Hermione could feel him in her mind, like a song that had been stuck in your head for days. She could function around it, she could pull up whatever memory she wanted, but the niggling sensation, playing in the very corners of her mind remained.
"Show me what you want me to see."
She heard his voice in her mind as clear as if he'd spoken aloud, but his mouth hadn't moved. "I'm not going to go poking around in here."
She licked her lips and pushed the first memory forward, just a quick image of her fist connecting with his bony 13-year-old face. Memory Hermione was yelling,'Foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach,' and she could almost feel his eye roll in her mind. "Really, Granger."
She chuckled and thought, just trying to ease the tension.
She took another deep breath, steeling herself for the discomfort of having to watch his face as he experienced her most painful memories right alongside her.
"Colloportus," Hermione gasped, sealing the large, grey door in front of her before she turned to Harry for instruction.
"Where… where are the others?" Harry asked, looking around frantically between Hermione and Neville.
"They must've gone the wrong way," she whispered to him. "We can't stay here, Harry. We have to keep moving." The glittering lights of dozens of bell jars around them filled the room, illuminating their faces in a strange, ethereal blue glow.
The three gasped all at once, Hermione moving quickly away from the door to stand by Harry as voices rang out on the other side of it.
"Leave him!" the obvious drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy yelled. "The Dark Lord won't care for Nott's injuries as much as losing that prophecy!"
As Hermione, Harry, and Neville listened silently, Lucius issued commands to his fellow Death Eaters on the other side of the door, telling them to obtain the Prophecy no matter what. "Kill the others if necessary but be gentle with Potter until he's given it over. Mulciber, come with me," he said before the voices dwindled as the Death Eaters began searching throughout the rest of the Department of Mysteries.
Hermione's hands shook as she wiped blood from her split lip, product of a shattered prophecy striking her face as they fled to safety. "What do we do?" she asked Harry, her voice shaky despite her attempts to calm herself. One glance at Neville and it was obvious that he was just as terrified.
"Well, we can't stand here waiting for them to find us," Harry said. "Let's get away from this door."
The three began to tiptoe through the room, bypassing the various trinkets, clocks, and pocket watches lining the walls when something solid collided loudly with the door behind them. Just as they dove beneath the desks, Hermione's knee colliding with the metal leg of a desk with a thud, the door was blown inward, bits of plaster and wood exploded through the air.
Heavy footfalls indicated that two people had entered the room. "Check the desks," one voice said, but before either of them had the chance to follow through, she, Harry, and Neville had all begun firing curses beneath the desks at the Death Eaters' feet.
"Stupify!" she shouted, and a jet of red light shot from her wand, striking the first Death Eater just below the knees just as another stream of light from Harry's hit the man in the chest. The Death Eater toppled backward, knocking over a large grandfather clock as he tumbled to the floor.
The second man had unfortunately been quicker, jumping to the side and avoiding Neville's spell by less than an inch. Leveling his wand at Hermione, he said, "Avada –"
Before he could finish the spell, Harry had leapt over the desk in front of him and barreled into the Death Eater, knocking him completely off his feet, and they both went sprawling across the floor, each attempting to get the upper hand.
Neville shouted, "Expelliarmus," pulling both Harry and the Death Eater's wands through the air and somehow managing to throw them the length of the room. Both of them leapt from the floor, charging after their wands which were now rolling across the floor toward the rear entrance.
Neville ran after them and yelled for Harry to get out of the way. Just as Harry dove behind another desk, Neville yelled, "Stupify," but the red burst of light sailed over the Death Eater's shoulder and struck a row of shelves lined with massive hourglasses.
Hermione watched in awe as the shelves collapsed, raining sand and glass down onto the floor beneath them before rapidly repairing itself as if someone had rewound time itself. Each time the shelf was repaired, it would disintegrate again only to return to its original form. Hermione's daze was shattered when she heard the Death Eater jump back to his feet.
Just as he leveled his wand at Harry, her own stunner struck the man in the chest, dropping him before he was able to utter the first curse. The three watched in horror as the man stumbled backward causing his head to collide with a brilliantly colored bell jar behind him. Hermione braced herself for the sound of shattering glass but in its place, there was a soft squelching sound as the man's head sank into the jar.
They all stared transfixed as the man stood up, pulling his head from inside the bubble. Before their eyes, the man's head was shrinking, his hair and beard retracting inside his face as his features rounded out, and he looked down at them dumbstruck. The man's large hands reached up to touch the baby's head that now sat on top of his shoulders, and the look of horror on the baby's face would have been comical if it hadn't been so terrifying. The manbaby let out a piercing wail, fat tears covering his chubby cheeks as he fell backward onto the floor.
"Come on," Harry shouted, pulling attention away from the strange sight in front of them as more shouts and screams echoed from the room to their right. Hermione gave one last look at the man on the floor, staring in disbelief as his features shifted back and forth between a grown man and a baby.
She turned back around, intending to follow Harry, when his hand latched around her forearm and she was pulled backward into another room. She fell hard onto the floor, just as two more Death Eaters appeared right in the doorway. Harry slammed the door with a shout, and Hermione began the same locking spell she'd used on the previous door.
"Collo-" she shouted, but before the spell was complete, the door was blown backward, and the two Death Eaters launched themselves inside. Simultaneously, the two men yelled, "Impedimenta!" and Hermione felt herself being thrown backward. With a loud clatter, she smashed into a bookcase and cried out as her elbow smacked into the sharp edge and a downpour of heavy books fell into her lap. Her head collided with the floor under the weight of the books, and she had a panicked thought – how fitting that she'd die beneath a pile of encyclopedias.
She blinked her eyes, trying to clear the dizziness and fog of her obvious concussion when she heard, "WE'VE GOT HIM!" She pushed her way out of the avalanche of books just as the Death Eater began to shout their location. "WE'RE IN AN OFFICE BY –"
"Silencio," she said, and the man's voice was gone. His mouth continued to move, and it seemed to take him a moment to realize that he was no longer making any sound. When the other Death Eater stepped forward, pushing the first out of the doorway, Harry locked him in a body bind before he'd even fully raised his wand, knocking the man face-first onto the hard, stone floor.
"Well done, Ha—"
Before Hermione could finish, the first Death Eater had slashed his wand through the air. Despite his lack of a voice, violent purple flames shot from his wand, hitting Hermione directly in the chest. Immediately her chest was filled with a crushing pain. It felt like a hand was gripping her organs, tying them into knots and squeezing the life out of her, and all she could manage was a deep exhale as she clutched at her chest. Neville's frightened face appeared in front of her, his mouth moving as if he were trying to speak to her, but she couldn't hear anything over the heavy pounding in her ears, and then the room went black.
Hermione pulled out of the memory looking at Malfoy in front of her. He swallowed thickly and his face was completely devoid of color, but he never said a word as she pushed the next memory into the forefront of her mind.
"I think she wants me to go upstairs with her," Harry said, pointing toward the elderly Bathilda Bagshot.
"Alright," Hermione said, starting up the stairs behind Harry and the old woman. As her foot touched the first step leading up into the dark and dilapidated house, the elderly woman turned with a quickness Hermione didn't think she possessed. Looking at Hermione with milky bloodshot eyes, she shook her head violently before Harry spoke up.
