Dear Hermione,
Norway sounds amazing. Ginny always mentions how she'd like to see some northern lights in person. She'd be dead jealous of you.
I looked into your questions about Nott, and I only found that he was in some kind of agreement with Moody during the war. He gave the order some information about the conditions at Hogwarts during Seventh Year in exchange for some request. I don't know what came of it.
And what you're saying really worries me. I have no idea what you're talking about Hermione, honestly none, are you okay? You must be mistaken, because it's impossible to survive close contact with an Obscurial. You know that, everyone knows that. Something different must have happened. I'm worried, do you need my help? And you didn't mention who your partner is.
Oh, and before I forget! Ron got a new girlfriend. A very nice girl, you'd like her, I think.
I hope you're okay. Please let me know as soon as possible.
Love,
Harry
Hermione was the kind of morning person who, beginning the second she woke up, was already following a tight, effective schedule.
Kill the alarm, stretch, wash up, get dressed, a quick coffee, sometimes a shower when she hadn't bothered the night before, and she could be out of the house, perfectly done up like she'd been awake for hours, within ten minutes. Efficiency in its purest, most practiced form.
This morning though, Hermione rose from the dead. Or, what she imagined digging oneself out of a grave would feel like.
The first thing she noticed after slowly gaining consciousness – torturously, at a snail's pace, eyes squeezed shut and a ringing in her ears - was the dryness in her throat. Then was the taste of alcohol and cigarettes sitting at the back, scratching and scraping at the soft inner walls of her larynx.
And then came the headache; something encapsulating, pushing in from all sides, like her brain was swelling out of her skull. And when her sticky eyelids opened a smidge to the morning sun shining directly, aggressively, straight at her face, she whined and turned. Dry mouth smacking, grimacing at the pain.
This was the worst feeling she had ever woken up to. Was she dying?
Not quite yet; however slow, her body was still functional, and she managed to turn onto her side, scanning her surroundings. Empty bookshelves, small table, the sun assaulting her through the window, beaming directly into her brain. The unmistakable smell of alcohol and something musty and wet penetrated the air.
She wasn't in her bedroom. She was on the couch down in the living room, no blanket, still dressed in yesterday's clothes. Which were wet. Sticking to her body, uncomfortable and cold, reeking of something murky.
Every move made her head pound worse and if it weren't for the dusty burning in her throat, she would have probably resigned herself to a motionless rest of her days. The mere of thought of sitting up made her moan in pain but she managed to do so anyhow.
Holding her head with both hands, she staggered with bent knees, keeping her head down, one foot in front of the other, towards the kitchen. And then tumbled headfirst over a hurdle sticking out of the floor.
She crashed down with a cry, barely bracing herself and the pain tripled; elbows, arms, knees, her joints screamed. She let out a colourful string of curses, curling up to hold her foot and what she was convinced, were broken toes, stretching her cracking neck to see what she had fallen over.
It was a bulge underneath the carpet already on top of the carpeted floor, curled up, and then it began moving. Groaning.
"What the fuck," the cushioned voice moaned.
"Malfoy?" Hermione croaked, pushing herself up on one arm and glancing over the carpeted heap, until she saw strands of pale blonde hair sticking out the other end.
"Stop kicking me," he whined, and if it weren't for the pounding ache in every single one of Hermione's extremities, she would have rammed her foot into the indefinable shape that was Malfoy, just to make a point.
"What happened? Why did we sleep down…?"
The words lost her. Her head was still swirling, and her tongue lay heavy in her mouth. Oh, she was still drunk.
"Where the fu-"
Moments of shuffling later and he finally emerged from the carpet, sitting up. The carpet rolled stiff and awkwardly in his lap. He leaned back, propped up by both his hands, head dropped low and his messed-up hair shielding his face, he was breathing slowly, as if a single word could open the floodgates to his stomach.
He was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, Hermione noticed; a casual grey shirt with loose, black pants. They looked dark, sticky, also wet. Why were they both wet?
And slowly, last night's events came back to her.
She'd left early in the morning, dreary and with a pit in her stomach. She had dreaded yesterday's date for quite clear reasons, and yet nothing could have prepared her for how terrible she had actually felt right upon waking up. In a ghost town in the deserted parts of Norway, two walls separating her from her childhood bully who seemed to be trying his best to be both most insufferable and mysterious at her expense, and ah yes; the sense of her entire life crumbling around her, manifesting as a physical sharp pain in her stomach. Forcing Malfoy to stay here because she had no idea what else to do was just the beginning of it. Going to work a job that she herself did not quite trust anymore now.
