Chapter Eight: You Need To Leave
They scrambled away from each other. The house gave a long, low creak like even it didn't know what to do. Effervescence bubbled in Hermione; she felt her thudding heartbeat in the low heat of her core. It felt so close to being post-euphoria or being on the precipice of it. Or both. A smirking drip of sweat licked down her spine, her body begging to give in to the feeling. She kept her limbs apart sure that any accidental touch, even from herself would cause friction enough that she'd be pulled in again.
They spent long panting seconds recovering, lucidity casually returning as if it had never abandoned her to the power of a few small marvels. Even if the Qeteshite was a rare form of peril, it was certainly marvellous.
But Draco had said something they had sworn they would never say. And she had almost returned it, she'd been so close. And if she had she wasn't sure they would have been able to recover. You couldn't just retract something like that-
"I didn't mean it," Draco blurted.
Well, Hermione's mind hummed in amusement, you could certainly try.
Draco's eyes had widened, knowing he'd said the wrong thing. "That's probably worse. I can't remember all your rules regarding this."
Of course he didn't, they always thought it would be Hermione who would make this particular infraction. Despite Draco being far more romantic in nature, he usually had an implacable grasp of how he expressed himself. Hermione was far more inclined to fits of unencumbered passion and rather frivolous uses of sentimentality.
They didn't need a retraction; they needed an extraction. A meticulous incising of the act and removing it. And yes, she knew it seemed ridiculous. Because they did, she knew they did. Embody that word, that is. Their relationship was full of it, but when he'd said it, he didn't mean it the way the Qeteshite wanted him to. She knew that. Luckily, she knew that. But for what they both needed, there couldn't be confusion and anyway, he was bound for another. And she needed that to happen, when she thought of that future, everything in her aligned like it was just so completely, absolutely right.
So, fairest protocol, thy will be done.
"You need to leave," she spoke the words gently with care, an acknowledgment of the stipulations they'd laid out, not a request.
He nodded, it made sense. Time and space letting the words fade and equilibrium settle between them again. "How long for?"
Hermione paused, if they took into account everything the lachrymiform had made them feel let alone say… "Ten days."
"Ten?" Draco didn't like that proclamation. "With nothing? No contact at all? The longest we've gone before was four days and that was-"
"Horrible, I know," she finished for him. "And yes, it's mostly the Qeteshite's doing. But you can't tell me you're not still feeling the aftereffects of it. I am."
She could feel her fingers tingling like they wanted to reach for him, and she was so intensely focused on him as he was on her, they were completely ignoring the way Theo stood in front of them. Despite the fact he'd clearly been the one to manipulate Draco's arm to spill the crystals onto the ground.
Draco twitched his nose in a small wrinkle knowing the truth of it.
Hermione laughed in a burst at a sudden thought and Draco tilted his head, questioning why.
"You should go see Harry and Cormac or Ronmilda," her mouth curling in a wry smile and predictably Draco's face grimaced in distaste.
"Ugh. Granger. Why?"
"To remind yourself why exactly you do not want to be tied to me long-term and why the Qeteshite was foolish to make you think you could love me," she raised a shoulder with a cheeky sparkle in her eyes.
Despite Hermione and Draco getting on very well, he still disliked Ron and even more thoroughly detested the vacuousness of Romilda. The two invariably ever found draped over each other like a pile of laundry more than anything resembling two separate functioning adults. Hermione thought they made a weird kind of sense. Ron had always wanted to be adored. To be the only one. Romilda certainly gave him that.
Draco begrudgingly got on with Harry, however Cormac he could not abide for longer than half an hour at most.
"Potter's not back with that smarmy blonde prick, is he?" Draco lamented eliciting a coughing sort of splutter from Theo who attempted to hold back a pot-calling-kettle idiom.
This forced their attention upon the other man which was honestly a welcome relief now that Draco and she were wrestling with heavy burdensome emotion.
"McLaggen, really?" Theo deflected his amusement. "Wasn't he rather terrible to you at school? Didn't think Potter would readily forgive that let alone fuck it."
