AN: Hey, guess what!? Because fall is coming and my favorite time of year is putting me in an extra-good mood, i've decided to drop TWO chapters this week. Yep. Two. Now, don't expect this to be a common thing. We will return to our regular Thurs night/Friday morn scheduled programming after this. But I just wanted to thank you all for being great, boosting my muse, and keeping me motivated. Double extra special thank you and shout out to my alpha: LaDeeDaa and beta: astrangefan because it is their commitment to work fast that I'm able to drop two chapters in one week.
Good People and Death Eaters
Try as she might, Hermione couldn't avoid the Howlers. Apparently, those holding back on sending them on the speculation that she'd 'freed' Death Eaters now felt comfortable with the idea since it had been revealed exactly which Death Eaters were in her care.
As the last one of the morning let out a final screech and set itself on fire, Hermione tiredly turned to her friends and said, 'I'm going to go out to the grounds and have a look around.'
"Wait up, Hermione. I'll go with you," Ron offered, stuffing a morning sausage in his mouth quickly.
It had been a tense several hours. After retreating to her bed, Hermione decided to stop sulking and come out around dinner time. She'd skipped lunch much to Padma's annoyance and the bossy healer made her pay to the tune of shoving nearly two full dinners down her throat in one sitting.
Draco was gone. Theo explained that he'd decided to go to the Hospital Wing for the rest of the day to continue to help prep potions. The look on Theo's face as he told her, though, said everything. Draco was trying to avoid her and the rest of them. It hurt. After the day she'd had, what she really wanted was to talk to him, to confide in him.
She waited for him to come back that evening, reading by the fire, but by midnight she was tired, and he still had not returned. Theo told her to be patient. He'd come around. It didn't change the fact that sleeping alone had already begun to feel odd.
The next morning he'd busied himself with myriad useless tasks to avoid being alone with her. He'd even offered to help Harry run some arithmancy calculations for work. Hermione wasn't stupid. Draco wasn't really interested in making sure Harry's calculations were correct.
Then the Howlers came - seven of them in total. While Harry, Ron, and McGonagall had been able to cart off her hate mail, Howlers were trickier. Hermione could feel a migraine coming on after number two.
Whore. Mudblood. Know-it-all. Busy-body. Death Eater lover.
Most of the slurs she'd heard countless times - Death Eater Lover was a new one - an utterly ironic one. As per usual with the British Wizarding World, apparently it was only important what you'd done for them lately. Never mind most of these spineless cowards hid in their houses while children fought off Death Eaters in order for the whole society to thrive.
Hermione grabbed her cloak, notebook, and wand before turning back to look at Draco. He was seated next to Theo, pretending to think about his next move in Wizard's Chess. Theo gave her an apologetic look and a shrug. On top of everything, Draco not speaking to her was wearing on her heavily. It felt like being abandoned when she most needed him.
"Okay, Ron. Let's go," she said with a sigh.
The truth was, Draco's distance worried her more than she wanted it to. Of course, there were the obvious reasons. She missed him. She had taken so much comfort in his nearness she hadn't realised how bereft she'd feel if he wasn't by her side. But she was also anxious. She was anxious that Draco might do something stupid if he thought it would protect her. The reality of the real world was creeping in on them, and Draco was taking it worse than she'd hoped.
Pushing those thoughts aside, she walked beside Ron out of the castle and down the stone steps toward the grounds. "By the way," she said casually, "has anyone checked the whole grounds for any trace magic?"
"We had planned to," Ron said. "But your boss thought it best if you were to do it. The Unspeakables are better trained in trace magic."
"Let's start that process today," Hermione suggested. "I'm feeling a lot stronger, and my magic seems to be nearly entirely back to normal."
Ron nodded and led her over to the perimeter of the warded section of the grounds behind which the Dark Energy ebbed and flowed. It was calm at the moment.
