The walk to the entry hall of the Malfoy estate felt lighter. They didn't speak, but they didn't have to. Words felt paltry compared to what had occurred between them at Narcissa's bedside, a gentle touch in the dark.
When they finally arrived at the designated Apparition point inside the wards, Hermione shoved a hand into her rucksack and rummaged around. Fumbling, she took out a scrap of parchment and hastily wrote instructions upon it before handing it to Draco.
He accepted it with a quirked eyebrow and an obvious expression of distaste, as if a toddler had handed him something grubby and mysteriously sticky and wet.
"Those are care instructions for your runic wounds," she informed him haughtily. His face really didn't need to be so … Malfoyish. "You'll need to keep them clean and sanitized to prevent infection, and keep up with your usual regime of potions to speed up your recovery. I think we should be able to meet again in about 2 weeks for a final Healing to wake Narcissa. I'll have to stay overnight, probably at least for a few days, to monitor her. I don't know if you're at the manor all the time?" she probed.
"I'm not," he cut her off. "I'll have Mippet prepare a room for you, not my fucking room this time but a room."
Hermione gave a snort of amusement before growing serious again. Draco shot her an annoyed look at her impertinence, before continuing.
"I'm rarely here but I'll tell Mippet to get you anything you need. She can guide you through the estate," he concluded.
Hermione nodded.
"You'll have to be careful this next two weeks, with your injuries and trying to conserve your magic reserves and," she hesitated, then continued on. "And being … punished. By Voldemort."
She stared at him and let the strain in her expression show. On some level, Hermione cared for him and he knew it. Seeing him suffering and in pain brought her no pleasure.
Not anymore.
Draco looked at her carefully and nodded without argument. He wanted Narcissa healed and awake as badly as Hermione wanted their ongoing, routine meetings to never cease. There was some irony in that fact, she thought grimly.
He handed her that week's update of Death Eater intelligence in a sealed scroll, and she accepted it with a word of thanks. With one final look at his lonesome form in the foyer, Hermione disappeared with a pop.
The second she appeared on the steps of 12 Grimmauld Place, Hermione began plotting. Hardly aware of the steps taken to get there, she made her way down to the Potions laboratory that she shared only with Snape and set down her rucksack on a work bench.
Pulling out a sheaf of parchment and a quill, she made a list. A plan. Hermione was good at planning.
Her innocuous lie and carefully casual probing of Draco had revealed the facts she needed. He was absent from the estate quite often, and seemed only to return for a few exhausted hours of sleep, a change of clothes and to check on Narcissa.
The estate was stunningly vast. The only living creatures in it were Narcissa and a small army of house elves.
For all intents and purposes, she would be left totally unsupervised and to her own devices.
She had scheduled the next Blood Ritual to give her ample time to prepare for her infiltration of the Malfoy estate. Curse breaking, wards, protection enchantments, and an assortment of various magical protections would all need to be studied by her. She didn't know exactly where the Secrets of the Darkest Art tome would be hidden, so she would have to be prepared for anything.
Hermione stared down at her list with grim satisfaction.
It was logical and methodical. There were no messy feelings there. No indescribable, ill advised tenderness.
It was a plan, and she would follow through with it.
"So, what did you say you needed from me?"
Bill Weasley looked at her appraisingly, seated across the table. Fenrir Greyback's magnum opus stared back at her in every inch of scarred flesh on Bill's skin. He had been contaminated by lycanthropy and remained a man still, but there lay something distinctly wolfish in his gaze.
They sat in the small dining area of Shell Cottage. Golden dishes, turquoise plates, tiny charming pastel vases containing bunches of dried wildflowers and grasses decorated almost every surface within the home.
Fleur was the epitome of feminine grace, from the way she glided and floated along to the delicate tinkling laugh, and the ease with which she maintained their home. She bustled around the kitchen, a taller and slimmer Molly Weasley but channeling the same warmth and care as her mother-in-law.
She ducked in to set down a plate of scones with a charming smile at Hermione, before kissing her husband on his scarred cheek and sweeping away gracefully.
They were alone.
Hermione fingered the handle of the diminuitive porcelain teacup before her, gathering her thoughts carefully before speaking.
