Story Notes!

Hi everyone... and thank you all so, so much. The response to the last, rather scary chapter was so brilliantly supportive, we appreciate every kudos, comment or review we get on this story so much. This chapter is quite a lot less intense so no trigger warnings are necessary. Phew! Hopefully it will explain a few things that are going on in the story slightly better though. Anyway I hope you all like it and we will be back soon with the next installment!

In the meantime I'd just like to thank champagneandliterature for the ongoing support, cheerleading and all round co writing on this story. I wobble on this one far more than any of the others, so your help is very much valued and appreciated!

See you all soon, love Claire. (Phoenix) XXxx

Chapter 7 - Elements.

Hermione settled herself carefully on the sofa, intending to read one of the books she had picked out of the cottage's small library. She had been living at Transmarina Cottage for two weeks now, and time and the healing potions Pansy was giving her were working wonders to ease her injuries. Her physical wounds were all gone, and good food was helping her to regain a little of her strength, but she couldn't seem to shake the tremors or the residual exhaustion that the Cruciatus curse had left her with.

Pansy insisted that it would take longer than two weeks to recover fully from such a harrowing ordeal, but Hermione was impatient. She wanted to recover as quickly as possible so that she could be more active. Doing so little gave her a lot of time to think, and as such, she was running out of ways to avoid processing the excruciating memories of her time in captivity.

She stifled a sigh into silence, then remembered that she didn't have to attempt to be invisible anymore. Not drawing attention to herself was a survival strategy she had long ago mastered. Remaining quiet in her captor's presence had caused them to leave her alone for extended periods of time and while that was unnecessary here, some habits were proving harder than others to break.

She shifted position on the sofa, turning to look outside. It was yet another beautiful, hot summer day. The patio doors were open, letting the cooling sea breeze in to flutter the curtains and leave a trail of goosebumps across her skin. The view was spectacular. She watched the seagulls as they flew on silent wings, swooping dramatically up into the air then down into the water, then looked up as Draco stepped into the lounge holding a pitcher of iced lemonade and a pair of glasses in his hands. "Hi," he said, smiling softly and sitting down on the sofa opposite her.

She smiled doubtfully in answer as a knot clenched tightly in the pit of her stomach. Draco looked a little unsure of himself too, and Hermione pulled her knees more snugly into her chest, still feeling hesitant around him. This was the first time they had properly been alone together since Blaise had brought her here. "Where is everyone?" she asked.

"At work, out in the garden, or playing about in the cove," Draco answered as he poured the drinks. "When you're feeling up to it we'll take you down there. It's beautiful. You can just step out of the garden and onto the path. It's only two minutes walk away."

"Thank you." She took the lemonade he passed her with a smile, grateful that he was making an effort to be kind. "That sounds lovely."

He nodded as he sat down and studied his glass intently. "It is. You and I need to talk. Is now a good time?"

"Do we?" Hermione sipped from her glass, watching him warily again. Just being alone with him was putting her more on edge than she cared to admit, but she refused to show that in front of him. "This is very nice. Thank you."

Draco smiled. "I'll tell Blaise since he made it. He's an excellent cook. Look, Hermione, I'll be honest, Harry and Ron both seem to think you're still too weak for this conversation, but I'm not so sure, which is why I'm starting it while they're not around. Don't tell them I said this, but they're both rather protective of you, it can be a little intimidating at times. Tell me if they're right though, I don't want to assume or push you too soon. This is going to be rather a lot to take in."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. That was the absolute last thing she would ever have expected Draco Malfoy to say. She took a deep breath as she tried to recover some of her composure. "Harry and Ron have always tried to protect me. I prefer to make my own decisions, actually," she answered warily. "I think I'm strong enough for a conversation."

Draco chuckled. He pulled a miniaturized book out of his pocket, pointed his wand at it, and enlarged it to its enormous normal size. "That's what I thought you'd say. What do you know about Elemental Magic Hermione?"

"Not very much at all," she admitted, pushing her curls out of her face, her interest piquing as she stared curiously at the book. It looked ancient. It was leather-bound, and somehow it seemed to give off an air of mystery, similar to some of those in the Restricted Section at Hogwarts.

