Thirteen

Draco jerks his head up, adrenaline surging through him as he scrambles upright, and the book on his chest slides off onto the floor with a muted bang. Hermione is crying. Sobbing, and making awful, strangled sounds that are shockingly loud in the quiet of the bedroom. Shit. He'd fallen asleep, and now she's deep in a nightmare. Shit. She's curled in a ball, her forearms held up in front of her face, her knees drawn up defensively. It's harder to coax her out of the nightmares when she's been dreaming for a while; she sinks into them, drowning in the depths, and the deeper she gets, the longer it takes to pull her back to the surface. The more it hurts her. Guilt pricks at him.

"Granger." He props himself on one elbow and speaks gently but not quietly as she whimpers and sobs, wheezing gasps, her body trembling with the tension, a harp string plucked and quivering. His hand hovers above her shoulder, afraid to touch her just yet, knowing the reaction he'll get. The flinch and the cry of fear that pierce him right through. Draco hopes he can pull Hermione out of it without touching her. As it is, her sobbing is quieting to little gasps, although from what he can see of her face through her hair and the protective bars of her forearms, she's still crying. Eyebrows scrunched down and eyes screwed shut, the tears streaking her cheeks shining where they catch the low, golden lamplight.

"Granger, it's okay. You're safe. It's okay. It's just a dream. Just a bad dream."

The door clicks and then creaks, and the youngest Weasley pokes her head in, carroty hair a shining sheet nearly to her waist, pale face pinched with worry. Her knuckles are clutching the doorknob so tightly they're white. "I heard –" she gets out worriedly and uncertain, dark eyes huge and nervous on Draco, although she swallows hard and lifts her chin determinedly. She's scared of Draco, he realises belatedly, and he's surprised to find he doesn't like that feeling. "Is she – okay?"

"It's just a nightmare," he says neutrally. "She'll be fine."

Draco expects the girl to retreat after that, but she doesn't. She stays planted there in the doorway, her lips pressed into a worried line, in striped pyjamas that seem too big on her. He feels he can't tell her to piss off – like she's only staying to watch him with Hermione, like the redhead thinks he'll hurt her – so instead, he just tries to ignore the girl, focusing on Hermione. He keeps saying soothing, gentle words on a mindless loop, still hovering close but not touching, and she shivers in her sleep. Then she mutters his name, and it's not with relief or want, but with a broken fear in her voice.

The words spilling out of him stutter to a halt as horror seizes him. No. No, he hates this. He hates it so fucking much. It's like having his nails torn out all over again. Draco feels bile rise sharp and stinging in the back of his throat and gulps on vomit. She's dreaming about him. He says her name again, urging her to wake up as his hand settles on her shoulder, and Hermione shudders. Sweat shines on her skin, her cheeks flushed.

"Please," comes out next, very clearly. "Please, Malfoy, don't –"

The Weasley girl makes a horrified sound, and he looks up to see her covering her mouth with one hand, only her shining, dark eyes showing but still telegraphing all her disgust and horror.

"Granger. Granger, wake up!" Draco resorts to giving her a sharp shake, unable to stand the Weasley girl looking at him like that, and that finally does it. Hermione wakes. It's not a slow emergence like Draco prefers, though – a slow, gentle dawning of consciousness as she realises the dream was just that, a dream, swimming up to the surface with barely a ripple. No, instead, it's an explosion. A brutal shock to her system as she flails upright, gasping and panting, terror in every line of her body as she tries to scramble up the bed and flatten herself against the wall in a crouch, chest heaving as she drags in wet, snotty breaths.

"Granger," Draco says, on his knees now, their silent observer forgotten as he holds out both hands to Hermione in a supplicating gesture. He tries to exude harmlessness and surrender to make it clear he's not a threat. She stares at him, wild-eyed through her hair, hugging herself as she slides her back down the wall, sinking onto the pillows. "Granger, it's okay. You had a nightmare. You're safe. You're in an Order safe house. It's okay."

"M-Malfoy?"

"It's me. It's okay. We're okay. You're safe. N-nobody's going to make me hurt you again," Draco says thickly and his voice betrays him, breaking on a half-sob at the end, and the Weasley girl makes a choked noise.

