March 15th, 2008, 11pm
"He has a child," she repeated, feeling very stupid for doing it, but the shock of what he said hadn't settled in so fast.
"Yes." She pushed herself out of the chair and started to pace around the room.
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" He looked appalled.
"Do you really think I'd get in contact with the resistance, and then go anywhere with you , if I wasn't serious?" She waved her hand in the air.
"Just an expression, don't worry, I believe you." Her pacing didn't stop. "So, what the hell are we to do here?"
"Well, let me tell you about it first, then you can decide if you'll help me or not." She felt hollow as she nodded. "Would you sit down?" he snapped at her, "you're driving me crazy." She did so, and leaned back in the chair, eyes boring into him. With a quick flicker of her wand, a spell of silence fell upon them.
"No one will hear us now. Talk."
"First things first. My master knows about the resistance." Her fear must've shown on her face, because he continued on very quickly. "Not where you are, you're safe for now, but he knows there is resistance. And for the past ten years, he ignored it, which means he's planning something that's much more important to him, something that could probably crush you all at once."
"That's not much better than him knowing where we are," she muttered, then raised her voice. "And how do I know you're not here to track us and to find our whereabouts?!"
"You think I'm stupid?" he shouted. "I'm literally here, alone, basically giving myself up, and you're here thinking I'm here to betray you to him?" At his shout, she pushed back in her chair, but then rose up on her feet, standing over him now.
"I don't know, Malfoy. Maybe you just are."
If she was a man, he would've punched her. Instead, he rose up himself and grabbed her collar across the table and pulled her closer to him, their noses almost touching.
"Listen to me, you idiotic girl," he hissed, "I'm here, trying to help. Will you get that into that thick head of yours and actually listen to me , because otherwise just lock me up and be done with it." Her lips parted and for half a second, a thought about kissing her entered his mind. He let her go and pushed back from her, and started to pace himself now. "Granger, you're not dumb. All I'm asking here is for you to listen, and then do whatever you want with me and the information."
"Fine." She sat, very stiff and proper now, and just stared. He pushed his hand through his hair, and continued where he left off.
"The tenth anniversary of his victory is near. A few of us believe that whatever he's planning to do will happen on that day. None of us is close enough to him now, we're not his inner circle anymore, few are, and he keeps his plans very close to his chest. I honestly doubt that even the inner circle knows everything nowadays." He leaned onto the table now, feeling empty. "What he wants now is to become an emperor. To be the leader of all wizardfolk. I'm not talking England, or even Europe. I'm talking the world. That's as much as all of us know right now." His head fell forward, hair falling across his face. He felt exhausted.
"What about his child?" she asked in a quiet voice.
"Last year he showed up with a ten year old in tow. A boy, very pretty, pale, dark haired, dark eyed. We don't know if he's his actual child, or if he found a way to make a copy, or if he just picked up a random orphan off the street. The child spends his time with my master, or with someone from the inner circle. Best guess is he's being trained to be one of his generals, or one of his leaders once his empire is established." He lifted his eyes to hers again. "Hermione. We're bound to him, but you could use someone to feed you information. And once he's gone, the binding is gone as well and we can live freely again."
She could see a war within him, telling her about it all, betraying everything he once believed in.
"Sit down, Malfoy. I'll be back in a minute." She was glad this was the place she chose to live at, as she rushed upstairs into her bedroom. She lay down flat and crawled under her bed, pulling a small box from the dust in the corner. When she returned to him, he sat in a chair again, head in his hands.
"You okay?" She opened the box, pulled out two glasses and a bottle. She shook it. "Hey there. I'm about to pour the last of my firewhisky for you, the least you could do is show some gratitude." There was just enough to fill the two glasses and she pushed one across the table to him. He grabbed it and stared at the reddish drink for a long moment.
"I'll probably end up dead, you realise that?" She nodded and held her own glass.
"The thought crossed my mind once or twice today." He chuckled.
"Would make you pretty damn happy, eh?"
"And leave us without a spy? What do you take me for?" She poured the firewhisky down her throat, regretted it for a moment, but when the fire spread throughout her body, the reality of what she was just told became a little more bearable. He followed her example.
"The last of it?" he asked.
"Yeah. It's an expense we can't afford. That box was under my bed for the last three years or so." He chuckled at that.
"Well, they do say the older the better." She leaned back in her chair and studied him. He looked sturdier now, some strength returned.
