A/N: I have very few words except to say you all are the BEST! I loved hearing from all of you, especially those reviewing for the first time! Hope you continue to read and enjoy.
The Right Moment
Waiting was an awful thing.
For the past three years, Draco had waited:
Breathlessly, huddled with his mother in the Unplottable safe room the size of a broom closet (in fact, it could have once been a broom closet) while Agency for Conservative Management and Inspection agents had raided their flat, searching for Tom Riddle.
Apprehensively, hiding in the Fidelius-protected Mayfair house while word of their plan to escape the country spread to those conservatives who wanted to join.
Alone, in a dark prison cell patrolled by Dementors in the bowels of the Phoenix, to be sentenced to live or die, after he had witnessed his mother murdered and his friends razed down in front of him.
Defiantly, for the first curse of hundreds the Weasleys would use on him over the course of his imprisonment, while his Hogwarts' adversary nonchalantly surveyed him from beyond the bars wearing a wicked smirk.
Desperately, to be temporarily forgotten − for he welcomed the relief that neglect and even starvation would bring over the inexpressible pain and humiliation that followed whenever his presence was noticed.
Defeatedly, while he was Ordered and dragged from one form of physical and emotional torture to the next, until day and night and curse and poison and slash and burn all blurred together into a searingly anaesthetised shadow of an existence.
Pleadingly, for a death that simply wouldn't come.
Draco had thought much of that waiting had come to an end after Hermione had taken control of his incarceration, even if only for however long she remained in My's body. But now, yet again, he was powerless to do anything but wait as the night-time hours crawled by agonisingly slowly, the Hangar fire continued to rage, and neither Hermione nor Evans returned.
For at least an hour, he and Pansy sat together on the window seat, watching the controlled chaos of the Hangar disaster recovery effort. From the origin and direction of fire suppression spells and sporadic floating headlights, he could tell that what appeared to be dozens of wizards were fighting the conflagration from vehicles, brooms and foot, though the moonless night was too dark, and the Hangar too distant, to discern with any certainty who they were.
Restlessness eventually spurred Pansy, under the illumination of a torch, to begin to tidy up the fallen books and quills and shelves that the blast's shock wave had flung across the room, and Draco soon stood to help.
Then he paced, while his old friend drifted off to sleep on the Head Girl's bed — so she'd be able to wake up when Hermione returned and could get an update right away, she explained.
The last thing Draco could even begin to contemplate doing now was sleep.
Yes, of course, this was a massive catastrophe, but really — it couldn't possibly take Hermione and Evans this long to comfort and control only three Houses' worth of children, could it? What in Merlin's name could they possibly be doing at 3:32 in the morning? He doubted McGonagall would let them assist in the firefighting efforts… especially not Hermione acting with My's capabilities. What if —
For a moment, he stopped walking, dread gripping his chest.
What if they too were being interrogated?
Surely the castle was crawling with Sovereignty agents from the Ministry of Magical Investigation and Incident Response, not to mention the Ministry of Magical Law Enforcement. What if not only Hermione's true identity had been found out… but also the deed she'd just done?
He had known that the explosion had sprung from her hand from the moment he saw her appear in the doorway, her face as drawn and determined as an avenging angel, her brown eyes at once haunted and hard. While her grit may have astonished Evans (and the Elite's shock at being put in his place was well overdue, in Draco's opinion), Draco knew very well what Hermione was capable of when she was pushed to the edge.
What he didn't know was why.
Yesterday, she hadn't even wanted to help his - his father. For a moment, Draco shook his head; that the man immortalised only in a handful of hazy memories was actually alive still seemed impossible to him. He more than understood, though reluctantly, why Hermione would be hesitant to stick her neck out in this world — Merlin, she'd already done so much, despite the great risk to her own person, and how desperately she missed her home.
But, in the few hours between the time he'd overheard the end of her and Evans' conversation and the blast that had thrown him to the floor, something had changed significantly.
Undoubtedly, Hermione had carefully weighed the risk of detection that visibly destroying a Hogwarts building would bring. If, even then, she'd still embarked upon that drastic course of action — and was willing to go even further, with his father — Merlin's breath, what must she have seen or learned or decided in that short time that was driving her to go all in now?
Whatever it was, it simultaneously electrified and terrified him.
He'd long since laid Evans' Marauder's Map on Hermione's desk. It could have answered at least some his questions of where and with whom, but in its current, blank form, it was was useless to him. Draco didn't have the magic to open it, and Evans had evidently forgotten.
His attention was again drawn to the window. The shooting flames were slowly being smothered down to glowing embers, while in the courtyard beside the greenhouse, some sort of incident command centre seemed to have been established. The grassy rectangular expanse was brightly lit with artificial lights, and what appeared to be dozens of small figures swarmed around newly erected tables.
Another burst of anxiety ripped through Draco's gut.
He didn't know why some part of him still clung to the hope that something better might come. This situation, as it was, was one they didn't have the slightest chance of even escaping, let alone fighting with some conceivable force. He believed in Hermione, in all her brilliance and strength and tenacity, but he had also watched as Dumbledore's army crushed even the most powerful Light witches and wizards.
He turned away from the window and crossed his arms tightly over his chest, fighting to breathe.
The Phoenix's numbers were too great. Dumbledore's power was too vast. With the development of the Wizard bond, the entirety of the conservative population now possessed less magic than a single Squib.
And if something went wrong — and a dizzyingly many things could — Draco couldn't bear to see her life crushed, too.
At once, he wanted to grab the bloody Map and shake it and demand that it open for him or he would tear it to shreds. He wanted to rip open the portrait hole and race down to the small prison Pansy had explained had housed his father for over a decade to see for himself that it was true — that even a small piece of his mother in the form of the man she had loved so deeply and spoken of so fondly hadn't vanished entirely from the earth.
But Draco couldn't do any of those things.
So all he could do was wait. And pace.
When his right leg began to ache, he collapsed back on the window seat and dully watched the ongoing action in the courtyard. Before his exhausted eyes, the distant motion far below blended together into a swirl of colours, passing unregistered before his weary gaze… until he saw a flash of red in the midst of moving people.
