In the first few weeks after Hemione had left wizarding Europe for Australia she had spent a considerable amount of time thinking about Harry and Ron. Ruminating was a more accurate world, really—she had replayed their last interactions over in over with such obsessive focus that she had finally dipped into her Order of Merlin galleons to purchase a small Pensieve just to get them out of her mind entirely. In those early days she'd spend her mornings stalking the Wilkins' dentistry practice and her afternoons buried face-down in the small stone bowl filled with her recollections.
Ron, slamming his hand on the kitchen table in the Weasley family home and telling her to just bloody leave for the last time, their final squabble escalating into a screaming match that had severed their relationship.
Harry, awkwardly pushing up his glasses and peering behind him from the clearing of the slightly cracked door to Number 12 Grimmauld Place, telling her now isn't a good time, plainly dismissing her because Ginny was standing just by the stairs and most likely giving some nonverbal cue to send her packing elsewhere.
Over and over. The Weasley kitchen. Grimmauld Place. Both locations, one golden and warm, the other blue-dark and cool, morphing together into a muddy grey blur of biting rejection. Hermione felt like she was hurdling five years into the past in that murky swirl as she once again found herself outside Harry and Ginny's home.
Grimmauld Place had been worn down with dark, fading opulence when she left it last, the house still a mausoleum to the late House of Black; now, she saw that the exterior had been scrubbed, repainted, and merry little window boxes of small flowers were situated from the front-facing windows. For one moment she considered that it might be the wrong townhouse—but just there, right under the knocker, was a small metal plaque that read Potter Residence.
She squinted at the plaque and considered that the pints at the Leaky the night before hadn't been the best idea. If her hangover got any worse it would have its own body count; her for sure, but perhaps others if it managed to stoke her temper any hotter.
The phantom feelings of hurt and rejection were resurfacing like a rising tide and morphing into more-familiar anger. Hermione had to physically shake herself to come back down to some measure of cordiality.
You're a Gryffindor, she grimly reminded herself as she ascended the front steps to knock at the door. You won't run this time.
Draco Malfoy answered the door.
Time seemed to skid to an abrupt halt. Of any face she had expected to see, the pale, pointed one of her former-classmate-turned-Death-Eater was perhaps the very last. His blonde hair was undercut and sideswept, his narrow mouth pursed, and those storm gray eyes were piercing her like the point of a lance. He was thin, tall, and the most horrible reflection of his father. Simple black robes. Pin-straight posture. A sneer, so familiar, beginning to curl at his upper lip.
"You should be in Azkaban," Hermione heard herself say blandly. Her wand was still tucked in her sleeve and she didn't bother to summon it into her palm—whatever this was, she wasn't afraid of him, even as shocked as she felt to see him. It might not even be him. It could be a spell, Polyjuice, a warning shade, anything. There was no way on this astral plane that a Marked Death Eater was answering Harry Potter's front door.
"And you've come crawling back," Malfoy responded. His voice was lower than she remembered it. Steadier. He didn't move from where he was gripping the door, half-open, his body halfway concealed behind it. "I'll let them know you're here."
With that, he slammed the door shut and let a clatter of locks signal his retreat.
Hermione felt like she could have been hit with a stunner for how surprised she was; the night before she had worried that Harry would slam the door in her face—but Malfoy?
Her senses returned to her by inches. Obviously if he was here something had happened—maybe something to do with those reparations? Did the Death Eaters find a way to escape and retaliate?—and it was up to her to clear the house. By the time the door was opening again Hermione had her wand in hand and was pushing into the house uninvited, teeth bared and ready for battle. She had a fistful of collar and her wandtip was jammed solidly under the chin of whoever it was that had come to receive her. A curse was on her lips, hardened (yet rusty) battle instincts coming back to her in a cold wash.
She stumbled over the lip of the welcome mat and the person she had restrained knocked back hard against the entryway wall with a groan.
Hermione had Harry Potter pinned against his own wall. When she finally came to her senses she saw her friend, familiar yet older, holding his hands placatingly at shoulder level with palms extended. If he felt choked by her iron grip on the collar of his Henley or by the bruising push of her wand he didn't show it, simply gave her an strained smile and said, "Hello Hermione."