Hermione shoves her hair back off her face messily with both hands – her eyes are set in bruised pits, and her thin cheeks are hectic with blotchy colour, her lips and chin are trembling with still more tears – and then she holds her arms out to him. Mute and pleading, and Draco shuffles on his knees across the bed to her because while he feels wrong for doing it, what else can he do? She needs him, even if he is the one who hurt her. He pulls her into his arms and she clings to him, shaking like a leaf in his arms, radiating so much heat that he worries she has a fever, all bones and sharp points as she nestles against him.

"Th-that was a bad one," she wobbles out softly and muffled, her face buried full against his chest and shoulder. Wet splotches are growing against his skin through his shirt as he strokes her hair, making a soothing little humming sound deep in his chest. "Fuck." She heaves a breath. "It wasn't about – it wasn't –" and they both know what she means.

"It's okay if it was," he tells her numbly, even though it isn't. It really isn't alright. It's just about the furthest thing from alright, and he remembers the feel of her beneath him, around him, slick and sticky with blood and crying, his cum on her thighs as she knelt afterwards and he stood, holding her up by her hair like a trophy, and – and Merlin, he wants to die. He wants to escape feeling this way, to take the only way out that's left to him, like the coward Hermione accused him of being, and just die. Draco wishes he could, but he won't do that to her. He can't leave her. "It's okay."

"It – it wasn't, though." Hermione heaves in a huge, gasping breath, almost a yawn, and lets it out in a series of hitching shudders. Her fingers dig sharply into his shoulders, bony and jabbing. He nestles her closer, still on his knees with her on his lap, his arms tight around her back. Her dream comes out in a flood between gasps. "I – I dreamt w-we didn't manage to escape, and we were in front of you-know-who, and y-you – you sacrificed yourself. Gave yourself u-u-up instead of me. And he – he –'' She dissolved into a fresh flood of tears, soaking Draco's shirt, and he can imagine what horrors Voldemort had done to him in her nightmares. He feels faintly guilty for feeling glad her dream hadn't been about what he'd done.

"Hush. It didn't happen, Granger. It's okay." He takes a shaky breath, his hand still petting ceaselessly over her hair, rocking slightly as he tries to soothe her. "I'm here," he tells her, and then, not knowing what else to say, the words slipping out soft and stumbling, a murmur against her hair – "I love you. Hermione. I love you."

There's a sound, and Draco twists his head and looks up. The youngest Weasley has slipped out, closing the door quietly behind her. Shame burns his cheeks; he'd forgotten she was there, so wrapped up in Hermione he'd become.

"I love you," she whispers her response, her fingers linking together behind his neck, her wrist bones indenting his shoulders as she tries to pull herself up and nestle her face in the crook of his neck. He shifts them both easily, his back pulling with the burning pain of too-tight scar tissue as he does, and then he's lying back on the pillows, Hermione half over him, one knee on the bed beside him and the rest of herself a shivering, too hot blanket. She drapes herself over him, wet face buried against the side of his throat and both hands clutching at his hair and face, her free leg thrown across his abdomen. Clinging more than she ever used to before they escaped. But then, things are different now.

"I missed you," she tells him, lips tickling his skin just below his ear. A pause. "I missed this."

"I'm here now," he says, holding her close and safe, shutting his eyes against the lamplight.

She wakes often that night. Sleep is a broken, smeared thing, dreams blurring into reality, messy and unreal. But he's always there when she finally struggles up to awareness, and his hands are warm and gentle, his voice a constant steady reassurance, anchoring her, tying her to him, and he is a welcome rock to cling to in a sea of nightmares.

She's brave enough to use him as a bed, covering him with her own body, and the rise and fall of his breathing is like a cradle rocking her, the lean contours of him are warm and firm, and his hands are soft on her hair and her back. When she looks up in her bewildered surfacing from dreams, his eyes are bloodshot, and his stubble glints gold and prickles like a hedgehog under her searching hands. There's a tremble to his lips that transmits to his hands, a certain grim exhaustion hanging about him. And he keeps her safe.

Everything is okay.

When Hermione wakes for the final time, it's a natural, slow waking in the pink-grey glow of the morning light, no nightmares clinging to her, no dream-webs to brush away. She's sprawled face down across the bed, feeling heavy-limbed and groggy, her mouth tasting like death and her eyes sore from crying. But there's a sense of peace nestled in Hermione's belly that radiates through her limbs, giving her a liquid, lax feeling that's pleasant. She's still tired, but she knows there's no way she's getting back to sleep.

