Don't Look Back
- 10 -
Give / Take
Dear Tonks,
Thank you so much for meeting with me and for the books you lent. I've been making my way through them over the past week and it's been eye-opening, to say the least.
I wanted to write you because I've come across something — experienced something, rather — that I've yet to read about.
The symbiotic sensations I know and understand, but I was wondering if you ever heard thoughts that weren't your own? Perhaps not thoughts, but words and fragments that seem to come from nowhere?
I'm a bit concerned. Anything you might know would be immensely helpful.
Thank you, and please give my best to Remus.
Hermione
She sends it first thing in the morning, because it's kept her up all night. Something that started an hour — possibly two? — after midnight.
A voice in her head.
By now, she's stopped holding out hope for coincidence, because she knows the difference between her own wayward thoughts and something else. Something foreign. An intruder.
The first time she hears it, she springs up off her back like she's been hit with an electric shock, certain that it's come from right beside her. That there's someone there with her, hidden in the shadows of her bed curtains.
"Homenum Revelio," she forces out in a cut whisper the moment she finds her wand.
The spell reveals nothing.
But she knows what she heard. A clear voice. A word — carved out and vivid amongst the nebulous array of her own thoughts.
Take.
Just that. One single, unmistakable syllable.
Take.
The voice that utters it is nothing like hers. Its timbre is deep and rough, and she's forced to consider it might be Malfoy.
And yet, she's fairly certain she knows the sound of his voice — and this? This isn't it.
Take, it says, all night long. Every time she closes her eyes. Take. Take.
Take what?
Take.
By morning, she's heard the word so many times it no longer feels like a word at all. Just white noise.
There are bags under her eyes and tangles in her hair she can't seem to work a brush through. Her neck aches. Her feet drag as she makes her way down to breakfast.
Every ounce of her wants to just lay her head down on the table and fall asleep to the familiar sounds of Gryffindor morning conversation. Trouble is, by the time she drags herself onto the bench and reaches for the teapot, a conversation is already underway.
"I think he's going to the Room of Requirement," says Harry, voice hushed. He's talking to Ron, who seems to have somehow temporarily extricated himself from Lavender's clutches.
"What makes you think—"
"The map." Harry taps the side of his book bag on the bench next to him. "He keeps disappearing into thin air in that corridor. It's the only explanation."
A steady panic boils into a simmer in Hermione's stomach. "Who keeps disappearing?" she asks, working to keep her tone mild.
Harry glances at her, then juts his chin towards the Slytherin table. "Malfoy."
"Oh?" She diverts her gaze to her tea in favor of looking. Swallows thickly. Nowhere in her scrambled brain did she leave room for the harsh reality of the Marauder's Map, and she's suddenly realizing who else Harry might notice, wandering where she shouldn't be.
Following who she shouldn't be.
And the panic has her desperately coughing up an excuse. "He might just be going there to study. You know, without distractions. I've done that before."
Three sets of eyes lock on her, Ron's and Harry's puzzled, and Neville's — from the side, where he hadn't appeared to be listening. He flashes her a nervous expression before quickly going back to trimming his bonsai, the picture of innocence.
"What?" she demands, straightening her back and trying to sound defensive — though not too defensive. "It's just a thought."
"I don't think Malfoy's skulking off every afternoon to study, Hermione," Ron snorts, and all it does is abruptly remind her how furious she is with him. She makes a point of ignoring him, examining her tea leaves instead.
"I think he's practicing dark magic," says Harry. "I'm almost sure of it."
She runs a hand through her wayward curls, surreptitiously massaging the ache in her temple as she does it, and her eyes accidentally flit across the Hall.
Malfoy's hunched over his own cup of tea, looking possibly more exhausted than she does. And she knows even before he takes a sip that there's Wolfsbane in it. Even before his eyes squeeze shut and his face tenses up.
Tonight's the full moon.
But it isn't the thought of this that holds her gaze. It's the boy sitting next to him — the one she's only just noticed. The one who's got his eyes trained on that same teacup.
He's a year above them. She knows that much. And she rakes her memory until the name Adrian floats to the forefront. Adrian Pucey. Vaguely, she remembers he used to play on the Slytherin Quidditch team. A tall, thin shadow, always standing in the back, dirty blond hair constantly hanging in his eyes.
Up until now, she's never seen him anywhere near Malfoy. But from the way he stares at that teacup — from the way he leans over and says something under his breath that makes Malfoy nod — it's clear there's some connection she doesn't know about.
And then, suddenly, Malfoy says something back and Adrian looks up. Looks directly at her.
She glances away quickly, scrambling to focus on her plate and hide her surprise.
Even Neville doesn't know about the bond. It's likely he suspects, but he's far too polite to ask. He's made every effort to keep his attention solely on the plants.
Up until now, it's been between herself and Malfoy.
