Story Notes!
I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who is reading these 50k fest stories, and then an ever bigger thank you to those people who have taken the time to leave kudos and to either review or comment on them, it's super encouraging to us all to keep writing! I hope you are all enjoying our story!
There is a little content warning needed on this chapter because there's a description of a PTSD attack in here. if you are sensitive to anything like that please read that part with caution, it's in the middle of the chapter and just skipping a couple of paragraphs won't take anything away from the rest of the story. It's in here because as well as being an adventure and romance story, this is a story about healing too, and as in real life, healing comes with the odd hiccup.
Thank you to my amazing alpha/beta champagneandliterature for all your help and thank you to KrysKrossZee for the beautiful artwork that accompanies this story.
Hermione's next few days passed relatively quietly in comparison to her eventful weekend. As predicted, Ron had come flying out of the floo on Tuesday evening, having belatedly picked up the garbled voicemail that she had left during her panic attack. He had landed unceremoniously in the kitchen, full of genuine apologies and sincere promises to check his phone much more regularly.
Hermione had finally managed to convince him that she really was okay and had just had a bad night, then they had settled down on the sofa with Harry, a bowl of popcorn and a film that happened to be on TV. Their long overdue catch up had felt wonderful. Ron was not as close to her and Harry these days as he once was, but that was another of the long list of things she planned to rectify.
Hermione's work days on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday had been taken up with basic training in the Department of Mysteries. The chief Unspeakable, Gareth Greengrass had taken her through every room in the department, shown her briefly what happened in each, and introduced her to the Unspeakables working inside.
He had then taken her back to his office to explain precisely what she was allowed to talk about outside of work and what was classified as secret information under the terms of her contract.
She had learned department specific first aid and stasis spells, how the Unspeakable's special links with the Aurors worked, and then had been introduced to her and Blaise's linked Auror team. She hadn't been the least bit surprised when this had turned out to be Harry and Draco.
She barely saw Blaise during her training, although he did fulfill his promise of looking after her. Each day he brought her coffee in the morning, herbal tea in the afternoon, made sure she had eaten lunch and not worked straight through her break, and then saw her safely out of the department at the end of the day. Other than that, he disappeared, and much to her frustration, she still didn't know what she was to be working on with him. So, when he told her as she left on Thursday that her training was complete and that she would be working with him all the next all day, she could barely contain her excitement.
Consequently, on Thursday evening, she was a highly strung ball of energy. Too restless to sit still she paced the upper floors and the lesser used rooms of Grimmauld, looking for something to do to pass the time.
The spare bedrooms on the fourth floor of the house were in a terrible mess. Hermione stopped in the doorway of what had once been a teenage Sirius' bedroom and sighed. She and Harry split most of the household chores between themselves and the lower floors of the house were kept relatively clean and tidy, but they both had a habit of throwing anything that they didn't know what to do with up here.
The result of several years of this was that this room, the one next door that had once belonged to Regulus, and the bathroom that separated them both now looked like a smaller version of the Room of Hidden Things at Hogwarts.
She sighed again, wondering where to start. Harry was out at Quidditch training with Draco and she refused to spend the evening fretting about tomorrow. Purposely though, they never touched this room. The wallpaper was peeling and the old posters were faded and yellowed, but despite all of that, this room was all that Harry had left of Sirius. Messy it may be, but it was the only link Harry had to the family that had been so cruelly torn from him by Bellatrix under Voldemort's orders.
"Okay," she said out loud, "I'm not going to touch the decor. I'm just going to tidy up a little. Is that all right?" She didn't know if she was asking for Harry's permission, Sirius' permission, or even her own permission, but somehow it seemed important to ask. When there was no reply, she stepped over the front row of debris and jumped as the door swung shut behind her. She breathed out slowly, forcing herself to remember that most of the doors in this house did that. Not every bang or unexpected movement was caused by a Death Eater.
Stepping gingerly over piles of more junk Hermione reached the middle of the room and frowned. There was an area beside the bed that looked strangely different from the rest of the room and she stepped closer to investigate. It looked like a nest, similar to the ones that Kreacher used to make. Blankets and pillows were pushed up against the bed and there was a smooth, clear area on the floor that looked as if someone sat there regularly.
Hermione glanced behind her in confusion, suddenly feeling like an intruder and wondering whether she should just forget the whole idea and leave the room alone when she felt a tingle of magic pulling her towards the spot.
