Excerpt from'Protocol for employees of the Division of Obscurial Elimination, 3rd Edition':
Introduction
This version of the employees' protocol for the Division of Obscurial Elimination, subdivision of the Auror's office, applies to employees on and after September 1st, 2003. This is the third revised document designed for employees to consult and refer to as guidance for their missions abroad.
The employment protocol refers and incorporates a series of recent studies on Obscurials and Obscurus, which are required reading material for every employee.
Employees are expected to be flexible, working with new partners regularly and be sent on new missions with few moments notice, capable of retaining and applying necessary information in-action, relaying it to their division and the on-location referee regularly, working under potentially unknown and dangerous situations, and be comfortable with the imminent threat of death at any time.
We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks.
Draco was the most brainless, dimwitted idiot in history. He could practically hear his ancestors laugh at him. To waste three years of his miserable life working on the one thing truly mattered to him, and now he put it all in jeopardy just to spite that cunt.
Oh, how he hated her. He could feel it quell behind his chest; an ugly pulse that quivered like a dying animal, trembling and twitching, and making him feel wholly horrible; a disease taking hold of his mind and body.
Draco liked indulgences, he never denied that, but he never thought that he would one day add 'seeing Hermione Granger's world crumble around her' to his existing vices of alcohol and cigarettes. It was too intoxicating, too perfect, too good to be true; to see that look in her eyes as he proved to her that all of it, her entire job, everything she worked for, was a lie.
He hadn't even planned on doing it. After last night, he just wanted to stop. Hearing her talk about Anette had made him feel sick. To see the newspaper headlines was one thing. But…
Last evening had been entirely another.
And then, this morning, she challenged him. "I know what you're up to. You have no proof."
What sinful temptation, when he knew the solution lay right at…
His feet were scurrying down the street. Air chasing through his lungs, the strain of screaming at her just now still present. Where should he go? They had driven past a sandwich shop on the way into town. So Draco got himself a fish sandwich he didn't deserve.
The scruff Norwegian man regarded him with little dark eyes, his accent thicker than his beard, but the food looked delicious. Draco was sat on the curb shaking like a leaf as he ate. It tasted like nothing, and while the words of their fight came back to him, his stomach revolted.
He shouldn't have done it, he shouldn't have, but he should have. That fucking look on her face after he shook Anette's hand, it was absolute glory; sweet golden sun, fanfares caroling in the distance, a choir singing godly hymns. A short, perfect moment of finite harmony.
To make her see a glimpse of his own life. To see reality wash over her like a tsunami.
And then the car crash, the inevitability, the accident; when her brain caught up and what he should've seen coming, hit him from a blind spot and hurled him into unknown territory.
Of course she would ask him how he knew the truth about Obscurials. It was the most logical conclusion, obvious to him only after he sobered up from the inebriation that was fucking up her life.
He couldn't tell her. He could never trust her. She may know the truth now, but she had still spent years working for the Ministry, never once questioning… anything at all. It was just a matter of time before she decided to turn her back to the truth, it was what people like her did best – and run back into the Ministry's arms, delivering Anette to them and he would have to flee, run away, because once she told them what he knew – they'd be after him.
And he would never get this close to another Obscurial again.
She held his fate in her hand like a fragile little bird.
Draco Apparated to Jøvik , leaving the half-eaten food on the curb of the parking lot, and fell through the front door, legs barely carrying him anymore. He crawled up the stairs, heaving, holding down that terror in his chest, the inevitable doom, not a single clear thought in his mind.
I need to leave.
I can't leave Anette.
I can go to a hotel room.
But then I don't know what Granger is up to. If she is having Anette taken away.
He dissolved into a puddle on his bedroom floor, hunched over and trembling, fingers yanking and tearing at his hair. Guttural sounds clawed out of his chest, prayers to a god that didn't exist.
The panic attack exploded out of him.
The ground underneath disappeared. There was nothing around him. Nothing but that monster in his chest, thrashing and ravaging his insides and he felt sick, everything was sick, his mind, his stomach, his life. Walls that didn't exist closed into him.