"I think she wants me to go alone." Harry continued looking at the woman leading him up the stairs for a moment before turning back to Hermione and saying, "Maybe Dumbledore told her to speak to me alone."
"Why?" Hermione asked, unable to hide the fear in her voice at being left alone in this woman's living room.
Harry ignored her question as he said with finality, "Stay here. We'll be right back," before turning away to follow Bathilda up the stairs.
Hermione watched them go, and the trepidation she'd been feeling since the moment they entered the house seemed to grow like a fire within her. She clenched her teeth and wrapped her arms around herself trying to fight off the trembling in her hands.
She could hear Harry speaking softly upstairs as she began looking around the woman's living room. Candles were lit throughout the room, but instead of it giving off a soft, comforting light, the entire house seemed ominous, sinister almost. She cursed herself as she jumped almost a foot in the air when the board beneath her foot gave an exceptionally loud squeak.
'Are you a Gryffindor or what?' she asked herself, as she stepped toward a large cupboard in the corner of the room. She covered her nose with her hand, trying to block out the musty, sour smell that the entire house seemed to be filled with. The door to the cupboard was standing slightly ajar, and it appeared that a broom was lying partially out of the doorway. She bent down to pick the broom up, wanting to stand it back up into the cupboard, simply to be doing something productive rather than sitting down here scaring herself to death and jumping like a First Year under the Sorting Hat. She wrapped her fingers around the handle and opened the cupboard the rest of the way in the process, and the moment the door opened, her senses were assaulted with the undeniable smell of decay, like old trash and rotting fruit.
When the dim light of the living room lit up the inside of the closet, Hermione gasped and stumbled backward, overturning an end table and almost falling herself. The entire interior of the cupboard was covered in thick blood so dark it was almost black. Flies and some type of beetle hovered over tipped-over buckets and a cracked mop, and Hermione looked down at the broom still clutched in her hand and found it too covered in blood. She let out a scream, throwing the broom away from her, and the sound of her own voice seemed to bring her to her senses. She jumped to her feet, pulling her wand from her pocket, and before she even made it to the first step, she heard a heavy thud and Harry's shouts from above her.
"Harry!" she shouted, taking the stairs two at a time as his voice rang out again. She charged through the first door at the top of the stairs, hearing the commotion within, and was momentarily derailed by the crumpled body of Bathilda Bagshot on the floor at her feet. No, it wasn't a body, it was as if the old woman had shed her skin, leaving just a covering behind, and the image of a cicada's shell filled her mind before she could right herself.
She looked past the disgusting heap of skin to see Harry completely wrapped by the largest snake Hermione had ever seen. The animal had its coils wrapped tightly around Harry who appeared to be unconscious – 'only unconscious, definitely not dead,' she forced herself to think. It twisted and wound itself tighter as it pulled its head free long enough to give a loud, resounding hiss in Hermione's direction. She lifted her wand and began firing whatever curse she could to get the snake to release Harry.
Her first spell collided but bounced off the snake, hitting a row of portraits hanging on the wall to the snake's left. The room filled with the sound of breaking glass as the snake uncoiled itself from around Harry, dropping him onto the hardwood below with a heavy thud, and Hermione had only a split second to dive out of the way as the snake struck.
Hermione was vaguely aware of Harry standing at the opposite end of the room, but she didn't have time to give a sigh of relief that he was still alive before the snake seemed to fully fill the room around them. As it uncoiled its body, she was forced to dive again to avoid its thrashing tail and head full of dripping fangs. She heard Harry cry out and looked past the overturned dresser to see him clutching at his arm, blood pouring from punctures the snake's teeth had left behind.
Glass cut across her palm as she pushed herself up from the floor, shouting another curse at the snake and watching it rise into the air, smacking the ceiling with a loud thwack before crashing back to the ground.
"He's coming!" she heard Harry yell, as he jumped across the dressing table, clearing the bed in one bound to grab her wrist. The snake was now coiled, ready to strike, and completely blocking their path to the door. Together she and Harry charged through the only exit remaining in the room, bursting through the glass of the second-story window and twisting in mid-air, the sound of Voldmort's angry screams emanating from somewhere below them.
Hermione licked her lips, forcing herself to keep going. She took a heavy breath and put her hands beneath her thighs to stop them from shaking. Draco's eyes still remained locked on hers, the sheen of sweat across his brow the only indication of his unease.
Obviously, none of her memories were going to be a fun experience to share with anyone, but this was the one she was the most worried about. Hermione watched Draco's face, and the moment that Greyback walked into the tent inside her mind, Draco's teeth clenched together sharply.
Greyback, giving Hermione his full attention, backed her against a tree, and wrapped one large, hairy hand firmly around her throat and lifted her slightly. Only the tips of her trainers kept her on the ground at all. Frozen in fear, she could do nothing but wrap both hands tightly around his wrist, trying to put her weight on him rather than allowing gravity to choke the life out of her.
His face was dirty and covered with thick, dark hair, and she was instantly assaulted by the smell of sweat, dirt, and blood radiating off him. As he came closer, invading her space, his gaze was one of unmistakable hunger. He slowly slid one sharp nail down the length of one cheek and growled, "Delicious girl… What a treat."
The muscles in Draco's jaws stood out on either side, and his chest began to rise and fall much quicker. Hermione thought she should end it, should pull them both out seeing how it was affecting him, but the moment she started to rein the memory in, Draco spoke up in her mind.
'Don't. I'm fine. Just… just finish it.'
Are you sure, she thought, and Draco nodded his confirmation, closing his eyes for a second before reentering her mind.
She tried turning her face away, but the werewolf's grip on her throat tightened, and she felt his hot tongue slide along her cheek and up to her hairline.
She felt him breathing heavily into her ear, then his teeth firmly wrapped around her earlobe. She tried to pull away, but he held her neck even tighter. She instantly panicked when his teeth grazed across the junction of her neck and shoulder, and the thought crossed her mind that this was it.
But instead, he resisted, whispering in her ear, "Oh I'm not going to bite you just yet." His free hand ran up the length of her side before stopping at her breast, taking it in his palm and squeezing so tightly she couldn't hold back the cry of pain that escaped her lips. "I have better plans for you, sweet thing." Her blood instantly ran cold at the implication of his words paired with his hand still on her chest.
She felt completely detached from her body as his hand left her breast and trailed down her stomach. He pulled his face out of her hair and leered at her. For an insane second, she thought he was going to kiss her. But instead he sloppily licked her lips until her mouth and chin were dripping with his saliva.
Her breath hitched and the tears finally escaped from her eyes when he roughly dragged the side of his hand between the juncture of her thighs. She tried to put her mind somewhere else, thinking of arithmancy formulas and runic symbols, but she was immediately brought back to this moment, her attempts to escape in her mind ceasing entirely as she felt the evidence of his arousal on her thigh.
A sob finally escaped her mouth then, which served to only excite him more. She heard him give a feral growl that emanated from the very depths of his chest as he pressed his body against her, grinding his erection into her core.
Hermione tried to remain expressionless, tried to school her features as the memory continued, as he covered her eyes and gagged her while the other Snatchers argued about what to do with them. It was hard not being able to hide behind any of her walls or the recitations of potions ingredients, but this was the whole point, right? To be fully open in front of another person, trusting them enough to share your most vulnerable experiences. She blinked back the tears on her face, forcing herself to not be ashamed as the memory continued.
