A/N: Hi, friends! So glad you all seemed to enjoy the last chapter. Remember those happy thoughts as we push forward.
I have finished drafting out the remaining chapters, and as long as no new ideas come, there are only FIVE left after this one! FIVE! Granted, they should be a bit longer than the average has been after this one. Can you believe how fast time has flown since this fic started? Thank you to everyone who has hung out with me over the past five months, and a big welcome to the folks just joining us. There will be a few more thoughts from me at the end of this chapter, because, well… you'll see.
Very small trigger warning for self-induced vomiting near the end of the chapter. You'll know it's coming, so you won't have to skip much.
The sound of the birds outside wakes both of us up. I don't open my eyes at first, instead choosing to feel the weight of her on top of my arm and feel the roughness of her hair pressed against my chin. None of it should feel comfortable, but if I could stay here, just like this, I could go days without moving. Maybe she is pondering the same thing because it takes a long while before either of us speaks the day into existence.
"What did you dream about?" She finally asks, her soft voice breaking through the silence.
I take a moment to try and remember.
"I don't think I dreamt at all."
"Everybody dreams." She's right, as always, and the memories of old dreams shuffle through my head. Nightmares, mostly. But last night's reel remains blank.
"Maybe my head was just wasting time until I could be back here with you."
She chuckles and makes a joke about how strange it sounds to hear me be so sweet, later adding that she is happy to get used to it.
"Alright, what did you dream about, then?" I ask, grateful for the chance to finally have the opportunity.
Hermione dreamt about Hogwarts, which apparently isn't too uncommon for her. She tells me about how she imagined herself back in a Potions class taught by Professor Slughorn, where she had a very long list of potions to brew before she could leave. It felt never-ending, she explains, as each potion became more complicated than the last.
"Well, that doesn't sound like a very good dream."
"It wasn't. That is, until somebody finally showed up to help me."
I glance down at her, and a look on my face appears that surely screams a desire for the person to have been me. The honour of being in Hermione Granger's dreams… I wonder if I've been in them before. Perhaps now, in these last few weeks, but also before. When they might have been nightmares
She finishes telling me about it and how we completed the list and earned Slughorn's praise. I laugh, asking if academic success was the best part of the dream. It turns into chatting about Hogwarts stories, run-ins with professors, and our most memorable projects.
"It's strange how so much of our experience there was the same while also being so entirely different," she eventually points out.
I don't respond. The thought of how she means it, and just how much truth there is to it, doesn't need to be revisited while we're in bed like this, my naked skin still pressed up against hers. I kiss her instead, shameless from the lingering taste of too much alcohol still probably sleeping in my breath.
Bits and pieces of the night prior come back to me as my tongue melts into her mouth. The broom flying, the brownies, and the taste of her are all still there, still screaming into my head that they happened. But what happened after we came back to my bedroom floats further away, just out of reach. All that I know is that we didn't do everything that I had wanted to. But now, memory-making ability intact, we could try again.
We spend a long time just kissing, hands in each other's hair, making no effort to trail them further south or to move the occasion along. Our bodies slowly finish waking up through each other, and each kiss is like a shot of espresso running through my veins. Finally, it occurs to me that maybe she is waiting for me to make the first move again, to show her that I'm finally ready and nerve free. I could do it right away, too. I could pull myself on top of her, bring my hands to all the right places, and pull myself into her. She would let me. She would give me permission to try it in all the ways that I needed to so that I might get used to the feeling. But it occurs to me that there can be this moment, here and now, with the promise of pleasure, and staying with it for a little while almost feels as good as the thought of jumping right into it. So, I take it slow, gently running my finger from the tip of her ear to her neck, and then across her clavicle, and then down the space between her breasts, pausing briefly before continuing down.
There is the familiar sound of a pop outside the bedroom door, which was fortunately closed by one of us during our drunkenness before bed. Tomsy must know that this morning isn't one to be intruded upon. But still, a gentle knock comes at the door as I start to kiss my way down Hermione's neck.
She giggles at the sound of it, and I throw my head against her body with a groan of frustration.
"Not now, Tomsy!" I shout at the door.
He knocks again.
"Tomsy, could you come back later?" Hermione says, loud enough for him to hear but gentle enough so that he doesn't feel yelled at. My tone, in comparison, feels rude.
"Master Draco is to be told that Miss Collins is here and that she cannot be left waiting," Tomsy says hesitantly.
"We'll be out shortly," Hermione replies, knowing that I don't have the strength to answer in kind. We lock eyes, my face now so much lower on her body, and I wonder if there is still time. I keep kissing, moving my head against her thighs, leaving her skin wet from my lips as she lets out a soft sigh, eyes still glued to each other.
"We should get up," she whines to herself.
"Do we have to?" I beg.
"You know he will only come back."
She is right. With the greatest strength, I pull myself away from her and offer her a hand to stand up. She stands by my bed, briefly considering where her wand is, and my eyes glue themselves onto the sight of her body in the light pouring in from the window. She looks like a sculpture fit for the gardens, for museums, for me and me alone.
