Saturday — August 11th, 2001.

Hermione stared at the grate across the hall, her gaze unable to break away from it. It flickered and bloomed in the dark, which gave the room a sense of green candlelight. She crossed her arms tighter, her throat tense as she endured her drop in adrenaline. Her teeth chattered, whether for the cold of the room or the sight of the Snatchers in pursuit.

Or the question; what mattered most to her.

"This is my personal study," he began in a low voice. "If you need anything, you come here. Do not bother with St. Mungo's, there is nothing more they can do for you than I can."

"But they're Healers — "

Snape's head snapped with such force that she took a step back. "There is little a wand can do that a potion cannot. If you Apparate here directly, I will be notified."

St. Mungo's had never been a neutral ground after the Battle of Hogwarts. If it wasn't neglect, then there were suspect disappearances or strange deaths. People would fade away from an arm injury, or 'refuse food'. The Order avoided the place as a rule.

Her mind lingered on her last trip to St. Mungo's where they'd picked her apart. If she were to go there with injuries, they might attribute them to Snape.

Was he really that worried about being blamed for her wounds?

"For example," Snape began, the roll of his baritone enough to recapture her attention. She felt like she was back in Potions, eager to catch the unspoken hints of a future class. "You lose an arm. The Snatchers are aware of your general appearance and your injury. You are sedated or wandless, at the very least. Where do you think the Snatchers are likely to check?"

"St. Mungo's." Hermione said, her voice empty. "And they'd even know which ward."

His lips curled in the shadows, but she couldn't tell if that was a smile or a deeper scowl. He turned to look around the room before his gaze slotted back into hers, black ice locked with honey brown.

"I wouldn't want to go there anyway." She scrunched herself tighter as if it would help with the cold. She realized she may not be really cold. She felt more like she had the flu, shivering and too hot. She'd felt this way since the constellation had been administered. She was fighting an illness and losing. "Umbridge was there."

"It is her program," Snape said with distinct bitterness.

"You knew about that?" She wished she could return the favor, that she could slide into his eyes and peruse his memories. But all she had was the confusing, mismatched tells that didn't help. It was easier not to look at him, to use her ears to pick apart his change in mood.

"I can't be sure of the shape of her plans, but there was no doubt a reason behind it." He spoke in an equally flat tone as he pointed out the reality, piece by piece. "She used Imperio. But you resisted."

"She didn't try very hard," Hermione snorted.

"False modesty doesn't suit you." He ran his index finger and thumb in small circles as he watched her before his thumb dipped to the silver band. "I imagine she wanted to gain control of you to monitor whoever you married. Perhaps to sabotage you, make you run."

Such a thought had slipped Hermione's mind. She had resisted the Unforgivable Curse through her ability to compartmentalize herself to maintain logic. She shuffled the pieces of her mind out of the way, the urge to do what felt good, for the sake of what was right.

Which was maintaining her freedom, even in some small, simple way.

"She may try again, but I'll know."

"How?"

"Do you doubt me?" Snape smirked. "Whether you tell me, or I glean it from you in passing, you scream your thoughts all around you."

Hermione turned red around her ears and cheeks. She blamed the heat of the room.

"You beg people to hear what you think."

Hermione didn't look at him.

"Do you really believe that she'd have put you under the Imperius curse for something as simple as your arms being restrained. That she would have released control? There are far easier methods to achieve such a simple, short-term outcome than an Unforgivable Curse."

Hermione sank into a nearby chair, a hand pressed to her forehead.

"Now," he cleared his throat. "What small fortune I have to provide you is that your dose of Stella Vinculum was, unfortunately, tampered with," he said with a smirk that suggested it wasn't unfortunate at all.

Hermione's mind fogged as she tried to think of her dosage. She hadn't been awake for the actual administration but it hadn't been easy. They had complained that hers wouldn't settle because of her head wound. "Tampered in what sense?"

"Traditionally, the constellations would track your location, among other things. That information is then transferred to mine," he gestured to his marks. "It's similar to the creation of a Dark Mark though not identical."

Hermione felt like she should be taking notes.

"I wasn't consulted in the creation of this so-called Stella Vinculum. Had I been," he said, with a morose sigh. "I would have informed them that someone with Occlumency in any capacity can forgo the tracking elements they've instilled."

