As promised, here's the next update! I won't waffle on. I just wanted to take a moment and thank you all for stick with me this far. I am truly speechless by the response to this story. I really do fail at finding words that properly show my appreciation. But thank you!

Canttouchthis absolutely knocked the editing out the park for this one. She is the real MVP here. If you want a mindblowing Game of Throne Dramione epic, check out her WIP, Breaker of Bonds

TRIGGERS - Violence, mild horror, panic & anxiety. If I have missed anything, please let me know, and I shall add it to the list.

Without further ado, grab a beverage of choice, and snack, your neighbours' pet and your own and enjoy!

You warned me we're all made of glass,

That our lives are far too thin,

So why did I not believe you,

'Til it was your shards in my skin,

Now, these scars upon my fingers,

Run too deep to just forget,

Despite the wilted roses,

From the first time that we met,

And I don't know why I told you,

I was good at letting go,

For all I do now's watch dead flowers,

And pray somehow they will grow.

-Erin Hanson

Chapter 21 - Lassulus

00:01 am, 21st of September, 1999 - The Princess of Wales, Montpelier Row, Blackheath, London, UK

Blackheath was a strange place. A bleak moor in the beating heart of a metropolis. One could forget that they sat in the heart of London, were it not for the glass skyscrapers peeking over the embankment of trees.

The Heath was quiet, almost silent in the middle of the night. It was a heavy silence, like there was a vacuum of noise that settled over the area, vanishing the hum of the city, the bustle of continuous traffic. It was as if a hush fell over the large stretch of dry grass; as if the world held its breath waiting for the sun to rise, just holding on till the protection of the light came.

The only light to be found on the Heath in the dead of night was the streetlights stationed along the bordering roads. Only ten in total covered the long stretch of road that banked the Heath, separating it from the warm glow of the sprawling houses, with gilded knockers and curved drives. Each pool of light was like an island amongst the dense darkness that bled into nothingness over the flat planes.

It was an abyss. A vast space of black that people warned each other not to venture into once the sunset.

Alone in the centre of the Heath, lies All Saints' church. The muggle, Benjamin Ferrey had been tasked with creating a parish church for the new diocese of Blackheath and in 1867, the building was complete. A single spire and brick of stone, All Saints' was a simple church. A place that was built with the express intention of being a home for music.

Ferrey's daughter loved to sing, and so built the church in such a way that the notes resonated from the altar, before reverberating, constantly building and overlapping before spiralling up the spire.

But along with God-fearing sermons, All Saints' Church had also provided another service over the years - one which was only documented in one report, signed by the standing monarch of the time Queen Victoria and Pope Pius IX, that had sat in an atmosphere controlled room, deep within the Vatican Archives since 1893.

Each of the street lights that branched from the church, cut a cross of light amongst the deep black of the Heath. During the day, choirs sang Psalms from whatever reigning church was in power, and bespoke chants written by the specially appointed Pastor. At night, the street lamps were lit, binding the lock that wove through the ley lines, closing the trap for the night.

Of course, no plan was perfect, and if there was one thing that could be relied on, it was the stupidity of humanity to never adhere to a warning.

Because they always came, searching in the night. They always wandered off the lit roads - a drunken stumble here, a dare there.

When the gas lamps were replaced, the choirs sang non-stop for three weeks. Their muggle voices weaved the magic, coaxing the locks to stay in place, to hold out just a little longer.

They nearly failed. On the last night, they nearly failed and he would have been free to leave the damned prison.

As it was, he had watched in abject horror as the artificial light had flickered to life the next night, the walls of his prison stronger than ever.

And so he waited. He prowled the dark, his clipped steps muted by the earth. His suit was tarnished, his coat was stained. Inevitably, a fool would wander too close to the barrier of light that housed him, or a group of kids would brazenly cut across his cage, each nervously laughing as they looked over their shoulders.

People went missing in Blackheath.

Gone. Disappeared without a trace - much to his chagrin. When he was lucky enough to have some poor soul stumble into his cage, he took his time with them, practising his rusty skills. He was always silent as he worked, meticulous. A surgeon's precision. He would carve his victims, relishing in each slice of their flesh.

Even though he resented his prison, the smell of their fear was so rich compared to when he was human; the tang of blood and piss would fill the air as he slowly took them apart, keeping them alive long enough so that he could prolong the intoxicating scent.

But nothing would ever beat the hunt.

Back when he had been free to stalk the streets of London, finding his preferred prey.

Now he had to lie in wait and hope something fell in his lap.

He stood on the cusp of the barrier, a few metres back from the road. On the corner, leant against a post was a woman. She was young, mid-twenties, her blonde hair peeking out from the hood she had pulled over her head. Her clothes were as dirty as his - though, he would assume his nails were cleaner.

She had been standing there for an hour.

Watching.

Waiting.

Across the road from them was the pub - The Princess of Wales. A quiet little establishment. Quaint. Bordered off from the main road by a low cobblestone wall that he had seen many a drunken fool tumble over.

But she was watching the old man who sat with tears rolling down his cheeks, a small photograph in his hand.

It was a funny thing. Three beings watching each other so closely when one of them believed themself to be alone.

The man pocketed the photograph as a blonde American left the pub, his obnoxious voice carrying over the road.

"So are we clear?" he said, tightening his scarf around his throat.

The older man nodded his fist curling at his side, a look of distaste upon his bearded face. "Yes, I'll get his mother."

The American's smile was broad, flashing his white teeth. "Fantastic. I look forward to hearing from you soon."

The American stepped over the wall and made to leave just as the older man reached out.

"Wait!"

The American stopped and looked over his shoulder. The older man shifted his weight, chewing his words.

"How are they?" The older man's voice was so quiet that the woman and he leant forward to hear.

The American smirked and picked some invisible lint from his sleeve.

"They'll be fine if you do as you're told." And with a grin that didn't reach his eyes, the American spun on his heel and disappeared with a crack .

The older man crumpled and leant heavily against the table, seemingly trying to catch his breath.

The woman shivered from the slight breeze as she pulled a small note from her pocket.

He watched her scrawl a few words before he looked to the sky. The seasons were turning again. Soon the night would be longer, giving him more time to prowl and wait. He sighed, turning his attention back to the old man and woman.

The old man rallied himself, shaking off whatever emotion it was that plagued him. He cleared his throat and straightened his collar, then stepped out over the cobblestone wall. In a few steps, he too disappeared with a crack .

The woman shivered once again. With a sigh, she finally moved from her post and began the long walk along the path that bordered the Heath.

It had been a strange evening, to say the least, watching her watch them. He had seen a whole host of oddities over the years from his prison, and this one intrigued him. There was something so wonderfully clandestine about the entire affair.

He walked alongside her, prowling the shallow shadows. Part of him wondered if he was waiting for her to take a tumble and fall over the barrier, or if he simply just wanted to have some company.

They walked in silence, the only sound was the slap of her threadbare daps against the pavement. Her blonde hair flashed in every pool of heinous light she passed under.

Again and again. Streetlight after streetlight.

Until something caught his attention up ahead.

He stilled.

Watching.

Waiting.

A flicker.

A streetlight flickered.

A slow and vicious smile spread across his face. There was a chink in the armour for the first time in a century.

It flickered again.

He ran, sprinting, stretching his long legs. In every flicker, there was a second of darkness, a minute hole for him to slip through. All he had to do was catch it. He'd never seen anything like this before, the wards on the locks were bound to the ley lines, a constant current that he had no way of exploiting.

He had tried. Many times.

Until now. But he would think on that later, for now, he needed to time his exit right.

He slowed his paces with a hop and a skip. He heard the buzz of the streetlight heighten, its pitch becoming almost piercing before silence.

A step.

He breathed the cool crisp air as the streetlight flickered above him, bathing him in light for the first time in a century. He straightened his cuffs and rolled his neck, feeling his being thrum to life, no longer dampened by the maddening hallowed grounds of the Heath.

He heard a gasp.

He looked to his left.

The woman had stopped, her eyes wide.

Startled - not frightened…

Yet.

"What's your name?" he said, turning to face her fully. She blinked, her feet scrapping as she stepped back.

"Fuck off," she stammered. Fear immediately spiked the air around him, a siren's call to his blood. "Who's asking?"

He grinned and flexed his hands, the leather of his gloves creaking in the silence.

"Call me Jack, darling, everyone does."

01:02 am, 21st of September, 1999 - Penthouse, Hyde Park Gardens, London, UK

The rustle of sheets was deafening in the silent room. Hermione turned, huffing a put-upon sigh as she settled back into her pillow. She blinked into the dark and moved her leg, gliding it along the soft sheet to a cooler part of the bed.

Hours she had lain there, tossing and turning. She had beaten up her pillow three times to restore the puff, thrown it to the floor, picked it back up, twisted the angle, shifted it back, placed it over her head, and then back under again… Nothing had worked.

For the life of her, she couldn't figure out what her next move should be. She had decided that she was going to take matters into her own hands, to change the pattern.

And not thirty seconds later, she had her tongue in Draco Malfoy's mouth.

But that wasn't the point.

She blew out a short breath from her nose - a hushed reprimand. The point was that she had been reacting to everything that had been happening; a wind-up toy stood still, waiting for commands. She hadn't been pre-empting, hadn't been planning. She was supposed to be trying to figure out who the cult was, where they had taken Nott, etcetera.

The faster she figured that out, the faster she and Malfoy would walk their separate ways.

Yes.

No -

Yes ! Of course they would! They were only spending all this time together because he was her charge, it was her job - he was her assignment.

Hermione sighed again and idly traced the pattern of runes found upon old Norse locks for no other reason than she liked their shape.

Admittedly, she hadn't done a fantastic job of protecting Malfoy in the beginning (read: who brings people they're supposed to keep safe to an active warzone?). But this was her job. Protecting people, solving the most unknown problems, untangling the universes' secrets. And yet somehow, once again, Draco-Fucking-Malfoy had made it about him.

So maybe she could have done better. Maybe she should have reset her priorities. Maybe she shouldn't have continued on as if he was merely just another piece in this sprawling Pandora's Box of a problem. Maybe she shouldn't have just thought of him as a nuisance.

And now she found herself, lying awake in the middle of the night, with Enos' screams still ringing in her ears and the feel of Malfoy's kiss still on her lips, trying to figure out how to take hold of the reins of this nightmare.

She twisted her lips to the side in annoyance. Bias. They had been warned of it in training. She had gone through lecture after lecture, hour after hour of exercises that had shown them where bias could crop up and how damaging it could be to a case.

Confirmation bias - finding facts that fit your hypothesis, only to ignore the ones that don't.

Unconscious bias - shaped entirely by one's experience, one may be inclined to only view a thing through the lens of previous trauma, thus making the perfect storm for prejudice to be the deciding factor in the ruling decision.

Hermione had sworn she was better than that; promised that she wouldn't be caught falling into that trap. She could be fair. She could separate herself from her past experience. And yet she had fallen prey to it. Unconsciously, she had pushed Malfoy as a lower priority, raising her own need to succeed to the top as an overt reaction (read: def-

Oh, fuck it.

Hermione sat bolt upright, frustration making her skin itch. It had been a defence mechanism. Somewhere, she had assumed that he would dominate her time, her life, and put her down like he always had. Whether she cared to admit it or not, she had been waiting for him to sneer the same derogatory 'mudblood' that scarred her arm.

But he hadn't done that. They had argued yes, but for the life of her, she couldn't think about what they were about now. And he had gone to Scotland, thrown himself in Deimos' path - a fact that she still couldn't comprehend. In the most frivolous sense, if she ignored the gods and the violence and all the horror, Draco Malfoy had done something selfless which was a trait that diametrically opposed the caricature of him that lived in her memories.

That fact in itself was enough to keep her awake. It was like she had a puzzle before her, with one only space left to fill. Once complete, the picture would resemble the Draco Malfoy who lived in her memories - the boy with the sneer and the cruel eyes. But the piece she held between her fingers didn't fit the space. No matter which way she turned it, angled it, or forced it, the puzzle piece simply didn't fit, leaving the image of that Malfoy incomplete.

And so there she sat, in the middle of the night, every nerve ending on fire, obsessing over him, when she had far more important things to be worried about than trying to figure out what picture the puzzle piece belonged to.

Like the fact that Enos had been murdered for saying too much. ' Trafficking '. He had said that he had been trafficking people, ' key people', like the man who blew up Waterloo. Felstat Graves.

Hermione pulled a curl, absently twirling it around her finger, turning the name over in her mind. Graves had been a key person to the Cult, a Pawn in their strategy. She ran her teeth over her lip and stared unseeingly into the dark. ' The Pawn of Waterloo ', Enos had called him. That wasn't a moniker that had been given by any of the media outlets. Which meant that this was a Cult reference, a term that they had dubbed him. A mission name perhaps?

She thought back to all those evenings spent in the Gryffindor common room with Ron teaching them chess.

'Never underestimate a pawn', he'd said constantly, every time he did something that Harry would squawk at. 'They're the only piece that can be promoted', he'd say as he'd breach Harry's defences and swap the little piece for the Queen that Harry had triumphantly taken. 'And they are the deciding factor in the King's endgame', he'd calmly intoned as his pawn and king backed Harry's into the corner of the board before pouncing, wrestling it into checkmate. 'Having a single pawn more than your opponent is generally the decider of the endgame', Ron would laugh at Harry's failed attempts to repeat the same manoeuvres. He had held one of the tiny pieces in his hand one Christmas, a look of awe written upon his face: 'they're the weakest piece on the board, and yet the most important. They control the direction of the game.'

Hermione hummed softly. The muggle civil unrest had started not long after Waterloo and then worsened to a near frenzy with Scotland going dark. She tilted her head. Would the response to Scotland have been as bad, if Waterloo hadn't have happened first? Would the masses be more amenable?

Undoubtedly yes.

All of them coincidences; all major events with unfolding consequences. There was a thread that connected them all, she just had to find it.

By setting Graves as the Pawn, Hermione could assume that the ensuing unrest was their intended direction. That the chaos that burned the streets of Britain was how they had wanted to set their pieces upon the board.

But Scotland was a whole different situation. A war between creatures. The next coincidence.

"Yetis and Centaurs are at war, just over that ridge because it was foretold in the stars that they would be," Ron had said. "So the Yeti travelled hundreds of fucking miles, away from where they were safe I might add, to fight the Centaur, who went out of their way to meet the Yeti at this location because it was foretold that each side would attack each other."

