A few weeks on from Chapter 13
The pub
"I didn't do it."
Hermione dipped a crumbed prawn in cocktail sauce and popped it in her mouth.
"You do believe me, right?"
Hermione took a sip of cider and eyed the anxious young man sitting opposite her in one of the pub's booths. "Uh-huh."
"Because you don't sound very convinced, is all."
Hermione widened her eyes. "What am I supposed to say? You said you didn't attack Tara a la Eyelashes; I believe you."
Draco felt some tension ebb away, until another anxious thought occurred to him. "You're not just saying you believe me to shut me up?"
"For god's sake, Draco" – then Hermione stared at something that just popped into view behind Draco's head. Before he'd even gotten his head twisted halfway around to take a butcher's at what got Hermione/Henri's attention, she'd leapt up from the booth and headed towards the door.
"You can't come in!" the publican called from behind the counter, having been versed in his duties by the local PC Plod. "Stay outside, I'll bring out yer takeaway."
All too late, Draco caught a glimpse of the ends of dark hair passing themselves through the pub's main door. Then Hermione passed through straight afterward.
Merlin's balls, Draco groaned to himself. Tara surfaces again.
And Hermione was chasing after her.
Draco scrambled out of the booth and bolted for the door.
"Tara, wait!"
Tara turned around at the sound of the female voice, but her expression remained on her 'sour' setting. "Oh. It's you. What do you want?"
"I want to talk," Hermione said, still keeping some distance away. "I want to understand why you did it," she continued, slightly hopeful Tara might respond since she hadn't galloped off down the road. "You could have ruined Draco's life; he could have gone to prison."
Tara sighed. "I didn't mean it," she spat. "Look, I made a couple of wrong decisions, and look who's paying the price! Not Golden Boy, heaven forbid. I am! I lost my bloody job, didn't I! The filth are taking me to court for wasting their time! None of my friends are answering my calls! I can't even get into the fucking pub for a takeaway if your sainted bloody boyfriend's in there! Well, I'll tell you something, Missy – it's not bloody fair! Why is everyone shitting on me?"
Hermione nodded slowly, then gave in to her inner bitch. "That must be why your split ends look so ratty," she said sympathetically.
Tara grabbed a handful of hair, inspected it, and let out a shriek. "Fuck!" she spat. Along with a few more swearwords.
"If Draco ever gave you the impression he was interested in you, I'm sure he didn't mean to," Hermione said. "But to be honest, I don't think he was ever interested in you at all. Sometimes, the people you want to be with don't want to be with you. Please don't try this on with anyone else. It's rather upsetting."
"Fuck off, slag," was Tara's growled response.
Uncaring, Hermione turned around and headed back to the pub.
The publican, who'd been shamelessly earwigging behind the front door, decided now was a good time to head out and give Tara her takeaway. Draco, who'd been shamelessly earwigging next to the publican, scooted back to the booth and tried to pretend he'd been there the whole time.
Wasn't Hermione marvellous? he thought.
He knew that already.
Some indeterminate time later
Hermione/Henri's kitchen
Hermione sat at her kitchen table. She'd shut the kitchen door and closed the curtains over the sink. Just to be safe.
Opposite her sat Draco Malfoy, trying his best to look ordinarily curious but not panicky worried.
On the table sat a book. A textbook, if you will.
And a feather. Donated by a corpulent seagull who just barely managed to scramble out of the way of Draco's motorbike.
Hermione had sat her final school exams. Now was the time, she decided, to dedicate some thought to this mysterious textbook. That, and the others she kept hidden from prying eyes (just Gerry's, really).
She glanced up at Draco. "You're awfully calm about all this."
"It might be nothing," he replied. "We'll never know until you try."
"Yes, but even the idea of magic being real – don't you think it's preposterous?"
"There's a mass of people who believe there are aliens living in outer space and are about to invade us any second," he pointed out. "I don't mind believing in magic. If you prove it exists to me."
Hermione snorted, then ran her finger over the embossed "H" on the book's cover. Then, at last, she opened the cover.
Draco silently sighed with relief.
She closed the cover.
"Eh?" Draco asked, confused.
"I don't have a wand."
Draco knew that. He thought about begging one from Dumbledore, but he didn't know how he would go about convincing Hermione to use the textbooks and a wand.
"Try just using your hand," Draco suggested with a smidgeon of desperation. This was nail-biting stuff. "What's the harm in trying, eh?"
"You'll laugh at me."
"I swear on the grave of Queen Elizabeth that I won't laugh."
"She's not dead."
"The other one." Draco had been watching historical documentaries on TV.
Hermione gave him a sceptical look, but she opened the book again and turned to the page titled 'Levitation Charm.'
"Read it out loud," Draco suggested.
Hermione eyeballed him, but complied. "The purpose of the Levitation Charm is to levitate objects," she intoned. "Caution: it cannot be used on witches, wizards, Muggles or Muggleborns." She flipped to the back of the book, looking for a glossary. "What are Muggles and Muggleborns?" she asked, exasperated.
