"Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity through stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind." - Leonardo da Vinci

Chapter Sixteen: Rotting in Place

Eventually, it seemed that life quieted down. The days started to move fast for both of them; before they knew it, they became part of the family.

However, while the days moved quickly, the nights did not. Now that they had gotten so good at avoiding each other during the day, the nighttime seemed like ritual torture. Hermione lied awake for hours, her eyes shut, trying to turn off her senses and trying to quell any impulsive urges she had - like the urge to say something to him or the urge to reach forward and touch him.

She had expected him to leave her alone in the bed every night, only coming in after she was asleep; he apparently did not want to acknowledge the awkwardness between them during the night by trying to avoid the situation. It wasn't even until the third night that she was sure he was actually sleeping – anytime she woke up, it seemed like he was just lying there, tensed up, like he was ready to launch out of bed at any moment.

He really was making too big a deal out it.

That being said, Hermione could not help but feel an electrifying thrill as on the seventh night he had climbed in right after her, pushing her to the side he usually slept on. The raw intensity of his body heat indicated that he was shirtless.

She'd had to lie completely still for a few minutes to get her mind right.

This is ridiculous, she thought as she turned over on her side. This is absolutely insane. Please REMIND yourself of who he is and what he has done to you.

They hadn't actually gone outside of the house since their trip to Galleriet, or outside at all besides the garden in the back of the house. Hermione found herself spending most of her time there, whether she was by herself, enjoying the cool breeze, or with Jesse as she practiced with her sword.

As for Draco, he found himself bored out of his mind.

What are we doing here? he thought. They had a mission, and even though it was nice to finally feel somewhat safe, it was only a matter of time before the Death Eaters knew where they were. And then everything would be shot to hell.

Hermione being around certainly didn't help; even when they weren't talking about how to take out Master, he would think about her. He'd picture her body while she slept, peaceful and trusting, or remember the line of her collarbone, bits of stiff bandage poking beneath her shirt, or the fresh look of her face, skin glowing like a washed peach, when she had just showered.

He was actually having a hard time not thinking about her constantly.

Draco didn't know what to make of that.

He tried to distract himself with other things, but in the end the only thing that could truly distract him was the piano. He hadn't touched it since he had played it the first time, with her standing there. At Malfoy Manor, his piano was in his second room, which was in a secluded wing in the back of the house. His parents were less likely to hear him playing it there, since they mainly stayed in the front of the house, where the dining hall and their rooms were. They'd had the piano put in that room for exactly that reason - they knew better than to disturb him while he was practicing.

He passed by it often - the muggle family had a smaller, less extravagant one than he had, but besides needing a tuning the piano suited his purposes just fine. He found himself sitting down at it a few times, just staring at the keys and imagining that he was in his room.

Sasha happened to walk by as he did this one day; like always she was constantly doing something, constantly busy with housework or cooking or laundry or something else that should have been left for servants. She set down the folded load of whites she was carrying. "I used to play when I was younger. This is my old piano."

Draco nodded, brushing his fingers over the keys.

"Do you play?"

He nodded again, still looking at the keys. It was definitely an older piano, though not as old as his. She'd taken good care of it - it looked like it had been cleaned completely through recently.

"Play me something, love."

He looked up at her face; she wore the same sad smile that she tended to wear when he was around.

Draco didn't know how much he wanted to play in front of another pianist; he had never done that. He played for himself only.

Did he need to impress her? Or would she care? He didn't know these things; everything he did like this had to be perfect at home in order to get any acknowledgement, or even just to avoid infuriating smirks and twitching eyebrows.

He started with his favorite piece to play - something deceptively fast that maintained a slow melody. He didn't look up to watch her face, even though he could have if he wanted to - instead he kept his eyes on the wood of the empty music stand above the keys. In the corner of his mind, he felt Hermione perk up - she was in the room finishing her shower.

When he was done, he closed the lid over the keys.

"Very good... you've expanded on classical training, it seems."

He nodded. "I stopped lessons five years ago."

He looked over - Hermione was standing in the doorway, her hair sopping wet, a towel clenched around her. Her black eyes and white towel, draping over her just so, made her look like a Roman statue.

Draco got up and went over to her to usher her back into the room - how she had managed to get from the bathroom to the bedroom door was beyond him. She was too indecently dressed to be in front of their host.

