Hello everyone! Firstly, I wanted to apologize for the delay on this chapter. Last year, a few weeks after the Prague chapter was published, myself and my partner of six years split up. Besides dealing with the breakup itself, I had to move across the country, find work, finish my master's degree (it's over thank god), and patch myself back up. Returning to this story has been top of mind for me, it was never abandoned, and it will never be. I cannot guarantee update dates, but rest assured, with only 3 more chapters after this, it should be done sooner rather than later. Thank you so much for your support, and for continuing to enjoy this story with kindness and patience.
Beauty's in the eye of the beholder
You have lips that permanently smoulder
When in Moscow I just want to fold you up
And keep you warm
Autoheart - Moscow
December 15, 1999
Hermione walked into the Department of Mysteries, without flinching.
It was a monumental task, and she was proud of herself for it.
She could almost feel the old purple scar on her rip cage come alive as she returned to the place that Antonin Dolohov had cursed her. She rarely thought about that scar anymore, having received it before Dumbledore's death and the Horcrux hunt. It had been surpassed in importance by the crude word carved into her forearm.
A word that she now had on full display.
No long sleeves to cover it, no glamour to hide it. As Hermione Granger walked towards the courtroom door, she knew that this statement would radiate across the trial.
If she, with her scar, could argue for the goodness of Draco Malfoy, then there was nothing the Ministry could do.
"Hermione!"
She turned back quickly to see a stressed-out Harry Potter rushing down the corridor towards her. He looked as if he had been sprinting since the moment he had left DLME.
"Harry, what's wrong?" she frowned, feeling a rising tension in her chest at the look in his eyes.
She couldn't read it.
"What are you doing here?" he nearly hissed, causing her to flinch. Harry sounded cross with her – he was never cross with her.
"It's the retrial," she said, raising an eyebrow. "I wasn't going to miss it."
"I thought you weren't coming," Harry said, his tone almost accusatory. "Does Malfoy know you're coming? How did you even get access? The trial hasn't been publicized."
"What's this about, Harry?" Hermione whispered, pulling him to the side of the hallway as members of the Wizengamot began to walk past them. "Why are you… why are you angry at me?"
The word seemed to snap Harry out of whatever cloud of fury had descended over him. Almost immediately, it was replaced by something that reminded Hermione of fear.
Fear of what?
"I'm not angry, Hermione," he said, his voice noticeably softer, as he nervously ran a hand through his messy black hair. "I'm just… have you even seen Malfoy since you got back?"
"No, I haven't," she replied. "With the Blaise confession and the trial a week away… I wanted to give him space."
"Alright, so if you wanted to give him space… why are you here?"
"What's wrong with me being here, Harry?" she demanded, frustration seeping into her voice. "Kingsley told me about the trial and gave me access, I spoke at the first trial, it's not like it's any information I haven't heard before. I want to be here to support him, Harry. To show him that it's not going to change anything."
"Fucking hell," Harry whispered, causing Hermione to flinch. "I… so Malfoy doesn't know you're coming, either?"
"When was I supposed to tell him?" she asked. "Ever since… ever since Prague… with Blaise…"
The moments following their return from the Czech Republic felt like a fever dream to her now. In her hands she had held the possibility of a future, beyond the trip. Forever in Prague, only to have any thought of permanent happiness absolutely torpedoed by the knowledge of what Blaise had done.
Not the attack.
The confession.
Though just days prior, Hermione had argued that the evidence pointed to Blaise. The room number. Memory wasn't everything. But as soon as the words were said, Hermione resolution hardened, as she watched Draco shatter beside her.
He had turned to ash at the proclamation, the very idea that somehow Blaise was involved. Reverting to a skeletal version of himself that she no longer recognized, his words from Prague echoed through her brain.
Imagine if I was coming to you saying it was Potter or Weasley that gave us up. Imagine that for a second.
And she could. Hermione could imagine that feeling. Her body caving in as her soul was engulfed in fire.
No, Blaise Zabini had not attacked her.
So, why did he say he had?
Draco had begun shouting at Harry almost immediately after. She had reached for him again, hoping to calm him, help him, anything… but those silver eyes had met hers, more filled with despair than she had seen recently.
Just go, Hermione. I need… I… just go.
So, she had.
She had spent the whole week stewing, trying to figure out how this had happened. Because it didn't make sense.
Why would Blaise confess?
There had been two attackers…
Was he trying to protect someone?
Did he… did he think he needed to protect Draco?
She did not know. But she knew that Draco was in scorching pain.
So, she was here today.
Because that's what you do for people you love.
"In Prague, did he tell you anything about the trial?" Harry asked, interrupting her reverie. He sounded desperate. "About the private depositions…"
"The private depositions?" Hermione asked, even more confused. "No, why?"
Harry groaned. "Gods, I never meant for you to find out like this… I cannot believe I'm about to break this promise…"
"Harry, you're speaking nonsense. What private depositions?"
However, as the word left her mouth, a clang sounded out from within the Wizengamot. The striking of the gong signaling the beginning of proceedings.
"Fuck," Harry swore.
"I've got to go in," she said, starting her way towards the door once again.
"Hermione," Harry burst out, grabbing her arm and stopping her. "Do… do you trust me?"
Shock radiated through her body. "With my life, Harry."
"And do you trust him?"
She did not hesitate.
"With my life."
He relaxed his grip. "Please just remember that. I need to go sit with the Aurors… but please remember that."
She wasn't sure what about his tone pressed the urgency, but all she could do was nod.
Hermione walked into the Wizengamot with her head held high, ignoring the smattering of whispers that broke out at her appearance. As everyone took their seats, she walked over to the visitors' box, which held Percy, Scot and a few other personnel, including, to her surprise, Narcissa Malfoy.
"Miss Granger," Narcissa said, standing to kiss her cheek at her arrival. "I cannot express my gratitude that you've come today."
"Of course, Narcissa," she responded, taking a seat at the elder woman's side. "I… I want to be here for him."
"I'm sure he'll appreciate it."
Hermione wasn't.
Even though Draco wasn't being held in custody, he still entered from beneath the seats as if he was being. He looked stoic to her, dressed in fine wizarding robes with an air of detachment across his features. However, any semblance of detachment disappeared when he glanced over at the visitor's box and his eyes met hers.
Any blood remaining in his cheeks drained as his lips mouthed her name.
"Order!" Kingsley's voice boomed out from his seat. "I call this trial to order."
The remaining stragglers all took their seats, as Draco was pushed into the seat at the centre of the room. His eyes hadn't left hers.
"Probationary hearing of the fifteenth of December," said Kingsley, as a scribe began furiously taking notes. "Into a violation of probation committed by Draco Lucius Malfoy. Mr. Malfoy's probation, ordered after his trial for crimes committed during the Second Wizarding War, on the seventeenth of June, 1998, remains in effect until the seventeenth of June, 2000."
Kingsley took a deep sigh. "Mr. Malfoy violated his probation on the seventh of November, 1999, when he apparated internationally out of regulated and approved channels. He apparated from Rome to St. Mungo's Hospital in order to find Hermione Granger medical attention. In doing so, he violated section two of his probation contract, automatically triggering a retrial. No new evidence can be resubmitted in this trial, and we shall be replaying recorded testimony from the June 1998 trial.
"Mr. Malfoy," Kingsley stated, his eyes turning to Draco. "Do you accept the accusation of probationary violation?"
And finally, Draco looked away from Hermione.
"I do, Minister."
"Do you plead guilty or not guilty to violating your probation?"
"I plead guilty. And I would do it again."
Hermione suppressed her groan and watched as Kingsley tried not to roll his eyes.
"Then we may proceed."
She had never been to a retrial before. The whole thing seemed rather pointless to her. No new evidence could be submitted, so the Wizengamot was simply reacting to the same evidence and deciding on whether the original sentence had been too lenient.
Hermione sat as Kingsley read some of the original testimony. It felt like Déjà vu – given that she had attended the entirety of the previous trial, it felt merely like a Timeturner had gotten away from her and sent her back in time.
The recorded testimony was interesting, at least magically. It was essentially a hologram playing in the centre of the Wizegamot.
When they eventually got to Hermione's original deposition, she felt the eyes of the court turn to her. Maybe a year and a half ago, she would have flinched under such scrutiny. But with the trip as her steadfast teacher, she did not flinch. Raising her chin a little higher, she twisted her forearm slightly so the word would be visible to the court.
