Chapter 22 - Blood and swords and crowns

The next time Hermione sees Draco, he's in the hospital wing.

She hears about it from Theo, less than an hour after leaving Draco in the morning. She had gone back to her own room to shower and change, then she was planning to meet back up with him at breakfast.

What happens instead is she hears a banging at the common room door, accompanied by a great deal of swearing.

"You stupid fucking door, you know who I am! I was in this house for five years! Who gives a shit if I don't have this week's password! Let me in!"

Hermione rushes over and swings open the door, nearly getting hit in the face by Theo's fist, which he's been beating against the door for an indeterminate amount of time.

"What the fuck took you so long?" Theo snarls, swirling on his heel and marching back up the hallway. Hermione scurries after him, rushing to catch up.

"I was in the shower, I didn't hear you — and wasn't there anyone else to let you in? Where's Draco? Where are we going?"

"The hospital wing. That's where Draco is, minus half his blood volume."

"WHAT?" Hermione screeches to a halt, her heart pounding in her chest, her ears making an odd ringing sound. "I just saw him, it's someone else, it can't be him!"

"No, I just saw him. With all his veins fucking exploded on the goddamn bathroom floor."

Theo yanks her by the elbow and continues tearing up the stairs to the hospital wing.

"But —" Hermione can't process, she doesn't understand, she's not — "What happened?"

"Harry fucking Potter is what happened."

"Theo, what does that mean? What happened? Is Draco — is he —"

She can't finish her thought, she can't quite even think it, let alone say it. All she keeps thinking is how barely an hour ago she was having sex for the second time ever in her life, and now Draco is bleeding and —

"I don't fucking know, no one is saying anything, but he looked pretty fucking close to death."

"No. No, but he — he can't. No. No." It's like she thinks that by denying it, she can will it into non-existence. He has to be fine. He has to be. Of all the things she worried might happen to him, she never thought — "Theo, what did you say about Harry?"

"He attacked Draco. Used some batshit spell that ripped him to shreds."

"No, that can't be right," she insists. "You didn't see it happen, did you? There has to be something else that went wrong."

Theo just shakes his head grimly, setting his jaw.

They round the corner to the hospital wing, and for the second time in recent memory, Harry is pacing around outside of it.

"Hermione!" Harry calls when he sees her. "It was an accident, I don't know what happened —"

Hermione brushes past him to enter the hospital wing, only to be stopped by locked doors. She yanks on the handle over and over. The door doesn't budge and she can't see anything and oh god, what if — The hospital doors are never locked, what if that means —

"Granger. Granger. Hermione." Theo wraps a hand around hers and gently dislodges her fingers from the door. "It's not going to open. Come sit."

She nods, taking a breath. She tries to remember what it feels like to think logically as Theo leads her to a section of floor directly across the hall from the double doors to the hospital wing. They sit. Harry continues to pace around in front of them.

"Potter. Tell us what happened."

Harry sighs and twists a hand through his already wild hair. "I was just going to the bathroom off the Entrance Hall and Malfoy was there and well, we just got into a fight, like always. But I — I tried this spell. I didn't know what it did! I never expected…"

"It was from that book wasn't it?" Hermione whispers.

"Yeah," Harry says. "I didn't know what it did," he repeats, mumbling.

"And then what?"

"Er, Moaning Myrtle showed up, she must have been watching from somewhere… and she started running — er, floating — away screaming. And then Nott here showed up, and then Snape right after. And Snape knew what to do, he did some sort of counter curse, and then, well, he brought Malfoy here," Harry finishes lamely, gesturing at the hospital wing doors.

"Bloody fuck, Potter," Theo mutters.

Harry goes back to pacing.

That book. That horrible, awful, loathsome book.

And Harry. Reckless, thoughtless, horribly careless Harry.

It makes perfect sense. And none at all.

"What are you even doing back at school, Harry?" Hermione demands. "There are still three more days of holidays."

"I — er — wanted to give the Weasleys' some space."

Hermione glares at him. Harry loves the Weasleys. That's not the reason.

Harry catches her eye and rushes to keep talking. "And, well — Dean came over to see Ginny last night and I just didn't want to be there, so I thought — well, I missed you, Hermione and we shouldn't be fighting, I should support you, whatever you have going on, so I thought — I wanted to come back and, er, apologise and stuff."