Draco started so violently his head almost hit the glass pane.
The figure was small, but in the bright spotlights, he could just make out the magnificent golden Phoenix, its wings spread wide, stretched across the back of blood red Viceroy robes. From the way the others had stopped rushing to and fro and had formed up into two organized lines on either side of him, he knew without any shadow of a doubt he was looking at Arthur Weasley.
Instinctively, Draco leapt to his feet and took several rapid steps away from the window, nearly falling over Hermione's desk chair in the darkness of the room.
Despite his very best attempt to keep his mind from going there, nearly instantly, a memory flashed through his head and consumed his senses: of being slumped, gasping for air, on the stone floor of an equally shadowed room soon after he'd been delivered to what was now the Weasley Manor, the same man's voice reverberating in his head.
"You're going about this wrong, son. This sludge and his kin have been as resilient as weeds. Their bloodline has spread their archaic, Light-loving beliefs through Old-Bloods since I was a boy, until most of our kind had little hope to ever stand equal with Muggle-borns. This one requires… special treatment. Physical curses will tire him out, but they'll also make him defiant. You've got to break his mind until he can no longer retreat there. You've got to break his soul until he can seek no solace from it—"
Draco ripped himself back to the present before he became lost in the vivid sensations of what he knew came next. He realized his hands were shaking, and he clenched them tightly, forcing himself to breathe. The blackness around him was suffocating, hiding monsters he could not categorise nor repel, and he quickly exited the room, plodding heavily down the stairs to the dim, but lit, common room.
The clock atop the fireplace mantle indicated it was 5:27 a.m.
Another horrifying thought struck him.
No doubt Arthur Weasley was still furious that Hermione had used his son to obtain Draco. What if the two had crossed paths?
Draco again wanted to bolt into the hallway, look for her, find her… but he couldn't get past the bloody portrait.
He sank down on the sofa and buried his face in his clammy hands, every nerve in his body quivering, his stomach in knots. If she and Evans didn't return soon, he would surely go mad…
At that moment, the portrait hole creaked open and then slammed shut.
Draco jumped to his feet, dizzily clenching the sofa's armrest for balance when his exhausted body immediately protested. His relief was short-lived. Only Evans trudged inside, looking as weary as Draco felt. The son of the First Viceroy wore an expression of perfect vexation, his wand grasped in his hand.
He stopped walking when his thoroughly irate gaze landed on Draco. "Why in the blazes are you still awake?" he growled forcefully.
Draco could literally feel the anger radiating off him.
Panic flooded him. He stumbled backward, but the sofa blocked his retreat; instinctively, he braced himself for the barrage of curses that would surely soon fall…
Until he suddenly realized what he was doing.
For a moment, Draco closed his eyes.
For the love of all things good…
He cursed his automatic, traumatized response to the same circumstantial conditions that had, even a week earlier, been the trigger for so many bouts of torture. He bloody well needed to pull himself together. He couldn't simply wilt every time anyone capable of inflicting pain so much as glared his way — not anymore.
Clenching his jaw, Draco sucked in several breaths in quick succession, straightened, and lifted his head. "An update, Evans," he said just as forcefully, stiffening when he noticed Evans' exasperated expression now held the faintest edge of amusement. "I need to know what's happening."
Evans' humoured gaze turned icy. "Don't ever order me, Malfoy," he spat, twisting Draco's surname as if it belonged to the foulest insect imaginable. "You'll get an update when I'm ready to give you an update."
He resumed his path toward the stairway to his room.
Draco let out a frustrated breath. "We're on the same side, Evans," he called tiredly, rubbing his pounding forehead to alleviate the headache that certainly accompanied the fact that he'd slept perhaps two good hours in as many days. "Or have you forgotten already?"
"What is it with you people?" Evans exclaimed, spinning toward him. "Have the whole lot of you forgotten I couldn't give a hippogriff's arse about your personal problems no matter which side I'm on? They're officially ruling it an accident, and that won't change no matter what the Investigation Ministry finds. There - satisfied?"
Draco tensed. "They… suspect it was something else, then?" he asked cautiously.
Evans studied him for a moment before he began to climb the stairs to his room. "Nothing's been stated outright. But from my mother's unnaturally pleased expression given this entire situation and Weasley's excessively shirty one, I'd say it's someone neither of us have to worry about."
It took Draco's tired mind a second to process that cryptic response; when he did, he blinked in surprise. "They think it was a Weasley?"
Evans ignored him and kept climbing.
"Which one?"
"Use your brain to make your own deduction!" the Gryffindor snapped, yanking open his door. "Right now I don't know and I don't bloody well care, and if you ask me another blasted question, so help me god, I'll silence you myself!"
Draco clenched his hands, the threat ringing in his ears. Every instinct screamed at him to remain silent, but he couldn't, not yet. "Is Her—"
"Yes, Malfoy, she's coming!" Evans interrupted caustically, already halfway in his room. "Merlin's ghost. I realize she's dug you out of an unpleasant situation, but Christ, get another hobby. I'm fairly certain this version of My Granger is about as interested in you as the last one was — which, in case you need a translation, means not at all."
His door slammed shut.
Draco flinched.
The common room returned to a state of deafening silence.
For a moment, he could only stare ahead at nothing at all. Then he took a small breath, nodded stiffly, and dragged himself back to his partially partitioned room, his leg aching. He gripped the edge of the mattress as he sat on the bed, leaning forward on his palms, and gazed blankly at the ground.
Eventually, he smiled limply. He could always count on Evans to be abrasively honest. Even if the wanker had no blessed idea what he was talking about, not this time, it didn't make what he'd said any less true… nor did it cause the truth to hurt Draco any less.
What really mattered, he reasoned, was that she didn't know. She couldn't possibly know — he was the only person alive who did, though he sometimes wondered if Peia had read it from him as well. The very idea of what would happen if she found out caused his heart to race, his palms to sweat. Sweet Salazar, she would never —
"Hi."
