Excerpt from Francoise Mélier's notes, ca. 1544
If the first stage is initiated successfully, the Obscurus will require time to get used to the connection to a lighter magic, accepting it in their proximity; this means, not seeing it as a threat. This stage may require physical and psychological closeness between the Obscurial and the transient. When the Obscurial begins to trust and feel comfortable around the transient, the process will move forward.
To heighten chances of success, it is recommended to attempt the initiation stage with at least one potential transient. If it manages to succeed with two transients, it will be more exhausting for all parties involved, but heightens chances for succeeding. No more than two transients are possible and further attempts will result in rejection. Incompatibility between the Obscurial and the transient will result in rejection.
An hour later, the sun had begun to set, and Draco found himself kneeling beside the copper bowl with a quickly sewn linen bag – he'd been sure he had two in his office, but he couldn't find the second one anymore – placing the two girl's hairs inside and rolling it up neatly.
It had taken him another twenty minutes to finally get to his feet, and Granger was still sure about attempting the ritual again. And with every passing minute, he found the idea more and more appealing.
It heightened their chances of succeeding tenfold. It would make the entire process easier on Draco, with the Obscurus distributed among the three of them; he would still bear the brunt of it being the first transient, but he didn't mind.
And mostly, he knew he couldn't change her mind anyway.
There was a decisive, confident glint in her eyes. He'd rarely seen it before; when she offered her help on their pier ages ago, and when she stole the car. It was less crazed now though; not just a mere impulse, a spur of the moment decision. It had evolved into something much more like the Granger he used to know from Hogwarts.
Conviction so strong and unmoving; surely a sight to behold.
And Anette merely needed a lot more promised ice cream to participate again, as well as a guarantee that this would help the medicine work much better.
"You're sure you're up for this?" Granger asked, and Draco only realized seconds later that she was staring at him, directing the question at him. He scowled immediately.
"Of course-"
"Just wanted to make sure," she interrupted him with a sniff. Draco couldn't help but sneer at the sheer audacity of asking him, like he needed convincing between the two of them.
But still, she was eyeing him weirdly. As if she was waiting for him to topple over again. Not that he would; he felt better now, maybe just a smidge off balance, now clearly feeling the Obscurus in his veins. A most unconventional sensation.
Draco may have been mighty tired, but Salazar curse him before he was too tired to just sit by and make sure nothing happened. His wand slipped into his hand with an annoyed grunt.
"Bloody hell. Here. Glisseo!"
The stairs and its steps turned into a smooth slide instantly. Anette twisted around to look behind her and see what the spell had done.
"Whoa!" Anette breathed in awe. Granger was curling her nose at him. "Show-off."
Draco smirked, satisfied. "May we start, then?"
He moved away from them, back towards the wall, wand ready for intervention. He watched as they placed their hands over each other's hearts, and Granger touched the rim of the linen bag with her wand, starting a slow ember.
"Sidaes Duomoltued Wabaosorae Yumiekre Yumyie Ventultigor Tentilfae Firtuohh Roniucso."
They spoke slowly, the living room air suddenly thick and swollen with that kindling, that tickle of ancient magic once again. It burned at his fingertips, gnawed over his skin like a stingy breeze, and Draco felt it.
In his chest, right by his heart. The Obscurus tugging at him. Not anymore just a tranquil, steady flow of magic alongside his; it awakened at the incantation with a shudder.
Draco shook, involuntarily. His torso jerked, forwards, in the vague direction of Anette, he noted. His hands flew to the side, pressing himself back against the wall.
This was normal, right? He felt the Obscurus just as he should. As Mélier's weeks of diary entries described. That dark energy pounded and pulsed in his ears like the beating of his own heart.
It slashed at him from within. Scratching his ribcage, pushing, bones creaking. His chest felt like it was going to explode. It ached, poignant and nibbling at his flesh with tiny teeth.
He heaved. Bitter iron taste coating his mouth. Was it blood, or the Obscurus?
