/
Hermione huffed in frustration and threw the Invisibility Cloak back over herself; she could now hear the excited echoes of students re-entering the castle. Apparently, the match was over.
They have to come out sometime, Hermione considered. I can wait.
And then what, Granger? A voice that sounded rather like Draco's asked inside her head. Teach them the ballet?
She knew Harry and Ron would be looking for her. Or maybe they won't be, she sighed despondently, thinking of Harry's use of Felix Felicis, after what happened at breakfast.
Sighing, she resigned herself to failure and made her way to Gryffindor Tower.
"Dilligrout," she said flatly to the Fat Lady, who was popping open a bottle of champagne with marked exuberance.
"To victory!" She announced, ignoring Hermione's less than cheerful expression. The portrait swung open and a wall of cheers and activity greeted Hermione. She did not feel at all like celebrating, but managed to muster a reluctant smile for her house, and for her two best friends, who she spotted at the center of the large group of celebratory Gryffindors.
"Hermione!" Harry called, spotting her only a moment after she entered the common room.
He ran to her through the crowd, he reached her he did not hesitate as he wrapped his arms around her and swung her in circles. She couldn't help but smile— genuinely now— at the sensation and Harry's palpable joy.
"Harry!" She exclaimed. "Congratulations!"
As he stopped and her feet touched the ground once more, their eyes met, and the moment was gone as quickly as it had arrived as a roar and a round of 'Weasley is Our King' reverberated through the room. They looked over to find Ron and Lavender in the center of the gathering, snogging with abandon.
Hermione grimaced at the sight, but found she was strangely happy for Ron. He'd been so nervous for the match, and so upset about being excluded from Slughorn's suppers… she admitted he'd probably deserved a little good luck.
"Guess it was his lucky day," she said quietly to Harry, unable to hide her re-emerging frown.
"It was… but not because of Felix Felicis," Harry replied and she turned to him in confusion.
"C'mon," he said without explanation, taking her hand and leading her out of the portrait hole. Let's go… anywhere we don't have to witness that atrocity," Harry gestured to Ron and Lavender, who were still tangled up in one amorphous heap, rather like an enraged Snargaluff.
She nodded fervently and they left the common room, eventually settling in a quiet stairwell on the sixth floor to sit side-by-side on a step.
"Look, Hermione— I didn't put it in," Harry said quietly.
"You mean—"
Hermione watched as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the tiny golden glass vial she'd seen him hover over Ron's pumpkin juice that morning; but the wax seal was still intact.
"You only pretended…" realization dawned on her, and she suddenly felt enormously guilty for believing Harry would have ever used Felix Felicis in such a way.
"He only thought I did. I'm sorry I had to lie to you, but I had to figure out some way to get him to believe in himself."
"You weren't made Captain for nothing," she smiled shyly.
Harry shrugged, but an appreciative grin graced his lips.
"I'm sorry, Harry—"
"No, don't be. It's my fault."
"Well, I'm still sorry… you know, for judging you."
"You? Judge me? Never!"
"I resent that," she replied, laughing, as he bumped into her side playfully.
"Now that we're being honest… where were you today? I know you didn't come to the match. You can't have been that mad at me… right?" Harry asked hopefully.
Hermione smiled, softened by his concern.
"Of course not," she assured. She considered what to say to him, how to tell her best friend about Malfoy and her suspicions about the Room of Requirement, but found she couldn't.
It's all he'll be able to think about, she thought, knowing the feeling. And he'll be rash… he could compromise everything.
She idly wondered when she'd begun to take on the full responsibility of discovering what Malfoy was up to— had it been that day in Hogsmeade when Katie Bell was cursed? Or on the train, when she'd pressed her wand into Malfoy's arm? Or perhaps it had been the very moment he'd clasped the platinum chain around her neck.