Draco smiled at her look of longing, and it appeared to be a genuine smile rather than a mocking one. Hermione suddenly realized that although she had been here for two weeks, the amount of time she had spent in Draco's presence had been strangely minimal. She had been deliberately avoiding him, although she wouldn't have admitted that to anyone, was it possible that he had been keeping out of her way too? "Here you are then. This book is from the library at Malfoy Manor. Neither Ron nor Harry will do more than look at it. Ginny's skimmed it. But none of them will bother to actually read it. I thought you might be different." He held the book out, breaking through her scattered train of thought.

"I generally am when it comes to books." She reached forwards then gasped at the sudden, sharp stab of pain in her side. Draco pointed his wand at her ribs, whispered a spell, and the pain receded as suddenly as it had begun while a look of surprise crossed his face. "Thank you."

"No problem." Hermione watched him blink his obvious confusion away, then levitate the book over to her rather than have her reach for it again. It landed gently on her lap as she considered him curiously. "You need to tell Pansy you're still in pain. She'll heal it for you again."

"Okay, I think I will mention it." Hermione ceased the gentle rubbing of her side to open the book. Her guess had been correct, this book was older than most of the ones she'd seen in her life, and she could accept that the others had a point. It certainly wasn't going to be a quick read. Draco watched her raptured expression as she ran her fingers over the ancient parchment pages.

"Shall I leave you to read that on your own, or would you like a verbal lesson from me as well?"

Hermione sat forwards on the sofa tucking her hair behind her ears and looking up from the book again. "Yes, please. To both, I mean." For a moment, Draco looked totally lost. She gazed at him in confusion, trying, and failing, to read his expression. "What is it?" she asked gently, sensing his inner turmoil although she wasn't sure how.

"You're very different from the others, aren't you?" he asked, as if that was an explanation for the myriad of emotions flooding his face. Hermione blinked in even further confusion. Again, this was Draco Malfoy, apparent king of Occlumency and mind magic. He was perfectly capable of keeping his emotions under wraps so why was he choosing to show her every single feeling he had? "Ron and Harry looked at the size of the book in horror, it was clear they were never going to read it so I didn't push the issue," Draco continued. "They listened while I tried to explain what was going on, then just accepted what I told them, mostly without question. Harry queried the practical parts but Ron just went along with whatever Harry said. I get the feeling that they still don't really understand what's going on here even now."

Hermione nodded, her eyes back on the ancient writing in the leather bound book. "That figures. They've never really liked studying, ever. They both relied on me for a lot of it in Hogwarts."

"They've both more than proved themselves practically though," Draco admitted, sipping his own lemonade. "I was a bit worried about that aspect of things too, but they're both much better at the practical side of things than the academic side. I'll personally never understand their lack of interest in the theory behind what we're doing, but everyone's different I suppose."

Hermione nodded in agreement. "Indeed we are. And yes, they are both strong with practical magic, Harry particularly. How did Ginny react when you spoke to her?"

Draco smiled and shook his head. "As I expected her to. She was much more suspicious about it all. She asked more questions than Harry and Ron did combined, I think she was trying to understand things both to satisfy her own curiosity and to explain things to them in private, much like you did all through school. I'll admit I found it rather frustrating at first, but when I got to know them all better I figured it was just the way they were."

"Pretty much," Hermione agreed, watching him closely. He certainly seemed to have got the measure of the other three rather well.

Draco picked at a thread on his jeans. "Finally, the truth dawned on me. They weren't working at their best as a group of three because that's not how they're meant to be. They were always meant to be a group of four, a group of four that includes you. My group is the same, my group with Theo, Blaise, and Pansy, I mean. In your group, you are the one who seeks the knowledge and passes it on to the others. You all have your own individual strengths, but you are your group's scholar, just like I am in my group. When I was trying to explain things to them, you were still missing, and as such your group was incomplete without you. But, I'm getting ahead of myself here, I can see you don't understand a word of what I'm saying."

