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Have her eyes always been green?

This was his first thought as he observed the Pureblood Princess of the Wizarding World. He could've sworn they used to be brown. Deep, like melted chocolate with a caramel twist.

She stood in the doorway, radiating power from her head to her toes. He could feel it wash over him in waves. It rattled him, almost sending him spinning off a cliff into the fog below.

He forced himself back, but he couldn't help his reaction.

She was dazzling

It wasn't just beauty, though she was beautiful, such a change from the awkward girl he remembered from their Hogwarts days. Her soft honey-brown curls framed her heart shaped face with ease, falling effortlessly. She was very petite, almost delicate. It would be his error to assume that her image matched her strength. He knew that assumption to be false based on the muscles he could see clearly defined all over her body. Years of fighting a war had done her well.

And the eyes, oh merlin, the eyes. It wasn't just the startling emerald green that sent his heartbeat into a tailspin. They seemed to see right into what was left of his soul.

But the thing that really threw him was the power. Anyone could've seen it. She was glowing, her skin shimmering with uncontainable force, a reflection of the mysteries lying beneath her surface. Pure magic, in its very essence, seemed to be escaping her in droves, as if it was unable to be contained within her human form.

Ethereal.

He didn't know how long they existed together in that initial silence. Finally, she narrowed her eyes, her pink lips pursed in frustration.

"Are you done gaping?"

The words from her mouth sent his jaw back up. He had not realized it had fallen open.

She smirked, an expression that seemed to fit her new demeanour, no matter how unfamiliar it seemed to him on the face of Hermione Granger. "Never thought the day would come when I could make Draco Malfoy gawk."

"I did not gawk," he scoffed, indignantly, finally forcing words into the stretched space between them. "I was merely surprised to see you."

She rolled her eyes, another motion unfamiliar to Draco when it came to Granger, but somehow it just fit. She walked fully into the room and closed the door behind her. "No need to be so formal on my behalf, Malfoy."

There it was. Pureblood or not, legendary witch or not, Hermione Granger was still bloody annoying.

"It's been a long time, bookworm."

She leaned against the door with her arms crossed. "Three years," she mused. "You've changed."

"You as well," he retorted. "What's with the eyes?"

For the first time, she looked down, shielding her kaleidoscopic irises from his gaze. "Recent circumstances have changed things," she muttered. "Surprised you noticed."

"You never forget the eyes of someone who punched you in the face."

She chuckled, the sound escaping her lips like wind chimes. "I'd forgotten about that."

"Really?" Draco asked, raising an eyebrow and feigning offence. "And here I thought I was special."

"Have you always been such a self-absorbed prat?" she snapped with a sudden burst of irritation.

"I'm like a fine wine, bookworm," he drawled, lowering his gaze. "I get better with age."

Ignoring the implication, Hermione took a few steps forward and conjured a chair, her left hand acting as her wand. She sat it in, crossed her legs, and leaned back to survey him, pursing her lips in concentration.

At the bout of magic she performed, Draco couldn't help the noise of disbelief that sounded from his throat. That level of wandless magic, at their age? They had barely even covered non-speaking spells at Hogwarts in year six.

"Merlin, bookworm, you've been busy."

"Three years, Malfoy," she answered, narrowing her eyes. "Lots has changed since the last time I saw you." Her gaze drifted shamelessly down to the cut-up mark on his arm.

"I couldn't agree more," he said, letting his line of sight fall to her wrist. She was cradling it in a way that gave him a perfect view of the dark willow tree burned into her skin.

She saw what he was looking at and immediately twisted it out of his sight.

"Touchy," he murmured, smirking.

"Three years," she repeated curtly, absent-mindedly running her fingers gently over the mark. "But I am nothing of interest in comparison to your presence in this building."

"There it is," Draco muttered, staring once again at his battered arm. The X on his dark mark seemed to burn every time he laid eyes on it.

"Did you honestly think I was here to catch up?" Hermione responded, crossing her arms, fully blocking the willow tree from his view. "Sorry, Malfoy, not my interest."

He chuckled, unable to help the bitter undertone. "So I take it you don't believe the werewolf's account of my story. Sorry, Granger, it's not my interest to get questioned about my evil scheme and infiltration plan."

A caged expression crossed her face; contemplative at its core. After a moment, she shook her head. "I didn't say I didn't believe Remus."