Draco looked up quickly. Hermione stood at the door-like opening in the wall she'd constructed, her hair thrown up in a thick bun from which many wisps had escaped. Instantly, a mix of profound relief and sudden trepidation rushed over him. He swiftly shuttered away his earlier thoughts and steeled himself to hold her gaze, indescribably grateful she didn't share Peia's gift of insight.
"Hi," he echoed dumbly, even though what he really wanted to do was to ask how she was, if she had run into Arthur Weasley, if there was anything he could do to help her, as unlikely as that might be.
She simply stared at him wordlessly, her gaze lifeless. For a split second, such fear paralysed him that she somehow knew, but then she crossed the floor of the makeshift room and thrust a bottle the size of a large flask into his hand, effectively curtailing his concerns. "Here. This is for you."
Draco slumped in relief. Taking a small breath, he squinted down at the dark bottle, heavy with liquid, but it was unmarked. "What's—?"
"Dreamless Sleep Potion," she explained flatly. Her voice was gravelly, as if she was either exhausted or had been speaking for hours. Or both. "One dose is four capfuls. Try administering only two to start. I should be able to get it refilled if you need more, but I think you should eventually transition to a more traditional sleeping draught, if you can. DSP's highly addictive, as I'm sure you know."
He did, but at that moment he was more than happy to risk addiction if it meant he could actually fall asleep without the nightmares and the pain. He closed his hand gratefully around the bottle, wondering how she'd known. Now that she was closer, he could see in the dim light of the common room that her face was pale and tired.
"Hermione, I cannot express how deeply appreciative I am for the opportunity to enter the blissful realm of DSP junkie-hood, honestly," he said, only partially joking. "But you could have waited until tomorrow to get this, you know."
Draco had hoped his quip would have at least elicited even the weakest of smiles from her, but she only continued to stare at him, stone-faced. "No, I couldn't've," she said mechanically. "It's the least I could do, after…"
She crossed her arms and looked away from him, her shoulders tense. Draco knew immediately what she meant, and he hated to think it was weighing on her when she had so much else to deal with.
"I understand, you know," he said quietly. "Why you didn't say anything about my… father." The word still sounded as alien to say as it was to hear.
Hermione looked back at him, her motions oddly mechanical, her eyes glazed with fatigue. "There's nothing to understand," she said dully. "I should have told you and I didn't. That was wrong. I'm sorry, Draco."
Draco shook his head with a small sigh. "Telling me about it any sooner would have done me no favours. Especially not before you... before my custody was shifted to you." His gaze dropped to his knees. "Knowing everything there was to know about that situation when I was still trapped with the Weasleys would have only been another form of torture."
Hermione stared at him for a moment, her eyes still startlingly blank, then shook her head. "No. You give me far too much credit; you have from the moment we met. You deserved to know. It wasn't my place to decide anything otherwise." Her voice was still as hollow and monotonous as it had been when she entered, and Draco focused up on her expressionless face in realization as she went on tonelessly, "I should have known you'd have trouble sleeping too. But I didn't. Instead I was so wrapped up in my own—"
"Hermione," he interrupted quickly, standing up. "Hermione, you need to sleep."
She recoiled, taking a visibly unsteady step backward. "I can't," she said tightly. "I still have things I need to do."
"Name one thing you have to do that cannot wait six hours," he countered. "I can't imagine they're making you attend classes tomorrow."
"They aren't. But we're reconvening with McGonagall for a school-wide assembly at noon." With one hand, Hermione rubbed her temple, opening her eyes unnaturally wide, as if that was the only way she could keep them from falling shut. "At least two Sovereign ministers will be in attendance. There'll undoubtedly be plenty of questions I won't know how to answer unless I do a bit more research."
Draco's eyebrows flew up in disbelief. "Hermione, listen to yourself!" he exclaimed. "You can't walk into something like that after being awake as long as you have and expect it to go well! My wouldn't know how to answer a single damn thing, so don't think you have to, either."
He stepped toward her, though to do what, he wasn't sure. He stopped walking just as quickly when she took another step away from him, something twisting in his chest.
"Listen," he said quietly, keeping his voice as calm and even as one talking down a hippogriff, "I don't know what's happened, and your almost superhuman ability to push through it is extremely admirable. But if you drive yourself into the ground, you'll do no one here any good, starting with yourself."
Hermione looked back at him quickly. Fiery emotion suddenly had sprung back to her eyes, and though it certainly wasn't happy, it was better than no feeling at all. "I think I know how to handle myself, Draco," she snapped forcefully.
"I've never doubted that," he said honestly. "But your right eye is drooping, Hermione. No, I don't expect that'll help it," he said flatly when she blinked rapidly, rubbed her right eye, and again put both hands to her temples. "If I can notice it in this lighting, I guarantee it'll be even more obvious in daylight tomorrow. No doubt it'll help keep the attention on your face and off your words, but I'm not entirely certain that's the type of impression you'd like to give."
She glared at him. "I appreciate your concern, but I'm fine. Really," she bit out. "Take the potion or not; it's your choice. I'm leaving."
"Hermione, don't do this to yourself. Whatever it is, it isn't worth it," he said desperately as she turned away from him. She actually swayed when she did, her hand flashing out to the grasp the side of the wall. Before Draco realized what what he was doing, he grabbed her arm. "Hermione!"
She ripped her hand from his and spun back toward him, her eyes wild. "I don't want to fall asleep, don't you get it?"
Draco stared at her, his heart pounding painfully hard.
After a moment, she averted her frantic gaze, breathing rapidly.
He didn't move, afraid she'd only bolt if he did. He held his breath and waited non-threateningly, silently pleading with her to again open up to him again… to realize she didn't have to do this alone.
His shoulders sank in relief when she whispered, "If I - If I close my eyes, I see… them."
Draco looked at her tense form quickly. "Who?" he asked softly, slowly pulling the hand she'd flung away back to his side.
Hermione briefly closed her eyes and didn't respond; when she opened them again, they were shining with tears.
"Does this by any chance have to do with what happened tonight?" he pressed tentatively.
