"I'm glad you feel better," Luna said. "Though I'm sure you still feel terrible. Maybe actually you feel worse because now you're conscious."
Hermione smiled as Draco shuffled his feet in the doorway.
"I'd offer to kill him for you," Luna continued, "as that seems to be the accepted thing to say. I'm not sure if it's a kind of banal social thing with no meaning like 'how are you', 'I'm fine' or whether it's meant to be an actual offer but, either way, I'd be comfortable saying it except he's already dead and I'm really not sure how I'd go about killing him again." She sat down in the chair next to Hermione's bed. "Blaise tells me that Theo told him that you're going to be discharged today so even if you're feeling subjectively worse it would seem, from a health care perspective, you're better. I'm quite glad you didn't die, by the way. I was worried when you were bleeding on that platform. Still am, really."
"I'm going to go say hello to Harry before I leave," Hermione said when there was a pause in Luna's verbal stream and Luna nodded.
"Convenient with him right here," she agreed. "Though you might want to be sure you don't leave any marks. People might notice, though, of course, what people don't notice can be fairly amazing."
Draco shuffled again and Luna turned to look at him. "Oh, really, like I don't know. 'Massacre them all' and all that." She looked back at Hermione and patted the bed. "But, if you must, wait for the right season."
"I will," Hermione smiled at the girl at her side. "And probably not all. Am I allowed to acknowledge the ring?"
Luna looked at it. "Pretty, isn't it. I don't recommend Gretna Green, though. It was awfully precious, emphasis on the awful."
"Ever fixed mark, though?"
"I do love him," Luna agreed. "And we're both at your side, you know. No matter what."
"I know." Hermione paused, then added, "Tempests are coming."
"They do that," Luna said. "And then they pass and the sun comes out again."
. . . . . . . . . .
Harry lay in the bed in St. Mungo's, numb and almost unresponsive. Hermione settled next to him, took his hand in hers. The nurse smiled at them. "It's good for him to have friends visit," she said. "Nice of you to come down and see him before you check out."
"It's good to see you, Harry," Hermione patted him on the hand.
"Please," he whispered. "Make it better."
"Oh," she shifted in the seat, pulled her skirt down. "I don't think so." There's a pause while she waited for the nurse to wander off, further away. "You never were a very good friend to me, Harry. I was for you, certainly. I risked my life for you over and over again but you, I'm not sure you noticed that I existed outside your own need for my research help. And, of course, the Ron incident." She brushed some imaginary lint off her skirt. "You shouldn't have accepted that. Theo wouldn't, you know." She leaned in towards him. "If Draco were to hit me, Theo would have to be physically restrained from killing him, and they've been friends since they were toddlers. Blaise too, I suspect."
She sat back up and looked at him. "It's a shame, really, that you didn't accept my offer – my plea – to make things up with Draco. I was trying to protect you, not that you deserved it but I was trying. I would have kept you safe. And you threw that back in my face." She sighed, melodramatically. "Now, well, I've taken your career away, taken your wife away, and your best friend is dead." She leaned in again. "Beg me, Harry. Beg me to fix things."
"Please," he whispered again. "Hermione…"
She tips her head to the side and looks at him. "No." Her voice got so cold then. "Ron killed my baby, Harry. Killed him. He did it on purpose. That's why he's dead. And you had better not have had anything to do with his attack on me because Ron died quickly, so very, very quickly, but we won't make that same mistake with you, not if you were involved. "
She stood up. "I'm leaving now, going home. Going to my son's funeral. I'll be talking to Molly Weasley, sweet Harry, and you'll be checking yourself out and coming back to the Manor so we can ask you a few questions. I hope I like the answers."
. . . . . . . .
Awkward silences filled the air at dinner at the Burrow. "Pass the rice, please," George said and Arthur slid the bowl across the table. Molly asked, "do you want more chicken?" and George shook his head. Forks clinked against plates and Percy reached for the bottle of wine. When he set the bottle down the clunk as it brushed against a bowl of roasted beets and the sound made everyone glance up at him before they returned to cutting chicken into small pieces.
