"Let's not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it." -Vincent Van Gogh

Chapter Fourteen: No Memory

Hermione ran her hands over the tips of the soft grass, stopping to tug a weed or two. The Worthington's garden, with its high walls, lush botanicals, and grey stone square, soothed her. For the first time in a while, she felt truly secure.

As soon as she stepped into the house however, the still air engulfing her, she would sigh and remember – their room. That bed. This house. Our mission.

Even going to Galleriet earlier in the day, which had turned out to be some sort of market, made her anxious – all the noise and bustling, from every direction, people laughing, crying, shouting over the noise… she'd had to latch onto Draco's arm immediately to remind herself that she was safe, that she was still Hermione.

Right now, Draco was all she had left of the comfort of her former existence, which did not bode well for her anxiety.

When she was young, she used to have a woods behind her house, behind the garden. There were wide steps leading steeply to a small, rusted gate, and nothing but wilderness beyond. She used to explore with her friend from the neighborhood trailing along. They used to fight with sticks, climb the trees, and race among the trodden foliage and twisting branches. When Hermione's parents insisted that she do more "ladylike" things when she came home with dirty fingers and scratched arms, she gathered leaves and grass and made leafy salads, peppering them with a wild strawberry or two. She read about all the different plants, finding what berries are safe to eat and which gave her a stomach ache. She drew pictures of mystical animals she thought made special holes in the ground, or a peculiar scratches on a tree.

The forest reminded her so much of home... her trips to the lake with her mum and dad, the woods behind her old house. In truth, she missed the feeling of the grass under her feet, the feeling of the cool, moist air swirling around her. Sure, the grass made her sneeze and the damp air made her hair expand, but it all made her feel... clean. And whole.

But there was something she wasn't acknowledging - the hole in her heart that had started so big and was now shrinking rapidly.

When was the last time she had thought about what she was leaving behind in London? It had been a week at least; when she had first been kidnapped by Draco she had thought about Ron and Harry and the Order almost constantly. Now it was more than far away - it didn't exist anymore.

Hermione tucked her legs in, hugging them to her chest. Who knew she could feel secure in a stranger's home with an icy bodyguard and nothing but her own skin to hold her together?

What she was starting to think, to believe, was scaring her. Why was it that she had stopped trying to escape? Why did she not want to tell Frank's family that she was a captive, and why did the fact that she was ultimately a captive not seem to matter anymore?

Why was she feeling this way about him? Why had she agreed to help him?

Is this... is this Stockholm Syndrome? Is this what is happening? Or is this real?

"It's getting late," Draco said from behind her.

"Why must you do that?" she said angrily, leaping up. She shook her head in her haughty manner and walked forward determinedly, hoping that she didn't hit a fence or a tree or something.

He chuckled.

"You go ahead and get off on my misfortune. See if I care."

He could hear that she wasn't actually that angry, but he turned around and walked into the house anyway. She wanted to be alone, and he probably shouldn't have intruded... not that he was one to respect personal space.

"Who does he think he is?" he heard her mutter from behind him.

"Flashing lights," he said softly, "in the distance. That's all I can see from here."

"Of course. We still have another hour before we get there."

"Shush," Rubinoff said, lifting up his hood. "We're not welcome here; there are Ministry spies everywhere, even on the water."

The trainee nodded and continued to watch the lights dance in the distance. They had been ordered to sweep the coastal cities in both England and Scotland and then move on to the islands. "Do you really expect to find anything? There are millions of places they could be."

"Master knows that. But we will search anyway, because they are bound to make a mistake sometime. We will have them then, and then we can continue with our original plan - "

"Couldn't Master just find someone else to fill the part? That's what I would have done, instead of wasting time finding one girl."

Rubinoff was beyond angry now. Trainees always pissed him off, but this one was not only annoying - he was also one of those creative ones, one of the newbies who thought he could run the business better. "No. Master knows what she is doing, and we never question her."

Angelface smiled. "It's okay to - "

"No. You don't know her methods, junior. She can scan through your mind like a teenage boy flipping through a twins edition of Playwizard. This is your life now; the life doesn't stop until Master says so."

Thoroughly silenced, Angelface turned his gaze back on the lights. In a few hours, it would be daylight, and they could really begin their search.

She could feel him this time, feel the warmth that came off his skin. It was just as she had imagined, against her will, the night before. He was tense as well - he hadn't moved for the longest time. She couldn't hear his breath, couldn't hear his heart, couldn't feel his chest expand and contract.

He was stone, and she was jelly.

She wondered if his eyes were open or closed; he definitely was not asleep.

He will leave, she realized. Of course he will. This is the kind of thing that he likes to avoid – anything uncomfortable. Surely he can feel my thoughts, even if he can't read them.

Her heart jumped suddenly as she felt him let out the breath that he had been holding - he was relaxing slowly.

What is this? Surely... surely he can feel this as well.

Hermione tried to strengthen her resolve. She knew better than this - she knew better than to hope for something. And what was she hoping for? She refused to acknowledge it. Saying it, even in her head, made it more real.

"Would you stop shivering?" he said suddenly.

She jumped; she hadn't realized that she had been shivering. She wasn't even cold. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize - just stop."

"Sorry."

