Draco had broken a lot of rules in the span of one evening. Even if Yaxley hadn't specified the conditions under which he was to show Granger to her parents, he was fairly certain that he shouldn't have shown her the Death Eaters houses at Cindermore. Perhaps he should have apparated them directly to Macnair House from the castle.
And he couldn't imagine the punishment he'd face if they found out he'd apparated her out of the Empire and deactivated the magic in her tattoo.
He was playing a very dangerous game that he didn't feel he had any control over.
And he was risking his life for... what?
So she could have somewhere to cry without being heard?
Of course, he had brought her back to the Empire quickly. After she told him that she agreed to him training her, he answered her questions until they were outside the castle walls, before curfew.
Yes, your parents are fed three times a day.
They eat the same food as the players.
No, they can't go outside.
I'm not going to lie to you, I don't think they do anything all day. But I'll see if I can bribe Kabby to give them books.
Don't thank me, Granger.
The first game was a month away. The last thing left for him to figure out was how to manage training Granger without any other players knowing.
Because he knew how it looked.
Getting more training was special treatment, since you got a better shot at the games.
Which was exactly the point for Granger, but the others couldn't know that.
The last thing he had said to her before leaving was not to tell anyone, not even about the visit to her parents, and to wait for him to come back to her with the details.
She walked away with her eyes still clouded, but he could see a newfound determination brimming into them.
Hermione continued the usual training sessions as if nothing had happened. But she had a new sense of purpose. In the morning's running training, the intervals had finally shortened and they were now running the majority of the track, with stretches of sprint.
She ran as if the Fiendfyre was hot on her heels.
She was no longer running alongside Francine, although the old woman was pleased that she had finally stopped wasting her training. But she kept an eye on her all the same. She wasn't in the front of the group with Malfoy, Luke and Reine, but she wasn't behind with Francine and Arthur. The others, Gabrielle, Oliver, Ashley and David, were running at unequal distances from each other.
She was alone for most of the run.
Until she heard a bark behind her.
Malfoy's dog was catching up to her. At first she thought the animal was just running alongside her for some reason, but then the dog stopped abruptly, dropping something on the grass.
Hermione stopped, out of breath.
"What's this?" She grabbed the tiny piece of parchment rolled up on itself, wet with the dog's drool.
Wait for Theo after dinner.
Give this back to Keela.
Keela barked to grab the parchment and Hermione quickly gave it back, starting to run again. She looked behind her—there was no one close enough to have seen her. Her stomach was jittering with nerves, crawling up her spine like a colony of ants.
Later that day, she went to dinner with the others and sat at the table with Francine.
"You seem to be doing better," she told Francine when she set her tray down. Today, it was pork, with white rice and asparagus. There was no sauce, no condiment.
On numerous occasions, she had heard other players complain about the food. She thought they were quick to forget that food could not be taken for granted. She wasn't better than them. Maybe she had simply felt hungry in her life more than they did. But she doubted it.
Francine smiled warmly. "Who would have guessed what daily runs could do to an old sack of bones like me."
Hermione scoffed, and they ate in silence amidst the hubbub of the hall. She couldn't help glancing around, expecting Theo to appear out of nowhere. But why Theo? He wasn't a Trainer.
She didn't particularly want to see him, or talk to him. The last time they talked was at the Sorting Ceremony.
She couldn't revisit this memory. She wasn't ready yet.
As the other players gradually finished their meals and filed out of the room one by one, she wondered how long she would have to wait. She ate very slowly, letting the others know that she wasn't deliberately waiting.
"Aren't you hungry?" Francine asked, watching as her fork limply pushed the asparagus around on the plate.
"Oh, um… My stomach's just in a knot," she smiled weakly. "Stress, I guess."
"Oh, hun, tell me about it."
"Player 41, please follow me," a masculine voice commanded behind her.
She swivelled back on her seat, startled. Francine was staring at Theo before her, fork trapped in her mouth.
Theodore Nott was dressed with the black garments of a Scavenger. He was tall, not more than Malfoy, but wider. His brown hair was medium-length and curled at the nape of his neck. There was no trace of kindness on his face.
"All right…" she replied in a small voice, her heart racing. She wiped her sweaty palms on her uniform and looked at Francine with questioning eyes to let her know that she didn't know what was going on. Although she did. Kind of.
Francine looked worried, but didn't move and nodded.
Theo cleared his throat, urging her along. She stood up and he turned around without another word, a silent invitation to follow him. She followed in his wake and they left the Great Hall.
