Pain pulled Hermione from unconsciousness, but her vision was hazy and she could see nothing but darkness when she opened her eyes. She heard a woman crying and it took her a minute to realize that the tears were falling from her own eyes, the sounds coming from her lips. Hermione tried to sit up, but a warm hand on her shoulder pushed her back down.
She jumped at the contact, her body tightening in fright. Her crying was soothed to whimpers as a damp cloth dabbed her temple.
"Shhhhh," hushed a voice, rough and crackly.
The smooth rim of a glass vial met her lips. Sticky liquid flowed into her mouth and she coughed against the vile taste. The swallowed potion dulled the pain that shook her entire body, allowing Hermione to recognize that most of her discomfort came from her left leg.
Reprieved from the pain, Hermione started to drift away from the land of the waking, allowing sleep to take hold once more. She leaned into the good, warm feeling of numbness, far better than the pain that had plagued her moments ago.
Her mind was too heavy to react to the blaring alarms that rang in her head, screaming at her that she was in danger.
Potion fought the pain allowing her consciousness to be stamped out. The ride to the land of dreams was much more comfortable than her fall from it. At some point on her journey there, she heard a whisper that sounded like,
"Sleep now, Granger. You're safe."
The words resonated in her bones, so she slept and slept and slept.
Summer hols were coming to a close. Hermione would be returning to Hogwarts soon.
There was a calm sense of acceptance amongst the Granger family and the moments between them were not as teary as they had been during Hermione's first few years attending Hogwarts. Her parents had acclimated to her comings and goings over the years, but this time around, it was Hermione who felt uneasy, her body laden with dreaded anticipation of things to come.
It is for the best. It will keep them safe .
That night, Dad pulled a box of fireworks out of the garage, and they were all delighted with a pyrotechnic show. After they burned through the large ones, her parents had bequeathed the matches to her and seated themselves on the deck steps to watch. The look they cast upon her made her feel warm and safe.
Hermione swirled a sparkler through the air, drawing runes she had read about over the summer: othila (separation), raido (journey), algiz (protection).
She looked over her shoulder and saw Mum and Dad smiling at her, adoringly. They had no idea what she was planning, what she was bound to do to them. Just the thought of doing it stung and Hermione had to look away so they couldn't see the tears pooling in her eyes.
Every day she had been grieving the inevitable, hopefully only temporary, loss. It made her cherish these happy moments together even more. For some indeterminable amount of time, it would be all she had.
She drew one last rune (gebo, sacrifice) before her sparkler went out.
"Hermione, Luv, be a dear and run inside to fetch my camera," Mum requested, "I want to take a picture of all of us together before you have to go back to school."
A sob choked in her throat, which Hermione covered with pretend hiccups so her parents wouldn't be clued into her sadness. "Yes," she made a hiccuping noise with her throat and bobbed her chest to keep up with the pretense, "Mum."
Dad's smile widened, her mother giggled, and Hermione went inside, cherishing the sound of her parents' laughter like it was the last time she would ever hear it.
Inside, she climbed the stairs and journeyed down the hall to her parent's bedroom, where she found her mother's camera bag. As she slung it over her shoulder, she heard laughter again, but it was a far cry from the joyful giggles of her parents. No, this laugh was much more distinct — sinister and devilish; the kind that makes every hair on your body stand at attention.
It was the evilest woman Hermione ever met: Bellatrix Lestrange.
Pain jabbed in her right forearm. Hermione brought her palm to cover it, rubbing at her skin to soothe the ache. When she pulled her hand away, Hermione found her palm covered in blood. She looked down to see letters carving themselves into her skin, blood dripping down from the wounds until her hand and wrist were nothing but red.
One word revealed itself, the same word that had haunted her mind since the first time she heard it: mudblood. It echoed loudly in her mind, read in the voice of the first person she ever heard use the slur: Draco Malfoy.
Hermione clutched her arm against her body, the blood soaking into her shirt. She staggered out of the bedroom, feeling suddenly lightheaded. Her journey down the hallway found her leaning against a wall, gasping for breath as the burn in her arm intensified, and she let out a low cry. The demented laughter multiplied, deafening her in the empty hallway.
The portraits on the walls were the source of the hysterics. What had once been still images of the Granger family were now horrific loops depicting the torture and death of her parents by the hand of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Bellatrix was ever present, looking delighted at the scenes before her.
Hermione covered her ears with her hands and shut her eyes tightly. S he willed the images to go away, willed the shrieking peals of laughter to silence, but the laughter was becoming louder and louder, echoing around her in stereo. A chorus of taunts joined in the cacophony, hurling slurs and threats at her.
Mudblood! I'll kill you! You don't belong here.
Hermione opened her eyes and all the pictures had changed to a close-up of Bellatrix's face laden with a predatory expression, much like a cat readying to play with a mouse. Her voice was saccharine and set Hermione on edge, reminding her of a memory she shouldn't have had yet, "Hello, Mudblood. Let's go play with Mummy and Daddy, shall we?"
Hermione sprinted down the stairs, running to the sliding back door. She reached for her wand so she would be able to protect them, but her wand wasn't there. There was only pain, blood, and the sinister promises of death and destruction ringing out around her. Through the glass, she could see that they looked perfectly well, but she hurriedly threw open the door anyway - Death Eaters were masterful manipulators, she couldn't trust that anything was quite as it seemed.
The backyard was silent, save for the chirping of crickets; the maniacal laughter was now a distant memory.
Mum turned at the sound of her approach, her face contorting into abject horror. She slapped her husband's shoulder as a disturbed squeal left her throat. Dad turned then, forcing his body between Hermione and her mother.