The others had already Disapparated, pulling Harry and Ron with them; only she and Greyback remained. He tore the blindfold from her eyes and leaned in closely, his pale eyes only inches from her own. He growled, "I'm going to gorge myself on you. Peel the meat from your bones and savor every drop of your blood when it hits my tongue."
She tried to look away, but he held her head in a vice-like grip. He ran his nose up her face, breathing in deeply, and chuckled, "I can smell your fear, little girl, no matter how hard you try to hide it." He sneered into her face, and Hermione could see his teeth, sharpened into points. Circling behind her, he gripped her hips with his hands, nails and restraints digging further into her skin as she struggled against him.
Putting one hand on her back and one around her waist, he pushed her forward, so that her backside was pressed harder against his hips. She was frozen in fear, unable to speak or cry out at all with the gag around her mouth. Hot tears fell down her face as she clenched her eyes shut as tightly as she could, trying to imagine that she were anywhere but here.
"But before that," he said. "I'm going to bury my cock in your cunt until you scream and cry and beg me to kill you." His voice was barely more than a whisper, but the excitement in his growl was obvious. With every word, he ground his hips into hers, pulling her closer to him with the one hand around her hips. He continued to press himself into her, and she could feel the hardness in the front of his pants rubbing against her. Removing his hand from her back, he placed it on one hip and moved the other hand to the opposite side, gripping her hard enough to bruise. Moving faster, he snapped her hips against him violently twice, as he groaned and then began grinding his waist against her. She could feel him pulsing and twitching as warmth wet the back of her pants.
He groaned one last time and said, "That's just a taste, little girl." He muttered "Evanesco," and she continued to cry softly, trembling beneath his touch and too terrified to even move as he stood her back upright. Pulling her tightly to his chest again, he leaned in to whisper into her ear, "I don't give a fuck what kind of dirty blood you have. Everything I want," he snatched her head back with the hand still knotted in her hair and pushed the other coarsely across the front of her pants, "is right here." She felt his rough, calloused hand grip her roughly between the legs and she couldn't hold back the sob that poured out of her, muffled through the gag between her teeth. He only laughed mirthlessly, a sound like gravel in his throat causing her skin to break out in goosebumps. He pulled his hand away and twisted her neck harshly so she could face him. Her brown eyes met his icy blue ones, and she was unable to look away as he said, "I'll have you begging before the night is through."
Draco's mask had slipped. His face was red – not the pinking of his cheeks like she normally saw, but his entire face was flush with deep red. His pupils were barely visible in his eyes, tiny pin pricks in a tumultuous sea of slate, and the moment the memory ended, he clenched his eyes shut and dropped her wand entirely. She started to reach for him, but he must've felt the bed move because he held a hand up to stop her.
He took a few deep breaths, and Hermione watched as his shallow, ragged breaths became smooth, leveling out and returning to normal. He swallowed and opened his eyes, and they were his again, back to their normal grey, his pupils their original size. He picked her wand back up and nodded. "I'm okay."
Before she had a chance to steel herself, he was in her mind again. Having heard her normal internal dialogue, he spoke directly into her mind, interrupting her thoughts entirely. 'You aren't hurting me, Granger. I… Stop worrying about me.'
She nodded once and pushed her next memory forward. She thought it might have been a good idea to give him some sort of break between Greyback and his own home, but at the same time, it might have been just as well to get them both out of the way, like ripping off a band-aid all in one go.
The gag and blindfold were secured tightly back around Hermione's face, but when they landed on the rough, hard gravel, the blindfold slipped from her face, revealing the large wrought-iron gates of a large expansive mansion.
"Come on," Greyback snarled toward his men as he started toward the gate, one hand clamped tightly around Hermione's hair as he dragged her behind him. Both Harry and Ron's faces were still secured beneath their binds, but she was able to take in the heavy gates, large snakes wrapping around metal bars. She tried to struggle against Greyback's hand in her hair, feeling chunks of it being ripped from her scalp, but her hands were still tied tightly behind her back, her fingers scraping painfully against the gravel beneath her.
As they approached the gates, the snakes began to twist and coil, forming themselves into the shape of a gnarled and misshapen face. "State your purpose," the snake mouth said, the S's coming out more like a hiss.
"We've got Potter!" Greyback roared into the iron face. "We've captured him!"
With a heavy creak, the gates swung open, allowing them all entrance, and Hermione felt the magic shimmer through her as they passed through the manor's wards. She tried to turn her head to the side enough to get a better view of the home, but every time she managed a better glimpse, Greyback would snatch her hair tighter, causing her to grimace as his grip on her neck twisted her head back sharply.
She noticed as she was dragged through a row of high hedges, that a dozen albino peacocks watched them as they passed by. She wasn't sure how it was possible, but the birds themselves seemed to look on them with disdain, each of them seemingly staring down their beaks at the prisoners as they were dragged through the hedges.
Hermione felt herself being pulled up, so she tried her best to stand on wobbly legs as they climbed the few steps up to the front porch.
"'Mi, you o –" She heard Ron behind her trying to speak, but he was cut off quickly with an oof as his captor kicked him.
"Keep your mouth shut, 'Barny.'" The man enunciated the fake name Ron gave him, showing his disbelief at the alias.
Hermione was pushed through a massive set of doors leading inside the house, and Greyback's hands on her back shoved her forward again.
"What is this?" a voice toward Hermione's left asked, and she turned to see Narcissa Malfoy looking at them all with disgust. Hermione wasn't shocked at all to see that the woman seemed to be as offended by the Snatchers' presence in her home as she was by their captives.
"We're here to see Who-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!" Greyback rasped. "We've caught Harry Potter!"
Hermione tried to pull away from Greyback's hand and the heavy grip on her hip as Narcissa scrutinized Harry's face, but he only clutched her tighter, his fingernails digging into the flesh above her denims. She winced, vaguely aware of the Snatcher's voice as he spoke to Mrs. Malfoy, trying to convince her that despite Harry's swollen face he was, in fact, Undesirable #1.
"Bring them in," Narcissa said, and Hermione was shoved into another room, a marble fireplace to their left and a massive crystal chandelier hanging above their heads. Despite the dimly lit corridor, Hermione could see all the way across the expanse of the room, and she gasped, unable to hold it in as two figures rose at the end of the drawing room – Lucius and Draco Malfoy.
"My son, Draco, is home for his Easter holidays. If that is Harry Potter, he will know."
They weren't friends. They weren't even what she would consider acquaintances, but she couldn't stop herself from thinking that despite their differences, surely Malfoy wouldn't allow them to be hurt right in front of him. Hermione glanced to her right to see Harry refusing to make eye contact with Malfoy in front of them, so she turned back around to face him herself, hoping to convey some sort of message with her eyes – 'Don't tell them.' 'Please don't tell them.' 'Help us, Malfoy.' 'Don't let them hurt us.'
She wasn't sure how much of that Malfoy was picking up, because the moment their eyes met, his widened slightly before he turned away.
