September 16, 1996
Draco was walking to the kitchens when he heard the news. He witnessed a Hufflepuff girl crying on a bench in one of the corridors. She looked to be a second year– dark hair, short, rather stumpy. He scoffed at the public display of emotion. But there was a paper in her hands. Three Ravenclaws reached out to comfort her.
Further down the hall, one of the Patil twins and her Gryffindor friend were whispering. They glared when he slowed to hear their conversation and he gladly returned the nasty look. He continued down the corridor until he found a lone Slytherin first year, who waved to him nervously. The boy had stark white hair and a pale complexion. He reminded Draco of himself, if he had been a starstruck fanboy scared of anyone who even glanced his way.
"Your Prophet." Draco sneered. "Give it to me."
The boy barely had time to move before Draco snatched the paper from his hands. He scanned the Daily Prophet hungrily. He wondered what could be so detrimental to have the entire student body in a fit. He didn't register the words at first, it looked like gibberish. But the headline flickered across the page, accompanied by a photograph of a bawling shop owner and his heart dropped.
There was a raid on Hogsmeade. Honeydukes was fucking destroyed, and Hogwarts was on lockdown. No one could come in or out of the castle. There was a statement from Dumbledore in the middle of the article.
"We will not allow fear to consume us. There is darkness in this world, but at Hogwarts we choose to focus on the light. The wards are strong enough to fend off Lord Voldemort himself. A few rogue Death Eaters are not a concern. There will be no evacuation."
Tears threatened to spill from his eyes again. His mother had asked for one thing, one God damned thing, and now he couldn't even give that to her. Couldn't provide her one speck of comfort as he left her to suffer in that damned manor.
Get the food and make it back to Pansy. You'll be fine. Pastries, porridge. Maybe some toast, but not for Montague. He told himself. Pucey likes blueberry jam with butter.
...
Hermione didn't bother changing out of her sleepwear before breakfast. It was Sunday, after all; she wasn't required to stay in uniform. And it was her birthday. She could dress however she bloody wished. She practically stomped past Lavender and her band of bimbos, avoiding glares and snickers, likely about the glitter all over her.
She followed the same route, and the same secret corridors she always took to the Great Hall like a zombie, she didn't notice the whispers in the hallways. Or the frowns of her peers. Didn't notice that they weren't about her. Didn't notice anything, really, until she ran into something solid. Something that couldn't have been a wall, because she knew this route by heart. She couldn't have taken a wrong turn.
She looked up. It was Malfoy.
...
Hermione Granger was the last person he wanted to see. Hermione Granger in a haphazardly buttoned plaid shirt, fuzzy slippers and little cotton shorts that barely covered her arse wasn't much better. But still, slightly. He'd already seen her body, but he hadn't been prepared to see it again.
"Salazar, you look like a painted lady," Draco breathed. Her face and hair were speckled with glitter, like tiny, red, sparkling freckles. She looked ridiculous, really. "Have a rager last night in the Gryffindor commons?"
"You look like a muggle." Hermione eyed him up and down. He was wearing sweatpants and a flannel. Just like hers, only green. How predictable. She suddenly became very aware that she was standing in front of Draco Malfoy in what her mother would call 'buttocks shorts,' and she wasn't wearing a bra. He'd seen her body, unfortunately, but she wasn't prepared for him to see it again.
Draco flinched. He knew he shouldn't have worn Theo's bloody pants. His jog would have been less embarrassing in trousers and a blazer, he could at least have some class as he travelled like a muggle. But the muggle pants were damn comfortable. Sometimes the barbarians had good ideas, as much as he hated to admit it. That was all a moot point now, though; there would be no jog. There was no longer a Honeydukes to run to.
"Not my clothes, Granger." He retorted, shifting his weight to another foot.
Hermione noticed he was cold again. Unfriendly. He lacked the humorous tone, the flirting gaze. She rolled her eyes and wondered if he had chosen to forget about their little... mistake. She wished she could. But looking at him brought memories to her mind. Intrusive ones.
He felt her eyes on him as he inspected her knotted hair. Draco got the sudden urge to reach out and brush a large clump of red glitter out of her curls, but he shouldn't touch her any more than he needed to. Shouldn't touch her. That wasn't his mission– not for now at least. Right now he needed to get back to his anchors before he began to cry about his mother. He kicked himself for being such a weak little twat.
"Unless you have peppermint imps or chocolate frogs," Draco began to walk away. "I implore you to move out of my way."
Hermione gasped. How had he known? "Get out of my mind, Malfoy!" She hissed.
