June 30, 1998
On a grassy hillock near the shore of the Black Lake, Hermione leaned back into Malfoy's chest, watching fluffy white clouds chase across a bright blue sky. It was the type of sunny afternoon that came around like clockwork with the end of the school year, an afternoon that made her wish she could stay at Hogwarts just a little bit longer. This year, the wish was particularly acute. Not only was her schooling finished, but she would be accompanying Draco to his family's manor, a place where she had been tortured and that Voldemort had commandeered as his headquarters.
She shivered despite the warm sunshine. In response, the warm arm around her shoulders tightened. "Alright there, Granger?" he asked in her ear.
"I just can't believe exams are over," Hermione said, turning around to face him.
"Not even you would be upset about the end of exams," Malfoy observed, grey eyes shrewd. But he did not press for what was really troubling her, probably because he knew it. Instead, he stole a quick kiss, indifferent to their audience.
"My head hurts from thinking," Goyle groaned. "I think I failed everything."
"Not after Hermione's tutoring, you didn't," Neville reassured him. "Trust me - her methods work. She's been helping my marks since I was a firstie."
"I can't believe we still had to take NEWTs, with Carrow dead and everything," Blaise groused.
"Why not? We still took exams at the end of last year after Dumbledore died, and he was much more of a loss than Carrow," Hermione noted. Too late, she felt Draco tense up behind her. He hated reminders of what he had done - and failed to do - up on the Astronomy Tower. She wondered how things would have been different if he had taken Dumbledore's offer of sanctuary. Or killed the old man ...
"And we took OWLs at the end of fifth year, even after someone tricked our acting headmistress into the Forbidden Forest, so she could experience a gang bang with the centaur herd," Malfoy snarked, nipping her neck.
Hermione whirled around to face him. Not surprisingly, he was smirking at her. "Umbridge deserved it," she hissed.
"You two are so well-matched," Blaise laughed.
"I don't know what you mean," Hermione said stiffly.
Blaise grinned at both of them "Please, Granger. You're too intelligent to play stupid with me. You and Drake are perfect for each other. Who would've thought the Dark Lord could play matchmaker?"
"Fuck off, Zabini," Draco suggested. "He wasn't matchmaking. The Dark Lord gave her to me as a prize, a pet." His mouth twisted at the last few words, as though they tasted sour in his mouth.
"Our relationship, such as it is, ends when the war ends," he concluded.
Hermione shrugged his arm off her shoulders, feeling inexplicably hurt. She was only sleeping with Malfoy on a regular basis, serving as his co-conspirator, as well as his confidante and emotional support when the expectations that came with being a Death Eater got to be too much - but of course he would want nothing to do with a Muggleborn like her once the war ended and pureblood witches like Pansy Parkinson and the Greengrass sisters decided to come back to wizarding Britain.
"I agree," she said coolly, proud that her voice showed so little of her feelings. "Our relationship ends when the war ends," she echoed.
Blaise looked from her to Draco. "Bollocks," he said. "You two can name your firstborn child after me instead of some supernova. In the meantime, what about some Firewhisky to celebrate the end of our Hogwarts education?"
"I've got some in my trunk," Draco offered. "It's the good stuff."
"Of course it is," Hermione rolled her eyes. Nothing but the best would do for her spoilt Slytherin prince.
"Well, let's go and fetch it," Blaise suggested, smacking his lips in exaggerated anticipation.
Draco gently dislodged Hermione from his lap and stood up. "Goyle, Longbottom - stay here with Granger. We'll be right back."
The two larger boys looked up from their game of Exploding Snap and nodded, Goyle with all seriousness and Neville with a shrug at Hermione's annoyed huff. Draco's insistence that she always have a guard with her was a constant irritation. She also knew that his paranoia about her safety - and maintaining appearances that she was a prisoner- would only get worse once they were residing at Malfoy Manor.
She lay on her back in the grass, idly finding shapes in the clouds. The warm sun encouraged her to doze off, especially with the late nights she had put in recently, cramming for NEWTs and engaging in various extracurricular activities with Malfoy. She was very nearly asleep when a nudge on her hand roused her.
