hi everybody! jsyk, projected chapter count has been bumped to 33, and my posting schedule (the pinned post on my tumblr, url batmansymbol) has been updated to reflect! (just basically means there'll be an extra update next friday.) cheers!
.
.
.
"Mother, Father, I've made a decision," said Draco.
The Malfoys' hands stilled on their wine glasses.
"I think you're right. From what I've seen, the Order don't really have a chance anymore. They can't get their message out, they're losing all their fights. … I think it's only a matter of time." Draco laid his fork and knife on his plate, face downturned. "I'll do it," he muttered. "I'll tell you what they're up to."
Lucius grasped Draco's shoulder so hard that it hurt. "Good," he breathed. "I knew you would see, Draco. You've made the right choice."
Narcissa stayed silent. Draco had expected her to exhale through flared nostrils in the way she sometimes did after a great relief, but there was nothing in her expression except a slant to her thin mouth.
His father rushed on. "We have news, too. Something that can make everything just as it once was."
Draco pretended at wary curiosity. "What is it?"
"We have been communicating with your Aunt Bellatrix. She is eager to help us regain our place among the Death Eaters. Family means more than ever, now."
Draco widened his eyes. "You … but how?"
His father fetched the mirror. Then, over the course of hours, his parents explained everything. They told him even the details he hadn't expected them to divulge, like the attacks they'd orchestrated and the reasons they'd concealed the mirror from him.
"We needed to be certain of your loyalties, you understand," said Lucius with satisfaction. "Now you've made the choice yourself. The Dark Lord will not punish you for a brief lapse, not when we place Harry Potter into his hands."
"Unless," said Narcissa, "you think the Potter boy has some ability that might allow him to overcome the obstacles in his path, Draco?"
Draco studied his mother. The words had sounded mostly neutral, but had there been a hint of doubt there?
"No," Draco said. "Potter's ordinary. He's always been ordinary. Just got lucky over and over again."
"But not anymore," said Lucius.
Draco's mouth had gone dry. He took a sip of his wine. "Not anymore," he agreed.
Near midnight, they gathered before the fireplace to contact his aunt.
"Nephew," said Bellatrix, peering at him out of the mirror. "Alive and well. … You have finally recovered yourself, then? Your mind is your own again?"
His parents tensed on either side of him. Bellatrix's tone was honeyed, but there was nothing friendly in her face. Every word was a demand as to why he had not made direct contact sooner.
"I've been biding my time, Aunt Bella," Draco said. He rolled up his sleeve to show her the altered Dark Mark. "It hasn't been easy. That girl Potter drags around with him, she figured something out so I couldn't contact anyone. The spell's broken."
"It's true," said Lucius quickly, pushing up his own sleeve. "She has destroyed my Mark, too. … The Mudblood is enterprising, Bella."
Anger twisted in Draco's stomach. He imagined piling something cold and dark atop the burning feeling until it extinguished.
The suspicion in Bellatrix's face eased. "No matter. We will dispose of that scum before we bring Potter to the Dark Lord. The blood traitor Weasley boy, too. When he dies, Potter will know that none of his allies still live."
Draco forced himself to lift the corners of his mouth.
"You have positioned yourself close to Potter, then, Draco?" breathed Bellatrix, leaning closer to the mirror. "Tell me … what have they been doing to prepare the little baby boy to fight the greatest wizard who ever lived?"
A frisson of anticipation ran through Draco's body. He must be careful, here.
"I can't be sure." He narrowed his eyes. "They spend a lot of time reading books that don't seem related to anything, and they won't tell me why. Top secret even inside the Order. … Still, I think they must be trying to get Potter some extra powers, because they're all books about magical history, and they've mentioned a few magical items. The Ram's Horn of Uric the Oddball, the Hogwarts Founders' Artifacts, that sort of thing."
Bellatrix went very still.
"What," said Draco, eyeing her, "do you know what it means?"
"No," she said sharply. "You must be right, Draco … surely they hope to give the Potter boy false powers, or weaponry, in hopes that he might withstand the Dark Lord. But he will fall." She waved her hand as if the words meant nothing to her, but Bellatrix was one of the worst liars Draco had ever met. Years of evangelical devotion paired with years in Azkaban had made her consummately readable. She was on edge.
They had prepared this speech to Bellatrix in detail. Draco knew he couldn't push for answers about Hufflepuff's Cup, nor speak about it too directly. He had to ease into the subject so that she might eventually give a clue to its location, but she mustn't feel so threatened as to think the Horcrux was in immediate danger.
"Still," she went on, "you must be watchful. Listen closely to what they are planning and report it to me, Draco. Together, our family will deliver the deciding blow of this war."