Moody had stressed the importance of maintaining operation security during her mission: anything related to the High Reeve, and horcruxes.
"A trade, of sorts. I need to be taught the basics of curse breaking for a mission in two weeks. I know you're very busy so if you could do me this favour, then I would owe you one back."
She eyed him meaningfully and he stared at her with a hard expression.
There were rumours and whisperings through the Insurgency about Shell Cottage. What they did there remained top secret to most, but they often brought in excellent intelligence from the continental Europe.
Hermione knew that nothing in this life was free. Sitting before Bill and offering her services, to be indebted, lingered on her conscience. Whatever she was pledging to him was as morally grey as the toiling seas that surrounded the cottage.
Bill considered her words, then nodded. He held his hand out for her to shake, and Hermione grasped it without hesitation.
"I can teach you over a few days. Curse breaking isn't easy, but it should come somewhat intuitively to you once you get the hang of it. It combines a few different disciplines like arithmancy, Ron told me you were good at that, and charms."
Hermione nodded in relief at the ease with which Bill was offering her information.
Then, he leaned in slightly.
"In return, I'll need you to conduct a few healing favours. Maybe not right now, but soon. No questions asked, no mention to anyone. You might need to swear a Vow of Secrecy," he told her. His voice was granite hard.
Whatever was going on at Shell Cottage, whatever they were doing to procure intelligence - it wasn't something the Insurgency wanted the rest to know.
She stared back into the wolf's eyes. A shiver went down her spine.
"Of course," she breathed. "Fair is fair."
Bill leaned back, apparently satisfied, and reached for a scone on a plate in front of them. Hermione reached for one too, hand steady.
After a few days of practice, Hermione concluded that the curse breaking lessons were sort of fun, all things considered. Bill had been right when he said that she would have a knack for it. The discipline was a combination of magical mathematics, general knowledge of curses and spells and charms, and a touch of logical reasoning. Certain curses and spells would interact with each other in pairs, trios, or quads to cancel out or boost each others cumulative effect. If Hermione could detect one of the multiple spells, it gave her a hint as to what other spells were wrapped protectively around an object.
Layer by layer, piece of piece, she would be able to unward, dispel, and work her way in. The spells fit together like a dovetail joint of multi-layered puzzles.
It was straightforward enough if you weren't an idiot.
Hermione missed the pursuit of knowledge, for knowledge's sake. The war had taken a great deal of things from her and demanded much in exchange. She had been plied with knowledge and fully consented to the process in order to survive, but she really did miss learning without the pressure of knowing that her survival hinged upon it.
"It's a fair bit harder in reality," Bill warned her. He watched as she worked away at deconstructing the wards he had placed around a simple wooden box, roughly the size of a jewellery box. There were 3 levels of enchantments, with several spells locked together on each level. Hermione had gotten through the first level successfully, but was stuck on the second level.
"You can expect most wizards to guard their treasures quite nastily. Picking apart a simple wooden box at your leisure is different from breaking into a Gringotts' vault that'll collapse the entire roof onto your head or curse your limbs off if you guess wrong."
Hermione could feel herself growing warm and her hands start to sweat. She looked up at Bill.
He waggled his scarred fingers at her, showing them off. "Mind you, I was a professional at this too. You should see some of the Curse-Breakers that retired; Rogers had 3 fingers left on him by the time he was done."
Bill gave a barking laugh at Hermione's shocked expression. "He managed to keep the important ones at least, the rude ones and the pointing ones."
She shut her mouth with an audible snap and frowned, then looked down at the box she was working on. She rather liked having all her fingers. They were somewhat useful, you know?
A few pokes, nudges, and prods of her wand later and she had successfully dissolved the second layer of wards.
"Good," Bill said authoritatively. He was an excellent teacher, giving her enough information to feel her way through the puzzles, but not so much that she wasn't learning enough on her own.
A while later and the box, with all its intricate mysteries, lay open in front of her.
Bill had tucked a scone inside. Hermione gave a derisive snort at the treasure she had unearthed. He gave her a ghost of a smile and Hermione suddenly saw a hint of the cool elderly Weasley from her youth, before he grew serious again.