He shook his head and squirmed a little bit more under the blanket. He looked at the clock - it was only 10:30, and there was no way he was sleeping tonight.

"Bugger," she said, feeling for the edges of her shirt. Jesse had left her a button up shirt this morning and expected her to put it on herself.

"You're getting better," Jesse said unconvincingly. "Think of it like dressing in the dark."

Hermione nodded and pressed a finger on either side of the seam. That... that felt like a hole.

"Nope. That's the same one you just tried."

"F... fudge."

"I don't mind cursing, Hermione. Let out your anger. Give into your anger, Luke."

Hermione smiled a bit at the muggle joke and felt for the next one down. This straightened out her shirt finally - five minutes for one shirt! That had to be a record!

She suddenly couldn't breathe.

Jesse stopped as well; how long had the music been playing before they had noticed? She could not recognize the tune, and even if she did she will have never heard it played in this way before. She walked towards the door, not caring if she hit a wall, not caring if there was anything in her way. She had to know for sure.

Yes, he was. He was playing the piano.

Of course she shouldn't have been surprised; most upper-class families, at least upper class wizard families for sure, had members that learned to play instruments like the piano or the cello from an early age. It was just... it suited him ridiculously. Of course he played the piano, like of course he was a Seeker and of course he was a Slytherin. It seemed to be as much a part of him as any shade of green and silver.

Her footsteps were interrupting the music, though they weren't interrupting him - he continued to play, though through the music she could feel that he knew she was standing there. Which direction was it? Where was he?

She had to stand there. She couldn't walk anymore. Not until he was finished.

It took forever. She couldn't hear the notes by themselves - she couldn't hear the tune by itself. It was musical noise in her ears. Her brain couldn't even process it.

He stopped abruptly, right in the middle of a string of notes. Having her there was just too much for him - his music was something that Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor bookworm, should never have the opportunity to know about. His music was something that no one knew about, not even people like Blaise Zabini or Pansy.

... Did he have anyone he could share himself with?

He got up and went into the kitchen, not caring if she was disoriented, not caring if she was standing in the middle of a room filled with sharp objects with no eyes to guide her. He just did not care at the moment. He...

He had to get out. Out of the house for a bit.

He passed her again on his way to the garden door; she hadn't moved.

"He's quite good, isn't he?" Jesse said from behind her.

Hermione nodded sadly. Too good to be wasted on a prick like him, too good to be wasted on a former Death Eater and former tormentor. She wanted to think this - she wanted to cover it with that and be done, without thinking about how much effortlessness and peace went into the sound. She knew her music - she knew her performers. There were musicians who played and you could hear their practice hours and pages of sheet music and notes... and then there were musicians whose music sounded like it came out of their pores.

He was the latter, the kid unwilling to sit still long enough to learn a piece turned into a man who used music to keep himself sane. She could hear it. It was his glue.

"Yes, he is good."

Jesse took her hand and led her away in the correct direction.

They were getting close. And so was the enemy.

Harry looked at the swirling memory in the pensieve in front of him.

His heart wanted to skip. It wanted to thump wildly against his chest. He wanted to smile in relief and apparate over to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to get a team together. But he could not be hopeful and he knew it.

"How long has he been dead? Since what time?" Nora Constable opened her notebook.

Harry looked at the wall clock. "At least a day. And I know why." He turned to Neville. "Take a look in here."

Neville put his face in the pensieve, trusting Harry enough to do this without question.

"Why does the memory end so fast?" Nora asked. As soon as they could identify Hermione, everything went bright white, like a blank page.

"They have it. It's the only explanation."

"But how did they get it? It would take... a seriously gifted person to delete that specific a part of his memory. How did they even find this guy? And why would they kill him?"

Neville surfaced. "He's probably bait. To see if we know more than they do."

Harry glanced at Neville, obviously impressed. "You're really getting the hang of this."

"Shall we go for the bait and see what happens?"

"That's what they'll hope, and will expect. I think we should take it, but be cautious."

"Yes... we should keep this quiet. Just us and a few trusted friends, no one in the Ministry. Just in case."

Harry nodded. This was too delicate a lead to risk compromising to the moles that were probably still in the Ministry. What was interesting was the fact that they'd had evidence to show that Hermione was in France, then Belgium... and suddenly they had hard evidence that she was in Norway? It was too strange. Neville had probably been right from the beginning - the Death Eaters were getting really sneaky.

"This is why we trust memories over all other kinds of evidence."

Harry turned to Nora. "Yes. This is why."

"So what shall we do? Perhaps a small non-Ministry spy sent to check around?"

"A scout... a muggle one. Just tell him what is necessary and nothing else; nothing to give us away in case he gets captured."

Nora nodded, closing her notebook and vanishing it. "You boys are a real asset to us."

"Thank you." Harry emptied the contents of the pensieve into a glass vial and put it in his inside shirt pocket. "This memory is vital to the prosecution of Draco Malfoy as well. We now have indisputable evidence that he is her captor and that he is working alone."

"Yes... I didn't detect any signs of abuse from Hermione, or from the glimpse I saw of her... but I suppose with a captor like Malfoy, the wounds are beneath the surface."

Harry shouldered on his coat. "She's very strong, Nora. I'm sure she's not letting him get to her."