Hermione's Point of View
We enter a room to the far right on the landing. One to the right of Tonks and Remus's bedroom which to the best of my knowledge has been used mostly by aurors for study or Remus when he needs alone time.
I enter first and Malfoy and Harry follow close behind me. Malfoy moves to the desk near the bookshelf and pushes it right up against it, scraping it noisily against the archaic wooden floor. He drags the low, deep-seated armchair to the centre of the room. Again, scratching it forcefully across the floor to the point that it feels like nails on a chalkboard. I turn to Harry for support, but he watches Malfoy firmly, but hopeful.
I try to envision what scenario occurred to allow this one. What situation happened between them to permit this situation we're in now. Where I'm standing in a room with Harry and Malfoy and I'm not in between them trying to stop a fight before a professor can come around the corner.
"Potter, I'll need you to leave for this and to shut the door too. I need to be able to focus in here without any disturbances."
"What? Harry can't stay?" I ask dubiously, appealing to Harry.
"Malfoy is that really necessary?" he asks.
"Yes, it's necessary," he says, tight-lipped. They share a brief look between them, and I can't turn my head back and forth quick enough to read it. Harry takes my hand.
"Let's just try it his way Hermione okay. We have to give this our best try. I'll be right outside the door, okay?" he says, grasping my palm tightly.
"But Harry- " I whine.
"Close the door on your way out Potter," Malfoy interrupts and I glare furiously at him. He brushes this off and takes his wand out of his back pocket. Leaving it on the high windowsills.
"I'll be right outside okay," Harry smiles turning to leave. The door shuts tightly behind him, and I shift on my heel to face Malfoy.
"Sit here, Granger," he says, pointing towards the deep-seated armchair. I sigh, reluctantly crossing the small shabby room to sit down. I drop so low down in the chair that when I look up Malfoy seems to loom over me. He takes his wand off the sill and moves around me, stopping behind the armchair just out of view.
Without warning I feel his hand scoop up my hair and gently pull my neck back to rest on the top of the chair.
"What are you doing?" I shout, moving away from the back of the chair.
"Granger lay your head back and close your eyes," he says again, pushing my shoulders back towards the back of the chair and scooping my hair up again to fall down the back of the chair. His fingers are ice cold against my neck, and I shiver at the strange contact. He has never touched me before, and he didn't even feel like he needed to announce himself before doing it. I'm sure he got that vanity from all the girls at Hogwarts that fawn over him.
"Granger, just breathe. This isn't going to work if you're wound tight like alkeene string on an infected root," he warns. I scowl up at him. Since when was he that knowledgeable about herbology.
I lay my head back against the cold leather and try to steady my breath. When I'm calm to his satisfaction he speaks.
"I'm sure you've some knowledge of how this works," he starts, and I nod my head.
"It's rather easy from your end. Usually, your goal would be to keep me out of your head. To keep me away from certain thoughts. You're only goal here is to relax and open your mind to me."
Easier said than done.
"It's going to hurt a little bit," he says low, resting his hand on either side of my head. I feel the weight dip the back of the chair and I try to steady my pounding heart as the sound moves into my ear drums.
"Just breathe," he whispers, low, close to my face. I squeeze my eyes shut. I don't want to open my eyes and see him that close to me.
"Okay," I say, ready.
"Okay," he agrees, and I hear his voice light but stern as he whispers the spell. My eyes shoot open when I feel the dropping sensation in my gut, twisting and pulsing.
Draco's Point of View
The first thing we see is something I know she wishes I hadn't. I recognise the place immediately. It's her living room. The place she brought me that time when we left Blaise's grandparents' house in Norwich. The time I thought she was turning me into the Order. I look towards the backdoor, but the thick textured glass obscures the view of the back garden. I remember turning my heel that day, preparing to run but she had grabbed my hand, locking my legs almost frozen in position. She had asked me to stay that day. I wonder now would she still make the same decision.
The sun comes cascading in the window, illuminating the scene before us as the sound starts to materialise and the characters take their place like some show my mother used to tell me about when I was younger.
I can see her sitting on her own armchair across from her parents. When I had been here before I hadn't exactly been looking through the family photo albums so seeing her parents for the first time properly is surreal. They look slightly familiar from Kings Cross. Generic and almost unnoticeable. People you would pass on the street and never look twice at. I hope that works well for them wherever they are.
