...pronounced?"
It occurred to her, rather belatedly, that she had forgotten how intimidating Malfoy could be when he wanted to be. Just because he seemed content to ignore her, most of the time, didn't change the fact that he could scare the colour right out of her with only words.
"Little Mudblood," he said, a mockery of an endearment. At that hated slur, her brown eyes jerked up to meet his grey ones. She caught his line of sight just before he looked her in the eye. She was sure he'd been staring at her mouth. "Don't go pinning your pointless hopes on me. You may aim to please, as you so sweetly said. But I'll guarantee I'll continue to disappoint." A slight smile played upon his lips.
He released her and because he'd practically been holding her up by her chin, she flopped over backwards in the snow, feeling as ungainly as a seal on land.
Oh, the bastard! He made it sound like…like.
Like what, exactly? Hermione pulled her feet out and mutinously sat cross-legged on the ground for a moment, tired of battling the endless suction of the snow.
Well, he'd been very clever about saying what he hadn't actually said. But she was astute enough to understand the insinuation. As if she would ever consider associating herself with the likes of him! It was just so ridiculous that it didn't merit the thought, let alone his insinuation.
No doubt Lucius Malfoy had led the amoral pack of female Death Eaters back home a merry chase indeed, but she was not that grateful for his rescue that she'd offer herself up to him as some sort of consolation prize because of his changing allegiance.
The fact was that she was alone with a man who loathed her, in a desolate place with no one around for miles. If he'd wanted to take advantage of the situation, he could have done so. Plenty of times. He could have done so at the Revel even, for hadn't that been why she'd been given to him in the first place?
He and his horrid former colleagues seemed willing enough to indulge in the rape of Muggles and Muggleborns, but she suspected the idea of purposely consorting with one was repellent to him, especially since he'd confirmed that he was still in line with Voldemort's pureblood agenda.
Oh, and he was old! How could she forget that? He was younger than her parents, but still, he had more than twenty years on her. And he was Draco's dad. Let us not forget that fact.
"We might as well stop here," Malfoy announced, businesslike.
The slope leading down from the cabin had been devoid of any trees, but now they were approaching deeper forest. The tree line of the forest loomed in front of them.
He glanced at her sling full of baby clothes, which was on the snow beside her. There was a red and brown tweed coat, peeking out. He pulled it from the sling and then took his knife from his boot to cut the tiny coat up into strips.
Hermione didn't realize she was grimacing until he commented. "It's not alive, Granger," he drawled. "You can stop looking so guilty. At least you know its demise is for a good cause."
"Like that bird's was?" she concluded, dryly.
She knew she was being an utter twit about him eating the poor, sweet (if slightly dim) pigeon, but she couldn't help it. It was his general callous attitude that she took exception too.
"Anything that sustains me is considered a good cause," he said curtly, handing her a strip of tweed. "Now try and be useful and find a suitable tree to climb."
"Me?" Hermione repeated. She had to squint at him because it really was very bright. He was easy enough to spot, because tall, black and ominous tended to stand out a bit, in the snow.
"Yes, you. Unless you can't?" He raised an eyebrow.
He didn't say 'won't. He said 'can't'', implying that her refusal to climb a tree stemmed from her unfortunate inability to do so.
"Fine. I'll do it," she replied, her voice tart.
Malfoy walked ahead, coming to a stop in front of a tall fir that marked what looked to be the end of the slope. Directly up the slope, in an almost straight line, was the cabin. From where they were, Hermione could make out the curling grey smoke from the chimney. It seemed a good choice for a first marker.
She joined him at the base of the tree. The fir was tall. Its trunk was straight and narrow with no lower branches to pull herself up with.
Hermione took the strip of cloth from him and tucked it into the neck of her jumper. "You're going to have to give me a boost."
He'd already worked this out, apparently. He made a foothold for her with his hands, looking none too thrilled at coming into close contact with her stinking boots. Hermione could sympathise. After four days, she still wasn't used to the smell either. Because she was already shin-deep in the snow, she would need additional leverage to haul herself upwards.
God, did it really have to be this awkward? Maybe it was just her? Really, she couldn't be blamed for finding it difficult trying to work with Lucius Malfoy.
"Um…" She had one foot in his interlocked hands. The other was still in the snow. Hermione placed her hands rather stiffly on his shoulders. She thought she might have sardine-breath. Did he have to look so annoyed? There was no other way they could have done this. "I need to, uh-"
"Just get on with it," he snapped.
Holding on to his shoulders, she hoisted herself up and felt his hands grab her ankles. At this point, she found herself clinging to the lower branches and realizing that she was either heavier than she had anticipated or just weaker. The branches seemed sturdy enough, thankfully. With Malfoy's initial assistance, she climbed cautiously, testing the tree limbs to see if they could hold her weight.
When she halfway to the top, she breathed a sigh of relief and wrapped her legs as tightly as she could manage around the trunk while she tied the bit of red material around the base of a thick branch. She really shouldn't have looked down, because prior to this she hadn't realized just how far up she was from the ground.
Malfoy was staring up at her, his hands shading his eyes from the glare.
"I suppose now's not a good time to tell you I'm actually afraid of heights!" she called down.
"A few meters off the ground isn't generally considered 'heights'," came the unsympathetic response.
