The silence in the living room of Hermione's house was heavy. She, Blaise and Pansy were seated around the circular table, a bottle of apple juice opened for the occasion and a defrosted raspberry pie placed in the centre.
Blaise had discreetly added whisky to his glass. The mixture was awful, but that was the least of his worries.
Hermione was fidgeting with hers with her head down, revelling in the unease of it all.
Pansy had lit a cigarette and was smoking it as she watched the sun set through the windows that framed the front door.
They had been there for hours. Neither of them had dared to move. The two young women's glasses were empty. Blaise filled his every hour.
Hermione didn't dare look at her hand, adorned with a brand new piece of jewellery. She preferred to ignore the event that had animated her day. Animate being a curious verb to describe it, though. She was in total denial. She opted for oblivion rather than confronting the reality of things.
She looked down at Albert, who was lying at her feet, his head resting on his paws. He was probably the only one who was relaxed. He had been going back and forth between the outside and the inside since they got home and sometimes came to beg his mistress for a hug.
It was dull, sinister. So much so that it seemed as if the three of them had just come from a funeral and not a wedding.
Blaise cleared his throat, bringing Hermione out of her thoughts. She looked up at him in the same motion as Pansy.
"I think we should go home, Pans'," he said gravely, looking his wife in the eye. "He's likely to be asleep for several days and I don't think staying here is a wise idea."
It didn't take a genius to work out that his last sentence was a reference to Hermione's need for solitude. She thanked him inwardly.
Pansy nodded, her jaws clenching. She didn't really seem to agree with her husband, but didn't argue.
"Thanks for the drink, Granger," she merely said, rising to her feet. "And– thanks for the rest."
Hermione shrugged, not sure how to respond. She just wanted to go to bed and let this day be over. She wanted to go back to her quiet little life and forget that it had been disturbed by a tall blond man with dead grey eyes.
Blaise stood up in turn and drew his wand. Unwittingly, Hermione recoiled at the gesture, but did her best to hide it.
Blaise pretended not to have seen it and dragged his and his wife's cloak to him. He wondered how Draco would ever get over living next to someone who, after seven years of retirement, was still so traumatised by the war. But they had no choice. Granger had been their only option.
But he promised himself that he would do his best to support Draco, despite Hermione's presence. She and he weren't close, but she wouldn't stop him from helping his best friend.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Granger," he told her as he helped Pansy into her coat. "Will you be able to send me a letter or contact me by floo when he wakes?"
"I'll do my best," she replied simply.
She didn't even know if she would feel able to approach the door to the room where Malfoy lay.
She had not moved from her chair and continued to fidget with her empty glass. She didn't bother to walk them to the door. They knew the way, after all.
Blaise greeted her with a final nod and slipped his arm under his wife's to escort her out. A few seconds later, the front door closed and Hermione finally allowed herself to take a breath.
She had felt that her personal space had been constantly invaded since the arrival of the English delegation and Malfoy's friends. She had felt ill the whole time and had emptied several vials of calming draught, along with a packet of cigarettes. Her lungs would suffer considerably, but that was the least of her worries. She just wondered how she'd managed to last so long without yelling at the Zabinis to get out of her house.
She sighed and dropped her head in her hands. What had she just got herself into?
She didn't want to break her routine, she wanted to get back into it as soon as possible.
To do that, she had to start immediately. She put away the glasses they had used in the kitchen sink and threw away the unappetising pie she had thawed unnecessarily. Albert then followed her to the pantry, where his food was waiting.
Hermione had bought a small fridge in which she kept only the food she prepared for her dog. Knowing it would be a long day, she had cooked his meal the night before to avoid feeding him industrial kibble.
Beef from the village butcher, leftover carrots and courgettes she had bought at the market, a few crushed eggshells and some food supplements her vet had recommended. She went there once a year, taking the Muggle train to the nearest town.
She then took out the tray prepared for Albert and poured it into his bowl. He immediately pounced on it, which brought a smile to her face. She stroked his head for a few seconds, then filled another bowl with water and left the pantry.
She was getting really tired. It wouldn't be long before she fell asleep.
