The moment that the atmospheric pressure of Apparition had lifted, Hermione fell to her hands and knees retched for all she was worth. Instantly, Draco was crouched at her side — wordlessly helping to hold her hair back, rubbing her back soothingly, and Vanishing the sick.
Hermione vomited again for good measure, but only bile came up this time. Tears streamed down her face; the image of Slughorn's terrified purple face was all that she could see when she closed her eyes. The monstrous cracking of his ribs had reverberated through the ominously quiet hall, and now echoed through her own mind on repeat.
When the wave of nausea finally passed, Hermione slumped bonelessly against Draco. He had lowered himself to sit on the marble floor of the entry hall with her, and silently offered her a glass of water that he had Conjured.
She accepted it with thanks and took a tentative sip, all too grateful to wash down the sour taste in her mouth.
Hermione closed her eyes and pressed the cold glass to her clammy cheek, and was silent for a few moments as she tried to make sense of the scramble of thoughts in her mind.
"Slughorn," she finally croaked, as her eyes fluttered open to gaze helplessly at Draco. She could feel her vision blurring with tears — she couldn't stop thinking, stop remembering the visceral crack of his ribs, his wet gurgle and final death rattle. Blood and spittle flecked his lips too, she knew. It had been too dark for Hermione to make out these fine details, but she knew they had been there. She had seen it before in the Insurgency's infirmary, too many times to count.
Draco's expression tightened and he looked away.
"I provided Slughorn to Voldemort. I hoped it would appease him," he muttered. "The old man had known that this day would come. He ran for it, he's been in hiding for a long time. It wasn't easy to find him."
Hermione felt guilt and hurt course through her. He had hunted down Slughorn and his family, pursued them to the ends of the earth, to buy them time. To distract from Hermione.
To protect her.
She could imagine the terrifying form of the High Reeve — his blood-red mask on, fully kitted out in his Ukrainian Ironbelly dragonhide body armour. Smashing down doors, disabling enchantments. Dragging and wrenching inhabitants out of their homes, kicking and screaming, to prostrate them before Voldemort.
They must've known, as soon as they saw the blood-red mask, that there was no escape. That this was their end.
Had they begged for mercy? Had they pleaded to God?
It was like something out of a nightmare.
"He— he was angry with you," Hermione whispered back. "It wasn't enough."
"No, it wasn't," Draco agreed flatly.
"Who—," Hermione broke off. Her throat was suddenly tight, she could barely force the words out. "Who else are you going to give up? How many more people will you sacrifice?"
Draco jerked his head to stare at her. There was something resembling defiance in his expression, and Hermione had her answer without Draco even needing to speak.
He would stop at nothing to keep her safe.
Hermione gave a quiet sob, giving into the heartache. She wept for Slughorn and his family. She wept for the scared boy that Draco had been, and the terrifying monster that he had been forced to become.
When Hermione had sufficiently recovered and collected herself, Draco half-carried, half-supported her back to her room. He hovered at the doorway and seemed uncertain for a moment. Hermione stared at him expectantly, before it clicked — he thought that he had upset her.
"You don't have to stand there. You can come in," Hermione said quietly. Draco's silver eyes met hers for a moment, before he nodded stiffly and entered.
Hermione glanced down at her clothes. There was filth on her jeans from where she had kneeled; she tried not to think about what bodily fluids lingered on the floor of the Great Hall. Her clothes were quickly shed and discarded into a laundry basket, and a few minutes later, she was freshly showered and changed into clean clothes.
Padding out of the bathroom, Hermione crawled into her bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, blinking owlishly at Draco. He had shed his body armour and wore simple black trousers and a t-shirt, but had seated himself awkwardly on a chair opposite her bed.
"Will you come sit with me?" Hermione requested softly. Her words were slightly muffled from beneath the duvet, but he had heard her.
Draco unfolded himself from his seated position and made his way over as she had asked. He seated himself next to her in bed and said nothing; there was a contemplative and troubled expression on his face. He looked exhausted.
Hermione had an inkling of what he must've been thinking about, for she had the same thoughts racing through her mind.