It was familiar magic, she recognized its feel. Harry. She stepped into the little clearing and sat down to look around. There were a couple of dirty cups and several newish looking snack wrappers close by. It seemed that this was a spot Harry used reasonably often.
She sank back into the soft bedding and inhaled his subtle scent. As she looked around a notebook caught her eye. It was partially hidden under the bed and appeared to have been shoved there hastily. She glanced around again, suddenly feeling that she was being watched. It was a feeling that she was so used to in Grimmauld that she ignored it fairly easily as she used a finger to pull the notebook out and open it.
What she saw made her gasp with shock.
She had just found Harry's diary.
She froze and dropped it as if the pages themselves would bite her. This was clearly where he sat to write and she knew she should put the diary back exactly as she had found it, retreat out of the room and close the door behind her, then maybe start on Regulus' old room instead. And that is exactly what she would have done had she not taken one more glance at the book and seen that both of the open pages started with the same words. Dear Hermione.
Her heart was pounding madly as she cast a quick Tempus charm. It was only 9 pm, Harry wouldn't be back for at least another hour. She stared at the book mentally arguing with herself and finally flipped it open again.
Harry had written a lot. His untidy scrawl covered page after page and Hermione couldn't help but smile fondly. Harry Potter, the boy who had always hated to write at school, didn't seem to have the same problem here.
The writing appeared to change with his mood, sometimes the letters were small and fairly neat, other times they were huge, angry looking and deeply indented on the page. But, aside from the changing font style there was something else that was strange, Harry's writing was always messy, but she could at least read it most of the time. She stared at the pages but couldn't focus on any of these words. She narrowed her eyes, squinting at the jumble but nothing would stop the letters from shimmering and moving around. She closed one eye and squinted, holding the page closer, then further away from her face but nothing helped. The more she tried to see it the worse it got.
Clearly, Harry had charmed the diary to be unreadable.
But that didn't make sense. She had just read the first line of each page and seen her name. No charms had been on it when she had first picked it up and concealment charms didn't come and go. Just what was going on?
She reached for her wand and was about to cast an unscrambling charm before she realized what she was doing. She stopped with a horrified gasp. No amount of curiosity or getting sucked into a battle of wills against a spell was worth invading Harry's privacy in such a way. She slammed the book down, stood up, and bolted from the room, feeling disgusted with herself for what she had been about to do.
She was still upset when Harry came home. After one measure of Firewhisky to soothe her frazzled nerves, she had managed to leave the alcohol alone, instead choosing to have a shower and put her agitation to use cleaning up the kitchen.
She jumped as the front door opened and Harry let himself in, stomping his feet on the mat then stopping to greet her with a kiss. "Harry?" she said hesitantly as he kicked his muddy boots and garters off, "I need to tell you something."
"Oh?" he turned towards her, his concern magnifying when he saw her stricken face. "What's wrong?"
"Harry I did something terrible, and I need to tell you about it, I'm so sorry, I stopped myself before I, I mean I didn't really see anything-"
Harry stared at her in surprise as she dropped her face into her hands in distress. "Okay," he said slowly, "nothing's this bad 'Mione." He gently but firmly prised her hands away from her eyes. "What's happened?"
"I," she shook her head and closed her eyes, somehow actually telling him what she had done was far worse than the thought of doing so had been. "Oh Harry I'm so sorry, I found your diary in Sirius' room, and I picked it up, and I was going to read it! I didn't though, obviously, because of the charm but there was a point when I... I nearly broke the charm because I was curious, and well, because it was a weird charm, and then I realized what I was doing so I didn't and, oh Gods I'm so sorry!"
When she had talked herself out she stared at him wishing he would say something instead of looking blankly at her. "Harry, I'm really sorry!" Her eyes were brimming with tears as she looked at him, silently begging for his forgiveness.
"Is this what you're so upset about?" he asked, looking utterly baffled as he held her close again. "All this is because you found my notebook in Sirius' room, but you didn't read it?" She nodded again. "You didn't read it at all?"
"No!" she squealed, "I realized what I was doing when the charm blocked me-"
"What charm? There's no charm on it, It's just a therapy diary that I've written over the last couple of years half hoping you'd find it. I wasn't brave enough to leave it lying around or to just ask you to read it, so I hoped you'd get curious about where I went sometimes, or annoyed about the state of the room and go in to tidy up and find it. You were meant to read it!" he added when she still didn't seem convinced.
"But I couldn't." She sniffed and looked at him, her curiosity returning now she knew he wasn't upset about her indiscretion.
