Apricity – Chapter Thirty-Two
Draco was hurt.
That was the only way he could see it to make it make sense. Because the thought that he'd meant nothing to Hermione all along—the thought that her disorder had just used him as a pawn to keep eating her alive made him physically ill.
Because the disorder was not a living entity. The disorder was a part of her, a poison in her brain that had warped her into a completely new, different person. A person who manipulated people to get what they wanted, as long as it enabled them to keep engaging in behaviors. To keep binging, keep purging, keep chasing that impossible end goal.
But still.
He no longer knew how to interact with her. Not only had he done her wrong by betraying her, but the things she'd said to Theo had hurt him to the core of who he was. They implied things that he had yet to understand. Things that he feared would cause him to snap if she confirmed them.
Things that could bring the old Draco Malfoy back.
They met in front of Trelawney's classroom on Saturday at noon, exactly as scheduled.
Draco wore a pair of denims and an emerald green jumper. His hair had grown out a bit on the top, so shaggy now that he had to periodically scrape it back. The sides, usually shorn down, were still acceptable.
Hermione wore a pair of denims and an oversized knit sweater colored maroon. She'd done her hair at some point between last night and now. The curls were now styled into what looked like fifty or so twists adorned with silver beads. The top half of the twists were pulled up into two buns on top of her head while the others hung down to the small of her back.
He had to look away. Sometimes, her beauty caught him off guard. She was striking.
They hadn't spoken since Thursday night, so the awkwardness was apparent as they lingered outside the door to Trelawney's classroom. Through the window, it was clear the lights were off.
"Did she say when she was coming?" he asked from where he leaned back against the wall with one foot kicked up against it.
"Yes," she said, her gaze drifting up and down his body as though she were wary of him. "She said she would be grabbing lunch in the Great Hall, and then coming up to meet us."
"Ah, okay."
Hermione crossed her arms and leaned her shoulder into the wall on her side of the hall. The smell of her perfume was a bit overwhelming if only because it smelled of gardenias. It made him miss her.
He wished he hadn't fucked up.
"Do you know what she's going to be doing exactly?" Draco asked, unable to take the tension in the silence.
"Yeah," Hermione said through a yawn, not taking her gaze off of the floor. "She's going to cast a special spell that will show her if we have a star bond, and then she's going to help us understand it so we can make our decision properly."
"Huh. Convenient."
"It's not that convenient, actually. It's just the way it works." She glanced at him and then away again. "Most bonding magic is rooted in Divination because you're playing with futures and destinies. It's quite possibly the only sort of Divination I believe to be real. I think the rest of it is codswallop."
"Then why are you taking Advanced Divination?"
"Because I want to give it another shot."
"Why?"
Another sharp glance in his direction. "I don't know. I didn't know what I wanted to take when I came back, so I picked the classes I thought would challenge me the least. Divination was one of them."
"Oh."
"Yes."
He could read her like a book.
Hermione had to be taking Divination because she didn't know what she wanted to do with her future. It was an easy class that she wouldn't have to feel pressured to excel in. She could just breeze through it on her way to graduation.
The future was not a topic that Hermione knew well, especially not her own.
"So . . ." he started.
She shot him an annoyed look. "What?"
"If we find out the bond is real, then what are we gonna do?"
"I'm not sure." She gave him another once-over. "I'd like to ask questions first."
"Okay, but hypothetically, what if the bond is real? Then what would you be the most likely do?"
Hermione shrugged her outward-facing shoulder. "I would discuss our values and ideals, obviously. And then discuss what our plans are for after graduation. Those are the most important. You?"
He rubbed the line of his jaw with the fingers of his right hand. Before he fucked everything up, he would have told her that he didn't care what they did, as long as they stayed together. But things were different. She used to smile at him and now, she could barely look at him without him feeling like she thought he was a horrible person.
Even though he did not regret what he'd done to the Weaselbee, he regretted opening his mouth.
"I agree. Discussions are first priority."
"And the Consummation."
"Yes." His upper lip curled into a sneer. "The fucking."
She flushed and faced the door again. "If we haven't already consummated it."
Memories flashed before his mind's eye. Their encounter on the couch, when she'd begged him to treat her the way she felt inside. When they'd gotten carried away. When he'd said things to her that should have made him feel sick but had only driven him mad with desire.
She was right. There was a possibility that they'd already consummated it. He didn't feel any different, though he supposed that was what Trelawney was for.
"I do apologize for my tardiness!"
Trelawney's voice wafted down the corridor toward them, pulling them out of their otherwise tense conversation. They both looked and saw that the professor was making her way along the small, cramped corridor. She had a plate of food in one hand and a cup in the other. Coming to a stop before them, she lifted her chin so she could peer through her thick glasses at them.
"Exciting day, exciting day," she said, a bit breathless. "I'm sure you two must be jumping at the seams."
They merely stared at her.
Trelawney's smile faltered a bit. "All right. Well, anyway. Follow me inside, and we'll pip on over to my office for a spell."
Draco brought up the rear as they followed the professor's laughter at her own joke into the classroom. They walked down the steps and towards the door at the back of the room, which led to her office.