Hermione shoves herself up onto her elbows and blinks, knuckling her eyes and yawning, and then looking over to her right. He's there. Malfoy is right there. He wasn't a dream, or a hallucination brought on by starvation and misery. He's lying on his back, fast asleep with the blankets shoved down around his hips, face turned slightly more toward Hermione and left hand curled up on his chest, just under his chin. He looks almost sweet, his hair a ruffled mess, and his dark blond brows crinkled down a little, full lips making a pout. But there are dark circles under his eyes, and exhaustion is carved into every sharp line of him.

The bed shifts only slightly when Hermione slips out of it, and Malfoy stirs but doesn't wake. She stares down at him for a moment. He looks younger in his sleep despite the weariness that permeates him to his soul, in the white t-shirt that's ridden up, exposing the flat of his belly, a faint smattering of pale blond hairs leading down beneath his grey striped pyjama pants.

She looks at him lying there clean and beautiful and is strongly aware that she smells of sour, old sweat, her face is coated in dried tears and snot, her hair is greasy and lank, and she hasn't depilated her armpits in well over a week. She thinks she can probably slip out to have a quick shower and be back before Malfoy wakes; he's dead to the world right now.

No one else is up as Hermione heads downstairs to the tiny second-floor bathroom with a bundle of clothes. After peeing, she turns the shower to scalding and slathers her legs and armpits in depilating cream potion while the water heats. And then she steps under the hot rush, and it's fantastic. It's like a rebirth, the heat raising colour over every inch of her like a boiled lobster as she lathers a flannel with soap and scrubs herself. Washes her hair twice, rubbing her scalp firmly. Hermione feels almost human by the time she's done. She doesn't linger though, brushing her teeth and pulling on a vest and leggings fast, and then the chambray shirt, washed again courtesy of Mrs Weasley.

When she gets back up to the bedroom, her hair hanging damp around her shoulders and her feet chilled by the wood floors, she opens the door to Malfoy pacing and muttering. His head snaps up when he sees her there, and a flash of relief crosses his face, followed by the anger that comes from fear. He crosses the tiny room in a handful of steps, and his hands come up to cradle her face – barely touching her, his fingertips a whisper. The expression on his face is so intent.

"You vanished," Malfoy says, low and rough. "I just woke up and you were gone, and I didn't know if you'd just gone to the toilet or what." There's an accusing tone to his voice as he pushes a damp lock of hair back behind her ear, grey eyes catching the morning light coming through the window. His own hair is spiky-ruffled and nearly white in the light, and it looks so soft even without being properly cared for. Like cornsilk.

"I had a shower," she says, caught in Malfoy's eyes. Like rain clouds, or wood smoke, or the frost riming windows, and filled with emotions she can't untangle. "And you were sleeping. I didn't want to wake you." Hermione's hands fist in his t-shirt at his waist, and he makes a slightly startled sound at her touch. She's been very free with him since yesterday, she knows. Touching and grabbing and clinging to him. But they're free. She can touch him as much as she wants without either of them being worried he'll be forced to do...things. So she will, as long as they're both enjoying it.

"Next time, wake me, Granger," Malfoy says seriously, his hands settling properly on the sides of her face, thumbs sweeping over her cheekbones, his gaze steady on hers. And there's a tenderness in the way he's holding her, the way he's looking at her that sends warmth sinking liquid through Hermione's core. There's a tremble to his fingers, and then his tongue darts out to wet his lips, his pupils blowing wide despite the morning light on his face, and Hermione finds herself wanting to kiss him.

Her arms go around his neck, and she pushes up on tiptoes. And then, very slowly – giving Malfoy every chance to stop her, their eyes locked together – Hermione kisses him full on the mouth as they stand in the middle of her room, the dawn washing them softly. His hands slide from her face to her waist, and oh, his lips are so soft and so sweet as her eyes flutter shut, her own lips parting just a sliver. He smells like traces of soap and fresh sweat, his splayed fingers pressing into her skin through her shirt, and it's heady and intoxicating.