"You were there," Molly said at last. "When that Draco Malfoy cursed Ron."
George and Percy both looked at her.
"I was there," George said slowly, "when my youngest brother cursed his former friend and caused her to miscarry her child and almost bleed to death herself, yes."
"They could have... they didn't have to…"
"Didn't have to what?" Percy said, his voice tight and controlled. "Defend themselves? Against a man who'd made it clear he had no real compunction about shooting off dangerous curses? Or did you mean retaliate? I suppose." He took another, too quick, swallow of wine and began to cough.
"They could have just… no one needed to kill Ron," Molly snapped. "He just wanted to confront her about Harry. To talk to her. About Ginny. She killed Ginny; she's a monster." There was a pause and then she said, again, "He was already frozen, the Aurors told me. No one needed to hurt him. And no one's even talking about prosecuting Malfoy. No one!"
"He was barely half-frozen by a child's spell which I wouldn't exactly call disarmed; why not give him a chance to free himself, get off another shot," George muttered under the sound of Percy's coughing. "That would have been a brilliant idea."
"Ron would never hurt a child," Molly said, slamming her knife down and glaring at her two sons.
"But he did," Percy said, glaring back. "Terminetur graviditate isn't exactly ambiguous, and it's the not the kind of spell he'd just know. He had to look that one up; he did research, mum. He researched how to best hurt her. He did it on purpose. For all I know, he was trying to kill her too. He almost did." He stopped and for a moment they all listened to the sound of his rapid breathing before he added, "I loved him too, mum, he was my brother." He swallowed hard and then said, again, "I loved him too."
Silence settled over them again until Arthur said, "How's your shop doing, George."
. . . . . . . . . .
The funeral was private, no reporters, no photographers, no propaganda. Hermione sat with stiff formality at the gravesite, Draco at her side. Neither of them looked at anyone else, neither of them looked at each other. She didn't move throughout the service save at one moment when she reached her hand out to Draco and he took it.
Narcissa had handled the arrangements and everything was immaculate and flawless and perfect and horrible. Close friends sat in a grim circle under a tent that had been erected to keep off rain that threatened to fall but never did. There was almost no family. Andromeda Tonks née Black stood behind the seated guests but Hermione hadn't even notified her parents.
When Hermione stood, at the end, to drop a clod of dirt into the open grave she didn't even flinch as the thunk hit the tiny, symbolic coffin. She just wiped her hand across her thigh, leaving a smear of brown on the otherwise immaculate black dress, a smear she didn't acknowledge through the whole of the reception at the Manor. She stood, thanking people for coming. She thanked Narcissa for all her help. She thanked Andromeda. She thanked and thanked and thanked until everyone left and then she began throwing the wine glasses at the wall, one at a time, in silent, futile rage.
When she'd shattered every glass she turned to Draco, who'd stood behind her and watched her, and said, her voice as calm as water on a day when no air moves, when there isn't even the tiniest ripple, that voice as glass that revealed nothing but just reflected back the world, "Show me the room in the basement. Show me where we'll be keeping Harry once you imperius him for me, once he brings himself here for us."
. . . . . . . . . .
Neville slid the paper across the table to Hannah, who read the story. "I don't understand," she said. "He was one of the good guys."
"I don't know if there are good guys anymore," Neville said, watching Dillan out the window as the boy chased a practice snitch on his broom.
"There's you," Hannah said, softly.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Theo," Pansy frowned at her friend, one of her oldest friends, a man she trusted. He looked up at her. She wasn't sure he'd eaten anything more than convenience foods people had placed in his hands since the night Ron had cursed Hermione, though he'd meticulously ensured that Æthel had good food and enough sleep before he took her back to school. He's a better father than I would have thought, Pansy considered, looking at him. "Theo," she said again and he sighed.
"What is it, Pansy?"
"Hermione's a pureblood, right?"
He looked back down. "Why do you give a shit, Pansy? She's barely out of critical condition, she just buried her son. She's emotionally shaky as hell. Who cares who her parents were?"
"Blood status matters," she insisted, looking at him.