When they got inside, Trelawney set her food on the desk and waved her wand. The windows shuttered themselves and plunged them into darkness. Then, candlelight flooded the small room from hundreds of lit, floating candles that looked similar to the ones in the Great Hall. Draco glanced around, seeing that bookshelves lined the walls from floor-to-ceiling. There was a lot of clutter as well.
"Go ahead and take your seats, lovelies," Trelawney said around a bite of her sandwich. She gestured to the two cushioned chairs in front of her desk. "I'll take one more bite, and then we can get started. Did you have any questions before I perform the status spell?"
Draco exchanged glances with Hermione, who was already opening her mouth and speaking.
"What exactly is a binary star bond from your perspective as a Divination professor?"
Trelawney chewed her food for a moment, appearing thoughtful.
"Well, I'd say it's a type of destiny-focused marriage bond. It takes the destinies of two separate individuals and attaches them to the fates of two stars that will never be separated. The ritual uses the same runes and ingredients as a traditional marriage bond, with some—obviously—astronomical differences, given that it uses the constellation that the binary star system exists within, amongst other things. But unlike a marriage bond, which can be manipulated and adjusted, binary star bonds are a bit more straightforward. The bond is either strong or brittle, and there is no in-between." She let out a short laugh. "Unfortunately, a traditional divorce won't be in the cards for you with a bond like this."
Draco wondered if Trelawney knew she was the only one who laughed at her jokes.
Hermione cleared her throat. "So, when you perform this spell, what exactly will it tell you?"
"This spell will show me if there if a bond. If there isn't, it will fail. If there is, then I'll be able to see the bond, judge the tenacity of it, and see who created it."
Draco perked up. "You can see the original caster?"
"No," Trelawney said, waving a hand and taking another bite of her sandwich. She chewed for a drawn-out moment, still waving her hand, and then said, "I'll be able to see if the original caster was blood-related or not. Typically, these bonds were put in place by one of the parents of the two magical individuals being betrothed."
"Why did they stop using them?" Hermione asked.
"Well, there's multiple reasons for that. And you know, I have studied this extensively and I do agree with the reasons. But I digress." More chewing. She swallowed. "One reason was because the bonds were virtually unbreakable, so if for some reason one family lost their fortune or changed their circumstances, the bond could not be broken. But the most worrisome reason—and the main reason why the bonds were phased out—is because of the dreamwalking."
That was right. The fact that Hermione and Draco could walk in each other's dreams was the most interesting part of the bond. That he'd been watching her dreams like a film reel for years was an amazing piece of magic, from a wizarding standpoint. It was almost like Legilimency without being a natural Legilimens, or needing to train to hone the ability like Draco had since he was a child.
Though there was something strange about it.
Why did Hermione dream in memories, and Draco dreamed of an entire world?
"With dreams, though they are not real in the tangible sense," Trelawney said, "they are real enough to trap you like quicksand. The reason why Medieval families stopped using star bonds for their betrothals is because all it takes is one decision to be lost forever."
"What decision?" Hermione asked, her hands wringing in her lap.
"The decision to stay." Trelawney gave them a grave look. "As you know, betrothals happened at birth. Children would close their eyes, find each other in dreams, and choose to never wake up. It was—obviously—impractical. For a bond to be virtually unbreakable, but also run the risk of stealing your children away into their own minds before they can even make it to a point where they touch hands to activate the bond? Completely impractical."
"Virtually unbreakable?" Hermione said. "You said that it was virtually unbreakable twice. What would constitute as a danger to the bond?"
Draco forced his gaze to remain trained upon Trelawney, and his face to stay passive. He knew why Hermione was asking that question.
Theo was right. He had to be.
"Mm—yes," Trelawney said, mouth full of food. She held up one finger. "A binary star bond is unbreakable by all conventional and magical means. But it has one weakness."
"And what is that?"
"Itself."
Draco frowned, glancing over at Hermione. She looked confused, too.
Trelawney said, "Let's perform the spell now, and then I can answer more questions. Come, scoot forward. Yes, yes." She reached below her desk and hefted up a rather large gray stone with shiny silver spots, dropping it onto her desk with a loud thunk. With her wand, she cast a spell Draco had never heard before. "The stone is activated. Please place your hands upon it. Skin-to-skin."
Draco waited until Hermione had placed her hand upon the crystal, and then he followed suit. He covered her hand with his own, ensuring that his fingertips touched the faces of the rock. The moment his skin touched both hers and the rough stone, he felt magic weaving its way slowly through his body. It started up his arm and filled the cavern of his chest with a cold tingling. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
"What is this?" he asked.
Trelawney started to answer, but Hermione beat her to it.
"This is mesosiderite—a type of meteorite. I've read about them in the bonding magic book I checked out from the Library. They are crystals that come from the deepest recesses of space. It's a connection to the stars that we can use to conduct the magic through."
"Think of it like a conduit," Trelawney added. "Bonding magic runs between the two individuals but it can be redirected to pass through a crystal if it's the right kind. Ready?"
Draco and Hermione watched as Trelawney performed the spell. It was another one that Draco had never heard, but it wasn't quick or easy. It seemed to take a great deal of concentration, as well as a slow, intricate twisting of the wand in the air. Draco could feel the magic in his body responding, pulling up out of his magical core as though it were being dragged. He felt like he might start sweating.