Her own words from years before rang out.
"We must look forward, and accept that those without choices can choose correctly, if only we give them the opportunity."
He is allowed to prove you wrong.
And he had. Oh Merlin, he had.
She had given him the opportunity, in the end.
And he had chosen her.
She watched her younger self speak out at Draco's trial, and found her gaze drawn to him, both past and present. In the memory, she could see him watching her deliver her testimony. And what she had not seen at the time became crystal clear with hindsight.
What was memory besides a collection of important moments, interspersed by life and shaped by hindsight?
Back then, as he did now, he watched her with reverence, his eyes not leaving her for the entirety of her speech. Her gaze drifted to the present-day Draco, as he watched the prior testimony. A smile was playing at the corner of his lips, and she couldn't help but smile as well. How far they had both come since that moment.
Nostalgia for something that hadn't happened yet.
But not anymore.
Nostalgia for something that had.
Nostalgia for their own path.
Her testimony drew to a close, and Hermione stiffened in her seat. In the original trial, she had been the final person to testify, which meant the Wizengamot would go into deliberation now. She glanced around, expecting the members to start gathering their notes, but no one was moving.
Why was no one moving?
Kingsley leaned forward, hitting his gavel against the wood. "That brings the public element of the trial to conclusion. Now, we move to the private depositions."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. The private depositions…
She glanced towards Draco. His eyes were closed as he breathed deeply.
Hermione supposed that it made sense to play any private depositions now. This trial was technically a closed affair – unpublicized, though she was sure it would reach the papers somehow. The original trial had been open to the public, but the retrial wasn't. No such thing as a private deposition in a private trial.
Kingsley checked his notes for a moment, before raising his wand to bring forward the next memory to be shown to the crowd.
"There was only one private deposition in Mr. Malfoy's original case, given in my office on the fourteenth of June, 1998. I call forward the original deposition given by Mr. Harry James Potter."
The floor let out beneath her.
A gasp escaped her mouth, loud enough that a few people in her immediate vicinity turned to give her a look. Draco's eyes snapped open, but Hermione wasn't looking at him.
She was looking across the Wizengamot towards the DLME section, where, in the front row, sat her very best friend in the world. Harry, in his Auror robes, with his exhausted expression, would not meet her gaze.
Harry couldn't look her in the eye when he lied.
He had testified at Draco's trial, in a private deposition.
Why? What could he possibly have had to say that needed to be said in private?
Hermione watched the memory appear before the Wizengamot, and a younger Harry sat before Kingsley.
This… this was almost a year and a half ago. Why had he never told her?
"Harry James Potter," the memory-Harry said. "I am here of my own free will, to offer to the court evidence that I believe will help in the sentencing of Draco Malfoy."
Had Harry… had Harry tried to send Draco to Azkaban?
"Though I believe that Draco Malfoy committed many wrongs during the Second Wizarding War," memory-Harry continued, "I believe that the evidence I possess demonstrates his bravery, and his morality, if given the opportunity."
His bravery.
Harry… Harry had testified for Draco.
She felt as if the world had stopped spinning. All she could do was sit and watch as the planets collided.
"On May 2, 1998," memory-Harry continued. "After I had supposedly died in the Forbidden Forest, I was fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts under an invisibility cloak. I found myself in the Hogwarts Entrance Hall just as Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley came running through."
The blood in her veins ran cold. Disbelief shattered her psyche.
And then Harry played the memory, and the earthquake that had been building since Lisbon, no – since the Yule Ball, finally erupted.
Hermione watched as she saw what Harry had seen, what he had known for years. She watched as her life was almost stolen from her. She watched as Draco intercepted the Avada Kedavra. She watched as Dolohov tried to best her, one last time. She watched as he stood in the way, purple flames that were so familiar to her licking up his body…
The memory shifted once again, and it was Harry in the deposition room.
"Draco Malfoy has made monstrous decisions," he said. "But this choice… the choice to save the life of Hermione Granger, a muggleborn, and my best friend… Everyone thought I was dead. This was not a choice to try and gain favour after the war by saving a victor. He thought Voldemort had won. And yet… he turned on his own side to save her, at great personal danger. Why? I'm not sure. However, if you are to judge him for all the terrible choices he's made, all of which have been heavily publicized, judge him as well for those he made when no one was watching. Because he saved Hermione's life. And therefore, I owe him my own in return."
The memory faded away.
And tears traced her cheeks.
"Miss Granger," Narcissa whispered at her side. "Are you alright?"
"I…" she whispered, her gaze shifting until finally, it connected with wide, green eyes. "I never knew."
"You… they didn't tell you?"
"They never told me," Hermione whispered, as Harry stared back at her unflinchingly.
"He saved your life, Hermione. I am indebted to him."
"I suppose I am, too," she whispered, realizing the weight of his action more starkly as she approached the door. Her heart began to hammer in her chest.
"He wouldn't want you to be," Harry said, as they came to a stop in front of a door. He reached into his robes and pulled out a key. "He would hate you feeling like you owe him something, especially since you're together."
She chuckled. "For someone who spent a good portion of your life hating him, it surprises me sometimes how much you seem to know about Draco Malfoy."
Harry shrugged, his gaze downcast, as he placed the key in her hand, folding her fingers over it.
"I know what it's like to save people you love."
Harry had always known.
Since before the tour. Since before the trial.
And like puzzle pieces falling into place, it all suddenly became crystal clear.
Every time over the past few months that Harry had avoided her eyes. The politeness that Draco and Harry had shown each other. His overwhelming support for their relationship. She had always wondered; he had had no reason to support her like that.
But he had.
And suddenly she couldn't breathe.
The waves came crashing in on her as she stood on shaking legs. Without a thought for appearances, she rushed from the room. The world which had slammed to a halt just moments prior began spinning again, forcing her off-kilter, one hand on the wall to hold her up as she tried to calm her breathing.
This whole time… she had never known…
"Hermione."
The voice spoke to her through the haze, and with everything she could muster, she forced her gaze upwards to meet the concerned eyes of Harry Potter.
He stood there, in the hall, obviously having rushed after her when she left. She saw the Saviour of the Wizarding World, a top Auror.
Her best friend.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered, feeling the waves crash again on her riverbank. Pounding continuously. Erosion. Making cliffsides of her yet.
He faltered, guilt creeping into his expression.
"I… he asked me not to."
"Who? Draco."
"Who else?" Harry whispered, reaching forward. "Hermione, just sit down."
She let her legs collapse beneath her and slid to the floor. Harry met her there, as they both sat like children, knees tucked beneath them, on the floor of the Department of Mysteries.
"When? How?" she said, taking shuddering breathes. "This whole time… you knew…"
Harry sighed. "I did. And I was going to tell you after the Battle. But we were mourning and trying to rebuild. And then Ron… I just didn't know how to bring it up."
"There was a month and a half between the Battle and the trial, Harry," she said. "I talked to you about testifying… about that decision. And you just said… nothing."
"I know," he whispered. "There was just so much going on, and I didn't want to scare you… I didn't want you to know how close it had been."
"Why did you testify privately?"
"Because I didn't want him to get public credit for it," Harry answered. "I didn't think he should go to Azkaban, but I wasn't going to hand him public redemption on a silver platter. And I hadn't told you yet, and didn't want you to find it out from the trial."
"So, the trial happened years ago. And ever since…"
"The night after the trial, Malfoy found me. He… he asked me not to tell you."
"And you agreed?"
Harry sighed, and she watched the gears turn behind his eyes as he figured out what to say next.
"I only agreed if he told me why he saved you."
Her heart skipped a beat.
"And what did he say?"
Green eyes bored into hers, and a smile played at his lips.
"I think you already know."
Breath left her lungs as everything fell into place.
The Yule Ball. This whole time. Harry.
Gods, he really… he really meant forever.
They freed him. Of course, they did. The whole charade was fabled technicality, grasping at straws in its most legal consequences. Nothing changed, Kingsley had said, reading the courts' decision. Draco's probation will still end officially on June 17 of the following year. There were no new rules, nothing.
Nothing changed.
She was grasping at straws in her own right.
After the trial adjourned, Hermione went home. In an act of sheer cowardice, she ran. It wasn't that she didn't want to see him… of course she did. But not there. Not with the eyes of the Wizarding World trained on them. A small desire – no, a need.