Draco could only blink in response, unsure he fully understood the meaning. "So you do?"

She nodded slowly, as if coming to terms with her assessment in real time. "I don't believe anyone would let themselves be mutilated by their father for a mission."

An uncomfortable feeling he couldn't define trickled down his neck at her comment.

"I think you were indeed branded as a traitor and left for dead in a burning building."

"Might I ask," Draco interrupted, frowning. "If you are so confident in the validity of my story, why the bloody hell are you in here talking to me? You said it yourself, you aren't interested in chatting."

She leaned forward, her gaze shifting from distant to intense. "I just want to hear it from you. I want Draco Malfoy to tell me why he was branded and dropped into almost certain death."

"I'm sure you heard the glorious story from your werewolf."

"Oh, I heard the story," she answered. "I just don't understand the motivation."

"Pardon?"

"Why, Malfoy?" she asked openly, her green eyes looking up to search his silver ones. "Why would you care if you killed a muggle girl?"

"She was innocent," he answered, the truth leaving his mouth before he had time to consider the consequences.

"Why do you care about that?" she barked, her voice interrogating him with each frustrated inflection. "Lots of people killed in this war were innocent."

"What is your deal, bookworm?" he answered, squirming slightly under her burning eyes. "Why do you care so much?"

"Because I want to understand, Malfoy," she said, pulling back slightly, her voice breaking. "I want to comprehend the situation that led you here."

"I already told you, I didn't kill the muggle girl."

"See, that's the part I don't buy," she stated, eyes narrowed again, intensity returning without reprieve. "You've been a Death Eater for three years. Surely, you've had to kill hundreds of people."

"Five," he muttered, feeling himself crumble slightly under her inquisition.

Her voice died in mid-air. "Pardon?"

He forced his gaze to meet her catechistic eyes. "I've had to kill five people."

Her lips parted, revealing a small gap between them that Draco couldn't help but fixate on for a moment.

"Five…only five?"

"Only," he scoffed, shifting uncomfortably under his bindings. "What's your view of murder, bookworm, that you think five lives warrants a qualifier such as that?"

"I just assumed…" she started before he cut across her.

"Don't assume." It came out as a snarl. "You don't know shit about my past three years."

An uneasy silence fell across the room.

She looked at the floor, trying to avoid his eyes and decide what she was going to say next. He watched her think and noticed the little crease that had formed in between her eyebrows.

"I only kill when I have to," Draco continued, watching her mind strain to understand his paradigm. "When I have no choice."

"What do you define as choiceless, Malfoy?" she asked, her voice still low. "When do you kill?"

"To protect and to defend," he answered without hesitation.

"To protect?" she asked. "To protect what? Yourself? Isn't that the same as defending?"

He shook his head. "No. To protect them."

She gawked. "How is death protecting them?"

He gave her a long look. "When the alternative is worse."

The silence fell upon them once again.

She sighed, reaching up and brushed her long brown hair out of her face, letting it fall over her shoulder. A nervous tick. A tell he could learn and recognize.

And use.

His eyes were focused on the now-revealed curve of her neck.

"What about you, Gryffindor?" he asked, mouth suddenly dry. He licked his lips. "What've you been up to for the past three years? We've psycho-analyzed me, it seems only fair that I return the favour."

She laughed dryly, and he saw her eyes flit quickly to her wrist. "Haven't you learned by now, Malfoy? Life isn't fair."

"I think I've heard that once or twice."

She crossed her arms. "You don't get to know what's going on in my life."

"Why not? You get to interrogate me."

"Because you're being offered asylum in my headquarters," she responded. "You do not deserve to know a thing about my life, Draco Malfoy. You never have. And never will."

He flinched at her suddenly vicious tone. "I didn't mean to offend, Princess."

She tilted her head, instantly inquisitive. "Princess? I don't think I've heard that one from you before."

He cursed himself at the slip of the tongue. "You've always been the Gryffindor Princess. You, your Gryffindor Prince, and his jester."

"Don't talk about them like that," she snapped.

"Struck a nerve, I see," he smiled dryly. "Nice to see the trio is still inseparable."

"Depends on your definition of inseparable," she muttered so quietly that he almost didn't hear.

Almost.

