Chapter 27 - Requirement

Following her departure from the dungeons, Hermione paced her dormitory room with fury. Her thoughts boiled in her head until she felt fit to burst. There was too much to process. She had too many things to consider between the curse, her relationship with Malfoy, how to handle school like this, and what to do next. She had to write them down so she could organize them, but how? Writing on parchment only seemed to work with Malfoy's express permission, and she knew better than to try and mark any other object that could be found by others.

Hermione flung her arms up in frustration and growled at the bracelet on her left wrist when it jingled with the motion. "I won't be outsmarted by you, you know?" She said to the bracelet, holding it up at eye level to glare at it properly. "I'm the smartest witch of the age, or so they say. I've already learned how to send messages to my friends. Surely I can find some way to write again to clear my thoughts."

Hermione sneered at the bracelet a moment longer and then sighed as the absurdity of lecturing a cursed item cleared away the anger and rage. "I've gone mad," she said.

She studied the bracelet for any clue that she might have missed previously, but she found nothing. The corner of her mouth curved down as she considered that she might be stuck with this bracelet the same way she was stuck with the ugly slur written on her arm.

Hermione froze, then pulled up her sleeve and dispelled the charm hiding the scar. "My arm… my body…" Her eyes grew wide, and she choked out a laugh. "Accio quill!" she said, holding out her other arm to grab the quill as it arrived in her hand. She attempted to write on her arm, cursed at the lack of ink, and summoned the ink jar. Nearly dropping it in her haste, she blotted the quill in the ink and wrote her name on her arm.

"It worked," she said in wonder. Her name remained crisp and clear on her skin. She tried again, but this time, to write it on her blouse. As she suspected, the curse intervened, forming a pillow of air between the quill tip and her clothes. She wrote again on her arm, this time, the date. The ink met her skin and stayed.

The possibilities exploded to Hermione, and she went through the spells she knew quickly. Clearly, she would need more physical space than could be provided on her skin at once. After all, she needed to track notes for class in addition to her other challenges…

Hermione blew out a long, frustrated sigh. She had used an extension charm on her purse when they were on the run to make the most of a little bit of space, but the extension charm was meant to be used on the inside of things, not the outside. She snorted as she considered the possibilities that might provide. The best of them would be her belly button. The worst would be more fitting for the book Ginny had borrowed than school notes. She shook her head. The extension charm would not be suitable for her needs.

And yet, she could write on herself.

Hermione had used magic to rearrange ink the night prior with the letters, but the letters had no memory to hold themselves. Hermione chewed her lip. The Marauder's Map was able to hide and reveal words based on a passphrase and movement in the castle. There had to be a way for her to learn from it to hide and reveal words on her body, particularly as she did not want Malfoy to discover the writing, if only so that he could not read what she planned to record on her flesh.

Hermione smiled. It was time to go to the library.

Sometimes, as Hermione explored the tall stacks of books in the Hogwarts library, she wondered if the library itself had healing powers. The anxiety and grief she felt upon leaving Malfoy's room seemed like a distant memory now that all she saw and smelled were books. Here, she could breathe properly again.

She got to work quickly, of course, pulling out book after book on both cartography and calligraphy in the wizarding world, expecting one of them to lead her in the correct direction. She levitated them over to her usual table, sat down, and got to work scanning the Tables of Contents. Two new piles of books soon formed for those that required further reading and those that were blatantly useless. A moment's hesitation passed before she began using her arm to write notes on what she had found and her various ideas. She needed her mind clear to read, and so she threw her full focus into absorbing the information in between jotting down notes on her arms and eventually legs.

She didn't even hear the footsteps approach.

"Granger!?" Malfoy blurted, breaking Hermione's concentration like a bludger in a China cabinet.

Hermione jumped and fell out of her chair when she realized both Malfoy and his mother were standing at her table. Her thoughts short-circuited. She was not ready to face them so soon. Malfoy's eyes were scanning her arms and legs, which, she now realized, were fully covered in ink like some sort of bizarre tattoo. His mother, however, was scanning the book piles and had picked one up to flip through.

"Calligraphy? Cartography?" Narcissa questioned.

"You're covered in ink." Malfoy stared a moment longer in disbelief, then shook his head as if to clear it. "Granger, what are you doing?" When Hermione didn't immediately respond or move, he rolled his eyes, walked over to her, and tugged her back into her seat. He did not let go of her arm, however. Instead, he pulled it closer to his eyes to read what she had written. "Color coding and pass phrases might work like computer." Malfoy wrinkled his nose. "Computer. What's a computer?"

