Draco's Point of View

7 months later


I hear him long before I see him. He shuffles quietly a first but leaves the effort behind when a few chickens start squawking at his intrusion through their feeding area. His boots scatter their food.
February is cold here. According to Blaise's parents, it's especially cold this year. But not as cold as England gets this time of year. Blaise eventually slots in beside me on the large slab of rock at the edge of the property line. He squeezes his hands together and blows into them to relieve against the bitter, biting cold. I wait for him to speak. Our breaths collectively create a fog that falls in front of us.

"You know my mother is worried about you," he starts.

"Your mother worries too much. We both know that" I comment. This feels similar to the calculated game we used to play at Hogwarts. Except there is no malice anymore. We seem to always have the same conversation now. It only stops when there are no more pieces left on the board.

"She thinks your mood is affecting Beatrice. She hasn't laid any eggs in the last two weeks," he notes. I turn towards the chicken in question as it eyes me menacingly from the coop.

"Honestly Blaise, please tell me you didn't come all the way out here to defend the chicken?" I question.
"That chicken has attacked me three times, - unprovoked mind you. Your mother should be ecstatic that I haven't murdered the chicken yet."

"I'm worried too," Blaise admits.

"About Beatrice?"

"What? No! Malfoy, forget about the fucking chicken."

"You brought up the chicken," I retort.

"I'm worried about you."

"Don't be," I assure, standing up from the rock. I brush some of the light snow that has fallen off my knees and out of my hair.

"At least consider coming back to the main house. My mother would feel a lot better".

"Blaise," I warn, rubbing at my temples. It is almost soothing because my fingers are hard from the cold.

"Look I know you want to stay in the cabin close to the property line in case she…."

"Blaise!" I cut him off louder this time.

For a while, I stayed in the main house with Blaise and his family, but I couldn't act the way they did. Relieved and happy to be away from England. Away from all the bad things that were happening there. Sitting at the dining room table for breakfast and reading about them in a newspaper. As time went on, I could tell they wanted to forget. Blaise's father occasionally -at the start- forgot to pick up the paper in the mornings. Until inevitably the pretence dropped, and he stopped bringing the newspaper to the table at all. They didn't care anymore what was happening in England. They didn't want to talk about it. They wanted to move forward and every second I spent in the house it was evident that I was the reason they couldn't finally forget about it. Because I couldn't forget.

The cabin had formerly been used to house the staff that took care of the house when Blaise's family were in England. But now that they were here full time it was empty. I repurposed it. The cabin is close to the property line, close to the place she apparated from when she left. When she comes back, she'll appear here. Right outside the cabin. So, I wait, and I watch, and I wait some more.

"You know this behaviour isn't healthy." Blaise cuts in, cutting through my reflections.

"You sound like your mother," I remark.

"You were never this bad before when we were back in England. With Pansy and Nott in those fucking houses. You were away from her then too, but you were different. You were never this bad Malfoy. When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror?"

"I'm fine Blaise," I argue.

"You almost set the whole place ablaze, Malfoy? Do you ever remember doing that? You didn't even know who I was when I pulled you away from the fire?"

"Yeah, well that won't happen again your father took all the alcohol out of the cabin, remember?"

"You understand why he had to do that, though, right?"

"Because he's a killjoy," I comment and Blaise snorts.

Something about the way Blaise laughs reminds me of a time long ago. But unfortunately, it wasn't all that long ago. I look towards the main house and see his mother pacing anxiously by the window, observing us. I think about their happiness around the breakfast table and compare it to the memory in my head. I see them, Blaise's parents sat around the large mahogany table opposite my family. I can feel The Dark Lord speaking at the top of the table. He laughs similar to Blaise. I remember those times. Those meetings we had to attend. How the unwritten rules were obeyed meticulously. Don't look at anyone else around the table. Look down. Don't look in the direction of The Dark Lord unless called. Don't react. I remember Blaise's mother wasn't always the best at following the last rule. I think of her hand shaking under the table. Blaise's father held it forcefully to mask the shakes. I still remember it to this day. I think about my staying here, a constant reminder of a time I'm sure she's trying to heal from.

