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The world kept spinning without Harry and Ron in her life. The sun still burned, the wind still blew, and the war went on.
Hermione was surprised at herself for expecting anything else.
"I don't know what I thought was going to happen," she admitted to Fred during a late night in the library, about a week after the boys had left. "I guess I just thought I'd… I don't know…notice?"
"Oof," Fred responded, leaning back in his chair and flipping through a volume. "Vicious."
She rolled her eyes. "That's not what I meant. Of course I noticed. It just wasn't life-altering. I guess I expected it to be."
"You'd think it would be," he answered, glancing over the top of Magical Symbolism and Theology . "Those two have been glued to your side since the age of eleven."
"Not every moment, but essentially," she responded, tucking her feet under her in the chair. "The difference now is I know I can't have them, even if I wanted them."
"You say it like you don't want them here."
"I don't," she said quietly after a moment of thought. "I want them doing their task. Of course, I wish I was with them, but I have things to do as well. And the past few months have not brought out the best in us."
He chuckled, a good-natured laugh that Hermione remembered from their youth. "It's a war, Hermione. It's not going to bring out the best in anyone."
"Probably not," she conceded. "But the over-protective streak they both took leaves a bit to be desired."
"I'm surprised you didn't clock them. I would've."
She smiled. "I couldn't take either of them in a fight."
"Maybe not with fisticuffs, but a duel? At least you know more spells than just Expelliarmus."
She couldn't help the chuckle that escaped her lips, as Fred waggled his eyebrows at her.
"That's the Chosen One you're talking about."
"Chosen for what?" Fred asked, the humour disappearing slightly. "We're not that much closer to ending the war, now are we?'
Hermione flinched under his gaze, the Horcruxes at the forefront of her mind.
"That might change soon."
Fred frowned and opened his mouth to ask further. But he was too close, too close to the secret, the source, the quest she had buried deep inside her. Her chest tensed, and she opened her mouth to bulldoze over him, before his question even reached the air.
"I need to figure out my own situation before I can think about the three of us. I have my own missions. Starting with this mark."
"Well, that seems to be the mystery of the year, doesn't it?" Fred replied, shutting the volume and putting it on the table with what felt like hundreds of other worthless books. Hermione sighed in relief at her successful deflection from the Horcrux hunt. "There's nothing about it anywhere."
"I never thought I'd see the day that the library failed me," she muttered, glancing over the piles of useless volumes that the Black personal collection had provided her. "I've done nothing but read and be annoyed all week."
"Really?" Fred asked, a glint of humour in his eye. "That's it?"
Raising an eyebrow, she gave him a look as her chest tensed again. "What exactly are you insinuating?"
He pursed his lips, considering her for a moment before speaking. "I've just noticed you talking to our favourite recently defected Death Eater several times."
" Malfoy ?"
"That's the one," Fred responded, a smirk playing on his lips. His blue eyes traced her face for a moment, looking for… what? Admittance? "Didn't know that you enjoyed tea dates with serpents."
"Didn't know you noticed," she muttered, casting her eyes downwards. The question was innocuous enough, but the asking of it made her feel claustrophobic. The room was closing in around her.
Why? She had nothing to hide. Not… not from Fred, at least.
"Of course I noticed, 'Mione," Fred replied. "I think everyone who lives in this house has noticed."
"Everyone?" she asked nervously, looking up, a pair of familiar angry eyes flashing through her mind.
He nodded, pausing for a moment. "Everyone."
It was as if her chest cavity was filling with water; she was drowning in expectation. "It's not a big deal," she said, shrugging, taking several calming breaths through her nose. "We just often happen to be in the kitchen at the same time."
"What's important about that, 'Mione," Fred continued, casually opening another book, letting his eyes linger on her expression. "Is not that you are in the kitchen at the same time, but that you don't leave."
Hermione didn't have much of a response. "No, I don't," she replied, shifting uncomfortably under his gaze. The water level was rising.
He opened the cover, not even pretending to be interested in the text, his eyes focused on her. "Any particular reason for that?"
She felt her defenses going up as her chest reached sea-level. Her mark began to tingle. "Any particular reason you're asking?"
He shrugged. "Curiosity. Don't worry, 'Mione."
