Chapter 11

Unlocking Magic

It was two weeks before Draco received an owl saying she would be there that evening sometime after dark. The owl arrived in the morning, so Draco had the day to decide how to get Jack out of the house for the evening.

Draco's stomach turned as he got ready for work. He was nervous about how Hermione would react when she saw him again. Even the peppermint-lemon tea didn't seem to help calm him much. He decided to go to work early as he seemed to think better when he was busy.

By lunch Draco had decided he would invite Jack to a football game and then beg off sick. Over his lunch break he ran to the ticket office and then to the pharmacy. When he returned, Jack was wiping down the counter. There was no one else in the shop. It would be a couple of hours before the after work crowd would start to arrive.

"Hey, I got tickets to tonight's game. You want to go? They're good tickets." Draco knew that Jack couldn't turn down tickets to a football game.

"That sounds like fun. Maybe we can stop by the pub before we go. There is a new waitress there I want to talk to."

Draco let out a sigh of relief. So far his plan was working. Now he just had to play sick and get Jack to go without him.

Draco and Jack spent the rest of the afternoon talking excitedly about the game. No one would know that Draco had no intentions of actually going.

An hour before their shift ended, Draco snuck into the back. He took out the bag from the pharmacy and pulled out a bottle of medication. Apparently Muggles had medication that induced vomiting. They would take it as a sort of antidote for poisoning. Instead of counteracting the poison, it would just make them vomit it up before it had a chance to kill them. However there was no antidote to stop the vomiting so once he took it, it would have to run its course.

It didn't take long for the medicine to take effect. He no sooner made it out of the back, when he had to rush to the bathroom. What he wouldn't have given for one of the Weasley's Puking Pastilles. At least then he would have had an antidote. He thought maybe it would be better to be poisoned than to have to take this stuff.

He finally made it back out to the front when Jack asked, "Man, are you feeling ok? You look a little green." Draco answered him by running back into the bathroom. When he thought he could chance it he made his way back to the front again.

"I'm sorry Jack. I think I must have eaten something bad. I just need to go home and rest. You go on to the game."

"Are you sure? They're your tickets. Maybe you should see a doctor."

"No, I'll be ok. No need letting them go to waste. Maybe you could take the pub waitress."

"Alright, but call me if you need me."

There were more benefits to playing sick than just getting Jack out of the house. Not that he was playing. He felt like shit. But leaving work early gave him time to prepare things for the evening. Between trips to the bathroom, he was able to straighten his apartment and set things up for the spell.

He decided to set things up in his bedroom in case Jack decided to come home early. He hoped Hermione wouldn't feel too uncomfortable being in there with him. He knew he sure would as he could think of better things he would rather do with her in his bedroom than unlock a chest.

He pulled the locked box out from under his bed. It was quite unremarkable in itself. Anyone who came across it would probably find little interest in it. Locked inside it were his wand and a quill of Hermione's. In second year Crabbe had bet him he couldn't nick her favorite quill. She always had it with her. He overheard her tell her friends that she had charmed it so that her hand wouldn't tire when she wrote long essays.

Confident that everything was in place, he went into the kitchen for some tea. He hoped the peppermint and lemon would settle his stomach. He wasn't sure if his stomach was queasy from the medication or nerves. The tea seemed to help, so it must have been nerves.

Draco heard a knock on the door. Punctuality being a strong point of Hermione's, she arrived ten minutes after sundown. Taking a deep breath, he steeled his nerves and walked to the door. If only he were a Gryffindor.

When he opened the door he allowed himself to take in her appearance. She looked much better than the last time he saw her. She wasn't as pale, and it looked like she had gained a little weight. However, her eyes still looked tired and sad.

"I'm here to help Dean. Not to have you ogle me. May I please come in?"

"Sorry, of course." He held the door open for her. "Would you like something to eat? Or some tea?"

" No. Let's just get this over with."

"Sure. I have everything ready in the bedroom." Hermione raised her eyebrows at him. "Just in case Jack comes home early, it wouldn't do to have him walk in during the spell."

She just nodded and turned toward the bedroom.

"So, how is this going to work?" She asked when they both entered the room and closed the door.

"Well, it requires that you allow me to use you as a vessel for my magic." He watched her carefully half expecting her to disappear again. He was asking a lot of her. When a wizard allows himself to be used as a vessel for another's magic, he puts himself in a vulnerable position. He loses all control of his own magic. Hermione would be giving control over to him.

She just nodded. Without the Thomas Case to work on, she spent her spare time in the hospital researching spells used to lock away objects. She had Harry bring her books from the Ministry Library.

Harry came to visit her everyday in the hospital. She was glad to have her friend back. Harry did most of the talking going on and on about Ginny's pregnancy. She didn't have much to say herself, so Hermione was content just to listen. Ron tried to visit once, but she threw a water pitcher at his head. She wasn't ready to talk to him yet.

In between visits with Harry, she would search through the books hoping to come across possible spells Draco could have used to lock his wand away. She had narrowed down her search to a spell that worked similarly to the Fidelius Charm. Instead of a secret being kept inside a person, an object is used. The person to whom the object belongs is then required for the spell to be broken. A person could be chosen as keeper without knowing they are being chosen.

Another interesting thing about this spell is that the words to the spell are chosen by the caster and are not as important as the intent behind them. She supposed he used something to do with Mudbloods as he had chosen her as keeper.