"Did the newspaper come today?" I inquire. Blaise sighs, feeling into his pocket.

"That's what I came to talk to you about," he starts, pulling an envelope out of his pocket. I stare at him inquisitively but am disappointed when I notice it's not the newspaper. It's been hard to get The Daily Prophet in France. We've had to rely on Blaise's family still in England to send them over. It's slow since they have to be sent by muggle mail. Too many Owls were being intercepted leaving the UK. 'Lost in Transit' was the letter Blaise's father received when their Owl never returned from England. They stopped sending Owls after that and used muggle mail instead. Of course, that was still interrupted but they couldn't do it as rigorously as with the Owls because the muggles would catch on. It was safer but not fool proof.

"I think you should sit down, Malfoy," Blaise asks looking up at me. I gaze down at him puzzled until he flips over the letter, and I see the initial 'D' on the front.

"Is it for me?" I ask, extending forward. Blaise steps up and backs away holding the letter tight to his chest.

"Look it came last night and the lights were already off in the cabin and my father said not to disturb you with it."

"Blaise," I warn, stepping forward. "Give me the letter," I say reaching.

"My father wanted to check it first because I don't understand how anyone knows you're here. My father was unconvinced about it, so we opened it last night."

"Blaise," I warn, extending my hand towards him more forcefully. "She knows I'm here."

"Yes, but she doesn't know the address. She was only here for a minute or two. How could she know the address to send a letter by muggle mail? She would send an owl. You and I both know she would!" he argues.

"She's smart Blaise. She knew we were in France the second we got here. She would find a way. Now give me the letter," I press, reaching forward. I snatch it from his hands, crumbled and torn I pull out the letter. It reads.


Grimmauld Place,
-H


I snatch my gloves off the ground and push past Blaise into the cabin.

"Why didn't you fucking show me this last night?" I roar as Blaise follows close on my heels.

"Because we don't know who it's from and we don't know what the sender knows."

"What do you mean? It's from her. She signed her name at the end."

"No, she didn't. They signed an initial. It could be anyone. It could be someone messing with you to get you to come back to London. Can you stop for a second?"

I push a second set of clothes into a rucksack and look towards the bathroom, contemplating. Hastily I strip down my clothes and Blaise turns away but continues reasoning as he follows me to the bathroom door.

"Can't you consider that this is just a ply to get you back to London?" he calls over the sound of the shower. I scrub myself as hurriedly as I can, but the heat and lack of food make me feel faint with the melodic sound of the shower water thumping against my skull. I almost want to rest for a second.

"Malfoy! Are you hearing me?" he calls. I shut off the shower and dry myself, scrubbing my skin raw. I walk out into the cabin in search of the rucksack and pull out one of the sets of clothes.

"Christ Malfoy put on some clothes," Blaise says turning towards the window.

"You're the one who chased me in here," I remind him.

"Yeah, to stop you from making a stupid mistake. Will you even consider what I'm saying for a second? Did you stop to think about what this means for the safety of my family? That someone is messing with you and knows where we are?" he queries.

I stop, kicking the heel of my foot into my shoe.

"You know I would never knowingly put your family in any danger. She wouldn't either."

"That if it is even her?"

I slam down my rucksack on the bed and turn to face him.

"What do you want from me? Money?" I ask. His face turns sour.

"Money?" he questions.

"To get you and your family away from here. If that's what you're worried about. I have more money than I could ever need back in London. If you want it, it's yours."

"I'm not looking for money, Malfoy. I'm looking for you to take a breath. I know you want it to be her. But consider your notoriety in London. It could be anyone".

"Why would they mention Grimmauld Place? It's Potters safe house."

"What if it's been compromised?"

"It would be in the paper," I debate.

"We know the media isn't unbiased Malfoy."

I turn back to the rucksack and grab my wand off the bedside counter.

"I have to go. You know that" I say tucking it into my robe pocket. I fly down the cabin steps, my heavy boots crunching on the ice-crusted on the wooden steps. We both hike up the hill towards the apparition point.

