When Draco exited his room the next morning, he found a book lying on the floor near his door, along with a pear-shaped glass object and a note that said, "For your room". The book was written by Friedrich Nietzsche and was titled Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future.

Draco peered at it for a moment. Then his confusion cleared and paved the road for anger. The memory of last night's discussion and the fury came flooding back.

What made her think she could tell him what to do? She chose where he would live and now she was giving him homework?

At that moment, Draco wanted nothing more than to take this book and bash her head with it. Pity it wasn't heavy enough to crack her skull.

Draco's shoes clattered against the uneven wooden floor, as he stormed into the kitchen. It was empty. The house was silent. The warm morning light filtered through the decrepit window, casting long shadows across the scarred wooden table. Outside, there was nothing but overgrown weeds, the barn, and the distant outline of trees. Ruth was nowhere to be seen.

With a sigh, Draco dropped the book on the kitchen table. He wouldn't seek her out. She would come to him, and when she did, she would listen to everything he had to say without interrupting.

His stomach growled. He'd only had a couple of fried eggs since their breakfast back at the hotel, not counting the chocolate bars they snacked on before boarding the bus. It was time for another meal—long overdue, in fact. Draco decided to concern himself with breakfast.

The contents of the plastic bag sitting on the kitchen counter revealed a half empty carton of eggs, a small sack of potatoes, a few red apples, a bag of rice, some flour, olive oil, salt, sugar, and a cheap plastic toothbrush. Was that really what muggles used for brushing their teeth? A simple cleaning spell would be more efficient.

Draco had never learned to cook. Why would he, when house-elves had always produced exquisite multi-course meals with a snap of their fingers? Trying to cook a simple meal using muggle kitchenware and these sparse ingredients seemed way too daunting. With a scowl, he grabbed an apple, rinsed it under the hot water that sputtered from the rusty tap, and ate it. Draco preferred green ones, but lately, choosing had become an unaffordable luxury.

He waited, leaning against the counter. His eyes flickered between the door and the clock on the wall above an unfamiliar white boxy appliance. The minutes ticked. Ruth didn't come. Did she leave? That note didn't sound like a farewell, but what did he know about the strange workings of her mind?

Loitering around the small house, Draco felt something he hadn't experienced in a while—boredom. It was a good feeling. It meant he was relatively safe and not on the lookout for the next attempt at his life. Still, it gnawed at him.

He returned to his room. The transparent glass object, still lying on the floor next to the note she'd left him, drew his attention. What was its purpose?

Slowly, Draco recalled Ruth mentioning there were no light balls or something in the house and that she'd have to buy some. Was this what she was talking about? He picked up the object and examined it closely. So it somehow needed to be attached to those cords hanging from the ceiling? It appeared so. Draco walked to the centre of his room and reached for the plastic cap on the end of the cord. Inside, there was a spiralled component that seemed to fit the non-glass end of the glass pear. Putting two and two together, Draco screwed it onto the cord. When he let go, it stayed in place. He then looked for the button on the wall. Like in the kitchen, it was located near the door. He approached it and pressed it. The pear lit up, its light barely perceptible with the sun still flooding the room. It worked! Draco felt a childish wonder and a foolish satisfaction.

The feeling lasted all of two minutes.

Now what? There was nothing to do, absolutely nothing. Draco was bored out of his wits. His gaze fell on the book he'd brought back to his room. Reading was a good way to pass the time. Only... Only it was a muggle book.

Something Ruth had said the previous evening resurfaced in his mind. That one point seemed reasonable in the light of day. Indeed, he should try to learn something about muggles to make an informed opinion about them. If only to avoid accusations of ignorance.

Lying back in his bed, Draco opened the first page and began to read.

Supposing truth is a woman—what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about women?

He soon had to grudgingly acknowledge that the text was legible. Intelligent even. If he was completely honest, the writing style did not seem to be in any way inferior to that of the most esteemed wizarding scholars.