Hermione finished her drink and looked uncertainly from the glass to the table. She was reluctant to lean forwards in case her ribs hurt again, and although her wand was beside her on the sofa, her magic was still very hit and miss due to her internal weakness.

"Let me explain better," Draco cleared his throat then wandlessly took the glass from her hand, floated it over to the table and set it down. "There are four natural elements, Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, and there are eight of us. We can be easily split into two groups of four. One group with light magical cores and one group with darker magical cores. Are you following me so far?" Hermione nodded as he continued. "The elements are all sacred and when used properly are capable of evoking ancient, incredibly powerful magic. Each element connects two people. One from each group. Each connected pair contains a person who is a positive, and their partner who is a negative side of the same element. When both people who make up the pair come together and the elemental magic recognizes them as two halves of the same element, that particular element fuses together and becomes whole."

Draco paused as Hermione nodded slowly. Outwardly, she appeared calm but inside she was reeling from the magnitude of what he was saying. She knew very little about elemental magic, but she did know that it was closely connected to the mystical arts of divination, prophecies and ancient magic. She knew it was highly dangerous and not something to ever be played around with. The fact that Draco was saying all of this with his Dark Mark on full display was causing her head to swim slightly.

"In this way both groups become fully interconnected," Draco continued. "Overall there is one big group of eight, two connected subgroups of four, and then four pairs of two people, each making up one element. Are you still with me?"

"Kind of," Hermione frowned, confusion now etched across her face. Half of her brain was following his words, the other half was working hard to keep her troublesome memories safely locked down. She didn't want to revisit them, therefore she wouldn't. "You're right, this is a lot to take in."

Draco was watching her closely. "Is it too much? Do you want me to wait until you're feeling stronger?"

She shook her head. "No, it's fine, I'm good to carry on. So, who here makes up which element?"

"Okay." Draco blinked his beautiful grey eyes making Hermione startle. Since when had she thought his eyes were beautiful? Or noticed that his face was so handsome for that matter? He followed her line of sight, and his soft gaze hardened for a moment as he turned his arm over, tucking his Dark Mark safely out of view. For some reason the move made her feel guilty, although she had no idea why.

"Ron and Pansy are both Earth. Pansy is positive, Ron negative. Both are natural, both of them love the garden and are good with animals. Pansy's confident. Ron is less so and tends to have a brooding, stubborn streak, but both are protective, both of them are nurturing, caring people. In this case, negative doesn't mean bad," Draco clarified with a frown, "it's just the way the elements work. Together, Ron and Pansy bring out the best in each other. He calms her down and reels her in when she goes off on a tangent, while she boosts him back up when he's moping."

Hermione nodded. So far it was all making perfect, if rather alarming, sense. "Ginny and Blaise are Fire. Ginny positive, Blaise negative. They are both fiery, independent people who are competitive as hell. But Blaise is cool, calm, and lethal with it. He's like Ginny's wildfire channeled, and conversely, Ginny's impulsivity sets him free. Again, they balance each other. Then there's Harry and Theo, both water. Both appear relaxed and unruffled by anything. Both are protective to a fault of the people they care about, and both of them love to sit in the cove and watch the sea for hours on end. We haven't totally worked those two out yet, who's positive and who's negative because they flip. Possibly due to both of them being male. We're hoping things stabilize for them when... sorry, if, you join us properly."

Hermione said nothing still, she was too busy trying to process what Draco was saying. "Of course, if you take what I've said as true, which it seems to be, there is one very big problem here. Unfortunately, it's playing out at the moment and it seems to be unavoidable. Ginny and Harry, according to the elements, are not supposed to be together."

Hermione gasped, staring at Draco in dismay, "but, what are you saying? That they have to split up? That Ginny has to be with Blasie and Harry has to... wait... be with Theo?! But Theo's, well, he's male and Harry's not gay!"

Draco grimaced. "Nor is Theo. Not that we know of anyway. No one is saying that Harry and Ginny have to split up, but that's the way things seem to be heading at the moment. Ginny and Blaise won't touch each other because it's like fireworks going off when they do, and when have you ever seen Harry and Theo in the same room as each other?"

