For Hermione, having no wand felt like losing all four of her limbs. She couldn't do anything on her own, and it made her feel helpless. The next morning, she wandered aimlessly through the Manor, having nothing better to do but help Mipsy cook. They made breakfast, and when it appeared in front of Draco on the dining table, he lifted his eyes to her.
"Thank you," he said.
She avoided his eyes. "You're welcome. I had nothing to do, so scrambled eggs it is."
They both dug into their food, but she felt his gaze on her the entire time.
"I'll get you another wand," he said, his voice firm and hard.
Hermione finally looked at him. "It's okay, I'll be alright." That was a lie. "By the way, you should stay at home. I don't want you to go out anywhere, not after killing Bellatrix. Voldemort might already know."
"I don't care," he said. "I need to kill him, so I'll have to face him one way or another. But first, I'll get you a wand so you're not weaponless when I'm gone."
She stared at him, the implication of his final words hitting her right in the chest.
"We need to kill You-Know-Who, Draco, not you, not on your own. I'm here to help, understand?" Hermione said harshly, putting her hand on his to soften her words.
She saw a muscle twitch in his jaw. "Fine. There's Aunt Bella's wand still left. You could try taming it. Perhaps it'll work."
Hermione sighed, then nodded, having little hopes that she could manage Bellatrix's oddly shaped wand that probably murdered thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people.
"Okay," she agreed despite her doubts. "I will try it out."
After breakfast, Hermione went to retrieve Bellatrix's wand from the locket up drawer where Draco had put her clothes and other belongings after dissolving the body with poison. He was telling the truth when he said that the poison he concocted will do wonders – when the Hermione went outside first thing that morning, there was nothing left on the ground where Bellatrix's body lay save for a clump of a black dress, shoes with socks still in them, and some silver jewelry.
She took the wand with trembling fingers and inspected it carefully. It was long and crooked like a poorly healed broken bone. It was made of walnut and, from what Hermione gathered, the string was of Thestral tail hair. She tried to bend it, but it was hard, unyielding; she remembered how the wand wobbled in Bellatrix's bony fingers, but now the wand showed no such elasticity.
Hermione went to one of the least furnished rooms on the first floor of the Manor where she was sure to be able to practice without breaking too many important things. Without even casting the first spell she already knew the wand would disobey her, and not only because she had failed to disarm Bellatrix before her death but also because she had a strange feeling the wand knew she was a muggle-born.
Still, Hermione raised her wand and pointed it to the not-so-expensive looking vase she had put on the shelf before her. She widened her legs and stood straighter, rolling her shoulders. She breathed in and spoke out a spell, "Wingardium Leviosa."
The vase trembled for a moment but remained stubbornly stationary. Hermione sighed in frustration, feeling the weight of her wandlessness pressing down on her. She couldn't help but compare it to the effortless magic she had wielded with her own wand, the feeling of power and control she had experienced. With Bellatrix's wand, she felt like an imposter, an unwelcome guest in the world of magic.
Determined not to give up easily, Hermione tried again, this time putting even more intention and focus into her spellcasting. "Wingardium Leviosa!" she repeated, her voice filled with determination.
The vase trembled again, and this time rose from the place a few inches higher while Hermione tried her best to keep her hand steady. She watched the vase intently as it fluttered in the air, but the wand in her hand began acting out, shaking and warming up to the point of discomfort.
She felt Draco presence in the room before she saw him, and the surprise made her flinch – the vase fell to the ground, breaking apart into the smallest pieces. Hermione turned to Draco wo was watching her with his eyebrow raised.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, annoyance clear in her voice.
"I was about to say you were doing a good job."
Hermione huffed. "This wand isn't listening to me. It knows I'm the enemy, and it's fighting back."
"Try again," he urged her, putting another vase in the broken one's place.
Hermione spoke the same spell.
The vase shattered without lifting up an inch, and the wand itself burned Hermione skin so painfully she had to throw it down.
"Ow!" she exclaimed.
Draco rushed to her side, taking her hand in his. His brows furrowed with worry. He kissed the burned skin, and then took out his own wand, speaking a healing spell softly – the skin turned back to normal in seconds.