Hermione scrunched her brow, recalling the conversation they'd had before everything had gone to shit. He'd called it a war started over Divination, and then Kunchen had gone missing, and then, and then, and then…

She leant her elbows on her thighs and unconsciously brought the curl she held between her fingers up to her lips.

Nothing was a coincidence.

The Yeti, the Selkie, the Will-o'-the-Wisp, the Vilenjak.

Three of the four were missing, assumed to be taken by the Cult for their ritual. If they had the power to orchestrate Malfoy's release, did they have the power to manipulate whatever powers that be, to orchestrate the Centaur and Yeti crossing paths?

One was politics. The other was magic.

Sort of.

Mystical at most.

Bloody divination.

"The Dark Mother needs void space to exist, and void space is only created when the balance has been upset. So it's a three-stage ritual: create the right environment, dismiss the elements, complete the summonings." Raine's words rumbled through her mind like an ominous warning.

The three-stage ritual, like that she had found in the Temple of Ignis. Another summoning. A modus operandi. Hermione narrowed her eyes. If their hypothesis was correct then they had three of the four elements, all captured in the same small window around the bombing of Waterloo.

She straightened in her seat, her eyes glancing around blindly in the dark.

The three-stage ritual. The carefully executed plan.

Destabilise the established norm of the muggle world.

Grab the elements.

Except they couldn't grab all the elements - the Vilenjak had been in prison and Yetis, if they are assumed to be the fourth element, are notoriously nomadic.

But the Cult orchestrated Malfoy's release, and if Hermione was right, brought the Yeti right where they wanted them and in the path of the Centaur. Which anybody with basic creature knowledge would know to be a recipe for disaster.

A classic case of Franz Ferdinand.

Destabilise the muggle world.

Grab the elements - and in doing so, destabilise the magical world too.

Control the direction of the game.

The whole thing was an avalanche that preyed upon fear and distrust of the populous.

Create the right environment.

And not to mention what effect Deimos, the Wild Hunt and Phobos would have, if left unfettered.

Dismiss the elements.

They didn't have Malfoy, but they had the others and a country in chaos.

Malfoy was their final piece and her weakest link.

Hermione tapped the nail of her thumb against her tooth. He had a full inheritance, a rare phenomenon. If all of this was true, and the Cult had the power to manipulate creatures through Divination, did they have the power to induce his inheritance?

Hermione blew out a breath that whistled between her teeth. If this was all true, then it wasn't as if she could stop any of it. The worst had been done. All she could do was control the descent.

Keep Malfoy from them.

Get Nott back.

Who was Malfoy's best friend.

She narrowed her eyes. Would they really be that obvious? Maybe , she supposed, there's an elegance to simplicity. They had planned to abduct him the night after his hearing. Their plans had already failed, they were making it up.

Or maybe the Cult had planned fail-safes. They were strategists, that much she could divine. If they were dubbing Graves the pawn, there was thought of moves upon moves there.

She thought back to what she knew, from experience mainly. Cults like patterns and tradition. There is always a sense of grandeur, a methodology underpinning each move, thought and practice.

So perhaps they had failed initially to kidnap Draco, but Hermione was certain she could place a safe bet on the fact that where one strategy failed, another kicked into place.

Which meant that they were not floundering. She re-evaluated what she knew of the Cult's moves since Waterloo. They hadn't been desperate and grabbing, they hadn't made another play for Malfoy. They had waited.

Parkinson was dead. Nott was kidnapped.

Parkinson was not meant to be where she was. She could've been anyone - she wasn't killed for her association with Malfoy, only her presence where it shouldn't have been. And there had been no attempts at contact made, no exploiting Nott for ransom.

He was just simply gone.

Hermione rolled her neck. She knew she should've paid more attention to Ron. The Cult hadn't played their final move, they hadn't triggered the trap. Which meant everyone was a risk, a potential weakness in their defence.

But this was Malfoy, he didn't care for anything.

Except for his family.

Hermione reached for her wand on the bedside table and cast a hurried, ' expecto patronum'. The ghostly light spilt from the wand and her otter twirled around the room, circling and pirouetting before coming to a stop before her, raised on its hind legs.

"It's Narcissa Malfoy, Harry, they're going to go after Narcissa. Hide her," she said urgently. The otter blinked its pearlescent eyes once, before turning its long body and vanishing through her window.

She threw back the duvet and vaulted from the bed, her pulse suddenly pounding with adrenaline. She knew she had to help. What if they were already there? What if -

Hermione quickly pulled on a soft pair of joggers and jumper, and haphazardly laced her boots. She grabbed her wand and just reached for her bedroom door when movement caught her eye.

Harry's stag strolled into the room, its enormous head held proudly high, holding a regal air about it.

"Good call. I'm on my way. I have Blaise and Neville with me. Will be in touch in a minute."

Hermione frowned. "Neville?"

The stag pawed at the ground and shook its head. No response. Hermione took a calming breath and rolled her eyes upwards. The DMLE training really needed to be updated. The stag shook out its head, turned, and disappeared.

Hermione raised a brow. "Right," she muttered to herself, turning the door handle.

She started down the hall, her steps strident towards the floo. If they were heading to St Mungo's, she'd meet them there. Just in case she was too late, just in case they needed backup. She flew down the corridor, her quick steps silent on the plush carpet when she stopped suddenly. Tilted her head. And back paced a few steps to Malfoy's bedroom door.

She should tell him.

It was his mother, he had a right to know.

She shook her head and started down the hall again. Malfoy had done enough to distract her. The minute she had looked at the bigger picture, instead of just focusing on Malfoy, she had realised that she'd left a glaring hole in their defences.

Hermione stopped.

She narrowed her eyes and blew out a sharp breath, shifting the curl that fell into her eyes.

She should tell him.

But then she'd have to talk to him, and she had been doing a great job of distracting herself from reliving their earlier kiss.

Insanity. Clearing the stress after today had gotten to be much. That's what that was about. It hadn't been about him, or her. It had been about the noise of screams and gunshots and wanting to silence them.

Yes.

She ran a hand through her hair. She should tell him about his mother. This was work. Work, which meant she should be there to oversee the extraction. It was her operation, and yet again, he was making a mess of things, simply by existing.

Hermione turned on her heel and stomped back to his door. Without a second thought, she knocked lightly twice and quickly stepped back.

Maybe he was asleep. If he was asleep then it wouldn't be her fault. She'd tried to do the ri-

She nearly bit through her lip as the handle turned and the door creaked open. Malfoy's white hair was askew, mussed from his pillow. He peered down at her, confusion etched in his brow. He stepped forward out of the darkness and lifted one arm above his head to lean against the doorframe. Hermione's gaze caught on the smooth play of muscles across his bare chest, nicked with silver lines and lattices, that followed the line that cut down his abdomen to the stark V that disappeared below the low slung grey sweats.

"Hermione?"

She blinked, snapping her eyes back up to his. Circe, what is wrong with me?! He was watching her with eyes as dark as steel and all at once she remembered the visceral feeling of his smirking lips on hers.

"Your mother," she blurted before her thoughts had fully caught up to her mouth.

"What?!" he snapped, his whole body immediately upon alert, losing the softness that made her want to reach out and touch.

"Long story which I'll happily explain," Hermione rushed, "but she's at risk -"

Malfoy hissed, his lip pulling up into a snarl.

Hermione held up a placating hand. "I've sent Harry and -"

He turned on his heel and disappeared into his room before she could finish her sentence.

I don't have time for this. She looked off to the side, rolling her lips between her teeth, suppressing the lashing vitriol that clawed her throat from escaping. How did you honestly expect this to go?

She knew she should leave.

She pushed open the door and followed. Malfoy stood with his back to her, soft moonlight deepening the shadows that played across his back as he pulled a t-shirt from his chest of drawers.

"It's fine Ma- Draco! " she urged, trying to grab his attention.

His movements paused a fraction before he tugged the t-shirt over his head.

"Please explain in detail to me how my mother being in danger is fine. "

"Well, obviously I didn't mean that."

"But it's what you said."

"Yes but…" Hermione let out a frustrated sigh. Draco pushed his hair back into some semblance of control and threw her an exasperated look before turning to rummage in his closet.

"If you would just let me speak for one second," she continued, "you would know that Harry, Zabini and Neville are on their way to her as we speak."

Draco paused and looked up from where he was slipping on a shoe. "Longbottom?"

"Yeah."

"Where did he come from?"

"No idea," Hermione said with a shrug. "But the point is, it's fine. I was just on my way to -"

What had she been going to do? Because it really was fine. She trusted Harry and to some extent Zabini, and definitely Neville, to see that Mrs Malfoy was safe. But she also had been restless, unable to sit any longer in the dark, feeling utterly and completely out of control.

"I just thought I should keep you in the loop of what's happening," Hermione finished lamely. "You know... because it's your mother."

Draco stood smoothly and pinned her with a look that straightened her spine. He was agitated; his hands curled into fists before loosening, a pulsing release of tension. But there was a curiosity about him like a single problematic thought had halted a barrage of actions that built-in urgency with every moment that passed, and that couldn't be released until the problem was solved.

Hermione shifted under his weighted stare. The sound of her breath was deafening in the tension that suddenly filled the space between them, rushing into every nook and cranny like an ocean filling a chasm. Her gaze flicked over his sleep mussed state, the softness that belayed the hard lines of his body. She ached, knowing, wanting to pull him closer.

He's Veela!

The thought was like a knife, cutting through the desire that fogged her mind. She'd been so focused on the Vilenjak aspect that she'd overlooked the siren qualities of the creature. Of course she was pulled to him. Of course it felt natural to kiss him. Of course she had wanted to get lost in him.

She used to laugh and roll her eyes at how susceptible the boys had been to the Veelas in their teenage years, but Circe , she was no better. She could barely breathe around Draco. Objectively, she could concede that he was attractive. The cruel hand of the universe had ensured that the boy who had teased her mercilessly over her looks, had grown into an adonis - tapered waist and broad-shouldered, lean muscles and corded arms. Hard angles and lines, all caging a quiet violence that stalked his every step.

But still! She knew better. She was better.

He's Veela.

Hermione stepped back, putting distance between her and the tide that threatened to pull her under and back to him. Focus.

"So we'll ju-" She stopped, her words choked as a pearlescent stag emerged through Draco's wall. They watched rapt, as it strolled silently between them, each step placed with determined grace. Draco snorted.

Hermione shot him a withering look. "What?"

He shrugged. "Potter only plays at being the common man."

"We have Mrs Malfoy," Harry's voice sounded through the room. "Bringing her back to you now."

"Absolutely not," Draco hissed and stalked past her, only barely brushing against her shoulder as he disappeared into the hall. Hermione started, surprised by his speed. She blinked, spared a final glance at the stoic stag, before running after Draco who took the stairs two at a time.

"You don't want your mother here?" she asked to the line of his tense shoulders as he barrelled across the living space.

"Of course not," Draco scoffed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, his fists unclenching restlessly at his sides again.

Hermione frowned and quickened her pace to catch up to him. "But you were all ready to go charging to St Mungo's to save her five minutes ago."

"Well obviously," he groused, "you woke me up and told me my mother was in danger. What do you expect?"

She stepped into his path without a thought. "For you to be pleased that she's being brought here, out of harm's way, and close to you."

Draco looked down at her, the muscle in his jaw fluttering as he waited for her to move. Hermione froze at the deja vu. She glanced between them, noting the echo of their earlier positions; her breath stuttered, the whispers of his kiss against her lips played in her mind.

Veela! She scorned herself, taking a mental step back from the thoughts. He was a creature. He was Malfoy.

He was a dangerous creature and a pissed off Malfoy.

Like sand shifting beneath her feet, it was with a slow dawning curiosity that she realised a subtle shift. She had stepped into Malfoy's path to stop him, the boy that she knew. But, unlike the other times she had challenged him, the reminder that he was no longer that child, no longer that human, came quicker.

Hermione looked up at the man before her in a new light.

Though he was still, he was agitated - his fingers flexing, his jaw clenching. But his eyes watched her, waiting. Hermione tilted her head. He was markedly different, powerful. Each line of sinew taut with strength. The claws that he kept at bay, the fangs hidden. The wings that had beat a decisive rhythm as he'd commanded a wild magic. All those years he had taken advantage of situations just to hurt her, and yet, now that he had that at his fingertips, he waited. He didn't push her aside with his strength, his claws were sheathed, there was no hint of aggression towards her in sight. He had always snapped at her heels academically, and he had always been handy with a wand, though she knew she could beat him if it were to come to a duel. But a fight with him wielding a raw element? His strength? Younger Malfoy wouldn't even have waited for her to let her guard down before capitalising on the advantage.

But now he simply waited. A force of nature, restless, incapable of being still: a hurricane waiting for the human to move from its path.

"Why don't you want your mother here?" Hermione croaked.

Draco's lips flattened to a thin line.

"Strategically it makes the most sense for her to be here," she continued. "So just tell me what's going on."

He was silent, his small disquieting movements breaking the marble illusion.

"Why do you insist on inserting your nose where it's not wanted?" he hissed. She searched the lines of his face for the creature that lay beneath, but saw the surface still.

Hermione's frown deepened, noting his avoidance of the question once again. "Because it's my job." Draco rolled his eyes as his lips twisted into a cruel smile.

"Of course, you have to be the cent-"

"She could go to Harry's if it bothers you that much." She cut across him, not giving him any room to lash out. She knew she'd backed him into a corner, here was his out.

Draco paused, his eyes flashing mercury as they searched hers.

"Do that."

She stared, trying to piece together the information. She had reached this point on the basis that family meant the most to him, and yet here he was advocating for the opposite.

"Did you argue? Is that what this is?"

Draco's endless restlessness ceased; his sudden stillness became a presence of its own.

"Yes," he said after a moment. "That's what this is." She crossed her arms over her chest.

"Please Hermione, she can't come here. We argued earlier today about my father."

She felt her brow slow rise, as his tone took a pleading edge.

"Please."

She supposed that was reasonable, she didn't know much about the state of the Malfoy family after the war. All she knew to be true was the obvious: Lucius was in prison, Draco was now out of prison. She had only learnt of Narcissa's hospitalisation after Draco had mentioned it in passing following Scotland. But still, Witch Weekly and the Prophet had been rife with the salacious gossip of the downfall of the Twenty-Eight.