"Be careful with Curse-Breaking. This is about as much as I can teach you in such a condensed amount of time. There's a lot more subtleties but I guess you don't have time for that," he hedged.
"No," she replied back evenly. "It's quite a time sensitive mission."
He nodded, then raised his hand to shake hers again and wished her luck.
"I'll come find you when I need to call in my favour," he told her.
"A deal's a deal," Hermione grimaced.
Hermione spent the rest of the week and into the next fiddling around in her Potions lab at Grimmauld Place, leaving the dungeon only to attend to her healing duties and drop in on strategy meetings at Ron's request.
The pressure seemed to be mounting on him too. Hermione sat back and quietly observed him during meetings. While he still led authoritatively and guided the Insurgency through reasoned strategic assaults, there was a tenseness in his shoulders that spoke of stress and burden.
His bright cerulean eyes shown with an unwavering fire within, but cracks were beginning to show. He snapped at people around them. He got into a blow-out fight with Lavender that left her crying in the girls' dormitory, screaming that she wished she'd never met him and for him to never fucking touch her ever again. He pushed their fighters harder and harder but their rate of return wasn't linear; they had reached another plateau.
Even with Draco's intelligence, they weren't able to pull off decisive wins anymore. Ron took her aside ("You're one of the best brains here," he said gruffly) and told her of their predicament: Sussex's R&D loomed large and had become the beast they feared, far too soon.
Voldemort was the Hydra of Greek myth. Cut off one head, and another would emerge to take its place, more terrible than ever before.
"The curses they've been steadily churning out of there are sickening," he told her quietly. His face was ashen at his mis-step: so pre-occupied he had been with eliminating the pawns, he had momentarily forgotten about the Queen that lurked.
Ron pressed both hands tiredly over his face and massaged his temples lightly.
"I thought if we captured the smaller bases first, got some more supplies, we would be able to churn along and take out Sussex eventually. I didn't think," he swallowed heavily and hesitated, but forged on.
"I didn't think … Voldemort would re-direct his resources to Sussex. This complicates everything. We don't have the manpower to take it head-on right now, but it's become a priority we can't ignore."
Ron looked at her. The weight of the war pressed down on his slumped shoulders. Hermione's heart squeezed uncomfortably; she was brought back to first year, below the trap door in the room on the third floor. Ron played brilliantly then, and sacrificed himself for them all.
He seemed to be doing it again this time, in slow motion. He was allowing the war to consume him.
"There are no right choices in war, Ron," she told him firmly. Hermione grasped his arm and forced him to meet her eye; he had grown too tall for her to her to reach his shoulder easily. "If you didn't capture the bases to re-supply us, we would've ran out of healing supplies already. We would have more casualties than what we've lost from the Sussex division."
Ron swallowed heavily and nodded. Something in his expression told Hermione he didn't quite believe this, and she continued on.
"We'll deal with Sussex, but you made the right call with the information you had at the time. You worked with what you had. Nobody can fault you for your choices."
He looked at her stonily and nodded again. "I'll keep you updated on the Sussex assault plans. I'm hoping to withdraw some agents from Europe and get them back to base in the next week. If we can rally everyone together, we might have a shot at Sussex."
Ron paused, and then gave a bitter laugh. "It's a chance in hell. If we don't win, at least we'll all die together."
Hermione stared at his back mournfully, as he wrenched his arm out of her grasp and walked out of the room without a single look back.
The war had worn them all into different people. It sharpened their edges, hardened their essence, until so little remained. They were among the living but drifted through their days like vengeful ghosts.
Slowly, with discomfort and trepidation in her chest, she returned to her Potions lair. Every step on the stone echoed in the dank, silent corridor.
She was prepared as she was ever going to be, Hermione thought grimly. The rucksack lay on the work bench before her, packed to the brim with potions supplies. A verifiable stack of parchment lay next to it on the surface of the table, grouped according to topic: Narcissa's care and patient sheets, Draco's own care and patient sheets, a playbook for the house elves to follow in any number of situations that could spring up.
