cxxviii. the face of man

The door slammed shut behind Hermione, and she sank to the floor, her head in her hands.

She'd known before stepping foot on the train that her homecoming would not be a pleasant one. Her parents were much like her—logical, hardworking, and cunning—and so Hermione understood they would spend the year between Yule holidays thinking and considering all the things they wanted to say to their only daughter. All the things and the reasons why they didn't want her to return to Hogwarts.

It was strange being in a place so very—Muggle after twelve months away. A staleness hung in the air that competed with her fonder recollections of her childhood home, and when she reached out to swipe her fingers over her bookshelf, they came back sticky with dust. She'd known she was a witch for less than three years, and yet the twelve preceding those years had lost their sheen, had shifted from reaffirming to surreal. Magic had entered Hermione's life, and nothing could ever be the same again.

She just wished her parents could accept that.

Three days. She'd been home for three days, and it seemed a lifetime had passed in those seventy-odd hours. Her mum had taken a firm hold of her arm the moment she'd crossed the station's barrier and had marched her straight into her father's embrace, who hadn't let go for several minutes before passing her back to Jean Granger. The Grangers went to dinner in London, the affair's genial nature surprising Hermione—until she asked to pop by Diagon Alley before they went home.

Her parents had vehemently refused.

Their denigration of magic started on the drive home with pithy quips asking if Hermione thought the car and traffic and basic street laws were too boring and average for her taste—to which Hermione replied that she rather enjoyed taking travel slowly. She tried to explain the inherent repercussions of fast magical travel, the reciprocal whiplash accrued by bending time and space to such mind-boggling degrees—but her parents weren't interested in the conversation.

The silence had felt so strained, Hermione experienced a visceral sensation of disconnect, watching the Muggle world pass the window like images on a telly screen.

Most would overlook the small comments, the little jabs and jibes Hermione laughed at with her parents—and yet, in her heart, she remembered being an awkward little girl in primary school where all the other children would call her weird and ugly and strange, and how her parents had been the ones to comfort her at home. Now, she couldn't help but associate the two in her mind; the Grangers had become those irritating children, and each time they put down magic, Hermione felt herself wilting more and more.

She loved her parents, and they loved her; their mutual affection and regard were not in question. However, they would never truly understand—and thus accept—magic and the Wizarding world as Hermione could.

Today, Robert Granger had cooked them breakfast, and as they sat down to dishes of eggs, tomatoes, and sausages, he'd said, "Hermione, dear. Your mother and I were thinking about taking a trip."

"A trip? Where to?"

"Switzerland."

"Switz—Switzerland?" Hermione reiterated, taken aback. Her parents had never mentioned a desire to go to Switzerland before, and their holidays in the past had been mainly to the seaside, France, or Spain. Their usual weekend jaunt never took them farther than London. "Oh. That—sounds nice. When are you going to go?"

"Well, we were hoping you would come with us."

"Really? It's awfully cold there during this time of year, isn't it? But I'm sure it'd be fun to go!" Their desire to have her come along surprised Hermione, but it pleased her nonetheless. She hadn't thought this morning would go this way—and yet the idea of seeing Switzerland and learning more about what kind of Wizarding community existed there sounded exciting. She wondered how they handled Muggle-borns. The Nordic countries feeding into Durmstrang had long taken a critical view on the population, while Koldovstoretz and eastern Europe had mixed reactions, and Beauxbatons had shown far more acceptance. Until the eighties, Hogwarts and British Wizarding society had been one of the most progressive in recognizing and supporting Muggle-borns.

And then Voldemort happened.

Her dad had wiped his mouth and glanced at Hermione's mum, who cleared her throat and smiled. "It'll be wonderful. We've found a lovely little town to stay in—and you'll have to take a bit of time off your studies, but that shouldn't be a problem."

Hermione blinked, her thoughts grinding to a halt. "I—pardon?"