"Sidaes Duomoltued–"
It roared. Anger, hot red iron anger, it pumped it through his veins and Draco knew then, looking up through his blurry vision at the two girls chanting, it was clouding his vision.
He could see the animosity and the hatred lashing out from Anette, the darkness pulsing within her small form. A dark cloud that encompassed her very being, one every single victim of Obscurials had seen.
Its shapeless limbs shook and jerked, ever closer to Granger, and he realized then, she couldn't see it – neither of them could, the impending death descending upon her.
It happened within seconds.
Granger noticed it far too late.
Good thing Draco was there.
"Protego!"
Charcoal black exploded the exact moment the invisible shield from Draco's wand shot in between the two. Disembodied screams tore the air apart, and the Obscurus' force knocked Draco to his knees, blinded by every single molecule in the room having turned infinite dark.
And just as fast as it had spread, it disappeared back into Anette, suctioning back into Draco's veins the same moment. It shook his limbs, tore muscles and flesh, and the searing white pain felt like death whispering to him.
Is this, this, truly what you want? Is it quite what you imagined?
Someone was panting and heaving, and Draco could not tell if it was him or anyone else. His body had been knocked to the ground in the flash of a second, onto all fours, and the pain disappeared the second his vision cleared.
Anette's head had toppled forward, still sitting cross legged in front of the bowl. Like tunnel vision, Draco could only see her, only her, panic lurched through him, blinding him, jumping his throat, jerking his heart, and he whimpered, a pathetic sound clawing itself out of him. He whimpered, the possibility of it, her lifeless body, the way it swayed towards the ground, and he fell, dragging himself forward as he reached for her with a shaking hand.
"Anette? Anette-"
His fingers wrapped around her arm, and he felt the blazed, fraying edges of the Obscurus tied between them. Burning his fingertips and singeing his hair. She toppled forward, so lifeless, into him, and Draco wrapped his arms around her instinctively. Clammy fingers pressed against her neck.
There was a pulse, most faint, on the edge of life, but it was there – and relief broke out of his parted lips, a choke that stole the air in his lungs.
She sunk against him, completely unresponsive, but alive all the same. His skin prickled where he held her; the Obscurus swaying and moving between them, an ironic life force that kept her blood pumping, rushing in his ears.
Slowly, he turned her in his arms, back to the ground, until she laid beside him, head lolling to the side and a peaceful expression on her face half buried in the carpet.
The Obscurus had retired for now. It pulled back into her, simmering down to a steady flow through his limbs. The explosion had sucked all the energy out of her, only sparing the both of them, Draco realized.
He was a part of the organism now. It wouldn't hurt him.
It would hurt–
He remembered Granger with the low whimper behind him and he whipped around to face her.
She had skidded backwards over the carpet, against the wall, and her sunken form shook with every breath. Ragged air scratching the floor and low whimpers accentuated by every violent jerk.
"Fuck, Granger–"
He crawled towards her on all fours, weakness tearing at his insides, ugly mushy feeling scraping his knees and hands. Her body trembled and heaved at his words; her head had fallen forward much like Anette's, short locks obscuring her face.
"Granger, are you hurt?" he breathed, gripping her shoulder and tilting her back, discomfort lodged alongside his heart at how easily she moved under his hand. Her head swayed from side to side until it lifted, and she peered at him through exhausted lids.
"The ritual–" she began with a lilting voice, and Draco shook his head.
"I felt it, the Obscurus – it was angry, it wouldn't accept you, I had to–"
Her eyes dragged from the copper bowl behind him and Anette deep asleep on the carpet towards his eyes.
"You saved me."
It was a fact, they both realized, and not a question. His shield had saved Hermione from the same fate that had met Bernt Johannsen less than two weeks ago. Draco's wand, always warm and supple where it was tucked against his arm, stuck hot to his skin now. His grip on her shoulder tightened ever so slightly as her eyes found his again, dazed and glassy with shock.