"No, it fucking well doesn't," he said, without looking up. "Why are you even asking?"
"Because... Ron," she stammered. "He knew her so well, knew her so long."
"You'd take Ron Weasley's word for anything?" Theo looked disgusted.
"You haven't answered the question," Pansy pushed and Theo stood up to walk away.
"That's because I'm not going to dignify it with an answer, Pans. Find someone else to humor your paranoia."
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione sat in their flat, the door to the nursery closed and spell-locked shut. She knew she should do something, should get up maybe, have some tea. Go for a walk. She knew she should talk to Pansy about the Wizengamot. She should talk to Draco about the changelings. She should do a lot of things but she sat and watched the light move across the floor and then it was dark again and she hadn't done any of them.
'You're being irresponsible', she would think to herself. Then, 'I'll do it later.'
Draco came and went, watched her with his grey eyes. She didn't pay attention, not really. "Anemic, maybe?" she heard him say, "After all that blood loss." But she didn't pay attention. It was hard to care about anything. If she felt… if she felt it might be bad. She wasn't sure what she'd do when she started to feel again.
She suspected once she started to feel again a lot of people would regret a lot of things.
Like Molly Weasley.
She realized she could feel about her.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Molly."
Molly Weasley turned around in her kitchen to see Hermione Granger, of all people, standing there, slim again, flanked by three of her wretched snakes.
"How did you get in." Molly looked behind the group towards her door, sure she had put the wards up, sure it had been locked.
"Did you really think you could keep me out?" Hermione was pulling off a pair of gloves, handing them off to her right where one of her minions took them from her. "It's as if you don't even understand how magic works, and you a Prewett."
"But there were wards," Molly protested again, "you can't have gotten in."
"This is fatiguing," one of her men stated, the one with the pale skin and dark hair, the one Molly recognized, belatedly, as Theodore Nott. "She's just insisting on things that are obviously false. You aren't going to learn anything useful from her; I say we kill her and be done with it."
"We talked about this," Hermione was still watching her with steady eyes, eyes that were so cold Molly wondered if the woman were even sane. "This is a research trip only, Theo. Other trips may have other purposes. You can play later if you must."
"So research," another one of the men stated.
"How did you get in," Molly asked again, looking helplessly from one furious, terrifying figure to the next.
"I opened the door," Hermione said, "and I walked in. We need, Molly Weasley, to have a little chat, you and I. I find myself insatiably curious how much you knew about Ron's little plan. Did you know he planned to kill our son, or was that as much of a surprise to you as it was to me?"
"But there were wards," Molly repeated and Hermione laughed, actually laughed.
"Did you never wonder, you incredibly stupid bitch, how Lily Potter's death managed to protect Harry all those years? Did you never ask yourself what, exactly, she tapped into, unwittingly I'm sure, that held off one of the darkest wizards the world has ever known? Did you ever ask yourself what would have happened if Riddle had just killed the baby and left the mother standing there, tapped into those depths? Because maybe you should. Maybe you should ask yourself that right now."
"Hermione," Molly would have recognized the detached, condescending drawl of Draco Malfoy even without the pale hair identifying the man. "Please control your urge to be pedantic and just find out what the bitch knew."
"Of course, love. My apologies." Hermione still hadn't stopped staring at her and Molly began, for the first time, to be afraid. "Blaise, would you be so good as to restrain her for me?"
"Can't do your own dirty work?" Molly asked, desperately trying to stop whatever this woman was planning, to shame her into stopping. She had to stop, this couldn't be happening. Not to her.
"Oh, it's more that if I didn't let them hurt you, at least a little, they'd whinge for days. It's tedious, as I'm sure you know. Mothering Ron, well, I'd think you'd be more than familiar with tedious whinging." Hermione smiled at her as the man Molly knew must be Blaise Zabini grabbed her and forced her to her knees, grabbing her hair and twisting her head up so she couldn't move it and there she was, kneeling and staring up at the woman in front of her.
"Whinging seems like a harsh description," she heard Theodore Nott say.