Jean spooned more eggs onto her plate. "Your father and I discussed it and thought it'd be best if you took a break from Hogwarts for a term and returned home. You can come with us to Switzerland—and they have excellent schools there, Hermione, just excellent."

"Mum, I—well, I can't just take time off school," Hermione had said, surprised yet again by the twist in conversation. Dread had blossomed in her chest, an ephemeral fluttering against her heart. Her palms had begun to sweat. "I'm only allowed to come home during the Yule holiday and you can't take sabbaticals from Hogwarts as a student; it just isn't done."

"It's the Christmas holiday," her dad had corrected in a sharp, brusque tone. "And learning these—spells and whatnot is all well and good, but Hermione, dear, don't you think it's time for things to get back to normal? What about your a-levels? What about university and a career? You can't become a barrister or a doctor with a degree in—magic."

"This is normal, dad. I can't stop being a witch and tuck it all away. The MPA law prohibits—."

"Hermione, we don't want to hear about the law again. It's not a real law, now is it? They can't very well bring it into court and enforce it."

But they could. The Ministry could very much find Hermione or her family in violation of the Muggle-born Protection Act, and she didn't think they'd get the benefit of a trial before the Wizengamot. Not for a nobody such as herself. Her wand would be snapped, and her parents could possibly be Obliviated.

They simply couldn't understand. Magic to them would never be real, and Hermione could do nothing to prove its reality without jeopardizing her enrollment at Hogwarts or breaking the law. The pictures she could procure, the odd objects gifted to her by her friends, weren't enough. Hermione worried she would always be too much and yet not enough for her parents.

"We miss you. We need you home, Hermione. We're your family, for God's sake, and we've barely seen you!"

"Dad—."

"No. We don't want you returning to that place, and that's the final word on the matter."

The discussion devolved until Hermione had stood, excused herself without their permission, and returned to her room. Now, slumped against the door, she could hear the echo of her father's voice calling down the hall, calling her back, and the narrow gulf between her and her parents widened until it seemed more a canyon than anything else.

Tears made sticky tracks on her cheeks, and Hermione wiped them away, refusing their existence.

You can't become a barrister or a doctor with a degree in magic.

And that was the thing, wasn't it? Hermione's childhood had been filled with idle chatter on prospective universities and careers—and then Minerva McGonagall walked into their home, changing her life forever. Those idle dreams and hopes hadn't stopped for her parents, but Hermione couldn't imagine going to Muggle university and trying to divide magic from her mind, pretending it didn't influence every little iota of everything. She didn't want to be a barrister or a doctor. Not anymore.

"Switzerland indeed," Hermione grumbled, drying her eyes. She stood and straightened her jumper, walking over to her desk and upending her rucksack. Her books landed on the desk and floor with heavy thuds, and Hermione sighed as she picked up a Transfiguration text and fixed a bent corner. Her stomach ached as if she were sick.

Growing up, Hermione would retreat to her books and interests whenever contentions arose between herself and her parents, and now was no different. She muttered as she stacked books and refused to sniffle or cry—because it wasn't worth her tears or all this—nonsense. She didn't wish to argue, and her parents couldn't argue about this. Her hand landed upon a folder, and Hermione opened it, pausing when the old, weathered parchment inside was revealed.

The Marauder's Map.

Honestly, what had the original creators been thinking putting the Map on parchment? Certainly, there was an element of commonality, having an item plain and average enough to not attract attention—but there was no permanence to it! It already bore so many rips and tears and odd stains. With magic, they could have made the Map anything at all, couldn't they? It was so limited.

Hermione perched on the edge of her chair—ignoring the raised voices in the kitchen, her fingers crimped on the parchment's surface. She retrieved her wand and muttered the passphrase, concentrating on the spindles of ink spreading out from the tip, filling out the familiar walls and pathways and corridors, tiny black shoes and little banners trailing above them.

