A/N: Hello! From next week Nycto will be updating on Wednesdays (or as close to as things allow).

10: Twitch

Theo let the silence hang in the air, watching Granger fidget under his scrutiny. He was comfortable with silence; knew that there was a trick to not speaking. It was one of the key differences between him and Draco, that Theo had the patience to wait for someone else to crack. It was how he had found out about the Vanishing Cabinet in their sixth year; fuck it was how he'd found out that Draco had taken the Mark in the first place.

They'd fought terribly over that, he remembered, the way that only good friends can fight - throwing words at one another that were calculated to hurt.

"What in Merlin's name were you thinking, Draco? Is Lucius's approval really worth throwing your fucking life away?"

"At least I still have half a chance of winning my father's approval, unlike some people."

He went utterly still at the words; saw Draco go even paler than usual as he realised what he'd said. Theo forced himself to smile ruefully, swallowing the sting of it.

"You're right, of course. But at least it means I'm not consigning myself to the service of a madman."

He looked up at Narcissa and Andromeda again, who had said nothing since Granger's admission that they needed him to get into Nott Manor. Andromeda was watching him with an oddly soft expression that brought to mind uncomfortable recollections of a quiet voice singing him lullabies. Narcissa's eyes were slightly narrowed, and as he met her gaze it flicked between him and Granger.

"We would have got you out regardless." Granger said from beside him, her voice starting tremulous but gaining conviction. "You were never a Death Eater, the charges put against you were ridiculously trumped up."

When Theo turned to look at her she was staring at the tabletop, a slight frown on her face. "Harry's right, you know, the Ministry are so desperate to look like they're on top of things that they'll lock up innocent people if they think it might help."

"Help?"

Finally, Granger raised her eyes to his. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," she said, smiling ruefully. Not a smile, Theo thought, a twist of the mouth.

"Hamlet," he muttered, and saw her eyebrows twitch in surprise. "Please, Granger," he smirked, "Do you really think The Tempest could have been written by a Muggle?"

Her nose wrinkled, and Theo had to remind himself of the matter at hand. "Your ignorance aside," he said, disregarding the little bolt of pleasure when her eyes sparked, "What do you mean?"

"I told you the Ministry's corrupt from top to bottom, and so they're willing to ignore the fact that the Department of Mysteries is oozing magic -" Granger started, but she was cut off.

"They did something," Narcissa said, "Before the Unspeakables were able to seal it off, the Dark Lord did something to disrupt the magic held within the Department."

"Disrupt?" Theo asked.

"The Department of Mysteries is the oldest part of the Ministry," Andromeda said. "And the magic contained there is of a nature quite unlike the spells that we use everyday."

"Fundamental," Theo murmured, remembering the odd little book that Granger had given him to read the day before.

"Quite," Andromeda nodded. "And if the fundamentals of magic are compromised, then -"

"Magic itself is corrupted," Theo finished, feeling the weight of comprehension descend upon him. He found himself looking at Granger, "Are you sure?"

She held his gaze, worrying at her lower lip. "Tempers are frayed," she said slowly. "It's not overly noticeable yet but there are spells that are becoming warped, enchantments that are failing or getting too strong." A little grimace, "Ghost sightings among Muggles are up, and there have been three Seers hospitalised in the past two months with fractured visions. One of them had never been Visited before."

Theo let himself digest this before he responded, "But the - the -" Theo swallowed, willed himself to say the name - "Voldemort's defeat would have discharged a huge volume of magical energy, would it not? Couldn't it be that?"

"If that was the case we'd expect it to be levelling out," Granger said, the corners of her mouth tightening, "But I told you, it's getting stronger."

"Whatever was done, we need to undo it," Andromeda said. "But we can't without knowing what actually happened, and given his...fascination with it, then our best source of information is going to be your father's research."

"Why aren't you talking to him then?" Theo asked boldly. He'd refused to ask about his father up until now, but the not knowing was killing him.

Narcissa's jaw clenched gently once more. "None of us can get permission to visit Azkaban. They won't even let me see Lucius, let alone Thoros."

