They emerge the following morning, sleepy and satisfied. Hermione's delighted that the newfound feeling of openness she's been enjoying hasn't dissipated in the morning light.
She is feeling a touch more anxious about facing everybody back home today, though. She owes them all so much more than an apology.
A persistent thought tickles her. They had better shout at her. They had better yell and stamp their feet and threaten her with their most creative jinxes. If they don't, they're tiptoeing around her, and that won't do. They had better not start treating her differently, but she forces herself to not get prickly in advance. Draco thinks they all know her well enough for that and she'll give them a chance to do their worst.
She feels like she deserves it, after the way she left.
"You said Ginny and Harry handed out the folders?" she asks quietly, trying to batten down the flicker of nervousness in her stomach.
Draco nods without comment. Hermione inhales a deep breath. Those folders had her innermost thoughts in them, every single solitary thing she'd ever wanted to say – as well as she could write them down, anyway.
She'd never expected to be around to see anyone's reaction.
"I'm sorry," she tells Draco in a soft voice. Her shame threatens to overwhelm her. "I owed you so much more than that."
"We've talked this out," he responds, kinder than she feels she merits. "I understand why you hadn't written more. You kept hoping it wouldn't be needed. I know."
Tears well in her eyes again and she wipes at them furiously. She so badly wants to be done crying, but she knows today will probably feature a lot more of it before it's all said and done.
"I'm torn, actually," he continues, glancing down at her. "It was the first time you said you love me, and it's even in writing. I'm torn between wanting to frame it and wanting to burn it, because of why you wrote it down."
Hermione coughs out a weak laugh. "Burn it. I'll write you a fresh one without any of the horrible subtext."
"You'll write me a love letter?" he asks, eyebrows high.
Laughter is coming a little more easily. "I suppose you could call it that."
"No one's ever written me a love letter before. I accept."
They Floo home, Hermione fervently hoping it's the last long-distance (or even short-distance) Floo trip she has to make for a very, very long time. Draco takes her shrunken luggage to his room without a word, Hermione trailing behind and still feeling slightly green.
He begins sorting her things into his chest of drawers, setting her toiletry items in his loo. He lifts and wiggles one of the 'vitamin' bottles and she holds out one hand.
"Might as well take those two to the lab with us. Horace probably has some inventory there anyway, but they might come in use."
He tosses them to her and she looks around, assessing the room with fresh eyes. "So are we living here, then?"
Draco stops. "I – well, I suppose we should chat about it. Sorry. I just -"
Hermione wanders over and lays her head against his chest. Smiling up, she says, "I don't mind. We'll be chatting about all sorts of things. I can move in here for now."
She leaves it unspoken that she might not be here for all that long. A year or two could make them more comfortable in her flat, having privacy for her eventual deterioration. On the other hand, Draco shouldn't give up his own home for such a brief period of time.
She refuses to let this bring her down. She made her choice and so did he, and they'll do it all together.
Hermione thought she was prepared for what she was going to find in her lab, but she is not.
It's nearly empty. Caught off-guard, she spins around in surprise. Her lab encompasses a set of rooms, but there's no one around, except for an exhausted-looking Elena slumped over Hermione's desk.
Said desk is no longer empty and cleaned out. It's quite chaotic.
"Hermione!" Elena nearly shrieks when she lifts her head, the alarmed pitch quite out-of-place coming from the reserved and professional Healer. Similarly shocking is the way Elena flings her arms around Hermione. She barely manages to bring her own up in turn before Elena releases her, leaning back to inspect her face in both hands as if checking to see if she's turned into a blueberry. "How are you?"
"Er, alright," Hermione stammers, trying not to wriggle away on reflex. "Sorry for -"
"No. No, no." Elena shakes her head violently. "It's my fault. I'm sorry. I hadn't meant to make you think – well, anyway, I'm sure Draco's told you. We're working quite hard. But I need more samples from you, now. May I?"
This is all happening quite fast and Hermione nods. She sets her shoulder bag down on one of the lab tables and looks around. All she sees is more chaos. A gigantic, old, and quite horrible-looking book is resting on one table, and she can't help meandering over.
It looks both old and heavily-used, now that she's closer. The cover is thick and faded, worn to the base leather in places. The pages are streaked with an assortment of stains, many of which Hermione decides not to identify. "Can I look?" she asks, eyeing Elena.
"Certainly. It's from the Department of Mysteries. Luna brought it up. It's been very helpful."