"Mum, Dad," Hermione whined, turning her body to the side to hide the sight of her arm from them, "I'm fine, don't worry. Are you two okay?" Hermione stepped toward them.
Her mother's face was blanched, her father's almost purple as it pooled with blood. "Get back, you monster!" He shouted, his body shaking with palpable fright.
Hermione whipped around, expecting to find a Death Eater looming behind her, but no one was there. The heavy camera bag fell from her shoulder, tumbling to the ground with a flurry of loose photos and the undeniable sound of shattering glass.
In the reflection of the sliding glass door, Hermione could see that she was the monster her parents feared.
She scrambled to the door in a frenzy, trying to make sense of the large, furry wolf that stared back at her. It was brown, with hints of white and orange, and its chest was completely covered in blood. Hermione lifted a hand to trace the image and saw the wolf in the glass respond in kind, lifting a bloodied paw of its own.
She turned to where her parents had just stood, but they were gone, leaving nothing but a flurry of pictures and the broken camera in their wake. The fireflies in the backyard continued their dance as if nothing had happened at all.
Hermione dropped to her knees – or was she already on all fours? – willing the hammering of her heart to slow in her chest. The images surrounding her caught her attention, their content adding to the sickening churn in her stomach.
Pictures of bodies. A crime scene. A few thin case files, stamped with the word 'cold'.
They weren't as gruesome as the depictions of torture that she had seen inside, but they cut her in a deeper sense, having already seen these images firsthand. Hermione began sobbing, tears soaking the fur on her face.
She was positive this wasn't a dream, but rather a complete and utter nightmare. The pain she had caused in the world magnified before her to match the pain she felt inside. Except this pain was no figment of her imagination; it was increasing and beginning to feel incredibly real.
Hermione tried to get up, but could not stand. In her anguish, she cried out to the night, but her cries came out as desolate howls instead.
The howling was so loud, rattling inside her skull until Hermione woke up.
Her fingers first became aware of the texture of a woolen quilt over her, scratchy against her skin. Hermione's body jolted, finally having crashed back to reality after all. She took a few painful breaths, her spine shifting uncomfortably against the lumpy cushion upon which she rested. Hermione struggled against the holds of sleep, which fought with her consciousness to pull her back to the land of nightmares, but something felt wrong .
Her eyes opened, blinking lazily, vision swimming. The room was dark, save for a single stream of light that came from across the room. Hermione's head swiveled toward the source, accompanied by a fresh wave of nausea. She took a deep breath only to be overcome with the smell of damp Earth, compounding the feeling of sick.
Eyes shut again, she rolled back to a neutral position. Her heart was hammering in her chest. Hermione reached out to the side, digging her fingers into the dirt, holding on as her body felt spun with the intensity of a thousand portkeys.
With the Earth as her anchor, Hermione focused on her breath whilst her brain synapses regained their normal firing rate. Her senses recalibrated in waves while her mind's eye showed her visions of the past. Her snooping, the storm, running after the wolf… the wolf .
Hermione rolled to the side, clutching at the throbbing spot of her temporal lobe. She let out a gasp when her fingers met scraps of clean fabric wrapped around her head. Her nose picked up the smell of dittany in her hair; she had been healed or at least she was in the process of healing. Absentmindedly, her arm had trailed down from her bandaged head wound and was taking inventory of the scrapes littering her collarbone, abdomen… her leg .
She threw the blankets to the side, instantly wishing that she hadn't, for the sight was gut-wrenching. Her left leg was a boneless bag of flesh, topped with an equally boneless foot that resembled something of an unfilled glove. The sight had Hermione's head swimming. She leaned over the side of the cot and retched her stomach full of potions all over the floor.
Her body revolted on its own accord, no longer under her conscious control. She gasped for breath between the painful clenching of her stomach. Her eyes squeezed shut, the shock was too much, and Hermione wasn't sure she could stand it.
Her loss of consciousness was a merciful reprieve from the assault on her senses. Her tumble, face first into a puddle of her vomit, was not.
Hermione wasn't out for long, waking when her head was lifted off the ground. Her torso hung over a strong, furry mass temporarily as she was rolled back onto the bed. Hermione's body ached with the movement and she let out a moan. Her vestibular system restabilized, lessening the spinning in her head, but the discomfort and nausea remained. Her eyes opened, allowing reality to hit her like a cold bucket of water.
Hermione found herself alert, aware, and reoriented at once, for she was face to face with, mere inches away from, the white wolf.
Dark pupils clashed wildly with cool gray irises, like winter sea waters beating against rocky cliffs, swirling with the threat of power contained within. His fur was so white that she could see pink skin underneath in areas around his eyes and snout where the covering was thin. Black and pink blended on his nose, multicolored whiskers fraying out on either side below it. Had they been further apart, she would have also had a full view of the predator's teeth, but for now, it wasn't in her visual field. Instead, she remained fixated on the eyes of the white wolf, searching for depth beneath them.
She held her breath, the wolf seemed to do the same. Another step of the hesitant dance between them; who would make the first move and what would that move be? Too weak to fight and a weak projection of her magic revealed that she was also wandless. Hermione was at the complete mercy of the creature that hovered above her, staring down at her with a chilling, silver gaze.
A futile attempt was made to compress herself further against the earthen floor, but she was still far too close to the mouth of the beast. Her eyes strayed from its face momentarily, finding that the wolf's white chin, neck, and chest were stained with blood. Eyes wide and nervous, she stared back up at the beast, wondering if this would be how her life would end.
The wolf's ears stuck up and it cocked its head to one side; Hermione swore she saw confusion upon its face. The wolf picked up a paw and angled its head, glancing at where her eyes had just been. He stepped away suddenly. Hermione gripped her covers tightly and pulled the scratchy quilt higher up on her chest as if the fabric would offer her any protection from his sharp teeth and claws.