"I'll send word once I know and if I don't then..."

"Then I'll know I guess," Blaise replies for me. I turn back, looking at the house over my shoulder. His parents stand together at the patio doors watching, like they're at a funeral procession.

"Tell your parents I appreciate the generosity."

"Malfoy please reconsider until my father has a chance to hear back from his brother in England. Don't walk into this blind," he argues, grasping my shoulder.

"If you leave here, leave the forwarding address on the inside door of the chicken coop, okay?" I ask. Blaise drops his hand from my shoulder and looks back at his parents for a moment. His mother opens the patio door and looks like she might start making her way up here.

"Tell your mother I'm sorry and I hope at least now she can start to heal."

I look back at the cabin one last time before I apparate away, still convinced that she would have adored it here. I can't help the fact that my own opinion of the place has soured over the last seven months, but I know that she would have liked it. She would have liked the quiet and even maybe the fucking chickens.

She would have liked the small town and the people there. How they smiled and how little regard for personal boundaries they seemed to have. Several times when we walked into town the women in the shop would curl their finger into Blaise's hair and give him a free pouch of grapes. They would have loved her hair. I wonder how many pouches of grapes they would have given her.

I close my eyes and think of the spot on the top of the hill and when I open them again, I'm there, solid and on my feet. Probably the smoothest any one of my apparitions has ever gone. Perhaps it was the conviction I felt before apparating. The clarity in which I saw this location in my head. I've spent seven months thinking of this place.

I kick my heels hard into the hill to stop from sliding as I make my way down. Surely, they would have a ward here. It's the safest apparition point near their safe house. They would be stupid not to have a ward here so they could know when people were coming and going. They must know someone is coming or at least that another witch or wizard is in the area.

Before, whenever we had apparated back to this area there were always either muggle cars waiting or on their way. But there is none this time. I am going to have to run the length of it. I stop at an intersection of houses and try to desperately picture which way the cars turned. I chance it and take off running left at the crossroad. I try to picture the street outside our bedroom window back at Grimmauld Place. I remember a larger one of the muggle cars parked across the street with some business logo on it. I desperately search the streets for that logo.

I notice a muggle walking up ahead and cast a disillusionment charm over myself. As I run past her at full speed, she will only see a small dog. Little concern for a muggle compared to a man dressed in robes running frantically through the streets of London. The last thing I need right now is an interfering muggle to deal with.

I run for what feels like years. The streetlights are placed far apart on the sidewalk, so I run between either startling bright illumination or pitch blackness. Eventually, when my lungs feel like they've been working far beyond their limits I notice the large car with the logo on the side and thank the heavens that that particular muggle family didn't decide to relocate in the last seven months. Because if they had I might be still running around London this time tomorrow trying to find that fucking safehouse.

I slow my steps when I notice a figure standing ahead across the street from that car. I squint my eyes to see if it's just another muggle out on an evening walk but pick up my pace when I realise it's not.

"Malfoy. I figured it was going to be you," Potter says, leaning against the wall. I look up at the muggle townhouses and realise Grimmauld Place's appearance is charmed. I can't see it. Essentially Potter is just standing outside a random house in Muggle London.

"What's going on?" I ask, leaning over again to catch my breath.

"I wanted to talk to you first," Potter says. I push him away from the gate in frustration.

"Potter we can have a heart-to-heart later if that's what you're after, but she called me back so I'm here to see Granger." I point up towards the townhouses with implication.

"Open the…make the thing appear so I can go inside!" I argue, gesturing my arm towards the house again.

"I need to explain some things to you first," Potter says again. His calm tone and immovable demeanour are starting to grate on me. I grab the front of his robe and pull him in close.

"She wrote to me to come back, Potter. I'm going inside now to see her. We can do this shit later," I articulate each word so his tiny brain can comprehend before I shove him roughly away and stare towards the house waiting.

"She didn't write to you Malfoy."

"Don't fucking play with me right now. She signed it. H for Hermione," I argue.

