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Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter
Hermione wrapped the blanket a little tighter around her body, falling back into the pillows that she had propped against the bedframe. The soft fabric on her skin felt familiar, like her mother was tucking her in as a child, about to read her a story about witches and wizards and the world of the imaginary.
She sighed and pulled tighter.
"Hermione?" a voice broke her from her thoughts. She looked up to see Tonks leaning in the doorframe, clutching a steaming cup of tea. Her once mentor raised an eyebrow. "Are you doing alright?"
She let the blanket fall a bit and shrugged. "I mean, as well as expected."
Tonks chuckled. "I would say better. You've had quite a week. Would you like some tea?"
Hermione sat up a bit straighter. "Is that for me?"
Tonks nodded. "I thought it might help."
The older woman walked over to her, setting the mug on the bedside table. Hermione glanced at it and chuckled.
"Issue with my décor?" Tonks asked, a smirk playing at the corner of her lips.
Hermione shook her head, gesturing to the mug. "I just didn't figure you were the kind of woman who had mugs like that."
"Mugs that say mundane shit like 'live, laugh, love', in script?" Tonks retorted. Hermione nodded. "You're right. My mum gave it to us. I didn't want to break her heart by smashing it immediately."
"I'm not sure Andromeda would have reacted that well."
"You don't say."
Hermione reached over and picked up the mug, holding it close to her chest. The early November air had cast a chill over the little bungalow that Remus and Tonks lived in. The warmth from the steaming tea soaked into her. She glanced down at it.
Live, laugh, love. Currently she was at one out of three, and by the most minimal definition.
Tonks watched her for a moment, sitting on the edge of the bed. "You're really lost, aren't you?"
"Astute observation," she muttered, casting her eyes anywhere but at the inquisitive Auror.
"You know, Hermione, you didn't have to come and stay for the weekend…" Tonks started before she was promptly cut off.
"No, that's not it at all!" Hermione replied quickly, shaking her head. "I'm really grateful to get out of there. It was getting very… overwhelming."
"Getting?" Tonks raised an eyebrow. "I mean, you do have a higher tolerance for bullshit, but seriously, Hermione. Even by your standards, the last few weeks, months, whatever, have been bonkers."
She couldn't argue. So instead, she said nothing.
Tonks reached out and put a hand on her arm, squeezing gently. "It'll get easier, with time. Everything does."
Hermione scoffed. "I'm not quite sure if time is the cure to my apparent soulmate bond with Draco Malfoy."
Tonks sighed. "Would you like to talk about it?"
"I'm not quite sure what there is to say," Hermione whispered. "It just… it just sucks."
Tonks chuckled. "I think you could say that with a bit more passion. I would argue that this absolutely fucking sucks."
Hermione couldn't help the laugh that escaped her lips. She glanced down at the mug as the noise echoed throughout the room.
Two out of three.
"Am I interrupting girl time?" a voice asked from the door.
Hermione looked up at her old professor, watching her and his wife chat with quiet happiness in his eyes, matched by the sheer exhaustion showed in the bags under them.
Tonks smirked. "Yes, in fact, you are."
Remus put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "Apologies," he said, turning to go.
Hermione, thinking fast, lobbed one of the pillows at him. She missed, but the thump of it hitting the wall next to the door caused Remus to turn back around.
"We can put aside our ladies' chat for now," she chuckled. "Come join, it is your house after all."
Tonks scoffed. "Technically, it's my house."
Remus shook his head but walked back in anyway. "And she never lets me forget it."
His wife looked back his, mischievous adoration in her eyes. "Auror salary, you know."
"In the before times," Hermione muttered.
"Miss those times," Tonks replied, sardonically. "What ever happened to them?"
Remus shrugged. "Greatest conflict of our generation, or something like that. I keep reading about it in the news."
Tonks sighed, absentmindedly putting her hand on her stomach. "Hopefully, we'll finish it before the next generation has to."
Her implication filled the room as Hermione's eyes grew as round as saucers. "Tonks, are you…are you saying…"
Her friend turned back towards her, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. "We were waiting to tell people, especially with everything going on. But I guess… it made me want to tell everyone more, because of everything going on…"
Hermione reached out and grabbed her hand, trying not to cry. "It's nice to hear good news."