"Well— I'm a little embarrassed…" she began as she idly conjured a flock of canaries that fluttered and chirped merrily over their heads. It was a spell she'd mastered this term; oddly, the little birds comforted her… they gave her perspective, and reminded her there was a whole world out there, a freer one perhaps, one wholly less complicated…
" …at breakfast I saw Malfoy on the Map… up in the hospital wing. It seemed odd— he'd never miss a match against Gryffindor—"
"That's what I thought when I found out he wasn't playing," Harry agreed, nodding fervently.
Hermione felt a stab of guilt at her lie.
"Malfoy would never miss a chance to play against us, even if he was on his death bed."
Hermione grimaced at the imagery, but continued.
"Right. So I decided to get the Cloak and watch him. I thought maybe he planned to use the empty castle to his advantage…"
"So what was he up to?" Harry asked eagerly.
"Well, that's the thing… he never left the hospital wing. He really was sick after all."
Hermione looked down at her hands, guilt coursing through her. She was aware she was making deception quite a habit.
"It's all right," Harry sighed. "I would've done the same… if there was no match, I mean," he shrugged. "And nice birds," Harry added, looking upward. "They're pretty brilliant."
"Thanks," she said dismissively, but not unkindly.
"We need evidence," she said determinedly, still frustrated at her failed attempts at entering the Room of Requirement.
Harry wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder, "We'll find some—"
Just then, from behind them on the stairwell, they noticed the darkness of a long shadow approach, followed by the faint echo of nearing footsteps.
"At least you two have the decency not to subject the rest of your house to this pathetic display."
Harry and Hermione turned to see Malfoy, dressed all in black, descending the staircase, a haughty, lopsided smirk upon his lips.
Hermione frowned and did her best to ignore the way his light gray eyes seemed to pierce through the darkness of the stairwell.
"Although, on second thought, you'd never let yourself be seen with Granger like this in public, eh Potter? Good on you— didn't think you had that much self-respect."
"Bugger off, Malfoy," Harry replied through gritted teeth.
Malfoy smiled sarcastically without a glance in her direction. "Gladly."
She took Harry's hand and stood to let Malfoy pass, and to get as far away from him as possible.
"You don't look sick to me, Malfoy— well, no more sickly than you usually do," Harry said, glaring.
"Made a full recovery. Some of us aren't as weak as you, Potter— I don't feel the need to run to the hospital wing every time I get a runny nose."
"Well, your team would've certainly been better off in the hospital wing with you today… they were definitely headed there after we killed them on the pitch."
Hermione noticed confusion briefly flash across Draco's expression, but it disappeared as soon as it had arrived. He sneered, then turned to face Hermione.
"What's your take on the match, Granger?" Draco began with mock sincerity. "I know you never miss them." He did not break eye-contact with her as he asked.
He knows… Hermione realized with panic. He knows I was outside the Room of Requirement. But he can't know… can he? Hermione wondered as she scrutinized his now-impassive expression.
"Let's go, Harry," she said firmly, tearing her eyes away from Draco and turning to head back to Gryffindor Tower. It'd been a long day, and she had no desire to look into Malfoy's face for a moment more.
"Better watch out Potter, I doubt the Mudblood knows much about protection… but then again, your mother was a Mudblood too, wasn't she? Must've pulled the same trick on your dad. Guess the apple doesn't really fall far from the—"
"Stupefy!" Harry shouted as he wheeled around.
Draco easily dodged the verbal spell.
"Tsk, tsk, Potter… don't you remember what Granger said about non-verbal spells?"
I'll show him a non-verbal spell. Oppugno, Hermione thought, her body coursing with anger, and, if she were to admit, dejection and shame. Apparently, any semblance of understanding, however vague, tentative, and perplexing she and Malfoy had skimmed the surface of as partners in Healing had apparently vanished.
It's Malfoy, she told herself as her little yellow birds regrouped and changed direction. What did you expect?
"Protego!" Draco shouted in vain as the birds swarmed him, a whirring fury of pecking and screeching and scratching.
Hermione watched in grim satisfaction as Draco held up his arms to shield his face.
"Brilliant," said Harry.
"Let's go," she said flatly as Draco escaped down the corridor, shouting a colorful cacophony of curse words and protective spells.
