"Do you want to read it?" Hermione asked him. After they'd finished breakfast and their morning chores, they sat on what had become their couch in the art therapy room. Truthfully, they didn't spend nearly as much time here as they once did, but they did come here for their Occlumency lessons, which, after getting their magic back, had become more about just sitting near one another and meditating.
Hermione had become quite a bit better at sinking within herself these days, particularly with the added benefit of her magic, and she thought at some point she'd like to attempt to push him out of her mind. Though that wasn't the point of her learning to begin with, she thought she might as well learn it to the fullest of her ability if she was going to be doing it. But she hadn't broached this with Draco yet, and today, she had more on her mind.
"The letter, I mean," Hermione said, causing Draco to open his eyes and look at her. "You don't have to, and I won't push you about it."
"No." He didn't hesitate at all, and Hermione thought he'd likely already been preparing for her to offer. He closed his eyes again, his thumb brushing against the backs of her knuckles the only indication that he wasn't still angry. His voice was final though.
She'd been telling the truth. She wouldn't push him, but she'd be lying if she said she didn't want to. She thought it would be good for him to hear what his father had to say, but she didn't want to reopen the wounds they'd managed to close last night.
Instead of all the things she wanted to say, she said, "It… it was nice."
"Nice?" He'd immediately sat up the moment the word had left her mouth, clearly dropping the calm pretense he'd had seconds before. "My father hasn't said anything nice in his entire life, especially not to a Muggle-born. If there was anything nice in that letter, I'm certain he has ulterior motives."
She took a deep breath, feeling the same tension that had been in the air when Narcissa had brought up Lucius during tea two weeks ago. She could feel it, that she was tiptoeing around the fire, edging closer and closer to it yet hoping not to get burned.
"I… I don't think he does."
He pulled his hand away from hers, using it to rub down his face, his thumb and forefinger circling his eyelids as if he were attempting to brush away an oncoming headache. "Hermione," he said with a sigh, "you don't know him. The things I've seen him do, things he's… he's very, very good at manipulating people. He knows exactly what to say to make people trust him, people who have no reason whatsoever to trust him" – the way he was looking at her, grey eyes peering in her own, said this was clearly pointed – "all so that he can get what he wants. And rest assured, he wants something."
Yes, he does, she thought, your forgiveness. The implication that she was being manipulated was aggravating to say the least. She was smart, brilliant, even; she wasn't ashamed to admit it. And the insinuation that she could be so easily influenced caused her to narrow her eyes at him before quickly getting control over her features again.
No, that's not fair. She knew he wasn't trying to be hurtful. He himself was hurt, by his father, and by her sticking her nose in, most likely, so it wasn't fair to take offense right now.
"What if all he wants is forgiveness?"
He scoffed, shifting on the couch and turning so that he could look at the window behind them. "That I highly doubt."
"What do you think he wants then?"
Draco didn't answer for a moment. He continued to stare out the window, watching the October wind sway the limbs of the weeping willow behind them. He took a heavy breath before turning to look at her finally. "I don't know. Reduced sentence perhaps. If he can convince the Golden Girl that he's a different man, maybe she'll speak on his behalf as well."
There it was again. The implication that she was that easily manipulated. She felt anger bubbling up inside her, but she wouldn't take the bait. He'd told her last night that his old defenses sometimes still got the better of him, and it certainly seemed like he was trying to goad her now. A blow up between them would definitely halt the conversation about his father, wouldn't it?
So instead, she kept her breathing calm and just looked back at him. Feeling tension radiating off him, she crossed the short distance between them and put her thighs on either side of his hips. He hadn't been expecting that if his momentary look of confusion was any indication. But as she leaned forward, brushing her lips softly against his throat before resting her head on his shoulder, she felt him relax beneath her. The bristling he'd been doing before slowly faded away as he lifted his arms around her, burying his face in her curls.
Exhaling into her hair, he said, "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Leaving her head where it lay, she spoke directly into the hollow of his throat. "I'll be the first to admit that I don't know him. Maybe he's lying about it all, but I don't think so. He seems really genuine."
Draco sighed into her hair again. "Do you want me to read it?"
