Chapter warning: Blackout sex/date rape. Everywhere you look there's (a hem) problematic interpersonal behaviour.
She woke up under a heavy blanket, in a pleasantly cool room. Hermione blinked and saw pine trees. The Room of Requirement.
She sat up and looked around. Hermione was alone. Draco had left her bag, her wand, a glass of water and a note. She was sure classes had already started; had he dosed her with Sleeping Draught? He had done that once when they were trialling handover remedies; she recalled how furious she was when she woke up at quarter to ten on a Friday and yelled at him that evening about how being hungover in Charms was preferable to being marked absent. Suspiciously casting her own glass of water, she opened his note.
I love you, Hermione. I told you something that was causing you significant distress. I have temporarily removed it. Please don't look for the memory, I will return it. I can't bear to see you so upset.
I told you because I am weak and you are the strongest person I know. But it was tearing you apart.
Some of the memories I removed contain important information I couldn't disentangle. Please know I no longer believe in blood supremacy. And the Dark Lord has not mentioned muggle weapons, or government, or anything.
If you want to see me, or want to discuss how I can break my mother out of the manor, please send me a message.
Always yours,
Draco
He had charmed his letter with her Calming spell blend, Hermione could tell, because her furiousness and terror registered but was quite muted. How could he dig around in her brain? She tried to remember the past few weeks to find holes that she could tear at and figure out what he might have taken, but it was no use - he had removed entire portions of time. It covered the past few days at least, where it was easy to tell that there were significant gaps where there would normally be easy recollection. But it might have gone beyond that; it was difficult to know because the usual mists of time made things vague.
What had he told her? Hermione could only assume it was related to killing the headmaster, or about Voldemort in some other way. She never sat still with agony; the only time she had ever been distressed and not done something to remedy it was when the Vow had stayed her hand after Ron almost died. Hermione felt a small worry make its way past the spell – her spell, that he had turned on her. Draco hadn't crossed the rubicon of her memory when he almost killed Ron. Was what he removed somehow worse than that?
Hermione read his letter again. It may as well have been a suicide note for how free Draco was with information that she wanted, and declarations of love which she silently wished for. Had he told her about plans for his next attempt, or asked her to help him? He obviously didn't think he was going to survive it.
Draco was still asking after his mother, though, and referred to him getting her out. Hermione thought back to when he previously attempted to end his life, how she promised him that she could and would do anything to persuade him to abandon his mission. True, Draco hadn't promised to stop if she got them out, but he looked so terrified to believe there was another option. Hermione was sure he didn't want to kill Professor Dumbledore, if only because the plot had made him so sick all year.
There was clearly not much time – maybe that was what he had removed from her head, maybe the deadline was almost here and she was despairing about it. She reached for her bangle: it only read a single x.
Where are you? she sent, putting his letter in her bag and leaving the Room. Classes were clearly in session; the corridors were quiet and empty. She went to Gryffindor Tower, hoping that either Harry had left the Marauder's Map in his dorm, or someone there could tell her where to find him.
The common room was fairly empty, but Hermione saw Parvati with an elaborate Divination study set up by the window. At least it's not Lavender, she thought, bracing herself for a hopefully short and polite conversation as she strode towards her.
"Hi Parvati," she said. "Have you seen Harry?"
Parvati did not tear her gaze from the variety of small animal bones in front of her. "Shh," she said. Hermione used all her self-restraint to not upend Parvati's table and turned on her heel to run up to Harry's dorm.
"Hi, sorry, I just need Har – ok," Hermione announced loudly, giving up after seeing Harry's dorm was empty. "Accio Marauder's Map."
Nothing happened. Hermione couldn't remember if it was Unsummonable or not. "For fuck's sake," she grumbled, and started quickly rummaging through Harry's bedside table and trunk on the off-chance it was here. Even if it was, though, Hermione wasn't sure she would find it - Harry had good hiding places for valuables.
Unsuccessful, she left Harry a note (I need to borrow the map! Hermione) and ran back downstairs to see if Parvati would be any more help a few minutes later.
"He's not here – is Harry in class?" she asked.