What was Ruth trying to prove by having him read this work? That muggles were clever? How was that supposed to work, exactly? Even if Draco found Nietzsche's ideas reasonable, he wouldn't be foolish enough to judge an entire population by its single representative, especially not when the said representative held his own people in contempt.

If Ruth's goal had been to demonstrate the intelligence of muggles, she couldn't have chosen a worse book. Passage after passage, Nietzsche moved from one aspect of muggle culture to another. Philosophers, "scientists", "physiologists", "physicists", "theists"... Nietzsche bashed them all. Naturally, the book was proving to be quite entertaining.

With special fervour, Nietzsche attacked religion—a concept foreign to the wizarding world. Stupid muggles had believed in omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient higher entities for thousands of years, but they couldn't fathom the concept of magic, even when faced with it. The members of that witch-hunting organisation were a minority, so small as to be the exception that proved the rule. Yes, muggles were stupid.

Hours later, when Draco had almost finished reading Part Three, he heard the front door creak. His hands frantically hid the book under the blanket, and he strode to the door, flinging it open, ready to spit out every insult he'd come up with... Only to shut his mouth and freeze. Ruth's eyes were red and swollen; she looked as if she hadn't slept at all. Without a single glance in his direction, she brushed past him like a ghost and slipped into her room.

All of Draco's gibes got stuck in his throat. How could he shout at someone who looked like they were barely holding themselves together?

Suddenly, the house felt too small, too suffocating, and Draco dashed outside. Darker clouds were gathering, creeping closer to the farm.

Guilt threatened to flood his mind, but he promptly shut the gates.

Draco had nothing to be guilty about. He didn't kill her brother. He didn't even want to be there.

But the voice of conscience grew louder and more relentless.

How long could he keep brushing everything off as someone else's fault? He had taken the Dark Mark willingly. He served the Dark Lord faithfully. He poisoned Weasley. He cursed Katie Bell. He let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, endangering the lives of so many students. Sure, he didn't kill Dumbledore—but he might as well have.

Draco saw the flash of green light as clear as if it happened yesterday. The old wizard's eyes losing their lustre. His body falling backwards, into the darkness.

Another image. Another flash of green light. A girl sobbing on her brother's chest. The anguished scream.

It was Draco who made the assassination of the Headmaster possible. It was Draco who sentenced Ruth and her brother to death.

Maybe, if he had refused to go with Bellatrix, Ruth's brother, at least, would still be alive.

But his conscience was wrong about the last one. It wasn't as if his consent had mattered to the Death Eaters at all. His life and the lives of his parents had always been on the line; they had become entirely dispensable to the Dark Lord. One wrong move, and the Malfoys would all be dead.

No, there was nothing he could've done to prevent the muggle's death.

The only thing he could do, perhaps, was... make amends. Honour their deal. Teach Ruth magic so she could defend herself against the threats he had brought upon her.

The rain began to fall—not a furious storm, but a calm, refreshing drizzle. Draco looked up and breathed in the scent of damp soil.

Making peace offerings wasn't in Draco Malfoy's nature, nor was letting insults and disrespect slide. But he had insulted and disrespected her first. Living with him was no picnic either—there was no doubt about that.

Maybe it was time to learn something new.

When Draco returned to the house, Ruth was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes over a plastic bag laid out on the counter. From the looks of it, she was preparing a meal for two. His stomach rumbled at the thought of food. Draco clasped his hands, then unclasped them and shoved them into his pockets. After taking a deep breath, he finally broke the silence.

"I suppose you're right," he said. "We should be civil to each other if we want our arrangement to work."

Ruth looked at him. Her eyes were less red but still as hollow as before. After a moment's silence, she replied in a quiet voice, "All right."

With that, their fragile truce was struck.

The next day, Draco's gun shooting lessons began.