What? His question took her off guard. Of course, she wanted him to read it, but that wasn't really her place to decide was it?
"I… I think you should, yes. But maybe that isn't fair of me." She paused for a moment, trying to concentrate on saying this the best way possible. "If he's lying, if he's just trying to get something out of me, or you for that matter, the worst that can happen is that you've trusted another person to do the right thing. Isn't that what Walt has been telling us to do for weeks?" His hands paused their ministrations across her arms as he thought about what she was saying. "And if he's telling the truth, and he really does just want to make amends, I think we deserve that. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think he deserves that opportunity too."
Draco's hands dropped beside her, and for a moment she thought maybe she'd said something wrong though she wasn't sure what. But his words said otherwise. "You're right. I hate it, but you're right. I… I want to continue hating him. I want him to feel the weight of it all, but… but that isn't fair." She felt him swallow beneath her as she kissed him again, her lips against the warmth of his neck as his stubble brushed across her cheek.
She sat up, lifting up enough to reach into the back pocket of her jeans and pull out the letter. She unfolded it, her eyes never straying from the manila parchment in her hands and then lay it on his shirt.
"You don't have to do it now," she said, but he immediately picked the letter up, "and you don't have to do it with me, if you'd rather be alone."
He shook his head, but never looked up as he flipped the letter over and began reading. She wanted to watch his face, to gauge his reaction in real time, but that was a bit inconsiderate given the nature of what he was reading. It wasn't really her place to be involved at all, but she did think that Nicola was correct in saying that sometimes loving someone meant doing what you thought was best for them.
Even if she was wrong about Lucius, even if he was just manipulating her, she thought, based on everything that Walt, Susan, and Alys had been teaching them over the last eight weeks, that it was better to try and trust someone to do the right thing than to simply hold on to the past.
She shifted off Draco's lap, wanting to give him at least some semblance of privacy right now, as much as could be allowed while sharing the same couch with a person, as he read. Turning backward on the couch, she stared out at the same willow Draco had been earlier, watching as the limbs blew in the wind and waiting, hoping that he would even want to talk about it after he read it and questioning whether or not she was doing the right thing. Deep down, she really did think Lucius was telling the truth; of course, she could be wrong about that, but she didn't think so.
However, if she was, and Lucius was somehow not changed at all and Draco was hurt by it, would he be upset with her, blaming her for it somehow?
Shut up, she told herself. He'd just told her at some point in the early hours of the morning that he wasn't going anywhere. She had to trust him, had to believe that he wouldn't hurt her. It wasn't fair to him, and it was driving her crazy to constantly worry that what they had was so fragile that it could blow away like the leaves of the willow in front of her.
She heard Draco shift, lost in her thoughts and no longer taking peeks at him from the corner of her eye, so she turned around to face him, finding him folding the letter back up and extending it to her. He said nothing yet, and she felt her stomach drop at the deadened look in his eyes, his Occlumency tell yet again.
He closed his eyes, and a small divet appeared between his brows as he opened them. But his eyes were his own, free of his walls now, and she was thankful for it.
He shook his head, s derisive scoff falling from his lips.
"He said whatever he needed to say to make sure you gave me that."
Hermione said nothing, silently watching him as he dragged a hand down his face.
"He's persistent. I'll give him that much. And he's at least honest about one thing," he said, the frown he was wearing deepening as his face grew serious again. "He's never said those words to me."
I need him to know that I love him and how proud I am of him. I regret that I cannot recall having ever said those words to him.
She wasn't really surprised by that. Lucius Malfoy didn't strike her as much of a doting father. Remembering the way that her own father had cared for her – holding her when she cried, peeking beneath her bed for monsters, reading her stories every night – she couldn't imagine Lucius Malfoy doing any of those things. Or Narcissa for that matter. How lonely it must've been for him.
Reading between the lines of the letter now in her hand, it seemed as if Lucius deeply regretted that, and a memory of her own popped into her mind, proving at least to some degree that what Lucius said was true, that he loved his son. She put the letter back into her pocket and took a deep breath, wondering whether or not Draco would want to even see it. She thought it would help him; it would at least inform his beliefs on his father's love for him.
