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XXX: Queen of Wands

It was impossible to tell how long the pair had been there, in the eternally sunny garden that seemed to feel like spring-time regardless of how dim and dreary the real world was. It should have felt soothing to Hermione, yet she placed concerted effort in stifling her disquieted feelings of being in a place with such manufactured perfect, held together by the fabric of magic.

Draco's breath came out in small huffs and she could see his eyes gently moving under his eyelids as he dreamt. His head rested in her lap as they sat idly on the grass, the sweat barely evaporated off their glistening skin. She sat unmoving except for the soft strokes of her fingers in his shimmery silver-blonde hair.

She couldn't decide if they were trapped there - in this makeshift heaven granted by the Goddess Helga Hufflepuff herself - or if they were simply blessed with the ability to have food, sunlight, and safety all in one place. The white rabbit that had recently hung around her of its own volition bounced in the grass with a careless joy, the environment more of a home to the hare than to Hermione.

"What's wrong?" the words disrupted her quiet moment of contemplation. She glanced down to see Draco studying her with concerned interest. She wasn't sure what face she'd been making, but her expression quickly morphed into a soft smile as she reached down and pressed a kiss onto his forehead.

"Nothing, it's just so beautiful," she murmured against his skin.

His hand rose to brush several strands of hair off of her shoulders as they dangled toward him like flowing ribbons of honey. He wrapped a particularly coiled bit around his index finger mindlessly.

"Who was the Death Eater?" she murmured.

The subtle change in Draco's otherwise unreadable expression seemed to indicate that his scepticism for her original answer had been confirmed.

Draco's gaze fell from hers as it slowly roamed the perimeter of the garden, lingering on the leaves of the laurel trees. Hermione could see his jaw slightly protrude from the side as he clenched down. Anxiety flitted in her chest as she waited for his response, the weight of which seemed to grow heavier the longer he hesitated to provide one.

"There was no Death Eater."

"What... d'you mean?"

His gaze met hers once more, sincerity written in his features as his fingers slipped upward and fingertips grazed against the side of her head, gently cupping the slope of her scalp above her ear. He gave her a soft scratch as if petting a skittish cat that he was attempting to soothe.

"There was no body," he stated.

As Hermione's posture straightened, Draco took that as a sign to rise from his comfortable pillow that had been her lap. She reached for a cloak that had been hastily discarded to the side and drew it up to her chin, their sudden nakedness which had been so easy and comfortable mere moments ago now seemed to remind her of her vulnerability.

"How is that even possible? Who would take a - a corpse from the middle of the Forest? Would Voldemort -?"

"It's unlikely, but…" his words trailed off, replaced by a slight shrug of the shoulder.

"I don't understand," she whispered, a new flood of anxiety swelling in her.

Perhaps the body was consumed by one of the wild animals of the Forest. While a possibility, Hermione tried to ascertain which forest animals would be able to eat something with such rot and decay, and was unable to think of such a carrion-consuming creature.

Perhaps a fellow Death Eater had removed it for a funeral of some sort? Did Death Eaters have that kind of loyalty? She didn't know the intricate politics of the hateful group.

"You don't think I'm lying, do you?"

Before Draco had a chance to formulate a response, Hermione cut in again.

"You don't think I made it up?"

Her irises flitted from one side to the next as she ran through a million thoughts at once, hardly able to keep still. She could feel her palms grow clammy as she wiped them on the fabric of the cloak, her fingertips suddenly cold. She didn't want to question it herself - she had seen it, she knew she had.

"No," Draco's velvety, grounded voice contrasted against her panic-strained one. "Unless you were high off your gourd, I don't know why you would make up such a thing."

High? What an absurd accusation.

Then again, she had experimented with nearly a dozen experimental potions and heard vibrant music for hours - sometimes days -while she was entirely alone.

"But I saw it," she whispered to herself.

"Don't fret, Granger."

As the words left his mouth, Hermione could see that they did not match the slight crease of worry around his eyes.

"I want to go home," she sighed.

"I know, Hermione," he whispered before brushing a light kiss to the top of her cheekbone and wrapping his arms around her to draw him into her chest, the skin of her warm back awakening against his cool chest.

