May

tock

Things regressed. Or, more accurately, Draco regressed. Whatever inferred civility he'd forged with Granger evaporated with the fumes in this potions laboratory, seared from the surface of his skin as he toiled to create a potion to rid her of that fucking scar.

It made him angry. Angry he had to see it. Angry she had to live with it. Just, generally, angry. And even with a renewed reliance on his Occlumency, Draco struggled to keep that irritation at bay, constantly bombarded by annoyance. Granger wasn't an idiot; he could freely admit that these days. She noticed the flip in his mood immediately, frown settling on her face before she shook her head and began her work, ignoring him.

Which was fine; he'd prefer to ignore her, too.

Except that he couldn't. She occupied most of the space inside his brain, most of his thoughts revolving around the healing potions he kept experimenting with and the fact that he had to sit in the same room as her for most of the day.

It made for a very uncomfortable few weeks wherein they rarely spoke, rarely even looked at each other, while he watched their tacit agreement at civility rotting in the silences between them.

She sighed, a heavy sound spreading through the room and staking ownership of all the air. Draco tried not to breathe, not to think. He'd rather not acknowledge it at all.

"I'm done."

Draco's hands flexed around his book, thumbs nearly ripping the pages. He forced his fingers to relax.

"Done?"

He didn't know how to talk to her anymore. Ice in his veins, ice in his words. Cold and flat and emotionless.

"With this room, and everything that's been delivered here. So, unless there are more trinkets your father plans to have dropped off, it's time to move on."

"Move on?"

Her head tilted; he hadn't even realized he was looking at her. Perhaps because he looked more through her, focusing on his mental shields.

She made a frustrated sound, hands on her hips.

"Yes, Malfoy. Move on, I have to do every single room in this place. I know you know that."

"Right."

She made another noise, somewhere between a scoff and a growl.

"Merlin, Malfoy. You're the worst like this. Show me to the library. I want to start there if this is what I have to put up with."

He could have teased her then. Reminded her of the obsessive fastidiousness with which she'd once planned to tackle his estate, room by room, starting in this parlor and working her way through. Skipping to the library would be skipping several hallways, nearly a full wing, and would be a significant deviation from her plan. In a dim part of his brain he knew being reminded of that fact would needle her, but in a fun way, in an annoying Granger is fun way.

But instead: "Of course."

He stood, closing his book and carrying it with him.

Halfway down the hallway, she tried talking again.

"I've been curious about the library here, if I'm honest."

The hairs on the back of Draco's neck lifted. He hadn't realized she walked so close behind him. He could practically feel her words brushing up against him, grazing his neck and back. They felt like knives, stabbing him in the back.

He didn't respond.

"I can only imagine what kinds of books have been hoarded over the centuries in these old estates. I'm sure a few things will be quite nasty, but it could be fun, too."

"Nothing about this place is fun, Granger."

He heard her footsteps stop behind him. He paused, too, waiting.

"That seems a bit extreme," came her voice from behind him. "I don't believe anything in this world is all bad. There must be something good here. And I suspect it will be in the library."

She started walking again, matching where he'd stopped, then overtaking him. And as she passed, she added, "It usually is."

She must have thought she'd been right when they entered the library. He saw it on her face: all wonder and curiosity, like she'd somehow managed to forget the terrible things that happened a few halls over.

He watched as she restrained herself, pulling back against the impulse to immediately investigate the rows and rows of shelves. But she was smart, always so smart. She cast a diagnostic charm instead; angry bright red light flooded the space.

She sighed, but still somehow managing to look wistful. Something about her wonder melted his Occlumency, just a bit. Then he let it happen a little more, with intention, trying to hold back the rush of agitation that had taken up residence in his chest. He focused on the look on her face: the amazement, the curiosity, the awe. It helped.

She frowned at the glowing red runes in front of her.

"This—is going to take a while."

