September 1991
It began by the light of an enchanted lantern. Or perhaps earlier, with a red wax seal and a letter with no return address.
It didn't matter.
She was here now.
Hermione brushed the surface of the Black Lake as the First Years sailed towards the castle, its windows aglow with secrets and promises she was sure it could not keep. Hope, in her experience, only breeds disappointment.
So she simply doesn't.
An autumn chill nipped at her cheeks as she chewed her bottom lip and wondered how on Earth she had ended up here— On an enchanted boat in witches' robes, flagged by a boy named Neville, who's lost his toad for the second time in as many hours.
"Gran said the castle was grand, but this… This is just… Wow…" he trailed off, joining the other students in a chorus of awestruck gasps.
Hermione allowed herself to marvel at the way the moon and stars buried themselves in the crystalline water and considered for a moment how this might be different. How a single piece of parchment had altered her life forever.
She had long felt isolated, even in the company of other children – No— Especially in the company of other children. And as a familiar sense of dread filled the space behind her sternum, she doubted if anything could change that.
Then again…
Maybe she had always belonged to this realm. Maybe that was why it always hurt. Maybe magic could fill the crippling void. Ease the ache.
Don't be silly, sang a voice in her head, only fools have dreams, and you are not a fool.
She shook slightly and dropped into a heady, sort of nebulous fog for the remainder of the journey.
How she arrived at the front of the Great Hall, she wasn't sure, and it wasn't until a dusty old hat started to sing that she came abruptly to her senses. The Sorting Hat coughed roughly and bellowed:
"Oh you may not think I'm pretty,
But don't judge on what you see…"
"…So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be…"
The blood drained from her cheeks.
"…You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart…"
Her skin pricked. She started to sweat.
"You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil…"
A heavy, hollow knot formed in her chest.
"…Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
if you've a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind…"
The taste of bile danced across her tongue.
"…Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folks use any means
To achieve their ends…"
Her breath hitched.
"So put me on! Don't be afraid!
And don't get in a flap!
You're in safe hands (though I have none)
For I'm a Thinking Cap!"
A silence lingered in the air at the song's close. And she was lost to herself.
Professor McGonagall's voice boomed across the hall, "When I call your name, please step forward," Hermione tensed, "Susan Bones!"
The hat thought for a moment, "–HUFFLEPUFF!" and the right most table roared with excitement; several students clad in green and silver let out a derisive snigger.
"Dean Thomas"
The hat hummed briefly and shouted, "–GRYFFINDOR!" Another riotous cheer, this time from the table directly behind her.
The ceremony carried on.
Padma Patil and Michael Corner were sorted into Ravenclaw. Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnigan and Ronald Weasley into Gryffindor. Daphne Greengrass, Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott into Slytherin. Hannah Abbott and a handful of others were sorted into Hufflepuff with Susan Bones.
A round of animated cheers and applause followed each student as they took their seat.
"Harry Potter!"
Low gasps and whispers filled the hall as the famous Boy-Who-Lived placed the ragged hat on his head. It thought for a long while, swallowed in a palpable silence. Then finally, "–GRYFFINDOR!" And the room positively erupted.
"Hermione Granger!"
Great, she thought. Harry was a tough act to follow.
Hermione stepped cautiously forward. Her stomach lodged in her throat. McGonagall rested the dusty hat on top of her bushy brown hair.
"Hmmm…" the hat purred, "Such a fine young mind… You'd do well in Ravenclaw… Such wit— yes. Clever and cunning— but ah, that's it. There's a hunger in you. An ambition. A shrewdness. Buried but… undeniably so— And something… something starved— Slytherin would suit you well, sweet girl. It's all here in your head. Yes— Now I'm sure… it's in your blood." Hermione stilled. From what she knew, muggle-borns simply didn't sort into Slytherin. It couldn't be. She couldn't be.
"There must be some mistake," Hermione pleaded, "I'm a muggle-born. I can't be in Slytherin… Please… I can't…"
"A muggle-born you say? HA! You'd have to be daft to believe that… Well then, certainly not Ravenclaw, but I sense courage. Yes… you could do great things. So perhaps…," A tentative hum escaped the hat's rim, " –GRYFFINDOR!" it roared finally.
Her eyes snapped open and settled on the throng of crimson and gold. A short choke escaped her throat; she'd held her breath.
Relief washed over her like rain in a drought, but the Sorting Hat's words turned over and over again. And they nagged and itched and festered.
And she picked at them until they bled.
September 1996
"He's a Death Eater, Hermione! Just think about it!"
Harry arrived at the Sixth-Year feast covered in blood. His nose was broken. His right cheek freshly bruised. And she immediately knew why.
Malfoy had kicked his stupid teeth in. She passed a wry laugh off as a cough and retorted, "He's sixteen, Harry. Voldemort's not that desperate. You're paranoid, that's all."
