5
Grounding

Despite her simply crossing the cobblestone street of Diagon Alley, Hermione compulsively glanced up and down the street for traffic, and after determining that there were no vehicles about to mow her down, she crossed the street to the little hole-in-the-wall restaurant hidden down a side street several feet from Flourish and Blotts.

Her schedule didn't sync up often with Padma Patil's, but it just so happened that they both had the day off, and Hermione was eager to pick her fellow Unspeakable's brain for any relative information. People often mistook the Department of Mysteries as a compartmentalized level of offices, each sector independent of the others. In fact, the mysteries of life, which all Unspeakables collectively researched, intertwined and spiraled out together, so there was a great deal of collaboration between sectors.

Hermione had already consulted with Unspeakable Infantini in the Thought Room about the willpower it might take to summon a human soul from the Veil. She'd spoken to Unspeakable Minh in the Time Room about the fourth dimension's relation to death and the beyond. Hermione hoped Padma, who worked in the Love Room and whose expertise lay in the subtle, magical bonds, could supply more substantive information.

The two women greeted each other with hugs and banal smalltalk in case of nosy ears, but as soon as they placed their orders and received their plates of food, Hermione cast the Muffliato and launched directly into her discoveries. She brought Padma up to speed on most recent ritual, Cedric's appearance, and the theories they'd formulated that drew her ever closer to bringing Sirius back into the fold.

Padma took her time chewing her salad and digesting Hermione's words. Hermione herself continued to eat, the taste of the salmon barely registering as her worry began to mount the longer Padma's silence persisted.

"And you performed that ritual during the Autumnal Equinox," said Padma carefully. It was simultaneously a cautious reminder, statement, and query.

Hermione paused, her next forkful of couscous slowly descending back to her plate. How could that have slipped her mind? The equinox marked the point in which day and night were equal, a time that signified a transition from a time of darkness and death into one of the light and birth.

It would have been a perfect environment to pull Sirius from the Veil—if only she'd known the right ritual at the time.

Padma continued eating her way through her salad as Hermione dazedly leaned back in the wicker chair.

"So you summoned the Hogwarts sweetheart of the Triwizard Tournament, Cedric Diggory," said Padma, taking a sip of her juice, "in the process of trying to summon the black sheep of a Most Ancient and Noble House, Sirius Black—on the Autumnal Equinox."

Hermione sighed. "The irony wasn't lost on me either. Do you have any idea how that might've happened?"

Padma cleared her throat and grimaced before looking back up at Hermione sheepishly, her dark cheeks taking on a reddish hue. "Did you ever—erm, did you ever sleep with Diggory?"

Hermione balked. "I wasn't sleeping with anyone! I was fifteen!"

Padma's blush darkened. "Yes, but so was I!"

"Padma!"

The two women burst out laughing, the tension broken. Padma covered her burning face with her hands as Hermione raked her fingers through her curls and shook her head.

"I didn't sleep with him," said Hermione when their laughter tapered off. She sat forward and started in on her salmon again. "I barely even had one conversation with the boy."

"So why was he the one called forth in the Veil?" mused Padma. "What bond had you formed that was strong enough to haul him from the beyond?"

Hermione shook her head. "That's the thing. He wasn't in the beyond. He said he'd been brought to that…waiting area because he was meant to do one more thing."

"And you both think that this 'one more thing' is helping you?" finished Padma for her.

"It's the most logical," said Hermione, shrugging—two parts helpless, one part sheepish.

Padma shook her head. "What did you two talk about that one time when he was alive, Hermione?"

Hermione cut up another forkful of her fish and took her time chewing it, remembering the conversation but not seeing anything important about it—Muggle comic books and then the concept of movies.

Padma frowned, her lips pursed as she curled the ends of her shoulder-length hair around her fingers. "What about Sirius? Do they have some sort of connection? They're purebloods and likely somehow related. I'm sure their paths crossed during the First War."

"When Cedric was four or younger?" asked Hermione with a raised eyebrow. "He'd have been too young to remember any significant connection with Sirius, and even if they did, I doubt it could have survived or was strong enough to do this."

Padma stabbed a crouton. "The only other explanation I can think of as to why your excursion into fly-fishing your soul—don't think I'm letting you get off the hook for that either, Hermione, that was beyond dangerous—which resulted in catching a long-dead schoolboy is that your souls are somehow kindred, and that's an atrocious theory."

Hermione's eyebrows shot up. "Kindred?"

Padma held up the crouton on the tip of her fork. "In the Love Room, 'kindred' is a broad, umbrella placeholder when we don't have a fully-formed explanation of why certain bonds exist, apart from the fact that fate or whatever Powers-That-Be tethered them."

"What if we're…well, bonded as another set of mirrors for Sirius?" asked Hermione. "Perhaps it was fated that I embark on this mission to retrieve Sirius and for Cedric to be recruited on the other side to help me because he and I are similarly related to Sirius?"