"He's alive then." Theo sat back, unsure how the knowledge made him feel.

Azkaban was no more than the old man deserved.

A mind of winter.

"There was an argument for the Kiss." Granger spoke softly, as though afraid of the effect that her words might have, "But the Dementors have been...uncooperative."

He looked at her and she met his gaze determinedly. "You think that's another symptom of this...whatever this is," he said.

"Yes," Granger nodded. "Yes I -"

A door slammed somewhere overhead and Theo jumped. They could hear voices yelling at one another from one of the upper floors, and Andromeda got hastily to her feet. "Not again," she murmured, "They're going to wake Teddy, let alone -"

"FILTH!" came a shriek from the hallway, "STAINS UPON THE MEMORY OF MY ANCESTORS! MUDBLOODS POLLUTING THE DOORSTEP OF THIS HOUSE!"

"Shit," Granger breathed, scrambling up from the table as Andromeda hurried out of the kitchen in the direction of the entrance hall.

"Well fucking done, Ginny, now you've gone and -" Theo recognised the voice as Potter's before he was once again drowned out by the screeching of the painting.

"TRAIPSING THEIR UNCLEANNESS ACROSS MY -"

"Nice deflection, Harry, but it wouldn't be a problem if you didn't insist on staying in this house and fighting another bloody crusade!" He hadn't known Ginny Weasley well enough at school to recognise her voice straight away, and now it was shrill, distorted by anger.

Granger paused as she was about to follow Andromeda. When she looked at Theo he saw that her face had paled, that her eyes were wide with indecision.

"It isn't a crusade, Gin, this is important you have to -"

"BLOOD TRAITORS! SHAMELESS PERVERSIONS OF OUR NOBILITY!"

"I don't have to ANYTHING! I am done, do you hear me?"

"You know what? Fine!"

"FINE!"

There was a crash that echoed through the whole house as someone threw the front door closed with enough force to wake the dead, let alone a painting, and Narcissa sighed as she, too, rose from the table.

"Stay here," she said, raising her voice so as to be heard over the continued noise from the hallway. "You too, Hermione."

Granger nodded and slipped into the seat that Andromeda had recently vacated, opposite Theo. Her hands were shaking, he noted, when she placed her wand on the table. He waited until the noise from the hallway died down, Narcissa apparently having successfully subdued her aunt, before he spoke.

"What was that?"

The look that she gave him was stark in its misery. "Emotions running high," she said. "It's been going that way for a while now, but I'm sorry you had to -"

"Well that's that." Potter came marching into the kitchen and threw himself down next to Granger, who gave him a nervous look.

"It did sound a bit more...final this time," she said eventually.

Potter sighed, looking down at his hands. "She was never going to be on board with this," he said. "She's had enough of my hero complex to last her a lifetime, apparently." Theo watched as the other man gave himself a little shake, and then looked up with a grim smile.

"I'm sorry, Nott. Hardly the welcome that I wanted to give you to my house."

Theo considered him for a moment, uncertain of where they stood after Potter had walked out so abruptly the night before. "Think nothing of it," he said eventually.

Potter's eyes flashed behind his glasses, but a hint of warmth entered his smile.

OOOOO

Hermione watched the two young men from the corner of her eye as she made coffee at the stove. Andromeda and Narcissa had not reappeared, probably now preoccupied with getting Teddy up and dressed for the day.

It was a strange household, certainly, but they had all grown rather accustomed to one another over the past six months.

She wondered briefly what it would be like without Ginny's whirlwind of energy around, and Hermione found herself admitting, with her back turned to Harry, what a relief it would be not to have the constant tension of their relationship to worry about. She loved Ginny dearly, but the youngest Weasley wanted nothing to do with their plans, was adamant that they didn't need to do anything either, and Hermione was tired of the circular argument.

"Why does it always have to be you lot?" Ginny had yelled a couple of weeks ago, "Why can you not just let somebody else take responsibility?"