Voldemort had distinct, concrete plans for her. The Battle of Hogwarts had taken place on the evening of Thursday, October 21, and carried on into the early hours of Friday, October 22. Voldemort had claimed his defeat of Harry Potter that day, and announced it to the world at large. A year later, he wanted to commemorate it. Somehow, Hermione did not think Voldemort would be toasting her at the dinner.
They had just over 2 months left to figure out an escape plan.
Her mouth was dry, and she swallowed heavily.
She had always worked well under pressure. She would research, she would find something. She had to.
Because the alternative was unthinkable.
Her mind turned next to their current situation.
Voldemort had chewed through Slughorn as easily as a hot knife through butter. It had taken Draco weeks to procure this critical offering, to root it out and present it to his master on a silver platter.
It hadn't been enough.
He had still been punished — not severely, but it was a warning of the horrors that lay in store for him.
Hermione reached a hand out to grasp Draco's much larger hand. He started, staring down at her in surprise, but nonetheless allowed Hermione to entangle her fingers with his. There was a wistfulness in his gaze as he watched her.
"Run away with me," he murmured. "We'll escape this wretched prison of a house, this fucking mausoleum. We'll go somewhere far away, where nobody will ever find us. Just you and me. That's all I've ever wanted."
Hermione smiled faintly.
He was lying.
They both knew it was an impossible ask. They both knew they were trapped, that their chance of escape grew slimmer by the day. That one day, the shard of possibility would shatter completely, and there would be no escape at all.
She brushed her lips against the back of his hand, their hands held and fingers entwined, and blinked back her own tears.
"We'll run away together," she promised back, her voice hoarse.
Liar.
Hermione returned to the library the next day, and Draco returned to his hunting duties.
She watched as he rose in the early hours of the morning, before the sun had risen, and began strapping on the various plates of his body armour. As each heavy platelet clicked into place, the version of Draco that she knew disappeared and was masked once more by the High Reeve.
As he made to don the mask, Hermione rose from her bed. He paused in his movements and watched as she made her way towards him, stopping before him.
"Please— please be careful, Draco. Come back to me," Hermione whispered. She held his face in her hands and stood on tip-toe to kiss him on the lips. The temptation to confess was strong, but she bit it back. She couldn't tempt fate.
He gave her a wan smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, pressing a kiss to her temple. Then, he donned the mask and left the room, shutting the door with a click.
Hermione stared at it for a moment.
She feared that there might be a day where the Draco she knew never returned.
A sweet and melancholic distance grew between them in the weeks that followed. Every time Draco returned, he was more unfamiliar to her — as if he had moved when a camera shutter clicked, and the resultant photograph was blurred.
He would never become a stranger to her; she wasn't sure she would ever, could ever, be able to forget him. To let go of him. He had wound himself so completely around her heart and claimed it as his.
But every time she saw him again, he was changed.
The war had never ended for him. He had sloughed on while everyone else rested or was laid to rest; he had no choice but to soldier on, carrying out the Dark Lord's bidding.
Draco had become sharpened by it — so much so, that Hermione feared he had become brittle and might one day break.
He was thinner than ever, and looked far older than his years. Often, there was barely contained rage that simmered away just below the surface. She wondered if the High Reeve was simply a mask that he donned, or if he had slowly melded with the identity.
If they were two sides of the same coin, of the same man.
Killing ripped the soul in two, Hermione knew. She wondered how damaged Draco's soul was. Day in, day out.
She didn't know if repairing his soul was within the realm of possibility. If there was a magic spell or a ritual that might set him right, make his soul unblemished and whole once more.
All she could do was remind him of his own humanity, and remind him that there was still good in him.
She reminded him in the way she pressed her lips to his, pressed her body taut against his. Let herself be caged by him in the aftermath, their foreheads pressed together, gazing into each others eyes.
When fear took her words away, she told him anyway, in all the ways that she could.
Her gentle hands tracing his bruised skin, infusing it with magic and pushing it deep into every cell. Urging them to renew and regenerate; chasing away the pain and hurt, taking his burden and making it her own.
She familiarized herself again, each and every time, until some of the darkness lifted and he was simply Draco again, in her arms. When she knew his face almost as well as she knew her own — every freckle, every scar.