"It contains Rookwood's research," Draco clarifies and her eyes bug out. She begins flipping through it at once, fascinated.
"Among other things," she murmurs in disgust, and a loud cacophony of voices comes from the hall, growing closer.
"Hermione!" Ginny screams as she crosses the threshold of the lab, and Hermione finds herself nearly tackled to the floor. In the back of her mind, she wonders if Ginny and Theo might not have been a better match.
Pansy, more dignified, still has eyes that are distinctly overlarge, bright, and watery. Blaise and Theo both go to Draco, clapping him on the shoulder. Harry helps sort Hermione and Ginny from their current tangle of limbs (he's quite adept at it and Hermione wonders if Ginny makes a habit of this kind of thing) and grips her in a gigantic hug.
"What were you thinking, eh?" he asks in a whisper, fingers digging into her arms, and she sniffles back a sob.
"I'm sorry -" she chokes. "I'm so, so sorry."
Neville and Luna are further back, staying clear of the intensity of the fray. But her gaze meets theirs and they both smile. She's about to speak to them when Ginny interrupts her train of thought.
"You were right about Blaise," she announces, who turns around at the sound of his name. Ginny tosses out in his direction, "Hermione told me in one of her letters that you fancied me. We'd figured it out, though."
Blaise smirks and Hermione feels that rush of happiness again before Ginny turns serious. "Now," she announces, tapping her foot and folding her arms tightly over her chest. "I'm really angry."
Here it comes, she thinks, and braces herself. Harry and Draco both turn to Ginny and Hermione can tell they're preparing to intervene. She steps in front of it before they can.
"No, tell me. You should tell me. Please. I'm so sorry for what I did, to all of you. You all deserved better. I just didn't know how to begin. But if you all start walking on eggshells around me, I won't be able to bear it."
"Going to do another runner, would you?" Ginny challenges her, and Hermione feels both better and worse at the fire in her friend's eyes.
"I deserve that. And no, I won't. I'll stand right here and let you yell, but if you do start acting like I'm fragile or – or like I'm about to die, I'll hex every one of you."
Suddenly, everybody starts talking at once.
"- How could you?"
"So selfish, I swear -"
"- love you, and -"
"Stupid witch, never thought I'd say that in my life, but -"
"- bloody problem accepting help -"
The volume in the room keeps rising and Hermione does, in fact, feel better. If she's learned anything at all, it's that keeping things and feelings inside isn't helpful. Sometimes they come out in ways that are also not helpful, but at least they're coming out.
"- just let us be your friends, you insufferably ego-driven narcissist!" That one's Pansy, catching Hermione quite by surprise. Speechless, she stares at her friend, who isn't done and is also outpacing the others for both volume and fervour. "No, I'm no curse-breaker, I'm not a Healer, and I don't have some mysterious book laying around my place of employment with half the answers in it! But I am your friend and I thought you were mine, and now I feel like you can just shove me – us – aside without a second thought and I'm so – so – bloody fucking furious with you!"
Draco moves to get between them and Hermione blocks this, too. She wants Pansy to have a chance to finish, but she seems done. She's breathing heavily, hands balled into fists at her side, and Hermione's surprised to see Neville come up to her and put a hand lightly on her shoulder.
"I know, Pans. I'm so, so sorry. And I promise – I swear – it wasn't like that at all. I didn't want to do what I did. It was so hard to leave. I just didn't see another way, and that's on me, not you. You've been such a good friend to me and I'm so grateful to have you and -"
Suddenly, she's crying too hard to see. She and Pansy have somehow found each other, hugging desperately, both sobbing and sniffling. Tears are streaking down her cheeks and she knows they're mixing with Pansy's.
Pulling away at last, she sees Ginny watching them with a calculating look in her eye. The tip of her wand is tapping against the palm of her other hand.
"How about one hex, to show Hermione how angry we are, and then we move on?"
"Now, hang on!" Draco says quickly with a hand raised in the air, but Hermione considers it. It's probably fair. She surveys the room. Neville and Luna exchange a look and shrug, probably feeling somewhat uninvolved in the proceedings. Blaise and Theo look amused. Harry's eyeballing Ginny with more than a little concern, undoubtedly wondering what she has in mind. But they all seem to be considering it not unlike she's doing, and she poses a relevant question.
"One hex and an unlimited amount of future shouting as the urge strikes each of you?"
