Author Notes
Prompt: Sunlight on hoar frost. Written for the Twistmas 2019
This fic is dedicated to Nekositting because, without her (and her đź‘€ whenever horror is mentioned), I would not have embarked on this madness.
Part I: May 2, 1998
Sometime in the afternoon
Cleanup took hours.
The day had dawned damp and grey. Now the meager light began to slowly fade away, leaving flickering dashes of orange candlelight dancing across the stone interior of Hogwarts and sending giant shadows looming again and again on the uneven walls. Dust kicked up from the earlier fighting was still settling; it created a thick smoky fog in the air that made everything seem fuzzy and slightly unreal.
Everyone seemed to rush about in a hurry, as though the routine motions could keep the sadness at bay. Earlier Hermione had separated from Harry and Ron, and now she could only watch helplessly as the older wizards and witches rushed about. Mrs Weasley seemed busier than anyone else, levitating sheet after sheet of cloth to affix over the windows, shielding the outside from view.
The bodies of the Death Eaters lay in the courtyard in a mass of black shadows. They were kept separate from the ones in the Great Hall out of respect for the winning side. Mrs Weasley probably sought to create a barrier between the two groups, and she was doing a good job of hastily covering up the former tapestries, singed in places, splattered with a gory spray of blood or worse in others.
Hermione dug her fingernails into her palms before focusing again on Mrs Weasley's efficient, familiar motions. She watched her for a moment before striding across the hall to her. "Can I do anything to help?" Her voice was tentative, almost inaudible against the bustle of the people.
Mrs Weasley paused only momentarily in flicking her wand through the air. The bleached white sheet hovered in the air for a moment like a monstrously tall ghost before, with a swish, Mrs Weasley sent it cascading over the tall windows. It passed over Hermione's head in a swirl of cold air, raising all the hair along her neck. Her reflection stared back at her with surprised, wide eyes before disappearing under the shroud.
"Tea, please," Mrs Weasley said without looking at Hermione. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she had aged twenty years in a day. "Hot tea. And lots of it."
Hermione nodded and made her way silently to the kitchens, glad for a task to focus her hands. The memory of inert, wide-eyed faces being covered up with fluttering white cloth still made her shake. So many dead. So much destruction. The courtyard where she had once spent many happy afternoons was in complete shambles, with one entire section of wall decimated to mere rubble.
In the fading red light of the setting sun, the heap of debris looked like malevolent gnomes watching and waiting for the chance to advance. The lifeless bodies of the Death Eaters strewn amidst so much black cloth looked like floating, dark shadows. Not for anything would Hermione have walked with the Aurors through that sea of hatred, tangible even in death.
Hermione's steps automatically sped up as she passed by the last uncovered window facing the courtyard. The hallway behind her was silent and still when she stopped in front of the kitchens. There was only the high-pitched screech of the door as she pushed it open.
At first, it appeared to be completely cast in darkness. Then, something caught the torchlight from the hallway, and she could see round, flickering globes floating about in the darkness. Her breath caught in her chest for one apprehensive moment when she heard a sudden shuffling sound.
She stepped back, her mind immediately racing back to the dark and cold presence of Dementors whisking through the air like giant moths. Her wand was up and out, and she shouted out, "Lumos!"
A mass of enormous, saucer-like eyes stared up at her as every House Elf in the kitchens looked up, frozen at her dramatic entrance.
Hermione blinked back at them, feeling suddenly silly at her fear. "I...I'm just here to bring up a tray of tea."
If she didn't keep reminding herself that the threat of Voldemort was over, she wouldn't quite believe it herself. For too long, he had been an amorphous, omniscient presence in her life, hovering at the outskirts of her existence, always ready to swoop in to hurt and maim and kill. She had never confessed to Harry and Ron just how wearing the locket had felt, how tempting it had been to just give in to the seductive voice whispering next to her ear. You were meant for more, Hermione. You know it just as well as I do. Give in to me. Give yourself to me.
In the dark of the night, there had been more. There had been a dark-haired boy who had watched her with a knowing smile on his pale face. We're the same, you and I. You don't want to be second to Harry Potter. You want to be more than his red-headed friend. You could stand with me and finally belong. We're the same. The same.
Lights throughout the kitchens flickered on. Through squinted eyes, Hermione registered that the kitchens were filled to the brim with House Elves, their eyes catching the light and making an eerie, reflected glow in the darkness.
For a long moment, nobody moved. One House Elf, with long frizzy grey tufts of hair sprouting above its batlike ears and some on his chin, stepped forward. "Hammy'll bring it up momentarily, Miss, if you'll just step abovestairs again."
Over the heads of the diminutive elves, Hermione could see that the House Elves had been busy in their domain as well. The arched inset windows above the stoves had been hung with cloth. Two House Elves were in the process of covering up the oven, blinking at her and holding up a sheet with a fraying fringe like long grey fingers.
"Won't that catch fire?" Hermione asked, eyeing the cloth in front of the oven and craning her head around to see. "It seems—"
The oldest House Elf moved into the line of her sight, blocking the furthest reaches of the kitchens from view. "That's wizard's business, Miss. Best you move along now. Tea'll be up in a bit, if you'll just wait for Hammy."
Without quite knowing how it happened, Hermione was ushered out of the kitchens, the heavy wooden doors closing loudly in her face. There was only the sound of voices carrying through the long corridor, the echo sounding like eldritch moans. Her cheeks burned with the dismissal.
She had never felt so alone as she walked by herself back down the long corridor to the Great Hall. There were deep scratches in the stone walls where hexes had been thrown, black scorch marks here and there that she avoided as though they were landmines.
She had thought that the loneliness would never abate when she and Harry had spent the most depressing Christmas in history last year. She was wrong. Even in a castle full of people, it was possible to feel like an outcast.
You won't be alone. Not with me. We're the same, you and I.
She swallowed, remembering that dark, seductive voice. How had someone half-dead, half-alive known the deepest reaches of her heart? How had it known what lay behind her loyalty to Harry, or what prompted her to take such risks? Belonging. It was such a silly thing, and yet it meant everything to her. Being first meant that she would always have a place.
No, Hermione told herself sternly. She did have a place here. She had friends here.
When she re-entered the hall, she paused momentarily on the threshold at the sight of families hugging and crying over their lost ones. Even Harry, who she had thought was just as alone as she was, was enveloped by a group of Ministry workers.
No, Harry was not quite alone and never would be. He had been left a legacy, perhaps the greatest legacy in wizarding England, even if it were also the saddest. They could never be exactly the same. For a moment, Hermione felt she had left her entire life behind to save this world that no longer had a place for her.
We're the same, you and I. The world is not enough for us.
She pushed aside the surge of self-pity and misery with effort and walked determinedly up to Mrs Weasley again, her wand held out at her side. "Tea's coming shortly. Are you sure I can't help with that?" Hermione nodded towards the stack of sheets lying across three chairs. Mrs Weasley had finished covering up the long line of windows that looked out onto the courtyard. For whatever reason, she had started on the opposite side of the room, where the Great Hall faced the Forbidden Forest.
Mrs Weasley looked up, her eyes focusing on Hermione, a deep groove between her brows. "Oh, no, you couldn't possibly," she said, shaking her head.
Hermione's breath caught in her throat, and she lifted her chin in an almost defiant manner, feeling quite as though she were about to break down and cry over this latest exclusion.
A hand caught her on the inside of her elbow. "Hermione, dear," Mrs Weasley said, her voice now less terse and much more gentle and soft. "It's not you, I'm afraid. It's—tradition, you see. Only the families of the—of the deceased—must do it. All the reflective surfaces must be covered when there's a death." Her mouth had been open to explain more, but her face crumpled, and her breath hitched loudly. "Excuse me, it's just—I'm not making much sense here, but—"
Hermione blinked back tears. She had been thinking too much, as usual.