She took the time to check every window and door, turned off the lights on the ground floor, and then went into the bathroom there, wanting to avoid going upstairs at all costs.
She washed up, lingering as long as possible, grabbed a vial of dreamless sleep potion and left the bathroom. She took a deep breath.
She faced the stairs, which seemed particularly long. Longer than usual. Her head was almost spinning. Her room was at the far end of the upstairs corridor. It was the largest in the house.
But to get there, she had to walk past the others, and she knew exactly what that would entail.
She dared to take the first step, then the second and froze. Her heart was pounding. She tried to reason with herself, but the irrationality took over.
What could possibly happen? She tried to tell herself.
Rationally, the answer would be 'nothing', but Hermione was not rational about her anxieties.
So she clutched her wand tightly in her fist, took a deep breath and told herself inwardly that everything was fine. That she could handle this. That she could defend herself if anything went wrong.
One step. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven.
She was there. The door behind which her husband slept was in front of her. She dared to glance at it, only making her heart beat faster and her breathing quicker.
She couldn't understand her anxiety. It didn't make sense.
Draco Malfoy had been lying in bed in this room for nearly ten hours. There was no reason for him to do anything dangerous. He was deeply asleep and from what she could see looked like he was almost dying, which would keep him from doing anything worrisome.
Like Blaise and Pansy, Hermione had been particularly shocked to discover the state in which he had arrived at her house. Malfoy had appeared by a portkey at Zabini's side, looking paler than ever.
She had been sitting with Pansy on the stone steps leading up to her house when they had arrived. She had seen him collapse into Blaise's arms as he landed. Pansy had jumped to her feet when she saw this, rushing to her husband's side to help carry their friend.
Hermione hadn't known what to do. She was stunned to see him like that. He looked half dead. An inferius in striped clothes.
Blaise had transformed his black prison clothes into midnight blue trousers and a simple white shirt, which had immediately stained with blood down his back and along his arms. Hermione remembered seeing Pansy turn considerably pale at the sight and had forced herself clamped a hand over her mouth.
Blaise had screamed at the members of the Ministry who had come to perform the wedding and the Unbreakable Vow, as they had rushed over to perform it as quickly as possible. He had been shocked to see such a lack of compassion. Pansy had tried too, reminding them that they couldn't do anything if Malfoy was too weak.
They hadn't wanted to hear it. Blaise had needed to hold Malfoy steady throughout the entire ceremony Hermione hadn't dared to speak once, except to say her oath and her wedding vows.
The rest of the events had unfolded before her eyes without her knowing what to do. Blaise had signed some papers, the Ministry members had put the Trace on Malfoy although he had passed out, and then the Ministry members left France as quickly as they had come, with another portkey. The Zabinis had rushed to look after their best friend and had urgently asked her where the room she had prepared for him was.
Without really realising what was going on, she had indicated it to them, then followed them to it like a ghost. Her eyes blank and still in shock from everything that had happened. From what little she had seen, they had cast a few healing spells on Malfoy, but they were not enough to heal all of his wounds. She hadn't been able to make out the details of what was wrong with him.
Once that was done, they had all left the room to let him sleep and moved into the living room.
And Malfoy was still there. In her house. In one of her rooms. Lying in one of her beds. Under her covers. And he was wearing the ring she'd put on his finger.
She needed to know for sure. She wanted to be sure she hadn't been dreaming. After all, she'd had hallucinations before, the side effects of not taking her dreamless sleep potions.
With trembling hands and a pounding heart, she reached for the door handle. She swallowed as she made contact with the cold metal of it, and closed her eyes for a moment.
What was she doing? She should be asleep by now. She could have continued on her way to her room. But she didn't. Here she was, standing in the doorway of her spare room, the one Draco Malfoy was staying in.
Her eyes filled with tears as she pushed the handle. She felt sick, and yet she couldn't stop herself. She was far too curious. She needed to know.
And there he was. Lying on his stomach on top of the bed covers, bloody bandages covering his back, legs and arms, sleeping soundly.
Hermione froze. She had not been hallucinating, it was all true. Her memories were not distorted. Draco Malfoy lay in one of her spare rooms, just released from seven years of imprisonment, his body bruised from the long period of horror.