She feels light-headed. Oddly joyful. And seized by the moment, Hermione brushes her tongue daringly against the seam of Malfoy's lips and nearly melts when he makes a throaty, needy little sound and opens his mouth to her, kissing her properly. Like a dam has broken, his hands clutching her and his tongue slicking over hers with a barely contained urgency, making pleasure streak from somewhere behind her sternum to between her legs, delicious and curling-hot-wet, like he's licking pleasure into her. Oh god.

It feels good and clean. Pure heady delight. There are no awful, stomach-churning memories tied to a simple kiss so long as neither of them tries to take it further. Hermione's fingers push into Malfoy's thick locks, and she holds him by handfuls of hair, disarranging it entirely. She kisses him until she's breathless, sucking breath through her nose, the two of them locked together there in the middle of the room. His hands are careful, holding her as though she's made of glass as one slides up to splay across her back, but his mouth is edging toward demanding. Moving and pressing, their mouths slanting across each other with a delicate kind of greediness, and his urgency seems all tied up in threads of self-control that are snapping one by one and Hermione whimpers needily.

Her skin feels hot all over, and her nipples are so sensitive to the shifting of fabric over them, the pit of her stomach clenching with a hot want, and between her legs feels flush and swollen, and so very sensitive too. Malfoy's kiss makes Hermione want things that are all tangled up in horrors, and with a shudder of loss, she has to turn her mouth away, rasping her lips on his stubble, gasping in little sips of air against the corner of his mouth. He makes a sound – a broken moan – and seeks her mouth out again for a split second before he comes to his senses and lets out a sigh. Straightens enough to rest his cheek against the side of her forehead, his arms carefully encircling her.

"Sorry," he says and it comes out all hoarse and he clears his throat. Hermione smiles to herself, her arms settling around his waist.

"Don't be sorry," she says, nearly a whisper, her voice all husky and low. "That was the best thing that's happened to me in weeks."

And then Malfoy swears short and harshly under his breath and starts very gently but insistently trying to detach her from him, and Hermione doesn't understand for a moment until he steps back and she sees it. She sees his erection, jutting out against his pyjama trousers for a moment and jerks in a short, choked breath before he turns away, swearing again. "I'm sorry." He sounds embarrassed. "I didn't mean to –" He cuts off, as if he realises how pointless that is and then sits on the edge of the bed, leaning forward with his forearms braced on his thighs, head hanging down. It hides his crotch and, in part, his face.

Hermione swallows hard, throat clicking dryly. He put that in me, she thinks, and she remembers the pain, and the blood, and the dull, burning stretch. She wonders if it would hurt if they did it again. When they do it again, she corrects herself, and a wave of heat prickles over her skin; fear and desire both. Hermione doesn't know how she'll get to the point where her trauma and her desire are disentangled, but she knows she wants to. The way that kiss made her feel was enough to reaffirm that.

"It's okay," she says faintly and takes the first step, moving to stand in front of Malfoy and resting a hand on his bowed head. She grabs a handful of silky, platinum hair and tugs his head up. He looks at her as she keeps hold of his hair, all ashamed, shadowed eyes, and sharp nose, his mouth ripened by their kisses. "It is, really. I know that's going to happen, Malfoy. You don't have to hide it."

He gives her a wry, doubtful look, that expressive mouth twisting, his head tipped back from her grip on his hair. She lets go, but he holds her eyes. There's something very sad in them. "I don't want you to see," he says soft and small, looking back down at his hands; playing with his left-hand nails, where they're slowly growing back in. "I – I hurt you," he says very shortly and filled with a drowning shame, eerily echoing what Hermione had been thinking. But instead of feeling disgusted, she feels desperately sorry for him. She feels the need to show him she's not repulsed.

Hermione sits down beside him, close enough that their bodies touch; her arm against his, their legs just nudged together a little. She hadn't been expecting to have this conversation before breakfast, or today at all, but so be it. Her hand creeps out, fingers settling on his thigh, and Malfoy stiffens but allows it. She drags her fingers in idle little patterns over his leg. Little spirals and stars, his skin warm beneath the thin fabric, his jaw tense, still playing with his growing nails.

"It doesn't always hurt though, does it?" Hermione asks, and it's a silly question because she knows the answer; it's certainly not supposed to hurt, bar a little pain the first time, depending. But after that, sex is definitely supposed to feel good if nothing's wrong. And yet she asks him. And his reaction is oddly enlightening. Malfoy blushes. Cheeks flaming up, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows, mouth working briefly in a search for words before he finds them.