"Nagging, maybe?" Hermione asked and all three men laughed. "Generally, Molly dearest, I try to make this process not hurt but then, generally, I also rather like the person I'm reading. This isn't the case for you so you might find this a trifle unpleasant."
And then it was like a cold wind blew through her brain. It wasn't painful, some distant, analytical part of her brain thought. It was just awful. She was stripped down and totally exposed to a woman who didn't bother to hide her loathing, her utter contempt for everything that Molly Weasley was. Every part of her was examined and most of it was dismissed with indifference as unimportant, uninteresting. Molly had never felt as small as she did while Hermione Granger – Hermione Malfoy – read her life and found it lacking.
"She didn't know," the woman finally announced, and the man holding her let her go and Molly sagged to the floor.
"Really?" She wasn't even sure which of the men asked that. Malfoy, maybe?
"It was only because she didn't care to find out, though" Hermione continued. "She chose to not probe too deeply into what Ron said he was going to do. She could have, she had a suspicion his plans were violent. She certainly wanted me dead and was happy enough for him to do that. But the baby? She didn't know about that. Other things… other things she knew. She's the answer to the portkey question, certainly."
"I still say we kill her." Molly thought that sounded like Theodore Nott again. "Let me kill her."
"Get me some tea." That was Hermione and there was a pause and then she said again, "Get up, you worthless bitch, and be a decent hostess and get me some tea."
Molly felt someone kick her, not especially gently, and then she was hauled to her feet. The look the man - Blaise Zabini she thought - gave her was filled with disgust. "Filthy blood traitor," he hissed, "get the Lady some tea." He shoved her towards the counter and Molly, her hands shaking, went to work heating water, pulling out a mug; she could sense the three wands pointed at her back and knew if she turned and tried to defend herself, to attack that bitch, she'd be dead before she got a single curse off.
"Draco." Molly could hear Hermione, could hear that fucking bitch, that tramp she'd taken in every summer, that filthy whore who'd just wrung her mind out like a dishrag, speaking to her equally vile husband. "Would you be so kind as to get me a chair?"
When Molly turned, the tea in her hand to give to her 'guest', the woman was seated, poised and calm. "Thank you," she said in a horrible parody of graciousness as she took the mug.
Molly stood in her own kitchen while the four of them stared at her. "You have ten minutes," Hermione said, and Molly felt confused. "Nothing permanent."
The three men all smiled and Molly felt, suddenly, as the cornered mouse must feel when it realizes the cat isn't hungry.
"Should I silence her?" asked Theodore Nott and Hermione laughed.
"No," she said, and Molly began to realize that being very afraid was probably an under-reaction to her situation. "I want to hear her scream."
Ten minutes can last a very long time and Hermione Malfoy got her wish.
When it was done, when Molly Weasley lay, unable to even sob, face pressed into her floor she heard Hermione say, "Shall we?"
Then, "Obliviate."
Molly stood up and wondered why she had been lying on the floor. I must have fainted, she thought, and, indeed, she felt really awful. I must be getting sick, she thought, I should probably go have a lie down. She pulled herself up; her pot had almost boiled dry. I must have been passed out for a long time, she thought, and why is there a chair sitting there? Why is there a mug of half-drunk tea on the counter? Was someone here? Pressing her hand to her head she turned off the stove and staggered upstairs to rest.
. . . . . . . . . .
"I'm sorry, sir," the desk clerk frowned at Arthur Weasley. "He checked himself out, against medical advice, I admit, but he's an adult and he can do that."
"But where did he go?" Arthur asked, in the grip of frustration and a growing sense of helplessness.
The desk clerk shrugged but a passing nurse said, "Harry Potter? Said he was going to a cottage up north to recover after his breakdown, wanted to be left alone." She eyed Mr. Weasley with barely concealed disgust. "Maybe he wanted to get away from your family. Can't say as I'd blame him."
. . . . . . . . . .
Draco and Daphne walked, keeping pace with one another, through the Muggle park. Draco had his hands shoved down into his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the wind while Daphne simply refused to acknowledge the unpleasant weather. My mother would like her, Draco thought. Does. Had, in fact, called her 'a delightful young woman' if he recalled correctly, and long experience had taught him it was best to remember the things his mother said.
