You half expect her to make a joke out of it while telling the absolute truth She's done it before – you've rather admired that technique, to be honest - but when Harry Potter asks her what she did to Filch, Hermione Granger just tells him without any attempt to misdirect or hide or anything at all.
"I killed him," she said. Her mouth turns up in a small smile. "Kedavra. And it was fucking satisfying. Plan to take me in?"
"Don't be stupid." Harry sets his wine glass down, then picks it up and drains the whole thing. Theo takes it without a word and goes to the kitchen to fill it, but you can see he never quite turns his back on Harry.
Harry, who opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again to ask, "Where is he?"
"Chamber of Secrets."
He looks, of all things, annoyed. "How?"
Hermione hisses out a series of what you can only assume are commands in parseltongue. It's disgusting to hear. You want to rub at your ears and make it go away. That was how Voldemort talked and you don't want to a reminder.
Harry just shrugs, unfazed. "I can't understand it anymore, but I assume that's the way in."
"Memorized it during the war," she says.
"Handy."
"It was."
Harry takes the glass Theo hands him and drains it. Then he says in a high-pitched falsetto, "Or worse, expelled."
Hermione goggles at him, then starts to laugh. You look from one to the other. Harry Potter doesn't smile a lot. He has a sharp grin that mimics friendliness without inviting people in, but right now he's really, truly smiling as he and Hermione share some joke that locks the rest of you out. You shouldn't be upset. You should be glad, because Harry Potter going off to the Ministry to turn you all in would have been a problem. You don't think Hermione would have been on board with killing him, so what would you have done? Erased his memory and hope that stuck? But now you don't have to worry about any of that because he's laughing and you should be happy and pleased and relieved. Instead you feel like you did at twelve when no one included in you much of anything.
God, you're such an arsehole.
You need to grow up.
"So, everything is fine?" Theo asks. "Because, gotta be honest here, I wasn't looking forward to getting shipped off to Azkaban."
"Yeah." Harry Potter wipes a tear away from his eye, and sighs. "I should report it, but – "
"He tortured students," Hermione says.
"Yeah," Harry says again. He looks down at his hands. You wonder if he's contemplating how clean they are. How much being the chosen one instead of the spare has saved him. Not that being chosen was so great but, in the end, he still doesn't have blood on his hands. Even Voldemort died from little more than a misfired wand.
"So, do you even care what's going on?" Draco asked.
"You mean other than the bit about you sucking cock?"
Draco very obviously drops his eyes to the crotch of Harry's trousers and lets them linger there long enough for everyone to be uncomfortable. "Not yours," he says at last. "Not even if you ask very nicely."
"How about Voldemort's?" Harry asks.
"He didn't come back with a nose," Theo says. "I doubt he managed a functioning penis. Can we move on from your little pissing contest? It's dull to play games the rest of us have to watch."
Harry turns and looks at Theo. Theo, whose hand is on your thigh. Theo, whose father was a Death Eater. "Are you always like this?" he asks. He meets your eyes when Theo doesn't condescend to answer. "You like this."
"It's the cock sucking," Theo says to that. "I have gifts."
It's so much more than that, but you don't want to justify yourself to this hero. You don't have to justify yourself to this hero. And then you really don't, because he stands up and fumbles for his wand. "Thanks for inviting me, Hermione. Nice to see you, Nev. I think… I think I'd better forget all about this."
He lets himself out.
"Well," Theo says. "I like him."
You scowl, then say to Hermione, "Next time, ask."
. . . . . . . . . .
Screaming.
Draco stood and tried to cover his ears because there was so much screaming, but his hands wouldn't move. The air had become thick, like water. No, worse. The voice again. Pain. Agony. He knew the sound. They all did, every Hogwarts student. Every Death Eater, too. Crucio was the bread and butter of their lives. The cornerstone of their building. The rock on which they built their church.
The wand was in his hand, and he was the one pointing it, and his mouth moved even though he didn't want it to. He wasn't doing this. He wasn't, but he couldn't stop himself.
Crucio.
Crucio.
Crucio.
Pansy Parkinson looked up at him from the floor of Azkaban and smiled, blood dripping from the corner of one mouth. It's the only red thing in a black and white world. "You always were a clever student," she said.