Hermione looked around. "What if we were to consider key points in the Battle of Hogwarts where Voldemort was either at his most powerful or most vulnerable. What would you say? The Great Hall, of course, because that's where Voldemort was vanquished. The clearing in the Forest where Voldemort destroyed his own horcrux inside Harry…"
They both thought for a moment. "He stayed out of things until near the end, though. I can't recall actual kills…" Hermione began.
"Well, Snape," Ron answered. "He killed Snape in the boathouse - he and Nagini. Nagini was an extension of him, so…"
"You are right!" Hermione said. "Okay, let's start here and work our way to the clearing in the forest. I'll try to pick up any trace magic, anything that remotely stinks of Voldemort's signature. If we find nothing, we'll try a trail to the old boathouse. That will be a bit trickier. It's not nearby. If the energy moved, it could have gone through myriad paths.'
Ron nodded. "Best bet is the Forest, I reckon."
With that, Hermione moved around the outside of the perimeter and behind that mass of Energy, taking a deep breath as she faced the Forest. Closing her eyes, she held her wand gently in her hand. The spell to reveal old, trace magic was not a particularly complicated spell, but the reason it was entrusted to the Unspeakables was that it was delicate and required incredible mental discipline. Hermione had studied the art for six months before being certified to do it properly.
She breathed in and out, clearing her mind to focus. "Essentia revelare tuum," she breathed against the light cool wind, her wand fixed upon the opening of the forest.
Of course, she felt a sea of trace magic around her. Hogwarts being one of the most magical places in all of Britain, there were traces everywhere. What made this particular job difficult was that she had to be able to sift through the din to find what she was looking for.
She moved closer to the forest, her eyes still closed, gently making her way forward on memory and instinct. "Essentia revalare tuum," she whispered again. There was magic, dark and light, she felt a whiff of something but it died out shortly.
"Come, Hermione," Ron said quietly beside her. "Let's try going to the clearing and working our way out."
"Excellent idea," Hermione agreed. In fact, she was annoyed with herself for not having thought of it first. Thinking about it rationally, it would make much more sense to go to the source and try to work her way toward the mass of Energy, not the other way around. It would certainly make the boat house theory easier.
She dropped the spell and took Ron's arm as they entered the dark forest, the trees growing thicker with each step.
"I wonder if the centaurs still live here," Hermione mused. "After the Battle, if I were them, I might not have come back."
"They are a sturdy lot," Ron assured. "I'm sure they are here somewhere."
The clearing where Harry had offered himself up to Voldemort nearly six years prior wasn't far into the forest. They came upon it after only a few moments' hike.
"Okay," Hermione said, "Harry and Hagrid both told me in detail how this happened. Voldemort was there," she said pointing toward the far end of the clearing, "and Harry here," she said, pointing at where she was currently standing. "You stand here, so I can measure the strength on this spot where we know a powerful curse was cast."
Ron did as he was told, and Hermione took her place where it was likely that Voldemort had stood and cast the Avada. Hermione closed her eyes again and took a deep breath, centering herself. "Essentia revalare tuum."
She was, again, overwhelmed by trace magic, but this time she could pick out Voldemort's signature immediately. It was strong - stronger than outside the perimeter of the Dark Energy. Concentrating, she walked forward toward Ron, feeling the magical trace as it grew slightly weaker over time. Still strong, but less so, she reached Ron.
Pointing her wand ahead of her she surged forward where the trace led, but as she moved past Ron, the trace immediately died out. She moved around the clearing, making sure the trace didn't bounce off and attach itself nearby.
Nothing.
"I don't think it came from that particular spell," Hermione stated. Before she could explain further, she was interrupted by a glowing stag galloping toward her.
"Hermione! Draco's trying to turn himself into Azkaban. You better come quick. He's going to McGonagall to have her send him back," Harry's disembodied voice shouted into the eerie, silent clearing.
Hermione's eyes shot to Ron who looked back at her with a bewildered stare of his own.
Without a word, she ran. Tree branches clipped her face and arms as she ran with all her might out of the forest and up the hill to the castle. Ron followed behind, just at her heels. She was panicked, more so than she had been the day before when Rosmerta tossed her out of The Three Broomsticks.