Raising from her sleep into a life of ruins.
She'd felt sick the moment she woke up, so she decided to just leave for the observation trial – Merlin curse her if she stayed in that house for a minute longer than necessary. She'd spent at least six uneventful hours at the orphanage. Alone with her thoughts, trapped in the present and terrified of the future. Thinking of her life, her friends, her apartment. All empty and absent, cold and lacking.
When she came home, two owls were waiting on the front steps: One from Harry, the other from the Ministry.
Their contents came back to her with startling clarity. How they had made a terrible day into a life changingly horrible one. How she Apparated to the rest stop a few miles away to buy as many bottles of alcohol that she could justify buying. And then she'd started drinking.
And then Malfoy had joined her.
"We were on a bender. Oh, Merlin."
She whispered the worlds more so to herself, forced out by the startling realization, but Malfoy heard them anyway.
"That's… Oh, fuck, Granger, your…"
When she looked up, he was staring at her with wide eyes. Painted with genuine surprise.
"What?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious, hands rubbing over her cheeks. She surely hadn't drooled in her sleep, right?
"No, your…"
His hand reached up to thread through his hair. Hermione frowned.
"My hair? What–"
She reached to touch her own, but couldn't find it. She couldn't find her hair.
"What-"
She patted her head – she was not bald, her initial and worst fear – and threaded her fingers through the hair until she reached the ends. Which were barely touching her shoulders.
"What the fuck!"
More memories crashed over her like a tidal wave and even as she tried to get up and run to a mirror, she sunk to her knees again, groaning and holding her head.
She held a long strand of her hair at the tip, stretching it away from her, and watched the scissors work through it with glee, every cut more exhilarating than the last.
"You watched me cut my hair! Why didn't you stop me?!" she screeched at him, but Malfoy just grimaced.
"Please stop yelling, for once in your life –"
Hermione wanted to curse him, but only vague, disgruntled noises pushed out of her, huffing and puffing, and she got back to her feet. The desert burning in her throat was unbearable now.
The counter supported her body weight greatly, and when she hunched over the sink to open the faucet, she was faced with a heap of her own hair. Hermione gaped at the severed locks, knees buckling. Then, Malfoy had to make himself known again.
"Why the fuck am I wet?"
They spent the rest of the morning waking up, curing their hangover and retracing their steps. Neither of them could remember anything. And neither of them seemed to want to speak it aloud; as if admitting the plain truth aloud once more – we were on a bender – could shift the earth and throw them into a bottomless pit of discomfort.
The snow in the front yard was disturbed, from the front steps down to the shore and back up, and it explained why both of them woke up wet from head to toe – at least they didn't skinny-dip, Hermione noted with a cringe.
Almost all the alcohol she had gotten yesterday was gone, empty bottles strewn throughout the house. The bookshelves in the living room were not empty as she'd first thought; they had taken out all of the books and sorted them into piles of indiscernible pattern. They were in Norwegian.
The curtains had been removed from all the windows and thrown into a heap on the floor of the empty bedroom. And of course, Hermione's hair, or lack thereof.
The unseemly reality in which Hermione had somehow gotten drunk with Malfoy, not only survived it but seemingly even enjoyed it, did not make sense yet. She didn't believe it ever would. The boy who once called her slurs in the schoolyard had gone bathing with her in the freezing Norwegian sea last night. It was too ridiculous a thought to consider reality.
Yet here it was.
She sat in the shower, letting the water patter down her back and only spending half as much time on her usual routine. Weak, disoriented limbs rubbing showering gel into her body, ridding her of the musty sea water. The gap in her memories stretched through her mind, taunting her with its emptiness. Seeing the aftermath of whatever they'd been up to was little more than a terrifying reminder that she couldn't actually remember anything itself.
There was no point in driving to the orphanage today. She was too hungover to drive or Apparate, and she didn't really feel as though the work mattered, anyway. And Anette wasn't going to run away. She just needed to figure out what to reply to Harry, and Roberts.
After her shower, she sat on the living room couch in front of an enlargened mirror, trying to even out her cut as much as possible, regrettably with the same scissors from last night. For the life of her, she could not find different ones. Malfoy was in the kitchen cooking and doubling over with pain every 30 seconds. Their hangover kept them suitably miserable all throughout the day.
