On the train platform, where the muggleborn chain of the Trace was looser than in her parents' home, Hermione immediately charmed a small box with a lock and a back up explosive charm. To her surprise the jet-black owls had returned soon after Christmas, bringing bribes of expensive looking gin and rather stark information on the unsavoury types ringing in a happy new year at the Malfoy residence. At first it seemed like a classic commercial negotiation tactic, but the letters were too frequent, miserable and full of important information to be a sleazy sales pitch.
Malfoy's obvious melancholy and desperation should have made her feel more confident about their upcoming rendezvous, but Hermione still didn't know how she was going to convince him to make an Unbreakable Vow. What did he value that she could try to protect with consideration from her side? His sense of self-preservation was pretty much extinguished, and they shared no values about what was right and wrong. All she knew was he wanted control over panic attacks, and Hermione doubted that would be enough.
Constant brainstorming had not yielded any further compelling reasons though, so Hermione decided to throw caution to the winds. 11pm, where you caught us last year, she penned while adding all sorts of unpleasant charms to her note that would hopefully protect the message from unwanted readers, and she sent one of Malfoy's beautiful black owls to Hogwarts to leave him the letter there.
The Room of Requirement did not disappoint, which was a huge relief to Hermione – she was not sure how specific one could be with what they asked. She stepped through a very inconspicuous doorway into a cool pine forest that oozed a sense of peace and quiet. She sat under a large tree on the edge of the clearing in the centre of the room, dropped her bag and the last of her old money gin beside her, and leant against the trunk.
Embarrassingly, it was such a relaxing environment that she almost fell asleep waiting for Malfoy, who was late. When she came to, he was standing several feet away from her, wand pointed at her. Despite the specifically designed nature of the Room, he looked paralysed with fear, nervous sweat trickling down his face.
She frowned. "Malfoy, I'm not trying to trick you."
"Why did you choose this place?" he asked, looking around.
"Because I thought it would be quiet and calm, but it is rather hard to head to a temperate forest unnoticed during curfew," she explained. He shook his head, sneering and looking confused.
Hermione sighed, irritated and unsure how to proceed. Being too accommodating would surely press more alarm bells for him, and weaken her bargaining position. Maybe stating the problem plainly would help.
"Malfoy, you wrote to me. And you wrote to me because I helped you. And you came here tonight." And I made you a perfect forest to relax in and escape from the world, and you come in here pointing your wand at me, she thought but didn't say. She threw her hands up, shrugging. "What do you want to do?"
He stared at her, and Hermione could almost feel him building several brick walls between them before he lowered his wand and angrily stomped over to her, sitting down beside her and grabbing the gin.
Terrible manners, Hermione thought, and then immediately tried to forget – now was not the time to think of Narcissa and what she would think about anything going on here. "I brought lemon and tonic, too," Hermione said instead, opening her bag to find glasses and mixers.
They sat in silence putting their drinks together until Hermione clinked her glass against his and they both drained their cocktails.
"Ok," Hermione said. "I can help you."
"I know," Malfoy said dully. "That's why I'm here."
"And you can help me."
"I can't do anything," he said, gripping his glass tightly.
"Well, you managed to send me this very nice gin," she said quickly to distract him, pouring them another round.
"You didn't meet to trade alcohol," Malfoy said.
"I know what is going wrong, in your body and mind, to cause you this grief," Hermione said, cutting to the chase. "I can help you control it with far more than the spells I used before Christmas."
"I can't-" Malfoy said, the rest of his sentence choking in his throat. Hermione looked on, worried as he put his head in his hands, shakes wracking through his whole body. "I can't give you anything," he eventually managed to get out.
"Malfoy, I'm going to cast something calming, ok?" Hermione said, half-asking him to avoid yet another duelling match. He made some sort of noise in his throat which she decided to take as assent, and she placed a strong atmospheric calming spell around both of `them. She waited until he stopped shaking and then chose her words carefully.
"I'm not asking for more in exchange for helping you. What I can do to help you will also help me," Hermione said. He looked up at her, confused and defeated.
"If you could trust me to help you, your- your mind will relax," Hermione said, gesturing to her head as she tried to explain anxiety in less muggle medical terms. "Spells, and charms – these will be much more effective if you could trust me. But right now you can't." Malfoy nodded.
"How could I trust you?" he asked rhetorically, voice barely above a whisper as he played along with her lecture.
"Right. Even if you wanted to, you can't." She paused to gather her thoughts, a blush crawling across her face at a most inopportune time as she put her case to him for her bargain. "I want to be able to trust you, too. But I can't."
He looked at her, still confused. "I want an ally if I'm ever captured by Death Eaters," Hermione said plainly. "If we both promise, to – as much as we can – protect the other, I think we would both be better off."
Malfoy looked at her for a long time, eyes narrowed. "You want to make the Vow," he said eventually.
"I am not asking for more than you can give," she said. "In return, I can help protect your sanity and your life."
He leant back on the palms of his hands, looking up at the false stars in the ceiling through the pines. "You would protect me against one of your own?" he asked.
"Yes," Hermione replied. "But to be honest, I think there is a greater chance of you being harmed by your own side, if your condition becomes known or causes an operational error."
Malfoy exhaled. "Yeah," he admitted flatly. He moved his head to look at her. "So I guess your promise is only good if you can keep me alive."
"Precisely," Hermione replied.
"Do you want information?"
"Only as much as would fulfil your side of the promise."
He continued to stare. "Do you want anything else?"
"Well, I think tying two fates together is enough to be getting on with," Hermione joked, and Malfoy laughed bitterly.
"Right. You've ruined many a good thing, Granger," he said. "You have the curious habit of taking everything I have and turning it to ashes." His comment was rude and mean, but Malfoy didn't seem to be trying to be hurtful. Before she could ask what he meant, he looked past her, towards her bag.
"I assume you have a proposal drafted," he said.
"Yes," Hermione replied, not wanting to waste time if Malfoy was on board. She pulled out her notes and handed them to Malfoy.
I will protect you, with the least amount of interference in your personal mission possible, to the best of my ability.
He stared at the short script for a long time, opening his mouth and then closing it again. Hermione could almost guarantee Malfoy wanted to ask more about "personal mission", but daren't give away any information himself. She decided to be kind and explain it further.
"The qualifiers will prevent someone, for example, locking the other safely in a mental or physical prison to fulfil their end of the promise," she said.
"Vow makers acting in bad faith risk death," he murmured, tracing his finger over her writing.
"I would be acting entirely in good faith keeping you away from a crowd of sadistic racists," Hermione replied. "It is my hope that this won't be necessary," she went on, staring intently at the parchment to avoid looking at him and blushing again. "This is just a tool that we can rely on to build trust. But at the least, you won't worry when I point my wand at you to help calm you down, and I might have a hail mary if I'm captured."
He put the parchment down and she looked up at him.
"Ok," he said simply. "I assume you know a way to cast a Vow without a third person."
"Yes," she said, heart racing with excitement and surprise that he had agreed. "We both cast with our left hands."
The fake, magic breeze picked up as they clasped each others' wrists, wands pointed at each others promising hand. He could probably tell her pulse was racing, Hermione thought, embarrassed, but his veins under her clenched fingers jumped erratically too, and she felt a little more confident. He felt cold and damp to the touch, stress personified.
Hermione looked up to check he was ready, feeling like she was about to jump off a cliff. At this close proximity she could see the flecks of white in Malfoy's irises and every burst blood vessel in his eyes.
Her question died in her throat. He nodded. The light escaped from their wands and wrapped an infinity knot around them both. She took a shallow breath and they tied their lives together.