"Draco," she said, and he looked up at her, pulled from whatever thoughts had been consuming him. "I… I do have a memory of your father that shows at least that portion of his letter is truthful. If… if you'd like to see it."
His brows knit together in thought, likely trying to weigh the options of discomfort, hurt, and curiosity, as she pulled her wand from her hair.
His eyes shot down at her wand as she extended it toward him, making her hesitate. No matter how much it hurt, surely, knowing that you're loved is more important. "I don't want to push you into anything. So, if you think I'm overstepping, tell me. But… you have an opportunity here to fix this. I know my relationship with my parents was very different from yours, but I'd…" – she took a breath, willing her voice to remain steady. She wasn't trying to make this about her at all, but she had to make him see – "I'd give anything for that chance."
Draco's eyes shifted toward her wand again then back up into hers. He nodded slowly, the furrow returning to his brow as he took the wand from her hand. He started to point it toward her, but stopped, leaning in to kiss her first, his lips soft and warm against her own. Despite the current situation and the way their relationship still felt a bit raw after yesterday, her chest filled with the same feeling of fireflies as it always did when he kissed her. It brought everything else to a standstill.
His lips left hers, and he rested his forehead against hers for a split second before leaning back and nodding toward her once. She steeled herself for the welcome intrusion in her mind and nodded as well. As soon as he finished muttering the spell, she felt him there, warm and cozy, as if that's where he belonged. Clearly having heard her thoughts, a soft smile grew at either side of his lips.
Ready when you are, she heard him say, the thoughts echoing through the void in her mind that Occlumency had helped her correct as she pulled the right memory forward, Hermione was actually surprised to see that the memory was as clear as it had been in Harry's pensieve. She'd been worried that showing him a secondary memory would be fuzzy or blurry somehow, but this one looked like any other from within her mind.
Her memory opened in the middle of the Shrieking Shack, dirty, peeling wallpaper covering the desolate walls, as the pensieve versions of Hermione and Harry stood behind Voldemort, watching him as he watched the ongoing battle out the only window that wasn't boarded up. Fires were burning in the distance, explosions sounding through the night, carrying their weight all the way to the ramshackle house where they stood.
Voldemort was spinning his wand in his fingers, twisting it absentmindedly while the war raged on, while people died for him, and the memory version of Hermione could feel anger bubbling up inside her at the absurdity of it all. He stood here, seemingly without a care in the world as his followers fought and died for him, while her friends were being killed because of him.
"He was thinking about the diadem then. Thinking there was no way that we could find it," Harry said, never taking his eyes off Voldemort's back.
A voice spoke up behind them. "My Lord," Lucius Malfoy said, causing them both to turn as Voldemort did as well. His voice cracked as he spoke, and beneath his words was a desperation Hermione couldn't remember ever hearing before. She'd thought him low when she'd been in his home, clearly having suffered in Azkaban and at the hands of his 'Lord' after he was released as well, but here, he was worse off than he'd been even then.
One eye was swollen shut, puffy and tinged red, and dried blood matted his normally perfect locks. What the hell was this, she thought? Was she feeling sorry for Lucius Malfoy? As ridiculous as it sounded, she did. Regardless of what he'd done, nobody deserved whatever it was he'd been put through following their escape from his home.
Her mind went to Malfoy. They'd seen him multiple times throughout the battle and afterward, and thankfully he didn't look at all like the man in front of her. She knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn't help but wonder what they'd all gone through at the hands of the madman in front of them right now. Had Malfoy been punished when they'd escaped too, for not recognizing them? There's no way he couldn't have, and yet he chose to not tell. Even that little bit gave them at least a small amount of time to escape.
And even though she knew it was ridiculous, she couldn't help but worry about what kind of punishment he'd gotten for it.
Lucius spoke up again, pulling Hermione from her thoughts of his son and back into the memory around them. "My Lord… please…," he said, his voice breaking again and barely more than a whisper, "my son…" Lucius' hands shook, and again Hermione found herself sympathizing for this broken man in front of her.
"If your son is dead, Lucius, it is no fault of mine. He did not come and join me like the rest of his house. Perhaps he has decided to befriend The Chosen One?"