"What are you making?" Hermione called, turning her head from left to right and evaluating the end product. She immediately winced in pain at the motion, her brain swirling with pain.
He had only cooked for himself during their stay so far, but she could not think him cruel enough to deny her food after last night.
"Who said I'm making any of it for you?"
The mood between them was lighter now. Though she couldn't remember much from last night, except for fleeting moments of unhinged delirium, laughter and only half-serious insults, she did not forget the first time he made her laugh.
The state she'd been in when he found her was… nightmarish. Mortifying to think that Malfoy of all people had seen her like that. But not only did he not judge her, but somehow even managed to distract her from it, whether he intended to or not – which she didn't think was the case. The thought still sent shivers down her spine; that he was there for her ridiculous, foolish, juvenile mental breakdown. Whenever she had cried around Ron, he just awkwardly patted her on the back and said variations of "there, there". Ron had never been good with emotions. Always somehow making her feel like she should take herself elsewhere. And Malfoy, he'd seen her at her worst.
And he was still here.
"I get it," he'd said, and for some reason, Hermione believed that he really did.
"I'll vanish it all in a second if you keep it from me," she replied. There was no smile tugging at her lips as she said it. Absolutely not.
The haircut was good enough. She shrunk the mirror and stuffed it back into her purse shuffling into the kitchen to find water, or better even, coffee.
She dropped in two sugars and stirred the mug, propping herself up against the counter while she watched Malfoy cook. A large sizzling pan stood on the stovetop; its contents hidden by a lid. He was hunched over a cutting board, neatly slicing wedges of gooey cheese. He inclined his head towards her, noticing her watching him.
"It's tartiflette. A French dish with onions, potatoes and cheese. It's perfectly greasy for a hangover."
Hermione nodded, nursing the cup still. The air between them was lighter now, yes, but that made it odd, she had to admit. Almost amiable, and she didn't know what to think of it. After all, he was cooking for them. She wondered if maybe, this was all a dream still.
She didn't know what else to say, so she waved her wand, plates and cutlery floating out of cupboards and setting themselves up on the kitchen table and then laid down on the couch, constantly pulling on the shortened ends of her hair, expecting them to go down way past her chest.
Her hair had never mattered to her much, but people told her, especially post Hogwarts, how pretty it was. She'd wanted to cut it off for a while now, but Ron had always insisted that he liked long hair better. She hadn't minded then, but she did now. The more she thought about it, the more it felt like a literal burden off her shoulders.
Yet another one remained. The one that was the entire rest of her life, or rather, what remained. And how she ended up hungover in Jøvik, waiting for Draco Malfoy to finish making lunch.
Right now, she was supposed to wake up with Ron, after their wedding night, and start their honeymoon. She was supposed to know what she was doing. Be on the cusp of getting the promotion. Celebrate her perfect life with her friends.
Instead, all she had left was a ring on a necklace and two letters that put the nail in her coffin. And the company of her mysterious schoolyard bully.
"It's done," he called right then as if he'd read her mind, and Hermione groaned as she got up.
He'd already begun eating what looked like well roasted slices of potato, mixed with finely chopped and browned onion and cheese melted on top, steaming and stretching in between the fork and plate with every bite. It looked and smelled absolutely delicious.
Hermione loaded a good portion from the pan onto her plate and the first bite made her groan. He was right; it was perfectly greasy and salty, potatoes roasted just right, and along with the cheese, gave it the perfect gooeyness. Her stomach roared.
"I found a can of half opened beans in the fridge. I think we tried to open it with a few knives last night," Malfoy said after a few moments of content silence, filled only with hasty and primitive food shoveling. Hermione turned her head to glance towards a can on the counter. The top was entirely slaughtered, metal partially broken, sticking into and out of the can, curling into itself or ripped apart.
"You said you were a depressed drunk," Hermione noted then, remembering the early moments, before it all turned into dark haziness.
"I thought so too," Malfoy replied indifferently, stuffing another forkful into his mouth. Hermione hummed.
"Well, have you decided yet? What you're going to do?" he spoke after a few moments. He'd almost finished already. Hermione leaned back, breathing slowly. She'd tried to avoid thinking about this exact thing.
She'd threatened him with the Ministry. There was absolutely no way she would call them now, with them watching her correspondence with Harry – who had been her only hope.
And only friend who could have helped her.
But Malfoy didn't know that. Or, he hadn't figured it out yet. It was risky, she knew, but there was literally no other option. She was out of cards, and he knew that. He must know, after seeing her like that.