Hermione was once again surprised he knew that but brandished a circular motion between herself and Draco rather than dwell on it, "He let me marry this one. In this, our Age of Social Dysphagia, Cormac wanting to ram his tongue down my throat due to some unconscionable teenage attraction rather pales in comparison," Hermione bit the flesh of her cheek to stop her commentary on the obvious parallels Theo found in her and Harry's choice of partner. Though there was a rather unfortunate reason why her best friend kept returning to the man. One which she couldn't divulge under duress of keeping Harry's confidence.
Theo let it go and laughed wryly while Draco narrowed his gaze knowing there was a joke at his expense hidden somewhere in those chuckling depths.
Draco was pithily indignant with his next words. "First of all, and I'm not sure why, but how very, terribly dare you, Theo. Second, please don't make me go see them, Miny. Even if they are vaguely more palatable than the macabre spine-tingling horror that is Ronmilda."
Hermione shrugged. "It's up to you, but if you manage to spend thirty whole minutes with them, I'd say that would be enough to knock off a couple days."
Draco pouted and Hermione found herself drawn rather forcefully to want to kiss it off him but held back knowing it was the lingering effects of the Qeteshite. Which also seemed to currently have completely tempered her response to Theo.
She suddenly had a keening need for solitude. Like this weekend was supposed to be. Was it really only Saturday still?
"Maybe you should both go," she suggested. "You could catch up and discuss all the crass, absurd topics men tend to when alone."
"As opposed to the highly intellectual salons you employ whenever Ginevra is in town?" Draco teased her. Of all Hermione's friends, Draco liked Ginny the most. She was barely around and expanded his insult vocabulary whenever she was.
"If you mean Gin's eight-point scale and weighted metric of phallic idolatry, then yes I do find that stimulating. You know there needs to be a certain cerebral component to satisfy my sapiosexual tendencies," she taunted him. "You know I could get out her drawing from last time and-"
"OK, OK, fine! I'm leaving," Draco knew when to concede defeat and recognised the warning of acceleration in her tone. She would open the Pandora's box of veritable intimate knowledge they knew of each other if pressed. And this would be a viciously dangerous time to do so.
Draco jerked his head towards the Floo, turning to Theo. "Let's go find where Blaise is carousing tonight. As much of an enigma as he pretends to be we'll find him in one of three places."
Draco transfigured his clothing into something far more refined and they both replaced their footwear. Hermione immediately becoming overrun with excitable suede and sheepskin.
Being very distracted by attempting to corral four of the slippers, Draco had to clear his throat to get her to look up.
"I just thought I should say, well, sorry I guess," he looked chagrined, but Hermione waved it off.
"Not your fault, it could have been me. It was there in the space of one hesitation too long," she shrugged and pet a bouncing slipper on her lap.
"Right," he looked away and threw powder in the grate. "See you in eight days," his eyes screwed shut at what that meant, and he called out for a fancy cocktail lounge in Soho before being whisked away.
"Hey, Theo," Hermione threw out to the man, avoiding any awkward pauses. "Make sure he sleeps at the Manor tonight. He tends to come see me when he's had a few. Or many. Or an excess."
Theo tapped a finger on the mantle near his head. His eyes held hers but at the moment she wasn't able to read him like she usually could, so she didn't know what it meant.
"What about me?" he asked.
Hermione contemplated it. "I have some things I need to discuss with you," she settled on.
"When?"
She flourished a hand while the other lifted a slipper off the back of the couch.
"When you like."
He nodded and followed Draco.
Hermione felt the sloshing tide inside her finally calm.
The slippers bounded around, nipping her ankles in a vain attempt to trip her up or at least have her play. But Hermione had things to do. Her bookshelf called to her, the house using the eddies of cool-touched drafts to guide her. This bookcase was built into the wall of the cottage, the wood smooth, ravaged into a pliant suppleness by the natural skin oils of however many Malfoys had passed through this place. She placed her hand flat against the knotted jut that indicated shelving.
Hermione had learned long ago that wood held magic, each wood a different kind, some that wizards could wield and were made into wands, others only Feylanders could coax into submission. Some trees called to werewolves and Lycanlanders with compatibilities to the moon and gifting safe glades for transformation. Vamplanders, koschei and vampires all suffered from aversions and revelled in affinities to certain types of fauna.