With the sun hidden behind a veil of clouds and a soft breeze sweeping gently across the yard, the weather was pleasant, and Draco's mood peaceful. He and Ruth stood five paces away from the three wooden panels she had found in the barn. In the centre of each panel was a dot that Ruth had drawn using some plucked grass. Her hair was up in a ridiculously short ponytail, but loose curls still managed to get in her face, which elicited a few curses from her.

"We'll have to make do with what we have," Ruth said, loading both guns before handing him one.

Draco took it gingerly, as if the thing were cursed, his index finger and thumb hooked around the very edge, careful to keep the other end pointed firmly at the ground.

"I see you've mastered the first three rules of handling a weapon." Ruth nodded at his hands. "Always be cautious around a gun. Never point it at anyone unless you mean to shoot them. And keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire. That said, you do not hold a gun like that."

She tucked her gun into the pocket of her so-called "hoodie"—which Draco felt violated the first rule she'd just mentioned—and stepped closer. He fought the urge to flinch away as her hands adjusted his grip.

"Keep your legs slightly apart," she said. "Yes, like this. We do not have many bullets, so let us waste no more than five today. Agreed?"

"Sure."

Ruth pointed to a small switch on the side of the gun. "This is the safety. It's a lever that you need to move to allow the gun to fire. Right now, it's on safe, so nothing will happen when you pull the trigger. To turn the safety off, push the lever to the opposite side. Here, try it yourself."

Draco slid the lever to a different position and then back to the initial. The concept was pretty straightforward.

"You want to line up the sights," she said, indicating the small metal pieces on top of the gun, "with your target."

Her hands guided his until the gun was in front of his face and aimed at the panel in the middle. He lined up the sights with the grass stain and turned the safety off. Taking a deep breath, he glanced sideways at Ruth, then back at the target, and squeezed the trigger. The sound of the shot startled him more than he expected. The recoil sent a jolt through his arms. He missed the grass stain by a wide margin but did hit the panel.

"Try again," Ruth said. "Make sure to steady your hands this time. And do not get distracted."

The next three attempts yielded no better results. Draco's frustration grew. He couldn't remember why he asked her to teach him in the first place.

"Why did you pick a gun to defend yourself?" He struggled to keep irritation out of his voice. "Hadn't it occurred to you that you could use magic?"

"Of course it did," she said, taking her own gun out of her pocket. "But Raymond always said it was too dangerous."

"Your brother knew nothing about magic."

Ruth shrugged. "He'd seen what it can do. Every time my magic manifested itself, it was always like an explosion." Her hand caressed the gun as if it were her favourite toy. Then her eyes lifted and looked straight into his. "I need to make it a bullet. A bullet that will pierce the very heart of your Dark Lord."

Draco snorted. "What, you're going to kill the Dark Lord?"

"I'm going to kill them all." Her voice lost none of its seriousness. "And yes, that does include the leader."

He shook his head in disbelief, barely suppressing an amused smirk. Only a person who'd never met the Dark Lord could say that line with a straight face.

"He's literally immortal," Draco said.

"Then I'll make him suffer so much that he'll wish he weren't."

Ruth aimed her gun at one of the wooden panels and shot it right in the centre.

Draco spent the evening tinkering with bullets, trying to figure out how to multiply them. After dissecting and carefully inspecting their contents, he bombarded Ruth with a million questions about how it all worked. He then sent her away to try his hand at the duplication charm, only to seek her out again to ask more questions.

It was harder than he'd thought. The metal object was made up of different parts: the casing, the projectile, the primer, and the gunpowder itself. The first twenty attempts to duplicate a bullet as a whole failed miserably. He then began duplicating each part separately and assembling them by hand. The next ten attempts produced results closer to the original, but he continued to have problems with the gunpowder.

It was past midnight, and many questions later, when he finally succeeded. Ruth, still awake, watched with a guarded look as Draco loaded the magically created bullet into a gun. He aimed at a wooden panel, steadied his slightly trembling hands, and pulled the trigger. The sound was indistinguishable from that of a regular bullet, but the darkness made it impossible to see if it hit the panel. They approached it and found a new hole in its left corner.