"Feasible, but now you're going to have to research your genealogies," said Padma, nodding. "But remember that purebloods in our society are a bit more closely related than we would be to Muggles."

"Unless there was a Squib somewhere in my lineage," said Hermione.

"The entire theory is reaching a little too far for its own good." Padma ate the last crouton and set her fork down. "I suggest you focus on using your time with Cedric to achieve your main goal—bringing Sirius back. If it just so happens that your questions about Cedric are answered when Sirius crosses the threshold of the living again, then so be it."

Hermione nodded, but her mind still continued to play at the loose ends that was Cedric's involvement.

"Have you refined the ritual you're going to use to summon Sirius with your mirror tethers?" prompted Padma wen she saw Hermione digging herself into a mental hole of her thoughts. "You didn't mention who you'd use either—who've you got in mind?"

Hermione scratched her nose and sat forward again, remembering that she should probably eat her fish instead of only cutting it. "Well, his closest blood relations would be Andromeda, but that would mean using Bellatrix on the other side, so Cedric and I agreed to compromise with Draco Malfoy on our side and Nymphadora Tonks on the other."

"Why didn't you use paternal and maternal mirrors?" asked Padma, pushing away her plate and pulling her glass closer. "That would be more stabilizing."

"True, but we're hoping allegiances will hold more sway than blood because of the weight on the soul. And there's no guarantee of Sirius's mirror relatives' willingness to participate in such a thing—neither would their reliability be guaranteed."

Padma grimaced playfully and chuckled. "Well, you're fortunate that Malfoy will be involved. With his library, you'll certainly be able to find some tools to help plumb the depths of the Veil."

Hermione frowned. "Pardon?"

Padma raised an eyebrow. "The Malfoy Library worries Aurors and elicits envy from scholars across the globe. There's a reason he's the resident Healer for Unspeakables because he's grown up around the same theories and ideas that we discuss in the Department of Mysteries."

"If only he wasn't so…" Hermione scowled and hummed.

"So what?" Padma's eyes narrowed.

"Pompous and disdainful," muttered Hermione. She shifted uncomfortably under Padma's sudden scrutiny. "He wasn't hostile or nearly as rude as he was in school—"

"Because we've all grown up, maybe?" offered Padma.

Hermione bristled—as if age ever had bearing on maturity and personality. She opened her mouth, but Padma held up a finger.

"I'm not saying that Draco's undergone a complete personality change, but give him a chance. It's easier to fall back on old habits when you're in fully uncharted territory," said Padma tentatively, almost pleadingly. "Did he mention blood purity?"

Hermione cleared her throat. "No."

"Did you?"

"No!"

"Did either of you bring up the past?"

Hermione blushed; Padma smiled kindly.

"Give him a chance," she said. "At the very least, it'll make it easier for you to ask him for help."

Hermione watched as the maplewood door swung open and Malfoy walked into his office, head bowed over a cream-colored folder, not fully aware of who was in the office.

"Good afternoon," he said cordially, albeit a bit harried. "I was told you were here for a consulta—"

He finally looked up at whom was in his office, and he froze. With his hand still on the knob and one foot over the threshold, he genuinely looked as if he wanted to step back out and close the door. The edges of his lips twitched downward, but he stepped all the way inside instead.

When Hermione had made the consultation appointment, she'd requested that her name go unmentioned—especially once the secretary knew she was The Hermione Granger. She wasn't fond of throwing her name around (in fact, that had been the fourth time in the seven years since the end of the war), but she was still too conflicted about the meeting as a whole.

Even as she'd gotten dressed, she contemplated requesting the use of his library, not only for further insight into the Veil, but also for any—any—other means of summoning Sirius out of the Veil that didn't involve Malfoy, whom she'd have to fully bring into the fold of her project, whereupon he would likely subject her to all the judgment and criticism she knew he was capable and likely within his rights to unleash upon her.

Hermione rethought the wisdom of that second cup of coffee.

Malfoy calmly closed the door behind him and strode to the high-backed armchair behind his desk, shrugging off his pale green outer robes and and sat down. He meticulously straightened out the papers in the folder in his hand, laying them out on the desk in three stacks. When he finally carded his fingers together and looked up—his line of sight directed onto her but his gaze fixed on a point behind her head rather than on her face itself—she bordered an impatient growl or scream or any vehement noise of frustration.

"I assume you're not here in the Healer-patient capacity, as you've requested a consult," he said coolly,

Hermione cleared her throat. "Thank you for seeing me—"

"Considering your thanks is for the secretary's willful ignorance and your own subterfuge rather than any action on my part—"

"Do you often sacrifice civility for your incessant need to throw out what you deem to be wit?" sighed Hermione. She hoped her long suffering tone offset any perceived hostility.