"Never mind, you can't use the charm on them anyway, so they mustn't matter at this point." Draco left the table to warm up another cup of coffee. He was already as jittery as hell, and certainly didn't need it, but he needed it.
"The Levitation Charm," Hermione continued, "is one of the first spells learnt by any young witch or wizard. With the charm a witch or wizard can make things fly with the flick of a wand. The charm is an excellent test of your magical skills, wand control and above all, patience."1
"There's an incantation," Hermione muttered, nose practically inside the book. "Wingardium Leviosa." She glanced up at Draco. "Does that sound right, do you think?"
Draco nodded enthusiastically.
Hermione then turned her attention to the 'wand' movement. "It says the movement contains a swish and flick," she said slowly. She practiced it a good number times with Draco sitting on his hands in order to stop himself from correcting her. Anyway, pretty soon she got the hang of it.
Expelling a deep breath, she hovered her hand over the seagull feather. "Wingardium leviosa," she said, then swished and flicked.
Nothing happened.
It didn't escape Hermione's notice that Draco seemed more crushed the failure than she was, although she had no idea why he cared so much. "Oh well, never mind," Hermione said breezily, and went to put the feather in the rubbish bin.
"Wait!" Draco cried out.
Hermione froze and turned around to stare at him.
"Try really concentrating, thinking about it beforehand and then giving it your all," Draco babbled.
Hermione was a tad more than suspicious. "Why are you so determined for me to practice magic?" she frowned.
Draco stared into the remains of his coffee. "I just want to believe, that's all."
Hermione rewarded him with an eye roll, but took the feather back to the table. She sat down, all perfect posture, of course, placed the feather on the table and stretched out her hand. She closed her eyes.
Draco held his breath.
"Wingardium leviosa!" Hermione called out, and her arm trembled as if she'd received a small electric shock. Her eyes opened wide, and as she swished and flicked, the feather slowly but surely rose in the air.
"Oh my god," she whispered, wide eyed, sending the feather dancing around the kitchen.
"Yes!" Draco cried and leapt up from his chair, fist pumping the ceiling. "This is insanely amazing, Hermione, do you have any idea?"
Hermione laughed and brought the feather back home. "Wow, that was a rush!" she grinned. "I could feel something travelling down my arm into my hand!" Then she glanced at Draco, lightly confused. "Did you just call me 'Hermione' or something?"
Oh, gods
"I didn't mean to; I was just so excited my tongue got ahead of my brain and "Henri" became some form of gobbledegook." Luckily Hermione couldn't wandlessly diagnose him, or she might have something to say about his rampaging heartrate and pulse.
Hermione nodded; then turned the book and feather around to his side of the table. "Now you try."
Draco's mouth fell open. "M-me?" he squeaked.
"Yes, you. You were so excited about me succeeding; imagine what it would feel like if you did it, too!"
He couldn't argue with that logic, so he pretended to read the textbook about a spell he could do in his sleep. He hadn't tried doing it wandlessly, though. This should be interesting.
He held his hand over the feather. "Wingardia leviosa," he intoned, and naturally the feather didn't budge.
"I think you mispronounced it," Hermione frowned. "It's 'wingardium.'"
Draco nodded, and tried again. This time, he made the feather stutter into the air, smiling delightedly at his feigned success. "This is so cool!" he crowed, and Hermione laughed with him.
It was their little secret.
Later that night, Hermione woke up from a nightmare, drenched to the skin. She gasped for breath and waited for her hammering heartrate to subside.
She was in a massive room, like you would see in a mansion or a castle. It was dark everywhere, except for sconces lit by dull firelight. People in dark robes milled about, many with the hoods obscuring their faces.
Except for one.
A smooth and sinewy-almost man sat upon a chair that she guessed was supposed to represent a throne. He was hairless, and noseless – just two slits sat where flesh-covered cartilage should. The talons on his fingertips appeared to stretch into infinity, and his lipless lips formed parodies of smiles or snarls when he spoke. And he spoke so well, like a right toff.
She was terrified, but did her best to hide it. She hurt so much. Nowhere on her body was immune from pain.
A person stood next to her. He, she or it was holding her by her hair. Who was it? She couldn't move her head.
Then she heard horrifying words from the snake-man on the throne. She'd expected them, somehow, but they still made her blood run cold.
"Fine, then," he snapped, waving a dismissive clawed hand. "Execute her."
Hermione stayed for a while in the shower, trying to warm up the stone that had lodged inside her ribcage. It was doing a passable job of pretending to be a heart.
Before she got back into bed, she rested her palm on the wall behind the bedframe. Draco slept on the other side.
She really wanted him here. To wrap his arms around her and whisper it was okay; everything will be okay.
But he wasn't.
1 An Except from the Book of Spells by M Goshawk, conveniently reproduced in the 21st century tome the Harry Potter Wiki. Available at all good internet search engines.