#
At breakfast the next morning, Draco sat near Harry, Ron, and Hermione. When the rest of the Order were distracted, he gave a single nod to indicate that their plan had unfolded as they'd hoped.
Potter and Weasley brightened. But Hermione's eyes lingered, as though she hoped to read the details from his mind with Legilimency. Draco wished he could tell her about his mother's strangely tight-lipped reaction. He had rarely seen his mother hold her cards close to her chest around the family this way. He'd have paid his weight in Galleons for some of Hermione's analysis.
But they no longer had that kind of time. In the wake of the failed flyover, Order meetings were running deep into the night and beginning long before the crack of dawn. After having to dive into the downstairs bathroom to escape notice by Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Draco and Hermione had agreed they should stop meeting at night.
This would have been bad enough. But to Draco's immense irritation, he'd realised that most of the Order seemed to think it was only a matter of time until Hermione struck up a relationship with Ron. During dish clean-up one evening, Draco had overheard Fred telling his humiliated-looking brother, "I'm telling you, Ron, you've got to stop waiting around. Hermione's smart, all right, but she's not a mind-reader. It's the opportune moment to sweep her off her feet."
"I dunno," Ron had mumbled.
"Don't know? Don't know?" said George. "You just turned into a bloody war hero, didn't you? I'm sure half of Azkaban fancies you now."
Fred nodded. "And you could lose an ear any time, remember? Every second counts."
Draco realized he was scrubbing a dish so hard that its owl design had fluttered onto the back of the ceramic to avoid his onslaught. He put it up to dry with a pointed clang and stalked out of the room.
After that, he'd started seeing the signs everywhere. Mrs. Weasley ushering Hermione into the seat next to Ron at meals. Hagrid asking Ron and Hermione to feed Buckbeak together, a knowing twinkle in his eye.
At least Pansy seemed to loathe this behaviour as much as he did. Draco noticed that Pansy had co-opted a seat beside the hearth every evening, the one next to Ron's usual spot by the fire. Weasley always went strangely still when she sat down, and Draco had begun to see them exchanging words every so often, although they spoke so quietly that it was impossible to know what they were saying. It had taken all his restraint not to tease Pansy about having feelings for Weasley, but he managed to restrain himself.
Draco began to fantasise about what would happen if, one of these evenings, he simply reached out and placed his hand over Hermione's as if it were nothing. He imagined the Order's veiled shock, the flustered look on Hermione's face. Some days he came so close to doing it that his heart rate began to speed.
And surely, even if news got back to his parents, he could now play it off as one more aspect of his cover? Draco imagined himself saying, I've come up with the perfect way to get information out of them … this way, she'll tell me everything.
Only one thought stopped him: what Hermione might want. In the minutes they managed to steal in cupboards or during kitchen duty, he had the sense there was something she wasn't saying to him, which made it even more difficult to speak the words he'd been trying to shape since Azkaban.
Don't dive in headfirst, Draco kept telling himself. He was trying to keep some level of control.
But it was becoming difficult to imagine any future without Hermione. He'd imagine the end of the war, travelling abroad—and there was Hermione on the flying carpet beside him, keeping well away from the edge and speaking about Stabilizing Charms. He'd imagine himself in five years, working at whatever version of the Ministry remained after all this, and there she was at the desk opposite, working on stacks of paperwork with her lip between her teeth.
Or he would imagine the terrible reverse. He'd imagine Hufflepuff's Cup slipping through their fingers … Voldemort returning to Britain and dealing a death blow to the Order. When Draco imagined fleeing the country, Hermione was there, too, tucked into a rowboat with terrified eyes. She had to be. If she didn't escape, he would not go. He knew that much.
Winter faded and died like the embers of an old fire. Draco fed carefully chosen pieces of Order intelligence to Bellatrix, and soon the last traces of suspicion had faded from what Weasley referred to as his "family chats." April rains began to patter on the roof of the Potter Cottage, and with the mists of springtime came a new plan to disseminate the truth throughout Wizarding Britain.
"We've figured it out," said Ginny one evening during an all-Order meeting. The safehouse guards had returned, and the front room was full to bursting. "Hogwarts. It's the one magical hub where we've still got an advantage. If Dobby, Winky, and the other house-elves can get our pamphlets into the hands of the students, then they can go home and give them to their parents, and their parents can contact everyone they know, and so on."
"Now tha's an idea," exclaimed Hagrid. "An' loads of kids will go home for the Easter holidays at the end of April."
"Good thinking, Ginny," said Remus.