Despite the joy their recent union had brought her, she'd grown weary of surviving. Of living in the middle of the wilderness with limitations and obstacles in every which direction. She wanted to enjoy Draco in the comfort of home - not because it had to be, but because they chose it. She wanted to continue exploring the hallways and empty classrooms of Hogwarts and further her knowledge with the regimented expectations of lessons and homework.

But then they would have to hide again.

Their love, though alluded to by Draco's brazen move during the Floo conversation with the Golden Trio, would still be under concealment. She felt foolish as she realized he'd likely be unwelcome at Hogwarts after his classmates discovered his betrayal.

A rush of cold chills ran through her at the understanding that, to Draco, this was freedom, and any return to civilized society would be met with animosity or even danger. His family was on the run. Would the Order host him? Would he ever be able to return to Hogwarts once the Death Eaters were cast out? If they were.

The uncertainty chilled her to the bone.

Hermione had tried hard over the past several weeks to limit her rumination on the outside world. It only hurt to think that Harry and Ron were out there, likely with the Order, strategizing to take down Lord Voldemort. She had attempted to stifle the questions that had bubbled up with regularity but as she sat there, exhausted from the emotional assault of the Dementors, the questions trickled one by one into the forefront of her mind. Why had Hogwarts fallen with such ease? Where was Dumbledore? What did Draco want - was he content like this, on the run?

A sudden single note flitted through her mind, a subtle clarinet or oboe carrying the sound as the smooth sharp sound ascended the heights of the treble clef and was joined by another clarinet, and then a viola and violin to create a soothing, sensuous lullaby that coaxed her into relaxation. She could feel her eyes growing heavy and falling shut, her senses flooded and overtaken by the music that sounds so real.

The only thing that tethered her to reality in that moment was Draco's slow, rhythmic breaths as his chest barely rose and fell and warm breath kissed her neck. Before Hermione had the opportunity to ask herself if this was a benefit of the garden, a clever trick of her mind, or an ill-effect of the experimental potions, Draco's hands gently drew her downward, summoning them both toward the soft strings of grass that covered the garden. The music continued to ring in her mind as they both succumbed to sleep, legs entwined and minds floating with the gentle current of heavenly sounds. All concerns were quieted as everything faded to darkness.

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Draco woke with a start, disoriented to discover himself in a foreign setting. He wasn't at Hogwarts, he wasn't in the cave, he was outside - and night had fallen. He gazed up at the dark sky for several beats. The shroud of darkness was unexpected given the previous constancy of the sun beaming down directly overhead. Every aspect of the world they were currently inhabiting seemed to be enchanted toward physical perfection.

The warm space that Hermione's body had occupied was abandoned and the muscles of his abdomen tightened to accommodate his rise as he noticed the elegant, curving lines of a female form cast dark as it contrasted against the glow of a hundred little fluttering lights.

"Granger?" he murmured, rubbing the sleep off his eyes.

She turned toward him and despite the darkness, he could see the shine of her teeth as the moonlight illuminated her grin. As his gaze adjusted, it looked as though the star-filled heavens were extended upon the earth with twinkling dots of light that ornamented the sleepy grounds of the garden.

"Come quick," came the rushed whisper of Hermione Granger.

Little flecks of brightness adorned her bare skin, like a hundred glimmering Golden Snitches. The lights seemed to fly and flutter, landing in her hair and pecking her shoulders, then floating lazily toward the laurel trees which were littered in the mysterious starlights.

"They're fairies," she breathed, careful not to disturb the light that had just landed on her open palm. Draco could see the sparkle that reflected off of Hermione's widened eyes as he approached.

The image of a tiny humanoid with wings zoomed into Draco's view as the light that had been resting against Hermione's palm came flying toward him and landed gracefully in his hair. He flinched as the sudden urge to smack his temple came upon him, but he held still as Hermione, shaking with light laughter, reached to gently pluck the creature from his hair. It was about three inches tall, with warm olive skin and hair of golden silk. Its wings were twice the size of its body and shone with iridescent radiance, capturing the light that was cast from its body. It shimmered with a kaleidoscope of colours. The figure appeared to be laughing as it crawled over Hermione's thumb, kicked off, and flitted to a nearby tree.

Hermione moved toward the direction of their things, approaching the pile of forgotten clothing and her book bag which lay strewn about on the grass. Draco could hardly lift his eyes from the lights as Hermione let out a frustrated huff.

