Chapter Six - 'All the Grace of a De-Gnoming Victim'

Hermione's mind was still racing when she got to the great hall for dinner that night.

Malfoy's words had clearly left her looking as frazzled as she felt, because when she sat down at the bench, Luna immediately abandoned her meal in favour of batting her hands about Hermione's ears with such fervour that Neville dropped his fork in alarm. Hermione knew better than to interrupt the Ravenclaw, so she looked down at her plate, trying not to laugh, until she was finished.

"Wrackspurts," Luna said eventually, turning abruptly away and heaping a second serving of roast potatoes onto her plate as if nothing had happened. "You're full of them today."

"Thanks Luna," Hermione said, and reached for a slice of lasagne as Neville dove off the bench to retrieve his fork.

She and Malfoy had agreed to meet down by the South Corridor after curfew. He had reasoned that the Professors wouldn't bother patrolling somewhere both out of bounds and entirely inaccessible, so it made sense to concentrate all their efforts on the South Wing on the other side, leaving the corridor itself alone. Hermione couldn't quite believe she hadn't thought of it herself.

She was ridiculously nervous, but she also couldn't deny her excitement at another rule-defying adventure. Her blood felt fizzy in her fingertips, and she couldn't concentrate on the dinner conversation around her.

She tried to focus her gaze on her food while her mind whirled through all the ways their plans could go horribly wrong. If they got caught, it wasn't like with Ron; Malfoy couldn't pretend that they'd simply snuck out for a snog. The thought made her blush.

"Sickle for your thoughts?"

She looked up abruptly, knocking her teeth against her fork and wincing. Ron was smiling gently at her from across the table. His lips quirked, and the memory of sleeping next to him on Saturday night dressed in only her underwear leapt into her mind as vividly as if he had implanted it via Legilimency.

Her blush deepened and she looked back at her plate. She definitely wouldn't be sharing any thoughts with him that contained 'Malfoy' and 'snog' in the same sentence.

She wondered briefly if it was cruel of her not to tell him about her plans for that night. There was a part of her that felt like she should be able to tell him anything, and yet when she imagined talking to him about a plot to rebuild the castle with Malfoy… she knew exactly how angry and upset he would be. She didn't want to do that to him.

And so she rolled her eyes good-naturedly and took a sip of pumpkin juice. "I'm thinking about Paracelsus' Philosophia Magna and the alchemical significance of his four elementals," she fibbed, and took pride in the resultant uncomprehending horror on Ron's face.

It was a good thing that it was a Quidditch night, Hermione thought, as she surveyed the empty Common Room. There was nothing quite like spending three hours flying around in the rain with a broomstick clenched between your knees to ensure you wanted nothing more than to go straight to bed afterwards. Or so she had been told.

As a result, by the time curfew descended, most of her immediate friends were safely tucked up in the dormitories. She wondered, not for the first time, how she had managed to end up in a friendship group full of Quidditch fanatics.

Neville and Seamus were hanging out in the corner of the Common Room, but they were thankfully so engrossed in whatever essays they were working on that Hermione managed to slip by unnoticed. A first year in front of the fire looked up at her with a scandalised expression as she edged towards the portrait hole, but they didn't comment, and so she made it through.

The Fat Lady admonished her as she walked past, but Hermione paid her no mind. She doubted the portrait really cared about one more student sneaking out past curfew, when she had been watching the comings-and-goings of rule-breakers for the last several hundred years. Rules were such an important feature of Hogwarts life that breaking them was practically tradition.

Hermione snorted. If her eleven-year-old self could see her now…

She hurried down the corridor, sticking to the shadows as much as possible. With the school staff numbers so low at the moment, there was unlikely to be many patrols out and about, so the chances of bumping into anyone were pretty slim, but she'd still rather not be caught out of bed for the second time in as many weeks. She paused briefly to cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself, just in case.

Drawing her cloak tighter around her shoulders, she sped on. The South Corridor finally came into view, and she was looking forward to resting for a moment to get her breath back, when she realised she wasn't actually the first to arrive.