Beside him, Hermione let out a small gasp. She seemed to be feeling the effects quite strongly as well.
Finally, when he thought the magic was about to cross over into the territory of unbearable, Trelawney pulled her wand away from the rock and placed it against her temple. She closed her eyes.
"Do not remove your hands from the stone." Her voice sounded mechanical. Emotionless. Her eyes snapped open. They were completely white.
They held their breaths.
"I can see the bond," Trelawney said. "There are cracks running throughout, but nothing that cannot be mended. It is otherwise strong. I can see that one of you is tentative. The other has completely surrendered to the bond."
"Who created it?" Draco asked, the words blurting forth without restraint.
Trelawney frowned, her eyelids narrowing. "The bond's foundation is familial."
Draco sucked in his breath.
A moment later, he felt the magic swimming back down into his core, pulling away from the stone. He took a deep breath, his chest expanding as the spell was severed. Trelawney blinked a few times, and then her eyes returned to their normal color. Her lips twitched up into a quick smile.
"My congratulations to you. It seems that you are indeed bonded to a binary star system."
Draco didn't know how he thought he was going to feel, but he did know that he was unsurprised at the way his heart leapt. It felt like a piece of himself had finally stopped moving around—like it finally knew where it was supposed to be. Or in this case, where it was going to be for the rest of his life. He'd known deep down that the bond was real. To have the confirmation now was as calming as it was a piece of good news.
Hermione was written in his stars.
But when he looked over at her, he didn't see the same blissful recognition that he felt painted on her face. Instead, he saw only the seeds of doubt sowed in her eyes. He knew they'd grow into many things that terrified him: fear, anger, mistrust.
His betrayal.
Though she was written in his, perhaps her sky did not have his constellation.
"Do you know which star system it was?" Hermione asked.
"No, only the original caster would know which star system they chose," Trelawney said. "Do you have any more questions?"
"What happens if one of us dies?" Draco said, running an anxious hand through his hair. "We read that if one of us dies, then so does the other. Are we connected in that way?"
Trelawney laughed. "No, my dear. That is a myth. A popular one, at that. All death does is sever a bond, which rings true for all bonding magic. It's just that with other types of bonds, there are ways to break them that don't involve death. With a binary star bond, the bond can only break itself, or be severed in death."
What did she mean by "break itself?" How could a star bond break itself?
Unless it was metaphorical.
Unless only Draco and Hermione themselves had the power to break the bond.
But how?
Wait.
If death was a myth . . . Then that meant that if she died, he'd live.
He could lose her and have to exist in a world where she didn't.
"I want to ask more about the dreams," Hermione said after glancing at Draco again. "You said that back then, children were getting lost in dreams. Was that only the children? Did any adolescents make it to the Consummation and the completion of the bond?"
"Yes, many did, just not as many as they'd hoped." Trelawney grimaced through a nervous laugh. "The issue with dreamwalking is that it can be very tempting to simply stay in a world with no pain or torment. A world where you never tire, hunger, or bore. For a child, that seems like a heaven and before the bond's completion, your dreams will pull you towards one another with a vengeance.
"But once you reach the Consummation—once the bond is completed—the dreams' ferocity will subside. They will go from being heavens to becoming sanctuaries. You won't be lost. You'll be able to choose if you want to be in one another's dreams or not. To control it. Right now, the bond controls you because its drawing you together."
As she kept speaking, Draco found that his gaze was being tugged in Hermione's direction. His dreams felt like a type of heaven where they truly could live in peace. Becoming lost in there sounded enticing. Dancing by the sea and playing in the grass. Seeing her smile reach her eyes as the breeze played through her braids. Lying in gardenias underneath an emerald sky with silver stars.
He could see why that was a problem.
"What about nightmares?" Hermione asked, her voice a bit louder than a whisper. "I took a—drank a tea a month ago, and he was able to walk through a recurring nightmare of mine. A memory. Can we get lost in those?"
"No, not in a nightmare. But they can affect the strength of the bond. The tea you took—it likely only made you drop your guard. Once your guard dropped, you let him in."
"But when I passed out, so did he."
Trelawney's brows pulled together as she looked from one to the other, and then realization dawned on her.
"I do remember that day." She tapped her chin. "Star bonds are very strong. They cannot be the death of you, but there are times when you will feel what the other feels. Also . . ." She turned in her chair and went to one of her shelves. She rummaged through the clutter, pulled open a chest, stared into it, nodded, and then shut the chest. Returning to her seat, she smiled at them. "That day was a full moon. I'm willing to bet it was in the constellation that contains the star system you are bonded to. Just a rare side effect of the strength of the bond before Consummation."
"Okay," Hermione said. "About the dreams . . . He's never been in my dreams. Only my nightmares. But I have been inside his dreams. What does that mean?"
Trelawney rested her elbow on the arm of her chair and her chin in her hand. Her expression looked a bit troubled. "That means you have a pain that has reached through the cracks I saw in the bond. It's overpowering the bond in some sense and keeping him out. You'll have to overcome that pain."
Hermione's head dropped, her fingers fidgeting with one another in her lap. "What if I can't?"