He stayed in front of her, walking with a firm step, for a good two minutes, until they reached the place where the stairs moved by themselves, from the first floor to the top.
She gaped for a moment. This place hadn't changed. The rumbling of the stairs, the rough-hewn stone. With all the changes Hogwarts had undergone, she had expected this place to be altered too, to make it more practical, more efficient.
It was the same, only for the missing frames.
The Muggles were probably freaking out about those staircases, if they even came to this part of the castle.
Theo leaned against the balustrade as the staircase changed direction and finally looked up at her, crossing his arms. They'd missed the rotation, so they'd have to wait for the full turn, which would take several minutes.
Was he smirking at her?
"What?" she drawled.
She wondered why Malfoy had sentTheoafter her.
"Sorry about the theatrics," he said. "Earlier." His expression had shed much of the harshness he'd displayed in the Great Hall. He looked friendly now.
"Okay," she answered, not knowing what he expected of her.
They kept quiet for a while as the staircase continued its slow circular progress. She could feel his eyes bore into her.
"What?" she blurted out.
"Draco told me you might have questions," he chuckled. "I was bracing myself."
Of course she had questions. "I'll ask him myself."
His smirk grew wider. "You're snappy." He kept watching her, and she noticed his features softening. "Wanna talk about… it?"
She averted her eyes. Trashing waters, wet hair falling on her shoulders like leeches. The purring ball of warmth in her arms.
Her heart turned cold. "No." She blinked away the tears gathering in her haunted gaze. Why did he bring it up?
When the staircase finally reached its destination, after an interminable wait, they stepped onto the seventh floor. The lanterns lit up the immaculate walls with a golden glow, and their soles thumped on the floor, which she knew to be cold.
She had come here seven years ago with Harry and Ron to retrieve Rowena's diadem. And Malfoy had been there to stop them.
There was no trace of the Fiendfyre, and she wondered what powerful enchantments they had casted in order to clean it all.
She remembered fallen walls. Broken windows. Massive boulders of cement blocking the way. Dark streaks of ashes. Dust. Spatters of blood.
As Theo was opening the Room of Requirement before her, something occurred to her.
"Wait, are you going to train me?" she asked.
He laughed, but not in a mean way, as the door opened.
"Took you long enough!" Malfoy shot out immediately.
Theo began to explain the delay of the stairs to him, but she remained frozen on the spot. Her eyes didn't know where to land, like a butterfly frantically swooping around flowers.
The room reminded her of the layout it had made for them to host Dumbledore's Army training sessions, but not quite.
Firstly, the left wall was completely covered by a gigantic mirror, in front of which four individual foam mattresses were equally spaced. More centrally, there was an oversize black wrestling mat—thicker, higher. Towards the back, there were two punching bags suspended from the ceiling by chains. Finally, on the right, she couldn't tell what this was exactly, but there was a long and narrow plank of wood sitting on top of two elevated blocks of stone. With a mat underneath.
On her right, a few metres away from the plank, there was a bathroom corner. Through the cracks of the screens erected around it, she could make out the shape of a bathtub. Directly to her left, almost behind her, was an L-shaped spruce-coloured sofa. It was calling to her—she hadn't sat in a comfortable seat in weeks. To complete the effect, the lighting was subdued but not too much, with a light pink hue.
Theo plopped down on the sofa immediately. Malfoy was standing in the middle of the room in his usual attire, wearing a detached expression. His faithful dog was there, as she expected, layed down on her belly. Keela was staring at her intently, ears pricked up in her direction.
"This is where I'll train?"
"Obviously," he quipped, and she raised an eyebrow at him.
"Why did you send Theodore Nott to fetch me?" She gestured to him with her arm. "And why is he here?"
"You seem to keep forgetting that we can't exactly be seen walking together to obscure corners of the castle." Somehow, he had put more space around the word 'obscure'.
"And me strolling with Theodore Nott is different how?"
"Why do you keep using my full name?" Theo asked, but they ignored him.
"He isn't your trainer," Malfoy replied. He crossed his hands behind his back and took a few steps towards her. Keela stood on her legs immediately. "And the reason he's here is because… Yaxley wants him here. With us."
She hated when he was being enigmatic, withholding the whole truth. She was about to tell him off when he continued, sighing with annoyance. "He wants to make sure we train properly and that we—"
She frowned. "But that's the whole point!"
"You didn't let me finish. He also wants to make sure we don't get distracted."
A rush of blood pinked her cheeks and she felt at loss for words. She had never even thought for asecondthat they could be distracted. Then, she felt angry. "I can't believe we have a chaperone." She scoffed, glancing at Theo.