If murder tore the soul apart, then surely, a love this pure and desperate might take some of the ache away.
"Tell me about your childhood," Hermione asked.
Draco had had a rare night off from his duties, as a reward from Voldemort for procuring something of value. She hadn't asked what, or who, the something had been.
Whatever it was, it was probably dead now.
He had Apparated to her bedroom and staggered in, smelling of smoke and covered in dried blood. Draco had managed a few mumbled reassurances to her that it was not his blood, before slumping into a dead sleep horizontally across her bed. That much was obvious, at least — if it had been his, he would've been dead already.
Guilt and worry twisted at Hermione's heart as she stared down at him. She had risen instantly from her seated position at her desk to check on Draco, so quickly that her chair had toppled over with a dull thunk onto the carpeted floor. How long could he last, living like this? The anxiety and worry felt like drowning; no matter how hard she kept kicking, water was rushing into her mouth, her ears, her nose.
She quashed her feelings down and bent to retrieve his wand from its arm holster. Her hands were trembling as she worked, casting diagnostic spells, cleansing spells, and a levitation charm to shift his body. It wasn't until Draco was fully cleaned and reasonably healed up that they stopped shaking.
Hermione gingerly folded herself into bed next to him, and sat in the dark, alone with her thoughts. Her hand reached out to brush against his. She tugged it into her lap and absentmindedly ran her fingers across the callouses and scars, tracing out a topographical map that only she would recognize.
This callous on your palm — when you hold my face in your hands, it brushes across my temple. This crooked finger, broken and never set properly — it bumps into mine, when our fingers are entwined.
When Draco stirred a while later, he shifted but did not withdraw his hand, allowing it to rest between both of Hermione's. He stayed silent and turned his face to stare up at her despite the darkness of the room. Neither spoke for a long time.
"I worry that one day, you won't come back," Hermione whispered into the dark.
Away from the light of day, cloaked securely in shadow, she felt safe confessing. It felt like the darkness of the room wrapped them both in a security blanket.
Where they could simply exist and exchange words, independent of the going-ons around them. Where it was just the two of them; two ordinary people, living their mundane lives.
Draco was silent for a few moments before he spoke.
"I'll always come back. I'll always come for you," he said quietly.
Hermione felt a sad tug at her lips.
"That wasn't what I meant. There are more ways than one to lose someone," she replied quietly.
He had no words for this but instead, tugged his hand from Hermione's grasp and rose onto his elbow. Slowly, but with excruciating certainty, he slid his free hand behind Hermione's neck to pull her forward. His lips met hers, gentle and sweet, before morphing into something demanding and possessive. He kissed down her neck and nipped at the junction, before shifting his body to roll on top of hers. Hermione grappled blindly at the bedside table to grasp his wand and mutter a quick Vanishing spell on their clothes, before letting it drop carelessly onto the floor. She wrapped her arms around Draco's neck, pressing herself up into him, as he ducked forward to whisper in her ear.
"I'll always come for you, because you're mine," he groaned, at the same instant he entered her with one hard thrust. "You're mine, you always will be."
Heat and pleasure exploded in her core as she felt him moving inside her, filling her up and stretching her so exquisitely. She kissed him back with everything she had, and sobbed as he moved, overwhelmed by the sheer feeling of him — so pleasurable, it was nearly torture.
Afterwards, when they could both breathe again, and their hearts had calmed, Hermione lay entwined with Draco. Forehead against forehead, noses nearly touching.
"Tell me about your childhood," she whispered. "Tell me everything. I want to know everything about you."
He gave a soft chuckle.
"I fell over in the Forbidden Forest and peed myself a little. I was Seeker for the Slytherin team. I got punched in the face. I came second to a Muggleborn girl in every exam," he replied easily. There was a lightness in his voice that brought relief to Hermione; that the Draco she knew was still there. That he hadn't been lost to her, hadn't become completely unfamiliar.
She gave a hum of contentment.
"What were your parents like when you were a kid?" she asked by way of response, curious for more.
Draco was silent for a few moments; this response came slower.
"My father was harsh," he said quietly. His voice had a far-away aspect to it. "He had high expectations of me. He disciplined me frequently, he demanded that I be exceptional in every aspect."