If she thought about their time in the penthouse, she hadn't seen Draco write to his father once, nor had he written any letter for that matter - so she supposed she could include his mother in that too. He hadn't visited his mother even though she'd been in hospital, which didn't indicate a great relationship between them - but who was she to judge when she hadn't spoken to her own parents in weeks.

Mental note - must ring them.

What he'd said had been the truth, and yet it felt wrong. She searched his face, trying to find what he was hiding from her. No matter what the business was between the Malfoy's, she couldn't shake the feeling of being duped, and she was too mentally taxed to allow for any detail of her growing chess board to go unaccounted for.

"Please," Draco said softly, ducking his head slightly to hold her gaze.

Her chest tightened at the word she never expected to hear from him. She took another mental step back - this creature who could take, enforce his will without effort, was asking.

Waiting.

Another puzzle piece joined the first; the picture of the Malfoy caricature was less complete than before.

Without looking away, she whispered the incantation and for the second time that night, the pearlescent otter twirled into the room. As the otter playfully circled his head, the ghostly light lit Draco's eyes, giving them an ethereal sheen. Hermione watched slightly bemused as the otter settled over his shoulder like an eccentric scarf. Draco's mouth tilted into the smallest of smiles, his brow lifting slightly as he looked down at the sight.

Her magic should not be so gentle with him. Her magic was not meant to lay upon his skin with kindness.

"Harry," she began, her befuddlement colouring her tone, "change of plans, take Mrs Malf-"

The sound of flames erupted through the living space, bathing the room in a blast of green light. Zabini stepped through, straightening the cuffs of his suit, closely followed by the willowy figure of Narcissa Malfoy. Hermione only caught a glimpse of the tall body that bundled through before her vision was obscured by Draco's back.

"Darling," Mrs Malfoy cooed. Hermione frowned at Draco's silent shoulders and stepped out from behind.

"Apologies for the late-night excursion Mrs Malfoy," she said in the most professional tone she could muster. Draco flinched beside her and stepped forward, placing his body slightly in front of her.

But Hermione couldn't look away from the woman before her. Narcissa Malfoy had always been an imposing figure in the psyche of the Wizarding World. A woman who knew everything, who wore the secrets she collected like pearls around her neck. Hermione had heard many people over the years speak of her, some with reverence, and in the later years, with disgust.

The Narcissa Malfoy that lived in her memories was a frightened woman, who had commanded her fear like a weapon that struck true. She had been tense, her eyes shrewd. Trapped in sorrow and wrapped in fear, but sharp and cutting. Her sister had been manic, a wild psychosis. Ruthless was the word that had come to mind as she had met Narcissa's eyes whilst Bellatrix had tortured her.

The Narcissa Malfoy before her was a broken macabre beauty. Her white locks were pinned elegantly but tendrils broke free here and there. Her tailored cloak was impeccably made, rich with the finest silk, a pluming deep red… but it hung from her shoulders and drowned her waist. Her sharp cheekbones and pointed chin mirrored Draco's, except the skin was drawn, stretched tight over the bone.

"Miss Granger," she said, her perfect diction catching. Hermione stamped on the urge to step away as Narcissa's eyes danced between Draco to her. "You're looking well?"

The green flames stuttered as Harry finally stepped through, aggressively brushing soot from his hair. He offered her a small grin and a tilt of his head. Alright?

"Well as can be," Hermione replied insincerely to Narcissa as she raised her brow the barest fraction to Harry. We'll see.

Zabini ambled further into the room, his hands in his pockets, a smirk upon his lips. "What a delightful tension we find ourselves in."

A rumble emanated from Draco's chest, so low that Hermione felt it vibrate through her sternum.

"Draco," Narcissa admonished, and Zabini sniggered. Hermione felt the air crackle around her and the tang of ozone swarmed her senses.

"Perhaps you two should talk," Hermione murmured under her breath. She didn't know what thought spurred the action as she placed a gentle hand on Draco's forearm that hung taut at his side.

"I need to pop out for an hour or so," she said, raising her voice to speak to the others in the room.

Narcissa's face was pleasantly blank, the pose of an awaiting debutant - pleasant yet attentive. Zabini's one brow had cocked high on his forehead, his smirk nowhere insight. Harry tilted his head, his drawn face thoughtful.

And Neville… Hermione bit back a sigh. Neville looked exhausted and confused. She felt a pang of sympathy for the man - she didn't know what was going on, seeing as Draco refused to speak, so she couldn't imagine what Neville was thinking now that he had extracted Mrs Malfoy of all people of St Mungo's, only to walk into the stilted awkwardness in a dark living room.

"Padry's around here somewhere," Zabini said, "he can settle you in Narcissa."

"Padry's still healing," Hermione said, a touch stronger than she intended.

Narcissa blinked slowly and raised her chin, her eyes settling on Hermione. Grey, not silver.

"I do not wish to be an imposition," she said gently. "If you point me in the right direction, I can see myself settled."

Hermione glanced up at Draco, who hadn't moved save for the slow clench and release of his fist at his side. If he truly didn't want his mother here, then surely he would say now. She bit the inside of her cheek. Strategically, she wanted all her pieces close, a united front against checkmate. She had to control her board. The only reason she had wavered for a moment was because Draco had said 'please', which really, if everyone who said please got their own way, what a chaotic world it would be.

She drew herself up and turned to Narcissa, a practised smile on her face as she looked into the calculating grey eyes.

"I can take yo-"

"I'll do it."

Hermione rolled her lips between her teeth to stop her exclamation of frustration. She slowly looked up at Draco again, whose stare bore into his mother.

"You go," he continued, his voice a knife's edge, "I'll sort Mother."

She stared at him. One minute he didn't want to be around his mother, the next he did. Hermione shook her head slightly and turned to Harry, Zabini and Neville and said with brittle brightness:

"Right, shall we?"

She all but ran towards the floo, eager to leave the suffocating room, Harry and Neville on her heels. Zabini muttered something about a nap before disappearing up the stairs. Hermione scattered the powder in the grate and announced a hurried 'Grimmauld Place'. Logically, she knew she shouldn't worry, especially not about leaving Narcissa Malfoy in her son's care. She stepped into the grate and turned. A feeling of relief came over her as the imprint of the two Malfoy's standoff burned in green flame.

She had nothing to worry about…

Right?

02:03 am, 21st of September, 1999 - 12 Grimmauld Place, Claremont Square, Islington, London, UK

As soon as Hermione's foot stepped onto the worn hearth the old candelabras flared to life as if the house was eager to welcome them home. She stepped aside, rubbing her face. The floo sputtered as Neville stepped through, quickly followed by Harry.

"What on earth happened there?" Harry said, not bothering to brush down his clothes this time. Hermione turned and couldn't help the smile that tilted her lips at the state of his hair.

"I have no idea - Hi Neville." She touched his arm as she passed, an absent greeting whilst her thoughts raced. "Tea?" she called over her shoulder as she stepped into the kitchen.

She wouldn't know where to start with trying to unpick the weirdness between Draco and his mother. He'd been worried about her, about to rush off to protect her, but hadn't wanted her at the penthouse.

She flicked her wrist, her magic wandlessly urged the kettle to the tap to fill itself, before chivvying it back to the stove.

"Did something happen between them?" Harry asked as he ducked through the kitchen doorway, Neville close behind him. Hermione paused, her hand reaching for a mug.

"Yes, about Lucius." She pulled down the mug and reached for two more. He'd been cagey until she'd supposed an argument as a possibility, then he'd almost jumped on the excuse.

"Who knows." She certainly didn't. "When it comes to Draco, it could literally be anything." She turned and settled her hip against the counter. "How did this happen?" She gestured between Neville and Harry with a wiggling finger.

Neville grinned. "Finally got free from the inquisitions and parents, needed a breather."

"He was at Hogwarts," Harry said with a pointed look. Hermione looked back and forth between the two.

Well of course he was at Hogwarts, he a profes-

"Oh no," she said, straightening. The image of the Prophet headlines about Hogwarts evacuation flashed in her mind. "How bad was it?"

Neville half shrugged, pocketing his hands as he leant against the doorframe.

"Shit." He gave a tired grin. "Turns out Yeti? Not fun!"

Hermione nodded agreeing and flicked her wrist; her magic coaxed the whistling kettle off the stove and persuaded it to pour into the waiting cups.

"Tell 'Mione what you were doing when they came," Harry said as he hoisted himself onto the counter. Hermione frowned questioningly at Neville as she sent the steaming cups over to them - the kettle now settled back upon the stove.

"Thank you." Neville grasped the mug from the air and cradled it to his chest. "I was in the forest collecting some ingredients. The Nibbleweed Orchid is really rare and we've got a network in the forest you see. They're the perfect antidote of Runespoor bites - Hagrid had a new batch." He blew gently at his tea. "I already had a batch, but what with the way the sickness in the forest was going, I couldn't wait for the next full moon, and risk the network dying in the meantime, you know?"

Hermione nodded and took a tentative sip of her tea. Still too hot. Should she go back and see if the Malfoy's were okay? No. Merlin, no, why on earth would she even entertain that thought.

She blinked and blew against her tea, re-focusing on Neville. Harry was staring at her over his glasses, his hair pulled in every which way.

"Did you get what you needed from the Orchid?" she asked politely, ignoring Harry's widening eyes.

Neville nodded. "I'll keep them with me because Nimbleweed Orchid networks are few and far between, and at this rate who knows when we'll get back to Hogwarts. And by then, I dread to think what state the forest will be in."

Hermione tilted her head, her eyes narrowing. "Because the forest is sick…" she said slowly, stringing together what he had said.

Harry raised a hand in an exasperated 'finally' gesture and picked up his own mug.

"It's been sick for a couple weeks now," Neville said. "Like a blight over the forest, rotting the roots of things. But what was weird, was that the Eistmast Grove, which is found quite deep into the forest and has been dead for years, started to come to life." He tapped a finger against the side of his mug, his eyes wide with excitement. "I've been consulting with a bunch of herbologists around the country. It's happening all over the place, in forestlands of high magic density. Wistman's Woods down in Devon, Lud's Church in Staffordshire, Puzzlewood and the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire to name a few. That's not to mention what's happening in the cave systems." He visibly shuddered. "Wookey Hole and Creswell Crags are off-limits. A couple of my colleagues are checking out the others."

All thoughts of quarrelling Malfoys came to a screeching halt. The Black Forest. Bill.

"How have the animals been behaving?" she asked eagerly.

Neville sighed. "That's the biggest problem. The usual creatures you'd find around the forests, the White Elks, the pixies, the fae - they're dying. The last few weeks have been tough on Hagrid, he's had to bury more than a few unicorns and Mooncalves, and all that." He waved his hand off to the side. Hermione nodded, that fit with what Bill had mentioned about the Black Forest except there was a marked difference.

"And what's happening in the caves?" she asked.

Neville looked uneasy. "Well, Wookey Hole is, as of yesterday, classified as Unseelie -"

Dread swarmed Hermione's bones as she reached blindly for her tea. "Unseelie? As in…"

"As in Roanoke," Neville said gravely. "And the mass grave beneath Creswell Crags, well, reanimated."

Hermione's mug paused at her lips. "Inferi?"

"No, just ghouls and wights."

Harry snorted. "Thank god it's just them."

Neville nodded, a sincere look on his face.

Hermione tapped her free hand against the counter behind her. Nearly everything was the same, except the resulting animated death was more of a cousin creature, rather than a direct reanimation of corpses that had been happening in Germany.

"All these places," Hermione said slowly, her mind scouring a mental map of the UK, "where do they sit in relation to ley lines?"

Neville cocked his head. "They all sit on top of them. The lines feed the soil which is why they're magical hotspots. Why?"

Control the direction of the game.

If Waterloo was the catalyst for the deconstruction of muggle society, and Yeti Ferdinand was the deconstruction of the magical, what was left but basic tenets? Without society, all that was left was nature. The Temple of Ignis was the home of the assumed fire elemental, and if everything was correct, then the Cult summoned it, thus removing it from the forest's ecosystem. If the Cult were behind the divination that forced the yeti and centaur to clash, then she didn't doubt that this level of corruption could be in their capacity.

"I need you to speak to Bill Weasley," she said, her fingers tapping a rhythmic jitter at her side.

Neville raised a thick brow. "Why?"

"Because we need to know what came first or if this was a simultaneous poisoning of the lines."

Neville started.

Harry whipped his head to look at her. "Eh? Bit of a leap there don't you think?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, no - light creatures and plants sickening and dying, dark creatures rising, dead plants blooming. It's not a curse, it's a corruption, an...imbalance…"

Raine's voice echoed ominously in her head for the second time. The Dark Mother needs void space to exist, and void space is only created when the balance has been upset. So it's a three-stage ritual: create the right environment, dismiss the elements, complete the summonings.

"You think this was intentional?" Neville said, glancing between the two of them.

Hermione drained the last of her tea. "No idea, maybe. At this point, I'm really not underestimating anything that the Cult could do." She looked at Harry. "I'm going to borrow an owl to send a message to Bill. We need to figure out if this corruption spread after the Will-o'-the-Wisps disappeared or at the same time. If it's the same time, then that means we have more places to fix. But theoretically, if Germany went first and everything else slowly came after, then I'd argue that this is all a knock-on from the summoning."

Neville's brows raised. "What summoning? What Cult?" He glanced between Hermione and Harry. "Are you people incapable of staying out of trouble? And can we finally talk about the fact that we just kidnapped Mrs Malfoy from St Mungo's and walked in to find Draco Malfoy and Hermione together?!"

Harry chuckled and drew a hand down his jaw. "Well, when you put it like that."

"It's a long story," Hermione said.

Neville met her gaze, a quiet strength flashing in his dark eyes. "Make time."

Harry and Hermione shared a look, a silent battle over who would take the mantle of Narrator.

"I'm putting the kettle on," Hermione stated as if it would relinquish her responsibility. Harry pulled a face and held out his cup for her to take. With a sigh, he turned to Neville and began the tale. Hermione interjected here and there, adding in the overlaying wider theories and the most recent events of Enos and Felstat Graves, minus the slip of accosting Draco in the living room, as she coaxed the kettle into making another round of tea.

"Are you alright?" Harry winced as she finished surmising her conversation with Kilmore following Enos' death.