"H for Harry," he says plainly.

"I don't believe you. You didn't know where I was. Only she knew where I was. It had to have been her," I accuse.

"You sent her back here. Right here is where she apparated back to," he points to the ground beneath us. That was true. I had deliberately gone against Lupin's warnings of apparating near the safe house. I hadn't thought of that option when I was apparating myself. Might have saved me a lot of time.

"When she got back, she tracked the apparition lines for half an hour before we could coax her back inside," he states.

"Bullshit, no one tracks apparition lines. That's an ancient technique. It's not used anymore."

Potter laughs longingly.

"Don't ever assume that just because something isn't well known that Hermione wouldn't know about it. There isn't a spell she doesn't know." He kicks some loose pebbles on the curb and stares up at the hidden house.

"She kept the address in her room. I guess in case anyone else would ever need it. I don't know, maybe she assumed the worst, but she was always someone who tended to prepare for the worst. We were always lucky to have her in that sense."

"Potter cut the bullshit what is going on? Why did you write to me? Where is Granger?" I ask curtly, pissed off with the slow momentum of this conversation.

"Something happened," he starts, biting on the corner of her cheek.

"Is she okay?" I ask immediately. "Where is she? Potter let me see her now!" I insist.

"I need to explain first," he says but I feel a rumble start against my hand that holds the wall for support. Potter whips around as the house starts to appear.

"Thank fuck," I say making my way up the steps as they elongate beneath my feet.

"Malfoy! WAIT!" he calls as I pull open the front door, but the handle disappears as Weasel appears in the doorway. His face shifts into bewilderment but finds its way faster to rage. For once it's not directed at me. Potter grabs my shoulder in the doorway.

"Malfoy hold up a second I need to explain first."

"I'm done talking," I say calmly as I move to step through the doorway, but the weasel doesn't move.

"The one thing I asked you, Harry. The one fucking thing I asked you not to do was bring him back here." Weasel says, still blocking the doorway.

"Listen can you guys have your lovers tiff somewhere else," I say trying to push past Weasel, but he pushes me back out the doorway. My heel getting caught on a rock. Potter catches my shoulder before I fall.

"Weasel, you don't want to start with me right now!"

"Ron, you know why I had to call him."

"I asked you this one fucking thing Harry and you went behind my back and did it anyways. We could have waited for Snape!"

"No, we couldn't have waited for Snape. We have no idea when he will be able to come back here, and the nurse said the longer she stays like this the more chance there is of this being a permanent state. Do you want that for her? You know she would have been devasted if we didn't call him. You know that! Were you going to explain that to her? Or just leave the hard stuff for me to deal with as per usual!"

"We would have found a way! She would have never even known. You didn't even give me a chance to find another way!"

"I know why you wanted to find another way and it's fucking selfish that you'd ask me to choose that reason over my best friend's health!"

"Nurse?" I interject, not being able to understand anything else being said besides that word. Why would a nurse be necessary? Why would a nurse need to come here when they have Tonks?

"Look," Potter says twisting me around to face him, ignoring weasel.

"Something happened. We ran into some death eaters, and we thought it was random. I mean we were evading them pretty well, but we realised recently that they might have been tracking us and it wasn't just a random attack. We thought they we after me but on second inspection of the situation the curse didn't strike anywhere near me. We think it was always thrown to hit her," he explains.

"What curse? Potter let me inside the house now!"

"No, wait!" He pulls on me harder until he has a death grip on my robe, and I feel like a scolded child trying to unravel myself from him.

"She blocked it but only the corner of the curse. It skimmed the left side of her head. She was unconscious immediately, but I got her out of there. But when I laid her down on the ground a chunk of her hair and scalp came away in my hand. I brought her straight back here but when she woke up…."

"What?!" I shout, shaking on his robe. I can hear more footsteps in the house making their way down the stairs.

"She couldn't understand why we were here and not at Hogwarts. She couldn't remember."

"As in she didn't know you?" I ask dubiously.

"No, she knew me, and she knew everyone here," he says slowly. I feel a small shock of realisation in the back of my head, but I wait for Potter to say it.