Fred. His face had been frozen in the last smile of his life, with his eyes bright as though thinking of a clever invention. His life gone in a cast of the wand. Hermione swallowed back her pride and straightened her shoulders. "The mirror in the Hall," she said. "Should I lay out some sheets in the Entrance Hall for it?"
"Oh, yes, that's a good idea, dear," Mrs Weasley said, wiping her eyes with the corner of her shawl. "Just set it down there, and someone will get to it."
There was nothing to be done after Hermione set down the sheets on a chair outside the Great Hall. By that time, tea had arrived, and many of the workers stopped their labours to eat and murmur in low voices.
Hermione stood off to the side of the double doors of the Entrance Hall with her hands wrapped around a hot mug of tea. After an afternoon of dedicated clean-up, it was finally easy to pretend that the sea of dead bodies that earlier had lain carefully out in the Great Hall did not exist. Only a few hours ago, it had been an ocean of white, with the redness of injury immediately vanished away whenever it appeared. Only a few of the still, wrapped figures now remained.
The mirror in the Hall was still uncovered. Hermione glanced at it and watched as Ministry workers and Healers trooped through the Entrance Hall en masse to Floo through the fireplace across from the mirror. Nobody seemed to notice that it was still uncovered. By now, the castle lay swathed in a sea of fabric, with every window sealed from view from the outside. Every single portrait was similarly veiled, and earlier when Hermione had gone into the bathroom, she stared at bemusement at the long row of hastily covered mirrors.
Hermione wondered if she should call Mrs Weasley. It seemed such a small thing to hang the sheet that would cover this last reflective surface in the castle, but she was forbidden from doing so by tradition. She saw Mrs Weasley's rumpled reddish-grey head, and she took a step forward.
She stopped short. Mrs Weasley was sobbing in Mr Weasley's arms.
No, now wasn't the time to interrupt. Hermione subsided back against the cold stone wall, hunching over her tea, taking what warmth she could from it.
Across from her, the mirror in the Hall reflected back her image, and Hermione stared at herself for a few seconds before jerking her head resolutely away. She looked pale and drawn, with shadows stamped beneath eyes swollen with tears. She looked like an undead spirit herself, her edges blurred by a mixture of smoke and candlelight.
One by one, the covered vanquished dead were levitated through the front doors into the Entrance Hall, bypassing the Great Hall entirely. Each of them was wrapped in a black cloth, anonymous dark entities to be processed at the Ministry. They would be catalogued there. The ones living and injured had already been taken to St. Mungo's into the isolated ward.
The final floating body appeared with Harry Potter at its heels.
Hermione peeled herself off the wall as soon as she saw Harry stomp in through the doorway. His drawn face was screwed up in his customary expression of determination in the face of uncompromising figures of authority. "Wait a minute!" Harry was saying, wand rigidly gripped down at his side. "He should be disposed of here!"
Hermione's eyes flicked to the covered body.
Voldemort.
Covered with black cloth, this particular figure had seemed no different from the endless procession that had floated before it. Yet, going by the slight tremor in Harry's voice, there was no doubt who exactly lay beneath the fabric. Even though Hermione knew he was gone, and his band of Death Eaters was mostly dead or dispersed, she still shivered to be in such close proximity to his corpse.
Kingsley Shacklebolt motioned the other Ministry wizards to a halt as he stepped forward to speak to Harry in a low, calm voice. "Harry, we simply cannot dispose of his body here in the courtyard of the school." A few paces forward brought him close enough to grip Harry on the shoulder, bracingly. "The body reeks of Dark magic. You know as well as I that Dark magic must be disposed of in—specific ways. We cannot do that here, in the courtyard of a school that will continue to house small children."
Hermione wanted to cross over to stand with Harry, whose shadow was a lone, nebulous figure on the wall. During those interminable hours alone earlier without him, Hermione had felt lost. They had been inseparable for days, weeks, months. At times, she had wanted to kill him and then herself.
Now that they were free to go their own ways, Hermione wasn't certain of her place in the world anymore. Should she return to Muggle England? To what end; when her house had been sold and her parents were gone? This was the only home she had ever known. Even the Burrow had been razed to the ground.
Something in the moment between Harry and Kingsley forbade intrusion, and Hermione hung back. Even the wizards were standing to the side, murmuring in low voices, letting Harry and Kingsley discuss in semi-privacy.
Hermione wrapped her other hand around her mug of tea. May, she thought. The end of the school year. It should have been a time for frantic, last-minute reviews. This year, all her immediate plans for the future had ended in the early hours of today with the mission of several years in the making attained. The end of Voldemort; finally. She had started to believe it almost impossible.
They should all be rejoicing. Instead, she felt alone and adrift with the loss of an objective.
"At least—at least let me look at him," Harry said, moving forward. Kingsley's hand dropped to his side before he slowly nodded, once, to the other wizards.
Hermione tensed once she realised what Harry intended. Harry, no, she almost cried out but bit back her words. If there was anyone who deserved to confront the dead face of his nemesis, it was Harry. She steeled herself; the memory of Voldemort's grey, slit-eyed face across that foggy courtyard still had the power to make her shudder anew.
She had always known Harry was the bravest of them all. Not even she, with her stalwart shows of courage, wanted to look down on that pale, snake-like face.
Harry strode forward, pausing slightly when he caught sight of her. Hermione gave him an encouraging smile, although it slipped when she saw her reflection. She looked pinched, as if vitality had somehow been drained from her, but she ignored it and drew closer to Harry—friends seeking strength from one another. She grabbed at his hand, and he linked his cold fingers through hers as the black cloth was lifted gradually away, inch by inch of pale, grey skin exposed.
There was a hiss of breath, a wince of air—Hermione didn't know which one belonged to her and which came from Harry, but they were both now looking down at the deformed face of Voldemort. The man who had once terrorised all of England.
He Who Must Not Be Named.
Tom Riddle.
A nightmare that had just ended.
He looked grey and waxy, Hermione observed, her breath caught halfway in her throat. There was a dewy quality about the leaden skin that looked still—alive somehow.
Staring down at his face, she almost forgot to breathe. His red eyes were still open. The Entrance Hall seemed suddenly colder, as though the temperature had dropped.
She had never come this close to the actual wizard before. She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise.
It was as if Voldemort would suddenly launch up and at them—a fully-formed nightmare returned to life. Again.
He was dead, but his slit-eyed pupils still seemed alive. They took up so much of his face that it was as though they could still see; glassy, as though they would suddenly swivel in their sockets to focus on her. She felt it then, the waves of Dark magic rolling off the dead wizard so strongly that it almost stopped her breathing.
I am Lord Voldemort. The corpse seemed to be whispering to her through that half-open mouth. I cannot be conquered by death. Come with me, and you shall see.
Hermione's attention was so focused on the still face below her that she ceased to feel Harry tugging on her hand. She felt an answering pull in her chest. The fogginess in the room seemed not so much dust as it was vapor.
Breath from a man presumed dead.
Was the dead man even now smiling up at her?
Kingsley's hushed voice sounded as loud as a clap in the silence, so that Hermione jumped when he spoke and snapped out of her reverie.
"You see? He must be disposed off under the correct conditions," Kingsley said gently to Harry.
Hermione found she could breathe again. She dragged in gulps of air into her lungs. Her eyes remained riveted on the dead man's face, frozen by the spell of the moment.
"Yes," Harry said in a begrudging and defiant tone. His hand kept twitching around his wand, as though on the verge of casting a Dark spell to vanquish an undead threat.
Kingsley nodded to the wizards next to him, and they lifted their wands to cover up Voldemort's face with cloth again.
Hermione jerked her face away and met her reflection in the mirror opposite.
Then she blinked.
She wasn't—certain, but it seemed that, just for a moment, in the mirror, the dead man had not been reflected.
But that was silly.
He hadn't been a vampire. Furthermore, even vampires had a reflection when dead.
She blinked again.
No, she had been mistaken.
What she saw across from her, in the place where Voldemort's reflection would have appeared, was a crack in the mirrored surface.