She hesitated, then wrapped her arms around herself and nodded once, staring at the wall.
The palpable sorrow that suddenly radiated from her very being penetrated Draco's chest like the emotion was his own. For a moment, he could only study her exhausted frame, trying to decide what to do — what she needed him to do. He already knew what he wanted to do: take her into his arms and tell her that everything would be alright and try to make her laugh until the light returned to her eyes. But he couldn't. Hermione hadn't asked that of him, couldn't possibly want that from him, and if Draco had learned one thing in his eighteen short years of life, it was that people couldn't help who they chose to love… or not love.
But that didn't mean he couldn't be the friend she so clearly needed now.
Draco took a small breath to gather his nerve, then stepped toward her cautiously.
She stiffened at his approach, watching with wary eyes. Hesitantly, he reached toward her hand and gently wrapped his fingers around her limp ones. She looked back up at him swiftly but didn't pull away.
He swallowed hard.
"Come sit down," he coaxed, nodding toward the only piece of sofa-like furniture the small 'room' possessed: his bed. "Just for a few minutes." Her expression became reluctant, and he added quickly, "You can leave whenever you like. You and I both know there's very little I can do to stop you when you've made up your mind."
She shook her head. "You've barely slept; you need—"
"I don't. I have laid half-conscious on the ground for more time in my life than I'd ever care to recollect. I'd much rather be awake right now with you," he said.
"Draco—"
"Hermione, please." With his other hand, Draco unthinkingly reached up to cup her slender cheek, gazing into her drained eyes in concern. Then he realized in horror what he was doing and swiftly retracted his hand, his stomach flopping anxiously. More emotion, though startled, crossed her face, and he averted his gaze quickly.
"I - I know when most people say, "I know what it's like," it's just their way of providing comfort. They don't actually understand what you're going through," he hurriedly continued, forcing himself to properly breathe. "But Hermione… I really do know what it's like to be unable to close your eyes without seeing the faces of those who've departed, and deeds, so many dark, horrific deeds…"
He shut his eyes briefly despite his words, shaking his head. "Before, you asked me to trust you, and I have. I've… I've have had to place more trust in you over the past month than I have in anyone else I've ever known." He refocused on her face earnestly. "And now I'm asking the same of you. Please, Hermione. Please trust me."
Her guarded eyes stared at him expressionlessly, as indecipherable and incomprehensible as the world from which she'd come. Draco held his breath as the seconds stretched on, his heart pounding, and offered a silent plea to any god who may not have abandoned him entirely that she'd agree.
Finally, her fingers tightened slightly around his, and she nodded silently.
Draco let out a grateful breath and gave her the smallest of reassuring smiles. "Alright."
Hermione followed him back to his bed, still holding his hand. He sat first, reclining against the wall, and hesitantly held out his arm, indicating she could rest against him if she wanted to. His stomach descended into a bundle of nerves while she silently considered him, but then she slowly sank down on the mattress and stiffly leaned into his side. The moment they connected, he actually felt a shiver run through her.
Draco froze immediately, cringing internally. Was he really so awful she couldn't even bear prolonged contact with him? "Sorry… I've been told before my body's as cold as my heart," he said, trying to make light of it.
Hermione shook her head. "That isn't… Whoever it was must have thought quite highly of you, then."
He frowned and looked over at her. "What makes you say that?"
Her expression mirrored his. "Well, you… you aren't cold at all."
Draco tightened the icy fingers of his left hand in confusion, but something in her voice reassured him. Taking a small breath, he tentatively wrapped his arm around her shoulders like he sometimes did Pansy… except Hermione wasn't Pansy at all.
"This is alright, isn't it?" he asked uncertainly.
Hermione glanced at him for a moment, then looked back ahead. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, it is." He felt her slowly relax against him, her back melding into his side. "It's just… It's all so vivid. I just can't get this… this image I have out of my head," she whispered, a haunted gleam in her eyes.
"The animals?" Draco wondered aloud. He couldn't imagine what else she might have encountered in the Hangar.
"No. They escaped." Sudden strength sprung to her tired voice. "They all escaped, except for the…" She tensed again. "Except for the ones who were already dead."
Draco himself felt sick. He squeezed her shoulders reassuringly as she continued, "I know it's just happened and it'll all wear off eventually, but that doesn't help me right now." She scrubbed at her eyes, her hands muffling her words. "Merlin, I'm so tired, Draco, I'm so bloody tired, but I can't stop thinking about it, about all of this. How am I supposed to get through tomorrow without sleep?"
He glanced down at the bottle of Dreamless Sleep Potion laying near his pillow, then reached over to pick it up. "You're welcome to share this, you know. They say two addicts are better than one."
Hermione glanced toward it briefly. "Not if I want to be awake in time for the assembly," she said, her voice still thick with her need for rest. Then she smiled weakly. "'They' say that, do they? I see what you're trying to do, drag me down to your level. Aren't you considerate."
A faint smile burst across his face. "It has been rather lonely down here by myself." His smile disappeared when her head drooped slightly against his shoulder, some escaped locks of her long, golden brown hair tickling his neck. His heart skipped a beat, or perhaps five, and he forced himself to focus on doing, not on feeling.
"Will you… Will you do something for me?" he asked tentatively. What she'd said about being unable to get the disturbing image from her mind had given him an idea.
"What?" she murmured, staring blankly at the wall in front of them.
Draco hesitated. "Close your eyes."
Hermione sat up and looked at him warningly. "Draco—"
"Hermione, please. Close. Your. Eyes," he repeated softly.
She looked at him for a long moment before she indulged him, though with visible reluctance.
"I'm going to describe an image to you," he said, dearly hoping this would help make things better and not worse. "I'd be much obliged if you could try to picture it."
She frowned. "I'm not very good at—"
"You don't. You don't have to be brilliant at it," he said quickly. "You just have to try. Will you?"
She hesitated, then let out a heavy breath and nodded.