"Why not?" He looked genuinely confused.
"Because the letters jumped all over the page. That's why I thought it was charmed!"
"Have you been on the Firewhisky again?" he said in such a way that despite everything she laughed.
"No. Come and look." She stood up, grabbed Harry's hand and pulled him into the hall, up the multiple flights of stairs and along to Sirius' room, confusion and intrigue making her hurry.
This time the atmosphere in the room felt different. The door swung open and stayed that way. Harry hopped nimbly across the junk and picked up the notepad. He held it out to her and she looked. There it was, page after page of Harry's writing, and each one was fully readable.
"You see, no charm on it at all. As I said, I was half hoping you'd find it. It was hardly hidden."
"Okay." She let out a long slow breath and began to wonder if she was losing her mind. "What do you want me to do now that I know about it?"
"Well," Harry said at length, "I think I'd quite like you to finally read it."
She didn't read anything that night. She was so tired and unsettled after her emotional evening that she accepted Harry's offer of an early night, and once he had showered and put his sodden quidditch kit through the wash she had fallen into his arms and both of them had drifted quickly off to sleep.
She was grateful for that restraint when she stood in her and Blaise's tastefully lit office at exactly 8 am the next day.
Blaise fixed her with a disarming grin, told her she looked hot in her new skirt and laughed at the blush that bloomed across her cheeks in reply, before indicating that she should sit in the chair opposite his desk. She sank into the smooth leather as he levitated a cup of her favorite takeaway coffee and a croissant over to her and then sat back, sipping elegantly from his own. "Are you ready to find out what we're doing then?" he asked and she leaned forwards eagerly, trying not to combust with excitement.
When he had finished explaining she blinked a few times and stared at him as if she had just watched him grow another head. "You-" she tried to speak, but words completely failed her. Blaise smirked at her incredulous expression, "You mean-" she tried again, but still couldn't form a sentence, "are you?"
Blaise stood up as she gazed at him in shock. "I chose you for this investigation Hermione, and I've held out for you as a partner for the better part of two years for a very good reason. Maybe it would be better if I showed you what I'm, sorry, what we are, trying to do. Follow me."
Hermione stood up, smoothed down her skirt, and followed him out of the office, down the corridor, back into the main department hall, and with some trepidation, through the door of the Death Room.
"You see?" he tapped his finger on the metal name plaque as the door opened smoothly, "they don't understand this arch, not even down here. If I'm right about this, then the veil has nothing to do with death at all."
The door closed behind them and Hermione shivered, partly because the room was freezing and partly because of the memories it was bringing back. Blaise stepped forwards, walking towards the stone steps that led down to the archway and Hermione instinctively grabbed his arm to hold him back. "Are you alright?" he turned, looking at her in concern.
She stopped abruptly as a tidal wave of emotions crashed into her. "You've gone very pale," Blaise said uncertainly, "Hermione? Sit down for a moment, you look like you're going to faint!"
He tried to lead her to sit on the top step but she jumped back, still holding his arm, and inadvertently yanked him back with her. "No!"
Her reaction was physical, the sight of the veil fluttering delicately in the perfectly still room had caused the awful memories of Sirius' slow-motion fall into nothingness to come flooding back. Adrenaline coursed through her body as her heart raced and her breathing became shallow and rapid.
The world seemed to slip into slow motion, and rationally she knew that she wasn't suddenly back in 1996, but her body reacted as though she was. It felt as if she was right back in the midst of the battle, with deadly spells raining down everywhere. She could see the flashes of the curses, hear the cries of the injured, and smell the acrid smoke of the vicious spellfire. She could hear Bellatrix's maniacal laugh and Harry's agonized screams as Sirius fell to his death and it all became too much to bear. She dropped into a crouch and covered her head protectively with her arms.
She was vaguely aware of Blaise beside her, trying to talk her out of it but her overwhelmed brain couldn't register him as anything more than a danger and she lashed out defensively as he touched her arm. She was too far gone to register his words, and nothing he could say right now would ease this. It was by far the worst PTSD attack she had ever had.
Sometime later, whether it was minutes or hours she wasn't sure, Harry came flying into the room and skidded to a halt beside her, his out of breath voice cutting straight through her hysterics. "'Mione, it's all right. Come on now. It's me, you're safe."
