Everything or Nothing at All

by killaren

Summary:

Eight years after the war ends, Hermione Granger is an accomplished Auror and has spent the last few months investigating a recent surge of illegal dreamless sleep laboratories. A stakeout-gone-wrong leaves her a turned vampire and afflicted with The Sight, a nasty, Medusa-esque curse that turns anyone who looks into her eyes into a vampire too. At least, anyone who isn’t already afflicted with their own condition….

Draco Malfoy has been a recluse for the better part of a decade, and no one seems to know why. The Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures converted the Manor into a safehouse for newly-turned magical beings, and Hermione is the first to set foot there in years. She realizes quickly why there have been reports in Wiltshire of howling at the moon…

Or, simpler:

Hermione Granger is turned into a vampire during a failed drug bust, and now possesses The Sight™️ which turns anyone who looks into her eyes into a vampire, though other magical beings like werewolves are immune. The Ministry orders her into isolation to prevent a public crisis. She is sent to Malfoy Manor, where Draco Malfoy has been living as a reclusive werewolf for years. They fall in love, obviously.

Notes:

Hello welcome to my fic :)

This is based on a nightmare I had several months ago, but when I woke up at 5 am sweating, I realized it would make an excellent story.

I have about 16 chapters written but I do keep going back to older chapters and tweaking things so I am hoping to update this weekly. Shoutout to a couple of my friends who have agreed to read this ahead of time!!!

This is a working title and is subject to change.

I hope you like this as much as I do.

I do not own any of the Harry Potter universe.

Chapter 1: Prologue: The Bust

In a seedy part of London, in the middle of a busy muggle street, Hermione Granger lay on her stomach on the roof of a decrepit building, peering through a recently disenchanted skylight. Her body protested; she’d been in the same position for the last 3 hours hoping the tip they’d received about an “international operations meeting” supposedly happening this evening actually paid off. 

"Smith just entered the building at the east entrance." Harry’s voice came through the extendable ear charmed to float next to her head. She watched the stacks of boxes on the warehouse floor start to rearrange themselves and she sat up.

"The boxes activated. Time to move in." She murmured, rising gingerly into a crouch. With a few waves of her wand, the skylight glass vanished and a Descendorus was cast, a rope of magic wrapped around her torso. She cast an additional Disillusionment on herself and maneuvered her legs over the skylight ledge, slipping down into the darkness of the warehouse below. 

She cut her tether to the ceiling just before reaching the ground; the massive transportation crates that had started spinning around the room rapidly picked up speed, and she immediately had to duck down.

The auror office had suspected that the warehouse was just a cover story to lease such a large space, and the haphazard way that the boxes were slamming into the walls and each other confirmed it. 

She heard anti-apparition wards being cast quietly behind her and she turned to see an auror from her stakeout team move behind her to cover her back. She crawled along the ground for a few metres before rolling out of the way of a box careening towards her.

The Auror team was spread across varying parts of the massive warehouse, all struggling to navigate the space filled with several-ton crates flying in all directions. The person of interest they'd been tailing for the past two weeks, code-named "Smith", was nowhere to be found in the chaos. A crash sounded somewhere in front of her, and a burst of Peruvian instant darkness powder threw the entire space in a smoky haze.

Still lying on the dusty floor, she cast a Revelio, and the smoke let up slightly, revealing an entrance to a hall at the far end of the warehouse room. She moved out of the way of another box as it slid across the ground and sprang to her feet, sprinting towards the door. She'd only made it a few metres before someone behind her yelled, "Hermione look out!" and she felt a box slam into her side, sending her sprawling onto the floor. She lay there for a second to catch her breath, then started forward again. She was more cautious the second time, casting a Protego around herself and blasting boxes as they moved into her path. She heard a yelp somewhere but didn’t stop to check who it was. 

She was nearly to the hall door when a bit of motion caught her eye. It appeared that “Smith” was in fact on the warehouse floor, and was running towards a corner of the warehouse that initially seemed empty. She looked again and realized it now had a hidden door that was slowly revealing itself. Following him undetected only lasted about 10 seconds before he noticed her and threw a bright blue hex over his shoulder. She batted away his Reducto with her wand and continued after him.

Once he'd unlocked the door and pulled it out, she hit him with Stasis and Incarcerous spells, effectively trapping him in place and leaving the entrance into a completely different hallway wide open. She cast a silencing charm on him and dragged his tied-up and squirming body through the doorway, depositing him in the hall. Homenum Revelio showed her movement nearby and she took off towards it, rounding a corner and swinging the door at the end of the hall open.

She stepped into a dimly lit study with her wand pointing out. There was a man in the center of the sparsely furnished space, standing, and leaning over a folder of papers. He looked up when she burst in, his eyebrows raising slightly but otherwise showing no sign of surprise. 

"You're certainly not Dominic." He remarked before rising to his full height and waving his hand across his files, vanishing them. She noticed the door at the back of the study a moment too late; by the time she'd cataloged it, a fire hex had been cast and a wall of flame was barreling towards her. By the time she'd contained them, he'd slipped through the back exit and Harry had joined her in the study.

The exit opened to a wide, underground alley, accessible by a long set of stairs and also dimly lit. The man was sprinting in the center of the alley, waving his arms in her direction and yelling something in a language she couldn't understand. He must have been shouting directions because as soon as he started yelling, several people emerged from the shadows and made towards her.

"Come on," she yelled to Harry as she leaped down the stairs two at a time, blocking spells as she descended. 

She dodged a few green curses that looked suspiciously lethal while Harry and the other Aurors spilled from the door into the alley. She managed to successfully weave through the chaos without losing sight of the man. 

“Hermione, wait!” Harry called out.

"Leave one of them alive!" She replied over her shoulder, but she didn’t stop running. This was her first time as head auror on a criminal investigation; there was no way she was letting her perp get away. 

Besides, she’d been an auror for years. The Albertson bust last year was more than enough proof that she had to trust her instincts; she knew that if he got away, she wouldn't be able to find him again. 

She followed him into a narrow corridor that was even darker than the alley and took a series of winding turns. There was barely a candle per 10 metres and her vision was severely impaired, so she followed the sound of his footsteps on the damp ground. She felt like a camera out of focus and she was certain that this corridor was enchanted, but she pressed on. She heard footsteps coming from behind her and someone casting a patronous, but she paid them no mind.

The hall ended abruptly with a ladder that led out from underground. Hermione climbed the ladder hastily and scrambled out of the manhole onto the street above. The moment she righted herself, however, something slammed into her side. Her vision spun until her body collided with a wall. She gasped for breath; the wind had been knocked out of her, and everything was spinning. She tried to push onto her elbows, but any attempt at motion triggered a burst of pain. Fumbling around blindly through the pain didn’t result in finding her wand, but it did cause whoever-whatever-had hit her to notice that she was still moving. She was kicked in the chest and she felt her vision blur.

She was minimally aware that she was being dragged across the ground, but her brain was already urging her body into unconsciousness.

Dominic , she thought distantly, as the pain and dizziness overtook her. Smith's real name is Dominic .

Chapter 2: Discovery

Hermione

 

She woke to darkness a full-body ache. She pulled her eyes open slowly and groaned. Something was very wrong with her mouth; her throat burned, her teeth felt like she’d just gotten a full set of braces, and her tongue felt swollen. Her limbs were made of rocks, surely, and her muscles of jelly. Her neck felt barely strong enough to keep her skull from rolling off of it, and she was sweaty, so sweaty.

“Hi Hermione,” an omniscient voice announced through the room, though it felt more like it was announcing directly into her skull.

“Try to rise slowly. Your body has taken a beating and any sudden movements may interrupt the process.” 

“what…what process?” she groaned, her voice scratchy and thick through the throbbing in her mouth. 

“You may be in some pain for a little while, but if you properly see to your needs regularly, I’m sure your body will adjust quickly.” The voice continued, ignoring her question.

“what is…going on.” she started. “Where am I? Is…is there a healer? Something feels…not right.” She tried to look around, but from what she could see through her bleary vision, none of it looked familiar.

“Am I in St. Mungo’s?” She finished.

“I’m afraid not. You’re not at a hospital, exactly. You are in a facility operated by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.” This made her sit up.

“Why?” She asked, her voice a tone sharper. As sharp as it could be, since she felt like all of the fluid her brain floated in had dried out. 

“While you were on your most recent mission, there was…an incident.” The voice replied. She squints into the dark. 

“What incident? Who are you?”

“The raid your team performed on the unsanctioned dreamless sleep laboratory….” Hermione’s thoughts started to spin as the voice trailed off. Vague memories of a feeling like floating…of screaming…of blood…so much blood….

“And?” She prompted, her mind continuing to rifle through memories of floating crates and dark alleyways.

“The leader of the operation, Dorian Ionescu-“

“That’s who that was?” she mumbled absently, attempting to catch up. Dorian Ionescu was one of the most notorious Sires in all of the UK. Known for regularly surrendering to his own bloodlust, he was high up on the Ministry's list of undesirables and often disregarded the statute of secrecy. He also had quite a penchant for creating new vampires. If she'd known he was behind the dreamless sleep laboratories...

‘Yes, he-well, he bit you, Hermione.” Her heart stopped. It couldn’t be. The pain in her mouth, the heaviness in her bones, the sore throat, the innate feeling of wrong ness. No ….

 “During the physical altercation,” the voice continued, “he knocked you unconscious and pulled you from the alley underneath the warehouse. Agents followed, but by the time they got to you, you’d suffered puncture wounds in your neck, wrist, and thigh, and much of your blood had been replaced with his. I’m sorry Hermione.” 

With a weakened, heavy arm, she lifted her fingers to her mouth and felt her teeth. Sure enough, she felt points at the ends of her canines. She felt her stomach drop and she whimpered softly, her body falling back into the mattress. 

“When can I go home?” she asked, her voice quiet and defeated, her eyes shut.

“That is a more complicated answer.”

“Why?” she asked, and a door somewhere behind her opened and shut, with little light entering and exiting from the action. A few moments later, a familiar face entered her vision.

“Hey, Hermione.” Remus Lupin called, a sad smile on his face.

“I-Remus?” she squeaked.

“I wish I were greeting you under better circumstances. I am so sorry about what’s happened.” all she could do was nod in reply.

“I have some more information to share with you. Would you care for some tea?” he asked, moving to a small tea service set on the table that she hadn’t realized was in the room.

“Can I still have tea?” she asked, and he chuckled. Vampire study was a part of the magical creatures segment of her auror training, but it had been several years since she’d completed those lessons.

“Yes, Hermione. You can still have tea. How do you take it?”

“Honey, please. My throat is…” she trailed off.

“I’m sure it is. You will be feeling the symptoms of a bad cold for some time, I fear. The IV should help you gain some of your strength back a bit faster.” She looked down and….sure enough, an IV was transferring blood directly into her bloodstream. 

“Why…why are you here?” she asked.

“Well, as you know, I do a lot of liaison work with the magical creatures department of the Ministry.” He replied, returning to her and placing a mug on her bedside table. He pulled a chair from somewhere in the room and sat next to her.

“And, well, there’s a lot to fill you in on. The department felt it might be best delivered from a familiar face.” He continued and gave her another one of those sad, small smiles. She nodded slowly, and he sighed before continuing.

“Sharon already told you a bit, but she hasn’t told you what happened after the Aurors found you. You were unconscious, and Dorian had escaped. One of the Aurors attempted to lift you, and you woke up rather abruptly. I suspect you don’t recall this part.” she shifted through her stilted memories for a moment and shook her head.

“I thought so. Well, you were….not in your right mind. You attempted to attack the Aurors on the scene and you were apprehended fairly quickly, but not quick enough for the team to forget who exactly bit you.” she frowned, confused for a moment before it dawned on her. A sense of dread blanketed her, chilling her to her bones. She felt the despair in her soul grow.

“No…” she whispered, her heart in her stomach. He sighed.

“I really am sorry Hermione.”

“How…how did it happen? How many? Are they…” she trailed off. 

Dorian became such a powerful vampire lord because he quickly sired a clan of vampires, which he achieved by granting all those who were bitten by him with a magical mutation called, "The Sight". Anyone who looks into the eyes of someone with The Sight is turned into a vampire instantly.

“Just two, Andrews and Thistlewood. Both…with your eyes.”

“Are they alright?”

“Yes, yes. They are recovering in a room similar to yours, though with more light.”

“Why…why are you able to look at me?” 

“I am immune, to The Sight. It appears that since my magical core has already been altered, vampire magic does not affect me.” 

“And the lighting?”

“It makes it easier for witches and wizards who work in the facility to continue to treat you. Less of a chance that they’ll look to your face.” He replied with a wince. She leaned back and shut her eyes. She felt both physically and emotionally drained. Devastated.

“Why not just kill me then?” It came out as more of a statement than a question. She felt his hand resting on her shoulder and heard him standing up. Her eyes remained shut and she felt her body tugging her mind away from consciousness. 

“You still have a lot of life left to live, Hermione. Take some time to recover, and we’ll look to the future when you’re healthy again.” He said softly, squeezing her shoulder once before moving quietly out of the room.

Once she heard the door shut, her face crumpled. She turned her face to the pillow and cried herself to into a restless sleep.

 

.......

 

Red. Her once-brown eyes were red.

She tilted her head to the left, then right,  flickered the light switch, and watched the vibrant color persist in her mirrored reflection. Blinking didn't work either. 

She opened her mouth as much as she could given her still-sore upper jaw. Sure enough, there they were: two little elongated canines. She ran her tongue along the tips and winced, the teeth still sensitive. Moving closer to the mirror, she inspected their fine points.

She supposed everything still worked normally, but seeing her appearance so changed was unsettling. Was she a bit paler now, or were her cheeks just flushed more often? 

A door opened somewhere in her room while she was standing under the fluorescent lights of the bathroom and investigating herself in the mirror. 

"Miss Hermione Granger!" A little voice called, and she turned to find a house elf in a tiny lab coat standing by her cot, holding an equally tiny case. 

"What a pleasure it is for Pipkin to make your acquaintance! Pipkin would be so honored if Miss Hermione would come and sit so Pipkin could check her vitals." He continued and gestured to the chair next to the cot. She left the bathroom and walked over to him. When she sat down, he snapped his fingers twice, and a blue mist swirled around briefly while some numbers flashed over her head. The little elf nodded and placed his case on the bed, opening it to reveal it held a scarf. 

"Ah yes, Pipkin thinks everything looks stable! This is good, very good. Mister Trelwart will be in to see you very soon!" He handed her the scarf. "Pipkin asks if Miss Hermione Granger would put this over her eyes so Mister Trelwart can enter the room."

"Pipkin, who is Mr. Trelwart?" She asked and he visibly jumped, gasping. 

"He is the head of the Department For Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, of course! He will be seeing you about your relocation!" He explained happily and her brow furrowed.

"My-my what?" She tried to ask, but the elf was now pushing her hands toward her face, encouraging her to put the scarf on.

"Mister Trelwart will tell Miss Hermione Granger everything she wants to know! Everything! Pipkin does not know anything else!" He cried and she complied in a bid to stave off an impending elf meltdown. Once the scarf was obstructing her vision, she heard the elf poof! away and the door opened again.

"Hello, Ms. Granger." A man's voice called. She heard him shuffling towards her and sitting in the chair across from her.

"How have you been feeling?"

"Fine. What is this about relocation?" She snapped, irritated at the entire circumstances of this visit.

“Ah, getting right down to business, are we?" She rolled her eyes but realized he couldn't see them, so she stayed silent and waited for him to continue. "Well, then. As you know, the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures is always striving to enrich the lives of the creatures and beings under our care."

Another invisible eye-roll ensued. She actually did not know or believe this; from all of the legal efforts just to get house elves out of servitude to everything she'd seen so far herself, she felt like the last thing on the department’s mind was the quality of life of magical beings.

"As such, one of the policies in place for newly-turned vampires is assuring that they can exist in an environment that is safe for both them and the community around them." He continued, and she already didn't like where this was going.

"It appears that your current residence-" she heard some papers shuffling. "16 Harmont Place, correct? Is in a muggle community, so that simply will not be a viable place for you to stay any longer."

"But that's my home! My parent’s house, I-" she started, but he cut her off.

"Surely you can understand why a vampire could not live in such a place, can't you? Especially one with The Sight." He was right, and she deflated.

"Right, then. Since the maximum amount of time we can hold you here has passed, we will have to-"

"Wait, how long have I been here?"

"Two weeks."

"Two Weeks!?!" she shrieked, jumping out of her chair. She heard him scoot his chair back. “I-my job-I-has someone informed Robards? What about the case?" She continued, her heart pounding, her voice frantic.

"Well, Ms. Granger, I'm afraid your contract with the DMLE has been terminated." 

She stood stock still.

"I-....what?" she whispered, her body sinking slowly back into her chair.

"As you know, according to the Magical Employment and Creature Regulation Act of 1995, section three, any non-human magical beings are prohibited from holding positions in sensitive sectors, which I fear includes the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." She could feel her breath leaving her lungs, but he didn't seem to notice and didn't stop his explanation. "Furthermore, as you are a vampire, you are subjected to Clause 13-A, which states that you cannot hold any office that may expose the employee to the blood of others, which your past line of work certainly does. As such, the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures has, in conjunction with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, suspended your Auror contract. I do apologize for that inconvenience."

She said nothing, but she felt like she was sinking into the chair. Melting into it, slipping between the armrests and pooling at its feet in a puddle before seeping through the cracks in the floor and into the next room, and so on, until she seeped into the dirt the building sat on. 

Her livelihood, gone.

Her social life, gone.

Her home, gone. 

Her parents, long gone.

All of it, gone, gone, gone.

"Where is Remus?" she demanded, cutting him off in the midst of making an absurd comment about remote muggle work.

"Sorry?" He stuttered, caught off guard.

"Remus Lupin. He was here to see me at some point. Where is he?"

"Ah, I'd imagine he is a bit busy at this time."

"You'd imagine? Where is he? I don't want to continue to have this conversation without him." her voice came out unsteady, but she didn’t care.

"Unfortunately, he is unavailable at this time. He is currently in confinement."

"Confinement!? For what reason?"

"It is the full moon." He said and she sighed, yet another disappointment washing over her. 

"Well, can't we continue this after the full moon, when he returns? I'd feel much better about all of this if he were here." She asked and she heard him sigh. 

"I'm afraid not. Your sponsor has requested that your relocation to his facility occur during the full moon."

"My sponsor?"

"Yes! As I mentioned earlier, part of our creature rehabilitation program includes a relocation to a being-friendly ministry safe house. You will cohabitate the space with at least one other magical being to make your adjustment process smoother. In your case, it will be just Mr. Malfoy, and he-"

"I'm sorry...what did you just say? Did you say...Malfoy?"
she felt like her chest was trying to squeeze itself through her throat, and she was about to throw up her ribcage.

"Yes indeed! You will be relocated to Wiltshire, where you'll stay in a-"

"No." she said, barely a whisper. He'd stopped speaking, but she couldn't have heard anything he said through her own voice ringing in her ears, waterlogged and drowning.

No.

No.

NO.

Chapter 3: The Adjustment Period

Notes:

I do not own any aspect of the harry potter universe.

Hermione

She fought, screamed, and demanded to speak to the Minister. She asked, then begged to be relocated to a different safe house. She tried to rip her blindfold off when they conducted a final health evaluation and was given a “warning” that was preceded by several screams of fright from the attending wizard. 

When they asked her to sign off on her entrance into the rehabilitation program, she once again demanded a lawyer or some representative. She was reminded that rights for humans no longer applied to her. That she was lucky they still considered her a witch at all.

She begged for a visitor, just one last time, and promised to keep her blindfold on—another denied request. She was even denied an owl, as she was prohibited from partaking in non-being communication for the first three months. 

She imagined this was how people felt when their house burned down. In this case, though, she felt like her house burned down while she was inside, watching it go up in flames. 

By the time they dropped her off at the manor, she felt numb, her eyes felt dried out, her stomach felt hollow and her mouth still ached. 

She spent the first few days alternating between sitting in the now-mildly painful sunlight streaming into her bedroom window and haunting the halls in the evening. Centuries of Malfoy portraits tried to yell obscenities at her, but she looked at one of them and discovered quickly that The Sight also applied to paintings. They haven’t drawn her attention since.

The elves had led her to a room on the top floor of the manor, two stories above ground, in what appeared to be one of many guest rooms in the wing. A nursery and school room was on the other side of the floor, covered in dust. The other guest rooms were seemingly also once used and now abandoned. Some rooms were boarded up completely. She wondered where Voldemort slept when he was here, if he slept at all. She certainly couldn't.

She found the library almost immediately; it was one of the larger rooms in the manor and quickly became her favorite. She tried exploring other parts of the building, but there were quite a few locked doors, so she always found herself ending the night in the stacks. She was certain there had to be a dark magic section somewhere in there, considering who the collection owners were, but she’d yet to find it. 

She actively ignored the first door on the left in the Grand Hall. She’d seen enough in there. 

Her necessities were delivered by house elf in increments, but she stayed in her grey cotton tracksuit longer than she should’ve. There was little here to give her comfort. With nowhere to go and nobody she could see, hadn't felt this isolated and hopeless since the woods with Harry. Even then, at least she'd had him. With no way to contact her friends and no one but Lupin who knew her whereabouts, it was impossible to know if she'd ever hear from Harry or Ron or Luna or anyone else again. The Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets must have felt so lonely. 

She was grateful for the size of the manor; she felt certain he couldn’t hear her cry herself into a restless sleep.

This is, of course, assuming he was even in the manor to begin with. She’d been there for nearly a week, and she hadn’t seen him once. Other than the house elves, who brought her tea and biscuits and other weak foods she wouldn’t immediately throw up, she hadn’t even heard another living being in the building. The manor was massive, but wouldn’t they have crossed paths by now? She entertained fantasies that he moved out after the Ministry mandated her relocation here, that he doesn’t even live here anymore. She wondered if never seeing another soul again was better or worse than only ever seeing him. 

Her wondering finally came to an end a few days later, in the hallway outside of the library. She was finishing up an afternoon of wandering aimlessly through the greenhouse and planned to sift through a few tomes about whisperthorns and their properties with mild interest at best. A door she hadn’t noticed before swung open and he stepped into the hall, his head turned down and his attention focused on a bit of parchment in his hands. 

He’d gotten taller, broader. He’d filled into his body, and she wondered somewhere in the back of her mind if that was due to genetics or to becoming a werewolf. His face had lost the sharpness he’d had in school and his hair was artfully styled, a few longer pieces tousled across his forehead just so . The black suit and button-down he wore looked like it was made just for him, and she figured it probably was. 

One thing was markedly different about him, however; like many other werewolves, his skin was marred with scars and slashes from mindless fighting during the full moon. A long, thin slash ran down his right cheek, and another cut into his left eyebrow, narrowly missing his eye. A smaller mark nicked his jaw and his hands were littered with tiny cuts. They looked like older wounds and like they’d been tended to by experts, but some wounds never fully healed. The scars should have contrasted his put-together appearance. They should have.

He was absorbed in whatever he was reading, so much so that he didn’t immediately notice her, rumpled and completely frozen in the hallway mere metres from him. He tugged the door shut behind him absently, and it wasn’t until she finally loosed a breath out that he looked up, his eyes finding hers. They were grey, soft and surprised.  She immediately averted her gaze before remembering the whole point of living here was that he could see her. 

“Hello.” He said, gently, tentatively.

“Hi.” She replied, equal trepidation in her voice. He'd straightened up, his parchment forgotten.

"Were the elves able to get you settled?" He asked, his voice devoid of anything except politeness. Like he was speaking to a stranger. Like he was an innkeeper and a new tenant had arrived. Although, I suppose the situation isn't that different, she thought to herself.

"I-yes, they were quite helpful. Are...are they-?" 

"Paid, yes. They’re ministry employees, technically."

“Oh, good...good." 

They stared at each other for another painful moment before he gestured to the paper in his hands.

“I will be off, then. Let me know if there’s anything you need.” He said, and she nodded, shifting so her shoulder was pressed into the wall. Then he was gone down the hall and she was left staring at the place he’d just occupied. 

 

...

 

After that first encounter, she started seeing him in the halls during her daytime wanderings. 

She saw him most often in the hall leading to the library, coming out of or entering that same door. Sometimes she saw him in the Grand Hall, and once on the main staircase. Never above the ground floor, which made her wonder if her theory that he didn’t live here wasn’t completely false. He was polite every time, offering her either a mild smile or a soft “Hello”. It gave her a jolt every time, even though she knew he was the only other person in the house. 

Seeing him felt like a punch in the gut.

On one hand, he hadn’t identified them to Bellatrix, and that had saved their lives. His father was rotting in Azkaban and she wasn't sure where his mother was, but almost all evidence of their previous occupation in the manor was completely removed (except for the now-terrified Malfoy portraits of old, of course). He was clearly a fervent patron of the arts; all of the moody, aristocratic artwork that used to line the walls replaced with mid-century paintings by artists she could've sworn were muggles. Many of the rooms she was able to explore looked uncharacteristically modern in decor, considering how old the house was. His house was a registered Ministry safe house, and the elves were being paid. That was new. 

No one had heard anything from him in years. He’d become a recluse, and the reason why now made sense. Almost all of his social activity was remote, either via sponsorship of events or the selling of a distant Malfoy property. Security was too tight on the grounds for any reporters to get a glimpse of him entering or exiting the manor, and his floo was only connected to a handful of locations. 

But he was still… him . He was still a Death Eater, even if the war had ended. He’d still tried to kill Dumbledore, and he’d been a prat for years. She didn’t trust him or his politeness, at least not fully. While she could tell he certainly wasn't his 16-year-old self, she was still on edge around him. Perhaps it was a reflex…or perhaps it was warranted. Why was he so okay with this arrangement? She’d wondered, but quickly remembered that as a werewolf, his rights were also quite limited. He likely had as little choice as she did. 

 

...

 

It was he who noticed it first. 

She was leaving the library just past midnight; she’d found the classics section and was skimming a few bits of Dracula in an attempt to feel something. She hadn’t meant to stay so late but certainly hadn’t expected to hear a voice at the other end of the hall. 

“Your blood sugar is low.” He announced and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She spun around to find him leaning against the door to that room he was always in , his silver eyes narrowed on her and assessing. 