She knew that he'd follow soon, that much was a certainty. So she stood in her apartment, waiting patiently for the other shoe to drop.
Standing turned to pacing, certainty turned to nervousness. After half an hour, she couldn't take it. She felt in between, trapped in not knowing. Looking for a distraction, she went to her bookshelf to pick out a read, anything to occupy her mind for a few more moments. Lifting her fingers to trace the spine of Hogwarts – A History, her eyes landed on a photograph on the shelf. A new addition to her gallery.
A muggle Polaroid, taken at the top of the Eiffel Tower. The world beneath their feet. But to her, glancing back on that moment in time, she saw something she had not contemporaneously.
Hermione was staring at the camera, eyes blown wide and smile gigantic. Posing, even if she had not felt that way at the time.
Draco was not. He was staring at her.
She had thought it was sweet, candid, when the Polaroid had printed. But when she had thought the world was beneath their feet, she could see the disagreement in Draco's eyes.
He thought the world was her.
Hermione heard a knock at the door.
And when she opened it to reveal him, she saw the same emotion in his eyes now.
Like he was looking at the whole world when he saw her face.
There was a word for that, wasn't there?
"You left," he said quietly, walking into the apartment after a few moments of silence.
"I… uh… yes," she responded, a previously unexpected nervousness taking her over.
He ran a hand through his hair. It was shaking. He felt it too.
Why did it feel like they were standing at the edge of an abyss? They had been here before, had they not?
Falling. Forever falling.
Get to it, you coward, her mind whispered at her, as she steeled herself for the drop.
"Why… why didn't you tell me?"
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he sighed, reaching for her hand. She let him take it without thought. Leading her to the sofa, they both sat down.
His thumb traced lazily against her skin, leaving shimmers in its path. They sat in silence for a few moments, and as fast as her heart was beating, she did not push him. She waited.
"Did you talk to Potter?" he eventually asked, eyes downcast, avoiding her gaze.
"Yes," she whispered.
"And what did he tell you?"
"That you asked him not to tell me."
"Did he tell you why?"
"Not in words, but it was… implied."
What a way to explain this, as if mere implication could encapsulate the years running between them like golden thread, tying each moment to the next until they became entangled once again.
"Then you know," Draco breathed.
She shook her head. "No… no, I don't. I saw the memory. I know what happened. But I… I don't know."
There were many ways to tell someone the truth.
And sometimes, it was just by telling them.
His eyes remained downcast.
"I can't remember a time when I didn't love you, Hermione," he whispered. "And the first time I ever said it out loud was to Harry bloody Potter, of all people. But it should've been you. Because it's always been you."
There are moments in life that imprint themselves on your mind. Spectacular, explosive moments. Hermione and Draco had seen them all together. They had been gifted a bouquet of those moments on a silver platter throughout this trip. Ball gowns, champagne, constellation speckled skies.
But this, with them both exhausted, bags beneath their eyes darker than the blackest sky, sitting on her couch in a small London apartment – it was as if they were watching fireworks over the Danube.
"When I saw Dolohov raise his wand," Draco continued, still not looking at her. "I didn't even think. I didn't hesitate. It was the easiest decision I had ever made in my whole life. Any you didn't notice. You almost died in front of me, and you didn't notice. And I thought… maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.
"To love you, Hermione Granger, was enough for me. I didn't need you to see it. I didn't want you to. To feel… indebted to me."
"Draco," she whispered. His name was nearly an incantation on her tongue. "I… I wouldn't have felt that way. I deserved to know."
"It's not about what's deserved, Hermione," he countered. "If this world gave a damn about what we deserved, then I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have been on this trip. I wouldn't have been given the chance… the gift to show you, slowly, over time, who I can be. I wouldn't have been given the chance to prove you wrong. But I'm selfish. And we don't get what we deserve. So I saw an opportunity and I took it."
Her head was spinning. The last year played in her mind – all of it. From London to Prague and back again. He was right, wasn't he? How would she have felt if she had known from the jump what he had done for her? Would it have influenced how she acted – how he acted? Of course, how could it not?
A gift, the language was perfect. Because it felt like a gift, the way they had fallen together. A fairytale interspersed with the nightmare of reality, tangling and tangling until they were stitched back up. Independently. Together.
She always wanted to know. To understand. Hermione Granger – Brightest Witch of Her Age. She craved knowledge like air, understanding like water.
The desire to know gave her purpose.
How had it been that the most wonderful thing she'd ever experienced had occurred precisely because she hadn't?
So, as she said her next words, she knew that they were genuine, uninfluenced.
It was because she hadn't known that she knew this to be true.
"I love you," she said. Three words. So simple. No masquerade, no theatre. No champagne, no galas. No trip.
Just them.
It always had been, hadn't it?
He finally looked up at her then, eyes the colour of a creek in the winter with the depth of the ocean. An ocean she had happily drowned in. A winter with warmth she had never conceived.
"You… you what?"
His voice was devastating. So full of hope that she nearly cried. Delicate to the point of shattering before her.
She nodded, swallowing hard as she fully submerged. "I do. I love you, Draco Malfoy, and not because you saved me. Not because you saved me that first time, or the second time in Rome. But because you asked me to dance in London when you thought I hated you. Because you… you went to the library with me in Vienna. Because you held me through the night in Lisbon. Because you proved me wrong in Berlin. Because you kissed me in Athens, and… and tasted me in Budapest. And loved me in Paris and made me laugh in Rome. Because you showed me forever in Prague. And because when we're here, in my apartment, you're looking at me like I'm everything you've ever wanted."
"You are."
The tears were spilling before she recognized they were coming. "Because you exploded the pocket universe, Draco Malfoy, and combined it all into one messy, beautiful reality. This is real."
"It's a clusterfuck of a reality," he whispered, eyes of awe meeting her.
"But it's ours, alright?" She whispered, kissing him quickly. "It belongs to us. It's our life. Our real life."
"Gods," he murmured. "I love you, Hermione Granger."
This time, he looked her in the eye.
Draco Malfoy could not look her in the eye when he told the truth.
But this was beyond truth.
This was scripture.
January 1, 2000
In the month since Prague, it felt as if a thousand years had passed. For Hermione, the advent of a new millennium felt appropriate.
It was easy in some moments to allow herself only to think of the good. To fall into Draco's arms and lips with a promise of newfound love. To think of the upcoming legs of the trips with excitement, the way she had back in May when the adventure had started.
But every time she did, guilt crept up into her psyche. How could she be enjoying those moments, be excited for the future when everything lay in such uncertainty?
Well, not everything. Not Draco.
But everything else.
With the personal circus around Draco's probationary trial, and the love confessions that followed, she had allowed herself to forget about what had landed them in that situation in the first place. The dark magic signature on the continent, the attack in Rome… and Blaise.
Draco wouldn't talk about it with her. She had tried after his trial was out of the way, but he wouldn't budge. She could almost hear the anger and protectiveness in his voice from their argument in Prague. He couldn't fathom that Blaise had betrayed them like this. And she understood.
It was as if Harry or Ron had done the same to Draco. And they would never.
So why had Blaise?
The Ministry was holding Blaise until his trial in April. Draco had attempted to go speak to him, only to learn that Blaise was refusing visitors.
She had never seen him so devastated. He wouldn't say his best friend's name after that.
Why they were waiting so long for the trial, Hermione didn't know. Scot and Kingsley were in talks over it. The investigation was ongoing, apparently.
The whole thing was deeply unsettling.
Hermione had met with Theo one afternoon to discuss it, after it became clear that Draco wouldn't. Theo felt as uneasy as she did. He saw what she had seen in Prague – how the clues pointed to Blaise. But he, like Draco, knew in his soul that there was no way Blaise had actually harmed her. There was no motive.
And Draco was right, neutrality in the war was not motive in and of itself.
She had discussed it at length with Theo, and they had come to the same conclusion. Blaise's confession was false – but why? Why was he lying?
The anger in Draco's voice from Prague echoed through her mind.
She felt stuck with the whole issue. Harry was no help either, telling her repeatedly that there was nothing he could do, and nothing he could share with her on the case.
So, she sat with herself, trying to make sense of the senseless. Connect the dots into a pattern that wasn't there.
While around her, the world kept spinning.
She walked through the Ministry quickly. The entire place was empty. No one else was working on New Year's Day.