She still could not believe it. She had to hold on to the door to keep from staggering.
All that blood...
His wounds must have opened up because of the portkey journey. Some of them must have been infected, or magical, for the result to be so horrific.
She didn't dare approach him. She feared that he would wake up the moment she stepped into the room.
So she just stood in the doorway, staring at the young man who looked twice her age. Confinement had aged him.
She watched him carefully despite the distance. He was clean-shaven, which surprised her somewhat, but she did not dwell on this detail. The years in prison had left their mark on his face. His features were more tired, more worn, as if he had been working in a construction site all these years, without stopping for a single second. Yet the reality was quite different.
Dark circles surrounded his eyes, his lips were pale and his skin glistened with sweat. Then she noticed that his eyebrows were furrowed, that his face was distorted by his emotions, though she could not determine which ones. She thought of a bad dream. That might explain the sweat.
She bit her lip, not knowing what to do. She was completely unable to enter the room, yet the urge to help him swell in her chest. An urge she had buried for years.
And it frightened her. So much so that she turned on her heels without another glance and fled to her room. She hadn't even bothered to close the door behind her.
Once there, she slammed her door shut and dropped against it. Her breathing was erratic.
She didn't want to. She didn't want to feel this way. She had buried the urge. She'd forgotten about it. She didn't want it anymore.
Placing her hands over her eyes, she began to rock back and forth tirelessly. Her head hit the wooden door several times, but she paid no attention to it. She wanted to forget. She wanted to blow away the thoughts she had just had.
Her movements caused a vial of dreamless sleep potion to drop from her pocket and she looked down at it sharply.
Without even thinking about it, she grabbed it, popped the cap and swallowed the contents.
She didn't even feel sleep coming. She was already asleep, slumped against her bedroom door.
It was Albert's barking that woke her up the next morning. Her night had been excellent, she had not been woke up once and her sleep had not been disturbed.
It was already daylight, which meant that she had slept long enough. And she wouldn't complain about it. If the effects of the dreamless sleep potion were effective on the quality of her nights, that was rarely the case with their length.
That said, being woke by her faithful companion was unusual. He slept on the ground floor and only joined her when she went down to breakfast.
"What's going on?" she worried as she sat up in bed.
She must have moved during the night, but she didn't remember.
Albert had put his paws on the mattress and was barking away. Hermione frowned and came out from under the covers to join him. She only had to take one step for him to head for the exit of the room. He obviously wanted her to follow him.
This only worried her more and she reflexively pulled out her wand.
However, she was quickly reassured when Albert's footsteps took them to the spare room she had visited the day before.
The memories of that catastrophic day came back to her suddenly and she stood still. She didn't need to follow her dog any further. She had just understood the reason for his sudden agitation.
She hadn't thought to close the door to the spare room. Draco Malfoy was out in the open, across the bed and the smell of blood must have attracted Albert.
Her heart was racing again, but she tried to swallow to relax. She had to calm her dog first. She didn't want to risk waking Malfoy.
She tried to convince herself that it was because of his health, but her conscience told her that she was more apprehensive about confronting him.
She knelt down in front of Albert and whispered a few words to him, stroking the top of his head. Soon his barking subsided and she was able to close the bedroom door, then accompany him to the kitchen to serve him food.
An occupation. This was exactly what Hermione needed. She needed to get back to her daily routine. As if nothing had happened.
If she gave her mind time to wander and think about the events of the previous day, she knew she was doomed.
So she tended to her house as she usually did every morning.
She began by feeding Albert–after having moved him away from the stairs, in front of which he had continued to bark–and then prepared her own breakfast. As she did every Tuesday, she cooked eggs, bacon, scones and beans in tomato sauce.
She ate her breakfast in the morning light of her garden. She sat down with Albert at her feet, having collected the local newspaper from her letterbox. She read only the Muggle news. She had almost no contact with the wizarding world, so much so that without her wand and her few exchanges with Harry–and Blaise over the last few years–any wizard would have taken her for a Muggle.
Which was not to her displeasure. Anyway, she didn't have the same magical abilities as before. She didn't control her magic either.