"Thank you–"
She buried her words into his shoulder then, before Draco could deny her. Her body had sunken forwards, into him, and trembling arms wrapped around his neck.
She hugged him with no sense or forewarning, near death laced into the way her breaths pushed short and fast into his shoulder, and the days exhaustion betrayed him, every molecule in the universe was sworn against him in this very moment; instinct abandoned, somber reflexes dissipated into her warm, malleable body leaning into him for support.
His arms snaked around her, shaking in tandem with her, and he hugged her back.
The northern lights returned that night like a loose acquaintance, the wave of a neighbour, the curt nod of an unknown co-worker. The shades of poison green and navy blue flickered weak in the sky far gone above the mountains.
White smoke wafted from his parted lips, and he wondered if he could exhale enough to obscure his vision entirely. If he could forget how ugly and empty his bedroom ceiling looked, how the duvet stuck hot to his skin, if for a smallest moment, his racing thoughts might stop and offer him a wink of peace.
He'd done the impossible; become an Obscurial's transient. Elation, thick in his throat and heavy in his chest, it swelled with every breath; but it deflated when he closed his eyes and saw Anette's still body on the carpet still burned into his eyelids.
Granger's weakness, and how he had to nurse her back to a standing position with pepper up potions and numerous spells, putting them all to bed three hours ago. Three hours of staring at the ceiling or seeing his accomplishments fade behind the image of a lifeless girl; an accomplice, barely evaded death.
Granger continued to be a nuisance. Draco had hung onto that thought, that hope, that her breakdown would fade, and she would eventually leave. He expected her to. He was fine with it.
But then she had to go and try the bloody ritual. Throw him off, make it clear that she was just as serious about this as he was, somehow. Some sickening urge to play the hero again, perhaps; but for all the wrong reasons. Glory and fucking fame, everyone loved her either way. She was the golden girl, war heroine, brightest witch of her age; she had it all, all he had not, and she would steal his glimpse at grandeur simply because she could, and not because she needed it, not like he did.
And then she almost died. And his warm anger, it dissolved into steam and smoke. The soot filling his lungs and purging the oxygen; purging him of her, and her disgusting, everlasting try at goodness, and how easy it came to people like her. He felt the weight of her arms around his neck again, clinging to him with fear and trust, shaky breaths pushing into his shoulder where she hid from the world.
She knew who he was, what he was, and still reached to him for safety. However much of a reflex it'd been.
He wanted to hate her, but the smoke always vanished into the air.
The front door behind him squeaked open.
"I thought you went to bed."
She lingered behind him, night robes shuffling. She had stopped wearing her pantsuits for work ages ago it seemed. Her casual clothes made her infinitely more human than the shapeless work attire.
Draco stared at the burning tip of his cigarette perched on his knee. "Can't sleep."
He stubbed the end into his golden portable ashtray and picked up the packet to retrieve another one. He held it up, over his shoulder, and she didn't make him wait long.
"Me neither. How do you feel?"
She descended the stairs beside him after grabbing the packet, sitting one step down from him, and lit a cigarette with the tip of her wand. He glanced at her profile, the bed ridden, wild curls framing her face, eyes glinting in the northern lights as she watched. His exhaustion was to blame for such a weak, stupid thought, but looking at her then, Draco thought, he liked looking at her. How uninhibited she was in front of him now, tired and in pajamas, smoking with him on stone steps like he was one to trust.
"Better than I thought."
How on earth was she worried about him after almost dying? Was it that bloody stupid Gryffindor heart inside her chest still beating strong, even after the Obscurus near tore it apart?
He almost asked why she couldn't sleep, a stupid, mellow reflex, but caught his tongue.
"I can't stop thinking about the man following us yesterday. Something's not right about it."
Her words splashed him like cold water. That's what kept her awake? He had barely been able to think of yesterday; it felt like years had gone by since.
He glanced back at her again, still watching the lights dance, lost in their grace and shimmer. Not a hint of afterlife in her expression.
She was bloody insane. Near death had brushed her enough times to make it just another part of a particularly bad day.