As he closed the door, Sasha tried to quell her heartbeat. She'd seen the outline of something against his leg, something that looked distinctly and horribly familiar. Like a long, thin stick of wood.

... They're running from the Death Eaters.

She didn't know how her heart hadn't burst by now, with all the torture it was being put through constantly. He was leading her somewhere, and she was having a hard time keeping a tight hand clenched over the ends of her towel. She was well aware that her sopping hair was probably getting his shirt wet; the top of her head came just above his chin, and she could feel her hair plastering itself against his neck.

She felt bathroom tiles under her feet as they stopped. "You should put some clothes on," he said shortly.

Hermione nodded, waiting for him to back away from her. He wasn't moving.

It was too hard to put on this face for her, too hard to try to pretend to be a prick around her. Something always got in the way.

She reached behind her tentatively and brushed her wet hair aside, detaching it from his neck and shirt slowly. Draco swallowed audibly. Her hair felt amazing when it was wet. It silkily trailed across his skin, leaving a line of cold, tingling flesh.

"Hermione? Draco?" someone called from the door. "I have something to show you." It sounded like Jesse.

Draco backed away and left without another word; Hermione was left to dress in the dark.

When she finished, Jesse was there to guide her to the garden; she sat down just inside the grey square.

"I think it's time everyone has come clean," said Sasha. Hermione turned her head toward her voice; she had thought that it was Jesse who had something to show.

Leaning on the wall, Draco nodded once. "So you know, then."

"I saw the outline of your wand. And I know the spell that has her eyes like that."

Hermione gasped. "You know about us?"

"I'm a witch, Hermione," Jesse put forth. "You have the same magic aura as I do. I thought as much as soon as we met. And the only terrorist organization that you'd cross the sea to run from would be the Death Eaters."

"And therein lies the problem," Sasha sighed.

Draco looked at his feet. This should have all come as a shock to him but it seemed like nothing surprised him anymore. The magical presence he had felt on Frank's boat hadn't gone away when he had come to the house. "Yes. We need to keep moving."

Sasha shook her head sadly. "That may be true, but not because we don't want you here, but because you won't be safe. By coming here, you've put yourself in more danger than anywhere else."

Hermione straightened her neck, pointing her chin at the sky. There was a blockage forming in her throat; she could not help but feel disappointed. She had gotten too comfortable here, and she knew it now; they still had things to do, still had people after them. People after her.

"I'm sure you have wondered why we live so well and only Frank and Jesse work. Frank can be so oblivious sometimes - he wouldn't be making nearly what he is if he were doing the same things for someone else, and he doesn't realize it. He thinks he's just really important. We have to pretend that we don't know to avoid suspicion."

There was silence as Draco mulled this over. "So what are we talking about here? How deep?"

Hermione shook her head. "Wait. Are you saying... that the cargo that Frank ships is for the Death Eaters?"

"He's a middleman. He has suppliers in Egypt, Mongolia, and other parts of the world. They pay him to deliver it safely to whoever needs it... and most times, it's not innocent trading."

Hermione shook her head, barely receiving this. "He's a dark artifact trafficker? That's... how do you even get into that business?"

Draco turned to Hermione, taking on a tone he reserved for her when he was annoyed by something she didn't know. "The black magic market usually uses muggle transports. Muggles ask fewer questions. Which supplier is he? What is your surname again?"

"Worthington."

"Blimey... you're serious? He's their main source!"

"He's meeting with them overseas this week. If he starts babbling, he'll mention that you two are staying here, and they'll be kicking down our door within minutes."

Cold fear washed over Hermione she rose to her feet abruptly. "I need... I need an owl. Now."

Draco stared at her incredulously. "Don't even think about it. There's nothing they can do."

"But they need to know this - this could bust open the dark artifact market; we could finally stop illegal shipments into England."

"This is a lot bigger than just exposing criminals, Granger. This is our lives we're talking about. I thought we discussed this!"

Hermione shook her head. "This is bigger than us. How are we supposed to be the big heroes if we cannot even save the people in front of us? They'd get the best protection as well, and we be dealing a major blow to the Death Eaters if we cut off their trading."