"Wasn't just my idea," said Ginny with a nod to Luna—and to Pansy, who had been spending most of her afternoons with the other two girls. Pansy lifted her shoulders wearily, as if it were a great burden to assist with the Order's problems. But Draco knew that proud set to her chin.
Luna was propped in a chair, still frail but mostly recovered. She went on serenely, "We thought we'd bind the leaflets in groups of several hundred, then disguise them as extra spellbooks. So, even if the Carrows or Professor Snape search students' trunks, they shouldn't see anything out of the ordinary."
"We will need advanced Transfiguration to escape Snape's notice, I'm afraid," said Professor McGonagall. "But our allies at the safehouse will devote themselves to the effort, I'm sure."
So the Order reoriented its efforts, re-energised. This was a relief to Draco, Hermione, Harry, and Ron, who were still pretending to work hard every day on Harry's supposed Occlumency block, and preferred the rest of the Order to be as distracted as possible. For hours each day, they tried to come up with a plan to tease the Horcrux's location out of Bellatrix. It seemed an impossibly delicate manipulation.
"I wish we could just hex it out of her," said Potter one afternoon, spinning his wand in his hand.
Hermione was drumming her fingers on a stack of texts about Hogwarts. "I still think we'll have to risk being more specific about the Founders' objects. Draco, what if you told her outright you'd gone through our things and found the diadem or the locket—or even both? Then maybe she'll start to worry that we know where the cup is, too."
"That's a massive risk," Weasley argued. "What if she decides to tell You-Know-Who? Then he'll know we're after Horcruxes, and there goes any shot of our getting to the cup."
"I'm not sure Bellatrix would tell him," Draco said slowly. "No one knows that the Dark Lord was collecting Founders' objects. … All Bellatrix knows is that she was entrusted with Hufflepuff's Cup, this Cup of the Covenant, and she has to keep it safe."
Potter shook his head. "Still, she'll want to keep Voldemort updated on what we're doing, won't she? That diadem was powerful. She could let it slip to him in a report that we've got it as a weapon. We can't chance it."
"Yes, but"—Draco massaged his temples—"she needs to think we're on the trail of the cup, or she'll never give anything away."
"No," Hermione said. "Wait. She needs to think the three of us are on the trail—not necessarily you, Draco." She swallowed. "I have an idea. I think I've got it."
Draco spent the evening in a state of advanced nerves. They had gone over and over Hermione's plan, all three Gryffindors playing Bellatrix until Draco could reroute the conversation back to where they needed it to go each time.
After dinner, he stormed into his parents' tent with his mouth twisted in a scowl. They were sitting near the fire, the mirror in his mother's hand, ready for the discussion they'd scheduled with Bellatrix. They looked up as he shoved the flap open.
"Has something happened?" asked Lucius, voice sharp.
"Yeah. I mean, I think so. This is impossible." Draco scrubbed his hands through his hair. "I think they've had some sort of breakthrough, but I can't tell what. Bellatrix is going to—I can't get the Order to tell me the important bits. She's going to think I'm not trying hard enough, but I'm doing everything I can."
"Come sit," said his mother, placing her hand upon the sofa.
Draco did so, staring bitterly at his feet. Narcissa let her hand come to rest upon his back. "Bellatrix knows that something so important will take time."
He forced a laugh. "Yeah, Aunt Bella's such a paragon of patience." But he allowed a slow sigh. "Let's just get this over with. Muffliato," he added, aiming his wand at the tent flap.
Narcissa raised the mirror and said, "Bellatrix Lestrange."
Bella appeared at once. She was walking outside, the moon licking the dramatic waves of her hair, making it look like dark water spilling over itself. "Cissy," she said. "Draco. Lucius. What news of the Order?"
"Draco has been working tirelessly to uncover new information," said Lucius. "The Order remains biased against him because of his affiliation with the Dark Lord, of course … they are loath to trust too much in him."
Draco couldn't help a sidelong look at his father. Lucius had leapt to speak for him like this in fifth year, too, during the Dark Lord's occasional visits to their home. He'd thought his father had been talking him up to make him seem like a desirable recruit. Now he also saw that his father's intervention was a form of protection.
He looked back to Bellatrix, refocussing on the plan, twisting his mouth back into its scowl. "Yeah. Something's happened, and I tried for hours to get any details, but they shut me out of the room." He shook his head. "I think they must have caught the trail of one of those artifacts they want. That's got to be it. Or else why would they be so excited?"
Bellatrix had stopped in her tracks, alone on her wooded path. "You say they shut you out. Did you listen at the door, Draco?"
"They cast enchantments against such things, Bella," Narcissa cut in. "As you know."