And yet, from the look she just got, it would appear Adrian Pucey makes three.
Friday evenings are always lively and warm in Gryffindor.
Seamus and Dean will usually break out whatever Weasley products they have left on hand, ultimately culminating in chaos and a trip to the Hospital Wing for an unlucky someone. But the atmosphere is cozy, and she likes to tuck herself away in one of the corner sofas to read amongst the revelry, every now and again setting the book down to watch Harry and Ron play Wizard's Chess.
She's trying to do that now — trying to let the warmth of the fireplace at her side relax the tension in her body. Trying to watch the game, despite Lavender's highly unnecessary cheerleading on Ron's behalf. But she's been itchy and uncomfortable all day, wondering about that voice she hasn't heard since this morning and feeling on edge.
And just now, as she's thinking of going to bed — thinking it might've been a one-time occurrence, a fluke — it decides to make a reappearance.
From nowhere, it crawls its way out of the back of her mind. A deep hum. A purr.
Come.
She jumps where she sits and drops her book. Harry's head snaps to the side.
"Alright?" he asks.
She nods quickly. Blurts out, "A spark from the fire. Hit my arm, that's all." And she rubs at the false spot above her wrist.
Harry's answering nod gets interrupted when Ron suddenly takes his bishop.
"How?" he demands.
"You were too busy watching your rook."
"No! How did you get there? Your pawn was on the other side of the board!"
"No it wasn't!"
Their voices fade away to background noise and the warmth of the room slips out of focus.
Come, the dark voice says again, insistent.
Her hand balls into a tense fist on the sofa's armrest. Not a fluke, then.
Come, it demands, so sharply she almost jumps again.
She hasn't tried to respond. Doesn't want to, and yet she feels almost certain this won't stop until she does.
Fingernails digging into the upholstery, she murmurs under her breath, "Come where?"
The voice is almost joyous when it speaks again — elated.
Yes. Come.
"Where?" she breathes.
Find, it hisses. Come. Find.
Slowly, she gets to her feet.
The Hogwarts Grounds are frozen over, her breath steaming in front of her when she steps out onto the grass from the bridge. She had to dodge several Prefects on the way out, and all the while that voice in her head kept encouraging her.
Yes. Come. Find.
She realizes she should've brought a coat, but she had no idea this sensation — the same gravitational pull that led her to the Room of Requirement that day — would take her outside of the castle. She lets her hands slip inside the sleeves of her jumper and gathers her arms in tight about herself, not certain where she's going until she reaches the bottom of the hill. The entrance to Hogsmeade.
She stops to gather a steadying breath, realizing what she's really doing. What she's about to do. Her gaze slips sideways and up, finding the bright glow of the full moon, a pale smear of white amongst the sparse clouds in the dark sky.
Come, commands the voice suddenly, as though it senses her trepidation.
Alarm bells are ringing inside her head, telling her this is dangerous. Wrong. A step across the line. But that voice does all it can to drown them out.
Find. Come. Find.
And all of a sudden it says a word it hasn't before, in a tone it's never used.
Please.
The sound is anxious. Suddenly ragged and weak, and for a fraction of a second she thinks it sounds like Malfoy.
She steps across the border into Hogsmeade.
Yes, urges the voice, back to its usual purr, and she can't help but wonder if it's guiding her towards disaster. Has to accept the possibility. The probability.
The streets of the village are nearly empty, all of the crowds drawn indoors by the cold. She can see their shadows passing back and forth behind warmly lit windows, and every time she glances back at her path straight ahead, it seems darker.
Her shoes crunch in the thin layer of snow, her face flushed and fingers numb. She considers casting a warming charm, but that would require letting go of the faint warmth she has gathered against her body to reach for her wand.
All at once, the Shrieking Shack comes into view, high up on the hill at the edge of the village. She stops again at the sight of it, another prickle of uncertainty making its way up the length of her.
Come.
Her feet move on their own, starting up the hill, and the whole way up she imagines what she'll see when she opens that door. Knows now without a doubt that she's going to. The curiosity has toppled over the fear like a crashing wave.
Will he look the way Lupin did? All stretched skin and bones, fangs dripping?
She shivers at the thought. Or perhaps the cold.
The Shrieking Shack sways even in the barely-there breeze, creaking eerily back and forth as she stops in front of the door. For a moment, she thinks it might be locked. But then she remembers all those stories.
The most haunted building in Britain.
There'd be no need to lock it. No one would be stupid enough to break in. No one would want to.
No one, except for her.
She lifts the rusted latch, presses on the wood and steps across the threshold.
To her dismay, it's no warmer inside, but the cold is hardly her focus when all she can think about is holding her breath.
"Lumos."
The dilapidated sitting room is empty, the only sound that of the walls tilting. She moves as slowly as possible after shutting the door, making an effort to avoid floorboards that squeak as she makes her way to the foot of the stairs.