And she was still curious why he was here. He might not be who she initially thought, but there was still no explanation for his fixation on Anette anywhere in sight. But she felt it, deep within her; a slumbering memory of how curious she used to be. How she always wanted to know as much as possible.
The desire for a perspective.
She returned her gaze to him. He was watching her, waiting, light eyes intense and attentive. She took a deep breath, willing the courage.
"You're going to tell me what you came here for, or I'll call the ministry."
He seemed frozen. Absorbing her words. Considering them.
You'll call the guys who lied to you? Really? he was supposed to say. He was supposed to call her bluff.
But once again, like last night when he sat down and accepted the drink, he didn't play by the rules, and Hermione found herself stunned.
He was so unpredictable. She hated it.
"Just because we got drunk together doesn't mean we're suddenly best friends now, Granger. Why would you even care?"
He had leaned back, crossed his arms and watched her. Somehow, eyes even sharper now. Like a shark watching out for a second of lethal hesitation.
Hermione's jaw clicked. She could not look away. He had dark eye circles, but somehow, they just made his light eyes even more brilliant. Almost scary.
"I never said that. And if you've noticed, my loyalties aren't what they used to be."
So why would you call the Ministry on me then?
"And what will you do when I tell you?"
When. She wondered if he'd noticed his mistake.
"As long as your intentions are pure, I'm sure we'll come to a satisfactory conclusion."
He inclined his head, eyes flickering towards the kitchen window, above the sink. It showed only a small rectangle of the main street, at eye height when you stood at the sink. Hermione's eyes flitted across his profile, the sharp cut of his jaw, the whisps of hair framing his face. She needed to stop staring.
"Pure intentions?" he mumbled, lost in thought. Eyes dazed, like he wasn't even sure himself. Then, his gaze dragged back to cross hers. A dark expression, despite his clear eyes.
She swallowed. And nodded.
"Fine. I'll tell you."
He made her wait on the bed while he descended into his suitcase. She tried to get a glance inside but only saw a carpeted floor, shelves of books and boxes illuminated by a warm glow before he shut the lid above him.
When it opened, he hauled a box onto the floor and snapped the case shut again. He moved it to the front of the bed, lifting the lid, and Hermione stared down at it. There were files and folders piled on top of each other, no titles or descriptions anywhere.
"What is it?"
"That, Granger," he said, kneeling down with a pained groan and taking files from the top to spread them out, "is a cure for Obscurials."
He was avoiding her gaze on purpose. She gaped at him, the tingle of a laugh playing at her lips.
Oh, he was crazy. That was it. He had gone insane.
"A cure."
"Yes."
"For Obscurials."
She said the words slowly, enunciating every syllable clearly. Checking. He was still not looking at her.
"Yes. For Obscurials."
She finally laughed then, head thrown back, neck cracking, but the pain barely bothered her. So this was all for nothing, then.
"Malfoy, there is no cure for Obscurials. It's an incurable condition. If there was a cure, the ministry would have…"
The words died in her throat. He finally glanced at her, a victorious glint.
"There is. Well, I'm pretty sure there is. I found all of this in one of my family's estates. They're the works of a wizard named Francoise Mélier, from the sixteenth century. It's years of research and his diary."
Hermione leaned forward slowly, taking in all of the information he was putting in front of her.
"How do you know if it works?" she asked.
"I don't. But I've spent three years working on this, Granger. It makes sense. I wouldn't be here if it didn't."
He was looking at her like that again, with that uncomfortable intensity. Scowling. Offended.
She crossed her arms.
"Okay then. Explain it to me."
"Francoise developed this healing process out of two parts, a bonding ritual and a potion. He found a potion that was used to inject magic into Muggles. It was some kind of torture that I think dark wizards would use to kill Muggles with. Francoise mirrored all of the instructions and ingredients to develop a potion that would do the opposite; eject a kind of magic from a person."
"An Obscurus from the Obscurial," Hermione mumbled, taking the parchment and scanning the list of ingredients. Neat handwriting; she thought it was his, copied onto new parchment. There was an older copy, probably the original, kept in the back. The air around it whirred with strong protective and restorative charms. Of the ingredients, each was rarer than the other, and even the common ones, near impossible to obtain. This… actually made some semblance of sense.
"But to eject an Obscurus would be a horrible, painful process. No child could survive that."
Malfoy nodded and scanned the ground for another file, snatching it up quickly when he spotted it, leafing through the pages.