"There's a whole shelf in the back that makes the Restricted Section look like children's books."

She whipped around to look at him, all that curiosity now aimed in his direction. He tried not to wince under her appraisal. His tone must have changed—of course it had—when he eased up the occlusion. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, still staring at him.

She rotated her floating runes between them, wand pointed directly at a red one. She hesitated in her movement, a thoughtful tilt to her head as her eyes danced between him and the rune. He saw the decision when she made it, resolve in the way her jaw tensed. She waved the red rune towards him, taking a step closer.

If Draco's brain hadn't completely stalled he might have pulled his Occlumency back into place. Or drawn his wand. Or flinched. But he barely had time to consider his options before she stood in front of him, wand pointed at his chest, directing the rune to him. It sank through his shirt and into his skin, like he might be an artifact in need of decommissioning. He shoved a hand into his pocket, trying to hide the sudden shaking.

The rune disappeared into his chest. Red light vanished before it flared again, tracing the jagged lines crossing his torso, glowing through his shirt, scars he'd had the decency to hide. He kept his left arm glued to his side. He didn't want to know if his mark glowed, too.

She made a thoughtful noise and rotated, just enough to pull another red rune from her floating charm. She directed it at herself and Draco watched it sink into her skin. A moment later, red light glowed from the letters beneath her shirt sleeve.

"Cursed scars are kind of troublesome, aren't they?" she asked. She looked at him like she'd just figured him out. And that couldn't be further from the truth. Brilliant as she might be, she had no idea.

He thought she might say something. But she turned abruptly, taking her floating runes with her. She sent them flying at the nearest shelf, identifying pockets of dark magic.

Draco placed a hand to his chest, expecting the lines across them to burn, as angry as the red light that glowed through them. But he felt perfectly normal, if perhaps a little cold from the residual Occlumency. The light faded and its absence felt normal—too normal.

He looked around, wishing he had his usual sofa for comfort, but opted for a desk chair instead. Setting his book down, he tried to lose himself in potions theory, in ideas about dark magic and cursed scars so painfully relevant to that moment that he almost wanted to laugh.

But he worried if he did it might sound too much like a scream.

—

Watching Granger with books was fucking endearing. And Draco allowed himself to think that only after a week of watching her eyes light up every time she cleared a row of dark magic and then allowed herself a few minutes of pure wonder, fingers trailing spines and memorizing titles.

He'd caught her, more than once, sneaking glances at him as if she expected him to remind her she was meant to be working, or perhaps to give her permission to stop and read. In a near lifetime spent being annoyed by Granger's swottiness, watching her try to resist the pull of books was frustratingly delightful.

He looked up from his reading when she released a squeal. She had her hands clasped over her mouth, eyes wide and brows raised when her gaze met his. Draco arched a brow, curious. He'd actually managed most of the afternoon without his Occlumency, which made room for the more subtle emotions so easily steamrolled by magic. Things like curiosity, fascination, endearment.

She cleared her throat, letting her hands fall.

"Sorry, sorry," she said. Her eyes darted to the shelf next to her and back to him again. She'd flushed pink, color blooming up her neck and across her cheeks.

Draco affected his most imperious tone, brow still arched, "Would you care to share with the class, Miss Granger?"

He did not expect her to make a small whimpering noise, a strangled high-pitched sound that emanated from the back of her throat. She nearly jumped, turning back to the row of books, obscuring his view of her redoubled blush with a quagmire of hair.

A moment later, she moved again, pulling a book from the shelf. She stepped down off the stool she'd been using and approached the table where he sat. Her cheeks were still flushed with pink.

"This is a first edition Numerology and Grammatica; it predates several major celestial events. The Hogwarts Library doesn't even have one of these—it has an antiquated method of moon phase cross-referencing that's fallen out of favor but is actually quite interesting—"

She cut herself off abruptly when Draco chuckled.

"First editions get you going, Granger?" he stood, ignoring her tiny groan of protest. "Wait here."