"Oh," she manages.

Harry and Theo both look at her expectantly.

"What?" Hermione snaps. "Am I supposed to just forgive you? You spend weeks — months — not trusting me, avoiding me, treating me like some sort of — of traitor! And then you come back here and the first thing you do is attack Draco. And we don't even know if he's going to be okay! And all you have to say about it is that you were so jealous of Dean that you wanted me around again? No, I don't fucking forgive you."

She heaves several breaths in through her nose, jaw set tight. She's vaguely aware of Theo staring at her, mouth agape.

She casts her gaze upwards, meeting Harry's eye defiantly. He's finally stopped pacing. He takes a long time to speak.

"You asked, Hermione," he says wearily. "That's just what happened, okay? I didn't mean for him to get hurt like that, you know that. I would never use a spell like that on purpose, not even on Malfoy. But I mean, he's not exactly innocent either, he —"

"Don't blame this on him! He didn't do anything to you, you're fine!" she spits.

"Can't you even listen to me before you jump to defend him?" Harry yells, face reddening.

"No!" she responds, equally loudly, jumping to her feet.

"Why not?"

"Because I love him!"


Theo is distracted by Potter and Granger screaming at each other for about three minutes. Then he tunes them out and goes back to picturing it, like he's been doing since it happened. Over and over and over again.

Draco lying on the floor, blood seeping through his shirt, puddling on the floor. Such bright red. So much of it.

Blood, blood, blood. It was so much blood.

He doesn't know how much blood you can lose and still survive, but he can't imagine a person can contain much more blood than what Draco lost. It was so much blood.

And Potter, just standing over him, frozen. Some fucking hero.

Eventually, the doors to the hospital wing open, and Snape emerges. He says nothing about Draco, just sweeps past, demanding Potter bring him his potions textbook. Potter takes a final look at him and Hermione, then follows after Snape.

Madam Pomfrey comes out next, harried and tired with a bit of blood on her sleeve, and gives them an update. Draco will survive.

He'll be unconscious for a while, while the blood-replenishing potions do their work, and he'll have scars. But he'll survive. He'll survive.

The matron insists he's too unstable for visitors, and sends them on their way. Theo catches only the briefest glimpse of Draco's sickeningly pale form as the door swings shut behind her.

Hermione slumps against the wall and dissolves into tears.

Theo feels like doing the same. "He'll be okay," he says aloud, mostly to himself.

"I know," Hermione sniffs, "but I just want to see him. He must have been so scared."

"Yeah," Theo agrees.

There's not much to say after that.

When Hermione collects herself a bit more, Theo suggests they go down to the Great Hall and get a cup of tea. Somehow, it's still breakfast time.

There's no one around to care, so Theo sits with Hermione at the Slytherin table. They drink their tea in near silence.

Afterwards, Theo goes to the owlery. He writes to Pansy, to let her know about Draco, and to Neville, just because.

Then he wanders the castle, going up and up. He's heading roughly in the direction of the Divination classroom, so he makes it his destination, just to have one.

Blood, blood, blood. It was so much blood.

He enters the room with a simple Alohomora, and sits down in front of a crystal ball. Maybe it will show him something that will displace the blood from the front of his mind.

He figures he'll set his intention to desire, going back to the beginning of term, because why the fuck not. He doesn't think he can stand to know the actual future anyway.

He gazes at the crystal ball, and at first he thinks the visions haven't changed from the last time he did this.

He sees Neville, bathed in sunlight, lazing in bed, just like before. Theo watches himself join him, just like before. Only this time, it's not their dorm. It's a large pastel coloured bedroom that seems like it ought to belong on a farmhouse.

And if he squints, they seem a little older than they are now. Early twenties, maybe. He watches for a minute as Older Theo kisses Older Neville.

Though the actual sequence of events is just the same as it was back when he did this in the fall, he suspects the meaning is vastly different. Before, it was about sex and curiosity and change. Now, it's peace and comfort and love. It's about getting through Hogwarts and surviving the Dark Lord and moving into a fucking farmhouse with stunning morning light.

Though either way, he wants Neville at his side — change or peace, comfort or curiosity, sex or love. It doesn't matter. It's all him.