Draco nervously nodded as well and took a small breath. "Right. In your mind, it's a… a beautiful August day, the warmest yet of the summer," he said quietly, in the same low, soothing tone he'd used years ago to conclude Peia's bedtime stories as she was drifting off to sleep. "You're on the beach. The sand is golden. It's stretching down and curving away from you into a cloudless sky as far as the eye can see. You already discovered how frigid the water is, but now you're back on the dunes with your family, watching the waves."
He felt her tense slightly, but he continued, "Your father offered you a worn green quilt your grandmum made that's so horrendously ugly your family only uses it as a mat outdoors, but you turned it down; you'd rather lay right on the sand. You're devouring a tin of Bourbon biscuits that your mum brought, even though she usually frowns on sweets, because she knows you love them more than any other-"
A single tear slid down Hermione's cheek. Draco stopped speaking abruptly, his heart pounding in dread, but she reached up and swiped at it quickly without a single word, leaning heavily against him.
When she didn't tell him to stop, he uncertainly went on in a voice hardly above a murmur, "The sun's just begun setting. The sky's started turning shades of orange and pink. You close your eyes and can feel it, the sun's warmth, the breeze blowing through your hair, the - the presence of your parents, right beside you. It's calming. Peaceful. You can just hear the whisper of dune grass behind you over the sound of the ocean. The water keeps crashing on the beach before it rushes back out to sea, back and forth, back and forth... "
The full weight of her head settled heavily against the side of his shoulder. This seemed encouraging, and he said cajolingly, "You start to feel extremely tired. The heat of the sun keeping you warm... The waves flowing in and out… in and out…"
Draco paused to a silence only broken by her calm, even breaths, her eyes still closed. The part of him that had felt so incredibly awkward while he was speaking was unable to believe it had actually worked. For a moment, he wondered if she'd fallen asleep completely, though in that short a span of time, he doubted she had.
"Sleep here," he whispered softly. "Just for a little while." Pansy had already taken her bed in the Head Girl suite, and Draco was afraid rousing Hermione enough to walk to any other location would simply send her back to the waking nightmare from which she seemed to have momentarily been able to escape.
"What about you?" Hermione breathed faintly, without opening her eyes.
"There are plenty of other places I can sleep if I want to," he reassured her in a low voice.
She didn't respond for several seconds. "Swear you will," she mumbled.
He smiled tenderly for the briefest of moments. "You have my word."
After a minute, she nodded sluggishly.
Carefully, Draco untangled his arm from hers and shifted toward the head of the bed, supporting Hermione while she lowered herself onto her side. As she stretched out along the mattress, tugging her hair from its bun, he moved to the edge of the bed with the bottle of DSP, sliding one end of the blanket that was folded at the foot of the bed upward. She took it from him and pulled it over her shoulders.
After a moment's indecision, he sat down on the floor halfway down the bed, resting his back against the bed frame.
Hermione's eyes cracked open slightly. "You don't have to… stay," she said dully, her voice devoid of emotion.
Draco looked toward her. "What would be the point in that? I offered my bed; I'm a gentleman. I'll at least make sure you fall asleep in it safely."
A faint smile tugged at her lips, but it quickly faded.
His slowly recovering self-confidence faltered. "Unless you'd… rather I left?"
Hermione looked at him for a moment, then shook her head. She stretched out her wand, mumbling a spell. An alarm clock appeared next to the pillow, presumably set with the time she needed to awaken. Then she closed her eyes, the drawn muscles of her face slowly relaxing.
Once Draco was certain she was nearly or already asleep, he tugged his legs up to his chest, manually moving the right with his hands, and buried his face in his knees, trying to reign in the sheer amount of bubbling emotions that being so near her like this was conjuring inside him. Emotions — both his, and sensing others' — had always been an integral part of Draco's existence, but during his imprisonment, he'd become much better at numbing and even ceasing his almost intuitive responses to others. At times, though, he simply couldn't… and, more often than not, those times involved her.
"Draco…" Hermione suddenly whispered drowsily, causing him to jerk violently in surprise. "How are you still so good?"
Draco quickly sat up straight and looked back over at her. The left side of her head was still buried in his pillow, her hair tumbling wildly around her face, but her eyes were again open slightly. "After everything that's been done to you, after everything you've seen… How can you not have let it… affect you?"
He smiled mirthlessly. "It does affect me," he said quietly, though even that low volume sounded loud in the silent common room. He placed his hand on the DSP bottle laying next to him. "It's why I need this."
She blinked. "I didn't mean…"
"I know." And he did. But he'd never planned to reveal the words he held most sacred to anyone… and, if he ever did, he would have never imagined it would be to her.
Draco took a small breath, stalling for another moment, before he resolved himself to go on. "When I was thirteen, the small freedoms we Old-Bloods still had suddenly started to be taken away. At Hogwarts, anyone unwilling to perform a series of what I can only describe as unspeakably horrific Dark Arts curses - in other words, most Old-Bloods - were banned from playing Quidditch, and ACMI — the Agency for Conservative Management and Inspection — had created their own version of the Inquisition."
He smiled limply. "In my naiveté, the former seemed much more devastating at the time, but in reality, the latter was far worse. People we knew simply began to disappear. They- They forced everyone to move to these... conservative villages, they called them. Flashy name for ghettos, really. Our access to resources was incredibly controlled there. My mother was blocked from applying to any wizarding jobs and had to try to find work in the Muggle world, but she was eventually barred from even passing between the two."
"That's so… neanderthal and disgusting," Hermione said angrily, though the weary torpidity to her voice significantly lessened the ferocity of her words. "Everyone in the… Sovereignty couldn't have… possibly agreed…"
"Many did," he said quietly. "Even some conservatives thought it was better we go along with it rather than fight and lose the only thing we did still have - our lives." He focused his gaze on the wall across from them. "That was when my… mum made me give her my word," he said. "That I would never give up. That I'd never forget the only power that exists is what I feel about myself and the ones I love, not that which others hold over me. That I…"
He hesitated. It felt strange to say aloud the words he had mentally repeated over and over to himself during his hellish imprisonment.
"That you'd... what?" Hermione breathed, her voice thick with sleep.
