March 21st

The day after the first day of Spring held a great deal of promise. New life awaited the rest of the world. Some of the leaves were returning. Flowers were hinting at blooms. Hermione always loved when the seasons changed. Or, rather, she used to love when the seasons changed. Back when they actually meant something to her existence.

Since moving into the village filled with the Resistance, she hadn't had much need for any hope of life returning to the barren world. Warmer temperatures didn't necessarily mean an easier life for her. Stuck inside the village's protective wards and living inside the old tent, she was simply existing one dismal day after one boring day. If she had known what a prison the canvas would turn into, she would've thought harder before she accepted the perceived gift from Draco. Of course, if she'd known how awful it would be to live amongst the rabble she'd spent the better part of her life actively fighting against, she would've thrown that scrap of parchment with the address to Lee and Sarah Jordan's home in his face.

Following her unusual conversation with Sarah the night before, she had been unable to think about anything but how confining her limited world had become. She wanted to leave, wanted to go anywhere else. Augustus' house in Cornwall no longer seemed like the worst idea. Nor did attempting to cross the border into another country. Maybe if she made her way to the coast, to a busy port city, she could find passage on a ship going anywhere. The thought of a new life in a new country was terrifying, but not nearly as suffocating as the idea of not going anywhere at all.

If she allowed herself to stop and think rationally, she was upset that she recognized after Sarah left the tent that there had been more truth to her statement than she cared to admit. She did miss her life at times. Yes, even her deranged husband who was known to grab her arms too tightly, slap the back of his hand across her face and worse. It wasn't logical. Freedom from the tyrant who had completely consumed her life since their son was conceived should have given her peace, a comfort that she couldn't find any other way. When Sarah brought up that it was okay to miss her husband, she thought the woman was a fool. Only in the quiet stillness of her tent did she realize that against her better judgment, she longed for the normality of her past.

There was danger and pain and violence in her life amongst the Death Eaters. Most wouldn't be able to survive half as long as she had without cracking under the strain. Hermione found an existence with those who would kill her without a second thought if ordered to be a much more welcoming prospect than what she was currently experiencing. Her tent had become just another prison.

Life outside of the Resistance's stronghold might have been unpredictable, but at least she was doing something. She never imagined that she would long for the days when she was moving from place to place searching for a quiet corner to sleep in and stay warm enough to not die. Listening to Draco's pleas that she trust him and not think too terribly of him when she arrived at the address in Devon was a foolish mistake she shouldn't have made.

As the sun began to sink in the sky, she moved around the space that had been her temporary home shoving everything she had scattered around her living quarters back into her beaded bag. Though she tried to keep all that she owned close to her in case she had to run at a moment's notice, she had been slack in the days since she entered the tent. Draco Malfoy had a terrible influence on her that she was determined to break. She couldn't stand to spend another moment cooped up with nothing to do. A person operating at full capacity could go mad if asked to attempt such a feat. Demanding it of someone like her who had already been through quite enough in her lifetime was damaging, to say the least.

She wondered where the wizard had been. Days had gone by since she'd last been graced with his presence. His position within the ranks of the Death Eaters meant that he was almost always on the move. Like those fugitives he was ordered to track, he rarely stayed in the same place for more than a few hours at a time. Still, she hadn't expected him to all but abandon her after gifting her the cloaked tent. When she found a St. Bernard walking through the village one evening, she rushed out to speak to him, to ask him where his nephew had been. Rodolphus snubbed her instead of meeting her in private to answer her questions. Hermione thought it unlikely that she would get her former ally on her side anytime soon. Their past was clearly in the past.

Again waiting until most of the nearby residents were asleep, she made the decision that she would no longer sit idly by waiting for answers she was likely to never get. With her beaded bag fully packed and a vague idea where she would go next, Hermione stepped outside into the night. She was only just about to cross the protective wards when she heard a voice call out to her to stop. The temptation to ignore the wizard with the most bizarre timing was strong. When it was clear that she wasn't about to heed his warning, Draco stepped in front of her, blocking her exit.