"Let Draco speak, Cissy," Bella hissed. Narcissa drew back in affront, and Bella struggled to compose herself. "I only mean … you are right, my nephew—this may be very important … such a weapon could pose a threat to the Dark Lord's aims. You must tell me everything you remember about their conversation."
Draco let his scowl fade into a serious expression. "Well, before they kicked me out, Granger was reading one of those history books. And Weasley and Potter were looking through this book of advanced charmwork." He frowned as if trying to remember something. "Yeah, that's right. Weasley said something about location spells. Then all three of them got really excited and told me I had to get out right away."
He met Bella's eyes, which were shadowed by their lashes, reflecting no moon.
"If it's a location spell that did it," Draco said slowly, shifting in his seat as if worried, "then they must have figured out where to find one of those artifacts. What are we supposed to do? How am I supposed to find it?"
Bellatrix had begun to walk again, looking above the rim of the mirror as though to show that her interest had faded, but Draco could see the tension in her generous mouth. "We may be able to stave them off. You will need to stay vigilant for clues of where they are looking, Draco. Listen for any talk of Wizarding museums, perhaps, or private collections, or"—her eyes slid briefly onto his, her voice falsely light—"even banks."
It was all Draco needed.
#
"How in the bloody hell," Ron said, "are we supposed to get into the Lestrange vault? That's got to be one of the oldest vaults in Gringotts."
Hermione was chewing her lip vigorously, excitement coursing through her. The odds were long, of course—but they finally knew where the Horcrux was. "Couldn't we ask Bill?" she asked. "He used to work for Gringotts."
Ron snorted. "Yeah, and a fat lot of good that'll be. He'll just recite that poem on the door at us."
"And remember," Harry said, "they've also tightened security in Diagon Alley by about ten times since Azkaban and the flyover."
There was a long silence. They were sitting in Ron's and Harry's bedroom, two on each twin bed. Usually Hermione and Draco were cautious to keep some distance between themselves during these meetings—but Ron and Harry had plopped down so quickly on Ron's bed that she now found herself sitting scant feet from Draco on the other.
This should not, perhaps, have been as distracting as it was, but Hermione kept remembering the last time they'd been on a bed together, a fortnight ago, having sneaked up to her room near two in the morning. She had rarely been so grateful for Silencing Charms.
Cheeks warm, refusing to let her eyes stray to Draco, she refocussed on Gringotts. Cool rain was drumming at the window. Somewhere below, they could hear Ollivander's wand-crafting machines whirring gently. Above, Fred and George were clunking around with their broadcasting equipment.
"Maybe the extra security could benefit us," said Draco slowly. "Diagon Alley is still under No-Apparition. That makes getting out of Gringotts a lot slower, if you can't just Disapparate from the bottom of the steps."
Hermione realised what he was suggesting and let out a little "Ooh!"
"Fill us in, would you?" said Harry, looking between her and Draco.
Draco lay back on the pillow and stretched his legs out in front of Hermione, his knee inches from hers. "I'm saying, we don't need to get into Gringotts. If we get Bellatrix to take the Horcrux out for us, then we can wait in Diagon Alley and ambush her."
Harry frowned. "How are we supposed to do that?"
"Well, forcing the actual withdrawal should be simple enough," said Hermione, beginning to jot down notes. "We'll have to make her feel as though the Horcrux is in danger of being stolen, as if her vault is no longer a safe hiding place. And—" She looked up eagerly at Draco. "Maybe that's where Bill can come in! He can give us details that will make it seem like we really know how to break in."
"I doubt we even need that much," said Draco. "Gringotts is run by goblins. Bellatrix thinks about as highly of goblins as she does of house-elves."
"All right," said Harry, excitement starting to gleam in his eyes, too. "So, Draco, when we're ready, you tell Bellatrix we're planning to steal something from Gringotts, and the goblins are going to help us get it the next day."
"Just like that?" said Ron, sounding indignant. "You think she'll buy it outright?"
Hermione frowned. "Why shouldn't she? She's got decades of prejudice that will tell her not to trust the goblins."
"Yeah, but we can't go and drop everything on her at once. It'll sound like Draco's telling her outright to go to Gringotts and make an emergency withdrawal. You've only just gone over, Malfoy. She could smell a rat."
They hesitated, mulling Ron's point.
"Hang on," Harry said slowly. "Why don't we ask Bill to invite a couple of goblins to headquarters? He's been writing letters to goblin groups for months. We could ask them to say a few lines, and Draco, you and your parents could bring that mirror nearby to eavesdrop. Bellatrix could hear it from the goblins' own mouths that they're agreeing to help us. Then there's no way she'll think you're making it up."