"It's a muggle invention," Narcissa answered him, surprising both Malfoy and Hermione. She put the book down that she had been looking at. "A bit like a telly that you can write on and look things up with." At Malfoy's look, she shrugged. "I did some research on the muggle world during the war."

Malfoy sneered. "Why?" he asked, twisting the word in his mouth. He let go of Hermione's arm and shifted his focus entirely to his mother.

Narcissa stared him down with a dead look in her eyes. "In case the Dark Lord won. Did you really think I intended to let him destroy you like he did your father?"

Malfoy's jaw dropped, and he gave his mother a shrewd, sideways glance like he'd never quite seen her properly before. Silence fell between them, though their expressions changed fractionally over time, as if they came to new understandings.

Hermione looked between them, and her mind exploded with all the implications of what this could mean. Had Narcissa planned an escape to the Muggle world with her son? What if Malfoy had resisted? Would Narcissa have obliviated him and forced him along? Stunned him and removed his wand? Found some other way to contain and manage him? Had she planned to abandon Lucius? Narcissa had referred to Lucius's destruction, but did that mean she wished to be separated from Lucius? And what did this say about Narcissa's views of muggles and muggleborns? What of her sister, Andromeda Tonks, who had been cast off for marrying one?

Malfoy clenched his fists as his expression filled with barely suppressed fury. He forced his eyes shut a moment, then jerked his focus back down to Hermione. "Mother wishes to speak with you. Alone," he stated.

Hermione frowned. Many emotions and thoughts fluttered across her mind, but first and foremost, the impossibility of it. "She can't see or hear me. How would she..?"

Malfoy scanned the library. Hermione's eyes followed his and noted how his gaze paused on each person, taking especially long on the few that watched them and narrowing his eyes until the others averted their gaze. "We need to go somewhere more private to continue this discussion. Follow me."

Hermione scoffed at his presumptuous attitude. "In case you hadn't noticed, I am in the middle of important research."

Malfoy scowled at her. "How important can it be if it involves muggle inventions?"

Hermione arched her brow into her forehead. "Important enough," she said, then shifted her focus to her work, not that she could actually remember where she was in it with Malfoy standing right beside her and his mother still staring at her. "Can you please go? You're distracting me."

Malfoy leaned forward and planted his hand onto the table right in front of Hermione, invading her space and blocking her from easily reaching the books. "You need to speak with her." When she backed up, he winced and followed briefly to whisper, "She wants to free you."

Hermione's eyes blew wide open as she jerked to stare at Narcissa, who stood calmly watching the ordeal as if nothing interesting had happened. "But why?" Hermione gasped.

Malfoy straightened back up and put his hands in his pockets. "I told you. We need to go somewhere more private for this discussion. Will you come now?"

Hermione jerked to standing, then stared at the pile of books on the table and bit her bottom lip. She had gotten quite the start on her studies, and yet…

Malfoy groaned. "What now, Granger?"

"I wasn't being obstinate when I said this was important, Malfoy," Hermione said as she puzzled over how to maintain her spot. If she could write, she would simply jot down each book she had looked at to pull back out later… or just check them all out, but she couldn't even interact with Madam Pince, let alone check books out.

"Just take them," Malfoy said.

"I can't! Not without checking them out!" Hermione reminded him.

Malfoy stared at her a moment with a dubious expression, rolled his eyes, and pulled out his wand. "Wingardium Leviosa," he said in an almost bored tone, and the entire table lifted up off the ground with the books still on them.

"What are you doing?" Hermione hissed as she backed away from the table to avoid getting bumped by it.

"Checking out your books," Malfoy said in a tone that suggested she should have already guessed as much. He smirked as her jaw dropped slightly, and then levitated the table over to where Madam Pince stood by the checkout counter. Madam Pince's eyes had a twitch in them that suggested she would love to give Malfoy a piece of her mind, but she refrained as Malfoy strolled over with his mother and Hermione in tow. "Madam Pince, I'm checking these books out. I want them delivered to my room this evening, and do take care not to mix the piles."

"She's not your servant, Malfoy!" Hermione snapped. "And even so, shouldn't they be delivered to my room instead?"

Malfoy ignored Hermione, keeping his eyes on Madam Pince directly. When Madam Pince continued to balk at him, Malfoy leaned forward on the desk. "I know it's an unusual request, but I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it. You see, I've picked up a rather unexpected interest in book-making lately. I've been thinking of adding a personal account of the war to the family library. You've seen my family library, haven't you?"