"I'm not in your mind." Draco called. "Does your head hurt, mudblood?" He caught himself. "Sorry, old habits." He had to force the apology. She'd never let him in if he kept calling her a name she hated so badly.
Hermione wasn't phased. She didn't believe that he meant the apology but accepted the fact that he'd known to force one out. It was progress. "How did you know then?"
Draco wanted to leave her there. He didn't have time for her questions. She was always asking bloody questions. She never shut up. But he played the part, praying she would leave him alone soon. "Know what?"
She was still suspicious. She didn't believe the faux genuinity on his face for one second. He had been in her thoughts, she just knew it. "That I had peppermint imps and chocolate frogs, Malfoy. That's not something you just randomly conjure out of your arse."
He stopped himself midstep. He didn't believe his ears. She had the exact candy he needed. If only he could sneak to wherever she was hiding it and steal her stash. At least until he could get to Diagon Alley, and find some other candy store. He rarely visited the stores in the Diagon part of the area– always Knockturn. They didn't have candy there.
Draco softened his face for her. Tried to look around to check if anyone was watching, but the hallway was empty. They'd both been taking a shortcut to the kitchens– the same shortcut. Then he stepped closer, with reassurance they were alone. He didn't want to be seen with her. Didn't want the rumors. "What's a wizard got to do for a few of each, Granger?"
Hermione crossed her arms and stepped back. He wanted something, she knew it. This was an act. A bloody act. She didn't let her heart flutter at his newfound husky voice, she knew it was put on. Or the stray hairs sticking up on his head. He looked significantly better really, compared to his usual attire. Unkempt yet still groomed. She wondered whose clothes he was wearing and why.
"Nothing. You're not getting any of my sweets, Malfoy. Now excuse me." She pushed past him.
He caught her arm and held it tight. "I'm serious." His voice became severe. He tried not to show his desperation to secure even a single piece of what she had. It was a high commodity. She just didn't know. "Money? Do you have galleons?"
Hermione was shocked at the implication that she lacked any wizarding currency. Maybe he really was dense. "Yes, Malfoy, I do. How do you suppose I buy my textbooks?"
"Through one of your boyfriends? But, please." Malfoy said absentmindedly. He realized he was begging with a filthy muggle born. He convinced himself it would be charity work, to pay her for the imps and frogs. He'd do anything for his mother. "I'll pay—"
"Why are you so desperate for sweets?" Hermione began to laugh. Draco flinched, clenching his fists. "Have you taken up stress eating?"
"Haven't you heard?" He exhaled. "Honeydukes was destroyed."
Hermione's heart dropped for two separate reasons. The first was that the destruction was undoubtedly due to a Death Eater attack, which meant they were closer than ever to Hogwarts. The shop had been Harry's favorite place to sneak to when he needed something to boost his spirits. The second reason, however, was that Draco Malfoy's voice now sounded like more of a cry than a snarl or sneer. She stared at his expression. It was desperate. Something was wrong. She felt it.
Malfoy? She spoke gently into his mind, unsure why his sudden dishevelment concerned her so much.
He jumped. "Granger, please stop doing that."
But she didn't. Are you really okay? Really? She searched him for a hint of snark, a hint of arrogance, but found only the bags underneath his eyes and the white stubble across his chin. He nodded, like he had in the kitchens, but it was still unconvincing, still meaningless, even more so than before. She could feel something foreign in her chest as he shifted his gaze to the ground, unmoving apart from a slight tilt of his head.
Draco felt her. Felt her do something, but he couldn't tell what. Felt her inside, but not in his mind. In his body. He felt whatever it was in his chest, in his gut, like dread, except it wasn't his. It was foreign and raw, and he felt the urge to sob. Sob at something he couldn't control, something he wished he could. Something that brought him pain. But it wouldn't be his own cries. It would be hers. The feelings were hers. He snapped his head to face Granger. What have you done?
Hermione knew her eyes were wide as he looked at her. She didn't respond. They stood in silence, still as statues, eye contact never breaking. There were feelings coursing through her body that were not her own and as hard as she tried to expel them, they only grew stronger.
Touch. It was his touch to blame. His hand still firmly held her arm in place. A silver ring molded in the shape of a snake resided on his finger. It radiated something warm, something strong, like deep magic she felt only when she held her wand for the first time in Diagon Alley. But she knew it couldn't have been the ring. It had been missing the day he'd driven his fingers into her. It was his touch in general. Had he tethered them that night? Had their kiss initiated this impossible mental connection?