No hope there, she thought to herself, and despite knowing it had been a long shot, she felt that small chance fizzle and die in the pit of her stomach, dread welling up inside of her in its place. She wanted to yell at him, demand that he look at them. If they were going to die in his home, the least he could do was bloody well look at them, but the gag in her mouth prevented her from making any sound. The panicking in her chest grew when Lucius Malfoy's eyes skimmed over her as well, stopping momentarily at her hips where Greyback's hands still gripped her to him. When he made eye contact with her, his nose was curled up in revulsion, but she wasn't sure if that was due to Greyback's hands on her disgusting Mudblood body or because her very presence was a stain on his home. Either way, she knew she'd get no help from him either.
"What is this?" Lucius sneered, and Hermione was surprised that in spite of his unkempt appearance – Azkaban clearly hadn't been kind to him – he still managed to give off the same contemptuous yet bored tone that only he and his son were capable of.
"They say they've captured Potter," Narcissa drawled as she rounded the lot of them to join her family at the head of the table, and Hermione amended her last thought. Narcissa's voice held the same uninterested yet derisive quality as her husband and son. "Draco, come here."
The Snatcher holding onto Harry shoved him forward, placing his swollen, deformed face directly in front of Malfoy, who continued to look away uncomfortably. He would look at Harry's face for only a split second before his eyes would shift toward one of his parents.
"Well, boy?" Hermione jumped as Greyback's voice boomed behind her, directly in her ear, causing her teeth to rattle. Hermione could make out Harry's bulbous face through the golden-framed mirror directly across from him, though Malfoy's pale hair partially obscured the view.
Lucius walked around the table to stand beside his son, and this time his voice lacked the bored tenor it had before. This time he sounded hopeful, giddy almost, as he said, "Well, Draco? Is it? Is it Potter?"
"I… I can't…" Malfoy's voice on the other hand sounded like he was on the verge of a panic attack. "I can't be sure."
Maybe hope wasn't lost, Hermione thought before Lucius' voice interrupted her thoughts. "What did you do to him? Is this a Stinging Hex?"
One of the Snatchers was mumbling about Harry's face having looked like that when they caught them when Greyback growled again, shoving Hermione roughly to the floor at his feet. She cried out as her knees slammed the stone beneath her, and he said, "What about the Mudblood, then?" Greyback sank his dirty nails into the skin of her neck and used the hand tangled in her hair to pull her head backwards, lifting her face up to the three Malfoys looking down at her. "Ain't this the Mudblood bitch he runs with?"
Hermione felt tears sting her eyes, but she refused to let them splash over, using every ounce of her willpower to hold them at bay as these people looked down their noses at her, deciding her fate and that of her friends. She blinked, biting down onto the inside of her jaw until she tasted blood.
"Wait," Narcissa said sharply. "Yes – yes, she was in Madam Malkin's with Potter! I saw her picture in the Prophet! Look, Draco. Look at her." Hermione could see the way she was gripping onto her son's arm, tight enough for the whites of her knuckles to show as she pointed down at Hermione on the floor. "Isn't that the Granger girl?"
Hermione's eyes shot toward Malfoy again. Please, she thought. Please, Malfoy.
He glanced down at her quickly, barely long enough to even truly see her before saying, "I… maybe… yeah… I'm not sure."
Hermione felt the hope inside her well up again. He knows it's us, she thought. He has to know. There's no way he doesn't know. But that spark of hope immediately turned into a flame of anger. He knows it's us, and the best he can do is refuse to look at us. Do something! She wanted to scream at him, to rage at him, but if she opened her mouth then that little bit of help, that small branch he was offering, would be broken.
The look of indifference on Malfoy's face was completely contrary to the way he wouldn't look at any of them. He seemed bored, like determining whether or not his former classmates should get to live was too far beneath him to care, and yet, his demeanor said something different. His eyes seemed to fall on everyone else in the room except for the captives at his feet. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and his shoulders seemed to sag beneath the weight that his parents were laying on him.
"But, then, that's the Weasley boy!" shouted Lucius, and just before Hermione's eyes darted away, she found Malfoy looking at her at last, once everyone else seemed to be focused on Ron instead. For a split second, his demeanor crumbled. She watched his brows furrow, and his eyes were wide in terror, looking similar to how she must be herself.
"Draco!" his father snapped, and the moment was gone. Malfoy shifted away to focus on Ron, and what Hermione was certain was a mask had slipped back into place, the look of indifference returned to his face.
"Isn't it Arthur Weasley's son, what's his name – ?"
"Yeah," Malfoy said, looking over Ron's features quickly before turning away from him as well. "It… it could be."
The drawing room door banged open behind them, and all of them turned to see Bellatrix Lestrange charging into the room as if she owned it. "What is this? What's happened, Cissa?"
Her voice alone raised goosebumps the length of Hermione's arms. It was the antithesis of the Malfoy's languid drawl. Her voice was nails across asphalt, the squealing of brakes, and it set Hermione's teeth on edge the moment the insane witch walked into the room.
"Surely, this is the Mudblood girl," Narcissa said just above a whisper, ignoring Bellatrix's entrance entirely.
Lucius interrupted her quickly, speaking to Bellatrix now. "Yes, yes, it's Granger. And beside her, we think, Potter. Potter and his friends, caught at last!"
Hermione listened to the two squabble over which of them would be calling for the Dark Lord, but she kept looking at Draco. At some point during the interaction, he'd turned away entirely, resting both hands on the mantle of the fireplace, and she could see his back rising as he took shallow breaths. Everyone else seemed to have forgotten that he was there, and Hermione could tell their presence here was bothering him somehow. She hoped that it was due to some sort of moral dilemma, his conscious weighing on him to do the right thing for once in his miserable life, but another part of her thought it had more to do with the trauma of being forced to watch anyone be murdered in front of him.
At once, despite the situation she was in – the pain in her knees where she'd been slammed to the floor, the ache in what had to be at least one broken finger from being dragged across the gravel, Greyback's disgusting bodily fluids still staining the back of her denims and his gnarled hand still pulling tightly on her hair – she found herself feeling pity for Malfoy.
What could he do right now? He was a teenager, and though they all were, he'd never been particularly brave, nor had he ever had reason to question the asinine beliefs that his parents had pressed upon him. What could he actually do in this moment? Fight them all to save these people who he didn't even like? It was clear that he didn't want them to be here and he didn't want to contribute to their death at all, and whether that was because it was her, Harry, and Ron or simply because they were human beings didn't really matter at this point. He was giving them what little bit he could give them, and even though her hopes of getting out of this situation alive were slim to none, she felt a small ounce of gratitude toward him for doing that much.
"STOP!" Bellatrix shouted, and Hermione's eyes shot toward the center of the room where the witch stood, her eyes fixed upon one of the Snatchers who clutched the sword of Gryffindor to his chest. She had one hand outstretched toward Lucius Malfoy whose own hand was halted mid-motion where it looked as if he were about to press his finger to the black coiling snake and skull on his forearm. "Do not touch it! We shall all perish if the Dark Lord comes now. What is that?"
"Sword," the Snatcher grunted as she walked toward him, slowly, her eyes wide with what could only be described as fear. When the Snatcher refused to relinquish the sword, Bellatrix blasted him off his feet with a flash of red light, dropping him to the ground before he even knew it was coming.
