Author's Note: Thank you to all you wonderful people who have favorited, followed, written a review, or have just read the first chapter. I am so excited by the feedback so far! I hope you like this next chapter as well :)
All the love in the world to my alpha/beta team mcal and lightofevolution. And another downpour of love to HeartofAspen just because 💙
Her stare followed him for the next week. Meals, class, the library. Everywhere he went, the watchful gaze of Hermione Granger seemed to be right there with him.
He knew what she was looking for. Confirmation. The witch had never been one to sit well with unanswered questions, and he had left her standing in the sixth floor classroom with no answers and only a hunch. Granger could track his every move, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of catching him struggling with his wand. He had become a master at avoiding use of his wand in public and had no intentions of breaking that streak now.
To his small fortune, the majority of classes they shared together didn't jeopardise his reveal. Potions, Runes, Arithmancy — none of them required the use of a wand in regular class practice.
But Charms did.
A week had now passed since their last true encounter, seven days closer to the exam with no sign of significant change with his wand. He arrived in class and dropped the required textbook on his usual desk. Instinctively, his eyes drifted to the front row of seats. The one in the centre was still empty with only a minute before class began. But if Draco was curious where its typical inhabitant was, he needn't ask long.
The chair beside him slid backwards, soon filled with a certain blood boiling witch.
He sneered. "Sure you'll be able to handle class without your nose right in front of Flitwick?"
"I'll manage just fine," Granger said, not a single drop of hesitation. "Sure you'll be able to handle the spell we're practising today?"
She canted her head in challenge, and a trace of panic began to prickle at the under-used magic inside of Draco. He turned to read the chalkboard. As feared, the board was covered with Flitwick's notes outlining the non-verbal Concealing Charms they'd be practising on buttons today.
"Shame it's not wandless magic, don't you think?" A pleased grin now spread her lips. "But I think I'll find this topic much more informative."
Draco said nothing. They both knew how difficult it was to get even the most willing wand to follow non-verbal directives. Class would be an indisputable disaster.
The day's lecture seemed to drag on, though Draco paid little attention. His mind was too set on the wand that would inevitably once more fail him, this time, for all to see — including Granger.
When the dreaded time for practice finally came, her button disappeared after minimal tries. Not that there was ever any doubt otherwise. And as equally predictable, the same was not true for Draco.
One, two, ten, twenty. Each attempt was unsuccessful. Yet when nothing but meaningless sparks continued to emit from the tip of his wand, Granger didn't make a single remark. No quips. No taunts. No comments at all. She just watched him, as though he were something new for her to analyse. That was somehow worse.
"Mr Malfoy, are you sure you're mentally pronouncing the spell correctly?" Flitwick asked after witnessing another one of Draco's failed castings.
Rising frustration hardened his expression. "Quite positive, sir."
Flitwick peered at Draco's wand. "This isn't Dogwood, is it?"
"No, sir," Draco said, wishing the professor would leave him alone already. "Hawthorn."
"Ah, then there shouldn't be any issues with its ability to produce non-verbal spells."
Draco forced back a snarl. "One would think."
Flitwick nodded, contemplating for only a moment before stating, "Then I suggest you spend some extra time this week practising your spellwork before the exam. Non-verbals can be very tricky!" He offered a smile before flickering his gaze to the witch still beside Draco. "Perhaps you could learn something by watching Miss Granger."
It was as though the small wizard was aiming to torture Draco.
"Yes, sir," he forced out.
When Flitwick turned from them, Draco braced himself. Surely, Granger would have some snotty remark after that. Boss her way through an explanation about how even with an uncooperative wand, all it took was proper concentration, if only Draco tried harder. He'd seen her lecture Weasley and Potter like this countless times. Why miss the opportunity to now disparage Draco in the same way?
Yet all he found was the stern look of deep thinking etched across her brows.
Mercifully, class ended moments later. He was spared from whatever conclusion she was about to make.
Draco shoved his textbook into his bag. "Satisfied, Granger?"
He pushed his way past the other eighth years and into the rush of the crowded corridor. Younger students instantly moved out of his way, but he couldn't lose the pattering footsteps following close behind.
"I could help you!"
Draco whipped around. "I don't need help."
"Class today proved otherwise."
Ice trickled down his veins. "I already told you," he sneered. "Mind your own business. "
His robes billowed behind him as he sharply turned from her and stormed off. Pounding tension pulsed inside his temples, sure to sprout a headache later. All he wanted was to retreat back into his dormitory and be rid of her.
He only made it three more steps before her shout bounced off the stone-lined walls.
"It's not your wand wood that's the problem!"
Draco halted and immediately jerked his head around. "What part of "Mind your own business?' do you not understand?"