"Well," Hermione groped around in her mind for instances to use as examples but came up with nothing.

"Harry and Theo are avoiding each other because they can't stop staring into each other's eyes when they do get together. Blue into green. Green into blue. The colors of their element I'm afraid."

"Well can't this all be stopped?" Hermione asked, horrified, "I mean doesn't this book tell us how to stop it? Because that's everyone paired up except…." she trailed off as her eyes widened and she realized what that must mean. She looked up at Draco slowly as the bottom abruptly fell out of her stomach.

"Us." Draco sighed, fixing her with those sharp, expressive grey eyes once again. "You and me. Air. And the look on your face tells me exactly how you feel about that idea."

"Well, do you think we're similar then, you and I?" Hermione asked, trying to reel her facial expressions in to avoid hurting his feelings still further, "because, I don't think we are at all similar. Are we?" she continued, floundering wildly and wondering why he was staring at her rather than speaking for longer than was a reasonable amount of time.

When he did finally answer his face was artificially blank, and she somehow felt more disconcerted by that than she had been by the uncharacteristic riot of emotions he'd been displaying a moment ago. "I don't think we know each other well enough to say for sure yet. But think about this, Hermione. I love to read. I love to fly, I love to be in the mountains watching the birds. I'm determined, focused, strong willed, studious. I get what I want. Does any of that sound familiar to you?"

She frowned, feeling wildly disconcerted yet again. She wasn't anything like him. Was she? All of his observations about the others had been spot on though. "A little maybe," she conceded, "but there are some quite large differences between us, not to mention a very unsavory history."

"Yes, there are." Draco closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose. "The paths we chose in life are opposites. Total. Polar opposites. Like opposing sides of the same element. This," he indicated his Dark Mark then hid it out of sight again, "the fact that I kill people when I need to and I think you'd die yourself rather than purposely do that." He held her eyes as he said the last part, and she saw his Occlumency guard fall. Underneath it, was a raw, open honesty that she didn't recall ever seeing in another human being.

Hermione felt her eyebrows disappear into her hair for what felt like the hundredth time that afternoon. "Yes! That is quite a big difference between us!" she stuttered.

"I'm negative air Hermione, not in the bad sense of negative as I said. Just that I'm a classic example of what can happen if you unbalance an element. You're positive I would wager."

"So you mean we would balance each other out if we got together? Wait!" she held up a hand in horror, "What on earth am I saying? If we got together, you and me?! You can't be-" she stared at him, the frown on her face deepened as he dropped his head to stare at the floor. "Impossible. Have you lost your mind?!"

He nodded grimly. "I thought you might feel like this. I also think this is why Harry and Ron told me to wait before I spoke to you about it. I'm not the same person I was when I bullied you at school Hermione. I've changed an awful lot. And I don't expect you to just jump into anything. You've been through a lot, and since you won't talk about your experiences yet, we don't know the half of it. I just wanted you to have some basic knowledge of what's going on here. I understand you might object to being linked to someone in any way, especially me, given our history-"

Hermione covered her face with her hands and took a shaky breath. Why wouldn't her memories stay repressed this afternoon? "I'm not talking about it yet because I'm not ready to talk about it, Draco! I can barely bring myself... wait... no, I can't bring myself to even think about what happened yet! The way you're describing all of this, it sounds like it's all predetermined. But, by what? By the powers that be? What if we don't want that? Can't we just say no to it all and carry on as usual?"

"I, I don't think it works like that." Draco said quietly, still looking at the floor. "Ginny and Harry are trying to hold out at the moment, and it seems to be a losing battle. The harder they both fight, the stronger their elemental pull to Blaise and Theo grows."

"So you and I are going to be linked no matter what?!" She knew the dread she felt was showing on her face but she couldn't do anything to stop it.

Draco looked as if he was concentrating very hard on keeping his own emotions in check as he looked up at her. "Yes." He admitted. "It appears that way. There are advantages to having the link though. Hopefully, in time, and once you do some reading, you'll be able to see some of those."