Theo watches passively as the vision plays out. It doesn't go for too long before it changes.

There's a fog between visions and in those seconds, it fills his mind again. Blood, blood, blood. It was so much blood. He can't escape it, even with the happiest thought in the world to distract him.

The fog shifts, and it's the sword. It's not drenched in mist like it was before, or like it is in his dreams. It's standing upright, stuck in a stone in a vast, foggy meadow. Theo watches himself — himself as he is now, wearing his Gryffindor tie and everything — pull the sword from the stone.

He's not divining the future, he's divining himself, divining what he wants. This is not the ambiguous half-baked notion of a sword in the mist, strength or bravery or whatever. This is him, Theo, Theodore Nott the Third, becoming a hero. Pulling the sword from the fucking stone.

He's gotten into this thing — this fight, this cause — and now he's all in. No more sidelines for Theo. He's a Gryffindor now, and — if this crystal ball is to be believed — he wants to be.

The vision is over nearly as soon as it begins, and everything dissolves in fog, as before. But this time the fog doesn't quite clear. There's something though, sparkling through the mist. Not a sword.

A glittering silver crown, topped with a large blue stone and a carved eagle.

He recognises it immediately, from the Room of Requirement. It had stood out to him then too, called to him, almost.

The crown disappears into the mist and when nothing else materialises, Theo pushes the crystal ball away. The meaning of the crown is not at all clear to Theo, but it tickles at something deep within him, some sort of possessive, frightening longing that he remembers feeling when his gaze landed on the crown that time in the Room.

He'll have to go back there, see if he can find it again, try to understand it. But as soon as the vision faded, the pull on his consciousness lessened to enough of a degree that he can think about other things. Like blood.

Theo sighs and stands up. It's been a functional and illuminating and only mildly distressing distraction, but he's back to worry about Draco.

He makes his way down towards the hospital wing, planning to bother Madam Pomfrey again about whether he can see Draco yet, his mind caught between visions of blood and swords and crowns.


After her tea with Theo, Hermione goes back up to the hall outside the hospital wing. She was told under no uncertain terms that Draco could have no visitors until tomorrow, but she wants to at least be close by. She brings a book, but doesn't manage to open it. She looks at the stone floor and thinks.

It's all such a mess. Draco, hurt by Harry. Harry, using such a foul, deadly curse.

And all the messes they were dealing with before are still unresolved. The cabinet. Dumbledore. Horcruxes. Death Eaters. All of it is going to come to a head sooner or later. There's no telling when, and Hermione can't help but feel that they are woefully, wildly unprepared.

"Hey," Harry's tentative, nervous voice breaks into the quiet hallway.

"Hi," she says weakly, and Harry, bolstered by the lack of venom in her greeting, takes a seat on the floor next to her.

Their argument from that morning had more-or-less ended after she had accidentally declared her love for Draco. She'd never said it before, certainly not to Draco, and she'd never even really considered whether she loved him or not.

But now that she's screamed it at Harry, it's not possible to deny. The panic she felt when she heard he was hurt. The way she's been so willing to let him into her life, even after their past. How it had felt to be with him last night, to lie in his bed and feel safe, despite the mark on his arm. The way he always made her feel stronger, more beautiful, more special, than she'd ever felt without him.

Yes, it was true. Against all odds, Hermione Granger had fallen in love with Draco Malfoy.

"So," Harry says gently after a moment. "Malfoy, huh? Will you tell me how it happened?"

Hermione wants to weep, she's so grateful for Harry's effort to listen. So she tells him.

About how she had been drawn to Draco from the beginning of the year, though she denied it to herself. How she's seen a new side of him at the dinner table and in transfiguration class and the common room. How he'd kissed her outside the Room of Requirement. And how she'd pushed him away, then got pulled back in, then back and forth, over and over, until she'd found out his secret and she learned to trust him. How since then, Draco's grown and grown in her estimation and in her heart, until now she can't really imagine life without him anymore.

She leaves out a few of the juicier details — about Voldemort and Dumbledore and the cabinet, and about the night before — but basically, she tells Harry everything. It spills out of her easily. She didn't realise how much she wanted to tell someone — to tell her best friend — until she does.