“I’m sorry?” She squeaked, her heart racing. Without the natural light, the light from the candles lit on the walls cast dark shadows against the angles of his face. He cocked his head to the side.

“Don’t be sorry. Just something you should monitor, I suppose.” 

"And...how do you have this information?"

"I can smell it." she blanched at this.

"Oh! Well, I will look into it then. Sorry for offending your senses." She snipped for fear of further mortification. He could smell it?

"No, it's not-" he started, but she'd already fled the hall and up the stairs. 

 

...

 

A few days later, she started to feel it. 

She was no stranger to falling asleep on the couch while reading. It was generally a comforting feeling to wake up from a nap, book still in her lap, the sun a bit lower in the sky. But she could recognize that this happening multiple times a day, within minutes of sitting down, may constitute a problem. There was an odd tickling in the back of her throat, almost like she was getting sick. 

She'd initially decided to ignore his weird comment from earlier that week, but she'd ended up requesting a cupcake from the kitchens just in case he was correct. She’d figured the problem was solved, but when she started to feel dizzy when she stood for too long, she admitted that perhaps he was onto something. Maybe she had the flu? Could vampires get the flu?

After a few evenings of enhanced sluggishness, she tried knocking on the door of that room he was always in , but she heard no answer. Through her brain fog, she added a tally to her He Doesn't Live Here theory. She leaned against the door and slid slowly to the floor, resting her head on the mahogany and shutting her eyes. 

She wasn't sure how long she sat there in exhaustion until he finally entered the hallway.

"Granger?" 

"mmm."

"Are you all right?"

"Don't know. Is my," she tried. "blood sugar...low...again?" 

She could feel him near her. She wasn't sure how he got so close. She opened an eye and watched his nostrils flare.

"I'm afraid there's more than that. Stay put." He said, then he was gone again. She wondered briefly if he'd ever been there at all, but he returned eventually. He was close to her again, crouched down, in her space.

"Can you sit up? Open your eyes?" She forced herself to do as he asked. She looked at him and when their eyes met, she felt his thumb graze her left cheek, his fingers lightly tilting her jaw up.

“You smell…good…” she murmured dizzily. 

 "Fuck, it's worse than I thought,” he murmured before releasing her face and turning to grab something from behind him. 

"You need to feed. I brought you this." He handed her a small baggie that looked suspiciously like a muggle fruit juice pouch. Through the translucent material, she could see a red liquid inside. As soon as her brain registered what it was, she sat up fully, her survival instincts in full gear. How had she not realized this was the problem? How had she forgotten the most fundamental part of being a vampire? 

She spun the package around a few times, searching for a straw, a hole, or some other way to pull it open. She looked back at him, her gaze frantic now. She felt a sudden urgency now that salvation was within reach.

"I don't...how do I open this?" he leaned over and tapped two little circle marks on the front of the package.

"I think you have to puncture here, like you would with a-" he paused. "well, I suppose you probably haven't done that yet."

She looked at him, waiting.

"You have to ah, puncture it, with your...teeth. You have to bite it." 

Of course, why didn't she-

She didn't finish the thought before her fangs were splitting open the plastic and her mouth was filling with blood. She sighed, relief and strength filling her body almost immediately. It was incredible how quickly she could feel her mind returning to her. She looked up at him as she drank her fill, his eyes watching her mouth and the bag. Her gulps were clumsy and unpracticed; she paused about three-fourths of the way through the bag to wipe the blood that had dripped down her chin and smeared at the edges of her lips, and he watched that action too.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" She asked.

"You looked on the edge of death earlier. I want to make sure you drink all of it."

"But…gross." She mumbled, her cheeks heating.

"I've been a werewolf for eight years. Blood means nothing to me. Keep going." His tone brokered no argument, and she put her lips back to the bag.

Once she'd finished the last of the blood, he sat back.

"Are you feeling better now?" He asked and she nodded.

"Good. There are blood bags in the kitchens. Please remember to retrieve them or ask one of the elves to bring them to you." He stood and looked down at her.

"Have a good night." He moved down the hall.

She whispered a barely audible, "Thank you" and she swore she saw his body pause before he continued out of sight.

 

.........

 

She continued haunting the library as the days went by, sifting through the pages of books with little interest. The elves had placed an icebox filled with blood in the library without her asking them to; either they were very perceptive, or it was on his direction.

It mattered little to her; even if her body wanted to stay alive, her mind was starting to debate otherwise.

Her morose attitude finally came to an end three weeks after her relocation, when the pitter-patter of a tiny claw disrupted the dead silence of the library. She startled, but her heart soared when she realized it was an owl at the window, requesting entry. She sprinted to the window and swung it open, patting the owl on the head gratefully and grabbing the parchment attached to its foot with shaking fingers. She didn't recognize the owl, but it didn't matter. It found her. Someone found her. She hadn't been swallowed up by this place, these teeth.

 

Hermione,

I hope you are alive and well. I've been searching for you for weeks, but the Ministry won't tell me anything other than that you'd been "relocated" to "preserve your safety." What's happened? Is the Ionescu horde after you? Where are you?

Please write back as soon as you get this. 

With Love,

Harry

P.S. Apologies for the owl, it's Finnegan's. I was worried Ron’s could be tracked. His name is Pebbles.

 

She felt a happy, relieved tear streak down her cheek. She patted Pebbles again and scribbled out a frantic response, attaching it to his leg before scrambling out of the library and sprinting down the hall.

She grabbed the doorknob of that room he was always in and found it unlocked. She tumbled into the room, which turned out to be a study. He was seated at a large mahogany desk and he looked up when she swung the door open.

"I need to use the floo."

"The floo?"

"Yes. To make a call. Not to go anywhere." Though she wished she could. "Can you help me connect it?"

"Yes, of course. Where did you want to connect it to?"

"12 Grimmauld Place." His brows furrowed at this.

"What?"

"Harry lives there."

"He does?" he sounded incredulous. 

"Yes. Sirius gave it to him." He looked away when she said this. He seemed deep in thought.

"You won't need me then. The House of Black floo has been connected to the Manor floo since--" She didn't let him finish before she turned and sprinted back out of the room.

Back in the library, she threw floo powder into the fireplace and panted out "12 Grimmauld Place". When nothing happened, she tried "The House of Black", and nearly rolled her eyes when the flames flashed and turned green.

"Harry!" she yelled into the fire, praying he was home. After a few seconds, she watched the embers shift and start to form the shape of his face.

"Hermione! Thank Merlin you're alive!" She heard him yell, and she quickly flopped onto her back next to the fireplace. 

"I got your letter and I just-"

"I was so worried about you, what's happened-"

"I've been so alone and-"

"Where are you? Are you okay-"

"I couldn't wait and Malfoy said-"

"Wait, Hermione, what? Malfoy? Hold on for a second." He said and they finally stopped talking over each other. She took a big deep breath.

"Yes, Malfoy. I'm...I'm at Malfoy Manor." She said and she saw the fire spark green again. He was trying to step through.

"Wait! Wait! Harry don't come through! I promise I'll explain, I can't explain if you come through, though."

"Why can't I-"

"Please, Harry! Just trust me and stay over there." she pleaded. 

"Fine. Explain."

"I....oh God, where to start..." She took another deep breath, and told him. How she'd been bitten by Ionescu, The Sight, the relocation, Malfoy being a werewolf, her restriction to the Manor, everything. 

"Blimey, Hermione. This is rough. And why the Manor? of all places?"

"This is a Ministry safehouse for turned beings, apparently."

"Doesn't sound like something old daddy and mummy would be too keen on." He remarked and she huffed a laugh.

"Definitely not, but it doesn't seem either of them have any control over what goes on here anymore."

"No sign of his mother?"

"No, just us."

"and has he... said anything?"

"Oh no, no, he's been unfailingly polite. It's sort of unnerving." She did not mention the incident in the hallway. "You know, since it’s him . I barely see him anyway; I don’t even think I’ve seen him in the last week.” she saw Harry nod in the fireplace out of the corner of her eye. 

“Well, at least there’s that. Try not to talk to him too much. I don’t trust him.” Harry said and she nearly laughed out loud. 

“Don’t worry, I have no interest in doing so. He’s rarely here in the evening, I don’t know where he goes.”

“Even better. Frees you up to figure out what you’re going to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you can’t stay like this forever.”

“Are you mad? I’m a vampire! There’s nothing to do.”

“The Hermione I know wouldn’t take this lying down, especially not with Ionescu still out there.”

“He got away?!” She groaned. What was the point of being turned into a vampire if they hadn’t even caught the guy?

“Yeah, and they’ve lost all leads on his whereabouts. It seemed he sniffed out the Ministry spies in his ranks pretty quickly after that lab bust.”

“Bollocks.”

“Truly.”

She sighed, racking her brain.

“Harry, I can’t think of a single instance I’ve heard of where someone was cured of vampirism.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but The Sight is fairly new. I’m sure there’s something to be done about that, at least. That’s a good first step. If anyone can figure out how to break The Sight, it’s you.” He implored and she sighed, relenting.

“The Malfoys have one of the largest libraries in this hemisphere and it’s got to be full of texts on dark magic like that. If the answer out of this is anywhere, it’s likely in there.” He added.

“Fine, fine. You’re right. I suppose I have nothing but time nowadays anyway.” She sighed.

“That’s the spirit.”

Chapter 4: The Research, Pt. 1

Notes:

Draco's POV has entered the chat!

As always thank you to my buddies who read this ahead of time and encouraged me to include his POV in this story as well :)

Draco Malfoy

 

He hadn’t been able to focus for weeks.

Several requests for a private showing of the 14th-century astrolabe he’d submitted for the Longbottom Charity silent auction had gone unanswered, due to distraction. Two of his cauldrons had burned while he’d been procuring blood bags for her; a complete waste of the Australian Acromantula Venom he’d spent three months collecting. He’d accidentally opened a letter from his father, an activity he tried to avoid at all costs over the years.

It’d gotten worse when he found her in the hallway, practically disintegrating. He sent Trelwart a strongly worded owl detailing the department’s incompetence in properly educating a fledgling vampire. Like the other owls he’d sent the DRCMC over the years regarding anything of importance, it went unanswered. 

He’d been alone in the house for so long that suddenly having another person moving from room to room would obviously be a disruption to his routine. It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that it was her walking his halls.

He’d heard all about her after the war ended, of course. The Gryffindor Princess, The Brightest Witch of her Age, Muggleborn Savior, Golden Girl, Future Minister ….the list went on. When she joined the Aurors, the few lingering Dark Lord sympathizers in Azkaban who hadn’t received The Kiss whispered about Potter’s Mudblood from cell to cell. 

But between his stint in Azkaban, differing social circles, the nature of her work, and the fact that his presence in public had been minute at best, he hadn’t seen her in the flesh in years. Since the final battle, really.

She looked different — of course she looked different, it had been nearly 7 years — but she'd grown into her features. She wasn't scrawny from months of living in the woods, her curly hair was longer, springier, and shinier, and her cheeks always looked a bit rosy. Adulthood and years of Auror training suited her. The crimson eyes suit her too , he thought absently.

When he first ran into her, she seemed petrified. Afraid — of him. He supposed he didn’t blame her; not only was he a Death Eater and horrible to her in school, but he was also a much different kind of monster now. When she snapped at him for his improperly delivered low blood sugar comment, however, some of her fire had returned. Her narrowed gaze was full of contempt, and he figured contempt was better than fear. 

While her feelings on this whole arrangement were likely cut and dry, he wasn't so sure about himself. Sure, he'd approved her relocation, but that had not been entirely selfless. He knew the alternative safehouses were practically the slums compared to the Manor, and he'd been feeling incredibly guilty. He'd had his existence-shattering revelations about the Dark Lord in 1997, and now the only emotion he felt regarding her blood status was regret for his own actions. He also hadn't been told what exactly had happened to her — another neglectful department oversight. She was practically a stranger, even without 7 years between them. He felt like he'd never actually known anything about her at all, and he found he was profoundly curious. 

He'd been trying to keep his distance, but he couldn't help himself any longer.

He knew she’d been drinking the blood he’d left in the library for her, but he wanted an excuse to check on her. Besides, he’d been…compromised the last few days, so he hadn’t laid eyes on her since she came storming into his office a week prior, demanding access to the floo. 

He found her in the library, amid a fervent notation session, and thoroughly engrossed in a bit of text regarding Magical vs. Non-Magical vampires. The library door had been propped open, so he stood silently on the threshold, watching her eyes shift rapidly between the text and her parchment.

She’d clearly found the dark magic section of the Malfoy library; despite having the largest selection of texts out of all subjects in the library, it was remarkably tucked away. She must have pulled every book related to vampires from the shelves; The Dark Bloodlines: A Comprehensive Guide to Vampire Ancestry, Vampires: The Truth Behind the Bloodlust, Fangs and Folklore: Vampires Through the Ages , and the like.

When she finally glanced up, she did a double take and he watched as surprise stole over her features. 

She stopped writing, her quill mid-stroke, her sparkling eyes still filled with uncertainty. 

“Hello.”  He tried.

“Hi.” She squeaked. He realized was shifting his weight from one foot to the other and quickly readjusted his posture. 

“I came to check in on you, after what happened…to make sure you were able to find the bags.” He said and she gestured to the two empty bags on the table next to her in answer.

“Yes, I see that now. That’s good.” He replied, looking away. The intensity of her stare was difficult to hold.

“You know it’s been like a week? So if I hadn’t been able to find them…” She trailed off, though he could finish the thought for her.

“Yes, you’re right. It has been.” He shifted again and she watched him. She looked expectant, but he stayed silent.

“Well, good to know. I will leave you to it then.” He said and made to leave.

A whispered, “Goodbye, Malfoy.”  followed him out into the hallway.

 

…

 

He found himself lingering in the doorway of the library again a few days later, while she was rifling through a documentation of dark creature entanglements. She didn’t notice him immediately; he’d tried to be quiet, to not disturb her. Her tongue slid absently across the bottoms of her elongated canines, and he felt his skin prickle.

This time, when she looked up, she held his gaze. He felt like he’d been caught doing something illicit and took a deep breath, shuffling his more banal feelings behind a mental wall.

“What are you working on?” He asked, and she blinked, her stare wavering.

“Oh, oh, um-right now?”

“Yes. You’ve got a few texts there that you seem rather invested in.”

“Is that a swot joke?” she narrowed her eyes at him.

“No! No, it’s not, I promise.” His stomach dropped. “I was just…curious.” he continued.

“Well…right now I’m reading Nocturnal Nobility: The Legacy of Vampiric Blood , though I cannot say it’s been a very fruitful read.” she told him.

“Oh? Why is that?”

 “Well, it’s a fair bit of preening. A lot of namedropping. This is essentially a recounting of every instance that the author met this-vampire-lord and the other.”

“I see. And what are you looking for, exactly?”

“At the moment, anything with information about the history of vampires.”

He thought for a moment. 

“Have you looked at Twilight of Immortality: The Rise and Decline of the Vampire Courts yet?” He asked, and she shook her head. Pulling his wand out, he muttered a quick accio under his breath, and some rustling occurred somewhere in the depths of the library. A few moments later, a leather-bound book came floating out from the stacks and landed gently on her desk. Her brows rose.

“Thank you.” She said, looking down at the book on her desk rather than at the wizard in front of her.

“No problem.” He replied, then slipped out of the room.

 

…

 

“I finished that book. The one you recommended. Thank you for that.” she said as soon as he stepped into the room a few days later. He hid his relief; some self-deprecating part of him worried she’d thrown it away.

“Oh good. I hope it was what you were looking for, I’ve only read some parts of it.”

“It was! It was very helpful. The majority of it focused on the role that the expanding wizarding world played in the fall of the Vampire Courts, but a few pieces explain that the courts themselves existed for so long because of something called…Heart Magic? Which I think is just a bad translation of Blood Magic, or maybe a little of both.” she replied and he shrugged.

“I was thinking about trying this book on blood magic now, have you heard of it?” She asked and held up Crimson Arts: The Dark History of Blood Magic . He stepped closer to examine the text and shook his head.

“I haven’t seen that one before.”

“That’s too bad. It looks a bit general, but it could be promising.”

“I hope that it is.”

 

More days passed, and he was back again, this time with a new book in his hands.

 

“Hey.” He said tentatively. She didn’t look up, engrossed as she was in her notes, and he hoped she hadn’t noticed how his voice had betrayed his nerves. She murmured a distracted, “Hi,” but her head perked up at his next words.

“I was looking around the other day for...something, and I found this. I read it, and I wanted to show it to you.” He held up a leather-bound copy of Blood Magic Through the Eyes of the Undying , its pages tabbed. He’d spent the previous evening reading through it, flagging for any reference to Heart Magic.

He watched her hopefully; she stared at the book for a moment before shifting her eyes to his. He didn’t know what he would do if she dismissed him; die?

After a beat, she gestured to the seat across from her, and relief flooded his body.

“Come show me, then.” 

Chapter 5: The Research, Pt. 2

Hermione

 

She returned to the library the next day, and the next and the next, but with renewed vigor. 

They burned through texts on the anatomy of vampires, emergency measures for vampire bites, research articles on the use of garlic, the evolution of vampire architecture trends, and everything else they could get their hands on.

Growing up in the manor meant he knew the library better than she did; every time he pulled a book from the shelves, she’d spend most of the night and the next day pouring over it, relieved to have something that felt at least a little useful. 

The next few weeks went on like this: he joined her in the library, and they sat quietly together, sharing the occasional anecdote or passing a book back and forth. He found a couple of other texts on blood magic for her, and she was grateful.

Hermione hadn't ever had the opportunity to watch him in this close of quarters when they were growing up; he was always full of vitriol and she was constantly avoiding him. Now, though, she was free to notice the little divot above his brow that appeared when he focused on something, the way his hand slid gracefully across the parchment when he took notes, how his finger tapped his bottom lip when he was deep in thought, among other things. He was quiet most of the time he spent with her, his main form of communication a gentle slide of an open book or a pointing to a bit of text. She'd always enjoyed the peaceful quiet of the library, and she suspected he did too.

After a week or so, he finally asked what exactly she was researching. She told him simply that she was “looking for a way out”, and he nodded without further comment.

It wasn’t until he didn’t join her one day that she realized he’d been coming every day. In his place, a copy of The Blood Moon Compendium , a text she hadn’t been able to find in the library the day prior, was sitting at her table. It had been painstakingly annotated, all instances of vampires mentioned in the book tabbed and handwritten notes with insights written in a neat scrawl along the margins. She’d stared at it for a long time before picking it up and pressing it to her chest, appreciating the gift for what it was. 

After the second full day of a no-show, she was starting to feel hurt. She’d read the book he’d left for her overnight; he would've known she’d finish it in a day, and he still wasn’t here. She asked Buffy where he was, but the elf was especially loyal, so he simply replied, “Out”. Hermione strolled the corridors until she found Carmy, who she knew would be a better resource. Carmy tried to divert the question, but Hermione was persistent enough, and she finally got out that he was “indisposed”. She asked if he was ill, but the elf just kept yelling that he was, “Indisposed! Quite indisposed!”

She realized when he returned, in the afternoon of the fourth day of his absence, that it had been a full moon. He was still quiet and composed, still dressed in a black suit, but he looked worn out. She didn’t comment on his appearance, but she did offer him a smile when he sat down with her. She realized when his brows furrowed that she likely hadn’t ever smiled at him before, but it was only a moment before he gave her a weak smile in return.

That evening, long after he left for the night, she hung up a lunar calendar on the wall near their table.

....

 

They kept working together during the daytime. 

He always left in the evenings, and he didn’t just retire to his rooms (at this point she was nearly certain he did in fact live in the manor), he sometimes left the property completely. There were a few instances where she stayed up late enough to hear him return, but she never pressed him about his comings and goings. It wouldn’t do to dwell on what she couldn’t have. 

She continued to work through the evening; it wasn't like she had anywhere else to go or anything else to do. 

One evening after a day spent reading about blood magic, she sat in an armchair she'd pushed up against the windowsill and enjoyed the oncoming twilight. The sunset had burned the sky a shining amber, and she watched the indigo of night slowly fill in the gaps between clouds. The evening was quiet; the only sound was the wind's occasional dance across the window panes and the turning of her page. The Manor always seemed to exist in a space of almost unnatural silence, as if even the birds spoke in hushed tones. 

The quiet was so present a force that she nearly jumped out of her skin when a loud POP! broke the stillness and an elf appeared in front of her. She didn't recognize this one; he wore a dress jacket, shirt, and tie. She sucked in a lungful of air and pressed a hand to her chest, trying to calm herself down.

"Good evening," He squeaked, his voice an attempt at a serious tone but the excitement in his eyes gave him away.  

"Master Draco is calling for Miss Granger! Master has asked Belly to fetch you." 

"Fetch me?" She huffed, still trying to catch her breath.

"Yes! Master Draco is dining in the Smaller Dining Room at present and has summoned Miss Granger. Belly is to make sure you is brought to Master at once." He explained, hopping from foot to foot. Smaller Dining Room? She thought to herself. It wasn't as if she couldn't eat anymore, but it was certainly not necessary. 

"Okay, Belly. Did Master Draco-" she winced, "-tell you why he was asking for me, by chance?" She asked.

"Master has something that is of extreme importance . Belly immediately came to retrieve you!" He chirped and she narrowed her eyes. Did Malfoy really think he could just call on her and she'd come running? She was not to be ordered around by some ponce in a suit, that was for sure.

She rose from her chair, her ire rising. 

"Okay, Belly. Could you please show me how to get to the Smaller Dining Room?"

...

She followed the elf up the Grand Staircase to the first floor, becoming more agitated with every step. He guided her to a door, then disapparated with another POP!

The door opened to a rather cozy dining space. A long mahogany table took up most of the space, with chairs surrounding it to seat up to 10 people. Candles were floating in scattered patches in the air and a skylight cast moonlight into the room. Tapestries covered the walls, each depicting a unicorn in various, increasingly dire circumstances. A few arrow slits in the walls indicated that perhaps this room wasn't always intended to be used for dining. A wooden cabinet with a marble top was pushed against one wall, a silver tea service sitting untouched atop it. He stood at the far end of the table, his head bowed over a book. What looked to be a half-consumed dinner for one was pushed to the center of the table to make space for several other books, spread in front of him. When the door opened, he looked up, his posture straightening quickly.

"Granger, I-"

"Malfoy," She snapped, and his face immediately fell. "You summoned me? What am I, a dog?" His brows furrowed.

"Summoned you? Wha-"

"Yes, summoned me. Like I'm some sort of peasant, set to heed their king at his every whim." She continued, her voice cutting. She folded her arms in front of her chest. His jaw tightened and he looked away. 

"That wasn't my intention, Granger."

"Then what was? Because it seems an awful lot like you thought you could just send an elf to demand my presence and I would come running. I do not answer to you, Malfoy." 

He exhaled slowly, running his hand through his hair. "I didn't mean for it to come across like that," he said, his voice quiet. "I asked Belly to go see what you were up to, to find out if you were occupied. I found something I wanted to show you, and, if you were available, I thought...you might want to come and see it." He finished. If it were anyone but Draco Malfoy, she'd think he looked just a bit bashful. 

"Well that's certainly not what Belly told me. I was made to understand you needed me brought before you immediately." She replied and he sighed.

"Some of the elves have a habit of getting... a bit too excited about the prospect of things." He looked back up at her.
"Regardless, though, I'm sorry for making you feel like I don't respect your time. It was supposed to be a positive inquiry. It won't happen again." He stated, holding her stare. She blinked, taken aback by his immediate apology. 

"Good, that's...good,” she murmured and he noticeably relaxed. She tried to relax, but her feelings felt like they were tripping over themselves. Her gaze broke from his and landed on the array of books laid across the wood.

"What's this you wanted to show me?" She asked, forcing a calm she didn’t quite feel just yet,  and he blinked once before perking up.

"Oh-Yes. I found something interesting in this text from the 1800s." He told her and she stepped over to where he was standing at the end of the table, standing next to him. She peered down at the book, its text unreadable.

"Malfoy...this is in Romanian." She said, raising a brow at him.

"Exactly. I think we've been looking for information in the wrong language. This textbook is from Durmstrang's library, and I realized the term Reinima could be loosely translated to 're-hearting'. So in this passage here-" he paused, flipped a few pages, leaned over the table, and pointed to where he'd written a translation of the section heading: Reclaiming the Heart and Immortal Soul . "It refers to reinima as the magical process of binding the Vampire's soul further into the realm of the living."

"Heart Magic." she breathed.

"Perhaps. The passage has a few theories about detailing the reinima process, and it's all pretty ritualistic. I'm still looking through it. I've also written to the current Headmaster of Durmstrang and requested a few related texts from their library for 'private use', so we'll see if anything comes of that." He continued, rising back to his full height and looking down at her expectantly. 

"This looks promising...thank you, for finding this." Her voice came out softer than she’d meant it to.

He nodded stiffly, and she stepped back from the table, casting her gaze about the room.

“This is the Smaller Dining Room?” She asked, focusing anywhere but on him. She noticed a liquor cabinet in the far corner she hadn’t seen when she entered, a half-empty crystal decanter sitting atop it. 

“Yes.”

“Does that mean there’s a Larger Dining Room?” She asked. 

“There is…” he trailed off. She turned back to him and found he looked a bit uncomfortable.

“And you wouldn’t rather dine there?”

“Charity Burbage was eaten by Nagini in front of me in the Larger Dining Room, so I tend to keep that door locked.” he said, and she blanched. He looked disgusted at the memory. 

“Oh,” she squeaked. “Glad I didn’t unlock that door, then.” she tried for levity, but it came out nervous. He raised a brow at her quizzically.

“I, um,” she tried and he nodded for her to continue. “I may have unlocked a few of the doors that were…locked.” she continued, and both of his brows were on his forehead.

“I was curious!” she added defensively. 

“Which doors did you open?” He asked, the darkness from his eyes receded and was replaced with intrigue.

“I-well, most of them were bedrooms, I think. One was blackened with soot, but I think it was once a bedroom.” 

“I see you found Dolohov’s old room.”

“I didn’t open every locked door.” she supplied. “Just a few on the second floor.” He nodded as if he was satisfied with this answer.

“I’d prefer if you exercise caution around the locked doors. I can’t have you finding the wife I’ve secreted away.” he replied drily, and her brain nearly short-circuited. The...oh my god.