"That's why Francoise held onto this potion for years. He knew this, and he waited for something else to come along. He found a ritual, an ancient binding ritual that used to be practiced in magical communities as a sort of marriage rite all over Europe and North Africa, over two thousand years ago. It would bond two peoples magics forever. He adapted it to make one wizard or witch bond with an Obscurial instead."
He pulled out one piece of parchment, another handwritten copy, and handed it to her.
"The bonding ritual has four stages to it, which can last for weeks until they're completed."
Hermione slowly clambered off the bed, kneeling down to read the details of it.
"Stage 1:
The first initiation process may only be achieved by certain individuals, so called transients…"
"That's the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard. I didn't even know wizards used to do that. And even if that is real, to be bonded with an Obscurus would be absolutely lethal," she argued. Malfoy inclined his head, a rapid nod.
"I know, that's where the potion comes in. Once the bonding ritual is finished, the Obscurial will drink the potion as soon as possible, and the exertion of ejecting the Obscurus will be shared by the people sharing the bond. Francoise posed that once the Obscurus, the magic that the transient was bound to, was ejected, the bond will break too, and the Obscurial will just…"
"Be a child," Hermione mumbled.
"Exactly."
There was silence. Profound and heavy with the information lain before them.
Hermione scorned her earlier reaction. She could barely believe it. However little she wanted to admit it, it was logical. Malfoy was not a lunatic.
He may actually have found a cure. It made sense, just as he'd said. It was dangerous, yes, except…
"Francoise Mélier. Did he ever succeed at curing an Obscurial?" she spoke. Malfoy shook his head.
"He tried. He led a diary about it, but right before the fourth stage, it cuts off. Never continued it."
"Well then he died. Obviously." Hermione scowled.
"I thought so too, until I found out where he lived, and when. He lived in Mérindol, a southern French village, and he spoke of the family he lived with a lot. They were practicing Waldensians. His last entry is on April 15th, 1545 - right around the Mérindol massacre, when all Waldensians in the village were either killed or sent to the French galleys to work as slaves."
Hermione let the information sink in. Tried to wrap her head around it. And failed.
"I need to think about this. And I need to sleep."
She stood up slowly, staggering towards the door. Malfoy was still sat on the ground, facing all of the work. Quiet. Finally, she knew, what he had come here for. When she turned back towards him, hand on the handle, he was looking up at her. In that moment, she thought, he was going to say something. It was the way his lips parted, the way his eyebrows were drawn in slight disbelief, as if he could not fathom what he'd told her. Maybe even a bit angry still.
But he didn't. So she left.
They spent the rest of the day in their respective rooms, the house resting with them amidst the tumult of last night and the truth of today. Theo was supposed to come get the new reports, but Hermione sent him a message to come pick them up tomorrow. Meanwhile she wrote dull and taciturn responses to Harry and the Ministry, assuring them that she had made a mistake, and everything was as it should be.
It was the biggest lie she'd told in years. It felt oddly freeing.
Hermione was sprawled on the bed, replaying the cure over and over in her mind, thinking about the thousands of ways it could go right and wrong. And the remaining question of why, because potentially suicidal acts with no proof of success just for the slight chance of helping someone he didn't know, was not really what she expected of a lot of people. And especially not Malfoy.
A knock on the door ripped her out of her thoughts. She made a non-committal sound and then Malfoy stood there. She had no idea why she was surprised; it was, after all, still a horrible fact that they lived together.
"What?" she sighed, sitting up. He was leaning in the doorframe, hunched shoulders, crossed arms. She frowned.
"I won't… I can't…"
His voice died and he squeezed his eyes shut, grimacing. Hermione wondered if he was malfunctioning. And she had just started to believe that he was a human being capable of emotions.
"Wha–" she began, but he cut her off, words pushed out of him at once, rapidly, like they hurt to say.
"I'm sorry. About Hogwarts. How I treated you, because of your blood. It doesn't matter. It never did. I was wrong. And about what happened at the Manor, during the war. That too."
A pin drop could have been heard. Hermione had stopped breathing. His eyes locked onto hers tentatively.
"I know you're not sure what to do about all of this yet, but… it doesn't matter. It's overdue. I'm sorry."
Hermione nodded slowly, dazed. He straightened up, raising out of the uncomfortable stance, placing his hand on the doorknob.
"That's all. Night."
And the door closed behind him, and when Hermione wondered why he hadn't waited for her to say that she accepted his apology – she realized then, that she did.
Because he didn't need it.