"What is it?" she asked sleepily, expecting to see Draco's grey eyes meeting hers, a glass of Firewhiskey in hand, or perhaps Neville with a question.
No one was in her line of sight. Draco and Blaise had not returned, and Goyle and Neville were occupied with their explosive card game several feet away, well out of touching distance.
She felt another nudge and looked down at her hand, choking back a startled scream at the snake. From its distinctive tan and brown pattern, she knew it was an adder - Scotland's only native snake, and a venomous one at that. Slowly, Hermione reached for the wand in her skirt pocket, stopping as the snake hissed and stared at her with green eyes, bright like emeralds.
"Harry?" she whispered. In a decidedly human movement, the snake dipped its head - his head - up and down in a nodding motion.
Hermione reached out a shaking hand to stroke the top of his head. "Luna told you were often a snake, but I forgot when you startled me." She had nearly cursed her best friend.
The snake - Harry - leaned into her touch, confirming that it was he. Adders were shy snakes, and ordinarily struck when humans tried to handle them.
"Hermione, what are you doing?" Neville asked, his voice low and scared.
"Be careful," Goyle rumbled a warning, eyes wide as he reached for his wand. "It's poisonous!"
"It's Harry!" Hermione said urgently, still petting the little snake. "Look at his eyes!"
"Blimey!" Neville said, crouching down to confirm the snake's eyes were emerald green.
"Can he talk?" Goyle asked.
Harry raised his head and hissed something at him, shaking his head at the Slytherin's stupidity.
"Just Parseltongue," Hermione said shakily, not sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. "I suppose we'll have to make do with yes or no questions."
"Uh, that's not what I meant," Goyle said, his face pink with embarrassment. "Can you give him letters or something so he can spell, to make sure it's Potter? It could be someone's familiar."
She gave him a considering look before conjuring a brightly colored child's alphabet board. "That's very clever, Greg. On both counts."
If anything, he blushed more deeply. "Er, thanks."
"Can you make out the letters?" she asked Harry, concerned he would be unable to see without his glasses. The snake nodded, and Hermione asked her first question. "What form does your Patronus take?"
"S-T-A-G." Harry flicked out his forked tongue, touching each of the letters.
Goyle coughed to get her attention. "A lot of Death Eaters know that. Can you ask it something else?"
The snake hissed in annoyance, but Hermione thought it was a fair point. "What does your aunt call your cousin?"
The snake's eyes gleamed in what might have been amusement. Then it spelled out the correct answer: "D-U-D-D-I-E-K-I-N-S."
"It really is Harry," Hermione confirmed. "No Death Eater would know that."
"What in Merlin's name are you doing, Granger?" Malfoy drawled, as two pairs of well-shined shoes appeared in Hermione's peripheral vision.
Zabini snickered. "I think he's jealous. Drake only wants his pet snake sharing your bed."
"It's Harry," Hermione explained. "He's in snake form right now. We're trying to communicate with him."
"That's Potter? And I thought being a ferret was bad!" Draco sounded gleefully amused rather than sympathetic. Hermione was not surprised when Harry hissed at him and opened his mouth to show his fangs.
"Boys," Hermione muttered in disgust.
"Oh, you know I'm very much a man," Draco smirked, pulling her to her feet and flush against him.
This time, Harry struck at the blond wizard's ankle.
"Stupefy!" With Blaise's quick wand work, the snake fell to the ground, limp and unmoving. "You owe me a life debt, Drake!" he crowed.
"Not quite, wanker." Draco pulled up his trousers, revealing dragonhide boots. "Potty's little chompers couldn't have got through this."
"Neville, could you hold Harry, please?" Hermione requested through gritted teeth. At the moment, it was a toss-up as to whether she was more annoyed with Harry or Draco.
"Hold on, Hermione. Let me get my gloves," Neville said, rummaging in his school bag. "Good thing Herbology was my last exam." He pulled on the dragonhide gloves, which extended up to his elbow, then picked up the unconscious snake. "Okay, bring him around."
"Reenervate!"
The gloves were a sensible precaution, since Harry unthinkingly struck at the hands that held him, his adder's fangs glancing harmlessly off the tough dragon leather.