I know that she's standing beside me. Like Snape had stood beside me when he was inside my mind, but I don't turn to look at her. I don't want to see her face while she watches this memory.
Her mother shouts out the name of some mountain range and her father argues that it's supposed to be a mountain range in the northern hemisphere, not southern. Granger smirks and I turn to watch the TV showcasing some old game show in black and white. The theatrics, flare, and giant spinning wheel. The man in flamboyant clothes announces the same answer Grangers mother had given and she erupts in screams pushing on her husband affectionately. Granger smirks on the chair, turning the page in her book before the memories slips away.
I try to move away from any other memories about her family but it's not easy to navigate or direct the flow towards a certain thing or time period, but I try to focus on Hogwarts. The best place to start this would be back to her last memory at Hogwarts. So, when I see the familiar castle appear in her memories I focus.
"Focus on that memory," I whisper to her, feeling her presence behind me in the memory. She's rather resistant at first but the Great Hall comes into focus; the Gryffindor table to be exact. The room is packed so not everyone's face is in focus. They're almost distorted. I can't expect the human mind to remember every single memory with absolute accuracy.
I notice Potter, the Weasels and some others having breakfast together cajoling and laughing easily like I had always watched them do. The memory scans over the different house tables and some of the faces are in focus. Perhaps people Granger had been close with. Finally, the memory shifts over to the Slytherin table and it's almost nice to see a familiar aspect of Hogwarts. To see the table I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at for years. In the memory she seems to scan the rows, again all slightly blurred faces until it lands on mine; smirking and laughing with Blaise. This seems like a while ago, not that near to her last memory. My face perhaps surprisingly is fully in focus and Blaise's is partially there. I guess because she had always hated me, she would remember my face exactly in all her memories.
But I can't help but turn to look at her standing behind me and she's frowning, looking down away from the memory. But the memory is all around us. It's sounds and sights so strong that we might as well be back at Hogwarts. Maybe she's not frowning because she sees me in the memory. Maybe she's frowning because she misses Hogwarts.
"Do you remember the library?" I ask, as she crinkles her eyebrows, shaking her head, taken aback by the question. Just like I expected, the library comes into view all around us. I see the long rows; countless rows of roof to wall length bookshelves, housing everything one could possibly want to know about Magic. The long mahogany tables that gleam against the sun light coming in the high cranked windows. The glass block design splits the light into a thousand different colours along the wall and bookshelves. Students with their heads bent, some asleep and some with their noses in books like Granger. She sits at the end of a long row of tables away from everyone else, enjoying the heat of the sun.
I don't push away from the memory or allow her to try and move away. I let us sit here, watching the sun spilling in the glass warming my arms like some sort of phantom heat. Beside me she steps forward, more into the memory like she wants to leap right into it. I can feel her enthusiasm. I want to step through and into the memory myself. To be back at Hogwarts when we were just teenagers and nothing bad had touched her yet. Nothing bad had really even touched me yet.
When she turns around her eyes are glossy and wild as she tries to stop the tears from falling. She wipes heatedly with the sleeve of her shirt at the corner of her eyes.
"We can stay here a while if you want," I hint, speaking gently, not wanting to interrupt the quiet of the library. Her eyes turn dry as she frowns at me. Abruptly the memory of the library that had been all encompassing around us disappears to black taking with it the phantom warmth of the sun and the smell of millions of pages read thousands of times.
She pushes me out of her mind, harder than I thought possible for someone who's not trained. I stumble back, dropping my wand. Granger leans forward in the chair, and I kick the bin towards her. It skirts along the floor before she catches it and vomits heavily into the bucket.
"Get out!" she bellows at me between gasps, her head hanging over the bin. Potter storms in and pushes me out of the way.
"Hermione are you okay?" he asks, dropping down beside her.
"Everyone get out!" she shouts even louder this time and Potter springs to his knees, backing up into me.
"Let's leave her," Potter whispers, pulling me out the door. She's still lurched over the bin when I leave.
Hermione's Point of View
They finally go and I kick the bin away and wipe my clammy hands off on my jeans. I look into the bin and notice some papers at the bottom and hope no one was wanting to fish them back out again. I run my hand along the bottom of the window to gather some of the dew and palm it around my neck and forehead finding brief relief in its coolness.