"No – never," Lucius whispered.
"You must hope not." Voldemort's eyes flashed as he glared at Lucius.
Lucius clearly picked up on the threat causing him to take a step back and clasp his hands behind his back, presumably so that Voldemort would not notice his trembling.
"Aren't… aren't you afraid, my Lord, that Potter may die at another hand but your own?" Lucius asked, his voice trembling as much as his hands had been. "Wouldn't it be… forgive me… more prudent to call off this battle, enter the castle, and seek him y-yourself?"
Voldemort surprised them all by laughing, the sound raking across her skin and breaking her out in goosebumps. The man had been dead for months now, and still just the sound of his laugh, the slimy sound of a snake slithering across tree bark, was enough to give her chills. Lucius jumped, his face twitching, indicating that at some point in the last few hours, he'd been on the receiving end of a Cruciatus.
"Do not lie to me, Lucius," Voldemort continued, his voice now laden falsely sweet, which was somehow even more menacing than the tone he'd taken earlier while threatening him. "You wish the battle to cease so that you can search for your son." Voldemort turned his back on Lucius again, and Hermione watched as the man seemed to breathe freely for the first time without the red-eyed glare of the monster staring him down. "No matter. I'm sure he's dead. He didn't come when I called. He's an enemy of both sides now. Look out there, Lucius. Do you really think he's somehow survived that?"
Draco's resolve to remain passive started to slip here, the furrow in his brow deepening as he watched his father struggle to maintain his composure. Hermione started to pull out of the memory, but just as he'd done when she shared her own memories with him, he stopped her, shaking his head slightly and saying, "I'm okay. Don't" – he gulped and continued, though he seemed to be struggling to breathe – "don't stop." She nodded reluctantly and pushed forward, allowing the memory to begin again.
While Voldemort spoke, Harry had looked back at him, but Hermione's eyes had remained on Lucius. As Voldemort finished his suggestion that Malfoy was dead, Hermione saw something she never thought possible. Lucius Malfoy blinked, desperately trying to fight to control the emotions threatening to overtake him. He managed to rein them in enough to keep the tears shining in his eyes from overflowing, but a range of emotions flashed across his face – fear, regret, anger. Hermione knew Voldemort had turned back around based solely on the void of emotion that blanketed Lucius' face all of a sudden.
"Wouldn't you rather have no son at all than one who would betray everything you stand for?" Voldemort asked, and Hermione held her breath, waiting for an answer.
The emotion that Lucius had bitten back seconds ago threatened to resurface, but instead, he stood up a little straighter, lifting his chin and staring down the snake-like man who he called Master and said, "No."
For a second, Voldemort's hand flexed around the Elder Wand, but Lucius's eyes never budged from Voldemort's. Hermione thought perhaps this was the one and only time that Lucius had ever stood up to him, and even though she knew he lived, she was certain she was about to see him be tortured.
But, instead, Voldemort simply twirled his wand again as if he were bored, as if Lucius didn't even warrant his wrath in this moment. "Pity," he said, turning away from Lucius again to look out the window. "Fetch Severus for me."
"Severus?" Lucius asked, blinking, as if he too had been expecting some sort of punishment for his impudence.
"Yes. Severus. I have a task for him. As for you, get out of my sight." As Lucius retreated from the room, the memory swirled into another that Harry was showing her.
Hermione pulled the memory into the recesses of her mind, pushing Draco out with her Occlumency. Not that she wanted to hide it from him, but just enough to tell him that was all she needed to show him. The entire time she'd been sharing the memory with him, he'd remained mostly impassive, and Hermione wondered if it was possible to use Occlumency while also using Legilimency on someone else. Throughout it all, his labored breath and pained expression when she'd stopped the memory once was the only indication that he was being affected by what he was seeing.
But as soon as the memory ceased, he dropped her wand onto the couch between them and turned away from her. Resting his elbows on his knees, he dropped his face into his hands and breathed in deeply, making Hermione question whether this had actually been a good idea or not. His exhale came out shaky, but he didn't flinch beneath her touch when she scooted closer to him and laid her hand across his arm.