The wood of this bookcase, despite being built into the wall of the house, was the oldest thing in the abode. Hermione thought the cottage had somehow been erected around this bookcase, or perhaps had been made to carve this particular tree into a bookcase. It was unclear and she was still learning its language. It was a gorgeous wood, entirely mossy green in colour due to the photosynthetic tissue that covered the bark.
It was beautiful and slightly intimidating. It held a diffinity to any other type of wood Hermione had ever encountered. When she'd first moved in, it hadn't even let her near it, she would find whenever she approached, she would suddenly remember an urgent task that needed to be performed or something else would glint in her eyeline and distract her.
But one day, she heard its hum and she'd cautiously stepped up. With the barest graze of her fingers, a book had been shoved out of the shelf. It had been a tome of Slavic folklore. While reading it, Hermione had noticed the way the shadows had bent in the thicket outside in a slightly odd fashion. A koschei had been watching her. A deathless being that feasted on blood and occasionally flesh. They were Vamplanders that managed to survive six hundred and sixty-six years becoming disturbingly more powerful and truly almost infallibly deathless. They were very rare, but one had been watching her, or watching the house at least.
The tales of Slavic mythology had provided answers to ward against intrusion from these beings. A combination of purest salt and prayer ash set into a trench around the perimeter of the house where the rest of her wards ended.
Hermione still held embers of curiosity for why the koschei had taken an interest in her. They usually never left the Tzuzharie in the first Leyland realm, the tower shrouded with collected secrets and whorled intrigue. They were too paranoid to bother with those lesser than themselves which, from their point of view, was most everything. It was far too dangerous to question though. Her wards were but a spiderweb of a hindrance to such a being, yet it had held itself away. But she trusted the house and the bookcase's foresight that it was a threat. And once the salt and prayer ash had become imbued in the bedrock of the cottage's foundations, the presence alleviated, and she'd never seen it again.
The bookcase had also given her a text that taught her to not place her wards in a domed arch but a full circle instead, the other half living in the Leylands permanently meaning she could bring the entire house and all in it through the leylines. She moved it into the space of her wards, a spell that she'd woven into them. The Slavic technique of conjuring her magic into a workable thread and sewing spells into physical being had delighted her when she'd discovered it. Nothing at Hogwarts had taught her anything like it. Though it meant she couldn't control where in the Leylands they ended up since the realms moved constantly.
Hermione wondered if Theo had worked out that was how she'd achieved it.
She had fallen into a reverie. No, the bookcase had pulled her into a reverie, it was searching her mind to find what she might need. For the first time, one of the bottom cupboard doors of the bookcase opened. Hermione crouched down and a papyrus scroll was unfurling from where it was coiled on a rod inside. She felt her feet freeze upon the ground and motes of bioluminescent lights cast a thin eau-de-nil glow, soft enough that the scroll would not be damaged. It wanted her to read this.
It appeared to be a magic ritual from the Canaanite religious practice of soul eclosion, a version from around 3000 BCE. That was all she could make out from the glyphs. She'd have to visit the Reliquary on Monday and attempt to find a key to translate the rest.
Even though she couldn't read it, she sat huddled, staring at it while the bookcase moved its twigged tendrils around softly, the mint-like light calming her turbulent thoughts. As quiet as it seemed, the house wasn't silent, the flames were still chittering with fabulist theories, the snow was still falling on Theo's vacant chair with eerily light phwip noises. And the bookcase itself was using its humming, hushing language. Light shushing sweeps and deep elongated croons creating a gallimaufry of sensations that Hermione almost-but-not-quite understood. But she could sense its intention.
Pwhoosh, it told her. Like a hand sweeping over coarse grain. Telling her to heed its wisdom. Mmmmmmmmrrrrrrrrnnnnnnn, the whir similar to the querlous yawning roar of an empty cave. Go lightly girl, there's so much you don't know. Phwumph, a bark-like harrumph. A gentle chiding. An affectionate grumble. It was done with her for now. She moved away.