That bloody idiot.
What on earth could Draco be thinking? Besides the fact that he was slowly rotting away in Azkaban before she took him out of there, now that he'd been associated with her, he'd be even more likely to be abused in there.
She panted for breath as she reached the castle, stitch in her side. She ignored it and made her way directly to the stairs that led up to the third floor where McGonagall's office was.
"Password," Hermione called out to Ron who had finally caught up to her.
"Tartan, I think," he said just as they reached the third floor.
She rounded the corner to the Headmistress' office and stopped dead in front of the gargoyle that blocked passage to the office.
"Tartan!" she shouted. The gargoyle moved aside.
Thank Godric!
Hermione nearly tripped as she hurried to get up the spiral staircase which was not moving nearly fast enough for her. When she reached the door, she could hear raised voices.
"Mr. Malfoy, I can't in good conscience…" Minerva said, her voice calm but firm, before she was interrupted by Theo.
"Draco, please. Stop. Just think for a moment. She wouldn't want you to do this. You'll destroy her if you go back there."
"I'm destroying her by being here," Draco bit out. "Everything about this is destroying her. You are safe. No one cares about punishing you. The Wizengamot isn't going to bend over backward to make sure they reincarcerate you. You'll get your new trial. If I go back, it washes this clean. She can go back to her work. I'm sure Potter can make up some kind of story to explain all of this…"
"So… you, what, just planned to leave without telling me? Without so much as a goodbye, or thank you for sticking your neck out for me." Hermione spat out the words at him, her body vibrating with anger. There were angry tears threatening to spill over, but she was determined to hold them back.
How could he?
Draco spun around, eyes wide as he saw her standing there, Ron at her side. Her hair was a wild mess, scratches from branches on her cheeks, and she knew she must have looked half-crazy but she didn't care.
"Granger, be reasonable," Draco replied. He was trying to be formal with her, but his eyes told another story. He'd hoped he didn't have to face her - to tell her he was going to leave.
"What in the world is reasonable about this?" she asked, stalking forward. "A few imbeciles send me Howlers and you are ready to throw it all away? Go back to be tortured and die in your own filth in Azkaban? Is that right? Is that reasonable?"
She wanted to scream, cry, hit! "You will die there, Draco! If not from natural causes, they surely will be thrilled to punish you since they can't punish me."
"Hermione…" his voice was softer now, his eyes looking down. It was as if he was ashamed to look her in the eyes. "I cannot be the reason you lose your place in this world. I cannot be what keeps you from ascending to wherever you wish in this society. Don't you understand? I'm the reason for every one of those Howlers. I'm the reason Madam Rosmerta threw you out of her pub. I am. Me. Not my father. Not Voldemort. The things I've done cannot be washed off. You can't fix what I did with a blood rite. You can't remove The Mark and make me whole again. No matter what happens, I'm marked. And being with me, associating with me, it marks you, too. Don't you see that I can't live with that?"
"Draco…" her voice was softer and the tears she'd been holding back began to spill. She moved closer to him, ignoring the other people in the room who were looking around uncomfortably.
"I can't change what you did. I don't want to change what you did. A really good friend once said, 'The world is not split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got Light and Dark inside us. What matters is what we choose to act on. That's who we really are.'"
She reached out and tentatively brushed his hair from his eyes. "Don't you understand? I can't accept that you made very poor choices, believed very vile things for the first part of your life and that had ruined your entire soul. You could have a hundred more years, Draco. And what you do with those hundred years is what matters to me."
"If I go back, that act can save you, Hermione," Draco finally said, looking up into her eyes.
"Save me from what?" she asked. "Rumours? Howlers? Uncomfortable encounters with former acquaintances? What are you saving me from? Because what you are doing is hurting me. It hurts to see how quickly you can throw me aside. It hurts to even think about you in that place. And furthermore, your sacrifice would be for naught."