Then her hand was on his, and she was nearly blown backwards by the jolt it sent through her body. Draco wanted to pull away. Her hand on his made his skin crawl in a way it never had before. But it wasn't disgust. He couldn't bring himself to be disgusted. He simply wasn't. His mind was blank except for the sight of her, the feeling of her touch. He felt a pulse where her hand rested upon his, a pulse which echoed through his body like the tempo of a waltz turned to full volume. He was stunned.
Hermione felt the pulse, felt the tension in her chest. She felt as if she could cry, cry at something she wished she could fix. Her shoulders ached with a weight she could not identify. Stress, perhaps? Or a secret. It was his. She felt dread– felt powerless. Felt hopeless and hurt. Then she felt like she was spinning, but that feeling was hers.
Hermione gasped as she entered his mind. She'd never practiced legilimency before, but she knew this was it. She nearly fell from dizziness. Except she was no longer standing in the corridor, she was somewhere else. It was his brain. His mind was like a cave. Noises– no, voices– echoed off rough stone walls she could not see, and water rushed below her feet, soaking her slippers. It was loud and dark and damp. As she stood in the darkness, the air around her felt like a blistering summer afternoon after a storm. A bead of sweat formed on her brow.
Hermione roamed through the cave with no idea where she was going. She got lost, turned around, with no idea how to escape. She hit walls she couldn't identify and found passageways that led to nowhere. She wondered if this was his occlumency, if his mind was void of entrances or exits. She wasn't looking for anything. She wasn't seeking memories, but she found them nonetheless. They found her. There was a light at the end of one tunnel, so dim she hardly even noticed it was there, and she knew he was letting her in. Into this room, this separate part of his mind– this memory. She wondered if he knew she was even there at all.
The tunnel opened up into a ballroom, becoming so bright she had to shield her eyes from the contrast between it and the darkness. Music was playing softly from somewhere outside, somewhere she couldn't see. Hermione looked around in awe at the room with its marble walls and matching floors. The ceiling was trimmed with gold, adorned with a crystal chandelier. Black and gold, the perfect symbol of wealth.
The music inside of Malfoy's mind entranced Hermione, she felt like twirling across the marble and swaying to its rhythm. She followed the sound to find large black french doors, which she threw open with ease. She found herself inside of what appeared to be a library, with shelves made of stone and books bound in gold and fine leather. The walls were marble like the ballroom, but a warmer white instead of black. Like rose quartz. The ceiling was textured like the geodes her father had collected since she was a little girl, and the chandelier hanging above her head emitted a beautiful white light she couldn't stare at for too long without little black dots invading her vision.
She searched through the shelves, calmed by the sounds echoing around the room. The source of the music, she found, was Draco Malfoy. Young Draco, not the one she knew now. He had to be eight or nine, face void of a sneer or smirk. Beside him sat Narcissa Malfoy, her black and blonde streaked hair tied up in a loose bun. They sat together at a beautiful white grand piano, fingers moving nearly in sync, playing a ballad Hermione didn't recognize. She could hear Narcissa speak, but couldn't make out the words. The voice was soft. Sweet.
She stood against a wall, scared to be seen. Scared to be kicked out. Scared to lose the peaceful feeling washing over her at the sight of a happy family. A happy memory where Malfoy didn't scowl or shout obscenities, but instead played piano with grace. She wondered if this was a memory at the forefront of his mind, or a distant thought he hadn't considered shielding.
Then she saw it. On the hood of the instrument lay a box of chocolate frogs and a single peppermint imp. The room smelled like mint and flowers. Narcissa had the tiniest bit of chocolate on the side of her mouth, and Hermione could feel in her heart that the sweets were the woman's favorite. That's why Draco had been so desperate. It was for her. HIs mother.
Hermione was close now, close to the little blond boy and his mother, who paid her no mind. Close enough to hear their chuckles as Draco played a wrong note. "That was an E flat, Draco." Narcissa stopped to form her hand into a different shape, playing the correct tune before waving for Draco to imitate it.
Hermione felt at ease in the peace. Felt the little boy's excitement, his joy. She never thought Draco Malfoy to be capable of love, but all she felt was that very thing. He knew what it was like to love and be loved. He was human, once. She wondered what had gone so horribly wrong that he learned to hate everything he saw. To ridicule people for things out of their control. This Draco was warm. The Draco she knew was ice cold.