"But you saw at Borgin & Burkes—"
"That. Is. All." She repeated, stronger this time.
It was hard to look at him without laughing, really. Harry was annoyingly self-righteous, and Merlin, it was nice to see him knocked off his high horse. A smirk crept across her dazed expression.
"Hermione, are you listening? This isn't funny." Harry winced as his lip split open. And her smile widened as he thumbed away a bead of blood.
But it is funny, she privately mused. It's hilarious really. You fucking idiot. You insufferable martyr.
On second thought, she realized, he might actually be a little too close for comfort. After all, Hermione already knew that Malfoy was a Death Eater.
Her mind wandered to the cool July evening at the Manor. The image of his fresh mark, black and bleeding and merciless flashed brightly in her mind, and a warmth pooled in the space below her navel. Her muscles tensed; her knickers wet. Hermione pressed her thighs together, nearly shaking with sudden need for the boy mere meters behind her and certain irritation with the one before her.
Can't he mind his fucking business for once, she thought. They needed him to— This year especially, as she prepared to take the Mark herself.
She shifted in her seat to leer at the blonde Slytherin. Publicly hating Draco Malfoy was second nature at this point. Only she, Voldemort and the Malfoys knew the truth.
She loved Malfoy.
Well… he loved her and on a good day, she loved him enough to reciprocate.
The years had transformed her messy aches and pains into something cold and callous. Her fingers tightened around the spine of a small, black journal as an electric current pulsed from her wrist to the space behind her eyes.
"What's that 'Mione?" Ron asked through a mouthful of kidney pie.
He grabbed aggressively for the thin book. And wailed as the skin on his fingers peeled apart on contact.
"FUCK! WHAT THE—?!"
Hermione rolled her eyes in exasperation. She shouted, "It's a diary, Ronald! And only I can open it. So unless you want to be covered in boils, I suggest you keep your hands to yourself."
The redhead withdrew his arm to suck at his stinging fingertips and nurse his bruised ego.
Foul git. It's so much more than a diary, she sneered, opening the journal in her lap. Heart rate accelerating as jagged letters came to life on the withered parchment. Long and fine scrawls, like the blonde boy who had written them.
"You look better in green and silver."
Hermione read the phrase three times before they dissolved as quickly as they had come.
A hum hung on her lips as she replied, "I know, right? Someone ought to do something about it, don't you think?" Hermione pictured a quirked brow and sultry smirk at the Slytherin table. Another throb and pulse below her navel. Another moment lost to him.
A static pressure struck her wrist as two more words appeared on the page. Short. Simple. Pointed.
"Chamber. Twenty."
Malfoy made short work of exiting the Great Hall and shaking Harry's tail on the second floor stairwell, but thirty minutes had passed before Hermione could do the same.
She hissed eagerly at the door to the Chamber, passing serpent carvings and the statue of Salazar Slytherin. Proceeding deeper into the Chamber than Harry had ever dared, and finally arriving in a cavernous potions classroom.
Long slate hearths lined the walls of the forgotten space. Rickety wooden desks and a single cauldron. The scent of burnt rubber and Mandrake. And Malfoy.
He was perched lazily against a desk, watching thick gray steam rise from the cauldron. His expression stoic and forlorn. Brows furrowed. His attention torn as her footsteps echoed across the classroom.
They hadn't seen each other in months. But that was the deal.
Lucius had introduced them— Well, he had re-introduced them, really— the summer after Fourth Year, after the Dark Lord regained his corporeal form. Whereas Wormtail had received a charmed hand for his services, Hermione had been gifted Draco, and a seat at the table. Recognition and rank, and the promise of the Malfoy name— in time.
Malfoy turned to her and rolled his sleeves up just past his elbow, exposing his forearm and his Mark. The pulse in her abdomen intensified as she looked upon the blistered skull and serpent with bloodlust and adoration.
Her feet stepped forward on their own accord, but Malfoy stopped her, holding his hand out with a look of disgust.
"Take that rubbish off," he commanded, gesturing to her gold and crimson attire. A sinister grin spread across her features— she had waited for this.
Hermione slid her delicate fingers into her Windsor-knotted tie and tugged, "Incendio," she whispered as the Gryffindor garb was reduced to a pile of ash on stone.
Her robes slipped gently from her shoulders and fell softly to the chamber floor, "like that?" she teased, snaking her thumbs into her waistband and sliding her skirt and knickers to the ground.
The Sorting Hat had been right. She had courage.
Hermione nudged the discarded pile aside and stalked slowly towards him, clad only in a loose button-down and thick thigh high leggings, "On your knees, Draco," she commanded.
And he was at her feet.