He squeezed his eyes shut, his mother's loving voice echoing in his mind. "That I would never let anyone crush my spirit." His lips stretched upward sadly. "Or my smile."
Silence met his words.
After a moment, Draco apprehensively looked back at her, afraid she had found the simple words more childish than profound. But Hermione's searching gaze immediately met his, and the sudden intensity in her eyes was staggering.
Draco's chest constricted, and he had to force himself to breathe. "I'm not… infallible, Hermione," he managed to piece together. "I try to keep my promise to her, every single day, but…" He shook his head. "It's like I told you before. Sometimes I… I just can't."
Her eyes suddenly began to shine with tears. She shifted her gaze away from him. "I wish I had something like that I could… hold myself to," she said softly. Her fingers suddenly gripped the pillow. "In my world, it was Harry. I believed in him, that he - and we - could succeed no matter how difficult or seemingly impossible the deed was that needed to be done. But here… I'm at a loss, Draco. I know exactly what I have to do now… but I don't know what to believe in."
Draco didn't even need a minute to think of a response, and he gingerly twisted onto his knees and shifted nearer to her, placing a hand on the side of the bed. "You don't need to believe in anyone else. Believe in yourself. Believe in the light inside you that's guided you this far. Look at everything you've done, Hermione. That wasn't just Harry. That was you."
"You're wonderfully optimistic, Draco," she whispered, causing his heart to clench. "I may be… brilliant at many things, but I don't have that ability… not like you do. I'll fight, but I've lived through this before. Once it all begins, I can't… It becomes very difficult for me to see the light in the midst of so much darkness."
He didn't entirely understand what she meant when she said she would fight, but he felt at long last the fire of purpose and determination kindle within him. "I'll help you," he said. He reached over and took her hand. "Whatever it is. Whatever you need. If you - If you need me to remind you how to laugh, how to feel, how incredible —" his breath hitched and his mouth went dry, and he quickly amended, "—how incredibly powerful you are, how to do anything at all… I will."
Hermione's exhausted eyes held his, again shining with unshed tears. She didn't speak, and Draco was suddenly afraid that his fervent offer had either revealed far too much or was deeply unwanted. Hastily, he pulled his hand back, staring at it rather than at her. "If you'd… like me to, anyway," he mumbled awkwardly.
She blinked rapidly and brushed at her eyes. "Yes, I'd - I'd appreciate that very much." He looked back up at her quickly as she added vehemently, "And I'll do the same for you."
For a moment, he was caught in the burning resolve of her gaze. Then something inside him lurched in reminder that he had to respond. He smiled gratefully. "Ms. Granger, I do believe you have yourself a deal," he said lightly, trying desperately to stifle the intensity of the feelings raging inside him. He held out his hand. "Shall we shake on it?"
Slowly, Hermione released her pillow and shook his hand firmly. "Deal," she whispered, tremulously returning his smile.
Draco ached to reach out and brush away the loose lock of hair that swept partially into her face, and he resisted the powerful urge with the entirety of being. He hastily moved back to a sitting position, wrapping his arms around his legs and clenching his elbows tightly instead. Once he'd regained some semblance of composure, he smiled gently over at her. "Dream of the ocean, Hermione. And sleep well."
The smallest of sad smiles touched her lips. "You as well, Draco. You… promised you would," she said, her tone stern even though her volume was waning. Her eyes drifted shut. "How long has… she been gone?" she mumbled.
Draco knew immediately who she meant. He closed his eyes, his grasp around his knees tightening. "About… two years now," he said mechanically. "It happened when we were… trying to escape to the continent."
"I'm… so sorry, Draco," she breathed drowsily, the pillow partially muffling her fading voice.
He shook his head, staring limply ahead at the partition Hermione had set up between the space that had been deemed his and the rest of the common room. "You've… nothing to be sorry for. I'm only sorry that you won't have the chance to know her."
"I will if you…" Hermione yawned hugely, "…tell me about her. What she was… like."
"She was…" Draco couldn't help but smile slightly. "She was the most incredible person you'll ever meet."
He hesitated, unable to decide where to even begin. He hadn't spoken of his mother to anyone, not willingly, since…
The realisation struck straight through his chest.
Not since she had died.
"She loved life so much," he finally said. "Through everything that happened to us, she had a sort of beautiful, understated elegance that she never lost, no matter how the Sovereignty treated her. And she-" He swallowed hard; surely she must think he was rambling. "Are you certain this is… something you'd like to hear?"
"Mm-hm," Hermione murmured in agreement.
At times like these, Draco wondered if this was all still a dream, but he nodded, as precious memories he had locked inside himself for so long suddenly began to spill from his lips. "Everyone — The conservatives, I mean — They all looked up to her. She spent so much of her time helping the elders adjust, especially. They remembered what life was like before everything became so unbalanced, so they had a particularly difficult time living with the worst of the discrimination."
Draco sighed, then chuckled softly. "I remember once, she threw a surprise party for Bathilda Bagshot's 115th birthday. She was Gellert Grindelwald's great-aunt, you know... Mum told me Bathilda was never the same after he was killed. The Sovereignty ostracized her terribly. Our flat was small, but we used an Undetectable Extension Charm so we could invite everyone she knew, and I mean everyone. Being over a century old, she was on speaking terms with practically every Old-Blood from here to Eastern Europe.
"We didn't have-" he bit his lip, hedging the most diplomatic description, "-the most money, but Mum spent her entire month's paycheck on decorations and this magnificent cake that would feed an army. When Bathilda walked in, Mum conjured her a birthday crown, and for the entire day everyone treated her not like she was invisible or a cancer on society, but like - she was worth something. Like she was royalty. Some of the people there she hadn't seen for over fifty years, even."
He shook his head, smiling. "I have never seen that woman so happy. After the party was over, she told Mum and me it was the closest she had ever felt to the life she had loved so dearly before Dumbledore came to power, and everything changed."
He looked down at his hands and again sighed deeply, lost in memories that for once were positive, rather than the opposite. "My mother would have been so glad you and I… met, you know."
Only silence met his words.