Heads nod and she sighs. "Alright, then. Ginny? Are you volunteering to do the honours?"
"Yep." Ginny waits for objections or opinions from the others standing around, and none present themselves.
Hermione cringes and braces for it. If nothing else, it proves they're not going to treat her like she's about to shatter. "Bat-Bogey Hex?"
"…Yep," Ginny agrees, tilting her head. Hermione's not sure she's supposed to get to choose, precisely, but this seems fitting. She's sure it was already top of the list. It's one of Ginny's specialities dating back to childhood. Hermione's quite certain she learned it from either Fred or George, probably watching surreptitiously and picking it up on her own. Hermione can't stop a smile, imagining a feisty little Ginny, practising it on Ron from the shadows of the Burrow.
The smile might irk Ginny, in hindsight, the redhead possibly assuming Hermione is taking this lightly.
She nails Hermione square in the nose and Hermione has the unbelievably bizarre sensation of things shooting out her nostrils. She's choked on a beverage before and this isn't dissimilar, the feeling of something spraying out unbidden. The difference lies in the projectile flying things are currently doing, refusing to spray on the floor like gravity intends of snorted-out liquids, and instead taking wild, random flight around the room.
It's quite ticklish. Her eyes water and she coughs, feeling like she has a sneeze stuck inside – except nothing at all is currently stuck. Bat after bat ejects from her nostrils, from the left and then the right, in a rapid and steady sort of tandem that's almost predictable.
Neville takes to idly zapping the miniature bats, vanishing them as they cross his path. It seems difficult to do with any accuracy and Luna appears to take interest, tracking them with her big blue eyes. Pansy's hand is covering her mouth as she tries not to break up laughing. Ginny isn't even trying, cackling so hard she's crying afresh. Harry's neatly caught between horror and hilarity, tugging on the back of Ginny's shirt to get her attention. She brushes him off.
Draco looks like he's unsure how long to let this go on, or if it's even his place to stop it. Theo's whispering something in his ear, chuckling, and Blaise finally goes over to Ginny.
"Lift it," he says, clearly still amused as well, but Hermione appreciates the gesture. Ginny can't, doubled over with her hands on her knees as she heaves in breath between giggles. Finally, Blaise takes pity on Hermione himself and lifts the hex.
At long last, Hermione lets out a single gigantic sneeze, sending them all into gales of laughter once again. One final bat escapes, streaking for the ceiling, and Neville vanishes it with a POP.
"Well, that was rather entertaining," Elena says drily from the corner. Hermione had quite forgotten the Healer was in the room. "But are we all ready to get back to work?"
Properly chastened, Hermione straights up and clears her throat. "You needed more samples?"
This casts a solemn air back over the lab, peoples' focus turning back to Elena. Hermione realises none of them have seen this, seen the Healer draw part of the curse out of her. Elena holds up a vial and readies her wand. Hermione braces again, this time for the slightly uncomfortable sensation of the pulling. Draco comes up behind her and puts a hand on her shoulder, and she relaxes into his touch.
As always, it doesn't take very long. It tugs a little and she resists a little, leaning into Draco's hand. The sample of the curse streams fluidly into the vial, which Elena caps and pockets.
"Blimey," says Neville.
"Whoa," she hears Theo mutter. "Can you siphon it out of her entirely?"
Hermione had had the same thought, all those weeks ago in Elena's office. "If she'd cast a diagnostic first, you'd be able to see it fill back in as soon as she releases the pull."
But Elena is speaking to Theo directly. "That's almost exactly what will happen once I have the counter-curse complete. You've all seen it disappear into itself."
Had they? Hermione's astonished. Elena procures a second vial and turns to her next. "If I don't release the pull, as you put it, we've been able to vanish nearly all of it here in the lab with the correct incantation. I've been replicating it and I believe I have it exact. It matched the original sample I pulled from you."
"Where is the difficulty coming in?" As if there's only one. Hermione's a realist and knows it's been far more complicated than that, but she's riveted. She wants to hear everything about it.
Elena gives her a succinct recap, leaving Hermione with another dozen questions. "I think I've sorted everything but the glamour. It doesn't disappear with the rest. And I'd feel much safer vanishing it all from you at once, rather than breaking it down piece by piece."
"It did disappear," Luna chimes in unexpectedly, "but not from Hermione's."
Hermione catches Pansy counting on her fingers from the corner of her eye, her mouth in silent motion. She hasn't the foggiest clue why. Bemused, she tries to focus on Luna and Elena instead.