"Wonderful," Remus whispered, kissing the top of Tonks' head. "It's wonderful news."
Hermione nodded ferociously, losing control of her tears. "How far along are you?"
"Three months," Tonks replied, smiling fully. Hermione couldn't even remember Tonks smiling in recent memory.
Not that there was much to smile about these days.
Except this. This she could smile about for days.
"I'm so happy for you both," Hermione whispered. "I'm just… I'm thrilled."
"Thanks Hermione," Remus said, holding his wife a little closer. "But this weekend is not about our future child. Hopefully we'll have many years to celebrate with them."
Hermione nodded. "That's what we're fighting for, isn't it? The next generation."
Tonks smiled. "Of course, we are. But that doesn't mean our lives need to be condemned to misery for eternity. Remember we're fighting for ourselves as well."
"Condemned to misery really seems to sum it up."
The smile on Remus's face turned ghostly, as he appraised her. "Hermione, look…"
She shook her head, not wanting the attention. She was tired of the attention. "Remus, I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I want to talk about it."
"I get that," he said. "I was just going to… I was just going to apologize. With everything going on, I've been a bit rougher on you than you needed."
She shook her head. "No, you were right. I am a liability with this mark on my arm. And I should have… I should have told you about Draco."
Tonks chuckled. "We understand why you didn't. We are no Harry and Ron, but you knew that the reaction to your relationship would be… nuclear, let's say."
"We don't have a relationship," Hermione scoffed. "We have... something else."
"Soulmate bond?" Remus added.
"One could say."
Tonks frowned. "Are you trying to break it?"
"I've been looking into it," she replied, desperately ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach. "But it seems dangerous, if not impossible."
Remus nodded. "Veelas can't break their bonds, and I guess this is the closest magical precedent."
Hermione didn't respond as her stomach sank further.
Her mark began to tingle.
Tonks watched her for a second, the Auror's eyes tracing her face. "Hermione," she started slowly. "I don't mean to pry, and I know that this is a sensitive topic."
"Just say it," Hermione whispered, wrapping her arms around her knees. "It can't be as bad as some of the stuff I've already heard."
"Do you," Tonks started, before hesitating. She glanced over at Remus, who gave a small nod.
They had discussed this before.
"Do you feel for Draco?" Tonks finished, wincing slightly. "It's okay if you do. We can't control how we feel. It's just… with your mark, and the bond, and the magic transfer, well, I'd be surprised if you didn't."
Hermione stared at Tonks for a moment, before allowing her eyes to wander down to the mug she was still clutching. Her hands were white.
Live, laugh, love. She was alive, by all measures. She did laugh occasionally in this hellscape. Her mind was stuck on the last word. The feeling she felt when she saw Draco, the feeling she had been forcing deeper and deeper, not giving it credence, refusing it the light of day. How she felt the night they had spent together…
Magic incarnate.
Her mark was tingling again.
She felt light-headed.
"Of course, I feel something," she said quietly, staring at the covers. As she looked, the white blanket became dotted. Red dots, appearing out of thin air. She frowned.
"Hermione," Tonks whispered, reaching towards her.
She looked back up at the couple's horrified expression, watching her. Confused, she reached up to her face, feeling strange. She touched her nose and glanced at her fingers.
Blood red.
"Now, ginger," Draco said, his voice full of warning. "You've been gone a while. Circumstances have changed."
"Have they now," Weasel hissed at him, his face growing maroon.
"Weasley," Blaise said slowly, raising his arm towards the newly arrived man. "Draco's right. Circumstances have changed."
"Shut the fuck up, Zabini," Weasel growled, barely glancing at the other Slytherin. "I never liked you either."
"Ouch," Blaise muttered. "Regardless of your feelings about us, I'm telling you that you cannot curse the living daylights out of Draco."
"You know," Weasley started, glancing between the two of them. "I always knew Lupin was out of his goddamn mind for trusting that Draco fucking Malfoy was a deserter, but maybe we were all out of our fucking minds for thinking you were neutral, Zabini."
"You can think what you want," Blaise responded. "But you cannot do this."
"And why the fuck not?"
Before Draco could even open his mouth, he heard footsteps stomping up the stairs as well. In less than a blink, another man had burst into the room, his dark hair shaggy and glasses lopsided.
Harry Fucking Potter.