"Sure," Hermione replied easily. "As alright as everyone else is at the moment."

Harry frowned slightly. "''Mione…"

She waved him off and looked away. Her breath shuddered. She would be fine. They all would be fine. She just needed to figure out a way to make things manageable, neat. As it currently stood, problem after problem, personal and societal, was piling on top of one another, in some sort of tower of danger.

"So this Enlightened Cult turned Malfoy into a veela?" Neville said, interrupting her reverie. At some point, he'd collapsed onto the breakfast stool beside where Harry perched cross-legged on the counter.

Harry paused mid-sip of his drink. "Well, I don't know if they turned him."

"That's going to be the next thing I look into," Hermione said.

Neville frowned, his eyes staring into his mug as if it held the answers. Harry looked at Hermione, a brow raised in question. She shrugged. She didn't know how exactly she was going to decide that, considering information was scarce, but she supposed the best place to start would be at the source.

"I'll talk to Bill," Neville said, finally looking up. "If Ron's dealing with the creatures in the North, and you, Harry, are dealing with the criminal aspect of the cult, and Hermione's dealing with the magic of it all, then I'll deal with all the nature." He flashed a lopsided grin. "Between us, we should be able to manage something."

Harry snorted and clapped him on the back while Hermione smiled softly, a heavy feeling settling in her chest. The scene was too familiar, the way they had set themselves upon the board, readying themselves to take on their respective fights. How many times would the same cast of characters prepare themselves to face an impossible task?

She pushed off the counter with a sigh and swilled her cup in the sink.

"I best go and send this owl then," she said, making her way across the kitchen.

"Will you be heading back to the penthouse tonight?" Harry asked after her.

"Not tonight, I think it would probably be best to give them space," she said as she slowly stepped up into the living room.

"You mean, you don't want to be within a ten-mile vicinity of Malfoy and his Mother's argument?" Harry gasped in mock surprise.

"Absolutely fucking not." Hermione paused and half-turned back to them. "I'll head to the library first, see if I can find anything there, and then I'll head into the office. What's your next move?"

Harry looked thoughtful. "I'll catch some shut-eye, then I'll head to St Mungo's tomorrow. See if I can catch a crook."

Hermione huffed a humourless laugh. "I'll let you know what Bill says, Neville," she called over her shoulder as she picked her way through the living room.

She heard the baritones of their replies as she climbed the stairs, two at a time. For the first time in a while, she felt as if there had been a step forward. A baby step, a small cautious step, but a step in a forward direction nonetheless. This was the problem with playing catch-up. Unlike in other cases, where the crime or act had been committed and they simply had to follow the clues to find the perpetrator, this was entirely flipped on its head. They knew who the guilty party was, and at least some of their identities. But the crime was still in motion, it was yet to be completed. This was longer than a simple heist, or a quick murder. This was a rolling collapse, a systematic deconstruction, a building crescendo leading to the main act. They were playing catch-up, trying to understand the crime that had yet to be completed, whilst it was being committed.

Felwyn, Harry's Great Grey owl, gave a low long hoot as Hermione entered. She crossed the room and brushed a gentle finger over his feathers, whilst eyeing the rafters. Over the months, Harry really had taken it upon himself to adopt all sorts of owls. The roof and rafters of Grimmauld Place would forevermore be a make-shift owlery.

Hermione crossed over to the rickety desk and pulled out one of the spare scrolls kept in the temperature locked drawer. She scratched out a quick missive to Bill and sealed it with a wax stamp. A whining hiss caught her attention as she stamped the impression into the cooling wax, and she looked up into the glowing eyes of Harry's newest feathered resident - Yochanan. The Great Horned owl blinked its golden eyes and gave another hiss as Hermione approached.

"Hush," she chided. She snapped her hand back to avoid his snapping beak. With a wandless click of her fingers, she summoned the store of mice kept up here for special occasions and bribery.

Yochanan clicked his beak and stretched his umber wings while Hermione attached the scroll to his leg. She cast a gentle ' impervious ' over him to ward off the awful weather that only seemed to be getting considerably worse by the day.

"As quick as you can, straight to Bill Weasley."

Yochanan launched from his beam and swooped behind her. Within a blink of an eye, he'd rifled through the hessian poach and beat his great wings through the gap in the rafters, two mice clutched in his claws.

"Quick and safe," Hermione said quietly to empty air, as she watched the night swallow his silhouette. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed, staving off the chill from the breeze that blew through the roof.

She could do this. Step by tiny step, she could pull the runaway carriage to heel. She stretched her neck from side to side, relieving the tension that had accumulated over the last few weeks. She could catch up and get ahead of the crime.

Just one small step at a time.

The next being to figure out just how Draco got a full inheritance.

She turned back to the writing desk and scrawled out a quick missive, noting the key points of Enos' death and the Pawn of Waterloo. She rolled the scroll and attached it to Felwyn's waiting leg. She muttered the same endearments and command as she gave a final stroke of Felwyn's feathers, and launched him through the window.

Once he too was gone, she skipped silently down the stairs, her booted steps light on the worn wood. The ground floor was quiet, the chalices and candelabras turned low. She grabbed Harry's black heavy cloak from the closet and loosely tied it, as she quietly exited the front door. Without breaking her stride, she strode forward, through the warded barrier and disappeared with a crack only to reappear on the gravelled drive of Malfoy Manor.

03:04 am, 21st of September, 1999 - Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, UK

Hermione popped the collar of Harry's cloak and ducked her head against the chill. The breeze was stronger on the Wiltshire hills, carrying the early bite of winter in their gusts. With each step, the sound of gravel hissing across stone crashed through the night. The Manor stood silent and dark, the windows like deep yawning holes filled with abyssal.

Hermione curled her fingers tightly around the hilt of her wand and ran a soothing finger over the polished wood. Pulling it from her pocket, she hopped up the entrance steps and tapped it gently against the doorframe. With a snick and a low groan that vibrated deep into the earth, the Valois warding unwound, freeing the Manor from the confines.

It was a powerful lock, meant to ward off all those who intended to tamper or harm a crime scene, but with the added enhancement of keeping it in place through space and time. In the fifteen-hundreds, a French prince, Prince Henry Valois, absconded from the throne with his lover, a British prince, Prince Arthur Tudor, with half of the French and British palace's royal treasury - magical items and all. They had escaped on a ship that sailed them as far West as possible, directionless and without aim, certain that they would eventually come to the end of the map. Until one day they came across a large archipelago - now known as Bermuda.

It had taken years for the French and British forces to hunt them down, but eventually, they were found, living like pirate kings upon these islands. Not wanting to return, knowing their respective crowns would put them to death, they bid one last desperate act. When the leading investigator returned to his boat to gather the papers, leaving the princes upon the beach, they activated one of the numerous magical artefacts and disappeared without a trace, once again taking all the stolen treasure with them, along with most of the archipelagos.

Over the years, many scholars had tried to work out what it was that had caused the tear that now lay in the Atlantic ocean. But without actually finding the missing portion of the archipelagos, and the missing trove, any progress on the case was conjecture at best. The effects of their escape long went unnoticed; tales of it lost in whispers in dark taverns. It wasn't until muggle technology and means of travel advanced did it really highlight the warped area of space and time they had left behind: a fluid triangular tear in the Atlantic ocean surrounding what is left of the Bermuda archipelagos.

Even though the exact cause of the catastrophe had never been discovered, the DoM had used the eponymous Valois warding ever since, as means to hold a space in place and time, to prevent such an event from happening again.

One tear was bad enough.

Hermione pushed through the great doors, wincing at the creak of tired wood in the damp air. The cavernous entrance hall felt vast and barren, like a carcass of a once-great creature left to rot in the wilderness. She knew that the forensic researchers had long wrapped up the final investigations of the break-in, adding to the abandoned feel of the building.

She stepped onto the antique rug, her wand held aloft, casting white witchlight through the entryway. She swallowed down the creeping anxiety and headed further into the house. No one could have entered - not with Valois warding on the frame. And the forensic team wouldn't have locked up with someone inside. Ergo, she was alone.

Hermione swallowed and pushed a pulse of magic through her wand, brightening the witchlight. She took a left, bending down the long corridor, away from the kitchens. She only vaguely remembered the direction of the library. Every time she tried to recall the way, her thoughts got caught on the creepy statue or the way Draco had been that evening. Once or twice she found herself heading down a completely foreign corridor, lined with empty frames and silent doors. But eventually, she stepped down a hall that shivered with a familiar trepidation.

To Hermione, it felt like months had passed since that night, and yet it had been a fortnight - two weeks, very long weeks. And yet, the way they had been familiar strangers back then. It was only with hindsight that she realised how much distance had lain between her and Draco, even though she had felt drawn to him then, between the stacks. She had felt the pull, the attraction.

She clenched her jaw with a sigh and rounded the corner and stopped dead. The white light of her witchlight was swallowed in the vast space of the apex atrium under its towering ceilings, only catching Hestia's tumbling silks. The marble goddess lowered her head as if to get a better look, her pale eyes unseeing. The hair raised on the back of Hermione's neck as she stretched out a tentative step to the side, her boot sliding over the polished floors, her eyes never leaving the statues'. Like the time before, Hestia's eyes followed her through the room as she carefully edged around it, step by careful step. She couldn't be sure that unaccompanied the statue wouldn't attack, she was a goddess of Home after all: a protector of the hearth; a silent sentinel in the crossroads.

It wasn't until Hermione was a good distance down the next corridor that she felt safe enough to at least peer over her shoulder to discern her direction. She came to a stop at the library door and with a final look back at the still watching Hestia, she stepped through.

She breathed in the musty paper scent; the scent that marked pages of ink and bound spines. She wanted nothing more than to spend hours there without urgency or aim, getting lost amongst the stacks. Her white witchlight wandered over the winding aisles and archways; there was a mystery quality to the library, a carefully crafted labyrinth of secrets. Hundreds of years of ancestry collecting and coalescing their knowledge in one grand mosaic.

She remembered how it had looked the first time she walked through. The sense of homely grandeur has subtly stolen her breath. But she had been following Draco that time. She remembered the way the crystalline light had danced in his eyes, the way he had held her close in the stacks, the huskiness of his voice. How had it taken her so long to make the veela connection? She should have expected the siren qualities all along. Of course, she wasn't attracted to Draco . She should have seen it then. Except it had taken her a moment of weakness after a god awful day when she couldn't help but give in to the urge for cathartic release. It could have been anyone before her, but it happened to have been Draco who had cleaned her wound, who had kissed her back, whose hands had grasped her so tightly, who had pulled her in and held her so firmly - whose siren qualities had just heightened the entire thing.

Hermione grunted in frustration and tucked her hair behind her ears and pushed ahead, dismissing the memories from her mind. It didn't take her long to find the same seating area she had sat before and when she did, she came to an abrupt stop. Her white witchlight illuminated pages strewn upon the floor, the table had been upended, the stacks of books ravaged.

That had been the night she left for Scotland, the night the yeti attacked and everything went to hell. She had left Draco there. What on earth had happened to have caused the destruction?

Hermione sighed. Not as quick and easy as I thought then. She cast a silent 'incendio ' into the fireplace, setting a low warm glow over the area, closely followed by 'reverte' . One by one, the books picked themselves up and hobbled across the floor, some dragging loose sheets of parchment along behind them. The table quaked and tipped slightly, before committing to flipping back to its original state.

The last of the pages fluttered into a somewhat orderly pile as she took a seat in the same plush chair as before. The low fire crackled merrily in the grate, casting a feeble warm glow over the area. The dark pressed in on all sides, like fog filling in from the moors. There was a hollowness to the silence. The Manor didn't feel empty - it felt abandoned, forgotten. Hermione looked up into the darkness, blindly seeking the towering ceiling. She should feel something - stress, fear at being back on Malfoy lands, in this building where she and her friends' blood soaked the floors. But there was nothing. Just a tired old building.

She gathered her hair in a rough handful, twisted, pinned it in place with her wand, and grabbed the book atop the nearest pile.

Battling Sea Harpies whilst Singing Sea Shanties - forty tales of the elements

Hermione laughed quietly to herself and cracked open the cover. Page after page she scanned for mention of veela, sirens or vilenjaks, or any mention of elementals. Once that book turned out nothing, she moved on to the next. And so began a mechanical pattern, one that she had honed in her final years of study. She would never have had time to read all the books she had wanted, and so taught herself to speed read, only glancing at the surface, skimming for the knowledge she wanted.

She sent another log to fire as she pulled another stack closer. She didn't know how long she had been at it, peering at journals, articles and novels. A small pile had amassed the coffee table of books that contained mentions of veela, but she hadn't held much hope for those. In her cursory glance, it seemed as if they only focused on the females.

A log popped and broke as she picked up the next folio from the pile. A worn leather-bound book, blank of any title or inscription. Carefully, Hermione unwound the string that bound the folio shut. The softcover flopped open, revealing thin, aged parchment covered in elegant calligraphy.

… It is strange how they hunt. The sylphs show great communication with one another, intuitive even; but there is a separateness in the way that they move, an individuality with each action. Though they practice their manoeuvres with the same military precision that I know so well, they do not rely on one another - not the way that I came to rely on my brothers.

Hermione's pulse quickened. Sylphs. George Ripley had said that he had found the sylphs that Paracelsus had described, though he believed Parceleus wrong, and that they were vilenjak - not sylphs. Hermione wet her forefinger and thumb and carefully turned the pages back to the beginning. Lay in the centre of the page, was an inscription in faded ink in the same careful hand:

Account XV

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim

Underneath, in bold, newer ink, lay the mark of a different hand:

Paracelsus' first encounter

Hermione ran a single finger over the inscription, feeling the indents upon the page. She gently closed the book and set it atop the pile she had made on the coffee table. If anything, reading Paracelsus' account of creatures he named sylphs, would offer insight into what to expect from Draco. She moved to the next book and started again, skimming the surface, looking for keywords in amongst the text. But every so often, her eyes would drift toward the folios and books waiting.

She dropped another journal onto the unwanted pile and heaved a familiar gilded tome onto her lap.

Venari Fera Magicae

Hermione's breath caught as she creaked open the hardcover. Each thin page was crafted with care, every stroke of gold leaf and rubia intentional, as they entwined in swirling filigree.

Venandi terrae - Capere terra, astra sequi. De diis docebit in via.