Draco looked rather impressed with this plan. "Not bad, Potter. But there'll be no going back, then. I think the instant she hears a conversation like that, she'll go to Gringotts." His mouth thinned. "And I wouldn't want to be whichever goblin has to attend her when she gets there."
Hermione felt her stomach twist. She loathed the idea of putting innocent goblins in the path of an angry Bellatrix Lestrange … but they had to get the Horcrux, and there seemed no other way. With Gringotts in the mix, its workers would have to be involved eventually.
She finished scribbling notes, then drew back from the basic bones of the plan. "All right. There's still a lot more we need to work out before we get to that point, though. For instance, how are we going to get into Diagon Alley this time? We can't rely on Polyjuice Potion again."
"And," Ron added, "we've got to make dead sure the four of us can beat Bellatrix Lestrange, get the Horcrux off her, and get back out of there without a hundred Aurors piling onto us."
Draco settled back onto the bed with a bounce of the springs. "What could possibly go wrong?"
Hermione smiled at him. He met her eyes, his hair tossed against the pillow, and moved his knee so that it brushed hers momentarily.
She swallowed and looked away. And although Harry and Ron were in discussion again, Hermione could have sworn she saw Ron's eyes stray, puzzled, to the place that she and Draco had touched.
#
It was the first time that they had recruited outside help to find a Horcrux. Although it felt strange to make the request to Bill, speaking around why exactly they needed help from the goblins, the alliance drove home to Hermione how close they were to reaching their goal.
And it was this feeling of alliance that soon gave them the idea for how to enter Diagon Alley, too. They decided to ask Dobby and Winky, who could get through the Apparition wards, to enter Ollivander's shop, whose grate had been disconnected from the Floo network. Then the elves would use Professor McGonagall's unregistered Floo method to create a pathway to headquarters—right past the wards.
Between these plans, Draco managing Bellatrix's demands, half the Order toiling over the Hogwarts operation, and the other half stretched thin with fights across the nation, Hermione thought headquarters could be no busier. But then, one morning in late April, they were forcibly distracted from the Death Eaters for the first time in months.
Tonks had just tested out one of their charmed spellbooks, trying to crack through its appearance to reveal that it was made from leaflets. She hadn't been able to make a dent. "We should tell Minerva it's ready for Friday," said Tonks, pleased, lifting her arms. "Anyone fancy helping me up? Everything's such a—"
Halfway to her feet, she gasped, one hand flying to her stomach.
"Dora?" said Lupin sharply.
Tonks's face was screwed up in a grimace for what had to be a full minute, but then, finally, she sighed and straightened up. "It's nothing. Been happening for weeks. Body's practicing, I suppose."
But twenty minutes later, as a dozen of the Order sat down for lunch, it happened again. Tonks let out a muffled shout and grasped the edge of the table.
"Oh," Mrs. Weasley gasped. "It's happening!"
At once everyone was on their feet, voices piling on top of each other. Mrs. Weasley flapped her hands, shooing them out of Tonks's way. "Give her space to breathe! The lot of you! Here, Tonks, dear …" And she helped escort Tonks out of headquarters, back to the tent she shared with Remus.
Soon Mrs. Weasley bustled back inside to inform them that this could be a long process, and they couldn't all sit around with their breath held, because the baby might not be there that day or even the next … but it was no use trying to concentrate on anything else. Hermione, Draco, Harry, and Ron had meant to go over the map of Diagon Alley that afternoon to look for hiding places near Gringotts, but they'd unrolled the sheet, stared at it, and eked out a few half-hearted sentences before hurrying back downstairs. All day, other Order members came in and out from the safehouses, breathlessly asking for updates. Kingsley, who had seen Tonks come up from a trainee, was there so often that he eventually sat down in the front room with a stack of his owled reports and said, "I'll wait."
And wait they all did. The sun sank outside. Hermione found herself shifting around the front room over the hours, moving closer and closer to Draco, until eventually they were seated on the sofa beside each other. No one seemed to notice.
"I hope she's all right," Hermione said breathlessly, looking for the thousandth time at the closed front door. "Maybe her Metamorphmagus abilities will make the process less painful …"
"Maybe." Draco raised one eyebrow at her. "You know what this reminds me of?"
She lowered her voice to match his. "What?"
"Last fall. When we were still living in that tent in the garden, and Remus and Tonks were on the run. You were worrying about them then, too."
Hermione smiled. "Yes, well, a baby is a delicate thing no matter where you are."
"Have you ever seen one? A new-born?"
Hermione glanced over at Draco. "Have you?"
"Sure. Pure-blood babies are all very fancy and important, remember?"
She let out a little laugh.