"That sample didn't," Luna finishes and Pansy's fingers go still.
Elena nods and elaborates for Hermione's benefit. "It vanished properly from my re-created samples, but not from the original one I took from you. I don't know why, so I need more samples to try again."
Hermione waits while the Healer takes two more.
"Can I see you recreate it and vanish it?" she asks, almost shyly, and Elena seems surprised.
"Certainly." She prepares to do this and Ginny squeals, lunging for Hermione's hand.
"I can't believe I forgot! You did it! You did it! You said yes?!"
Obviously, she had, and now Pansy flanks her, too. Everybody wants to see it, a whole new kerfluffle and she thinks she sees Elena sigh. The wizards are back surrounding Draco for assorted handshaking and congratulations, and Hermione's attention is brought back to Pansy.
"It's about time," she says, intolerably smug about it, and Hermione supposes she has a right to be.
"I wish I'd let you do it sooner," Hermione admits with full honesty. "I should have – well, I wish I'd done lots of things differently, but now isn't the time for all that. All I know is that I deserve to have the same sort of life as anybody else, don't I? Even if it's shorter?"
Ginny bursts out, "Of course you do, you stubborn cow!" but Luna's doing something odd. Hermione can't help but watch. She approaches Elena and reaches into the Healer's pocket. Elena jolts in surprise and whips around.
Luna, holding the vial with the smoky purple mist contained inside, is nevertheless looking right at Pansy. Theo's noticed and so has Neville. Both creep closer to the pair of witches as Luna tugs on Pansy's robe sleeve.
"We'll see if you're right," Luna says. "About the glamour itself. Will it still be there?"
A stunned hush falls over the two groupings, wizards and witches alike.
"What are you talking about, Luna?" Hermione's completely baffled, but Elena seems to put something together. She lunges for the vial held in Luna's fingers.
Holding it to the light, Elena's shoulders slump. "It's still there."
"What the bloody hell is going on?" asks Draco, sounding irritable. "What do you all know that we don't?"
"Doesn't seem we know anything after all," Blaise replies. He seems vexed, but Pansy's studying Hermione again, a close scrutiny that makes Hermione feel awkward.
Pansy turns to the Healer, anxious impatience written all across her face. "Take another sample. Right now."
Hermione stands still as Elena prepares to do as Pansy says. Somehow this feels different than before, and she can tell she's not the only one who thinks so. Even Draco seems to be holding his breath, even though she still hasn't a clue why this time won't be just the same.
The siphoning commences, the tugging at her abdomen something she can almost ignore in favour of the rest of it. Every eye is locked on Elena and her. Rather than trapping it in a vial, Elena contains it in the air in some kind of clear barricade. The mist doesn't like it, drifting to and fro and testing for weaknesses.
Hermione's busy staring at it, fascinated by seeing it in a larger vessel right before her eyes, but everybody else is bursting into chatter. Elena turns to Luna and Pansy.
"You were right. You were right, look: no shimmer. It's gone."
"How is it gone?" asks Harry, bewildered. "What's going on?"
"Parks, how did you know?" Blaise calls across the others, and Pansy shrugs helplessly.
"I didn't. I don't know. Something about it bothered me, that's all. I kept thinking – wondering if it was doing something else, something besides just disguising the curse. I was wondering if it was doing something to you specifically," she emphasises at Hermione. "Maybe making you inflict a different sort of punishment on yourself. That's not saying it quite right, but -"
Luna pipes up. "No, I think it is. It made her afraid to live. She wouldn't risk it."
"What?" Hermione's still confused. She twists around to look at Draco, who seems equally lost.
Pansy takes back over for Luna while Elena aims her wand back at Hermione. She braces for another sample.
"It kept you from being happy. It made you hold yourself back."
"But that doesn't make any sense!" she exclaims, feeling frustrated. "What if I never had? What if I'd always been determined to live my life however the hell I wanted?"
"We probably wouldn't have seen the glamour," Elena closes concisely, sending this curse sample into another clear containment. For comparison, she hands Hermione the vial she'd pulled when Hermione had arrived. Sure enough, she can see the glimmer of it.
"This still doesn't make sense," she insists. "I agreed to marry Draco yesterday. I've been determined to move past all this since yesterday. Why is it different in the last ten minutes?"