Hermione got a full display of said sharp teeth and the creature stretched his mouth open wide in what looked like a yawn. He began pacing at the foot of the bed, stalking in and out of the ribbon of light that lit a small patch of the room. Her eyes followed his movements, swaying back and forth like a metronome.
He paced for some indeterminable amount of time, following the same path over the floor inlaid with stone. The pace was hypnotic. Hermione found her eyelids growing heavy as she tracked the wolf's movements. A warmth emanated from the ground below her, the sensation was quite relaxing. It threatened to lull her back to sleep, a place she'd rather not visit again, fearing she would be met with nothing but nightmares.
Hermione straightened up, coming to an almost seated position against the dirt wall, finding she had to tilt to one side to compensate for her boneless leg. She pointedly ignored her disfigured limb, lest she succumb to the shock again, focusing her mind solely on what she should say to the Hero that she finally found.
Thoughts came like rapid fire, though through the fog of potion withdrawal they were practically indecipherable.
If the empty potion bottles beside her and the ransacked first aid kit strewn about the room were any indications that meant that he, who had stolen from her and eluded her at every encounter, had gone to great lengths to save her life. He could have left her there to bleed out on the forest floor. Hermione would have died had it not been for his intervention
Hermione found herself brimming with gratitude. The feeling was warm but burned in her chest. Things never should have gone this far; Hermione should have found another way to communicate with the Hero, rather than a wild chase through the woods. It was clear that he wanted to be left alone and now here she was, imposing herself upon him, forcing him to be responsible for whether she lived or died.
So many mistakes were made which could have had lethal outcomes if it weren't for him. He truly was a hero and at that moment Hermione realized that she owed him everything. A simple 'thank you' could not properly convey how indebted she was to him.
"You saved my life." Her throat was tight with emotion, imagining the alternative outcome of her fall from grace, one that ended bloody at the bottom of a cliff. She closed her eyes, grimacing at the close brush of death. When she opened them, the wolf was sitting at attention at the foot of the sleeping pad, ears standing at erect attention. "How will I ever be able to repay you?"
The wolf blinked, his pink tongue snaking out to lick his flews. Hermione let out an impatient sigh. She was already so vulnerable, — legless, wandless, weak from the ordeal — Hermione didn't have the energy to keep up with the silent standoff. She decided not to hold her cards close; rather, she laid them out instead, hoping for some answers from the fabled Hero.
"A centaur told me that the forest is dying…" The wolf quirked its head to the side as if confused by her assertion, but Hermione pressed on. "Does that mean you're dying, too?"
At that, the wolf's head tilted the other way. The muscles above its eyes knit together. Hermione knew she sounded crazy, but seeing his reaction had her double down on the notion. Was she crazy? Or was he just being coy?
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Do you know who I am?" She asked in a proper tone.
Not that she expected every creature in the United Kingdom to know her name, but she figured the omniscient forest would have clued her champion in as to the identity of the Ministry official that had moved in for the summer.
The wolf nodded; assumption verified.
"Good, because I know who you are, Perseus. And I think I'm supposed to help you," she glanced down at her lap, murmuring, "if only you would let me."
Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione thought she saw the wolf tense. When her eyes fell upon his muzzle, she noticed the wolf was showing the tips of his teeth. The sight set her on edge, her instinct giving her a clear warning: danger .
Stuttering, she asked, "C-could you p-please," she gestured toward the canine form before her, struggling to find the words for what she wanted to say, "come out so we can talk, face-to-face?"
His cool gaze pierced through her like sharp steel as the creature sat, studying her. After a moment of appraisal, the universal no was given with a shake of his head.
Hermione exhaled irritably. He clearly understood English but seemed no more eager to communicate with her than he had in their previous encounters. However, this one-sided method of conversation would not find them any closer to solving the problems of the forest or find Hermione closer to getting back into good graces with the Centaurs, which was crucial to her work assignment. The life she had led the last seven years seemed far away from her present, where the mysteries of the wood had grown to consume her every thought.
Plus there was the elephant in the room in the form of her missing wand and boneless leg. That certainly deserved a separate conversation when there was less tension in the air between them as Hermione certainly wasn't in any position to be making demands of the mythical being whose home she had invaded, privacy violated, and unwittingly tasked with keeping her alive.
The thought struck her: would she make it out of here alive?
The tension within her was coiling again. As much as Pyronesia had told her about the Hero, the just protector of the wood, Hermione still had so many unanswered questions. He had saved her, and healed her… but a familiar feeling of unease remained. Could she trust this man that she knew nothing about? Pyronesia held him in some regard, but could Hermione trust the words of legends, especially those that came from a potentially unreliable source?
No, trust wouldn't be given easily, it had to be earned. To do so, they just had to start somewhere closer than this . If he were going to remain uncooperative, Hermione would just have to try harder, force herself upon him. It had worked with Harry and Ron during their first year; certainly, a similar social tactic could work now. The boys had saved her from a mountain troll, the wolf had saved her from her own stupidity. Yes, it was quite analogous. Honesty and accountability; that is how she could start making amends.
"I'm sorry I chased you through the woods," her tongue felt thick in her mouth. "Thrice." She clarified.
The wolf seemed more relaxed as he had stopped showing his teeth. The beam of light that lit a sparse amount of the room was behind him now. The sun was bright, lighting him from the back. It made him almost blinding to look at; otherworldly, ethereal. She strained her eyes trying to study his features, leaving her blinking rapidly with multicolor spots dancing across her vision.