She was insane, he knew, and the thought made him chuckle. Her gaze shifted towards him at the belated response, eyebrows crunching in confusion. "What's funny?"
"Nothing. What about the man yesterday?" Draco distracted poorly, but her teeth sunk in.
"It clearly wasn't Quentins. If it was someone from the Ministry, there was no reason for him to follow us out of Tromsø into a diner and then just lose us easily. He could have apparated right to Jøvik before we'd have even arrived. Not only that, but they left us alone for the night, until Quentins arrived. And I'm sure that man wasn't Quentins."
Her hasty words spilled out like a toppled glass of water and Draco soaked them up slowly.
"What are you getting at?"
She held her breath, cheeks hollowing around the cigarette. White smoke billowed out of her mouth when she replied.
"Whoever followed us yesterday was not from the Ministry."
He'd known it in a sense. It made far too much sense, and none at all. Elbow perched on his knee and hand pulling through his hair, he emitted a low groan, tortured with confusion.
"Who else would follow us, then? Muggles don't know about Obscurials. Wizarding communities up here are subdued, they all congregate around Oslo. Who– why would anyone follow us? It only started now with Anette, it's clearly about her, but–"
"I don't know either, Malfoy. But I want to find out," she interrupted his verbal string of thoughts with a sigh. He frowned at the snow.
Now it was nagging at him too. That man – nothing about him made sense. Where had he come from? It had already made little sense for the ministry to find them so quickly – but an anonymous man with no discernible rhyme or reason behind his actions was even worse to deal with.
"I thought – there was something on his sweater. Some kind of symbol. Do you remember what it looked like?" she spoke again. Draco rolled his head in his hands.
Maybe he vaguely remembered something, yes; but his memories were a blur, all details lost to exhaustion and stress. "Not really, no."
When he picked his head up again, he found that she had her wand pointed into the air, drawing glowing lines that hovered a small distance away. It was just a circle with a sort of upside-down scepter inside, and small lines diverging from the larger branches.
"I think it was something like that, no?"
Draco stared at the symbol with faint recognition.
"Maybe?"
She huffed. "Either way, I'll look into it. We need to know who he was."
It would have been too perfect to have the Ministry off their backs now and just be able to complete the ritual with Anette over the next few weeks. No, mysterious, nameless men followed them around, and Granger almost got killed.
The only saving grace was the commencement of the ritual for good.
And yet, there was another question. One on the back of his mind for the past week and now finally at the forefront, fighting for attention.
"What are the ministry's theories on how Obscurials are coming into existence?"
The question threw her off. The symbol faded in an instant.
"What?" she blurted, staring at him with blunt confusion. Draco held her gaze as he lifted the cigarette to his mouth again.
"Newspapers only told what the Ministry wanted them to. You lot had to have at least a few theories, no?" he repeated, squinting with suspicion at her words. Her mouth opened and closed, but produced nothing. Her eyes flickered away.
"You have theories, right?"
The silence was all he needed to know.
"What in the absolute–"
"It was never our focus! We were told there's no cure, no way to detect them before an attack, so our department only ever focused on cleaning up the aftermath! We had different objectives–"
"What in Merlin's name were you doing–"
"It was out of my control!" she shrieked, and Draco folded into himself with a loud groan.
This was far worse than anything he could have ever imagined. The department had never even tried to truly do anything.
"There was a small subsection of the department focused on Obscurial origins in the early days, but it got disbanded very quickly. They produced absolutely nothing."
"Oh, hurray," he sneered into his legs, face buried deep in the fabric. She swatted his shin.
"I only did what I was told, it's not my fault."
"Isn't it?"
Her silence was stubborn and poignant. His question lingered and dissolved into the air, and he soon faced the sea again, smoking silently. She was pulling at the seam of her pajamas, avoiding his eyes.
It was one am, the stone steps were cold through their thin bottoms, nature was hauntingly silent, and the only signs of life were the shimmering northern lights.
Draco quite liked it.