"Why would I be worried?" she asked, flinching slightly. She was underwater. She blinked, her vision blacking out for a moment. When she opened her eyes, stars were dancing in her vision. Was she at the bottom of the Black Lake? She swore she could see merpeople swimming across her vision.
"I honestly don't know," Fred said, looking her over as concern appeared in the war-weary lines around his eyes. "But you're as white as a sheet and you're shaking. I'm not Seamus, I'm not going to get mad. It's more of a bit, than anything."
As the words left Fred's mouth, her attention became razor-focused on her physical reaction. No, she wasn't at the bottom of the Black Lake. But she still couldn't breathe.
Drowning beneath a thousand willow tree leaves.
The energy in her body was all centered on her mark. It was as if her blood drained from her limps and was just bubbling beneath the willow tree. Energy moving beneath her paper-thin skin, through veins and arteries, threatening to break through and meet oxygen, all pulled towards her mark.
Her skin was snow-white, except under the small willow tree, which was nearly black, charred. Burned into her being.
"Hermione?" Fred asked, his concern transforming into full-out fear. "You alright there?"
She reached across her body and grasped her left forearm, trying to stop the shaking. She felt electrical shocks pulsing against her hand where it met the mark.
Waves of disorientation swept over her, the water level rising once again. "Fred…go get someone…"
"Right away, ma'am," he said, not hesitating for even a moment. He jumped from his chair and ran from the room.
Hermione leaned over the table and grasped the edges. Fireworks were exploding all around her, from her mark, across her eyelids.
Electricity and water. The charge of her magic flowed through her.
Her blood was a conductor.
Outside the door, she heard a commotion. Voices shouting at each other. She did not recognize them. Were these strangers in her home? Or was she the one out of time and place?
"What the hell is going on, Weasley?"
"It's Hermione…is anyone else up?"
"Everyone is gone, remember?"
"Fuck, report night. Shit."
"What's happening?"
A pause. A break in the space time continuum.
"Consider this your redemption arc."
The door to the library burst open and Fred stormed in with Malfoy.
The Slytherin looked confused, dressed in his pajamas and carrying a cup of tea. The moment he spotted Hermione he put the mug down.
"It's the mark, isn't it?" Malfoy asked Fred, his voice giving nothing away. Emotionless. No. Clinical. Observant. Unattached.
The twin nodded. "She's been having attacks like this since it appeared. But I haven't seen one this bad."
Hermione forced her eyes shut as the cosmos flashed through her mind. She took what remaining energy she could control to force the words into their dimension. "Could you two stop talking and help?"
The shimmering sensation had spread to her entire body. Sparks of energy were boiling over her skin. She hissed at the feeling, blinking in and out of understanding.
Suddenly, she felt hands touch her arm, just above the mark. Smooth and careful, fingers dotted their way down her limb, sending shock waves from each spot they made contact.
"Okay, bookworm," Malfoy whispered, his voice trickling into her ears. She couldn't even see him, just sense his presence. All-consuming. "You're going to have to listen to me very carefully."
"For fuck's sake Malfoy," she muttered, twitching uncomfortably.
She swore she could almost feel him smirk.
"You have too much energy in your system," he said, applying pressure with his fingers. Her eyes came back into focus, and all she could see was Malfoy. Everything around the outline of his face was blurred. "All funneling itself into this tiny mark."
She groaned at the feeling his hands were causing. Foreign and familiar.
"This much energy will burn you up," he continued, his voice wavering slightly, his façade of detachment breaking. "You need to get it out of your system, safely. Unlike what you did last time."
"Malfoy," she growled, feeling some colour return to her cheeks as she blushed.
"That was chaotic," he whispered, as if she was the only one who should hear. Fred's presence felt lightyears away. "You don't need any more chaos in a world created of nothing but. You need calm. You need to focus. You need absolute control."
"Just tell me what to do," she spat out, as the shaking escalated.
"First, breath," he said.
"Fuck, I must've forgotten."
"Funny," he replied sarcastically. "But focus, and don't get mad."
"Why would I possibly get…" Her response was cut off by the feeling of Malfoy pushing her chair back from the table and pulling her towards him, so that she was sitting on the edge of the seat and he was kneeling right in front of her.
"Focus," he whispered, taking her hand and placing it on his cheek. Once her hand felt his skin, she couldn't let go. The magnetic charge whirled beneath her fingertips. He grasped her other hand with his left, pulling their chests together, and placed his right hand on the small of her back.