Draco tried to look away, but Hermione shook her head and pulled his face back around to look at her. "Draco, they've been calling me a whore, a know-it-all, a swotty nuisance, Harry's side-kick, ill-equipped for my position, a mudblood…" Draco flinched at the word, "since I passed through the barrier at King's Cross when I was eleven years old. Powerful though you might be - you are hardly powerful enough to make them stop now."
"It's not safe," Draco reasoned. "Don't you see that? What if one of those Howlers carries with it a curse? What if someone attacks you when you are out. I can't do anything but this to protect you. Merlin, Granger, don't you understand that I'm trying to redeem myself here by giving you your life back!"
"I don't want it!" Hermione shouted. "I don't want my life back if I knew the price was your downfall. Don't do this to me, Draco." The last part she barely made out as her hold on her emotions fell and a sob escaped her.
McGonagall seemed to think that was the appropriate moment to step in.
"Mr. Malfoy, I control the Floo and I say you are staying. I have had numerous reservations about you being here. I've had countless arguments with Albus about your moral character, but I can see now - I was wrong. If there is one thing we don't do in the Order of the Phoenix, we don't let outsiders dictate our choices. You will stay here, help Poppy with her potions, and have that dreadful brand removed at the earliest convenience. Azkaban can come through me to get you."
Hermione couldn't hold herself back. She launched herself into the Headmistress and wrapped both arms tightly around her, tears streaming down her relieved face. "Thank you," she breathed against the older woman.
"Yes, well…" Minerva said, awkwardly patting Hermione's back. She looked up to Ron and Theo with a sort of bemused discomfort at Hermione's effusive response.
Hermione did let her go, feeling a little embarrassed by her own response but she was so immensely grateful to the older woman for offering Draco the olive branch of forgiveness. She could tell by the look on Draco's face that he still didn't think he'd earned it, but he did look resigned that he wasn't going anywhere - at least not for the moment.
"Do you mind if I walk Draco back to the Common Room alone?" Hermione asked.
It was rhetorical. Of course, nobody minded, but she felt the need to ask anyway. Holding her hand out to Draco, he sighed before lacing his fingers in hers and letting her lead him from the room, down the spiral staircase, and out into the third-floor hall.
"Come with me," Hermione said, needlessly as she still had him by the hand. She needed to be alone with him. She needed to speak with him without all the ears, opinions, and judgements. She needed him to understand why he could never even think of trying to turn himself back into Azkaban again.
"Where are we going?" he asked quietly.
"There's a broom cupboard nearby," Hermione said, absently as she pulled him along. "It's pretty large," she added when she heard him snort.
"Trying to have your way with me in a broom cupboard," Draco quipped, but his heart wasn't in it.
"Here it is," Hermione said, ignoring him as she opened the door, pulled him inside and shut the door behind them.
She moved around the corner to open the small window which both let light in and helped with the musty smell of the unused room.
Hermione situated herself on a spare stool and conjured up one for Draco as well, where he sat in front of her.
"Jokes aside, innuendo aside, I think it's time we talk about whatever it is that's happening between us," Hermione finally said, swallowing hard. She felt her stomach begin to twist in knots. It was one thing to fool around, admit attraction, care about each other - what they were headed for was bigger, scarier, and it needed to be aired out no matter how scary the prospect. Because it was becoming clearer to her that she was falling for Draco to the point of no return.
"I think it's pretty obvious that I am absolutely wrecked by you, Granger," Draco said, looking up at Hermione with defiance.
Hermione felt her stomach flip. "Likewise," she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. "Draco, you have to know that no matter what you do, I'm in. I'm all in with you."
"Hermione, you are ruining your whole life," Draco protested. "It's like this. I know how our world works. Being Muggle-born, no matter who is running the Ministry, you'll have to work three times harder than anyone else to get ahead. You'll continue to fight an uphill battle because as much as our world thinks it progresses, old biases run very deep."
"I know this, Draco. I live it."
