Happy Friday, lovelies! Thanks so much for everyone who read and everyone who review last week! Our main man is a bit MIA this week but he'll make a comeback next week. I hope you love the chaotic trio this chapter ends with, it's honestly one of my favorite bits of this fic. :)
A special thanks to pianomouse for going through and picking apart yet another chapter for me!
Love,
Adrien
Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable characters or settings, those belong to J. K. Rowling. I just enjoy making things in her sandbox.
Chapter Fourteen: An Unexpected Turn Of Events
If you had told twelve year old Hermione that talking to Draco Malfoy were some of her favorite parts of her day in what should have been her seventh year, she would have checked you for jinxes. Because there was no way that the boy who bullied her consistently and called her mudblood could be anything other than a foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach.
But seventeen year old Draco was different from the slick-backed version he was as a pre-teen. He was kind and soft spoken but had the same sense of humor and level of intelligence as his godfather. He still valued family above all else but now he recognized that he couldn't follow blood blindly and that being someone's blood didn't always mean that they were your family.
It had started with a genuine apology.
"I'm sorry," Draco's voice pulls Hermione's attention away from the crudely carved words on left arm. The word 'traitor' was now slashed grotesquely through his Dark Mark though Hermione's muggle stitches seemed to be holding up well. Any time she had applied magic to the wound, it had only made it worse but the muggle way seemed to stop the bleeding.
Her first instinct is to ask what exactly he has to be sorry for but when her eyes lock with his, she knows. He's sorry for everything. Every word or action he had ever taken that had harmed her. He's sorry for the wrong choices he made when he didn't know there were other options. He's sorry for not seeing things more clearly from the beginning.
"I forgive you," Hermione tells him honestly because she can see that that is what he needs to hear. In reality, she didn't think there was anything to forgive at this point. Yes, he had said and done some truly atrocious things to her–some of which she had had to overcome to be the witch she was today. But he wasn't the same person he was back then. They had been kids then. Technically they were still kids now but they had had to let go of their childhoods to survive. They had had to grow up and realize that the adults were making the same choices they'd made in the first war and if they followed their lead, they would have lost everything for nothing.
Draco stares at her for a long moment before his gaze drifts to the blonde in the bed next to his. Originally Draco was going to have his own room after he had been treated but the blonde man had refused to leave Luna's side until she woke up and when she woke up, she had begged him to stay so Luna's queen-sized bed had been split into two smaller beds.
Hermione finishes cleaning off his arm and wraps it in new bandages.
"Do you think she'll be ok?"
"Physically, yes. Emotionally, it will take time but…if you hadn't stepped in, I think it would have been a lot worse," Hermione replies, her own gaze drifting toward one of her best female friends. They shouldn't have waited until Friday, they shouldn't have hesitated because of the stupid werewolves, there were a lot of things they shouldn't have done but they did and Luna had been hurt because they hadn't been fast enough.
"I couldn't just let them–" Draco blanches, his eyes filling with tears. "Not when I could do something about it. I know it broke my cover but–"
"I don't care," Hermione cut him off, her hand gripping his tightly. "You did the right thing. You're both here and you're safe. That's all that matters. That's all any of us care about."
They had sat in a comfortable kind of quiet for a few more moments before Hermione rose to her feet and made her way out of the door.
Though Draco and Luna still spent most of their time together in the next few weeks, Hermione was surprised to find that Draco seemed to seek her out every time Luna was occupied with someone else.
"Can I ask you something?" Draco asked as he and Hermione worked on scouring through the books from the Black family library that they had unloaded onto the floor of the library.
Hermione rests her book against her stomach and gives Draco her full attention from where she was sitting on the floor, her back against one of the bookshelves.
Draco mimics her movement from where he was sitting on the floor opposite of her, resting his own book on his stomach as he waits for her response.
"Of course," Hermione replied honestly. "Where's your head at?"
"What do you know about magical bonds?"
"Like oaths or bindings?" Hermione's attempts to clarify because there are so many types of bonds. More than even she knew about.
"Like unintentionally or naturally occurring bonds between individuals…When Luna was with me at the manor, I promised her that I would do everything I could to keep her safe and when she grabbed my hand and told me that she believed in me, there was this flash of gold. I don't have a pull or any kind of drain like I would from an oath and we didn't do anything official for a binding but I know it was a bond. I've seen enough form in more traditional ceremonies to recognize what a bond looks like but I've never seen one form that way."
Hermione's head tilts unintentionally to the side as she thinks through Draco's words before she responds, "Harry and I have had something similar happen twice. The first time was right before I first left Britain. I promised him that I would come back for him and get him out of there as soon as I could and sparks flared when our hands touched. Dobby told us later that we were bonded and I was now a part of House Potter. The second time was right before our planning meeting for Luna's rescue. When I promised to do everything I could to save her, we could physically see our magic run along our connected hands. It was almost like an Unbreakable Vow but there was no power imbalance and there was no condition if I didn't follow through that would have hurt me, it was just our words and our bond."
"Do you know what yours is?"