"I'm not doing this," he said, even as the wand grew warm in his hand. "She's making me."
Pansy laughed, and blood sprayed toward him. "No, she's not. But nice excuse, Malfoy."
Nice excuse.
This time he meant it. "Crucio!"
She spasmed on the floor, then screamed, and that woke him up and the screaming was him.
. . . . . . . . . .
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. . . . . . . .
Draco hadn't even found the teal parlour uncomfortable before today. It had tall windows with deep, cushioned seats, perfect for a small boy to hide in. It had furniture with curvy legs and intricate carving, perfect for doing rubbings of. It had a piano, where he had loved to sit and tell himself stories, plunking out low notes for the villains and high notes for the fairies.
Of course, he wasn't six anymore.
Draco perched on the edge of one of the settees and forced a smile for his mother. Neville surely knew this visit wasn't about catching up with some of your school chums the way Narcissa had claimed, but he settled down on a chair and took a cup tea of from an elf without the slightest sign of discomfort.
Theo knew the Malfoys, of course. He'd been over here as a child, played in this very room. He kissed Narcissa on both cheeks and asked what sort of Dark Magic she was using to hold back aging, pulling a delighted laugh from a woman who looked far older after the war than she had before. Trauma aged people, and even when you'd put the monsters to bed, the lines stayed on your face.
Hermione sat next to him. The illusion they were close mustn't be breached in front of the people who could expose all of them. And she'd killed Filch when he'd laughed. Draco didn't want her to end up in Azkaban for that, so he took her hand. Her skin against his felt like a promise and he had to keep himself from yanking his fingers free again. He didn't trust her. He didn't want her touch to feel like coming home.
"You're all so young," Narcissa said, a natural segue from Theo's wholly appropriate comment. She poured a little milk into her tea and stirred. The clink of her spoon against the porcelain was painfully loud in a room where the silence was uncomfortable, but she made no attempt at small talk until she'd picked up her tea, taken a sip, and set it back down again. "Hermione, you sweet girl, how are you finding life at the Ministry?"
"We're getting along," Hermione said. "We've launched several – "
Narcissa held her hand up and, in the face of that rebuke, Hermione fell silent. "I'm sure your plans are all wonderful," Narcissa said. "You're a smart girl, and you're keeping them all dazzled with fireworks and rainbows. But the exact composition of the fireworks is," she paused and her mouth twisted into a delicate moue. "Uninteresting."
"Mother," Draco said helplessly.
"What I want to talk about is your wedding."
"Our wedding," Hermione said slowly.
"Yes." Narcissa picked up a small bell, rang it, and Draco wanted to bury his face in his hands. This was so much worse than he had feared. "I had Lucius pick up a few samples for me –"
"Samples?"
"Fabric samples," Narcissa said, as though she were speaking to a rather dull child. "Try to keep up. You need to select your dress, and then we'll organize the rest of the design around that. Neville, do you prefer to be Draco's best man or Hermione's... Well, maid of honor is quite the wrong term, isn't it?"
"Quite," Draco said through gritted teeth.
"I was unaware I'd asked Neville to be my attendant," Hermione said.
Narcissa's smile would have frightened geese. "Then I'm happy to clear that up."
The door opened and Lucius came in, a large book in his hand. Draco wasn't sure whether he was relieved that something – anything – had interrupted the fight brewing between his mother and Hermione, or whether he should be more terrified that his father looked positively radiant. He was in on whatever this was, and he liked it.
He set the large volume on the table closest to Hermione then sat near his wife, silently helping himself to tea.
Narcissa flicked her fingers toward the book and the pages flipped open to reveal a photograph of a witch wearing a dress next to a fabric sample. The model turned and preened in a dress that wouldn't suit any woman who'd even thought about having a curve, and Hermione reached over and manually turned the page. "Not that one," she said.
"Yes." Narcissa flicked through several more pages, then left the book open to a dress that even Draco, who would freely admit he knew very little about women's clothing, could see would look ravishing on Hermione. "The problem is, of course, that you are an outsider."