The climb downwards was a quicker affair. She simply held on to the trunk and slid down. Her thick, coarse clothing provided enough friction such that the pace was controlled.
When her feet were on solid ground, such as it was, Hermione and Lucius looked up the marked branch. The scrap of red material flapped alarmingly in the wind, but Hermione had knotted it well in place.
The first marker was completed. Only a dozen or so more to go, probably.
It took them three hours. By the time they'd used up the fourth colour (blue), Hermione's legs had turned to jelly. Her arms were shaking. She could barely take a step without pausing for breath. They were both visibly fatigued, but Malfoy didn't look ill at all. She, on the other hand, was dizzy and a little nauseous. The fact that she hadn't really eaten anything all day didn't improve the situation. She felt like an idiot for not having fortified herself before leaving the cabin.
Malfoy wasn't finished, however. He was holding on to their last bit of blue cloth. It was a blue canvas bib with yellow flowers on it, or at least, that's what it had once been.
They were on a slight rise, about a forty minute walk from the cabin. It was a scrawny birch tree this time and the little hill that it sat on provided a perfect line of sight with the far off cabin. Another ideal marker.
"Last one for today, I think," he said.
Hermione hugged herself. "Yay."
He was occupied looking at her critically. She squirmed a little under the intense, gray scrutiny. The past three hours of hard work had been carried out with minimum fuss and no insults. In her weary state, she didn't think she'd last through another disagreement with him.
"I'll take this one. You look like you're going to drop." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Don't, by the way. I am not carrying you."
She pulled off her gloves and rubbed at her dry eyes, too exhausted to be baited. "I'm fine," she mumbled.
"Granger, you've been turning an increasing shade of bloodless for the last hour."
"Have I?" she asked, a little groggily.
It was testament to how unwell she was that she didn't much care when Malfoy took off his own gloves, tilted her face back and stared at her beadily. His bare hand felt incredibly warm as he cupped her jaw. This grip was nothing like the one before. He was being deliberately gentle.
The heat of his hand was wonderful. Without thinking, she leaned her icy, wind-blasted cheek into it.
He frowned at this. She felt the pad of his thumb run over her bottom lip and press upon it lightly. Hermione shivered. The strange fatigue was overpowering. It was curious that she wasn't exactly cold, just sleepy. She found herself staring at Malfoy's chest, covered with the dense wool of his cloak and beneath that was the luxurious fabric of his robes. She wanted to rest her cheek against his chest and close her eyes. Just for a bit. Better yet, she imagined him opening his cloak and enveloping her with it. The very thought of how warm it would be nearly made her groan.
She was just tired, too weary at that point to care that he was a pureblood supremist arsehole who probably wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire.
Ew. Nice imagery there.
What on earth was wrong with her? She didn't want Malfoy's hands on her, for any reason. A frazzled Hermione straightened up, but his hands followed her. Had she been observing herself in a mirror, she would have seen that the blood was not quick to rush back to the point on her lip where he had deliberately applied light pressure.
"It's altitude sickness," he concluded. He was so close she could feel his voice reverberate through her. "You need to return to the cabin."
Altitude sickness? She thought that was only something mountaineers suffered from. But then they were on a mountain.
"How come you don't have it?" she asked him.
"If I had it, I've likely acclimatized quicker than you have."
"Oh," she said, for lack of anything better to say. "Is it lethal?" She did not sound particularly concerned, and neither did he when he replied.
"Only if you faint, because as I said, I'm not carrying you back."
What a charmer he was. Hermione snatched the bit of blue canvas from him and resolutely marched towards the tree. If she made it through studying for her NEWTS with hardly any sleep for months, she could bloody well finish tying a bit a cloth to this tree.
"Hurry up, then. This skinny birch isn't going to hold your weight so obviously I'm going to have to do it."
Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her tone, but did not argue the point. He assisted her up the tree and observed as she tied on the last marker. "One more knot, Granger. The wind up here is particularly fast."
Hermione tied the additional knot with fingers that felt heavy and thick. Her descent was less controlled than she had previously executed. She managed it without falling and that was good enough.
It'd been a productive day. They had put up enough markers that should they ever get lost in the area, the odds were that they would come across a marked tree which would advertise its distance and location relative to the cabin. Further exploration would be rendered much safer now.
"Done," she sighed, pulling her gloves back on.
The wind was indeed rough. It had successfully blown most of her long hair out of her ponytail. She tucked her curls behind her ears, only to have the whole mass whip about her face once again. "Can we go home now?"
Lucius looked at her feet. The long walk back was obviously going to be an effort for her in the deep snow. "It would be a good idea if you made snowshoes for yourself."
Hermione gave him an incredulous look. "I would have, but you won't lend me your knife, remember?"
He didn't, apparently. She gathered that his particular brand of unpleasantness sometimes operated on unconscious autopilot.
"Borrow it when we return," he said, imperiously.
The first thing Hermione was going to do when they got back to the cabin was stick her head in her water bucket. She suddenly found that she was desperately thirsty.
"You did well today."
Surely she had misheard? Lucius Malfoy would not be offering up any words of praise, however casually given, to the likes of her.
In any case she was wholly occupied simply trying to walk in the snow, which was now thigh-deep in sections. After some very limited progress through deep gouges, an annoyed Malfoy began pulling her along by her hand. Hermione was too grateful to care that he was touching her again.