He was enjoying himself, watching them like his favourite telly show. Oh, how she missed telly. The last time she had watched a program was the summer of Bill and Fleur's wedding. She had been a fan of Seinfeld and had never got the chance to watch the last season. She never would.
"I'll be quiet, I promise," Theo said.
She couldn't grasp the logic behind it. She turned to face him. "So they relieved you of your real duties just so you could come here and supervise us?"
"It's low season, there aren't a lot of people to chase."
She swivelled back to Malfoy. "This is ridiculous."
A brief nod. "I agree. Yaxley just… really wants you to win." A subtle flash of red blotched his cheeks.
"Of course, anything to make the rich wizards pay." Sarcasm drenched her words, and he shifted uncomfortably. "Can I access the room without you?"
"No."
"What is our schedule?"
"That'll depend on you and how much strain your body can take after a whole day of training."
"I can take it."
A shadow passed over his face, and they looked at each other for a few heartbeats. Theo started drumming his fingers on his knee, slowly bobbing his head in waiting.
Keela licked her maw. One of her teeth had caught on her lip, and she looked quizzical. Hermione slowly started to realise how adorable that dog was in reality.
"Tell me where we start," she finally said, gathering her hair to secure them in a tight ponytail.
"No braid?" Malfoy asked, before cursing under his breath.
She shot him a curious look. Why had he said that?
But he kept talking to bury his last words. "Right. So I've noticed that you can keep a steady running pace. That's good. But your balance is awful."
She suppressed her retort and nodded, trying to ignore the fact that it was Malfoy who was reviewing her strengths and weaknesses. She thought back to the last exercises they had done during the month, all the ones for which she had displayed some balance.
"I'm not that bad," she countered.
Meanwhile, Theo whistled and patted the seat next to him so Keela could climb on it. The dog first looked at her master, as if asking for permission, and Malfoy clicked his tongue. She ran and jumped next to Theo, who grabbed her face with both hands to talk rubbish to her.
Hermione hadn't seen a lot of people touching Malfoy's dog. She knew that was a telltale sign of how close Theo and Malfoy were.
"The thing is," he said, "you need to have a good balance after doing dynamic movements."
"Dynamic movements?"
"The exercises we do in training are static. We start the balance exercise when the body is already in inertia and we try to keep it that way. The first game…" His lips closed suddenly, like magic had snapped them shut. He grunted, and released a breath. "We need to practise the transition between movement and inertia."
"Okay… Tell me what I should do." She realised all over again that magic was preventing him from saying too much. She filed her questions for later.
"It's gonna look stupid." He turned, facing the right side of the room, where the narrow plank stood above two blocks. He stopped in front of it, so the two ends were to his left and right. "When I say so, you'll jump on one foot, any foot, on the plank, and jump down the other side on the same foot. Go as fast as you can. Keep doing that until I say stop."
She nodded once and took his place when he backed away. The mat was made of foam, but it was hard enough to hurt a little if she fell wrong. Placing her feet level with her shoulder width, she kept her eyes on the plank, looking at the exact spot her feet would land. The plank wasn't high—she estimated maybe a foot.
"Now," Malfoy commanded.
She jumped with her right foot, keeping her left bent behind , plank, mat. She had to pivot on the other side to start on the same foot again. Jump, plank, mat. Jump, plank, mat. After seven jumps, her jumping leg was burning.
"You can go faster," he said at her back.
She grunted and kept jumping, convinced after each jump that he would say stop. Landing on the mat for the twentieth time, she flipped around and jumped on the plank.
"Stop."
She froze, foot glued to the plank, the other leg suspended in the air. She staggered, trying not to put her other foot down or toppling over one side. Flailing her arms a little to gain some balance back, she breathed deeply. She knew she looked absolutely ridiculous.
"Not good enough," he remarked. "Switch foot and jump again."
She did so. The burn returned, licking her other leg. Jump, plank, mat. Jump, plank, mat.
"Stop."
She wobbled for the first few seconds, and heard Malfoy's sigh of frustration. "It would help if you weren't so negative about it!" she snapped, not breaking eye-contact with her foot on the plank. She had landed wrong and too shortly, so only the top part of her feet was on the plank.
"You look like a drunk flamingo," he snarled. "Think inertia!"
Blood boiled under her skin. "I'm trying!"
"Don't try it, think it!"
Her temper flared up and she had to clench her fists. Her focus evaporated like mist. She fell off the plank, both feet on the mat. Her heart was hammering.
Why was this humiliating?
Why was he such a prick?