"I was there when Pansy's brothers were born," Draco said, glancing across the room to Pansy. "And one of her cousins, when we were thirteen."
Hermione nibbled her lip. Her jitters for Tonks blended into the conflicted feelings she'd had about Draco and Pansy—about how effortless it must have felt for them. But before she could reply, the door burst open. It was Remus, hair messy, practically wild-eyed.
He broke into a smile, in a way Hermione had never seen him smile before. A much younger man seemed to glow through him as he cried, "It's a boy! We've named him Ted, of course!"
The front room erupted. Kingsley upended his stack of papers as he leapt to his feet, Hagrid roared his congratulations, and Sturgis and Fleur brought out donated bottles of elf-made wine that they'd had no cause to drink yet. Remus was blinking rapidly as if in bright light, moving around the front room and accepting the well-wishes of the entire Order. Ron and Pansy were on their feet in front of the fire, looking equally stunned, as though the outcome were somehow surprising to them.
Eventually, after an almighty round of back-slapping and hand-shaking from the Weasley twins, Remus came to Draco and Hermione. Some of the Order were moving between rooms now, fetching more wine or food from the kitchen. In the stir, Remus's words to them went unnoticed. "Draco, Dora would love for you come to the tent and meet Teddy. She'd like to have family there."
Draco stood quickly. "Yes. Sure."
Remus lowered his voice. "She says you're welcome too, Hermione."
And the three of them slipped out into the front garden, allowed past Molly Weasley, who was sniffling and standing sentry, into Remus's and Tonks's tent.
It was shabby but clean, nothing like Fred's and George's elaborate multi-room affairs. Its single room had a small kitchenette in one corner and a bank of enchanted windows opposite. Beneath these windows, Tonks was sitting up in bed, sweaty and exhausted-looking, a bundle of blankets in her arms.
"Come on, come closer," she said with a tired laugh. "It's not contagious, this parenthood thing. Not that I know of."
Hermione, Draco, and Remus gathered at the bedside. Hermione peered down at little Teddy Lupin, whose tuft of hair was changing slowly from golden to dark blue. His round face was patched with red, his skin soft and wrinkled and impossibly delicate.
Hermione's throat grew tight, and she was startled to feel her eyes prickling with tears. "He's beautiful, Tonks," she whispered, but it didn't encompass the feeling, not really. The baby seemed like a reminder of the outside world—how they must make it a place that he could grow up in safety.
"Thanks, Hermione." Tonks smiled. "Want to hold him?"
"Oh, I … I …"
"You won't hurt him," said Draco quietly. He extended a hand to Tonks. "Can I?"
"Sure. Up he comes …" Tonks lifted the bundle into Draco's arms.
Moving smoothly and carefully, Draco brought the bundle to his chest. His thin mouth quirked in a smile as he looked down at the baby's changing hair. "See? Easy does it."
Hermione felt a funny squeeze in her chest. She didn't move to take Teddy from his grip. She just watched Draco lower a finger toward the baby's waving hand, until the tiny fingers had closed around it.
"Listen," Tonks said, "we wanted to ask if you'd be his godfather, Draco. It's going to be hard enough for him to grow up without grandparents. … I wanted him to feel like he's got family around when he needs."
Draco's eyes widened. He grew still.
"You don't need to answer right away, of course," said Remus. "It is a lot of a responsibility, and there are others in the Order we might ask. Take all the time you need to think about—"
"I'll do it," Draco said. That pink tinge had entered his cheeks, and the angle to his lips was breaking into a proper smile now. "Yeah. Sure."
The prickle in Hermione's eyes intensified, as did the squeeze in her chest. Tonks and Lupin were exclaiming in reply, Tonks going on cheerfully about how Draco had better know what he was getting into, because she'd be landing him with cousin baby duty whenever she wanted a weekend's rest—but Hermione wasn't listening properly. The whole world seemed quiet. She couldn't look away from Draco, his smile, the way his thumb was moving carefully over Teddy's tiny hand. She felt as though her feet were hovering inches above the ground, and she felt as though anyone who looked at her in that moment must see her feelings printed across her face as if in indelible ink.
Soon Draco had returned Teddy to Tonks's arms. "I think we'd better get back inside," Hermione said in a slightly shaky voice. "The others might wonder where we've gotten to."
Mrs. Weasley gave them a curious look on the way out of the tent, but Hermione didn't care anymore. She tugged Draco toward the corner of the house and stopped where the path led around to the narrow side garden. "Draco, there's something I need to tell you."
He stilled. She saw caution in his face.