Hermione watched Madam Pince's jaw slowly close and a gleam enter the older woman's eyes. "No, I don't believe I've had the pleasure yet."

Malfoy's face immediately sunk into one of deep concern, and he turned to his mother. "Did you hear that? Madam Pince, esteemed librarian of Hogwarts, hasn't seen our private collection?"

Narcissa turned to Madam Pince. "I would be happy to arrange a tour to correct this oversight. Perhaps this Sunday?"

Hermione stood at Malfoy's side as Madam Pince sputtered and Narcissa arranged for Madam Pince's visit. Malfoy had his eyes on Madam Pince and was nodding along in all the right places, and Hermione had the odd sensation that she had been forgotten, though it only barely registered with all the other thoughts exploding in her head. Narcissa intended to free her from the curse? It made no sense. Of course, Narcissa hadn't seemed particularly pleased by the curse, but surely she knew that freeing Hermione would mean putting her family in danger, unless…

Hermione gasped as she recalled that Malfoy had asked her to submit for obliviation in the event they freed her from the curse so that she could not later incriminate his family. She had never planned to go through with it, but her reasons why had shifted. Before she had mostly been concerned about keeping her mind intact, but now, the fear that struck her was at forgetting what she had learned of Malfoy.

Her eyes went to him. For years, he had been too annoying for her to really look at him properly, but now… He was a tall, handsome young man with eyes that held so many things she had never noticed before. He was shrewd and caustic, to be sure, but his consideration towards her when he owed her nothing and hardly tolerated her was breathtaking after so many years of being cast aside by Harry and Ron at every upset. Malfoy's indignation of their treatment of her had blindsided her heart. His subsequent seduction of her had been one of the most sensual experiences of her life, and they hadn't even kissed properly.

Of course, that had been minutes before he had jerked away from her at the idea that she might want to marry him, as if the very idea of being with her in that way was repulsive. Hermione cast her eyes to her feet and bit the inside of her cheek against a fresh wave of mortification. She supposed Malfoy might react that way to the idea of marriage to anyone, but she didn't think that was the case. Most wizards and witches at Hogwarts expected to marry shortly after graduating from Hogwarts. Hermione had been teased for wanting to hold off on settling down herself.

An elbow gently bumped into her arm, and she looked up to see Malfoy looking down at her with a raised eyebrow in question. "What is it?" he asked.

Hermione simply shook her head. She didn't know what to say or where to start. Even if she felt comfortable confronting Malfoy on what he wanted from her, she still wouldn't do it with his mother and Madam Pince standing just a few feet away. Madam Pince had trapped Narcissa into receiving her gushing praise of the books loaned to the Hogwarts library from the Malfoy collection.

An arm slipped behind Hermione's back, and she found herself staring at Malfoy's hand on her shoulder as he tugged her gently against him. "Mother, Granger and I will go ahead. I think the Room of Requirement should do well. Meet us there?"

Whatever Narcissa said in response, Hermione didn't hear it over the shock of having Malfoy escort her out of the library with his warm and sturdy arm wrapped firmly against her back. Her senses returned as they left the library, and she remembered that she didn't know what he wanted with her. Hermione turned on him, escaping his arm by twisting out from it. "What are you doing?" she asked him.

Malfoy held both hands up in front of him, palm out. "Relax, Granger. I just thought we should talk first."

Hermione scowled. "What's there to talk about?" she asked in a clipped tone that sounded like an overreaction even to her own ears. She turned from him and took a deep breath. "Sorry, I could really use some space," she amended.

"Should we wait for a better time to try and free you?" Malfoy replied, sarcasm dripping from his tone.

Hermione chuckled and shook her head. "Of course not, but I still don't understand… I thought only your father could free me."

Malfoy shoved his hands in the pockets of his robe and glanced around the hall. When his eyes fell on a particularly curious portrait, he sighed. "I'll explain in the Room of Requirement. Let's go."

They fell into step together and made quick work of the stairs from the 3rd floor to the 7th floor, though they were both breathing a bit more heavily by the time they reached the Room of Requirement.

"Which of us should go in first?" Hermione asked Malfoy, thinking of the Room of Requirement's peculiar ability to do its best to meet the needs of the first person who entered.

"I'll go. I expect I know what Mother will need," Malfoy said, and he calmly walked back and forth in front of where the room was located three times. The door appeared, and Hermione was surprised to note it looked incredibly familiar, though she couldn't quite place it. Malfoy sighed in relief on seeing it. "Well, let's go in," he said, and he opened the door into a perfect copy of the office Severus Snape had maintained when he still taught potions. Even the fireplace was there, and Hermione wondered if it might be connected to the floo network despite its current location in the Room of Requirement.