"Then you'll have to let him in."
As if on cue, Draco and Hermione looked at one another. In her eyes, he saw her fear and the hurt that he had caused. His heart ached for her and for the way he had ruined everything. His failure with not only her, but his mother. The monster that he was for ignoring his father. He saw it all reflected back at him.
He hated himself.
"You see," Trelawney went on, "dreams come from stardust and they change according to the feelings in your heart. They shift so often that if you're not careful, you can become trapped in the light. However, nightmares come from dark places that are etched in stone. They replay over and over, tormenting the soul and the psyche. A nightmare can pull you in, but it cannot trap you—you can always escape if you want to because the entrance never changes. The exit may change, but there will always be a route."
Draco curved his hands over his kneecaps. "Is it possible to walk her nightmare and influence it, but not change it?"
"Yes," she answered. "In fact, it's the only thing possible. You cannot enter a nightmare and change the course of events. A star bond grants you access to what is already possible—a dream, a nightmare, a memory, a future. But nightmares are messages from your soul; dreams are indulgences of your heart."
"How do you know that our bond isn't already consummated?" Hermione asked, sounding nervous.
Draco felt his cheeks warming at the memory.
Trelawney gave her a confused look. "You don't know if you . . . ? Never mind." A wave of her hand. "It was not consummated. I could see it in the bond."
Sadness pulled Draco's face downward.
As if she would choose him now.
"Can it be reversed at all before the Consummation?" Hermione asked, her words a bit hesitant. As if she wasn't sure. As if she didn't want to hurt his feelings.
"Yes," Trelawney said, "but only by the original caster. Once the bond is consummated, you will no longer have the chance. But be wary. If you forge this bond in anything other than strength, it will destroy itself and fail."
Draco exchanged glances with Hermione.
What did that mean?
"I think that's all I had questions about," Hermione said, standing up. "Draco? Did you have any?"
"Nah. I know everything I need to know now."
He felt like he couldn't look her in the eyes. He stood up and followed her to the door, where he reached out to push on the door above her head as she turned the knob. Her back brushed against his frontside.
Trelawney clapped her hands together once. "When you consummate the bond, be sure to go to the Ministry and register. You know how the Ministry feels about taxes."
Hermione stopped, turning to look around Draco's arm at their professor. Draco glanced over his shoulder, too. "Register? Register what?"
Trelawney smiled from behind the rim of her cup.
"Your marriage, Miss Granger."
When they were halfway down the stairwell, Hermione finally spoke. She stopped walking, turning to look up at him with a worried expression.
"Who bonded us?"
"You don't have any magical family members," he said, a hushed statement, as though someone might come up the stairwell at lunch on a Saturday.
"No."
He felt his heart beginning to race. "I only have two living family members, and have since I was a child. My last relative was Abraxas Malfoy, and he passed long before I started at Hogwarts."
"Then what can we do?"
Draco knew what they could do. Oh, he knew what they could do, and he knew that it was exactly the thing he didn't want to do. It was something that filled him with a fear so violent and arresting that he lost his breath at the thought.
He placed his hands on the wall on either side, absentmindedly scuffing the toe of his boot on the step beneath him. His head hung as though he were on a crucifix.
It sort of felt like he was.
"We'll have to speak to my father."
It wasn't something they could do in a letter.
After returning to the common room to get their coats and send Potter an emergency letter, they had headed to McGonagall's office to use the Floo. After a vague explanation that it was just for a Saturday outing, she'd acquiesced, though the suspicion in her eyes had been apparent.
Apparently, the school gossip had reached her and she knew they had some sort of situationship.
Now, they stood in the Ministry's entrance hall, waiting for Potter to come and retrieve them. They were to be taken up to the Auror Department, where guards from Azkaban were Portkeying Lucius into a secure visitation office.
Draco was nervous. Beyond nervous.
To go from stuffing his father's unread letters into a chest of bitterness on his dresser, to writing him to selfishly ask for help for a domestic issue, to now pulling him out of his cell for a visitation? He wasn't sure how to feel. Guilty or scared.
Both.
He felt like it was a bit more than nerves. Ever since he'd received the letter response back from his father on Thursday, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about the fact that his father had been struggling to write. That he'd very clearly signed the letter "your father" when Draco hadn't even had the respect to sign his "your son."
The self-hatred was so overwhelming that for a moment, Draco wondered if he was feeling a fraction of the pain Hermione felt.
But in the next moment, he reminded himself how selfish it was to think that. That only made him feel worse. The reason why things were so tense between he and Hermione was because he was selfish. The reason why he hadn't read his father's letters was because he was selfish.
He was selfish, and he deserved this anxiety.
The Ministry was mostly-empty on a Saturday, which Draco was glad for. Their short notice trip had all but guaranteed them to be able to arrive without any of the press being notified. He wasn't sure about Hermione, but he knew he couldn't enter the Ministry for even one second without reporters for the various magical magazines and newspapers accosting him to find out what he was doing since his mother died.
Whereas Draco was on the verge of sweating, Hermione looked almost irritated. Her arms were crossed over the breast of her dress coat. By the way she was shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she was impatient.
Was she that eager to find out if she could be rid of him?