"Right, but you can't do anything about your blood status. You can't help that, but you can help this. They will fire you. Maybe not your boss, maybe not the Minister," he said when she began to protest. "Our world is not going to let what you've done here go unpunished. You had the audacity to be Muggle-born and the best friend of Harry Potter. You had the audacity to be Muggle-born and the youngest Unspeakable in recent history. You had the audacity to think you could rehabilitate two Death Eaters. The only way I know how to protect you is to go back to Azkaban and hope they forget about me, and this."
"For such a smart man, you are an idiot," Hermione replied with a frustrated snort. "Do you really think they'll ever forgive me? Besides, I don't need you to protect me. I hate that you feel you owe me something. Draco, I…"
She struggled to think of how to explain how deep her feelings had seeded themselves into very soul. "Draco, do you feel this way - close to me, protective of me - because I've helped you? Because I've helped your mother and Theo? Is this just about that? Because, if it is, I have to tell you that I appreciate you, but…"
Draco leaned far forward then, entering her personal space and stopping her with a shake of his head. "I don't feel protective of you because you helped me. Helping me was the catalyst for me being able to put aside my childish notion of who you were, but it isn't why I care about you. I feel protective of you because if anything happened to you, it would destroy me. I can't even think about it."
Hermione reached out for him, pulling him in close and wrapping her hands around the back of his neck. "Draco, don't you see. That's exactly how I feel about you. The idea of you being hurt, captured, being tortured in that rotten excuse for a prison, I can't bear it. If you care about me at all, please, please don't try to leave again."
"I won't try to leave," he said finally, resting his forehead against hers.
"Promise me," Hermione begged.
"I promise you," he breathed against her. "Now, you promise me something."
"What?" she asked.
"Promise you won't go out alone - at least not until this case is over," he said, pulling back to look down into her eyes.
It went against Hermione's nature to give into such a request. She was an independent and capable witch. However, Draco wasn't out of line in his request if for no other reason than that she'd clearly underestimated the public reaction. "Promise," she finally said. "And one day, we'll get you a new wand and you won't have to feel helpless. I know that's part of the problem."
"It's maddening," Draco admitted with a long sigh. "All that mail, all those potential curses, I can't even blast the Howlers. I just want them to stop. Watching you last night and this morning made me want to murder those cretins."
"Well, no murdering," Hermione said with a smirk.
"That I can't promise," Draco said, but his town was lighter. "Not where you are concerned. But for the moment, the cretins are safe."
Hermione rolled her eyes but stood up and pulled him in closer, wrapping her arms around his torso so that his firm, lithe body was flush against her. This position made her feel safe, warm, like everything would be okay. "Kiss me,'" she breathed against his lips.
Without a word he captured her lips in his and she held onto him tightly as she opened her mouth for him. Chills ran up and down her body as his perfect hands reached their favourite spot tangled in her hair at the back of her neck and she moaned against him.
Her entire body tingled as his tongue plundered her mouth and she wanted, more than anything, to climb him like a tree. She wanted to feel him against her, inside her, all of him all at once.
But she also knew the timing was terrible. Her nerves were still on edge from the shock of seeing him about to return to Azkaban moments prior, not to mention - this dusty broom closet was hardly where she wanted to explore Draco's body in full.
Her stomach was erupting with butterflies, her knickers a sodden mess within moments and she had to work very hard to tear herself away from him even slightly.
"I want you," she confessed, against him. "But I don't want it to be hurried in a broom cupboard, or to be worried about hurting you by brushing against your Mark."
"Merlin, Hermione, I want you. I want you so bad it literally hurts sometimes." His breath was coming out in pants as he gripped her hips. "But you are right. Now isn't the best time."
"Can I still sleep in your bed?" Hermione asked with a smirk, for she already knew the answer.
Draco's willingness to return to Azkaban was, apparently, the final act to get Ron and Harry to realise that he was, in fact, a different Draco Malfoy than they remembered from Hogwarts.
When Draco and Hermione returned to the Gryffindor common room, Theo summoned him for a tongue lashing of his own in one of the dark, more private corners of the room while Hermione went to the tables and picked over the lunch the elves had provided.
Harry sat nearby looking at Hermione for a long moment before finally saying, "So, Malfoy."
