Saturday — August 11th, 2001.
Hermione had seen Snape's home for such a short time, she was afraid she'd not be able to Apparate back on her own. But he had said the ring would assist
The ring.
Right.
She was his wife now, wasn't she?
This was her home now, too.
Crookshanks jumped from her arms. He hated Apparition and hated being smothered. He loved Hermione enough to endure her. If she'd been anyone else, there would be a flurry of blood and torn flesh. Instead he let out a heavy mewl, as if to remind her that she was lucky.
He took to the empty armchair across from her with the confidence of a king. She wished she could mirror his confidence in the dismal shadows of Snape's lounge. She stared around it, as if to glean information about the man and the house. But nothing stood out, not unless you counted the disarray of his books and the thick layer of dust on most.
She smoothed her t-shirt and sat on the floor. The term 'sat' was generous, as her legs had given out. Her stern posture and strategic mind melted away all at once in the musk of a neglected house. She'd Apparated quite a far distance, it seemed, and on such a small frame of reference. She was surprised she'd not Splinched herself. Her head ached from the effort, so it must have been several hundred miles at least.
Too much, too far, too soon.
She didn't have a place here, not in the suffocating, neglected books nor in the galley kitchen. If she had a room, she'd not been shown it. She didn't know where the bathroom was either. She was a guest in this place, but without any of the warmth. So, perhaps guest was the wrong word. She was an intruder. She should have run, she should have taken Ron up on the offer, to marry him and to at least have a familiar place to brood through the arrangement.
Because she was married.
The fact kept slipping from her mind like sand, over and over.
Her hands snapped to her face. She couldn't help but cry as she had downstairs in the midst of a Potion chamber.
Her apartment, torn to pieces. Not for the first time, either. But she had learned from their mistakes. She used less magic, she never Apparated if she could help it, she never went anywhere new, she didn't speak to anyone. She had cut her life into such a small square, she had been so careful, she'd done everything right.
And she had still fallen foot-first into the trap, bamboo sharpened to pierce from all angles.
The weight of her morning landed on her shoulders.
The wedding with Snape.
The dead Snatchers.
Natalie.
Malfoy.
Her head ached from where he'd slammed her head and yanked her hair. Her head hurt inside, too, from how she'd Apparated so far, twice over. She dug into her forearm with her nails, to try to pry the silver dots from her skin. But they moved like oil against water, away from her touch. Even when she pierced her skin, they remained. She wanted them out, out of her arm, out of her life.
Crookshanks hissed.
"Are you done?"
Hermione slammed her head back against the bookshelf behind her, so hard that she saw stars. She scrabbled for her wand but the blood on her hand made it impossible to grip.
Malfoy stood in front of her, his head tipped to one side. She'd not heard him Apparate, nor his feet hit the ground.
"I hadn't expected you to run here of all places," he said in a cool voice. "Rather expected you to go to Blackwall."
"Leave me alone."
"So you can tear your arm apart?" He said, his tone thick with sarcasm. "I'm sure your husband wouldn't appreciate that."
"I don't care," she snapped back. Snape had been accommodating in their brief window of the arrangement, but he'd manipulated her into his care. It was like giving praise to a judge for giving you a life sentence instead of the death penalty. She looked down at her arm, which was bleeding more than she'd realized. She hadn't meant to tear the skin, just the spots. But they evaded her nails and her grip.
Her hands were shaking and her chest was too tight. She needed air, she needed space.
"Do you know even how to fix that mess you've made," he said, his wand raised.
"Leave me alone!"
Malfoy's hand twitched, as his vague amusement turned to anger. "Leave me alone, leave me alone — when did you become so pathetic?" His tone turned from mocking to cruel.
"Shut up," she snapped, which drew a hiss from Crookshanks. He'd paced over to stand in front of Hermione, his hackles raised.
He twitched his wand to the side once, followed by several short flicks.
Hermione's arm seared hot and bright as the marks began to heal. She hadn't stopped crying, and that doubled as the heat burnt through her flesh. The silver made it worse as if they conducted the heat all the way into her bones.
"No wonder the Order hasn't managed to do anything except die by the dozens. Surprised so many Weasleys are still kicking."
Hermione's hand turned to a claw as the muscles seized. Her skin smelled of burnt hair and bacon. She threw up. It wasn't the cuts or the healing that made her feel ill. It was the dead bodies, the grief, an awful pressure from inside her chest to just tease Malfoy into snapping.