"You intentionally blocked it?" She squinted at him.

"You did — though the people in charge used an outdated strain of Veritaserum, with too much Moonstone Powder so as to negate the juice from the Sopophorous Bean. Still effective, but easier to resist… Even for someone with limited Occlumency," he sighed as if it were a personal insult. "Given my proclivity for Occlumency and my lack of interest in you altogether — matched with your outright resistance and the weak Veritaserum as a base — your constellation is half-formed."

"I don't know Occlumency — "

"Perhaps you don't realize you're doing it, but you do. But even if you hadn't tried to resist the potion, even a child could have withstood the deeper bonding mechanisms."

"If it had taken completely," Hermione fidgeted with her hand. "What would have happened?"

"You would be able to keep no secrets from me, in any capacity. You would be suggestible, pliable, otherwise — committed, to your submission."

Hermione felt green around the edges.

"But given the warped nature of your implantation, your marks are a subdermal array of — " he examined the dots on her forearm, which she'd been staring at. "Silver. In a word, useless."

"It's on your left arm — does it interfere with your Dark Mark?"

"The silver comes from the Dark Mark," Snape said in an even tone. "Each Muggleborn is given the Stella Vinculum which has a small portion of the ingredients from the creation of a Dark Mark… Silver being one of the ingredients."

"Why silver?" Hermione said, blunt curiosity unable to be fought down. She felt the questions bubble beneath the surface as if she could crack the code if she just asked the right one.

"The Dark Lord used it to assist with the Protean charm, along with the balance between the so-called Dark magic and natural magical signature. The silver acts as a conduit, to draw the will into specific spots."

It was strange to hear him speak with such clarity. He was reserved in any question about himself, but his knowledge of the Dark Arts elicited easy conversation. Hermione made note of it.

"So they would be able to track me through you, like how Voldemort tracked Death Eaters..?"

Snape folded his hands behind his back, disappointed in her for reasons she couldn't pinpoint. His gaze remained fixed on the iron gate and the green light just beyond that.

"Bellatrix will be angry with you, won't she. As will Umbridge."

"I haven't explained how it was tampered with," Snape said, a flicker behind his eyes. "I selected you."

Hermione's eyes widened. "But you have no interest in me — you just said."

"Not sexually," he spat as if it were the worst thing he could imagine. "But I couldn't stand having a genuinely devoted wife, one who would float around me and be cloying. Even worse if she cared for me in any capacity. The Muggleborn girls who go through this process tend to be more malleable, for their own safety. They chase their husbands like puppies, and are inclined to breed like — " he caught his venom as he met her eye. "I take no great pleasure in having a hostage."

Hermione picked at the wood of the tabletop, her brow furrowed.

"When they found your address, it was expected that you would run." Snape began to walk towards the stairs as if the conversation was finished. "They were going to use your own nature to kill you."

"No, wait," Hermione stood up, her hands scrunched by her sides. "So the constellation I have is… You picked it, to match yours."

"I would have asked, but they may have checked your memories," he said with a sneer. "Which would have negated the subterfuge. Hardly worth the risk."

Hermione saw the grim logic in that thought, even if it hurt her to think about.

"The potion is a magnificent exercise in faulted will. Magnetism based on a magical signature, that's a key element. The magnetism of anything can be flipped or shifted with ease," he tongued his lips apart. "The marriage agreement is real, but if the Healers had done their job correctly, they'd have identified the failure of the Stella Vinculum. It took in aesthetics alone, but the stretch beyond that has limited because of our equal apprehension. But they're overworked, underpaid and unlikely to admit failure, even if they had noticed it."

"Do you know who I was meant to be with?"

"Does it matter?"

Hermione stared at the floor, her expression faded. "I suppose not."

Snape's lips twitched at the corner. "All that I knew was that I needed you loyal to me."

"Why?"

"This returns us to the question; at the end of the war, what did you wish to see more," Snape repeated, shrouded in the shadows by the exit. "Did you want to see Harry survive or Voldemort fall."