"Stop looking at me and start getting dressed," she laughs, taking the time to glance at my form as well.
As Hermione shuffles through her things and pulls out her clothes from the day before, transfiguring them into something more comfortable, I grab the closest things that I can find and hurriedly throw them on, eager to finish whatever conversation Valencia absolutely must have. I can just barely hear her heels clicking on the floor below, probably circling about as she waits. She probably already has a coffee in hand, thanks to Tomsy.
Valencia is doing exactly what I had imagined when we finally make our way down the staircase. Her eyes glance from me to Hermione, surely knowing what we have been up to. Her eyes don't scream disgust or curiosity. There is almost a sadness to them that I haven't seen before, and it makes my stomach do a familiar flip of concern.
"We need to talk," Valencia says as soon as we've reached the bottom of the stairs.
"And it couldn't wait?" I ask frustratedly, holding back rudeness.
"No. It couldn't. Do you want her here for this?" She asks, glancing at Hermione with zero politeness.
I bring my eyes to Hermione, who seems momentarily stunned in the change of tone from what Valencia usually has for her.
"Of course," I say confidently, pulling my hand out to grab Hermione's.
"Well, the trial has been moved up by a month," she starts. Hermione and I lock eyes again, and a sense of fear glazes over hers. "And I'm wondering if you knew anything about this?"
There was a night when Bellatrix stormed into the manor, yelling something about an Order member being spotted in Diagon Alley. They could have been captured and interrogated if we knew about the trip, and she would have loved to do the honours. She directed her anger at Mother, suggesting that she may have known about it beforehand. I was unsure as to why. But my instincts told me to protect her, and so I put myself between her and Bellatrix, wondering if it would make a difference or just hurt us both. In the end, it barely mattered, because Bellatrix was too distracted by her anger to place it anywhere.
A similar desire to protect Hermione rushes through me, and I move my body ever so slightly, ready to defend her if the time came.
"No, I haven't heard a thing," Hermione replies confidently.
"Strange, considering how the Wizengamot has already relied on you an awful lot for this case."
The air in the room changes. There is tension, and something waiting beneath the surface, ready to break through. It doesn't feel right, and I want to pull Hermione back up the stairs, throw her under the blankets and wait for it to go back to the way it was. But her hand stiffens in mine, and I can feel sweat emerging from beneath her skin.
Nobody is saying anything. Hermione's eyes have widened, too, daring Valencia to do something that I'm unsure of.
"What's going on?" I finally ask, regretting it the second that I do.
"Do you want to tell him, or should I?" Valencia asks, still turning to Hermione.
"It's not what you think it is, I promise," Hermione begs. "You don't know how little it mattered."
"How what mattered?" I surprise myself again by asking.
"How Miss Granger here didn't just become your friend by coincidence or camaraderie. She was instructed to."
I feel Hermione grab onto my hand even tighter now, desperate not to let go. The words don't make sense to me, and I think back to the first time that she came to visit me and how she told me that she wanted to see if I wanted some company. I didn't then. And how did they change? She kept coming back and found ways to get me to talk. Simple, really. But if she didn't come on her own, then why? And how had I been so foolish to believe her when she explained why she returned? But maybe it was Miss Collins who was lying now.
"It was only the first time," Hermione says, defeated, confirming the worst.
My hand tries to move before my thoughts can, pulling away from hers. She tries to hold on by tightening her grip, but I whisk myself away, backing up until I would no longer be able to protect her if I needed to.
"What?" I say, almost in a whisper, looking only at Hermione. She looks scared. It's as if she knows that she must defend herself but doesn't have the strength to. Her eyes plead with mine, and I want to believe her. The opportunity is still there to run back upstairs with her. We could stay there until the trial comes and let Valencia figure things out on her own. I'd do it, too, but what if Valencia's suggestions are true? That she had come here with an ulterior motive? And what if she still has it?
"It seems as if your friend here was under Ministry orders to check up on you. It's not illegal, but I'd say it's a little unethical, don't you think, Miss Granger?"
Their silence starts to scream, and it's only now that I notice Tomsy, standing in the corner of the room, watching it all unfold. He looks scared, too.
"Draco, I know it sounds bad. I know I should have told you. But that's not why I'm here! I swear it!"
And just like that, I need the moment to be over. For everybody to be gone. The insides of my chest start to feel like it is crumbling in on itself, and like the only thing that would stop it is by setting it ablaze. My mouth feels frozen, but no words find themselves trying to come out.
"Granger, I think it best if you leave. Draco and I need to start preparing for this new court date. It seems like you've exhausted your abilities to help."
"Draco!" Hermione turns to me again, needing me to understand something that she can't possibly mean. But her skin doesn't look like her skin anymore, and her eyes don't look like the ones that I would have gone swimming in only moments before. My feet start propelling me forward, carrying my body to the fireplace. There is a sac of Floo powder in my hand before I know what's happening, and I'm holding it out to her, urging her to leave. There are tears in her eyes as she steps into the fireplace, pleading whispers dripping from her lips as the fire licks her away.
And then there is nothing but a chill running through the manor, like a light gone out.