"This is pointless," Hermione said, sighing and looking down at Bellatrix's wand. "But I need to heal you."
"I'm fine," he repeated his favorite phrase.
She held his gaze. "Will you give me your wand to heal you a little?"
Hermione saw defiance in Draco's eyes. Not because he didn't want to give her his wand, but because he didn't want to be treated. Still, she knew he felt sorry for her, so he complied.
His back looked a lot better than it did a week ago. The scars, of course, would remain carved into his skin forever, but the wounds were practically gone. She spoke a few basic charms and urged him to drink a vial of Murlap essence, but even she had to agree he needed no more of her assistance.
"That doesn't mean it's safe for you to leave the house, Draco," she added before he got any ideas. "I don't want You-Know-Who to hurt you again."
He looked at her intensely. "I can't stay here forever, Granger. We need to destroy the rest of the Horcruxes. How many are there?"
Hermione watched him put his shirt back on, her mood completely deflated.
"Only one more," she said. "The snake."
That got Draco's attention. "Nagini?" he asked, turning to her.
Hermione nodded. "Yes, that snake."
His face turned grim. "She's with Voldemort. At all times."
"I figured. She'll be the hardest to kill. She—me and Ron tried to—and—"
"I know what happened, I saw your memories," Draco said, stopping her from explaining further before she started crying.
Hermione took in a shaky breath. "We will kill her together, Draco. I won't let you go alone. Not after—not after I already lost someone to that snake."
Draco's eyes discolored eyes shone in the dim light. "You'll need a wand for that," he said.
Hermione narrowed her eyes. She knew he was trying her patience, but she grew more annoyed with every time he insisted on leaving – she will never forget the horror she felt when he reappeared at the Manor injured and tormented with agony.
"We'll think of something else," she retorted. "Of course, there's always Hogwarts I could go to, they would probably have plenty of unused wands that I could—"
"Absolutely not."
"And I could go there alone, but this sodding ring," she raised her left hand with the snake ring on her finger, "will not let me do that. So you don't have to worry about me going."
He stared at her, his eyes turning cold and distant. Hermione's heart beat faster; she worried that she might've said something wrong.
"I don't understand why you're so determined to not let me go to Hogwarts," she added quietly.
"Because it's not safe," he said dryly, watching her without blinking. They went silent, peering down at one another, both clearly irked by their miscommunication.
After a few long anger-fueled minutes, Draco added, although reluctantly, "The ring won't stop you any longer, though. You're free to do what you want and go where you want. Although it would really piss me off horribly if you didn't listen and put yourself in danger unnecessarily, as you're so used to doing."
Hermione frowned, ignoring the insult, focusing on the other part of his words. "Wait, what do you mean the ring won't stop me? I literally cannot take it off!"
He stared down at her, his face as hard as stone, his eyes emotionless. "You can," was all he said.
Hermione was getting seriously bothered now. She stared down at the ring and tried to think of the last time she felt it's presence on her finger – it was quite some time ago. She grabbed the ring softly with her fingers and pulled it, not expecting for anything to happen. To her utter surprise, the ring slid off her finger as if it was oiled, smoothly and without any magical resistance. Hermione glared at the ring in her palm, seeing it unattached to her for the first time since their "wedding" day.
Then she looked up at Draco. "What is this," she demanded.
He only watched her, although she imagined that the wrecked corner of his lips twitched slightly.
"Nothing," he said. "It's just a ring."
"It's not just a ring, and we both know it," she fumed, although half-heartedly – she knew Draco meant no harm when he charmed the ring to keep her inside the Manor.
Draco shrugged nonchalantly. "As I said, you can go wherever you want. You're not a prisoner here, although I would appreciate it if you stayed at the Manor."
Hermione watched him as she put the ring back on her finger, where it belonged. Draco watched intensely as it slid back on her skin.