The limited Latin Hermione knew through spellwork allowed her to pick out the chapter title of 'hunting earth'. She flipped further: Ignis Vero Vernando; Maria Venandi. She heaved through the next section and stopped: Procellas Venandi. 'Hunting storms'. With a steady hand, she turned the page and stopped. There, upon the buffeted dark of storm clouds, were the outstretched black wings, a being with a shock of white hair emerging from the storm. Daemonium ex aere - 'the demon of the air'.

Hermione scoured the page, taking in every detail. There were detailed sketches of the wings, broad swathes of leathery membrane with downy feathers along the spines. They were horrifically beautiful, extraordinarily detailed, and undoubtedly, Draco's wings. A sense of right came over her like it always did when her research cracked the case. She would have to get a translation of the text and go through Parcelsus' journal, but as she looked between the stack on the table to the tome on her lap, she knew that she had a good starting place.

Hermione pulled the wand from her hair and tapped the tip to the pile, shrinking them to a fit in the palm of her hand. She stood to clear the space of her mess - though admittedly, any state she left it would have been tidier than she found it.

She looked up to the empty portrait that sat above the fireplace. An empty chair and writing desk with charters and files strewn across the surface. Hermione glanced around the darkened library and promised quietly to herself to return, if only to see the library in all its glory. With a quiet sigh, she stepped over the remaining stacks and the fireplace and picked up the floo pot that had returned to the mantle from where its many pieces had hidden upon the floor, only to find it empty.

"Bloody Draco," she said sullenly as she doused the fire and made her way towards the library entrance. She stepped out into the corridor and took a breath to steel herself as the statue of Hestia turned its unseeing watchful gaze to her.

Yep, definitely bloody Draco's fault.

05:06 am, 21st of September, 1999 - St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, London, UK

Harry sipped his coffee and slid further into the seat. The elderly gentleman that sat at the end of the row of seats snuffled in his sleep; the young girl to his right blinked, not breaking her glassy stare.

People were still pouring in from Scotland. Either they had travelled long and far to get through the Highlands to the border, unable to get to any harbours, or they had tried to go to ground. The girl's family had tried to wait it out by hiding in their basement. But then the Hunt had torn through their front door.

According to her brother, their parents had been dragged away, whilst the children had escaped down a narrow coal shaft.

The girl hadn't said a word since arriving at the hospital. Her brother had done all their talking.

Harry eyed the sleeping child who clutched his sister's hand. He couldn't be any older than eight; the girl, twelve, if that.

The speed in which the country was coming apart was too quick to process, too fast for the grief and shock to settle.

He took another sip of his coffee. He didn't even have time really to fathom the fallout that was barrelling their way. After Neville had said his 'goodnight's, Harry had sent a quick note to Blaise and gone straight to St Mungo's. As soon as he'd received Hermione's message about Narcissa, he could have spit he was so angry with himself. To leave such an obvious hole in their defences; he promised to not tell Ron about their strategic slip.

But Hermione had been right. It was inevitable that someone would come for Draco's mother, and as he'd turned to face the stairs to his room in Grimmauld Place, he couldn't shake the niggling feeling that perhaps he should just check.

"Have I ever told you how insufferable you are?"

Harry's lips twitched into a tired grin as he watched the fireplaces flash with another income of patients.

"Probably," he said into the lip of his cup. "Though whether or not I was listening is up for debate."

Blaise snorted indelicately as he dropped into the seat beside him, clutching a fresh coffee and paper bag in hand.

"Are you listening now?" he said, holding out the paper bag. Harry grunted his amusement and pulled out the cinnamon roll.

"What bakery is open at this hour?"

"I stopped by Aunt Bett's, are you listening?"

"No."

"You and your need to save the world are insufferable and I dislike them intensely."

Harry took a bite of the roll and nearly groaned at the heavenly flavour that hit his tongue.

"Do you want to find the cult?" he said around his food.

Blaise tore off a piece of his own bun and popped it into his mouth. "Shut up."

"You started it."

"And now I'll end it."

Harry chuckled to himself. They sat in silence watching the busy flow of traffic through the Mungos entrance hall. He doubted that this place would be quiet for some time yet.

"Did you get any sleep?" he asked after a moment of quiet.

Blaise shrugged. "I think so. More like a catnap really."

Harry took another bite of his bun. "How are the Malfoys?"

"Either they're fine or they're sulking in their rooms." He sipped his coffee. "The place was quiet by the time I left."

Harry hummed. The stand-off they had walked into had been unpleasant, to say the least.

"'Mione said they'd had an argument."

"Good to see nothing gets past the Brightest Witch."

Harry nudged him with his knee. "Malfoy told her that."

When Blaise's reply never came, Harry turned to see him watching out of the room, one brow arched, blowing a steady stream of cooling air to the coffee he held to his lips.

"He stood between them," he said, voice low. He glanced at Harry, briefly meeting his eyes before looking back out to the room.

Harry swallowed his mouthful and sat back in his seat. "I saw that too."

The fireplaces flashed green again, releasing a new wave of patients.

"How long are we going to sit here for?" Blaise grumbled.

Harry scoured the faces of each person, noting the dirt, grime and blood that clung to their skin.

"For as long as it takes for me to be satisfied."

Blaise sighed and slunk further into his seat.

"You're insufferable."

The truth was Harry couldn't stop. Because if he stopped, his mind wandered, and he began to imagine where Theo could be.

So his only option was to keep going.

"Just drink your coffee, Blaise."

01:42 am, 21st of September, 1999 - Penthouse, Hyde Park Gardens, London, UK

Draco relaxed his hand as the green flames died. His head was a riot, his thoughts a mess. He hadn't been able to sleep once he'd returned to his room. He'd lain in his bed, replaying the feel of Hermione's lips against his, the little sound of her hitched breath as he'd run his hand over her curves.

He was a slave for her delicious torture, that much he knew to be true. At this point, he knew that his bodies' reaction hadn't been his veela's - that had felt like something else entirely. That had been a feeling that had spread through every fibre of his being, like an unfurling of wings. A deep satisfaction had settled in him at having her beneath him, placing his hands on her, tasting her, touching her.

That was the veela. And he refused to look too closely at that.

He also wasn't prepared to analyse the fact that she had become 'Hermione' to him, not just 'Granger'.

But the familiar feelings, the human, he knew them, he trusted them.

It was also likely the only time that this would ever happen. He didn't pretend to know what had been going through Hermione's mind. But still, as he'd replay the memory over and over, he hadn't stopped his hand from slipping beneath the sheets to really enjoy the memory.

But then she'd knocked on his door and for a brief moment, he'd wondered if she had come for more.

The ensuing conversation had been a bucket of ice on that fantasy.

"So it's her then."

A growl rumbled through Draco's chest, unbidden of thought. Now the two sides of him were at war. The woman before him was his mother. He looked into her pained eyes that he knew so well. He knew her. His mother.

The same mother who left him to the Dark Lord. The same mother who had stood by whilst his aunt trained him, tearing at his soul with every Unforgivable he cast under her watchful eye. The same mother who had washed the blood from his hand every time he returned from a raid like she had done tonight when he'd gone to visit her. The same mother who had let him slowly wither and starve in prison whilst she dowsed herself in potions and liquor.

Yes, that mother.

That mother he'd die to protect.

That mother who had stood by and watched over countless people's torture in the Manor - Hermione's torture.

That mother who had spun the same pureblood rhetoric all his life.

The same mother who had brushed his hair back and placed a kiss on his forehead.

The same mother who had taught him how to cast charms and conjured butterflies.

The same mother who snuck with him to eat apple and cinnamon ice cream.

He could feel his magic ripple through his body, the Veela tearing at his chest. This woman wasn't his mother. She was a known threat to Hermione.

Who hated him.

But she'd kissed him.

... still hates me though.

Hermione, who slept at the end of the hall, where anyone who wanted to get to her door had to step past his first.

Hermione, who had disappeared in a burst of green flame, away from him, away from his mother.

Draco let out a shaky breath as ice crinkled over his chest. For a moment, he had been calm. As Hermione had stood beside him, her small hand curled around his arm, everything had been quiet. He'd been able to think.

He looked at the woman - his mother. A tear had begun to make its way down her cheek.

"I do understand," she said softly. Another growl emanated from Draco's chest. Narcissa rolled her lips. "I understand," she whispered.

"I can't…" Draco swallowed down the surge of magic that clawed at him. He flexed his fingers, feeling his claws finally release. He'd tried to keep them at bay but his tentative control finally slipped from his grasp.

"I know darling," Narcissa said. "I'll leave."

Draco frowned. "But…" She was in danger, she couldn't leave.

But she was a threat.

"I told you, I do have some experience with the veela traits in our family dear." She kept her voice gentle as she spoke. "And it is very clear that you're not..." she smiled a sad smile, "comfortable with my being here."

Draco flexed his hands once more, releasing the tendrils of excess magic that had built up. No, this was Hermione's place. His mother was a threat to Hermione.

But Hermione had wanted his mother here.

If he sent his mother away, would that disappoint Hermione?

He gruffed and shoved a rough hand through his hair. What did he care if Hermione was disappointed? He'd always disappointed her - his very existence disappointed her. He turned and begun to pace, releasing small bursts of magic with every step.

"Drac-"

His snarl tore through the silent penthouse, cutting Narcissa off. He needed to think. He needed to find the difference again, the space between him and the Veela. He'd found it earlier, but now, with one thought tripping into the next, he didn't know where a thought stemmed from him or the new instinct.

He wanted his mother safe.

Hermione wanted his mother at the penthouse, safe under the warding.

His veela wanted his mother far away from Hermione, who it wanted back under him again.

Or was that him?

He scrubbed a hand down his face, rubbing at the stubble.

"Stay," he said, his voice rough as if dragged over stones. Narcissa opened her mouth to speak, shock evident on her face, but Draco continued, "She wants you here and sending you away will be too much hassle to explain." He blew out a breath and fixed her with a stare. "Under no circumstances are you to be alone with her. You do not mention this or any of it to her. If she speaks to you about this," he gestured to himself, "you change the subject. Do you understand?"

Narcissa closed her mouth as another tear slipped down her cheek. "Of course."

Immediately, the rage in him quelled, simmering low on the back burner, leaving an ichor of shame that sat heavy in his chest.

His own mother. For right or wrong, she was still family... And yet he couldn't make sense of the riotous thoughts to separate what was him and what was the veela.

"Just…" Draco's voice cracked; he wet his dry lips. "Just…"

Just what? He looked at his mother; her too-thin frame, her too delicate features.

"Just give me some time to get a handle on this," he said, clenching his clawed fingers to fists. Narcissa dipped her chin and clasped her hands loosely in front of her in a beatific visage.

"Of course," she said quietly, "As long as you need."

Something broke in Draco's chest and the last of his breath rushed from his lips in a defeated sigh.

She used to have more fight in her.

He flexed his fingers, relaxing his fists. "Come on," he said with a tilt of his head. "I'll show you to your room." Draco saw Narcissa's lips twitch into a small smile before he turned his back to her to lead her through the living space and up the stairs.

Everything was a mess. His mother was broken and he hadn't spoken to his father since the few terse owls he received at the beginning of Lucius' sentence. His friends were dead, missing or building a criminal empire.

He wasn't human - was he even still a wizard?

Was he still a son if he could turn on his mother?

Was he still an heir if he held no estate?

Was he still a Malfoy if his mate was a - a muggleborn?

He entered one of the spare rooms off from the main landing.

"Padry is across the hall," he leant down to switch on the electric bedside lamp. "Blaise is two doors down." He took her bag from her and placed it on the bed. "And sometimes Potter crashes in a room on the corridor."

Narcissa nodded and stepped around him on light feet, silent like a ghost in the dim light of the room. He caught her wrist loosely in his grasp as she passed, his black talons stood stark against her pale skin. Slowly, he leaned in and placed a kiss upon her forehead.

"Give me time," he murmured.

"Always, my darling."

Draco nodded and glanced over her face, noting the exhaustion that lay in heavy circles under her eyes.

"Sleep," he said before reaching for the door.

"Draco?"

He stopped and looked up. Narcissa held herself straight, shoulders back, chin up - the Matriarch.

"Be patient with me in kind." Her voice trembled a touch. "I promise you, I bear no ill will towards her, but give me time."

The metal of the door handle creaked with the strain of his tightened grip. His magic flushed his veins, spilling to his fingertips and the mere connotation of his mother acknowledging his m- Hermione.

Slowly, he breathed through his nose, forcing his hand to release the door.

"Time," he said through gritted teeth. He nodded shortly once. "I can do that." He flashed a grimaced smile and closed the door with such care, that the quiet schnick was deafening.

Draco pocketed his hands and ambled through the empty halls of the penthouse. He was exhausted. The day had been too long, he felt too raw. His mind had been flayed by those researchers, and then the revelation of his family's involvement with the cult and his subsequent argument with his mother.

And then Hermione was injured.

And then he'd lost control.

And then…

And then two steps forward, one mile back and now he was torn between banishing his mother just to have Hermione return? A woman who didn't like him?

He scoffed darkly to himself and he went down the stairs and re-entered the living space. He couldn't head down that road. He'd scared himself tonight. He still couldn't separate the veela from his thoughts and that fact terrified him.

Draco sat facing the darkened floo, arms stretched across the back of the sofa, head tipped back. He had very little left that he knew to be true and he was desperate not to lose the last of himself.

Which is why he would not admit to himself why he had chosen to return and wait, rather than slip back into the comfort of his sheets.

08:09 am, 21st of September, 1999 - Penthouse, Hyde Park Gardens, London, UK

A soft sigh

A shift, a whisper of touch up his throat

Soft biting kisses up his jaw

Tightened grip on his shoulder

Full curves beneath his palms

"Sir…"

A hitched breath, a choked moan

Sir…

The grip on his shoulder tightened

A pressure in his lap

Sir…

The grip on his shoulder became painful

Sir

The grip tightened, a shake

Sir

Draco blinked. The world was a blur of brown. He blinked again and jerked his head back, clearing the fog to reveal two enormous brown eyes, staring at him.

Draco yelped.

"Sir!" Padry squeaked, scrambling from his perch.

"What on earth?!" Draco exclaimed, more awake than he'd even been in his life. He swallowed down the horror that heated his cheeks.

