Stay safe, everybody. Have another chapter to tide you over until the next. 3

The fracture deep inside her turned into a crevice. Pressure stacked. Mounted. She felt when it crumbled and formed a ravine. Like water in a dam that had been torn down, magic burst forth.

Hermione bit back her gasp and arched off the bed, pressing herself against Draco unintentionally as it seared her from within, flaring up every nerve inside her body. He was gripping her arms tightly. She squeezed her eyes shut. Tears rolled from her eyes.

Her whole head felt malleable, tender, like an overripe grape about to burst. A high pitched whine filled her ears and she cringed in pain as it barreled through her head. Suddenly the room, which was already dim, was too bright even through her closed eyelids. The fine hairs along her body stood on end, her limbs stiffened as if frozen, her mouth grimaced.

"What is it?" Draco was asking. "How do you feel?"

"It's too much," she gasped, arching into him again as the magic thrashed inside her, as if seeking escape. "Oh, gods."

Her blood roared in her ears. Her heart raced—she pictured Harry on his Firebolt, speeding through the sky. She felt Draco's hand on her heart, the other on her lower abdomen pressing her down, as if he thought she might levitate off the bed.

The sensation of her magic being released was so strong she was extremely sensitive to anything else and she groaned and thrashed in her panic, trying to rip away from Draco's grip. He pressed down on her more tightly and lay his full weight on top of her, supported himself on his elbows, watching her, a strange gleam of fascination in his eyes as his wife burned.

Her face was turning darker. She was drawn so tightly he feared the magic might snap her into pieces. His heart pounded.

For the first time he wondered whether it had been a dangerous mistake to lock it up inside her for so long.

It's tearing her apart.

The realization sunk his heart with horror.

"Breathe, sweetheart," he urged. "Breathe. Don't fight it."

There was a loud CRACK and he thought Toffee had Apparated into the room and he turned to shout for it to leave or kill it for interrupting, but there was another, longer CRACK right after coming from his left, and he found the source was the stained glass window.

Hermione writhed underneath him, a long, hoarse groan coming from deep inside her. Her whole body was taut and straining as if the strength of the magic inside her was too great for the limits of her body—he sensed it roiling inside her like murderous waves in the fury of a storm. The longer it went on, the more cracks appeared in the window. Draco's stare went from her to the window, frowning.

She was so hot, like she was running a high fever. Draco cupped her cheek, shaking.

"Breathe, Hermione!"

Her eyes flew open; she let out a huge gasp for breath and the window finally exploded. They were showered in shards of glass and the first wave of cold night air—Draco covered Hermione with his body, feeling the glass skitter across his skin, but no pain.

She barely noticed it, only having energy enough to focus on her burning body and Draco's weight, which was strangely comforting amidst the true wakening of her magic. She felt herself shutting down and gripped Draco in fear with the last reserves of her strength, her eyes pleading for his help although she saw the fear in his eyes that for once, even he didn't know what was happening, and therefore could not save her.

Why was this happening? She should be feeling stronger, not weaker. Fear wrapped around her throat—she tried to speak but nothing but a pained moan came out. Pain coursed through her as her magic continued to rush feverishly back into her.

I didn't think it would be like this, was her final thought.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" he was asking. "What's happening?"

His voice was so distant. Her vision was fading out. Her hands fell from his arms.

Draco pulled back slightly, feeling pieces of glass slide off his back. He stared at her in disbelief. He jerked his head and the shards on the bed vanished.

Her eyes had closed again. Her jaw was clenched so tightly he feared she'd shatter her own teeth, too. He felt her forehead. She was high with fever after all. He brushed at the sweat beading on her forehead, grateful for the broken window and the night breeze, that it would help alleviate her temperature.

"Sweetheart, can you hear me?"

She didn't respond, her shivering fading into an eerie stillness. He gripped her harder, as if that could retain her life force.

No.

It wasn't supposed to go this way.

Alarmed, Draco checked her pulse and on finding that it was still running too quick, he lifted an eyelid with the pad of his thumb carefully. It was fevered, unfocused.

"Little bird. Hermione. If you can hear me, say something."

She didn't respond.

Draco swore, dread gripping him with cold fingers.

Her ring lay discarded beside him but he could sense it, briefly wondering if restoring it to her finger would set everything to rights, but inside he knew with certainty that this change was irrevocable.

This is my own doing.

Her words from the night before resurfaced, in a gloating tone this time.

'I've told you as much.'

Fool. You arrogant, arrogant fool. Were she awake now, he could picture the exact curl of her lip, the way her eyes would harden with disdain as she'd say those exact words.