It felt ludicrous to be continuing the tour in these conditions, Hermione thought to herself as she made her way towards Scot's office. It was too dangerous, too… delicate. Despite the happiness she and Draco had found that month, with everything going on, she was not sure she was in a state to represent Wizarding Britain. Draco certainly wasn't.
But despite that, they both appeared in Scot's office as planned, at eleven am. Draco had slept at hers the night previous, after sharing a bottle of cheap chardonnay as the clock struck twelve but had gone back to the Manor quickly to pack before their departure.
A part of her thought he might not show up.
He proved her wrong.
"Scot," Draco said gruffly, entering the office a few minutes before their portkey was set to leave.
"Malfoy," her boss replied, barely glancing over. Tension remained between the two of them since Rome. Hermione appreciated the protectiveness Scot was showing, in theory, but shivered as the air in the room became ice-cold.
Can't be worse than the air in Moscow this time of year, she thought bleakly.
"Alright you two," Scot started, looking over a dossier on his desk. "Against all odds, we've managed to keep the attack and the probationary trial out of the press. Merlin knows how much those St. Mungos employees took as a pay-out."
Draco shifted uncomfortably at her side.
"So, keep it that way," her boss continued, glancing up at them. "This leg is special. You'll have more eyes on you than normal, if you can believe it."
"What?" Hermione asked, confused. "Why?"
Scot sighed. "Apparently Moscow is having an international conference for the start of the millennium. They'll be a bunch of other wizard delegations there from Eastern Europe, so you aren't just twirling about for the Russians."
"But for half the bloody continent," Draco muttered, clearly irritated at the development. Hermione understood. The last thing they needed was more scrutiny. More eyes.
"The Russians have increased their protection detail for you," her boss continued. "We here at the ministry are especially wary of this one… the dark magic signature is strongest in the east, for the continent."
"Durmstrang," Hermione whispered. "And Grindelwald."
Her boss shrugged, but the nonchalance didn't meet his eyes. "Could be related, might not be. The Aurors are investigating. Maybe nothing will happen in Moscow at all. Just… just try to have a normal trip."
Draco laughed. There was no humour in it. "There's nothing normal in any of this."
Scot gave him a dirty look. "Hasn't been normal anywhere in a long time, Mr. Malfoy."
"Should we get going, then?" Hermione broke in, willing the tension to dissipate.
It cracked.
Scot opened his desk drawer and handed them both an old notebook. "No more family heirlooms from me, if you're just going to break them."
Draco rolled his eyes, but she ignored the comment. Instead, she took his hand, and reached forward to take the portkey, just as the clock began chiming for eleven. Like the flurry of a snowstorm, she felt the magic whisk them across the continent.
They were in the Imperial suite at their hotel. Unlike the previous legs, their rooms weren't separated by lock and key. Not that it would've made a difference.
Hermione looked out the window down into Moscow's Red Square. The hotel itself was a block or two away, but the height allowed her to look down at the site. Despite the cold weather, the square was full to the brim of people, bundled against the wind. She could almost feel the electricity between them all. She could feel it within herself.
She was reminded of why she wanted to take this trip in the first place.
Travel. Adventure. Seeing the world. How many opportunities would she have in her life to look across at St. Basil's Cathedral from this height? The twisted turrets of colour were shocking against the winter sky, a burst of colour in a cold oasis.
The architecture alone took her breath away.
She took a sip of the wine Draco had handed her before disappearing to dress for the opening gala. After their arrival, they had been briefed. This opening gala, unlike the other legs, was not just about them. It was about everything, it seemed. It was a New Year's Party, an opening for the international conference, and their introduction.
In a way, Hermione was relieved. The enormity of the event meant that her and Draco would not be the sole focus.
However, that relief was immediately squashed at the idea of 'enormous'.
The wine warmed her, like a gentle flame in her core. She was already dressed, in a gown of deep navy. Though she knew the venue would be indoor, she felt more secure in her long silk sleeves than she would in the bodices of some of her other gowns. Her hair was pulled back, diamond earrings as her accessory.
It was not her most elaborate gown from the trip. But as she glanced at herself in the mirror, she felt it was sufficient.
"You look lovely," a voice said from behind her. Before she could turn, she saw Draco come up behind her in the mirror, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her the base of her neck, right where the silk ended. He was wearing the grey again. Complimenting her without thought.
"Do you think?" she whispered, before realizing how desperate that sounded. "No, never mind."
He chuckled, as she felt the rumble against her back. "I do think, my love."
Love. Still such a new word between them, new enough to send excitement through her bones. She smiled.
"I was not fishing for compliments," she murmured, letting her head rest against his. "I just mean… do you think it's enough for the opening gala?"
He chuckled again.
"You're more than enough, Hermione. You always will be."
Despite her reservations, the opening gala went smoothly. Though eyes still followed her everywhere, she was not the only one under a spotlight. With delegations from over ten other European countries, the ball was a mosaic of internationally influential witches and wizards.
She stuck to her own.
After her and Draco had met Minister Mikhailov, they kept to themselves. They had done this dance what felt like a thousand times at this point, and there were ample opportunities over the next few days to meet with the Russian ministers more privately. But when every person who entered the room seemed to be a celebrity, it felt easier to blend into the background.
When everyone is special, no one is.
Harry would've loved this trip, she chuckled to herself.
Draco's hold on her was firm. Whether it was his fingers intertwined with hers, his hand at the small of her back, her body wrapped into his chest as they danced, he did not seem interested in letting her wander.
As he twirled her once, she pondered on why that might be. It truly could be any multitude of reasons. But for Hermione, it seemed that the most obvious was most likely true.
This was the first trip since Blaise's confession. Since they told each other they were in love. In the last month, they had been together many times, but always in the privacy of their own homes. This was the first time they were around other people. Where there was the possibility, however slight, of loss. Where dark magic lingered around the periphery, always with the potential of creeping in.
He was scared. Despite his stoic expression, she could see it in his eyes. The worry. The fear. The acknowledgement that despite having saved her twice, there was the possibility that she could slip from between his fingertips.
That fear felt distant to her, surrounded by some of the most influential wizards and witches in Europe, in an old Russian imperial ballroom, warmed by candlelight. It was another difference between the trip and her real life, she realized with a start.
Europe, the trips, the cities… they felt like escapism. This was fairytale castles and massive ballrooms and silver eyes that made her feel unmoored. There was safety in this, in the fantasy of it all.
London was dangerous to her. London was full of tortured memories – her war, her trauma. Danger existed in her real life, where she had fought and been maimed and nearly died before a silver-eyed saviour had intervened. Dark magic existed in the periphery there, where she had experienced it.
But for Draco, with Rome and Blaise top of mind, with the mark forever burned into his forearm, he felt the dark's potential everywhere.
She pitied him then. No, pity was too condescending a term for the feeling filling her chest.
Empathy.
"I can almost hear you thinking," he murmured into her ear as they circled the dancefloor once more. "Your brain is louder than you think."
She rolled her eyes. "Leave me and my big brain alone."
"I don't want to," he continued, kissing the crown of her head. "What are you thinking about?"
Hermione let her gaze drift around the ballroom. "Just… the trip. Everything."
"Specific," he countered. "Do you have any big plans for the Moscow leg?"
"Not in particular," she admitted. "With everything going on this past month, I hadn't had much time to plan, and research."
"We can always just explore," he offered. "Take it as an… easy week."
She couldn't help but snort. "As if the other legs have all been Promethean tasks."
He shrugged. "I'm not saying we're being oppressed for exploring and drinking a lot, but I mean… we've had a big checklist of places to see and people to meet. What if we don't make a list this week? We go to our scheduled appearances but otherwise, see where the wind takes us.
"Who knows? Moscow may surprise us."
"Alright," she said tentatively. Spontaneity was not her strong suit, but a more relaxed approach to this leg after the month they had both just had felt needed. "We can see where the wind takes us."
And as if she spoke the wind into existence, a voice interrupted their dance from behind her.
"Hermione?"
Only one person said her name like that.
Oh, she was an idiot. Eastern Europe. International Conference.
Predictable. So very predictable.
Draco's arms tensed around her. Taking a deep breath, she pushed gently against his chest to release her before turning towards their interrupter.
"Viktor."
His name was so familiar on her tongue, like a dream from childhood that stays with you.
In a way, she supposed, he was.
He looked the same as he always had. Large, broad shoulders, stern dark eyes. But his lips were spread into a wide smile, forcing a tug on her heartstrings, on a muscle she had not used in a while, but the memory remained.