She sat beside him, just as he'd done for her all those weeks ago outside of the granian stables, her hand across his bicep and her thigh brushing against his as she gave him whatever time he needed to process what he'd seen in her mind.
It'd been hard to watch, seeing the way Lucius had looked so broken; she couldn't imagine how difficult that must be from Draco's perspective. Just the idea of what her parents could have gone through had been enough to make her wipe their memories and free them from any burden she could be on their life. There is no way she could've watched as they'd gone through some of what Draco had likely watched his parents go through.
After a few moments, Draco stilled beside her, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy as he dropped his hands from his face. He sat back on the couch and pulled her with him, sliding her over into his lap in the process. It certainly wasn't the time, but she couldn't help but think how much she loved that he could just move her around so freely.
She twisted her legs to the side, draping them across the couch and leaning against the armrest, her head resting on Draco's shoulder.
"Thank you," he said, dropping a chaste kiss to her cheek. "I didn't,"–he paused to take a deep breath–"just… thank you."
She breathed a sigh of relief, comforted in knowing that she'd given him something that he appreciated even though it had hurt him to see it.
"He wasn't always like that; the way you knew him, I mean. He…" Draco dropped his hand to the hem of her shirt, twisting the fabric in her fingers the same way he'd typically twist the signet ring on his finger. "He wasn't always around before I started at Hogwarts, but when he was, he was a normal father. We did normal things together. I wanted nothing more than to be like him."
Hermione remembered enough about the few times she'd seen them in Diagon Alley together or at Platform 9¾ to have seen the way Draco looked up to the man, walking like him and talking like him as well, unfortunately.
"He was strong, powerful, influential. All I ever wanted was to make him proud, to uphold the legacy," he said, clearly enunciating something he'd been told a thousand times. "But then when the Dark" – Draco took a breath, letting it out in a soft sigh before continuing – "Voldemort came back, he became someone else entirely. He wasn't strong, he was… intolerant. His power wasn't power, it was manipulation and control, twisting everything until he got whatever he wanted. Hell, maybe he was always like that, and I just never truly noticed before. But, he was right. I did follow right in his footsteps. I was just like that.
"My boggart was entirely too accurate. It isn't just my fear to be like him, it's that I look at him and see everything I was. I was him, or at least well on my way to being him, and I hate it. It makes me hate him even more."
Hermione said nothing, just allowed him the opportunity to say what he needed to say. She watched his mouth move as he spoke and ran her hand through the soft hair at the nape of his neck.
"And as much as I'm ashamed of myself for all that I did, I'm ashamed that I even still care about him after all that he put us through. How fucked up is that? I feel like I shouldn't want anything to do with him, and any time I do, I feel like I'm doing something wrong."
"It's okay to still care for him," Hermione said. "He's your father. You can't exactly turn that off."
"You sound like Susan," Draco said with a dry laugh.
"Smart woman, that Susan." Becoming serious again, she added, "You're allowed to love him or miss the relationship you had with him."
"But I shouldn't want to. Not after everything he put us through, everything we went through because of this ridiculous cause that he convinced us was worthy of our lives." So far, he'd managed to keep his feelings in check, but now, his voice was rising as he struggled to hold in his anger. "He says he didn't want me to be a fucking Death Eater but that wasn't the message I was getting. He moved him into our house."
"How much say do you think he had in that?" Hermione asked, her voice quiet but enough to cut through his tirade. When he remained silent, the crimson that had been rising from beneath his collar starting to dissipate, she straightened up on his lap, and asked, "Have you ever read The Assault by Harry Muslisch?" When Draco shook his head and turned to look at her, she continued, "Well, you should read it, it's great, but one of the characters in it feels conflicted about his father because he was a Nazi. Those were essentially the Muggle equivalent of Death Eaters, maybe even worse actually. They killed literally millions of people. Anyway, this character wants to love his father, but he also wants to hate him for all these horrific things that he did. He's–"
"I get the allegory, Granger," he said. His returning smirk was entirely welcome at the moment.
"Well, anyway, another character says to him, 'Why can't you love your father without trying to whitewash him? After all, it doesn't take much to love a saint. That's like loving animals. Why can't you simply say: my father was definitely a collaborator, but he was my father, and I love him.' I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the idea. You don't have to try and rationalize his behavior in some way in order to love him.
