Sick of having to hide under the gifted cloak, as much an oven as it was a liberator, she had pushed off their meeting until the Gryffindor team had a nighttime practice session. Ensuring Harry's total attention was centered on the players, not the map he continued to carry around in his pocket. Taking it one step further, Hermione had set up for their next meeting to happen in the Room of Hidden Things. That way she wasn't suspiciously hanging around the door if he did decide to check.
As she stood in the confined space that led to the twisted maze of broken oddities, she noticed that the papers she had thrown in her act of catharsis were gone. Lost to the unending piles of stuff. Someone had taken the time to clean and she had an odd feeling that she knew exactly who...
It was like a particular tricky part of the all black puzzle suddenly fit together and it sent a chill up her spine. Draco had to find something, something dangerous, inside of the labyrinth and fix it. He really had admitted his task to her the night of the confrontation over him being a Death Eater… Something she had come to doubt as his reaction to failure became more and more concerning. The context of just how hopeless his predicament was brought too much clarity.
Voldemort's plan wasn't to hurt others using Draco. Oh no, his plan was to draw out the Malfoys' torture by giving him something impossible to complete. A guaranteed death for Narcissa and Draco. While Lucius slowly wasted away in Azkaban with the knowledge of their demise being his only company. Undoubtedly, the family was to be used as a warning to others. Favor was fickle and even the most devoted had to comply… Or else.
Overwhelmed by the futility of his duty, her hands started to shake at her sides as her eyes roamed over the meager entrance to the cavernous chaos within. There were hundreds of possibilities in the first few feet… Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, throughout the whole room.
How could you find something specific if you hadn't personally placed it there?
And even then… Things moved…
Her hands instantly balled into fists at the sound of the door clicking open, her nails digging into the flesh of her palms to distract from the out of control racing of her thoughts. She tugged her lips up into her best approximation of a smile, hoping he would think it was due to nerves, and turned around.
"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Draco asked before giving any sort of greeting. His eyebrows were creased in concern, betraying his otherwise composed veneer. The show of tenderness after their argument, and his eventual surrender, over her request was unexpected.
She nodded. "I have to be, so… Yes."
"You do not have to do anything, Granger." He reminded her, parroting the end to his fervent appeal to change her mind.
"We've already been over this. I do. The risk of having their memories floating around inside of someone else's mind is not worth it. I will not pass this burden. Their safety will be in my hands."
"I could…"
"Draco, we are not doing this again." She said with finality. They had already gone over all of the different angles in this debate. None of which deterred her from her choice. It needed to be her.
He sighed heavily and his shoulders lifted into a shrug. "Fine…"
"Thank you." Hermione relaxed at his submission. A sharp pain that radiated from her palms up into her wrists had her glancing down. Where four perfect red crescent moons decorated each hand.
She hadn't meant to break skin… The sight of the self inflicted wounds had her transfixed, watching as the small dots of dark red bubbled over her flesh. Her blood traveled in thin lines to pool in her cupped palms. A comfortable numbness settled over her, an observation that should have set off alarm bells but they were only dampened by the unexpected detachment she felt.
Another sigh, this time exasperated and much closer than she expected, pulled her from the sudden stupor. Draco reached over and gripped her wrist gently with one hand. The other brandished his wand over the minor lacerations, making all traces of them disappear with a wordless incantation. After repeating the treatment to her other hand, he looked up into her eyes and lectured. "You shouldn't hurt yourself like that."
"And you should sleep more…" She snapped, pointing out the return of the ever-darkening circles that shadowed the pale skin under his eyes.
For a second his hold tightened on her wrist but he quickly stepped away. Putting an appropriate amount of distance between them before he pocketed his wand and yielded. "I should."
Irrationally angry at the loss of her deadened senses and his unsolicited concern, she stood her ground in silence returning his relentless gaze for far longer than she would have under different circumstances. Of course, she was still the first to break. Her resentment slowly fizzled out while he stood there, stoic against her glare. The seconds continued to tick by and she started to shift uncomfortably before blurting out. "So… How do we start?"
"At the beginning."
"Which is...?"
His eyebrow rose at her blatant disregard for his teasing. "Being able to keep your sentiments to yourself."
"Occulmency is the beginning?"
"It is harder to modify the memories of those you care about, Kitten. Your own feelings and perceptions of what you see can leave traces if you are not careful." Draco explained as if she was slow. "A memory stained by an unwarranted emotion is a dead giveaway of tampering to the trained eye."