She hadn't had to think long about her destination when she left her homeland. She wanted a retreat away from civilisation and, particularly, the wizarding world that had taken her in for the previous eight years.
She was grateful for all she had learned there and would never spit on her witchy nature; however, she was not so blind and naive as to think that it had been all good. She had come out of it changed, yes, but both positively and negatively.
She had suffered so much. She had lost many people during the war, but above all she had lost herself. She no longer recognised herself, she was no longer the Hermione of her school days.
That teenager had been buried along with all the victims of the war.
Hermione had never once tried to pick up the pieces. In fact, she hadn't even thought about it. Inwardly, she was convinced that it was a lost cause.
She had chosen to evolve differently, to make her own way with the vestiges of her past that remained. She could not repair what had been destroyed, but she intended to rebuild something with what was left.
Once she had finished her breakfast, she took charge of cleaning up the dirty dishes she had left the day before. She didn't use her wand for this, though, she considered this household task a good way to clear her mind.
She concentrated on the cutlery she was washing, on the foam in her hands, on the water running over her fingers, and then on the towel she used to dry them. There was nothing else to do, nothing else to think about.
Deciding that she wasn't ready to go back upstairs just yet and needed a moment to herself, she retrieved a towel from the bathroom and went out into her garden. She would be washing up in the river that ran along the edge of her property, right at the border of the forest.
It was rare that she bathed there, maybe once every two months. She wanted to keep her moments of calm exceptional. It was so pure and peaceful.
She collected some clothes from a clothesline and walked through her domain, Albert on her heels.
It was well into the morning when she was finally able to step into the water. It was particularly cold, but Hermione had never been chilly. She undressed and let the current carry her to a group of stones where she sat down.
Albert had quickly joined her in the water and was running along the bank where he still had a foothold.
Hermione allowed herself a smile. She felt perfectly fine. She was at peace. Her mind was empty of worries and her body was relaxed.
She refused to allow any negative thoughts to enter her head. This was her moment. She had decided.
Once she had washed, she lay down on a large, long rock, just above the water, and took advantage of the sun and the breeze to dry herself. The wind tickled her every limb, spreading goose bumps along her skin, but it was not enough to bring her out of her drowsiness.
She even ended up falling asleep, lying naked under the rays of the May sun.
Once again, it was Albert's barking that woke her up. Sitting a few feet away from her on the solid ground, he seemed desperate to wake her up.
She got up slowly and joined him, taking care not to slip on the soaked stones. She dressed quickly and the height of the sun told her that it was past three. She understood her dog's impatience better.
"Sorry, Albert," she sighed, stroking his head. "Obviously, despite my long night, my body needed more."
He barked in response, before running in the direction of the house, passing her by a wide margin.
She was behind on her daily schedule. She hadn't run the washing machine, or hung her clothes from the night before, and some of the clothes were still hanging outside. She had not fed the horses either, although they had apparently gone for a ride, considering their absence when she went to the stable.
She did take the time to fill and clean the stalls before going to the greenhouse. She had started gardening two months earlier, on a whim. She had come across some gardening books in her grandparents' library and had immersed herself in one of them.
The desire to start her own vegetable garden was then felt. However, she soon realised that she had lost many of her skills in this domain over time. Moreover, the absence of the necessary equipment for the care of her plants–as it had been the case in the greenhouses at Hogwarts–made the results not very encouraging. Some plants were already dead, while others were barely putting out their first leaves. If it hadn't been for the encouragement of one of her clients, during a discussion about her own garden, she would probably have given up already.
She had decided to close the bookshop for the week. Even though her job was crucial to her path to inner peace–as she liked to call it–and was a real pillar in her daily life, Hermione had not been fooled. Although she would have preferred to go into complete denial and continue working despite the recent events, she had rationalised things and taken a week off.
She now realised that she had been right to do so.
On her way back from the greenhouse, after throwing away more dead and dried out plants, she set about preparing her lunch, albeit late.
She then thought about her new housemate. She thought to herself that she was probably supposed to feed him, especially considering his condition. However, she realised that this would mean entering the room. It would mean waking him up, touching him, helping him...