"Miss Hermione asked me to give you this," Padry said, reaching around him to pull forward a huge steaming mug, completely unaware of the mortification that currently threatened to consume his Master.

Draco made a noise of desperation in the back of his throat as he grasped it. The heat was a solace, an island of distraction. He could transfer all of his embarrassment into the tea - tea cured all ill, after all.

"Hermione asked you?" he asked, voice rough with sleep.

Padry nodded emphatically, ears flapping the side of his head. "Miss has gone to freshen up. Miss said you would need the caffeine for today and that you were to be ready to leave in thirty minutes."

Draco sipped at the steaming drink, and slowly blinked the last of his dream from his mind.

"Ready to leave?" He reluctantly glanced at Padry and fought to tamper another wave of embarrassment. Get a grip, for Merlin's sake!

Padry nodded his head again and hummed his assent. "Sir is to be wearing sensible clothes Miss said, not the - the…" He pursed his lips, frowning slightly. Draco sipped his tea and waited. "Miss said to not wear flashy...clothes, and dress appropriately." Padry gave a hesitant smile, seemingly pleased with his obvious editing of Hermione's command.

Draco raised a brow. "Oh? And did the Miss say where we are going?"

Padry shrugged his shoulders, jostling the line of the silk robe he wore. Blaise had invested in a line of flamboyant kaftans for the elf to 'facilitate his healing'.

Draco hummed and took another sip. "Then how am I to know what is appropriate?"

"If you don't mind getting it muddy -" Draco jumped at Hermione's voice behind him, "- then it's appropriate."

He swung around, bracing his arm against the back of the sofa. Hermione stepped up to the kitchen counter, cafetiere in hand. She wore the loose-fitting layers of her Unspeakable uniform, a strange mixture of black-upon black, leather upon cloth. A pensive look sat under her damp curls that piled high on her head.

A choked moa-

Draco swallowed and quickly looked down into his tea.

"Mud you say?" He winced at how overtly casual he sounded. He cleared his throat. "Mud?" He glanced up to find Hermione watching him over the rim of her cup, her honey'd eyes warm with amusement.

He curled a hand against his knee, grounding himself. He desperately searched for the tundra in his mind, but everywhere he turned, all he found was the tattered remains of his occlumency walls, ravaged by what he could only assume was his veela.

Fucking feral creature.

"Yes, mud I say," Hermione repeated back to him. "And unless you want to be going as you are, I suggest you get a move on."

He didn't need telling twice, he knew an opportunity to escape when he saw one. Draco quickly stood and crossed the living space, a mug of tea clasped in hand as if it were a burning life source. He took the stairs, two at a time, and only paused for a moment outside Narcissa's room. Not a sound came from within. He sipped his drink and continued to his room.

Abandoning the cup on the dresser, he rushed into the en-suite and mechanically stripped his clothes, barely leaving enough time for the water to heat before jumping under the spray. He let the water sluice down his body, washing away the vestiges of embarrassment. But then a thought occurred to him. How long had she been standing there? Had he made any noises in his sleep?

He scrubbed a hand down his face, reached for the shampoo and made quick work of his ablutions. Had she heard him? Did she know?

Did she even care?

The shift of curves beneath his pal-

For a brief moment, a curl of desire plucked at his navel, twitching his cock. He shook his head and forced his face under the tepid spray, blasting away the last of the sleep and soap. The only indication Hermione may have thought anything about their kiss the night before had been in the ten seconds after he had opened his bedroom door to her. Every nerve-end in his body had set alight as he'd felt her eyes travel down his body, the weight of her stare as deliciously tangible as the caress of her fingers.

But that had been it. Everything else had been business as usual from her. He'd thought at several moments he could see the beginning of something in her eyes, a quiet heat in the way she would look at him. But then in a second, it would be gone, no trace of any tension between them, leaving Draco to wonder if he kept fabricating those moments out of some act of desperation.

He shut off the water and grabbed the towel from the rack as he padded through to his room, water dripping from his body as he went. He briskly towelled dry and squeezed the excess moisture from his hair as he grabbed a henley, worn jeans and boots from his closet. In moments, he flung the damp towel back into the bathroom, pulled his long, black muggle coat from where it hung on the back of the door and left the room.

"Not bad," Hermione muttered as he stepped up to the breakfast counter.

Draco flashed a grin and leant his hip against the side. "I know, I look good."

Hermione cocked a brow. "I meant the speed of your primping," She swigged back the last of her drink. "I honestly thought you'd be another twenty minutes or so."

"Takes only but a moment, to look this good," he drawled, a smirk fixing into place. If she was rattled, she didn't show it. A quiet voice in his mind begged the question of why he was bothering with this line of enquiry with a woman who would show more interest in the appendices of an encyclopedia.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going Spook?" he asked as she swilled out her mug and placed it on the dry-rack. "Or is it 'need to know'." He stopped short of adding the inflection with curled fingers.

"Dinedor," she said, coming around the counter to stand before him.

Draco took a quick breath: leather and nutmeg. "What is a Dinedor?"

"A woods. Trees, a few deer, and not much else," she said in a no-nonsense tone, tightening one of the many straps that were hidden by the layers of her uniform.

Draco twitched a brow but moved on. She wasn't talking - he'd find out soon enough.

"Padry," he raised his voice slightly to get the elf's attention. Padry's massive brown eyes appeared over the back of the sofa. "Mother is in her room upstairs. Would you mind attending to her today, if you're feeling well enough?"

His wounds from the break-in had been healing well, but still, Draco was mindful that he was stood within arm's reach of a witch who had staunchly protected Padry's bedrest.

"Of course Padry will see to Mistress," he squeaked, standing a little higher so that his long nose hooked over a cushion.

Draco nodded a small bow of gratitude. "And if you see any hide or hair of that substance she had before, you are to immediately come and get any one of us."

"Please," Hermione added archly. Draco rolled his lips to quell the urge to snap at her.

Padry's massive eyes looked from Hermione to him before saying: "Yes, Padry can do that. Of course Padry will."

Draco dipped his head again and turned to Hermione. "Shall we?"

Without a word, she pulled her wand from a place hidden in the swaths of her uniform and stepped to his side. Draco held out his arm and prepared himself for her touch. His grip on his magic slipped slightly as, instead of clasping his forearm like he had the time previous, her finger curled around his bicep. Something about the touch felt more intimate as her fingers brushed the soft underside of the muscle.

"Ready?" she said and before he could reply, he felt the pull in his navel and heard the crack of their departure.

Leaves crunched and twigs snapped as they landed in the middle of the woods. Autumn had set in proper, making the twisting oaks and aged trees shake loose their branches. Draco looked around, taking in their surroundings. They stood in what appeared to be a slight basin, old trees marking them on all sides.

"Why are we here?" he asked, his voice intuitively hushed. Nothing about the area felt dangerous or ominous in any way, but there was something. Something that raised the hair on the back of his neck as goosebumps shivered up his spine.

"Training," Hermione said, pulling away from him. Draco didn't realise how chilled the morning air was until he felt her lingering touch slip from his arm. His gaze snapped to her retreating form, as his skin under his henley prickled with a burning trail.

Draco clenched his jaw and swung on his coat and followed in her wake. The woods were quiet, the only sound was the rustle of the leaves swaying in the crisp breeze. After weeks of London's fires, the fresh air seemed biting, almost cleansing as it filled his lungs.

They walked in relative silence, save for the crunching of the umber leaves beneath their feet that had yet to sink into the sodden mud. They climbed up the basin and set through the maze of trees, seemingly directionless. Absently, Draco marvelled that had he ever been in a similar situation before with Hermione, he would have assumed that she was about to attack him, or lead him into a trap - it's what he would have inevitably done with her at the time, had their roles been reversed. But now he felt… at peace. Curious more than anything, considering she had her full Spook ensemble on.

They ducked under the bow of a low hanging branch and stepped around a wide trunk to see the path ahead open up into a wide clear glen. Open, pale grey sky shone overhead; a cloud layer so thick it appeared like an unblemished blank canvas. A babbling brook ran to his right, cutting straight through the middle of the glen, its shores lined with mossy rock outcroppings. A field of tall grass swayed at their knees, broken up here and there by old felled trees, their bodies so long forgotten that time had hollowed their remains.

And in the centre, was Willows, perched precariously on a rock, his elbows leant on his knees as he looked down into the brook below.

"Wha-" Draco began, before recalling the man's parting shot at the Ministry elevators the previous day. Tomorrow, I'll give you a lesson in elemental magic , he'd said.

That's not a request, Mr Malfoy.

In all the events that had happened after, and the very long night that had followed, this had slipped his mind.

He scowled at the back of Hermione's head.

"Don't start," she murmured without looking back, before setting off. Draco looked over his shoulder into the woods, and briefly entertained the notion of just leaving.

And leave her with him?

Draco curled his fist at his side and looked to the sky.

And to think he had been in somewhat of a surprisingly pleasant mood, all things considered.

Draco looked back to the brook and started forward, his focus trained on the other man. Previously, he'd had thought that Willows had seemed both at home and simultaneously out of place in every given situation. There was something familiar about him, and yet he carried with him a distinct flavour of alien that set off Draco's instinct to run far in the other direction.

In the glen, it was no different. He seemed as if it was his home as if he was part of the space - part of the old trees and the babbling brook, part of the crisp breeze that fluttered in waves over the tall grass. It was as if the line was blurred between where the glen ended and Willows began. They were one and the same.

But as if viewing a painting from a different angle, he seemed wholly out of place. A devil in a house of God. The cut of his form - the sharp angles of his features, the paleness of his skin, the fathomless black of his hair and eyes - eyes that darted between details unseen, with a focus so intense that Draco stopped short a couple of paces, not wanting to get any closer. He was unnatural.

"Good morning," Willows rumbled, not moving from whatever it was that had caught his attention in the brook. "Sleep well?"

Draco shifted his weight and watched with curiosity as Hermione changed at the sound of Willows' voice. It was subtle - the angle of her stance widening, seeking more ground, her shoulders lowering, forcibly relaxing. Loose and limber. Ready.

A soldier coming to attention.

"Did you get my message?" she asked. Willows remained still a moment save for a lock of hair falling over his forehead. Slowly, he turned and peered over his shoulder, his black eyes cold, pinning them in place. Draco fought to remain still under the weight of his gaze. It was as if he stood before an old friend, warm and welcome; but in the same breath, he was prey standing in his hunter's sights.

"I did," Willows rumbled. The hairs on Draco's neck raised as he noticed the absolute silence that surrounded them. No rustle of leaves, no birdsong or murmur of creatures in the undergrowth.

"A controlled descent or a last-ditch attempt?" Willows continued.

Hermione took a step off to the side, bringing her closer to the brook. She turned, putting her back to the water and glanced at Draco before focusing on Willows. Draco knew that face, that quiet look of determination.

"I think there's too much we don't know," she said carefully. "I think we're just realising that we've been caught in this web for longer than we realise. So the next move we make can't be rushed." Her tongue flicked out, wetting her lips. "Plan for controlled descent, prepare for a last-ditch attempt."

Draco's brows rose as he realised the context of the conversation. They were speaking of the damned Cult. H e should have felt something - fear, sadness at the lack-lustre options, but instead, he was resigned.

He slowly nodded, his lips pinched in an empty gesture of agreement. "So...prepare to fail then?"

Willows barked a hollow laugh that echoed like the snap of wood. "Yep," he yipped, as he lithely jumped from the rock.

"No," Hermione said, frowning slightly. "Prepare to survive. Everything more than tha-"

"I thought heroes were meant to be good at rousing speeches?" Draco sneered.

Hermione's expression shuttered. "Words of promise serve their function when needed. Now is not that time. Now we need to be practical."

Draco snorted. Only she could turn hope into a tool.

Willows hummed. "Yes, logic and reason will out, of course, of course." He looked out over the glen. "You might want to get comfortable, Little Bird. This will probably take a while." He slipped the outer layer of his Unspeakable uniform revealing the complicated network of holsters and straps, holding gleaming hilts that caught the light as he moved.

"Mr Malfoy," he barked with a crook of his finger as he started toward the centre of the glen.

Draco glanced between Willows and Hermione, who had settled herself upon the rock he had vacated and was pulling her wand from her holster.

"What is happening?" he demanded, his words clipped with frustration at the two communicative Unspeakables. It appeared to him that he had only grasped the minimal, albeit depressing, context of the conversation they had been having, and now he was just expected to follow Willows?

"The aforementioned practical solution, Mr Malfoy," Willows called from a few yards away. Draco looked to Hermione who had tapped her wand to her palm, enlarging a large leather-bound folio.

She glanced up to him and quirked a brow. "Best not to keep him waiting, I find."

Draco grumbled as he snatched the coat from his shoulders and tossed it to her. "Yes, well, I don't like surprises. I guess no one will be happy this morning, will they."

Hermione snorted at his sneer and promptly turned her focus to the book held in her lap.

Great.

Once again he looked to the tree-line and entertained the notion of leaving.

"Mr Malfoy!"

Draco flexed his hands, feeling the familiar itch of claws that threatened.

"Told you," Hermione murmured her attention on the page.

Draco gruffed and set off across the glen, his long steps flattening the grass in violent stomps.

"Bloody swot," he grumbled under his breath as he ran a rough hand through his damp hair.

Willows' dark form was like a black tear in the green backdrop; his long narrow frame moved with liquid grace. Draco followed in the path he cut through the grass, feeling a growing burn in his chest as his irritation mounted.

There was something about being treated like a dog called to heel, on top of the realisation only hours prior that his hold on his own life and identity was fragile at best, that just couldn't swallow. He had been near enough a bystander in the last couple of weeks, useless by the wayside as the Golden Lot ran around, playing the floundering heroes, whilst his life fell apart.

He had a sneaking suspicion that he was coming to the end of his patience.

Willows reached the far treeline and turned, casually pocketing his hand in his loose trousers. His mouth curled into a cruel smirk under his cold eyes.

"Not a morning person?"

Draco stopped a distance away, every part of him screaming this was close enough. "What are we doing here?" He was too fed-up to dance to Willows' tune.

"Making you less of a liability."

Draco pursed his lips and glanced off to the side, searching for patience. "I meant, why did you come over here?"

Willows features lightened. "Oh, because I didn't think you wanted Little Bird to overhear."

Draco's frown deepened. "What?"

