Two days later, when everything was already arranged, Hermione packed up an enlarged small suitcase with her clothes and books, climbing down the Hogwarts stairs with both hands full feeling at home one last time. She wasn't sure what awaited her in the future, she didn't know where her home would be from now on, and if she will even have a home, but she was certain that the next time she will be at Hogwarts it won't feel like this anymore.

She was almost down to the east wing on the first floor where Snape had told her to wait when she heard someone scream, "Granger!"

She turned around and saw barefoot Pansy with her hair tangled up and an infirmary blanket thrown over her shoulder, making her resemble a gnome. She was trying to catch her breath after running all this way to catch up. But what surprised Hermione was what Pansy had in her hands – the ginger fur of her pet was bright and shiny.

"Crookshanks!" Hermione exclaimed, and the cat meowed pitifully at her.

Pansy reached out her hands as if disgusted by the animal, "Granger, you have to take this beast with you, don't leave it here!"

"I can't take him with me. Should I remind you where I'm going? Besides, Harry promised to take care of him."

Pansy rolled her eyes, "You know Potter's promises are worthless, and he might allow all sorts of creatures in his bed, but I won't be sleeping with this demon next to me."

Hermione ignored the implications of that last part. "Merlin, fine, give him to me," she said, taking the cat from Pansy's hands. "And please, put on some shoes. Cho will be so mad if she sees you running around like this."

Pansy grinned, "I won't tell of you won't." After a moment of mutual silence, she added more quietly, "And don't let him scare you."

Hermione smiled sadly, "I won't."

This could've been a great moment to hug, and Hermione terribly wanted to hug someone since no one except for Pansy came to see her out. Sure, it was really early in the morning, and everybody had better things to do, but she really hoped for something different. She would hug if it was someone closer to her, but Ron was dead, Harry was somewhere else, and there was no one else she could want by her side now. So Pansy and she just stood there awkwardly for a couple of moments.

Pansy agreed to let her go only after a bunch of more threats, and when Hermione finally got to the main door of the east wing, he was already waiting.

He stood there with his back turned to her clad in a black cloak. Then he turned around, and instead of his face, she saw a mask that resembled a skull – the usual Death Eater outfit, but slightly different from what she remembered. Upon closer look, she noticed the robes were embroidered with metallic ornaments, there was also a belt with at least ten sharp knives. He wore thick leather gloves, and his hair was hidden by a hood of his cloak. He held no wand between his lithe fingers. When Hermione came to stand side by side with him, she realized he was so much taller and so much bigger than her. She couldn't help but wonder whether using dark magic and torturing and killing people while having no single empathetic bone in one's body makes people grow into literal walking mountains. If so, the Order was doomed.

Why was he wearing his Death Eater clothes? Why was he hiding his face under a mask, for a second time even? Was he trying to intimidate her like that? Did he want her scared? She had to admit, it was hard not to feel threatened by his darkly overwhelming presence.

Neither of them said anything, and Hermione started wondering whether this was actually the High Reeve and not some random Death Eater coming here to take her. She looked around after getting a strange feeling of being watched, and she could swear she saw Moody hiding in the shadows, nodding to her. She looked back up at the High Reeve – it was impossible to guess what he was thinking, what he wanted, what he expected from her because his face was hidden and all she saw before her was camouflage. But something in his body language made her think he was looking down at Crookshanks in her hands.

Hermione quickly thought of possible answers. If he told her to leave her pet, she would either threaten with, If my cat stays, so do I, or comply and let Crookshanks go on his way, hoping with all her heart that Pansy will find it in her to let the cat sleep between her and Harry.

Fortunately, she didn't have to come up with either of those answers – he reached out a gloved hand to her suitcase and she gave it to him, balancing fatty Crookshanks in her now free hand. He took her suitcase with one hand and held out the other for her to take, saying, "Come." His voice didn't seem muffled by the mask – it was clear, low, and deep, laced with a promise of death and a threat of consumption, making shivers run down her spine. She wondered if that's what he sounded like five years ago, but her mind loved to play tricks, so she couldn't trust that.