How lovely she's felt since then, too. It's undeniable. She believes there's something to it, but she can't explain why the first sample today would show something different than the one Elena just pulled.
Luna moves to stand in front of her. Getting extremely close (Hermione forces herself not to step back out of instinct for personal space), she reaches a hand up to yank out one of Hermione's hairs. She tucks it into a pocket and says, "You said it out loud. You said it to everyone. And that made it real. Not that it wasn't. It was real before, to you. Now, everyone knows. It's solidified. They won't let you take it back. Even if you tried."
Pansy's fingers are rapidly flicking out and back into her fist as Luna talks, distracting Hermione. Neville looks amused and takes her hand, occupying it. Hermione tries to focus. Could that really be all it was? Voicing it, breathing life into it, eliminating any possibility of reverting back into herself? Because Luna's right; if she'd ever been compelled to try and retreat, a half dozen people here would refuse to let her.
She's going to join everybody else in the land of the living, for better or worse.
"We all love you, here," Luna concludes in a soft voice. Her eyes are wide and focussed entirely on Hermione. "Now, you're letting us back in. And you're not afraid."
Harry surprises her to her left, resting an arm across her shoulders. "Love is the most mysterious magical force. You'd forgotten, I think."
She's feeling overwhelmed. She tries to focus only on Elena, taking comfort from the weight of Harry's arm. "Does this make any sense to you?"
The Healer tilts her head, considering the circumstances. "Possibly." She holds up the vial with the shimmer. "We don't have the original samples any longer so I can't compare this one to the ones I took from you weeks ago. But it's entirely possible that it's less. It's not gone entirely from this one but I think there's a good chance that's the case. Do you feel any different?"
She does and can admit it. "But I thought that was just… the weight off my shoulders of finally telling everyone, of having Draco back, of getting married. I don't know. It seemed perfectly reasonable to feel different; happier."
"Of course it did," Elena agrees. "But it might also have been a reduction in the glamour wrapping around and through all your thoughts and emotions."
"Do you think it played that big a role?" Hermione whispers, still having trouble coming to terms with it.
"I'm not planning to replicate it to test. But I think it's likely. We may have to be content with guesswork, but would that bother you? That we may never know for sure, if it's gone and we can no longer test it?"
Her eyes skim around the room, hardly registering anything. "I was bringing this on myself?" Her breathing feels a little tight and she puts her hands over her face, trying to even it out. In and out, one after the next.
She feels Draco's arm around her. "Hey. Don't do that. You didn't do this, alright?"
Elena concurs. "Hermione, look at me." She waits until Hermione can, still feeling like she might drown in the middle of her lab. "Even if you'd been determined to live your life however you wanted, as you put it a minute ago, we still didn't have what we needed to break the curse until now. Don't have regrets now, Hermione. We're tinkering with magic that none of us has ever seen. You were doing the absolute best you could, trying to manage a reality that no one else had."
Her breathing is starting to hitch and Draco tucks her into his chest. She doesn't want to cry in front of everybody, not again, but this all feels like too much. He lets her anyway, keeping her pressed against him, and when she opens her eyes, Harry is four centimetres away from her face. She has no idea how long he's been standing there. She jolts and snorts a messy laugh in surprise, feeling her nose run.
"Hermione. You have to put this aside, just like you decided to do with the rest of it. Don't get bogged down in it now. Part of moving on is forgiving yourself for any regrets you have or things you wish you'd done differently. I wish I'd done tons of things differently. You don't think I regret that I never noticed you were going through something? All those days and weeks in the woods, just us? I should have been a better friend. I should have paid more attention to what was right next to me. But I can't get stuck on it now. All I can do is do better, now that I know. I can be a better friend now, and I'm going to be. And you're going to forgive yourself any unfair blame. Do you hear me?"
Ginny's resting her chin on Harry's shoulder now. "I'll hex you again if you don't. I'll make every single regret fly out your nose, shaped like a bat."
She can feel someone twirling her curls around a finger and thinks it must be Pansy. Even Theo and Blaise have crept closer, and she stifles a sob.
Draco gives her a squeeze and she nods. He bends down to her ear. "Can we let Vasile work, please? I'd very much like to think we can get rid of that thing that's taken up residence rent-free."
"It's not been rent-free," she scoffs, thinking how much misery she's poured into the bloody thing over the years. No more. Harry and the others are right. She squares her shoulders and walks back to Elena.
"Show me how you've done it, first. I'm curious."