"I'd rather hear the truth than your painful, awkward attempts at civility," he corrected her, leaning back and drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair. "What's this about?"

Hermione took a deep breath and braced herself for derisive laughter and patronizing sarcasm.

"I haven't fully exhausted all resources of information in the Department of Mysteries, but since my placement as an Unspeakable, I've recognized the value of collaboration—"

"You're asking for help with your project," said Malfoy, huffing impatiently and waving his hand for her to get on with it. "Get to the chase. What do you want?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him and clenched her teeth. She had to take a steadying breath and nearly reached up to physically unclamp her jaw before she finally relaxed. "I understand that your upbringing—"

Malfoy's eyes narrowed.

"—within the Wizarding World itself, deeply ingrained in its unspoken etiquettes and assumed notions, would have a more nuanced perception—"

"Then why don't you ask any other non-Muggleborn Unspeakable who'd know the same nuanced perceptions instead of coming to me?"

Hermione sighed. "Because—"

"I grew up with the name 'Malfoy,'" he said, exhaling shortly through his nose—the upperclass alternative to snorting and sniffing, Hermione assumed.

"What do you know about the Veil?" snapped Hermione, exhausted of his incessant interruptions. "And any Darker undertones that the Ministry wouldn't find to be suitable resource material to research due to its own narrow-minded notions about the allegiances of magic itself."

Malfoy laughed that time. "You want to know the secrets of the Veil that you think all us monstrous purebloods whisper around a dinner of human flesh and blood about all the different artifacts down in the bowels of the Ministry where you slave away to find the deeper meanings of life itself."

And there was the derision and patronizing sarcasm. She found some measure of comfort in the fact that not everything changed; the foundation of his personality retained status quo despite him not uttering a word against her appearance, her blood, or her upbringing.

"I'm asking for your help," she gritted out through her teeth, "so that I won't have to resort to another bloodletting ritual, as you so enjoy holding over my head, and inconvenience you any further. Your library being what it is, I'd hoped you would know more than the average magical citizen."

"As much fun as you might think bonding over the arcane secrets of that bloody archway will be, Granger, I'm disinclined to acquiesce to that request," he answered coolly, drumming his fingers on the middle stack of papers on his desk.

Hermione hid her clenched fists in her clasped hands. "Let me guess," she said through her teeth. "You don't want to give me the satisfaction."

Malfoy smirked. "That's just a pleasant bonus. There simply isn't enough about the Veil for you to even list me as a source."

She released her fists, feeling the blood rush back into her white knuckles as she sighed defeatedly. "But the Malfoy Library—"

He chuckled ruefully as he leaned forward, his elbow on the desk and his chin propped up on his fist. "Isn't the bloody Library at Alexandria. That was lost to both Muggle and Wizard folk. I'm more well-versed in the arcane than the average magical citizen, but that doesn't mean I've more answers than someone whose bloody professional specialty is the Veil."

Hermione regretted the entire endeavor completely.

"Listen, Granger," he said, straightening up again. "You're not allowed to discuss the parameters of your project, but even Goyle can infer that you're trying to bring someone from beyond."

She glowered at him. "I'm not allowed to discuss the parameters of my project," she said flatly.

"Then accept this as a non-sequitur and a warning," he said softly, no trace of derision in his tone. "That unholy structure is not to be trifled with, no matter how strong your passion and soul-deep your will. Study it to your heart's desire, but the moment you try to interact with it is the moment you need to re-evaluate your stance on personal safety. That structure is not a doorway between planes, Granger, no matter how much it may look the part. It's a window, and windows are not passageways for anything but fleeting glimpses and air."

Her brain processed his words, but her mouth took her cues from the lingering embers of bitterness and anger and his overall refusal to help.

"So you're turning down my request to merely peruse your library because you want to warn me off of doing my job?" she asked flatly.

Malfoy scoffed and stood up. His sudden smile, while derisive, was the least harsh she'd ever seen on his face. "It's a request, isn't it? Don't I have the freedom to turn that down? Or will we have to have a chat about the importance of consent?"

Hermione sat back in the chair and rested her forearms on the cushioned arms of the chair before crossing her leg over the other. "So this has absolutely nothing to do about your mission to keep every one of your patients from harming themselves out of your misplaced sense of guilt?"

He froze mid-step to wherever he'd been intending to stride. "I'm going to give you one chance to strike that from the record, Granger."

"Or are you doing it because it'd be a mark against your pristine, never-lost-a-patient-since-certification record?" persisted Hermione, cocking an eyebrow and feeling her fingers get colder and colder. "You can thank your beloved childhood friend Theodore Nott for that little tidbit."

The former Slytherin had become an Unspeakable trainee under Infantini only a few months prior, having had the longest probationary term because of his history of allegiances. When Hermione had first crossed paths with him in the corridors, she'd expected sneers, derision, or a complete disregard of her existence, at the very least. Instead, he'd been cordial, and subsequent encounters found him nothing but civil, albeit occasionally deadpan and sarcastic.