Hermione was trapped between what felt like the righteous response and the one that felt truer to her. She scraped her nails against the tabletop, her throat tense and her eyes watering. She wasn't sure what she had expected of today, but she felt worse about the marriage.

If Snape could tamper with it, why hadn't he given her a constellation that didn't match anything?

Why didn't he make it fail altogether?

"Harry," Hermione said after a long moment of silence. "I… I wish that Harry had survived. Because, even if Voldemort survived too, I…" Hermione hated herself at that moment, as tears began to fall down her face. She buried her arms into the bare skin of her forearms, her head tucked close to the crook of her arm.

Snape remained static by the exit as if he were ready to run up the stairs. He hadn't looked at her much through their conversation. He seemed preoccupied with the green light beyond the iron gate.

"Even if Voldemort survived, I know Harry would have gotten him eventually," Hermione finished, her lip quivered and her face bright red in the dark. "Why does it matter to you so much?"

He didn't answer.

Instead, his left hand twitched.

"That Snatcher said we have to consummate our marriage — "

"That isn't for you to worry about."

"I disagree," Hermione snorted. "It's my body after all. It's entirely something for me to worry about."

"Consummation isn't a government mandate, nor is it something I want from you." His voice dripped with a threat as if he'd hex her if she even came within three feet of him. "In any capacity."

"Okay," Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, though it shuddered between the loose shape of her jaw. "But if people ask…"

Snape was eerily quiet, still halfway in the shadows. He had to go, but he hadn't.

Not yet.

"I'm sorry."

"Why are you — "

And he vanished.

He'd Apparated, she knew that much, but it had been soundless. She wasn't sure he'd even apologized at first. She didn't know what he was sorry for. She was left in his private stores with her word that she was loyal to him.

Not that she had much of a choice.

The constellations may not be as concrete, but the fact she now existed as Mrs. Hermione Snape hadn't eluded her. The marriage ceremony had been real enough. What good was free will if you remained boxed in a silver cage to a man you didn't care for?

And so she cried.

It was gentle at first, a small private sob like she'd misunderstood an essay prompt and written the wrong thing. Then deeper, worse, like the tears she'd shed after her parents forget her. By her own hand, but still, it carved a hole in her chest she'd not yet closed.

She cried so loud she was afraid she'd scare her neighbors.

Except that she was in the bowls of a basement, with dirt walls and cobblestone floors. There was the stairway upward, and the gate with the green light.

It had been an hour of sobbing, or it felt like an hour. She had no idea how long it had been since the wedding, or when they'd arrived. Or even when he'd left. She pushed up from the table with shaky limbs. She wanted to look at the bottles to see what he had on hand, but her eyes hurt too much for that.

Instead, she moved closer to the iron gate with the green light.

The hallway beyond it was curved so she couldn't see where it ended. It seemed to creep around and further down. The idea that this cavern could go even lower made her stomach flip. She hated depths and heights in equal measure.

She waved a hand at the iron gate and took three steps back when the wards hissed and shimmered. There were dozens of wards, more than she'd even been able to identify. Though it were open and visible, she might as well have tried to break back into Gringotts for how difficult it would be.

Sigils flickered in front of her, along with several riddles. An alternating pattern of curses pulsed, and if she were to touch even one of them, she might die. She didn't know, nor could she, not without the intent to break them.

Were she to guess, she would say that it was a further storage room. Perhaps dangerous items were stored down there, or live creatures that were used for making potions. If a menagerie was downstairs, she didn't want to unleash it on a tiny Muggle home.

But he hadn't barred her from this place.

Perhaps she could inspect it further, once…

Once she lived here.

Her urge to be sick resurfaced.

The image of Natalie at the Ministry followed, as a grim reminder of the life she could have had. And, if Snape were to die, that could have been her future. They may decide to manipulate her stars or say that she'd lied, as an excuse to kill her. Or they'd forced her into another arrangement as a way to keep her monitored.

She was thankful she'd been snatched up by Snape, by his own admission.

Snape hadn't given her instructions on what she was expected to do. She didn't answer to him, nor did she expect him to control her schedule. But given his demand that she move in with him, she at least had to collect her things…

That went without saying, didn't it?

Hermione closed her eyes and thought of her apartment. Her hesitation to Apparate there had stemmed from the fear that she was being tracked. But given this would be her last trip there, it seemed foolish to be afraid of that.

