Chapter Eighteen The Tomb

Draco couldn't sleep. It didn't matter what he tried, his mind simply wouldn't shut off. Visions of Granger standing before his fire, her pupils dilated and taking over her eyes as she gazed at him thoughtfully; Granger absently twirling a curl around her fingers as she looked through a book in the library; Granger proudly declaring her solidarity with him before his parents, waltzed through his already Granger-logged brain along with her voice and echoes of the cool touch of her mind against his.

He shifted for the umpteenth time, his sheets a twisted tangle tight around his legs, hot despite the fact that he'd thrown the covers off long ago. The air in his bedroom was cool against his bare chest, but he felt as though flames had been lit in his belly, their heat licking at his insides.

When had she managed to enter his mind so completely? He was sure this wasn't simply because of the weird Legilimency they were capable of. She had been in his thoughts long before that, but he'd only ever allowed himself to acknowledge the shadows of her that dogged the rest of his thoughts. Now she had taken over. And it made him restless, distrait.

With a sigh he ripped the sheets off, sitting up and crossing his room to get a drink and stare out the window into the moonlit street. There was too much from the evening to think about. Too much to process. They hadn't even done as Potter had asked and thought about how to bait their trap, which was the important thing. Guilt traced its way through him, and he tapped the edge of his glass against his teeth thinking, only to draw a blank, his mind edging its way determinedly back to Granger. Frustrated, he gave in.

He had been in awe of how she'd handled herself. He hadn't forgotten that the Manor was where she had been tortured, and he'd purposefully avoided the drawing room where it had happened, not wanting to bring back more bad memories than absolutely necessary. But she had seemed completely unaffected by it. Her strength was awe-inspiring. And when she could have been infuriated by his father, she had been more than polite. It had impressed his mother, he knew. She respected that kind of control.

Draco frowned, exchanging his glass of water for one of Firewhiskey, rolling the amber liquid around in the tumbler as his thoughts turned back to Bellatrix, anger creeping into his expression. He'd seen Granger's scars in their training sessions, and they always twisted his heart with a mixture of fury and guilty shame. He'd played his part in their infliction. The disgusting word wasn't the only mark the war had left on her, however. He'd seen the peculiar, faded patterns like lightning burns across her ribs when she'd taken off her singlet due to the heat one time. Admittedly he'd stared at her like a gormless fool as she performed the brazen act, apparently unconcerned by the fact that she was essentially standing around wearing just a strange kind of bra, oblivious to his gobsmacked appreciation. But then he'd noticed the scars, and she'd seen him staring, wide-eyed with shock, and had explained their origins: a curse Dolohov had hit her with in the Department of Mysteries during fifth year. He hadn't even been aware that she'd been injured so badly; that she'd almost died. He'd been too taken up with his father's arrest and his mother's distress.

Knowing the stories behind the scars ignited that desire for vengeance in him, even as they twisted an uncomfortable knot in the pit of his stomach at the thought that she had nearly died twice. Twice. Before ever turning eighteen. He disapproved of her recklessness even as he was impressed by it, realising for the first time the true depth of her loyalty to Potter and the fortitude it must have taken for an underage witch to do as she had done. She was so much more than the know-it-all swot that everyone had thought her to be in school. She was intelligent and resourceful, and braver than she ever should have had to have been. It made him as sick as it made him angry, knowing what she had been through, and he couldn't even be granted the satisfaction of extracting retribution. Dolohov was in prison, and Bellatrix was dead. It should have ameliorated the need for revenge and the anger that burned in him whenever he saw the scars, but it didn't. Granger wasn't a person he ever wanted to be touched by Dark magic. She was too good for it. She had seen enough. She had borne enough.

He glanced down at his own forearm, at the brand etched into his irritated flesh, and clenched his teeth. There had to be something more he could do. He glared at the Firewhiskey, downing it in one, and went to his wardrobe to pull out some robes, disapparating.


The wind scouring the black rock did its utmost to rip Draco's robes from his body, whipping their folds treacherously around his legs, and slapping them back into his face. Any feeling of being overheated from his bedroom instantly vanished. His wand tip was a tiny speck of light in the vast shifting darkness of the sea, and the moon was hidden behind thick clouds so that the gloom beyond his wand's light was impenetrable.

Draco had been to the Tomb once before. Most victims of the war had been there, more to see their demons buried than to mourn the loss of any of those interred there. The way was perilous, as the sea spray soaked the rocks, and kelp and seaweed and mosses grew over them. Visitors were too few to keep down the growth on the rough path that had been hewn out of the stone, and the sea and nature were keen to reclaim the route.