"You're late," said Malfoy, to a patch of air just to the left of her face.

She removed her Disillusionment and his eyes focused in on her. "I'm not," she retorted. "We said after curfew. It's after curfew."

Malfoy sniffed and turned away, staring down into the abyss that used to be the South Corridor. "If you got here last, you got here late. I've been waiting ages."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Well in that case, I'm sure you'll want to get cracking as soon as possible. Off you go," she chirped, and turned her wand on him with the utmost satisfaction.

Malfoy fought to retain his dignity for all it was worth, even as her Levitation Spell scooted him unceremoniously into the air and dumped him onto the far side of the corridor with all the grace of a de-gnoming victim. Not to be outdone, Malfoy retaliated immediately with a spiteful Summoning Charm that sent her flying across the gap and colliding into him.

After extricating themselves from a tangle on the floor, rather embarrassed and grumbling softly, they each took a moment to survey the ground before them, and Hermione suddenly realised the gravity of what they were about to do.

They were in the South Wing now. Forbidden territory.

She froze, sweeping her gaze from side to side as if she was expecting to see the corridor light up with giant arrows labelled 'INVISIBLE CURSE HERE'.

They could be surrounded by the bloody things right now, and she wouldn't have a clue. Oh, what on earth was she doing? If Ron and Harry knew where she was right now, they would think her a complete and utter basket case. She was wandering into a literal deathtrap full of curses that she couldn't see, with no one but an ex-Death-Eater for company. What was she letting herself in for?

She imagined that Malfoy could see it on her face. "Not getting cold feet, are you Granger?" he challenged, but there was an uncertainty to his words. He was scared too.

"No," Hermione lied, kicking one of the aforementioned feet in his direction. He sneered at her, unimpressed, then decisively turned on his heel and began to head off along the corridor.

She made to follow him but had barely taken a step before the true weight of what they were walking into came crashing down about her shoulders. Every wooden board beneath her feet could carry a dark hex, a ticking time-bomb, a grenade simply waiting for the barest pressure to explode.

And there, in the darkness of a corridor lit only barely by chinks of starlight, blind to both her physical surroundings and the invisible dangers they held, it hit Hermione for the first time how utterly defenceless she was in a place where everything around her had the potential to explode without a moment's warning. This wasn't like the dangers she had faced before. No one was advancing on her with a wand and the intention to kill shining clear in their eyes. This enemy was invisible, and silent, and unpredictable. She didn't know how to beat this.

Her Lumos flickered and then died, her hands shaking so hard that her wand almost fell. She wanted to scream with frustration, but her tongue felt thick and heavy in her throat, and her chest was tight against her lungs.

She wanted to take a step forward, but the fear of the unknown had her frozen to the spot. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe slowly and deeply through her nose, feeling her heart hammering against her ribs all the while.

The helpless terror that squeezed her from all sides sent her brain spiralling back to another night, a thousand years ago, a thousand miles away, where she lay immobile and powerless on the floor of a manor house.

She didn't realise she had a Shield Charm up until she heard Draco's voice, strangely muffled by the magical barrier.

"Granger," he said, and the urgency in his voice shocked her into looking up.

She let her shield fall, still shaking, and he stepped closer, clearly unsure what to do.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, in which Hermione wished desperately that she could react, or move, or speak, but nothing happened. She just stared blankly at him, a wordless plea for help unspoken on her lips. His eyes bored into hers, and then he was bending down to crouch in front of her.

Wordlessly, numbly, Hermione watched as he placed his hands at the tops of her arms and squeezed. She had expected softness, but his touch was firm, almost harsh. Grounding. His expression was completely unreadable, but Hermione felt as if everything in her heart must be visible in her eyes, spilling over at the edges like the disturbed surface of a lake.

His fingers squeezed even harder, and it was like a seal had broken.

"Oh!" she gasped, and collapsed in on herself, suddenly completely mortified. "I'm so sorry!"

His expression didn't alter, but he snatched his arms away from her. "Don't."