I stay in the room a while, watching the view out the window of the arbitrary townhouses. Some movement in the long windows of muggles going about their lives. I don't find any muggles in those windows that I find as interesting as the man and his daughter I can see from mine.
A knock sounds at the door and I sigh, expecting my shift rotation is back from it's short break. Perhaps Harry or Ginny is on duty now or even Ron. Perhaps he's finally over the drowsiness from that pain potion I gave him earlier. I feel a pressure touch my shoulder, and I turn to see Malfoy standing there. He presses a cup of coffee into my hand and the contrast between the hot cup and his cold fingers make my hand jolt, shaking the coffee. He makes sure my fingers have a proper grip on the cup before he removes his hands.
"Why are you giving me this?" I ask sceptically, watching the liquid tremble in the cup as I try to calm my hands.
"The sugar. In the coffee? It should help you feel better," he says. I take the coffee cup in both hands as he starts to notice the tremble.
"Yes, but why are you giving me this? We're not friends Malfoy and I don't appreciate what you just did." I warn him.
"And what did I do Granger. Pray tell?" he replies sardonically.
"Making me focus on the library like that? Was that some sort of way of trying to hurt me? Is that why you're doing this?"
"Look Granger I heard that your last memory was in Hogwarts I thought that might be a good place to start is all," he argues.
"And? How many memories have you recovered?" I ask, mockingly.
"Granger don't push me. Better lower your fucking expectations if you thought I was going to get all your memories back after one go at it. That's not how this works!"
"Or maybe you're just not very good at it and you're wasting my time and Harry's time and everyone's time here. Have you thought about that?" I inquire.
"I didn't have to do this you know. Consider yourself lucky here Granger. I've come here willingly to help you and to help Potter and so far, all I've gotten from you is shit," he argues, kicking the armchair angrily.
"Then don't waste my time reminiscing on memories of Hogwarts or my parents. I haven't forgotten them. You're supposed to find the things I have forgotten."
"Come on Granger you're not daft. There needs to be a solid foundation to this. Your last memory was at Hogwarts so that's where we need to start."
As annoying as he is I can't exactly argue with his logic. Its not that I thought his practice was wrong in a sense. It was simply the shock of seeing that library again. I had dreamt about it recently and the sanctuary I found there during my time at Hogwarts. It doesn't seem fair that I go to sleep one night safe in a place I considered my home away from home to wake up a few years later when your friends only look like your friends but don't speak to you the same way. To have people constantly rotating shifts to watch over you like you're some mental case that might jump out the top floor window if the winds were suddenly to change.
"Okay. When do we go again?" I ask and he looks up at me under his hair. It's much longer since we were at Hogwarts. He flicks it back behind his ear and out of his eyes.
"Tomorrow morning. You need to rest now. Drink the coffee," he orders and with that he leaves the room, the door extending fully open as I watch him walk across the landing. He hesitates for a moment as the warmth of the coffee finally finds its way into my fingers, stopping outside my bedroom. I almost call out to him thinking he's going to pick the wrong room and go into mine, but he just stops, looking into the room for a moment before going into the room beside it, shutting the door soundlessly. Guess we're practically roommates now. Roommates with Draco Malfoy. Every girls dream back at Hogwarts even if they were too proud to admit it.
I remember watching that play out back in Hogwarts. The way the girls' heads would follow him when he walked past. He knew too. He was always aware of how the girls fawned over him. I think that played a big part into his ego. An even bigger play to his ego was that he would never look back at those girls no matter how desperate their calls. Perhaps if he looked back the girls would lose interest and he needed that ego boast. He needed people to look at him a certain way. It made his back straighter and his scowl deeper. I remember on the train ride to Hogwarts Harry revealing how different Malfoy looked. Thinner and frail and how his guard was up twice and much around him this year. Or years ago, I guess. It's not this year anymore. I don't see that Malfoy now when I look at him. He's dishevelled and underweight, but he doesn't look like the boy who was on that train in September all those years ago.
A noise sounds somewhere I can't hear. A noise I'm not attuned too but everyone else seems to be. Like those high frequency whistles, they sometimes use for dogs. I know the noise has sounded because Ginny enters the room for her next shift to watch the nut case.