"Oh?" he asked, interest piqued. "The Golden Trio is having problems?"

She bristled. "My relationship with Harry and Ron is absolutely none of your business."

He raised an eyebrow. "Relationship, or lack thereof?"

She flinched, eyes darting down to the ground.

He smirked. "I see."

"Why do you give a damn about what's going on in my life?" she snapped, her words lacking the telltale bite he remembered from their Hogwarts days.

He shrugged, feigning indifference. "Seems we might be spending a lot of time together, with me living here. I don't want to be on bad terms."

"B-b-bad terms?" she asked, before breaking into a ferocious laugh. "What do they have you drinking over on your side? Malfoy, you bullied me for years, you introduced me to the label that puts a target on my forehead, and that's before we even talk about the war. What are you hoping for? Cordiality? Pleasant neutrality, maybe a cup of coffee? It would require a rewrite of history, our history. As if we were ever more than enemies."

"And yet," he replied, forcing down any retorts and keeping his gaze steady. "You're still here."

Her laugh trickled off into silence. She blinked several times, looking shell shocked, as if she didn't understand.

It was an expression he did not recognize on the face of one Hermione Granger.

"What?"

"You're still here," he said indignantly. "We could never be anything more than enemies, remember? And yet, you came into this room to hear my side of the story. You came here. No one forced you, I assume. You walked in here of your own accord and had a conversation with me. I know a lot about enemies, Hermione Granger, and I don't believe that this is standard behaviour. This whole situation might require a rewrite of the historical definition of the term."

She was still speechless at his response, unable to think of a single thing to say, the gears of her mind frozen at the utter simplistic logic of Malfoy's response.

Seeing her reaction, Draco found himself smiling. "Would you look at that? Never thought the day would come where I could make Hermione Granger speechless."

In spite of her anger, she chuckled at his comment. "Touché, Malfoy."

As she laughed, her stormy eyes seemed to regain some of their former glory. For a moment, there was light within them. Light in the dead eyes of the barely living girl.

He seemed to forget himself while looking at her. She brushed her long hair behind her ear, her nervous tick once more, and leaned forward to rest her chin on her hand.

"How are the injuries?" she asked, frowning and looking with concern at the healing flesh on his arms and neck.

He shrugged, trying to brush off the burning sensation. "Alright. It's hard to complain when I got off so lucky. Had your Order Member not gotten me out of the building when she did, we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we?"

A veil ghosted over her face. "No," she muttered. "We wouldn't."

He tilted his head. "So did I pass your little test then? Ready to skip off to your friends and let them know that I've got the rare Hermione Granger seal of approval?"

"I think the Hermione Granger seal of approval is a stretch there," she answered, jutting her chin out stubbornly.

"Then what did I get?" Draco asked, watching her very carefully.

"Not cursed, so there's that," she replied bluntly.

A smile appeared on his face. And against all odds, she returned it.

Suddenly, Draco heard a commotion from the hallway outside the room. Feet stomping up staircases, a train of indignant swearing, culminating in the door to the bedroom being blown wide open.

Standing in the doorway was someone Draco had not seen in years. Gryffindor, his year, but the name escaped him. The man was breathing deeply, glaring at the two of them sitting there, as if he had walked into a crime scene.

"Hermione, we talked about this," he snarled at her.

She seemed unaffected by his outburst and unsurprised at his arrival. "No, Seamus. You talked about it and I told you that your opinion didn't matter to me."

Seamus Finnigan, Draco remembered. Older, angrier, but still the Irish classmate he had once known for his pyrotechnique tendencies.

Finnigan took several long strides into the room, his fists clenched at his sides. His eyes flashed to the Slytherin.

"You made a big mistake coming here."

Before Draco had time to give a retort, Hermione was standing between the two of them. Draco had not seen her stand nor move, but somehow she was still there, power burning off of her, rich, electric waves rushing through the air. A lightning storm on the precipice of chaos.

"No, Seamus," she said, voice strong and steady. "You aren't going to do a goddamn thing."

He balked at her statement, jaw dropping.. "Twenty minutes with him and your putty in his hands."

"I am not," she responded, voice softer but just as steady. "I'm reasonable. He's under asylum here, and you have no authority to touch him."

"Only one here I haven't had the authority to touch recently," Seamus responded, giving Hermione a once-over. She didn't react, but Draco swore he saw her muscles tense.