Only the panic of losing everything he'd worked for pushing in from all sides, turning the world all colours and no colours at once and he screamed; but his voice lost itself in the universe of it all, enveloping him.
He cried, one desperate, pathetic sound after the other. But no one heard him; no one heard the grief, the loss, the soft sound of it all slipping away. He couldn't breathe anymore – all the air in the room disappeared, making space for all the fear and doom rattling and pulsing in his chest.
He gasped, he shook, he screamed, lungs rattling and his throat opened and closed around the lack of oxygen. The air vibrated with the force of his voice.
The attack may have lasted a minute, an hour, or a day. He only knew that it lasted an eternity.
An endless moment of losing his grasp on everything that he cared about. The most terrifying thing he'd ever felt.
No, not quite.
Draco didn't care about a lot. And yet he'd managed to lose his grip on it, all just to spite her.
Exhaustion pinned him to the floor. Draco had sunk into the carpet, half his face buried. It smelled like dust and feet, and right now, it was the best thing ever. He watched his fingers thread through the beige fur – was it fur? – and how the strands flattened and formed around his hand.
He thought of Anette, her reserved smile, her bright blue eyes as she looked at him with recognition. "Onkle Nikolai?" she'd spoken and he thought, I don't know who that is, but I'll be that for you, anything, to help you, to prove it, to make his loss worth something.
Sounds of the world still turning decorated the background of his mind; doors opening, footsteps, voices, what he heard every night in his cottage in Collobrières. The sounds had never been real, but always comforted him into a dull sleep.
"Malfoy?"
This was new. Draco sat up, bones protesting, and he slumped over. The voice called again. "Malfoy, are you still here?"
This was real. This was Granger downstairs, come back to rub his failure in his face. This was the world not yet done with kicking him into the ground.
Draco got to his feet as quick as they allowed, rubbing his tear-stained face. If she could tell that he had cried, he was simply going to kill her.
There was the solution to all his problems. Simply murder her.
The thought was traitorous, making him laugh out loud, a sharp sound that was bitter and cut deep. Only a second later, footsteps pounded up the stairs. He could just barely assume a relaxed position, leaning sideways against the wardrobe, hands buried in his pocket, before the door crashed open, hinges popping.
Granger was flushed and out of breath, but she stood still, stopping short of crossing the threshold.
"I thought you left. It's been hours," she panted.
Oh.
Draco's eyes darted away. He fucking hated having no answer. But she seemed fine with it.
"Good."
His gaze dashed back to hers. "What?"
She stepped forward, hands patting at the side of her coat nervously.
"I was… worried you'd left. I thought about this whole- this situation. I'm still skeptical about your proof, everything you've said. But I want to propose you a deal."
"And why would I take any deal of yours?" Draco snapped instinctively, and her eyes darkened, brows furrowed.
"Because, I can have the Ministry come take Anette away at any moment. I don't know why you care about her so much, but it's written all over you."
Draco stiffened and turned away, glancing out the window, the same view that had offered him such a hopeful sight just yesterday. How stupid, foolish, utterly hopeless. He might as well be a Gryffindor with how obvious he'd been. Three years in isolation should have made him number, if anything.
Emotions, they were so bloody useless. He felt anger faintly prickling at his fingertips, yearning to lash out like a rabid animal, but the panic attack had sucked all the power out of him. The world was simply washing over him, deciding his fate, and he was watching it happen in a daze. All the panic inside him was gone, cried out and seeped into the carpet, wallowing underneath his feet. There was nothing but dazed indifference.
"I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet. But until I do, you're going to stay here. I won't tell on you until then."
A small bird flew by the window. A prickle of jealousy stung in his chest. He wanted to fly, too.
"And on what basis are you going to make that decision? Going to make me dance? Do I have to pass a test?" he murmured.
"I'm going to write Harry a letter and ask him about the Obscurials. He has a lot of connections. If anyone knows anything, it's him."
Oh bloody hell, Harry fucking Potter was going to decide his fate. The thought churned his stomach.