The only time she'd ever seen him properly agitated, haphazardly rifling through sheaves of parchment and muttering to himself, happened to be the most interesting.

"Unspeakable Nott had quite a lot to say about you," continued Hermione, keeping the tremble out of her voice with a little effort, "namely grumbling about how—and I quote—'insufferable gits whose facial features were sharper than their intellects and how occupational parameters suddenly gave the right to have the moral high grounds to forsake more noble endeavors and withhold critical information."

After years in the Department of Mysteries and firsthand experience with all its entailments (daily evasiveness and constant exposure to enigmas), coupled with a healthy paranoia borne from a childhood of war, Hermione easily picked up on Nott's subterfuge. For a Slytherin, he'd actually been obvious. The quiet man would've been the last to voice his frustrations for all and sundry, and judging by his hardly-specific wording, he was somehow aware of her situation as well. The question of how, she could blame on her coworkers. For all its secrecy outside of the department, there was no such discretion within it.

"You transported all borderline-Dark and arcane books from Malfoy Manor, didn't you? During the first few weeks after the war when the political scramble left Aurors more leeway to conduct unauthorized raids on Death Eater residences," pushed Hermione, ignoring the way his eyes narrowed with her every word. Anger nudged wisdom out of the way the angrier she got.

"Yes, keep coming to these assumed conclusions, Granger. I'm utterly fascinated," said Malfoy. His glare had grown darker with her every word until his thunderous expression had her frozen fingers clamped down on the arms of the chair to cease their quivering.

"How many others came to you for help, Malfoy? How many others were you actually inclined to acquiesce? Nott and I both came to you with requests for assistance, didn't we? Requests you rebuffed, not because you wanted to be a pompous, knowledge-hoarding arsehole, but because you refuse to give us any more information that could endanger us and your reputation."

"I am a Healer! You are my patients—"

"As are most of the Unspeakables, I'm sure, but you aren't stopping yourself from helping Infantini and Minh and Jenkins and Hackreeves—"

"Yes, yes, list the whole bloody department. I consult with Unspeakables whose projects aren't sucking them dry of life and magic!"

"Well, if you would help—"

His voice dropped low and furious, his eyes flashing silver in the cheerful afternoon sunlight. "I refuse to let you dig yourself deeper into these holes. I won't be held responsible."

Hermione laughed darkly. "Because you're against the core of our projects or is your priority who'd take the blame for it if we died?"

"Get out," he said calmly, threateningly; his sneer was on full-force.

"Nott is trying to find a way to block time travel itself so we'd never be at risk of time tampering, and I'm only trying to—"

"Obliterate the very barrier between life and death, and you're both willing to fucking die to achieve your ends. Are you really going to hold it against me if I do my damnedest to keep you both from that purely because regardless of who's to blame, I'd rather not have my patients die?!"

"I suppose you've never heard of the concept of sacrifice for the greater good?!"

"And here I had so hoped you were smart enough to know you can't build a fortress out of broken bricks!"

"Just like how the beloved Sacred Twenty-Eight tried to build strong bloodlines with inbred psychopaths and cataclysmic ideologies!"

Malfoy fell out of his rigid stance, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets as he shifted and stood straighter. His expression, however, did not waver.

"No, Granger—just like how you think you can piece yourself together again by bringing people back from the dead. You and Theo, noble as can be, trying to fix the world with just enough knowledge. He was an even bigger disappointment than you. He managed to convince me that he had some sense before he joined you moles down in Level Nine—relentlessly digging for goals you can't even see."

"Moles, yes, in comparison to the sudden moral high ground of your new pedestal, Malfoy. You have no true idea of what I'm doing, and I only—"

"You only what, Granger, for Circe's sake?! You only want to raise the dead out of a misplaced sense of justice as if the powers of your judgment surpasses the whims of fate—"

"I'm not nearly as pompous as you to think that my evaluations of right and wrong has its own gravitational force, considering how enormous your ego was—"

"And isn't that the keyword?!" he finally snapped. "The keyword you're so fond of conveniently forgetting—'was'—since that's what you're constantly doing these days, lingering in the past and trying to bring it right back out into your present and future?"

Hermione finally surged to her feet, thankful that she never felt comfortable enough in the office to set her purse down. "Then let me no longer linger in what is now our past, Malfoy, and darken your doorstep. I happily retract my request and wish you a pleasant, narrow-minded, self-righteous rest of your life."

"And I hope you enjoy living your own for what little you have left of it, Granger, since you so heartily enjoy focusing your life energy on the bloody dead."

Out of all the chapters I've written of this particular story, this one was one of my favorites. Having Hermione and Draco hash it out like this was unreasonably enjoyable for me.