Hermione dropped her grip and jerked away as if burned. "Harry?" she asked. Confusion and guilt were mixing with her residual anger, and if her stomach felt any heavier it would bottom out at her knees. "What's going on? Why is Malfoy here? Are you hurt?"
Harry rubbed one of his hands over his neck and tossed her a dark look. "Yes, but it's not because of Malfoy. Can I take you into the kitchen and sit you down with a drink before you try to curse me again?"
Hermione nodded stiffly. She kept her wand in hand and followed Harry.
The antique carpets had been replaced with stylish wood floors and the dark wallpaper had been stripped from the walls. Where there used to be a parade of taxidermized house elf heads was now a scattering of framed wizarding photos, all taken in the time Hermione had been away. As she returned to the kitchen with Harry, she noted Ginny in one of the pictures, pregnant and smiling. Luna Lovegood in another, piggybacking on Ron and laughing as he twirled in a jovial circle. A Christmas party she hadn't attended. A birthday celebration for Teddy Lupin, whom she hardly recognized.
Time had passed. The walls were painted a warm cream with sage trim and Hermione received the final confirmation that her friends had moved on without her.
Malfoy was in the similarly-remodeled kitchen when they entered, and before Hermione could point her wand again, Harry was rounding on her with a stiff hand pointed in her direction. "None of that. Draco lives here and he means no harm—I take it you haven't heard about what's been happening. That's fine. But there will be no fighting in this house," he said firmly. Her friend had never sounded so much like a man and it made her ache to know she hadn't been around to witness the transformation. "Draco, go elsewhere and give Hermione and I privacy, please."
"And the tea?" Malfoy asked, bored. He had been preparing a pot the muggle way—a shock—and raised his eyebrows to Harry as if to say, do you want it or not?
Harry shook his head. "Go. Check on Ginny and see if she needs you. Stay out of the kitchen until I say otherwise."
Draco clasped his hands smartly behind his back and gave a mocking little bow. "But of course," he purred. Without sparing another backwards glance to Hermione he swaggered from the room as if it were his house, not Harry's, his long steps easily claiming the floor with that awful arrogance Hermione had always associated with well-bred purebloods.
Hermione dropped into one of the chairs at the table and stared at Harry as if seeing him for the first time. "You call him Draco? Since when?" she asked. She couldn't think to ask anything else.
Harry sighed and sat across from her. He scrubbed his hands over his face and took off his glasses to wipe hard at his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between two thick fingers. When he finally righted himself and turned to face her he had seemed to age ten years in the space of seconds. "I'm judging by that display back there that you weren't kidding in the letter you left. I know you've been away from the wizarding world for a while and you probably have a lot of questions…but can we just not do this now? Please?"
"'Doing this' is all I came here to do," Hermione replied quietly. She placed her wand on the tabletop.
"Not to say you missed me? Or to apologize?" Harry asked.
"You haven't given me a chance to do either," Hermione replied.
Harry sank lower onto his chair and folded his arms on the table. He leaned his chin on them and peered up at her through his lashes; his eyes, livid green and searching, started to take on the red sheen of unshed tears. "There hasn't been a day that's gone by I haven't thought about you coming back, Hermione. A hundred ways I've fantasized about you showing up at my door—usually in those thoughts we hug, not physically clash in my foyer."
A dry laugh, more a bark, left Hermione like a forced hiccup. "I'm sorry, Harry."
"For what?"
"All of it. I'm sorry I left the way I did and I'm sorry I never responded to any of your letters. I've done some growing up and I can see how selfish and unkind that was. I regret it and I hope you can forgive me."
Harry closed his eyes. "There isn't anything to forgive, not with me," he sighed. When he looked at her again he extracted himself from the table and made to pour the tea that Malfoy had abandoned. "Let's just pack that away, shall we? Life is too short for nothing but a stream of apologies. I'd like to think I still know you well enough to know that you didn't just come here to 'come back', not really. Why are you here?" His words weren't angry or unkind, but Hermione felt their impact like blow all the same. Harry was right, and he did know her; she wasn't the type to set aside pride for anything less than a mission, and even then it was a struggle. Harry knew she wasn't just here because she wanted to rekindle their friendship.