"It doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks. And you've already seen some of the things he's done that prove he wasn't all horrible. Look at what he did for Nicola."
Draco was no longer looking at her. He was staring across the expanse of the room, his eyes unfocused on any one thing as he took in everything she was saying. She burrowed further into his chest, wanting to comfort him more than just sitting here with him but knowing there was nothing that she could do really outside of that.
Now that she'd brought up Nicola, she wanted to share the rest with him even though she wasn't sure if it was her place still. To hell with it. No turning back now.
"Also, in the letter he said that he never wanted to be a Death Eater, and Nic… Nicola told me the same thing about him." Just as she thought he would, Draco turned sharply to look at her, brows furrowed once again, a question on his lips. "It was during our camping trip. She" – Hermione hesitated, dropping her gaze to her hands in her lap, worried now that he'd be upset that she hadn't told him weeks ago – "she said that your grandfather forced him to do it. According to her, your father wanted to be a pianist actually." It sounded ridiculous even to her own ears.
Draco's eyes widened momentarily before shifting to a look of sheer skepticism. "I've never once heard my father play the piano."
"According to Nicola, the piano in his study was a gift from your mother when they got married."
Draco shook his head with another scoff, though he seemed to at least be entertaining the idea that his father was perhaps a very different man than he'd imagined.
"And I've only seen the one memory with the both of you," she said, referring to Nicola's memory of the death of Astoria, and Draco certainly knew which she'd been thinking of because she felt him tense beneath her. "He seemed to be trying to intervene, to keep you from having to… to do that." In the memory, Lucius had tried in multiple ways to step in between Draco and Voldemort, to keep Draco from having to do what Voldemort was asking of him. His grip on his son's wrist had seemed like a reminder, to lock himself away in his mind and do what he needed to do in order to survive. "Maybe, he really didn't see any other choice."
Draco seemed to consider this, and Hermione wondered if there were more instances where Lucius had tried to keep Draco away from Voldemort, moments where he attempted to shield his son from the same servitude he'd been thrust into, moments that may not have been obvious at the time.
Draco shrugged and said, "Still doesn't change the fact that the man who taught me to ride a broom is the same man who could kill someone without batting an eye simply because of their blood status."
She hadn't meant to react, but thankfully Draco was still looking down at their hands, so he missed the look of horror that flashed across her face. She'd known that Lucius had killed people, having heard bits and pieces of his trial – at least what had been released to the public anyway. But hearing it from Draco somehow made it realer, more tangible.
"It's hard for me to reconcile that." He seemed resigned, the words coming out softly but with a finality that said he wasn't sure where to go from there. He laced his fingers through hers and lifted her hand to his lips. That simple action, that seemingly small display of affection paired with his willingness to open up to her, to share this part of himself, lit a fire inside of her, stitching together more of the cracks she'd felt before coming to The Willows. She kissed him, thinking that her desire to be unbroken was no longer just about repairing herself; she wanted to be whole again for him as much as for herself.
Suddenly the alarm on his wristwatch sounded, and he pulled away.
"Therapy calls," she said, offering him one last kiss. "Thank you, for… for telling me all that."
He picked her wand up, twirling it around her head before sliding it into the twist he'd made with her hair, securing it in place as she always did. "Everything, remember?" he said, a soft smile turning up one side of his lips in the way that always made her heart stutter.
"Everything."
As she sat in their room, waiting for his private session with Susan to end, she couldn't help but wonder if she was being ridiculous. They'd been dating for a month. Was it insane that she'd wanted to tell him she loved him earlier?
She'd never wanted to be one of those people who just rushed into things too quickly, especially relationships, but she knew what she was feeling was real, beyond just being here with him. But was that too soon? Too soon, to share it with him?
Before she could devolve fully into her typical cycle of overthinking, Draco walked in. Her "hey" died on her lips as she noticed the oddly blank expression he was wearing.
Taking a seat beside her on the bed, he said, "Susan said I could have my wand back tonight."
That was good news, so why did he look like it wasn't?
"But?"
"But I have to share my memories tonight in order to get it."