The body was levitated into the fireplace, Kingsley following closely. He patted Harry's shoulder again as he passed and gave Hermione a smile and a nod. Then they all disappeared from view.
Hermione took a deep breath and met her own image in the mirror. Her face was fractured in two by the crack in the middle of the mirror. Was it her imagination or had the crack affected the quality of the mirror? On one side of the crack, her reflection looked infused with brightness—much too bright. Like someone who had drunk the elixir of life and was intoxicated by it. Suffused with too much vitality.
"Has that—always been there?" she asked Harry, lifting up her hand to point at the crack in the mirror. She had almost forgotten that she held a mug in her other hand, and the hot liquid jostled and spilt over her knuckles. She made a sound of distress.
"Oh, watch out." Harry quickly cast a drying charm and a soothing spell over her skin.
"Thanks." Hermione gave Harry a grateful smile. "You're getting good at that. Might turn into a Healer after all."
He shook his head a little at her words and took her mug away from her, sipping at the hot tea. "Are you alright, Hermione? We don't actually have exams this year, you know."
His tone was teasing, and Hermione rolled her eyes a little.
Across the hall, Harry's reflection was unblemished; smooth and loyal to its counterpart.
Later, when Harry was called back into the Great Hall, Hermione walked up to the mirror to touch the place where the crack had appeared to be. Her fingers traced lines down over her reflection. Perfectly smooth, as was her face. Not a crack in the glass, which made it even more likely that she had imagined the entire thing.
The pane felt slightly warm and even—sinuous. Like touching the fabric of someone's shirt instead of glass.
That couldn't be. She was imagining things. Or perhaps the breaking of the wards and subsequent spellwork all over the castle had rendered the mirror wonky.
A brush of her fingertips against the wide antique frame jolted her. The cool edges of the dark, chipped wood were such a contrast to the fevered glass. She jerked her hand down to her side, clenching it into a fist, and backed away slowly.
She needed coffee, not tea, and lots and lots of sleep.
Part II: December 31, 1998
After dinner
"— Tommy had a diddle.
Played it till he piddled.
Expel-liar-mus
Potter killed—"
"Shut up, you imbeciles!" came a low, carrying voice full of venom.
Even though Hermione was not a prefect for her returning year, old habits died hard. When she came out of the Great Hall, the sounds of an altercation automatically made her look up. Draco Malfoy was facing off against two boys half his height. She sighed and paused on the threshold.
"Let go of him, please, Malfoy," she said in the mildest tone she could manage.
Malfoy's shoulders stiffened at the sound of her voice, but he dropped the first year's arm before straightening to face her. There was a sneer on his face, and his eyes glittered like hot coals.
Hermione almost wished she had left things alone. She had gone half a year without having any problems with Malfoy—or with anyone, really. It was terrible to have to end her streak now, towards the end of the winter break, but she couldn't in all conscience let someone like Draco Malfoy manhandle young children.
"Do you know what he was saying?" Malfoy asked her, his posture very aggressive.
She almost took a wary step backwards, but she was already standing quite a distance away from them. She paused for a moment to puzzle out his reaction. Was he taking his age-old jealousy of Harry out on little boys? It seemed odd when he had gone almost the entire year with a straight face through all of the accolades heaped on Harry's absent head. "Of course. It's a rhyme that they've come up with."
The rhyme actually ended with the children pointing at each other and shouting "Tom Marvolo Riddle" as fast as they could, with the person who finished last falling down on the floor as though dead. Most times all the children who played the game ended up in a laughing heap on the ground.
Harry had approved of using Riddle's name in a silly childhood rhyme. About time people started using his real name, he said. The only part he disliked about it was how his name was pulled into the ditty. Why? he moaned.
She and Ron and Ginny all immediately replied, "Because you're the Chosen One, Harry!"
Then they all laughed while he groaned. It had been their own little ditty.
Malfoy was not laughing now. Clearly, he did not approve.
Hermione surveyed him. His fists were clenched at his sides. No wand, so at least he wasn't striding through the halls casting hexes left and right. The word was he was wielding a dampened wand, but no one knew for sure, and nobody wanted to test him. He was much the same this year as she had remembered him in sixth year—just as silent and angry, only bigger and more threatening; a dark, menacing presence prowling the halls. Everyone kept a safe distance from him. No one dared approach him to talk. He spoke to no one in return. It was a good policy.
She was ruining it now.
On the other hand, they were still technically on break. She had returned a day early because she wanted to get started on going over her applications for next autumn. She had a lot of plans for her future.
"They're just kids," Hermione said, not moving an inch and sounding as impassive as possible. She was also keeping her wand sheathed, relying on Malfoy's grasp of the current political atmosphere to maintain the peace.
Where were all the professors when you needed them? That was right—half of them hadn't returned yet. Most notably, Headmistress McGonagall had returned home for the day and would be back after midnight tonight. There was a prickle of coldness on the back of her neck at the thought.
"They should be more careful of what they say. Tell them, Granger," Malfoy said, his eyes almost dark in the flickering light of the fire.
Hermione blinked. He sounded almost imploring. As though importuning her to understand and heed what he was saying.
It was cold in the hall, and Malfoy's face and neck were a bright yellow torch set upon the black cloth of his robes with not even his Slytherin scarf to dilute the somberness. When he wasn't moving, his figure blended into the shadows, and he appeared like a floating head. His hair was brushed back from his forehead, and his profile appeared as hard as a die-cast coin. He seemed slightly unreal.
She didn't immediately respond, and he stepped forward. Out of the corner of her eye, something moved—his reflection in the mirror. A glance sideways found that his image there was dark and sinister. She was almost surprised to turn back to the real person to find Malfoy's hair as blond as ever.
"Don't you know the power of a dead man's name?" he said, his voice a terse whisper. "It should never be spoken aloud, especially since he was a Dark wizard."
Nothing she had ever read made mention of this. It was, ironically for the man standing in front of her, a strictly Muggle superstition.
There must have been an expression on her face, something mildly disbelieving and sceptical, because Malfoy's face hardened, and he seemed to stand up a little straighter. "Fine," he said, spitting the word out. "I should have known that a—" he cut himself off abruptly with a flattening of his lips.
Instantly Hermione was on her guard, no longer languid with the memory of holiday cheer. "A—what , Malfoy?" Her tone was just as hard and unyielding.
His mouth was pulled downward in an unattractive sneer. "A fucking swot, Granger. A swot who only believes things that's written down so she can quote it verbatim in all her applications for the Ministry."
Hermione stiffened. Earlier that month, she had been called out by Professor Vector for doing that in her application letter. How would he know about it unless he had eavesdropped on her private conversation with a professor? She squared her shoulders and didn't even register the two little boys stealthily moving past her towards the stairs, their steps picking up speed and sound as they went.
"I should have known you'd be back to your insults once you opened your mouth, Malfoy." She folded her arms over her chest defensively. "You haven't changed a bit."
His face froze at those words. His eyes flickered, and his throat moved soundlessly once, twice. "Look—there are things you don't know—"
The clock began to sound, cutting him off.
Once.
Twice.
They stood in their silent standoff, not making a sound as the clock continued to strike off the hour. The bell resonated in her bones.
Nine o'clock. An hour later than when dinner usually ended during term.
The few people who had stayed at Hogwarts over the break had stayed in the Great Hall tonight, chatting and lingering over the meal, talking about the classes that would resume in two days. Tomorrow, students would start to trickle in until the school filled up for the spring term. The year would officially end in less than three hours.
The reverberations of the clock faded away to leave them standing in the same taut silence.
"What don't I know, Malfoy?" Hermione asked.
"The Dark Lord—"
"Tom Riddle," she said, cutting him off. The words felt strange in her mouth, leaving a stinging sensation as if she had just licked a freshly formed icicle. She was surprised to not see vapour in the air.