“Malfoy...was that a joke?” She sputtered, incredulous.

“Yeah, I suppose it was,” He said absently, shutting a couple of his texts. “ If anything, I’d put her in one of the guest suites.” He added and she stared at him in disbelief.

“You’ve read Brontë?” she asked and he gave her a look.

“I do read, you know.”

“I know, but it’s so…muggle. I just wouldn’t have expected you to be familiar.” By this point, he’d stacked the books up on the table and an elf popped into the room to take them. 

“I’m full of surprises, Granger.” He quipped and grabbed an apple from the remains of his meal. “I’ll be gone most of the day tomorrow, but I should be back the following day. We can work on translating this text together then. If you think we should, anyway.” He added, his bravado failing slightly at the end of his sentence. She gave him a tentative smile.

“I’d like that.”

Chapter 6: The Potions Discovery

Notes:

As always thank you for reading and thank you to my besties who are reading these ahead of time and giving me wonderful feedback! I hope y'all like this one.

Hermione 

 

They kept working together during the daytime. She’d learned more about vampire history in the short time she’d been at the manor than she had after taking years of Defense Against The Dark Arts courses and she knew it was because of his help.

She decided to further expand her already extensive vampire information search, pulling any books that seemed even remotely like they might have information on vampires at all, and stopped discriminating selections based on primary subject matter. She’d stacked everything from The Enchanter’s Bestiary to Hexes and Hurts: A Dark Wizard’s Guide to Dangerous Spells . If it had as little as a footnote about vampires in it, it was reviewed. 

One night, she’d finished reading through a text earlier than expected and found herself wandering through the halls while he was out. It was a pastime she hadn’t partaken in in a while, as wrapped up in research as she’d become, and she relished the space to clear her head. 

She hadn’t been paying much attention when she’d first arrived and wandered the halls, so absorbed in her own demise was she. This time around, she noticed a door tucked away under the grand staircase, slightly ajar. She tentatively pushed it open further, wondering idly if this was where the elves slept and if she was about to encroach on their space, and entered the narrow hall. 

The damp space stretched horizontally in both directions before turning a corner on each side, different shapes shadowed against the walls on the left and the right. She took the right hall, turning and heading down a short flight of stairs, only to discover that this part of the hall was in fact where the elves slept. Turning around before they picked up on her presence, she set out towards the entrance again. 

The left hall was next, and she entered this one with more apprehension. The lights on this side were dimmer; if there were elves on this side too, they were most definitely asleep. 

What she found instead of elf-sized bedrooms, though, was another door to another set of stairs. She descended them while she squashed thoughts of self-preservation from her mind. At any rate, she was one of the scarier things that could be down here. 

After a hallway that seemed to go on forever, she finally made it to another door, which opened to a warm, candle-lit room. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with ingredient bottles and a few chalkboards floated nearby, lists of instructions written in a familiar hand covering their dusty surfaces. A small bookcase and desk sat in the far back of the room. In the center, eight cauldrons sat in two neat rows, with space between each for ingredient preparation. Half of them were active.

He sat in the center of the cauldrons, in profile, looking into one cauldron and frowning. She watched him purse his lips, clearly lost in thought, and flip a few pages of a potions text. His hair looked slightly damp and curled towards his forehead, and she reflected on how much younger he looked down here, in the low lighting and without the need to posture for an audience. She almost didn’t want to interrupt him at all, but it felt rude to be in his space without telling him. 

“You know, if Professor Snape saw you sticking your head that close to a bubbling cauldron, he would not be pleased.” She chirped and a small smile played on his face before he turned towards her. 

“Ten points from Slytherin, then.” 

“You were a prefect too, if I recall. How do I know you won’t just give them back to yourself?” 

“Ah yes, you’re right. Twenty points to Slytherin it is.” He quipped and she rolled her eyes.

“What are you brewing?” She asked, taking a step down into the sunken room. 

“Wolfsbane, what else could it be?” He answered drily. She approached his work desk and surveyed the contents spread out on the wood.

“What’s the sage for?” She asked.

“Control of the mind.” He replied.

“And the black quicksilver?”

“A stabilizer.”

“What about the fanged geranium roots?”

“Makes fang development less painful.”

“and the honey water?”

“Tasty.” She chuckled at that, flipping a few pages of his notebook. The book was nearly full, and every page had a more improved version of the potion compared to the last.

“How’d you learn to brew this?”

“Believe it or not, you were not the only one who paid attention during class in school.” He drawled, a slight smirk on his face.

“Oh, bugger off. I took NEWT-level potions, I know this wasn’t in the curriculum.”

“Fine, fine, Snape taught me. It’s taken years to perfect though. I tweak something with each batch.” He explained, gesturing to his notebook on the table while he stirred one cauldron and moved to another.

“Isn’t it a rather difficult potion to brew?”

“I suppose it’s considered difficult. It doesn’t feel difficult after all these years, just time-consuming.” He responded flippantly, but it reminded her of something he’d said a few weeks ago.

“Malfoy...” She started and he looked up, expectantly, before returning his gaze to his brewing.

“How did you…become a werewolf?” she asked, and she swore his shoulders tensed briefly before he corrected back into a relaxed stance.

“Greyback bit me.”

“WHAT?” she gasped, but he showed no physical response to her surprise. He just kept spinning the ladle.

“That would mean….” she trailed off and he sighed.

“I was bit during the war, yes.” 

“But…when?”

“At the end of sixth year. After the castle was…compromised.”

“So, when Harry and Ron and I were…b-brought h-here…” she stuttered, her heart racing at the memory. He looked up for a moment, assessing her, and looked back down.

“Yes.” He replied, answering her unfinished question and sparking thousands of new ones. Her brain whirred and her heart ached; she thought about how it takes about a year for werewolves to get accustomed to their new bodies, to gain control of their transformations, to learn how to control all of the new emotions ripping through them. She also thought about how he’d looked so unwell, so sickly, so utterly freaked out .

She loathed Greyback anew, for doing something like that to a child. 

“You knew for sure that it was us, then. You could smell it.” It wasn’t a question, but he answered a soft, “Yes”, his gaze focused resolutely on the cauldron.

“And you didn’t tell them.” She whispered, another non-question. He nodded once. 

She was at a complete loss for words, and he seemed a little discomfited, so she changed the subject.

“So, how would one brew this then?” She asked, stepping up to where he was chopping aconite. He looked up at her, his eyes searching hers, before returning them to his task.

“Well, I’ve added the powdered moonstone to these two cauldrons, and they’ve been simmering. I’m letting the other two simmer for a bit longer, to see if it will impact the intensity.” He started, gesturing to the pots in front of him.

“Now, I’m adding the aconite…slowly.” he continued, sliding little bits of aconite from the bowl on his desk into the first two and moving the ladle one full stir clockwise, then one half-stir counterclockwise. His sleeves were rolled up, and she got a couple of glimpses of the aged, thick black mark tattooed on his muscular forearm. After a few turns, he used a bit of wandless magic and the ladle continued to move in that pattern on its own. He turned his hand over again, and the aconite continued to enter the pots in a steady stream of its own accord.

“After about eight minutes of this, it will turn purple, and it’ll start to smell like a weapons factory in here.” He finished, turning to check on his final two cauldrons briefly. 

“After that, I’ll add a bit of the black quicksilver, sage, and honey water. Then, assuming I haven’t bollocksed it all up and it hasn’t turned black or exploded, I’ll bottle it, and hope that this batch is better than the last.”

“And are they usually? Better?”

“Usually, yes. I’ve become fairly proficient at it, though.”

“I can see that much. Did you get your Mastery in potions?” She asked and he gave her a rueful smile.

“I’m afraid my request to attend university was declined on more than one occasion, due to being...what I am.” he explained and she sputtered.

“What? That-that’s ridiculous! You’re clearly a skilled potioneer, and your marks were almost as good as mine-“ he raised an eyebrow as she said this, “-and that should be more than enough! Who declined this?”

“The Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures…and, unfortunately, the universities themselves. I tried circumventing the Ministry and applying directly, but by then, the schools had already been notified.”

“What about Eldergrove Academy? Did you try there?”

“Yes, Granger, of course I did. I tried every school in the Eastern Hemisphere. I even considered applying in America, but our Ministry threatened to alert MACUSA of my status, which they otherwise would not do.”

“That is just horrible.”

“To be fair, the criminal record also doesn’t help. I’ve come to terms with it.”

“Well, I haven’t.” She replied and he loosed a breath, a small smile on his lips.

“Either way, you must be a master to have brewed this so successfully.”

“I had to be. I can’t trust someone else with something like this.”

“And it truly works, then?” She asked and he nodded.

“Yes. As long as I drink this daily the week leading up to the full moon, I’m able to retain my…mental faculties.”

He flicked his wrist, and the aconite that was left on the table began moving towards the farther two pots. He sat back on his stool, watching the pots, and she felt a surge of longing for the gratified look in his eyes. 

“It must feel nice to be in control of something, even if it’s just a little.” She said after a while of sitting silently with him. Her voice was quiet, and he turned to assess her.

“In this house all day, all of the isolation...it doesn’t seem real. I feel like I’ve already forgotten what it feels like to be human.” She said wistfully.

“Granger...I know it’s not proper to ask, but...” He trailed off, letting her choose whether or not to reply. She let out a bitter laugh, then spoke. 

“How did I end up like this, do you mean?” he nodded.

“The Department didn’t tell you?”

“They did not. Only that you were a vampire who needed rehabilitation.” He replied.

“I was working a case, investigating a chain of illegal Dreamless Sleep Laboratories. Have you heard of Dorian Ionescu?” She asked and he nodded.

“Well, he was apparently the mastermind behind the labs. We didn’t know that, though, and we raided one of his locations. He was on-site.”

“And he bit you, I assume?” 

“Yes. He knocked me out and Turned me, then left me in an alley. The other Aurors found me.” She continued and his eyes stayed on her, willing her to continue. 

“I hate him, obviously.” Her next words were harder to say. “I’ve never hated a perp before; it’s never been personal. It’s selfish to say, but I think I hate him more than I hated the Dark Lord.” Her voice was quiet. “I envision myself ripping off his head sometimes, ripping him in two…” Her words had lost almost all strength, at this point. “The hatred inside me, the vitriol...it doesn’t even feel like my own. Another thing that makes me feel inhuman, I guess.” 

She looked back up at him and he was still watching her. She held his gaze, those silver eyes inscrutable and unknowable.

“I know the feeling,” he murmured.

Chapter 7: The Rebellion

Hermione

 

The next few weeks of study were less restrained. She felt like they were...on the same page? That they were a team, despite everything. It was nice to feel like there was someone who understood her situation so completely.

He started sharing stories about trips he’d taken to gather ingredients for his Wolfsbane trials; from notable escapades, like camping for days in the Tongrass Forest in search of a rare red aconite flower, to the more mundane act of sitting on the manor roof watching lupine flowers dry out in the summer heat.

He also shared more about his attempts to create a stronger Wolfsbane. His original goal was to find a more “permanent solution” as he put it, but he’d resolved to just retain as much of his mind as possible. She silently started pulling books about lycanthropy for additional review.

She’d tried to share a bit about her time as an Auror, but the wound was still too fresh.

They pulled tome after tome on blood magic, but finding any mention of a "heart ritual" was sparse. The closest she’d gotten was references to a bloodline curse that caused members of an afflicted bloodline to die from a broken heart. She started to get frustrated. 

It wasn’t until her 5th cast of a magical indexing charm on the Malfoy library yielded no results that she realized how to get past her latest research limitation; she needed her computer.

The elves had done a decent job of bringing her items over from her apartment in muggle London; most of her clothes were now in her bedroom’s wardrobe, her toiletries had arrived almost immediately, and an extra bookshelf had been added to her attached sitting room to accommodate her book collection. They’d even brought over the basket filled with half-completed crochet projects that she hadn’t touched since she’d erased her parents’ memories; that delivery had caused a whole new blanket of anguish to envelope her. 

One thing the elves didn’t grab was her iBook. They wouldn’t have known to; it would just look like a colorful piece of plastic to them. It would have little value here since the Malfoys certainly didn’t have Wi-Fi, but she had a plan for that, too.

 

....

 

She waited until Malfoy bid her goodnight and she saw the sparks from the green floo flames before she sprang into action. She knew he wouldn't be back for several hours, but time was still of the essence. 

She spent way longer than she should've rifling through her wardrobe for a muggle baseball cap, pulling the brim low in her forehead and tugging the hood of her black jumper overtop of it. Her beaded bag with the extension charm had been taken from her when she got transported to the DRCMC facility after the bust, but her muggle backpack would work just fine. 

She went back into the library and stepped into the fireplace. She was fairly certain the Ministry didn't track her floo movements, since they hadn't explicitly forbidden her from leaving the manor, but she had been so numb during the contract signing part of the relocation process that she didn't really know for sure. Regardless, she was going through with this. For research.

With a final sliding of her sunglasses onto her face, she grabbed a handful of floo powder and sent herself somewhere she was certain the Malfoy floo would be connected: Bourgin & Burke's.

 

....

 

The hardwood floor she rolled onto was covered in a thick layer of dust. The fireplace went unused now that the oddity shop was condemned and abandoned, and the trip through the floo had tossed her out ruthlessly. She groaned and stood, pleased to find the place empty of even furniture. 

The front door opened with a creak and she was thankful on multiple fronts that not many lingered around Knockturn Alley these days. She cast a disillusionment charm on herself and kept to the shadows, creeping under awnings of abandoned buildings and avoiding the lights shining from the windows of the only dingy pub that was still open. 

When she got to Diagon Alley, she took the longer path between shops to Flourish and Blotts. Pulling out her wand, she spent a few minutes deactivating the anti-theft charms and other dark magic wards. Using my Auror skills to break into a bookshop feels like a tragedy , she thought to herself and slipped inside.

It was dark and deserted, as she expected it would be 3 hours after closing time. She cast a few detection charms but found nothing, and it seemed all of their security was confined to the entrance. She wove through the shelves, forcing herself not to look at the books as she passed, until she reached the back of the store. A large fireplace she was intimately familiar with sat in front of her, and she felt a pang in her chest as memories of picking out school supplies with her parents and rushing in first thing in the morning to pick up a new release flooded her mind. She longingly recalled attending author talks with a disinterested Harry and Ron, and how long it took for the shop to reopen after the war. 

Flourish and Blotts was her favorite place in Diagon Alley, and the first place connected her personal floo to when she moved into her apartment after completing Auror training. Seeing it in its after-hours, illegally and the only way she really could, felt like a shot to the heart. Another thing Ionescu took from her. 

With a resigned sigh, she stepped into the fireplace and called out for her old home.

 

...

 

It didn't take long to find her computer, resting on her old desk in the now dust-covered living room. Most of the home had changed little since she’d moved, since most of the items the elves brought her were from her bedroom. She grabbed and shrunk a few personal artifacts, slipping them into her backpack as she picked through a space that felt like it belonged in another lifetime. She grabbed a framed photo of her with her parents on New Year's Eve during 5th year, a couple of scented candles from a muggle candlemaker that she hadn't had a chance to burn before she was Turned, her favorite throw blanket, among other things. She shrunk her laptop and charger; she wasn't sure what she'd do when it ran out of battery, but that was a problem for another day.

She went to her room next, reviving an old house plant before shrinking it and adding it to the bag. This room had been hit harder with her absence; most notably in her closet, which was nearly empty. There was little in here left for her to salvage, but she spied her CD player and threw it in the bag as well.

Back through the floo at Flourish and Blotts, she pulled her laptop out of her bag and connected it to the bookstore's Wiz-Fi; another reason she'd selected this floo for the evening. She began frantically downloading all scholarly articles related to vampires, vampire sightings in the muggle world, blood magic from the wizard-published internet sites, werewolves from either part of the internet, and a datasheet of all of the publicly released crime data published by the Ministry over the last 6 months. 

Hermione didn't linger once she finished downloading everything and soon found herself moving through the shadows of Diagon Alley again. As she passed the Leaky Cauldron, however, she nearly crumpled onto the cobblestone.

Through the thick, smudged glass, she could see Harry, Ron, Ginny, Luna, and Seamus sitting around a table, filled and empty butterbeer mugs littering the table in front of them. It must be Friday , her brain supplied, barely acknowledged over the ringing in her ears. She could even see where she would've sat, the space in between Ron and Luna still slightly larger than necessary, as if they were still waiting for her to arrive. She felt like she was watching her life go by without her. She watched them while a silent tear slid down her cheek, then another, and another, but she couldn't look away. Somewhere in the back of her mind was the awareness that this whole trip was a rebellion more than a necessity, that this self-immolation was illogical and useless. The part of her that had surrendered to the Vampire compelled her to stand there, watching, crying to herself beneath a baseball cap and sunglasses at 11 at night. 

The sudden rush of sound that flooded the evening air when the door to the pub opened startled her from her spiraling. She hadn't realized it until her reverie was broken, but she'd moved closer to the window and now stood in the middle of the street. A street that the pub-goer who had just exited the Leaky now seemed to be moving towards.

She thanked any god listening that he hadn't looked up from his boots, giving her time to dart behind a stack of barrels next to the Quidditch shop. He passed without issue and she let out a breath; that was far too close for comfort , she thought to herself. 

She made it back to Bourgin & Burke's with little additional fanfare and was sure she was in the clear until she flopped out of the Manor library floo to find Malfoy standing above her, looking bewildered. She coughed from the soot even as her heart dropped into her stomach.

"Granger," He growled. This was the first time she saw him express any emotion besides trepidation. He was already so much taller than her when she was standing, but from her position on the hardwood, he looked infinitely more menacing. 

"Where in Merlin's name have you been?" The agitation was clear in his voice. It made her hackles rise further. 

"Out." She said simply, removing her sunglasses and cap and setting them primly on the floor next to her. His eyes widened in frustration and she figured this was probably not the right thing to say. She cared little; she didn’t owe him an explanation.

"Out? Where the fuck is Out?" He ran his hands through his hair, though it looked like it had been run through a few times already. 

"I needed to retrieve something from my flat." 

"What was so important that you couldn't just ask the elves to retrieve it for you?"

"My computer. They wouldn't know what to look for."

"And you couldn't just explain it to them?"

"It had to be me. I had to download some things to it!"

"Download-?" He sputtered and she rolled her eyes.

"It's a muggle thing. They couldn't do it for me."

"What if someone had seen you? What if you'd accidentally Turned someone? You could be thrown in Azkaban if the Ministry caught wind of this!"

"Maybe I don't care if I end up in Azkaban!" She cried, her voice cracking. She broke eye contact with him, instead staring down at where her hands clutched her backpack to her chest. A petulant child.

A few beats of silence passed, her uneven breathing taking up the entire room, and she heard him move. He crouched down in front of her, his expression unreadable while his eyes scanned her person. 

"I hate this." She said, her voice small and weak. "I hate myself. What I am...this life...it's nothing. I am nothing. I have--nothing." she continued, her voice stuttering, fresh tears making tracks over the lines from earlier in the night. 

"Living like this...this isolation, this not-knowing...it's killing me." her voice was barely above a whisper as she finished, squeezing her eyes shut. 

She felt his finger brush her cheek, first the left then the right, catching her tears as they fell.

"I understand," he said after some time, his voice quiet and gentle. "I know the need to run. I get it," he continued, his fingers shifting and gently cupping her chin. She opened her eyes and found that he was watching her intently.

"I know things feel terrible right now, but...it's not forever. We’ll find a way out of this. There are still too many unknowns to give up on yourself now." she nodded slowly. He tilted her chin up slightly so she'd look into his eyes again.

"If you want to leave the Manor, tell me. We aren't prohibited from leaving altogether, just come tell me and we can do it safely." He sounded so different. She nodded again.

"Okay." he looked at her for another moment before rising to his feet again and stepping back from her.

"Goodnight, Granger." 

"Thank you, Malfoy." She whispered, but he was already gone.

Chapter 8: Escape, Even if It's Only for a Moment

Notes:

As always, thank you to my friends who have read this early!

Hermione

The next day, she sat alone at their table. She waited for him, but eventually realized he wasn’t coming. She took a glance at the lunar calendar, and it was only at half waxing. 

 

…

 

The following day, he was already in the library when she got there. He stood, leaning against the table, looking at her expectantly.

"Hello," he said when she entered.

"Hi."

"I am going somewhere tonight. Would you like to come?" He asked, and her heart nearly burst out of her chest. 

"Yes! I mean. Yes. I would like to. Thank you!" She tripped over her words, her whole face illuminated. The corner of his mouth turned up and he pushed off the table.

"Excellent. I have some matters to attend to today, but do meet me in the entrance hall this evening at 9. We will leave then." He told her, heading for the door.

"Okay." she replied as he opened the library door, trying to reign in her excitement and failing. He turned back and smiled at her before he stepped into the hall, and she blamed her anticipation of adventure for the way her heart skipped.

 

...

 

She got no work done that day; she was too excited to leave the grounds.

When she arrived at the entrance hall that evening, he was waiting for her by the front door. He wore a black cloak, its hood pulled over his head. A second cloak was draped over his arm, which he extended to her when she approached. She pulled it on, fastening the buttons and pulling the hood over her head. He handed her a pair of dark glasses, and she donned those as well. She asked where exactly they were going, and he replied simply, "You'll see". It was a testament to her desperation to leave the manor that she followed him out the front door without question. 

They met Buffy outside, who walked with them down the long pathway towards the Manor front gates. When they reached the bottom of the path, Buffy turned to them and held his hand out. Malfoy placed his hand on her arm gently, and the other in Buffy's palm. They get sucked into an apparition and spat out on the outskirts of Wiltshire. Buffy departed and Malfoy led her down a few quiet streets before reaching a courtyard, where a thestral-pulled carriage waited for them. 

….

 

After about an hour of flight, the carriage landed and deposited them on a dimly lit, decrepit street. She could see the lights of London a short distance away, though the buildings on this street seemed that they hadn’t been lit up in decades. 

He stepped up to a run-down factory whose doors were overtaken long ago by ivy and started performing a series of incantations. She knew a Fidelius charm when she saw one, but whatever they’d come to see was further hidden behind a brick wall, it seemed. Malfoy tapped his wand along a few bricks and the bricks parted, a myriad of sounds and lights exploding from the opening. 

She took a step up to the hole and her breath caught; perhaps it was the nearly two months of isolation, perhaps it was the novelty of a bustling night, perhaps it was the magic of the subject matter in front of her, and perhaps it was all three, but Hermione was certain she’d never been happier to see this many drunk people in one place in her life. 

A city square unfolded itself in front of her, the streets packed with every species imaginable. There were tables outside of packed pubs where Goblins, Veelas and Satyrs congregated; there were house elves on the streets selling pastries and knitwear; there were some witches and wizards who looked normal if not for the bags of blood in their hands or a flicking tail at their backs. The sky was ablaze with lantern light and filled with ghosts mingling on rooftops. There were homes and shops and taverns as far as she could see, and she hoped farther than that. It was like Hogsmeade had lowered its inhibitions. The air held the festivity of the Quidditch World Cup.

She felt a hand at her back and looked up to find Malfoy guiding her down the steps and into the throng. 

“Malfoy! What is this?” She yelled over the din, a small smile forming on her lips. She already felt more alive. He looked down at her and smirked, his expression pleased. 

“Welcome to the Underworld.” He replied. “It’s a bit…under the radar, for most of the wizarding world. The Fidelius charm only activates if all of the members present have an altered magical core.” 

“So…whoever the ministry designates as a magical being, then.” He nodded. 

“This is incredible. I feel like I’m eleven again and I’m seeing Diagon Alley for the first time.” She tensed up as soon as the words left her mouth. She’d forgotten who she was talking to. 

The Malfoy of today didn’t take the opportunity, and for that she was grateful. He paused for a moment before leaning towards her and saying in a quieter voice, “You can take your glasses off, if you’d like.” 

She looked back up at him, hesitant. 

“What about the wizards here?”

“Werewolves, other vampires, or veela. They’ll all be immune. You’ll...you’re safe here.” He looked so sincere in that moment that it sent a wave of emotion through her. She pulled her glasses off and tucked them into her pocket and he gave her a reassuring smile. 

“Better, yeah? Do stay by me though, your vision is about the only thing I would identify as “safe” here.” He added and his arm returned to her back, a gentle presence that connected them together and heightened her awareness of him. 

He guided her through the streets and she took in the sights with full vision; a man was dancing in the streets with several miniature dragons shooting fire around him while a crowd cheered. A few half-giants were seated at an extra-large table and chairs and a server appeared out of a second-floor window with their meals. A group of goblins seemed to be gambling on a frog race. A vampire witch had a wizard pressed up against a wall and was sucking his blood, which stopped Hermione in her tracks. 

“Malfoy! How could she--is that--is that legal? Will no one stop her?” She sputtered and he chuckled. 

“Oh, it’s legal, as long as it’s consensual. It’s not usually this publicized though; this is a rather raunchy showing.”

“A-what? Why would he agree to that!?” 

“She doesn’t drain him, just feeds a bit. It’s considered an… intimate act.” He finished and she saw a bit of color touch his cheeks. 

“Oh,” she replied, looking back at the couple. Only then did she see the woman’s hand drifting towards the man’s trousers. She flushed and turned away. 

“We can move on then.” She announced, desperate for a subject change. Where are we going?” 

“The apothecary first. Then we’re going to see an old friend.” 

They veered past a gaggle of cornish pixies tugging a tight braid down a djinn’s neck outside of an unorthodox-looking beauty parlor and down a side street. He pulled her through a brightly lit doorway and into a deep apothecary with low ceilings, the words Noctis Cura above the door, and the air smelling of patchouli. A few customers were browsing the displays, each nodding to Malfoy in greeting as he passed by. He stopped briefly to speak to one man, his voice low while he gestured to somewhere farther into the depths of the shop. The man patted Malfoy on the back and he stepped back to Hermione, a lingering chuckle on his lips. 

“Do you know that man?” she asked as they continued through the store.

“A bit. He comes in occasionally for bilius root and he often asks for mandrake root, too. There’s finally some in stock, so I pointed him in the right direction.” 

“The right direct--how do you know where--“ she started but was cut off by the man at the counter, his voice loud and warm.

“Mr. Malfoy! What a surprise. I didn’t think you’d be in until that cauldron order arrived from Dervish and Banges next week.”