"How do you mean?" She frowned in confusion. Right now all she could see was a unchangeable, predetermined link tying her to a man who had bullied her mercilessly in the past, and who now willingly bore the brand of the monster who had been behind her double kidnapping, torture, and worse over the last two years.

"The bond would strengthen both of our magical cores and give us a kind of telepathic link," Draco persisted. "Actually, Hermione, I think there might be a little of that present even without the bond being sealed."

"Why do you say that?" Hermione rubbed her suddenly chilly arms and flinched as Draco levitated a fleece blanket over to land on the seat beside her. "And how do you seal the bond?"

"With a kiss. A proper kiss. Like Pansy and Ron did. And I think there's a tentative link between us anyway because earlier you reached across for the book and your ribs hurt. I healed what I could and now my own ribs are aching. I inadvertently took some of your pain into myself to lessen it from you. Also, you're shivering right now and I feel cold, even though I'm not."

Hermione's eyebrows shot up yet again, would the surprises never end? "You, you did that? Thank you. That was very gallant of you."

Draco smirked, "Well, that's not something I get accused of everyday. It makes a nice change."

She nodded weakly, staring at him again and feeling suddenly overwhelmed by all the new knowledge. It frustrated her that she was taking so long to recover. Knowledge didn't usually tire her out. It usually invigorated her. She had always thrived on curiosity, so why was this particular knowledge proving to be so different? Was this still the after-effects of her captivity, or was something else at work?

"Hermione, I'm aware that I was a hideous bully to you in school and I apologize wholeheartedly for that, and for a lot of other things I did in my past," Draco continued to talk as her mind blurred and her thoughts spiraled unhelpfully.

"Yes. You were. But I appreciate the apology, so thank you. Look, Malfoy, I'm not going to just…. I need some time to get my head around all of this, I have no idea how I feel about anything right now. I'm so confused, I feel like my head is about to explode. I need to think about this, to work things out for myself. It's all rather overwhelming." She broke off with a sigh, frustrated that her exhaustion was so complete that it was even affecting her ability to verbalize her thoughts.

"I'm grateful to you all for rescuing me, of course I am, But let me just point out here that if it wasn't for Voldemort and his Death Eater movement I wouldn't have needed rescuing in the first place. And now you're asking me, no, that's not right, you're telling me that I'm practically joining in with whatever the hell you lot are all doing. Which is linked to him, and I have no say in the matter at all!" Hermione wasn't sure where this fresh outburst of temper had come from but if Draco thought she was just going to do exactly what he told her to, well, he was wrong. She'd felt unbalanced since she had arrived here and she didn't understand why.

Or maybe, her eyes widened as the realization hit her, she'd just been told the reason why. What If Draco was right? What if she felt unbalanced because she was only half complete? If he was right, and the heavens had decreed that they shared some sort of elemental bond and he really was the negative to her positive, did she feel out of sorts because she was picking up on his presence and was resisting their inevitable destiny?

She stared at him, her mouth slowly falling open. Was this why they had such a colorful history? Had they existed on each other's peripheries all their lives, sensing the importance of the other but not understanding the reasons behind it?

Ron and Pansy had a very similar history to the one she and Draco shared. Blaise and Ginny had also been quidditch rivals for years, but Harry and Theo didn't have any bad history between them at all. They were the ones who didn't follow that rule. Unless there was something in their past that she didn't know about.

Draco raised his eyebrows at her tirade. His face looked to be in danger of falling back into the familiar smirk she had seen so often in the past, and that was the last thing she needed right now. "You might be used to people doing what you say at 'work,'" she snapped as she made air quotes with her fingers, "but this isn't work. I don't follow Voldemort, and I never will, so you can't tell me what to do or trap me into some kind of, of-"

"Granger, I-" Draco threw his hands up in the air and stood up. The briefest look of hurt crossed his features before he finally slid back behind his familiar mask of indifference and sat back down. "I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just trying to explain what's going on. Fine!" he raised his voice a notch, holding up a hand as she opened her mouth to retort and she stopped in her tracks. "I'll let one of the others talk to you about this. It's not for me to- I mean I can't-" he broke off, pressed the light mark on his leg, then turned away to pick up their empty glasses with an unsteady sigh as Harry apparated into the room.