Yet no amount of snarls seemed able to deter her. Eyes never leaving his direction, Granger closed the space between them, her chest mere inches away from the shallow breathing of his.
"It's not your wand wood," she repeated. "It's your unicorn core."
The muscles in his neck and upper back tightened. There wasn't an ounce of doubt in her resolve. None. She said it so plainly, so clearly, as though she had just provided him with the key to solve the puzzle. One session of sitting next to him in class and she now thought herself an expert in what he'd been researching for months?
His upper lip began to twitch. "How fortunate you must be to always have the answer to everything," he jeered, hand quaking by his side. "Or must what you say be true because Potter's booksmart know-it-all deems it so?"
Finally, she broke. Her expression promptly shifted as her cheeks flared red. "If you're going to be a jerk about it, then forget it," she bitterly snapped, any trace of magnanimity now gone from her eyes. "I was just trying to be nice. Not that you deserve it. You clearly haven't learned a thing from the war if you still think it's better to close yourself off and refuse the help of others."
Granger turned to stomp away, but an unsettling feeling was now twisting his stomach. That inexplicable need to prove himself a changed man, to prove to her that her opinion of him was wrong, had resurfaced, and his opportunity was slipping out of reach the farther she got.
He lunged out and reached for her hand. "Wait."
Wide surprise alerted her gaze as she looked back to see Draco's hand holding hers. Her vision lingered on the connection for only a flicker of a moment before Draco promptly dropped it and Granger blinked herself back to focus.
Draco's tongue felt heavy, but he managed to push the words out anyway. "I— I need your help."
She narrowed her eyelids and canted her head ever so slightly, as though waiting for the catch. But Draco didn't say anything else. She was right; he needed help.
"Meet me outside the Entrance Hall at ten minutes past curfew," she eventually concluded. "And don't get caught this time."
...
The sun had long ago dipped behind the Scottish Highland, the dark sky now sprinkled with a casting of stars. A nighttime breeze flew through the air, and Draco secured the latch of his cloak as he peered back at the castle's main entrance, waiting. It was now a quarter past nine, and Granger still hadn't appeared.
Budding doubt began to torment him. Had all this been a set up? A second chance at getting Draco out of bed past curfew so she could actually turn him into McGonagall this time? That was certainly the type of trick Draco would pull. But Granger wasn't like him. If she was going to turn him into McGonagall, she would have done it the first time. Yet for whatever reason, she hadn't, and now, she was supposedly trying to help him.
Bloody Gryffindors.
Finally, she appeared through the arched doorway, a book cradled by her side.
"What took you so—"
Granger shot him a sharp glare that cut his words short. She tugged him into a nearby shadow and took out her wand.
"Stay still," she whispered before tapping the top of his head with the wand's tip.
The cold trickle of a Disillusionment Charm ran down Draco's body like an icy water bath. Within seconds, the charm had fully spread through his body, blending him into the surroundings. She quickly did the same to herself and still without explanation, pulled Draco to follow her past the castle and across the grounds.
"Where are we—"
"Shh!"
He was tempted to hiss something back, to make a snide remark about her not letting him complete a thought, but he forced his lips closed. She clearly had a plan, and as much as he hated to admit it, Granger's plans tended to work.
They walked in silence as the castle grew further into the distance. Draco's mind worked through the possible places she was leading him. Was there something she needed from the giant oaf? Or did she just want to meet in a place where they wouldn't risk being seen? He wasn't sure.
He was leaning towards the first theory, yet they didn't stop at the Groundskeeper's hut. No, they kept walking — straight towards the Forbidden Forest.
Draco halted. "I'm not going in there."
"Yes, you are," she firmly directed. "Trust me."
Draco couldn't withhold his resulting laugh. "Trust you? Under what circumstances should I so blindly trust you? The last person you led into the Forbidden Forest was nearly stampeded to death by a herd of centaurs!"
"That was Umbridge's own fault for inciting the centaurs to such a rage," she plainly defended. "Besides, she deserved it."
Draco huffed. "And I'm supposed to believe you don't think I deserve the same, if not worse?"
A stilled silence hung over them as the question lingered unanswered. In their Disillusioned state, he couldn't even see her face to gauge her reaction. But Draco didn't need to physically see her to mentally picture it. She may be helping him, but he knew her feelings towards him hadn't shifted. All she had to do was confirm it.
After several seconds, her response finally came.
"No, I do not."
Draco's incredulous stare shot to the space where he imagined her to be. "You… don't ?" He blinked, trying to get his grip back on reality. "How can that possibly be true?"
A thin exhale came from her direction before her wand appeared from within her camouflaged robes and removed the charm. She averted her gaze even though she still couldn't see Draco. "You didn't identify us at the Manor."