At exactly four in the afternoon, the lift doors opened.
Potter strolled out, wearing casual clothing. He waved to Hermione, but his smile seemed strained.
"I told you I was here for you," he said to Hermione after a quick embrace, "not that you could use me for favors."
"This favor is detrimental," Hermione said, grimacing. "Thank you for making this possible."
"Well, it's not that he can't have visitation," Potter said, glancing over her shoulder, up at Draco. "It's just that you're supposed to fill out an official form. Typically, it's supposed to be for proven special occasions such as a birthday, meeting a child or grandchild, or a marriage."
"How did you manage it?" Draco asked.
"Is that a rhetorical question?" Potter's expression was deadpan. "I'm Harry Potter. Your father was here in less than an hour, mate."
Draco swallowed.
Hermione cleared her throat and said, "It shouldn't be a long conversation. Can you take us to him?"
They followed Potter to the lift. Hermione stood in the center and reached up to hold a strap, staring at the doors. Potter leaned his shoulder against one wall with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Draco leaned back against the wall with one foot on it behind him. He slipped his hand into his hair and rubbed his eyes with the heel of that palm. Neither boy held a strap.
Potter yawned and glanced at Draco. "I'm exhausted. This week has me knackered. A lot of work to do."
I'll bet, Draco thought, glancing back at him out of the corner of his eye. "Why pick a Ministry job if you don't like to work, Potter? I wasn't aware laziness was one of your character traits."
The corner of Potter's mouth lifted. "I was aware it was one of yours."
The lift lurched, causing Hermione to stumble. She careened backward off balance even though she had a hold of a strap. Without looking up from the floor, Draco's hand found her lower back and pushed her upright again.
She looked back at him for a moment before quickly averting her eyes.
"If you're knackered," Hermione said, "then you need to be getting more sleep."
"I get plenty of sleep," Potter countered. "It's just been a late work week. I'm tracking a suspect."
Draco and Potter's gazes met.
They looked away.
"I'm happy to see you're settling in so well," Hermione said as the lift shuddered to a stop. "I was concerned when I heard they were skipping you out of the training program."
"You didn't believe in me?" Potter asked through a grin.
"It's not that I didn't believe in you," she replied, and Draco could hear her smiling, too. "It was that I was worried you'd find some way to break the rules in the first week and get sacked."
"Oh!" Potter cried, holding a fist to his mouth and laughing. Even Draco smirked. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Hermione, you little brat!"
They filed after him out of the lift and into the Auror Department. It was a bit fuller in the cubicles here, but most of the Aurors seemed busy working on their paperwork. Draco kept his head down, itching his temple with one finger in the hopes that he could stick out less. After Aurors had handled him and his family so roughly during the trials, he wasn't exactly comfortable around them.
Potter led them down a hallway that seemed to stretch for miles. The doors all looked exactly the same, but he seemed to know exactly which one to stop at. He tugged up his jumper sleeve and presented his palm. Then, he drew it back.
"Are you both ready?" he asked. "Once your inside, I'll have to seal you in. You'll have exactly thirty minutes."
Draco felt a bit relieved. He'd been worried they'd have to sit there for hours.
"I'm ready," Hermione said, tilting her head back to look up at him. "Are you, Draco?"
He nodded, finding that his throat felt too constricted to say anything. His knees felt weak and his palms clammy. He wished he could reach for her or hold her hand. Anything. Anything at all.
Why did I have to fuck everything up?
His father was right on the other side of that door. He didn't know what he was going to look like, how hurt he'd be, or what look would be in his eyes. Draco only knew that the time had come. There was no going back now. No more avoiding. No more running from his problems.
This was for Hermione.
Potter placed his palm flat against the center of the blank door. Something activated, a rune that glowed red appearing above his fingers. It pulsed three times, and then there was a click.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Anything. I wish I could have something, anything. I can't breathe. I can't fucking breathe. I can't—
"Draco?"
Draco tore his panicked gaze away from the floor and looked up to see both Potter and Hermione staring at him. Hermione looked concerned.
"Are you all right?"
He said nothing. Just looked at her.
Potter turned, keeping his hand against the door so the rune wouldn't fade. "I don't know what conversation you two need to have with him, but you don't have to do this if you're not ready, mate."
Draco took a deep breath. "I'm fine. I can—I'm fine."
Hermione bit her lower lip, and he saw it flickering across her face. The indecision. The hurt. The betrayal.
Resignation.
Her fingers sought his out, sliding between them and curling upward. Holding his hand.
He exhaled.
"This is for us," she murmured, though he could tell Potter had heard. "So we can make the right decision."
"So we can make the right decision," he repeated.
She squeezed his hand and nodded. "The right decision for our future."
He nodded, and it felt like a gavel striking the surface of his fate.
You are the right decision, Hermione. Why can't you see that?
Why don't you want me?
"Ready?" Potter said.
"Yes," Hermione said, her hand slipping out of Draco's. "We are."
Please don't say "we." Don't say "us."
You're making this harder.
Potter opened the door.
Draco kept his gaze cast downward as he followed Hermione into the small, white-walled room. The door clicked shut behind them, sealing them inside for the allotted thirty minutes. His heart raced so fast that he felt faint. If it weren't for the back of her head pressing against his chest, he might have pitched forward.