He sank to the floor beside her, talking softly until she managed to latch onto the familiar sound of his voice and started to calm somewhat. "'Mione, you're safe. We're not in the battle anymore. I'm going to touch your back now. That's me, okay? My hand. Breathe in my scent. Hopefully, it's not too awful, I did shower this morning," he joked lightly. "Slow your breathing to match mine. Listen to the sounds around you. Let's do your checklist."
This time he started with sound, then ran through touch, smell, taste, and finally, when she was ready to open her eyes, sight. Relieved and somewhat exhausted, she sighed and sagged against Harry gratefully. She was finally back in the present and the past had retreated harmlessly back, once more locked safely within a memory. "It was a panic attack," Harry was saying, "a bad one, but a panic attack all the same. Look, it's just me and Blaise here."
She lifted her head and saw, finally, that he was right. The room was empty. The veil still fluttered menacingly but nothing untoward was happening. She blinked slowly as Harry released his hold on her and that was the point that her embarrassment kicked in instead. "Oh, Gods! SORRY!" She yelped as she stood up, smoothing her clothes and feeling her puffy eyes and smudged makeup with her fingers as she gazed wide-eyed and horrified at Blaise, "I'm so sorry!"
"Not a problem." He looked a little concerned but said nothing more.
"Where did you come from Harry?" she asked, blinking at him in confusion.
"Blaise called me down to help you. Nice Patronus by the way, I've not seen that before. Was it a cheetah?"
Blaise shook his head, "nearly, it's actually a puma. I've never been brilliant at casting them, I normally use flying memos for messages, but it seems that when things are urgent I can cast a fully corporeal version now."
Hermione nodded. Of course, Blaise had called Harry because she had completely freaked out and- "Stop it now," Harry chided, "None of that overthinking. No one thinks badly of you, it was just a panic attack that's all, 'Mione. Now if you're okay, I'm on the trail of some petty criminal that's boring Draco to tears. He's threatened to torch the whole D.M.L.E. to liven things up if I take too long down here."
Blaise laughed. "We're fine. Go and sort Malfoy out. It wouldn't be the first time that boredom's got the better of him!"
Harry chuckled as he left and Hermione turned back to Blaise, "I am, really, really sorry!"
"It's no problem, honestly, It's on your medical notes that you have PTSD. To be honest, I'm not the least bit surprised after what you've been through. I just need to learn how to better help you with it that's all."
Gratefully, Hermione nodded and settled herself more comfortably on the steps as she slowly regained her composure and the last vestiges of her dysregulation faded. She took the cup of water Blaise had conjured for her and sipped it, feeling the ice-cold liquid ground her further still.
"Alright?" he asked with an easy smile, and she nodded.
"Yes thank you. I'm not going to go any closer to the veil just yet though. And I'd be grateful if you would stay away from it too. But, I'm all right to carry on now. Please will you talk me through the whole thing?"
Blaise nodded and settled down to sit beside her, stretching his long legs out in front of him. "Everyone thinks, as you do, that this veil is the gateway to death. You walk up to it alive, you pass through it, and you die. But, the facts and the evidence to support that just don't stand up. Firstly, where does your body go? Everyone who dies in a regular way leaves their body behind, but here, your body passes through the veil and then disappears. Secondly, some people, not myself unfortunately, can hear whispers through the veil. They're not spirit voices, because if they were then they would register on one of our spectrometers. It's not ghosts either, all ghosts, spirits, poltergeists, etc. have a precise frequency. This is a normal, living, human being frequency."
"I believe you don't die if you fall through this veil. I believe that it takes you somewhere else, to a different realm maybe, or a different plane of existence. I believe the veil is a vortex. And I believe that if you've gone through it one way, you should be able to come back again."
For a long time Hermione just stared blankly at Blaise with her brain spinning wildly. Thoughts and ideas that she had previously believed to be impossible were suddenly springing into existence. "You're serious about this aren't you?"
"Of course. And there's one more thing, but for this, I need to approach the arch. I can assure you I've done this many times and nothing bad has happened to me yet. Are you okay with me doing that?"
She nodded nervously, watching with a strange kind of detachment as he descended the stone steps to approach the dais. She wasn't sure what she was expecting to happen, but nothing was out of the ordinary right now, even as Blaise screwed up two pieces of parchment and threw one through the arch from the front and the other through from the opposite direction.
The first piece of parchment disappeared and the curtain fluttered menacingly behind it. The other piece merely bounced off of the fluttering curtain and landed on the floor. Blaise picked it up and handed it to her as he sat back down. "Now that was parchment, and obviously parchment cannot die. If this isn't a wormhole or a vortex why does throwing something through the arch one way cause it to disappear? Where does it go? We've established that it cannot die, so why doesn't it just pass through the curtain and appear on the ground on the other side? Or just rebound off of the curtain as this piece did?"