As she stepped down from the raised dais the bookcase was on, she noticed the candle wicks lulling, almost cresting into the pools of molten wax. They were tired but waiting for her. She briefly checked the time from the clock on the wall. Draco's hand resting on sleep, as was Ron's. Ginny's was on 'Active' but she was playing Quidditch halfway around the world. Harry was awake, his hand set on 'Un-Idle'. She hoped he was OK; it was rare he was up at this hour.
For it was past 3am now, Draco and Theo had left at around 9pm. The bookcase's hold of her reverie had distracted her far longer than she'd thought. She wondered why. But then she felt it, a long, vaunted roll. The house settled again.
Hermione twitched her brow. What was happening? She looked outside the bay window and gasped. The intimately familiar vista was gone. Now she was in a dense forest packed with fir-trees, the shimmer of moonlight on an effortlessly still lake crushing her with a radiant éclat. There was one more jolting undulation of the house's movement before it settled down with a creaking rumble.
Hermione threw the door open immediately and hurriedly strode outside, the cottage was now tucked in a pocket of trees beside a glorious body of icy water. The air held a chill that said snow was on the way.
This had never happened before, and she watched as the stone circle instilled with the salt and prayer ash melted into the ground. She tested her wards, but they'd moved with the house.
She slowly walked back inside and checked the cottage; the slippers were dozy with sleep but didn't appear to be disturbed. The movement hadn't upset anything from the shelves or cupboards. Everything was far too curiously in place.
Harry's hand had moved from 'Un-Idle' to 'Distressed'. She instinctively threw some Floo powder in the grate, but the green died in a flash of black, her Floo was disconnected.
She grasped her Galleon hoping Harry wouldn't mind if she pulled him this way.
He arrived with a pop.
"Mione, you're Floo's not working!" he cried before enveloping her in a hug.
"Are you OK?" she clasped her hands around him, returning the affection.
He shook his head against her shoulder. "I was out with Cormac tonight, we ran into Draco and Blaise," he nuzzled his nose against her. "Did you know Theo Nott is back?"
"He's been here, actually," Hermione said as Harry let go and she followed him to collapse on the couch. She stroked his temple with her thumb, and he leaned into it. "I'm sorry, do you want to say it?"
Harry ran a hand through his forever messy hair with a wry quirk to his lips. She knew he would, it always made him feel a little better and they were easier able to talk about it.
"I can't believe you stole him from me, Mione."
It broke her a little every time she heard him say that. It should have been so obvious; she should have been able to read the signs. She should have paid more attention to him.
She wrapped her arms around his form. "I'm sorry," she whispered again. The same way she had when he'd first blurted it out on her wedding day.
Harry leaned his back against her, shrugging like he always did. "It's OK, we both know he couldn't actually be stolen because he was never mine."
That was true. But such knowledge didn't heal a heart.
"You alright?" she asked but just being in her presence seemed to have made him better. He nodded.
Harry was a bit of an anomaly. He was still an Auror, but he actually worked for the Department of Mysteries as an interdepartmental spy. The DoM hid its true purpose by pretending to be thoroughly, tea-swillingly British. But Harry was a spy for the higher purpose of their workplace. The Caisson. It was an international conclave that hid its presence in a variety of ways worldwide.
In Britain, it disguised itself as just another department of the Ministry. Japan housed their Caisson influence in temples, while America, fittingly, placed its Caisson inside a chain of restaurants so unreservedly bland you forgot they were even a thing.
So, Harry hid in plain sight, observing the political landscaping that ran through the Auror department and making sure to take cases that needed the hand of the Caisson's influence. It helped that he had the ever-so-convenient excuse of coming to visit his best friend at the DoM. Allowing for his ease of coming and going between Departments. Special dispensation to do so of course, since he was Harry freaking Potter.
Hermione felt better as well. Their touchstone magic bound them in ways that always made being close preferable. Though that closeness was relative depending on the day, moon or season. She guessed he would have been able to tell right away that she had started moving elsewhere.
Her remembrance that her entire house had somehow shifted to a wholly different location in the space of a few hours seemed to occur to Harry as well. He shifted and looked into her afflated face.
"Where have you moved to?" he queried.
Mmrrnnp, mumbled the bookcase.
Phwop, phwrrph, phwop, the candles replied.
Hermione blinked. Amazed. Astonished. "Croatia?"