"Harry James Potter!" Hermione scolded. "Stop that! You need to control your temper. We're just trying to help you!"
Like a cat, Harry butted his head against Neville's hand in a wordless apology.
"There will be no more attempts at biting, do you understand me?" she demanded. "Including other snakes."
Harry looked in Malfoy's direction and hissed in protest.
"Draco is not your enemy - he's certainly not mine," Hermione said definitively. She reached behind her, grabbing Malfoy's hand to make her point.
The little snake hissed again in displeasure, but nodded.
"Now we need to figure out what to do with you, how to get you back into a human body," she mused.
"There are certain rituals," Draco said, squeezing her hand, "but they are Dark."
"I don't know if we have much choice," Hermione said unhappily. "Harry, what do you remember about the spell Wormtail used in the graveyard?"
Harry thrashed helplessly in Neville's hands.
"Put him down, Nev, so he can spell it out," Hermione suggested.
"B-O-N-E - " Harry began, painstakingly.
When he was done, Hermione bit her lip in thought. "Bone of the father, flesh of the servant, blood of an enemy," she summarized. "The ingredients are disgusting, but not that hard to come by. We don't know how to recreate the potion in the cauldron. And we'd need to make you into a homunculus first . . . I need to research this."
Draco's hand on her wrist stayed her from dashing off to the library. "Hold on, Granger. I know your knickers are damp at the thought of one last romp in the library with me, but we need to figure out what to do with Potty the Snake first. Who's going to take him when we leave Hogwarts tomorrow?"
Harry hissed in protest. Not being a Parselmouth, Hermione could not tell whether he objected to the nickname or Malfoy's proposition to her. At this point, she and Draco had defiled most of the tables in the restricted section, and she had gotten quite familiar with how certain sections of the stacks felt against her back as she was being pounded into them. But Harry couldn't possibly know that.
"He'll stay with me, of course. He's my best friend," she said.
Malfoy shook his head, tightening his grip on her wrist to capture her full attention. "Not possible. We're not taking a snake who reeks of magic back to the Manor. The Dark Lord will have Potty bound as his new familiar faster than you can say 'Nagini.' And if he figures out his new pet is Harry Potter, he'll kill us all."
Hermione nodded in reluctant agreement. From the steely look in Draco's grey eyes, she knew he would not be budged on this - and he was right. "What about Neville, then?"
Malfoy shook his blond head. "What's that Muggle saying about putting all your eggs in one basket? There's still quite a bit of scrutiny on the Longbottoms, too. Potty will be safer with Greg or Blaise."
"My mum hates snakes. She'd never let me have a pet," Goyle said wistfully.
"My mum is in Italy, and couldn't care less what kind of wildlife I bring to her London flat, so long as it doesn't soil the rugs. Think you can manage that, Potty?" Blaise asked the snake.
Harry hissed something in Parseltongue that Hermione felt certain was an insult to Zabini or his notorious mother, but he also nodded in reluctant agreement.
"Well, that's settled!" Malfoy clapped his hands. "Blaise, go and find a terrarium or some sort of carrying case for you new pet."
"He'll need food, too," Goyle interjected. "He looks hungry."
"Mice?" Draco suggested, hopefully. "Rats?"
Hermione elbowed him. "Harry will have strips of cooked chicken."
"Nothing but the best for my ickle snaky," Blaise agreed.
"Ickle snaky? Like the one in your pants?" Draco laughed.
"Fuck off, Malfoy," Blaise suggested, still amiably.
"Oh, I intend to," Draco smirked. He turned back to Hermione, an anticipatory smile on his lips. "Ready to do some more research with me in the restricted section, Granger?"
A/N: Special thanks this chapter to TequilaMockingbirdWrites (love the pun, not to mention the review), and to LeiaKitten, because I like it that people are thinking enough about the story to point out plot holes. In this case, Luna can see dead people if they are in her presence, but she can't cross the Veil to visit Dumbledore and can't physically get into Hogwarts to visit his portrait, which is just a talking painting in any event. Many thanks to everyone else who reviewed, too!