“Good to see you, Septimus. I’m just here to pick up some more aconite from the back.” Malfoy said and the man nodded.

“Ah, yes, of course. I assume your last cycle was peaceful?” He asked. Despite the warmth in his tone, she felt Malfoy tense next to her.

“Yes, yes, it was fine. Nothing of note.” He replied stiffly, a forced, polite smile on his face.

“Is this your shop then, Septimus?” She blurted, thoughtlessly. 

The man’s gaze shifted to her and for a brief moment, she panicked when their eyes met. Nothing happened, of course, and she relaxed as the man broke out into a laugh.

“Why, Mr. Malfoy! Have you brought your friend in here blind?” He replied, teasing. “This certainly is not my shop, dear. I could not afford to run an operation like this one, that’s for sure!”

She looked back to Draco, who looked a bit sheepish.

“Let’s, ah...head to the back.” He said and gestured forward with his hand to behind the counter. She stepped through the back hallway, bewildered, while Septimus continued chuckling to himself.

Once he tugged the curtain closed, shutting out the cacophony of the shop, she spun to him. 

“Malfoy, do you own this place?” She asked.

“Yes.” He replied, looking at the vials of ingredients on the shelves tightly packed against the walls of the narrow hallway. “I am the head potioneer here, as well. It started with just my wolfsbane potion when I first Turned, after the war, but grew into something else over the years.” He continues, plucking a few vials off of the shelf and stowing them in his cloak pocket.

“Why isn’t your name on the door?”

“I like to keep a low profile. I’d rather it just be an apothecary, and whoever cares to know the owner can find that information themselves. Even in this city, my name doesn’t have the… best associations with it, as you know.” he murmured the last bit, his hands fiddling with a bottle on the shelf in front of him. He looked embarrassed, uncomfortable, and guilty, and she felt an inexplicable urge to embrace him. This Draco Malfoy she was becoming acquainted with seemed so far removed from the Draco Malfoy of her past.

She settled for resting her hand on his forearm. He locked eyes with her, and she tried to convey everything she couldn’t say.

“You’d mentioned another errand?” she asked, tentatively, quietly. He broke the spell a moment later and nodded.

“Yes. I’ve gotten everything I need here, so we can move on.”

 

…

 

He continued to navigate them through alleys and side streets. They passed a pub with a sign that read “wolves only” and she frowned, logging that for later investigation. 

Eventually, they made it to a small courtyard, where a cluster of people cheered while a transfigurist changed different audience members' hats into lewd shapes. A musician was playing the mandolin in the corner, while a few other mandolins played themselves next to him, maintaining the harmony. Malfoy turned to her.

"Before we go any further, I need you to promise me you won't say a word when we get in there."

"Why? Where are we going?"

"The person we're going to see...she will try to taunt you into revealing more than you should. She's going to say a bunch of things to try to get you to reveal something to her. Just-please, not a word." he looked uneasy.

"Okay, fine. I'll try not to say anything." she relented and he nodded in thanks.

Malfoy led her behind the musician and lifted a rug charmed to the wall, revealing a stone archway beneath it. They stepped into the hall and the rug fell back over the archway, the floating candles above them their only source of light. 

In the dimness and with her enhanced eyesight, she realized the walls, ceiling, and floors were all covered in rugs of all sorts. There were Persian rugs in a myriad of colors, Moroccan rugs in vivid oranges and blues, flatweave rugs, jute rugs, and more, all layered on top of one another and creating a tunnel of fabric. She felt like she was standing between two gigantic rugs on a display rack in a muggle department store.

He took her through the tunnel, which curved and spit them out in a small room similarly covered top-to-bottom in rugs, floating candles illuminating an ancient woman seated on a maroon plush couch in front of a low table in the center of the room.

The table was covered in candles; taper candles in brass holders, pillar candles melting straight onto the table, all lit and burning. There was candle wax long-hardened dripping down the sides of the table like stalactites. A house elf was seated in the back of the room on his own couch, smoking a shisha pipe. When they entered the room, the woman immediately perked up, and Hermione noticed that her eyes were completely white.

"Ah, Draco, there you are. I was wondering when you'd come crawling back to me. And you've brought a vampire with you, that's interesting." The woman's voice boomed, loud and revealing. Hermione swore the room shuddered slightly as she called out to them.

"Edda, good to see you again. This is Eleonora, my...partner." He said, putting a hand on Hermione's back.

"Now, I know that is not any girl named Eleonora, but I can understand why you'd want to keep a name like hers private. Names do have power. Come and sit." She gestured in front of her and a couch matching the one she sat on appeared across from the candle table. Malfoy took Hermione’s hand and led her to the couch, keeping it in his grasp when they sat. It felt warm and reassuring wrapped around hers, resting on her knee.

“Tell me, Draco, what is it that brings you back to me after all of these years?” 

 "I need information about Dorian Ionescu." He said, and both women looked at him in surprise.

"Well! That is quite a tall order. What makes you so interested? Could it be that your pretty little friend is looking to be reunited with her sire? Is this a romantic gesture, Draco? That certainly wouldn't bode well for you, but I suspect you already know that." The woman challenged, and Malfoy's jaw ticked. "No comment." He gritted out.

"Oh, perhaps, it's you who is looking then? Trying to follow in dear old daddy’s footsteps, are we? I doubt he’d approve of you consorting with vampires, considering how he reacted when he found out you’d been Turned. But I guess there’s a first for everything?”

“No comment.”

“Oh, I see, not that then! Have the Malfoy coffers finally run so dry that you're looking for work? I'd guess not, judging by the quality of that suit under your cloak... but as they say, looks can be deceiving." She continued and Hermione wondered how this woman knew all of this information about them. The woman reminded her vaguely of Rita Skeeter, though Skeeter wouldn't last 10 minutes against this witch. 

"No comment." He said again, and she cackled.

"Fine, perhaps it is none or all of these things. What do you have to tell me in exchange for this information?" She asked and he leaned back against the couch, looking thoughtful. He spoke again after a moment. 

"Rodolphus has been spotted. Off the coast of Greece. He's posing as a muggle fishmonger in a coastal village. He's currently being tracked with a Trace spell cast on his shoes.".

"Oh my, isn't that something? He does owe quite a few people a good bit of money, doesn't he? Unfortunately, this is not enough to trade for information on Ionescu. Who spotted him?" 

"I won't say."

"Oh, well it's worth even less unverified. Perhaps you'd like to finish your trade with the identity of your lovely assistant?" Edda swiveled her head to where Hermione sat, shifting in her seat. Looking into her not-so-unseeing eyes might be even worse than never looking at another person again.

"No. Nothing about her." he said and sighed. "Zabini told me. He's got the Trace location."

"Oh, how delightful! Valuable knowledge indeed. But, still not enough for Ionescu. What else do you have?" Draco rolled his eyes and looked thoughtful once more.

"I can give you some Quidditch information. A tip that could make a lot of people a lot of money."

"I'm listening."

"The Keeper and the Seeker on Puddlemere United are being paid off. In addition to having piss-poor chasers, it's a majority of the reason they're so bad this year. They're tanking intentionally, and it will come out by the end of the season."

"That is a good bit of gossip. How did you come about that information?"

"That, I truly will not say. It would compromise my source, and if you ever want me to bring you more Quidditch information, you'll allow me to maintain that relationship."

"Oooooh, someone close to you then, surely. Is it the Puddlemere owner himself?"

"No comment."

“I wonder if it’s that girl, the one on the Harpies, that one that you were-”

“No. Comment.”

"Oh Draco, you really have gotten good at the game. I will tell you what I know, which I admit is not much." She said, repositioning herself on the couch. She swiped a hand over the fire, close enough to the flames that she definitely should've burned something, and a golden smoke wafted from the candles. Her hands sifted through it, as though she searched for something in the smoke.

"He hasn't been spotted in The Underworld in some time. The last time he was here was a few months ago. He was with an...unidentified werewolf. They were seen entering the Goblin district, and they were not turned away at the door. This unidentified werewolf has been seen unaccompanied in the Vampire Quarter. Ionescu has not been seen in some time in wizarding London or otherwise, either. Many believe that after the Ministry bust, he got better at moving covertly." She finished, turning to Hermione again. 

“But I’m sure you know all about that, don’t you?” She cooed and Hermione straightened her spine.

"Not many vampires trade secrets with me, you know. Perhaps you could share something with me to help me build my collection? I'd be happy to tell you lots of secrets about Draco in exchange." She said and Hermione's brows shot up.

"I told you, Edda. Nothing about her." Malfoy snapped, the hand holding hers sliding up to grip her bicep. The old woman cackled again.

"Oh Draco, you've already shared more with me than you know. If that's all, feel free to see yourselves out. But know, dear girl, you're welcome back without him if you'd prefer!" She crooned at them as Malfoy hauled her up and hurried them both out of the room and into the hallway. Hermione could hear her howling laughter down the hall.

 

...

 

Once they were out from behind the rug and well away from the courtyard, Malfoy finally let out a breath. He looked like he'd just finished taking an exam.

"Bloody hell," He huffed, rubbing his temple.

"Malfoy, what is that woman?" she asked as they continued walking through the streets, now at a more leisurely pace.

"Edda is...well, I suppose she's technically an oracle, though her methods are a bit...unusual." He sighed. "She trades in information. She can sense the truth and only share it or speculate on it. She can only trade what she perceives or what she's told directly, which is why I didn't tell her your name." 

“She seemed like she knew who I was regardless.”

"That's the oracle part. I think she can see some things and not others. But since I didn't explicitly say your name, she cannot physically say that she had a visit from Hermione Granger, or anything like that." He clarified and she thought this over.

"Why does anyone go to her at all then, if everything about them can be sold off?" She asked, thinking about the way The Prophet would run away with this if they were ever given the chance.

"She's a valuable source of information. She helped me quite a bit during the war."

"Why did you bring me there tonight? Why ask about Ionescu at all?" She asked and he paused his steps, turning to look at her.

"Well....I figured, if you're going to take him down, the first thing to do is figure out where he is. I thought asking Edda would be a good start."

Something that felt like trust sprouted roots in her chest cavity, and she smiled gratefully at him.

“Right, then. What else can you show me?” She asked, desperate for more. For anything but the manor.

“What would you like to see?”

“Everything.”

 

...

 

By the time they got home, it was nearly 3 AM. She felt like they'd traipsed through every neighborhood in the Underworld, but apparently, they'd barely scratched the surface. She understood how he was gone for entire evenings, and she was positively knackered. 

 

She took the stairs and he trailed behind her, stopping when he got to the first floor landing. She turned, realizing he must sleep on the first floor, and found his eyes were already on hers.

“Malfoy, I…thank you for bringing me tonight. I really needed it.” She said, almost whispering. 

He watched her for a moment more before responding, “It was the least I could do.” and continuing out of sight.

Chapter 9: The Build Up

Notes:

As always, thank you for reading!!

Hermione

 

He didn’t come to the library the next day, and she realized it was a full moon. She wondered briefly why he would’ve taken her out so close to a full moon, but she purposefully didn’t spend much time exploring that thought. 

She hadn’t really let herself acknowledge the anger she felt at her situation, the rage too vicious and the threat of it consuming her too large. But she had someone willing to be angry with her, for her. She didn’t care if that satisfaction made her more than a monster than she already was. 

She turned her attention to learning how to kill a vampire. Many of the history and anatomy texts about vampires that she’d already reviewed had been written by vampires, and they certainly weren’t going to detail their own maiming for all of wizardkind to see. She’d have to find a more niche source.

After three days of solitary study, she was halfway through a passage regarding the different translations and meanings of the term “vrolok" or "vlkoslak" across various Slavic languages in Beasts of Blood and Bone: An Ethnographic Study of Dark Creatures when the door to the library finally moved. 

He was standing in the doorway, his hands in his pockets, looking rather worn out again. Shadows haunted his eyes and his lids were lowered, but his silver stare still focused on her. 

They held each other’s gaze for several long moments, and she felt pricks of anticipation all over her body. 

“Granger,” he said, finally. 

“Hello, Malfoy.” She replied and he was silent for a bit again, his eyes scanning the air, looking for his next thought.

“I apologize for my absence after our trip last week. It wasn't my intention to leave you hanging."

"That's quite all right. I know you’re busy, and now I know what you’re busy with.” She replied, pausing and mulling over her next words.

“Malfoy…” She trailed off. He nodded for her to continue. 

“Where do you go? When you turn.” she asked, her voice quiet, and his eyes immediately pulled shut. When they opened, they seemed almost duller.

“There’s a cell…in the dungeons. I enter about 12 hours before sunset, and when I turn back, the elves let me out.” he finally said, and she sucked in a breath.

“But…why? I thought your Wolfsbane recipe was strong? I thought you retained your faculties?”

“That is correct, I do. But…one can never be too sure.”

“Has something happened before?”

“Yes.” This gave her pause, but she pushed forward. 

“So you’re just…aware? In a cell? For days?” she asked and he slowly nodded once, still not looking at her.

“That must be…torture, Draco.” she continued and he looked up quickly. She hadn’t meant to use his first name, but after she said it, she didn’t think calling him Malfoy would’ve fit either. His eyes flicked across her face before returning to focus on the far distance in the windows.

“From the outside, I suppose it looks like it is. Turning back with the knowledge that you’ve spent the last few days killing anything in your path is its own torture.” His voice was a low murmur. He still wouldn’t look her way, so she couldn’t tell him she understood. That she’d felt something acutely similar in that DRCMC rehabilitation chamber when Remus told her about the other Aurors. 

He continued to stare out at the darkening sky, so she returned her eyes to her book, giving him some privacy. Eventually, she heard him slip back into the hall.

 

…

 

For the next few days, he didn’t join her for her research sessions. She knew better than to try, but she asked the elves, and they each replied that he was “Out” regardless of which one she asked.

Her research lately had consisted of comparing conflicting information on repelling vampires collected over the past few centuries. A good bit of it showed its age; she was fairly certain she’d been around garlic since she’d turned and she’d definitely been awake during the daytime. While the blood bags in her little library ice box sustained her, she wasn’t maintaining agelessness from drinking from them. Sunlight made her skin feel like she’d spent a day at the beach without sunblock, but she didn’t turn to ash. 

Methods of destruction remained the same across sources, however; cut off the head, a stake through the heart, burning the body, and the like. There was a description of one man's "dying of thirst" that involved way too much time to pass for her to consider it an option.

It wasn’t until she found a textbook published nearly 200 years ago for 7th-year DADA students that she truly felt like she was onto something. She’d never come across it as a student; much of the information in it was outdated. But, for whatever reason, the manor library had Severus Snape’s old copy in its possession. 

The book was titled, Dark Companions: A Guide to Understanding Vampires and Werewolves and looked like it had been read through a few times. Like most of Snape’s Hogwarts-era texts, this one was annotated with additional information in the margins of several chapters. All of the werewolf passages were tabbed, and a few chapters had scraps of paper stuck into them with notes written in a newer, more refined version of Snape’s handwriting. Some of them were explicitly addressed to Draco, and those felt too intimate to read. 

One comment was repeated throughout many of the annotations on the pages, across multiple chapters; in several places, Snape had written: “See First Edition”. Some thoughts were cut off mid-sentence by an emdash followed by the phrase. Hermione flipped to the front of the book and discovered that this book was in fact a first edition of this text, and casting another indexing charm revealed that the copy in her hands was the only one in the library. She attempted to cast an indexing charm on the entire manor, knowing that Draco had a small library in his private study, but it seemed the wards around the house blocked that effort.

She left the library, book in hand, in search of him. He could avoid her, that was fine, but this was for research. This overrode any emotional priority, she told herself.

She hadn’t seen him in a few days, and she didn’t know what he’d been doing in the meantime. She wasn’t 100% sure she could get back to The Underworld without him or without accidentally creating a small vampire army, so she hoped he’d been spending time in the Manor. She decided to try the potions laboratory door, but when she stepped into the Grand Hall, her search came to a confusing end. 

He was sitting on the ground in the center of the hall, several pieces of plastic scattered in front of him and a suspiciously muggle-looking piece of paper in his hands. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, two marks of ink flashing on his forearms. A lock of his hair had fallen from his coiffed hair and rested on his forehead. He looked profoundly irritated.

“Malfoy?” She called quietly, and he looked up briefly before looking back down at whatever he was doing. “What is this?” She asked, and he grunted quietly before picking up his wand off the floor where it rested next to him.

“Bloody rubbish, is what it is. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get this blasted thing going. I’ve got all of these thready things into the little holes but nothing is happening.” He replied, not looking up. She walked over to where he was sitting and crouched down, almost immediately recognizing the British Telecom logo on a cardboard box discarded to his side. She looked back at what he was doing and realized the “thready things” he was fussing with were….cables.

“Is this...a router?” she asked. He looked up for a second and shrugged before casting a spell at a little box next to the router box.

“You can call it what you’d like. I’ve been calling it Umbridge for all of the trouble it’s been giving me.” He muttered and she let out a disbelieving laugh.

“What is going on here? Where did you even get this?” Watching him fiddle with a muggle object was a sight she truly never thought she would see.

“It’s a — damn it — it’s for your computer. It’s supposed to help you get into a spider’s web with it, I believe. The computer goes into the web. I’m so bloody confused.” His frustration was obvious, but her heart was racing. She looked over and sure enough, a Wizard's Capacitor straight from the Muggle Liason Office was attached to the side of the router where the power source would be plugged in. The small blue gemstone in the center of the capacitor pulsed faintly, and the router lights were all on. She picked up the router and looked up at him, in minor disbelief. He'd already shown her more than once how much he’d changed since before the war, but this felt particularly special. This felt...personal.

"Draco, I....this is so thoughtful of you," she said softly and he grumbled.

"If would have been, if it had worked properly." He grumbled petulantly in response and she chuckled.

"It's not supposed to produce a literal web, that's just what it's called." 

"No spider's web?" He asked and she nodded warmly.

"No spider's web. It looks right to me, but we can test it once I have a chance to charge my computer again. Which, by the way, I will need another Capacitor for, if you happen to have any extra from wherever you got this."

"I do, Theo gave me several."

"Theodore Nott?" she asked, her brows furrowing at the idea that a known Pureblood supplied another known Pureblood with a device designed to power muggle artifacts.

"Yes. He works in the Muggle Liason Office at the Ministry."

"Does he really?" she was truly shocked at this. He didn't react to her surprise and simply nodded.

"Yes. Part of a revenge plot against his father, but I think he likes it well enough." He told her and his gaze shifted, noticing the book wedged under her arm. 

“I see you’ve got something there. What is it?” He asked and she perked up, remembering why she was looking for him in the first place. 

“Oh! Yes, I’ve found this text. It seems fairly high-level but Snape’s annotations have filled in some of the blanks.” She started and his gaze flicked between the book and her face, his expression assessing. “I was a bit confused by some of them, though. He keeps referencing the first edition of this book, but I checked the publishing information, and this is the first edition.” She continued, looking to him for confirmation. 

“Ah yes, that would be referring to the first edition ever printed. The copy you have was given to me at the end of sixth year, after I turned. Snape's notes are referencing the author’s copy, which includes several extensive annotations.” 

“I see. Do you have this copy?”

“Oh, no, it’s in the Slytherin library.”

“The what?”

“Granger, did you think that Gryffindor was the only house with its own collection of texts?”

“Oh, well, that makes sense. We just never called it the Gryffindor Library.”

“What did you call it then?”

“Just the bookshelves, I suppose. We didn’t really call it anything. It was just a few shelves in the common room.” she replied, and he smirked up at her.

"The Slytherin dormitory had an entire room for ours." He boasted and she rolled her eyes.

"Why is it in the Slytherin Library, anyway? Shouldn't it be in the main library?" She asked and he just shrugged.

"I think the regular copy is in the main library. The author was head of Slytherin at the time of publishing, so I suspect that had something to do with why it’s there."

"This copy seems well-loved enough." She replied, holding the book up.

"I have read through that copy a few times, but I will say my first weeks after turning were spent with the original. The author nearly wrote a second book in the margins, with the amount of information that's in there." He replied and she pursed her lips, pondering this answer. She'd felt like something was missing when she was flipping through the contents earlier, like the author had restricted herself to only the basic information. She started to brainstorm but decided to continue exploring the social politics of the 18th century book publishing industry at another time. 

“Well, shall we power on my iBook and see if your spider’s web works?”

Chapter 10: The Visitation

Notes:

As always thank you for reading! this chapter is a short one so I may post the next chapter in a few days instead of waiting a week.

Hermione

It appeared that Draco had set up the Wi-Fi router and Capacitor correctly. He had no way to confirm that for himself, since he didn't have a computer or a clue how to use one. When Hermione informed him that he'd been successful at a task lots of Muggles struggled with, he'd been profoundly proud of himself. 

He didn't say anything when she pulled her laptop out during their research sessions, but he did eye the device warily. When they sat together and she thought about how he'd set up a Wi-Fi hotspot in his home for her, it made her heart do something she was not ready to investigate.

She expanded her research to Muggle myths, looking up the lore behind Medusa and comparing what the internet provided with what she knew from her research on Basilisks in second year. Both involved a serpent of some sort and a petrifying gaze, but Muggles hadn't made much progress on theorizing the application of such an effect.

A tome she found in the manor library about unsolved magical puzzles speculated that the Basilisk's "Malevolent Gaze" was a natural magic that arose from a long-standing dark curse on their kind and their innate malicious intentions. The Basilisk's magic could only be performed by a Basilisk, and she wondered if The Sight was not dissimilar. 

Malfoy left for a week to go retrieve some ashwinder eggs from Romania, and she found herself looking for him in the hallways of the manor. 

 

….

 

“So are you able to turn into a bat, or-?” Ron’s question elicited such a strong reaction from within her that she would’ve slapped him if his face hadn’t been made of fireplace cinders. She'd gotten especially lonesome with Malfoy in Romania, but regretted using the additional privacy to break the news of her condition to Ron.

“Ronald, please! This is serious.” She snapped.

“I am! What would you like me to say ‘mione, congrats on becoming a bloodsucker?” He shot back, a muttered, this is bonkers following quietly.

“Sorry, Hermione. He’s having trouble wrapping his mind around all of this.” Harry said and Hermione sighed. 

“I’d be having a lot less trouble if I knew what happened!” She heard him call out in the background. 

“You know it’s classified!” She yelled at the fire.

“And in horrible taste, asking a vampire ‘what happened’. Terrible etiquette.” Harry added. 

“At any rate, Harry, thank you for answering my call. I need something and I think it's best if I do not retrieve it myself.”

“Bet you’re not going to bloody tell me what that is either.” Ron grumbled somewhere away from Harry. Hermione rolled her eyes.

“There’s a bit of text, written in the late 1800s for Defense Against the Dark Arts students at Hogwarts. There is a first-edition copy of it that includes the author’s annotations. I require it.” She continued. 

“Let me guess…it’s in the Hogwarts Library.”

“It’s actually in the Slytherin Common Room. In the stacks of their private study.” 

“Bloody Hell, Mione.”

“Please, Harry. I really do need it. I have a first-edition copy here but Dr-….someone told me that there’s a copy with nearly another book’s worth of information written in the margins. I must take a look at it.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll try to find an excuse to give McGonnegall that she’ll believe.” 

“Tell her it’s for the Ionescu case! That’s not a lie technically.” 

“It wouldn’t be, if I were still on the case.” He replied and she sat up from where she’d been lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

“What?! They took you off the case?” She asked incredulously and heard him sigh. 

“Yes… ’conflict of interest’ is the official reason.”

“That’s ridiculous! You have to fight that, Harry.”

“I am, I am, but as of right now I’ve been relegated to stopping a gaggle of teenagers from shoplifting from Honeyduke’s.”

“I…I’m sorry Harry. If I hadn’t given Ionescu chase, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“What he did to you is not your fault, and it’s not your fault what the Ministry decides to do about it. I can get myself out of this one.” He tried to reassure her, but she felt the pit in her stomach that formed when this all started growing larger. She hadn’t even realized how much her friends would be affected by this, and it made her rage continue to grow. Despite this, she still thanked him for his words. 

“Right then. What book is it that has you sending me to Scotland?”

 

…

 

He'd only been back from Romania for a week when the next full moon came, then he was gone again. 

She hadn't been able to get any work done once she'd checked the calendar; all she could think of was him locked away in that cell, alone and punishing himself. He plagued her thoughts more than usual when she tried to sleep, and worry threatened to overtake her. 

She got out of bed and went for a walk through the halls, trying to settle her thoughts. An elf appeared and offered her some warm milk, but she declined. The door under the grand staircase that led to his potions laboratory was shut and locked, much to her dismay. She briefly thought about looking for his rooms just to feel closer to him before realizing how inappropriate that would be. 

She hadn't acknowledged how much she wanted to be near him in general until she was unable to assuage her worries. Dread pooled in her stomach as she wandered through the dark and quiet manor, and it wasn't until she started descending the stairs to the dungeons that she felt any of her fears subside.

The area at the bottom of the stars was small and cramped, with only a single light at the far end of the hall illuminated. Hermione crept towards it, her heart beating frantically and her thoughts swirling with memories of attempting to quell Lupin after he Turned in third year. A few candles floated in a cluster near the ceiling of the final cell at the end of a hall, where a gigantic wolf was curled up in the corner. His fur was the same shade of silvery grey as his eyes and seemed to shine despite the dim lighting. 

"Draco." She whispered as she approached the iron bars of the cell, and he stirred. He looked at her and she watched his ears flex briefly before he rose. He was easily over two metres tall and he looked incredibly strong. While vampires were technically classified as apex predators, she wouldn't have stood a chance against someone like him.

She reached the bars of the cell and he stopped, watching her. She whispered his name again and he tilted his head to the side, assessing. She extended her arm between the bars, her fingers extending slowly from her palm. After a few moments of continued assessment, he stepped towards her and she cupped his jaw softly, an action she never would’ve been able to do in his human form. The short hairs on his muzzle felt soft and his actions were gentle despite his imposing frame. He really has gotten good at brewing Wolfsbane , she thought to herself. 

She held his head for a few beats, studying his face and his form, before she retracted her hand and took a step back. Holding his gaze, she pointed her wand at the door and whispered “Alohomora”. A little spark burst from the lock in her periphery and she heard a click, then the door groaned as it slid open slightly. She took another step back and waited. He prowled slowly through the doorway and into the hall. He stopped in front of her and pressed his large head against her shoulder, the warmth of his body and the softness of his fur making her blood pound louder in her ears. After a moment, he stepped back and bound up the stairs into the manor.