Harry listens quietly, taking it all in. Only the occasional widening of his eyes or tightening of his mouth reveals his feelings. Somewhere in the realm of shock and worry and perhaps a bit of revulsion, if Hermione were to guess.

"Well," he says when she finishes. "I — I can see how it happened. It makes sense, I guess. Sort of. I mean, I always thought it would be you and Ron, or I don't know, some Ravenclaw. Someone smart."

"Draco's smart."

"Right," Harry grimaces. "But in the bathroom earlier… he had his sleeves rolled up, and I saw his, er, you know, his Dark Mark."

"I know, Harry," she says. "I've seen it too."

"Of course you have," he mutters. "But that means I was right, doesn't it? He's a Death Eater."

"But he didn't want the mark, I swear, he's not who you think he is. He doesn't believe in any of that stuff, not really, not anymore. He's caught in a tough position, but he's on the right side, or he wants to be at least," she argues fervently, making sure that Harry catches the sincerity in her eyes.

Harry sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You really believe that, don't you?"

"Yes," she says quickly. "I mean, it's not like I've never had doubts, and he's not perfect, Harry, I know that, but... he's changed. Or is changing. I know you two don't get along, but if you just give him a chance, I know you'd see it too."

Harry pauses for a moment, fidgeting anxiously with the edge of his robe.

"Look," he says, turning on the floor, so he's facing her head on. "I let you tell me your whole story without interrupting. Can you — can you let me do the same? About what happened this morning?"

Hermione nods. It's the least she can do, with Harry being this supportive.

"Like I said before, I came back to see you. And, yeah, avoid Ginny and Dean. But anyway, right after I got back, I, um, looked at the map. For Malfoy. And I saw him in the bathroom by the Great Hall, and since I was going to breakfast anyway, I figured I'd stop in and just see what he was doing."

Hermione only just remembers her promise to not interrupt. But, honestly, what did Harry think Draco was doing in the bathroom?

"Well anyway, he was at a sink and he looked — I don't know, smug. Like more than usual. And I said something dumb, just ribbing at him I guess, just because. And then he said something to me… and well, you know how it goes."

Hermione nods. She's seen the Draco-and-Harry show enough times. She does know how it goes.

"And then I said something about how he should leave you alone. And then he said, er, something like 'she didn't seem to want me to leave her alone last night.'" Harry cringes. "And well, that's when I drew my wand."

Oh. So the fight was about her, then.

"It started off normal, just small jinxes. But then it escalated, and I know it shouldn't have, but he just makes me so mad, Hermione, and the Dark Mark and him talking like that about you … It escalated to bigger stuff, bombarda, incarcerous, you know. And then — you have to believe me about this part Hermione. Please." Harry takes a breath. "Then he cast crucio."

Hermione shakes her head. "No —"

"I blocked it with sectumsempra, the spell from the book. I didn't know what it did, but I just panicked. He was using an unforgivable, Hermione."

"No," she says again. "You have to have misheard —"

"I didn't. I'm sorry. I wish I did."

"He can't have meant it, it must have just slipped out, like you and that sectum spell. Or —"

"Hermione," Harry cuts her off, pleading. "You didn't see the look on his face. He meant it."

"No —"

"One hundred thousand mountain trolls, Hermione. I'm not lying."

"No," she says again, softer this time.

"I'm sorry," Harry says. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and she leans into his embrace, letting him hold her.

"It's not the first time," she whispers. "He's used imperio too."

Tears start to fall slowly from Hermione's eyes, getting all over Harry's shirt.

"But I thought he had a good reason for it. I thought he changed. I don't — I don't want to be wrong."


A/N: Beta read by Sunshine_celine 💜 Thanks everyone for reading!

Also - I posted a weird little Susan/Hannah sci-fi AU on AO3 earlier this week, so head on over there if that's something you're interested in...

Semi-relatedly, I wanted to mention that after Hide Your Fire is finished, I will not be posting any future writing on fanfiction .net. I do not want to disappoint anyone, so I will finish posting this story here, but if you like my writing, AO3 will be the only place to find it in the future. My username is the same over there.

I have lots more stories in me and I expect to continue writing fanfiction for a very long time. However, FFN is not a site I am comfortable using anymore for a variety of reasons. AO3 is my preferred platform by far - if you don't have an account there, I encourage you to get one and come join me!