"Hello, Mr. Malfoy," she said.
I can't breathe. This is too hard. I shouldn't have—
"Hello, Miss Granger." He felt his eyes on him, boring holes into his downturned face. "Hello, son."
Thirty minutes. It's just thirty. I can do this. I can do this.
Draco lifted his eyes.
"Hello, father."
Lucius Malfoy sat in a chair wearing the pale grey-and-white Azkaban uniform. In front of him was a wooden table that had no other chairs. The entire room was as white as his hair had turned. His hair, which was stringy and hung in scraggly ropes to his elbows. His skin was as pale as a sheet, with a sickly-green tinge to it. His eyes seemed to have sunken deep into the hollows of his face, the bags under them dark and prominent. His mouth appeared situated into a permanent frown.
His hands, wrists wrapped in iron manacles with runes inscribed on them, shook with a violence that looked almost painful.
Draco almost looked away, the sight of the shaking clicking into place as an answer for the heartbreakingly-messy letter his father had sent.
What did the other letters look like?
"You don't seem surprised to see us here," Hermione said, standing to the right of Draco, who stood slightly behind her. "Together."
"I am not." His tone was weary and more than a bit clipped. When he looked at Hermione, it was like he was viewing her through a haze of grey fog.
"Then you know why we are here," she replied. "We only have thirty minutes."
"What would you like to know?"
"I'm cutting to the quick," Hermione said. "We know we're bonded. We know the bonding spell was cast by someone in one of our families. All of my living family members are Muggle. Was it you?"
"Yes."
Draco was taken aback, but he stayed silent.
"You? Or Narcissa?" Hermione asked.
"It was my wife," Lucius said. "I assisted her with the ritual portion, and with erasing my son's memories afterward."
"Why?"
Lucius pursed his lips. It seemed like he was trying to either decide what to say, or how to condense it to fit in their small time frame.
"I knew that the Dark Lord had plans to return. I knew that was always his plan. It wasn't until after Draco's Second Year that I realized that he had a possible opponent in Harry Potter. It made me doubt the Dark Lord's dream of a future, and that made my us nervous. My wife used Dark magic to perform a matchmaking spell on Draco during the Summer before his Third Year. She found all potential magical matches and sifted through them until she found one that would provide the best protection. That person was a convenience that could only have been written in the stars. That person was you, Hermione Granger."
Beside him, Draco heard Hermione suck her breath in. Lucius went on.
"We knew that if the Dark Lord won the war, then we would have nothing to worry about. However, if the Dark Lord lost, we would need assurance that our son would be safe. We knew we couldn't save ourselves, but we could save him. It was the only way to assure his survival if we chose the wrong side."
He paused.
"My wife thought that a binary star bond was our best option. It was nigh unbreakable and if he were bonded to you in a way that would kill you if they hurt him, or if he got hurt during the war that was sure to come, they would be forced to spare or save his life. In the instance that the Dark Lord won, we could simply ensure your survival, Miss Granger, long enough for my wife to reverse the bond.
"When he came home for Christmas of his Third Year, we woke him in the middle of the night to perform the ritual. Since the two of you didn't get along, we knew it would be years before you ever got close enough to one another to activate the bond. Knowing that the Dark Lord was aching to start planning his acquiescence of a human form, we thought it best to perform it as soon as possible."
"Wait," Hermione interjected. "How could you perform a spell as life-altering as that without me present? How could it possibly work?"
"When using Dark magic to cast bonding spells, many rules become nonexistent."
Hermione frowned. Draco stared at her face from the side so he wouldn't have to look at his father. "Which star system did you bind us to?"
"Sirius, in Canis Major."
"Well, you were wrong about one thing," Hermione said. "We got close to each other in Third Year, right at the end of the year. It activated the bond. There was some delay on my part because I was less open to it than he, but it was inevitable."
Draco desperately hoped she didn't tell his father that she'd punched him. He told his father everything when he was younger, but he'd left that part of his year out.
"Then, is the bond complete?" Lucius asked, tone carefully nonchalant.
"Not yet," Hermione answered.
There was a lull in the conversation. A lull that increased Draco's discomfort. He could feel his father staring at him. He was going to speak. He was going to speak and say something to him and talk to him and—
"She would have done anything for you, son. She did do everything for you." Draco felt Lucius' eyes on him, but he kept his sights set on the pristine white walls. "You may not ever forgive me for doing this, but I hope you will forgive her."
"Do you say that because I'm Muggle-born," Hermione said, "and you want to apologize to him for trapping him with me?"
"No," Lucius said. "I say it because I want to apologize for taking his choice away. But I want to assure you—the bond does not force feelings or emotions. We did not want to trap you in a prison. The bond merely ensures that you will never be apart from someone who can complete you. If you were not a proper match for him, the ritual would never have worked. If you fall in love, then it is real."
How did he know?
How does he fucking know?
"It was a myth, you know," Hermione said with a somewhat haughty sniff.
"What?"
Hermione said, "The bond does not connect our life forces. If I die, he lives. If he dies, I live. Though the intention was there, you would not have succeeded."