She tries to see the silence as a good sign — fully transformed werewolves aren't exactly the quiet type — but by the time she reaches the first landing, her wand hand is shaking. It makes the light flash across the walls like a strobe.
She takes one or two steps down the corridor at the top of the stairs when she hears the faintest clink. Like keys jangling. Her head jerks to the side, following it — finding the door to a room that's open just a sliver.
Her heart rate picks up, starting to thud in her chest.
The sound comes again, more pronounced as her wand light draws closer, shining through the gap. She gathers a final deep breath and forbids herself to draw it out any longer, taking hold of the knob and pushing it open.
It's not what she expects.
Not any of it.
Malfoy is sitting on the far end of the empty room, most of the furniture cleared away or pushed off to the side. He's seated calmly on the floor, legs crossed in front of him and his back against the wall, a lit candle at his side glowing faintly.
And he's reading.
Or, he was — shortly before she appeared.
She feels her brows draw together as his gaze jerks up and he meets her eyes, because this — it seems so normal. So the opposite of anything she ever expected. Nothing would feel off about it whatsoever were it not for the chains.
They're the only thing.
Malfoy's got a shackle on each wrist, iron links strewn across the floor where there's slack and leading to reinforced hooks on opposite walls.
It's—
"Are you out of your fucking mind?"
She startles. Blinks and refocuses her wand light on him, trying to remind herself of the situation. She hadn't counted on needing to say anything.
Part of her wonders if it would be better for him to be fully transformed right now.
"I—"
"Bleeding fuck!" Whatever book he was reading is suddenly launched at the wall about a meter to her left, and she swears she can hear its binding crack.
"Calm down," forces its way out instinctively.
"Are you blind, Granger?" Malfoy lurches to his feet and gestures angrily towards one of the boarded-up windows. The chains jangle with the movement. "Or did you somehow miss that enormous bright thing up in the sky?"
She scoffs. Splutters. "Excuse me?"
"The fucking moon, Granger! You're out of your fucking mind."
"I'm—"
"Who said you could come here? Who even told you where to look?"
"No one!" she shouts. "I — no one had to tell me, I—"
"You're going to get yourself killed—"
"Malfoy," she snaps, loud enough she can hear her voice echo down through the thin walls of the house. "Stop. I'm sick to death of you overreacting. Treating me like—"
"An idiot?" he demands, taking a step forward. There's still some slack on the chains. "A fool with a death wish?"
"I came here because you asked me to!"
This one echoes for longer, with nothing from Malfoy to overshadow it, and once it fades she's left listening to the shack whistle and creak for far too many seconds.
"Nox," she murmurs, because the bright of her wand is blinding and she can no longer see his expression. Her eyes take a while to adjust to the dimness, the glow of his candle far gentler by comparison. She's only just beginning to make out the look of confusion on his face when he speaks.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
She steps forward and lets the door fall shut behind her, finally resting her wand arm against her side. All she can think to do is say it again. "I came because you asked me to."
"I never—"
"Not out loud," she murmurs, eyes drawn downward to the shackles again. "I heard the voice inside my head."
Malfoy's face works through a myriad of expressions before landing on one he appears to be comfortable with. He jolts up an eyebrow. "You're hearing voices?"
"I'm not insane," she snaps, feeling a prick of anger at his tone. "I think it's part of the bond."
Malfoy stiffens. "It's not a bond."
"Link. Connection. Prison sentence. Whatever you want to call it, Malfoy, I heard it."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Why would I lie?" she hisses, eyes tracing over his face. The bruises from the fight are fading, his split lip mostly healed. "Besides," she says, taking another step. "It led me to you. So how could I be making it up?"
"What did it say?" Malfoy demands, almost cutting her off.
"Come." She casts a wordless warming charm around herself, unable to stand the chill any longer. "Come and find and even please, once, when I thought about turning back."
Malfoy remains silent for a moment, then seems to force out a snort. "You should know it wasn't me, then. I never say please."
"Who was it if it wasn't you?"
He looks her over, gaze scraping its way across her outline before sliding down and to the side. Looking at his shackles. He lifts one so she can see it better, dangling from his wrist. "The wolf," he offers.
It nearly makes her breath catch, the way he refers to it. So casually. "The wolf?" she echoes, working to coat her tone in doubt.
"Yes."
"You're implying the two of you are separate?" She raises an eyebrow to match his, even as that entry from one of the books flashes behind her eyes. The one about 'bisection.'
Malfoy's face twists, then — almost into a smile, though there's nothing pleasant about it. "Oh, we are absolutely separate. There's me." He gestures down at himself. "And then there's the instinct."
It's something about the way he says it. His voice doesn't change, and yet it does. Somehow, everything about it shifts, just below the surface, and there's all manner of darkness and new, unfamiliar intent behind it. It's in his eyes, too. Just the briefest flash of what looks to her like pure violence.