The sound of the name lingered in the air like an incantation, shimmering slightly before fading away into silence. There was a ringing in her ears as though someone had struck a triangle—a high-pitched sound that almost felt like a buzzing. A vibration that jolted her slightly, as if she was suddenly shifting in between worlds in the familiar pull of Apparation.
Across from her, Malfoy hissed in a breath of air as though he had been burned by the flames in the fireplace. He swayed slightly on his feet. A hand was lifted halfway to his head like he was similarly jarred.
In her confusion, she licked her lips and said it again, softly, to herself. "Tom Riddle."
No, that time it did not have the same feel as before. That time, it felt as normal as it had every other time she had said it before, in discussions with Harry and Ron, and even with Remus and Tonks.
Suddenly, she felt the urge to look over her shoulders. The feeling that someone was hovering just behind her, about to tap her on her arm, was suddenly overwhelming.
When she turned, she found no one there. There were just the two of them facing off in the cold draftiness of the Entrance Hall, listening to the wind howl outside.
Malfoy's eyes were squeezed shut at her words, the only sound coming from his mouth a soft sibilant whisper through his teeth. "You shouldn't have said that." He looked like he was in pain, a deep groove etched between his brows. "You don't even know what darkness lies on this day. Don't you know what day it is?"
All the hair on Hermione's neck stood up straight at his question, and goosebumps rippled down her spine. New Year's Eve, of course. Yesterday, she had celebrated this day with her friends, staunchly refusing to think about all the times a long time ago she had rung in the new year with her parents. It had never been anything else but that for her. December thirty-first was New Year's Eve and nothing else.
Or was it?
Malfoy's lips twisted at her wide-eyed expression, his cheeks indenting harshly when he saw the implication strike her. "Yes. The Dark Lord's birthday. Speak not of the dead before the year of their death is up. Speak not of the dead on the day of his birth. Keep your vigil for their soul still roams the earth, seeking for recognition. Keep still for the soul has forgotten but will come when called. "
"He's dead," Hermione said, as firmly as she could manage it. There was only a little quaver in her voice.
She had seen his dead body. They had destroyed all the Horcruxes. Voldemort was not coming back, ever. The voice she sometimes heard, that dark, inviting voice, was all in her head.
"They confirmed it. They destroyed the body at the Ministry. It was reported in the Prophet and on the Wireless."
She hated how uncertain she sounded, how defensive. It must be the lateness of the hour. She had been up since the very early hours of the day, and now it seemed as though the Entrance Hall was hazy with smoke from the fire. She suppressed the shiver that crawled up her spine, the tickling sensation at her back that told her someone was watching her.
Watching them.
Malfoy's figure seemed nebulous in the firelight, like two bodies instead of one. Hermione blinked away the blurriness in her eyes. A movement in the mirror caught her eye, and she turned her head. The castle was definitely smokier tonight, because she could see once again a crack in the surface of the mirror, this time lengthwise.
A long, jagged line in the reflective pane that bisected Malfoy down the middle.
The break must have damaged something in the old mirror, because her image was blurry, as though someone had placed a film over her reflection.
Her reflection was awash with light; her edges blurred and faded. Light that shouldn't have been there in the dimness of the Entrance Hall this late at night. Hermione glanced hurriedly away, her actions feeling as slow as though she were moving through sludge. The Malfoy standing before her and his reflection appeared as two separate people. Her reflected self felt strangely different, like an alternate, otherworldly version of her.
"How many times has the Prophet reported his death? I hope you know what you've done when it all comes back to stab us in the back." Malfoy's voice seemed to come from very far away, although he was standing only a metre off. He made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and scoff. He looked angry, the muscle in his jaw standing out clearly in the flickering light.
Then he walked away, his shoulder clipping her as he passed.
There was no one left in the Entrance Hall when she waded her way towards the staircase, and her movements felt thick and dull.
She couldn't help but glance backwards to make sure that no one was behind her, watching her every step.
Part III: January
In the days that followed, the feeling of being watched intensified.
She would sit in class, pen poised to take notes, and a cold chill would work itself upward from the base of her spine. She'd whirl around with beetled eyebrows directed at the person behind her, and they would always inevitably look startled and a bit intimidated by her hostile expression.
Once she turned in class and met the gaze of Draco Malfoy. He stared back at her without expression. She faltered momentarily before she narrowed her eyes in irritation.
Then, surprisingly, he smiled at her.
It transformed his appearance entirely. It was as if he became a different person; one who wasn't angry at the world and ready to fight every battle that came his way. Someone that might have been, in a different life, someone pleasant to befriend.
Hermione was so taken aback she whipped her face away immediately, her heart pounding. Never in her life had Draco Malfoy ever smiled at her before. Perhaps he had smiled around her, but usually it was in connection to a taunt or a hex being thrown around. This smile had been—slow and... flirtatious?
Blood rushed to her face.
No, surely she was imagining it.
It threw her off enough that she only partially paid attention to the rest of the lesson that day, and she bitterly regretted having been caught off guard.
"Why was Malfoy smiling at you in class today?" Ginny asked her after they were dismissed for lunch.
The question completely threw her for another loop. Surely she had imagined it. Ginny, too, seemed to have popped up from nowhere. Something began to hum inside her ears at the same time, distracting her. It felt as though she had water in her ears; sound came at her from a long distance away.
"Well?" Ginny was prodding her with her wand.
"That's weird," Hermione said and paused as her voice sounded uncommonly distant even to herself. The muffled sounds made her sleepy. "Did you—do you hear a ringing in your ears?"
Ginny gave her a strange look. "No. I don't. Are you avoiding answering my question?"
"I'm not. Really." Hermione tilted her head to the side. She tapped the spot under her ear experimentally. "I think I've got water in my ears." How strange. Hermione began to hop on one foot, pointing her defunct ear down to the ground.
Ginny was not deterred from her topic. "He hasn't spoken to anyone since school started, and now he's smiling at you? He probably knows that he's persona non grata and that he needs to ingratiate himself to you now." She hoisted her bag higher onto her shoulder and grabbed Hermione's elbow. "Be careful. He gives me the willies."
In the midst of being hauled out of the classroom, Hermione stopped in her tracks. "Malfoy gives you the willies?" To her knowledge, Ginny had never been afraid of anything in her life. She threw herself from great heights atop a broom, screaming with laughter the entire time.
"He doesn't give you the willies? He was like a stone statue when school started, but now he—I don't know. He stares at people. He doesn't do anything, but he stares and he smiles. It's a bit creepy."
Hermione turned this information over in her head during lunch. At the Slytherin table, Malfoy had one section all by himself. There was nobody sitting within two arm's lengths of him; there hadn't been since school started. As the only returning Gryffindor, Hermione had felt a reluctant twinge of sympathy and fellow feeling. Surrounded by classmates who discussed Quidditch games with the fervor of the addicted, she had often felt left out. It felt infinitely lonelier without the buffer of Ron and Harry and Neville. How much more did it affect Malfoy, when he had been part of it all and now was excluded from the games? He didn't even have a Ginny to offset the isolation.
Or perhaps he was better at maintaining indifference than she was. His composure was enviable as he chewed on his fish cakes with every semblance of enjoyment.
Maybe he was ever so slightly bothered, because he left before dessert was served. He hadn't spoken to a single person in all that time.
Hermione wasn't an expert on all things Malfoy. Other than that one encounter at the end of the winter break, they hadn't spoken to one another at all. She couldn't be completely convinced the smile had been for her. It had probably been aimed at something behind her or towards the teacher. Even if it had been, it wasn't exactly the standard for creepiness.
The ringing in her ears abated with the departure of Malfoy; perhaps the chewing helped. The conversation moved on from Quidditch practice to the weather and Hogsmeade weekend. It would be the first time the school allowed them to go since school began. Hermione had no idea how it looked since the war ended.
Ginny turned an eager face to Hermione. "You know what's really strange. The mirror in the Hall has started speaking. It's never spoken before, but now it's practically hissing."