Then a voice beckoned her, pulled her. Hermione, it whispered. Come. Neither Narcissa nor Draco's mouth had moved. Hermione. It called again. She knew it didn't belong to Draco. It was something similar, but it lacked a discernable gender or emotion. It was husky, soft and sweet, almost. Hermione obliged with its commands. Her feet moved on their own towards the voice. It took her between the maze of shelves until she stumbled upon a door in the floor. It creaked under her feet, otherwise she would have had no knowledge of its existence under a large, beautiful rug on the floor. She pulled back the rug, filled with curiosity, and found a lock on the door, which could only be opened with a numeric combination. She groaned; she had no wand inside his mind– no magic. She was locked out of a door she didn't know why she needed to open. But she needed to open it. She just needed to.
The numbers on the lock were set to zero, and she wondered how long it would take for her to figure out the proper combination, and before he would inevitably kick her out. She wondered how much time had passed since she'd entered his mind and whether people had begun to pass them.
Hermione didn't know that Draco Malfoy was too busy roaming her mind to push her out of his. He didn't mean to invade her thoughts again, but the second their eyes locked, he felt himself burst through the doors of a library, and knew it must be hers. Only Hermione Granger would have a library inside of her mind. There were no pages in front of him like before, just rows upon rows of bookshelves rising high above his head. He had no goal; this wasn't a part of his mission. He looked for nothing and tried to stand as still as possible before she could yell at him for being there. But his feet were moving of their own accord through the shelves, fingers running along the spines of the color coded books. It was quiet and comfortable and cold, the way he liked his own room to be. He felt himself relax again, shoulders free for a moment of the weight of the world.
Draco got lost between the shelves, so lost he couldn't find his way back to the doors. But somehow he felt at ease, he didn't want to leave. The silence was comfortable, only interrupted by the padding of his feet against the wooden floors. The books were packed so tightly on the shelves he wondered how the wood had not begun to sag. She had so many books, organized by year and time and date. He scoffed at how organized her thoughts were, and wondered if she could feel him inside her mind. He wondered if she knew enough occlumency to push him out, or if she'd simply walk out of distance once she noticed.
A book fell from a shelf in front of Draco, opening itself to a page directly in the middle. He stepped closer, and was dragged into a memory against his will. It was so bright compared to the little library that he had to shield his eyes to keep from being blinded. When he opened them again, he found himself on the Hogwarts Express sitting next to a baby-faced Harry Potter and a sickly looking Ronald Weasley. Draco wanted to laugh. She had led him right where he needed to be.
"You're really going to eat all of that?" Draco's head snapped to find a grimacing Granger, who was sitting on the padded train seat with her legs crossed like a child. Well, he realized, she was a child. Here, in this memory. In this book. There were piles of sweets on the pull-out table. Draco's inner child felt a pang of jealousy. You can't eat in someone's memories.
"Why wouldn't I?" Weaselbee responded with a mouth full of candy. "Try one, you'll like it."
Granger cautiously picked, out of all things, a single peppermint imp. And Draco's heart stung. She bit into it like his mother would, careful not to let anything seep onto her lips. Then her eyes widened and a grin stretched itself over her chubby face. A crooked, messy grin. But Draco, unfortunately, felt nothing but joy at her plain face. He was feeling what she had felt.
A chocolate frog jumped around the compartment and landed on Potter's messy head of hair. The three laughed. Draco bit back laughter of his own. It's not funny, he told himself. That's just her, her laughter. Why was he feeling like this? He suddenly wanted out, the knowledge that she was tainting his thoughts, controlling his feelings making him feel utterly trapped. The walls were going to close in soon.
The train slowed to a halt. They had arrived at Hogwarts. Good, maybe he could get out of this damned memory. Get out of the mudblood's head.
The sky grew dark outside the window as he watched Potter, Weasley and Granger leave the compartment, but he couldn't follow. His feet wouldn't let him. Instead, he was moved in the opposite direction, towards the back of the train where he so often sat with the other Slytherins. Where he had met Pansy and Theo and Blaise. Somewhere in the train a fire crackled. He suspected he was being led to another memory with a fireplace or bonfire. The crackling grew louder, and louder. He ran towards the sound like a child through a field. The fire beckoned him. Called out to him. Whispered his name. It wasn't her voice, but it was close. It was ambiguous, husky and soft. Draco, it called. Draco. Come.
It led him to a door, blocking his view from the exact compartment he had predicted. It was locked. He jangled the lock, damning the limitations of legilimency. If only he had a wand, or enough knowledge of Granger's life to figure out the combination.
Hermione's mind raced at the sight of the padlock. She considered using a book to break it, but the books were bound to the shelves, unmovable. She couldn't find a reason for the panic that rose inside of her, the frustration at the improbability that she might figure out a four-digit code to enter this mysterious room, but it did.
Draco considered any possibility of a four digit code. He tried 0901, September 1, the day of the memory, but the door wouldn't open. What about the year? He turned the numbers until they read 1991.