She tenses up at the sight, speaking without thinking.
"Are you going to change?"
All at once, Malfoy is Malfoy again, expression drawn in tight with bitterness — mocking her. "No, Granger." And his little laugh is unfriendly. "My brew was particularly good this month, so it looks like I won't get to tear you apart just yet." He backs away then, slumping down into his seat against the wall once more and adding as an afterthought, "But you still shouldn't be here."
She forces her muscles to relax, waiting almost half a minute before she says, "It wanted me here."
"Well, I don't." Malfoy tips his head back against the wall and shuts his eyes. A dismissal if there ever was one.
She lets out a short huff, an unbidden sense of disappointment flooding through her. Disappointment at what, she can't fathom, but her fingers tighten around her wand, jaw clenching as she takes a step back towards the door.
Clearly, this was a mistake—
Stay.
The voice fills her head, so sharp and so abrupt that she almost misses it when she squeezes her eyes shut.
But she sees Malfoy jump. Sees him jerk upright against the wall and then try to hide it. She sees it and she knows.
"You hear it too."
Malfoy's defense is weak, eyes downcast. He seems to wince even as he says it. "Fuck you, Granger—"
She's already striding towards him — elated that she wasn't wrong, driven forward by it — and before she knows it she's taking a seat on the floor in front of him. A few centimeters from his feet. "It's not just me. You hear it too."
She realizes she probably shouldn't sound so excited.
"What does it matter?" Malfoy hisses.
"At this point, anything we can learn about this matters. Don't you see that? We have to do whatever we can to understand this. Get a handle on this."
Malfoy scoffs. "There is no 'getting a handle on this.' We can't control this, Granger, in case you hadn't noticed."
"But maybe we can prepare for it. Learn to work around it—"
Take.
She stifles a gasp, the voice louder and more clear than it's ever been before. Malfoy grimaces, jaw clenching the same way his fist does.
And it's that reaction, more than anything, that stokes her curiosity.
"What does that mean?" she asks in a quiet voice.
"Fuck if I—"
Take.
Malfoy makes a noise in his throat — something frustrated and pained, his head slamming back against the wall. He does it twice more, and she starts to feel the dull ache at the base of her own skull.
He knows, she realizes. He knows what it means.
Take.
"I heard that before," she says, leaning forward. "Early this morning."
Take.
Malfoy groans and drags his hands down his face, pressing his fingers hard into the skin until she feels it too.
"Malfoy…" she reaches out to touch one of his hands. Maybe to draw it away from his face so she can look at him. "What does it—"
He grabs hold of her wrist so fast it steals the breath from her lungs. Shackles it, not unlike his own chains, and his eyes when they meet hers are venomous. Pupils massive. Bottomless voids of black.
"It means take, Granger," he growls, giving her a shake, his voice as tense as his grip.
"I don't—"
Take.
"Take." He says it at the same time, his voice layered darkly over the one inside her head.
She fumbles, heart pounding. She's sure he can feel the pulse in her wrist. "T-Take what?"
Take.
"Take what I want," he hisses, dragging her closer. Getting in her face. "What it wants."
"What — what does it want?" her voice is barely a whisper. Trembling, though she's not sure from fear. "What…do you want?"
Take.
The chains rattle and suddenly the hand not shackling her wrist has her by the chin.
She stops breathing.
And Malfoy holds her there, less than an inch from his face, as he says it. "I want to take it." His breath is warm, ghosting across her lips. "But I don't want to want that."
Something is burning low in her stomach. Something's coiling up and tightening. Her lungs can't take in air.
Her lips tremble as she speaks. "You want to—
Take.
"Take," he echoes, grip tightening on her chin — drawing her closer still, until the tip of his nose brushes against hers. "I want to take."
A shattered breath escapes her, and with it words she can't believe she's saying.
"Then take."
His own exhale is cut. Sharp. Surprised. "What?" he breathes, just a hiss.
She screws up her courage, even when it doesn't feel like she's really in control anymore. "I said take."
Take.
Her eyes fall shut, and she can feel her bottom lip graze his. Just the faintest brush of skin against skin—
Malfoy shoves her away so fast she almost doesn't catch herself with her hands. Almost falls flat on her back.
"What the fuck are you playing at?" he shouts, voice in shreds. "Are you — you want to make this worse? Get out! Get out!"
She's speechless. Can only stare at him, sprawled back and braced on her elbows.
"GO! Get out!"
No, growls the voice in her head in the same moment. Take.
Malfoy slams his palms against his temples. "I swear to Merlin if you don't shut the fuck up!"
And then he starts yanking on the chains. Ripping at them and making the walls creak and groan even more than usual.
Blind fear forces her to her feet.
"Get out!" he roars.
She runs.