Her tension lessened as she found her friends' names in the Slytherin common room, sitting by the central hearth. A smile turned her mouth as she pictured the scene, and she hoped the pair weren't arguing with one another and that they were staying safe indoors. Hermione loved them both dearly; her dad had said, "We're your family, for God's sake," and that would always be true, but Harriet and Elara were her family, too, and Hermione had never been too much or not enough for them.

Most of Hogwarts had been abandoned for the holiday, though Hermione spotted a few people out and about. Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout sat in the Great Hall, joined by several students Hermione didn't recognize. Younger Hufflepuffs, maybe. Professor Snape was in the infirmary with Madam Pomfrey. The Headmaster was in his office, and Professor Slytherin—Tom Riddle—paced the second-floor corridor.

Hermione squinted and brought the Map closer to the window and the sunlight. A small pair of feet wandered by the hidden entrance to the Slytherin's dungeons and paused.

"Peter Pettigrew," Hermione said to herself. Where had she heard that name before?

The volume of her parents' arguing voices rose to a pitch that began to drown out Hermione's own inner dialog, and she concentrated on the Map, on the feel of it, listing every spell she knew and thought went into its creation, repeating the movements, the etymology, the origins. She kept at it until the rest of the world fell away.

She stared at her friends' names on the parchment and wanted to be there. Hermione had grown up in this house, but it'd ceased to feel like home.

An abrupt, impatient tapping on the window grabbed Hermione's attention and broke her train of thought. She glanced up and recognized the dark owl perched on the sill as one belonging to the Malfoys. Usually, such a sight would fill Hermione with trepid dread and anxiety, but all she felt now was guilty happiness at the sight.

You've gone round the bend now, Granger. Happy about getting post from the Malfoys.

She opened the window and accepted the letter attached to the owl's leg. Hermione had an inkling of what the missive said, so she wasn't surprised when the haughty creature took up residence on the cluttered bookshelf to wait for a reply. Crookshanks peeked out from his basket to stare.

Hermione peeled aside the wax seal, unfolded the parchment, and found the expected invitation to the Malfoy's annual Yule ball, the words written in a glittering silver ink with the family's crest embossed on the front. She'd received the same invitation last year and the year before, and both years she'd written back a polite—if curt—rejection. She should do the same now, she knew.

Her parents continued to argue. The words merged into a jumble, bouncing against the walls and her ears, but the tone weighed heavy on Hermione, just as heavy as the atmosphere had been since she left the Hogwarts Express and returned to the Muggle world. She thought of how tightly her parents had hugged her on the station—so tightly, she had barely had the strength to draw breath. She thought of two dots on a map, two girls in front of a fire, alone, unable to return home.

Hermione eyed the biros on the desk—then went to her trunk, found her quill and ink, and set about writing a response.

x X x

It was almost midnight when Hermione eased open the front door and stepped out into the garden, shivering against the cold air rising from the frosted grass. Her trunk's wheels bounced on the steps and echoed in the quiet street as the door shut behind her.

Narcissa Malfoy made for a particularly incongruous addition to the tidy Muggle neighborhood, but if she felt uncomfortable standing there in her silver robes below the electric streetlight, she didn't allow it to show. She patiently watched Hermione come down the walk and step beyond the garden wall.

"Ready to depart, Hermione?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

The imperious witch nodded—and then looked past Hermione to the dark windows of her silent Muggle home, a flicker of conflicting emotion passing through her face. She wasn't a demonstrative woman, so the brief look stood out. "Have you spoken with your parents?"

Hermione shifted, staring at her shoes. "…I wrote them a letter."

"…a letter." Narcissa exhaled through her nose and brought her gloved hands together—a motion so like the one Elara often made, Hermione wondered if it was encoded into the DNA of all women hailing from the House of Black. Elara would be disappointed in Hermione's choice to leave early—but Harriet, who'd grown up with toxic family members, would've understood.

"They were going to keep me from going back," Hermione murmured, her heart again fluttering with dread because she shouldn't be admitting to something so—illegal. Her parents could get into so much trouble! "I don't want to hurt them, but—it's better this way."