Her parents' face blinked in her mind, and she swallowed. She would do it. She wouldn't let them participate in Numberland.
"Again," she said, not waiting for his command to jump back on the plank.
She trained three more times that week. It wasn't Malfoy who had decided for her, she had said so to him. She still found it hard to believe how ridiculous the situation was, with Theo there.
So the whole Empire wanted to do whatever it took for her to win? It felt insane that this Death Eaters' world, that Voldemort, was… rooting for her? She knew it wasn't like that, but she couldn't describe it better.
With every relentless training session that burned her muscles, threatening to make her collapse at any moment, she had to stifle the guilt that rose inside her like a tide.
She had extra training. With coaching—although the advice given was stone cold. Arthur did not. Gabrielle did not. Oliver and Francine did not.
Nobody did. At least she thought nobody did.
But her parents had to live.
She had no choice.
Right?
Nobody had to know that she had statistically better chances at beating them.
Cheating had never felt right to her. Her whole core disagreed with it. But the stakes had changed. Her world wasn't made of familiar rules anymore. It was a whole new set of norms and expectations and she would use them in her favour.
Hermione's body slammed on the mat, hard, and she grunted in frustration and pain.
"Engage your core," Malfoy repeated for the fifth time of the training. He raked his fingers through his hair in annoyance, tousling them, and exhaled a short, hard breath. "How come every time you're about to lose your balance, you fling your arms?"
She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. Rolling the sleeves of her uniform up to her elbows, she frowned at him. "This is what everyone does to keep their balance," she retorted.
"You can't—" he drew a breath and released it immediately, "it won't work if you do that. Inertia, Granger. Perfect immobility."
"But this is not about balance, then!"
Theo was snacking on pistachios in the corner, sprawled on the couch, and the crunch of him peeling the shells bounced off the wall. Keela was quietly gnawing a bone beside him.
"Balance is simply…" She couldn't explain it. Why couldn't she explain such a simple concept? "It's being able to stay steady without falling, not frozen like a statue!"
"Steadiness is about control. Listen to what your body is telling you. You're gonna feel it when it wants to lean on the left. Focus on the flat of your foot, imagine it rooted in the wood." His eyes burned into her. "Be static. Grounded."
She shook the sweat of her hands and stretched her neck to the left and the right. She took back her place in front of the plank.
"And for the last time, engage your core." Malfoy crossed his arms, the fabric around his biceps bulging slightly with the stretch. The veins on his forearms like cords under his skin. She blinked away.
"Now."
She jumped.
Again and again. Time dragged on, like glass moulded and stretched by fire. Counting her jumps helped her focus. She'd started doing it at her second training session with Malfoy. Since then, she had jumped 789 times.
790.
791.
792.
"Stop."
She froze and remembered to engage her core right away. Holding her breath helped too. She focused on relaxing her muscles, her arms along her sides, bent at the elbow. Her right foot firmly planted on the plank. She imagined that her boot was embedded in liquid cement that was slowly drying.
She clenched her abdominals when she felt herself leaning slightly on the right.
Malfoy was silent, which meant he was appraising her and she had done nothing wrong yet. His eyes were searing the white41on her back.
Slowly, she exhaled a shaking breath through the nose. Her heartbeat slowed down. Her foot hadn't moved even a quarter of an inch.
Rooted. Like a tree.
"Yes," she heard Malfoy's low voice, a shard of praise. "That's it."
She thought he was going to make her start jumping again, but he made her hold the position for a good minute.
The inertia began to become more and more difficult to maintain.
"Get down," he ordered. His voice had lost its layer of sternness.
She hopped down the plank, feeling proud of herself, and the corner of her lips tugged upwards. Looking at Malfoy for any form of approval or praise, she noticed how his eyes had locked on her face.
He hadn't said anything yet, and his eyes tracked the curve of her smile. Like it was his first time seeing it, or maybe because it was odd, or crooked, or maybe he had noticed the coat of sweat on her upper lip.
"You keep doing exactly that, Granger," he finally said, voice as soft as velvet rubbing on her. "At the game. Exactly ike that. Okay?"
She gulped a knot in her throat, the thrill of her meaningless success fading away. Maybe this was all chance.
Theo rose from the couch, and a few dozen shells clattered to the ground. "Gotta pee." He looked at Keela, who had raised her head. "Keep a look on them, okay princess?" The dog tracked his move as Theo disappeared from the room.
Hermione watched him walk away and a different kind of silence fell in the Room of Requirement.
"There's something I've been meaning to ask for… a long time." Her voice echoed around them. She kept waiting for the hard features to come back on Malfoy's face. They didn't.