Draco grit his teeth, willing that image away. He took her hand in his.

"Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

He waited for her to do it and when she didn't so much as twitch a finger he squeezed her wrist, leaning in to speak into her ear, rage simmering inside him. Her hand was totally limp.

What had he done? His pulse had slowed to a sickly beat. Hers raced on.

"If this is some sort of joke, I'm going to take that magic back and you'll never get a taste of it again. I'll bruise that beautiful arse of yours until you can't sit for a week."

Nothing.

His grip around her wrist tightened in fear and anger—he felt something crunch inside that could be nothing else but bones breaking. She didn't so much as flinch. Draco swore and released her wrist gently. He forgot his own strength, sometimes.

The room began to spin around him. He felt dazed. She appeared catatonic but he could feel her magic still raging inside her, he could see her chest rise as she breathed—shallowly, but she at least still breathed.

He turned his head to the door.

"Pansy," he barked.

She was there at once, Apparating in silently, her hands folded before her as she bowed.

"Yes, My Lord?"

She straightened and saw the scene: the gaping, broken window and her Master nude and crouched protectively over Hermione on his bed. She couldn't see Hermione's eyes but her face was quite pale and she wasn't moving. Draco's eyes were wild. She felt her face drain of color. Her stomach lurched violently.

He finally killed her.

Grief and judgment flickered across her face too quickly for her to mask it—Draco saw it, and she knew it. She found herself recoiling as if expecting him to strike her down too, but he did nothing. She waited tensely.

"What's happened?" She heard herself asking, abandoning all protocol in her shock. She approached the bed quickly—Draco moved so as to hide Hermione from her view, cradling her head against his chest, supporting her back with his hand. Hermione's hands hung limp—one at an odd angle.

Pansy stopped warily. He was almost feral.

"Call for the Healer," Draco said, and his voice was hoarse in a way she had never heard before—was that fear?

She stared.

" Now ."

Pansy cast another worried look at Hermione and left at once.

There was no getting past Draco when he was like this. If there was even a slim chance that Hermione was alive, it was best to do as he said. She prayed silently that Hermione had merely passed out as she wiped at her eyes.

She was glad Lucio was well asleep by now. No need for him to see this, too. It hurt to think about. But she had locked the nursery doors after putting him to bed so what had happened merely one night ago would not happen again.

She sent a cryptic Patronus to Draco's trusted Healer and then went down to the foyer to await his arrival. He had visited them countless times during her employment, but he only remembered about a third of those visits. Draco made sure of that, as most of his visits were of a highly-sensitive nature and involved the care of the Lady of the Manor. Healer Lewis was the best Healer gold could buy and worked almost exclusively for Draco, as he saw to it that Healer Lewis was verywell paid for his secrecy—not that secrecy was much of an issue. Draco paid him a generous sum to keep him from needing to take on any other patients, that they would not take up his time should he be needed at the Malfoy Manor, and so others might not dare pry into what business did not belong to them. Not that he would be able to divulge anything truly sensitive, as where he had not been Obliviated, his very survival depended on his secrecy. Draco had taken every possible precaution.

Draco always Obliviated him or modified his memory after most visits. Whether they had agreed to this method beforehand in some sort of contract or not was unknown to Pansy but she had her doubts. Either the Healer had no qualms to his easy wealth, or Draco had Imperiused him, or he truly did not know the insidious conditions under which he was employed. Draco had only told her how to take action in case he was needed and that was that. The rest, she had learned later in bits and pieces.

Pansy's Patronus, a silvery cat, returned from thin air and wisped around her legs before disappearing. Pansy held her robe tighter around herself, waiting for the knock at the door that would inevitably come.

Her Patronus's message had consisted of one word: Dove.

Draco had taught it to her on her first day of employment at the Manor.

"Healer Lewis and I have an understanding," he'd said then. They had been in the library, just after she had first encountered Hermione in that awful manner and healed her. After she had left Hermione, Draco had immediately summoned Pansy to the library to go over the rest of the terms of her servitude. By then she had realized that him calling her to find Hermione in such a state had been a test, and though she had passed it, a seed of doubt and regret had bloomed into sprouting within her, and she was now wondering just what she had got herself into so foolishly, without asking more questions before taking the Vow. He had not told her anything about his wife except that she was to wait on her. Pansy had not known that Hermione Granger was clearly his unwilling wife until she had seen that for herself in the most brutal of ways. She had merely assumed...