I take a sip of the coffee.
"Hey? Are you okay?" Ginny asks, taking in my expression. Her face sours when I think she's gotten a whiff of vomit from the bin.
"I'll take care of this," she says, indicating to the bin. She takes out her wand and the bin is cleaned in a flash. I feel the air change when the vomit is gone and I'm relieved. I hadn't realised how much the smell had been souring my own face.
I take another sip of coffee.
"How did it go? You know, with Malfoy?" she asks, setting the bin aside and sitting on top of the armchair.
"Ginny," I start turning towards her on the chair when something stirs in my stomach. I sit up on the arm of the chair too, both of us resting our feet in the centre as we face one another.
"I'm sorry I was told that it would be unpleasant but- "
"Ginny," I say, stopping her trail of thought. She pauses, her mouth still open staring at me.
"Yes?"
"Why are you lying to me?" I ask and she frowns, looking down in the space between us.
"Hermione, please. You've just started with Malfoy. You have to give it time to work and then you will remember and have the answers that you want," she implores.
I take another sip of coffee and hand her the cup. She refuses.
"You know I don't drink coffee, Hermione," she says, leaning away from the smell of it.
"Ginny. How many coffees have you made me over the years? When I was staying in the burrow or we were here?" I inquire and her brows crease in uncertainty before she ponders the thought.
"God Hermione, I don't know. A lot I would assume," she answers.
"And how many times has Harry or Ron made me coffee?" I ask and again she frowns.
"Where are you going with this?"
"Just answer the question."
"I'm not sure. Probably twice as many as I've made you. Didn't keep count," she answers, her eyes darting between me and the cup of coffee.
"And how many times have I went back to the kitchen to remake the cup of coffee myself?" I ask.
"Well, every time but that's not fair Hermione I don't drink coffee so I don't know how to make it the way you like. No one does!" she argues, sheepishly.
I push the cup towards her.
"Take a sip," I offer, pushing the cup into her unwilling hands. She grimaces as she takes the smallest sip and her face twists up.
"Gosh Hermione I hate the way you make coffee it's too strong. I might like coffee if it wasn't like this," she laughs handing me back the cup and wiping her tongue against her sleeve overly dramatic.
"Why are you lying to me, Ginny. I thought we were friends." I say.
"Hermione you know why. To protect you. I swear," she argues.
"Protect me?" I question.
"Hermione please. Where are you going with this?"
"I didn't make that coffee," I answer her, indicating the cup. She frowns again, not putting the pieces together.
"I don't understand."
"I understand lying about what's important. Hiding away the truth or whatever until I'm well enough to know the information. But why lie about this part?" I shout. Ginny stands up from the chair, uneasy.
"What part, Hermione?"
"The part about Malfoy."
She freezes, checking over her shoulder before turning back to me again.
"What do you mean?" she asks, but her tone is different. Defensive.
"I didn't make that cup of coffee Ginny. Malfoy did."
"Hermione, please. Listen, let me go and get Harry," she starts, raising her hands defensively.
"Ginny," I implore, taking her hands in mine to stop her desperate attempt to try and signal someone in the hallway.
"You, Harry, and Ron have been making me coffee for years and you've never gotten it right. So, tell me why Draco Malfoy- someone I barely know – just so happens to make it correct the very first time. How would he know that?" I ask.
"I'll go and get Harry and we can talk, okay?" she says, trying to persuade me but I grasp tightly to her.
"No. I want you to answer me, Ginny please."
She turns to look at me, her face alight in fright as she tries to study mine.
"Hermione please don't ask me this," she squeals, trying to pull her hands away.
"Ginny. Does he know me? Do I know him? More than my current memories would suggest?" I ask incredulously. The words feeling strange as they leave my mouth.
She releases a deep breath, looks over her shoulder briefly and nods slowly. I begin to mirror her nodding, staring at the coffee stains against the white mug.
"Did he come here for Harry? Or for me?" I ask. She pulls her hands from mine roughly, backing away.
"I can't. I'm sorry. Please don't ask me anymore," she whispers, pressing her sleeve into her nose as she leaves the room.
The door swings on its hinges and the landing is quiet again as the truth finds its place amongst the lies.