Helping him. The very thought was enough to make her shiver.
Hadn't Zabini said to warn him if Malfoy woke up? Would an awakening caused by a spell or by Albert's barking count?
She chided herself as she realised what kinds of thoughts she was having. Malfoy was still a living being. A human being, even. Though she tended to think he tended to be more of an inferius than a true human.
Zabini probably had a busy life. He couldn't come to France every day to look after Malfoy, until the latter was capable of being independent. Hermione had a modicum of common sense.
But this reality scared her more than anything else. She was going to have to take care of him. She was going to have to help someone.
She dropped the kitchen knife she was holding on the table and clutched her head in her hands.
She needed a plan, a method, something to do in stages so she wouldn't have to think. If she concentrated on each action with precision, her mind could not wander. She needed something clear, neat and easy.
She went to get something to write with and took a deep breath. She felt ridiculous. Having to make a list to keep a human being alive. Absurd. Completely absurd.
Yet she uncapped her Muggle pen and set to work.
First, she would need to increase the amount of her meal to include a second person.
Secondly, she would have to write down a shopping list for her next trip to the market on a piece of paper. One more person to feed meant more supplies.
Thirdly, she would prepare a tray, on which she would carefully arrange Malfoy's meal. She would carry it to his room, then open the door.
The next step would be the most difficult, Hermione was aware of that.
Fourthly, she would have to enter the room and walk to the bed. Then she would have to wake Malfoy up and feed him.
Hermione dropped her pen and took a deep breath. She couldn't figure out what Malfoy's reaction would be. What if he didn't wake up? What if he was violent, or not accommodating? Should she call Blaise? Or Pansy?
She didn't know Malfoy, she didn't know how to interact with him. They had nothing in common, no past in common, except a negative past filled with harassment, mutual hatred and insults. How was she supposed to deal with him?
The thought seemed to reignite something in her mind.
She was not supposed to care for him. She had no obligation to do so. She had told Blaise and Harry so many times, and they had promised her otherwise.
So why did she insist on doing it?
Her conscience told her that it was her nature and that she couldn't help helping others, nor could she feel guilty about anything. She told it to go to hell.
She was confused and at the same time determined. It was a strange mixture. It was as if her mind was split in two, as if her will was no longer really her own and was at the centre of her anxieties and her inner nature.
It was disturbing. She felt like tearing her hair out, erasing, or pushing aside these disturbing thoughts. Couldn't she simply act without thinking?
Her conscience told her that she wouldn't be herself without her thoughts. And Hermione couldn't disagree.
However, she decided to act before thinking, for once. She was going to do something, like the Gryffindor she was supposed to be, and not like a Ravenclaw who had been placed in the wrong house.
She reread her list a dozen times and got to work.
She prepared a meal for two, something healthy and nutritious so that Malfoy could regain his strength. Soon the kitchen was filled with the smell of vegetables and meat. Hermione had no culinary talent, she was well aware of that, but at least she knew how to follow a recipe, more or less, to the point of presenting an edible, if not very tasty, dish.
She thought to herself that no one, and especially not Malfoy after seven years of prison food, would complain about it.
After that, she studied the contents of her pantry and both fridges so that she could make a complete list of the ingredients she would need for her next trip to the village market. She hadn't been there for nearly a week, which explained the length of her list.
When the muggle timer she had set sounded, she rushed to the gas hobs in the kitchen to put out the fire. She was not a good cook, but she would not burn her food.
She grabbed a wooden tray, on which she placed a warm, full plate, some cutlery, a glass, a jug of water and half a loaf of bread.
She knew Malfoy wouldn't be eating much and she'd planned ahead, but she'd rather make too much than not enough. It was her own little anxiety. One more, at least.
She reassured herself by thinking that the leftovers–if there were any–could be used for Albert's meal.
She took a deep breath, cleared her mind and repeated the contents of her little list over and over again. Not to think.
She quickly ate her own meal, before climbing the stairs, tray in hand, and heading for the door of the guest room. She took another breath and finally dared to open the door.
And that's it! See you on Sunday 11/08 for the next chapter!
Thanks to Acciobraincells for her support.
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