Beside the pile lay her beaded bag with the undetectable Extension Charm. Her notes on Curse-Breaking, her written discussion notes of horcruxes and the Malfoy estate, theories surrounding the foreboding hallway and corrupted ley lines were all tucked safely within the bag.
She had added additional wards and booby traps to secure the little purse, courtesy of her lessons with Bill.
Anyone caught snooping would find themselves struggling to hail down a taxi in the future, Hermione thought with grim satisfaction. If they survived the initial blast, that is.
When everything was tucked away securely in her rucksack (so overflowing she thought a seam might split, so she hastily reinforced the bag with an inverted Shield Charm around it), she stared down at it.
An impulsive idea came to her quite suddenly. Hermione thought about it for a few moments, then smiled to herself as the decision was made. She climbed up the stairs to the main floor rapidly, and then made her way towards the kitchen and pantry.
Once her pilfered good was stashed safely into her rucksack, Hermione made her way carefully out of Grimmauld Place. She disappeared with a pop and Apparated to the cliffside cottage at exactly midnight.
Draco was waiting for her.
There was a coiled tension within him. Everything from his stiff posture to his quick strides, to his masked expression that betrayed nothing. Cloaked in the moon light, he could've been a marble statue carved into the cliff itself. A remnant from Roman times, carved from the earth and chained to it forevermore.
He was the image of stoicism, but Hermione had come to know Draco intimately. She saw the telltale sign in his molten, quicksilver eyes: it was a tiny flutter of hope. So fragile and alien to him that he wouldn't know what to do with it.
She met his cold eyes and saw his expression soften momentarily, before he deigned to follow her into the cliffside cottage. Healing him had become as much a part of the Blood Ritual as the actual harvest and ritual itself.
But it was a quiet, domestic affair that she looked forward to. The quiet moments between them were the only times she could pretend that they weren't who they were.
He undressed silently and settled himself down as she prepared her supplies. Turning to face him again, she reached out and began healing. The merrily crackling fireplace behind them bathed the room and the two of them in a golden glow.
Just two average people, going about their quiet lives. Isolated and tucked away from the world at large, she could pretend.
There was less damage and trauma this time around. Bruised but not broken ribs, a few contusions, leftover tremors and nerve pain. Hermione steadied her palm against his side as she held her wand in her other hand, pushing a glowing blue light into his skin. Everywhere the light touched, cells began regenerating and renewing.
Hermione could tell he was watching her intently.
"It's rude to stare, Malfoy. Did no one ever teach you manners?" she drawled out, in her most ferret-y impression. Draco froze, and then let out an audible snort before looking away. "You really are insufferable, Granger," he said irritably.
But his lip had twitched in amusement and she had seen it. Hermione ducked her head to hide her own traitorous smile, that broke across her face without her consent.
It was unnerving to be smiling and laughing with Draco Malfoy of all people and yet, here they were. Just two people.
Pulling back, she observed her handiwork on his body. The bruising was gone and the ribs carefully tended to. The residual nerve damage could be dealt with at a later time. They had other business to attend to.
"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, rising up off the sofa to kneel down and dig through her rucksack on the hardwood floor. Draco shot her a startled look at the sudden noise.
"Have you gone as utterly mad as my dear aunt?" he sneered, staring at her.
Hermione ignored him and shoved her arm further into the rucksack. Potion flasks and vials clinked daintily for a few seconds before she found what she was looking for. She pulled the bottle out with a flourish and clutched it proudly, showing Draco.
"What in the world is that?" he asked. Pure bewilderment.
"It's erm-," Hermione squinted and wiped off a thick layer of dust. ""Fermented Fiendfyre" liquor … oh dear, it's 80% ABV. I dug through Kreacher's den, he likes to collect and hoard little bits and bobs. I think this might've been Sirius or Regulus's, from their school days. I can't imagine old Walburga day drinking this swill." She gave the mysterious bottle an appraising look, before a mischievous grin broke out across her face.
"I thought we should celebrate tonight. Toast in honour of Narcissa's progress," Hermione beamed up at Draco. He sat unmoved.
There was a look of horror and disgust on his face.
"Granger, are your trying to poison me?" he asked her incredulously.