Hermione's eyebrows shot up her forehead. She'd been expecting a much longer, more fraught conversation about the topic. They'd been tiptoeing around it for days. With a sigh, she took a bite of her turkey sandwich, chewed it carefully and swallowed before responding. Ron had taken a seat to Harry's right and was piling his one plate full of food like he hadn't just eaten a huge breakfast a few hours prior.
"To be honest, Harry, I'm not even sure how it happened or what it is," she admitted. "When he arrived at my parents' house he was as surly and insufferable as he'd always been - but now, I hardly think his heart was in it."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"Don't get me wrong," she explained. "Draco is hardly an entirely different person. He is prideful, he was scared, he had no idea what to expect from me and no reason to trust me. He hated being vulnerable. He still does, to be honest."
"I can understand that," Harry said. "Did he hurt you in the beginning?"
"No, not really. Certainly not physically. He called me 'mudblood' but it had no teeth to it." She saw Harry and Ron both frown at that.
"I'm telling you this so that you see the full picture, not so that you hate Draco more for his past mistakes. He's since apologised and vowed never to use the word again," she added.
"It's just hard to understand how you can forgive…" Ron finally said, putting words to what he and Harry were both thinking.
"If I didn't believe he was truly sorry, I wouldn't," Hermione explained. "Things began to change after my first visit to Azkaban."
"That was only days after he arrived," Harry pointed out.
"I know," Hermione agreed. "Things happened - are happening - fast. But we are also in an unusually high stress situation."
"Which is the reason I worry," Harry finally said. "I worry that all of this is a product of the tension of the situation - the dire and profound stress we are all operating under."
"And what if after the tension is lifted, if it will turn out it was the situation and not that we really have something?" Hermione supplied. It wasn't as if she hadn't contemplated the very same thing.
Harry's silence told her she was right in guessing at his concern. "Look, maybe it's true. Maybe Draco and I are just in a very unusual, hyperintense situation that is causing us to seek each other out for comfort. I can't say because we are literally still in it. All I can tell you is that I recall falling for someone in a similarly high stress situation," she smirked a little as she indicated her head toward Ron, "and it wasn't anything like this."
"Gee, thanks, Hermione," Ron said with a snort, but his roll of the eyes indicated he wasn't too put out.
"Obviously he cares about you," Harry finally said. "After you and Ron left to study the grounds, he seemed to see it as his opportunity to save you from yourself without being caught."
"He's an idiot," Hermione said, frowning as her mind was brought back to Draco's idiotic plan.
"Idiot though he might be, the Draco Malfoy we all remember wouldn't have given up a second helping of pudding for you back in school. In fact, I had no idea he possessed any qualities of self-sacrifice at all," Harry explained.
"That's not true," Hermione countered. "His entire induction into the Death Eaters was self-sacrifice, though he'd convinced himself it wasn't. He did that ninty-five percent to protect his family. Only five percent of him enjoyed the idea of being part of something bigger than himself."
"I suppose," Harry supplied. "And he's obviously very protective of Nott."
"Theo told me something a few weeks back that I've found to be true," Hermione explained. "Draco can be fiercely selfish - we all know that. But when he cares about someone, when they are in his circle, he'll do anything for them."
"He's still insufferable," Ron pointed out. "Even in trying to save you he's a total bloody wanker about it."
Hermione laughed at that. "Trust me when I tell you that every boy who has ever tried to sacrifice himself for me has been a bit of a wanker about it."
Harry and Ron grinned at that, knowing she was talking especially about them.
"Well, fair enough," Ron said, easing them out of the serious conversation and back into the world of lighthearted banter as he was an expert at doing, "Just don't go snogging him all over the common room. I'm a growing boy and I need to be able to keep my food down."
"Oh, shut it, you," Hermione replied, but she had to admit she was pleased with how the conversation had gone. Neither Harry nor Ron really knew how to interact with Draco - and that was to be expected. The important thing, though, was that they didn't question his moral fibre anymore.