"Because no-one else is stepping up!" Harry had roared back, "I'm not going to walk away from this, Ginny."

Theo laughed quietly behind her at something that Harry said, snapping Hermione back to the present. The laughter was a relief somehow, although she was fairly sure that he'd be back to glaring at her soon enough.

Hermione frowned and flicked a warming charm at the coffee pot, mentally calculating how long to hold it for in order to ensure that the grounds didn't burn. She'd never been particularly good at domestic charms of any sort, and by god they had suffered because of it during the year hunting horcruxes, but since Andromeda had taken charge of the house the older witch had been generous in teaching her whenever Hermione asked, and she had been surprised to discover that she found it relaxing. She still preferred doing things the Muggle way in her own home but Grimmauld Place, as an entirely wizarding house, didn't have electricity or gas, making charms a necessity.

Her mind drifted again as she counted down from sixty seconds, recalling how, the day after the Battle, Andromeda had shown up on the doorstep with Teddy. Harry, Ron and Hermione had gaped at her and the shrunken travelling trunk dangling from her wrist, until she raised a single imperious eyebrow. "Are you going to let me in, or aren't you?"

It turned out that she had just spent an hour visiting with Narcissa, who had managed to impart as much of the limited information that she had gathered as was possible under the scrutiny of the Aurors. Andromeda was worried, frightened, and purposeful. She had taken charge of the house almost immediately, and after the trio's panicked ransacking of the Black library to try and work out what the hell Narcissa's cryptic note meant, it had been a relief to let someone else order them about.

Narcissa's trial had been set for two days later, the Ministry keen to be seen to be doing something. When Harry had marched in to speak for the Defence it had thrown the whole thing into disarray. With the resulting uproar as cover, Hermione had stolen down to the cells, armed with a book of some of the darkest magic she'd ever seen, in order to set stronger wards on Nott's cell and lay the groundwork to break Malfoy out.

"Why not take them both at the same time?" she asked Andromeda. "Why leave Nott in there?"

For a moment Andromeda's steely expression wavered, and Hermione glimpsed the well of grief behind it. The woman had just lost her daughter and son-in-law, hard on the heels of her husband, and it suddenly occurred to Hermione that this mission, this purpose, might be all that was holding her together.

Then Andromeda turned to look at Teddy, whose hair was the sandy shade of Remus's; whose eyes were the deep grey that Tonks had inherited from her mother. Something about the child seemed to harden Andromeda's resolve, because when she glanced back at Hermione her mouth was set. "Because one of them should be lawfully released," she said, "and it won't be Draco."

She paused, seemed to choose her next words carefully. "Theo has endured worse."

The pot gave a chirp to indicate that the coffee was brewed, and Hermione summoned mugs from the cupboard just as the kitchen door swung open to admit Narcissa and Andromeda, who was carrying Teddy on her hip.

"Nee!" the little boy squealed, his hair turning into a nest of wild curls as he reached for her. Behind Andromeda the door opened again and Malfoy slipped inside, his cheeks, pink with cold, indicating that he had just arrived back at the house.

Hermione laughed, setting the coffee pot on the table and ignoring Malfoy's smirk as he sat down next to Harry. She plucked Teddy from Andromeda's arms and then settled on the bench next to Nott with the child in her lap.

"I ran into the charming Weaselette in the street," Malfoy said to Harry. "Apparently the fireworks display has been called off?" Harry choked on the mouthful of coffee that he had just taken.

"Bloody hell, Malfoy," he muttered, casting a quick Evanesco over the stain on his front. "Give me some warning?"

"Language," Andromeda reprimanded him drily, from where she had started pulling ingredients from the pantry, obviously meaning to get a head start on lunch. Narcissa merely smiled thinly at them from where she was sat, ramrod straight, at the head of the table.

"I see no reason to step delicately around the issue, Potter," Draco remarked, studying his immaculate fingernails, "Since you have hardly been discreet about your dramatics over the past couple of months."