She didn't see him the rest of the week, wolf form or otherwise.

Chapter 11: Ministry Mandated Foray into the Real World

Notes:

sorry for the delay in posting!!! My classwork picked up and I forgot to edit this one but we are back.

Hermione

 

The fourth month of her isolation was marked with her first Ministry-mandated New Vampire Integration Review , and she'd been successfully putting it out of her mind until Malfoy entered the library and informed her that it was three days away. She wasn’t sure what there was to review; outside of that one trip to the Underworld that she certainly was not planning on mentioning, she’d been squatting in the Manor for the last quarter, and that was precisely how the Ministry liked it. 

As her “sponsor,” Malfoy was required to escort her to her appointment. While it felt like an invasion of her privacy, she was also silently grateful. He had little more power than she, but his presence still felt like a bit of armor.

As they readied to leave she donned her sunglasses and her cloak. Malfoy handed her a hat with a wide brim and when she put it on her head, he pulled the hood overtop of it. She felt vaguely like a plague doctor. 

He went through the floo first and he caught her when the fireplace at the Leaky Cauldron roughly spat her out. Once she righted herself, he looped his arm through hers and they slipped out into London, disillusioning themselves just before they entered the streets. In no time they arrived at the telephone box and they shuffled inside together. He paused before reaching for the phone, looking down at her. She pulled her sunglasses down slightly so she could see him better, and she found his expression stern. He looked almost worried. 

“All ready?” He asked, his voice soft. He was close enough that she felt his breath ghost across her cheek. She nodded and pulled her glasses back on as he dialed 37262, the code for the DRCMC, entrance to the Ministry. 

The box dropped slowly into the ground, and soon enough they found themselves deposited in a darkened waiting room. There were two chairs and a table, on which rested a blindfold. Hermione groaned.

“Not this again.” She bemoaned, stepping up to the table and eyeing the blindfold reproachfully. Malfoy sighed behind her. 

“I suspected they might do this.” He turned to her and held out his wand. 

“Let me at least change your hair, preserve some of your dignity.” He said and she pulled her hat and sunglasses off, her hood sliding down her back. She felt her hair shorten and straighten, her dark curls turning golden. He stepped back and assessed his work. 

“It won’t hold for long, but it should work until we get to the meeting." He told her resignedly. 

"Let's get this over with then." 

 

......

 

Hermione felt them take a series of turns and tried to keep track, but she wasn’t even sure where in the Ministry the phone booth had deposited them. Malfoy had an arm across her back, his right hand gripping her waist as he steered them through the halls. She was once again reminded how grateful she was that he was there, mandated or not.

They eventually made it to what Hermione assumed was a courtroom, judging by the acoustics. It wasn’t as boisterous as some of the trials she’d attended as an Auror, but at least three other voices were echoing in the space. She felt Malfoy guide her to a position in the room and move to stand behind her. Once they’d settled, a voice spoke from in front of her. 

“Good Afternoon, everyone. I believe we are ready to begin the first New Vampire Integration Review for Ms. Hermione Jean Granger, Vampire in possession of The Sight, resident of Ministry Safehouse number 137, also known as Malfoy Manor, and handled by Draco Lucius Malfoy.” Hermione bristled at the last bit, and she felt Malfoy tense. “Representatives for The Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures include Department Head Edmund Trelwart, Undersecretary Tabitha Hornsby, and myself, Barnaby Seward of Wizard-Vampire Relations.” He continued, and she recognized the first name from her initial relocation meeting. 

“Ms. Granger, we will be asking you and Mr. Malfoy a few questions to get an idea of how your transition has been. Answer honestly to the best of your ability, and this won’t take too long at all. Edmund, would you like to begin?” He said, his voice carrying somewhere to Hermione’s left, and she heard some rustling of cloaks.

“Ms. Granger, lovely to see you again!” a voice she recognized as Trelwart’s bellowed. 

“Wish I could say the same,” she muttered under her breath, and he laughed a loud, forced laugh.

“Ah-ha! Yes, well, I’d rather not see those ruby reds of yours if I can help it.” he chaffed, but she did not laugh.

"I take it you are no longer experiencing the pain you were in when we last spoke?" He asked.

"Yes, I feel fine now."

"And your teeth...may we see them?" he asked and she sighed, folding her arms over her chest before opening her mouth. A chorus of oohs came from the other side of the courtroom and it made her feel like a circus performer. 

"Most excellent! Your fangs look like they've come in with little issue. Mr. Malfoy, has Ms. Granger displayed any resistance toward the physical changes and heightened sensory responses typical of vampirism?" Trelwart asked.

"Not that I am aware of." Malfoy responded curtly.

"Very well then. Ms. Granger, how have relationships with your family and friends been, since your change?”

“Well seeing as I can’t look at anyone anymore and you have me locked up in Malfoy Manor, I suppose they’re not doing too well, are they?” She snapped.

“Yes, well, you can still go see your fellow magical being friends! In their homes, on private property. If they allow you in, of course.” He was clearly trying to be funny, but Hermione just scowled at him. She heard Malfoy shift behind her.

"Mr. Malfoy, would you say Ms. Granger has taken measures to avoid attachment to non-being associates, or is there a continued emotional dependence?" Trelwart asked, and Hermione was getting frustrated. Why do they feel the need to fact-check everything I say? she thought to herself. 

"As I'm sure you are aware, only magical beings are allowed past the wards in Malfoy Manor." Malfoy supplied, a clever nonanswer.

"Ms. Granger, do you find that you seek the experience of human pleasures, like food, warmth, or intimacy?" Barnaby asked.

"I...um...I'm not sure? I guess I still take tea, if that's what you mean."

"How often would you say you take tea?"

"Daily? I'm sorry, what is the relevance of this question?"

"We are just trying to assess if you're adjusting to your new circumstances."

“How about your…urges?” This came from a woman’s voice to her right, who she assumed was Tabitha.  “How have you satisfied them?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your bloodlust, I mean. How frequently have you acted on blood cravings?”

“I wouldn’t say I ‘acted’ on them exactly; I feed when it feels necessary.”

“And have any of those feedings resulted in damage to other individuals, magical or otherwise?”

“I…what? No, it comes from a bag.”

“Well, of course, we’d all like it to come from a bag, but it does taste better directly from the source, does it not?” 

“I-I wouldn’t know.” She felt her cheeks heating, her brain immediately pulling the memory of the vampire feeding off of the man in The Underworld to the forefront of her mind.

"Hmm," Tabitha sounded unconvinced. 

“Mr. Malfoy, has Hermione voiced or indulged any predatory impulses while in your care that you're aware of?” Hermione went stock still.

“She's not an animal, Tabitha." Malfoy snapped, his voice full of the haughtiness she remembered from Hogwarts. 

"Right, right...it's you that is, isn't that right Malfoy?" Barnaby drawled, his voice low and threatening. Malfoy just sighed, though sparks of indignation were rising in Hermione's chest.

"No. Hermione has not shown any sort of predatory impulses. She sits and reads most days." He ground out.

They continued like this for some time, the three officials asking her a question and corroborating her answer with Malfoy's response. The questions escalated further into more invasive territory, until Tabitha asked her if she was "sure" whether or not she'd killed anyone and Trelwart finally took pity on her and ended the session.

 

…

Once they were out of the courtroom and back in the hall, Hermione yanked off her blindfold and grabbed Draco by the arm. She spun around, pulling him down another hall with only a single door at its end.

“Merlin, Granger! Put that back on-“ 

“Malfoy, listen, please. We can’t leave yet.” She cut him off. “I need to do something first.” He narrowed his eyes at her briefly, then cast a disillusionment followed by a muffliato.

“Okay, what is going on? What could you possibly need to do?” He cast another glance at the corridor they'd just turned from.

"I need to get to the records room,” she answered and he frowned.

"And...for what reason?" he startled when a shuffling sounded from around the corner, but it ended up just being a few interdepartmental memos zipping by.

"When I started working on the potions case, I made a copy of the case file and sent it to the records room. It updates when the original file updates, and I want to see if they've tracked down where Ionescu is hiding.”

“Couldn’t you just ask Potter?”

“They removed him from the case. Conflict of Interest.”

“Bloody Hell.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. 

“Fine.” He agreed, his voice laced with reluctance. “I assume you have a plan, so how do you propose we do this?” 

Chapter 12: The Break-In

Notes:

Consistent thank you to anyone reading this and my girl Chloe for reading ahead of time!

If you have any thoughts or want to say hey feel free to drop a comment :-)

Draco

 

She did in fact have a plan for getting into the records room, one so premeditated he wondered if she was ever allowed down there in the first place. He already hated this, but this was important to her. She needed him , and he realized he wanted to be needed by her. 

They wove through corridors, Draco with his arm around her and Granger with her hood over her head and her eyes downcast. She had to whisper instructions to him as they went since she couldn’t look forward, which made finding the right lift to take even more difficult. To his relief, the few people they passed were too engrossed in their own affairs to notice Draco Malfoy, notable Death Eater and rare public sight, all but dragging a hooded woman through the halls of the Ministry.

The first few lifts they took were supposed to be easy; all they had to do was wait for an empty lift and cast a couple of quick disillusionment charms. This worked until a wizard on the fourth floor noticed that about 25 interdepartmental memos were floating around what, from the outside, appeared to be an empty lift. The doors shut just before he could reach them, and Draco dragged them off of the lift at the next exit. 

Stuck in a random corridor and waiting for the next empty lift had already put them off Granger’s plan. It took four lifts before an empty one arrived; by the time it emptied them onto the second floor, Granger was practically chomping at the bit. 

Draco had been to the second floor of the Ministry, but only once. He’d been brought to the DMLE when he was arrested and booked after the war ended. His stomach lurched when he came face to face with the doors to the Auror bullpen, and she noticed his pause.

“Malfoy, come on. We can’t get to the records room that way, someone will see us.” She’d misunderstood why he’d hesitated at the door, and he was not planning on correcting her. “We have to go through the back stairwell.”

He’d only ever been in the bullpen, so when she started down the corridor, he had no choice but to follow blindly. 

An Auror turned the corner ahead of them and he grabbed her arm, pulling her backward and tucking her face into his chest. The man looked up, startled at the sight of the two of them, and reached for his wand. Draco was a step ahead of him; he shot him with a quick turnaround charm, and the man walked back the way he came, a blank look on his face. 

When the Auror was out of sight, he let out a breath of relief and looked down at her, still pressed to his chest with her eyes squeezed shut. She seemed so small from this angle, the top of her head barely brushing his chin. Her arms were wrapped around his torso, which was unnecessary, but he found he wasn’t upset about it in the slightest.  Pulling her into him had been a knee-jerk reaction, and now it felt like the right one. 

“He’s gone.” He murmured into her hair, and she sighed for a moment before removing herself from him. Her cheeks were flushed, but he didn’t comment on it, and instead quietly appreciated the way the color complimented the red of her eyes.

“Right then. Let’s keep going.”

She led him to a door at the end of the hall that nearly looked to be part of the wall. It opened to a spiral staircase and she immediately started down it. He followed shortly behind her and she cast something at the door once he shut it behind him. 

“Where does this lead to?” he asked.

“The records room. It’s just down these steps.”

“Why does this stairwell even exist?”

“It’s an apparition point. It was built as an escape route during the first Wizarding War, and it goes to the records room so that it can be accessed from anywhere in the department.”

“It’s a rather long escape route. What if someone was followed?”

“I don’t think the stairs were necessarily supposed to be used, I think they were more of an afterthought. In any matter, only an Auror can lock and unlock the doors at either end, so they could probably lock themselves in here if they needed to.” 

“Merlin, Granger. Does this stairwell ever end?”

“We’re close! I think.”

“You think ?” 

“Well, I haven’t exactly used it before. I used to use the bullpen entrance.”

“You haven’t—“ He sputtered, incredulous. “How do you even know this goes to the records room?”

“Because where else would it go?”

“What? It could—“ he started and she spun around, a finger to her lips. 

They took the last few steps down and made it to a small landing with a door. Voices could be heard on the other side of it. She crept up to the door and pressed her head against it, listening. After some time, the voices faded, and she stepped back.

“Can you stick your head into the room and make sure it’s all clear?” She asked him.

“And what will I do if it isn’t all clear, and I’ve just shoved my head into a room full of Aurors?”

“Hope their aim is bad, I suppose.” She quipped and he rolled his eyes.

He did as she asked, and the room was mercifully empty. He gave her the all-clear and she slipped in front of him. 

“Stay close.” She whispered, then took his hand and trudged ahead. He tried not to think about it, he really did. This is the absolute last place to have a care about a simple hand-hold , he thought to himself.

The room was long, brightly lit and low-ceilinged; there were a few desks to the right equipped with conservation boxes and bottled bluebell flames. The majority of the room was taken up by rows of shelves, and the formal entrance to the records room was off to the left. 

They wove through the stacks, heading straight for the criminal case files. Granger indexed the section, and hundreds of files left the shelves and floated in front of her.

“What are all of these?” He asked, grabbing one of the files from the air and pulling it towards him. It read, Unregistered Animagus in Knockturn Alley — Closed, 2002 across the top.

“My past cases.” She replied, continuing to sift through files. He grabbed another one and read the title: Stolen Nimbus 2000 — Closed, 2001 .

“Did you make a copy of every single case you’ve ever worked?” He asked, his eyes widening. They were going to be going through these for a while. 

“Of course.”

“For what reason? There’s no way you could possibly need to return to—“ he grabbed another file —“ The Enchanted Mirror Prank of 1999 .”

“That was the eighth case I ever worked! Obviously, I’d want to keep that.” She replied, and the whole thing would’ve been endearing if it weren’t for the growing mountain of case files in front of them.

Eventually, after several anxiety-induced minutes of searching, he pulled a file titled, Illegal Dreamless Sleep Laboratory — Open, 2005, and presented it to her. Her eyes widened and he smirked triumphantly. 

A wave of her wand sent the rest of the files back to their prior resting place and laid the remaining one out on the floor, pulling apart its contents. She reached into her bag and pulled out a few sheets of parchment then cast a spell, the contents of the file starting to rewrite themselves on the new paper. 

She was halfway through when they heard footsteps; hurried footsteps. 

A man appeared at the end of the aisle, his chest heaving. Draco recognized him as the Auror from earlier.

“Don’t look up, Granger.” He murmured as he stepped in front of Granger and raised his wand. 

“You!” The man called, “Identify yourselves!”

“My name is Harry Potter.” 

“I bloody well know it’s not, you prick! I said to identify yourselves!” The man roared, taking a step towards them. Draco matched it, stepping further in front of Granger. 

“Oh, Eleonora,” he called behind him, hoping Granger would recall the false name he’d given her when they visited the oracle in the Underworld. “Do you know this gentleman?”

“I can’t say I do, Robert.” She replied and he frowned, murmuring a bemused, Robert? Under his breath. 

“Right, keep working at that then.” 

“Stop what you’re doing at once and identify yourselves, or I’ll have no other choice but to subdue you!” The Auror snarled. 

“Subdue us? How charming. I must say, it feels a bit early in the day for that sort of thing, but I do admire your enthusiasm.” He was being a cheeky arse, obviously, and by the look on the Auror’s face, he’d had enough of it.

A blast of purple shot towards Draco and he deflected it, casting a Protego around Granger and moving forward. He tried a series of stunners, but the Auror was quick, breaking each curse with his forearm and shooting one back with twice as much power. He tried an incarcerous and Draco dove out of the way, taking the opportunity and slamming his body into one of the stacks. Hundreds of files went flying from the shelves, and Draco spun his wand, creating a draft that blew papers further into the air. In the chaos, he deflected another curse from the Auror, who was attempting to weed through the swirling papers. 

“I’m done!” Granger called, tucking her file into her bag and rising. She held her hand over her eyes and he ran to her. He swung an arm around her shoulders and moved them both forward. 

“I’ve got you, Granger. Let’s get out of here.”

“Get to the stairwell!” 

With his free arm, he continued deflecting curses and casting missed shots through the mess of flying papers at the advancing Auror. Draco pulled them both behind a desk when the man cast a reducto, the spell blasting the shelf they’d just been standing in front of into thousands of pieces. The man cursed, and Granger reached her arm out from behind the desk, casting two stinging jinxes blind and hitting him with one of them. She quickly pulled her arm back into her chest and Draco smirked, impressed. 

The Auror groaned and started to cast a patronous, which was not good. They’d be no match for reinforcements, and the reinforcements would get here far too quickly for them to escape. Draco cast his own patronous, his hawk obliterating the other patronous but revealing their location in the process. 

He nudged Granger behind a bookshelf ahead of them and popped up onto his feet, nearly getting hit by a spell as it whizzed by his shoulder. 

They traded hits for several minutes, Draco struggling to keep up between casting, deflecting, dodging, and occasionally sending his wispy hawk to stop the man’s patronous from calling for backup. He was a great duelist, but he was thoroughly out of practice, and when his steps started to slow, Granger popped out from behind the shelf and threw a few quick protective shields around him and a few blind hexes. Even without being able to see, she was quick; firing off multiple nonverbal spells in seconds and slipping back behind the shelf. 

“We have to get out of here!” She yelled.

“I know, but—“ he started, deflecting an expulso that ricocheted into a glass conservation box to his right. The box exploded with a white, ear-shattering burst. A kaleidoscope of colors reflected off the glass as it shattered. Whatever had been in the conservation box had amplified the spell, sending glass everywhere.  

He dove out of the way, but the force of the blast knocked him off of his feet. He tumbled into a few shards of glass, slicing open his skin in places. He lay there for a moment, catching his breath, listening to the encroaching quiet as the debris settled. The only sound was of their heavy breaths. 

The glass must have hit the Auror too, because when Draco finally managed to crawl into his view, he was hunched over on his hands and knees, chest heaving. 

“Draco, we have to—“Granger started, but when he turned his head towards her, she stopped, her eyes widening. “Oh.” She gasped, her voice suddenly an octave higher.

“I—There’s…blood.” She sighed, her elongated canines visible between her now parted lips. The look in her eyes was both alluring and terrifying; her pupils were huge and focused directly on him, the red still visible and glowing brightly. Her tongue slipped out and darted across her fangs unconsciously, and he knew he was in trouble in more ways than one. 

“Definitely time to go, then.” He murmured under his breath and scooped her up, obliviating the Auror on the way out.  He sprinted for the spiral staircase and apparated them both back to the Manor. 

Notes:

One thing about me is I love a good sneaking around scene, no matter the context

Chapter 13: Things Get...

Hermione

 

They landed in the sitting room abruptly, their bodies separating and crashing to the floor. She felt disoriented, out of breath, dizzy from the apparition, wired from the fight, and…the blood….

She turned onto her hands and knees, yanking off her glasses and trying to catch her breath.

The cut on his forehead was still bleeding; she could smell it from across the room, and with every breath, the heady aroma flooded her lungs. She turned to look at him, and the smell intensified, metallic and sweet. It was becoming even more difficult to ignore; her bones felt aflame, her skin felt electrified.

He was sitting with his legs splayed out in front of him, his arms holding his torso up. His chest rose and fell quickly, and he looked rather banged up from the explosion. He watched her intently while a droplet of blood traveled so, so slowly down his temple. Her mouth watered, and her fangs started to ache.

“I-I’m sorry-I-“ she tried, through gasps of air and sluggish thoughts of take, take, take .  He shook his head.

“It just…it-it smells so…” she trailed off.

“Hermione,” he called out, his voice demanding her attention. She looked back up, awareness prickling her skin. She ran her tongue along the tips of her fangs without thinking, and his eyes tracked the movement. His gaze darkened, and she felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time start to pool low in her belly. He looked so perfectly sweaty, bloody, and disheveled, and she felt the desire to run her fingers through his already tousled hair. To make his breath heavier. To mess him up more.

He must have noticed, because his nostrils flared.

“Hermione.” He said again, and slowly, turned his head towards her—an offering.

Still on her hands and knees, she crawled slowly, painfully, towards him. It felt almost automatic; somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought that the pull wouldn’t feel this inevitable if it were anyone else.

He stayed still, watching her. She was close enough to see his chest rise and fall, to smell his sweat mingling with his cologne and the intoxicating scent of his blood. She sat back on her heels, her eyes glued to that little stream of blood, and her thoughts left her in rapid succession. She forced herself to look into his eyes again, looking for something, anything, telling her not to, to get as far away from him as possible. Any sign and she’d pull away, she’d make herself pull away, she’d have to.

No sign came. He simply angled his head forward again, the scent wafting towards her and making her shudder.

She took a deep breath and leaned forward. His eyes watched her as she pressed her tongue to his salty skin, licking a slow line from his cheekbone up his temple. Her eyes rolled back, and she sighed with pleasure; his blood would be incredible on its own, she was sure of it, but freshly spilled…

She let out a breath and creaked her eyes open to find his had shut, and his heartbeat had jumped. She leaned back in and licked another line from his temple to his hairline, and she felt him shudder beneath her. She began again at his cheekbone on the second stream of blood, and something inside her shifted. She could feel the moment where her instincts took over, when she could no longer stop herself from pressing her lips to the cut on his forehead and sucking. His blood, fresh from the wound, tasted divine, and she moaned in delight. He grabbed her hips, and she was sure she had overstepped until he dragged her into his lap, her legs falling on either side of his. She gasped and he squeezed her hips again, a quietly murmured “keep going” passing from his lips.

She pressed her mouth down again and took another pull from him, her fangs lightly grazing his skin as she sucked. He pulled her hips forward, and she could feel his hardness press against her core. She gasped against his skin, ripples of pleasure coursing through her body. She felt like a live wire, every point where their bodies connected electric and fizzing, waiting to burst. Her hips pressed down again when she took another pull and he groaned, moving his hands to grip her ass.

She had to stop. To pull back. It’s too much, She was taking too much. She released his head from her grip, and before she could wipe her mouth, a loud POP! sounded from the corner of the room, and Buffy appeared in a whirl of smoke. Hermione leapt off of Draco and landed rather roughly on the hardwood. 

“Master Draco!!! Buffy is here to inform you that a visitor is at the front entrance. It is one Mr. Nott. Shall I allow him on the grounds? He is rather confused as to why he’s not being allowed inside.” Buffy announced, and Draco sighed.

Hermione chanced a look at him from the corner of her eye, and he looked…gloriously wrecked. His hair was sticking up in one spot, his chest heaving, and his blood smeared against the side of his head. She looked away quickly.

“Let him in, but don’t let him past the grand hall. I’ll…be down in a moment.” He breathed, and Buffy nodded before apparating away.

Notes:

This is a short one so I will try to upload the next one in a few days!

Chapter 14: The Most Well-Laid Plans...

Hermione

 

After a fitful sleep ravaged by confusing fantasies, Hermione was up early and parked on one of the couches in the library. The copied documents from the case were spread out across the coffee table, and as long as she didn’t let her thoughts dwell on the way she’d succumbed to a fit of bloodlust in front of and on top of a certain blonde, she almost felt like herself. Or, whatever of herself was left. 

She noticed almost immediately that she was no longer listed as the Lead Auror on the case, which was…fine. That made sense. She wasn’t working the case anymore, at least according to the DMLE.

A new name filled that spot, one she didn’t recognize, and sneered at it. If she had to be replaced, it should’ve been with Harry. All references to her were listed as Former Lead Hermione Granger, which created a hurt akin to a knife in the chest. The details from her bust listed her bite and the other two Aurors that were turned as Casualties , which just…felt wrong. I’m not fucking dead , she groaned internally. Leave it to the ministry to dehumanize her existence at every turn. 

The two Aurors Turned were both relocated to “undisclosed” safehouses, but she was the only one at the Manor. She wondered why that was, when there were so many empty rooms in the home.

She rose from her seat and indexed the library for Daily Prophet articles. She tried a few combinations of keywords, things like “Malfoy Manor” and “Safehouse” together or “Magical Beings” and “Wiltshire”. She even tried, "Werewolf" and "Malfoy", a combination she was sure the Malfoy family never would've allowed to be printed in the same article together, but all that came up was an article about the Manor being raided after the war, and she was certain she’d already read that one. Confused even further, she put it out of her mind and sat back down, continuing to refamiliarize herself with the case. 

At some point in the mid-afternoon, a floorboard creaked slightly. She looked up from her studies to find him lingering in the doorway, and the sight of him sent a frisson of energy through her.

He was wearing a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up and the top two buttons undone, evidence that he’d spent his morning in the potions laboratory. 

He hadn’t done this in a while; the cautious observing, the hesitant entry into her space. 

“Hi.” She called from the couch. He took a couple of slow, tentative steps into the room. 

“Good afternoon.” He replied, his gaze assessing. She wondered if he was thinking about it , and she felt her cheeks heat as the memory of the taste of him came unbidden to the front of her mind. She wondered if he’d bring it up. The silence was thick.

“What did, ah…what did Theodore come to visit for?” She asked tentatively, attempting to ease the tension that stretched taught between them. He frowned for a moment before she added, “Yesterday, I mean.”

“He stopped by to drop off a case of wine.”

“Oh…that’s nice of him.”

“I suppose it would be, if it were actually his wine to begin with, and he hadn’t insisted on opening a bottle the moment he laid eyes on me.” He replied.

“Is it not his wine?” She asked, confused.

“It’s from my vineyard in France. He was on holiday, and I asked him to retrieve it so I could send it to a client.”

“A client ?” She was even more confused.

“You don’t think I go to the apothecary every evening, do you?”

“Frankly, Malfoy, I don’t think much about you at all.” She retorted, and he gave her a look , lifting a brow meaningfully. Touché , it said. His gaze was heavy and knowing, and it made her warm all over.

He took a few steps towards her and stopped in front of the coffee table, his silver eyes relieving her of their attention and shifting to the documents she’d laid out. Up close, she could see the cut from yesterday—the one she’d had her mouth on—had closed up, a little pink line in place of what was yesterday a bloody mess. The top of a larger scar on his chest was visible through the opening at the top of his shirt, and, to her surprise, a bit of black ink peeked out as well. What she could see of his forearms was equally decorated with ink and scarred by time. His skin carried all he’d done the way a warrior’s skin did. It wasn’t until she caught herself appreciating the way his blonde hair fell so perfectly into his eyes that she realized she was ogling Draco Malfoy. She averted her eyes.