They knew where she lived.

As she felt the atmosphere shift, too tight then loose once more, she relaxed. The jump had been far longer than she expected, as she arrived with a heaviness in her chest like she'd run a marathon. She tensed her jaw and wore through the exhaustion, not sure how far her apartment had been from Snape's house.

She took a deep breath and tasted copper. Her eyes snapped open, wide at the room around her.

Windows smashed. Doors unhinged, shattered.

Bodies.

Three of them.

No one she recognized she realized with intense relief.

Her knees shook as she pieced together her apartment. The windows in the kitchen were shattered. The pantry had been emptied on the floor. She turned to look at the front door, which had been blown off its hinges. She crept through the broken glass and fragments of wood on the floor.

At first, she thought the men were unconscious. Maybe they'd surprised Ginny, who'd come home from her Quidditch match early.

But Ginny's broom was missing from where she usually leaned it. That didn't mean anything. It could be anywhere.

Each body was twisted in unnatural ways, even for a jinx. They were bleeding too from their ears and eyes. What little part she could see of their eyes were empty red sockets, mashed and mixed like someone had dug their thumbs into their eyes and twisted until it was mush.

One was heavily tattooed, wide.

Oh.

She recognized him.

Her memory whirred. While the other two didn't strike her as especially familiar, she had seen the fat tattooed Snatcher at the Ministry. They'd been so angry — they'd used their knowledge of her home to come for her, to spite Snape for his hex. Her gaze snapped around the empty walls, spatters of blood and glass everywhere. Water flowed from the bathroom, sourceless past the frame of the door.

A cold shiver ran the length of her back.

Had it really been that easy for them to break in?

They could have come here at any time they liked.

They knew where she'd lived.

She crept through the apartment with her wand raised. The mirror in her bathroom had been shattered and their potions were scattered on the floor. The glass screen around the shower laid in thick shards across the floor. The toilet spewed water from the broken tank, paper, and magazines floating. She grimaced and charmed a small invisible wall to stop the water and ceased the flow.

There was no pattern to their violence, save for the desperate need to destroy.

There was no sound in the apartment, nothing to alert her. She expected that forth Snatcher to appear, the one Snape had called Scabior. Her heart was too quick in her head. She should leave. She should go back to Snape's, to wait for the Order.

The distant curious mewl of Crookshanks sent her into a panic.

Her heartbeat so hard she was sure it'd bruise her lungs. She had to get Crookshanks and get out. She needed to get the word to Ginny, and to the Order.

She had so much she needed to do, she needed to get out with Crookshanks most of all.

She rushed the last few steps to her bedroom where she saw him beneath her bed. He hissed at the sight of her, and she felt her heart break.

"Sweetheart, it's okay, I'm here — "

A hand latched to her hair, as her head was dragged back by the hank of her braid. Her hair came out in a thick chunk as they yanked her close. A hand snapped to her mouth, her wrist, a shift in posture too rough to contest.

Once they had her close and pinned with the sheer force of their body and the wall in front of her. Their hand snaked around her wrists, too tight, the hard edge of their wands jabbed into her freshly minted forearm. She screamed against their palm, thick curses and hexes, but none took. She hadn't any space to gesture, so her defensive magic was useless.

Magic was more like archery than a shield by nature. No one was ever meant to be this close to her.

She was trapped, bodily, her head contorted with the force of their grip on her mouth. Tobacco clung to their fingers and filled their nose. Fresh grass, like she'd just ripped out handfuls from the earth. The contrast of crusty smoke and sharp grass made her head swirl.

Her sternum felt like it'd crack as the assailant pushed into her, their weight and height a clear advantage.

With a miserable ache in her head, she realized her last meaningful conversation with someone would be about sex with Severus Snape.

About how she was supremely unfuckable as if she couldn't have died before she'd had to endure that.

The universe was a cruel thing.

Her mind fluttered with spells she could use, but they floated outside of her grasp.

"I'm disappointed Granger," the voice brushed over her ear as her resistance waned. "If I'd been here to kill you, you'd be dead over that stupid fat cat."