"What's up? Hey! 'Mione, what's wrong?"

"I think you might have been right," Draco admitted, stepping out of the door. "I told Hermione about the elemental magic and she's not very keen on the idea of being bonded to me. I probably should have waited longer before I tried to explain. I can't comfort her because I can't touch her, and I don't want to get too close to her, because of the elemental pull, which you know all about."

Harry nodded, crossed the room and sat down beside Hermione himself. With a huge sigh she turned and rested her head on his shoulder. "You okay?" he asked, taking her hand as she nodded, then shook her head, trying and failing to hold herself together. "Draco," Harry called waiting until he popped his head back around the doorframe, "Give her time. We still don't know the details of what she's been through, but I can imagine it was horrific. It's only natural for her to be wary of tying herself into this cause. Also, she hasn't got to know you as we have yet, and If the pair of you are going to be partners, you have to start at the beginning. You've had time to get used to all of this, Hermione hasn't."

Draco nodded slowly. "Point taken. Sometimes you actually make a lot of sense, Harry. Hermione, I apologize for coming across as pushy. I guess I'm used to people blindly obeying me at work. I'm going down to the cove for a bit if you want me. I've got patrols at six."

Harry turned back to Hermione as Draco walked away. She blinked at him in confusion, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly tired again now that her anger was fading. "What in Merlin's name just happened Harry?" she asked weakly.

"I'm really not sure, to be honest." Harry smiled despite looking sad. "That's a very big book. None of us have even tried to read it, but I feel like we should know vaguely what it's about. Are you going to read it for us?"

Despite her confusion Hermione couldn't help giving a small smile at Harry's familiar attitude. "Of course. I'm hoping it will explain why I feel so strange when he's around. I mean I do actually feel unbalanced, I just yelled at him and it came out of nowhere. I don't even know why I got so upset. Do you think what he's saying about this elemental magic thing explains that, and maybe even our entire pasts?"

"It could do," Harry agreed thoughtfully. "Merlin knows Ginny and myself are struggling enough at the moment. 'Mione, it's a lot to think about. Let me help you upstairs, so you can have a nap. You'll feel much better when you've rested for a bit. I'm sure."

For once, she agreed easily. Her exhaustion was close to totally consuming her. It was so bad that she didn't even object when Harry simply scooped her up into his arms and carried her up the stairs. He laid her gently on the bed and she smiled as he took her hand. "Harry?" she asked, looking up, "There's something I don't understand. Transmarina Cottage. Transmarina means beyond the sea in latin. But we're not beyond the sea. We're beside the sea. Why do I feel like the name of this place is significant somehow?"

Harry smiled in return, his green eyes glowing in the muted bedroom light. "Sometimes your intelligence amazes me, 'Mione. Not one of us picked up on that before we were told. It's part of the Fidelius charm that's on this place. The path to this cottage only appears if you're told the address and are therefore brought inside the house's protection. If you're not, you can't get here because it just appears to be a rickety gate on a crumbling cliff path. The path, if you follow it anyway, is cut off by the sea at the end so you have to turn back. You literally have to magically go beyond the sea to get here. We're cut off from the entire world and no one, absolutely no one, can find us while we're in here. Voldemort can't even track his own Death Eaters here, and for some reason he puts up with that relatively happily. We have our own little community. Every time someone new joins us a new bedroom magically appears. That's why the elemental magic is so strong here, I think the cottage is part of it. We stand together, because we are completely separate from the rest of the world on our own little Island. We all also believe that the cottage itself is somewhat sentient and has its own part to play in our mission, but none of us understand that fully yet."

Hermione nodded as her eyes closed. "I know it's tough to take all of this in," Harry whispered, "but really, we do need to come together. The bonds forming here, and this cottage itself are what's going to keep us safe."

This last piece of information proved to be too much. The last thing Hermione heard was Harry's soft chuckle as he tucked the duvet over her. "Never mind. I'll talk to you about it more later," he whispered, and she was asleep before he had settled down in the chair beside her.