Spells began to rain down around them, and Hermione felt Greyback jam her roughly in the back of the thigh as he too was forced to his knees behind her. Hermione didn't have a moment to relish the change of events for him before Bellatrix was standing over both of them, but thankfully, her dark eyes and equally dark sneer were focused on Greyback and not on her for the moment.
Bellatrix leaned down, her face right beside Hermione's as she stared into Greyback's eyes menacingly, plucking his wand from his hand without the faintest hint of resistance. "Where," she asked slowly, "did you get this sword?"
"It was in their tent," Greyback growled, the deep timbre in his voice was ominous, but Bellatrix never flinched. "Release me, woman!"
Bellatrix waved her wand, and the werewolf sprang to his feet, thankfully forgetting Hermione momentarily in the process. Greyback looked down his nose at Bellatrix before stalking toward an armchair and clutching the back of it until his nails sank through the leather.
"Draco!" Bellatrix shouted, making Hermione jump due to the close proximity. "Move this scum outside." She nodded toward the unconscious Snatchers lying scattered throughout the room. "If you haven't the guts to finish them, then leave them in the courtyard for me."
Narcissa stepped forward, blocking Bellatrix's view of Malfoy and staring her sister down with equal ferocity. "Don't you dare speak to Draco like –"
But Bellatrix interrupted her with a scream. "Be quiet! This situation is graver than you can possibly imagine, Cissy. We have a very serious problem!" Bellatrix stood looking down at the sword of Gryffindor in her hand, examining it closely, her breath coming in pants. "If it is indeed Potter, he must not be harmed," she muttered, speaking more to herself than to the rest of the room. "The Dark Lord wishes to dispose of Potter himself… but if he finds out…. I must… I must know…"
Bellatrix seemed to remember that there were others in the room, and she looked up at her sister again. "The prisoners must be placed in the cellar while I think of what to do."
Lucius stepped forward, speaking for the first time since informing Bellatrix of their identities. "This is my house, Bella. You don't give orders in my –"
"Shut up!" She screeched, turning her cold eyes on Lucius. "You have no idea the danger we're in!" Her teeth were bared as she stared down the lord of the manor, her eyes flaming just as brightly as the fire that issued from her wand.
Narcissa took in her sister's disturbing demeanor for only a second before determining the situation was as grave as she Bellatrix believed. "Greyback, take the prisoners to the cellar."
"Wait," said Bellatrix sharply. "All except for the Mudblood."
Hermione felt her eyes widen in surprise. She thought they'd forgotten her presence entirely, focusing more on Harry and the sword now, but when Bellatrix said her name, every eye in the room seemed to fall on her. Her heart sank in her chest as the last shred of hope she felt dwindled and faded to smoke as Greyback gave a grunt of pleasure, his tongue lolling out slightly as he stared down at her from behind the chair where he stood.
"No!" Ron shouted. "No! Keep me! You can keep me!"
She couldn't look at him. Hermione knew if she looked at her best friends, she wouldn't be able to hold in the tears that had been threatening to fall since they first walked through the manor's doors. She couldn't look at them. She couldn't look at the way Ron was fighting Greyback as he was pulled from the room, his legs kicking desperately to get to her. She couldn't look at Harry's panicked face, knowing she'd find that same fire of hope in his eyes that she'd felt moments before. Harry, always the one to think there was a way out – he wouldn't give up until the very end. Hermione took a deep breath, looking up at Bellatrix's black eyes and refusing to give up either. They could kill her. They could break her. But they'd never pull anything out of her. She'd never give up her friends, and she'd keep fighting until she gave her very last breath.
Bellatrix snatched a handful of her hair, just as Greyback had and pulled her to the center of the room. She walked circles around her, like a shark circling its prey, and all the while Hermione kept her eyes focused on the witch before her. She refused to back down, but she couldn't stop the flinch when she heard Ron screaming her name. The sound was muffled; clearly, Ron and Harry and the others had already been put into the cellars.
Bellatrix pointed the wand in her hand down at Hermione and lazily said, "Crucio." Hermione felt like her very blood was on fire. Every inch of her exploded into tiny bolts of electricity, shooting inward, tearing at her organs and ripping her apart at the seams. All at once the spell ended, and Hermione was aware of the shrill scream echoing around her before realizing the scream had been her own. She panted, feeling the cold stone floor beneath her face, and realized she must've fallen at some point during the spell.
She felt the binds holding her arms in place be split behind her, and she tried to lift herself up off the floor. It was as if her arms had no remaining strength at all, giving out multiple times before she managed to lift herself up. Bellatrix threw Greyback his wand as he came back into the room.
"I'd like her when you're done with her," Greyback said, as he took a seat in the large armchair across from them. "Little minx and I started something we haven't gotten to finish."
Hermione was vaguely aware of the Malfoys standing beside the fireplace, but with Bellatrix bearing down on her and Greyback rubbing himself as he stared down at her with icy blue eyes full of hunger, she couldn't focus on anything but whatever hell these two had in store for her.
Bellatrix stopped her circling and leaned down, putting her face eye level with Hermione's again and snapped, "Where did you get the sword?" Spit flew from her mouth as she yelled, and Hermione instinctively reached up to wipe her face.
She'd been abused, tortured, and now spat on, and she refused to allow Bellatrix any more control of her. Hermione steeled her features as best as she could, though she was unable to stop the slight quiver in her chin. She lifted her head up, denying the witch any sort of groveling.
"Ohhh," Bellatrix cooed, her voice coming out sickly sweet now, and for the first time, the fear left her eyes, replaced with excitement but beneath that, a cool, calculating anger. "Wittle baby finks she can pway." Bellatrix smiled, and Hermione thought that this was even more terrifying than the look of anger she'd had before. If this insane woman was smiling, surely whatever she was planning wouldn't be good.
Hermione tried to appear calm, tried to think of anything but the situation at hand, but the hammering in her chest and blood rushing into her ears made it difficult to rein in her emotions.
All at once the smile was gone again, as Bellatrix leaned forward and spat full on directly into her face. She winced, turning her head to the side and catching the eyes of Narcissa Malfoy. Lucius was bent slightly, whispering into his son's ear as he stood, his back to the scene in the middle of his drawing room. Narcissa's blue eyes met Hermione's for only a split second, but in that moment, Hermione thought she saw something beyond the normal indifference or superiority. It was brief, but the woman's frown and furrows in her brow indicated that she wasn't thrilled with her sister's antics either.
Before Hermione had a chance to analyze that, Narcissa had looked away, turning back to Malfoy. SMACK! Hermione heard the sound of Bellatrix's hand coming across her face before she felt it, and her ears rang with the pain of the blow.
She'd never been hit in the face before, and at first, she felt shock, which was laughable in and of itself. After all she'd been through so far, she was surprised at having been slapped. Her hand went up to her lips, wiping the blood away and wincing at the sharp sting of her finger against the split in her lip.
"Where did you get the sword?" Bellatrix asked again, the words coming out like a low snarl.
Before Hermione even had a chance to answer, Bellatrix pulled the dark gnarled wand from her pocket and cursed her again. The same electrical surge ripped through her body. She felt at once both fully connected to herself and like her body was no longer her own – the pain tore through every inch of her, gnashing and ripping her insides to shreds.