Hermione relaxed a little more in feigned submission. The stupid man behind her bought into it as his grip relaxed on her wrists.

Hermione snapped her head backwards into his face. It was easy to do, given he was pushing her head towards his.

She heard the crack with sick pride as she dug her fingers into his wrist. He kept his grip on the wands but she'd gained enough space to turn. Her back remained against the wall as she scrabbled for something. She settled for a floor lamp, which she wretched from the wall socket. It was long and metal, and if she swung it hard enough she may be able to hurt him.

Somehow, it made sense that Draco Malfoy had reappeared in her life for the expressed purpose of assaulting her in her ruined apartment. She'd had such a terrible day, it could only be made worse by the slant of his silver eyes and the tilt of his sneer.

"If you're here to kill me Malfoy, just do it already," she said as a challenge.

"I'm here to protect you."

Hermione heaved a hysterical laugh, her voice wavered and her feet planted wide. "Oh, sure, I come back to my ruined apartment, and you assault me, and — and you're here to protect me, of course! How stupid of me!" She swung the lamp at him, but she was too far away for it to make contact.

"Put the lamp down."

"You put the lamp down!" She swung it harder this time like it were a sword. It was too unwieldy, so as the swing followed through she hit one of the men on the floor.

They were decidedly dead.

"You're dead — you're… You died, in the explosion at your mansion!" She threw the lamp at him, which he deflected with his wand. "I was there, I saw it happen!"

Hermione breathed, her teeth framed around her anger. Her braid was long since shaken out and she was still sweaty from Snape's study. She smoothed her hair and her face with the flats of her hands, which were shaking.

He watched her with abject amusement, which made her want to pick up a chair or flick shattered CDs at him like they were throwing stars.

"I had a formal explanation prepared with Snape as an intermediary," Malfoy raised his wand towards his face, tension in his eyes. A swift bone-setting charm made a loud crack, and what little blood that had formed vanished with another swipe. "But such plans were derailed by these useless lugs."

"How did you know there were Snatchers here?" Hermione's teeth clicked together. "Have you been stalking me?"

Malfoy's jaw clenched, his gaze fixed to hers.

"Give me my wand," Hermione extended her hand.

"If you promise not to hex me."

Hermione's fingers twitched. "I won't hex you."

"Or jinx, or curse," Malfoy continued.

"I… I won't."

"For your sake, you better not," he shot a tense look at her. There was no softness in his tone, no sense of a joke. He slipped the wand to her, though his eyes were guarded.

He kept a cool, intense gaze fixed on her, as he watched to make sure she didn't lash out at him.

She hadn't ever noticed that his eyes were silver until she'd seen them in the mansion.

By then it'd been too late.

"May I tell Ginny that the apartment was attacked?" She said, her voice cautious. "So she doesn't come back?"

Malfoy's throat strained and his eyes narrowed. "You need to pack and be out of here. If you notify the Order, they'll insist on coming to the rescue."

"I'll notify her when I leave then."

Malfoy was at ease despite the dead bodies around him. The room had begun to smell of copper and sweat, with the thick heat of summer no help. Hermione would have felt a deeper remorse were they not Snatchers, out to tear her home apart. She examined the shattered picture frames, the bent over elements…

They had torn into everything.

It was senseless violence. She didn't keep any records of the Order here. They were in her notes, the golden ones she looped around her fingers in Latin, that transcribed into a notebook she'd shoved into her beaded purse.

Her notes were an extension of her pacing through Muggle London before her meetings. She was so cautious about everything.

And yet she stood in the shattered remnants of her apartment.

What had she done wrong?

"Is any of this yours?"

"No," Hermione dismissed. "It came with the apartment."

Malfoy's face twisted with disgust.

Hermione searched the space around her. She felt strange and exposed to have Malfoy here in his rich black robes and silver hair. He looked taller, though she might have imagined that. She parted her lips to ask a question but resisted.

She didn't want to know, didn't care to know.

It took a depressingly short amount of time for her to pack. Even if she'd done it by hand, she had so little in the way of personal possessions. She kept all her books and her clothes in her beaded purse. Any photos of her family or friends remained there too.

The only decorative element she had in her room was three mugs with cute patterns and a print that she'd bought in Muggle London. She looked up at her print with an ache in her chest.