Draco disappeared between the shelves, towards one of the sealed sections kept behind glass. She hadn't ventured far enough into the stacks to find it yet. When she did, she might melt into the floor. He cast an unlocking charm on the glass and pulled it open, knowing exactly which extremely old, extremely expensive tome he intended to impress her with.

He hadn't read this particular book since sixth year, something he'd forgotten until that very moment, holding it in his hands. He'd hoped it might give him answers; instead it had given him something which he simultaneously regretted and appreciated learning, if for no other fact than that it probably kept him alive.

He set the book on the table in front of her.

He wanted to bottle her gasp, preserve the sound of it for safekeeping so that he could revisit it when he wanted to know what genuine, unbridled excitement sounded like. He'd never heard something so pure in his entire life.

"This—" her voice actually faltered, completely failed to form words as she ran her hands along the front cover. She looked up at him as he sat across from her again. "Is this really a first edition of Hogwarts: A History?"

"It is."

She marveled, hands shaking as she opened the book and gasped again.

"It's—annotated?"

"By the original editor. This is her copy."

She whimpered again, eyes round as the gods damned moon as she stared down at it.

"I've never seen a first edition before—I wonder what differences there are." She flipped through the pages, fingers lightly tracing the text, illustrations, and annotations.

"It includes the come-and-go room, and it has more extensive explanations about the anti-apparation wards. Those are the only differences I noticed."

He probably should have stopped watching as she had a near-transcendent experience with the book, but he couldn't tear his eyes away. He couldn't remember the last time he'd witnessed someone enjoy something as much as Granger enjoyed that book, mere feet from him.

It was infectious: an infection he'd welcome. He could be overcome by it, altered by it, die by it, and probably still be pleased to do so if it meant experiencing whatever this was.

Her head snapped up, regarding him with open surprise.

"You've read it? And the later editions—you, you know the differences?"

"No need to sound so surprised, Granger. Of course I've read Hogwarts: a History. I went to Hogwarts after all."

She giggled through tightly closed lips, flat as she tried to house the sound inside her throat. She dropped her head into her hands, losing her fight against laughter. Her hands raked through her hair, snagging on tangled curls. Her laughter turned into frustration as she pulled her hands from her hair, wincing where she'd caught herself in a knot.

"Of course," she said, quietly. And Draco wondered if she'd meant to say it only to herself. "Of course you've read it."

He lifted a brow, completely thrown by the series of events he'd just witnessed.

"And what does that mean?" he asked, realizing only after he'd said it that his tone lacked all sense of accusation. He'd almost sounded friendly.

"Nothing," she said. "It's nothing—well, it's ironic…hilarious, really. But nothing."

That explanation did little to convince him she hadn't been laughing at him. However, considering the number of times he'd laughed at her, both to her face and behind her back, he probably deserved it if she had been. Weirdly, it felt like a bit of a break in a duel, a pause in combat where they didn't have to exist on opposing sides of something—of everything.

"Hey, Granger?"

She looked up from the book that had completely absorbed her focus. He wondered if she even remembered she was meant to be working. He almost laughed at the thought of her horror over misusing her working time; that seemed very much like something that would offend her swotty sensibilities.

"Yes?"

"Do you think Potter still has my wand?"

Her head jerked, a quick and violent tilt as her confusion registered.

"What?"

"My wand. From school. The one he took when—you know." Draco drummed his fingers against the table, trying to channel his growing discomfort away from the impulse to occlude himself into the ground. "The one I have now is fine; it picked me and all. But my first one, I—I liked it better."

She'd flushed pink again, but now she looked distinctly uncomfortable. She fidgeted in her seat, rocking side to side as her lips twisted between frowning and grimacing, brows furrowed.

"I don't know," she said. "I didn't realize he never returned it to you—things were—there was a lot going on, right after. Knowing Harry, he probably just forgot."