Willows toed the ground, the soft leather of his boots coming to narrow points as he took an exaggerated step forward. "Have you two spoken of the whole," he pulled his hands from his pockets, his long fingers wiggling airily and grinned malevolently, "mate thing yet?"

Draco's body went taut, every muscle seizing. With fear. With anger. With the need to attack. To run.

Willows chuckled. In a blink, he was gone, the place he had been standing, now empty. Draco quickly scoured the treeline, feeling his claws prick his palms.

"Didn't think so."

A growl tore from Draco's chest at Willows' sudden whisper in his ear. He lurched forward, putting space between them. Vicious vindication burned his chest; he'd had suspicions that maybe Willows held more than a professional interest in Hermione, but who was he to feel jealous of that fact.

"So that's what this is then?" Draco spat, venom seeping into his voice. "I can assure you it's not necessary." Knives stabbed at his chest as his veela clawed at the ice that crinkled. "I am well aware that I have no business there, so consider this entire exercise redundant."

Willows paused and cocked his head to one side, his black stare assessing. Before Draco could think of anything more to say, Willows bent double, a loud guffaw echoing across the open space.

Draco stepped back slightly, bewildered by the jump between extremes. There was no reading this man, it was impossible to get a steady footing with him.

"You stupid boy," Willows gasped between peels of laughter. He straightened and wiped a tear from his crinkled eyes. Draco felt heat prickle the back of his neck.

"Yeah? Fuck you too buddy." He didn't need this. He'd been over this a thousand times in his head, he went over this every time those honey'd eyes landed on him.

Willows' laughter sobered as held out a hand as Draco made to step around him.

"You can't stop what you are," he said, each word wounding like sharpened blades, "and unfortunately for your inconsequential reasons for holding back, you need her."

Draco stopped. In a second, he understood that perhaps his first assessment had been wrong. Which meant that this was about something else entirely.

No, this was worse.

Better?

His eyes unconsciously sought Hermione's form in the distance. Like a pressure valve releasing, anger flooded his chest.

"I never asked for this. I will not let some mindless fate dictate my life," Draco hissed, as ice crackled his veins. "I won't let it dictate her life. Just because this happened, doesn't mean we change who we are. We can't just suddenly fall in love because the universe demands it. This isn't some kind of fairytale."

"You're right," Willows said, stepping into his space, an air of menace wrapping itself around him like a worn cloak. "This isn't a fairytale. But you are dictating terms to magic that is older than you, as if you have any right."

"It's our lives," Draco growled through gritted teeth.

Raine smirked. "Your lives are forfeit."

Draco shook his head, feeling his fangs grow. "I won't take her choice."

"Neither of you ever had one." Draco stilled and looked up. The same cruel smile slipped onto Willows' mouth. "Choice is not a luxury that our kind has. Free Will is not an option."

Draco's lip curled with barely repressed rage. "I am sick and tired of being dictated how to live my life."

"Cry me a river," Willows hissed. "You think you've had a hard life? Before you became what you are now, your story is a story that's been told thousands of times before, across the world and throughout time; the fundamental flaw of humanity has been, and always will be, the ego, Mr Malfoy." His eyes burned with black fire. "The horrid truth, boy, is that you are more than that now; for once, you are a human who actually has a purpose, not just some misguided egotistical wank."

The wind awakened up around them, lashing at their cheeks.

"And what would you know of my life?" Draco asked in quiet fury. The leaves in the trees roared as the wind spun into a frenzy, whipping at the olden branches. The tall grass hissed, the waves of air flowing like an angry tide over the silken sheets. "You speak of ego, but who are you to tell me what to do?"

Willows tilted his head as he raised an arm to his side, hand opened wide. Every point of his features sharpened. His pale skin whitened, deepening the darkness of his shadows. In a snap, he closed his hand.

Draco choked, feeling the air lock in his chest. The world went silent, dead - the leaves stilled, the grass untouched. He stumbled, his chest spasming as his lung tried to draw in air that simply wasn't there. His knee landed in the mud, sodden earth soaking through the worn denim. He looked up, his throat clicking as he swallowed uselessly, instinctively trying to clear the blockage.

Willows leaned down, his fist still clenched, his face inches from Draco's. His calm was the precision of a blade as he held the world in a chokehold.

"I am someone who has walked in your shoes, Mr Malfoy. I too had this very conversation many lifetimes ago."

The world began to darken in the corner of Draco's vision; his hand slipped from his throat and slapped in the mud. He heard the creak of leather as Willows' knelt before him.

"I do not care enough about you to think of ways to make your life miserable, Mr Malfoy," Willows purred. "You could be anyone else. You are merely an infant who has had extraordinary power thrust into your incapable hands."

Draco's elbows buckled. His lungs screamed, his throat burned. Tears welled in his eyes.

"You have very little time to learn a huge amount of knowledge, but learn you must," Willows continued casually. "The stakes are just too high for me to care about protecting your eg-"

Crack

All at once, air rushed into Draco's lungs. He gasped a pained breath, gulping down the crisp air. He looked up to see Willows thumb at the corner of his lip, scarlet coming from the split.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Hermione snapped; Draco started as she came into his vision by his side.

"You were much too slow," Willows said, rising to his feet. "You need to pay more attention." He held out a hand to Draco.

"You said you were going to be teaching him, not killing him," Hermione hissed.

Willows wiggled the fingers of the hand Draco eyed with trepidation.

"And he's just had many lessons all at once," Willows said, as Draco clasped his hand. "The elements are life - the absence of them is death." He pulled Draco to his feet. "He's also just learned that you are adept at kneeing people in the face, so I take this as an all-around win. And besides, if he is dead by my hand, then we no longer have a problem."

Draco righted his henley and pushed back his hair. His chest ached and his throat felt torn, but worst of all was the way Willows' words replayed over in his mind.

"Now he has to learn how to save himself," Willows continued. "And you definitely need to pay more attention." He aimed the last part at Hermione, who scowled in return.

"You're serious," she said, shocked.

Willows nodded. "Emphatically so, I'm afraid."

"Don't kill him," she grumbled, stepping back.

Willows flashed a grin. "That will entirely depend on you two now, won't it."

Hermione narrowed her eyes before glancing at Draco. "Are you okay?"

"Peachy," he rasped, his voice hoarse. He glanced at Willows from the corner of his eye, the urge to punch the smug look from the bastard's face was overwhelming. Hermione paused as if to argue, but Draco continued, "I can handle your insane boss, go back to your swotting."

"I prefer eccentric," Willows grumbled.

"My apologies, you'll just have to forgive my ignorance," Draco retorted snidely.

Hermione looked between them, a slight crease between her brows. She shook her head slightly and began to back up.

"Just...try and be peaceful," she griped, before turning to make her way back to her perch.

They stood in silence listening to the sounds of the rustling leaves that filled the air once more, watching Hermione's form retreat across the glen. Draco swallowed, thinking over Willows' words. After facing off against Deimos, he knew that this was bigger than him. He could feel the alienness of the magic that flowed through his veins, the yawning chasm of power that resided in his chest, the ancient creature that stirred his bones. He knew that what Willows said was true. And yet, he also knew that he was wrong.

"How did you do that?" Draco asked roughly.

Willows shifted at his side. "What?"

"Take the wind. Are you…?"

"Like you?"

Draco met the black-eyed stare.

"No," Willows said. "Similar-ish, but not the same."

Draco couldn't help the sting of disappointment as he stepped back. "So how are you going to 'teach' me other than killing me?"

Willows grinned. "I know enough, Lleu."

Draco clenched his fist at his side, noting the evasion - the addition of the pet name on top felt like a special brand of condescension.

He really wanted to hit him.

Willows stepped away and brought his hands around in an arch, leaving a crackling trail in their wake. Draco's ears popped and the ambient sound of the glen fell away.

"You need to understand the gravity of your power," Willows said, his voice the calm tone of a professor. "Where earth is constant and fire is fickle, water is patient and where air is not." Draco's ears popped again as Willows twisted his hands. A thin rod of white appeared in his clenched fist. Draco took a breath of thin air.

"Everything on this planet needs water to survive. Without it, death is slow. But air is abundant. It is everywhere. The only place it's not, is a vacuum." Willows fled his fingers around the white rod, firming his hold. "The atmosphere of this planet is fragile, and the only thing that stands between every living thing and a vast vacuum. The magic that runs through your veins is connected to it all."

Draco swallowed, suddenly feeling all together too large for his small body.

Willows held his gaze, all traces of mania or fury gone. "Without air, we die in seconds . Do you understand? You hold every life in the palm of your hands."

Draco blew out a shuddered breath, feeling the ache of his battered lungs. Willows had held the air for seconds and brought him to his knees, but Draco already knew. He'd used the same trick on those men, his manipulation of the air had been the only thing that had given him the advantage over Deimos.

"How do I control it?" Draco rasped, his voice sounding hollow in the thin atmosphere.

"You don't," Willows said simply; Draco frowned. "This is where elemental magic differs from the magic of witches and wizards. That magic is innate with the witch, a core pool. It is controlled and re-shaped, forged by emotion and task. Elemental magic exists external of you. You are a conduit. The tighter you try to hold the magic, the more uncontrollable it will become." He paused, an assessing look in his eye. "Have you felt it building in you?"

Draco nodded and flexed his hands, feeling the magic surge to his fingertips.

"You're holding on to it as if you have to keep it contained in you," Willows said. "Just let it go."

Draco wet his lips and shifted his weight. "Let it go?"

The veela brushed against his chest, excitement zinging through his nerves. He could feel the crackle of energy down his veins as the hair on his neck stood on end. His ears popped again as the sound diminished, dampened by the rise in pressure. A voice in his head told him to hold tighter, the same voice that had kept him from blowing up books and toys when he was young.

Willows nodded, a small smile on his face. "Let go Lleu."

Draco let out a shaky breath and slowly released the desperate grip on his control.

Freedom.

All at once, the power surged from him. He felt the heaviness at his back as his wings unfolded, bracing him in the torrent of air currents that swirled in the pressure pocket.

It was unending.

Draco felt torn apart. He felt whole. He was bigger, he was everywhere. His perception was light. It was flowing. He was the air that danced joyfully on the currents. He existed in the heavy white clouds that covered the sky, that danced between the leaves, that rolled in waves over the tall grass.

He was the breeze that twinned lovingly around the curl that had escaped Hermione's bun. Draco slowed, a smile ticked in the corner of his lips. Her lashes fluttered as he whispered the curl across her cheek.

"You say that we have no choice, that she and I are meant to be," Draco said roughly. He felt Willows shift before him, his grip still strong on the white rod. "But that can't be true. Our very existence offends one another."

Willows was quiet a moment before letting out a long tired sigh. "The cardinal rule of elements is balance. Fire balances waters, earth balances air." The harsh lines of his features had softened, warming his contrasting pallor. "But the map is not as simple as a mere cross, it's more like…" He paused, nibbling his lip as he thought. "Well, it's a mess," he said with a shrug.

Draco huffed a laugh and twitched his clawed fingers, pulling the tendrils of the air currents to him. Satisfaction poured through him as he felt them buffet the underside of his wings. Tentatively, he brought them forth, pushing back against the wind.

He stumbled.

"Careful," Willows warned, watching him closely. "I can't teach you how to fly, Pup."

Draco couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. Joy. For the first time in a while, he felt joy, a hint of peace. He glanced around at the glen, taking in the colours. Absently he noted that he hadn't seen the world seem so bright since he was twelve.

"How are they a mess?" he said, pulling at Hermione's curl again. She was too enraptured in the text in her lap to care.

"As well as each element balancing each other," Willows started, "each element has to have an anchor. In some cases, they anchor each other - earth and fire. Fire burns earth, giving it new life; earth fuels fire, giving it life. Simple enough. But water and air are tricky. They're not as… predictable as fire, shall we say." Willows gave Draco a hesitant look. "Humans talk about these things in stories, I'm sure you understand that parts of the stories are real in some way or another?"

Draco flexed his hands. He caught the unconscious need to stop his magic just as it began to close the flow. He thought of Deimos, of Phobos and what untold influence she had had over him. He thought of what his father used to tell him of the muggle gods and their pantheons. He nodded slowly, eyeing Willows cautiously.

"The muggles believe that the moon's gravity controls the tides," Willows said, he looked thoughtful, almost wistful. "And to a certain extent, they're right. It's a different form of magic - an anchor or a leash - however, you want to view it. Water is wild; it's expanding, you give it space and it rushes to fill it. Lunera leashes the tides."

Draco's brow's rose. "You're saying -"

"That there's a lunar entity that anchors the water elemental?" Willows replied nonchalantly, shifting his grip on the pole. "Yes. And I think the Enlightened have both."

Draco started, creeping dread sinking down his spine. A sudden current lashed at his cheek as his heart skipped.

"Capturing an element is bad enough," Willows continued, "but if you capture the anchor, you have a means of controlling the element." He shook his head. "Even if the water elemental broke free, it wouldn't get far. The selkie went searching for the horse - one of them is the anchor, the other is the element."

Draco nodded numbly. Deep down, every word that Willows said struck a chord as if it was plucking at a long-forgotten memory. He wet his lips, not wanting to hear what came next, but needing to know all the same.

"And air?"

Willows' gaze softened to black velvet as the current swirled around them. "Air is the most uncontrollable. It's free, volatile and playful. It cannot be leashed." He almost looked contrite. "Air chooses its home - without it, it's the most destructive of them all."

Draco swallowed harshly, his gaze slipping to where Hermione perched on the rock, book in her lap. He tugged at her curl again and watched with a sad smile as she finally tucked it behind her ear.

" You don't have a choice Mr Malfoy," Willows continued. "Your self that is buried in your teachings and your experiences doesn't have a choice. But your quintessential self, the very essence of you, everything that makes you, you , has chosen her."

Hermione flipped a page, her head bowed in concentration. His heart pounded in his chest, a fatalist patter of defeat. It didn't make sense. Of all the people, why her.

"But I am a product of everything that came before." Draco's voice rough through the emotion that choked his throat, recalling that conversation with Narcissa. "Who am I, if I am the culmination of my teachings? Who is she?"

Willows shrugged. "I won't pretend to know the workings of what lies between the two of you."

Draco dropped his head forward, feeling another rise of emotion shudder through his chest.