She remained scrunched and terrified, as the sight of her ruined apartment played behind closed eyes.
The dead bodies.
MUDBLOOD WHORE.
"I had expected you to run, you know." His tone was bored as he remained in front of her, his wand loosely gestured in her direction. "Thought that know-it-all nature of yours would have found a way around the evaluation."
Hermione pushed herself into a better position, her face hot and her throat flooded with bile.
"Rather disappointing to see, actually."
She waved her hand to banish her vomit. She didn't want to dignify him with a response.
Malfoy's hand twitched towards where she sat, though it drew back into a fist. "You, submitting to a Death Eater. And Snape of all people." He examined her with distant attention as if he were waiting for her next move.
"Why are you here?" Hermione croaked through her phlegm-ridden throat.
His answer was stolen from her with a soft pop.
A thin blond witch with a chin that matched Malfoy's appeared.
Narcissa Malfoy, no different than she'd looked at the mansion when Hermione had last seen her. She had the same dark circles and thinness to her face.
"I was worried where you'd gotten off too," her body angled towards her son, several slim pretty rings on her fingers. Silver spiders studded her ears. "Are you okay?" She busied herself with his hair and his face, as if in search of damage or decay.
He allowed her to fuss, though his expression soured towards Hermione as an unspoken threat.
Hermione pushed back against the carpet, to further impress herself into the bookshelf.
"No one saw you?" She looked to her son, deep into his eyes. As if she were in search of something. "You need to be careful, always careful."
"No one saw me," Malfoy said, which wasn't true.
He meant that no one alive had seen him, as those three men in her apartment had certainly gotten a view of him as he melted their brains out of their facial orifices.
Malfoy caught his mother's wrists, to still their slight shake. He drew them back, to thumb the inner side of her forearm. She wore a dress with long sleeves, pinned at the wrists with tiny silver buttons. "The Snatchers made a move on her apartment," he said with a jerk of his head.
It was then Narcissa noticed Hermione, who had crammed herself between stacks of books. "I'm so sorry — hello Hermione," her expression was drawn as her eyes widened at Hermione's bloody arm.
Hermione's stomach twitched. She couldn't find words for the woman.
"Did you not handle the Snatchers quickly enough?" Her voice wavered, her fingers drew through the lengths of her robes. "She's bleeding."
"The blood's her own fault," he hissed, more like the boy she'd known in school.
"Help her up," Narcissa snapped, her tone cold.
Malfoy approached Hermione with his hand extended.
She shoved his hand away and saw herself to her feet, her eyes squinted at the pair.
"Today hasn't gone as we expected at all. Severus was summoned out by Yaxley. Hogwarts matters," she spoke as if she were familiar with Hermione. They'd met a handful of times, and the experience had never been pleasant. "We were meant to speak as a group when it was time."
Hermione sat with confusion bruised across her face.
"He didn't — no, I suppose not," Narcissa touched her chin, long nails lacquered silver. "I had hoped he would at least warn you about the kidnapping."
"I'm sorry, what kidnapping?" Hermione's voice was flat as schooled her scowl.
"Well yes dear, you're the one who kidnapped us, or, well, you will be, soon," Narcissa popped up onto the balls of her feet, a small 'o' shape to her lips. "Has she seen her bedroom?"
Malfoy looked miserable, though Hermione wasn't sure why. Perhaps he'd intended to tease and torture her further.
His mother ruined the ambiance for such a thing.
"She doesn't know about any of that yet, mother."
"About having a bedroom?" Narcissa laughed like wind chimes.
"No — the kidnapping."
Narcissa's joy faded, though her lips remained pried apart at the corners. Her gaze flicked to Hermione as if to assess her.
Her gaze lingered on her forearm, her left one then her right and her expression fell altogether.
"Let's start with her room," Narcissa exhaled a soft breath, her cheeks flushed.
Hermione felt like she must have water in their ears, as they'd said it several times and she hadn't really heard right.
Something about how she'd kidnapped them, even though she'd not seen them in three years.
She'd remember such a feat.
"I decorated this for you when they finally called you for your evaluation," Narcissa rolled her shoulder away to go towards the small entrance. "You've been clever, though Draco always said you were clever. Almost jealous, though he has sharpened his wits in the time we've had abroad."