"Good job," said Ruth. Her eyebrows rose slightly in the most impressed expression he'd seen on her.

With the bullet supply issue resolved, Draco went on to train for two hours every day thereafter.

In his spare time, he kept returning to the pages where Nietzsche continued his rampage against stupidity.

To Draco, thoroughly lacking in muggle philosophical background, some passages read like absolute gibberish. Still, he slowly trudged through the thorns, grasping at whatever threads of meaning he was capable of comprehending.

Question marks—there were so many question marks! Nietzsche called everything into question, even the inherent value of truth and its superiority over illusion.

With his dry humour, his caustic remarks that demolished every opponent in his path, his contempt for idealists and moralists, his way of blurring the lines between good and evil, moral and immoral, truth and lies, and his beautiful, poetic language that sang odes to the so-called "free spirits", Nietzsche had charmed Draco. Not that he would ever share this particular revelation with anyone.

However, even after finishing Part Seven, there was still something Draco didn't understand.

He found Ruth outside, sitting on a patch of grass, with her legs crossed and her eyes closed.

"Are you meditating?" he asked after realizing she wasn't going to acknowledge his presence herself.

She sighed, coming out of her trance. "How observant of you."

Draco rolled his eyes. "What on earth for?"

"An old habit. Raymond used to make me meditate for half an hour every day. I haven't had the time or energy lately, but I'm taking it up again."

What a weird family. The oddities just didn't stop coming.

"You said I'd find something here that disproves my views." Draco waved the book in front of her. "Something that contradicts both Death Eater and Nazi ideologies."

"I wouldn't say I put it like that," Ruth objected. "But go on."

"Well, I found that all of Nietzsche's ideas only solidify their stance."

"How so?"

"How so?" Draco's eyes grew wide. "He literally introduces the concepts of master morality and slave morality. He attributes values like strength and nobility to the masters, and compassion, humility, and equality to the slaves. This is basically the values of Slytherin versus those of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff; it's the values of pureblood aristocracy versus those of pathetic muggle-lovers. If that doesn't convince you, Nietzsche also believes that all people should strive for power, not happiness."

"Wait till you read about his Übermensch," muttered Ruth.

"What?"

"Nothing." She shook her head.

"Oh, and on top of all that, he also glorifies war."

"Does he?"

"According to him, people cannot grow during peaceful times. They need conflict."

"Well, it might be that he's just stating a sad fact about the wretchedness of human nature. I assume you've noticed he doesn't hold humanity in especially high regard."

"I have. But how do you respond to other arguments?"

Ruth breathed in a lungful of air and began speaking, "You assume Nietzsche's use of the words "weak" and "strong", "slave" and "master" aligns with your interpretation. You should never assume anything with philosophers, especially with Nietzsche. What if he meant something different? Are you ready to hear another take on the subject?"

"Do tell."

"Have you ever thought that resorting to violence might itself indicate a lack of strength? Just consider it. Pureblood wizards have lost their monopoly on political power, and, unable to accept that, they stomp their feet like children and crush someone else's toys."

Before Draco could indignantly object, Ruth continued, "However, power doesn't need to be political or military. In fact, when Nietzsche says that people should strive for power, he means something entirely different. It's about becoming your own master. Also, kindness can be a sign of power. There are two kinds, after all: kindness of the strong and kindness of the weak. The weak sort always goes hand in hand with humility and pity. It's the Christian kindness that puts the poor, the sick and the powerless on a pedestal. It moves us away from strength and towards weakness. But then there's another sort—the kindness of masters. It does not beg; it does not crush other people's toys in a fit of rage. It is magnanimous. It is elegant. It places you in the role of a benefactor, allowing you to gain gentle influence over others."

Draco pondered these words for a while. The second kind of kindness sounded rather Slytherin—not as in cruel and dark, but as in cunning and sophisticated.

"Was that the book that inspired these Nazis?" he asked.