"I came across some stories in the papers—about Kingsley, Azkaban, all of it. Managed to find some information about the new Minister and the reparations he passed…I'd ask if it's true, but I think I know why Draco Malfoy was making tea in your kitchen. He isn't here willingly, is he?" Hermione asked her friend.
Harry placed a cup in front of her. A quick sip confirmed that he had remembered how she preferred to take it, and her heart clenched with awful fondness. "No, he isn't. By my or his account," Harry said.
"To say I'm appalled is to say the ocean is a 'bit wet' but I know I don't have to tell you that. Will you tell me how this all happened?" Hermione asked. "The papers left a lot of information out."
And so he did. It took a few minutes for Harry to get into the groove of recounting the last half decade, but once he started it came out in a frustrated rush. He hadn't looked at her—the entire time he stared hard into his own teacup as if he desired to drown himself there instead of face her. He had crossed his arms across his chest and Hermione suspected that if he squeezed his own biceps any harder he'd collapse in on himself like a neutron star.
It was so much worse than Hermione expected.
Kingsley Shacklebolt was elected Minister by a landslide popular vote just a few months after the Battle of Hogwarts; Hermione had been around for that part, but her unraveling relationship with Ron and the Weasleys had commanded much of her attention at the time. Shortly after she left for Australia Kingsley began passing a series of reformation bills, most of which were well-received; funding was routed to help devastated families repair their homes, healers from other countries were recruited to mobilize with St. Mungo's to begin treating the wounded free of charge, and several cabinet committees had been organized to oversee different facets of rebuild. Hogwarts needed repair and cursebreakers to set new wards. The Ministry itself had to be swept for dark objects. The Department of Mysteries, deep in the bowels of the Ministry, had closed itself off after the Death Eaters rose into power and no one knew how to access it anymore, not even the remaining Unspeakables that had managed to come out of the close-off on this side. For a while everything seemed to be working.
Then Kingsley was murdered.
"That was how they found him. He was still slumped over in his reading chair when Percy went over to deliver some documents," Harry continued. He had taken off his glasses and was rubbing at his face again, wearier than she had ever seen him. "Originally we thought it might have been a heart attack or something…but the autopsy came back clean. He was healthy, no issues. It was the killing curse."
"Avada kedavra doesn't leave any traces," Hermione said. She frowned and leaned closer. "He wasn't very old, but the war must have taken a lot out of him. What makes you so sure?"
Harry returned his glasses and gulped at his tea, now long cold. "They never caught the Carrows after the battle. Or Thorfinn Rowle. Avery and Rookwood were captured in Poland sometime last year but there are still others out there. We've been looking high and low, but it makes sense, doesn't it? They had to have done it. Retaliation," Harry explained. "The department hasn't been searching as much as they once did—not since the reparations bill—but there are other aurors who agree with me that Kingsley's killer is still out there."
Hermione swallowed, throat tight. She hadn't managed to finish her tea, and judging by her rolling stomach, she wouldn't be able to. "This new minister sounds like bad news, Harry. This thing with the Death Eaters…"
Harry's eyes cut to hers, now, pained. "I know."
Harry's explanation about the reparations bill was disjointed and choppy—it was obvious he didn't support it, and given the way he kept having to stop and start, he still had a hard time justifying it. "Apparently the ministry recruited this guy, Gregory Hammond, from MACUSA. He's some retired ex-auror who was tough on crime, all that. His political career didn't pan out in the Americas and his British parentage made it easy for him to come back. Everything was a mess after what happened with Kingsley and he just kind of slipped into office as if he had always been there."
"Is he Sacred Twenty Eight?" Hermione asked. The twenty eight elite, ancient wizarding families tended to have more money and power than any others, and this might have explained why he was able to rise into power so easily. The family moniker Hammond didn't ring any bells for Hermione, but then again, she had never paid close attention to pureblood culture.
"No. He's half-blood and blue collar. Reports came out last year that his parents were killed by Voldemort's followers during the first war, but after he was adopted into an American family the paper trail ends there. Merlin, I have access to the whole of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's archives and even I can't find anything about what he was like in the service," Harry said.
Hermione smiled, small and strained. "Combing through libraries was always my specialty," she joked.
Harry smiled back. "If you intend on sticking around I might drag you over to the ministry to work your magic."