They stared at one another from their crouched positions on the floor of the abandoned corridor, the only light from the tip of Malfoy's wand, stashed hurriedly in a pocket of his robes.

Despite the carefully schooled blank expression on his face, Hermione could see his concern. She wondered if she'd somehow started learning how to read him.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Don't mention it," he said, and it occurred to Hermione that he was genuinely asking her not to. "These things happen."

She dragged a hand roughly across her eyes and took a long, deep breath, trying to force herself into calmness. She was fine. She would be fine. The only thing she had to do was trust that they wouldn't encounter any one of the hundreds of dark curses held within these walls. Her heart constricted a little in her chest.

"Malfoy, do you… do you think that any of the curses here could be… the Cruciatus?" she asked, and suddenly his blank expression became one of stricken understanding.

There was silence, punctuated only by her attempts to regain a normal breathing pattern.

"I don't know," he admitted softly.

She nodded, unwilling to speak. There was another long silence, and she slowly got to her feet, pulling her cloak closer about her frame. He copied her, and watched as she hesitantly cast a new Lumos, lighting up the deserted corridor around them.

Then, suddenly-

"Do you trust me?" Malfoy asked.

What a question. Hermione felt like she should be unsure of the answer, but it leapt into her mind unbidden. Again, Ron and Harry would think she was crazy. She looked up at Malfoy, into the face that had sneered at her, had threatened her, had watched her silently as she experienced the worst pain she would ever feel in her life.

And somehow, she was able to reply- "Yes."

"Good," he said, as if that was the end of that.

"Good," she repeated. She bit her lip, suddenly struck by how bizarre this all was.

He glanced at her, an amused crease appearing at the side of his mouth. "Good," he said again.

She gave him a disapproving look, and he snickered loudly. The atmosphere broke, and that was all the prompting Hermione's overwrought brain needed. She let forth an ungraceful snort of laughter.

It felt so good to laugh that she shut her eyes and gave in to it completely, delighted to hear that Malfoy was helpless but to join in. They laughed and laughed, trying to hush themselves but only making the giggles worse in the process. It was like she could feel all the worries and fear ebbing out through her skin like mist. She wondered when Malfoy was last able to laugh like this.

"I think you must be going mad after all, Granger," he said finally, without a trace of malice.

She considered their situation, the panic, the trust, the awkwardness, the hilarity. She had shown him more vulnerability than she'd ever been able to show Harry or Ron. And he had simply provided her with the stabilisation she needed, without having to ask, and without expecting anything in return. He had laughed with her. Had calmed her. And she trusted him.

Maybe she was mad, she thought. Or perhaps she hadn't realised she needed something.

Something she had now found in none other than Draco Malfoy.

The South Wing was dark – really dark. Even the Lumos at the end of Hermione's wand couldn't help her see more than a couple of feet ahead of her. At least Malfoy's hair was wonderfully reflective, she thought with a smirk.

Every few steps, they would each send out a flare from their wands, skittering along the walls and the floorboards ahead of them. They had decided that it was the only way to try and detonate any potential spells that lay in wait without risking themselves getting caught in the crossfire. Plus, there was the bonus of the bright colours making the whole situation feel a lot less scary, which Hermione rather appreciated.

She followed him deeper into the building, marvelling at the destruction around them. The giants had turned the place that she used to know like the back of her hand, into an unrecognisable ruin. There were massive holes in the walls, through which the cold wind whistled with alarming volume. Everywhere she turned her wand, she found the evidence of destroyed statues, doors, suits of armour, paintings, and wall hangings, lying discarded and broken like worn-out playthings. The South Wing had three storeys, but in some places, the ceilings above them had fallen through completely, and in others, it was the floors that had been reduced to splinters. Patches of moonlight shone through these unexpected apertures, illuminating the outline of Malfoy's body ahead of Hermione, his shoulders tense and wand outstretched.

Hermione peered into every classroom as they passed, struggling to make much out except for piles of broken furniture. Scorch marks peppered the walls and floor, and her ears rang with the memory of sparks skidding off stone. The last time she was here, she was fighting for her life. A memory came to her suddenly, and she wondered where the-

Oh. There.