The movement sent alien sensations down her arm to the mark. The dull burn was different from the scorching heat of past experience. Gentle and confusing. A single flame in a burning wildfire. A conduit in electrical havoc.
"Transfer it," he breathed into her ear, sending shivers through her already shaking body. Breaths of ice on steam, shattering in the air.
"What?" she whispered back. Gods, why was he so close?
"The energy," he answered. "Give me some. Get it out."
His request confused her initially, but her body responded before she could. She leaned up into him, and grasped her hands on his skin fiercely. Her eyes burst open, in the first moment of total clarity since the attack started. A kaleidoscope of disruption stopped spinning in slow motion.
She met Malfoy's eyes, inches away from her own. He was staring down at her. How was he on his knees while she sat and still taller than her?
"Do it," he whispered.
His voice commanded her. She couldn't focus on anything except his eyes and his voice, his breath dancing across her skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. She didn't take even a moment to consider the consequences of this choice, of this moment. It didn't matter that Fred was in the room, or that this was more personal than intimacy itself. She met Malfoy's eyes, specks of silver in their mist, and she let herself fall forward into the unknown.
Taking a deep breath, she focused all her attention on the spots where they were touching, where they connected.
She breathed out.
The energy left her in an endless wave. She felt it move from her to Malfoy. Osmosis between their skin, a transference of magic she had never felt before. Golden light streamed between the two of them, erupting from her core and surrounding them in orbit, as if they were the sun and her magic was the planets. As she gave herself over to it, as she gave herself over to him , she came back to herself.
Her heart felt alive again, her blood was flowing properly through her veins. Her magic danced down her arms, no longer overloading or screaming for release. At peace. The balance between her body and power reached equilibrium. Static control.
She met Malfoy's eyes again. Her hand on his cheek was emitting the same golden light. The reflection of it danced in his eyes, sunlight breaking through the clouds of his irises.
When she felt her heartbeat return to normal, she closed the conduits, letting the gates fall between them. As she did, the golden light shimmered out of existence, returning to her and now to him. The moment the light disappeared, she collapsed forward.
Malfoy caught her effortlessly, cradling her neck, and wrapping his hand around her waist fully to support her.
"Good job, princess," he whispered, as he lifted her up back onto the chair.
As she sat back down, she took her hands back from Malfoy's body. At the separation of contact, little shocks shimmered across her palms. She tucked them into her lap, feeling strange. Balanced, but as if her gravitational centre had shifted. She was situated on a different axis.
"How're you doing?" he asked her, running his fingers down her left forearm towards the mark. As his fingers grazed the willow, a tidal wave of electricity pulsed through her body.
"Better," she said, forcing her body to stay still under his touch. She looked up to meet his eyes. "And you?"
"I'm fine," he shrugged, smirking. His skin was paler, a layer of sweat against his skin. "I'm going to be a bit jittery with all this energy in my body, but I'm sure I can spend it somehow."
"Yes," she breathed out, as her heartbeat sped up again as the implications of the moment hit her in tidal waves.
"There's something odd about that little mark of yours, bookworm," he said, breathing quickly. His eyes danced down to her arm as he stood up. He looked unstable on his feet. "It overloaded your power, again. That's why you were shaking."
"I figured," she muttered, wrapping her arms around her body protectively. "Why does it keep doing that?"
"Why do you keep doing that, you mean," he said, leaning against the table, taking a deep breath. "That mark is a part of you now."
"I'm not the one overloading my power," she answered quietly.
He shook his head. "Maybe not consciously. But something, somewhere in that pretty little head of you is a switch. And the world keeps switching it on. What was the catalyst?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, brushing her hair back, trying to prevent her fingers shaking as she did so.
"What caused the reaction today?" he asked, glancing from her to Fred. Hermione had nearly forgotten he was in the room.
The twin stood by the doorway, shock etched into all his features. His blue eyes focused on Malfoy as he realized the Slytherin was speaking to him.
"We were just talking about… Headquarters," Fred said, his eyes darting to her quickly before looking back at Malfoy. He was gaping, as she watched him put puzzle pieces together behind his eyes.
Hermione forced her voice to steady. "I can't figure out why I keep overloading."