Quite suddenly, Draco let out a bitter laugh.
"I imagine he would have much to say about my situation now, if he knew the full extent of it. Attack dog of a murderous dictator and kept in a choke collar, double-agent for the Insurgency, and adulterer — cheating on my pureblood wife with a Muggleborn," he said in a humourless voice.
Hermione was silent.
Draco let out a slow breath.
"I'm sorry," he muttered, making to turn his head away, but she brought her hand up to still his face.
"I want to know everything about you," she replied back quietly. "Even … even the bad."
She hesitated for a moment.
"What was your mother like?" Hermione asked. She could recall having asked him this question a long time ago, but couldn't recall the answer.
He smiled faintly, she could feel from her fingertips still placed near his mouth.
"She was much softer in her discipline," Draco said haltingly. "My father doled out punishments but as soon as his back was turned, she was spoiling me and sneaking treats to me. She was — always fragile, even when I was a child. So when she asked something of my father, he caved; he couldn't say no to her."
He sighed quietly and leaned into Hermione's hand.
"I didn't see much of her," he eventually admitted. "Her health was poor, but I did spend time with her when she was on bedrest. She told me stories about growing up in the House of Black, her family, getting into trouble with her sisters, and … taught me to be proud of my ancestry."
Hermione smiled faintly. Despite her thorough dislike of Narcissa, she could almost imagine her as a little girl with blonde hair, a stuck-up attitude, and an inclination towards troublemaking.
"Thank you," she whispered, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. The corner of his own lip quirked in return.
"Why did you hang around with Scarhead and Weasel?" he eventually asked in return, a teasing lilt in his voice. "Too bossy to find any friends that weren't the two stupidest in the year?"
Hermione closed her eyes as hot tears prickled unexpectedly. But at the same instant, there was the sweetness of recalling fond memories that would've otherwise laid dormant and been lost to time.
She gave a half-sob, half-chuckle, and it was Draco's turn to press a kiss to her mouth. He cupped her jaw and brushed a thumb across her cheek, and Hermione kept her eyes closed as she leaned into the touch.
"No it was— it was more than that," she whispered. "I never had friends when I was a kid. Not even in Muggle schools … my parents did quite well for themselves so they set me up in all sorts of expensive lessons and tutors, thinking it would help me make friends but—," Hermione gave a sad laugh, "it just made me even more of an outcast."
Her face grew warm as she spoke, and she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter as she recalled the shame.
The first day of Hogwarts. She got on the train, bold and brash and loud, to hide her own insecurity and inadequacy and fears.
"I was so awkward and shy with terrible hair, and big teeth. I felt so ugly and out of place, so I pretended like I didn't care about anything but grades and exam results," she confessed, blushing and ducking her head.
Draco let out a snort as Hermione buried her face into the duvet, muffling her words.
"Harry and Ron made me feel like— like I was smart and I also mattered. Like I wasn't just a brainiac with no social skills, I was their smart friend," she muttered.
He tugged the duvet away from her, and gently brushed her forehead with his lips. Then, he pressed his forehead against hers once more.
"You do matter, Granger," he said quietly.
She gave a small smile in return.
Scorching August days bled into an extraordinarily warm September, that left Hermione sweating and scrambling in the library.
The Dark Mark was proving impossible to remove. Try as she might, she could find nothing that might reverse the spell. Blood curses were such a rare and obscure branch of magic that the Malfoy estate's library contained nothing more than the initial two books that she had found whilst researching how to heal them, from during the war effort.
When infused into a victim in combination with a necrotizing curse in the way that Voldemort had done so, it was impossible to dis-entangle and remove because of how deeply it had been integrated into the body.
Hermione had pivoted and tried to explore it from a curse breaking perspective, if she could reverse engineer some wards to place the Dark Mark under magical stasis, but this too led to a dead-end. There was no feasible way to expand a ward to bind the entire body, yet leave it free to move. All she might be able to do was place Draco under a protective, full body stasis, which was analogous to throwing out a Tupperware container of mouldy food instead of washing it out.
When she had fearfully, compulsively confessed her lack of findings to Draco, his expression had become momentarily blank.