Lucius said nothing, but he didn't have to. It was clear that he had not known about the myth either. Draco didn't think it mattered.
His mother had risked everything to save his future. His father had gone against everything he believed to ensure his safety. His parents had fought for him long before there was anything to fight for. And Draco had fought for his mother every time he sat on that bottom step of the stairs and listened to his mother binge so she wouldn't be alone when she was in pain.
Their family was broken, but the pieces were as strong as stone.
"I think that's everything we needed to know," Hermione said. "None of what you did was morally right or legal, but I think the fact that you're sitting over there is proof enough that you understand that."
"Would it help you if I were to apologize?"
"There's nothing to apologize for, and nothing more to say. Draco, it's time to go."
It was clear that Hermione was either angry or conflicted. Possibly both. Finding out that her future was chosen for her against her will long before she ever had the chance to realize it or do anything to stop it wasn't that much different than doing something horrible to her without her consent. She already had such a hard time accepting who she was in the life she lived in. People were making choices for her body, something that was supposed to be hers to make choices for.
Draco realized now that even if he'd completely surrendered to her, he had to let her come to him. He had to apologize to her for telling her secret to the Weaselbee, and he had to make things right. That way, if what Theo had said was true, he could figure out how to change her opinion of him.
They reached the door. Draco vibrated with the desire to leave the room so he could breathe. He knew he should be proud of himself for facing this—for facing his pain—but it was overwhelming. It was so overwhelming that his throat ached. He just wanted to leave so he could take a fucking second to remember how to function.
Hermione stopped, then turned to face his father.
"What is the reason for your shaking?" she asked, turning to face his father. She glanced up at Draco's face once. "Do you know?"
"I do." Lucius answered without missing a beat. "They are Cruciatus tremors."
Hermione's face contorted into an expression of horror. "Are you not being treated?"
"No."
"They can't do that." She glared up at Draco. "According to Article Three of the 1967 Azkaban Prison Accords, all prisoners must receive medical treatment monthly. It's standard. If the prisoner is found to be grievously unwell with an illness or wound, they are entitled to ongoing treatment. I can't remember the rest, but . . . I'm sure of this."
"They can do whatever they'd like when you've got no one to fight for you, Miss Granger," Lucius said, his chains rattling against the table from the force of his trembling.
"There's always someone who will fight for you, Mr. Malfoy. If they won't, then I will."
It was like a glimpse in the fog.
The old Hermione.
It was beautiful.
There was a knock. It had been thirty minutes. Their time was up.
As Hermione brushed past him to go to the door, Draco knew what he had to do. If he couldn't speak to his father, then he could at least look at him. He could give him something of himself to keep him warm.
Lucius' gaze cut through the air to meet his.
The span of one broken heartbeat passed, and just like that, Draco felt like he was back in the courtroom. Like the Aurors were hauling his father away and they were locking eyes one final time. Like his mother's dead body was still being carried out of the room by the Healers. Like the Wizengamot was still screaming for order in the courtroom while the attendees screamed. Back then, he'd felt like he was staring a lonely future right in the face. Back then, he'd felt like a star, alone in the darkness as it shone for no one.
He feared going back to that loneliness.
They exited into the hallway. Draco didn't look behind him. The door shut with another click, and Potter reapplied the runic barrier. Then, he led them down the hall. Hermione's twists swung as she waved her hands about and began to rant.
"Harry, I'd like to lodge a formal complaint against the guards at Azkaban. They aren't giving Lucius Malfoy the medical treatment he is entitled to. Because they have unlawfully kept him from his legally-sanctioned monthly physicals, his Cruciatus tremors have progressed to muscular tremors. And for Merlin's sake, he looks abhorrent. He really looks abhorrent. I want him to be given three full meals per day and I want you personally to go to his cell and check to ensure that he's got books, a blanket and pillow, and that his cell receives permanent heat. I'm not playing with you, Harry Potter. If you don't . . ."
Draco tuned her out as he followed them. Not intentionally. It was difficult to focus when he wanted to cry as badly as he wanted to kiss her.
Was he a bad person for being happy that they couldn't reverse the bond?
"Hermione, I promise you," Potter said, holding her by the shoulders. "I promise you that I will handle everything."
She glowered at him, her facial expression stern. "I'm going to check on this. He may be a prisoner, but he's an old man and he's going to be my—Just . . . Please don't let him suffer anymore. It's not right."
Potter narrowed his eyes, momentarily looking at Draco. Draco tried not to give anything away.
He wasn't going to tell another one of her secrets.
"I'll file the report and then I'll go there myself," Potter said.
"Tonight."
"Tonight."
Hermione wrapped her arms around his neck and embraced him. They said their goodbyes, Draco giving him a curt nod, and then they entered the lift. Potter remained behind in the Auror Department, waving as the doors shut.
The silence settled over them, thick and viscous as tar.
Draco still felt like he was suffocating.
The lift bell rung and it began to move. Draco leaned back against the wall again but this time, Hermione took the spot next to him, her hands pressing flat to the lift wall by her rear. He felt her eyes on him.
"Why haven't you gone to see him before now?" she asked.
He closed his eyes. He couldn't lie to her. He could never lie to her.