Parvati grumbled and finally turned to her, but her eyes grew as round as her crystal ball as she finally looked at Hermione.
Hermione frowned. "What? Look, I don't have time for some divination thing -"
Parvati laughed. "Yeah, I looked in my tea leaves and saw Hermione Granger's paramour," she said, acid and deliberate pronunciation.
"Fuck," Hermione said blankly, pulling her hair in front of her shoulders to try and hide what she assumed must be a mess of hickies. "Uh – sorry Parvati, it's really urgent – do you know where Harry is?"
"It's never Harry," Parvati said in hushed, excited tones.
"Parvati!" Hermione exclaimed. "This is serious!"
"Ugh," Parvati said, rolling her eyes. "I don't know, Hermione, sorry to keep you from your boyfriend."
Hermione swore and left Gryffindor Tower, pulling off her bangle again to send another message.
Where are you?
More students were around now. Parvati was a dramatic gossip, but her reaction did make Hermione think it would be better if every person she ran into was not distracted by some ugly love bites Draco had decided were less important to remove than her fucking memories. She cast a Reflection Spell against a wall outside Gryffindor Tower to see how bad the damage was.
"Oh, for crying out loud," she sighed. There were hard bite marks alongside a spectrum of purple, blue and black bruises; a couple of them were still bleeding. No wonder Parvati had looked so shocked. The only thing Hermione could think of for now was a vague Distraction Charm and covering it up with her hair as much as possible.
She cast quickly and headed towards the centre of the castle, hoping she would run into someone who could help her find Harry. When Hermione saw a familiar tall, sandy-haired boy on the western staircase, an idea emerged – he might be the solution to two problems.
"Neville!" Hermione called. "I need to talk with you –"
She pulled him aside, showily grabbing his hand and dragging him to the landing at the top of the stairs.
"I need to find Harry, do you know where he is?"
"No – is it urgent?" Neville asked, eyebrows knotting in concern.
"It's – it's important," she said. "Are you heading to the Tower? If you see him, can you tell him to wait there and I'll check back so – ah," she trailed off, her bangle finally pinging. "Hold on…"
She pulled it off to read Draco's reply: Sorry, got stuck in something. Meet in your pine forest at 5?
The fact he had replied at all made some of her anxiety slide away. His response didn't read like he was going to kill himself before 5pm, at least. She hoped. Hermione breathed out, heartbeat starting to slow.
"Sorry, Neville, false alarm," she said. "But you are going to the Tower, right?"
"Yeah, I need to get stuff for Charms this afternoon," he replied.
"Ok…I'll come with, I left Harry a note but he doesn't need it now. Do you have the time?" Hermione asked, heading back up the stairs with him.
"Just gone twelve," Neville said. She nodded.
"Are you sure everything's ok, Hermione?" he asked. She smiled at him, checking her hair was still covering her throat.
"Yeah, it's fine, Neville. Well, Parvati's spreading this weird rumour about me, but it's not important," she lied.
"What? Why?"
"I don't know," she said. "Might be some Ron and Lavender thing."
"Oh, yeah…" Neville said, already sounding bored.
They headed up to the sixth-year boys' dormitory together under Parvati's all-seeing Eye, and Hermione figured a rumour she was sleeping with every sixth-year guy in Gryffindor was better than the truth.
After the last class of the day, she Disillusioned and headed to the seventh-floor corridor, waiting for students to filter out before summoning and entering the Room.
Draco was already there, sitting cross-legged on the forest floor, smoking a muggle cigarette and reading some sort of loose-leaf document. He looked at her warily as she entered.
"How mad are you?" he asked.
"I'm more worried than mad," Hermione said, slinging her bag to the floor and sitting beside him. "You're going to do something stupid, aren't you?"
Draco shook his head and handed her his smoke. "The whole point of doing this was so you wouldn't be so upset," he said.
"How much time, then," Hermione asked, and he sighed, putting the parchment down.
"Would it even help to give you a deadline? You wouldn't believe it."