"Granger, you would have never found out shit without me, what's making you think that Potter would be any wiser?"
His gaze challenged hers then, and her eyes flickered away for a mere second, but long enough to betray her doubt.
"I don't know. I just need some answers, and I think you can agree that getting them from you is less than ideal."
"And how am I supposed to trust you? That you won't have them take Anette or me away in the middle of the night?"
For all he knew, she had already called them. Was biding her time. Would she have been stupid enough to call them?
Granger furrowed her brows in thought.
How do I make this cockroach play along until they arrive? He could hear her think. He glanced at his suitcase under his bed. He could just grab it and…
Not disapparate. Oh fuck. The tracking charm.
"Theo is going to come by later to get the report," Granger mumbled the words half out-loud, lost in her thoughts. Draco glanced between her and the suitcase, another obstacle in his life materializing before his eyes.
"What?"
"You don't think I'll lie to the Ministry. You think I'm their crony. So I'll lie to them. It'll buy us time, too."
The words died on Draco's lips because she had already spun around and stormed down the stairs. He hurried after her.
"Granger, what?"
She was shoulder deep in her purse already, muttering words in between sentences under her breath. Then she pulled out an empty report file, much like the one he'd seen her work on yesterday. She had insisted on writing them, and Draco hadn't really minded; it wasn't as though he was here to actually do work.
"Watch me."
She beckoned him closer, dropping down beside the living room table, clicking a pen in her hand. Draco hesitantly stepped near enough to see what she was writing.
"Case file #98
Subject: Anette Knudsen, female, nine years old.
Observation period has begun. Obscurial is social and responsive, seems in no way agitated. No further incidents.
Date: October 15th, 2003"
And then, like a cherry on top, under the section "complaints and case difficulties," she struck it through.
"And?" she asked, glancing up at him, and he thought that she almost seemed proud. How could she so easily do this? Wasn't lying to her superiors supposed to make her go up in flames?
"Why are you doing this?" he asked. Open, stupid curiosity; but she was so puzzling. He couldn't help it. She folded the report and stuck it into a Ministry envelope, along with yesterday's report.
"I don't have a lot of other choices. And for what I have left, you're useful."
The words were as resolute as could be, as his own earlier that day. She was not questioning him anymore, because she already knew that she was going to get answers either way. The thought made his insides revolt.
"What are you going to write to Potter?" Draco asked instead.
"I'll just tell him what happened and ask him what he knows, of course."
She said it in such a fact-of-matter voice, like it was the most logical thing in the world, opening her purse and pulling out blank parchment. Draco sputtered.
"Are you insane? Granger, if he's in on it, the Ministry will come take us both away, you can't just tell him outright!"
His words sunk in for a frozen moment. And then her shoulders dropped. She knew he was right.
"Fine. You're lucky I haven't told him yet that you're my partner on this case. I've got another thing to ask him anyway. I'll just say that I noticed some inconsistencies with the protocol. Is that fine with you?" she asked in a mocking tone.
"The Ministry could be interfering with your correspondence. If they read your letter–"
"Merlin, Malfoy, I get it!" Her eyes spat fire.
"It doesn't bloody feel like you do-"
"I understand this situation!"
That shut him up, lips resigned and sealed. He hated how she could genuinely do that to him now, he hated it with every fiber in his body, and so he turned around and plowed up the stairs.
Draco wanted to drown himself in the sea, but instead, he spent the rest of the day locked in his room. Cursing everything in existence that had a name, but most of all, himself. Climbing deep into his suitcase and wallowing in self-pity that made him hate himself even more, looking through everything that he had come here for, three years' worth of research all on the verge of going to shit, and he had no power over any of it.
And then Theo came by that evening, quiet and, Draco thought, displeased with having to see them again. Draco had been cooking his supper and he stood in the kitchen opening, watching Granger hand Theo the envelope with a friendly smile.
The door clicked shut behind Theo and Granger turned, their eyes locked, just long enough to make Draco turn and walk back into the kitchen.
This was not going to last.
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