I should have known. I didn't know Granger well in school but I knew her well enough to know nothing could have convinced her to marry Draco. And I knew he was a monster since we were children. I didn't think he'd ever fancied her, though-maybe that's why I doubted Longbottom.

"An understanding, my Lord?" She'd asked.

He had looked out the nearest window, at the huge cage filled with birds in the garden.

"A code, really. For regular home calls and non-urgent visits, just summon him in the usual manner with your Patronus. He'll know your Patronus and that you work for me. When it's urgent and possibly life-threatening, send him the word "dove" and he'll know he must come at once."

Pansy had used that codeword many times over since. It wasn't her code to tamper with, but it made her skin crawl to go along with Draco's obsession with likening Hermione to a bird—something so tiny and stupid and fragile. It had sat wrong with her then and still did, every time she heard him utter his favorite pet name for her or one of its many variations.

But here was another thing she could never say aloud so she had swallowed those words and seeing the silent resentment sitting in Hermione's clenched jaw every time he said it to her was validation enough that she was not the only one who felt its perverseness.

As Healer Lewis's knock sounded at the door and she rushed forward to let him in, an ominous thought struck her.

If he's mad now, how much worse would he get if he actually loses her?

Erik smiled at her thinly in greeting.

"How bad is it this time?" he asked in a low voice.

"I can't say," she whispered. "He wouldn't let me see her."

Erik nodded, a grim set to his lips.

"Poor thing."

She took his cloak and hung it by the door, then led him to the master bedroom.

"Please do everything you can for her," she said, her voice shaking, before he entered the room.

Erik paused. "A day will come when he kills her at last if he hasn't tonight, and modern medicine still crumples before death."

Pansy nodded in resigned acceptance, all too aware of this truth.

Erik entered the room and Pansy closed the door behind him, stationed herself outside the door, aching with the desire to go tend to her close friend.

What did he do to you now?

The Manor was dead silent around her. Had they been fighting again? Hermione had not called for her—but it wasn't the first time Draco would have kept her from doing it.

Pansy wiped at her eyes again.

By the time Healer Lewis had arrived Draco had managed to compose himself a little and had dressed himself and his wife, as they had both been nude during the whole ordeal. Normally he wouldn't have cared about their state of undress but he didn't care to have the Healer getting a good look at his wife unless the examination absolutely called for it.

Still, he watched intensely from beside the bed as Erik bent over Hermione on the other side, taking her temperature while his other hand was on her chest, measuring her pulse.

"Mrs. Malfoy, if you can hear me, please respond in whatever way you can," he was saying. After a moment's patience, nothing happened.

"I've tried several times to get her to respond," he said. "Nothing has worked."

The Healer was testing her hand now, the non-broken one, and tried bending her fingers but they were rigid. He attempted the other and finally noticed its condition. The bruises from Draco's grip had surfaced by now—he said nothing and examined it to make sure the set was right, then healed it quickly. He did the same examination on her legs, attempting to bend them at the knee but her body was curiously too stiff. He muttered a long incantation and then scanned her body over with his wand. When finished, he paused, frowning, staring at her prone form on the bed.

"Tell me," Draco said.

"I've never seen anything like this, my Lord," Erik replied, shaking his head. "I've had my fair share of patients who have fallen into these states, but never was it induced by their own magic unless it was a misdirected curse or a bad fall, an assault, things like that. How long has she been in this state?"

"About ten minutes," Draco answered. "I summoned you immediately when it became clear she would not wake." He hesitated. "You do not know what's wrong, then."

"Her pulse is indeed unusual. Her fever is high, but not the worst I have seen—it's for the best she is asleep, that may help it pass more quickly." He removed his spectacles and rubbed at his forehead. "How did this come about, my Lord?"

"You're aware of the nature of our marriage," Draco began, and the Healer nodded. "You know I kept her restrained in more ways than one."

"You're speaking of her magic, then."

"From the day we married she has not had access to her magic," Draco said, looking down to his wife, reaching over to smooth her curls from her face softly. "I kept it locked inside her where she couldn't reach it no matter how hard she tried. She's been able to influence things, for lack of a better word, without consciously using magic. It's happened on very few occasions. Recently she was able to access a small fraction of it without my permission-we fought, and she was suddenly using magic. It lasted a very short time."

"May I ask what happened?"

"You may not," Draco said. He had her ring in his palm. His fingers traced over it.

"So this was another unconscious manifestation, then?"

"No. I let down the barrier that kept her magic from her tonight. I gave her full access to her power." Draco paused, ruminating. "It has been nearly a decade that I leashed her magic. I think its strength has somehow increased, or the emotional turmoil she has been through has warped it in some way to have it affect her like this now."