Valencia waits around the corner, looking angry but eager to get to work. I need her to leave, too.
"Before we can start to re-strategise, I need to know what you told her. Is there anything that she knows that she could tell the Wizengamot? Or that she has already told them?"
"I don't know if that's something she would do," I suggest, thinking back to how intimate it felt to tell her all the things that I'd done. It had felt like relief and even acceptance. Not like I was giving her ammunition to use against me. She had done something wrong. But it couldn't be what Valencia was suggesting, could it?
"I've seen it before, Draco. People lie all the time to collect secrets. I've seen people go a lot further than Hermione has in order to uncover the truth."
She starts to tell me a story about another case she worked on where something similar had happened. Her client had been betrayed by a friend. But I stop listening long before the story is over, instead listening to my own thoughts repeating every word that I'd ever told her, about Cruciatus curses and Olivia and all the others.
"I told her everything," I interrupt her story, defeated.
She takes a deep breath and collects herself before speaking further.
"Okay. Now we know. We don't need to let this ruin the case. We still have hope, and our strategies, and testimonies, and everything else we have been working on."
"Whatever," I manage, slowly starting to imagine the lake at Hogwarts, hopeful to bring my mind anywhere but here.
"I'm going to get to work right away to try and do some damage control. We have got to speed things up now that the trial is coming closer. I'll be back as soon as I need to be. And in the meantime, I'd suggest not talking to anybody but me."
I don't watch her leave. Not consciously, at least. But the second that I know she's gone and see that Tomsy has crept off, too, I can't help but collapse my legs, finding myself sitting on the floor against the wall, slumped under a portrait of a witch that lived hundreds of years ago. The manor feels emptier than it has in weeks, like all the time that passed since I arrived had been a dream. Maybe I occluded too hard on my first day, or maybe I was still back in Azkaban and had just lost my mind, dreaming up all the things that could happen if I gave myself space to grow. It would be so easy to wake up and see the four windowless walls and to spend my days waiting for meal trays and nothingness. I sit for what feels like hours, begging myself to wake up somewhere else, but it never happens.
If this were all real, and I have been living in the manor for weeks, slowly falling for Hermione Granger, a muggle-born wizard, preparing for a trial where I'd face the consequences for my actions as a Death Eater, then that would mean that I betrayed my old life for somebody who betrayed me. I had begged her to obliviate me. Maybe this was why she wouldn't so that I could finally face charges. Maybe she never felt anything for me at all.
Every day with her replays itself in my head again, from our first meetings about books to this morning, now so far away, where I wanted to give her everything and more. And then nothing. I barely feel angry or upset. Instead, I feel like a fool for letting my hopes get the best of me. I shouldn't have ever stopped being so distrusting. Should never have stopped checking every exit, every corner, for the worst to pop up. Because it had been in front of me the whole time, disguised by something beautiful.
Our potion-making night, the first night that it felt like something beyond friendship could be hiding behind the curtain, replays in my mind. That bloody potion that I spent days agonising over, wondering why she had left it for me. And now it was there, taking up space in my stomach, drunk with the promise of peace. I have to get rid of it, to empty myself of everything that will let me hold onto this despair.
My body feels like a stone as I drag it up the staircase, back into my room. I pause from the doorway, looking at the bed. Sheets still tangled from her body. Our body. The smell of citrus and hairspray in the air. Of sweat and sex. It makes me gag, helps me on my mission to dispel the Draught of Peace, to return to who I once was. I'm kneeling over the toilet seat moments later, three fingers shoved down my throat until I can feel beyond my uvula. My eyes fill with tears from the discomfort of it all, and I can feel my teeth scraping against the skin of my hands. It all starts coming up, slowly at first and then like an unstoppable force. The remains of the drinks from last night, the brownies, the Draught of Peace. I pray that it takes away the feeling of her inside of me, too, from the taste of her lips to the moans that I swallowed with my own.
All that remains afterward are the remnants of her in my room. I look back at the bed and briefly wonder what she is doing. Is she at home, cuddled up in her own blankets with her cat? Or is she at the Ministry, writing reports about me? I shake the thought away, clinging to the idea that I'm not allowed to think about her anymore.
I shed my clothes and throw them onto the mess of the rest of the room and slam the door closed behind me as I enter the hallway. There is a guest room on the other side of the manor. It's one of many but the furthest from my room, so I retreat to it, throw myself in the shower and scrub myself of any lingering scent, and crawl under the covers. I snap my fingers for Tomsy, and he arrives moments later, confused as to why we're not in my room. He doesn't question it, though, and I want to ask him if he understands. But he wouldn't. Couldn't. He leaves again, returning quickly with potions to help me sleep, and I drink two of them. I drift off, wondering which Death Eater occupied this room last, before realising that whoever it was had been replaced by me now, and it doesn't occur to me to care at all.
A/N: We're back to some angst, pals. I know this is a huge shift, but we can't just have all love and sex without a little bit of a twist, right? Just have faith in the story and try to imagine what's happening from Hermione's POV, too. No promises, but I might release a chapter earlier than next weekend. I'm desperate to write what happens next.