"Ron, I told you to think," the So Called Chosen One burst out, panting. He looked at the scene around him, blinking Blaise and Draco in. When his eyes landed on the latter, they narrowed, and his wand arm twitched.
Draco, despite himself, gulped.
Without warning, Potter lunged towards him. Before he even had a chance to react, Potter had ripped his wand out of his hands.
"Hey!" he shouted, indignant. "What are you on, Potter?"
The dark-haired man ignored him, turning back to Weasley. "You're not going to duel him, Ron. He's not worth it."
"Were you even listening to Fred, Harry?" Weasel screamed, his voice growing hoarse. "Do you not understand what he did?"
"You two bastards need to calm your roll," another voice piped in, grunting.
Speak of the devil, and the devil will deliver two Weasleys.
"You guys didn't hear everything," Fred continued, marching into the room, having just raced up the stairs himself.
His bedroom seemed to be a popular place, Draco thought to himself.
Too bad that wasn't as fun as it sounded.
"I heard enough!" Weasel yelled, his voice ricocheting off the walls. Even Blaise flinched. "This…this useless piece of shit lied to all of you, infiltrated this goddamn Order, all to…what? What was it, Fred? To convince Hermione, who is apparently a mystical Pureblood Princess, to switch sides?"
"She's a Le Fay," Fred interrupted. "She's a descendant of Morganna Le Fay."
Weasley let out a laugh so unhinged that Draco raised an eyebrow. "So, it turns out that Hermione is a pureblood, which of course is the only reason this bastard wanted her, so he…what? How did the story end, Fred? Remind me…"
"Ron, you don't know everything," his brother said, taking a step towards the other, his voice pleading. "Before you do anything, you have to know that…"
"Oh, I remember!" Weasley exclaimed, turning on Draco and raising his wand again. "You fucked her. You had your way with her, trying to convince her to come back with you."
"Okay, Weasley, you are hell out of line," Draco stated. "That is absolutely not what happened."
"Why would I believe your bullshit, Malfoy," the red head yelled. "Like Hermione would willingly sleep with the likes of you."
"You may hate it," Blaise interjected. "But Hermione… she wanted him."
"Like I would believe you either, Zabini," Ron shouted, keeping his wand on Draco. "And then, just to top it off, this evil waste of space is the reason Dean is dead. Do you have something to argue about that then, Zabini?"
There was a pause as Blaise blinked, before changing his gaze to Potter.
"Potter, you can't let him hurt Draco."
The Boy Who Lived nodded, and for the first time in his life, Draco felt grateful for the man.
"Ron," the other man said. Draco could hear him fighting to keep his voice steady. "We need to get all the information first. We missed fucking weeks of this, we can't work off of Fred's two-minute summary."
"Was what Fred said true?" Weasley barked. Potter nodded, growing paler. "Then why are you even blinking at me cursing the shit out of him?"
"I don't want to cause a stir," Draco interjected. "But perhaps 'cursing the shit' out of me is a bit beyond your magical abilities, Weasel. There's a reason Hermione turned out to be the pureblood princess, and you're still the court jester."
The air in the room shifted, building. Draco heard Blaise groan, saw Fred roll his eyes, and Potter close his own.
Time slowed as he watched the following events with keen awareness of how much he had just ruined himself.
And not just himself, after all.
"Ron," Potter started, reaching towards his friend.
He heard Weasley's wand clatter to the ground.
"Absolutely fuck this," the man muttered.
For the second time in recent memory, Draco felt his nose crack as a member of the Order of the Phoenix punched him in the face.
"Christ, Ron!" he heard someone yell. Everything except for the pain radiating from the centre of his face became blurry – background noise, fading into nothingness.
The pain kept coming.
So did the assault.
Wandless, and weaker than he had been in a while, Draco raised his hands helplessly to defend himself, trying desperately to stop the attack. He didn't push back; as much as he hated Ronald Weasley, he knew this was warranted. Like the Seamus incident, his defense was a weak effort, mostly to deter collateral damage…
And then it hit him, with a force stronger than this useless man could ever muster.
Collateral damage meant Hermione.
"Weasley!" he shouted, trying to sit up and push the other man back. He spat some blood out of his mouth. "You can't do this."
"Why not, Malfoy?" Weasley shouted, landing another punch. Draco felt his head slam into the wall behind him.