Mrs. Malfoy stared at her. After hesitating, she extended a hand for Hermione to take so she could Apparate them away from that little corner of Muggle-modernity. "Yes," she answered absentmindedly. "Yes, perhaps you're right."

x X x

Hermione had never seen the Manor in the wintertime. The idea of being here when she was meant to be with her mother and father had been anathema before, but now she felt…not happy, but content, no longer worried her parents might do something mad in an attempt to keep her away from Hogwarts. There was no more yelling, no shouting, no fear—just the familiar tension of being a ward to the biggest toffs in British Wizarding society.

Oh, it was lovely enough; Hermione never doubted the Malfoys' estate looked anything but exquisite no matter the time of year, and Yule proved no different. Transfigured wreaths and bundles of holly festooned the halls, and every open area had been adorned with a Yule tree decked in golden ornaments. Mrs. Malfoy flitted from room to room with her house-elves in tow, making arrangements, while Mr. Malfoy spent time entertaining various Ministry officials in the lounge. Draco attempted to drag Hermione everywhere, eager to show off his mother's decorations.

"Come along, Granger! You haven't even seen mother's winter gardens yet. They're the best in the country—."

While that might be true, Hermione couldn't muster much enthusiasm, academic or otherwise. She wanted to be left alone.

She missed her mother and father. She missed them as they used to be, not the man and woman who'd taken residence in their bodies and looked upon their own daughter with such tentative uncertainty and disappointment. It was her fault for being a witch, Hermione knew, but she had no control over that, and she hated the guilt her family's budding enmity formed in her.

She could set down her wand and never speak another spell for the rest of her life, and yet Hermione would always be a witch. She could not change that. She'd promised herself the day she went with Professor McGonagall that she'd never settle for being anything less than extraordinary, and so Hermione could not—would not—whittle herself down to the pieces her parents found acceptable.

It still didn't make for a happy Yule holiday. She cried into her pillow at night.

The ball itself didn't arrive until after the solstice, which occurred on the twenty-first, and Hermione got so caught up in her own head, she wouldn't have had a thing to wear if Mrs. Malfoy hadn't thought to ask. By the twenty-fourth, Hermione had a proper pair of navy dress robes, and Draco's mother spent two hours and three bottles of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion taming her impossible curls. While Narcissa worked, Hermione got the impression the older witch would have rather enjoyed having a daughter of her own.

Too many people to count crowded into Malfoy Manor once the evening arrived. It seemed all of Slytherin House made an appearance, and with them came their families, old Slytherin alumni, their children, and their relatives from other Houses or countries. She'd never seen so many magical people in one place, not even in Diagon Alley during its busiest hours.

Hermione spotted all of her classmates there, dressed in their best robes—and, naturally, they expressed curiosity over Elara and Harriet's conspicuous absences.

"Oh, well," Hermione bluffed, because it was imperative to redirect interest in their home lives, especially for Harriet. "Harriet's relatives are busy, and Elara elected to stay with her. It's lovely what Mrs. Malfoy's done with the house, isn't it?"

"Of course it is," Draco sniffed, adopting a pose similar to the one his father held across the crowded ballroom. Hermione managed to not roll her eyes, if only just. "Mother's tastes are impeccable."

Next to him, Pansy in her frilly, magenta robes kept shooting fiery looks in Hermione's direction. "Draco," she whined, tugging on the boy's arm. "I'm bored. Come dance with me!"

"Dance? Why would I do that?"

"Draco!"

"What's wrong with you? Merlin…."

Many people danced in time to the soft, meandering string music played by a bearded quartet of centenarians. She knew how to dance, but Hermione didn't intend to participate until Theo Nott broke from the group and asked her. Blaise Zabini's older, Italian cousin followed afterward, and though he didn't speak a word of English, Hermione enjoyed herself.