Elena does, replicating the modified curse – sans glamour, now – in the centre of the room. Hermione watches in awe as the Healer casts the complex incantation. The curse shows a persistent determination to stay in existence, curling and stretching its tendrils in all directions. But in the end, it can't fight the forced counter-curse, and vanishes with a POP.
"Will it hurt?" she asks Elena directly.
The Healer hesitates. "Probably. It'll be more than the siphoning of the samples. As it nears the end, it might fight harder."
"How many times have you done this, now?" she gestures at the now-empty space in the middle as if there was still something there.
"Close to a dozen. Now that we're not adding the glamour component on top of the rest, I feel confident in the counter-curse as it stands. So, how about it, Hermione? Would you like to have it gone?"
It still seems surreal. Elena casts the Dark magic diagnostic, allowing their little audience to ooh and aah over it at length. Elena herself walks around and around it, studying it carefully. Hermione presumes she's checking for residual signs of the glamour and tries to be patient.
Blaise and Theo are particularly interested in the diagnostic and Hermione doesn't know why she's surprised. Blaise works for St Mungo's, after all, and Hermione vaguely recalls Theo being an excellent student. His academic curiosity had rivalled her own, although he'd been far more casual about displaying it in front of the class. Luna, too, is riveted, and Hermione wonders exactly what it is she does in the DoM.
The others hover around one of the lab tables, pulling up chairs and getting semi-comfortable. Draco is the sole exception, showing minimal interest in the inner workings of the advanced diagnostic, but not leaving her side.
It still doesn't seem like something that can actually be gotten rid of. Hermione realises with some dismay just how much the knowledge of the curse has invaded her entire outlook, her whole consciousness. Every thought she has is layered with the assumption that she has this modified curse as part of who she is.
But no, she forcefully berates herself. She's not 'Hermione Granger, recipient and permanent lodging vessel of an unknown Dark curse cast by a buffoon.' She's about to simply be 'Hermione Granger, who was once attacked a long time ago and then recovered.'
Just 'Hermione.' That's all. 'Hermione,' who has a gaggle of friends right here, full of both frustration and love for her in equal measure. 'Hermione,' who's going to marry Draco Malfoy, who spent fifteen years in love with her before she even knew it. 'Hermione,' who knows more about the Scandinavian Snidgets than she could have thought possible and will even – gasp! – cheer them on at the World Cup next year with more than simple allegiance to their team coach.
Her throat feels a little thick and she wonders if she could be forgiven yet another bout of crying. Probably.
Elena needs to get rid of the blasted thing, first. Hermione would very much like the next round of crying to be officially celebratory.
Finally, Elena decides it will be best to conduct the next part in St Mungo's. She wants Hermione in reasonable comfort on a hospital bed, not standing in the centre of her scattered lab tables. Hermione hopes that's all it is, but she's trying not to be too nervous. Every other instinct of Elena's has been quite on target.
They end up traipsing down there in a long line, making Hermione feel like a first-year student following a Prefect up to Gryffindor Tower the first night at Hogwarts. She tries not to feel embarrassed at the amount of attention this is drawing in the hallways of the hospital, thinking a little belatedly she'd blend in more with her own St Mungo robes. But of course, she has nothing left here at her lab, no personal effects of any sort.
Some part of her mind knows this is an attempt to distract herself from the real source of her anxiety, so she lets herself fixate on feeling self-conscious.
Blaise pokes his head into a staff room, calling Stotch, who joins them. Stotch knows of an unused room and leads them right to it, letting Hermione settle herself onto the bed.
She crosses her feet at the ankles and attempts to feel comfortable. It's no use at all, a complete lost cause, but at least Draco pulls up a chair next to her. Everybody else clusters around the second hospital bed. Ginny hops up on it and sits cross-legged, leaning her elbows on her knees to watch. Luna hovers behind her, selecting a single red hair to commandeer. The others pick various locations to squat or lean, be it bed or chair or wall.
Hermione allows her focus to fall on Pansy and Neville, feeling quite pleased about that evident development. Pansy seems somewhat flustered and Hermione lifts her eyebrows. Pansy blushes, much to Hermione's amazement. Luna, having now acquired a red hair for her collection, retreats to Theo's side and tucks in quite closely. Theo seems unsurprised. Solidly amused now, Hermione scans the rest to see what more she might have missed this afternoon. Harry's the only one who doesn't seem paired off, but he grabs a chair and sits at her other side.