In that light, under the oak tree, Hermione began to feel the raw power he exuded. She expected him to be particularly powerful – the king of the Forest for over a thousand years – but hadn't expected to feel so unsettled by it. Perhaps it was her general weakness or the position she had found herself in upon waking, but something wasn't sitting quite right with her. Hermione had met many powerful creatures, most of which left her feeling awestruck. This meeting was different: Hermione was nowhere near awe, but somewhere closer to mistrustful and nervous.
She pushed the feeling down and glanced around the room while her vision returned, feeling silly trying to make small talk with the man that showed no signs of coming out. The possessions within his home were minimal, but it was clear someone had spent a long time in there. However, the signs of wear on the stones on the floor and the things set into the wall seemed newer than what she would expect to be in the home of a centuries-old legendary creature.
"So," she mused, attempting a casual tone, "do you live here alone?"
Solemnly, the wolf nodded. Communication. Progress.
"And have you been alone all this time?"
The wolf made no indication one way or another, instead dropping his head and staring down at his paws. Her heart wrenched with imagined emotion as she extrapolated meaning from his gesture; she couldn't imagine the amount of solitude he had endured.
"You don't have to be alone anymore. I'm here now," she glanced down at her covered lap with a gulp, "and not going anywhere anytime soon."
Next to her, Hermione saw what remained of her once-healthy potions stash. Some discarded vials were close: blood replenishing potion, dreamless sleep, and pain relieving elixir to name a few. She reached out with her hand to touch the glass containers, which clinked against each other. The sound set the wolf at attention; his ears perked and his body trembled when Hermione's eyes fell upon him again.
"I'm not going to hurt you," she assured him, trying to assuage his apparent nerves. "I'm a professional advocate for magical creatures," she informed him, as he fell under that category according to Pyronesia. "Besides, I'm currently without a wand."
An idea struck, posing itself as a question that was a bit more of a test: was the wolf friend or foe?
"Any chance you found it out there?" She asked nonchalantly, trying not to sound too eager or scared. It would make her much more comfortable to have her wand, but Hermione was trying to play off her fear with a cool level of indifference as if she routinely found herself immobile under the care of a magical woodland creature.
The wolf stood, slinking over to the table in the kitchen area of the den. He placed one paw on top of the table and then the other as he came to stand on his back legs. Out of the blinding sun now, Hermione could appreciate how truly large he was. Hermione had never seen a wolf in person before. She had assumed he would be no bigger than a common laborador, but found that the beast would make a large dog, even Fang, look like a miniature schnauzer.
When the wolf turned from the table, she saw a familiar stick clutched in his teeth. Her wand. He approached slowly, coming to a stop next to the empty potion bottles, just slightly out of her reach.
Hermione felt some sense of relief knowing her wand was safe. Being reunited with it would feel like completing a puzzle or coming home after a long journey. She yearned for it, knowing that having her wand on her would at least give her some sense of control, something she had been severely lacking in every encounter with the white wolf thus far.
She stretched out her hand, waiting for the wolf to give her what was rightfully hers, but the exchange never came. Instead, Hermione watched as something unthinkable was revealed.
White fur shrank in to reveal almost translucently pale skin. His spine elongated until the transforming man towered above her supine form. Limbs stretched, ears shrank in, and his facial features began to morph. Scraps of fabric materialized over his body. Finally, the hero of the wood was revealing himself, the man behind the beast.
As the magical process settled, Hermione was hit with a chilling realization: this was not the Hero of the Wood. The platinum locks, matted and riddled with bits of the forest obscured part of his face, but as Hermione took in the other details of his features she came to a conclusion that seemed quite impossible.
The white wolf in the Forbidden Forest was none other than Draco Malfoy.
Hermione opened her mouth to scream, but he moved too quickly, silencing her with a flick of her wand. Her heart was pounding wildly in her chest and her head was spinning with all the inaccuracies that had been dispelled from her mind. She had been too weak to channel her magic previously, but she tried anyway, hoping that her adrenaline would be enough to blast off a wandless, nonverbal stunner.
Again, he was faster, or more prepared with the element of surprise on his side. "Incarcerous!" He snarled.
Thick, leather binds were conjured and wrapped tightly around her arms and torso. She thrashed wildly beneath them, trying to loosen their hold so she could…. Well, Hermione wasn't sure what she was going to do exactly. With one leg missing, She wouldn't be able to run. Silenced, she couldn't even scream. She was at the complete mercy of the last remaining Death Eater.
Hermione had never felt so foolish.
More ropes appeared, wrapping tightly around her and ceasing her violent protests. Hermione winced as all her binds tightened and she tried taking deep breaths to ease the pain that shot up her spine, but even breathing was difficult in her current position. Tears leaked from her eyes unwittingly and she had to shift her weight to prevent herself from tipping over. She started occluding, hoping to dull her emotions, but retain her logic so she could find a way out of this situation alive.
She was so focused on the mental exercise that she didn't notice his approach until his shadow fell over her. When she looked up, Hermione found Malfoy towering over her, a wild look — more animalistic than she had seen in any creature — in his eyes.
He certainly wasn't the boy she remembered from their school days. No, this Malfoy was dirty, deranged. His face was gaunt, cheeks sunk in, making his once impossibly prominent cheekbones even more severe. The platinum hair he was known for looked darker and dirty. He had facial hair, too, something Hermione had never seen him sport during their teenage years. His beard was long and curly, colors of brown and red staining the locks that stretched to his sternum.
She almost couldn't believe it was him, but one feature confirmed that this truly was Malfoy and not some boggart materializing before her: the sneer plastered upon his face paired with the murderous glint in his eyes. These attributes were signature of Malfoy and must have withstood the test of time.
"What's this, hm?" He asked, dangling the walnut wand over her chest, close enough that she could snatch it had she not been so tightly bound. "Who sent you, Granger?"