He nodded kindly, "Hermione, I know this is a lot to take in, but I've been researching the veil for the best part of two years and what I've found out so far has all stood up to scientific and magical scrutiny. I've more or less proved my theory. This veil is, in my opinion, a portal to another realm. And, if we can reverse the wormhole effect then someone who fell through it relatively recently, should be able to come back."
"Do you mean Sirius Black?"
He nodded slowly. "That's exactly who I mean. Tell me Hermione, how close were you to Black?"
"Well," tears sprang to her eyes as she considered the possibility that Sirius could possibly be brought back to life. "Fairly close. I mean he was Harry's Godfather, we helped him escape from Hogwarts in our third year, we lived with him for a bit, he left his house in London to Harry after he died and that's where we both live now, so yes, we were pretty close."
"And have you ever felt anything strange, like a presence in that house? Or in other places that were important to him? Gryffindor Tower maybe, or around that flying motorbike he had, or anywhere else?"
Hermione stared blankly at Blaise, shocked to the very core. "Well, yes!" she said, "as a matter of fact I do. But Grimmauld Place is sure to have its fair share of ghosts considering its history. Harry feels it at Grimmauld too, not as strongly as I do, but he feels a presence. And that's the reason Remus won't come near the house either, he finds it too upsetting."
"Remus Lupin?" Blaise's smile was slow and satisfied as Hermione nodded. "So the rumors about those two were true then? They were more than just friends?"
"Of course they were." Hermione rolled her eyes, still not understanding why the two men had been so stubbornly opposed to admitting their feelings for each other. "Remus may have been married to Tonks and had a child with her, but he never stopped loving Sirius. And Sirius always loved him in return, although neither of them would admit to it if asked."
Blaise looked confused for a moment, "so why weren't they just together? Oh look never mind, that's not important right now. "This is what I want us to do. I want to investigate the presence in the house, with your help. I want to find the place where it's strongest. I want to run tests and find the right spells. And then if we can get the conditions right, I want you to help me to pull Sirius back through the veil."
Hermione just gaped at him for a full minute. "This is why you held out for me isn't it?" Blaise nodded, "because I was close to him." She didn't know how to feel right now, her head was spinning and her emotions were all over the place.
"Yes," Blaise said simply. "That is exactly why I wanted you for this. That coupled with your curiosity and your intelligence. And just to be upfront about everything, full disclosure here, Draco now knows about my research as well. He and I are going to tell Harry about it tonight. Some of the places I want to go to may be risky and we'll need Auror support. Also, if I'm right about this, we'll need a ritual to bring Sirius back through. It will be dangerous and it may cross the line into dark magic. It will certainly involve blood magic and a level of sacrifice on Draco's part. He understands this and he's happy to participate. I understand your feelings about dark magic which is why I want you to take the rest of today off to think this through. At the moment you can still walk away. I can obliviate certain details of this from your memory and you can work on something else, I have a couple of side projects you can take over. But if you choose to stay and participate fully in this project you are signing up to the official D.O.M. vow of secrecy, and you can't leave the project until it's either resolved, or you agree to all aspects of it being obliviated from your mind. This is where things get serious down here. If you sign up to this you're as committed as I am."
She nodded slowly, picking at the nail she had been examining while Blaise had been talking. "What do you mean about a sacrifice on Draco's part?"
"Draco is the only person we can ask who has direct Black family blood in his veins. We think we'll need that link to bring Sirius back through."
"And Draco's okay with that? I thought he was trying to get away from all that sort of thing?" she sighed as her only long nail pinged off, so much for trying to be glamorous. She gave up fussing with her fingers and fidgeted with her hair instead. Both Draco and dark magic were rather uncertain subjects for her at the moment, and the thought of putting them together wasn't exactly reassuring.
Blaise smirked, missing her apprehension completely. "You'll never get Draco to fully renounce the dark arts I'm afraid. He has more than a passing interest in them. If you commit to this then you can discuss it with him, but yeah, he knows what it means and he's happy to contribute. So, I need you to think things through now. I'll need your answer by hometime today though. Are you on board with me here Hermione?"
The answer came before she had a chance to catch up with her thoughts. As overwhelming and unexpected as this morning had been, her answer was easy to give. "I don't need to think about it," she said, almost laughing as she shook her head. "The answer is simply yes! There's no question here. I want in!"