“You’re reviewing the case, I see.” He said, looking up briefly to see her nod.

“My apparition yesterday was logged, no doubt. They’ll likely ask about it. I am going to say we got lost in the Ministry and ended up apparating out before anyone saw us. That will work for now, but we need to be more careful.” He continued, sitting down on the couch across from her. 

“You’re right. Yesterday was a disaster that I’m not keen on repeating.” She agreed, and something in his eyes changed before his expression cleared. “I won’t...meddle, anymore.” She added, and he raised a brow. 

“Granger, we both know that’s not true, so let’s just be better at meddling next time. I don’t know how many more Ministry departments we can blow up before someone starts to notice.” He drawled and she smiled.

He leaned back in his seat and stretched his legs out in front of him. 

“Have you found anything interesting, then?” He asked, nodding at the table in front of him. 

"I have, actually. On the surface, it doesn't seem like there's been much development," she began, pushing a piece of paper towards him. A photo of Dorian Ionescu flashing his teeth at the camera took up a quarter of the page. "But now that department knows who is behind the laboratories, they've added loads of information about him. His financial records date back to the 1800s, so he's assumed to be around 200 years old. Which is not considered to be particularly old in modern Vampire circles, did you know that? The oldest Vampire in recent history was around 800 years old before she was killed. Anyway, he also was rather wealthy, which means that the choice to run several under-the-table potions laboratories probably wasn't financially motivated," she continued, shuffling the papers around. 

"After Ionescu got away, the warehouse was searched, and his associate was questioned. He didn't have much information, only that he was supposed to be picking up a delivery. In the search, however, they were able to find enough to connect a few apothecaries to the lab we raided. I looked up the apothecaries, and it looks like they've all been shut down or temporarily closed by 'Ministry Orders'. So the question of who has been answered, but the why still remains." She paused, looking up at him. He had a hand on his chin, his expression thoughtful. 

"What did they find in the lab? Was it just a standard lab that was unsanctioned?" He asked, and she perked up.

"Glad you asked. The answer is, technically, yes. It was just a standard dreamless sleep lab that wasn't registered with the Ministry. One of the ingredients in stock was rather interesting, though. Fanged Geranium Roots." She replied, looking at him expectantly.

"Hmm. Interesting, indeed." He said, his eyes narrowing.

"All of the other ingredients checked out, Valerian Root, Lavender, Hellebore, and the like. But that one was a bit...nontraditional."

"It wouldn't change the potion. It would need an activator ingredient." He provided, and she nodded.

"You're right, of course. It would. But that doesn't mean it isn't being included. It doesn't mean it's the only unusual ingredient added to the potions, either, and I think someone in The Department of Magical Health and Safety suspects this as well."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, I looked through the political articles in the last few editions of The Prophet, and the Ministry recently put out a temporary ‘cease and desist’ to all Dreamless Sleep laboratories.” She supplied.

"Ah, yes, I did see an owl about that." 

"You did?"

"I own an apothecary, Granger." He deadpanned.

"It's not exactly a traditional apothecary, Malfoy. The Ministry would have only alerted registered shops."

"It is registered, under my mother's name and with a false address. She is out of the country until further notice, so all messaging regarding the shop is sent to me." He explained, and her brain started to spin. Vague impressions of a plan were beginning to form in her head.

"What did the owl say?"

"Just that I had to start brewing Dreamless Sleep in-house for the foreseeable future, or source it directly from The Ministry. I've been brewing my own for years, so I didn't pay too much attention to it. I'd imagine that's what most apothecaries will start doing; any good potioneer knows that government-sponsored potions are usually rubbish." He mused, and she didn't reply, deep in thought as she was.

"What are you thinking?" He asked.

"I'm thinking that whatever else Ionescu is putting in the potion is important. There's a reason it wasn't being stored in the labs." She looked up at him and continued. "We need to find out what's in the Dreamless Sleep potion Ionescu was distributing. If we can get a sample of his potion, we could break it down into its basic elements and potentially identify the ingredients." 

"Granger, we can't break back into the Ministry so soon."

"I know, I know." She racked her brain for a moment, then perked up. He eyed her warily.

"What is it?" he asked, trepidation betraying his voice.

"If we can't steal a sample from the Ministry…we'll have to get one of our own.”

…

"For the record, I still think this is a horrible idea." He groaned, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

“You said it yourself! Any self-respecting potioneer wouldn’t want to sell Ministry-sourced potions in their shop.” She pleaded.

They’d been debating the plan in front of the fireplace for the last twenty minutes: He would contact the apothecary in the Vampire Quarter of the Underworld to inquire about a reference for Dreamless Sleep suppliers, and if her suspicions were correct, that potioneer should refer Malfoy to one of Ionescu's laboratories. If they didn't, then...then they'd have to make a new plan, she supposed.

He sighed, and she could practically see his resolve physically crack. 

“Stay out of sight,” he told her, then took a bit of floo powder from the mantle and tossed it into the fireplace.

“Underworld, connections.” He called into the green flames, and she shuffled to the side, sitting on a couch just out of view. The fire crackled for a minute before the embers started swirling, and a face formed. 

“Hello, Draco Malfoy. How may I assist you?” A voice called out.

“Good evening. I want to be connected to Fang and Flask, in the Vampire Quarter.”

“Connecting your floo to Fang and Flask.” The voice replied, and the fire went out. He grabbed a bit more floo powder and tossed it back into the fireplace, reigniting the green flames. He called for the apothecary, and a moment later, the embers were shifting again. 

“Fang and Flask, this is Luro. Who am I speaking with?” A rough voice with a thick Eastern European accent asked from the flames, a face newly formed. 

“Hello, Luro. This is Draco Malfoy. I’m the potions master of Noctis Cura.”

“Ah, yes, yes. Draco Malfoy, of course!” Luro called, his tone far warmer than moments before.  “That batch of invigoration draught Septimus delivered was a big hit at The Velvet Fang last month. What can I do for you, Mr. Malfoy?” 

“I was hoping to speak with you regarding your sourcing of Dreamless Sleep. I find that my supplier has recently become…compromised, and I am in the market for a new one.” Malfoy asked, and Luro’s expression changed.

“Ah.” He replied, his eyes looking off somewhere to his right. “I wish I could help you. I seem to find myself in the same position, with that Ministry ban and all.” 

She watched as Malfoy’s posture completely changed and his lips curled into a faint sneer.

“The Ministry ban?” he repeated, his tone laced with incredulity. “I think we both know that neither of us operate within the Ministry’s purview, so let’s not waste each other’s time.” He took a step forward, leaning closer to the fire.

“I’m certain a shop as… esteemed as yours will know where to look when certain commodities become…inconvenient.” He continued, a brow raised in challenge. Luro’s eyes narrowed through the flames.

“And what’s stopping you from using the Ministry supplier?”

“I’m a bloody wolf, Luro. What would I want with anything remotely related to the Ministry?” He spat, and Hermione wondered distantly how much of that was posturing and how much of it was the truth. 

“Ah yes, that’s right. So unfortunate what happened. It’s a shame that dog got to you before Sanguini could. Quite a shame.” Luro sneered, an antagonistic lilt to his voice. 

“I suppose.” Malfoy drawled, his voice dripping with disdain and disinterest. “If your supplier is still in the business, I’d like to speak with them.” He sounded incredibly pretentious, but it must have worked, because Luro sighed and acquiesced. 

“I want a meeting to discuss a contract.” Malfoy said.

“Of course. He’ll be in the Quarter next week, will you be available? I understand your schedule can get a bit... complicated around the full moon.” Luro jeered. If Malfoy’s expression could’ve gotten worse, it would’ve. 

“Yes. I can be there next week.”

“Will you need an escort into the neighborhood?” 

“No, I’ll be bringing my…partner. She can escort me.” Malfoy replied, and Hermione frowned. Escort?

“Fine, then. I will send an owl with a date and location. I expect a share of whatever comes of this, Malfoy.”

“We’ll see.” He replied and put out the fire. 

Malfoy stepped away from the fireplace and turned to her, his posh, indignant expression falling, and every muscle in his body seemed to relax. 

“Well, there you have it, Granger. We have a meeting next week.” He said, folding himself into the seat across from her. 

“What did he mean by ‘Escort’?” She asked.

“Vampire culture is rather exclusive, a bit archaic. They won’t allow a non-Vampire into the Vampire Quarter without an escort.” He explained. "In some older Vampiric societies, they won't allow in any outsiders unless they're a committed Familiar, and even then, they are usually subjected to some sort of restriction."

She'd read a bit about Familiars, of course. Depending on the historical period and nature of the connection, Familiars could be either animals or humans. Dracula was partial to both, manipulating both a pack of wolves as well as some humans. She suspected that he was referring to the latter. 

"Why is that?" She asked, and he shrugged.

"You tell me, Vampire." He quipped, but his voice was hollow. 

"How do you know all of this, anyway?"

"How do I know? My father was one of the Dark Lord’s advisors. I know all about the company he kept.“

“And who was Sanguini?” She pressed.

“An associate of the Dark Lord. He wasn’t as fond of Turning people as Greyback was, but he had his own agenda.” His eyes tightened as he spoke. “He was initially tasked with bringing the Vampires into the fold, but it was ultimately never completed. Sanguini and Greyback did not get along.” 

"Have you ever met him?" She asked, her voice quieter.

"Yes. I...once." He murmured, his eyes shutting briefly. When they opened, they looked harder, emptier.

"Now that that's been taken care of, I have some other matters to attend to. I'll be in my study, if you should need me." He announced, rising from his seat and making his way to the door.

"Draco," she whispered. His back stiffened, and he turned slowly to look at her.

"Thank you," she said. "For speaking to Luro."

He nodded once, then swept from the room.

Chapter 15: I am the Son and the Heir of Nothing in Particular

Notes:

Sorry for the delay in posting; I had to rewrite chapter 21 and 22 and I want to make sure I have good buffer in between posting and what I'm currently working on.

Title name is from How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths

Hermione

 

They went back to researching.

She started expanding her research on silver talismans. She used her computer, knowing he wouldn't ask as many questions about what she researched while on it. She wasn't hiding that she was reading about lycanthropy, per se, but she suspected he would feel a bit on display, and she didn't want to scare him away. His presence in her life felt fragile, at best. She also didn't want to openly acknowledge why she was looking it up in the first place, that she wanted to know more about it. About him . 

It seemed that some muggles were magic-adjacent and wrote in depth about uses of aconite, but no combinations of ingredients listed were remotely close to even creating a standard wolfsbane potion. She wrote a note to eventually suggest to Draco the possibility of using mistletoe in his potion, but she suspected he’d likely already tried that.

The recurring theme of most websites she visited was that controlling the transformation was difficult in the first few years. Methods of containing it varied based on culture, from deep meditation rituals to charmed talismans. Many suggestions centered around the use of metals, and she wondered briefly if shooting him with a silver bullet in a non-lethal area would end up working.

The consequences of an unmanaged werewolf, however, were universally dire. Her chest ached with the thought of Draco having to figure all of this out at sixteen.

 

After a few days of waiting, two owls arrived: one from Luro and one from Harry. She took both into Draco's study, where she found him seated at his desk and reading over some sort of ledger. He was back in a black suit and shirt today, and she found the stark contrast between his complexion and the fabric only made him look more alluring. He looked up when she shut the door behind her, his gaze following her as she slipped into the room and sat in the chair across from him.

"Luro sent word." She said, sliding the note towards him. 

"What's that other one?" He asked, his eyes on the note in her hand. 

"This one is from Harry." She explained, and he nodded, pulling the note from Luro in front of him. He retrieved a gold-embossed letter opener from inside a compartment of his desk and slid its edge across the envelope, pulling the message free. His eyes scanned the page before handing it back to her. She read over the details.

"He's arranged a meeting for us," she breathed. "Merlin, it’s in five days." 

"Does that not work for your schedule, Granger?" He drawled, and she narrowed her eyes at him. 

"Lucky for you, I happen to have an opening." She replied, sarcasm dripping from every word. 

"Oh yes, lucky for me. Now that I have an escort, walking into a Vampire den to bargain for illegal potions is practically a stroll in the park." He retorted, and she sighed.

"You still don't like this plan, do you?" 

"Absolutely not. Not only is the Vampire Quarter crawling with deviants, but if they figure out what we're up to, we're as good as dead. Even if this does work, we're still putting ourselves on Ionescu's radar. And none of that is to mention that the Vampire community hates my kind on principle."

"But we need to get a sample of that potion. We can't find Ionescu if we don't make a few educated guesses." She said, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Besides," she continued. "If something did happen...don't you think you could...you know..." she trailed off and he raised a brow at her, prompting her to continue. "handle it?"

"Aren't you the Auror?" He asked, a challenge in his eyes. "Haven't you spent the last six years handling it ?" 

"Well—I mean yes, technically, I could handle it too, but I meant you more so because of your..." she trailed off again, her cheeks heating.

"Just to be clear, we are still talking about fighting off a horde of angry Vampires, correct? Not handling something else?" He quipped, mirth dancing in his eyes. 

"Yes, ugh, don't be gross. I just meant because of your..."

"Go on, Granger. Spit it out. You can say it's because I'm impeccably fit." She flushed, and he was so obviously elated at her expense. 

"I was trying to say because you can Turn into a wolf, you absolute arse."

"I think there's a compliment in there somewhere, so I'm going to take it as one." He chuckled while she groaned in frustration.

"Anyway—the letter. You'll respond?" She asked.

"Yes, fine. If that is what you want." He acquiesced, rubbing his forehead and reaching for his quill.

He scribbled a reply on the parchment sitting in front of him. He signed it with a flourish and slipped it into a fresh envelope, sealing it with a bit of wax and a signet ring she hadn't realized he wore. She looked at his other hand and realized he had a second signet ring, this one on his middle finger.

"Do you ever use the other one?" She blurted, and he looked up at her. "Your other ring, I mean." she supplied, and his gaze shifted to where his hands held the sealed note. He lifted his right hand and held it out, inspecting the second ring.

"Not as often. It depends on the nature of the correspondence, I suppose. If I'm responding to an inquiry regarding an older artifact, I might use it." He explained.

"An artifact...for a 'client' ?" she asked.

"What happened to you, 'not thinking about me very much ', Granger?" He teased, a smirk on his lips. She rolled her eyes. 

"Don't be a prat, Malfoy, just answer the question." 

"Bossy," he replied, winking at her before continuing. “Besides managing the apothecary, I dabble in a bit of rare artifact trading. Most of my artifacts are several hundred years old, and as such, I may be more likely to use the Black ring to seal any correspondence about them. Names have power, and all.” 

“What kinds of…artifacts?” She asked, her voice betraying her mistrust. 

"Regular ones."

"Oh, come on!"

He sighed. "Do you truly think I would still be handling dark magic, after everything that's happened?" He said, any lightness in his expression was replaced with defeat.

"I don't know, Malfoy. Until a few months ago, I assumed you would call me a mudblood the moment you saw me. I don't know what to think." She replied, and he looked away from her.

He looked like he'd been slapped, but it was the truth. She was having trouble reconciling the boy he'd been with the helpful and understanding man who sat in front of her. The man who sent her books to read, who had supported her at her integration review, who showed her the Underworld and helped her feel like a person again. Who was willing to enter Vampire territory with her to further an agenda that didn't seem to benefit him at all.  

The Death Eater who tried to kill Dumbledore seemed very far away these days. 

"I should've never said that to you." He said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. His gaze flickered back to hers. "Any of it." 

Her reply caught in her throat, where her heart was already stuck.

"I was horrible—" he continued, his voice raw and filled with regret. "—cruel, and—" he cut himself off, exhaling. "I should've known better. I wish I'd known better. You didn’t deserve that."

She felt the sincerity in his gaze cutting right to the bone, and it was overwhelming. Her own feelings were overwhelming. Hearing this, from him, was overwhelming. He was overwhelming.

She stood up abruptly, her face on fire and her entire body on edge.

"I-um, I'm going to go. Look into something I saw in the file. I will, um, I'll be seeing you." She squeaked, watching his eyes shut as she fled the room. 

 

…

 

Harry's letter had been easier to respond to, though she'd had to spend a long time thoroughly calming her racing heart before she was able to throw floo powder into the fireplace without her hands shaking. 

"Hey there!" Harry called from the flames.

"Hi Harry," she replied, smiling as she lay back on the floor in front of the fireplace. "I got your owl."

"Right, excellent. I was able to get the book for you." He said. 

"Oh, thank you, Harry! What did you end up telling McGonagall?”

"I told her a colleague said that the Slytherin common room has a charmed globe that reacts to dark magic. I said I was pretty sure they were joking, but I just wanted a quick look."

"And that worked?"

“I mean, it did, but she definitely thinks I'm a bloody idiot now.” He said, and she laughed. 

“Well, I appreciate it.”

“Ready to tell me what you need this thing for? It’s in horrible shape.”

“Well, it is 200 years old.” She replied. “So, I’ve been looking into a motive for the Ionescu case, and —“ 

“I’m sorry, you’ve been what ?”

“Harry, you know I have to. I can’t just let him get away with this.”

“He won’t, that’s what the Aurors assigned to the case will do. Not you.”

“Harry, this is my case!”

“It’s not, Hermione!” He snapped, clearly frustrated. “I’m sorry, but it’s not anymore.” He sighed. “Look, I...I get it. I do, really, but you can’t keep working on this. You don’t have the department backing your actions anymore. Anything you do, anyone you piss off, you’ll be on your own for. It’s not safe to keep investigating this.”

“Harry, I know all of that. I just…I have to. Besides,” she let out a bitter laugh. “I have nothing else to lose at this point. So what if they throw me in Azkaban? I’m practically in prison here as it is.” She felt a stab of guilt as soon as the words left her mouth. 

“What does that mean? Is Malfoy giving you trouble?” Harry said quickly.

“No! No, I—I didn’t mean that. It’s nice here, actually. Well, as nice as it can be given the circumstances of my stay.” 

“Nice? Hermione, surely you’re aware of the concept of Stockholm Syndrome.” 

“No! No, Harry, it’s not like that. What I mean is—he’s nice. To me. He’s different, Harry. So different.” She said, her voice softening as her thoughts wandered. Her next words were nearly a whisper, their meaning feeling illicit. “He set up the internet for me, Harry.”

“Does he even know what the internet is?”

“He doesn’t, not really. He knew I needed it, though, so he got me a router. He had someone from the Muggle Liason Office send over capacitors for it.” No point in outing Theo. “I didn’t even ask for it, he just…did it.”

“Bloody hell, that’s…weird.”

“It’s not that weird, I…” she tried, her torment seeping into her voice. “Merlin, Harry, I don’t even know where to start.”

She told Harry about how he’d been helping her with her research, about all of the books he’d annotated for her. She told him about how he’d known it was them in the drawing room all of those years ago and still hadn’t given them up. She told him about how he made sure she always had blood bags available, and even about that first time when she nearly passed out in the hallway. 

“Then, there was that incident in the records room…” 

“Blimey, ‘Mione, that was you that blew up the records room? It’s taking us ages to clean up that mess. The room is still out of commission.”

“I’m sorry! It wasn’t on purpose, we were being followed.”

“What were you even doing in the records room? In the Ministry, for that matter?”
“I had my Vampire Integration Review, and I wanted to make a copy of the Ionescu case while we were there.” She heard Harry let out an exasperated breath.

“The point is, he’s been very helpful. More than necessary, even.” she asserted.

“I…I don’t know what to make of that.” He said. 

“I know you don’t like him, Harry-“

“Do you like him, Hermione? It’s starting to sound like you do.”

She let out a breath. “I don’t know. I just think that…why can’t he be capable of change? We’ve all changed, how can we say he hasn’t too?”

“I don’t disagree, but…it’s Malfoy. Just be careful, I guess.” He said. “And stop destroying the DMLE!” 

 

…

 

She talked to Harry for another hour, catching up on his life. He was proposing to Ginny soon; the idea of attending their wedding felt like a pipe dream. 

As much as she loved to hear from him, it felt bittersweet. 

The sun was setting, and despite the evening chill, Hermione decided to walk the back gardens. 

She strolled along the winding stone path, the edges lined with various purple, white, and yellow flowers. Several rosebushes boasted luminous white flowers, paired with lavender and interspersed with multicolored irises. A few topiaries sat deeper in the soil, trimmed into the shapes of various woodland creatures. She stopped in front of a few pansies and frowned before moving on. 

She walked past the hedge maze and made her way along the side of the manor through a pergola overflowing with Wisteria, the blooms so lush that only specks of the orange sunset were able to peek through. There were stone busts of Malfoys over the years lining the inner edge, seven in total; the entrance to the pergola sported a visage of Gaius Malfoy , who died in 1720, his face stern and his mouth frowning underneath a thin mustache.

The second, Cassius Gaius Malfoy , wore a powdered wig and cravat paired with his haughty expression.

The third, Tiberius Cassius , died in 1845, looked serious and brooding.

Hadrian Tiberius looked like a Victorian king; his hair was slicked back, his beard neatly trimmed, and the tips of a fur-lined cape were visible at the bottom of the bust. He wore a wide smirk, like he knew something she didn't.

Abraxas Hadrian came next, and she was a bit more familiar with the lore around this one. His hair, too, was slicked back, his face clean-shaven, and his aristocratic features resembled more of the living Malfoys than the first few. 

The next one was a bit harder to look at; the bust of Lucius looked exactly as he'd looked in the Department of Mysteries, before he'd been imprisoned and subsequently cast aside by the Dark Lord. His trademark long hair framed an expression of utter distaste, as if he knew exactly who was currently looking at his bust. 1954 - Present was listed on the plaque beneath his name. 

The final bust in the row gutted her.

He looked...haunted. His expression was drawn, detached. His hair fell into his face, casting additional shadows over his features. His eyes were dark and tired. The tops of a button-down were visible at the bottom of the bust, the collar separated slightly. 

 

 Draco Lucius Malfoy 

1980 - Present

 

The scars on his face looked more prominent when cast in stone. The whole image was just so...cold. She reached out and ran her finger along the scar on his cheek, only mere inches from where her lips had been.

“That one was from a Hebridean Black.” She jumped at the sudden sound of his voice. She hadn’t seen him out here, hadn’t heard his feet scraping on the stone path. Or maybe she’d just been too wrapped up in the tormented look on his face. She turned to him, her cheeks pink from both the chill and also embarrassment.

“A-as in, the dragon?” she stuttered, and he nodded. He looked drained. 

“What? How?”

“Four years ago, the wolf decided to see how far it could run. I ended up in the Scottish Highlands at the same time that the Black left its perch to gather kindling for her hatchling. The wolf doesn’t discriminate by opponent.”

“Oh my God.” She breathed. “How—how did you not get killed?” Her voice sounded far more distressed than she’d meant it to. He just shrugged.

“A lot of running about, I suppose. She got my back a few times, too, but I managed to lose her in the forest.”

“Are all of your scars from run-ins with beasts?” She truly sounded shrill now. 

“I have a couple from Potter as well, if you recall.” He replied drily, and she winced.

“That spell was so terrible. I’m sorry he used it on you; I imagine it was excruciating.” 

“It’s no matter. I’ve had worse.” She had nothing to say to that. 

"Draco, I-" she tried. "I'm sorry about earlier. I just...I got overwhelmed. I feel like my life has been turned upside down, and all of this change makes me feel unmoored. I'm just…struggling to deal with it all." He was silent.

“You’re just…you’re very different from what I expected. I was caught off guard. I’ve been caught off guard since I arrived here, really,” she continued. 

“What did you expect?”

“A monster.”

“Whose to say I won’t meet those expectations?”

“You won’t,” she said, looking up at him. “I’m sure you won’t.” she asserted, and he looked contemplative. They stayed silent for a few minutes, each in conference with their thoughts.

"Do you consider yourself the same person you were in 1998?" He asked eventually, his voice quiet.

"No," she replied, equally quiet.

"Me neither." His gaze hardened. "I'm not that person anymore. I don't want to be."

He stepped forward, in front of the bust of Lucius.

"I have...a lot of regrets, you know. Most of the things I’ve done in my life, actually." He murmured, his eyes fixed on the statue. “I’m not a good person. I haven’t always had the opportunity to be. At some points in my life, I relished it—The lack of choice. Being cruel is easier than being compassionate.” He continued. “And when I was actually given one, I was so twisted up in my own head that I still chose wrong.”

He paused, gathering his thoughts. 

“This…endeavor of yours—it feels right. Helping you figure this out, take down this guy…It feels like I’m being presented with the opportunity to do something good, to take a step towards being a better person.” He shifted his gaze from the statue back to her. 

“I find that I want to be good, with you. For you. Give me a chance to be.” His eyes shuttered and he sucked in a breath, as if bracing himself for an impending blow. 

“Please.” He whispered, the word expelling from his lips like a ghost. 

She stepped forward, her heart thudding in her chest, and took his hand in hers. His fingers curled around hers, and it felt more intimate than anything they’d done in the sitting room just that other day. 

“Okay.” She was nodding before she spoke, her voice just above a whisper. His eyes shot open, wide and shocked. She held his gaze.

“Okay, Draco.”

Notes:

For anyone curious, the gardens and pergola where the Malfoy busts are located is inspired by the Biltmore in North Carolina.

https://biltmore.s3.amazonaws.com/124460/pergola-trg-photo-large.jpg

Chapter 16: The Vampire Quarter

Draco

 

He didn’t want her to come. 

He paced the foyer of the Manor, deep in thought.

He hated the idea of it. He knew she’d been an auror for years before she reentered his life. He knew she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. He knew that, but it didn’t change that he’d been fretting about this trip for days. If it weren’t vital for his entrance into the Vampire Quarter, he never would’ve suggested she would be accompanying him in the first place. The idea of bringing her within range of these heathens made his stomach lurch.

Entry into the Vampire Quarter was restricted to Vampires or those with an escort for a reason. Vampires considered anyone not Turned to their favor as a lesser being, and behaved as such. Free feeding was legal, and the only true protection for any non-Vampires in the Quarter was the Vampire escorting them. Draco was sure he could handle himself against a fair few Vampires that had succumbed to bloodlust, but it was much more sensitive than that.

He'd instructed Granger to empty a few blood bags before they left. If her reaction at the Ministry had been any indication, she didn't yet have a good handle on her bloodlust when she was exposed to freshly spilled blood. He was certain that there'd be some open wounds tonight, if not from the result of the meeting, then simply by nature of the town’s occupants. 