For a second Hermione feared that this was the end. She was sure Malfoy was going to kill her on the spot, though she couldn't understand why he hadn't done it already. Her internal clock started a countdown, her senses screaming as they anticipated her demise. To combat what felt like inevitable, she pushed against the binds again, despite the pain it caused her; a warning to him that she wouldn't make it easy.
A myriad of emotions flashed across Malfoy's eyes like rapid fire, all indecipherable. His eyes misted with tears and he pawed furiously at them, turning his back to her when the first track of water caressed down his cheek.
"Why?! Why couldn't you just stay away?" His voice cracked with the sound of despair, but Hermione thought he might have been talking to himself more than her, as she wasn't the most responsive audience.
He took a couple of willful breaths, his hands coiling in tight fists at his sides. Her heart was beating aggressively in her chest and her blood rushed violently, echoing in her ears. Malfoy looked over his shoulder and Hermione was surprised to see the openness of his expression, muddled with a pained look of regret.
His anguish was appreciable, shooting her straight in the heart as he asked a question Hermione didn't quite have an answer for: "Why couldn't you just leave me the hell alone?!"
His words echoed in the confined space, no other sounds between them. Malfoy was shaking with some contained emotion. Hermione found herself holding her breath, anxiously anticipating the inevitable blow.
"I warned you!" He shouted passionately, tears streaming unabashed down his dirty face, "I told you to stay away!"
She recoiled against her restraints, willing herself to shrink further into the wall she was propped against. Her mind stilled all errant thoughts as she watched the man, the beast, unravel before her.
His eyes searched her face, an open window revealing a chaotic storm that raged within. He had taken up the pacing again, running fingers through his long locks, fingers savagely ripping through the mats and tangles they encountered. Malfoy was muttering to himself inaudibly and Hermione tried reading his lips to figure out what he was saying while her mind toyed with the possibilities of what he would do next.
There was a broken fragment of mirror set into the dirt wall. She watched as he stilled before it, appraising himself in its reflection. His cheeks were wet with an ever-flowing stream of tears that he licked away as they reached his lips. After a few minutes, he dropped his head, jammed his palms against his eyes, and let out a low sob.
"What am I going to do?" He cried, his voice catching as his body jerked with intense emotion. The proverbial floodgates seemed to have opened as he was full-on sobbing now, quickly becoming borderline hysterical.
The sight, his desperation, was unnerving to witness and had Hermione worrying about what he might do to her in his emotional state.
"It's over," he cried to himself before emitting a bitter laugh. "It's over."
Laughter bubbled out of him now and Hermione was positive that this unthinkable version of Malfoy was unhinged, the worst kind of enemy one could have. Hermione had emotional whiplash from watching him unravel and she couldn't even move. Her mind raced through possible outcomes of the situation, none of which she liked. But there was nothing she could do.
She had become a captive of Draco Malfoy: the last Death Eater.
How had he gotten out of the Battle of Hogwarts alive, let alone unseen? And an even better question persisted: if Draco Malfoy was the white wolf in the woods, then where was the Hero?
His laughter fizzled out and Malfoy stared into the mirror once more, a faraway look upon his face. An apathetic sigh left his lips. "All of that, just for it to end like this," he mused.
Hermione was very concerned with the words he had chosen, hoping that whatever end he spoke of didn't directly correlate to the end of her life. She was watching him intently, trying to puzzle through how exactly this predicament was even possible. Malfoy was painfully thin and, quite frankly, looked like he had not bathed since the Final Battle. Based on the state of his dwelling, it appeared Malfoy had been living here, in what Hermione wouldn't classify as habitable conditions, for quite some time, perhaps since the dust had settled and the war ended.
What had once elicited sympathy for the wolf, when she had thought him to be the Hero of the Wood, now left her feeling nothing but apathy. He was a Death Eater, he deserved whatever ill fate befell him. No amount of justice could repair the damage he had done, so why should she feel sorry for him? He certainly felt no remorse for his actions, having dodged taking accountability for the better part of seven years.
Her apathy smoldered, steadily being replaced by the anger that had once fueled the fires of revolution within her. In Malfoy's ideal world, Hermione would not exist – and now he had a chance to make that happen. His eyes met hers again through the mirror, which showed a newfound determination in him. Hermione gulped, knowing that this wasn't going to end well.
Had Hermione not been bound so tightly, she would have flinched when Malfoy stalked away from the mirror suddenly, returning to the kitchen table again. This time he grabbed Hermione's leather bag. He upended it, causing the contents to spill on the floor. Malfoy pushed through her belongings until he found a bottle of Ogden's Firewhiskey which he chugged in greedy pulls.
He started sputtering and coughing before taking a final pull off the bottle and then slamming it onto the wooden tabletop, the glass half empty. Her notebook, cleaned of the markings he had left weeks prior, was the next item he picked up off the floor.
Malfoy wagged it in her direction. "What have you been up to out here, huh?"
He fanned out the pages, the notes Hermione had recreated after he destroyed them the first time, and began ripping them out, commentating as he went, "Taking notes, making maps," he muttered. He threw the ruined scraps of paper at her; they gently fell to the ground like floating feathers dancing in the air. "Looking for someone?" He spat. "Hunting me ?"
Hermione couldn't respond, though Malfoy didn't seem too interested in having a conversation with her anyway, having silenced her (quite efficiently, she had to admit) and speaking so hurriedly she wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgewise. He moved briskly to her cloak, which he shook out vigorously while he shouted about nothing in particular, his words a jumble of angry curses and vulgar words that would have made even the Hog's Head patrons blush.
Her Ministry badge fell to the floor, hitting a stone with an audible clunk. Malfoy bent, snatched it off the floor, and held it before him. His face reddened and his eyes narrowed, snapping to hers in an instant; a predator locking in on his prey. His chest heaved as he panted, his body shaking with the rage that was building inside of him. Hermione's body tightened with a fresh dose of fear.