Hermione nursed her left forearm as she watched her vanish around the corner. She hadn't a chance to follow Narcissa as Malfoy yanked her close by her bicep.
"Tell my mother her decorations are lovely, and that you're thankful for her effort." His mouth was angled by her ear, his voice low and too hoarse
It dragged along each vertebra and landed somewhere deep in her stomach.
Hermione yanked herself free of his grip to rush after Narcissa.
There was a staircase that split off upward, and given the small layout of the house, she could only assume the bedroom was upstairs.
She rushed up the stairs as Malfoy was behind her. She expected him to cast a tripping curse on her, or to vanish a step. By the time she reached the top step, she caught sight of three doors. The furthest one was tucked into a corner to her right, while to her left was Narcissa.
Another further door was at the opposite end of the hallway, but it was shrouded in shadows.
Snape's room.
"I wasn't sure what colors you like, so I kept it neutral and light, feminine as it were," Narcissa began her hand in motion. "Yes, I understand your house, all that, but red is so exhausting on your eyes, and gold is so crass," she reached for Malfoy's hands as she spoke, pleasantness to her voice that came with etiquette training.
Malfoy held his mother's hands like they were crystal, cautious not to mark her or hold her too tight.
Hermione didn't look at him for long, but it was strange to see his tenderness with his mother.
Her gaze lingered on his hands, the same one that had clamped her mouth, the same ones that had killed three men. It seemed cruel that he could tend to his mother with restrained kindness while he throttled her at every opportunity he was permitted.
She rubbed her bicep which still ached from where he'd yanked her.
" — and as you know, cotton breathes," Narcissa continued. She cracked the door open, a pleasant smile on her pretty face. She was shaded and drawn, but still pretty.
She'd lost that haughty edge she'd held when Hermione had last seen her, her long blond hair trussed up with pins.
Her robes were simpler, however, but still ornate around the trim. Hermione watched her vanish into the room, to continue her guided tour.
Hermione peered into the room, her eyes felt as though they'd bulged from her skull.
The bedroom was larger than her last one. It had to be expanded, given the house was quite squat and cramped.
This room was cleaner than the rest of the house too, with a charm that must control the temperature. It was temperate compared to the murky outside, with no stained wallpaper or gritty carpet. A pretty double bed with four posts sat at the opposite the door at the far end of the room, perched beneath a swath of ornate curtains. It was too decadent for Hermione, so she skipped her attention elsewhere.
A small seat by the window was set up with books, silver threaded cushions with tassels, a curly silver tea set.
A bay window; she'd always wanted one of those, like the one she'd had at her family home.
Her throat tightened as she stepped inside, her hands knotted and twisted together.
The wall that ran on the inner side of the house was packed with bookshelves and books. To her right was a small alcove with a desk, an ornate chair, and stacks of fresh parchment and beautiful silver quills.
"It's quite small, I know, but we did extend it or you. You should have seen it when I arrived, it was awful, Severus had thrown a dirty little mattress down, that was all, I was…" Narcissa caught herself, her cheeks a lovely shade of pink. "Do you like it?"
"Of course, it's beautiful, but," Hermione turned to look at them both, her expression a mix of confusion and horror. "Why?"
Narcissa's expression cracked as she looked at Malfoy. In a different life, she'd have been an actress.
Perhaps she still was one now.
"It's lovely! Really lovely, but…" Hermione worried her t-shirt against her fingers as she tried to clear off the tears and snot.
"You don't like it, do you," her eyes swept Hermione's face. "I knew the curtains were too much."
"I do like it," Hermione croaked. "It's just been a very… I… The last time I saw you both, you were holding me at wand point, you realize."
The light and breezy tone of the room was lost in a second. All she could feel was the strain of air as it was sucked from the room as if the light had been stolen. Narcissa's hands shook, bunched by her sides.
Her hands were like little birds turned to porcelain, cracked along the seams.
"I didn't have a wand trained on you," Narcissa said, her tone sharp. "Neither did Draco."
Hermione strained her neck as she looked back at the room.
All white furniture and metal frames.
Zoos were often gorgeous to those who passed by it.
"I appreciate the effort," Hermione repeated, at a loss for words. She should have done as Malfoy had suggested, to say that the room was lovely and that she appreciated her effort.