/
Hermione arrived early to Healing Monday morning, her first lesson of the day. To her dismay, she saw that Malfoy had done the same.
She spotted him sitting at their table in the otherwise empty classroom, his expression as tired and, as was growing more and more common, as emotionless as ever.
As she approached, unhappily settling into the chair beside him, it was impossible for her to miss the small yellow bird atop her side of the table. The little creature looked worse for wear— battered and twitching feebly, as if hanging on to life.
"What did you do to it?" Hermione asked, her voice cold, her heart leaping into her throat at the sight of the bird.
"What did I do to it?" He replied. "No. You can't be serious, Granger. You did this," Draco watched as she scanned the creature with a wave of her wand, gently touching its shaking feathers with her fingertips.
Or is it her hand that's shaking? Draco wondered.
He'd eventually managed to escape most of Hermione's storming yellow birds, some had even seemed to disappear into thin air, but this one had been injured during his attempt to shield himself. He'd kept an eye on it for the rest of the weekend, and had even tried to heal it, without luck.
He hadn't been able to properly visualize what it might be like after he healed it.
Draco couldn't deny Granger's birds had been a brilliant bit of magic— he remembered how long it had taken him to learn the spell to conjure one single snake for his duel with Potter in second year.
He felt a familiar fury and disgust bubble inside him at the memory of finding Potter's arm wrapped around Granger in the deserted stairwell. The thought certainly had not beneficial to his Occlumency lesson on Sunday, but he found the familiar anger easier to deal with than whatever it was he felt whilst looking at the suffering bird.
Draco found it extraordinarily difficult to observe the defenseless creature; small and broken, fading from existence.
Another thing I failed to fix.
He'd neither managed to cast Avada Kedavra, to put the bird out of its misery, nor bring the creature back to health… all he'd done was prolong its suffering, as he continued to prolong his mother's and his own, with his repeated failures. How would he ever complete Voldemort's task if he wasn't even able to manage to kill a little bird?
"If you hadn't said—" her voice broke. Apparently, the sight of the struggling bird troubled her too. She shook her head. "Oh, never mind… it doesn't matter now."
"Didn't think you had it in you, Granger, bending defenseless creatures to your will… and murder now, too."
"I didn't—" her voice cracked again, and Draco was surprised to find it brought him no pleasure. In fact, he realized he felt quite the opposite.
Clear your mind, his aunt's words reminded him.
"Can you heal it?" Draco asked, doing his best to hide his concern. He did not miss the glance of surprise Hermione directed his way, however. Draco frowned; clearly, he was not masking his emotion as well as he thought… at least not in her presence.
"I— I think so…" she said.
Draco watched intently as her hesitant golden brown eyes disappeared behind her dark eyelashes. He heard her take a deep, shuddering breath, causing the hair on his arms to stand on end, before she whispered, "Corcillum Inpulsa."
They both watched with bated breath as the bird shuddered, and then was still.
"Oh, no…" Hermione whispered, and Draco looked away.
Hardly a moment passed however, before the little creature sprung to life, hopping about on the table and chirping merrily, as if nothing had happened at all.
Hermione sighed heavily and fell back into her chair.
"Well done, Miss Granger," Andromeda's voice beckoned from the front of the room. Draco and Hermione looked up in unison, with equal surprise. Neither had noticed the professor's entry.
"Thirty points to Gryffindor."
Andromeda approached their table and conjured a small, metal cage. Draco levitated the bird inside.
"You did well, Miss Granger. Healing a grapefruit is one thing, but facing the wounds— and the narrow thread of life— of a living, breathing creature is quite another."
Draco noticed his aunt did not even glance his way.
Draco and Hermione sat in silence as Andromeda returned to the front of the room and the other students began to file in. He tucked the cage under their table.
"It would be better off set free," Hermione whispered.
Draco found he couldn't agree more.
/
"Go on, let's try it," Theo urged.