"I mean... I don't think it's supposed to," he says at last, awkwardness pouring off him, and Hermione realises something that makes her feel cold and shivery. She'd just assumed that Malfoy would have – after all, he'd been all over Pansy Parkinson at school. And afterwards, as a Death Eater... Well, now she thinks about it, he hadn't exactly been surrounded by willing partners while in Voldemort's service, from what little she'd seen. Hermione bites her lip, pulling her hand back from his leg and lacing her hands together nervously. Her palms are sweaty.

"Malfoy…was that – I mean, was I…your first?"

The question hangs in the air for a long moment. And then his shoulders hunch, and he looks away. "Yes," he says reluctantly.

"Oh." It's a numb little sound. Hermione's tongue feels thick in her mouth. Somehow, it makes her feel worse for him that he'd been a virgin, although maybe it shouldn't make a difference. But she'd wished at times that she hadn't been a virgin, so she could have had a good memory of sex as well, instead of associating it entirely with trauma and degradation. It wouldn't have made what he'd done any easier to bear, but maybe it would have made this part of things – wanting to do it again – easier. Not that she'd ever know. "I just thought –"

"No." The side of his face she can see is still flushed blotchy red.

"Oh." Her chest feels all tight as she tries to process it. Malfoy really hadn't known what he was doing, then. His clumsiness, his roughness...now Hermione wonders how much inexperience had impacted that. She feels sick thinking about it, her stomach roiling. They'd both lost their virginity together at Voldemort's revel, Hermione thinks, and it's bizarre and sad and awful. "I didn't realise," she whispers stupidly. Adds, "I'm sorry it was like that," and Malfoy shoots her a look that's heavy with bottled-up anger, and with that horrible shame.

"Don't. Don't you dare apologise to me, Granger," he snaps and she flinches back a little despite herself, which just makes the misery in his expression swamp the rest, blotting it all out except his guilt and shame. Malfoy groans and drops his head down, running his hands through his hair, radiating abject apology. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not angry at you, I just – I don't want you to apologise when you didn't do anything wrong."

A frustrated tension hums in his voice, and Hermione bites the tip of her tongue hard enough for it to sting. This self-flagellation of his is starting to irk her. It was what had kept him away from her for so long. He may not have meant to, but he's punished them both with that.

"You only did what you had to do to keep me alive, Malfoy. It's not like you wanted to," she says sharply, a part of her hating that she feels the need to defend him like this from his own self-hatred. The air in the room feels taut and heavy.

Malfoy just makes a non-committal grunt in response, his shoulders still hunched and his whole posture radiating a bone-weary misery. "Or did you? Did you want to?" Hermione provokes, and she can tell he knows what she's doing; instead of being pushed to anger, he deflates and sighs heavily, shaking his head.

"No. Not then. And not like that," he says tiredly, rubbing a hand over his face. Not then. Not like that. Perhaps strangely, those words make Hermione's stomach flip with a blend of nerves and arousal. She feels the arousal more keenly right now, but she knows that if they were to actually try anything, the nerves would immediately win out and blossom into full-blown panic as memories close in. But eventually...eventually Hermione wants him like that, even if that is messed up. Her hand finds its way back to his leg, and it's his turn to flinch as she runs her fingertips in circles on his thigh again.

Hermione sighs, a soft gust of air whispering from parted lips, her shoulders slumping, eyes clouding as she tries to look into the future and imagine a time when she'll be able to do that. To let him cover her with his body again, and press himself inside her. It seems impossible. The thought makes her body thrill and quail at the same time. She wants, and she fears, and she remembers the hurt.

"Do you think you can make it not hurt, the next time?"

Malfoy stares at her with shocked grey eyes, lips parted, looking young and entirely uncertain, the ground beneath his feet quicksand slipping away, sucking him down. And in the quiet of the morning light alone in her – their – room, Hermione realises that, strangely, having him here makes her stronger. Because – because Malfoy's just as broken, really, and he needs her just as badly as she needs him, even if he won't admit it properly. And if he needs her, she'll be strong for him. It's the least she can do for everything that he's done for her. She wants to. She's more than just a victim; she can support him just as much as she needs his support.