"Yes?"
"The first game—" she noticed the immediate clench of his posture and she lowered her voice to a whisper even though they were alone. "Do we have to be… fast? Is it a race? Or do we simply have to run?"
He closed his eyes. "Granger, I can't—"
"I need to know if I need to work on my speed."
He looked annoyed. "I'm not able—"
"I know magic prevents you from saying the blunt truth. But what are you able to say? Race or run?"
A part of her didn't expect him to answer her question. Another part wondered how this was any different from giving her extra training.
Since her arrival at the Empire, she always considered that it was the players against the Death Eaters—whatever their role or how they were referred to. But from the few interactions she had with Draco Malfoy, she knew it wasn't totally true. There was something bigger at play, and she knew, she felt, that some of them were puppets.
That's when it hit her, like a bolt of lightning.
She didn't hate Malfoy.
She hated the regime in which he participated. That didn't mean he had volunteered to be a part of it.
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I know I'm not suppos—"
"Granger, we're under the Fidelius Charm. We can't tell you what the games are or describe them in detail."
She should have guessed it was the Fidelius way sooner. As a dismissal was coming out of her mouth, he cut her off.
"But I think I'm able to say…" His sentence hung in the air, as if he was testing the next words to see if the Charm allowed him to pronounce them. "Run. That's the only word I can say."
A wave or relief washed over her because she thought she understood. He could either have said 'run' or 'race'. Run meant endurance. Race meant speed.
Her shoulders unclenched. "Thank you."
When Theo came back, her total was 824 jumps.
There was only a week left before the first game, and the Gamemasters had more and more frequent meetings. Fortunately, they didn't involve Draco. He spent most of his free time training Granger. She was good, but he still didn't know if she would succeed under pressure. He walked Keela around the grounds, attended boring Town Hall meetings and had frequent dinners with his mother.
Today, he was at Malfoy House, sitting in the tidy and cosy living room, scratching Snowflake under his chin. That white pompous feline was purring like a muggle engine.
Narcissa had just come back from her shift and was serving him boiling tea. She hadn't sat down yet.
"Sit, mum," he said softly, abandoning the cat to grab the kettle from her hands. "I'll do it."
"Thank you." She didn't argue and sat back in a velvet chaise with a sigh. She untucked hairpins from her hair, depositing them on the silver tray to her right, one by one. Her straight hair dropped like silk on her shoulders.
"Busy day?" he asked, taking the first sip of his scalding tea.
Narcissa puffed her cheeks. "We hadfourHealers arriving today, but they were supposed to be sent over a few days, not all at once. And there will be two more during the week."
For the last four years, on September 1st, Narcissa was in charge of the Square. That's the name of the room where the players were undressed, washed and given their uniform. For the rest of the year, she had shifts at the Hospital Wing to assist the Healers, and supervision shifts at the eastern Ward Station.
Draco was always impressed with his mother's knowledge. She had been the one to create the rune that allowed the wards to repel the fog. It was so powerful that as a side effect, it even kept the harsher temperatures at bay. It still snowed and rained, but the wards created a barrier that lessened the intensity.
He wondered how a battle of wits between her and Granger would turn out.
He backtracked in his thoughts.
A cohort of extra Healers was always sent to the Hospital Wing in the week before each game, since there were more injuries and more suicides after the games.
Draco wrapped his hands around the cup to warm them, maybe burn them, or keep them from shaking. He had always been nervous a few days before the games started, and this year was even worse.
The number 41 was floating behind his eyes, bouncing around his skull and bashing against his defences.
Narcissa casted her eyes down her son, noticing his bouncing leg. "It will be fine, Draco."
He looked up to her, staring through his lashes. His knee stopped shaking. "What?"
"You had a lot of pressure to train the Granger girl. I'm sure she will do just fine."
Protests climbed up his throat immediately. "I'm not—" But they died down, retreating like a monster scared of light. He was not worried, per se. He was annoyed. And frustrated. And hopeful.
That mix of emotions had the strangest, nameless taste on his drank tea to swallow it down.
Snowflakes jumped on his lap again and he buried his hand in his fur, ignoring the myriad of white hair the cat would leave on his dark clothes.
"Mum, do you have a deck of cards?" he asked suddenly.
"I think so. In your father's study." She hadn't touched it since his death.
"Can I borrow it? Indefinitely?"
She raised her brow and a smile tugged at her lips. "Of course."
Later that evening, Draco would take the deck of cards to Macnair House, sit down in front of the acrylic glass with Keela and teach the Grangers how to play Palace.