The rest of Harry's explanation went quicker. He had a harder time getting it all out cohesively, but Hermione got the gist. She filled in Harry's tale with what she learned from the newspapers and what remained was a terrifying picture.
First, Hammond banished the dementors from Azkaban.
Prison reform was long overdue, so no one kicked a fuss initially when bills started trickling through the Wizengamot for small changes. Rules about sentencing, prisoner privileges, and healthcare for the incarcerated went over like a light breeze. Then the bills got longer, more convoluted, less easy to parse out. Eventually the dementors were banished under the guise of ending "exploitation of magical creatures" and "inhumane treatment". House elves were still owned by wizards, unicorns were farmed for their blood, and many other creatures found themselves subjugated…but the use of dementors to torment prisoners was inhumane, in the end—for the prisoners, anyway.
Murmurs of disquiet were generally silenced; where would the captured Death Eaters go, seeing as they were too dangerous to not be guarded by dementors? There were more incarcerated than just Death Eaters, of course, but criminals of war tended to have higher profiles than most petty thieves.
Second, the reparations bill. The reparations bill.
"He gave a press conference and said that it was in the spirit of restorative justice. I couldn't believe it—the entire Order couldn't. Hammond tried to spin it as if it was the right thing to do. In the privacy of my own home I'll call it what it is, Hermione. It's enslavement. The bloody ministry went and enslaved the Death Eaters, made them out to be domestic servants. Some of the ones without Marks were sent to Hogwarts for physical labor, others were "contracted" out to potions-making farms and other businesses. Hell, even some of the businesses around Diagon Alley have them in employ instead of house elves. The ministry tried to spin it as something humbling, something that could redeem them. It's all shite."
"Arbeit macht frei," Hermione said in a small voice.
Harry frowned. "German?"
Hermione closed her eyes and tried not to let her frustrated tears fall. After everything—everything they went through, all of it—this is where they found themselves. "'Work sets you free.' It was written over Auschwitz concentration camp during the second muggle world war."
Harry shuddered. He wasn't muggleborn, but he had been raised among muggles. He knew the history just as well as she. "Merlin save us," he breathed.
Nothing left but hard questions, now. "Harry…if you feel this way about what's going on—and I know you don't condone it, let me finish—why is Draco Malfoy here? Is he one of them, really? Is he your—"
"Please don't call him a slave, Hermione," Harry groaned. Glasses off, hands scrubbing his face. At this rate, Harry Potter was going to have more wrinkles than Kreacher if he kept pulling at his skin like that. "But yes, bloody hell. Yes, that's why he's here, and no, I didn't have a choice in the matter."
"What do you mean you didn't have a choice?" Hermione asked with alarm. "You're Harry fucking Potter. Surely you could just waltz into Hammond's office and—"
"He isn't Kingsley, Hermione. The Order has tried to make an ally of him and he doesn't want our help. Apparently we're a washed up 'paramilitary organization' and we were officially 'disbanded' in the eyes of the ministry. Things aren't how they used to be. The Order doesn't have any political sway whatsoever, and neither do I." Harry slugged back the rest of his tea as if it were a shot of something harder and made towards the kettle to pour another cup. There were no windows in the kitchen, but if Hermione had to guess, it was well into the afternoon by now, even without the position of the sun as a tell. Hermione found her appetite for both food and tea absent.
"So what's the explanation, then? Why do you have Malfoy?" Hermione asked.
Harry turned from the counter and leaned against it, both hands bracing on it as he stared at the floor. His voice was quiet and hard, and something about the way he answered caused hairs to raise on the back of Hermione's neck. "Hammond gave me Draco to make me an example. His words. He has this grand idea that if Harry Potter can find it in his heart to take a Death Eater as a ward, then perhaps the rest of the population will follow…and that's how we "rebuild". Rehabilitation for the Death Eaters, forgiveness from the wounded. Hammond's campaign slogan was 'Together Forward'—not that anyone had heard it before he was elected."
"And so, what, Malfoy was just dropped on your doorstep and you couldn't refuse?" Hermione asked. She couldn't keep the disgust from her voice. Luckily, Harry didn't take the raw emotion as an accusation.
Harry's eyes met hers again, green to brown, and that murky swirl of dark memories that Hermione had been battling back since she woke threatened to engulf her once more. The kitchen of the Burrow. The front steps of Grimmauld Place. She was missing something but didn't know it yet. "No, I couldn't. Not if I wanted to keep my freedom."