Draco rolled his eyes, trying to opt for indignation over the sudden surge of fury. It was his fucking wand. His wand. He didn't have the luxury of forgetting it, even if Potter did. He pulled the anger in, tried to control it without freezing it; he'd grown so tired of the fog, of the swelling sickness in his stomach.

"Knowing you, he probably stashed it in your hair for safekeeping and now no one can find it," he said instead, and it only looked like an insult if he squinted.

—

At the end of another day spent watching Granger suppress her complete and utter glee at being allowed to work in the library—like anything about this job at his manor could be considered a gift—a hiss of pain pulled Draco from his reading.

A crash followed, not terribly loud, but loud enough to alarm him. Granger had disappeared into the second row of shelves and out of his sight several hours before. He stood, crossed the library, and stepped around the corner to find her on the ground, back against the first row of shelves, a hand pressed to her lip. A tiny stream of blood dripped down her chin, dipping below her jaw, and slipped down her neck.

Draco, decidedly unfamiliar with experiencing emotions of concern towards Granger, couldn't deny the swell of panic seeing her there.

"It's nothing—I'm fine," she started when she saw him.

Draco hobbled together a haphazard approximation of calmness despite what seeing her blood—especially seeing her blood in his home—did to him. He crouched beside her, pulling a kerchief from his trouser pocket. She moved to take it from him, but he wasn't offering. He simply leaned forward and dabbed the blood from her lip, noting the warmth of her skin as it seeped through the fabric. Slowly, he descended, following the trail of blood beneath her chin and down the column of her neck. He felt her swallow beneath his fingers.

He pulled away and looked down and the white linen, now painted in blood. Mudblood, he might have said once upon a time.

He folded the kerchief several times, enclosing the red stain inside it.

"Which one was it, Granger?"

One of the books had obviously caught her by surprise, despite her obscenely fastidious diagnostics. She pointed to a book lying several feet from them with a deep purple cover, distressingly similar to the color of the drawing room walls.

With a single spell he set the book on fire.

"Malfoy," she tried to protest, scrambling towards the book on what must have been instinct before she retreated again. There was no hope for it. He let it burn to ashes as she settled back against the shelf.

"Did it get you anywhere else?"

She held out her hand.

"Just a sting on the wrist—" she stopped. She probably saw it at the same time he did. She'd held up her left arm. She must have rolled her sleeves up sometime during the day; Draco didn't remember the scar being visible that morning.

And now it was in his face, less than a foot from him.

He slammed down hard on his Occlumency. Freezing, freezing, freezing, until he felt absolutely nothing at all. No concern for her wellbeing. Even less concern for his. Shard after shard of imposing emotion flaked and discarded in his mind until nothing but willful control remained at the center of a dense, freezing fog.

"Are you using Occlumency right now?" she asked. "Harry was never very good at it, but it seems—"

"I'm not very good at it, either," he said, focusing on his lungs, on his ability to take a deep breath, to soothe with oxygen as his words rolled off his tongue. His words flowed smooth as the surface of still waters, frozen lakes. "Mine is effective," he said. "It performs a function. But you can tell when I'm doing it. With Aunt Bella you never knew. Or with Severus."

She looked distressingly close to asking him another question, so he stood, smooth and serene like nothing could concern him.

"It's near the end of the day. I'll meet you in the parlor. If you wait there, I have a soothing paste in my potions lab I'll get for you."

"That's not necessary, Malfoy. My hand is fine."

"Please, Granger," he said, applying spell-o tape to a new crack in his Occlumency. "Just wait for me."

She nodded. He did the same. And he left her there, sitting on the library floor as he went to his lab to grab something to soothe the sting in her skin, wishing he had something to erase the scar there, too.

He was almost surprised, even with the occlusion, to find that she'd listened to him and waited. She sat on the velvet sofa, legs tucked beneath her. She'd rolled her sleeves back down.