Stotch and Elena are conferring in quiet voices. Elena nods and clears her throat. "Ready, Hermione?"
Absolutely. Also absolutely, positively terrified, and she can't deny it. It comes on her in a gigantic rush and she finds Draco's fingers with her own.
What if it doesn't work? What if it hurts like hell? What if it's done loads more damage than they realise? What if –
Elena practices the same wand movement and incantation that Hermione's already seen. She does it in the air twice, steady and smooth. Hermione takes a deep breath and holds it as the Healer turns her wand on her.
It… hurts. She's both surprised and not surprised at the depth of it. She sucks in more air and fights the urge to double over in a cramp. Her hand squeezes Draco's in desperation.
"Don't!" Draco barks and her gaze flies to him. She knows he's not talking to her, but is he talking to Elena? She struggles to speak, to protest. This has to keep going. But Draco is eyeing Harry instead, and Hermione turns her head that way, feeling the burden of the movement.
Harry's hand was reaching out towards her other one and he yanks it back, a look of puzzled hurt on his face. "I just want to -"
"Don't," Draco grits out again in warning and Hermione feels the pull. "Don't touch her."
"What is it, Draco?" Ginny asks, head whipping back and forth between Draco and Harry in concern.
Draco shakes his head with difficulty. "It's fighting it."
He can tell? How? Now Hermione's worried, too. She tries to drop his hand and he won't let her. She feels the same thing, that grasping and clutching, the attempted extension of the curse as it tries to hang on.
She grips the bar of the hospital bed near her side, and feels restraints slip around her wrists and ankles.
"What -" she manages to cry before another huge wave of discomfort racks her. "Ow! Fuck, bloody hell -"
Draco grips her hand and Hermione can't deny it's easier to not have to worry about holding on for balance or stability. She glances around and sees Stotch pointing his wand at her. She silently thanks him.
"It doesn't care if it's in her or me," Draco manages. "It's fighting it. I can feel it. It's like a creeping, like it's trying to find somewhere to hide. But there's nothing we can do about it now – except get rid of it. Do it, Vasile."
Elena's trying. And so is the curse, evidently, searching for a safe haven. No wonder Draco didn't want Harry touching her, too.
Pain racks back through her and Hermione doubles over again, as far as she can go with the restraints. They have no idea how close they are. This isn't open air where they can all watch the progress. All she can hope is that she'll feel a release when it finally goes.
Draco's gripping her hand so hard it's almost distracting, which Hermione welcomes. She wonders how much of it he can feel and hopes it's limited to the searching push/pull of the curse's tendrils. Hopefully since it's not latched inside of him, he doesn't feel the same sort of pain.
"Keep going," she coughs out. "Do it faster, if you can." She has no idea if Elena has any impact whatsoever on that, but she can hope the Healer can intensify things. She hasn't the slightest idea if Elena does, but she knows it starts to hurt worse.
Tears spring to her eyes again and she can't pay any attention to the hushed mutterings around the room. She's sure everyone's concerned but there's nothing anybody can do. She's able to glance up at Stotch, profoundly disturbed, but he's unable to help either. The most he could do was help keep her still.
Hermione, teeth gritted and fingers about to break Draco's, decides to think about something else. She's going to assume this is going to work, and even if it doesn't, they're getting married. Where should it be? She'd almost like to make it Amsterdam, which seems excessive and frivolous, and yet absolutely necessary at the same time. They can take Septimus's and Kitty's portraits off the wall and prop them up in the gardens if they have the ceremony outside. It wouldn't feel right to do it without them. And –
She gasps as a violent yank scoots the hospital bed forward. Harry, following Draco's advice to not touch Hermione, reaches out to stabilise the bed instead. She has no idea what childbirth feels like but she has a bizarre impression that this may not be that far off. She's expelling something from her body, something that's putting up a solid protest about the situation, and she leans into this. She bears down on it, trying to push from the inside and visualise the curse leaving her.
Out, she thinks in desperation. Out, damned spot. The Shakespearean quote almost makes her grin and think of Kitty and her beloved Timi again. It referred to blood on the hands of Lady Macbeth and how she couldn't wash away that blood. Her hands always felt unclean. Hermione uses this imagery, too, forcing the dirty, Dark magic out.
Her face makes more of a grimace than a grin at the reference and Draco squeezes briefly. "Okay?" he asks, not bothering with more detail, and she manages a short nod.