Even so, he didn't say anything about the pet, and Hermione wanted to take that as a good sign.

She took his hand. The leather of the gloves felt cold against her warm palm. "Hold on," he said, and she wanted to interject that they couldn't Apparate from Hogwarts, but they were already gone.

She gasped when she felt a not-so-light tug in her lower belly, glad she hadn't eaten breakfast yet because she would most definitely have puked it all out. When they settled on the ground again, she leaned on her feet a bit unsteadily, unused to Apparate such long distances, but he held her firmly. She didn't even feel the pain of Crookshanks scratches – poor thing wasn't used to Apparating either – when she saw where he brought them.

A high, manicured yew hedge borders the driveway on both sides was before Hermione. The driveway was perfectly straight, running through wrought-iron gates and straight up to the front door. She recognized this place. The gates looked like black spears and when they opened, she instinctively flinched back as if frightened to be speared by them. He tugged on her hand as they went in through the gates and the grass that she remembered as green was now poor and grayish. They walked for minutes in silence while Hermione watched around in awe at how different everything seemed. And yet, deep within it all was the same.

They finally stood in front of the Malfoy Manor – a grand gothic building with slim arched windows and sharp edges, seeming more like a shadow than an actual house. The door opened, and the High Reeve wanted to bring her inside, but Hermione stopped in her tracks.

The scar on her arm that spelled Mudblood itched uncomfortably to the point of pain. She swallowed thickly. "Wait—I can't—I can't go in there—"

She was met with the bottomless voids of his mask. She knew it was stupid, ridiculous even, but she couldn't get past the threshold.

"Get in, Granger," he said in a low threatening voice, and she understood there was no way around it.

She got in as awful memories consumed her – people in the Malfoy Manor's living room, some of them her friends, others not, all of them the same in the end; Bellatrix Lestrange, carving an insult on her forearm with a mad expression on her face and her mad eyes, excruciating pain soring through Hermione's senses, her own screams echoing through her ears…

"Don't lose your wits, Granger. It's just a house," she heard him say.

Right. It's just a house. There's nothing to be scared of. Unless, of course, the High Reeve. He was positively scary.

He said he'd show her around but all they did was walk about the Manor; he didn't speak more than was necessary and she tried to focus on the interior to keep the panic at bay. The Manor was sumptuously decorated, with ornate and gilded furnishings. There was a large entrance hall with a door that leads directly into the drawing room – he didn't take her there, but she saw a glimpse of the room from the gap in the door. Hermione was surprised to see that the living room was somehow changed and no longer resembled the one she had nightmares about. It wasn't just a refurnishing, the whole architecture of that specific wing seemed different. Off of this room, a dark passageway led to a steep staircase and a cellar. On the second floor, there were mostly bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as a room that she was not allowed to ever visit, and with that, the tour was over.

And yet, the Manor seemed dark and scary and hostile. She didn't want to live here. She didn't want to sleep here. She didn't want to spend another second here.

But this was her life now.

Finally, he brought her back downstairs to one of the rooms with an enormous oak table. She saw a fancy parchment paper adorned with golden edges as well as a quill and ink next to it. Marriage papers.

The High Reeve let go of Hermione's arm and she felt a little unstable without relying on his mountain of a stature. She let go of Crookshanks, hoping he wouldn't wander too far and wouldn't annoy the master of this house. She noticed her suitcase was no longer in the High Reeve's hand and she wondered when and where he put it, but truth be said, she had other things to worry about now.

"I've already signed them," she heard him say. "Your turn."

Apparently, he was a man of little words.