"I want to get your mother out as soon as possible. I'm helping you do it, by the way. What about your dad? Last I remember we were still planning to break him out, but your letter didn't mention him. Has something changed there? Was that what you removed?" She offered the smoke back to him, but Draco merely gave her a withering look.
"I think I might have to rescind my open invitation," he replied, clearly irritated. "I did not ask you here so you could guess what memory I removed."
Her heart thumped anger through her veins. "I don't know how what you've removed is worse than what you've left me with," Hermione said, stubbing the cigarette out in the fake grass and failing to keep her voice from shaking. "I'll send you an open-ended suicide letter sometime and see how you fare."
He rubbed his eyes; Hermione saw he had bags underneath them. "Ok, give me back my letter, then. I'll take that memory out too." Draco held his hand out, not looking at her.
She aimed her wand at his ribs and cast the strongest non-verbal Impedimenta Jinx she could muster; it threw him sideways, and she could finally see a furious light in Draco's eyes as he shoved himself back up.
"Stay the fuck out of my head, Draco," Hermione said quietly, watching his shoulders start to quiver, shaking with anger.
"You know what?" he said, equally quiet and dangerous. "You don't need to write me a suicide note, Hermione." She could see the rage glittering in his eyes. It made the pale grey in them come alive. "You show me every fucking day you'll throw your life away."
"Yeah, on a guy who doesn't give a shit about me," she spat back. He raised his wand and she waited for his curse to hit, but instead the room went black –
He tackled her, one arm against her collarbone, the other grabbing her wand and disarming her. Hermione could smell his hair, and then caught the lumos he cast in her ear. He had pointed her own wand at her neck.
"All I do is care about you," Draco hissed at her. He looked as angry as when Hermione had first scoffed at Lucius Malfoy, and Draco had said he was not his father. "You want me to give up everything when you won't even give me yourself."
"I'm trying to save your parents!" she tried to say, though with his forearm crushing her chest, it came out more like a whisper. "I'm trying to save you, I go to you whenever you fucking whistle…"
Angry tears threatened to roll away from her, and she shut her eyes hard, trying to stop it.
"Maybe you can't see it, Granger," Draco whispered. "None so blind. Let's say you break my parents out. What then?"
Hermione opened her eyes wide, trying hard not to cry. "What are you talking about?"
"Well," Draco said, "Will you join us? Will you leave Britain with me and hide?"
She couldn't breathe. He looked at her, and Hermione could somehow tell her eyes were full of the truth.
"No, you won't," he said for her. "I know what you'll do. I wanted to believe you so badly that there was a way out. But there isn't." He shoved her collarbone painfully, and Hermione whimpered.
"I made the ultimatum. The split loyalty was pulling you apart. I could barely hold you together. You are meant to be bound to me and you don't care. I will never come before your fucking suicide mission with Potter. I know Hermione Granger will run to Potter's side, and throw herself against the Dark Lord until he kills her."
He bent down and put a gentle kiss at the corner of her mouth, and Hermione suddenly felt awash with terror, adrenaline pumping in her chest. "You even made me Vow not to ask you for your death wish. Not that you would have ever given it to me."
"Draco," she whispered.
"Say it," he said. "If I'm wrong, we can leave Hogwarts tonight."
Hermione closed her eyes, and the tears trickled away, shining with the truth.
"He has a chance with me, Draco," she whispered, and he laughed horribly. She felt all her hope leave her.
"Of course he does. And Potter's chance is worth my death warrant. You made an Unbreakable Vow to ensure that. There's only one way I can protect you –"
"No," Hermione said, opening her eyes suddenly, shaking her head.
"- with the least interference with your mission, to the best of my Death Eater ability."
"Please Draco," she begged, but he cast a Silencing charm and interrupted her pleas.
"Unbelievable. The fucking chances you take with this Vow." He shook his head, letting out a mirthless laugh. "Even if I was as good at duelling as you and Potter – and I'm not – it wouldn't be worth one chance to escape the Dark Lord." His eyes looked so bright. "I love you. You stupid fucking woman."
Draco pointed her wand at her temple. "Don't worry. You won't have long to wait." His tears splashed on her face and her throat closed up with panic.
"Imperius."