"I'm trying my hardest and I just— I'm sure there's something in the library. There just has to be. I'm exploring it from every option I've got: necrotizing curses, blood curses, familial curses, wards and curse breaking, numerology. I'm even, I'm even—" Hermione could hear herself talking faster and faster, nearly babbling, but she couldn't slow down or stop. She had to get it out of her system; she had to let Draco know, to make him understand, that she was trying.
"I don't know, I don't know, maybe I could do blood magic again, maybe I could find some way to transfer out all your blood and replace it with clean blood, but I'd need to find an appropriate donor, do you have any family that might be able to do it, or—"
Hermione broke off in tears. It felt like there wasn't enough air in the room, as if the walls were closing in. As if the ceilings was coming down upon her. She was trapped. There was no escape.
Instantly, Draco had yanked her forward into his embrace.
"Breathe, Granger. Breathe. Calm down, please," he muttered consolingly, his larger form encircling her small one. "It's fine, it'll be fine—"
At this, Hermione jerked away from Draco and shoved his arm off of her.
"It's not fine!" she insisted tearfully, nearly in hysterics. "It's— it's not fine, D-Draco please, I need to figure this— I need to figure this out or, or-," she gasped between sobs. She couldn't finish the sentence. She couldn't finish the thought.
"It's fine because I'm working on it with Severus," Draco replied smoothly. "We're working on something. Do your best in the library but we will get through this, the three of us combined."
Hermione froze. Her neck nearly cricked from the speed with which she tilted her head up to stare at Draco.
His expression was one of calm reservation.
"You— you and Severus are working on something?" Hermione asked slowly, feeling as if air had returned to the room.
Draco's face flickered for a second, but his voice was even and assured when he spoke.
"We are."
Hermione opened her mouth to ask more, but Draco had turned and summoned a house-elf by then.
"Get Granger whatever books she needs. Go and buy them from whatever bookstore she requests; as many as she wants, no matter how costly," he had instructed the house-elf. It bowed back and began to babble away to Hermione, tugging her by the knee of her jeans. She glanced down at it and when she looked up again, Draco was already gone.
The added help of the house-elves had expanded her research capability, but not significantly. As she had expected, the existing literature on the subjects she needed the most help with were virtually non-existent. The elves brought back a huge stack of books upon their first visit to Flourish & Blotts' and Borgin & Burke's, most completely useless.
Subsequent visits did not procure anything of value either, after which Hermione grew desperate and impulsive.
"Any books mentioning curses or blood, any books mentioning wards and curse breaking. Every book you can find on those subjects," she instructed a half dozen house-elves rapidly. "Bribe Borgin if you have to, tell them Master Malfoy needs them or— or threaten them with Master Malfoy," Hermione invented wildly, recalling the fact that Draco had in fact threatened Borgin before the start of sixth year.
As the elves disappeared with a loud crack, Hermione sagged into an armchair by the fire. Shelves upon shelves of books, none of them useful.
She pulled out a sheet of parchment listing the books she had already purchased and was reading through it once more when she heard the crack of Apparition. Instantly, she lowered the parchment.
"I wasn't expecting you back so fast and — Mippet?"
Hermione rose to her feet, alarmed.
Mippet was shaking with fright and did not respond. Instead, she scurried forward and launched herself at Hermione's knees. The instant their bodies connected, Hermione felt the tell-tale, gravity-defying twist of Apparition.
They disappeared in a swirl of tea towels and jeans and when they reappeared, Hermione crashed onto the floor with a startled yelp.
"Mippet, what— why are we in my room?" Hermione demanded, pulling herself to her feet. She needed to get back to the library and return to her research.
Hermione made to stride towards the door, but Mippet had launched herself again at Hermione's ankles to stop her.
"Miss! No, Miss no, you must stays in your room!" Mippet whispered in terror. Her huge brown eyes were bulging, reminding her of Slughorn's terrified expression.
Hermione stumbled and righted herself, staring down at Mippet in bewilderment.
"My room? But wh—"
The question was answered for her instantly. From behind the door, some distance off in the hallway, came the bloodcurdling scream of Bellatrix Lestrange.
"Muuuuudblood! Where are youuu, Mudblood! Come out, come out!"