She screwed up her courage. "I feel very seriously about this. About us," she said in a rush. "About having a—a future together, even though we haven't put words to what exactly we are to each other. … So, I suppose I mean to say, if you don't feel the same way, I'd really prefer t-to know now rather than later." Hermione realized with panic that her eyes were stinging again. "I mean," she rushed on, trying to sound more matter-of-fact, "I've felt there's something you haven't been saying since Azkaban, and since Pansy's been here, I've thought about how it was so simple for the pair of you. And I know that if we keep on like this, it'll be much more difficult."
Hermione's mouth had gone dry. It seemed a terrible sign that Draco hadn't said anything yet. Even worse was the way he was staring, as though incredulous.
"Right." Mortified, Hermione took a step back. "Well, I thought you should know that I—how I feel. And now you know. So, I'll just—"
She broke off. His lips were pulling into a smile. Why was he smiling?
"I love you, too," he said.
Hermione felt her heart stop.
As she looked up into his eyes, the entirety of the last year seemed to flow over her, sending a thrill from her toes to the top of her skull, and—
Of course I love him, she thought, dazed. Of course I do. And she couldn't even pinpoint when it had happened. At Azkaban, when the fear of losing him had been so visceral? At Malfoy Manor, when she'd seen him pushing through the crowd, risking everything to save her? That very first evening in the cottage, when they'd sat at the dining table and he'd told her she didn't need to be afraid?
Hermione had no idea. Until now, she hadn't realized these words contained the feeling. She had loved him longer than she'd had language for it.
And how like him to say I love you, too—to listen to her matter-of-fact statement littered with analysis and drawbacks and hear what she really meant.
"Oh," she said in a tiny voice.
Draco closed the gap between them in one long stride and kissed her deeply. Hermione's hands flew up to cup his face, his skin cool in the night air, his pulse going hard in his throat against the heel of her thumb.
"More difficult?" he said with disbelief, then kissed her again. "More difficult? You actually thought I'd care? After months of raiding prisons and dodging Death Eaters and—you think I'd care?"
Hermione's heart had restarted. Now it seemed to be performing giddy leaps in her chest. "I didn't want to make assumptions, did I?" She was smiling so hard that it hurt her cheeks, smiling so hard that their kisses turned clumsy. She slipped her arms around his waist, and they melted back into the shadows of the side garden, moving down to a patch of wall where there were no windows.
"You do, don't you?" Draco murmured at the corner of her mouth.
"Do I what?"
"Do you love me."
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I do, I love you."
"And you don't care if it's more difficult?"
Hermione let out a little laugh. "No. I like a challenge, actually."
"So do I," he breathed, and she cut him off with a kiss, pushing him back—
Directly into a flood of warm yellow light. The side door had come open, and a pair of figures moved through the threshold, their hands intertwined. They crashed into Draco and Hermione.
Draco and Hermione sprang apart. The two figures yanked their hands away from each other.
It was Ron and Pansy.
Each pair stared at the other for a long moment, the music and laughter from within headquarters spilling out with the kitchen light.
Then Ron and Hermione blurted out at the same time, "I knew it!"
"You did?" said Draco and Pansy, looking startled.
Harry appeared in the threshold, chewing a slice of fruitcake. He looked from Draco and Hermione to Ron and Pansy with mild interest. "Ah," he said. "Does this mean I'm allowed to tell Ginny about you lot, then?"
Hermione didn't know who was first to react. But then all five of them were dissolving into helpless laughter. Pansy sank back against the doorpost, holding her forearm to her eyes as her shoulders shook. Ron and Harry were doubled over, Draco's mouth halfway open, laugh lines pushed up into his cheeks. And just when Hermione thought they might get themselves together again, Ginny and Luna showed up to ask what in Merlin's name was so funny. Fresh peals of laughter rang through the garden. Hermione leaned against Draco and laughed until tears touched her eyes, their fingers intertwined.
#
Bellatrix stalked through the rain with her head held high, the water pouring off her umbrella. She was glad to see the last days of April. The month had brought many storms.
Yaxley met her at the usual corner. "Ah. Madam Lestrange. You've come. And …" He sneered at Wormtail, scurrying along at Bellatrix's shoulder. "Company. Delightful."
"Yaxley," Wormtail said in his small, resentful wheeze.
The three Death Eaters continued down the dark lane, wind gusting around them. A house stood ahead behind a secure gate, its walls made of simple brick.
"Are you sure he cannot be constrained any longer?" said Bellatrix.
"Quite sure."
Bellatrix drew her wand, letting her nails click down the length of blackthorn. "The Dark Lord had hoped to keep him in place until his return … and given the events of the past few days …"
"Yes," Yaxley murmured. "Troubling."