She shuddered as her eyes came to rest on the grotesque body of an acromantula. It was quite obviously dead, and clearly had been for a long time, but the sight of the dusty corpse on its back with its legs arched ominously upwards was enough to make her draw her cloak tighter around herself and hurry onwards. She squeezed her eyes shut and hoped fervently that the attempts to recover all human bodies from the wreckage back in May had been one hundred percent successful.

A green flare from Malfoy's wand made an abrupt turn around a corner. They followed after, and Hermione was confronted immediately by a hole in wall that had to be at least ten feet in diameter. She gaped wordlessly at it. It was so huge that 'hole' didn't do it justice. Looking through it felt like Hermione was just looking out on the castle grounds, segments of brickwork floating in her peripheral vision.

It was no wonder that the Professors have left the South Wing alone, she realised. The repair work needed here alone could take months. It had been far easier simply to rope it off entirely.

It was horrible to consider, but Hermione thought that the extent of the damage here made it rather a convenient location for their repair attempts.

She stopped dead in front of the gap in the wall for a moment, marvelling at the unobstructed view of the night sky beyond.

"It's awful," she muttered.

"It's war," said Malfoy simply. He had come back to stand beside her, his brow heavy with an emotion Hermione didn't quite understand.

What had the last year in Malfoy's life been like, she wondered. No doubt his understanding of war was worlds away from her own. Two separate viewpoints, two separate pathways, connected now and again in fleeting intersecting moments. A cold floor and the sound of screaming, a blazing heat and a searing fear, and now, a landscape of the Scottish countryside, the surface of the lake a vast black mirror under the unyielding sky.

She looked at him.

There was a sadness in his features, an openness and a vulnerability that shocked her. There was no tension in his frame, no agitation. Just pure, undiluted grief.

"Are you alright?" she ventured.

The grief dropped from his face, to be replaced with a sneer, and he strode off along the corridor with another flare leading the way. "Leave it, Granger."

She nodded silently to herself. Alright. That would take time, it seemed.

She had time.

Sending another flare skidding past his heels, she couldn't help but grin at his muffled shout of alarm and headed after him.

Their first run-in with an unexploded spell was, in a word, anticlimactic.

After several minutes of exploring the South Wing without incident, there had come a moment when one of the flares from Malfoy's wand bounced off an innocuous-looking stretch of wall. There had been a momentary flash of light, and then all at once, a terrible cracking noise rent the air, and a shockwave passed through what felt like the very foundations of the building. The flooring below their feet split, and both Hermione and Malfoy had leapt for the walls in fear.

And then, barely seconds later, it had stopped.

They were fine. The building remained undamaged except for a crack that snaked its way harmlessly across the floorboards.

They looked at one another, both clinging to windowsills on opposite sides of the corridor as if the flimsy pieces of wood could have saved them from plummeting through the floor in the event of a collapse.

And then the corner of Malfoy's mouth twitched, and they were both laughing until they were breathless.

A while later, they found themselves in an empty classroom, repairing windows, floorboards, and furniture. Overwhelmed by the scale of the destruction, they had decided to pick one room, scour it thoroughly for spells, and then make a start on its restoration, able to relax and focus without the fear of setting off an invisible explosion.

The classroom was moderately sized, so they were able to work on opposite sides of the room whilst still keeping close enough for reassurance. A small hole in the wall was quickly patched up, shutting out the frigid wind from outside, and then they were able to turn their attention to the furnishings. As they reattached table legs, re-sealed floorboards and rethreaded wall hangings, they started to talk.

Hermione told him exactly what had happened on her visit to the South Corridor the previous week, and he laughed so uproariously at her retelling of McGonagall's 'privacy' scolding that he dropped the table he was levitating onto his foot and was forced to swap laughter for some unusual swear words Hermione had never heard before.

He told her about his Alchemy N.E.W.T. classes, and about the time Padma Patil accidentally spilt ox bile on the back of Slughorn's velvet smoking jacket, resulting in a stench so vile that the entire corridor had to be evacuated for three days.