Malfoy shouted, "Fuck!", and whipped the Ministry badge across the room. Hermione flinched when the badge careened toward her and pierced the dirt wall above her head, mere inches from where she sat, bound. If only Hermione could reach it, she could try and activate the emergency protections embedded in the metals. She pushed against her binds, trying to elongate her spine to reach it, but the straps holding her were too tight. Hermione lost all hope for escape.
Malfoy had his back to her and Hermione was unable to make out what he was doing. What she considered garbage, but were his possessions, were being tossed haphazardly about the room. His motions stilled, and the only sound in the room was Malfoy's ragged breathing. He dropped his hands to his sides, his head bowed toward the right one. When he turned, a ray of light caught the object clutched in his grasp and it bathed the room in a rainbow of refracted light.
His feet drug against the dirt floor as he approached her, bringing the silver blade he held into full view. Hermione's heart leaped into her throat, immediately recognizing Madame Marian's dagger. It was as if she was watching a movie in slow motion. She could do nothing but watch his languid pace as he approached the bottom of the bedding pad, her eyes tracking the movements of the weapon in his grip.
The leather binds cut painfully into her body as he dropped to his knees and straddled her, his weight crushing her barely healed pelvis. Hermione arched her back against the pain, opened her mouth, and let out a silent scream. More tears fell from her eyes, but she fought to keep them open, searching for any indication of what he planned to do with the knife amongst the planes of his face.
Fear be damned, Hermione's instincts were screaming at her to fight. She bucked against her binds, protesting their proximity, but Malfoy merely leaned further against her, stilling her movements by resting a hand on her shoulder and holding her against the wall with his weight. With little space between them, Hermione found herself overwhelmed with the acrid scent of blood. Further inspection revealed that the red hair in his beard was stained from blood. Heart racing, Hermione stared up into the feral face of the Forbidden Forest's resident monster, who finally had her right where he wanted.
Malfoy brought the dagger dangerously close to her jugular, resting the flat of the cool, silver blade against her throat. He leaned forward, the tip of his nose only a breath width away from hers. Bits of spittle shot from his mouth and landed on her face as he seethed with barely contained rage.
"So the Ministry sent you out here to find me, did they? Think I'm a werewolf, do you? Think you'll need this-," he increased the pressure of the blade resting against her, pushing on her jugular, "-to finish the job?"
She tried not to move, tried not to breathe, lest Malfoy slit her throat. Hermione simply stared at him wide-eyed, waiting for him to make his move, breaths coming out in restrained puffs. Malfoy seemed to be gritting his teeth and his arm trembled as he glared down at her, his eyebrows creased with concentration. He let out a strangled half-laugh, half-scoff, and sat back on his haunches, removing the blade from her throat.
Hermione exhaled with barely felt relief. Malfoy was looking at the scraps of parchment tacked on the wall. As much as she wanted to see what he was looking at, Hermione couldn't take her eyes off the knife that he had in his hand. Ironic, it seemed, that the weapon she had been given for self-protection would be the thing that was her ultimate downfall. She gulped, feeling her body sweating with anxious anticipation.
Her eyes flitted up to his face, watching his expression harden as he stared at the pictures and scraps of newspaper that had some meaning to him. Bravely, she chanced a glance at the wall as well, eyes searching the sea of words and faces plastered there. There were pictures of the Malfoys, the war heroes… herself. It was hard to tell which he was looking at, but Hermione didn't have time to think on it for long, for Malfoy reached his free hand up and ran it through his hair, a grimace on his face.
As if he could feel her watching, his eyes fell upon her once more, and all signs of emotion drained from their depths.
"I'll show you what this knife is for," he muttered, reaching for her right wrist that was bound snuggly against her good leg.
Malfoy pressed the blade against the ties on her wrist, which popped open against the sharp metal. His clammy hand wrapped around hers and raised it closer to him. The rest of her arm was still bound with a strap that ran under her breasts. Even with one hand free, she was still unable to move and was now losing some circulation as the position of the rest of her arm caused increased pressure on the ropes.
She tried to twist her body to compensate for the pain, but Mafloy's weight was back on her, keeping her firmly in place. He gripped the dagger's blade with his left hand and pulled back with his right, letting out a small noise as he cut his palm. Blood pooled in his palm and slowly began running down his wrist. He grabbed Hermione's wrist again, holding it in his bloody hand. Hermione squirmed, unsure of what was happening, and desperately wanting to escape.
In one swift motion, Malfoy drew the blade over her palm, slicing her skin and drawing forth a stream of red. Hermione, silently, winced as the metal bit into her skin. The warmth of pain made her hand feel as though it had been burned. His own bloodied fingers entwined forcefully with hers. Hermione attempted to wrench her hand away but stopped jerking when Malfoy brought the blade back to her throat.
"Here is how this is going to go, Granger." He panted, his words coming out in a rush, "You're going to do exactly as I say, or I'll fucking kill you… I will slit your throat right here in this den and then eat your bloody corpse with not a moment of hesitation nor an ounce of remorse… sound good?"
Hermione nodded meekly, very much so wanting to continue living she would say anything at that moment to appease the man that held her at knifepoint.
"I'm going to unsilence you and you're going to do exactly as I say or it's lights out for you. Nod if you understand." He pushed harder against her throat with the flat of the blade. Hermione's eyes closed with the severity of the situation, despondent, and nodded once more, fresh tears leaking from her eyes.
"Good girl."