"Hissing?" Hermione repeated, distracted. The ringing had returned all of a sudden. She wondered if she was developing tinnitus. Statistically speaking, she was rather young for this problem to occur, which was another problematic worry. Not only that, a pulse had begun to pound rapidly behind her brow. Something about this conversation was important, but between the headache forming within her skull and the ringing in her ears, all Hermione wanted to do was to leave the table to lie down.
Ginny's voice seemed to come from a long distance away. "Somebody said it's Parseltongue...but no one can confirm it. The only person who has spoken it any time this past fifty years was Harry, and he doesn't even understand it anymore." Ginny peered at Hermione. "Are you alright? You look a bit funny."
"I'm sorry," Hermione said, her fingers pressed against her forehead. The pulse felt as though it were about to jump right out of her head. "I need to—rest for a moment."
She clambered ungracefully over the bench and made her way unsteadily out of the Great Hall, bracing a hand on the stone walls as she rounded the doors. As soon as she had passed through the archway, the pounding headache began to fade to a low thrum.
Her head began to clear. Odd, that. She wasn't immune to the occasional headache, but one that came and went, accompanied by buzzing, was new and potentially worrying. A side effect of stress from the previous year? Very possibly. Her cycles were still not back on track.
She found herself drifting through the Entrance hall, and then she looked up to find herself in front of the mirror.
Ginny had been saying... something about it. Something was significant about all of this. Why this mirror, exactly? It was the one silent mirror in the entire castle, perhaps in all of Wizarding England.
Hermione tried to focus, but it was as though the thought of Ginny set off the ringing again. She could feel it coming on again, faintly, like the distant warning bell of an approaching train.
Perhaps there's something about mirrors in the Restricted section. After all, nothing explained the talking mirrors that everyone just took for granted. It would be an interesting topic to explore in her free time, something to offset the Muggle superstitions about mirrors.
She looked up and met her own eyes in the mirror. Nonsense, her reflection seemed to say to her. Your imagination is running away with you. The voice was soft and seductive.
That's right, Hermione thought fuzzily. Where was that crack now?
Slowly, as though in a trance, Hermione moved closer to the mirror. It was bright and clear; a really beautiful antique mirror. She had never truly noticed it before. It had been just another oddity in this large castle full of fun and alive objects. Amongst the many magical artifacts, this mirror was staid and inanimate, so old that it predated the discovery of magic. Who knew why it even took center place in the Entrance Hall? Nothing in Hogwarts: A History even mentioned it.
Her image shone back at her with no pallor to the skin, no greyness to the face. In fact, she looked—peaceful. None of her other reflected images had showed her this. There were no customary double lines of worry at the bridge of her nose. No dark exhausted circles around her eyes. Her expression was happy and dreamy.
She moved even closer, her fingertips light on the glass, as though through mere touch, she could absorb the happiness emanating from her reflection. Unwittingly, a smudge formed under her fingers, a translucent line of condensation from the heat in her hand. Five oval fingerprints lingered on the glass even after she removed her hand, slowly fading away into nothingness.
Dreamily, she watched as the mark under her pinky finger stayed in place, fogged up through heat. How curious, her reflected image seemed to say with calm detachment. The condensation from that mark began to expand, forming into a shape.
The shape of a large handprint where she had not touched it.
Hermione's thoughts were swimming. Thinking was like wading through a bog. She was aware that she should be alarmed, but the minute she thought that, the thought dissolved and swam away.
She stared at the handprint, and then, as if compelled, she lifted her hand and pressed it into the larger handprint.
It was warm to the touch.
Yes. Touch me.
Shivers of pure ecstasy raced up her spine. She was almost paralysed by a paroxysm of unadulterated elation. Being wanted like this was a drug of unparalleled intoxication.
We're the same, you and I. Wait for me.
She stood there for a moment, arching her neck and breathing deeply. She had never inhaled fresher air. Thoughts of her parents, of Ron and Harry having fun without her, of her uncertain plans for the future, all faded away.
We belong to each other, Hermione Granger.
Something in the back of her mind jerked to awareness at her name. Her body responded sluggishly. Hermione Granger; that was her. Know-it-all, swot, scary but brilliant—all the various things she had been called throughout her life shook her from that lovely reverie.
"Hel-loooo!"
Hermione jumped, her hand falling away from the glass as she whipped her head around.
A familiar cackle sounded behind her, followed by the familiar clanging of the metal armour falling to the ground. Peeves. Her heart gave one enormous thump and began to slow.
She backed away from the wall, looking warily for any sign of Peeves and his mischievousness. She shook her head, feeling dizzy. It was as if she had risen from a prone position too suddenly, but she hadn't been sitting, had she?
Something—something had happened just now, but she couldn't remember what. Something strange and suspicious. Something she should be wary of.
As soon as she thought that, the ringing in her ears began to peel, louder and louder. Something was not right with you, she told herself dimly.
Ginny had been saying something to her—something that had to do with Malfoy. And the mirror in the Hall— this very mirror behind her—
She could not concentrate over the thrumming inside her head. The voice grew smaller and smaller as she pressed both palms to her ears and temples, feeling as if her brain would pulse free out of her skull. It took everything within her to slow her breathing.
"There's no one here," she said softly to herself. She was imagining all of it. It was nerves from the year before. No one was watching her. She was perfectly fine.
The ringing started to decrease.
There was nothing at all wrong with the mirror. Nothing at all. Hermione turned back to look at it. All at once, she was certain of it. This lovely old antique thing was impervious to Dark magic. Ginny was talking gibberish, as always.
Peeves floated by again, hallooing down the hall with his usual boisterousness. He rounded back and ghosted through a student, who made a predictable shout of annoyance.
Through the mirror, she could see that the student Peeves had danced through was an older male student. Someone tall with dark, wavy hair and a ready smile just for her. Hermione turned around to reciprocate with a word of commiseration.
She stopped short at the sight of Draco Malfoy.
He shot her a single, cold sideways glance before he whisked his way towards the front doors, brushing the front of his robes as though Peeves had sullied him somehow. A blast of icy cold air blew in through the opening as he pushed open the door.
When Hermione turned back to look in the mirror, all she saw was the back of Malfoy's head, as blond as sunlight on hoar frost.
Part IV: February
The Astronomy class began a section of advanced Astrometrics and Cosmology. It was a subject that deeply fascinated Hermione because so much of the subject matter crossed with the Muggle principles of Astrophysics.
As with Potions class, they needed lab partners for most of the work.
When Hermione walked into class that day, she was almost late because she had been discussing Transfiguration with the new professor, Barnaby Dankworth. It had completely slipped her mind that they were partnering up in Astronomy that day.
All the tables and seats were filled up, with the exception of the chair next to Draco Malfoy. He alone dominated his table. Hermione couldn't help but sneak a glance at him. He's creepy, Ginny had said, but he hadn't done anything strange or weird. He was, Hermione was beginning to believe, a victim of circumstance.
"Over here," Padma said to Hermione, waving her over to her table.
There was an empty chair pulled up between Padma and Anthony Goldstein. Padma and Anthony had been partners in Astronomy since sixth year. Just last week, together the three of them had all discussed possible project topics for this class, and Hermione found that they had the same study routine. She flashed them a smile and made her way to the vacant seat.
"I've got it figured out," Anthony said in a low voice once Hermione had sat down. "There's an odd number of us in this class, so there will be one group of three. I reckon if we're already sitting like this, we'll automatically be assigned together."
It was a good plan. Hermione swiveled her head to look around the room. This course had half the number of people of the normal class, with only nine people.
Her eyes were drawn once again to Draco Malfoy, who sat in the back of the classroom, his blond head glinting in the sharp sunlight cast through the window. Without moving, his lashes lifted and he stared straight back at her.
Hermione snapped her attention to face front again, feeling her face flame.
"Alright, everyone," Professor Sinistra said, emerging from the back room. "Are we all partnered up? Good. The first thing we need to do is—yes?"