He followed the precarious path down into the rock, and by the time he reached the bottom his shoes were soaked, and his robes damp with salty sea spray. Thankfully, whoever had designed the path was clever enough to bend it back up into the internal cavern, creating a u-bend of sorts, and as he began to climb, the steps became dryer until the tunnel opened out into the dark cavern of the burial chamber. The air in there was still and dry, the darkness absolute.

Draco flicked his wand, increasing the light output until he had to raise his arm high above his head to prevent it from blinding him, and looked around. The graves were simple and unadorned, save the name and dates of the individuals they belonged to; there was nothing to mark them out from one another. No wreaths or even dead flowers, no little mementos left behind by loved ones. They were the graves of the disowned; their connection to the living renounced from shame or else for fear of reprisal.

He marched past the names of men and women he had known and feared, albeit briefly in life, to the far end where Bellatrix's grave was. He had seen it before, taking his mother because she wished to farewell her sister, despite everything she had done. Blood ties were hard to sever.

His foot knocked against a crumble of stone and the pebble skittered away, the noise very loud in the enclosed space now that the roar of the sea was only a distant murmur, the wind a whine in the tunnel. Draco paused, wondering how a stone could come to be in such a place, but thinking nothing of it walked on to the shadowed corner that was his destination.

The ground began to crunch beneath his feet as he came across a shower of shattered fragments of stone, and his pace quickened, alarm leaping to clog his throat with his speeding pulse, until the beam of his wand finally fell upon the grave.

It had been broken into. The centre of the top slab had been smashed as though by a violent stroke of magic, and lumps of broken stone were strewn all about, scratches tracing the walls where broken bits had flown from the force of the spell. Draco stared into the grave, his expression transforming with his horror, and he waved his wand, shifting the huge pieces of stone out of his way, and enlarging the hole of the already desecrated grave to look in.

He did not spare a glance nor thought for the mouldering remains of his aunt. He looked only to the bony hands, which clutched at themselves, empty.

"Accio wand!" he reached out his hand to receive the item, hoping against hope that it had just fallen down the side after the impact, but nothing appeared.

He did not waste another moment in disbelieving the evidence of his eyes, cold realisation freezing his blood as the chilling cold of the sea air hadn't, Disapparating with a loud crack.


"Granger?! Granger?!" Draco bellowed for Hermione the moment he burst out of her fireplace, tearing through her house, instinct guiding him to the upper floor where her bedroom was bound to be.

He paused on the landing, casting about and staring at the closed doors, whipping around as one clicked open, and a tired and confused Hermione wandered out, rumpled with sleep, her lit wand raised. She blinked at him, rubbing at her eyes as though she thought he was some sort of phantom. "Draco? What are you doing here?"

Draco was before her in an instant, seizing her by the shoulders, needing to make contact with someone or something. "They've got her wand. It's her wand, Granger. Bellatrix's. It's not there!"

Hermione's eyes quickly widened, clearing with the realisation, and she stared at him, open mouthed for a few moments, the hand that had come to rest on his arm clenching reflexively. "Are you sure? Absolutely sure?"

Draco nodded.

Hermione dropped her gaze, casting about as she processed the revelation. "We've got to tell Harry."

Draco nodded, releasing her with slight reluctance. "I don't know his address to floo, and an owl is too slow."

Hermione followed the train of his logic, nodding as she cleared her mind and brandished her wand, summoning her patronus.

The silver otter burst forth, and swirled to a halt before her.

"Tell Harry they have Bellatrix's wand and to come here at once."

The otter dipped its head, then shot through the ceiling.

Hermione gestured at Draco, wrapping her dressing gown a little more securely around herself as she tied the cords. "We'd better wait downstairs."

She led him down, evidently very wide awake now, and they returned to the front room. He could tell she was itching to ask him for further details as much as he was impatient to relate them to her, but he followed her lead and forced himself to be patient and wait until Potter arrived.

The seconds ticked by like years. They sat side by side on the settee, Hermione shivering slightly despite the warmth of the room, for she had conjured the fire back into life in the grate. Crookshanks padded in to rub his face against Hermione's shins, and settled on sofa between their thighs.

"I'm scared, Draco." Hermione's voice was the quietest of whispers, but he heard every syllable.