MUDBLOOD WHORE

That had been written in a brown, thick paste. A mix of feces and blood and a sticking charm. She raised her wand to clear it away, which took longer than it should. The spell slowly ate away at the edges of it, though she didn't linger to make sure it vanished. The destruction of the apartment was another issue, one she would fix before she left, but that…

She glanced at the door. Malfoy was there, obscured by the frame. He had his attention on the words, something distinct behind his eyes.

A glint, brief and sharp.

Amusement, she gathered.

Perhaps he was jealous he'd not thought to do that himself while they were at school together.

"Do they often do that?"

"What?" Hermione asked in a flat voice.

Malfoy didn't clarify further. She continued to pack what few bits and pieces she needed. Her towels, her brush, a pair of slippers. Her room hadn't been as thoroughly ransacked. Ginny's room had been untouched from the brief glance she'd seen.

"Ugly, isn't he." He glanced across the room to see Crookshanks, who hissed in his direction.

"He isn't ugly, or fat," Hermione said as she stripped her bed linens. She'd cleaned them with a flick of her wand and took to folding them with a charm. She was too tired to do it manually, and she refused to ask Malfoy to help her fold sheets. She doubted he'd know how to do it.

Malfoy sneered at Crookshanks, who hissed back.

"Are you going to explain," she said, no more confident than she looked. Her shoulders were wilted and her chest ached.

He straightened his posture though she refused to look at him any closer than that. He had no right to look cared for and well-fed if he'd been in hiding. Of all the displaced witches and wizards she knew, they were shrunken and bruised, unable to stand still.

Malfoy looked the healthiest she'd ever seen him.

"You ran," she swallowed hard. "You and your family ran, in the height of the war."

Malfoy remained silent.

"Why come back?" Her voice crackled around the edges.

"Freedom was dull," he smirked. "And this half-hearted battle is pathetic to hear about. So I suppose the answer to your question is pity, for you, for your little Order."

"You're here to help us?" While the question sounded hopeful in its words alone, her heart sank.

"I consider it a mercy killing."

Despite the cool, collected way that Hermione acted about Malfoy, it failed to meet her inner thoughts.

In truth, she was in a panic.

She'd gotten married to her old Professor out of a magical obligation that he'd manipulated. Her apartment had been torn to shreds and the only reason that she was alive, it seemed, was because of a benevolent bully from her past who'd decided to pop in after years of hiding.

Hermione's head spun from the shape of it. She fussed with the simple silver ring with the edge of her nail. She had nothing left to pack, nothing to busy herself with.

The process of packing could have been over in seconds. She could have waved her wand and had it all slammed into her beaded purse. But she needed this time to make sure of —

Of something.

Of his honesty, of his purpose, of why Draco Malfoy had reappeared into her life in such a violent fashion. Her cheeks and mouth still ached from the pressure of his grip.

"You're working with Snape," Hermione said, her voice sharp. "But he never thought to tell the Order you were alive."

Malfoy maintained his attention on her with the same clinical observation one would level at a plant that refused to grow.

Concerned, frustrated, distant.

"Are your parents alive too?" She met his eye, which was her mistake.

Malfoy stalked towards her, his hand wedged into her underarm.

"Am I supposed to take you on your word? That you're here to help?"

"Whatever you need, you can buy later."

"Crookshanks — " She yanked away from him, her eyes fresh with tears. "Let me get Crookshanks, please."

Malfoy shoved her towards the bed, so she could grab him. The second she'd lofted Crookshanks into her arms, she met Malfoy's eye.

Silver.

Sharp.

She'd never felt so much like she'd taken a knife to her eyes before, but she'd imagine it felt like staring at Draco Malfoy. It was tense until he slipped past her guard, then it was nothing but pain.

She Disapparated to Snape's house, her eyes still locked with Malfoy's.

The sensation of Disapparition forced them shut. She held Crookshanks tighter as he struggled against her, as if eager to escape. And then he was still in her arms, squeezed by the magic, hot then cold.

She thought of the bookshelves, too close for comfort.

The empty fireplace, the stacks of books.

The wet feeling of the air and the smell of musk.

It had been enough.