Hermione bristled, but Narcissa held her hand up again. "Hear me out. You are smart, and a heroine, and you've inserted yourself into the halls of power with a neatness that Voldemort would envy, but just asking about Neville – and I saw your grandmother at Madam Malkin's the other day, Neville, she looked very nice and told me to say hullo if I saw you – as your attendant shows how little you know."
"In what sense?" Hermione asked in a low and dangerous voice.
"Well, he's really the power behind your little coup, isn't he? I mean, you're a good girl, but you think it's all done with laws and bills and - " She turned another page of the book. "How about that one?"
Hermione flipped back to the previous page. "That one," she said. "And Ginny will be my attendant."
"No," Narcissa said. "She will not."
Hermione tensed beside him; Draco began to be afraid she'd throw her tea in his mother's face. "Mother," he said, hating this with every cell in his body. "I think Hermione should pick out her own maid of honor."
"Ginevra Weasley is on the verge of ending her relationship with Harry Potter, who, I assume, you plan to invite. People on the edge of breaking up often do at weddings, and often with substantial, unnecessary dramatics. Her fireworks can stay on the road with the Harpies and send you an appropriate gift with an apology letter about how she can't make it."
"And how do you plan to arrange that?"
Narcissa tipped her head to the side. "It's not as if you two are really friends," she said. "Not close enough that she'll leave her Quidditch training for you. You do know that, right?"
Draco thought he had learned to read Hermione fairly well. Even her smallest twitches and frowns had become a grammar he knew, and by the way she slouched for a tiny moment before pulling herself back up he could tell she knew about Ginny.
"I'd rather have Neville and Theo anyway," he said, squeezing her hand. "They're a couple, and that always looks nice in a best man and mai… bridal attendant."
"Neville," Hermione ground out. "Would you do me the honor of being my bridal attendant?"
Neville looked like he wanted to crawl under a chair and Draco didn't blame him. "I'd be honored," he said.
"Good." Hermione stood up and pointed at the gown on the open page. "That one. Madam Malkin's has my measurements."
"Would you like to schedule time to go over the menu?" Narcissa asked.
Hermione's face pulled into a tight line. "Clearly," she said, "You have this all under control. Do what you want. Make sure I know the date so I can have my secretary clear my schedule."
Neville stood up. "I think we should be going now," he said.
Draco eyed his mother. There were a few things he needed to say, but he ought to do it in private. "I'll catch up," he said. "Pick up some Ogden's on the way home, would you Hermione?"
"I'd be happy to," she said, and then they were gone.
Draco slouched back and stared at his parents.
"Well," Narcissa said. "I think that went well."
"You do," Draco said. "You think that counts as well?"
"Well, she could have refused," Lucius pointed out. "She is the Minister. It would be tricky to make her do something. And I understand she has a knack for the Imperius curse."
Draco slouched at that. It was true. She did. He started to fall into his usual wallowing that there was no real way to tell if she'd cursed him, when he glanced at his father. Lucius Malfoy was an opportunist of the worst sort, but he'd done his fair share of Dark Magic, and he knew what the imperius curse looked like when he saw it. That knack was why Draco was in the middle of wedding planning to begin with.
"Father," he said slowly.
Lucius raised his brows in an expression Draco had seen more than once in his own mirror.
"You can tell when someone's been imperiused, can't you?"
Lucius made a little hmming sound, then said, "It depends. If it's on ongoing thing, like what your fiancée did to the members of the Wizengamot, then yes. It lurks behind the eyes as a spot of vagueness. But you can curse someone to do a specific task – pick up the milk, say – and once that was done the curse would be completed and thus, undetectable."
Draco nodded. "Am I cursed?" he asked.
Lucius let out a small laugh but took long enough to study Draco's face he began to be very frightened of what the answer would be. Then his father said, simply, "No. Why do you ask?"
"No reason." Draco stood up, kissed his mother on the cheek, and said, "Plan a wedding cake that doesn't taste like sawdust, would you?"
"Of course," Narcissa said.
Draco let himself out and apparated home.
. . . . . . . . .
A/N - A thousand thanks to Olivie Blake, who keeps me from embarrassing myself with her beta reading!