She told him about the no-magic-allowed paper aeroplane competition in the Gryffindor Common Room at the start of term, and how Dean Thomas had managed to win thanks to a stray gust of wind that had sent his origami creation soaring straight down one of Hagrid's chimneys, pitching the entire cohort into hysterics.

And Malfoy told her about Slytherin game nights: fancy casino themed evenings, with real poker and table craps; and silly ones too, with drinking games, and charades, and something he called BillyWiggle, but sounded to Hermione a lot like wizard Twister.

They were safe topics, but they were comforting. They didn't talk about the war, or his parents, or her parents, or the time he watched her writhe in agony on the floor of his childhood home. They talked about fun, and life, and joyous things.

"Alright then," Hermione said later, as she sealed a cracked tile back into its place in the wall. "You promised that if I let you come with me tonight, you would tell me why you wanted to do this. So… why?"

He was silent for a long while.

"It's not some huge, profound, noble reason…" he murmured stiffly, his wand stilling at his side.

Hermione waited.

"So much of my life has been spent being told what to do," he said eventually, sitting down and leaning his head back against the wall. His chin tilted upwards. "It sounds pathetic, but it's true. There was always some kind of plan I had to follow, or a box I had to fit in. I was never able to do something simply because I wanted to. And I know I had a hand in all of this, all of this destruction, all of the awful things that happened over the last couple of years-"

Hermione made as if to interrupt, but he shook his head fiercely. "I did. No matter how small a part I played, I was there. And now that it's all over, and I'm free of… of them… Well, it would be so easy to just do nothing. To fade into the background, to get my N.E.W.T.s, to get a tidy job somewhere nice and out of the way. So, I guess I'm doing this because I'm tired of doing nothing. I wanted to get up and do something for myself for a change, regardless of what anyone else would think."

There was a silence. He looked so vulnerable, so exposed, and yet there was a determination, a certainty in his eyes. Hermione believed him instantly.

"That makes… a lot of sense," she said. "It's really kind of you to help me."

"No it's not. I'm doing this for entirely selfish reasons," he protested.

She grinned. "Of course."

They went back to their work.

"Your turn then," said Malfoy, long enough later that Hermione had forgotten what they had been talking about.

"Huh?"

"Why are you doing this? Haven't you got enough on your plate already?" he joked. "What made you want to add something else?"

Her parents. Her home. Her friends. Hermione's mind whirled through possible answers. God, her parents.

Her eyes prickled with the threat of tears and she realised she wasn't ready to tell Malfoy about any of it. Not yet.

"I'll tell you next time," she offered, then paused. "You, uh, you will come again, for a next time, right?"

Malfoy looked at her then, and the corner of his mouth curved, a dimple appearing in one cheek. "Try and stop me."

And then she was blushing again and couldn't seem to concentrate no matter how hard she tried.

By the time the classroom began to resemble a suitable environment for teaching schoolchildren, Hermione was yawning so hard she kept having to pause mid-sentence.

She mended the last shattered inkwell in the room and looked up, searching for wherever might next need her attention. But she couldn't find it.

Looking around in wonder, she only half noticed as Malfoy came to stand beside her, surveying their achievement. "We did it," she whispered.

The room was perfect. Desks and chairs in neat rows, facing a long table stacked neatly with scrolls, inkpots and quills. The blackboard behind was clean and unblemished, the floor polished and tidy, and the walls intact and sturdy.

It looked like the castle they remembered from all those months ago.

"We did it," Malfoy confirmed.

It was silent, the two of them stood side by side. Hermione thought for a ridiculous, wild moment, that Malfoy would take her hand, but of course he didn't.

They had instead simply stared in companionable silence for a while, before Hermione was accosted by another violent yawn, realising it was probably time to call it a night. As they made their way out of the South Wing, Disillusionment Charms in place, Hermione realised that she felt the most contented she had felt in a while.

"What should we say if we get caught?" she asked suddenly, the thought occurring to her as they began their walk towards the staircase.