"Just thinking -" she gasps as another harsh pull doubles her forward again. "- Shakespeare -"
"What? Why?" Harry asks, baffled and worried in equal measure, and Hermione can only shake her head. She's vaguely amused but can't show it and definitely can't explain with any clarity.
"Hurry up," she grinds out, not wanting to lose patience with Elena. This isn't the Healer's fault, but Hermione doesn't know how much longer she can do that. She's torn between wanting to focus on the curse and push every thought into driving it from her body, and wanting to think about something else – anything else.
From the corner of her eye, she sees Elena twist her wand. The Healer's perspiring around her dark hairline, jaw clenched and eyes tight. Hermione feels her midsection twist as if directly linked to the wand, and she stifles a cry.
Draco, also sweating and clenched, looks away from her face and back to Elena. "Keep going," he hisses, and Elena gives another twist.
Hermione can't hold in the pain and lets herself make noise. She immediately feels better and doesn't know why she'd been fighting it for this long. Draco spits out something else and she feels the wrenching pain again, allowing herself to bellow about it to her heart's content. She hears the muted chatter amongst her friends start back up – had it ever stopped? – but she's drowning it out quite effectively now.
Suddenly she feels the give. Like a rubber band snapping, she hits the back of the hospital bed and it very nearly scoots backwards on the floor. Maybe it would have if Harry's hand hadn't still been gripping it, and Hermione feels the need to shake her head to clear it. Breathing hard, she looks around. Everyone's faces are a jumbled mix of things, worry and anticipation and excitement.
Her hands press hard to her chest and she inhales deep, hardly believing it let go. Draco's hand smooths across her forehead, moving her hair and she feels how sticky and wet she is. Gods, what just happened? She looks down at her hands, her arms, her body. Is this her? Only her? Nothing else?
"Are you okay?" Draco murmurs to her, still running his hands everywhere as if personally checking that she's corporeal.
A diagnostic appears in the air in front of them and she jolts back on reflex, as if it can touch her. She nods, almost absently. She thinks she is. But now she's studying the diagnostic instead of her own body.
There are two, the one for Dark magic and the more basic, general Healing diagnostic. Elena surveys one and Stotch the other, conferring to each other. Blaise whispers something to Ginny, who lets out a whoop.
"Is that it?" Theo asks, scanning faces anxiously.
"No sign of it," Blaise replies, moving alongside Ginny to study it himself. Hermione focusses on the standard diagnostic, the one that always showed a very slightly anomaly to the trained eye. It's different, now.
"Stotch," she says, surprised at how weak her voice sounds. She's exhausted. "Stotch, it's different. Do you see it?"
Looking over at her, he nods and proceeds with caution. "It's showing damage now. You do have organ damage."
Draco cuts in, almost angry about it. "What do you mean?"
Hermione keeps his hand in hers. "It was always likely that the damage it was doing was partially or entirely masked. It was meant to do its work undetected, as much as possible for as long as possible."
"How bad is it?" Now Harry does take her other hand, and she's soothed by his thumb on her knuckles.
Allowing Stotch more time to inspect it, Hermione faces everybody else. "No matter what it shows, I'm better off than I was half an hour ago. That's what counts most."
This is quite true and she's a little surprised at the ease with which she delivers this. She really believes it. She still feels the relief of yesterday, of earlier today, of four minutes ago when Elena released the pull. Whatever else she and Stotch see now that needs to be addressed, Hermione can handle it.
She does feel completely wrung out, however. Exhausted and put through the ringer. Damp curls stick to her forehead, despite Draco's ministrations. Without a drop of shame, she aims her wand at herself and casts a quick scourgify.
Ginny and Pansy exchange a quick look and short nod. Both point at her and attack her hair, one wetting it and the other drying it in quick succession. It happens too fast for Hermione to even feel impressed with the unspoken teamwork until it's over.
Ginny takes over next, giving Hermione a quick plait. Draco seems slightly affronted, a curl slipping from between his fingers to sort itself into the masses on Ginny's swift command.
Harry finally interrupts the two Healers. "What do you see?"
This breaks their focus and they turn in unison to face Hermione again. "Nothing irrevocable," Stotch reassures her. "I'd like to keep you here for a day or so to work on repairing what we can. I think with the right set of potions and treatment, it'll be alright. We'll consult with Horace again on those possibilities, but I think you could go back home before the weekend."