Draco turned to her, and for the first time in his life felt moved to comfort someone other than himself. Even when his mother had faced the devastation of Lucius going to Azkaban, he hadn't felt the same impulse. He'd witnessed her grief, unsure what to do, and had withdrawn to afford her the privacy he would have wished in her position.

Hermione wasn't looking at him, her profile shaded by the fall of her hair, but she looked smaller than she had ever seemed to him. Usually she seemed larger than her frame; her personality and determination crackling off her. Now, she looked cowed. He put out his hand to rest it over hers where they were knotted in her lap. They were freezing. "It's not her, Granger. We're going to be fine."

Hermione swallowed with great difficulty, and nodded, unlocking the death grip she had maintained to slip her hands around his, savouring the unexpected warmth. "Thank you," she whispered.


Eventually, the flames roared green, and Harry stumbled out, wild eyed and wearing his dressing gown inside out over his pyjamas.

"Tell me everything."

Draco took a deep breath; he'd figured out the most succinct way to relay the information. "I went to the Tomb. They've smashed open her grave, and her wand is gone. I tried summoning it, but nothing came. Her body's there, but the wand is gone. They've got to have it. It's the only explanation that fits the facts."

Harry swore explosively, shooting to his feet and pacing distractedly. "I need Aurors to get out there right away – and the Forensics Squad – they'll be able to let us know how long the grave's been opened. Shit!" He ran his hands through his hair as though he was going to tear it out.

"Patronus, Harry," Hermione reminded him gently.

He nodded abstractedly. "You do the Squad, I'll do the Aurors. Then we'll talk."

Draco watched as they each summoned their patronuses, talking to them rapidly with quiet voices, dispatching them and their orders.

Harry collapsed into an armchair, his hands over his face. "I should have listened to you, Malfoy," he moaned quietly, shaking his head. "I should have listened. If I had we'd have found this out days ago!"

"Stop it, Harry," Hermione said sharply. "Beating yourself up about this isn't going to help us at all."

Draco stared at her, awed again by her ability to collect herself. It seemed that she knew Potter would need her strength, and she had become unshakeable for him.

"We need to focus," Hermione said sternly. "We need to get this plan of ours into operation. The faster we can trap them, the better."

Harry nodded, shaking himself out of his bout of despair, and sitting up to roll his wand between his palms, the tip glowing very slightly as his anxious energy was transferred into it. "So. The trap." He glanced up at them, his knees beginning to bounce with his nervous energy. "I hope one of you has had an idea, because I'm still stumped."

Hermione sighed, slumping a little. "I don't honestly know how to bait them, Harry. If their targets are simply any Muggle-borns, any ex-Death Eaters – anyone who went against Voldemort's beliefs and teachings, how are we supposed to make one person stand out from amongst all that? It's a small mercy they haven't started targeting Muggles yet, but if they did, it would only make this even harder. And then for whoever it is to be able to actually handle a potentially life-threatening situation on top of that – the list gets thin no matter how broad their target groups are."

Harry sighed, nodding.

"I think I know how to do it," Draco murmured with great reluctance. The idea had come to him, when, he wasn't sure, but at some point that night, between his discovery at the Tomb and waiting for Potter's arrival, he had acknowledged it. It had hovered on the outer reaches of his mind for a while, but now he knew there was no other option.

The other two stared at him.

"I'll do it."

"What?" Hermione was staring at Draco, eyes wide with alarm and confusion.

Draco shrugged, standing now, his body pooling with restless energy. "I'll do it. I'm an ex-Death Eater, who has a history of working with the Ministry to help capture Death Eaters on the run; I've practically got a target a mile wide blazoned across my back. And I can handle myself in a duel."

"It won't be enough Malfoy," Harry said slowly, running his mind over the possibilities. "Even announcing that you've been helping us on this case won't be enough. It'll mark you out, but not to the exclusion of all others."

"I know."

There was something about Malfoy's tone that made Harry's gaze sharpen; he had a plan. "So?"

Draco turned slowly to look very directly at Hermione, speaking solely to her, knowing that without her consent the hare-brained scheme wouldn't work, and fearing her reaction to the words he was about to speak. "The sudden disclosure of the star-crossed relationship of potentially the most talked about ex-Death Eater, with the most famous Muggle-born would have the reporters on us like flies."

Hermione stared at Draco, and he heard Potter suck in a breath to his side. Shocked silence filled the room. Hermione looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and even Draco was a little surprised at the audacity of his tongue in speaking such words.