Bellatrix allowed herself to exchange a look with Yaxley. She had no great respect for him, a wizard with none of the brilliance that the Dark Lord deserved in his servants … but his blood was pure, his loyalty absolute. She knew that he, too, had seen and recognized the warning signs of the past several days.
In Nottingham, a city which had been subdued since the events of Malfoy Manor, a band of witches and wizards had suddenly set upon a group of Snatchers, setting free the Mudblood children taken from their Muggle parents. In Ipswich, posters calling for the capture of Harry Potter had been defaced with graffiti that read LONG LIVE THE BOY WHO LIVED. And reports from Wrexham suggested that locals had started capturing the Daily Prophet's delivery owls.
It seemed that the Order had somehow managed to deliver news to witches and wizards across Britain. Bellatrix did not know how such a thing could be; the Malfoys had given no word of a new push for information … and yet she couldn't be imagining such a shift in the national mood. Draco had mentioned a number of safehouses controlled by the Order. This push must have been directed by one of those other locations.
Bellatrix seethed as they slipped through the gate, then crunched over the gravel to the house's front door. If the Dark Lord had only returned from the continent two weeks ago, he would have seen the fruits of their efforts, a nation almost completely won. But now the Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers seemed to be lashing out in their death throes. It would make all her work seem less impressive in his eyes.
All this on top of the small but not insubstantial worry that the Potter boy had fixed his sights on the Cup of the Covenant … but Bella reassured herself that the cup was safe, even if the Order knew its location. In many centuries of her family's reliance on Gringotts, the bank's security had never been threatened. Goblins were inferior creatures, of course, but they could be relied on to serve their purpose. Otherwise there would have been no reason to allow them to continue to exist in Wizarding society.
Yaxley knocked at the front door. Travers answered immediately. "Madam Lestrange," he said, offering Wormtail nothing except a scathing look.
"Travers." Bella swept inside and unclipped her rain-wet outer robe, which she threw into Wormtail's fumbling hands. "Where is he?"
"This way." Travers led Bellatrix and Yaxley down the hall, leaving a cursing Wormtail to deal with the robes.
The house was in a state of advanced neglect. Dust covered every surface; dead insects were curled upon surfaces and beneath tables. They entered a modest kitchen, the only room that showed some signs of being lived in. Some dishes lay in the sink, others half-washed on a rack, as though someone absentminded had forgotten to finish cleaning.
The Death Eaters gathered around the table. Atop it lay Pius Thicknesse, the Minister for Magic.
Thicknesse was, Bellatrix knew, a formidable wizard. Yaxley's greatest accomplishment in the Dark Lord's service had been to place that initial Imperius Curse upon the former Head of Magical Law Enforcement. Since then, Bellatrix and Travers had maintained the Imperius Curse themselves. Travers had a particular talent for the spell.
But she knew the instant she saw Thicknesse upon the table that her fellow Death Eaters were right. It was no good. Thicknesse's dark hair was dishevelled, and though he was immobilised, his eyes slid from side to side. Conscious. Aware.
Thicknesse had begun to fight the curse, and if he could fight Bellatrix's and Travers's Imperius Curses, there was no other's beside the Dark Lord that could overpower him.
As Bellatrix watched, his eyes became fixed again. He had fallen back under the spell. But they could not risk him clawing his way into a lucid moment when addressing the public.
Bellatrix looked with distaste around the kitchen. Thicknesse had lived a half-life these past months, drifting home to eat mechanically, then sleeping until he was next called to his public life.
His eyes began to swivel again, fixing on Bellatrix. She could see the loathing there, the thirst to break free and duel her. Normally she might have had some fun with him, but she could think only of the Dark Lord's displeasure that their puppet had outlived its use.
Bellatrix glanced to Travers. "I presume you have had him write a letter to his office explaining his coming absence?"
"Yes. A nervous complaint, I've called it. Fits with Skeeter's last article well enough."
"Good." Bellatrix pointed her wand at Thicknesse and said, "Avada Kedavra."
Pius Thicknesse went limp upon the table just in time for Peter Pettigrew to enter the kitchen and freeze at the sight.
"Clean that up, Wormtail," Bellatrix said to Pettigrew as she stalked past. "Come, Yaxley, Travers—we have much to discuss."
.
.
.
can't let people laugh without a murder!
idk why i am saying this now, but i wanted to say, i don't generally reply to reviews because i get hideously embarrassed to see the things that i have previously said. and it takes me like 10 anxious minutes to type out a two-sentence message. but truly, the nice words y'all have left on this fic have sparked joy that marie kondo herself could not describe! thank you so much for reading, i am so lucky to write for such kind people :)
-sw