"No, it was Thus Spoke Zarathustra."

"Then why didn't you give me that one instead?"

"Thus Spoke Zarathustra is Nietzsche's most famous work, but I believe it's overrated. Beyond Good and Evil is a much better introduction to his philosophy. Besides, it's not like the Nazis actually read any of his books. They just picked up on some of his main ideas and ran with them without really understanding their meaning."

"Have you read all of his books?"

"I've read most," she said. "Raymond loved Nietzsche; you could say I inherited it from him. Though, only his love for Nietzsche. He enjoyed some other philosophers, but I could never get into them."

A faint smile graced her lips—and was gone in a second.

"You've overlooked rather a lot." Ruth cast him a sideways glance. "I wonder if you did it knowingly."

Draco frowned but said nothing.

The next book she brought him after another grocery trip was called Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer.

As July gave way to August, Draco continued to fill in the gaps in Ruth's understanding of the magical world. He obliged her request to talk more about the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord but didn't stop there. Draco went into great detail about Quidditch, Transfiguration, Potions, various spells, charms, and curses, magical artefacts and sacred places, the wizarding political and economic system, and, finally, yes, about magical creatures.

"It must have been wonderful to grow up in such a world," Ruth said after he'd finished another one of his accounts.

She sat on an old couch with her feet propped up, facing Draco, who was reclining in his armchair. It was getting late, and the small living room was gradually succumbing to the darkness.

"You get used to things." Draco shrugged. "Even the best ones."

She'd been fiddling with her nails for a good minute before stopping herself and turning her gaze to him. Her eyes brightened with a hesitant glimmer of... something.

"Could it be—Could it be possible that—" Ruth paused and looked away. "I mean, there's so much out there. Even actual unicorns! Is there any way, any way at all, even a dangerous one, to—to resurrect someone?"

Draco's heart sank. He hadn't expected this turn in the conversation. Silence stretched between them, and the glimmer in Ruth's eyes dimmed.

"No," he said at last. "I'm afraid there isn't. We can cure almost any disease. We can regrow bones. We can heal burns without a trace. But we cannot bring people back."

"Hasn't anyone ever tried?" Her voice trembled slightly.

"Successfully? Not to my knowledge, no. The only mention of resurrection I've ever heard of comes from a fable my parents used to read to me when I was a child."

Ruth watched Draco intently from where she sat, and the unbearable silence compelled him to keep talking.

"The fable spoke of a man who'd lost his beloved the day before their wedding," he said. "In an attempt to escape his crippling grief, he left his hometown and set about wandering the world. One night, he came across a river with deep waters, deadly to anyone who tried to cross. Yet the river didn't sway him from his path. The man drew his wand and conjured a bridge. But halfway across, he encountered a stranger cloaked in darkness deeper than the night. The stranger was Death himself.

"Death was furious at the man's defiance. But instead of taking his life right away, he offered the man a reward for outwitting him. The man could ask for nothing other than for his departed love to be returned to him. Granting his wish, Death gave him the Resurrection Stone. The man gladly accepted the gift. Death could only smile, for the Stone was not a gesture of goodwill, but a bringer of doom.

"Upon returning home, the man used the Resurrection Stone to bring back the woman he loved. The Stone did not fail him, and the woman rose from the dead. But she was sad, and cold, and distant. A shadow of her former self. She no longer belonged to the mortal world, and being there brought her only pain. The man couldn't bear to see his beloved suffer. Consumed by despair and longing, he took his own life in hopes of reuniting with her in the world of the dead.

"And so, Death claimed his life as well," Draco finished his tale.

Thick darkness engulfed the living room, but neither moved to turn on the light.

After a pause, Ruth asked him, "So what's the moral of the story?"

In the dark, Draco's sombre eyes found hers.

"The moral of the story, I think, is this," he said, "no man is Death's equal; you cannot outsmart Death, nor cheat him of his due. For Death is seldom merciful and never generous."