His face fell. "Yes, I did," he said, voice tight as he recalled the incident. "I confirmed it was you and Weasley."
"I know," she said, a small choke in her words. "But only after your parents recognised us first. I— I could tell you didn't want to."
Draco swallowed, remembering the day all too vividly. The unceremonious throwing of the prisoners on the drawing room tiles. The dirt and grime that caked their skin. The panic in her eyes when she peered into him, a silent plea not to betray them.
Suddenly, he understood.
"Is that what this is?" Draco asked. "Your way of saying 'Thank you' for me not turning you in?"
She still didn't meet his eyes. "In a way." She gathered her curls and pushed them over one shoulder. "But I also don't think it fair that you have to go through this school year with an uncooperative wand after all the help it gave Harry."
Right. Because everything had to relate back to Harry fucking Potter.
But Draco didn't voice his dissent. She didn't see him as the absolute devil, and for now, that would suffice.
"Alright, Granger." He stepped in front of her so she could remove the Disillusionment Charm on him as well. "Then do you care to explain why you've taken me here of all places?"
She tapped the concealed object resting on her arm, and the book she had brought with her returned to sight.
"Because it's how we're going to get you rebonded with your wand."
Her words were absolutely certain, but Draco didn't get his hopes up. He'd spent all summer trying to find a way to do precisely that and had come up with nothing. Yet she had managed to find the answer in a matter of hours? He highly doubted it. Not even Hermione Granger could be that good.
He caught a glimpse of the book's cover before she began leafing through it, but it wasn't a title Draco recognized from any of his prior research. It wasn't even one of the books whose spines he had been longfully eyeing within the Restricted Section. No, she had somehow gotten ahold of a completely different tome, one that appeared centuries old.
The book levitated mid-air as Granger delicately flipped the pages. Curious to see for himself, Draco examined it over her shoulder and scanned the contents. Everything was laid out in elaborate detail with accompanying drawings and diagrams, much beyond anything he had been able to get ahold of on his own. It was more than just the basic description of woods, cores, and lengths; it went into the theory, the craft.
"Where did you get this from?" he asked.
Granger didn't look up from her turning. "Ollivander let me borrow it for the semester."
Draco let out an incredulous laugh. She said it so simply, as though it was no big deal that Wizarding Britain's premiere wandmaker had lent her what was clearly one of the family's ancestral trade books.
"A little light reading between studying?" he quipped.
"I was merely curious to know more about the subject," she said. "After wandlore played such an integral part to the end of the war, I wanted to learn more about witches and wizards' relationships with their wands."
How convenient. But Draco was in no position to taunt or complain. Her curiosity just might be his saving grace.
Her page turning paused on a page with a drawing of a unicorn with a flowing mane. At the top was scribed, "The Purity of Unicorn Cores. "
"I've already read about the properties of unicorn cores," Draco said, hoping this wasn't all Granger intended to show him. "Produce consistent magic, least susceptible to fluctuations and blockages, and—"
"Is most resistant to Dark Magic."
Draco tensed. "I was going to say that they did not make the most powerful of wands, but that is also true."
"But it's the Dark Magic part that must be relevant here," Granger insisted. Her tone grew solemn. "Face it, Malfoy. You did things your wand wasn't designed to do, and it broke the trust you had with each other. It likely only got worse when you became the owner of a different wand and then Harry of yours."
"Because unicorn core wands are also the most prone to melancholy if mishandled," he said below his breath.
"Precisely."
Draco reached into his pocket and grasped the handle of his wand. None of this was news to him. Even before Granger had declared the core as the source of his problem, he had suspected this to be the case. Retrospect had made it evident that the more he tampered with Dark Arts, the less his wand responded. It didn't matter that Potter had let Draco disarm him in order to regain the Hawthorn wand's allegiance. The damage and mistrust Draco had incited between him and his wand ran deeper than that.
Yet clarity of the source of the problem didn't solve matters. His wand still didn't work.
The looming height of the nearby forest cast their long shadows across the grass. She had led him to the Forbidden Forest for a reason — to get him rebonded with his wand.
The pieces clicked together. "What does that book say about unicorn core wands that have been tainted by Dark Magic?"
Granger flipped to the next page, pointing to a list of steps. "It says here that the only way to fix it is to do a cleansing ritual that eradicates the Dark Magic from both your wand and your soul. But to do that, we're going to need to find a unicorn."
Draco's gaze flitted into the grim blackness between the tree trunks. He still didn't want to go in there, but he didn't seem to have any other option.
"Alright, then, Granger," he said, steeling up his nerves. "You lead the way."