Hermione left the Department of Mysteries with Blaise at lunchtime and smiled when she saw Draco leaning against the wall by the department's outer doors. He was fiddling with and looking completely baffled by his new mobile phone while he waited for her. "Hey," he pocketed the phone and smiled as she paused beside him. "You alright?"
Slowly she nodded. "I think so, there's been rather a lot to take in this morning."
"I can imagine. Can she speak to me freely about it all, Zabini?"
"Totally. You're as much in and signed up for this project as we are." Blaise confirmed as he pulled his coat on.
"You agreed to work on it then?" Draco asked, and Hermione nodded. "How do you feel about it all?"
Hermione sighed, resigned to the fact that they both seemed to be following her out of the Ministry and therefore she wasn't going to get a moment to herself all day. Blaise pressed the button to call the lift and stood back, watching her closely.
"I feel very conflicted," she answered honestly. "It's brought back all of the horrible memories I have of the night of Sirius's death, or maybe it's not his death now, let's call it his disappearance. I'm excited to research it all and to see if we can bring him back. But I'm also really, really conscious of Harry's involvement in all of this. You need to tell him tonight, you two. I'm worried about how he'll react. He'll be upset when you tell him, you know? He's notoriously unpredictable when it comes to Sirius or his parents. I'm worried that he'll hate me for knowing about this before he does…." She finally paused to take a breath and saw Draco and Blaise exchange amused looks.
"Does she always worry this much?" Blaise asked.
"I wouldn't know for sure," Draco grinned, "but I'd guess she does. I promise we'll tell Harry tonight and I'm sure we can cope with him if he's upset. And believe me, I'll make sure that none of it reflects badly on you. Blaise here can take the full blame for everything."
"Alright," she conceded as Blaise raised an amused eyebrow at Draco and Draco grinned. She chewed on her newly bitten nails again and nodded, semi reassured at least.
"Now what?" Draco moved a step closer to her in the lift. It felt like a protective gesture and she shivered, instinctively appreciating it, "you're still looking concerned."
"Well," she said slowly, wondering why the lift was taking so long to arrive, "it's the dark magic that's apparently going to be involved that's bothering me. Do you really not mind about that, Draco? Or," she opened her eyes wide in horror, "did you not truly give all of that up? If I'm involved with this project then I need to know where we're all coming from. I guess I didn't feel like I needed to ask before, but I need a straight and honest answer now."
"I think I'll leave you to talk your way out of this one on your own, mate," Blaise smirked as the lift finally arrived in the atrium and he strolled out, glancing back in amusement at Draco's rather flustered look. "Best of luck."
"Arse," Draco muttered. "Come on then, lunch? My treat?" She nodded distractedly as images of Draco and his distinctly dark past spun unchecked through her mind. They stepped out through the main doors of the Ministry into the spring sunshine and walked companionably, if rather quietly under the blossoming cherry trees and into the nearest bakery to buy something to eat.
When they reached the park they strolled along until they found a bench and sat down. Draco set a badge on her lap and she picked it up curiously. It was similar to her D.O.M. identity card. "I've been linked to the Department of Mysteries for a year now," he said, opening the paper bag and biting into his sandwich as he watched her read the badge. "If there's something they're investigating that's either intrinsically dark or involves the dark arts, they call me down. Potter's got one of these too. To my knowledge, we are the only Auror duo that has them. We've been linked to several D.O.M. investigations that have a dark edge, but we obviously can't speak about them too much, which is why you don't know about them."
He shrugged in his signature nonchalant way, as he looked over towards the park at the young mothers pushing prams and the children playing on the swings. "I'm not going to lie to you. I'm still interested in the dark arts and I always have been. This badge gives me license to explore that interest legally, safely, and hopefully in a way that's helpful to the world around me."
Hermione sighed and passed the badge back to him, finally pulling her sandwich out of her bag and starting to eat. She nodded as she chewed, trying to stay grounded and not feel too overwhelmed again. There had been an awful lot to take in already today and now Draco had just handed her this on top of everything else. It wasn't particularly surprising information on his part, but she was utterly gobsmacked to find out that Harry was involved in it too.
She was still too surprised to object when Draco told her that Blaise had authorized him to give her the afternoon off to think everything through, and she was even less inclined to argue when he simply scooped the rest of their lunches together and apparated them both back to Grimmauld Place.