Not that he'd minded her bloodlust at all . Simply recalling the memory of her eyes on him, the way her tongue ran across her newly-developed incisors made his cock twitch in his pants. 

He hadn't seen her teeth up close yet. Her—fangs. He wanted to.

He banished thoughts of her mouth, shoving his desires behind a wall of stone deep into the depths of his mind. She'd seemed to enjoy what had happened in the sitting room in the moment, but after what she'd said the next day—about how disastrous it all had been—she must have regretted it. It wouldn't do to dwell; he'd take whatever he could get from her, and if a bit of passion with him led to regret, he'd be content with it being a one-time thing. He'd have to be.

He looked up from pacing when he heard her footsteps on the grand staircase. 

He hadn’t seen her since he’d found her in the garden—since he’d bared himself to her. He had felt as though he were both a knight pleading for her favor and a peasant begging for his life. A client had requested him in Brussels, and he’d left the manor posthaste, just in case she changed her mind about him. 

She appeared at the top of the landing, dressed in the midnight blue robes he’d left on her bed. His gaze followed the halo of curls to her face, his attention caught on the sparkling red of her eyes. He held them as she descended the steps, their shine momentarily overtaking the trepidation gripping him. 

He stepped towards her and reached out, pulling her hood over her head. Because he couldn’t help himself, he lingered in her space for a moment longer than needed. He tugged on one of her curls, the soft tendril sliding between his fingers like silk. Her eyes followed the motion before returning to his, and he thought that if she ever decided to use her power to Thrall him, he’d be completely done for. 

“Shall we?” He murmured, so close were they that full-bodied words weren’t necessary. She nodded. 

“Will we go by carriage again?” She asked, and he shook his head.

“Not this time. Now that your magical signature has been registered to the Fidelius charm, we can apparate directly to The Underworld.”

“And when we get to the Quarter?”

“When we get there…well, you'll just have to see.”

…

He apparated them both into the bustling city, the black swirls of his apparition creating an opening in the crowd. A few people screamed, but they quieted down once the smoke cleared. Granger coughed a few times, and he pulled her out of the crowd that had formed around them.

They started down the street towards the Quarter, the streets flooded with bodies as usual. After a fair few winding sidewalks and an interaction with a gaggle of doxies neither of them would soon forget, they reached the Vampire Quarter. They stood in front of the single point of entry, a gigantic set of wrought-iron double gates with ornamental detailing so involved it surpassed the intricacy of the Malfoy Manor gates. 

" Lux fugit, mors vigilat ." she said, reading out the motto curled into the gate's design. " Light flees, death watches . That's certainly inviting." 

"Not much for hosting, it appears." he remarked. 

"How do we get in?" She took a step towards the gate. The air around her started to shimmer, and when she took another step forward, the shimmering intensified. She turned back to look at him, her expression bewildered.

"I told you, only Vampires are permitted blanket entrance." He explained. He tried stepping into the sparkling veil that had formed around her, but he got immediately slammed back, as if he'd run into a wall. She pursed her lips.

"Well, that's a bit of an issue." She said, thinking for a bit, then reaching her hands out in front of her. She waved them around, then reached towards him. "Take my hand."

He obliged, and she pulled him into the mist without issue. She pulled him to her side, interlacing their fingers and placing her other hand on his bicep, and he felt a wave of satisfaction course over him.

"I am curious about what would happen if I were to stop while you're in here, but I don't feel that this is the proper time to experiment." She quipped, guiding them closer to the gates. The air grew heavier with magic with each step they took.

"In the interest of not getting blasted into the nearest building, I'd appreciate it if we don't test that out." He replied, and she smiled.

They were almost to the doors when the shining mist practically overtook their vision, and they seemed to pass through the ostentatious gates. A few more steps and the mist cleared, offering a view of the street.

The Vampire Quarter was unlike the rest of The Underworld. Where the majority of the city's architecture reflected its ancient and Gothic origins, the buildings in the Quarter were pressed against one another in neat, symmetrical rows, multicolored and stacked several floors high. Every structure featured intricately designed wrought-iron balconies with long, drooping ferns hanging from the railings that sat atop open galleries at the street level. Large oak trees with branches weighed down by moss dominated several street corners, and statues of Dracula, Carmilla, and Lestat de Lioncourt made up the centerpieces of several parks. The entire neighborhood was surrounded by a very high, very enchanted wrought iron fence.

The streets were just as busy as the rest of The Underworld at this time of night; there were Vampires everywhere, and all of the businesses seemed bustling with activity. Many pubs had all of their windows open, and their balconies were full of people talking and laughing. Every window was brightly illuminated, and, as expected, there was blood everywhere . It was being sipped on from wine glasses at tables scattered throughout the streets, being readily provided by a Veela Familiar to their master out in the open, and, perhaps most lewd of all, being licked off the chest of one vampire by several others.

The Vampire community did not shy away from acting on their more banal desires, regardless of location or company. While Vampires feeding off one another provided no nutritional value, the act was just as euphoric and seductive for both parties as it would be with a non-Vampire. As propriety was thrown out the window in the Quarter, free feeding was truly rampant, and locals indulged regularly. The importance of imbibing in Vampire culture was so strong that it was a miracle the community was ever able to get anything done. He supposed the widespread embracing of debauchery was based somewhat on their collective experience of bloodlust; as such, the Quarter was known to hold some of the best kink clubs in the magical world. Not that he'd know, but, well, he'd heard plenty. 

"Good heavens!" she gasped beside him as the sight of the town came into focus. He turned to look at her and found her eyes were saucers, her head swiveling between gaping at him and the many scenes unfolding in front of them. 

“What in Merlin’s name is all of this?” She whispered, her voice a hiss.

“The ah, residents of The Quarter are…not shy.” He tried.

“Not shy—Malfoy, I am not shy. This is…” she trailed off. Just then, a group of women walked by, their chests bare save for little star-shaped patches covering their nipples.

“This is practically an orgy!” she squeaked. He shrugged.

“I don’t think anyone is actually fornicating, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It most certainly does not.”

“Well,” he sighed. “Let’s just get to our meeting. We don’t have to linger, lest we curse your virgin eyes any further.” He said, motioning her forward.

“My virgin—where are we going? I don’t wanna go-“ she cut herself off, looking back at the thrall of bodies in the streets. “—in there! What if someone—I don’t know,” she continued, her face betraying her nerves. 

He looked out above her head, assessing the crowds. Points to Granger, there were a few Vampires who seemed a bit…handsy.

He wasn’t thinking, surely, when he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest. It was just a reflex, to keep her from getting bumped around by the traffic, and yet he was quickly reminded how perfectly she fit against him. 

When he leaned down and caught the lovely violet-and-myrrh scent of her perfume, he nearly shuddered.

“I’ll show you where to go, just start walking. I’ll be right behind you the whole time.” He murmured into her ear, and he heard her breath catch. 

“Why do I have to walk in front of you?” She whispered, her voice small, as she took a tentative step towards the street.

“You’ll need to mask my smell a bit. Many of these people will not be thrilled to see me in here, escorted or otherwise.” he explained, his hands absently rubbing her arms where they rested around her. “Take a left at that corner up ahead.”

She nodded, and they slowly made their way through the streets. The crowd wasn’t much different from the crowds in other parts of The Underworld, and it almost seemed to help that Draco was a wolf. He was sure that the looks of disdain aimed their way were because of him. 

A few people hurried by, bumping into her briefly, and she pressed closer to him, her back against his chest. He pulled her tighter to him, his arms snaking around her waist, and they continued again. He hated how much his body was enjoying this, despite Granger’s clear unease. 

It didn’t take long to get to Fang and Flask. The apothecary was smaller and moodier than Draco’s, windowless and thus perpetually dim. The narrow shop was lined with dark wood shelves and curio cabinets sporting a few less-than-legal artifacts. The door at the rear of the shop opened, and a larger vampire with thick black hair stepped through, wiping a bit of red from his mouth with the back of his hand as he did. His eyes met Draco’s and narrowed.

“Ah, Malfoy. I’d say it’s good to see you, but I don’t know if it is yet.” He quipped, stepping forward and offering his hand. Draco shook it and smirked. 

“I hope it will be, Luro. How is Adela doing? Did those lacewing flies end up working out for her?” 

“Oh yes, yes, those were very good, very good. Where did you get them? The consistency was perfect.” Luro replied, and Draco couldn’t help but feel exultant.

“Imported from an herbologist on retainer at Durmstrang. Shall we?” He asked, and Luro nodded.

“Ah, yes, come with me. He is just back here.” Luro turned, gesturing for them to follow him back through the doorway.

The doorway led to a small courtyard where a blonde woman lay sprawled out on a bench, neck bloody and expression dazed. She seemed to be at least part Veela, and when the three of them walked by and Luro not so much as glanced over at her, Draco prayed that Luro wasn’t her mate. He felt Hermione stiffen as they passed her by.

Luro brought them to a dark cask room with low ceilings, the walls lined with barrels, and a table and chairs set off to the side. A dark-haired man emerged from the end of the room and approached, greeting Luro warmly when he reached them. 

“Mr. Malfoy, this is Matei. He is a very good friend of mine. He will take good care of you, if you take good care of him.” Luro introduced. He clapped Matei on the back, and the man laughed, his fangs flashing briefly.

“Excellent to meet you.” Matei drawled, his gaze inquisitive. Draco shook his hand and found it rather cold.

“I will leave you both to talk,” Luro announced, heading for the door. “Don’t forget what we discussed, Malfoy!”

Draco turned back to Matei and stiffened when he found the supplier’s gaze had landed on Hermione. 

“And who might you be?” He crooned, a sly smile forming on his lips. Draco immediately hated this guy.

“This is my partner, Eleanora.” Draco responded before she could, and Matei noticed. His smile widened. 

“How surprising it is, to see such a radiant little thing keeping such… rugged company.” Matei looked like the Cheshire Cat from one of Draco’s childhood fables.

“If you ever find yourself wanting to experience something more…refined, do let me know.” He purred, his hand reaching out towards her. Draco reacted on instinct, plucking the man’s hand out of the air and taking a step in front of Hermione. 

“You need to watch yourself. “ Draco growled. Matei’s smirk faltered for a second before he slapped it back on. He didn’t even look at Draco. 

“Apologies, Miss. I didn’t mean to upset your guard dog. I was simply…admiring.”

“Careful, leech. Wolves don’t take kindly to someone sniffing around what’s ours.” Draco snapped, but Granger quickly cut off any further escalation. 

“I think I’m quite alright with my current company, though I appreciate the offer. Shall we start by discussing resources?” Granger stepped out from behind him with a saccharine smile pasted on her face. Matei looked absolutely ecstatic.

“Certainly, Miss Eleanora. Let’s sit and find out if there’s anything I can do for you.”

…

After two hours, three arguments, and one too many winks from Matei in Granger’s direction, Draco and Hermione stepped out of the Vampire Quarter with an invoice for 60 vials of dreamless sleep to be delivered within the next fortnight. 

The moment they exited the iron gates, she rounded on him. 

“What on Earth was that about, Malfoy?” She said, her tone seeped in frustration. “You nearly imploded the whole deal!“ 

“I didn’t like the way he was talking to you.” He responded petulantly. He knew it was a stupid thing to say the moment it left his mouth. 

“The way he was—that has nothing to do with why we were there!” She sputtered.

“I can take care of myself, you know. I was an Auror , for Merlin’s sake. I was planning on ignoring his comments, and you should have too. We won’t get anywhere if you try to have a cock measuring contest with everyone who says something you don’t like!” She continued, and his brain short-circuited now that he had heard the word cock come out of her pert little mouth.

He wasn’t supposed to be focusing on that; what she was saying was important.  

“I—“ he started, but part of his brain was still focused on the way her pretty, if indignant voice sounded. He shook his head and tried again. 

“You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. I almost fucked everything up.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I rarely interact with Vampires that aren’t you, and sometimes I forget how…trying it can be.” He groaned, sneering at the gates behind them. 

“I-“ she faltered. Perhaps his apologizing was still too much for her. She looked tormented. 

“Hey,” he said, stepping towards her. “I’ll make it up to you. There’s a pub not far from here, let me take you to it.” 

“I cannot be bought, Malfoy.”

“Well, if you insist on continuing to shout at me, let’s at least do it over a pint.”

Notes:

The vampire quarter is based loosely off of bourbon street in NOLA, both in architecture and general debauchery

Chapter 17: Forgive Her, For She Knows not What She Does

Notes:

Title of chapter comes from the song Christian Women by Type O Negative, which for whatever reason is the song I listened to while I wrote a good bit of this fic.

Draco

 

“It's weird watching you drink beer." She remarked from across the table of the small pub, her gaze assessing. He took a sip from his mug before clearing his throat.

"What makes you say that?"

"It just seems so...pedestrian. I'd expect you to order a vintage red or a cognac or something—" she paused, waving her hand in the air absently. "—poncier." She finished, and he chuckled softly.

"You heard Matei; I am apparently too brutish to appreciate anything refined." He replied sardonically.

"He's a pig." 

"Cheers to that." He held his glass up, and she clinked hers against it. "Is beer your usual choice, then?" He asked after they'd each sipped their drinks.

"No dig about how it should be blood now?" She asked, raising a brow at him. He held her gaze and shook his head. She let out a breath. 

"I prefer wine, honestly, but I certainly drank beer more. You know... before ." Her head turned, and her eyes scanned the street out the window to the right. "When I went to the Leaky with the others, it was just easier to order a round of beers for the table. I don't mind beer, but I wouldn't usually choose it for myself." She finished, her voice mildly wistful. 

"So when I suggested a pint, you thought that might be easier?" He asked, and she nodded. He pressed his hand to his forehead, leaning his head back in mock anguish. She giggled, and it warmed him from head to toe.

"Very well, then. Only vineyards from now on." He said, his voice full of feigned resolution.

"I won't complain about that—only if I apparate us, though. Sidecaring with you is rather terrifying." Her tone was light-hearted, but something inside him still twinged. He quickly threw up a stone wall in his mind, successfully blocking out the memory that threatened to surface. He pushed a humorless breath from his lips.

"I'd imagine that was the intent of the spell." He tried for lighthearted, but it sounded forced even to his own ears.

"Why do you still apparate like that? Like...them." She finished weakly.

He looked down, away from her open and curious face. He pushed back his memories; of Bella teaching him how to cast the black smoke apparition shortly after he'd received The Mark, of watching hundreds of black contrails streak across the sky above Hogwarts, of the screams of fear that greeted him any time he'd apparate somewhere, even years after the war ended. He pushed them behind a door made of granite and sealed it shut.

When his mind cleared, he looked back up at her, gaze still expectant but brows mildly furrowed. He schooled his features and took a breath.

"I never learned any differently. I can’t...do it differently. I don't believe this—“ he gestured vaguely to his left arm. “allows anything else.”

"Even in death?" She asked, her eyes wide and focused on his arm, and he nodded.

"Even in death, the magic remains. I try not to apparate too often if I can help it, since my arrival tends to frighten whoever happens to be nearby.” She was frowning at him now, a perplexed look on her face. She didn’t look like she pitied him, and he was thankful. He didn’t think he could handle pity, especially from her. 

“What else does it do? Or not do, I suppose.” She asked, and he fought a shudder. He knew she was just curious, and the desire to sate that curiosity warred with the memories that threatened. He was quiet for a moment, reflecting.

“I cannot cast a patronous, though I’m sure you already knew that.” She nodded, and he continued. “I am forever trackable, if one knows the right spell. I believe the Unspeakables know it, and thank Merlin, they haven’t given that information to the higher-ups at the Ministry. I believe I would succumb to The Kiss rather quickly, given that my soul is ‘tarnished’ or whatever terminology they use to describe my lot these days.” He paused. "Then, of course, there's that whole bit where Death Eaters are not really welcome in most public spaces."

"You're not a Death Eater anymore." 

"Aren't I?" 

Her eyes flicked down to his forearm and back to his face.

"No...I don't think you are." She asserted, her voice quiet but sure. She reached out and took his hand across the table. He looked down at where her small fingers wrapped around his, where his thumb brushed gently against her knuckles almost of its own accord. When he looked back up, her eyes were on him, her gaze heavy with emotion. He felt his heart leap into his throat, and he tried to swallow it down. When she spoke again, her voice was low, tentative.

"Can I see it?" She asked, and he nearly groaned, his mind immediately in the gutter. Forgive her, for she knows not what she does , he thought to himself.

"Later. Not here." He murmured, breaking eye contact. He'd had to look away; looking into her crimson eyes, piqued with interest, after she'd practically whispered Can I see it? was too much for him. He forced another mental wall up, this one blocking out the feelings that made his blood rush south.

"You have another tattoo, though?" She continued, eyeing his right forearm where the bottom of his forearm tattoo was visible. 

"I do." He said, following her gaze.

"Can I see that one, then?"

"Sure."

She shuffled closer still, now practically on the same side of the table as him, as he extended his arm and pulled up his sleeve. Her brows jumped, and she laughed, breaking the tension.

"I should've expected you'd have a bloody dragon tattoo." She said, and he gave her a rueful smile. She reached out and gently held his wrist, turning his arm as she inspected the black dragon curled around his forearm. 

"It was the first one I got to pick myself, seemed fitting." He replied.

"There are others? Can I see those?"

"Yes, but not here. I'd rather not strip in front of all of these poor, unsuspecting pubgoers." He quipped, and she giggled. "Are you finished with your second-choice beverage? Would you be alright with stopping by the shop for a bit before we head back?" She nodded, and they rose from the table.

....

They stopped by Noctis Cura so that Draco could check on the lot of horklumps that had been delivered a few days prior and to pick up more aconite. She chatted with Septimus while Draco was behind the counter grabbing what he needed, and when he emerged from the back hallway, she gave him a smile that made his heart soar.

They got back to the Manor rather late in the evening: she went to bed, and he sat in his office, attempting to read his mail. Alone, he finally allowed himself to remove the walls in his head. The image of her leaning across the table rushed to the front of his mind; her enchanting eyes wandering down his form, searing a path of heat across his skin. Her soft voice whispered, Can I see it? over and over in his head. The memory of her writhing against him that night after the Ministry, lost to her bloodlust, accompanied her voice, and he had to adjust himself. 

He’d opened the flood gates, and more memories came to him, building off of each other until he began to fantasize about things that would never happen; her looking up at him from her desk in the library became her on her knees before him, her beautiful red eyes locked on his dick while he stroked it in front of her. The sound of her saying cock became her begging for his, whispering pleadings in his ear while he ran the tip through her folds. The way her hips felt beneath his hands when she licked his wounds became the feeling of them while he pressed himself into her heat.

He didn’t realize he’d taken himself out of his trousers until he was halfway to release. He sat low in his chair, spread his legs out underneath his desk, and stroked himself, visions of an imagined Hermione swirling around in his head. He tipped his head and groaned when fantasy Hermione ran her imaginary tongue across the tip of his cock, his hands in reality moving in tandem with the ministrations of her fictional mouth. He shut his eyes and cast a wandless lubricant charm, descending further into the depths of his debauched dreams.

He thought about truly taking her, making her his. He thought about digging his claws into her skin, leaving scratches, leaving marks . He thought about biting her, about claiming her. About knotting . He came all over his hand to the thought of spilling inside of her, his chest heaving and his brain spinning.

Shame started to settle in almost immediately after he’d reached his release. 

He cast a scourgify on himself and a bit of his desk before resigning himself back to the reality of being a horny, simpering fool. He had to get it together. I’m fucking twenty-five, not fifteen , he told himself. 

… After coming down from his pathetic little high, he made a quick trip to the wine cellar and eventually found himself standing outside the door to her quarters. Quietly, he entered her sitting room and placed a bottle of a French white on the table. He looked up at the closed door to her bedroom, and the thought of her just beyond the threshold felt too much , too close, especially after the atrocity he’d just committed. He slipped out of her space silently and returned to his chambers for another sleepless night.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed Draco being mentally tortured by himself! I know I did

Also I recognize that I had not actually named Draco's shop, so now, there you have it. Noctis Cura

Chapter 18: The Research, Pt. 3

Notes:

hello! The plot called, it wanted its story back!

Hermione

 

The bottle of vintage Pouilly-Fuisse he’d left on the table in her sitting room must have been another apology, though she couldn’t figure out what exactly he was apologizing for this time. No matter what she told herself to rationalize his gift, she’d still blushed furiously when she found it. 

Hermione filled the days following their visit to the Vampire Quarter with research in solitude while they waited for the order from the lab. Malfoy did not join her, which seemed to be what followed whenever she felt like she was finally starting to know him.

Perhaps that was a problem for him: the potential to be known. 

And yet, the more time she spent around him, the less clear the image of him became. She’d been honest when she’d said he’d caught her off guard; all of the information she’d collected over the years to develop an impression of him in her mind, all of the hardened, weathered skin she’d grown over her heart to protect herself from people like him , was slowly being burned away, leaving the raw flesh beneath exposed. This unmaking of the carefully organized system of her psyche gave her whiplash, but she also found it rather invigorated her—a new puzzle to solve.

When Septimus sent word that the order had been delivered to Noctis Cura, Malfoy left to retrieve it and did not return to the Manor until the following day. Hermione knew this because she’d stayed awake until he walked into the Great Hall the next morning. She kept herself from asking about his evening when she followed him into his potions laboratory, though she wondered .

They immediately started dissecting the potions; initial revelio casts were unsuccessful, and more specific casts only revealed minor inconsistencies from bottle to bottle. According to Malfoy, the Ministry-approved ratio for consistency allowed for 0.5% variability between brews of the same potion, and some further diagnostic spells revealed that though half of the dreamless sleep in their hands did not fall within that parameter, it was not completely uncommon for potions brewed outside of government-approved labs to fall outside of that ratio.

She pulled a few of the bottles that had lit up pink during her diagnostic from the case and began a thorough investigation. She checked the basics first—just to be sure—and found the color, scent, and consistency all aligned with the typical features of Dreamless Sleep. Next, she tried a variety of curse-breaking spells and a series of dark magic tests. Those were fruitless as well, so she fired up a few cauldrons and began reactionary testing. 

Malfoy pulled nearly half of the books from his shelves, looking for any guidance on reverse-engineering a potion. From the documentation in the case file, they could assume the ingredients found in the laboratory to be present in any given bottle from their order: Valerian Root, Lavender, Hellebore, Chamomille Flowers, Peppermint Oil, and Flobberworm Mucus. They also suspected Fanged Geranium Roots, though their addition would do little to alter the potion without an activator. Malfoy spent an entire afternoon adding different known activator ingredients to various samples of the potion, to little effect.  

“What if the activator isn’t a regular potion ingredient?” She mused, idly flipping the pages of Malfoy’s annotated copy of Most Potente Potions from her perch on a stool next to his workstation. He sighed over an unchanged purple potion with several Jobberknoll feathers floating on the surface of it and began lifting them from the cauldron with a strainer.

“It may not be. At least, not one I’m aware of. I’ve tried everything we have in the lab at this point.” He groaned, an additional sound escaping him when a bit of Dreamless Sleep slashed onto his shirt.

“What’s usually the activator in Dreamless Sleep?” She asked.

“The Valerian Root.”

“What if Ionescu never used Valerian Root at all?” She sat upright in her seat, her brain whirring. “What if he used a different activator?”

“Well, I suppose it would depend on what the activator is. Feverfew petals, for example, would react rather poorly with the Fanged Geranium Root.” He explained. 

“What if we tried remaking Dreamless Sleep, included the Fanged Geranium Root, and used a different activator?” She suggested. He looked deep in thought. 

“The Valerian Root is the primary sedative in the potion, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only option for a successful Dreamless Sleep.” He commented. 

“Exactly. Once we have some samples, we could cast a resonance charm and compare their magic signatures to the potion from Ionescu.” She stood up and walked across the aisle of cauldrons, pacing. “We could also place different ingredients into boiled water and cast the resonance charm to see if we can piece together a matching pattern.” She spun around to face him and found him watching her, his expression… pleased . It sent her skin prickling, stopping her in her tracks. 

“Very clever, Granger.” He said, not taking his eyes off of her. He looked so thoroughly impressed that it made her cheeks heat, and she had to look down, away, anywhere else. Anywhere that felt less like static electricity.

She quickly shifted her focus away from him and towards boiling different potion ingredients, and after a moment, she felt his eyes finally leave her. He cast a few barely legal expansion charms on the room, and another table with several smaller cauldrons appeared towards the rear of the space. He grabbed a handful of chamomile, and they both got to work.

...

The next few days of brewing were...tense. 

The first few potions he brewed were either unsuccessful or uneventful. Essence of Poppy and Blue Lotus Petal extract both created Dreamless Sleep successfully, but they didn’t activate the Fanged Geranium Root, so those were out. The silver thistle powder altered the potion’s consistency, and the cauldron overflowed, chunky purple semi-solids covering the workable.  She could tell he was getting more frustrated with each uneventful brew of Dreamless Sleep, even if he didn't say as much. 

He maintained his routine of leaving her in the evenings, though she began to realize his departure was often only to his study to handle any correspondence that had arrived throughout the day. She was, frankly, somewhat relieved; even with the extension charm, she hadn't realized quite how cramped the potions laboratory was when there were two people and at least eight cauldrons active at any given time. The air often humidified with all of the brewing they were doing: between the beads of sweat forming on her brow, his increasingly ruffled hair as he ran his hands through it, and his not strictly necessary hand at her hip as he scooted by her, Hermione was feeling incredibly bothered.

They'd been working in silence for most of the day when he grunted, a look of pure anger on his face. She watched him as he scratched out several lines of notes in his notebook. She'd been sitting near the smaller cauldrons, cataloging magical signatures, but she didn't miss the exasperated way he threw his notebook back onto the worktable and began to pace. 

She approached cautiously, scooping up the book and scanning his notes. She read through each trial, each observation thoroughly recorded in his neat script. As she skimmed the page, his dictation got sloppier, until he'd crossed out the entire patch of notes from his last experiment. A glance into the smoking cauldron in front of her gave her enough insight into the result of that trial.

"Draco," she started, and he looked up, expression agitated beyond anything she'd seen from him before. He's usually so patient , she thought to herself. She frowned and returned her attention to his notes, flipping through the pages.  Lovage Extract, Ashwinder Eggshell Powder ...