"What comes next for you?"
"I'll wait for your decision. If it's a no, I can promise I won't betray you. If you agree to my help … I'll help in return." She was nodding.
"If you didn't have that ," she looked pointedly at his left arm, "I'd offer you to join us. But I'm not Dumbledore, and I don't trust a Death Eater as easily as he did Snape." He nodded. "Unless you let me cut your arm off." He did smile now, innocently. "Do not tell me you tried that."
"I won't, then. Moving on," he said, before she could express her interest in that. "So, what do you really think about my offer?" It would've been a great offer five years ago, where things almost started looking up for them, she thought. They were hopeful, starry-eyed, had enough money and sources to get what they needed. Now, though - it might give them a push, but she didn't think it would be much of it, and they got comfortable hiding themselves away.
"What you call a resistance is in reality a small group, scattered all over the world, without a real leader, barely surviving. All that's left for us is hope that your master dies and enough of us are still alive then to start fixing things up." She felt the warmth of firewhisky receding as she thought about her friends, her family. "The most wanted, with a few exceptions, were relocated away from England. The ones who stayed here … well, we keep away from the world of wizards and live our lives as Muggles do - quietly." She felt vulnerable revealing all that to him. "We are done for, Malfoy. You should probably return to your master with good news about us being completely useless against him, and reap the rewards."
Her temper was gone. The strength she showed not a half hour ago, gone. She was just a young woman with tears in her eyes now. He lifted his hand to reach over and wipe her tears, but stopped himself before she could notice - she'd see it as pity.
"I want to help," he said quietly. "Tell me what to do." She just shook her head.
"We'll survive. We've got the means to, even if they're beneath you." She waved her arm in the direction of the shop. "As long as you keep this as a secret, we'll be fine." She rose and turned away from him. "And besides, it's not up to me to accept your help. I'd have to talk with the others, and they'd never agree." He slowly pulled himself up as well.
"Granger." He walked around the table to her, stood in front of her, and gently lifted her chin with his hand, forcing her to look into his eyes. "Just listen. I am not the same person as I was." His words were quiet and she felt the truth of them, saw it in his eyes. "Douse me with Veritaserum if you don't believe me. I bet you are not the same person as you were ten years ago. The anniversary is close, and I feel something coming. Something worse than what he'd done before. He set us aside, the ones who were closest to him during the war, because we weren't loyal enough. He replaced us with people who, according to him, had proven they're ten times as loyal. Does that make sense to you? I mean everyone . Even Dolohov, and he would do anything for our master. Even today he's trying to make his way back into the inner circle, and he can't." She pushed his hand away, but kept her gaze on his.
"I'll think about it and talk with the others. Give me a few days. Come back to pick up another gift for your mother, and I'll leave a note with Em or Ash." She thought for a moment. "I'll need a few days, though. You are a Malfoy, after all, and not to be trusted." She smiled just a little now. "Thursday? Maybe Friday? Up to you."
"Good. I'll be leaving, then." She walked him out, just as the portrait entrance in the hallway swung open and Ron walked out.
"Fuck," was all she said before he unloaded on her.
"Bloody hell, are you out of your mind, Hermione?! Bringing him here, showing him this place? What possessed you to do this?" He grabbed her arm and shook her. "This was supposed to be a safe space, not a place for the likes of him!" Draco's hand was on his wand, but before he could pull it out, Hermione shrugged Ron off and pushed him away, giving him a cold stare.
"Ronald Weasley." She spoke quietly, and even Draco felt the terror at her voice. "I understand that you're protective, but I am old enough to know how to protect myself." Still very quietly, she stabbed a finger into his chest. "Right now, you're making an ass of yourself, so make yourself useful, and send the message to the others that I want a meeting tomorrow night. No, don't say anything," she interrupted him as he stammered, "leave. You're my friend, which is why you're not being cursed into eternity right now, but say one more word, and I'll do something I might regret later." She turned on her heel and grabbed Draco's hand. He made sure his mouth was shut as he followed her.
In the darkness of the shop front, she stopped and took a deep breath.
"I won't apologise for what he did, because it was done out of love, but I'm sorry I lost my temper." She dragged her fingers through her hair and looked up at him. "You should leave, before he decides to come back." He snorted.
"I'm not scared with you around." Her lips twitched, but she didn't smile.