"Hermione," he repeated. Long gone were the days when he couldn't say her name. Practice made perfect. "I was hoping to see you tonight."
"I didn't realize you'd be here," she admitted. "I… I didn't look at the list of delegates."
He chuckled, an earthy sound. "The Bulgarian Ministry sent me. They wanted some 'star power', as you English call it."
She couldn't help but giggle. He had always been funny, but in a quiet, subdued way. In a way that didn't take up that much space in the room, but made its presence known.
A small cough sounded from behind her.
"Oh, uh… Viktor," she said awkwardly, stepping aside as Draco's arm came around her waist, fingers pressing into her skin beneath the silk. "Have you met Draco? My boyfriend, Draco Malfoy."
"Years ago," the Bulgarian replied, reaching his hand forward to shake Draco's hand. Hermione could see them gripping each other viciously during the brief greeting. Oh dear. "During the Triwizard Tournament. Before Voldemort's return."
Draco flinched slightly at her side. She knew it wasn't the name, she had heard Draco use it herself.
Probably the memories.
"I had seen you two together in the papers," Viktor continued. "Your trip looks brilliant. How many stops remain?"
"Just two after this," Hermione responded quickly, glancing over at Draco. She could see the tension in his jaw. "Istanbul and then Madrid to finish. We'll be done my mid-March."
"I hope you enjoy them, Hermione," Viktor smiled, eyes only on her. "I expect to be seeing you both a fair amount this week, I'll be at all the same parties as you, and the Quidditch match."
"Quidditch?" Hermione asked, feeling her stomach drop. "There's Quidditch?"
She felt Draco laugh at her side. "Merlin, Hermione. Did you even read the itinerary?"
"I've been busy," she hissed at her partner, a slight flush appearing on her face. "Do we have to play?"
Now Viktor laughed. "Don't worry, Hermione. I remember how you feel about Quidditch. It's a game for the Russian league, Moscow and St. Petersburg. We'll all be spectators."
"Fun," she replied, no joy in the word. Both men chuckled.
"I'll leave you both now," Viktor said, giving a slight bow before her. "But Hermione, allow me to dance with you once before the week concludes."
"Not tonight," Draco answered before she could, tightening his grip on her waist once more. Viktor's dark eyes landed on Draco for a moment before retreating.
"I mean no disrespect," he said, shooting her a smile. "For old times' sake?"
A thrill went down her spine.
It was cold.
"Absolutely," she smiled at him, memories of dancing with Viktor flashing through her mind. The Yule Ball. The wedding. Afterwards.
He caught her eye, and she knew he remembered, too. His lips started to form words before he seemingly thought better of it. Giving them both a slight bow, he turned on his heel and disappeared back into the crowd.
They stood in silence for a few moments as the dust settled. Draco turned towards her.
"So. Krum?"
She couldn't help the flush appearing on her neck. Reaching out, she took a glass of wine from the tray of a passing waiter. Taking a laborious sip, she nodded.
"Yes, Krum."
"Did you know he was going to be here?" Draco asked, taking a glass of wine for himself.
"Not at all," she answered honestly. "I should have realized… with the international delegation, it makes perfect sense that he would be a guest."
"Viktor Krum, Quidditch star," Draco murmured. "Is he still playing?"
"Yes. He signed another five-year contract with Sofia a few years ago, and he's still on the international team."
"Hmm," Draco replied, non-committedly. Oh no. He gave her a sidelong glance. "Do you still keep in touch?"
"Sparingly," she said slowly, treading water. This was not how she wanted to have this conversation. "It's been a while since I've seen him."
"Since fourth year you mean?" Draco asked, his voice controlled. Fishing. He was fishing.
Fuck.
"No, afterwards," she answered. "He came to the wedding."
"Which wedding?"
"Bill and Fleur's," she replied. "After sixth year, right before the Horcrux hunt. And I saw him a bit after the war ended. He came to help with the rebuild."
"Why did he do that?" Draco asked, sounding genuinely surprised. "It wasn't his war."
She shrugged. "I'm sure he had his reasons."
He did.
Draco gave her a look, but didn't push it more, thankfully. Instead, he downed the wine in his glass quickly, prompting her to do the same. The liquor went straight to her head, and when she came down, a mischievous grin had appeared on his face.
"Ready to dance, Hermione?"
The meeting with Krum dissipated into nothingness as she looked into eyes of silver. She took his hand.
"With you, I am."
January 2, 2000
The winter sun woke her up. They had left the curtains open, and icy sunbeams streamed in across her face, as she blinked her way back to Moscow. Draco was still asleep at her side, facing towards her.
She liked Draco asleep. It was the only time that his face went blank, when it became a canvas upon which emotions could be painted. Whenever he was awake, it was more like a half-made sculpture. There was space for exploration, for creation, but the inroads had already been decided. The crease between his eyebrows, the tightness in his jaw.
But now, he was entirely incomplete, ready for whatever lay ahead.
Hermione watched him for a few more moments, allowing her eyes to trace his body without his interruption, or his satisfaction. He was beautiful, a mosaic of perfections. But her gaze landed on an imperfection, one with which she had been preoccupied lately.
His Sectumsempra scar twisted up the side of his abdomen, licking at the base of his collarbone. She had seen it many times at this point, had kissed it, had let her fingers trace down the purple lines. But in this moment of quiet solitude, she let herself really look at it – examine it with an investigator's eye.
She saw what she hadn't the first time, or the second, or the million of times that came afterwards. The deep purple cuts from Harry's wand were only the first layer. Above them, indistinguishable from a distance, but obvious to her now, was a softer purple layer, nearly lavender. On occasion, those marks broke from the Sectumsempra scars, but only slightly. Otherwise, they traced the original marks perfectly, as if they had been designed that way.
Hermione recognized them easily – it was the same scar as flared across her stomach.
Now that she knew, she nearly berated herself for never having seen it before. The layered scars reminded her of fossil layers, of her muggle science classes before she went to Hogwarts. Time between them, but to the untrained eye, they seemed the same, in comparison to the stacking of marks that made up the stone.
Or the marble, in Draco's case.
When all you've ever seen is the big picture, sometimes you don't notice the detail until it's pointed out.
"Are you done your examination?" Draco muttered, startling her. Her hand was frozen on his skin – she hadn't even noticed she was touching him.
"Sorry," she murmured, leaning forward to kiss his forehead. "I didn't realize you were awake."
His eyes fluttered open, they were grey in this light. "Haven't been for long. What are you looking at?"
"Just you."
"I'm honoured."
She chuckled, as he reached forward to pull her into his chest, running his hand through her tangled hair. Pinning it back last night had not helped its wildness. "Examining my scar?"
Perhaps she should've been embarrassed at being caught, but she wasn't. "I'm just surprised I didn't notice the layered scars… before the trial."
He chuckled. "Well, whenever you were close to my chest, we were preoccupied."
She kissed him quickly. "Still. It seems so obvious to me now that it's two scars."
Draco was silent for a moment.
"Sometimes you can't see something until it's pointed out, despite how blatant it may seem in hindsight."
They ate quickly in the hotel before grabbing coffees and heading out into the city. The air was unforgiving, cold to the bone.
"Don't invade Russia in the winter," Hermione muttered to herself, wrapping a scarf around her neck.
"Don't what?"
"Oh, just a muggle saying," she replied, as they made their way towards the Red Square. "Historically, there have been these big failures in invading Russia that are directly related to the winter. Napoleon, the Germans in the Second World War."
"Back when it was the Soviet Union, you mean?" Draco asked as they pushed through the wind. The sky was deep grey, filled with snowflakes just waiting to fall.
"It's only been Russia again for less than a decade," Hermione responded, feeling quite like an encyclopedia. "The USSR fell in the early 90s, remember? From Berlin?"
"Of course, I remember," he said. "West and East. The wall. But I will say, that certainly doesn't look like those Soviet apartments we saw in Berlin."
They had made it into the square and he was pointing to the colourful turrets of St. Basil's Cathedral at the opposite end. The red of the building with the painted colours of the towers contrasted sharply against the winter sky, as if she were taking a photo and the focus was the object forward.
She took out the polaroid camera from her bag and took a snapshot.
"It's not Soviet," she explained. "It's Russian."
"Isn't it all Russian?"