Tentatively, he looked over at Hermione.
But she had finally fallen asleep.
The President of the Magical Congress of the United States of America, Saundra Davis, was caught between a rock and a hard place.
Beside her, the ambassador to Hungary prattled on about the ethicality of holding the next Quidditch World Cup in England. It must have nearly been midnight, most parties in attendance at the State Gala in NYC's Woolworth Building had already said their farewells, and Saundra would much rather retreat to her office with a glass of bourbon than discuss her political philosophy for dealing with the British Sovereignty with Ambassador Lakatos - or was it Lokatas? She could never remember.
The United States and Hungary had just returned to speaking terms after a nasty disagreement over human rights allegations that had been levelled at the Sovereignty during the International Confederation of Wizards summit in Amsterdam two years earlier. She wouldn't put it past Latacos to interpret even a pleasant extrication from the conversation as hostile and dismissive. Which it absolutely was.
Speaking of tacos, Saundra wished she'd been able to sneak in more than a single deviled egg at this damn affair before being assaulted by hordes of dignitaries...
She looked longingly toward the pair of double doors that led from the ballroom, only feet away.
Suddenly, the President felt a hand on the small of her back. "Excuse me, Ambassador Lakatos, I hope you don't mind if I steal my wife." It took Saundra all she had not to look over at her husband Scott in pleasant surprise as he continued, "I've just returned from overseas, you see — it's been far too long since I've spent any time with her."
Scott was usually not this perceptive.
The short Eastern European diplomat blinked eyes as beady as an Wampus Cat at them, then nodded, looking distinctly annoyed. "Of course, Madam President. As always, it has been a pleasure. I am so glad our two countries are again able to discuss these topics so civilly."
"Oh, as am I," she said saccharinely, shaking his hand before following Scott from the ballroom. "Your timing is impeccable," she muttered as soon as they entered the hallway.
"You looked like you needed some help. And a drink."
"You have no idea." She took the wine glass he offered her and downed it immediately.
Her old friend and Chief of Staff Cassandra Rockwell fell in step alongside them, wearing a white pearl dress. "Madam President; sir. Calling it a night?"
Saundra nodded at her. "Yes, thank god. Did you see Locavore? That man's a leech; he was just waiting for me to say something Prime Minister Halasz could fling in our face."
"I was actually hoping to talk to you about that for a moment, ma'am." Cassandra gestured to her right, and Saundra noticed they'd stopped outside her office door.
Scott looked between them, then took a step back. "I'll meet you upstairs, honey."
Saundra watched him as he began to walk away. He may have lost the last of his hair a few years earlier, but in her view, the man still looked good in a suit and robes. "No, stay." She took his arm. "This will only take a minute." Her shoulders ached, and she shifted uncomfortably in the the extravagant green and blue gown with the extended train she'd chosen for the occasion. "I've got to get out of this dress; it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's damned excruciating now."
"You still look stunning, hun," he reassured her. "I particularly like the..." his eyebrows raised slightly, "feathers."
When they entered the plush office, Cassandra shut the door. "I think you should consider MACUSA's response to the IWC's Quidditch announcement. We've already had several questions about it from the usual suspects. If Russia steps in, it's only going to get worse."
The President frowned. "We've already made our stance clear. If they don't like it, that's too bad."
Scott settled down in one of the plush armchairs. "Maybe we should go over that stance again. You'll need to say it loudly if Russia boycotts."
She crossed her arms. "Russia isn't going to boycott. No matter how much those countries caterwaul whenever Dumbledore has to deal with internal terrorists, they all want the same thing we do: the technology the Sovereignty pumps out. Good Lord - what we've seen from them in the last few years? Stunning ingenuity. We can't replicate it; we've tried. They've got plenty of money and lots of fancy toys, I'm sure they'll put on a marvellous Cup."
For the briefest of moments, something strange flashed in her Chief of Staff's pale eyes. "Internal terrorists?" Cassandra echoed. "Are you being deliberately or unintentionally obtuse? Those people are innocent, and they're being oppressed. What Dumbledore's done to them is a direct violation of human rights."
For a moment, the President could only stare at her in shock. "Perhaps you've forgotten: Britain is our ally," she snapped. "Those uprisings were acts of sabotage by an unstable subgroup unwilling to modernize themselves. I've toured the country; those people are serving sentences in Azkaban for the considerable treason they've committed, just like we would sentence any of our citizens should something similar, heaven forbid, happen here! Hardly a rights violation. It's Dumbledore's decision how to deal with insurrectionists, not ours." She put a hand to her forehead. "Salem's curse, Cass, you're sounding like Lataco."
Cassandra crossed her arms. "So you're saying you wouldn't do one bloody thing, even if you had proof these 'insurrectionists' have been persecuted for decades and were only trying to gain the same rights gifted everyone else? That they are still, to this day, being exploited and tortured and murdered? You wouldn't, at the very least, embargo Britain's exports until the rights of those people were restored, or provide them asylum if they weren't?"
"What the hell is this?!" Saundra reached for her wand, but the heavy, hated mistake of her chosen dress slowed her movement. The stick of wood shot from her hand before she'd even lifted it…
Into Scott's waiting hand.
The President looked open-mouthed between her husband and one of her closest friends. Both of them had drawn their wands. "I demand to know what's going on!"
Cassandra pointed her wand at her. "Answer the question, peacock!"
Saundra stiffened and then straightened her dress with a huff, glaring daggers at the Chief of Staff who was clearly under the Imperius Curse or being impersonated through Polyjuice Potion. "I'm not about to lead a campaign against Albus Dumbledore, and anyone who does is a fool."
Scott stood alongside Cassandra, and Saundra glared at him with equal vigour.
"And if you knew Dumbledore's reign would end… would your position change?" he asked.
Her forehead creased. "What are you saying?"
"He's getting old, Saun; it's bound to happen eventually," he pointed out.
"Don't call me Saun; it's clear to me you aren't my husband," the President snapped, inching toward the door. She stopped moving when Cassandra stepped toward her, her wand only inches from her face.