He sat down next to her, too close. His knee knocked against hers and, if not for the ice freezing and seizing his muscles, he would have flinched, recoiled from it. Instead, he simply readjusted as he opened the pot of soothing paste.

Perhaps it was the Occlumency, or something else—something deeper that he would not and could not acknowledge—but for the first time in his life he reached out and touched Hermione Granger's skin. Just her hand, turning it over and exposing the inside of her wrist that had turned a nasty purpling red, spreading like lightning bolts across her skin.

He only realized the intimacy of it after he'd done it: dipping his fingers into the paste and pressing it into her skin, rubbing in small circles to massage the paste into her flesh. Two hands on her now, several points of contact.

The fog in his Occlumency shifted to something that felt more like the fog of firewhiskey, the kind of haziness he felt when he'd had one too many: pleasant and warm and cushioning. He administered two applications, to ensure she wouldn't have any residual pain. And more distantly, to extend the length of time he could touch her, reveling in the warm fog inside his head, so much more pleasant than the frozen kind.

Carefully, reluctantly, he pulled his hands from hers and resealed the jar of soothing paste. For the first time since he entered the parlor, he dared to look at her face. He tried to let some of his Occlumency go.

Her eyes were wide, pupils too, a pink flush crawling across her cheeks; her mouth was partially open. He had a feeling she'd been staring at him for a while. He offered her the jar.

"Take this. In case any pain flares up over the weekend."

She closed her mouth, pressed her lips together, and then finally took the potion.

"This is—" she started, looking at the small pot in her hands, "—a really good brew, Malfoy. You're good."

He smirked, feeling the natural expression spread across his face.

"I'm a master."

She let out a short laugh and then looked at him again, leveling him with a kind of stare that he took to mean she once again had no idea what to make of him, like whatever she'd thought she'd known about him had just shifted. He had no idea what to make of himself, so he could hardly blame her.

"I'll see you on Monday," she said, standing.

When she'd gone, Draco let his Occlumency fully drop. Months ago, he'd decided he didn't want to stay at the manor, but he'd yet to do anything about it. Now, having had to witness another piece of this place hurt someone, he wasn't sure he could bear another night.

—

Granger's awful mood preceded her when she arrived through the Floo Monday morning: feet moving in a heavy, annoyed step. She barely spared Draco a glance, just stalked out the parlor and blazed a now familiar trail to the library. By the end of the day, Draco could catalogue in detail the finer points of Granger in a bad mood, down to her frustrated huffs and growls at inanimate objects. She even stomped her foot a time or two while staring at her runes, probably annoyed at the persistence of red.

Draco leaned back in his chair, watching as she jabbed her wand in the direction of a red rune hovering on a particularly unpleasant shelf. His chair creaked at the motion.

"Could you stop that?" she snapped, spinning around with her wand raised, hair flying out around her.

He leaned further into his chair: another creak. She let out a furious groan and spun back around, poking and prodding at her floating runes with her wand.

"Granger," he said. "I'm asking you this with the most noble of intentions: what the fuck is your problem?"

She whipped back around, flushing red, everything about her crackling with the same energy she'd had that first day she showed up at the manor and faced off against his father.

"What's my problem? You're my problem. This family. This house. All this awful prejudiced shit is my problem."

He leaned back in his chair, brows raised. Creak. A couple of months ago, such a skewering might have debilitated him, might have crushed him with the guilt he already so effectively smothered himself with. But now, he had a suspicion there were several other words hiding behind the ones she'd hurled at him: different words for a different stressor. He knew the distraction technique well.

"Wow, Granger. Don't hold back, then. Anything else you'd like to get off your chest?"

"Yes, in fact." She stomped towards him—she'd truly refined her stomping technique throughout the day—and stopped right in front of him, hands on her hips. "Where did this personality come from? Who are you?" She waved a hand vaguely at his person.