Hermione saw Harry consider snarking back, turning it into an argument, and then decide not to, the tense line of his shoulders relaxing as he gave a defeated little laugh. "I think it's for the best," he conceded quietly.

Malfoy pursed his lips but he couldn't disguise the mischievous light in his eyes when he looked at Hermione, and she rolled hers at him in exasperation. He and Harry had reached a sort of entente cordiale over the past few months, and their bickering lacked the venom that had characterised their exchanges at school. Malfoy shot her a grin as he sipped his coffee, and then his eyes wandered to Nott, a small frown appearing on his face.

Hermione turned to see Nott gazing, apparently fascinated, at Teddy where he sat in her lap. The toddler was playing with one of Hermione's long curls, but he was returning Nott's stare, babbling away happily.

"What are you up to, hm?" she murmured, jiggling her knees and making Teddy squawk with delight. He turned his gaze up to her, and Hermione had to swallow her shock when she saw his eyes.

It usually took Teddy a few days to warm up to somebody new sufficiently to start mimicking them, but if his hazel-green irises were any indication he had taken to Nott right away. "Oh," Hermione breathed, raising her eyes to look at Nott again. He was still staring, and she fought to keep her voice light as she said, "Metamorphmagus. Obviously he likes you."

Nott gave a tight little nod, and Hermione flicked her eyes to Malfoy, hoping he might give her some indication of how to proceed but he, too, was frowning at Teddy, and Hermione suddenly realised that the little boy's hair was still a shorter version of her own. A quick glance at Narcissa, whose eyebrows were fractionally raised, confirmed the impression, and Hermione stood quickly, hefting Teddy, who whooped, and then depositing him in Harry's lap.

"I need some air," she announced to no one in particular, before marching from the room in the direction of the front door.

When Harry came and sat beside her on the front steps ten minutes later, placing a fresh cup of coffee in her hands, she sagged against him with relief. "That was weird," he said, and she groaned her agreement, feeling his cheeks shift as he smiled.

"How is it?" he asked eventually, his voice muffled against her hair.

"It's weird," Hermione said, parroting him unthinkingly. "It's like, like...two steps forward and then twelve steps back, and he's - he's -" she gave a little growl of frustration. "At least with Malfoy he's just a prick."

Harry huffed a laugh. "Yeah, Merlin, you can say that again."

For a moment they sat in comfortable silence, before Hermione asked, "You're ok? About Ginny?"

Harry grimaced, "Malfoy was right, prick though he is. Ginny and I have been on the rocks for months." He sighed, slumping a little. "If I'm honest, it's a relief. This - this thing we're doing - she just wants to play quidditch and have a normal life, and I can't give her that. It's better this way."

Hermione hummed in agreement, and they sat quietly again, before Harry shifted to look down at her. "So if Nott isn't a prick, what is he?"

She considered the question for a moment, but then the words came tumbling out. "He's like a walking wound," she whispered. "And I never realised." She bit her lip, unsure how much of Nott's history she could share with Harry. It felt wrong somehow, to divulge something so personal without his permission.

"He stares at you," Harry said, when it became clear she wasn't going to say anything else, and Hermione felt herself blush deeply. "When you're not looking. It's like he can't believe you're real."

"I don't know about that," she demurred, though she couldn't help remembering the darkness in Nott's eyes when he'd swiped the blood from her neck; the way he had tracked the progress of her blush. "I think he's fighting the instinct to murder me for being annoying."

"Trust me," Harry said. "That was not the expression of a man contemplating murder." He gave a rueful grin, "And anyway, all you'd have to do is tell him not to, and he'd have to stop."

"Don't remind me," Hermione said, screwing her eyes shut. "That fucking vow."

"We'll get it lifted," Harry assured her, rubbing her arm comfortingly. "And then he can murder you to his heart's content."

There was a beat while his words sat in the air, and then they both started laughing at the same time. "You always know just what to say," Hermione gasped eventually, which only set them both off again, the laughter hopeless, bordering on hysteria.

A/N: For all you lovelies with your gorgeous reviews - especially brigittar - sorryyyy.