Everyone's head swiveled around to look at Malfoy, whose hand was raised in the air. "I don't have a partner, Professor."
Professor Sinistra's eyes swept over the class. Padma hunched her shoulders and whispered across Hermione to Anthony. "Who's missing?"
Anthony frowned around the classroom before muttering under his breath. "Caleb. He was supposed to return a week after the holidays, but he's still absent."
The professor's eyes fell on Hermione's table to take in their huddled figures. "Alright. One of you pair up with Mr. Malfoy, and we'll decide what to do after Mr. Murphy shows."
Hermione didn't immediately move, but when neither Padma nor Anthony made a sound, she stood up abruptly. Her chair screeched loudly against the flagstones.
"Ah, thank you, Miss Granger." Professor Sinistra nodded briskly and approvingly at her before turning her back to the class to gesture at the chalkboard. "Now, let us go over the project details…"
"Sorry," Padma whispered to Hermione.
Hermione smiled tightly and stacked up her notebook and her textbook, ignoring the feeling of being left out. She wound her way through the tables to where Malfoy was sitting, watching her approach with unblinking regard.
Her heart was pounding with anticipation. Anthony's helpless shrug and apologetic smile bypassed her completely.
All her attention was drawn to Malfoy as though held there by a spell. She couldn't look away, even as a voice in the back of her mind said she should stay away from him. A low hum started ringing in her ears.
Why? she wondered dreamily. Why must the world be against this poor soul, who had done nothing wrong?
Her breath came and went, and the side of her that faced Malfoy felt almost ecstatic with awareness. It was almost painful when she had to concentrate on what was written on the blackboard.
Gradually, as Hermione bent her head down to copy the notes, she began to lose her awareness of the boy next to her. When the teacher referenced a page in the book, all her attention was thrown into the familiar routine of lecture and classwork. Things like Ginny and Malfoy and even the mirror were thrown to the back of her head as her brain raced to connect information to tie into the project in front of her.
When class ended, she glanced up.
She was almost shocked to find Malfoy next to her. A dark, brooding presence that instantly had her stiffening up in alarm. She shouldn't be partnered up with him. There was something about him that just seemed—off. That sensible voice inside her told her to put as much distance between them as possible.
Their eyes met; Hermione about to push back her chair, and Malfoy with his eyes locked squarely on hers, watching her as though he were a cat waiting in front of a mousehole.
She froze in the midst of throwing back her chair. It began to topple over backwards in slow motion.
It would have flipped over entirely had Malfoy not moved with panther-like speed to catch the back of the chair in one hand.
"Have a good day, Miss Granger," Malfoy said in a cool voice as he set the chair back down on all fours. He flashed a small, impersonal smile before he straightened and left the room.
Hermione couldn't believe what she had heard. She stared at his retreating back.
For all her initial apprehension, it turned out that Draco Malfoy intended to be the perfect lab partner.
At first, she had kept her eyes down and averted her face away from him entirely. Without eye contact, she remembered, many of the mind spells are completely without efficacy.
He broke the silence first.
"Are you—afraid of me, Granger?" he asked. His voice barely audible against the clamour of the conversation of the other students discussing the finer points of their project.
Her reaction was swift and knee-jerk; not for nothing had she stood beside Harry Potter in the time of deepest peril and right up to the end. "No." She jerked up a defiant chin to face him. "No, I'm not afraid of you." This time her voice was less defensive, less abrasive, more soft and yielding. She felt as if her voice was coming from someone else. Her ears started ringing.
He didn't say anything at first; only continued to stare at her with intent, speculative eyes. Then, "Good," he said, his voice a featherlike caress. It passed over her cheek, stroked the side of her neck, and suddenly she was breathing heavily, awash in the pleasurable sensation of his approval. She wanted to bask in it, like one would in warm summer rain after a long drought. She wanted more.
Yes. More.
"Good."
When Draco Malfoy smiled at her, she couldn't look away. The intensity of her emotions took her breath away. Something in his beautiful eyes told her that he was someone to believe and trust, someone to love.
She wouldn't be lonely anymore.
Part V: March
"So you say he's been nice to you?" Ginny said through a bite of the beef stew. "And please be honest. Harry thinks you aren't telling him everything."
Hermione had learned to ignore the ringing in her ears whenever she spoke to Ginny. They didn't see each other that often during the day, only at mealtimes if Hermione wasn't caught up with her studies at the library, or just before bedtime. Ginny was similarly busy with all of her duties as Quidditch captain and prefect, and she had her own friends in the same year, all excited about their graduation in the summer.
They had been close once; very close. Until, Hermione supposed, Ginny became even closer to Harry. It wasn't like Ginny excluded Hermione in any way; it was just when a friend started dating someone, they naturally had less time for you. That alone shouldn't have made Hermione angry at the prying note in Ginny's voice, but she found herself resenting Ginny's intrusion, and a hot heat of animosity began to churn in her stomach. "He's been very nice to me," she said, trying to keep her voice even. "He even calls me Hermione."
At the beginning of their partnership in Astronomy, Draco Malfoy had called her Miss Granger. That had been jarring and oddly old-fashioned. It had startled her with its civility. He had never called her anything but Granger and sometimes much worse.
His formality had never happened again. In retrospect, she wondered if she had imagined it. Something about the way the expression on his face flickered told her that her surprised reaction had not gone unnoticed by him.
"That's really weird," Ginny said, chewing her food thoughtfully.
There was nothing wrong with the way Ginny ate her food, or there never had been, but suddenly, Hermione was awash with a sudden wave of hatred for the girl. Stupid, idiotic girl—Potter's little girlfriend—
Hermione jolted back to the conversation with a start, breathing hard.
"You alright?" Ginny asked, her fork frozen halfway to her mouth.
Hermione gave a shaky smile and bent her head over her plate, letting her curls cover her profile. Her heart was pounding heavily. Part of her wanted to tell Ginny how she had started to feel about Draco, how he made her feel wanted and less alone, how both of them had doubts about what was to come after graduation. It wasn't the same for Ginny, who already had offers from professional Quidditch teams and who had her older brothers to help pave the way for her if she decided to get an office job.
Part of her didn't think Ginny could understand. How could she? She had never understood what it meant to be so utterly alone. Even Harry had admitted that Ginny sometimes yearned to just take off into the wide unknown—something that Harry simply couldn't understand.
We're in the same boat, Draco had said to her once . It was true, even if a moment later he had looked elsewhere as though abashed at his spoken thoughts. Both of them were adrift in this sea of uncertainty, unsure of what would come next. At one point, both of them had their destinies written down for them, carved inexorably into the future: he would follow in his father's footsteps of a top-tier Ministry consulting gig, and she would go to a Muggle university to appease her parents and "round out" her education.
It was so different for Harry, who had his career, his relationship, his residence all settled for him.
"It's just that you've been really off recently," Ginny leaned towards her, and her eyes were puzzled and worried. "I know that you're worried about your future after Hogwarts, but there's no way that anyone would turn you down for a job."
What did she know? She doesn't know what it's like to feel so utterly alone, to be by your best friend's side when both of them were hungry and cold, and then have him just leave her behind. It smarted; it really had.
Hermione's chest felt uncomfortably tight. Sometimes she felt so angry at Harry, at Ginny, at the world, that it seemed that her brain was divided in two; two different, warring voices each telling her to do something else.
"I'm fine." Her own voice sounded deafening out loud and strangely unfamiliar to her own ears, and she masked her inner turmoil by smiling coolly at Ginny. "I'm not worried in the least."
Ginny drew a deep breath and didn't look away from Hermione. She carefully placed her fork down on her plate with a tinny clink. "Hermione," she said. "We should get a pass to go visit Harry and Ron next weekend."
The tightness in Hermione's chest grew. The anger was back; resentment burgeoning at the younger girl's presumption. Ginny was exactly that—younger, a year below. She was angry at Harry for not bothering to write to her about this, and she was annoyed at the stupid ringing sound constantly in her ears.