Instead of counter-arguing, Draco smirked. He didn't know she could be conniving enough to know how to indirectly weaken an enemy. It was the type of thing that Death Eaters and Slytherins knew how to do. "You're more devious than you look. It won't be hard for them to find another source. The problem is that they need Worthington for the plan involving you. That's what makes this complicated."

"If they know you're here then, Hermione, it will be an early Christmas for them. That means no owling."

Hermione's heartbeat began to slow. It would not do well to be impulsive now - they needed a plan.

Jesse put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. As soon as you told us why you were here, we were preparing for something like this. We are not completely defenseless. I think you need to know this." She jogged to the wall of the house and removed the sword from its hanging position under the overhang. "This is not just a sword."

She unsheathed the sword, letting the long metal blade catch the sun before walking back over to the group. "Traders would queue up in a heartbeat to have this sword."

Draco leaned in to see what she was talking about.

Pushing her thumb against the small jewel on the hilt, Jesse began to unscrew the blade. Draco watched in amazement as she turned it in deft fingers, supporting the entire weight of it with her fingers. When the blade was completely detached, she pulled it up and away from the hilt, revealing a long, grey-white stick of polished wood.

"Beautiful," Draco commented; he didn't know that halfbloods could do such things. His father would have traded his walking stick in a quick second to have this sword.

"This is my wand. I made the blade myself, and had a hard time getting the mechanics in town to let me use their space for blacksmithing, but well, it was worth it. It's silver and a granite-like magic catalyst." She turned the sword a few times in a down slashing spiral pattern, her upper arm barely moving as the sword cut through the air between them. "It has a better access shaft but I wanted you to see what it can do."

"A magic sword would be very interesting against wands; I've never battled against one before, and I doubt many of them have either."

Jesse smiled. "I can wield this better than anyone of them can wield a wand."

Sasha nodded. "So we have some defense, but there is a problem. Hermione is as blind as ever and you can't walk into their base of operations like that."

"I hope you weren't considering doing this by yourself!"

Hermione finally understood what they were saying - they were planning on helping them. "We can't let you do this. We've already put you in enough danger."

Draco shook his head. "I can't disclose anything to you - if they capture you then everything we were planning to do is completely buggered."

"You don't have a choice," Jesse replied. "There are cures for Hermione's blindness in eastern parts of Asia. I can work on that, and can meet you there."

Hermione ran a hand through her damp hair. "I don't know about this."

"The more people are involved, the more danger we are in," Draco said quietly. Why was he discussing getting help from the muggles? He could not respect Jesse as a witch yet, even having seen her sword and wand, and he had no idea how Sasha knew so much. More people being introduced to and involved in their mission would complicate things.

"In any case, you need to start preparing. Get packed; I'll get some things for you from the shop when I pick up Amy."

Hermione finished her french braid slowly, not knowing what to think. How had this happened? This seemed like the sweetest family in existence, yet they contribute to one of the worst practices in the wizarding world on a daily basis.

"Now you see why we can't trust anyone. We can't even trust each other."

Hermione shook her head, suddenly angry. She wanted her damn eyes! They were making this a million times harder than it needed to be!

"Calm down, Granger."

"Don't bloody tell me to calm down!"

Draco rolled his eyes and continued to put things into the bag. "We travel lighter this time. I've magicked smaller bottles for the panacea sap and the muggle potion. Also, the Death Eaters probably have spies watching this area because they have a big supplier here. We can't make any sudden moves that will draw their gaze."

"So going shopping that time was probably a bad idea."

"Definitely."

He finished quickly, having very little to put into the bag. He took out the wand and said, "Diminuendo." The bag shrank to the size of a handbag. "With any luck, they don't know we're here yet."

"Did you see them with your own eyes?"

Greg scratched in his beard. "I saw the woman. The one with the black eyes. She was sitting at the window."

Nora turned to Harry. "We've got her, Harry. Let's get moving."

He nodded, thinking. "Before the other side does. If we can get both of them, then all the better. We can get this wrapped up a little more quickly."

"Should we tell Ronald?"

Harry shook his head. "If this doesn't go as planned, I can't face him. Can you get us registered portkeys? I'll pop in on Neville."

"Sure." Nora turned to leave, only stopping when she reached the door. "Harry?"

Harry didn't turn to look at her. "Yes?"

"It's going to be okay. She's going to be okay."

He nodded, clearing his throat. He knew better than to hope. "Let's get you sorted out, Greg..."