Erik was frowning. "I see."

"What do you think?"

"You may be right, my Lord," Erik said slowly. "I have studied cases in which magical folk have been kept from their own magic—but these cases are extremely rare. In Azkaban, one's powers are only dulled through the wards embedded into the prison so that they still have it, but it affects nothing. In the case of a child who cannot control it, it will manifest powerfully during emotional outbursts. I have never heard of a case that has lasted for several years under these conditions. It could be that her power has grown, but I would hesitate to make that claim considering there is no research on that to convincingly explain it. It is more likely that her body has become accustomed to operating without magic, and has shut down in a sort of shock at having it all back so suddenly."

"She is Muggleborn," Draco said, frowning. "She lived her early childhood without using magic. When she learned how to use it, there was no shock. I wonder why now it affects her so."

"Even as a child, she must have unconsciously used it in some manner," Erik said. "But having no access to it for many years after having it be so integral to her life for much of her adolescence is quite different. How many times are you aware of that it manifested without her knowing while you have been married?"

"Two that I know of, and I only witnessed one of them."

"Then it's possible this may have been happening during the entirety of the marriage. But we cannot know for certain until she wakes. I'm more likely to think her current state has been caused by shock at having that barrier taken down—if there were high emotions between the two of you before you freed her magic, that may also be at play here."

"We were mostly calm," Draco replied slowly, thinking back to the events of only a half-hour before. "But her anger never sleeps. It is like a living thing inside of her. I wonder if that has affected her magic at all...tainted it, somehow."

The Healer appeared intrigued. "My Lord, there is a great opportunity here to conduct valuable research—"

"No," Draco said at once. "My wife will remain untouched."

Erik bowed his head quickly. "Of course, my Lord."

"How long do you think she will remain in this state?"

"I cannot say, my Lord. I'm sorry to say it. It could be days. A week. Perhaps longer. With no previous research to guide me I'm afraid I am at a loss on what to do."

Draco's disappointment was palpable. He stared at Hermione.

I'm sorry, sweetling.

"First we must wait for her fever to break. I gave her a Fever-Reducer potion from my kit but it had no effect—I fear regular maladies may not help us here. We must wait for this to end on its own."

What he left unsaid hung heavily in the air around them.

If it doesn't kill her, first.

"Thank you, Lewis," Draco said. "I will keep close watch over her, and send you information as this progresses. I'll summon you when she wakes."

Lewis grabbed his satchel and bowed. "Of course, my Lord. I am at your service."

Draco motioned to the door. "Pansy will see you out."

When the door had closed behind the Healer, Draco remained standing and staring at his wife for several seconds, waiting for her to wake suddenly and laugh at him for falling for her joke.

But one thing he had learned in their marriage was that Hermione had little taste for jokes. Or if she had, she never shared it with him.

That, or I squashed it out of her years ago.

He took a step and heard a crunch, and looked down to see himself standing in a small circle of red-stained carpet.

The glass. He hadn't cleared the rest of the mess away and had been standing in the damned stuff and bleeding all this time.

He hadn't felt a thing.

The night breeze had died down and all he could hear was the crickets outside, the rushing of water from the nearby pond.

Draco snapped his fingers and the glass was gone. He snapped again and the window was completely restored. How had she broken it through the wards that were always on it? Even with her magic restored, it should have been impossible.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in."

Pansy entered carefully.

"She's alive," he said and saw the tension bleed from her posture in relief. It touched him to see how deeply she cared for Hermione. And oddly, it felt good to share that relief with someone else.

Monster am I, darling? He thought toward Hermione. How shocked you'd be if you could see me now.

"May I ask what happened, my Lord?"

"I gave her her magic back. And you see the result."

Pansy approached the bed, saw Hermione, still appearing to be in a cursed sleep.

"Lucio won't know about this," he said. "I don't know when she'll wake."

If she'll wake.

She nodded, her expression pinched with worry.

"What shall I tell him?"

"Tell him she had to go on an emergency visit to see someone," he said.

Pansy's expression faltered in surprise. "Who?"

"Anyone, I don't care. Make someone up. Tell them she might be gone for a while." He looked away.

"Will you be needing anything else, my Lord?"

"Coffee," he said, surprising himself. "Make me a pot of coffee, the strongest we have."

Pansy left at once and he sat on the armchair by the fireplace, having moved it to face the bed where his wife lay, alive and unresponsive.

I won't sleep until you come back to me.

His watch lasted two weeks.