"What is it?" Draco asked, his voice quieted to a light whisper as though afraid to disturb the peaceful live painting they were standing in.

"I can't find my wands," came her pressured breathless response. "I wanted to take a closer look at them with a minor entrapment charm, but - I can't find the wands - they were just here."

As they rummaged through her book bag and clothing, they discovered that neither her original destroyed wand nor the wand of wicked witch were anywhere to be found. After throwing on his pants and trousers, and ensuring the safety of his own wand, Draco left the garden in an attempt to wade through the green cornucopia and retrace their steps. He returned after several minutes empty-handed.

Resorting to last-ditch-efforts, and in a moment of paranoid and suspicion, Draco summoned the small bunny who was happily minding its own business, as per usual, and cast the Imperius charm to find the wands. The helpless furry rabbit ran around the garden, lost and confused. Hermione was so distracted with her panic that she had completely missed the passage of another Unforgivable Charm slipping off the tongue of Draco Malfoy.

A sense of despair was quickly growing inside her, twisting at her entrails like Devil's Snare. She fought the urge to collapse onto the floor in tears - this was the second time she'd felt the effect of being without magic, utterly helpless to her surroundings.

As a single panic-stricken tear fell from her lashes onto her cheek, a lone fairy - an elegant, thin adolescent male landed in her hair and reached for the tear. She felt the odd sensation of it solidifying on her face before it fell into the palm of her hand. Hermione felt it between her fingers, solid and small and glimmering like a sapphire.

"The hell -?" came Draco's confused voice as the fairy fluttered. "This place is giving me the creeps. Why are they all in the tree?"

"I have to find my wand," she urged, wishing the sun would come back up and illuminate the dark field of grass. Draco warily approached the ever-glowing bright light in the centre of one of the laurel trees, his wand held out before his face, bracing for impact.

Fairies were extremely mysterious creatures in the wizarding community. Though known to be extremely beautiful, flighty creatures, they were rarely found in the wild. On the contrary, after the discovery of their use in potion-craft, they were nearly hunted to death and went into hiding to avoid the persecution of their communities.

With the exception of their need for 'aestheticism before all else,' their means of achieving a beautiful planet and even their understanding of beauty was an unknown. This was why, Draco figured, he was anxious around the flighty little buggers. They flitted around like pretty little butterflies, but their tiny faces and silly little cherubim grins sparked distrust in Draco.

It was this doubt that made him nearly shake the branches of the tree and force the creatures to find another place to inhabit as they all gathered in a cluster of nearly-blinding light. As his quiet feet brought him closer to the collective, he noticed a lean, bent absence of light against the winged-creatures' light and recognized it immediately.

"Hey!"

His hand reached immediately to grasp for it, causing the winged figures to jump away like a cloud of dust dispersing in the air following a gust of wind.

"Damn," he breathed.

He pointed his illuminated wand toward the source of darkness and his heart sank into his throat at the image.

Though he had found Bellatrix's wand, it appeared to be too late as the fairies had taken it into their custody and had shaved the grotesque artefact down until the vibrant almost-throbbing red Dragon Heartstring core was visible. Hermione's other wand had been dismantled and disarranged into a pile of wooden shreds. The core of the wand, broken in pieces, were drawn out with tiny little hands and placed in a neat row atop a plank that appeared to also be crafted by the living-lightbulbs.

"Don't look - "

"Oh my God," she whispered, her hands flying to her face as she broke out into a sob.

"We can fix it - " he started, knowing the taste of a lie as it parted from his lips.

Several of the small figures had returned to their original locations around the dark wand and had resumed the act of dismantling it into its rudimentary pieces. Using what appeared to Draco to be miniaturized tools to carve, cut, and tear, though it was impossible to see the definitive shape of the items as they seemed to glow with such vibrant light that Draco had to avert his gaze.

The magic of the respective wands seemed to hover in the space around their previous shells, like a soul exiting its body, hesitant to leave the mortal coil.

"We can't - Draco just leave it," she sighed with a heavy breath as Draco reached to take the items.

"Ow - !"

He jerked his hand away after a rather beefy fairy pressed its pointed staff into Draco's invading fingers. He yanked his hand back with a sharp hiss as a few droplets of fresh blood fell from the open wound.