She snorted in amusement, ignoring his feeble protests to Conjure two shot glasses. With a flick of her wand, the liquor bottle was uncorked and levitated into the air, and she poured out two shots.
She handed one to Draco, who accepted it begrudgingly with a look of utmost revulsion. He looked like a man who had just been told he would be sentenced to death by hanging.
Holding her own out to clink at his shot glass, she grinned at him ("Cheers!") and then tipped her head back.
It tasted like what she imagined an Inferius might taste like. Death, disgusting bitter death, some sort of fermented death, coated her tongue. She gasped and coughed and spluttered as tears prickled at her eyes.
Draco had knocked his back with equal, albeit less dramatic, distaste. They stared at one another with their eyes watering and mouths twisted in disgust, before they started laughing.
Bent over and wiping tears of pain and laughter from her eyes, Hermione clutched at Draco. They coughed and gasped a few moments more before finally quieting down. A comfortable silence fell upon them as each was lost in their own thoughts, the warm buzz of alcohol pulsing pleasantly through their veins.
"Is this what it feels like to be a normal teenager?" she mused to Draco a while later. The alcohol had loosened her tongue and her nerves.
"I wouldn't know," he replied quietly. There was a solemn, faraway look in his eyes as he held the shot glass in his hand.
Hermione tucked herself into Draco's side and rested her head against his shoulder. She felt him tense slightly before his arm came up slowly to wrap around her.
A heartbeat thumped in her ear. She wasn't sure if it was his, or her own.
"You know … I was jealous of you, for the longest time."
His voice sounded distant. Hermione turned her head up to look at him, but Draco didn't meet her gaze. He was facing the fire and staring introspectively into it, as if he could divine the future from the flames.
"Jealous … of me?" she asked with surprise. Draco had been a terrible brat to her, all his life. He had paraded his name and wealth and blood status, rubbing it in her face. What did she have, what could she have, that he didn't?
"You don't understand what it's like growing up as a Malfoy and a Black," he said quietly. There was clear regret and mourning in his face.
He was not present. His body was, but his mind was lost to some distant time in the past, locked in a memory from his childhood.
"I was born into a cage of obligation and expectation. I wasn't Draco, I was a Malfoy. I was never a child; I was never allowed to be one. The name carries meaning. My father had my entire life planned out for me, from the moment of my birth. Hogwarts, a Prefect and Quidditch Captain, then Head Boy. I was to take on a Ministry job after, gather influence and use my family connections to vault into the role of Minister of Magic. Take over the title and estate, marry a suitable Pureblood and sire an heir. Draco Lucius Malfoy. It's not a name or heritage; it's a curse."
Draco's mouth twisted into a ghost of a smile. There was no humour there, only bitterness and resentment.
"The second I laid eyes on you, I resented you. So much. You strode into the Magical world. You didn't belong at all, some Mudblood filth that just walked in. You could've been the muck on the bottom of my shoes, I didn't give a damn. But you fit in so perfectly. You were everything I detested. You represented everything I wasn't and I … I envied you."
Draco breathed the last bit out as if it were holy, as if offering a prayer. There was a certain awe in his voice.
He turned his head to stare down into her face. The cold masked expression had melted and something softer took its place.
Hermione's heart skipped a beat.
"You had the life I could never have, that I never dared to even dream of. You could do anything you wanted without repercussions. You had no family or estate or name holding you back, dragging you down. I saw my entire life laid out before me, shackling me. But you could do anything you wanted. You did everything you wanted."
The hand that wasn't resting on Hermione's shoulder was brought around to cup her jaw, and tilt it up towards his face.
His eyes were intense, glittering with pure molten emotion. Hermione didn't dare to breathe.
"I despised you. I wanted so badly to be you; to be anonymous and free. I convinced myself I hated you," he breathed.
It felt like a church confessional. Absolve me of my sins, he seemed to beg her.
"Do you?" she asked. Her heart was beating rapidly, a bright flutter in her chest, a pounding in her ears.
His face was flushed and eyes bright. He looked fevered, a man possessed.
"No," he said quietly. "Never."
He bridged the distance between them and pressed a searing kiss to her lips.