She was the mountain he bowed before, lost in a prayer. His place of worship. His messiah. And through her lowered lashes, she saw a man who would set the world on fire and dance in the ashes for her. The bulge in his trousers growing larger and harder with every aching second.
His lips were level with her stomach, and she could feel his breath on her abdomen. His silver eyes flickered with need. Trembling and tightly wound.
And like a python finally lunging at its prey, he applied his tongue to the space below her navel— the space that had ached for him earlier. Where he knew to start, because he knew her. He really knew her. He sucked down the front of her until his mouth landed on her sensitive lips and his tongue circled her bud. A gasp tore from her lungs.
Hermione tangled her fingers in his platinum locks and pressed his face between her thighs so there was nothing but force of him filling her senses. He consumed her, every nerve in her body full and firing with pleasure, and the throbbing sensation grew more intense with each skillful flick. His hands gripped the backs of her thighs as he shifted her further open and slipped two fingers inside of her, pulsing and releasing as her right hand slipped from the back of his head to fist in his robes.
"Fuck— fuck Draco, I'm— I'm going to— "
"Not yet, Granger." He purred into her.
"But.. But, please— I'm—" He curled his fingers inside of her and sucked hard, drinking her in. Tasting every fleck of moisture dripping from her entrance.
"Shut up and be good, Granger." He hummed against her, and the vibrations almost sent her over the edge. She didn't know how much longer she could steel herself. His tongue was doing God's work.
She bit down, drawing blood from her lip and whimpering, her fingers laced more fully in his hair. And pulling. Tearing. Her body squirming and screaming and fragmenting.
It was agony and ecstasy, teetering on the edge of everything.
"Come for me," he hummed again, his fingers thrusting into her. And she tumbled over the precipice.
The oxygen left the room as the orgasm ripped through her and coaxed a cry from her throat. She collapsed over and against him, her fingers tangled in his hair, his face pressed squarely between her thighs.
Malfoy rose from his knees and eyed her hungrily; a mixed growl and sigh escaped him as he snaked his arms behind her thighs and lifted her to his chest. Her eyes fluttered shut.
And then the only sound was his heartbeat, drumming steadily against her temple. The only scent was his woodsy cologne. His cider and spearmint. There was nothing but the feeling of her limp frame sinking into his arms. The heat of his breath ghosting across the crown of her head.
He was religion and sin. He was safety and chaos. He was the only light in the darkness. And he was hers.
"I missed you," Draco whispered against her curls as he rested her on the hearth and cast a warming charm on the cold marble, "The Manor was empty without you."
But the Manor was never empty. Not since Voldemort had converted his home into headquarters.
Hermione surveyed his gaunt features. His eyes were red-rimmed and drawn. Vacant and screaming.
The company had weighed on him. And suddenly the lightness of his pale fingers running through her bushy hair was heavy and painful and she felt nothing but a fierce resentment.
He should be honored. She thought, scrambling abruptly to her feet.
"Oh for Salazar's sake! What's the matter now? What part of this—" Hermione hissed, gesturing towards his Mark, "— is not living up to your expectations?!" Her expression pulled into a pout, "Much too much for the poor little rich boy?" She mocked.
Her mother had warned her— Water and words are easy to pour but impossible to recover. And these words were torrential and venomous.
Draco slumped against an empty desk, roughly twisting the Malfoy signet in his hand.
"I don't know, Hermione! Let me think about it—" He spat, eyes fixed on the ceiling, "Well, my father is in fucking Azkaban—"
"That's—"
"LET ME FINISH!" He roared, outrage climbing and echoing through the halls.
"Where was I— Oh, right… Well, my father is in FUCKING AZKABAN. My mother is scared for her FUCKING LIFE, Aunt Bellatrix is a FUCKING LUNATIC… I mean, have you seen her with that snake!? You know she fed a goblin to it? A WHOLE ASS GOBLIN! Merlin, Granger! The Manor has been hell! And you wouldn't know, would you?! You were there for what!? A week?!"
Water and words, she reminded herself, and proceeded with caution.
Hermione stepped into him and brushed a strand of platinum from his eyes. It was kind and affectionate, and painfully uncharacteristic.
She placed a gentle kiss on the curve of his collarbone. The cut of his jaw. The corner of his mouth. And then his lips quivered against hers, releasing soft, aching breaths. Exchanging defeated, wordless promises.
"Draco… there's no time for second guessing... We're so close."
But the tension was red and raw.
"Once Dumbledore is out of the way, it'll all be ours..."
Wet with the blood on their hands.
"The ministry will fall and even with Harry, the Order won't stand a chance. We'll be free. We'll use magic however we like, whenever we like. No holds barred. All will be as it should… and we'll be together. Always."
It seeped beneath their skin; wedged under their fingernails.
And for fucks sake, it just wouldn't wash off.