He licked his lips. "No Gryffindor bravery type shit," he reminded her as he withdrew the blade from her throat, reached behind his back, and withdrew Hermione's wand. He held the dagger and her wand side by side, two equally effective weapons that he could use to end her life if he so pleased, which he must have to a certain extent, but if that were the end goal, Hermione couldn't understand why he had healed her in the first place. Malfoy had plenty of opportunity and motive to end her life… so why keep her alive? What was his aim?
Being unsilenced made her gag, noises coming forth with her larynx movements this time. She coughed to clear the ball that had formed in her throat and Malfoy gave her a disgusted look in response. She breathed deeply, greedily, which was hard to do with such tight binds still constricting her body and began hyperventilating. Malfoy, however, must not have had the time, patience, or compassion to allow her to acclimate to having her voice back. A moan of pain escaped her throat, indecipherable words falling from her lips in a sort of desperate prayer.
He leaned into her again, blade and wand both at the juncture of her head and neck, pressing against the pulse point. His fingers squeezed her hand tightly, pulling blood from their wounds where they intermixed between their palms. "Alright Granger," Malfoy instructed through grit teeth, "Repeat after me: I, Hermione Granger, will never in any way shape, or form indicate that Draco Malfoy is alive, an animagus, or living in the Forbidden Forest."
He paused and Hermione waited for him to say more, but apparently, it was her turn to recite the words, for he hissed between his teeth, "Say it."
Hermione clenched her jaw, glaring darkly at the wild man above her. She had thought a different member of the Black family was the Hero of the Wood. It was a mistake she was already paying for. She had considered trying to fight back; she would almost rather lose her life before becoming complicit in a Death Eater's scheme.
But then she thought about it all: her role in the forest, what she had learned of its secrets so far, the supposed divine intervention that told her she needed to do something — all had her considering that maybe this is how things were supposed to happen. She couldn't help anyone if she were dead. No, she'd have to live to find another way.
After a defeated sigh, she began her recitation, forced words scratching violently in her throat. "I, Hermione Granger, will never in any way, shape, or form, indicate that Draco Malfoy is alive, an animagus, or living in the Forbidden Forest."
The moment she spoke the last word, Malfoy cut her off, adding to his original statement.
"Furthermore-" his eyes were treacherous, leering. His grip tightened against Hermione. Malfoy paused and his eyes darted back and forth — Hermione took this as her cue to parrot the word back to him.
"F-furthermore…" Hermione gulped, trying to prevent her throat from bobbing against the edge of the blade pressed against her neck.
Malfoy's grip loosened for a singular moment as if he zoned out, and Hermione considered wrenching her hand away and trying to coax her wand from him. While her adrenaline may have been enough to fuel her magic, her arms were wrapped too tightly, making most wand movements impossible. By the time she would have tried the maneuver, had she had the nerve and strength, he was speaking again, words tumbling from his mouth in a raptorial tone.
"Furthermore," his grip tightened, reminding her of his physical dominance over her, "you will do everything in your power to protect me from harm."
Hermione flared her nostrils and shut her mouth into a thin, hard line. If she made it out of this alive, she would be bringing him harm. No one would hold a knife to her throat and get away with it.
Her silence must have been infuriating for Malfoy slid the knife off her throat, replacing it with his body weight as he leaned on his forearm, compressing her windpipe until Hermione's body jerked beneath him, choking as she fought for air.
"Say it!" Malfoy shouted, his eyes turning lethal.
Hermione repeated the words with a wheeze, only when she finished did he let off the pressure on her jugular. Hermione's head rushed as blood and oxygen resumed their normal flow. When darkness quit dancing in front of her vision, she found Malfoy staring down at their bloodied, clasped hands.
"Fuck!" He pulled her hand closer to his face, inspecting the blood that oozed from their wounds. Hermione's fingers felt cold, almost numb. He leered at her critically, but when he downcast his eyes and muttered, "why isn't it working?" It was clear the question was not to her, but to himself.
She shifted uncomfortably under his weight, causing him to bring the knife to her throat once more. The blade scratched her flesh, which burned at the contact. His gaze was hard, indistinguishable. So many thoughts were running through Hermione's head, each passing moment putting her closer and closer to becoming one of Draco Malfoy's next victims. She wondered if he would kill her with his bare hands or transform and eat her alive as promised.
His head reared back and a few throaty chuckles escaped him. Hermione's terror increased for his laughter sounded particularly evil. He must have come up with a more unique way to end her life then. Hermione closed her eyes, thinking positive thoughts in case they were the last thoughts she ever had.
He leaned over their joined hands, ancient words leaving his mouth in a hushed whisper. Tendrils of their blood dripped down both of their wrists, pooling on the scraps of fabric on which Hermione rested. Malfoy shook her arm, she opened her eyes.
He was biting his bottom lip, hard, the pink of his lips looking white under the pressure. His jaw twitched back and forth, clearly wrestling with something. Finally, he brought his face a mere inch from hers.
"Speak your demands." He instructed, his hot breath falling over her mouth and cheek.
"What?" She asked, despite her fear and confusion. Demands? What position was she in to be demanding anything?
"You heard me," Malfoy warned, "a blood oath can only work if both parties have a stake in the pact. So, choose. Now. " He leaned more against her, increasing pressure against her throat once more. The message was clear: cooperate or prepare to see the other side of the veil.
Selfishly not ready to die, Hermione had no choice but to acquiesce. He had asked for protection from her, it only made sense that she would ask for the same. If she chose her words carefully, perhaps Hermione could find herself in a better position than the one she was in currently. She didn't have much time to toil over word choice, however, as Malfoy wasn't historically a patient person and she didn't have time to push her luck with a knife pressing into her skin.