Draco glanced at the yellow bird wearily as it chirped obliviously about in its cage. He and Theo were in the Room of Hidden Things, as it seemed they were most of the time these days, unless Theo was working on his potion with Granger or they were in class. They'd even started doing most of their schoolwork inside the room.
December marched on, bleak, blustery and bathed in white, but inside the castle was quite the opposite. Twelve grand Christmas trees stood in the Great Hall— fully decorated, as was their norm— floating candlelight illuminated every corridor— even the one leading to the dungeons— the aroma of mistletoe, pine, and cinnamon wafted around every corner, and the visors of the suits of armor seemed to wink merrily in every corridor.
The holiday was fast approaching, and, to Draco's immense relief, Snape had somehow managed to influence Voldemort's decision to allow him to remain at Hogwarts for the break. It would be the first Christmas he would ever spend outside of Malfoy Manor, without his mother and father, but he was glad for it. Surely she'd be safer without him there. Theo planned to remain at the castle to help him.
"It worked with the apple, why shouldn't it work with a bird? Maybe we should try to send something else… something bigger— it'd be a better test," Draco replied, and Theo eyed him skeptically.
After weeks of continued failure, and Crabbe and Goyle's less-than-reliable watch, they'd achieved their first instance of success only a few days ago, when they'd managed to transport an apple to Borgin and Burkes and back again.
Theo's help, as it turned out, had been invaluable. His understanding of the ancient nature of the magic of the Vanishing Cabinet had directed them on a more accurate course of research.
The fruits of their labor were certainly seemed to be paying off.
"Look— I don't want to kill the bird either… but it might actually work. It's all we've got right now, anyway— and I don't think I need to remind you that time is most certainly not on our side."
Draco knew Theo was right of course— they had to test the Cabinet with a living— preferably minimally-sentient— subject, not unlike what they had begun to do in Healing class. The class had recently upgraded from various fruits and vegetables to dummies that were charmed to look rather eerily like large, fleshy living dolls.
Draco sighed and retrieved the little yellow bird— the same one he'd kept in the Room of Hidden Things since the day Granger had healed it— from its cage, and saw his own pale, uncertain image reflected back at him in its tiny black eyes.
He placed the bird inside the Cabinet, and Theo quickly closed the door before it could fly away.
A moment passed before the chirping abruptly stopped. Theo grinned and opened the door.
The bird was gone, obviously transported, but it brought Draco no joy.
"Close it— Borgin's quick when Greyback's watching."
Theo nodded and hastily closed the door to the empty cabinet. They waited in silence, interrupted only with the sound of a barely audible 'thump' a few minutes later.
Draco scowled; he didn't need to open the door again to know what was waiting inside. He reached for the doorknob anyway.
The little yellow bird lay there alone in the darkness, unmoving. At the sight of it, Draco was sure his own heart had been placed in a vice.
"Corcillum Inpulsa," he said emotionlessly, pointing his wand at the bird as Hermione had done.
But the creature lay still.
"Corcillum Inpulsa," he said again, even though he knew it would be futile. The knuckles on his hand turned white as he gripped his wand tightly.
"It's dead, Draco," Theo said quietly.
Draco rounded on Theo, his gray eyes darkened yet blazing. Theo took a hesitant step backward.
"Bombarda!" Draco shouted as he aimed his wand over Theo's shoulder at a towering ceramic urn behind him.
The urn exploded like thunder, showering them in an expansive cloud of gray smoke and jagged shards of pottery.
"FUCK— DRACO—!" Draco heard Theo shout through the ringing in his ears.
Draco made no move to contain the blast, nor to brush the debris from his face and clothes. It was as if all the memories he'd been trying to bury in Occlumency, all the emotion he'd been compartmentalizing—suffocating— had burst forth suddenly, all at once.
He dropped to his knees and stared at his pale palms. To his consternation, his platinum ring glinted up at him, even through the cloud of ash now settling all around them.
He briefly considered throwing himself into the Vanishing Cabinet as Hermione's words reverberated through his mind, '"It would be better off set free."'
/
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this rather angsty chapter! As always, thank you so much for reading.