Hermione nearly shot out of her chair in anger. "Your freedom? What could he possibly be holding over you to make you comply? You killed Voldemort! You have an Order of Merlin, First Class, same as I do. Hell, yours is probably one of the truest they've ever given! How could this happen?"
Harry ticked off reasons with his fingers. "Well, quite a few things, actually. Breaking into Gringotts, one. Leading an invasion on a school of magic during term, two. Destruction of public property, breaking and entering, and oh! I was also suspected of killing Bathilda Bagshot, that. The acquittal took ages, but you can guess who levied those charges in the first place," Harry replied grimly. "Azkaban might not have dementors anymore, but it is still a prison. Hammond made it clear that either I be a shining beacon of 'restoration' or a war criminal, take my pick."
Finally, Hermione rose from her chair. Her hands shook as she pushed it back under the table. She approached Harry slowly, unsure if she wanted to embrace him or shake him. The anxiety was killing her, so she asked. "And Ron? The rest of the Order?"
Harry reached for Hermione's hands and squeezed them so hard she heard her knuckles crack. "Hermione," he started slowly, tipping his forehead down to look her square in the eye. "More than anyone I'm thrilled to have you back, really. But you probably should have stayed gone. You know that they'll make you take one too, right?"
Hermione jerked her hands away. "No, they can't. I won't take a slave, Harry, I—"
"You think you're so much better? You think we didn't try to fight this?"
Harry's hard question stopped her short. He continued, taking a step closer and pointing stiffly towards the door, no doubt gesturing into the rest of the house where Draco Malfoy was lurking, somewhere. "Do you think I want him around my wife and child? Do you think Ron wants Antonin Dolohov, of all people, with he and Lavender? Or that Augusta Longbottom wanted Rabastan Lestrange?"
"They didn't," Hermione denied. She felt sick. She picked her wand up off the table and held it in her palm as if it could soothe her, could protect her from Harry's words. "Please tell me they didn't give Neville's grandmother one of the Death Eaters who tortured Frank and Alice into insanity. Please tell me they didn't give Dolohov to Ron, not after what he did to his uncles in the first war. Please."
Harry laughed humorlessly. He was angry, now, and if there was anyone who could match the breadth of Hermione's temper step for step, it was Harry. "Oh, they did. It lasted a full three weeks before Augusta killed Rabastan. No one has seen Neville or Hannah since. I reckon they were going to start pressuring him to take a ward next." Curiously, Harry said nothing of Ron.
Hermione fell back into her chair. Antonin Dolohov with Ron. A Lestrange in the Longbottom house. Malfoy with Potter. There was a pattern here—something insidious and calculated—but Hermione felt like she couldn't see straight through her initial horror. This was beginning to sound more like a punishment for those who survived the war on the side of the Light, not something that would foster reparations. "How many of the Death Eaters were placed with the families of the people they killed?" Hermione asked. The articles in the Mystic had only touched on the reparations clinically, drily. There hadn't been a definitive listing of who was placed where, but the reality was turning out to be harsher than she could have imagined. "How many of the Death Eaters have ended up with the same fate as Rabastan? Surely no one could blame Augusta…"
Harry turned from the room to dump his tea into the sink. He had made a new cup and hadn't bothered to touch it. Perhaps like Hermione he just needed something to do with his hands, anything to keep him from tearing out his own hair with despair. "She was acquitted. Not that it mattered, in the end. After Neville left she committed suicide. Minerva found her."
"I'm starting to think I should have stayed in Australia," Hermione said blankly. It was all too much—Hannah's warning came back to her and she felt so foolish. The papers had whitewashed the situation, and apparently since the situation was contained to Britain other magical communities didn't care enough to intervene.
Harry whipped around to look at her. "That's where you were? Australia?"
Hermione nodded.
Harry shrugged. "That makes sense. You didn't mention where you were going in your final letter but I should have known. How are your parents?"
For the second time that day, time screeched to a halt. Her parents. Her parents, and everything she had done to try to restore their memories. Her parents, and the way she couldn't convince them to befriend her when she first arrived in Melbourne. Her parents, who thought her mad when she tried to convince them—tried to spell them to remember—that she was their daughter.