"No…I've been meaning to look into it more but…"
"There's just a lot more going on that takes priority," Draco finishes her thought when she trails off.
"But I do wonder…Dobby is a young elf. He recognized the bond between me and Harry through his own connection to Harry but he didn't have much information to give us. It makes me wonder what an older elf would know if they saw the bond."
Draco's eyes widen as his thoughts align with hers and he calls out for the little elf that had taken more of a shine to him than anyone else since his favorite master's death (despite the fact that he still legally belonged to Harry), "Kreacher!"
Kreacher immediately pops into the space between Draco and Hermione, his eyes quickly skimming over the room before they fixate on the blonde.
"Master Draco called Kreacher?"
"Thank you for coming, Kreacher. I had a question for you but if you don't know the answer, that's more than ok. Anything you know will help. We would just like you to give us whatever information you can."
"Kreacher is happy to help however he can and Kreacher will not punish himself if Kreacher does not know the answer." Kreacher's words are stated in a repetitive, rehearsed notion that shows how much effort Draco (as well as Harry, Hermione, and Winky) had put into changing the older elf's mindset since he had followed the youngest connection to the Black household to Bulgaria.
"That's good, thank you. Now, my first question is can you see my bonds even though Harry is technically your master?"
"Kreacher can. Kreacher can see both Master Draco and Master Harry's bonds."
"That's great information to have Kreacher, thank you! Is Luna bonded to me like Hermione is bonded to Harry?"
"Yes, Miss Luna is part of House Black. Miss Luna has been since before Master Draco visited his ancestral home. Both Master Draco and Miss Luna are House Black. Master Draco was cut off from House Malfoy when Master Draco came to Bulgaria."
Both Hermione and Draco freeze for a moment at that last statement because it meant that Draco had been disowned. Both magicals had known it was true in an unofficial capacity considering the choice Draco had made to save Luna but having it happen to the point that his bonds were officially cut…it had to be hard for the blonde. After all, being a Malfoy was all he had ever known.
Draco clears his throat and smiles tightly at the older elf when he sees Kreacher's apprehension from the magicals' reactions to his statement.
"Thank you, Kreacher. Can you tell us what kind of bond Luna and I and Harry and Hermione have?"
"Kreacher can. Kreacher has seen once before. Master Sirius and Mr James had. The first bond was Master Sirius's first year. Master Regulus saw it flare when Master Regulus got Master Sirius to Mr James when Mistress hurt and disowned Master Sirius. Master Regulus researched it. It is a soul-sibling bond. It made Master Regulus sad."
Draco's eye met Hermione's and they both knew that this was something they had to look into because maybe whole souls could help beat the split souls in the horcruxes.
Though the beginning of their combined research on magical bonds was their first deeper conversation, it wasn't their last. Hermione found that talking with Draco was as easy as breathing. He had just as wide of a range of knowledge as herself and Luna but he tended to look at things from a historical perspective instead of the more modern/muggle perspective that Hermione looked at them or the more abstract/string theory-esque way that Luna looked at them. He was the roots, Hermione was the branches, and Luna was the leaves. When any of the three of them were together, they could talk about anything and everything. They could start at one topic and end up on a completely different one without any confusion on any of their parts. They pushed each other to see different perspectives…Though Luna being a part of their conversations was few and far inbetween with the way the twins seemed to gravitate toward the blonde girl.
Their budding friendship was one Hermione continually supported though Draco, Ron, Harry, and Ginny found their first agreement in their shared wariness of said friendship. All four were overprotective of the only Ravenclaw in their midst. But Hermione couldn't help but notice that Luna had smiled more in the last few weeks than she had since she'd started at Hogwarts.
When Hermione had first truly started getting to know Luna, she had been envious of the way the other girl seemed to let insults slide off of her back. The blonde was always unfailingly kind to anyone and everyone and she never lashed out for other people calling her absolutely atrocious things. More than once, she'd even distracted Ginny and the Golden Trio from going after people who had called her "Looney" or hidden her things.
It wasn't until she saw Luna leaning into the twins and laughing with her whole chest, wrapping her arms loosely around Ginny's waist on the couch, and sharing her theories with Vyara during one of Harry's daily lessons that Hermione realized how much their school had truly affected her friend. In this house, surrounded by people who accepted and loved her, Luna let go completely. She spoke openly and honestly, she laughed more, and she asked endless amounts of questions. She didn't hide behind creatures the others couldn't see or talk purposeful circles around people until the only insult they could use was calling her "Looney" because they didn't know enough to say something else. Hermione also recognized that a big part of that change was because of the twins.
It wasn't until the end of November that Hermione realized that the newest trio was a friendship straight from the seventh circle of hell.
"You three did what?!" Draco's voice reaches an octave that Hermione wasn't aware he was capable of reaching, drawing the attention of the entire room toward a very grimy trio including a wide-eyed blonde and two mischievous redheads.
"We broke into Gringotts," Luna says like it was an everyday occurrence instead of something their group had been puzzling after like crazy so they could figure out how to safely get the horcrux hidden there.
The twins shrug in agreement, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