Across the hall, her eyes met the clear grey gaze of Draco Malfoy, and he smiled a small, wry smile at her.
At once, the doubts within her stilled. Her breath came a bit easier, though the anger and resentment still simmered. "Why can't he come see us?" Hermione asked. "Since he's the big, bad Auror now."
"We talked about this at breakfast," Ginny said, now looking worried. "You had a letter from him just yesterday, don't you remember?"
"Letter?" Hermione repeated. Letter, letter, letter. Had she received a letter? She couldn't remember a letter. Across the hall, Draco had stopped eating, and his eyes were narrowed at her. Having him there, noticing her distress, was an anchor—someone else cared about her problems. She mattered to somebody.
Hermione smiled back, her shoulders relaxing. "Harry's letter. Right, sorry, my head's just up in the clouds."
Ginny's eyes sharpened, and she lifted her head to look across the Great Hall. Draco's attention wandered away from them, and he reached across the table for a roll, his movements languid and graceful, like a panther strolling about, sated after a meal.
"Is it Malfoy?" Ginny asked in a low voice, turning her profile to the other tables and letting her long, straight hair fall over the side of her face. She swivelled her body so that she was facing Hermione on the long bench, her hand obscuring her mouth from the rest of the room. "Does he—have something on you? You haven't been yourself since you started labbing with him."
Hermione's eyes drifted, crossing the Hufflepuff table and, through a crack between bodies, making contact with Draco again.
"People can change, you know." Hermione's voice had an undertone of steel, and she tossed her curls over her shoulder and raised her chin. She felt staunchly defensive of Draco. It seemed to her that she was always standing on the side of the victim against a Weasley. At one point, she had been Harry's only friend when he had felt ostracised by Ron—and yet there were so many moments when the two boys were together that she felt left out. "You don't know him. He's had a change of heart. He's different now."
There was a long moment in which Ginny stared at her. Hermione stared over at Draco and refused to let her fingers fidget with the cutlery. Across the hall, Draco stood up from the table and left the hall. A part of Hermione yearned to follow him, and her breath came and went faster. Her eyes tracked his progress and his disappearing figure, watching him as he grew smaller and smaller; a ray of light that vanished from her sight.
She turned her attention reluctantly back to Ginny.
"I mean," Ginny said slowly. "I know he was secreted in the Headmistress's office for hours one weekend and, when they came out, she even called him Draco. It's possible he's changed. I'm just not convinced that it's for the better. Something..." Ginny trailed off, frowning thoughtfully. "Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels—I can't put my finger on it exactly."
Hermione let out a derisive scoff. A person shouldn't just be judged by the mistakes he had made in the past. Draco Malfoy was civil and polite to her; wasn't that already something? If he could get over blood prejudice to tell a Muggleborn that her theory of immortality as derived from singularity was inspired, then wasn't it a sign of better days to come? Hermione had lent him a Muggle book on hyperspace, and he had thanked her, not decried it as lowly and inferior.
He had changed. Turned over a new leaf. Determined to do better somehow.
To her knowledge, the old Draco Malfoy had never been half so interested in Astronomy other than being in the tower on the night he almost killed the Headmaster.
Even his mannerisms towards her were different. The way he tilted his head and surveyed her with his arms braced across his chest in a politely deferential manner. Or how he would chuckle gallantly at someone's bad jokes.
The old Draco Malfoy had a way of throwing back his head to sneer down the length of his nose in the same way his father did. He had never found anything amusing, unless it was the joy of watching a peon embarrass himself. Then his lip would curl upwards at one side in his signature sneer.
Hermione thought back to the first defining moment that marked just how substantial the change was. It was when she began speaking of necromancy. It may have been a banned Dark art, but it was fascinating how it had utilised ley lines and star configurations to bring up the dead. There was something admiring in Draco's eyes as he listened to her.
Then, "You're rather brilliant, do you know that?" he had said. He proceeded to smile and tug one of the curls lying on her shoulder.
It struck her at that moment that she had had the exact same conversation with Draco Malfoy before, and he had loudly decried her status as the teacher's pet when she was all but studying Dark arts. Oh, the hypocrisy of it all, he had sneered.
He was different now, and it was a good different. They had all changed, after all. Why was Ginny being so difficult? Why was it only wrong for Draco to have changed? Why was it wrong for Hermione to befriend him? Was it so wrong to want to believe in the best of people, to think that they were capable of becoming a better version of themselves?
"His father died just this past weekend," Ginny now said in a conversational tone of voice. She reached across the table for a roll and broke it up to sop up the stew left in her bowl. "That's why he was gone on Monday."
The news hit Hermione with the force of a bludger.
"Did he tell you that?" Ginny asked, watching her closely. "Since you're such good friends now."
There were two different voices in Hermione's head again. One was the softer, weaker voice, with logic riddled with holes. She had been ignoring that voice for quite a while now. It was insisting that she listen to Ginny; that Malfoy had started term cold and angry and prejudiced. The difference, it said, was too great, too sudden. Wake up, Hermione, for the love of God. WAKE UP.
She shook her head, dismissing the intrusive thoughts. Draco valued her as a friend. How had she missed that information this week? Probably because he hadn't wanted to burden her with it. He was all solicitousness, wasn't he? She had been so involved in all the changes in curriculum this past week that she hadn't even read the Prophet as closely as she was wont. Someone sitting next to her every other day had lost his father, and she hadn't reached out to express any sort of sympathy.
"He must feel so alone," Hermione said, half to herself. Her eyes drifted to the double doors through which his figure had disappeared.
She bought a hand to her throat. She had joked with Draco this week. She hadn't even given him a word of condolence; not a smile of sympathy. Just their usual jokes about the classwork. On the other hand, he had seemed surprisingly alright, hadn't he? Those same slow smiles. Not a frown or a grimace out of him to indicate that he was bothered by the death in his family.
But very possibly that was her conscience seeking to absolve itself.
Ginny's usual empathy seemed nonexistent when discussing Draco. She shrugged and chewed on one side of her face. "Well, he still has all those vaults and gold to keep him happy."
Hermione bit the side of her mouth to keep from tearing into Ginny. "How—how did it happen? Lucius Malfoy, I mean."
"I'm not sure," Ginny said, grabbing another roll. "They're saying that his heart must have given out. There wasn't a mark on him."
"He was so young." Hermione shook her head. Something about what Ginny said burrowed into her consciousness: none of that generation of wizards had died of natural causes—
The ringing in her head returned, blaring at full volume. She almost didn't catch Ginny's response.
"Maybe he was Avada'd," Ginny said with a prosaic shrug. "It doesn't leave a mark, either."
How Lucius died wasn't the foremost issue on Hermione's mind when she made her way up the stairs to the Astronomy Tower after dinner. All her attention was on the lean, dark figure looking out over the Hogwarts grounds, his robes billowing around him. He looked like a king surveying his domain and subjects.
"Hello," she said tentatively, stopping at the entrance and not daring to walk further in. Would he welcome her company?
Draco turned around to glance at her before turning back to look out over the balcony again. His hair was the only bright spot in the entire room of shrouded darkness. Her eyes flashed to his face, seeking for traces of depression and hidden grief.
"I heard about your father," she said, her finger flexing on the strap of her book bag. "Er, I'm sorry that he's gone."
There was something like bridled sadness in the tremor that worked its way across Draco's shoulders. She could tell he was gripping the rail of the balcony very hard by the line of his arms; a man warring with his inner emotions.
Think, Hermione. She suddenly felt as if cold water had run down her spine.. Something about all this was tied together; if only she could think. Ginny had been saying something about Draco's father, changes in Draco, and-and—
Draco turned to face her. His face was a mask of calmness again, revealing none of his former unsteadiness.
Hermione felt her suspicions melting away. Her ears stopped ringing and she drew closer to him automatically. She stopped only an arm's length away from him, warmth undulating through her body. Her face angled up to stare at him, and he smiled faintly down at her, his curved eyelids unmoving and aloof. His hand slowly lifted to brush against her cheek.