She took a deep breath. She read the marriage papers once, then twice, to make sure she understood correctly – there was no new information there, nothing she hadn't known already, and still, she spent quite some time reading it through, procrastinating signing it. She took a white feather quill that felt soft and smooth between her fingers. Then, she looked up at him. He was so tall and big now that she had to considerably crane her neck to look at him properly.

"Would you take off your mask?" she asked. "I'd like to see the face of the person I'm marrying."

For a moment, he stood still, watching her, and doing nothing. She thought he would stay like this, refusing to do what she asked, but then, his hand lifted in the air, and a moment later, the mask as well as the hood were gone, revealing the face of the High Reeve.

It was not as she remembered, not at all. The pale skin, the gray eyes, and the white-blond hair were all there, but something was tremendously different, so offbeat it shook Hermione to her core. His face seemed more mature now, no longer boyish, the lines of it harsh and deep, giving his features a dark and merciless expression. The blackish-blue circles under his eyes gave the impression he hadn't slept for the whole duration of the war. His hair was now snow white rather than the milk-shaded that she recalled.

But what caught her off-guard the most was the ghastly scar marring the right side of his face, wrecking the skin of his cheek starting from his lips to his eyebrow. The scar made the right corner of his lips go down, it wedged right through his eyeball, making the retina of the right eye a shade paler than the usual gray, and finished off with slicing his eyebrow. She wanted to touch that awful scar, to feel with her fingers if it was truly as deep and gruesome as it seemed. It must've been, otherwise it would've already been healed.

The look he gave betrayed absolutely none of what he might be thinking – it was a controlled lack of expression that left her feeling uncomfortable. Then, after minutes of inspecting his appearance, she realized she had been staring and cast her gaze down, not wanting to seem rude.

"Thank you," she whispered so quietly he probably didn't hear it. Then, with her cheeks still flaming hot, she grabbed the quill more tightly and signed the paper with golden ink. Her name, Hermione Jean Granger evaporated and turned to Hermione Jean Malfoy.

The High Reeve reached inside his inner pocket and took out something – a gold ring with a snake wrapped around a square of emerald. Typical Slytherin colors. There was a snake-skin pattern carved on the inside of the ring. She reached out her hand and he took it, putting the ring on her finger. It was light and delicate, made to fit her finger perfectly. She stared at it for a moment, mesmerized.

It was done. An uneasy sensation settled on Hermione's chest.

She wondered whether he would also put on a ring or would have her do it, but his hands remained gloved. and the High Reeve took the papers, folding them in half, and put them inside his the pocket of his cloak. Hermione watched the movement of his gloved hands. He looked back at her, their height difference starkly contrasting from what she was used to.

He didn't look at her the way she expected. She thought he'd be smug, snarky, or cruel, that he would try to humiliate or hurt her with his words or even with his actions, and that he would want to see her miserable and begging. Instead, his eyes were empty, his gaze gave nothing away.

"My house-elf Mipsy is responsible for this household," he spoke up; Hermione heard a loud pop, and a female house-elf appeared in front of them, smiling at Hermione and bowing to her slightly; she stared at the house-elf with wide eyes, then gave a small smile too, "so she will show you to your rooms and give you all you might need here," the High Reeve continued without giving the elf a single look. "If you have any questions, ask her."

He was about to turn away from her, but then, as if upon recalling something, he gave her a look, "Don't be so obvious with your feelings, Granger. You might love books but don't become one for everyone to read. If you want to survive this war, you'll have to learn how to hide your true emotions underneath."

With that, he turned to leave, but Hermione yelled out, "Wait!" He stopped, turning to her slightly, half of his face hidden in the shadows. "What do you—what do you want me to do?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from trembling.

"You're my wife now, Granger. Do whatever you want. Just don't cause me any trouble."

With that, he disappeared.

No bullying, no harassment, no snide remarks, no torment nor humiliation, no nothing. In fact, the High Reeve treated Hermione as if he couldn't care less whether she was dead or alive.

But she had a feeling causing no trouble would be easier said than done.