"But you are you. Your self is your truest form. Everything else is surface dressing. Simply put, it's the difference between your nature and your nurture," Willows said. "You and she could live a thousand lives, a thousand different ways, but if you are you, and she is her, then it is in your nature to always choose each other."

The torrents of winds around them spiked and then fell, as pain keened through Draco's chest. He knew. He knew somewhere deep down. He had always known.

His eyes had always found hers.

Her voice was always the one he'd heard.

Every time her eyes dulled, every look of hurt, every look of pain. He had sought her out and yet, when tasked to by his family, he had hidden her - hid her from them. At the quidditch world cup. Time and time again thereafter. It had always come back to her. A competition. An infuriation. An infatuation.

"It's just the veela," Draco said weakly as the wind ticked up, almost stealing his voice.

Willows barked a laugh. " You are the veela. It's not a separate entity."

Draco curled his fingers, reigning in the tendrils that flowed too wildly. "I feel it -"

"What you feel is a new instinct, new magic, new innate intelligence that flows in sense memory," Willows said, his voice bordering on condescension. "There is no separating you from the veela, as much as your conscious identity wants it to be so."

Draco's eyes slipped to Hermione's form in the distance again. But the veela had wanted her. The veela keened for her. The veela was satisfied as she had arched beneath him, shifted on top of him.

It was the veela…

It wasn't him...

Willows cleared his throat, pulling Draco's attention.

He smiled sadly. "I too have an anchor."

"But you're not..."

"No, I'm not."

"You're an elemental?"

Willows paused. "Of a sort." He smiled crookedly. "Remember when I said it was messy? Ta-da!" he exclaimed in a monotone voice. "There's a lot of ingredients that make up the tapestry of balance."

Draco frowned slightly and jerked his chin. "That's how you were able to do what you're doing."

Willows nodded. "The boy's learning, maybe there's hope yet."

Draco ignored the barb. "What happened to your anchor?"

The brief interlude of light left Willows' face. "I had a lot of questions when I found out. I thought it couldn't possibly be true, that fate, destiny, whatever it was, was wrong. Similarly to you, my anchor was not my first choice, to put it nicely." He huffed a humourless laugh. "He was obnoxious and arrogant, and a full-fledged prat." Willows shrugged and looked up to the sky. "But he was magnificent. Brilliant when he wasn't being a clod." A sad smile tilted his lips. "And everything about my existence offended him."

Draco swallowed. He heard the unspoken words that underpinned Willow's words, the resonance of familiar pain. "But why then?"

"Because when I needed him, he was everything I needed." Willows fixed his timeless stare to him. "Because I needed him. We were taught to hate one another by the world we were born into, but that was not who we were." Willows jerked his chin to indicate behind him. "She's a brilliant witch - one of the best I have seen in a very long time - and she will do extraordinary things. Whether you want it or not, you chose her on some level, and in-kind, she chose you."

Draco started, Willows looked back, a smirk on his lips. "Oh you didn't think this was all about you now, did you?"

Heat pricked up his neck. "She can-"

"I'm bored of this denial," Willows said, shifting his grip on the white rod. "Lucky for you, you have an advantage where others haven't so you'll figure it out eventually when the siren bond kicks in."

Draco baulked. "You don't have to be so cavalier about it."

"We don't have time for tact, I'm afraid," Willows replied with a slight chuckle, as his expression darkened once again. "An air element who refuses to bond with their anchor is a dangerous thing. Your power is everything. What I did earlier is a shade of your capability, and the more the magic settles in you, the tougher it'll be to direct."

Draco's lips tightened. "How do you know all this? About air?"

Willows' brow raised archly. "There was a time when there was no such thing as the Aurora Borealis. But then the last air elemental lost his temper one day over an unfair gamble at a camp fireside and now the northern hemisphere has a lovely light show."

"You knew him?"

Willows pinned him with a pointed look. "He was a prick - be better than him."

Draco's lips twitched into a crooked smile. "Who are you?" The question was out of his mouth before he could think to stop himself.

Willows grinned. "The boogeyman," he quipped.

Draco flared his wings and pulled the tendrils, guiding them. In a moment, he looped them around Willows, buffeting him back. Willows yelped as his feet slipped from under him and he stumbled to his knees, white rod held firm in his hands.

"Little shit," he groused.

Draco grinned. "Answer my question then: you were apparently existing in the time before the Northern Lights, you head the Department of Mysteries, you possess magic that I've never seen before - who are you?"

Willows took a steady breath and hopped to his feet, from his kneeling position. "I'll make you a deal."

Draco's brow arched. "A deal?"

Willows grinned. "Make a deal with the devil, Lleu. This baton is a materialised gathering of air, it's holding the pressure stable. If you can take this baton from me, I'll tell you."

Draco pursed his lips, no harm. He couldn't see the catch if there was one. He focused his senses, reaching through the nebulous tendrils that conducted the winds, searching, feeling. He sensed the blades of grass, the babbling brook, each of every one of the leaves that clung to the old trees or that skittered along the ground in the updraft. He sensed the pages of Hermione's book flutter in the breeze and in a moment of devilment, he caught the gap and pushed, turning the pages. He heard her squawk of dismay carry on the wind as it circled Willows' ankles. He sensed the hard edges of the weapons he carried, the steady timbre of each breath, each and every minute shift of his body.

The tendrils circled his arms, sensing the familiar, seeking kin. Boldly they wrapped around the rod, feeling connected - right.

Draco twitched his fingers, pulling the tendrils taut, tightening their hold.

Willows grinned.

Draco had one second to consider that maybe he should have taken a different approach before he was launched into the air, pulled by the tendrils that wrapped around the rod. He wheezed as he landed heavily on his front, the solid ground knocking his lungs.

Draco spat the grass from his mouth as he lifted his head. Willows was unruffled, the rod still firmly in his hands, a cruel grin upon his face.

"Again, Lleu."

Time and time again, Draco fell. Willows launched him, span him, pushed him, pulled him. Draco growled and spat bloodied spittle from his mouth after a particularly hard knock.

Willows only smiled.

Draco shifted tactics. He lassoed the tendril around Willows' ankle and yanked. A sharp curse rang through the air, as Willows stumbled. Draco fastened the next tendril to the rod and -

-was airborne. As he somersaulted through the air, he gave a great heave of his wings, turning him to land frontward, his hands and feet digging rivets into the soil as the force of the throw carried him back. Not breaking them again.

"Good," Willows said, "I was beginning to think you're a one-trick pony." He hopped to his feet with feline grace and smirked. "Now we play."

He twisted his hands, crackling the rod. Draco's ears popped as the pressure dropped further. Above him, he sensed the space at the top of the pocket, filling and tightening. He met Willows' eyes and saw the dark amusement that lay in the black.

He felt it before he heard it. A sharp spike cutting through his tendrils and torrents, shooting straight toward him. He rolled just as the earth exploded, mud shooting up from where he had been from the lightning that went to the ground.

Draco swiped the mud from his face and blinked at the small crater.

"REALLY?!"

He started at Hermione's sudden appearance.

"What happened to being peaceful?" she demanded.

Willows shrugged. "No one agreed to that, Little Bird, you just assumed that we agreed. But well done on getting here faster. This time it's only seconds after he's been blown up, so take that as a win!"

Willows' grin only widened at Hermione's scowl.

"How?" Draco asked, peering up at the top of the pressure pocket. He reached out, his senses tracing the edges of the high pressure that had been compressed up there.

Willows tilted his head, the white glow of the rod alighting the gleam in his eyes. "Materia is a quintessence," he said smoothly. "It's a conduit and a catalyst and the only way a non-elemental can wield an element. I created a pressure pocket, a small atmosphere, just in case you decided to have a tantrum and accidentally kill us all. But it's also a good way for you to flex and test your powers."

He slightly twisted his hands on the rod. Draco drew back from the crackling pressure that built. "And this is just simple meteorology: high pressure and low pressures cause storms. You cool the air." He twisted his hands and the temperature suddenly dropped. "You introduce warm air which rises." Draco felt a warm breeze buffet his cheeks. "The heat rises, increasing the pressure. The more pressure, the more friction between particles." He twisted his hands and sparks snapped from the rod as a rumble sounded from above. "Then just as you gather the winds, you guide that static to the ground, where it wants to be."

With a final twist, an arc of white lightning cracked down, scorching the earth.

Willows rolled his shoulders and slowly released one hand from the rod. Draco yawned as the pressure dropped. Willows arched his free hand as if pulling the magic from the rod. After a moment, the brilliant white dimmed, and he let go entirely, leaving the rod to dissipate.

Draco hefted to his feet, groaning at the bruises he could already feel forming.

"I'll get it next time," he grouched, stretching out his wing. It had healed nicely but still, he was cautious.

"Well, assuming you're still alive in a couple of days, then we'll try again," Willows smirked. Draco felt his own lips curl to return the look.

"Fantastic," Hermione said, looking between them, a touch of confusion marring her features.

"Something bothering you, Little Bird?" Willows said, amusement alighting his voice as he held out an outstretched hand behind him.

"Many things," she quipped sardonically. "But Tal's just sent a Patronus. He's finally found Mr Ollivander."

Willows' brow rose high on his forehead. "Not the dead one, I presume?"

Two black things came hurtling towards his outstretched hand. He caught them easily and separated his cloak, and threw Draco's coat over.

Hermione ducked to avoid the flying coat. "No, Garrett, the one who's been avoiding us. I'm going to go speak to him."

"I'm coming with you," Draco said, relaxing his thoughts and rolling his shoulders. Under no circumstances did he believe that that would be a good idea. In fact, he thought it was quite the opposite. He didn't want to see the old man he'd personally tortured.

"It's fine," Hermione said, the determined look back in her eyes. "I'll drop you back at th-"

"This isn't a negotiation," Draco said. "The last time you assured me everything would be fine, you ended up wounded," and kissing me, "so yes, I am coming with you."

Hermione narrowed her eyes.

Willows' low chuckle caught their attention. "Give in Little Bird, he'll just follow you anyway if you don't take him with you."

Draco took a breath to argue and stopped.

He wasn't wrong.

Hermione whirled to face Willows. "So you're on his side now?" she snapped, a touch of betrayal in her voice.

Willows smiled softly. "No Little Bird, I just know how this story ends."

Draco's wings finally receded and he swung on his coat, righting his collar to stand straight against the wind.

"Shall we?" Draco asked as Hermione looked like she wanted to continue arguing.

She looked between them. "I don't like you two allying," she grumbled, coming to his side as she pulled out her wand.

"Make up your mind, Spook," Draco quipped as she took his arm. He glanced up at Willows to find him watching them, the same small smile upon his lips.

"What happened to him?" Draco asked as Hermione pulled her wand. Willows took a deep breath and scuffed the ground with his boot. The corner of his mouth ticked up, and pain cracked through his dark eyes.

"He died."

Crack.

23:07pm, 21st of September, 1999 - Hutton St, Blackfriars, London, UK

It felt good to stretch his legs, to walk the streets that had been so long kept from him. London was a different beast than he remembered. Its streets were full, brimming with life. But it was cold, clinical. It was noisy, with those heinous contraptions trundling down over the old city's bones.

He had hunted. Though the obnoxious street lamps flicked the same poisonous light that had caged him, he had managed to sate his need. Jack was delighted to find that even with all the modern nightmares overlaying his beloved home, it was easier to find wayward, lost souls. People were isolated, locked into the glowing boxes they held in their hands.

He skipped down a curb and ducked down a side street. Of course, the riots had made his introduction back into society all the more fun. He wasn't conceited enough to think it was for him, but with every lone soul that strayed too far from the herd, he couldn't help but grin at his luck.

Now, however, he could see the tide heading down the main road. The brutal carnage was delicious, the fires they set magnificent. Each ember of flame was another blessing upon his old and twisted soul.

Not that he wanted to be swept up in its tide.

Jack ducked down Hutton Street. The echoes of shouts bouncing off the narrowed walls of the side street. He took a breath and grinned, breathing in the ash and darkness. London's heart was beating again. He could feel it in his bones. The magic that spread in the soil was writhing, alive.

He took a few steps down the road when he heard the sweetest sound of them all.

The pained rattle of a stokes breath.

Death waited in the darkness of this street.

Jack whistled a tune as he slowly started forward, his steps careful on the cobblestone. Thankfully there were scant traces of the abhorrent light on this street, but still, he was careful to avoid the small patches reflected in the puddles.

He followed the sound, each breath a call to him.

He would help pass this poor soul over.

He would help end their suffering.

He was kind like that, Jack was.

In the crook of a doorway, Jack saw a rumpled, blanketed heap. He whistled a sonorous note and skipped across the road. As he grew closer, the stoked breath grew louder, each intake more pronounced as if it were his own.

But something was off.

Jack's fingers hesitated as they hovered over the blanket. A gnawing in his mind, the darkness whispering in his ear.

Leave.

Leave alone.

Return to the fire.

Jack stopped his whistling and listened to the laboured wheeze. He hadn't survived centuries, being born of beliefs and nightmares, only to die by the hand of whatever delicious morsel lay dying under the blanket.

He caught the cloth between his fingers and pulled.

In the trace light, he saw the gleam of eyes that watched him, bloodshot, sockets shadowed.

And at that moment, Jack knew what it was that whispered in his ear.

This was not prey.

This was kin.

"Easy there old boy," Jack said softly, kneeling down by the man's side. The clothes he wore were tattered, dirty with blood and grime, and stale odours of fluids.

The being blinked, taking another rattling breath. Jack noted the scrawling black veins that lay just under its skin. He was not a being he had encountered before, but he recognised the call the likeness all the same.

"Can you hear me?" Jack said, running his fingers over his thin chest, searching for a wound. It had been a long time since he'd imparted his medical training for healing, but they slipped into place like a beloved old coat.

The being blinked its glassy eyes. He took that as an affirmative.

"My name is Jack, who are you?" Other than malnutrition, he couldn't feel any obvious wounding. The being needed heat, food.

Perhaps he needed to hunt?

The being's throat clicked as it swallowed, its tongue flicked out to wet its cracked lips.

Jack saw its lips move but didn't hear what it said.

"I'm sorry old boy, one more time," he said with a smile, leaning in.

He heard the rumbling intake of the stokes breath, the hoarse rattle of lungs against his ear as it whispered: "Theo."

Jack leant back and looked him in the eyes.

"Very well Theo, where is home?"

... So how are we?

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Till next time!