"I'm sorry, you seem to be flittering a bit off topic," Whoever-She-Was said insolently. "Would your stunningly obvious adulation of the British Sovereignty become a bit less stunning if you knew the Phoenix will fall?"
Saundra scowled at them both. "It damn well w—" She froze. Her mouth opened and closed, before she looked toward them in shock. "Veritaserum?"
Scott shrugged. "I told you. You looked like you needed a drink."
Suddenly, a knock sounded at the door and a voice that sounded very like Cassandra's said, "Madam President?"
Before Saundra could blink, the balding man she had always called her husband pointed his wand at her. "Imperio."
Swiftly, Cassandra produced a small vial and tossed it to him. "Antidote," she hissed.
He uncorked it and poured the liquid into the President's wine glass. "Bottoms up, Saun," he sardonically instructed with an accent that was no longer American, then crossed the room to Cassandra. They stepped behind the opaque curtains sweeping across the windows before Scott leaned out slightly, obliviating the President's memories of their exchange and lifting the Imperius Curse. In the same motion, he aimed his wand at the surveillance camera in the room's corner and silently cast another spell to lift the one Cassandra had already placed upon it.
The knock came again, this time more urgently. "Madam President, are you inside?"
After a beat, the President said, sounding mystified, "Yes, I - I guess I am."
They heard the door open. "I'm so sorry to interrupt you, ma'am; I know you must be exhausted from —"
As the real Cassandra went on, the false Scott looked down and withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket. He unfolded it, then held it out to the false Cassandra across from him…
"— reports out of Britain there's been a major explosion at their wizarding school. No casualties, just destruction."
Both Scott and Cassandra froze, Cassandra's hand a centimetre from touching the handkerchief.
The President still sounded slightly confused. "Holy Houdini. I thought they got a cap on their insurgency problems."
"They definitively claim it was an act of staff negligence, not insurgency, ma'am."
"Yes, I suppose Dumbledore does seem to have dealt with that issue firmly this time around. Well, let the Sovereignty know I'm on hand should they require additional aid, and arrange for me to talk with him in person tomorrow, if possible. Between this and the Cup announcement, no doubt he's got his hands full. Sweet Salem, I have a hellish headache…"
Suddenly, the false Cassandra reached out and grasped the handkerchief, and with a hook behind their navels and a dizzying swirl of colours, they vanished from the President's Office.
"What in the bloody hell is that slippery imbecile thinking?" Cassandra demanded the moment they landed in a small Muggle hotel room. The placard beside the television said Holdredge, Nebraska. "Blowing up buildings? At Hogwarts? Oh, that's a clever way to avoid drawing attention to ours—"
"Slow down, slow down, just — Stop," Scott interrupted, holding up his hands. He leaned back against the table, clenched his hand, and then opened it slowly, wandlessly illuminating the room's lamps. "He would never be so reckless; it isn't his style," he said slowly, pensively. "This may very well be just a coincidence. A rather unfortunate one, given the potion's come of age and the castle's going to be positively crawling with Sovereignty agents now, but a coincidence nonetheless."
"Oh, of course. The potion," she said heatedly. "That potion should have been ready almost a week ago. Why hasn't he come down off his high hippogriff and contacted us, I'd like to know?" She used her wand to fling open the suitcase in the corner of the room and began to rifle through it, visibly fuming. "I don't trust that man as far as I can hex him, and I'll happily tell that to his face the next time we see him. I hate that we have to rely on him like this."
"I don't particularly like it any more than you do, but we currently don't have a choice, do we?" he responded. "Consider what we just saw — Davis and MACUSA are eating out of Dumbledore's hand like starved animals! That's yet another country unwilling to support us. We've exhausted nearly every diplomatic avenue available — no one's willing to move as long as Dumbledore's firmly in power. The only card we have left to play is finding out what Lucius heard before they do, and we cannot deviate from that plan."
A forced laugh escaped her lips. "Do I look like I give one blasted whit about the bloody plan right now?" she exclaimed, flinging a blouse down on the bed. "We need to go back there. Our child—"
"Is fine," he interrupted. "Our child is perfectly fine, because there were no casualties."
She covered her eyes and turned away from him. "No. Don't try to rationalise with me now; it isn't going to work. I can't possibly take you seriously when you look like a human turtle. Saundra Davis is one sorry human being. From worshipping Dumbledore to choosing her husband and her clothing, not to mention her entire political platform, that woman's a first-order idiot."
He shook his head, ignoring the end of her rant. "Don't think I'm not worried either; I am. But we can't afford to lose sight of the bigger picture. If we return to Hogwarts before the rest of the pieces have fallen into place, we risk exposure, and everything we have been working toward, everyone we've lost, will be for nothing. The timing of this is critical. We have to wait for the right moment."
She looked over her shoulder, glaring at him darkly. "And who determines when that is, hm? That two-faced slimeball?"
He pushed himself off the table and closed the few steps separating them. "This explosion may very well have been staff negligence, but what does McGonagall have lying about that would allow simple negligence to snowball into so large an explosion it's international news?" he said, his voice low. "Clearly, other things are happening there that we don't know about. If something's causing him to delay, I have every reason to believe it's for the—"
Suddenly, her purse vibrated. At once, their eyes met, and then she held up a finger to his face to cut him off and swiftly summoned a small, snap-open phone to her. It was the oldest Muggle version they could find, one that had a month-by-month contract, a tiny square screen the size of two dice, and was free of the tracking software found in newer models.
When she opened it, only four words blinked at her in mechanical print from a number she didn't recognize.
Tomorrow night. Bambi out.
She rolled her eyes at the signature and raised her eyebrows at her partner. "Well, Baldy. Looks like our right moment's just come buzzing."
A/N: First, just to be clear, I'm not making any political statements with the last part at all! But I did want to show that the entire world, and the emphasis and very broad generalizations associated with different countries, both magical and Muggle, has also changed in this universe.
This chapter is a bit of an interlude between fast-moving chapters. Don't worry, the answers to all of your questions will eventually be revealed. :) Any guesses as to who these two fine folks are?