But why did she have to be so toothless and complicit in her own abduction?
The act of gracious hostess faded in front of her. Narcissa's hands shook as she stepped towards Malfoy, her head dropped.
He pulled her close to rest his head on hers, his chin pressed into her ornate pins. Silver and blue, a few flecks of green. The pins were more expensive than everything Hermione owned. She could tell that by sight alone.
It was the sort of thing Malfoy would point out to her, but he didn't seem willing to speak.
He hadn't stopped glaring at Hermione.
Narcissa wouldn't even look at her.
"I do like it," Hermione repeated, her voice hot.
The Malfoys vanished down the stairs, their voices a mixed whisper.
Hermione let them go. She wasn't even sure if the vision of them was real, in their pale faces and black clothes. It'd been years since they'd been in her life, and she hadn't missed them. She wasn't glad to see them, and she didn't care to ask what had happened.
And so she was left with herself for the first time since before her marriage ceremony.
Even more alone than that, she realized.
She didn't even have Ginny anymore.
Hermione sent a Patronus to Ginny at her stadium to say that she was fine and that their apartment was no longer safe. She didn't know if she wanted to risk a return there, to pick through the rubble for anything she may have left.
The Order would go there, she imagined. They'd clean it up and repair things. They'd done it for other wizarding families.
She wasn't any different to them, not really.
Snape didn't return that night.
She hadn't left her room to check. If he wanted to speak to her, he could come to find her. She refused to walk around his house like a baleful hostage, in search of an escape. She wasn't trapped here. She could leave at any time.
But she was tired and just…
Empty.
She replayed the day, again and again. Her fingers wove her golden notes, the ones that would imprint on the notebook she kept in her beaded purse.
The strange blood orbs suspended in the Ministry of Magic. The sight of Natalie, dirtied and so like Hermione when she'd been living in tents for a year. Her defiance reflected in a broken girl, one she couldn't save.
One of the dozens of Muggleborn girls crammed into an arranged marriage, for the might of magic.
She'd joined the ranks of those girls, albeit in the least objectionable way.
The wedding ceremony on repeat, where she agreed to submit herself to Snape. The sight of the Snatchers as they bound towards her, their wands drawn. The conversation they'd had downstairs, where he'd asked her what her true motivation had been in the war.
If she had run, she would have died. If Snape had run, she'd have died slower, in the arms of someone who wanted to watch her soul slip away beneath their grip.
The men these girls were enlisted to were Death Eaters, who saw them less as people and more as obstacles. She had no doubt that these so-called idyllic marriages would devolve. But the papers wouldn't speak of it. And if they did, they would find a way to spin the truth so as to make it seem like a mercy killing.
She was left in the room, alone, unsure if she'd hallucinated the Malfoys.
She had kidnapped them, they had said.
Yet she was between their fangs.
Sunday — 12th August, 2001.
Hermione spent the weekend in bed. It was comfortable though she didn't sleep. She read through the books she had been left on her shelves. She hadn't the courage to descend into the potions chamber beneath the home, nor had she even gone downstairs except to use the bathroom.
Her room was the sole place in the house that felt cozy. The rest was damaged by cigarette smoke with yellowed walls and peeled carpet. There were stains that looked like old blood, though they could have been potions or… Any number of things. She didn't even try to clean, she had no interest in it.
She kept away from the kitchen and the study, and even the hallways.
The house remained empty all of Saturday, though she swore she heard the floorboards creak when she had her door closed.
The Order had sent a singular Patronus in the form of Ginny's palomino horse, which floated through the crack beneath her door.
"The apartment's been cleared out. I'm with Ron and the twins. Be safe."
Hermione wished she had received more intelligence, but she didn't know what she wanted to hear. No one else contacted her, no one asked her how the ceremony had been.
A group had been sent back to Romania to check on another cell of Snatchers that had taken a group of Muggleborn children from a safe house in Hogsmeade.
Four girls and a boy.
There were bigger concerns, it seemed. The Marital Clause was just a footnote and her marriage wasn't even in the index. By Sunday afternoon she cracked. She pulled out a pair of old jeans and a ratty t-shirt along with her satchel. She hadn't eaten since Saturday morning and the fridge downstairs was empty.
There had to be a grocery store nearby.
A bakery.