The weight of the decision was more crushing than the weight of Malfoy against her neck. She lamented her lack of time to think about what she should ask of him, but truly there wasn't another minute to wait. From what Hermione understood about blood oaths, the ritual was time sensitive, needing to be completed rather quickly else the bond wouldn't hold and the consequences were dire.
"Promise you won't hurt me." She panted, coughing with the relief of full lung capacity when he finally backed off, removing the blade from her throat at her words. The request was obvious, mutual assurance that neither would bring the other harm.
"I won't hurt you" he swore, relief sagging his features, he stared at their hands.
Her curious nature perked up and began calling the shots in her decision-making. The words were tumbling from her mouth before the logical part of her brain could catch up to what she was saying. Hermione should have demanded that he turn himself in or she should have asked him to go on some righteous crusade to right all the wrongs he had made, but more than anything, she wanted to understand . An innate part of her wanted to know how he did it: how had he gotten out of Hogwarts alive and undetected? What had he been up to all this time?
"And you'll tell me everything I want to know: no secrets, no holding back."
Malfoy growled. Hermione internally flinched at the sound but glared impassively at him despite the tensing of his body and the anger that was rolling off him in waves. He studied the silver dagger in his hand and Hermione gulped, hoping he wasn't reconsidering using it on her.
She jutted out her chin, "Do we have a deal or not?"
Malfoy threw his head back with a whimper and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, before cursing under his breath. He gave Hermione a hard look, but she remained solid under his gaze, unmoving in her request. Finally, he sighed.
"I'll tell you everything you want to know: no secrets, no holding back."
Sweat dripped from his brow, and they both stared at their equally shaking arms, a warm sensation formulating between their palms.
"We have to swear it," Malfoy warned her. "Swear it or we both die!"
Hermione considered the prospect for a moment. It could be her last heroic act: eradicating the world of Death Eaters once and for all. The ground around them rumbled, the sound of the centaurs stampeding. Hermione gulped, she couldn't help Pyronesia or the Forbidden Forest if she weren't alive.
Despite the courageous lion within her, readying to lay down her life and die for the common good, Hermione found herself swearing her allegiance to the pact regardless. Their hands both glowed red and hot until they burned. He dropped her hand when they started hearing the sound of sizzling flesh.
"Ah!" Hermione flexed her hand, shocked to see that the cut had healed completely.
Malfoy sat back, relieving her hips of the pressure his weight had imposed on him. The knife and her wand were resting lazily in his palm while he breathed a long sigh, a look of triumph on his face. "Thank Gods that's finally over," he breathed, a true and honest, almost boyish, smile toyed at his lips.
This must have been the outcome he had been hoping for all along.
Hermione, however, still seethed with anger. Just because she had sworn not to bring him harm didn't mean she couldn't stop thinking about all the curses she'd love to drill into him at that moment. She cleared her throat and motioned her head toward the leather straps that were rubbing welts onto her skin.
"Unbind me, now ," Hermione demanded, her chin quivering with a fiery rage. Malfoy's filthy face studied her for a moment with guarded contemplation.
Malfoy stood and towered over her. He blocked the light that cascaded in from the summery forest above. Hermione shuddered in his shade.
Her wand and the dagger were clamped together in his hand. So close she could feel the magical pull. She stretched toward it in a feeble attempt to take back the walnut wood, but Malfoy stepped back before the fingertips of her free hand could connect with the magical object, moving it just enough to be out of her reach.
Hermione was glaring daggers at him, pointedly ignoring the bead of blood that was slowly making its way down her collarbone. His face had slipped into its default smirk, which Hermione desperately wanted to smack off his countenance. Some things just hadn't changed.
"You know what Granger?" He straightened his patchwork shirt as if it were a thousand galleon tuxedo jacket, his smirk growing more and more amused, "I don't think I will."
"What?!" Hermione's eyebrow creased angrily, "but they're hurting me Malfoy, you said…"
He cut her off while he retreated from where she lay, "I said I wouldn't harm you. The ropes won't hurt if you stop fighting them, Granger. Honestly, you'd think someone as smart as you would have better verbal reasoning skills."
She was taken aback and began replaying the words of their vows over and over again. "B-but..." she stuttered, reasoning through things and finding that, technically, he was right. Hermione was flabbergasted and didn't know quite what to say or do. But Malfoy was particularly blasé, acting like the nonchalant aristocrat she knew and loathed. There was a duality to him: the unhinged beast and the showman she had always known him to be were equally infuriating, frighteningly so.
"Anyway, Granger, get comfy, why don't you? I've got an errand to run."
"An errand?!" She tried to sit up more. How did he have somewhere else to be? "Malfoy, you can't just leave me here like this!"
"Sure I can." He paused himself at the end of the mattress pad and pointed the wand at Hermione, jovially cursing her, " Petrificus totalus! "
Hermione seized up when she was hit by the full-body bind, which also had the effect of rendering her silent once more. Her mind thrashed with turmoil, thoughts shouting with anger. Malfoy approached and gave her a few taps on the head.
"Steady now," he advised, "I'll be back soon."
He crossed the room, heading toward where the entrance at the tree base. He ripped off his shirt, revealing the cross stitching of scars that mottled his back, and looked over his shoulder at her with a chuckle.
"Don't go anywhere now. Oh, that's right," he chortled, "you can't."
In a blink of an eye, not that Hermione could blink in her given state, Malfoy had transformed into the great white wolf once more. He gave a sort of snarling growl, lunging slightly toward the bed. The wolf pulled his lips into a sly grin, clearly amused with his ruffian antics, before turning for the exit. Hermione remained stony, forcibly so, while her insides were screaming in protest.
Wolf Malfoy stood on his strong back legs and propelled himself upward, jumping up and out of the wolf's den. Hermione was left alone with nothing else to do but sit with her thoughts and stew.