"Where are you going?"

"Somewhere else."

"Why?"

Frustration filled every cell of her being. For such an intelligent wizard, he could ask the dumbest questions. How could he not understand how unbearable her existence had become? It was bad outside the Resistance's village. Inside, it was immeasurably worse. At least when she was on the move she didn't have to worry that the vast majority of people in the immediate area were fantasizing about her vicious murder. She had freedom to move, views other than canvas walls to stare at all day and night. With the exception of Sarah and Lee, no one else even spoke to her. Well, unless it was to taunt her like Wood or warn her to behave herself like Charlie.

"'Why'? Tell me why I should stay, Draco. I'm tired of no one telling me anything."

When his first instinct was to refuse to answer her question, Hermione pushed him out of the way of her exit. One more incident of refusal and she was going to lose the very last of her patience. She was only a step or two away when she felt an arm slide across the front of her waist. Startled by the familiarity of the touch, she halted. Though used to having men grab her arm to get her to follow their demands, she was caught completely off guard by his gentle grasp. Hardly pressing his body against her back, Draco moved his lips to just outside the shell of her ear to whisper a secret she knew he wasn't supposed to tell.

"The Resistance wants you to be a spy, Hermione."

It shouldn't have come as a surprise to her, but it did. Of course they would want to use her in such a dirty, underhanded manner. Their reasons for needing to make certain that they could trust her or that she wasn't the same brainwashed, loyal Death Eater she had been for years were clear. What they were asking was no small thing. Sighing, she ignored the subtle increase of the pressure of Draco's arm around her front and how more of him pressed against her. There were more important matters on her mind.

Spies were not treated kindly within their regime. To uncover one was a brutal, disgusting business. In the early days, spies were everywhere. One never knew when they could trust a person or not. Even families were often caught in the middle. The Weasleys were a perfect example. Half were for Lord Voldemort and half were vehemently against. A single wrong word in front of the wrong family member or once-trusted friend could find someone in the middle of an interrogation with the likes of Rabastan Lestrange or Hermione herself. Certainly not a place anyone would want to be if it could be avoided.

When the problems with spies and other deceitful individuals residing in the new world they were trying to create reached a critical level, a new policy was instituted straight from the Dark Lord himself. No longer would spies be punished on their own. If a person was discovered to be passing classified information to the wrong person or even fraternizing with undesirables, they would be forced to watch their families tortured and executed first. Fearing for one's own life was not always enough deterrence. Knowing that they might have to witness their beloved mother or their young child be murdered was a much better incentive to keep out of trouble.

If she was uncovered doing anything for the Resistance while pretending to be back in her master's fold, she would be subjected to watching her son and what remaining family members she had pay the price for her. Even as her mind cleared up from days earlier, she still struggled deciphering between fact and false memory. But, if her parents were somehow still alive, they would be found and dragged to her place of execution. Ollie likely wouldn't be spared. Not even with Antonin as his father.

She knew more about the execution of suspected spies' families than she cared to. After all, it had been part of her duties. One particularly devastating incident several years earlier involved a familiar face from her days at Hogwarts. A longtime Ministry worker and supposedly loyal to the regime, Michael Corner was found to be passing information to his old girlfriend, Ginny Weasley. Punishments were harsh and they were swift. Hermione would never forget the former Ravenclaw's screams when she stood in front of him with his eight year old son bleeding all over the front of her robes. She didn't like to murder children, especially when they were truly innocent of the crimes of their parents, but order must be kept.

That was the fate the Resistance was expecting her to subject her only child to. It was brutal, disgusting. Hadn't she already been a shit enough mum to Ollie without worrying about him meeting the same fate as the other children caught up in their parents' sins?

"Please don't go, Hermione."

She didn't make any promises that she didn't intend to keep that night. Only agreed that she would stay, but only for a little while.