Anything.
Hermione met the cooling summer air with a grubby face and messy hair. She'd showered but the infrequent return to tears made her feel unkempt. She hadn't had anything explained to her by Snape, she didn't know what to expect of their marriage.
Her stomach turned over on itself and she forced away the thought.
She waved a hand on the address plaque as a marker. She could Apparate back, but she didn't know if there were anti-Apparition wards.
She headed northward, though the shape of the neighborhood made it difficult to go any direction really. The streets were choked together with slim alleyways that broke off towards a murky riverbed. The place was unwelcoming and she'd walked for twenty minutes with no bakeries nor cafes.
Not even a grocer.
A small stand with boarded windows sat by the riverbed, but it had rusted chain-linked covers on each of the windows and a poster that advertised a movie that hadn't been in theaters since the early nineties. Her fingers were cold, as the summer air was eaten up by the miserable architecture and perpetual cloud cover. Some of the clouds were so dark they looked black.
By the time Hermione had reached the very end of the street, she was faced with the massive mill with giant stone turrets. She frowned up at it, at the abandoned structure and the perpetual clouds. A black mist seemed to set around the tallest of the towers, though it could have been the ash that clung to the stonework.
She peered up at it as if it would do something, but that was her boredom at work.
She didn't want to have to go to London for food. She didn't even know where she was in relation to her old apartment, or to work.
She didn't know if that mattered.
She shrugged her satchel higher and beat a trail back towards her —
Back to Snape's home.
A shiver of black flashed to her right though she turned to see nothing. She doubled her pace, her head bent lower and her jaw clenched. She saw the flash of black again, but she didn't look. She walked, quicker and more decisive.
What had taken her twenty minutes before had taken her ten now, given she'd been ambling before.
Now, she was running, the bite of cold around her nose and her ears. She was out of shape and out of time, given she couldn't use magic in such a Muggle-concentrated location. She heard the low, guttural rattle of the Dementors.
The black clouds…
She was so stupid.
When she arrived at Snape's house, they seemed to have grown tired of their cat-and-mouse game. There were three of them, though more lingered in the clouds above. This was the perfect place for them to feed on Muggles in small, secret bites. Not all at once, for they'd be found out. Instead, they'd drift by windows and run their fingers through the hair of children who were hated by their parents.
They were easy meals for the Dark creatures.
Hermione's hands shook as she tried to open the door. It occurred to her that she didn't have keys, nor did she know how to re-open the door. She hadn't thought to worry about that.
Not until she felt a bony hand clasp onto her shoulder, to twist her gently.
She pulled against it but not hard enough.
She was already a prisoner.
She felt dead.
["What the hell is this," Ron's voice bellowed over the screams.
The smoke, the backfired spells. Hermione stared at the aftermath, where Harry had been standing moments ago.
Now all that remained were his shoes and several pieces of his clothes. Blood. So much blood. It was everywhere, spread across the courtyard, entrails wrapped around pieces of stone, ribs lodged into the side of the giant.
The tears, the screams, Ginny's face, empty, everyone crushed, broken.
The Boy Who Lived, dead.]
The door clicked open and Hermione fell forward into Snape's house.
Her teeth chattered around her Patronus, a spell she'd cast with ease the day before. Why hadn't she been able to call upon it now?
Snape stood over her, his face pale. More pale than usual, with a tension in his shoulders and a scowl on his face.
"I would ask that you not dawdle around the neighborhood," Snape said as he walked away, his hands framed behind his back.
"I was… Hungry," Hermione's teeth snapped together against her will, her fingers crisped and cold.
"You're a witch, aren't you." He shot a look at her from the armchair which he'd taken a seat in. "Summon food."
"I don't like to summon meals I haven't prepared," Hermione pushed herself up with shaky hands and elbows, her body seized from the proximity of the Dementors. "Are they always out there?"
Snape didn't answer. Instead, he'd cracked open a book.
"Where have you been?" Her tone was unkind, as she couldn't handle softness with how cold she felt.
No response.
Hermione searched the floor as if there were an answer to be found there. Instead, she locked eyes with the spot she'd been crouched in the day before. The spot she'd been in when Malfoy and his mother had appeared.
"Why did you really select me."
Snape continued to read, unmoved by her.
She stalked to her pretty cage, her shoulders squared and her head down.