"How is she doing," Daphne asked as they turned a corner in the path and made their way towards a monument venerating some middling important Muggle military figure.
"She's got good days and bad days," Draco admitted. "She's… she's splendid and terrifying and vengeful and distraught and lost all at once." And something else, he thought. Something… else.
"Can she govern," Daphne asked, not mincing words.
"I'm not sure," Draco said.
Daphne nodded and considered, stopped to pick up a piece of crumpled trash and deposit it with neat disdain in a wire basket. As she was brushing off her hands she said, "Can she hold it together enough to be a figurehead? We've got enough of her basic transition agenda already laid out that she doesn't need to do much more than approve final decisions. We can carry her for a while if she can manage public appearances."
"That she can do, or will. I'll make sure of it."
"Good." Daphne stopped walking and turned to face the man at her side. "I've talked to Theo. We both think we should recruit more Knights. The Aurors…"
"I know," Draco said. "Do it." He was still furious – a cold fury that just waited for the right time - that the official Ministry force hadn't moved to pull Ron from the hall, had just let him disrupt Hermione's speech. If they'd hauled him off just for disruption she wouldn't have been attacked. "And get the names of all the men assigned to Hermione that night. They all die."
Daphne smiled at him and he thought how many people assumed she was a pretty bit of fluff, just a token to be traded by her parents to some man for power. They wouldn't make that mistake if they saw even a hint of that smile. Daphne Greengrass would serve her enemies poisoned tea then chop the bodies into bits and burn them, all without faltering. Now she just said, "We also need to research more magics that we can use if the transition of power doesn't go smoothly when it's the day Shacklebolt is supposed to hand over the reins."
"I can just see him claiming Hermione's unfit," Draco nodded. "Fucking Ron Weasley and his little personal vendetta just playing into that man's hands."
"She is unfit," Daphne said in a low voice. "She's out of her fucking mind, isn't she?" When Draco's eyes flickered just the tiniest bit, confirming Daphne's guess, the woman added, "So we just have to make sure no one knows that until she's had time to recover. I am not letting all her work – all our work – come to nothing because Ron decided to try to play assassin."
"Talk to Blaise about the research," Draco suggested. "He found the rabbit spell, and now with Luna loose in his library – "
"Let her loose in the Manor," Daphne said. "Your family's collection of dark magic tomes is far more complete than Blaise's."
Draco nodded. "My mother is riding Pansy on the Wizengamot restructuring, so I know that project's going to go smoothly. Can you work with Astoria and Greg to get the 'Adopt an Orphan' campaign outline?"
Daphne took his hand briefly in hers. "I'll do anything you need – anything she needs. Just ask, Draco. We're all here for you."
. . . . . . . . . . .
A/N – Thank you, everyone, who's taken the time to read this increasingly not-so-little tale. I appreciate your time and your thoughts more than I can say without sounding like an over-eager little twit.
Luna and Hermione both reference Shakespeare's Sonnet 116.
I have tried to respond to all the logged in reviews; if I missed you it's mea culpa and I'm so sorry! Some responses to guest reviewers: PurpleDuck (I have the whole arc of Book Two mapped out so I have no intention of stopping anytime soon.), Maddi (Thank you so much!), Guest (thank you for the thoughtful, cut and paste reminder of the site ratings guidelines. The bit about body parts being pleasured made me giggle.), Guest (Neville has a long term role but he is, as Hermione says, a good person.), ecjmommy (Thank you so much!), jadedlady (Pansy is not, shall we say, the sharpest tool in the shed, is she?), Guest (Hard not to love turtles, especially when they illustrate issues of infinite regression), Guest (Grief can really destroy people.), dracosgirl007 (Well, I hope you were happy with Molly's experience here.), JennyFelton (Yes, Draco is now pretty much her moral compass.) just because u said so (I think people will be surprised by the decision Draco makes about questioning Harry), Evr'deen (nag. Nagnagnagnagnag, cheesy internet heart, what to do about Theo?), General Mac (Good guess.),