She looks at him questioningly, waiting for his answer. He swallows hard and tries to find words.

"Fuck, Granger. You – you can't just say –" He cuts himself off, staring at her blankly, heat burning in his cheeks, and then, "next time?" he says, voice breaking on the words, all needy and wanting.

"Yes. I mean, I'm not imminently planning it, but...eventually, right?" Hermione feels her own cheeks heat, her fingernails still scritching nervous circles and stars on his thigh.

"I – fuck. I am not equipped to talk about this right now," Malfoy says, hard and sure, as if he's closing a book. He inhales, short and deep, and straightens. Discussion over. End of story. He cuts a sideways glance at her, and she sees the subtle shift as he schools his expression to a cool neutrality. "We should go have breakfast, Granger."

And he covers well, hiding all the nerves and the want and the barely contained panic running beneath his skin, papering over the cracks with skill, but Hermione knows where to look now, and she can see it. The tightness around his eyes, the faint twitch of muscle at his sharp jaw, and the tension running through his shoulders. Hermione doesn't push; besides, she feels suddenly drained and numb, like even this small exchange has stripped all the energy from her, and breakfast sounds nice.

"Okay."

It's less awkward for Draco at breakfast than he had thought it would be. For starters, instead of staring at him, they're all staring at her. In her pale blue chambray shirt and greyish wool leggings, hair drying loose around her shoulders. She looks frail – like someone recovering from a long illness; skin pallid, cheeks dug out to hollows, and firewhisky-brown eyes bruised around. But there's a brittle beauty to her too, and Draco finds it hard to keep his own eyes off her. But that's not why the people sitting around the table are staring. It's the way she's eating that grabs their attention.

He keeps passing her things and refilling her bowl, barely eating himself as he tends to Hermione's food. She could do it herself, of course, but he's worried and fussing, and can't help himself, pushing more on her. More porridge, more toast, more egg. By the time she sits back and shakes her head at his offer of fruit, unable to eat another bite, she's consumed two eggs, two thick buttered slices of toast, two small bowls of porridge, and a tall glass of orange juice.

No one comments on the way Hermione eats, a slightly stilted conversation carrying on around her and Draco as if it were a normal morning, but Draco notices the way they all eye her surreptitiously, mostly with relief. Potter and Weasley watch her like hawks, and Mrs Weasley, Lupin, and Nymphadora keep a close eye as well, glancing up from their own food and conversations regularly.

Draco thinks it's probably more awkward for Hermione than it is for him; re-emerging after she's been shut away in her room in that miserable, nearly catatonic state. She'd taken a deep breath before descending the last set of stairs as if to steel her nerves, clutching his shirtsleeve, embarrassment hanging around her in a cloud. Thank Merlin no one had made a fuss as they'd entered the dining room. The people already seated had said good morning, and Potter and Weasley had beamed hopefully at her, but that was all.

And now she's done, and she shoots him a faint, wan smile. "I think I need a nap, after that," she says barely audibly, rueful. But she's still weak, and rest is the best thing for her – there's no shame in that. Draco just nods, pushing his own half-eaten breakfast away without a thought, and they retreat upstairs, Hermione making awkward goodbyes and explaining in half-sentences that she'll be back down for lunch while Draco stands in the doorway, waiting silently.

Hermione does doze when they get back upstairs. Draped over him as comfortably as if he's an extension of herself, snoring softly as she drools on his chest. She doesn't sleep long or deep enough to dream, and he lies there with eyes shut and arms carefully wrapped around her, the sun seeping through the one window and slanting over them both, soaking them in a faint warmth.

Addendum:

The Mystery of the Missing Glove

Nilus paced the room, staring at the faces assembled before him. They were an odd assortment; Ellie, dark and beautiful, with those soft, doe-like eyes, her chin up and spine straight. Fluxy, the wizened House Elf, bowed and hunched, standing on trembling legs. The family's efficient, elderly lawyer, Daniel Wright, leaning on a cane. And the local Hit Wizard, John Banks, an earnest young man with a shock of red hair, who kept sneaking warm, worried glances at Ellie. The young witch didn't seem averse to the affections he'd showed her over the past week, and Nilus smiled faintly. Young love; it bloomed in the most unlikely of circumstances.