"I mean, yes," she said. "But before the Soviet Union, it was imperial Russia, and had been for a long time."
Draco groaned. "Why is muggle history so complicated?"
She shoved him good-naturedly. "Wizarding history doesn't have a leg to stand on. How many goblin wars were there?"
"How many world wars did your lot have?" he countered.
"Only two," she responded.
"I don't know anything about the first one," he admitted, taking her hand and leading her towards the Cathedral. He took a sip of his coffee. "When was that one?"
"Early 20th century."
"And the reason?"
Hermione hesitated, trying to summarize one of the most complicated geo-political events of the modern age.
"Uh… Franz Ferdinand?"
"Who?"
"He was an archduke," Hermione explained. "He was assassinated and then… World War One happened."
Draco stopped walking; an eyebrow raised. "Pardon?"
"He was the Austrian archduke, and him and his wife were in Sarajevo…"
"No, I got that part," Draco interrupted. "I guess… how did the murder of some random guy start a world war?"
"Some random guy," Hermione scoffed. "He had a name. And he was a duke."
Draco gave her a look.
"You know what I mean, Hermione."
She did. And as much as she wanted to explain the web of alliances, and the building geo-political tensions of the early 20th century, it seemed too complex a subject, and too cold of a location, to be able to distill it accurately.
"It wasn't his assassination," Hermione explained, clutching her coffee between her hands to warm them. "Or… not only. It's never one event, right? Never. The conditions were right, the pot was boiling, and all Europe needed was one flash point to set it ablaze. So no, Franz Ferdinand is not personally responsible for World War One, and it probably would've happened without it, but the point is that it didn't. He died, a bird flapped its wings over in Asia, and the Great War broke out."
"A bird flapped its wings…"
"Another muggle saying," she muttered. "I guess that's what I'm getting at. Everything is so interconnected, so intertwined, that one event, even one that seems unrelated can knock the first domino over, so long as the dominos were set up in a line, just waiting to cascade. You just need one match to set off a forest fire, if the conditions are right. If the wood is dry, if the climate is hot, if there's no rain… do you see what I mean?"
He paused for a moment, and a part of her thought that he was just steeling himself in the face of vicious wind, but when he looked at her, a spark was alight in his eyes.
"About Franz Ferdinand? Not at all," he answered. "But yes. One single match. If the conditions are right. A boiling point."
They watched each other for a moment then, electricity between them, sending sparks between their gazes.
And in a way, she understood too.
Overwhelmed, she glanced away before her eyes landed on another building in the square. "Oh! Lenin's Mausoleum. Do you want to go?"
"Mausoleum? You want to go look at a dead guy?"
"An important dead guy! What do you know about communism?"
Draco groaned, but she heard the humour in his voice. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him towards the building, for a visit, a history lesson, and most importantly, a reprieve from the cold.
January 4, 2000
Their lack of planning had been working well so far. They had spent the first day exploring the Red Square and all its neighbouring sites. To no one's surprise whatsoever, Draco was not immediately taken by the idea of communism at Lenin's Mausoleum.
Hermione had never been less surprised in her life.
However, their exploration of Moscow felt different than the previous legs of the trip. Perhaps it was that there was no plan, no itinerary for what to do besides the mandatory events. Hermione had planned every other city; she had her lists of must-see locations, had the places she could not miss. Here, they were wandering around without direction. It wasn't meaningless, it just wasn't structure.
But she knew it was more than that. The idea of escapism returned to her. That's what all the legs were – a fantastical escape from their traumas back in the Isles. However, they had never felt like avoidance before this trip. And here, in Moscow, every moment was permeated with avoidance, not escapism.
Blaise hung between them, his presence infiltrated every conversation, even though he had not been mentioned once. Hermione would notice Draco's gaze drift away into nothing, his eyes clouding over as she watched him occlude the pain into nothingness.
He had not used Occlumency around her since Portugal, since she watched the kaleidoscope in his eyes spin away into denial. She knew now what she hadn't known then – that he had been occluding for her. Because of her. To hide. To conceal the way he had felt – had always felt – about her, before she was ready to accept it. To see him for who he really was.
But now, this Occlumency had nothing to do with her, she knew that. She had seen this man absolutely shatter beneath her gaze, hiding had become completely pointless. No, this was about Blaise.
She did not want to push the conversation with him, not after their blowout fight in Prague. Draco was a stronger man than she had ever given him credit for, but in some ways, he was as delicate as ice in early Spring. He had to come to her, to want to bring her into this pain.
Hermione had seen herself the bond that existed between the Slytherins. She knew its strength. She could not imagine the scorching pain in his chest Draco must be feeling at the betrayal, even if the betrayal was suspect. But even examining the suspect nature required facing the betrayal for what it was.
And Draco was not ready.
That was the difference between this leg and the previous. There is always a certain level of avoidance in escapism, but previously, they had been escaping ghosts. Memories. Traumas long buried like the war dead.
Now, they were avoiding the present. Previously, when they returned from the trips, they had to face their history together, the complexities of their war. But now, the worst seemed yet to come.
This trip had been brought about as a way to move forward from the past.
Hermione had not realized how much uncertainty the future held.
And not just uncertainty, after all.
Danger.
If there was something Hermione did not want to do, regardless of where in the world they were, it was attend a Quidditch match.
However, as Draco victoriously pointed out to her, it was not only a Quidditch match. It was a part of their duty as international delegates. So, to her great dismay, she forced herself to climb the steps of the stadium in East Moscow towards the Minister's box. Draco had looked into the match and apparently it was a qualifying event for the Russian Quidditch Cup. It meant, more than anything, that the stadium was packed.
Thankfully, the Russian Ministry's Department of Magical Games and Sports had cast a warming charm across the entire grounds. Therefore, despite her disinterest in Quidditch herself, a part of her was pleased to be there. She liked being outside, on principle.
Just not when it was a Russian Winter.
"Minister Mikhailov," Hermione greeted the man as he stood upon their entrance. "Thank you for the invitation."
The Minister's box was packed, it reminded her of the attendance levels of the Quidditch World Cup back in fourth year.
"Miss Granger, Mr. Malfoy," the Minister replied, nodding at them both. "Welcome. I understand that the Russian league may not be of interest to Britons, but I hope you enjoy the match regardless."
Draco spoke before Hermione had a chance to lie. "Nonsense, Minister! We are both thrilled to be here. I personally am rooting for Moscow."
Mikhailov nodded. "Good man."
"Way to lay it on thick," Hermione hissed at him as they pushed forward to their seats.
"We are international delegates," he smiled sardonically. "It's a cultural experience that we are thrilled to have."
"You're just trying to drive me crazy," she muttered as they took their seats.
He put his hand on her knee, letting his thumb trace her inner thigh. "There are easier ways, Hermione."
She huffed.
Other people began trickling into the box. Hermione could not believe how packed this event seemed to be. Abstractly, she understood the popularity of Quidditch, however, seeing it in real time was always a surprise to her, though it shouldn't be.
"Hermione?" A voice said.
Speaking of surprises that really shouldn't be.
"Viktor!" she said, smiling up at the man standing in the aisle. Gods, she always forgot how tall he was. He was dressed in winter robes, vaguely reminiscent to her of his Durmstrang robes, just deep navy instead of red. "How are you?"
"Excited for the match," he responded, a glimmer in his eyes. Once an international Quidditch star, always an international Quidditch star, Hermione thought. He gestured to the empty seat next to her. "Do you mind?"
"Of course," she responded without thought, before feeling Draco's hand grip her leg a little tighter.
Viktor slid into the seat, before leaning across her. "Malfoy, good to see you."
"And you," Draco responded tersely, his eyes focused on the pitch in front of them.
If Viktor noticed the tension, he ignored it. "How are you both finding Moscow?"
Hermione answered "beautiful," just as Draco said "cold".
The Bulgarian chuckled. "It is both of those things, to be sure. I remember that one winter in Scotland, though. You Brits know a fair share about cold, as well." He paused for a moment. "And beauty."
"So, Krum," Draco interjected, his grip as strong as ever on her leg. "Any thoughts on the match?"
Viktor shrugged. "St. Petersburg is favoured. Their chasers are unmatched in the league."
"But Moscow's seeker is world-renowned. Figured you would know that."
If Hermione had been drinking something, she surely would have spat it out. There was an airy cockiness in Draco's voice that she had not heard in a while.
She raised her hand at an attendant in the box and ordered a glass of wine.