"Because I want him to suffer the way I will."
Her fingers sought his hand. Wrapped around it as though she were trying to lead him down a path. Which he supposed she had been leading him down a path for weeks. A path that he hoped ended in eternity.
"You won't suffer forever," she said. "I promise."
He held it together while they walked out of the lift with her hand wrapped around his. He held it together while they stepped into the Floo and out into McGonagall's office. He held it together while they thanked the Headmistress, who was at the desk reading a parchment, and he held it together while they descended the twisting staircase to the corridor.
He held it together until he couldn't anymore.
When they rounded the corner into another empty, quiet corridor, he stopped walking. He was trying to hold his seams together, trying to keep it all from spilling out. His fear, grief, pain, and the sheer intensity of being in a room with the father he'd tried to disown. The father who'd never stopped being his father, even though Draco had tried to stop being his son. Standing there in the center of the corridor, he looked down at her.
Draco could feel his eyes burning.
Hermione's puzzled look faded into one of understanding. It spelled sympathy in the way her brows met.
"Draco," she said, her soft voice seeming to become swallowed up by the emptiness in the hall. "She was trying to protect you. It wasn't about me. It was always about you."
His chin began to tremble. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to stop feeling like vines were wrapped around his throat. He wanted to stop feeling so frightened of losing everything, even if his everything was Hermione.
He wanted to cry.
"She was trying . . ." She took a step closer to him and placed her hand flat on the center of his chest. He wondered if she could feel his heart beating a tattoo against the inside of the bone. ". . . To protect you."
Why was she so blurry?
He closed his eyes. A hand pressed to his cheek. It was cold, but it filled him with a warmth that chased away the last of his faculties. His inhaled sharply through his teeth.
The first tear fell.
"Draco," she said, and her other hand reached up to cup his other cheek. "Look at me."
He obeyed, holding a whimper in a cage in his chest. The sincerity in Hermione's eyes was something he'd only ever seen in his dreams. It was the same sincerity she'd had when she was lying in the gardenias, looking up at him with the trust that she had only shared with him.
It all came rushing up.
His mother. Hermione's disorder. His father's tremors. Paris. The mistakes that he'd made. The mistakes he would inevitably make because he couldn't stop fucking things up. The way he'd hurt her. The way he'd hurt his father. His broken friendship with Theo. Everything, everything, everything.
He was trying so hard to fix it all but it seemed like no matter how hard he tried, it kept spilling out of his arms.
Everything, everything, everything was falling apart.
Hermione rose up onto the tips of her toes, wrapped her arms gently around his neck, and pressed her lips against his ear. When she spoke, though her tone was a whisper, it barreled through his body with all the force of a shooting star.
"Your mother loved you."
Draco fell into shambles, his pieces scattering like dust across the cosmos. Those pieces fluttered across the landscape of his wounded heart, pulling sobs out of him that wracked his entire body. He dropped his head into the crook of her neck as his arms wrapped around her waist in a bruising grip. He wept so hard that it would be humiliating if anyone walked by, yet he didn't have the energy to care if anyone did.
He leaned into Hermione. Physically. Metaphorically. Emotionally. And she held him. She held him with what little of herself she could give him, and it was more treasured to him than a diamond. He knew that no matter what happened between them—whether she learned to trust him again or now—he would cherish this moment.
Because he was falling for her.
When the emotions retreated back into the box he liked to keep them safe in, he pulled back. He moved his hand towards his cheek, preparing to wipe them, but Hermione's fingers beat him to it. They swiped beneath his eyelashes, which he could feel clinging together. He knew he must look red in the face and splotchy, but he didn't care.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
He nodded, his throat too raw.
"I think we should go to Hogsmeade," Hermione said, her hands wrapped around his biceps. Her expression was serious.
"Yeah?" he said, his voice cracked and raspy. He sniffled.
"Will you come with me?"
"Yeah," he breathed, his gaze falling to her lips.
He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve a kiss. She wouldn't allow it. Not after what he'd done.
But he was already walking her backward towards the wall.
"Do you want to come with me?" she whispered, her head tilting back as they reached the stones. Her eyelids fluttered as his hands came up to hold her jaw with the sides of his forefingers and the pads of his thumbs.
"Yeah."
He dropped his lips to hers, soft yet heated. His head turned first to the left side, then to the right, his eyes opening to give her a smoldering look that she returned. Their lips met again, their tongues mutually agreeing to greet each other in her mouth.
Everything, everything, everything.
She was his everything.
Hermione moaned into his mouth, kissing him back slowly. The strokes of her tongue were languorous in the way they rose to meet his. Her hands clenched in the sleeves of his coat, twisting tight as she fought to stay on her toes.
Draco dominated the kiss in a way that showed her not only his gratitude for letting him break down, but his desire for her and the way that it would never abate. He wanted her to know that even though he hadn't had the choice either, he was choosing her now.
He would always choose her.
Finally, he pulled back, his gaze flitting up and down her face as he took in the sight of her flushed cheeks and swollen lips. The way she panted slightly. The way she trembled in his arms.
The way she fit against him, like she completed the parts of him that were missing.
"What do you want to discuss?" he asked.
"Our future."