"What doesn't she remember?" I ask impatiently.

"Look it's fine the nurse said we just need someone who knows Legilimency to weaken the walls that have been put up around those memories. They still exist they're just blocked off is all. Snape says you know how to do it. We can get all her memories back before it's too late. There was something she figured out just before we were ambushed and at first, I thought that was the reason they were after her but I'm not so sure anymore because of what she has forgotten."

"What doesn't she remember?" I ask again, waiting for him to say it.

"Malfoy it's only temporary, okay? We can..."

"Potter, just spit it out!"

"She doesn't remember you, you fucking piece of shit and we're all the better for it!" the Weasel exclaims.

"Ron!" Potter shouts as a few Order members gather in the hallway. I turn quickly to look at the Weasel's arrogant expression and I know exactly why he didn't want me back here.

"Thought you could have a chance with her finally, aye, weasel? Not if you were the last person left," I spit. He smirks and leans in close.

"She doesn't remember you mate, why don't you jog on back to where you belong? She remembers you for what you are. The same piece of shit Death Eater we knew back at Hogwarts and if she asks that's exactly what I'll be telling her," he whispers smugly.

"See, she trusts me," he empathises. I look back towards Potter and he's leaning forward, anticipating a fight. I placate him with a shake of my head and he drops his eyes for a second to look past us at the group forming on the stairs watching. His momentary distraction opens a tiny window for me. I pull my arm back and punch the Weasel as hard as I can. Potter again is slow to react. I climb on top of the Weasel on the ground as the shouts start all around me and I feel someone desperately trying to ply me away from him. I lift him up partially off the ground and slam him back down again. Hard. I feel his breath burst against my face as he gasps for air. I lean down close to him.

"Try it, Weasel. I dare you. Try me, please. Give me a fucking reason!" I shout, spitting in his face.

"Get him off now!" I hear someone shout as Potter finally finds a grip under my arms and heaves me off of him.

"Malfoy, calm down. Breathe okay," he says as he pulls me back away from him and onto the ground. I see Tonks and Remus staring at us in the doorway. The Weasel sits up and holds his nose as the blood runs in rivulets down his chin. The smirk is wiped clean off my face as a figure pushes past Tonks and Remus to drop down beside him.

"Ronald!" she says, leaning down and pulling his hands away from his face to assess the damage.

"Harry, what the hell is going on?" she asks but only turns to face Potter when she's finished speaking. Her eyes hold his only for a split second before they turn on me. Her face wrinkles up in confusion as she falls backwards from her squatting position to land on her ass on the cold, wet steps. She kicks her heel hard into the concrete to feebly create more distance between us.

"Harry?" she questions, not taking her eyes off me. Her look tells me all that I need to know. She doesn't remember us. Her jaw tightens as she clenches her teeth. Above her, I can feel Tonk's sympathetic eyes on me, but I don't break eye contact with her. It's been seven months since I've gotten to look at her.

"I've brought someone to help," Potter answers her and her brows knit together in apprehension.

"Him? You brought him. Here?" she berates.

"Yes, I brought him here to help you," Potter says, standing up. He pulls me up along with him, but my legs feel weak, so I lean against the railing. I finally look at Tonks and she smiles understandingly at me.

Granger stands then and looks down at the Weasel before clearing the dirt off her backside. She turns to me and smiles plainly, her lips disappearing into that false smile. She holds my eyes again and I notice her cheeks are painted slightly with a ruddy red from the biting February chill. When she speaks her tone is unfamiliar, distant.

"Sorry, you had to travel all the way here. But I won't be needing help from you."

She does that fake smile again before turning and helping the Weasel back into the house. Tonks and Remus make room for them to pass but turn to stare at me after her footfalls disappear on the stairs. After a beat Tonks flies down the steps and throws her arms around me, pulling me. It's not the first hug I had imagined myself getting when I arrived. I clench and unclench my throbbing first as I glare at Potter.

"It's temporary," he promises but the conviction doesn't find his eyes.