The pain stopped so suddenly that it was just as painful. As if somehow her body had become accustomed to the feeling of death, and when it was gone, she had nothing left. An overwhelming feeling of sadness tore through her then, just as strong as the pain itself, and she heard a sob escape her mouth. Her dedication to remain strong crumbled to ash as tremors sent her body into convulsions.
"Don't make me ask you again! Next time I won't be as nice."
What was the question? Hermione couldn't remember what was going on around her let alone a question. She opened her eyes slowly, taking in the room around her, and it all came crashing back down, washing over her and renewing the sense of hopelessness inside her.
Her eyes found Malfoy's again, and this time his face was anything but impassive. The look he wore was wild and frantic as he stared down at her.
"ANSWER ME!" Hermione was immediately startled, not by Bellatrix's screaming, but by the images that began pouring into her mind. Memories began spiraling through her mind, passing quickly like the frames of a film in fast forward. Baking a cake with her mother. Standing on her father's feet as they twirled through the kitchen. Her mother's fingers in her hair, attempting to tame it after a bath. Her father holding her and -
The memories were cut off as Bellatrix planted a heavy kick to the side of Hermione's ribs.
She gasped, crying out in pain at the feel of what was surely a broken rib. "We… we… found it." She barely recognized the sound of her own voice, but the way it burned as she spoke let her know it was definitely her own. "We found it."
"DON'T LIE TO ME!" Bellatrix screeched. She grabbed a handful of Hermione's hair and yanked her up from the floor. She pulled her from the floor, smacking her knees back against the cold stone and holding her in place.
Hermione struggled beneath her grasp, trying to get the woman's hands off her, but her arms were still convulsing too much and Bellatrix was much too strong for her.
Bellatrix mumbled something under breath, and Hermione's arms were pinned in mid-air out to either side, holding her in place like a crucifix.
"I'm not lying. Please… please st-"
Bellatrix had circled back behind her, and at once Hermione felt the back of her shirt being torn. She looked down in horror as Bellatrix ripped the shirt from her back, leaving her on her knees, arms outstretched and frozen, her upper body covered only by her bra. She couldn't even move her hands enough to cover herself, as Bellatrix knelt behind her. She felt hands writhing across her bare skin, nails scratching across her thighs as tears welled in her eyes.
"Filthy Mudblood," Bellatrix growled into her ear. "Everyone take a look at Potter's little whore now."
Hermione clenched her eyes closed, trying to avoid the stares of the Malfoys and Greyback, but no matter how hard she held them, her tears betrayed her, leaking out beneath her lids and covering her cheeks.
"Where did you get it? How did you get in my vault?" Bellatrix's voice had returned to the high-pitched squeal, full of panic.
Her arms were released, and she almost let out a sigh of relief as she quickly covered herself, trying to hide her exposed skin. When her eyes opened, Greyback was staring down at her, drool falling from his gaping mouth, slick and coating his sharp canines. If he appeared hungry before, he was ravenous now, leaning forward, hands gripping the seat between his thighs, looking as if it was taking all of his restraint to not push Bellatrix aside and take her right there in the middle of the Malfoys' drawing room.
"Please… we … we found it. In the woods. I swe-" Her words were cut off by the sounds of her own screams as another Cruciatus ripped through her.
Hermione pulled herself out of the memory enough to focus on Draco in front of her. His breathing was so ragged that the sound of it punched through the silence of the room, and she reached across the bed, taking his hand in hers as Bellatrix echoed in her mind, 'Do you think your ginger blood-traitor will still want you if we give you to him in a box?'
Draco was so consumed, lost inside Hermione's own memories, that he didn't even bother to wipe his own face as his emotions got the better of him when Bellatrix began carving MUDBLOOD into Hermione's skin. She felt her own face, hot and wet with the memories of her past as the words played over in her mind, the same ones she heard in her dreams or anytime she caught a glimpse of the slur forever engraved into her arm. 'You think you deserve to walk among us? You are nothing. If you ever leave here the entire world will forever see just who you are.'
Hermione ended the memory focused on her own face, eyes closed tightly in pain and the sounds of her screams filling the drawing room. She wanted to give him a moment, time to work through everything he'd just seen, the experience through her eyes rather than his own. His hand in hers was icy cold, completely unlike the normal warmth he seemed to radiate toward her every time they were together, and she began to wonder if maybe this was a bad idea. Perhaps it would have been better if he only experienced her memories once along with everyone else.
When he gripped her hand tighter, his breathing had slowed to normal and he was no longer red in the face.
"Are you-" she began, wanting to ask if he was okay, but he interrupted before she finished.
"Why did you stop there?" He seemed hesitant to ask, like her answer would hurt him somehow. "Why didn't you show the rest?"
She bit her lip not really wanting to admit why she hadn't shown the rest of the memory, but she couldn't lie to him. "I didn't want to show you fighting us."
His eyes closed momentarily as he took in her answer, clearly the one he had been afraid she'd give. When he opened them, Hermione could see that his Occlumency shields were up, hiding him from her. "But that's what happened, Hermione."
"Yes, but you didn't really have a –"
"I did." His voice was final; there was no arguing with him. Of course, she knew he had a choice, but when the choice was life or death, was it really still a choice at that point? No one could blame him for fighting back. Voldemort was on his way at that very moment. Ron and Harry were throwing curses at him. What real choice did he have?
"Do you have more?"
"Draco, we can stop. I…"
"No."
She hung her head, maneuvering herself into his lap and pushing his arms aside so she could sit between his thighs. "Draco, I…"
"Please," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. She opened her eyes to look at him, pulling her head from his shoulder where she'd lain it and staring up at him, taken aback at the pleading tone in his voice. He shook his head slowly, eyes pinched shut. "Please, don't say you're sorry to me." He drew in a shaky breath and opened his eyes.
"I didn't think this through," she said, holding back the sob that was pushing a lump in her throat. "I honestly thought this would make it easier for you, to not have to see it for the first time with the others."
"I wasn't lying to you before." She looked at him quizzically, not sure what he was referring to, and he went on. "When I said I see it every day. This is better than seeing it with everyone else for the first time, it's just…" He took another deep breath before continuing.
"I see it every day. I live with the horrible choices that I made every day. But… I could feel what you were feeling. I -" He swallowed thickly, looking away from her for a moment so that he could cover his own emotions. "You saw me, and you felt hopeful, and then I felt the exact moment when you knew I wasn't going to help you."
He dropped his head and tried to pull away from her, but she wouldn't let him. Taking his face in her hands, she pulled him back to look at her.
"We aren't those people, Draco," she said, unfazed by the quavering tone of her voice. She had to make him see.
"How can you even look at me after that?" His eyes were desperate, searching her face for an answer not just so that he could know how she reconciles their history but so that he could reconcile it as well, not with her but with himself.
"Because it isn't who you are. And, I can see that you had no choice even if you can't." He tried to pull away again, and she pushed him backward on the bed, laying her legs on either side of him and pinning him down. "You aren't going to push me away, so just stop trying."
He sighed in resignation and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her even closer to him and breathing her in. He shifted, rolling them both to their sides and putting them face to face.
"I'm –"
"Don't." She knew where he was going, and she couldn't stand another apology. She didn't show him so that they could rehash it all again. "Don't say it. We've already been over it."
"Hermione, I could beg for your forgiveness every day for the rest of our lives, and it wouldn't be enough. You deserve -"
"Shut up and kiss me." She threw her leg over his hip, wrapping her calf around his thigh and pulling him toward her.