He's ten. He's ten in this memory. Hermione thought. Ten. Her fingers fumbled with the lock, quickly turning the numbers until they read 1990. It was wrong. When was his birthday? She pushed the final number to 1. 1991.
The doors blew open. Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy found themselves staring at each other across a room made entirely of concrete, smooth and gre. It was a perfect box. Hermione took a step forward. Draco mirrored, uncertain. He'd never been in a room like this. Not with her. This wasn't a memory.
As Draco approached the fire which had called him, in the far corner of the room, his breath hitched. It wasn't a bonfire. Not a fireplace, either. Hermione turned her head away from the bright flames, casting shadows across the room, but she knew exactly what she'd seen.
It was a wooden pike.
On the pike hung Bellatrix Lestrange. And she was screaming. Not the hysterical shrieks Draco knew so well, not the wailing she'd let out when Voldemort disapproved of something she'd done. Screaming. An agonizing, painful howl.
The satisfaction Hermione felt was both hers and his. It was pure and bitter and undeniable. It flowed through her body like the blood in her veins, and for a brief moment, it felt like euphoria. Draco Malfoy cracked a smile. A genuine smile. The joy he felt was overpowering, it consumed his every thought. Whether that joy, that euphoria, was his or hers, neither would know. But nonetheless, Hermione watched the flesh of that wretched woman become leathery and charred. Imagined the cruciatus curse coursing through her bones. Draco focused on the ugly mess of hair falling from her head as ash. The stretch of skin covering her trachea that was slowly peeling away.
Draco and Hermione locked eyes inside of their strange little box. They possessed every ability to leave, to simply push open their designated doors and return to the corridor where they still stood, frozen in time in the real world. But instead they sat– making a silent decision– not too close but not too far. A comfortable coexistence. Peppermint imps and chocolate frogs appeared at their feet. Hermione held one, considering whether it was safe to eat within the confinement of legilimency.
Draco knew her thoughts because they were his, and his were hers. "Try it," He said.
It wasn't forced civility– wasn't kindness drawn from the witch's personal emotions controlling his own. It wasn't kindness at all really. It was something halfway between warm and cold, like and dislike, hate and acceptance. It was tolerance.
He opened the box in his hands and took a large bite from the head of a chocolate frog to show her it was safe to do so. The taste was altered by the smoke which filled the room. But somehow, that enhanced it, like seasoning on a fine cut of meat. "For my mother," He raised the sweet in the air like a goblet. "And Pansy too, you absolute wench."
"For Sirius. And Harry." Hermione raised her own. She knew not the story behind Draco's words, but she felt the severity of them. "May she burn in hell."
Malfoy watched as the mudblood he was meant to hurt bit into a peppermint imp inside this incorporeal concrete box that existed within his–or her– or their– mind. Minds. Unfamiliar pictures flashed through his brain like he was skimming a book he'd never read. Her book, wherein she killed every Death Eater whose face she knew without a single miscast curse. Hermione watched visions of Draco skinning Voldemort alive and hanging his flesh from the chandelier. She knew it was his imagination, his thoughts intruding upon hers. It was violent, it was cruel. And yet she wasn't disgusted or disturbed. It made her smirk, even. The creature deserved it.
Between them existed a mutual, unspoken understanding which they accepted as fact rather than opinion. Bellatrix Lestrange deserved to die. Lord Voldemort deserved to die. They knew not that it was their hatred which connected them. Their hatred, and their capacity to love bound them spectrally. Their willingness to do anything for those they loved. Draco's mission and Hermione's curiosity were one and the same. For each, the other was to be collateral in a battle to serve personal agendas. Draco Malfoy was a distraction and Hermione Granger was meant to be distracted. They were nothing more than tools to fix something that had long been broken. There was an arcane power in their coexistence– an amplification– a connection. It could be felt, it could be seen; it was undeniable.
"This changes nothing, you know." Draco quipped halfheartedly, still staring at the sizzling corpse of his aunt. The flames had died down now that there was little flesh or fat left on the woman's body to fuel them. He reached for another peppermint imp.
"I wouldn't expect it to." Hermione responded, her gaze never leaving the burning body of the woman who had crucio'd her, who had murdered Harry's godfather.
"Happy birthday, Granger."
She didn't bother asking how he knew. Her thoughts were his, and his were hers, after all. In the box, their own little box, they were indivisible. Indissoluble. Two parts of an inconceivable whole. The feeling of being one with Draco Malfoy was indescribably intrusive. But it was a welcomed intrusion.