He only saw stars.
"Weasley, stop!" Someone else shouted, but Draco couldn't recognize the voice. The room was spinning.
The world was spinning faster.
"Why!" Weasley bellowed, turning away from Draco, giving him the chance to breathe, to regroup.
"Give me one fucking good reason to stop!" the man continued, not trying to communicate with anyone in the room, but rather, screaming into the void.
And then the void answered.
"Ron, you're hurting Hermione."
Draco blinked, unsure of who was speaking. His head was pounding, his nose was bleeding, he could feel his lip bruising.
"Nice to see you too, Lupin," Weasley spat back.
Draco looked over to the door, where indeed, Remus Lupin was standing. The man was disheveled, wearing what must be his home clothes. He was panting, and Draco could just make out floo powder in his hair.
Why was Lupin here so late, he wondered briefly, before the answer appeared to him. Of course.
Hermione was at Tonks' and Lupin's for the weekend.
"Is she okay?" Draco asked, whispering, wanting only to know what Lupin could tell him.
The man gave him a look he had grown simultaneously accustomed to while missing it.
Pity.
"She's alright," Lupin responded, taking a breath. "Her nose started bleeding out of nowhere, and honestly, by that point I was already running for the floo. She was sitting in bed drinking tea. There could have been only one reason."
Draco nodded, relief taking over him, temporarily blocking out the pain.
"What the bloody fuck are you going on about?" Weasley spat. While he was distracted, Blaise skirted around him over to Draco, whipping out his wand and muttering a quick Episkey at Draco's nose.
"That was for both you and Hermione," Blaise muttered, positioning himself between Draco and Weasley.
"Fuck you, Zabini," Weasley said.
"And fuck you too," Blaise replied promptly, glaring at the other man. "Do you have any idea what you just did?"
"I'm not anywhere near finished, Zabini."
"Yes, you are," Lupin said, authority evident in his voice. Now that he had stopped the assault, he seemed to return to his position of leadership within the Order. "I take it, based on your attack on Mr. Malfoy, that someone filled you in on what's been going on?"
Potter laughed humourlessly. "What's been going on, Remus? Bit of a euphemism if I've ever heard one."
Lupin didn't react to Potter's comment. "But seriously, Ron. I understand it's a lot to learn at once, and that it definitely isn't a good situation, but how could you risk Hermione like that?"
"What are you on about?" Weasley asked, for the first-time confusion overtaking anger in his voice. "Punching the shit out of Malfoy isn't hurting Hermione, it's fucking avenging her."
Draco scoffed. "She doesn't need the likes of you to avenge her."
"And she doesn't need the likes of you anywhere near her."
Lupin ignored them both this time. "Ron, do you not know about the bond?"
"What fucking bond?" Weasley asked, anger in his voice again.
"Who told them?" Lupin asked, looking around at the others in the room.
"It was me," Fred replied sheepishly. "I… I hadn't gotten to that part yet when Ron ran upstairs."
"What part?" Weasley bellowed.
Lupin sighed, visibly dreading what was about to happen. "Hermione and… and Mr. Malfoy here are bonded indefinitely. It seems the Le Fay women, like veelas, pick a mate for life, and it seems that Hermione, subconsciously, chose Mr. Malfoy. So now, whenever Mr. Malfoy feels pain, Hermione feels it and vice versa."
Draco couldn't help but smirk as he watched the blood drain out of the red-head's face. Blaise promptly smacked him.
Weasley looked back and forth between Lupin and Draco for a moment.
"Absolutely fuck this," he snarled, storming from the room, pushing past Potter on his way out.
The Boy Who Lived looked back at Draco. "Is… that can't be true."
Draco sighed.
"Welcome to your own hell, Potter. Never thought you'd have me as a brother-in-law, huh?"
Potter shot him one final glare before exiting the room behind his sidekick.
Blaise turned to him, as Lupin leaned against the wall with his eyes closed. "I mean, it was one thing when you were on a self-destructive streak, but must you be like this when Hermione is in danger?"
Draco felt a twinge of guilt in his stomach. "It's Weasley. He just… he just brings it out of me."
"And you, Mr. Malfoy," Lupin said, eyes still closed. "You bring it out of everyone else."
He couldn't argue there.
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