"Are you ready then?" she asked.

"Yes."

Hermione stood in front of the chest and drew her wand. She flinched when Draco reached around her and took her hand. He intertwined his fingers with hers so that he too was holding the wand.

Draco tried not to stand too close. If he did, she would feel the effect she was having on him, and he figured she would not appreciate it.

She jerked her other hand away when she felt him try to take it.

"It takes both our hands on the wand to do the spell."

"Sorry," she replied and allowed him to guide her hand to the wand.

Her senses felt overwhelmed as she breathed in his scent of peppermint and lemon. She felt his warmth pressed against her back, and his breath on her neck sent a shiver down her spine. She thought that the nervousness she felt had nothing to do with the spell they were about to perform.

"Are you ready?" he whispered into her ear.

She gave a slight nod.

"Relax. You have to relax. You are blocking my magic. Let me in."

At the sound of his words she closed her eyes and her body sank back into his. She felt as if he were holding her up and that if he let go she would surely fall.

She didn't know how long they stood there like that. Time seemed to have stopped. She began to feel her skin tingle were he touched her. His magic felt foreign and familiar all at the same time.

She felt feelings that were not her own. Her emotions always seemed heighten when she used magic. She remembered feeling empowerment when she accomplished a new spell, or guilt and sadness when she modified her parents' memories, or great anger and hatred when she battled the Death Eaters. But she had never thought about what someone else's magic might feel like.

Right then she felt Draco's emotions so deeply that they overtook her own. First she felt excitement much like she felt when she learned she was a witch. Then she felt immense guilt that made her stomach turn, and then sadness. It was the sadness she felt when she lost someone close to her, like Dumbledore, or Fred, or Tonks and Lupin. She wondered what was making him so sad.

Then she felt rather than heard him speak the words, "Liberi la magia."

Release the magic.

It felt as if a bolt of electricity shot through her and she found she could no longer hold on to her wand. They broke apart and both stood breathing hard. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks and she look over to him.

There was a long pause of silence as they just stared and looked at each other.

Finally Hermione spoke. "I felt your emotions; excitement and guilt. I understood those. But why are you so sad?"

"These last five years I have been happier than I have ever been. I've had friends. Real friends. I've made people happy, if only for giving them a cup of coffee and the decisions I have had to make have been so easy. Well until recently. Not like having to accept a task from Voldemort. I can't go back to that now. But that's not why I am sad. Those five years could never compare to the two weeks you knew me as Max. To have you love me, and look at me without hate in your eyes. After Dean is cured I lose you forever. My heart breaks at the thought of never holding you and kissing you again." At this tears began to fall down his face too.

It got to be too much, and Hermione looked away. Her eyes landed on the chest that lay open on the table. Inside laid a wand and a quill.

"My quill," she said as she walked over and picked it up. "I thought I lost it."

Draco had the sense to look guilty.

Hermione looked back into the box. "Your wand."

Draco walked up to the chest and looked inside. There lay his wand just as he had left it. He tentatively reached out and took it. The magic flowed through him and into the wand. It was as if a part of him had been returned. He transfigured the chest into a vase of flowers much like the one Hermione had shattered that day she found out who he was.

"Draco. You say you are different. That you have changed. If you really have changed, it doesn't matter what you look like."

His heart sank. Did she know what she was asking of him? For the last five years, when he looked into the mirror he saw Max Black. He had even convinced himself that that was who he was now. But what would happen if he removed the glamours? Who would he be? Would he turn back into the person he was before? It was just a glamour. It only changed his looks. Not who he was, right? He owed her this. She trusted him enough to help him get his wand.

He whispered the spell and the glamours fell away. His hair lightened to the traditional Malfoy color and grew to the length it must have been when he first applied the spell. His skin became paler and his features sharpened. His build remained the same. He was as beautiful as he had always been.

He slowly allowed himself to look up at her. He was afraid he would see a look of repulsion on her face. Would it be too much for her to see him like this?

She looked up into his eyes expecting to see the cold hatred she had always associated with Draco Malfoy. They were the familiar gray, but instead of hate, they were only filled with sadness, and love?

She took in the rest of his body, noticing how he was still the same but different at the same time. When her gaze reached his left forearm it stopped. An ugly scar stood out in great relief against the pale skin of his arm. The scar was not like those caused by magic. It was jagged and uneven as if someone had taken a knife and carved his skin away.

"Why not just use a glamour?"

He subconsciously rubbed the scar on his arm. "It used to burn so hot when he called. I always dreaded what he had in store for us when we would reach our destination. It almost always meant something terrible. Even after he was gone I would still feel it. He made sure no magic would be able to remove it. He wanted us to never forget. Do you mind?" He gestured to the scar.

"No."

He waved his wand over his arm and the scar disappeared leaving smooth skin in its place.

"Do you mind if we take a break and have some tea before working on the book? It has been awhile since I have done magic and I don't think I can handle another complicated spell quite yet."

"No, but can I use your bathroom?"

"Go ahead. I'll just put on the tea."

As Hermione washed her hands, she looked up into the mirror. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. She was so confused. She didn't know what to think. She expected to see Draco the same as she did in school when he removed the glamours, but he did seem different. The cold and bitterness was gone from his eyes. She saw the same love and kindness she had seen in Max's eyes that day in the park. She took a deep breath and opened the bathroom door. They still had a long night ahead of them.