"I have gathered you here today, because I have been a fool. Stupid. Blind!" He shot a sharp glare around the room as he paced. "But now I see. My eyes have been opened." He drew abruptly to a halt. "Such little things. Such small things that life and death hang upon. A family inheritance –" he looked at Ellie, who shifted uncomfortably. "An old, hidden hatred –" here he looked at Mr Wright who looked away, ashamed that Nilus had uncovered his secret. And then Nilus narrowed his pale eyes on Fluxy. "Or, a missing glove," he said, voice filled with satisfaction.

"What?" Ellie asked, bewildered, and Banks moved closer to her, laying a hand on her slim shoulder reassuringly.

"Whatever does Mr Nilsson mean? Fluxy doesn't understand," croaked the old House Elf, huge eyes wet and bewildered as she wrung her hands together.

"I think you understand perfectly well, Fluxy. Three weeks before the Rankins were murdered in cold blood, Miss Ellie visited." Nilis nodded to the young woman, her hand on Banks's, where it rested on her shoulder. "It was a brief, contentious visit, and cut short after an argument that resulted in her father threatening to write her out of the will. An argument you were eager to tell me about Fluxy."

"Fluxy was only being helpful!" the House Elf burst out, but Nilus shook his head.

"When Ellie returned to Paris, she discovered she'd misplaced an evening glove." Nilus clasped his hands behind his back, adjusting his grip on his wand. "At the time, she thought nothing of the loss, until I found it yesterday in the root cellar behind a crate of potatoes, and brought it to her. She confirmed it was indeed her glove. And it was then that things became clear."

Fluxy shifted uncomfortably, bony hands still wringing together as she began to shake her head.

"It was you, wasn't it, Fluxy?" Nilus asked quietly, whole body poised. "When Miss Ellie came to visit, she somehow accidentally gave you that glove. She told me she'd brought you a present of some French sweets, in a bag; perhaps the glove fell into that gift bag when she packed, and therefore –" Nilus kept his eyes fixed on Fluxy even as Mr Wright gasped in realisation "– she gave you clothes. You were free. Free at last."

"No," Fluxy whispered, shaking her head frantically. "No, Fluxy didn't. Fluxy wasn't."

"And what did you do with that freedom?" Nilus pressed on. "You didn't want to kill Miss Ellie – she was the only one who'd ever been kind to you, when all others had been cruel. The black sheep of the family. Hence her near total estrangement. So what did you do?" Nilus pinned Fluxy with his stare. "You waited for Miss Ellie to be gone for some time. Perhaps you needed to build up your nerve, as well. After decades of mistreatment and fear, you may have been too afraid to do anything at first. But then, one night as the Rankins lay in bed asleep, you finally found your courage. Perhaps your hatred at last outweighed your fear. Perhaps there was one last abuse – the straw that broke the thestral's back."

He paused, his wand clutched tight as Fluxy kept tearfully denying the accusations, her whole body trembling. "And so you flitted about the house like the angel of death, and stabbed every one of the Rankins to death in their beds, brutally and viciously. From the patriarch, old Mr Rankin, right down to the littlest child. Nine souls, all dead because of you."

Fluxy's weeping denials suddenly transformed into rage. "They deserved it! They all deserved it for how they treated poor old Fluxy! But you'll never catch –"

"Incarcerous! " Nilus flourished his wand, and the ropes ensnared the House Elf, who shrieked and struggled as she fell to the ground. Her rage increased, passing a crescendo as she thrashed and spat hatred. And then, as the poor creature realised she was powerless, her screams gave way to sobs, and Nilus felt a touch of pity for her alongside his revulsion.

Ellie stood, and her eyes filled with tears as she spoke to the weeping House Elf, bound on the floor. "Oh! Fluxy! Why didn't you just leave? Why? You didn't have to do that!"

"They all deserved it!" Fluxy screamed, maddened and broken. "Every one!"

Ellie shivered with horror and turned her face away, against Banks's chest, and he wrapped his arm gently around her shoulders as he stared down at Fluxy, his own expression sorrowful. Well, Nilus thought to himself as he gazed at the heiress, being held so tenderly by the earnest young man – at least some good may have come of this horror. He sighed, remembering with a pang of grief his Olivia, and the way he'd held her so long ago. There was nothing quite like young love.