He lifted a single brow, trying to decide if he had the energy to be offended. And he wasn't even occluding. If Granger hadn't been standing in front of him just waiting for an opportunity to strike, he might have allowed himself a self-congratulatory smirk at how well he'd managed so far that day.

"Do I dare inquire as to what you mean by that?" he asked her.

"I mean you are nothing like the Malfoy I knew in school. You're supposed to be mean and nasty and brooding and unpleasant. You're supposed to make fun of me, and not just little jabs at my hair because we both know you're barely even trying with those. You're not supposed to be all—studious and patient. And you're definitely not supposed to bring me ice cream when I fix your family heirlooms. Or heal me when something in this place does me harm. Who gave you the right to pretend like you have a personality outside of being prejudiced and being a—"

Draco didn't take the bait. He braced himself, resisting the impulse towards his mental wards. His first instinct was to fight back, defend himself. But he couldn't address her point about prejudice. He sidestepped it, but only just.

"Oh, I had a personality. Was capable of being fun, even. People liked me in school, even if your merry little gang of idiot Gryffindors didn't. And sorry, if after a megalomaniac took up residence in in my house, in my fucking head, for a couple of years I wasn't personable enough for you. Sorry about that. I was just trying to keep my family alive."

His fingers ached from his grip against the arm of his chair.

"Not yourself?" She was still heated, but her brows had loosened, no longer tightly drawn together.

"Sure, if I could swing it. But I didn't expect much for myself. I would have done anything to protect my parents."

Her hands dropped from her hips. How they hell had they gotten here?

"Yeah, well. So would I."

Draco felt stunned for a moment, like a rogue stupefy had found its way to the center of his chest. That statement—it had a lot to unpack. He pushed back from the table and used his foot to pull the chair next to him out as well. He lifted a hand, effectively offering her the seat.

"Would you care to elaborate on that?" he asked.

She sat, arms crossed. She let out a small huff as she landed. But she looked more defensive, less angry.

They sat in silence for several agonizing moments. Draco had just reached for his book again when she finally spoke.

"I had a fight with my parents over the weekend. It's nothing."

"Doesn't seem like nothing if you're coming into my home and taking it out on me," he said, knowing he sounded more annoyed than he'd wanted to.

"Did your parents appreciate it?"

"Excuse me?"

"What you did for them. To protect them?"

That was his line. They'd crossed it. He couldn't manage any longer without his Occlumency. He froze his veins and shielded his mind.

"And what exactly do you think I did?"

She looked sheepish: lips pursed, hands still crossed in front of her, eyes refusing to look in his direction. Perhaps she'd stumbled past a line she hadn't intended to cross as well.

"You let them brand you," her voice was quiet but it roared in his head. Brand. "You almost ripped your soul apart attempting murder."

Draco had stopped breathing. Violent rage erupted inside him, an image of his hands around her neck, forcing her to stop speaking, snuffing the life and the words from her throat in a single motion. Gods, make her stop. Make her stop. Make her stop. But he'd sunken deep enough into his Occlumency that such a violent, intrusive thought, unlikely as he was to ever act on such a grotesque impulse, only felt like a twitch of indecision in his muscles.

"I'm just wondering if they appreciate the cost. What it did to you—how hard it must have been. And if they know you did it for them. That's all."

Draco couldn't breathe, could barely think. Everything about him had been held hostage by such a ruthless assessment of what amounted to most of his entire fucking life.

"Could you—not occlude, please? You're difficult to talk to like this."

He would have laughed if he could.

"You don't want me to stop right now, Granger."

She gave him a sad smile. He was dumbfounded. Utterly dumbstruck. And so very completely fucked. He gave her an answer all the same.

"No," he said. "I don't think they did."

She let out a small sigh, and, in an even smaller voice, "Neither did mine."

—

Thank you so much for reading! I certainly hope you've enjoyed it! You can find me as 'mightbewriting' (no i!) on tumblr and ao3!