The parents she had abducted and kept under stasis charms for years. The parents she had experimented on constantly, spells and potions and charmed objects, anything to restore them.
All of her failures. Having to release them, no doubt to the horror of the community who had been reporting them missing. Monica and Wendell Wilkins would never remember their daughter Hermione, nor would they remember the time she kept them captive for four years in her rented flat. Hermione may not have been able to restore their memories, but her Obliviate was a feat fit for Merlin himself.
Hermione started backing toward the door, panic rising in her chest. Harry couldn't know. What she had done—the abduction, the experiments, all performed on muggles—was highly illegal. More than that, it had been just plain wrong. Hermione had been so sure of herself, so prideful in her abilities…until the first failure. Everything after that had been a parade of willful stubbornness that she hadn't been able to admit defeat from. She had released them, in the end, but even through her haze of justifications she could see the horror for what it really was. "Harry, I have to go. Thank you for the tea," she said in a rush.
Harry advanced as if to stop her from leaving. "Hermione, wait—"
She shook off his hand as it reached for her arm. "No, Harry, I—"
"—just stop!" Harry shouted. He had managed to grasp both her shoulders and he gave her a little shake. "Listen to me! I won't tell anyone about them, do you understand? Not me, not anyone in the Order. I don't know what happened in Australia but you don't have to explain yourself. Just…just don't leave. Not yet. Do you have any idea how often Hammond has questioned me to find out where you are? I haven't breathed a word, Hermione. I've never told anyone about what you did to protect your parents and I won't. You can trust me."
The tears that Hermione had been holding back fell down her face. When she tried to raise a hand to brush them away she found her arms pinned to her sides, so she shrugged a single shoulder and wiped her cheek on the back of Harry's hand instead. "It's been five years," she said numbly. She felt shaken by the evidence of Harry's loyalty to her, after everything.
Harry nodded. "A long time. I'm glad to have you back."
Finally, Hermione fell onto Harry's chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. He hugged her back, just as fierce, and for the first time in half a decade Hermione felt like something was right in the world.
Hermione didn't return to her room at the Leaky Cauldron until much later that evening.
When she passed through the body of the pub to reach the stairs at the back she had felt a paranoid urgency to get out of sight—Harry's words about places in Diagon Alley fostering Death Eaters as servants in place of elves rang in her ears, high and shrill. Hermione didn't want to see one of them, should there be one here. She wasn't sure what she would do if she did.
She still wasn't used to seeing Malfoy.
At some point earlier in the evening he had slunk back into the kitchen, haughty and dismissive, only addressing Harry and ignoring her entirely. For someone effectively a slave he sure held himself as if he were master of the house, both absurd and pitiful in equal measure. "Weaselette sent me back here. Said I was scaring your brat," he breezed, leaning against the doorframe and shrugging his shoulders.
Harry had passed him a look so black it could have been mistaken for a curse. "My wife is a Potter now, and if you say anything about my child I will send you back downstairs and not let you out."
Malfoy seemed chastised and Hermione couldn't help but ask, "Downstairs?"
Harry looked faintly ashamed. "We made a…holding room down there. Draco is a mouthy nightmare, and I can imagine seeing you again is making him act out. He knows where he'll be if he keeps up the attitude."
Malfoy scoffed. "I'm sure the ministry inspector will love to see that on her next visit, Potter."
Hermione shook off the memory. Malfoy had been a strange paradox—one minute he was mouthing off, and the next he seemed almost…respectful. He obeyed Harry without question even if he protested verbally, and judging by the almost-easy manner between the two men, Malfoy had been a ward of the Potters for a long time.
Enough time for them to get used to each other, at least. It was jarring and unnatural for Hermione to witness out of context.
By the time Hermione collapsed into her rented bed she couldn't shake the memories of the day any more than she had been able to shake her own misgivings. Ginny hadn't wanted to see her, and she still hadn't yet met baby James, whom she had only spied pictures of in the hallway. She laid there in the dark, still half-dressed and ruffled, and pressed her palms down tight over her eyes.
Some images wouldn't leave her.