Hermione felt a ripple of pure ecstasy and longing shudder through her. Every time he touched her, she felt fresh. Renewed. Rejuvenated with new purpose. She had to close her eyes and bite her lip to prevent herself from crying out. She would do whatever this man required of her.
"He was a coward," he said. "Much too compromising in his beliefs." He walked her backwards so that they stood in the shadow of the large astrolabe. In the darkness, only his eyes glittered. She felt a shiver of rapture. "Just like the old Draco Malfoy."
Surprise didn't even register at his use of the third person. It was just something he did, now and again. All to distance himself from the former him, if only Ginny—and everyone else—could understand it. But they would. They all would, if she had anything to do about it. Draco Malfoy would be completely accepted and loved in society if she made up her mind about it.
He shook his head slightly. "Cowards, all of us," he said with a small smile that seemed a little dark and twisted. "It's what comes of this lot of Slytherins."
She felt paralyzed and rooted in place. He was now encased in darkness. Pitch-black though it was, Hermione was dreamily aware of how different he looked. It was just another aspect of him that she found entrancing. Even the slant of his nose seemed less pointy and less Malfoy-ish. His jaw seemed broader, and the lines of his smile seemed more relaxed and certain.
"You're not a coward, though," he whispered to her, and his voice was like a warm caress over her hair, "Are you, Hermione? You would kill anyone who threatened your loved ones. You would kill to protect them."
Her response was a sibilant whisper in the dark. "Yes," she said, and it came out sounding like a vow. "For you, I would."
Something in the back of her mind, a tired small voice tried to speak up, to repeat what it had been telling her time and again.
His smile was a curve of white in the darkness. "Then I suppose we won't have any more of these," he said.
Hermione didn't react when he reached into his robes and pulled out a sheaf of letters. Idly, she registered that they were all written in her hand. She could see Harry's name across the top. The handwriting was strange, hurried and frenzied, but unmistakably hers. HELP, stood out in all caps amidst the scribbling. She couldn't remember when she had written them, but it didn't seem strange in the least that he would have them.
Wake UP, Hermione, that faint and dying voice urged inside of her. It was being drowned by the louder, more insistent buzz in her ears; like the reverberations from a struck gong.
She lifted her eyes up to meet Draco's eyes, those dark, glittering unfathomable depths. When she blinked, it was as if nothing had ever spoken to her. She was staring at someone who fascinated her with his contrasts and changes; the most interesting man in the universe. She was unable to look away, to take in anything else around her. Comets could have fallen around her, and she would still have marveled at his perfection and the rightness of his speech.
"No," she said dreamily. "We won't have any more of that in the future. Whatever you want is what I want." With her wand, she set the letters alight as he dropped them.
The letters burned as they fluttered in the light evening air. Yellow-gold scraps and blackening ashes floated around them as they stared at one another, bound by something stronger than friendship. Something like— belonging.
"You're mine," he said simply. "Aren't you?"
He had a hand clasped around her upper arm. In the darkness, Draco's hair was as dark as the night. When he smiled, there was a charming indentation in his cheek that she had never noticed before. Draco Malfoy was not someone she would have suspected to have dimples.
"You're the reason Harry Potter was victorious," he continued in a low, warm, hypnotic voice. She felt a tickling sensation against the side of her neck and realised that he had lifted her hair up in his hand. There was a brush against the front of her robes as he moved against her without touching anything but her hair. "How glorious you are, Hermione Granger. How delightfully wicked. Oh, yes. I've seen into your mind and what you're capable of, and I want it all. You and I, we belong together. "
Hermione had ceased to listen as the closer he drew to her. There was something oppressive and heavy in the air. She was drowning gloriously. Even his words seemed to come from very far away, as indistinct as if he had been talking through water. A sense of pure euphoria encased her. She closed her eyes as he drew near and his head lowered. Just before his lips touched hers, Hermione lifted her eyelids just a slit to peek at the man kissing her.
She had been right, she thought almost sleepily. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen. He even smelled different—not the expensive soapy cologne that Draco Malfoy usually favoured, but the sharp scent of incense and woodsmoke. In the darkness like this, the normally unseasonably pale Draco Malfoy became a child of darkness—dark hair that waved over his brow, a face as perfectly proportional as a Greek statue, and a smile to devastate for the ages.
Surely, it wasn't just the rose-glasses of hormonal lust. He—simply looked perfect.
He smiled and kissed her, soft and drawn-out, his eyelids lowering in sensuous languor. In that moment, it was as though her consciousness floated up over their clinging figures to stare down with perfect cognizance at what was happening.
Something was wrong with this picture, a very small part of her mind whispered sadly. Barring the incongruity of someone like Draco Malfoy kissing someone like her, she should have been seeing a curly-haired girl kissing a tall blond boy.
Instead, there was a dark-haired boy with his arms wrapped around the form of a petite young girl. Her figure looked strangely intangible; as ephemeral as mist, as though she were fading along the edges. A mark on her back glowed and pulsed in time to her heartbeat.
The Dark Mark, she thought and accepted it as fact. It was right; it was fated. It belonged on her.
In the next moment, Hermione was back in her body. She languorously stepped back into the light of the moon. He followed, slowly. Inch by inch, slice by slice, the light transformed him back into the elegant figure of a platinum blond Draco Malfoy. A wave of her wand lit the room and sent the shadows scurrying back into the corners, further banishing any memory of Draco looking like anyone else.
A dream man with dark eyes and dimples.
Tom Riddle.
Hermione blinked at the name, and then flushed as the man in front of her smiled down at her, and drew a gentle thumb over her lips. The name was—familiar, somehow, but she couldn't remember just where she had heard it before.
It was his smile, she decided. It distracted her. She didn't know why she had ever thought that it seemed off. It was a part of him, something that she saw as regularly as she saw her professors. "Shall we begin?" Hermione asked, feeling unaccountably lightheaded. Her voice sounded like it came from very far away.
When he smiled, Draco's eyes shone with an opaque light that seemed as intrinsic to him as his dimples. "Let's."
It was a few hours later when they made their way all the way down to the ground floor and crossed through the long corridors to stand in the Entrance Hall.
"Thank you," Draco said with gentlemanly politeness. They faced off towards one another, hands clasped together as though at any moment, they would dance off into the night. "Thank you for a wonderful evening."
Hermione nodded in agreement. She felt breathless and happy.
Draco's eyes followed her movement, and he flashed her another of those oh-so-charming smiles, the kind that lit up his eyes. "Goodnight, then, Hermione."
He squeezed her arm lightly before someone further ahead in the stairwell yelled something. Draco moved towards the sound in order to investigate, the very image of a responsible student.
Out of habit, Hermione glanced at the Entrance Hall mirror to check her appearance. She looked positively suffused with heat; her cheeks glowing and her eyes a bit glazed with the enchantment of being with someone wonderful. Soon, everyone would know about him, about them. She couldn't wait.
Just behind her was the reflection of a tall, blond boy, walking with long, sure strides. Hermione glanced away from the mirror to look at the Draco disappearing from view through the archway of the stairs. She was reassured when she saw his much darker head in the shadows. Malfoys had been brunettes for generations; everyone knew that.
When he turned back to look questioningly at her, she smiled back and hurried to catch up to him.
Behind her, on the mirror, letters slowly began to form on the glass, as though someone were painstakingly writing them from the inside with the condensation that formed from human breath. The words were backwards, but if someone had held up another mirror, they could have seen what appeared:
"Save me, Granger."
Acknowledgements:
Thank you so much to the people who helped me work this creepfest around. Disenchantedglow and Kahcicamera were invaluable cheerleaders and betas who saw this fic when it was barely a string of words. Jamethiel, as always an A+ beta/alpha, helped to make everything ten times creepier and thematically relevant. If you have horrible images after this (and I hope you do), you can thank her.