"Blasted little - I'll squish every last one - "

"Hang on - look," she drew his attention to the pieces of slivered wood that were the outer shell of her wand.

As the small creatures rearranged the broken wand from the order of thickness, thin ribbons of light coursed through the wood as each piece bound together. The fairies fluttered together in unison as they carried the red wand core to the slivered bits of wood before a flow of luminous glitter poured out of the creatures and fill the jagged cracks. It filled the space - jagged edge to jagged edge - until only the slightest bit of glow seemed to emanate from where the wand had previously been shattered.

Hermione let out a shaky breath that she had been hoarding in her chest, her eyes daring not move in case she was wrong about the fairies. In case she needed to reach in and grab whatever bits of magic was left for her. She hovered protectively but did not dare disturb their work.

It was after a prolonged period of uneventful silence that Draco left her side and went back to sit on the bench while Hermione paced. The white rabbit hovered close to both Hermione and the laurel tree, its heartbeat pounding frantically, matching Hermione's nervousness.

It was when the sun had started to rise that the twinkle of fairy light had dimmed and several of the little creatures slowly made their way back to their cottages and mushroom stumps. Three females, with their elegant and unearthly lean bodies, danced and twirled around their workspace.

Hermione's eyes had grown tired as her vision blurred, the mere few hours of sleep barely carrying her through the night. She fought to keep her eyes open until she felt the faintest tug on her hair and roused to see two of the fairies pulling on a curl that hung near her temple.

"Hm?" she mumbled as the beautiful wash of the sky's colours flooded her vision.

It wasn't until her eyes fell on the spot she had been diligently studying for the past several hours that Hermione let out a quiet gasp. On the thickest branch of the laurel tree, which had been adorned with vivid golden sparkling light throughout the evening, was Hermione's wand.

The ten-and-three-quarter inch vine wood wand was no longer a collection of broken pieces but had been held seamlessly together by a thin layer of glittering light - fairy dust Hermione now realized. It was the world's most potent and exceptionally rare magical powder, provided only to wizards and witches by willing fairies.

Hermione did not have to wait long to receive her answer as she reached forward and folded her fingers around the delicate wood, afraid that at any moment the pieces would unravel and she would be left with nothing. The muscles in her forearm twitched as a jolt of magical energy coursed through her fingertips as though her blood had been intravenously injected with it. It flowed through her, buzzing toward her core.

She felt an overwhelming sense of power as she stared down at the almost-familiar artefact. There were still many glistening lines throughout the wand where the cracks had been, and Hermione now noticed that the little edged ivies that had encircled her old wand were now darker - a different wood - taken from the pieces of Bellatrix's old wand, she figured. The core of the wand felt different. Hermione had witnessed the fairies replace her old destroyed Dragon Heartstring core with the one from Bellatrix's wand, the change made the sensation and weight of it heavier, slightly more challenging to wield, but grounding as though connecting her physical form to the floor below and letting her power radiate into the earth. She twisted her wrist, feeling the weight of it.

A thin spark of white drifted out of the tip of the wand and Hermione could feel the wand responding to her instincts, anticipating her words.

"Expecto Patronum," Hermione said in a calm voice, not struggling at all to find positive thoughts to fuel her incantation. It was like a heavy gust of wind struck her. Hermione felt her shoulders heave backwards as the wand immediately and effortlessly revealed the happy bouncing otter that ran circles around the awestruck witch.

She cast another charm, a mindless set of sparks and lights that shot out of the tip of her wand like confetti and fizzled down to the earth like feathers. A swell of joy tickled at her chest and threatened to spill out in uncontrollable laughter but she quickly felt the feeling fade as she spotted the large marble statue.

The hunched form of Draco Malfoy was mere feet away as he sat on the bench, his chin pressed against palms that balanced precariously on his knees. He had fallen asleep after waiting for the resolution to her problem.

Approaching the statue with intent, Hermione muttered the spell under her chest.

"Reducio."

In an instant, the beautiful marble statue shrunk to the size of a shoebox.

Hermione bounced with glee at having magic back. Not just any magic - she had used Draco's wand to cast necessary spells, but it had always felt like a polite subservience at her command. This was different. This was her magic. And for the first time in weeks, Hermione felt unstoppable.