"Are you really paraphrasing 'Protection Charm Your Mind' right now?" She asked incredulously.
He chuckled under his breath and shook his head. "I did not intend to, but I should have known you would turn to books first."
"Let's just skip ahead a few lessons… Assume the basics have already been covered and I need a more practical approach to learning how to do this without completely mucking it up." Hermione said with a blank face, pretending she was speaking about anything but messing with her parents' minds.
"Right…" Appreciation mixed with his indignation at her instruction. He openly regarded her as he attempted to determine where to take up his lesson.
"I've been practicing both on my own for a while now… I know enough to recognize when someone is trying to intrude and how to protect myself." She avoided the reasoning for her recently renewed efforts and continued. "I also know how to make rats think they are frogs… Granted, they are still rather jumpy after I do the reversal, hence why I need your help."
"Rats? Merlin..." Draco shook his head again. "What am I going to do with you?"
"Yes, rats. It isn't like there is a line of subjects offering to let me delve into their heads… I had to make do."
"So let me get this straight… You not only want me to volunteer to have you traipse around inside my head, but do so with the full understanding that you might leave me hopping to breakfast tomorrow morning…"
His attempt at humor fell flat and she stared over at him until he started to shift uncomfortably. "No… At least not at first… Considering that I still need to learn how to shift through a more complex mammal's mind. So, the hopping will not come until later."
"Is that supposed to grant me some sort of relief?" Draco asked her.
"Yes, when what I would like from you tonight is quite simple- Allow me a merry little jaunt into whatever memories you wish to share. Critique my technique until you feel comfortable that I can do so without leaving my parents with the mental equivalency of turnips and then move along to the next step." She knew that what she was asking was much more than the benign request that she made it seem, but there was no use in beating around the bush.
He scoffed and shook his head. "You are under the impression that it will take one night to learn how to make memories flow in the direction you wish?"
"Well… No, that is why I said 'until'. Though I do expect your expert tutelage to cut down on the time I would otherwise have to dedicate to learning." Hermione responded pointedly.
"I don't know, pet... This is…"
"Dangerous? I know that, Draco! Stupid? Reckless? Insane? I know all of that too." She sighed in frustration and scanned the stacks of discarded junk as she thought over her next words carefully. "Look, I get it. It takes a lot of trust to let someone attempt to get into your head. Especially when it's me and you are you. I'm nervous to willingly open up that link myself. You could easily take whatever you wanted from me and run back to him… But I need your help if I have any chance at protecting people that I care about. So, I am choosing to trust you with the most vulnerable part of me…"
He stood there, staring down at her as he thought over her plea. His expression was unreadable and she was certain that he was going to back out of their new arrangement. So it came as a surprise when he gave a terse nod. "Okay."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Okay…" She eyed him warily. Suspicious of his easy acquiescence but not wanting to voice her doubt. There was no reason to look a gift kelpie in the mouth.
"Then let's get on with it…" Draco said and took a few steps back, giving enough room for the wand movements needed to cast the spell.
"Right… Right now?"
"Yes."
"There isn't anything that you think I should know before attempting?"
"You said to assume you have the basics, so… Show me." There was a challenge in his words and the way that his blonde eyebrows raised in mocking.
Hermione closed her mouth on her snarky reply and took a few more steps back before pulling her wand out to point it directly at his too pale face. She concentrated on the weight of the wood in her grasp, letting all of her emotions drift away with each inhale of stale air into her lungs. Once she was confident in the claim she had on the calmness that had descended, she performed the required wand movement and incantation. "Legilimens."
And nothing happened…
Not even a glimpse…
Draco stood there for a moment, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. He quickly pressed his lips into a thin line to cover for the blunder and nodded towards her wand before instructing. "That was a better attempt than I was expecting… You need to slow down and smooth out the twist of your wrist. It should be one fluid roll."
"Yes, sir." The formal recognition slipped from between her lips in a habitual act of confirmation. Respect for her educators was such an ingrained part of her subconscious that it was an automatic response. As soon as the words registered a blush started to creep up into her cheeks at the unintentional double entendre.
No longer able to keep the smirk from his face any longer, he drank her in slowly as she practiced the suggestions given to her until she felt comfortable with the new motion. A particularly trying undertaking with how that all too familiar fire lit his gaze as it traveled along the curves of her figure, distracting her. When she finally lapsed back into the offensive stance that signaled she was ready, he raised an eyebrow but otherwise seemed unperturbed.
"Legilimens."