The problems of her home life felt less prominent as the evening wore on, and Hermione danced with several witches and wizards and matched faces with names she'd only ever read in dusty old annals before. She could also forget how distraught her mother and father must be at the moment, or the immediate peril her best friends faced even while cloistered inside an enchanted castle. However, the latter worry came rushing to the forefront when an older wizard stepped forward from the crowd and grasped Hermione's hand in her own.

"Miss Granger."

A harsh, burning cold strangled Hermione's heart as she followed the arm up to a face she'd only ever seen in the Daily Prophet, caught in rare photographs given at his even rarer public forums—a face Harriet had described with chilling accuracy after battling Tom Riddle in the Aerie's burnt depths. The man's red eyes glinted like wine in ruby chalices, sluggishly churning with the movement of an indolent hand.

"Minister Gaunt," Hermione managed to say. The wizard appeared much as her Defense professor did, if taller and a bit bulkier, his attire and stance lending a more intimidating air. His dark hair had been combed back from his narrow face, the ends coming to curl under his ears like splayed snake tongues. Hermione had been an idiot to not realize he'd be present at this function. "It's a pleasure to meet you. How do you do?"

"Very well indeed. A dance, Miss Granger?"

He gave her no room for disagreement; he tightened his grip and pulled her onto the floor proper, and though he kept enough space between them to be appropriate, unease prickled along Hermione's spine like ghoulish fingers. His other hand came to rest below her shoulder, and she flinched.

"How…how do you know my name, sir?" Hermione asked as they started to dance, and she wished her voice didn't sound so weak.

"Oh, Lucius likes to keep me apprised of his clever wards when he has the opportunity," the Minister replied in a drawl worthy of Malfoy senior himself. "It suits his inflated sense of self to take credit for their achievements."

Hermione didn't reply. The Minister turned her, and his fingers pressed down hard enough on her own to hurt, his ring as cold as frozen steel.

"You're friends with the Potter girl."

It was not a question, and Hermione stiffened in alarm, every instinct in her body urging her to lie. She didn't need to be a genius to know the Minister said nothing without an alternative agenda; that was a common denominator with most politicians, Muggle or otherwise. However, when Hermione looked into the man's face, she saw something much worse than a schemer or a manipulator.

She raised her eyes to his, and what looked back from behind that handsome face was cruel and alien, a skittering reptile assuming the shape of a person. It didn't make sense to her. From everything she'd ever read or learned about magic, clones were not a thing; they could not be created, even if a body could be replicated through Dark magic. However, the soul, that indefinable spark of a human being, could not be mimicked or copied.

How was it then that Harriet had met this man in Ravenclaw's Aerie? Why did Hermione look at the Minister and know she was staring at the same wizard who usually lurked in her Defense classroom? How could he possibly be and not be the same person? It didn't make sense.

"Friends, sir?" Hermione said, swallowing. He wanted to know about Harriet. He wanted her to feed him information about her best friend—and Hermione refused. "That's a strong word for it. We're more acquaintances than anything."

"I was informed you were close."

"We share a dormitory, and that engenders a bond, of sorts."

"Hmm. Perhaps I was mistaken."

The song concluded and the dance ended. The Minister dropped her hand and wiped his own against his robes as if he'd touched something foul. He stepped back, sneering, and vanished again into the crowd.

The remainder of the ball passed without Hermione seeing Minister Gaunt again—but as the hours passed, the guests departing by Floo or Apparition, Hermione felt eyes lingering on her back long into the night, and it wasn't until she returned to her room and shut the door, that the feeling stopped and she could breathe again.

A/N: As a woman who loves her son and would do anything for him, I think Narcissa would have mixed emotions concerning the MPA and removing children from their homes. The Malfoys are really interesting to write, because they're not good, but they're still people, and people are capable of flexibility and, in some respects, change. On the flip side, I imagine it's almost impossible for the Grangers to form any kind of acceptance when they're kept so separate from magic and its huge impact on their daughter's life.