"…the idea has merits," Harry said slowly, the cogs in his mind beginning to turn as he considered the possibilities. "And it would tie in nicely with all the hype about your family going on at the moment…you could even pitch it that you two had been waiting for Lucius to come out of Azkaban before you went public…"

Draco gave Potter and incredulous look. "You sure you didn't miss a career as a gossip columnist, Potter?"

Harry snorted, rolling his eyes. "You can't deny it would be the most sensational story to hit the papers in…well…years." His gaze moved concernedly to Hermione. "Well, Hermione?"

Hermione opened her mouth, shut it again, then opened it. She felt dizzy. This couldn't be happening. Draco Malfoy – Draco Malfoy – had just suggested that they pretend to be a couple. She was almost certain she'd dropped into an alternate reality. "I…um. I'm not sure."

Draco frowned slightly. "What exactly are you not sure about, Granger?" his tone came out harder than he intended. He wasn't fool enough to think she'd welcome it with open arms, but he at least expected some kind of an analysis of the suggestion, not blank rejection. It stung despite the fact that it shouldn't have. It was only going to be pretend, after all.

Harry eyed his friend's expression, and moved to kneel by her where she sat on the couch, taking Hermione's hands in his. "Sleep on it, Hermione," he said softly. "We've got to catch this killer, and right now this is our best chance. Our only chance. Please…just think about it."

Hermione nodded numbly, still not entirely sure what was going in in her head or body, and slowly got up and left the room to go upstairs, not even looking at Draco.

Harry placed a firm hand on Malfoy's chest as he made to stand with half a mind to pursue her.

"Leave it, Malfoy," he said quietly. "She needs time to digest it."

"Why?" Draco hated the need in his voice, but he couldn't stop himself from asking. "What's wrong with the suggestion?"

Harry eased back into his chair by the fire. "Nothing. It's a great suggestion. It's probably the only thing that will work. But no matter how far all of us have come regarding how we feel about one another, what you're suggesting is something she still has to come to terms with."

"It's an act, Potter." Draco gave up on trying to keep the harsh edge out of his voice. "What is there to come to terms with? Besides, if I can put aside my blood prejudices, how is what she has to do so much harder? She accepted me; she trusts me. What more is there for her to do?"

Harry shook his head wearily, and sighed. "I can't answer all of those questions, Malfoy. Only she can. But I know Hermione. If she didn't have anything to think through she would have agreed the moment you suggested it. If it was as simple as just performing an act for her, she wouldn't have hesitated. But she did. So she needs time."

"We don't have time," Draco muttered between gritted teeth, trying to ignore Crookshanks as he came to wind his way ingratiatingly around his ankles.

"I know. But we can give her tonight, at least. She's been pushing herself hardest of all us; she needs sleep first. Tomorrow morning, we have to start. And she has to decide."

"And if she says no?"

Harry shook his head helplessly. "I don't know." He shrugged. "Maybe I'll have to step into the breech and take up with you." He grinned weakly as Draco raised an eyebrow. "That would probably make even more of a splash."

Draco rolled his eyes, letting some of the tension ease out of him as he snorted at the suggestion. "Let's just hope it doesn't come to that. Don't take it personally Potter, but you're not my type."

"I assure you, the feeling is mutual."

The men exchanged tired grins.

"Right," Draco nodded. "Till tomorrow."

Harry dipped his head. "Till tomorrow."


I'M BACK! Though I'm afraid, again, it may be briefly. Thank you so much to all of you for your patience and the good wishes! My degree is not over, but while I have some academic breathing space, I felt I owed it to you all to give you at least a couple of updates, if possible! Soon enough the academic pressure will return, as well as work, and finishing my novel. But I will let you know if there's another temporary hiatus.

But enough of that stuff! The chapter! This is basically the beginning of the next story arc, as it were. I'm sure you can see why I didn't want to leave you on this as the cliff hanger! The tomb, the wand, the plan!

The real question is - what's Hermione going to say? How is she going to be? And why is Draco so tetchy about her not answering immediately? I think we all know the answer to that one ;)

I hope you enjoyed it!

Please do review and/or favourite :) Tell me what you like or don't like :) Questions and speculations are always welcome :D As is incomprehensible flailing if that's what you go in for :)

If you want to get access to sneak previews to chapters before they're posted, you can like me on Facebook (JZJ Tomkins) or follow me on Twitter ( jtomkinsauthor) or Tumblr (jzj-tomkins):)