His lips thinned out in the way they did every time he was frustrated, but he complied, sighing into her, and she could feel the tension in his shoulders ease as she opened her mouth to him, begging for more.
When he broke the kiss, he seemed to have resigned himself to moving past the last memory. "Do you have more?" he asked, and she shook her head slowly.
He let out a heavy breath, his cheeks blowing out as he did. They sat in silence for a moment, each lost in thought – Hermione, at having shared a part of herself with another person, and Draco likely at all that he'd seen. Hermione found that, as hard as it had been, it did feel good to chip away at some of the weight she carried every day. He'd seen it, the worst parts of her memory, the bits of her that she'd been afraid people would see and then blame her for somehow. She'd been waiting for the uncomfortable look on his face, the tell-tale sign of his judgment, the averted eyes, the blushing cheeks, but his face had only shown anger, remorse, and his own shame. She'd given herself freely to someone and rather than allow her to fall, he'd held her after.
"I always knew Potter was an idiot but watching him leave you alone and follow that creepy woman up the stairs really solidified it for me." Draco's voice pulled her from her thoughts with a smile.
She started to slap his arm but then stopped. "You're right actually. That was incredibly stupid."
Draco nuzzled his face into her hair like he did every night and pulled her closer to him. His voice was muffled, but she understood him completely when he said, "But he and Weasley both saved you, which is more than I did."
Hermione sighed, rubbing her hands through his hair. She knew she could never convince him that he was a good man. Yes, Harry and Ron had both saved her at some point throughout their friendship, multiple times, in fact. But so had he. Then an idea formed in her mind, and before she could second guess herself, she pulled away from him and pushed her wand back into his hand.
He looked at her with a look of clear confusion on his face. "What are-"
"Go back in my head."
"What? Why?"
"You said you can feel what I'm feeling, right?" When he nodded, she went on. "I want to show you something."
He blinked at her a few times, still looking just as confused. When she lifted her hands at him impatiently, he said, "Legilimens," and she felt the same strange sensation of him inside her brain.
'What?' he asked, his voice echoing through the darkness in her mind and she began pushing memories at him.
She sat sipping tea with her mother in front of the television while some singing competition played in front of them. Hermione's legs were tucked up beneath her, and Crookshanks sat wrapped around her purring softly as she stroked his fur.
"Dear, he only picks on you because he likes you," her mother said as she broke off a bit of Hermione's scone.
"That's ridiculous, mum." Hermione's hair was longer and much bushier, and the Hermione who sat watching the memory with Draco in her mind cringed at how awful she looked as a young teen.
"It's how all boys are. I don't make the rules. I just pass them on to you. Now," her mother said as she sat her teacup and saucer onto the table beside them. She leveled her eyes at Hermione and added, "Tell me about this punch you gave him."
Hermione pushed another memory forward before Draco had a moment to comment on the last one, this one of their first week at The Willows.
"I think I may have taken it too far again," Hermione said, looking up at Malfoy ruefully. "And I never said thank you for saving my life when I wasn't actually dying earlier." She wasn't sure why she felt like such a jerk about the things she said on the ropes course, but truthfully, he'd been nothing but nice to her since they'd gotten here, and she'd repaid him by being hateful every chance she'd gotten. Ron's words echoed in her mind, reminding her that they all deserved forgiveness.
Malfoy smiled down at her, and it was different than before. There was no smirk, no egotism or superiority in it – it was softer somehow, and she thought how handsome he looked when he wasn't being an ass. "It's fine, Granger. You were right. I'm a jerk." He turned away from her to walk through the doors of the Willows before she could make some snide remark about him admitting that she was right. He turned back around with that infernal smirk on his face and said, "And no need to thank me. I got all the thanks I need, remember?" He lifted his eyebrows and flexed the hand that had been holding her by the bum. Then he turned on heel, chuckling to himself, and walked inside.
She smiled to herself, then her heart gave a lurch at the realization that she'd been smiling at the thought of being groped by Malfoy.
"What are you –" Draco asked, but she shushed him and pushed another memory to the forefront of her mind.
Hermione sat huddled around herself, her hair wild and palms bloody as Malfoy took a seat beside her, pushing away the shards of the broken mirror. She lifted her red-rimmed eyes and a steady trickle of blood poured from a small cut along one cheek.
"It might happen again. I… I don't want to hurt you too," she said, shying away from him slightly, her voice shaking more than her limbs.
"You're not going to hurt me," he said, taking one of her hands in his and pulling an inch-long piece of glass out of her palm. She winced and tasted the familiar taste of metal in her mouth that always accompanied one of her magical explosions. Her whole body was shivering, and her teeth chattered from adrenaline.
She couldn't take her eyes off him. Despite her confusion and guilt over having hurt Dennis, what was more confusing was the fact that Malfoy was now taking her by the hand and pulling her to her feet and into the bathroom behind them.
Her mind was racing – Why is he helping me? Why does he care? – as he turned the faucet on and plunged her hands into the cold water.
She flinched at the sting of the water rushing over the scrapes and cuts across her palms as Malfoy reached behind him to pull one of the white flannels from the rack by the door and began wiping the blood off her hands with it. He held both her hands in his and gently pulled any remaining glass away, never looking up at her face.
So far, she hadn't cried at all, not when she'd awoken to find Dennis above her. Not when she'd discovered that she'd somehow managed to throw him across the room, but now, with Malfoy of all people showing her this kindness, she felt overwhelmed. She bit her lip, not wanting him to see her cry and silently demanding that her tears remain in place.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked before she could stop herself. It could've been the adrenaline still coursing through her veins or perhaps it was the strangeness of Malfoy standing in front of her, barefoot and wearing loose-fitting grey sweatpants and cleaning her dirty blood from both of their hands.
Malfoy's hand twitched beneath the faucet, but he said nothing. He rinsed the blood from the rag and turned to bring it to her face, wiping the spot on her face. Despite the intimacy of the situation, he wouldn't look at her. She reached up and gently pushed his hand away, and tilted her head to the side, enough to put her eyes directly in front of his, forcing him to look at her. In the dim light of the moon shining through the window, she could barely see the faint tendrils of blue in his eyes.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked again.
His eyes bounced back and forth between hers before he said, "I… I didn't help you once before." He dropped his gaze to the floor and then shifted to drop the flannel into the sink. "I couldn't do that again."
The memory faded, replaced immediately with their entire group sitting around the dining table. Seamus stood on one side of the table, his face red and furious.
"Am I the only person with any sense around here? She almost killed Dennis!"
An eerie sense of calm settled over Hermione as she looked up at Seamus with determination.
"This is ridiculous! The bitch just –"
Seamus didn't get to finish his sentence before multiple things happened at once. Sparks shot through the air, and all the cups on the table exploded, sending tiny shards of glass throughout the room, all projecting away from her and toward Seamus at the other end of the table. The windows behind him were blown open, and it felt like all the air was sucked from the room. And Seamus, chair and all, was sent flying backward, crashing into the wall behind him with a bang so forceful that the legs on his chair snapped beneath him.
Every eye in the room turned to look at her, and Hermione stood, her legs shaking beneath her. She hadn't felt the explosion coming on at all, and she looked down at her hands. They were shaky, just like the rest of her, but there was no blood in her palms, no burning or tingling whatsoever.