This would be a long match.
Moscow won. Hermione sat there sipping away as Viktor and Draco debated over her about the different strategies and Wonski Feints and whatever, before finally, the Moscow seeker caught the Snitch and ended the match. Viktor had been right, however. The St. Petersburg chasers had carried the match, and even with Moscow catching the snitch, the final score had been 320-310.
"If the Turkish or Spanish governments make us attend a Quidditch match, I am dropping out of this tour," she declared upon their return to the hotel. "I swear, I did not come to the continent to watch Quidditch, that's what my friendship with Ron is for."
Draco followed her into the room without comment. Slowly, he began taking off his outerwear, but as Hermione rambled on about Quidditch, she saw the crease between his eyebrows appear, the tightness in his jaw.
Inroads had already been decided.
So, when he interrupted her, she wasn't surprised.
"Hermione," he interjected, stopping her Quidditch rant in its tracks. "What happened between you and Krum?"
Speaking of surprises that really shouldn't be.
Her heart skipped a beat. "What do you mean?"
He laid his coat over a chairback and sighed. "I mean… the way he talks to you. The way he looks at you. And the way you… you look at him. There's something there, something that seems to be way more than a school dance half a decade ago."
Hermione pursed her lips for a moment. In a way, she was brought back to that school dance. Another man, a boy at the time, a similar accusation. All about Viktor.
Except, it wasn't similar, not really. When Ron had accosted her at the Yule Ball, he had spoken with venom, a viper striking against a young girl, just trying to find her own. He had spoken with anger, with jealousy, with possessiveness. A possessiveness he had no right to.
But Draco, he had a right. Not to possess her, certainly, but to ask. And that was the difference. Ron had no right to her at all, and had spoken with viciousness, words designed to strike her like a sword.
And Draco, her actual partner, was just asking. With softness. With respect.
Perhaps this was the difference between age fourteen and twenty.
Or between the man she had thought was the one for a long time, and the one who turned out to actually be.
"What do you want to know?" she found herself replying before she could think.
Draco leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
"Just the truth."
Just.
Isn't that all he had ever wanted from her? The truth.
The truth and a chance.
And now she could give him both.
"Well, you know about fourth year," she started slowly, allowing herself to tread into this conversation with care. For herself, for him, for their relationship.
"You were who he saved from the lake," Draco stated. "I remember. I hated him."
Hermione couldn't help but chuckle but felt the flush on her cheeks. Draco really had cared, all the way back then. "Everyone made such a big deal out of that, but it really was that he wasn't close with anyone from his Durmstrang class, and we had spent a fair bit of time together. Nothing really happened that year, but we kissed a few times, and became quite close. We stayed in contact for the rest of our time at Hogwarts. We wrote letters."
Draco nodded, but said nothing, allowing her to continue.
It felt strange. It felt strange because it really shouldn't. This was the way you were supposed to have this conversation with your partner. With space and respect, with patience and without anger.
With every moment that Draco didn't react like… well, Ron, she opened up further.
"The next time I saw him was at Bill and Fleur's wedding," she continued, the memory engulfing her for a moment. Whenever she thought about the wedding, the conclusion overtook her. Screaming, running, trying to find Harry and Ron as Death Eaters descended on the Burrow. But it had been a long evening.
"I didn't know he was going to be there," Hermione explained. "It made sense, I had known him and Fleur to be quite close. But I was surprised. It was… it was as if no time had passed, and a century as well? I was… I was grown up. I was an adult. And so was he. But he was still Viktor. He asked me to dance. Then he asked me to walk with him in the garden."
Some memories imprint themselves on your mind. This was one of them. She could still smell the flowers of the garden, feel the cool breeze on her shoulders before Viktor wrapped his cloak around her.
She took a deep breathe. "I knew Harry, Ron, and I were about to leave on the Horcrux hunt. I knew that the future was uncertain and was fraught with danger. But he, in that moment, made me feel grounded. He made me feel safe."
Draco nodded, and she knew he understood. With hesitation, he asked her the obvious, the foregone conclusion to her story.
"He was your first, wasn't he?"
No anger. No judgement. Just a question. A fair question between lovers.
Hermione nodded. "He was. It wasn't the most romantic first time, in the garden behind the Burrow, but it was ours. And it was special. But then the Ministry fell, and Harry, Ron and I were on the Horcrux Hunt, and I just… forgot. I just moved on."
"And after Voldemort fell?" Draco prompted.
Hermione sighed. "He came to England to help with the recovery. He really was there to see Fleur. She was pregnant then and needed some help, especially with Bill dealing with Fred's death. And then he came to see me. It was a month or so after the battle, after whatever had happened with Ron had fizzled out forever.
"If I had felt grown up at the wedding, I felt ancient when he came to see me. It had been a year – less than, but a year of war and death and torture. In some ways, I was still the schoolgirl who had been noticed by the international superstar. In some ways, I was gone.
"He stayed with me a lot, and it felt like before. Just darker. More distant. Like he couldn't reach me in a way he had always been able to. Not just as a lover, but as a friend. And it came down to the fact that I was broken, and he wasn't."
"You weren't broken, Hermione," Draco interjected, his voice angry for the first time since the conversation began.
She chuckled, feeling tears spring at the back of her eyes. "No. I was. Deeply. I had just watched some of my closest friends die, it was only a few months after Bellatrix. I couldn't sleep through the nights, and no matter how tightly he held me, I woke up thrashing. He stayed the summer and then I asked him to go. Told him I didn't think we could be anything. Not really."
"Did he agree?" Draco asked.
Hermione nodded. "He knew. He knew what had happened to me, and how much I had changed. Maybe in another life, we might've clicked. And we still do, in a way. He left, but we kept in contact. We still write. We're still friends. But we aren't anything, not anymore."
Draco pursed his lips, and she watched him mull it all over in his head.
"And how do you feel about him now?"
If this was another world, and Ron were asking her the question, she would've felt the jealousy. But with Draco, it wasn't jealousy. Just below the waves of his ocean-grey eyes, she saw the fear. The insecurity.
She sighed. "He is my friend. I'll always care for him. You never forget your first, and he was mine. Everyone always thinks that Ron was my first love because we kissed at the battle and then tried to date. But it was never him, for me. It was always Viktor."
"Did you love him?"
"I thought I did," she answered honestly. "But now, I…" she hesitated, biting her lip for a moment.
Draco raised an eyebrow. "But?"
What more was there to say to him? How many more declarations could she make to try and describe the magnitude of them?
Steeling herself again, she spoke. "I thought I loved him until I fell in love with you."
His face shattered, and he was a blank canvas once again.
Taking a few tentative steps forward, she slowly wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close until her forehead was resting on his chest.
"Are you angry?" she whispered.
His hands went to her cheeks immediately, tilting her face up to meet his gaze. "Angry? Why on earth would I be angry?"
"Because… because of Viktor."
He snorted. "No, love. I'm not angry that you had a life before me. What did you say in Rome? Ah yes – that would be very anti-feminist."
She chuckled. "I'm not sure, I thought you might be mad that I didn't tell you."
He shrugged. "It explains the tension at that Quidditch match, but you can share your history with me at your own pace. Our relationship is not… it's not a leg on this trip, where we have limited time to explore the sites and understand the past. We have… we have forever to explore our history, don't we?"
Draco said the last part quietly, almost a whisper. A ghost of a question, too nervous to take corporeal form.
But she wanted it to, to hold it with certainty.
She nodded.
January 7, 2000
The rest of the week went quickly from there as they fell into pattern. They explored Moscow in the morning, they went to dinners at night. Hermione had seen Viktor a few more times at various events, but only in passing.
The final gala came both too soon and too late for her liking. This trip was causing an itch beneath her skin that she couldn't seem to scratch, a discomfort that she couldn't alleviate despite her best efforts.
She kept thinking about what would happen when they got home. Blaise hung in the balance of whatever was to come in the next few months. Spending this time away, in the hotel, exploring, while he was detained and awaiting the trial felt dishonourable. Like they were doing him a disservice by not spending every moment fighting the Ministry.
But Harry had been right, as he had whispered to her after Draco had stormed out, the day of their return from Prague. A capture was one thing, but Blaise confessed. He needed to recant, with evidence, and an explanation for the false confession. Even if Hermione showed up at the Ministry with the right culprit, until Blaise recanted, they were at a loss.