Malfoy wasted no time in sliding into Snape's chair behind the desk and leaning back with his arms folded behind his head. "Well, Granger, you wanted to know how my mother intended to free you without my father. Care to take a guess?"

"Polyjuice," Hermione said, staring at the stacks of potion ingredients on the shelves lining the room. She walked up to where the boomslang skin was stored and shivered with reminiscence. "She intends to become your father." Hermione turned her head to Malfoy. "Will it work?"

Malfoy pulled away from the chair to lean forward on the desk, his hands folded below his jaw. "You already considered Polyjuice, didn't you?"

Hermione blushed, and her hands shook as she pulled them away from the shelves. "Does it matter? You intend to free me anyway."

Malfoy shrugged. "Mother intends to free you," he said, meeting her eyes.

Hermione felt his words like a punch to the gut. "You mean that you don't," she said, spelling out what he hadn't quite said.

Malfoy pinched his brow together a moment before leaving the desk to stand close beside Hermione at the shelves. "You must know she plans to obliviate you. You won't remember the last few days. You'll go back to your loneliness and only your cruel friends to comfort you. You won't have me. Do you really want that?"

The hairs on Hermione's arms stood on end. "I want to be free," she said with certainty, but she couldn't deny Malfoy's point. She didn't want to forget Malfoy either, though the memory would be painful while her interest was not reciprocated. It didn't matter though. He had raised the bar for her relationships, and she expected she would be happier for it regardless of his role in her future.

Malfoy scowled at her. "And what of me? I don't want to be alone again," he said in a bluntness that struck her as overly candid coming from Malfoy, though it shed light on one thing that had puzzled her.

"That's why you tried to kiss me, isn't it?" Hermione said as the pieces came together in her mind. "You're trying to make sure I don't leave you. You're afraid," she said. Her face twisted in horror. "You're so terrified of loneliness you would rather make love to someone you're not interested in than risk losing their attention."

Malfoy's expression turned stony, and his posture went rigid as they stared at each other. "What of it?" he eventually spat out. "You were fine with it!"

"I was not! You misled me!" Hermione protested. At his dubious expression, she scoffed. "You were seducing me. Normally, when boys seduce girls, it's because they fancy them." Hermione took a deep breath as grief burned and blurred her vision. "I thought you wanted to kiss me for me," she whispered, and the dam broke. Hot, wet tears rolled down her face, but she didn't look away from him this time. She wanted him to see that he had hurt her.

Surprise flashed across his eyes for a moment before his lips parted and he furrowed his brow in confusion before anger painted his features. "We weren't even on speaking terms three days ago, Granger! What did you expect!?" He glared down at her. "Have you read so many books that you've lost sight of reality? Did you think I was going to fall passionately in love with you overnight?"

Hermione didn't know what to say to that. She had thought herself firmly in the right of things, but he was right too. She had gotten ahead of herself. She could feel a sob trying to break free of her chest, and she hugged herself and tried to calm her breathing before she embarrassed herself further.

He ran a hand through his hair, disturbing his blond fringe, and sighed heavily. "Granger," he said in a calmer voice, and tilted his head to the side slightly as his gaze relaxed. "I don't find you unattractive."

"But you don't find me attractive either?" Hermione spat before she could think better of the words. She blushed a brilliant red and avoided his eyes, knowing her humiliation would be complete now that she had asked Malfoy to spell out exactly how plain and homely she was. She startled when she felt his hand tuck some loose hairs behind her ear and slide behind her head to the braid he had done for her.

"Your hair," he said, and he gently pulled the braid over her shoulder to better look at it. "Your hair is madness itself. It frightens me." He raised his eyes to her own. "Just like you."

The intensity in his gaze grew, and Hermione's heart froze in her chest as a flicker of hope came to life. Though his words were not flattering, his tone better matched a confession than a rejection.

"Your hair I could tie down to manage. You're more difficult," he said in a quiet voice. He stepped in closer to Hermione, carefully swept her braid behind her back again, and left his hand behind her shoulder, encouraging her to stay close to him. "Don't you get it, Granger? Now that I have you to myself, I don't want to let you go."

Hermione just stared at him. His words sounded so much like a confession, and yet… "You want me to stay cursed?" She asked, horrified. "Just so you can keep me to yourself?"

"I am a Slytherin, Granger," he reminded her and stepped in closer, putting his other arm behind her as well and tugging her gently into his chest. "I'm greedy, and I don't like to share."