"You should probably get on that," Malfoy said, his eyes darkening as he watched her. "You're not always going to have a man at your disposal to take your energy away."
She couldn't break their eye contact, even as she felt her cheeks heat up.
"Thank you for helping," she said, trying to keep her reactions in check.
He shrugged. "That was all you, princess. I was just the commentator." Malfoy smiled at her once, nodded at Fred, and picked up his tea from where it still rested on the table. "Take care of yourself, Granger. You're the only one who can." With that, he left the room.
There were several minutes of pure silence as Fred and Hermione sat with their thoughts. When the lack of acknowledgment became oppressive, the twin spoke up.
"What the hell just happened?" he demanded, summarizing the situation eloquently.
She pursed her lips. "I'm not quite sure."
"What is going on between you and Malfoy?"
She stared at him. "Nothing, Fred." The words held no force behind them.
"Oh, come on," Fred exclaimed, frustration seeping through. "I just watched the two of you just had a magic transfer. You know how intimate, emotional, and personal experience that is…"
"I know what a magic transfer does," she whispered, clutching her arms around herself protectively. "I know how it bonds the two participants."
"Bond?" Fred said, disbelief evident in his voice. "Bit of an understatement. You just shared your magic with Draco fucking Malfoy . There's a part of you, the most primal, natural part of you, that's running through his veins right this fucking second. That's not a bonding moment, that's…that's…
"Tying," she whispered. Fred looked at her. She breathed out. "We're tied, Malfoy and I. Magic transfers aren't every day, run of the mill things. This…this changes things."
"Why did he do it?" Fred asked, sitting down at the table. "He obviously knows what magic transfers do."
"It was the only way to get the energy out," she replied, shaking slightly at the memory.
His eyes flicked up to meet hers. "Why did you let him?"
"What?" she asked.
"Magic transfers require two equally willing participants. Otherwise…it's something else entirely. You were willing. Why? Why would you give yourself over to Malfoy like that?"
Hermione stuttered her response. "I…I don't know."
Fred sighed. "Which brings us back to the original question of the night. Any particular reason that you and Malfoy seem to be a little bit...er…connected?"
She pursed her lips. "I…I just enjoy talking to him. He's… he's real ."
"Shit Hermione, we're all real."
She shook his head. "No, it's more than that. He…he's seen sides of this war we haven't. Two sides of a coin, you know? And it's… I don't know, it's hard to explain."
Fred gave her a look, pursing his lips for a moment before answering. "No it's not. You just don't particularly feel like sharing. Which is fine, but don't pretend. Wastes time."
She flushed.
"Don't tell anyone about the magic transfer," Fred said suddenly. "It's like an unbreakable vow; not something to dump on someone. Especially the fact that it's the two of you. Merlin, even my detective abilities can't figure this one out."
"I wasn't going to," Hermione said, breathing deeply. "I couldn't imagine the reactions." An image of Seamus flashed through her head.
"It is Malfoy," Fred said. "But shit, 'Mione."
She looked up. "What?"
His face was full of distress. "After what the bastard just did for you, I think I'm going to have to give him a second chance."
She couldn't help the laugh that escaped her lips.
He could feel her, pulsing through his veins. He forced himself to walk calmly back through the halls to his room. After closing the door behind him and putting down his tea, he collapsed with his back against the wall.
A magic transfer. He and Hermione le Fay had done a magic transfer. One of the most powerful connections in the magical universe, and he had done it with the Pureblood Princess.
She had gotten under his skin in every sense of the word. She was in his blood. Atoms of her essence, swirling through his bloodstream, meeting with his own to combine in ecstatic turmoil.
He was sweating.
Merlin, this woman.
Why had he decided to solve this situation with a magic transfer? He knew what they meant. This was serious. This was permanent. Even once he worked through the extra energy, she was a part of him now.
Permanent. The word tasted strange on his tongue.
Seeing her like that, bent over, white, shaking, weak , he had acted without thought. On impulse alone, leading her into that moment.
She had been willing.
The feel of her under his hands. Her skin, her body, pulsating with energy, with raw, unadulterated power.
His head fell into his hands.
What had he done?
Gods, he could feel her still, pulsing through him.
Strangely, he didn't seem to mind.
There is now artwork for this scene! It can be found here: image/659055738750205952
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