"There's a letter for you." Malfoy continued writing whatever it was he was writing, with eyes firmly on his journal. He extended a letter to her with his right hand. She rolled her eyes, because it was just like him to not look at her if he didn't have to.
The beaded bag sank into the mattress where she had left it. She was able to control the temptation of emptying it or digging into it. She didn't wish for Malfoy to experience her rediscovering anything of herself. She hardly knew how she felt about rediscovering herself.
Hermione summoned the letter from his hand with her (temporary) wand, and turned it over in her palm once she had it. She didn't recognise the handwriting. The small embers of hope she bore for it being from Harry, extinguished.
"What is it?" Malfoy's quill was still scratching across the surface of his journal. So he was paying attention to her by sound; just as she was paying attention to him.
"I don't know," she admitted. It was a thin envelope. She tore it open and Malfoy stopped writing. She was vaguely aware of his eyes on her now as she unfolded the small piece of paper. She stared at the words and could not make sense of them.
"So?" Malfoy sounded a little impatient. She threw him a dirty look, and he widened his eyes at her in the universal well? gesture, egging her on.
The words still made no sense.
"I don't know," she said again, as frustration sank her stomach. "It's just random sentences about Japanese horticulture?"
"Give it to me." He extended his ink-stained fingers and curled them in a come-here motion. She looked at the letter again, and flopped back onto her bed with a groan. Then she flicked her wand lazily and the letter flew back to Malfoy. In his general direction anyway. She couldn't be sure since she was staring at the ceiling.
"Ah." His signature scowl returned to his face, and gone was his signature smirk. His eyes told her that he was reading and rereading it by the way they moved back and forth, like he was actually understanding the words. Now it was her turn to become impatient.
"So?" she said, mocking his tone from a minute ago. He shot her an agitated glance.
"You're leaving." Malfoy sent the letter back to her with a flick of his wand. For a moment, he glowered at it before returning his attention to his desk.
" I'm leaving?" Hermione looked at the words again, and they still retained their secret. He didn't respond. Elation ballooned inside her. Her lungs filled with helium, she was so light.
The letter lay innocently in her palm.
That's the root of the problem. I think the bonsai needs a bigger pot. I have one ready, but please collect it by this afternoon. This pot is in high demand and may be taken off the shelf.
"Malfoy." Hermione turned the letter to him – to his back, really; he was still writing. He didn't respond. She sensed he wasn't going to. "Draco."
Malfoy went still. Hermione felt his name in her mouth like peanut butter. But, it worked. He turned to look at her, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"This is talking about bloody bonsais." She shook the letter at him. "I don't know what the codes are. I don't know how you got 'you're leaving' from this!" She was excited, but it was like being told to walk into a fog with zero visibility. She didn't trust anyone that much.
"You're the bonsai." Her eyes might have been playing tricks on her in the semi-darkness of the basement, but she could have sworn Malfoy's body sagged slightly as he studied her. "They got you a room."
"Where?" Hermione looked at the letter, expecting it to tell her the answer. Her heart literally skipped a beat. It was like deciding to follow Harry into the unknown all over again. A new adventure, with high stakes; except, she was alone this time. And she had a mission in mind.
"It doesn't say. You won't know. The portkey will probably take you to it directly." Malfoy looked at his ink-stained fingers so he wouldn't have to look at her.
"Where do you stay?" Hermione willed his eyes back to her. They didn't come. She knew the answer was likely simple. He stayed right in this building. It was the only thing that made sense.
"Upstairs." Why was he sounding like that? She couldn't place it. Defeated? Annoyed? "Poppy and I each have a room in the attic." Malfoy mumbled. His eyebrows were still furrowed in that angry scowl that made him look like a predator looking for prey.
"But-" Hermione wanted to say she wanted to stay. Because she didn't know how to be without him. In the past month, he was all she knew. Silent, but there. Or duelling, but there. She rarely saw Madam Pomfrey because she occupied herself with duelling, chess games, or walking into the forest. Other people scared her, because she didn't want to see her differences in their eyes as they struggled to recognise her. In reality, she didn't want to stay. Not here. This was the door to her cage, and she could taste the freedom.
"There's no room," Malfoy's voice was so soft, it sounded like he was almost sorry. Hermione knew he was an Occlumens; she wondered if he had mastered Legilimency too. "For you upstairs. So you should go." He looked at his watch and exhaled a short, huffy burst of humourless laughter. "You have an hour, the portkey usually goes at four in the afternoon if they've had it set for something."
"Where is the portkey?" Hermione's words got stifled and her voice was on the verge of cracking. She cleared her throat. Her ribcage became a corset, and Malfoy was yanking at the ribbons, tightening it.
She was a mixture of pure, bright hope with elation guiding her to freedom, and she was a caged bird waiting for a friend to pass time together singing gentle harmonies, forgetting the world around them.
"The bottle, Granger. In the root of the tree." Malfoy turned back to his desk. She let his sentence hang in the air for fear that if she spoke now, words she didn't trust to make sense would never come. And he would know exactly how terrified she was. And how eager she was to go. She had the shape of him memorised. She knew his heartbeat matched hers as she looked at the expanse of shoulders and too-long white hair. "You have your beaded bag." He dipped his quill – she heard the dull clink of it on the inkpot's glass. "You have a wand. You're all healed up."
He was right. Of course he was. They both worked hard to be where she is now, compared to where she had begun.
"Will you come with me?" Hermione looked out of the half-window and thought she could see the tree from there in bed. Malfoy stopped writing again. He inhaled deeply enough that she heard him, but it only sounded like the beginning of a yawn. She knew what frustration sounded like, but this wasn't quite that.
"I have a place to stay," Malfoy said patiently. His hair needed a trim. It was beginning to dip into the nape of his robe, and stuck out at off angles where the shorter strands refused to follow their longer counterparts.
"I meant to the portkey, you twat," Hermione laughed a little, but her throat ached like she had a cold. It was then she realised — not only was she attached to him, but she would miss him. Malfoy turned to look at her, and he was wearing a shit-eating grin.
"What? You don't remember the way?" he teased. She crumpled the paper and tossed it at him. Memory jokes were his easy-jab go-to insults. His grin softened to a smirk. "Yea, Granger. I'll see you off."
A chill settled over her when it sank in that she was leaving. Her smile faded, so did his. "What if my memories-" She shook her head. "My memories, what if they hurt me or, I don't know …"
What if I need you? she wanted to ask. She felt particularly pathetic.
"The infirmary doesn't move." Malfoy was making good use of his bedside manner, not that he had much of that. She gave him a weak smile as a thank you, and his eyes bore not an ounce of pity. She appreciated it.
Gathering exactly the things Malfoy had mentioned previously – her beaded bag (which she hoped contained some of her own clothes) and her wand – she sat on her bed and waited for four p.m.
The sun was setting earlier and earlier, so the sky was a dusky purple. Wind roared through the treetops like a howling banshee.
There was no big send off. Malfoy walked with her to the hilltop. She took the bottle in her hand. It was a dim, dark, and dingy glass that reflected the blackening sky.
Her reflection looked at his, because she found it was the only way she could bring herself to look at him.
"Granger." Malfoy called her name, that delicate way she remembered being used once before. Laced with fear, anxiety, desperation. It felt like severing a heart string. She shut her eyes. The seconds got lost in the erratic thrum of her pulse against the glass.
"Hermione."
Like a compass finding north, her eyes flew to his. Draco's name weighed on her tongue like honey.
Malfoy looked at her for two, long seconds before she was sucked away into nothing.