"Shut up. Now get out." She unlocked the door for him, and before he walked out, he felt her hand brush his arm.
March 16th, 2008
Hermione stood at the head of the table, looking at the people gathered around her. Ginny, Ron, Molly, George, and Arthur Weasley occupied the left side of the table. Luna Lovegood, Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Neville Longbottom on the right. And right opposite of her: Severus Snape, a man she herself had saved from the brink of death ten years ago. He never thanked her, and was in fact the worst member of the resistance, forced to hide from the world for the past decade. In turn, he was even more insufferable than he was as a professor at Hogwarts.
The group was all that remained from the Order and Dumbledore's Army, the ones who chose to remain in England, anyway.
After reaming into Ron, finding out that it was Emily who mentioned dropping her and Draco off the previous evening, she summed up the events of the past weeks. As expected, most of them were completely against her ideas. Hermione stood still as they argued, listening to their arguments and rearranging the plans in her head as she did so. She knew that she became a sort of de facto leader of them by now, but still refused to force her will onto any of them. If the group didn't agree to something, they'd compromise and find other ways of dealing with the problem.
Once their arguments died down and their attention was mostly on her again, she spoke.
"I have gone through everything you have, and I couldn't believe myself a month ago if I was told I'd speak for Draco Malfoy, not against him, but you haven't seen his eyes." She met Severus' eyes as she spoke, knowing he'd be the first to understand. "He looks sick. Thin, gaunt, tired. Something has happened to him. And if what he says is true, there is something big coming, something that might affect even us, no matter how hard we try to hide." She walked around the table, looking at each of her people in turn. "We tend to forget that behind all his cruelty and insanity, You-know-who is a very smart man, well educated and naturally curious. You can be sure that while we may believe we're forgotten, we're not."
"Despite that, I don't see him coming to look for us in the Muggle world. Don't forget that he believes no wizard would willingly put themselves among the Muggles," Minerva pointed out.
"I think she has a point, though. Not finding us where he'd expect us might just mean he'd start looking in unusual places. Perhaps we should move the base somewhere else, at least." Molly looked at Hermione. "I can handle what we need to do, you know that, right?" Hermione nodded.
"Thank you, Molly, but I don't think moving would solve this in the long run. I think it's time we fight back."
"With what?" Severus' voice was cold. "They have the manpower, they have the basically immortal leader, they have everything. We are nothing but a bunch of old soldiers without a leader. You do well enough, Hermione," he added before anyone else could speak, "but you're no general, and right now, we really could do with one."
"Ron could do that. He studied strategy in the past few years, and he gets it. He could lead." Ron shook his head.
"Maybe, if it was necessary. I still think we should focus on the experiments first. We have some time. I hate to say it, but let's see what Malfoy can get us first, and then make a decision about allowing him to help." He looked disgusted with himself, but he continued. "I saw him, too, and Hermione's right. He looks like he did year six." They all knew what he meant.
"Do we allow him to help us? He's still a Death Eater." Kingsley's deep voice echoed around the room. "I believe you two," he nodded at Hermione and Severus, "but what are his motivations? Without that knowledge, we don't know if we can trust him or not."
"I'll find out," Hermione promised. "I'll use veritaserum if nothing else will work." There were nods all around the table.
"I agree with Hermione." Ginny didn't speak much during the meetings, only when she wanted to show clear support to someone. "We need to do something, and we absolutely must get what we need. We're out of almost everything now, and everything will collapse soon." Nods of agreement from her family. "I'd say we should get whatever we can from Malfoy, even if we refuse him in the end."
Most of their meetings had at least a few people stay quiet throughout them, so she didn't let it bother her that some only nodded to agree with her.
"Anyone want to add something to this whole mess?" she asked.
"I think he wouldn't be here if he didn't have a really good reason," Neville spoke, looking at each in turn. "He's Draco Malfoy, he wouldn't be asking us for help if it wasn't his last option." He smiled nervously. "Just a thought." Hermione found herself nodding along with him.
"There's that as well, yeah. Thanks." She walked back to the head of the table. "I told him to come back on Friday, and I'll leave him a note. I'll make sure he knows he needs to give me a good reason, and prove it to me, before we will extend any kind of help to him." She pulled out her wand and summoned glasses and a bottle of wine, "now, shall we all have a glass of this wonderful wine I discovered just recently?"