It didn't mean she wasn't going to try.
There was too much on her plate. She felt overwhelming guilt from this past month, from being preoccupied with Draco's trial and its aftermath. From trying to have a few moments of joy – New Year's Eve. To Moscow.
But Blaise was there. She felt as if she were still stuck in the cliffhanger, as the page turned achingly slowly, refusing to show her how the plot point resolved.
All she could do was dance as Blaise suffered.
Playing violin as Rome burned.
She slipped into her gown for the evening. Perhaps it was her mood, or the weather, but she had opted for a black dress to conclude the Russian leg. A tight bodice, a flared skirt, silver accents tracing up the side.
Pansy would have loved it. For Hermione, it felt constraining.
This whole trip… felt constraining.
She shouldn't be here, she thought, as Draco and her entered the ballroom where the final gala was taking place. A shadow was hanging over them. A dark magic signature on the continent, a crisis at home.
Something was going to go wrong, that incessant, nagging voice in her mind whispered. Something was off.
She shut the voice down as Mikhailov announced them, focusing her attention to the matter at hand.
The Russians had increased security. This was the final day. They just had to make it through.
Not that that had mattered much in Rome.
The final event was in a ballroom at the Grand Kremlin Palace. Similarly, to Prague, Hermione understood that Mikhailov had made a deal with the muggle president to secure it for the evening. St. Alexander Hall was their location.
Despite her nervousness, that itch she couldn't seem to scratch, Hermione had to admit the venue was beautiful. Gorgeous, high white walls covered with gold accents, chandeliers of shining crystal hanging above them.
"Not very communist of them," Draco muttered as they walked in.
"It's from an earlier period," Hermione retorted. "Not that you're one to talk, Mr. Manor."
He scoffed, but she saw the corners of his lips turn up.
The speeches were short, to the point. To her great relief, they were primarily about the international delegation, and not about her and Draco. She applauded as all the various countries were listed, smiling herself as Viktor was thanked by the Minister.
Draco did not smile.
Afterwards, they began to dance. She took a shot of vodka from a passing waiter, instantly reminding her why she always stuck to beer and wine. However, she had felt that despite having gone exploring, she had not really experienced Russian culture in the way she had experienced the other cities, not that taking one shot would change that.
This trip felt different.
The song faded out, and Draco kissed her hand like a gentleman. Just as the strings because to play once again, she felt a tap on her shoulder.
"Viktor," she smiled as she turned. This time, she wasn't surprised.
"Hermione," he replied, bowing slightly. He looked the part of what she imagined the old Russian Tsars to look. "May I borrow you for a dance?"
She had promised him a dance before the week ended. But that was before she had spoken to Draco and had informed him of their history.
She hesitated.
However, she felt Draco push her forward, not pull her back. "You two enjoy," he said, nodding politely at Krum. "I believe it's my time to dance with the Minister's wife, as is tradition. Krum," he said, before shooting her a small smile and disappearing into the crowd.
Hermione took Viktor's hand as he led her further onto the floor. They went into position, eyes meeting, and began to waltz.
It was as if no time had passed at all. She could be fifteen years old in the Great Hall, in a dress of periwinkle. She could be at the Burrow, fear pounding through her at the thought of the weeks ahead.
Dancing through the years.
"Your waltz has improved," Viktor commented, shooting her a small smile. She couldn't help but return it.
"Waltzing is half my career at this point, what with this trip," she responded.
"The trip," he mused, his eyes drifted away from her for a moment. "I was shocked when I heard it announced. And when I heard it was to be with… him."
Hermione stayed quiet, unsure what to say for a moment. Viktor looked thoughtful.
That was something Harry and Ron had never understood about Viktor. They had always thought him dense, or even boorish. He wasn't, he was a brilliant man. However, he spoke simply.
Sometimes the simplest sentences were the most thoughtful of all.
"Are you happy, Hermione?" he asked, looking back down at her. "With him?"
"I am." The words took no effort.
"Have you forgiven him?" he continued, and Hermione felt his grip tighten around her, almost reflexively.
It made sense. He had held her through those nights, what felt like eons ago, when she woke up screaming from beneath Bellatrix's knife.
"I have."
No effort.
He nodded, and that seemed to be enough for him. This was no Ron, or Ginny, or even Harry to an extent. Viktor had always understood her, had trusted her judgement from the first word.
It's why he had left when she asked him to, back in the summer after the war. There was no fight, no attempt to change her mind. Only acceptance that she knew herself best.
She saw the same acceptance in his eyes now.
"You must write me more, Hermione," he continued, as if nothing more needed to be said. "I've been hurt, to only read of your great adventures from the papers."
She chuckled. "I will, I promise. I've just been busy."
"I can see," he replied. "You do… you look stunning, Hermione."
"You look quite handsome yourself, Viktor."
He smiled then, just as the song sowed to a halt. He leant down to kiss her hand – a gentleman's goodbye. Glancing up at her, she found herself momentarily lost in those dark eyes.
But then the moment was over, and Draco had reappeared to whisk her away.
Perhaps that's why Viktor was only her first love, she thought to herself. Because she could look into his eyes and become lost in their depth, but blink and return to surface.
When she looked into Draco's, all she wanted to do was drown.
She would have to be dragged to the surface.
But not like a champion rescuing a girl from beneath a lake.
No, she would stay submerged willingly.
"Did this trip feel different to you?" she asked Draco as they returned to the hotel.
"I mean, colder."
"No," she shook her head, trying to reach the buttons at the back of her dress. Noticing, Draco reached out to undo them himself. "It wasn't as… immersive… as it usually is."
His fingers were delicate, slipping the buttons open carefully. "Ah. I did notice."
"Why do you think that was?" she felt herself asking, as the dress pooled to the floor at her feet.
Draco kissed her shoulder. "I think because we both left a part of us in London this time."
"Blaise," she whispered, and she felt his fingers freeze at her waist.
"Yes," he replied, his voice tighter than before. She did not need to turn to know that he was occluding again.
She wanted to push him, to make him talk to her.
But she could not bulldoze him here.
Instead, she turned, kissing him on the cheek lightly before walking towards the bar in their hotel room, pouring a glass of water.
"At least the closing gala was nice," she said, taking a sip and brushing an errant hair out of her face.
Draco was unclasping his cufflinks, his gaze unfocused. "In a way. I never thought I'd have to see you dance with Krum again."
A flurry appeared in her stomach. "That didn't bother you, did it?"
He glanced up at her, his silver eyes darker than before. "No, it didn't. But I couldn't help but remember the last time I watched you dance with him."
"The Yule Ball?"
"The Yule Ball."
He took a shaking breath, almost laughing, as he slipped out of his dress shirt. Her eyes landed on his scar once again, layered against itself.
"The last time I watched you dance with him, Hermione," Draco started. "I was furious. Shaking with rage. With him, obviously for having you. With you, for looking so goddamn beautiful. For myself, for caring that you looked so goddamn beautiful and that he had you. All I wanted to do was rip you out of his arms and then… I had no idea what came next. But I couldn't bear the present.
"But this time, I felt calm. I almost felt nothing – merely an echo of a past jealousy. Because as familiar as it was, seeing you in his arms, I knew that tonight you would fall into mine. Because that was your place now.
"Is that what love it?" he asked quietly, and she knew the question was genuine. "That certainty?"
She nodded, reaching forward to wrap her arms around him. "Yes. That's what love is. That peace."
"Peace," he murmured, almost tasting the word for imperfections. "We haven't known a lot of that, have we?"
"Not in our lifetimes," she whispered. "But in each other."
He let out a haggard breath. "There's going to be no peace until Blaise is out, is there? Until this trip is over?"
It was the first time she had heard him say Blaise's name.
It broke her heart.
"Probably not," she whispered, talking into his chest.
His arms tightened around her.
"Then I'll take what I can get until then."
January 8, 2000
They landed in Scot's office without much fanfare. Her boss looked up from his desk, where he was reading a dossier. Had he not moved all week?
"Hermione, Malfoy," he greeted them, looking them over as if inspecting for damage. "Everything alright? How was Moscow?"
"Alright," she answered, unable to muster up the enthusiasm she had for the other legs.
Scot seemed to have noticed.
"Did anything go wrong?"
She shook her head, as Draco did the same.
"No, nothing went wrong."
Something is going to go wrong, the nagging voice in her head repeated once again.
Just not yet.
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