Seamus' yelling brought her attention back to the scene around her as he said, "See! See! I told you! What more fucking proof do you need?"
"That wasn't me, I-"
At the same moment, Draco stood abruptly from the chair beside her sending it crashing to the ground. He was staring fixedly at Seamus, unblinking, wearing the same hard expression he had used to silence Pansy during their introductory meeting. His fists were clenched in rage, and Hermione looked down to see a steady trickle of blood dripping from them onto the floor beneath him.
As soon as she noticed, the rest of the table seemed to as well.
"They're in this together!" Seamus yelled, wiping a stream of blood from his nose and pointing between her and Draco.
Hermione was staring at Draco transfixed. Not only did he have magical explosions as well, but he seemed to be able to control it to some degree. He'd managed to throw Seamus across the room and –
Then it hit her. He'd done that right after Seamus had been screaming at her, calling her a bitch. Surely there had to be another explanation, but the only one that seemed to make sense to her in that moment was that Draco had stood up for her. But why?
The memory swirled again. Now Draco sat on a stool, Hermione leaning over him and cleaning the blood from his face after she'd punched him the second time.
"Both times you deserved it," she said. She continued cleaning even though all the blood was gone. She wasn't quite ready to walk away from him yet. She hadn't touched someone, not without flinching, in what seemed like forever, and having him this close to her, allowing her to touch him, even if it was to clean a bloody nose, felt… nice.
He seemed to lean into her touch, and warmth radiated through her at the feeling of being needed… accepted.
The memory was replaced by another a few weeks later. They sat on the couch together in the art therapy room, her legs tucked beneath her with a terrified look on her face.
"I'm sorry. That was … I didn't mean –" Draco said, stammering out an awkward apology.
"No, it's… it's fine." Hermione said, and his face snapped back to hers. She leaned toward him and gingerly pulled her shirt sleeve up, pausing only briefly to steel her nerves. He licked his lips nervously and Hermione was immediately aware of how dry her mouth was too. He shifted on the couch, scooting closer to her and placing his mug on the floor at his feet.
Hermione followed his gaze, looking down at the obscenity written across her skin – MUDBLOOD, written in Bellatrix's scrawling script. The word seemed to stare back at her, mockingly, and she was instantly reminded of why she never looked at it. It seemed alive, a reminder of who and what she was to so many people, still to do this day.
Draco started to reach for her arm but hesitated, looking up at her for permission first. When she nodded, he took her arm in his hands. Hermione's pace quickened, and she fought the urge to recoil, wanting nothing more than to hide her horrible scar, her emotion, her face, everything. She wondered if this was how he felt when she'd traced the lines of the snake across the surface of his skin – exposed, disgusted, embarrassed, ashamed. She was even more repulsed with herself when she felt a shameful heat rushing to her face, tinging it red. Consciously she knew she had nothing to be ashamed of, but she couldn't stop the feeling from rising up inside her regardless.
He held her arm in one of his hands while he ran the thumb of his other horizontally across the word, feeling the rough peaks and valleys of the grotesque letters. He laid his hand across her arm, covering it entirely, and her heart slowed a bit at the calming feel of his warm skin on hers. She realized when he turned to face her, his hands still wrapped around her arm, that this was the first time he'd ever touched her willingly. She'd fallen onto him at the ropes course, and he had been asleep when his hands were on her bare thigh, but this was the first time he'd knowingly touched her. Perhaps it was because she wasn't flinching from his touch as she had been with Ron or maybe it was because he wasn't cringing at the thought of having touched her, but she felt a warmth rising in her chest completely separate from the feelings of shame and nervousness seconds before.
All at once, a new feeling washed over her, one that almost doubled her over. His hand across her arm, blocking the horrible scar so that it appeared to no longer be there just beneath his hand, marring her skin with the awful reminder of the worst day of her life, and the feel of her knees pressed against his thigh, she felt an overwhelming sense of what her life could have been. How different everything could have been without the bounds of blood purity always nipping at her heels, without the war hanging over them both like a death shroud, without the house alliances – could they have been acquaintances, friends, more than friends?
And she felt acceptance again, an acceptance that she'd never felt with anyone else, and the irony that it would be him wasn't lost on her. Ron and Harry had accepted her, loved her at her worst, but they'd never seen this part of her, she'd never allowed them to. She knew deep down that they'd love her just the same, but she wasn't ready to be exposed this way in front of them. But Draco saw her, he saw her in a way that no one else had been privy to, and he was here, his hands on her bare skin, to comfort her in a way that no one else ever had.
The memory shifted again to a much quicker one, Draco sitting on the same couch, shuffling awkwardly as he explained the reason for his black eye. Hermione chuckled to herself as the Draco in her memory shifted in his seat, avoiding her gaze, and the Draco in front of her rolled his eyes, but the smile on his face said her plan was working. Memory Draco had just finished telling her that he'd punched Walt in his attempts to get to her when she pushed another memory forward.
Draco, standing in front of her, pulling her out of the panic attack in the middle of his drawing room in their attempt to "redecorate" his home. He was brushing calming strokes from her shoulders to her elbows, pulling her back into focus.
"I'm here with you."
She skipped a few bits in her memory, bringing them to his confession of having tried to push happy memories into her mind during her torture.
She placed her hand on his cheek, lifting his face so he would look at her.
"I tried," he said, lifting his shoulders and pulling into himself.
The pained expression on his face softened slightly as she drew closer to him and rested her cheek against his chest. She knew being in this room and this house in general had put them both into a panic, but now, as close as they were, she felt grounded and she had to touch him. Despite his constant self-hatred, thinking he hadn't done enough or that he'd always made the wrong decisions, he'd done everything in his power to help her.
Again, she felt that overpowering sense of acceptance, this open acknowledgement of all that she'd been through, and she didn't want to let him go.
She had one last thing to show him, and she pushed back the blush already rising up her neck before the memory even fully swirled into view.
They were laid across their sleeping bags, his body pressed against hers, in the middle of a tentative kiss.
He leaned up, pulling away from her and breaking the kiss. "Keep your eyes open." He ran a hand through her curls, pushing them away from her face. "Stay right here, and if it's too much, just tell me, okay?"
"Okay," she said, and in her voice, she heard a conviction she didn't know she possessed.
The memory shifted, bringing different aspects into view. Him kissing along her jaw. Her hands in his hair. "Is this okay?" as she pushed his hand between her thighs. Their legs twisted together. His hand inside her jeans. Her face as she fell apart. All the while, her eyes never left his face, never forgetting where she was, who she was with.
She stopped the memory, her face flush from sharing this intimate moment with him from her perspective, and she thought how silly it was. He had been there, after all, but it was different somehow, showing it to him from her point of view.
The look on his face was in complete opposition to the one he'd worn when she shared her traumatic memories with him. His face had been red, burning hot with anger and shame, and now the faint pink tinging his cheeks was desire. His pupils had been pin-pricks, barely visible in the swirling grey of his irises, and now they were blown wide, his normal steely grey scarcely showing behind the black pools.
"You've saved me too," she said, bringing her lips to his and pouring everything into it, wanting him to see all he'd done for her, to see all the ways that he'd changed her life.