Hermione shoved backwards against his chest to free herself as she tried to reconcile the Malfoy who had been so considerate and affectionate towards her earlier with this Malfoy in front of her who would rather ruin her future than risk losing her. Nausea swept over her, and suddenly there wasn't enough air in the room. She stumbled backwards into a shelf and heard various glass jars shift and resettle at the impact.

Malfoy took a half-step forward and reached out to help her, his eyes full of concern, then stopped himself and returned his face to neutral.

Hermione blinked. Malfoy was a Slytherin. He was an excellent Slytherin, and he had been raised to wield his words as well as his wand both at home and Hogwarts his entire life. Hermione gasped as the colors returned to the room. The warmth of the fire blazed at her. She caught a whiff of the walnut wood of the shelves, and suddenly she could breathe again. He wanted something, and he was putting on this act to get it. The question was what did he want?

Her thoughts went over their conversations since the library. He had claimed he wanted to keep her captive just now, but in both the library and on the way, he had been encouraging her to seek her freedom through his mother. She bit her lip, looked up at him, and found his eyes on her.

"Stop thinking, Granger," Malfoy ordered with narrowed eyes.

Hermione smirked. "Afraid, Malfoy?" She watched him shift backwards. Fear lined his eyes, and she stepped forward just to see him back up in response. Feeling rather like a lioness that has cornered a snake, she prowled forward until he backed into the desk. She placed her hands on either side of him on the desk, and leaned into him as he leaned back, his terror now blatant.

"Granger? What are you doing?" he hissed.

Hermione smiled. She hadn't really thought this out beyond watching him squirm, but she was having fun now. She stepped back from him and crossed her arms in front of her. "Testing a theory," she said and smirked at him.

"A theory?" Malfoy asked her. He stood up and dusted off his robes, as if he hadn't just been cowering on Snape's desk.

"A theory," Hermione confirmed. She turned her back to Malfoy and pretended to study the shelves as she contemplated what to say. "I appreciate your assistance in confirming it," she said, suspecting her attitude would rile him up.

Malfoy's movement was hesitant, but he slinked up behind her and stood close enough that she would only have to lean back a little to bump against him. "Think you learned something, Granger?" he asked her, his voice a mix of threatening and cocky.

Hermione considered how to respond. She hadn't quite determined what he wanted from her, but she had little doubt that he was not nearly as heartless towards her well-being as he claimed. "If your mother succeeds and obliviates me, will you reach out to me again?"

Malfoy inhaled deeply, and his chest pressed against her back slightly before he blew his breath back out. "You wouldn't want me to."

Hermione turned on him, ready to give him a piece of her mind about assuming what she did or did not want, when he held up a hand for her to wait. Hermione swallowed the rant back down and glared at him to continue.

Malfoy rolled his eyes at her expression and stepped back slightly to create space between them. "Granger, you didn't want anyone to know you. You've spent the better part of the last year avoiding everyone but the she-weasel. Why would I be any different?"

Hermione froze as every carefully constructed argument about how she wouldn't hold the past against Malfoy was forgotten. He was right. The past wouldn't matter if she didn't let anyone in, regardless of their history. She swallowed hard. "I'll write a note. You can show it to me after, and then…"

Malfoy placed his hands on his hips and tilted his head to the side. "You're smarter than that Granger. How would you react to my having a letter claiming you knew you would lose your memory and wanted yourself to know I was your friend?"

The blood drained from Hermione's face. There had to be some way that they could…

A knock came from the door, and Malfoy stepped away to let his mother into the Room of Requirement with them. Narcissa began speaking with Malfoy immediately in a quiet, hushed voice, as she unpacked her purse onto Snape's desk.

Hermione stood, dumbfounded, as she began to face that freedom with obliviation would not only mean that she would forget Malfoy, but that she would also likely never become friends with him again. Her heart ached. She knew she would choose freedom over the not-quite-relationship she had with Malfoy under the curse, but she didn't want to lose him.

She really didn't want to lose him.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Getting in Malfoy's complicated head gives me headaches sometimes, but I love writing this story and hope you're enjoying Hermione's journey with him. :)

Also, my thanks for all the well wishes and concerns regarding my safety. My family is sheltering at home with zero guests, delivered groceries, and only the very rare errand taking any of us away from our home. We even do the whole washing groceries before we bring them in and leaving all deliveries and non-perishables in a dedicated quarantine zone for several days before opening. I'm doing my best! I hope you all are taking measures to stay safe as well!