Draco understood immediately. The implication of the man's statement was obvious. Hermione's silence confirmed it. The two Gryffindors standing in front of him were involved.

The knowledge made his stomach twist in uncomfortable ways.

"This is neither the time nor place, Seamus," she responded, her voice controlled. Restrained. "I really think you should get out."

The man started shaking his head quickly. "I am not leaving you alone with that snake."

"I've been alone with him for nearly twenty minutes, and nothing has happened."

Unhelpfully, Draco chose this moment to speak. "Also, may I point out," he said, lifting his bound wrists. "I can't really do anything right now."

The look Finnigan sent him was nothing short of murder. Draco heard Hermione groan.

"I'm fine, Seamus."

"Hermione," the Gryffindor said, his angry eyes returning to Hermione and melting on contact. "Just leave."

"No," she responded stoutly.

"Get out of here!"

"You do not have authority over me, Seamus!"

"Someone should!" the Irishman shouted, finally losing it, the vein on his forehead threatening to burst. "Hermione, you're acting like a fucking idiot. You allow yourself to get grabbed by Death Eaters, you run into burning buildings to save Death Eater scum…"

Before he could finish the sentence, Seamus's mouth slammed shut, the force of it rattling the Gryffindor's bones.

Hermione's left hand was lifted above her, palm inches away from Seamus's face, energy radiating forward, with the threat of nuclear explosion present in every atom crossing between the two.

"I think," she started, enunciating every syllable, her lips clipping the consonants like an expert knife wielder. "You should go now, Seamus."

He opened his mouth to refute, but no sound came out. After flapping his mouth indignantly for a moment, he turned on his heel and stormed from the room, the force of the door slamming sending shock waves through the wooden structure of the house.

Hermione stood there breathing heavily for a few moments. The silence fell over the two old classmates, suffocating the space. History and the present lay heavy, almost drowning them.

"You and Finnigan, eh?" Draco asked after a few moments, breaking the continual iciness. His tongue tasted bitter over the words. "I always had my money on you and the Weasel King."

"That's not really your business, now is it, Malfoy," she responded, looking at the door after her departed lover.

"He just made it my business by coming in here and practically putting a property tag on you right in front of me."

She shook her head. "My life is still not your business, no matter what Seamus does."

Draco shifted on the bed slightly. "What was his deal anyway? Doesn't he know that you, of all people, can defend yourself against the likes of me?"

She finally turned around to look at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He gave her a blank look. "I mean, isn't it obvious?"

"No."

"Well, bookworm," Draco said, glancing down at his bound wrists. "The reality is you are probably the most powerful person in this entire building. You don't need to be defended."

She tilted her head, unanswerable questions spinning behind her eyes. "How could you possibly know the extent of my power?"

He shrugged, before giving a controlled response. "You were always the best at Hogwarts, you've had years in the field, and besides," he trailed off, giving her a once-over before finishing. "I have a gut feeling."

He could not decipher the look on her face for the life of him. After a few seconds, she responded.

"Seamus means well, he does. He lost his best friend recently and it's made him…protective."

"Possessive is not protective," Draco muttered, before meeting her eyes once again. "Who'd he lose?"

"We," she said. "We lost Dean Thomas."

An image creeped out from the back of Draco's mind, of a familiar face and a flash of his wand. He felt himself pale as the memory assaulted him.

Fuck.

She noticed his shift immediately, of course. "Malfoy? You alright there?"

He took a few breaths, trying to dispel the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Yeah…yeah I'm fine."

"You look upset."

"Why wouldn't I be upset?" he deflected, forcing anxiety out of his voice. "It's been a rough few days."

"True. I'd be upset if I almost burned to death."

Something Finnigan had said sounded in the back of his mind once more. "Wait…what did…what did he mean when he said that you ran into a burning building? When he said you were an idiot?"

She sighed. "Haven't you figured that out yet?"

"Please enlighten me."

Green eyes met silver.

"I'm the one who saved you that day."

The full implication of her statement hit him like bricks, sending him into stunned silence.

She smirked, before turning to the door. "So there you go, Malfoy. Guess you owe me something now."

Draco stared after her long past her departure.

If only he could figure out what he now owed.

And how far he'd go to repay the debt.


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