At a point sometime just after Malfoy finished cooking them dinner—the muggle way, Hermione noted, without aid of his wand—Hermione had dared ask what had been bothering her. She kept her voice low and angled the query to Harry, but she knew without a doubt that Malfoy was listening intently from his post before the stovetop.
"Why does he do everything you say? I mean, I know the situation, but I hadn't expected him to be…" Hermione gestured with her hands, as if to say, like this. The Draco Malfoy she knew in school would rather eat his shoe than follow the direction of Harry Potter. The Draco Malfoy she knew from the war had been too cowed by his family and Lord Voldemort to leave much of a lasting impression on her at all.
"Cooperative?" Harry finished.
"Yes," Hermione replied. "What incentive do they have to do so? I can't imagine they're willing to prostrate themselves just for a chance to be out of a jail cell…"
Harry cleared his throat and sat straighter in his chair. "Draco, come here please," he asked.
Malfoy slammed down the tin of butter he had been fussing with and turned swiftly. His long legs brought him to the table quickly, and Hermione noted the start of an ugly flush beginning to stain at the tops of his cheeks. This is something he's had to do before, Hermione guessed. Malfoy kept his chin high but didn't look at either of them, instead turning his gaze to the far wall, grey eyes almost unseeing in their intensity.
"Show Hermione," Harry commanded.
And so Malfoy did. With almost exaggerated—or maybe reluctant—slowness, the Malfoy heir began plucking at the cuffs of his robes, unbuttoning them. The robes were plain and dark, and Hermione was reminded of the late Severus Snape, bat of the dungeons, with his frock buttoned to the neck and arms always covered. This was how Malfoy appeared now, loosening his sleeves so he could roll them up his pale forearms. Hermione was slightly flustered to note he had strong hands, wide palms, and attractive webs of veins crossing down his wrists to his elbow; it was more skin of his than Hermione had ever wanted to see.
Her eyes first landed on his Dark Mark. Just there, hard black between the wrist and elbow on his left forearm, was the retched tattoo that signified his past loyalty to Lord Voldemort. The sight of the jagged skull and winding snake would never cease to terrify Hermione, and in an insane moment of empathy, Hermione remembered that perhaps he hadn't exactly had a choice to take it. There was a twin scar on Hermione's arm, a sick parallel; where Malfoy's marked him as a pureblood supremacist, hers marked her as a mudblood.
On his right forearm was a new tattoo, unfamiliar to her.
Where the Dark Mark was darkest black, this one was shocking vermillion, almost blood-red against Malfoy's pale skin. Like the Mark, it was a magical tattoo that undulated and moved, the image in perpetual motion, just like a wizarding photograph—instead of a skull and snake, this one was the emblem of an outstretched phoenix, sharp feathers bursting into righteous flame toward Malfoy's elbow and talons extended just above his wrist. The wings, so carefully detailed, flapped majestically once, twice, before Malfoy jerked down his sleeve to cover it.
Hermione didn't miss the way that he didn't bother to cover his Dark Mark so quickly.
"There," Malfoy spat through gritted teeth. "Is show and tell over, or should I remove these robes entirely?"
"That'll be enough. Go back to making dinner," Harry ordered him. Harry's voice had been quiet; the gravity of the situation was beginning to dawn on Hermione.
"So," she began. Her voice was high and small. "The ministry has co-opted the image of phoenix for…what? Their own version of the Dark Mark?"
"Yes," Harry confirmed grimly. "Some have taken to calling it a Light Blight and the ministry hates it. Somehow the ministry managed to imbue it with something similar to the Imperius Curse…the Death Eaters literally cannot refuse to do what they are told, not by members of the house they belong to."
Hermione felt like she could have been sick. "I can only imagine how terribly that can be abused…"
In the present, laying in the gritty dark above the pub, Hermione set aside her memories of the day, turned her face into her pillow, and miserably willed sleep to take her spinning thoughts.
A/N: Tidbit about my writing process: back in 2018 my sweet spot for posting chapters was 2500-3500 words. Now in 2023, either by regression of concise prosewriting ability or by my tastes changing, I'm now sitting around 5000 words for a single chapter. If this is too long and it needs to be cut down/broken up please let me know^^
Also, fun fact: this story was *this close* to being a Dramione. Yep, we're sexualizing his hands here. Nope, won't be the last time.
Reviews always welcome xx