Malfoy's brow furrowed. "You're asking me this now?"

"Oh, sorry, let me just give my time-turner a spin and I'll ask you ten minutes ago, how's that?" she teased. "I'm just saying. We should have a plan in case we get caught."

"We won't," he said easily, and carried on walking.

"But if we do?" she asked, hurrying to keep up with him. "It's not like when I did this with Ron; it's not like we can say we went off for a snog."

"Merlin, no!" he spluttered vehemently.

"Alright! Christ, I do have feelings," Hermione teased. "No need to sound quite so repulsed."

"What, would you rather I say that going for a snog would be an entirely believable excuse, and not at all sound like I've Imperioed you?"

She laughed. "Alright, you've got a point."

"Do you really think we need an excuse?" Malfoy asked, after a moment. "Surely we'd be punished for being up after curfew regardless of the reason."

"I don't know. Maybe if the excuse was good enough then we'd be alright? Maybe we could say that I'm tutoring you in something?" she suggested.

"Not a chance. I'm just as smart as you." He smirked at her. "Well, nearly."

She flushed at that, rather pleased. "Alright, what skills could you teach me, then?"

He considered this for a moment. "Occlumency, perhaps? I'm quite good at that."

"Oh, that's not a bad idea. Occlumency sessions, to help stop my n-" She broke off suddenly.

He looked at her for a moment, so she set her shoulders and ploughed on, determined not to show any embarrassment. "My nightmares," she finished. "I think we've all had them since the war, haven't we?"

He didn't respond.

"Never mind," she said quickly. "Anyway, if you're teaching me Occlumency, I've got to be giving you something in return, right?"

Hermione wasn't sure if he flushed slightly at this, or it was just the strange lighting in this part of the castle.

"Perhaps I'm helping you work through some trauma," she continued drily, smirking.

He looked torn between scowling and laughing. "Shut it."

"Mm," said Hermione, a slow smirk spreading across her face. "And tell me, how does that make you feel?"

He snorted, rolling his eyes. "Look, you don't need to be giving me anything in return. I don't need a Mind-Healer. Or any other kind of… do-gooder," he said.

Hermione was hit with a memory of her conversation with Parvati not that long ago. "Or perhaps a fixer-upper," she suggested quietly to herself.

"What?"

"Like a, a fixer-upper. You know, someone who's always out to fix things. Or someone in need of being fixed. I'm not too sure anymore."

He didn't seem to know how to respond, opting to watch his feet as they crossed the flagstones.

"Someone told me recently that I was a fixer-upper," said Hermione, for want of something to say.

Malfoy sniffed. "Well, you do seem to like mending things."

"By that definition, you're a fixer-upper too."

"Huh," he said, clearly taken aback. "What a pair we make."

She grinned as they came to a stop in front of the staircase that signified it was time for them to part. Hopping onto the first step, she called down to him.

"We should start a club."

He didn't say anything, but Hermione swore she could spot an amused grin on his face before he turned and walked away.

"Someone didn't get enough sleep last night," remarked Ginny, as Hermione stifled another large yawn over the breakfast table the next morning. "You could shoot a Quaffle through there."

Hermione grinned guiltily. "Yeah, I couldn't seem to drop off," she lied. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. The second she had snuck back into her dormitory the night before, she had collapsed into bed and fallen asleep almost immediately.

"Were you doing homework in bed again?" asked Parvati.

"Of course she was," laughed Ron, clapping a hand on Hermione's back. "Any moment not reading is a moment wasted, right?"

She smiled patiently but didn't comment, choosing instead to reach for a glass of pumpkin juice. It was easier for her by far if they all thought she had been up studying, instead of, you know, performing complex reconstructive magic in a derelict battleground with someone that until very recently had been considered an enemy.

She smiled to herself and accidentally made eye contact with that someone at the Slytherin table, a someone with white-blond hair, a sleepy expression, and a secret comradeship in his eyes. Malfoy lifted his eyebrows conspiratorially at her.

Hermione thought of a classroom on the other side of the castle and smiled into her porridge.