Sometime later they stopped nagging each other and went to sleep in Draco's bedroom where they slept every night from now on almost peacefully, except that the feeling of not having a wand left a hole in Hermione's heart she didn't know what to fill with. She stared at the ring on her finger right before falling asleep, and she thought how strange it was that Draco had such power over this piece of jewelry even without touching or charming it. Furthermore, she was appalled now more than ever that the ring felt like a living being, but it didn't feel detached from her anymore. Something change in the past week, and she wasn't sure what it was, but now, her wedding seemed to be a part of her flesh. She finally could take it off without any pain, but she didn't think she'd ever want to.
She woke up very early in the morning at the feeling of loss. She didn't know what time it was, but the sky was still dark outside.
"Draco?" she spoke out.
No one answered.
The other side of the bed was empty.
Hermione asked Mipsy where her Master was. The elf said he left few hours ago, in the middle of the night.
She cursed under her breath. She should've known he wouldn't listen to her, even if he promised to stay put together with her.
She zoomed around the room the rest of the morning, biting her nails and pulling out small strands of her curls from stress. She couldn't help but imagine all the horrible things Draco might be going through right now – he might be getting tortured by Voldemort this very moment and she wouldn't be able to do anything about it—
The sun was barely out when he finally came back. Hermione rushed to look him up and down.
"I'm okay, Granger," he told her, but she didn't buy it – he told her the same thing last time when he was far from okay.
He walked toward her. "I really am okay, don't worry."
Hermione narrowed her eyes and batted his hand away when he wanted to touch her cheek. "How dare you leave without telling me!"
Instead of answering Draco pulled out something from his cloak pocket – three wands.
"I was busy getting these for you," he explained.
"Where did you get them?" Hermione demanded.
He rolled his eyes. "Does it matter?"
"It does matter if you killed innocent people to take their wands!" Hermione raged, this time seriously.
He didn't seem affected by her outburst. "They weren't innocent," he said simply. "Now stop yelling and try them out."
Hermione still seethed inside, but there was something else there too – she thought of the people these wands belong to, no matter how hard she tried not to. She couldn't expect Draco to change overnight, she couldn't expect him to forget his need to kill – at this point, it was instinctual for him, and maybe he will never be able to not be a murderer again, and that thought made Hermione sick. Still, she convinced herself she cared more about him than about his dark tendencies. He said these people deserved to die, so she was going to trust that.
She took the wands. "Fine," she said.
It was clear the first wand will never be tamed – it sent burning flames her way when she tried to speak a simple spell, but Draco neutralized it almost immediately before they did any harm to her. The second one was only slightly better – she managed to Leviosa a few books, and even had a chance to cast her dragon Patronus, who swirled around her head, watching her work, but when she had to disarm Draco, the wand stopped listening to her commands.
She did all the same things with the third wand successfully, and a wandless hole in her heart started to fill with hope. When she was able to transfigure Draco's grand-grand-grandmother's tiara into a white pigeon and block the Stupefy curse that Draco sent her way, she looked down at the wand, feeling a sense of ownership.
This wand was a medium yield made of walnut with a dragon string – which was probably the reason it was so compatible with her, that was also the core of her own wand. She raised the wand again and hit Draco with a Flipendo charm, catching him off guard.
"Very good," he praised when he stood back up on his feet. Hermione felt almost disappointed he looked so put together even after getting hit into the wall. "Try something more serious now."
"Like what?" Hermione asked.
"Something that could cause actual damage," he said, raising his own wand. "And I'll try to counter it.
Hermione thought for a moment. The ring on her finger twitched, forcing her to look down at it. She thought about Draco and about the fact that he killed someone to get her this wand. She thought of what future awaited him, if any did. She remembered the way he looked down at his victim when he tortured them, she remembered the fascinated look in his eyes when he got a chance to commit homicide. She wondered if he'd ever be able to live a normal life after all the things he'd been through and put others through.
She raised her wand, pointing it at him, meeting a challenge in his eyes.
She prayed to god she wasn't wrong. She prayed to god she was doing the right thing.
"Avada Kedavra."
The words felt weird and slippery on her tongue as she had never spoken them out loud. Her voice sounded cold and distant; she barely recognized it herself.
A shot of green burst from her new wand, and when the curse hit his chest, Draco Malfoy dropped dead, his eyes widened in surprise.