“Have you tested Dragon Claw Powder yet? I know it’s a bit less common, but it could be worth a try.” She tried.

“A bit less common—do you truly think I just have a dragon claw on hand ? Where would I even get that?” he asked incredulously.

“I don’t know, Malfoy, it’s a big potions laboratory down here. And besides, you’re gone a good bit, how am I to know if it’s to acquire a dragon claw or not?” She snapped, and he rolled his eyes.

“It’s not . I wouldn’t even know where to get one of those, anyway.” He groused. She thought for a moment.

“I’m sure Charlie could get us one, if you thought it would be worth it.” She suggested, her eyes back on his notebook. She could practically feel the air shift.

“Who?”

“Charlie Weasley. He works with dragons in Romania. I’m sure if I wrote to him, he could—“

“No,” he growled, cutting her off. She looked up from her page, startled. “No Weasleys.” He looked furious. She could practically feel his irritation radiating off of him.

“What?”

“No Weasleys.” He repeated, and she narrowed her eyes.

“Why not? It can’t be about blood prejudice still. I mean, you are working with me , you know.”

“No,” He grunted, his expression a bit wild. “It’s not that—I just—“ He shuddered. “No.” 

“Why are you acting like this?” She asked, her eyes narrowed.

“I can’t imagine I know what you’re referring to.”

“Like this—“ she gestured towards him. “Stop pacing.” 

He immediately stopped, looking down at his feet as if he hadn’t realized he was prowling about. He looked back up at her and sighed.

“Sorry, I—the full moon is coming up. I’m feeling a bit…on edge.”

“When is it?”

“In a few days.”

“Are you going to lock yourself away again?” She asked. He gave her an inquisitive look.

“I don’t know.”

...

Two mornings later, he wasn’t in the lab. She looked in the cell, but it was empty. She tried to look for him throughout the manor, but he was nowhere to be found.

Notes:

Lots of research terminology and practices that I made up in this one. I tried to base anything off of things in the actual books or from real science or from other fanfics I've read.

As always thank you for reading!!!!

Chapter 19: The Visitor

Notes:

eeeek sorry for the delay, I went on vacation for a couple weeks and did not have my laptop!

Hermione

Hermione spent each day of the full moon in the lab, but she didn’t brew anything. Frankly, she felt hesitant to continue his work while he was away—it felt too personal to intervene.

She instead sat at the round table in the corner of the room and summoned every text on lycanthropy from the library that she could get her hands on. Each book had already been thoroughly read through and tabbed many years ago by a younger Draco Malfoy.

The Wolfsbane Conundrum: Advances in Lycanthropy Treatment had seemed promising, though if it existed in his library and he hadn’t found a solution better than the Wolfsbane he brewed, she figured there couldn’t be much in it.

The texts got darker as she leafed through them; the main focus of Blood and Moonlight: The Power of the Beast Within was to convince the reader of the benefits of being a werewolf, though their argument centered around enhanced lethal abilities and suggested less-than-legal means of attaining what it called the “Lunar Bond”.

Curse of the Moon: The Dark Art of Forced Transformation detailed every step needed to enact a Crimson Moon, which caused a mass-induced lycanthropy, and lauded the use of a Moonfang Amulet, which forced an “unleashed” transformation upon the wearer.

Unseen Chains: The Art of Magical Domination heralded a 14th-century wizard who utilized the blood of Black Plague victims in a “Lunar Ritual” to manipulate feral packs of werewolves and set them upon several towns, then proceeded to suggest the weaponization of lycanthropy during wartime.

Hermione’s heart broke at the thought of Draco reading these at 17 years old, freshly bitten and likely terrified. 

The ache in her chest for him was visceral; by the time she heard the sound of his dragon-hide shoes tapping against the hall floor on the fourth day of his absence, she had to force herself not to sigh with relief. 

He was back in his black suit and button-down, his hair still perfect and the purple smudges under his eyes still prominent. She felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to go to him that she quickly suppressed. She watched with bated breath as his eyes scanned the lab until they landed on her, tucked in the corner. 

“Hello.” He said, his voice soft. 

“Hi.” She called back, giving him a small smile. 

“We have a visitor arriving shortly.” He said, and she startled. Who could he possibly allow onto the grounds, given her condition?

“A—what?”

“Remus Lupin, he’s owled. He’ll be stopping by this afternoon.” He explained, and she leapt out of her seat. 

“Remus? He’s coming? Here?” She gasped, every nerve ending alighted. “I—but he’s—when?” 

“Around teatime. I’m afraid that means we won’t have much time to brew today.”

“That’s quite alright! I h-have to go!” she stuttered, her mind whirring. She dashed past him and back into the hall.

 

…

 

She’d showered, then gone to the library to make another duplicate of the case file. She'd spent the hours leading up to Lupin’s arrival tabbing different documents and embedding her notes. She nearly shook with anticipation in the Grand Hall, the duplicate clutched tightly to her chest, when Buffy went to bring Lupin through the wards at the gates. 

Malfoy had been standing stoically to her left while they waited, but he stepped forward when Remus walked through the front door to greet him. They shook hands, exchanging warm smiles. Hermione watched in confusion.

"Draco, excellent to see you as always," Remus said, looking genuinely pleased. As always? "Thanks for letting me stop by."

"It's no problem, you're always welcome here." Malfoy replied, then they both turned in her direction, where she was standing with her mouth agape. 

"Hermione! How great it is to see you looking better." Remus came towards her and she leapt into a hug. She melted into his arms, nearly sighing with contentment.

"It's so good to see you! What a surprise." She said, stepping away from him. She'd returned to Draco's side unconsciously, as if they were a couple greeting a house guest together . She felt her face heat. 

"Harry didn't tell you I'd be coming?" 

"No, he didn't mention it last time we talked." Remus rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

"Ah, it's no matter. He's likely too preoccupied with wedding preparation anyway." Remus replied, and Malfoy looked like he'd swallowed a bug. 

"Would you be interested in tea service, Remus?" Malfoy cut in.

"Certainly, certainly." 

Malfoy led them to what he'd called the "Upper Parlor" on the first floor, where Hermione and Remus sat across from one another on cream-colored couches as the elves prepared a tea service for them. Malfoy excused himself shortly after they sat, citing "matters of the estate" that needed his urgent attention. She couldn't imagine what those matters would be, and concluded he’d given the two of them the gift of privacy. 

"Honey, still?" Remus asked, holding up the kettle.

"Oh! Yes, sorry. That would be lovely, thank you." She stuttered, taking the cup of tea from him. “I think I am just a little surprised. I didn’t realize you and Malfoy were so…close.” She tried for brevity, but it came out nervous.

“Well, you know. He’s Teddy’s cousin, of a sort.”

“Yes, well, Bellatrix was Dora’s aunt, and I don’t see her claiming that part of the Black family.” She replied, and he chuckled.

“That’s true, but so much has changed in the last few years. With Lucius gone and Draco Turned, we’ve been able to find some common ground.” Remus sat back, his face contemplative. “He was…very troubled at the end of the war. He’d just gotten out of Akzaban and had been a wolf for three years at that point, and he still had no control over his transformations. He was responsible for the entirety of the Malfoy Estate, and the creatures department had him coming in every week for evaluations. When he wrote to me, I couldn't refuse him. Family has its own way of finding balance, sometimes." He continued. 

"And Dora...does she...know?" 

"Oh, yes, of course. She was immediately supportive, and I'd say she likes him a good deal, considering how enamored our son is with him." 

"Teddy sees Draco?" Remus raised a brow at this outburst.

"Of course. Draco has become a sort of uncle figure to him. Takes Teddy flying, which he quite enjoys." Hermione pondered this.

"I wonder why Harry never told me." She murmured. Harry saw Teddy all the time; surely he was aware of all of this?

"Draco is rather private, as I'm sure you're aware by now. They don't often visit us at the same time." He supplied, and she nodded. Hermione attempted to fit this information into the puzzle of Draco Malfoy in her mind, and she found that the image forming was so different from what she'd expected it to be. 

"Speaking of Harry," Remus said, sitting up and reaching into his satchel. "I have a package for you."

He pulled a parcel wrapped in brown paper from his bag and handed it to her. She ripped it open to find a copy of Dark Companions: A Guide to Understanding Vampires and Werewolves . She flipped open the cover, and just underneath the author's name on the title page read: Uncorrected Proof, copy 1 of 200 . She sighed with relief. 

"Oh! Thank you, Remus!"

"Don't thank me, I'm just the delivery boy."

"Thank you for bringing it to me then." She looked back down at the book and perked up. "That reminds me! I was hoping you could give this to Harry next time you see him?" She shuffled the case file duplicate out from where she'd tucked it in her pocket and handed it to him.

"Delivery boy, indeed." He said with a rueful smile. He glanced at it as he moved to slide it into his bag, then did a double-take, his eyes narrowing on the Ministry logo and the confidential stamp.

"Hermione...might this case file in my hands have anything to do with the incident in the archives room a few weeks ago?" He asked, his voice gentle, and she felt a pang of guilt.

"It...might." She sighed. He gave her a pointed look.

 "I can't just...not do anything. They've taken Harry off the case and assigned it to someone I've never even heard of. I just know that there's more to just a lucrative potion lab ring, and this might be the only way to take Ionescu down."

"I understand, Hermione. I just implore you to be careful; if you're caught, I can't imagine the repercussions will be pleasant, even for someone with an Order of Merlin."

"I know, I know,” She sighed. “Harry already warned me away from this, but I feel I have no choice. Even if I end up in Azkaban for it, it will be worth it to get Ionescu off the streets." Her words were laced with the bitterness she felt deep in her bones. 

"Are you sure about that?" He asked.

"What?"

"Are you sure that going to Azkaban will be worth it?"

"I-Yes. Why wouldn't it be? A major criminal will be removed from the public, and I'll have shown the Ministry that they had no grounds to remove me from my position in the DMLE. I think that's worth rotting in a cell for a bit."

"I suspect that you'd be giving up more than you realize." She gave him a quizzical look.

"That's...a bit cryptic." She replied, frowning, and he just shrugged.

“At any rate, I did hear that your integration review went well." He remarked as he prepared his own cup. She groaned.

"If by 'well' you mean I managed not to hex those absolute dimwits into next week, then yes, I suppose it went marvelously." she retorted and he chuckled.

"Trelwart is certainly something."

"He's a blithering buffoon, and that slag Tabitha-" 

"That 'slag' is 82 years old-"

"-I wouldn't know, they blindfolded me!" She chirped, indignant. Remus was full-on laughing now.

"I know, Hermione. I’m sorry about the way you've been treated." He replied, sobering up slightly.

"It was horribly dehumanizing, the whole thing. I’m shocked they're still getting away with treating magical beings so poorly. It's 2005!" She groused.

"Unfortunately, these 'integration' measures are actually the Ministry’s attempt to be more progressive." He tried, and she rolled her eyes.

"That's a load of bollocks." She replied.

"Well, you passed the review, so it will get easier from here. The reviews will be less frequent, for one." She paused at this.

"You said earlier that Malfoy had to be evaluated...weekly? Why?"

"Caught that, did you?" He took a sip of his tea. "Part of it was that he was a convicted Death Eather."

"Part of it? What's the other part?"

"That would best be answered by Draco himself." Something delicate, then , she thought to herself.  

They sipped their tea in silent contemplation for a few minutes, the only sounds around them the light patter of the rain against the windows outside. The weight of all Remus had shared sat heavy in her mind. It felt almost perverse, her desire to press Remus for more information about Malfoy. She knew, logically, she could ask him; if she thought about it, he'd never refused to answer any of her questions. But she also knew Remus was right; Malfoy was naturally very private. She could tell some of her questions had pained him to answer. Why he'd shared anything about himself at all was a mystery. 

She passed the next hour in amiable conversation with Remus, filling her cup with stories of Teddy, tales of the cases Nymphadora had worked recently, and updates about Harry and Ginny's wedding. Remus handed her a photo of Teddy and Harry playing exploding snap on his way out, and she tucked it thoughtfully into her jacket pocket. Malfoy had reappeared as he was leaving, and despite the rain, insisted on walking Remus to the apparition point. Hermione assumed it was so they could speak privately, though she wasn't sure what about. She watched them walk past the manor gates through the window; when Remus pulled Malfoy in for a hug, she felt something in her chest clench. 

 

...

 

Hours later, she sat alone in the library, trying to convince herself to read the initial chapters of Dark Companions . Shortly after returning from the apparition point, Malfoy had disappeared somewhere in the manor, and she hadn't seen him since. 

It was often in those moments, after a break in routine and he'd retreated to his own space, that she felt the pangs of loneliness the most. Any sort of interaction with the outside world generally gave her an adrenaline rush, given how infrequent they were, but a silence from Malfoy usually followed them, and the combination made her feel bereft. Her life existed in vignettes of normalcy, the lines of text in between water-stained, blurry, and unfocused. She could have everything or nothing at all, it seemed. She felt like a stray dog, overall shunned and simpering for anyone to look her way.

Her sadness came in waves, and once attempting to swim through them became overwhelming, she rose from her chair. She didn't make it very far; she didn't have the strength to. She pulled her heavy, waterlogged limbs onto the couch, curling up into herself as her emotions submerged her fully. As her head went underwater, she felt herself... wish .

She tried to remember the feeling of renewed vigor that Harry had inspired in her months ago; she felt the limbs of her heart extending, searching for positive thoughts to wrap themselves around, a mantra to take root in. In that moment, all she found was flooded land.

Notes:

ooop the fic title has made an appearance! it may happen again

 

Thank you to everyone who has read and left comments!!! your response means so much to me :)

Chapter 20: Since When Do You Do Whatever a Witch Tells You?

Draco

 

He tried so hard to be normal, to be…unaffected. 

He’d kept himself away from her the first few days, locking himself away during the full moon, visiting his mother in France, and pretending. Avoiding. Hiding.

He couldn't stay away for too long, though.

When he was around her, he tried not to act like anything had changed. Nothing had changed; at least, not for her. She didn't know he was going mad with fantasy. She didn't know he could barely pass by her in the lab without finding an excuse to touch her. She didn't know the urge he had to bury his face in her hair, to scent her neck ...

He didn’t know when exactly the attraction to her had started. Perhaps it was when she’d been wild-eyed and bloodthirsty after he’d blown up the Ministry archives—maybe it was earlier, when she’d stumbled upon his potions laboratory and unloaded the heaviness from her heart and onto him—or perhaps it was the moment she’d set foot in his house. 

He’d certainly never considered her as anything more than the Gryffindor Princess and easy prey in school. His twisted brain had seen her as inferior, as filthy. He wondered now how that was even possible. Like many other things he’d once been so sure of, it seemed incomprehensible in retrospect. 

It certainly didn’t matter; he was incredibly aware of her now.

He ended up back at her side because, if nothing else, he was an excellent potioneer. She needs me , he told himself. He was helping her. He was trying to be good. 

She had the book she needed, and she dug through it while he continued their potion studies. As much as Draco despised the idea of Saint Potter rifling through the Slytherin Common Room, it seemed to have been a fruitful slight. 

The first few days after she got the book were quiet while she cross-referenced information she found in Dark Companions with some of the other texts they'd already reviewed. He missed her weaving between the rows of cauldrons with him, her hair growing in size as the hours passed in the muggy space, but he would settle for watching her frown at the text in front of her from across the room. As long as she was willing to be near him, he would take it. 

At some point, she raced upstairs and returned with her Muggle computer and several aged copies of the Daily Prophet. Draco didn't ask; he knew she'd share once she'd uncovered something. Once she needed him again.

 

…

 

As expected, when she sat up in her seat, gasped excitedly, and shouted, “Malfoy! Look at this!” he came running. 

She had her computer and three books scattered in front of her, two of which he didn’t recognize. She pointed to her computer, where several paragraphs of text were present. She performed some sort of wandless, wordless charm, and the computer changed to a photo of a woman wearing a high collar. 

“Look who I found!” She cheered, looking up at him from her seat. He leaned over her, entering her space under the guise of assessing the image. 

“Looks like a stiff old broad. Well spotted, Granger.” He said, and she rolled her eyes.

“Malfoy, please. This is Esmerelda Valcov, a woman who died in 1790 when her estate in Romania caught on fire. I’ll tell you why that’s important in a second.” She started, before opening up Dark Companions in front of her. 

“I found an entry about a ritual called Strigovivens Ascension , or more literally, The Living Strigoi’s Rise . I’ve gathered that this is how vampires actually become immortal. The book doesn’t say exactly what happens during the ritual, since the author was not a vampire and only vampires can participate, but it does mention the importance of the ‘liquid of life’.” She explained, glancing at him briefly to make sure he was following.

She then pulled one of the books to her side, the title reading Essence of the Elixir: A Philosopher's Guide to Life-Extending Potions . She flipped to a tabbed page and kept talking.

“This book lists some of the first witches and wizards who experimented with life-extending magic. Here’s Nicolas Flamel, and his creation of the Philosopher’s Stone.” She continued, pointing at the list. He saw the years 1327-1992 printed next to his name. She moved her finger down a couple of lines to the entry that read: Jesinia Valcov, 1315 - 1364 .

“Does this look familiar?” She asked.

“Yes, that’s the woman who is credited with creating the blood-replenishing potion.”

“Correct, she did. Do you know when she did that?”

“Yes, it was—“ he paused, looking back down at the paper. “The same year she died, it appears. A bit ironic.” 

“Yes! It’s too ironic, so I did some digging.” She pulled the second book towards her, titled: The Dark Cauldron: Hexes in Liquid Form .

“I found an entry in this text about Jesinia’s work. I suppose some of her darker aspirations aren’t well known, because it took digging through a few texts before I found anything besides her contributions to the medical community. It looks like she is also responsible for something called the ‘rising brew’, for ‘creatures of all maladies’.” She gave him a pointed look. 

“You think the rising brew is the same liquid in this ritual?” He asked, and she nodded.

“Do you think it might have something to do with Ionescu’s potions?”

“I do. At least some connection must be there.”

“All right. What’s in it, then?”

“It says it’s never been written down, only passed down orally.” 

“And, let me guess…you’ve found someone who knows the ingredients.” He said with a sigh, rubbing his forehead with his hand.

“Even better! I believe I’ve found Jesinia’s daughter.” She chirped and then shuffled her laptop back to the center of the table.

“I believe that Esmerelda Valcov isn’t just a descendant of Jesinia, I think she is Jesinia. I do, however, think that this is a true death, rather than the one she obviously faked in 1364. But—“ the images on the computer flashed again, then Granger was pulling a few copies of several newspapers out of her bag.

“I searched for the last name and ‘Romania’, and I found an article from The Prophet that covered the wedding of a minor Rosier couple in Romania in 1940. Look who is pictured.” She separated the 1940 Prophet and pointed to a moving image of two women in conversation, the caption that read, British Pureblood darling Aurelia Rosier (née Sallow) and Romania’s own Nicoara Valcov caught sharing a private moment at the lavish Rosier wedding.

“Nicoara…” Draco read, his voice trailing off. She dug back in her bag and pulled out a copy of The Carpathian Chronicle.

“This is a Romanian newspaper, and I found this—“ She opened the page to show him another photo. The article was titled, Fangs and Finery: Romania’s Most Prestigious Vampires Host the Ball of the Century , and the image was of the same Nicoara Valcov in a black gown with billowing sleeves, arm extended towards the camera, hand making a come-hither motion. Her smile was all fang.

“This was published in 2002.” She sat back, waiting for his reply. He hung his head briefly and looked back at her, already resigned to agreeing to whatever she wished. He let out a great sigh.

“So, you want to go see her then.” He said. It wasn’t really a question, but she nodded anyway. The sparkle of excitement in her eyes was incomparable. He never stood a chance, really.

“Yes! I want to ask her about the rising brew and the ritual.”

“And you think she will just…tell you?”
“I think if I pose as a vampire—“

“Granger, you are a vampire.”

“Yes, yes, I mean one that is interested in becoming immortal . If I tell her I’m considering it, I don’t see why she’d believe otherwise. I could be considering it, realistically.” She replied, and he paused.

“ Are you considering it?” He asked, his heart flipping oddly. His face must be giving away something, because she smirked. 

“I guess we’ll find out when we talk to her, won’t we?”

 

…

 

He needed a portkey, and for that, he needed Theodore Nott. 

Despite holding an official government position, Theo’s dealings with Draco were almost always below board. In fact, Draco was fairly certain that the Capacitors he’d been given were stolen from the very office Theo worked for. 

Draco didn’t particularly care where the things Theo procured for him came from; just because the Ministry had archaic rules about what he should and shouldn’t have access to, didn’t mean he had to follow them. 

Stepping into Theo’s office was always an assault on the senses. The room was a study in maximalism at its most extravagant; the walls were painted mauve and were either covered in paintings or blocked by bookcases that overflowed with trinkets, tomes, and other questionable oddities. There were artefacts strewn about, Muggle and wizard alike. A globe here, an ancient painted mask there. A golden harp sat atop several boxes marked with a gigantic red X, and several crystal sun catchers floated near the ceiling. 

Theo sat in the center of it all, at a desk covered in parchment. He was scribbling furiously on the top-most paper when Draco entered the room, and he didn’t look up until Draco started pushing various trinkets off of the single guest chair across from the desk.

“Hey, careful with that there, it’s an antique!” He called out when Draco pushed a rusty metal Muggle cube off the seat. Little flecks of what appeared to be bread crumbs came spilling out of the two slits at the top of the device. 

“Nott.” Draco drawled as he pushed crumbs off the seat cushion. If only father could see me now, he thought to himself as he sat on the still-questionable leather. 

“Good afternoon, Dray. How’s my favorite witch?” Theo asked, a sly smile on his face. Draco rolled his eyes. 

“My mother is still in France, as you very well know.“ 

“Ah, yes, that’s right. Did you need me to make another pickup? I’m more than happy to go orchestrate another dementor sighting in a Muggle neighborhood if Narcissa is getting lonely.” He quipped, his eyebrows waggling. Draco rubbed his forehead and groaned. 

“Merlin, none of that. I’m not here to discuss any deliveries.”

“Alright, then. What is it?”

“I need a portkey.” 

“Oh?” Theo sat up in his seat. “Where to?”

“Romania.”

“Oh!” He cheered, his eyes brightening. “We are here to discuss your favorite witch, then.” 

“She’s not my-“ Draco cut himself off, already exasperated. “I’m not here to discuss any witches. I just need a portkey to Romania. Can you procure one for me?”

“That depends. What’s in Romania? Besides lots of other vampires, just like her…” Theo trailed off, the sing-song lilt to his tone threatening to give Draco a migraine. 

“There’s a woman she wants to meet.”

“Oh? Is she switching teams, then?”

“Can you shut up for a bloody second?” 

“Fine, fine. Tell me about the other woman .” He relented, and Draco rolled his eyes before continuing. 

“Granger suspects that this woman is a descendant of a vampire who introduced immortality to vampires. She wants to speak with her.” 

“Who is the vampire?” 

“Some woman from a Romanian Pureblood line I’m not familiar with.”

“You? Unfamiliar with a Pureblood line?”

“I don’t exactly run in many Pureblood circles anymore, Nott. Even my father wasn’t interested in nosing his way into Eastern European affairs.”

“Touché. What’s the line?”

“Valcov. There’s some association with Rosier, but I don’t know the specifics.” He replied, and Theo looked thoughtful. 

“Just to be clear: there is a largely unknown, probably ancient Pureblood vampire in Romania with the ability to immortalize any of their kind…and you want me to procure a portkey so you two can go for tea.”

“I-yes.”

“Do you think that's wise?" Theo asked, and Draco sighed.

"No, I don't. There’s a million bloody things I hate about this plan, actually. But, this is what she wants to do." He replied.

"And since when do you do whatever a witch tells you?" Draco mulled over Theo's observation. 

"Since now, I suppose." He said finally. 

"And is this also why you've suddenly become so interested in Karkaroff? Why Septimus is currently overloading your ingredient stores to meet a nonexistent demand?" Theo asked, and Draco sighed.

"...Yes." 

Theo looked at him inquisitively, but didn't press.

“Very well, then. I’ll see what I can do.”

Notes:

the antique is a toaster.

Thank you all for reading! I love and appreciate all of you :)

Chapter 21: Romania

Notes:

as always, thank you to everyone who is reading and providing kudos! you fuel my heart.

Hermione

 

It was an uncharacteristically sunny afternoon for Wiltshire when the portkey swept them from the Manor and deposited them in a wooded clearing, deep in Romania. The canopy was so thick that it felt like it was late evening; the light of daytime barely made it past the leaves, and Hermione shuddered at the sudden chill in the air. Malfoy lifted his chin, assessing their surroundings. 

"Malfoy, is this...the right spot?" She asked, trepidation rattling her voice. 

"We'd better hope so. Let's get going." He said, then took hold of her forearm, guiding her towards a trail that dove deeper into the forest. 

Despite the sense of overall liveliness Hermione felt from the forest itself, the path they walked was dead silent. The bits of sunlight that did filter through mottled a murky green light across moss-covered stones and creeping tree roots. When an animal rustled, it was so startling against the quiet that Hermione leapt towards Draco, like a common damsel. He caught her valiantly, the knight in shining armor that he was, but she extricated herself with flushed cheeks as soon as she reacquired her wits.

The winding path eventually led to a sprawling village. Embellished church spires were scattered throughout a sea of tiled roofs and multicolored facades. Many homes sported elaborately carved wooden gates that allowed glimpses into interior courtyards. The Carpathian Mountains loomed in the distance, their shape rendered nearly invisible by a thick layer of fog. 

They took a few side streets, and Draco kept her tucked against his side as they walked. She was sure that they looked rather dodgy, shuffling about in the shadows like this, but she felt confident enough that no one would be able to make unintentional eye contact with her. Having an excuse to be pressed against him didn’t hurt, either. 

They stayed attached until they reached the Posta. They followed the instructions Nicoara's assistant had sent a few days prior and selected the carriage farthest from the entrance. They hopped onto a stagecoach that was headed for the country, and rode it until they reached a 16th-century castle.

The estate was smaller in stature than Malfoy Manor, but no less imposing. Two large Renaissance-style towers loomed on either side of the structure, and a grand staircase supported two wooden doors. A large stone balcony overlooked the front lawn, where evidence of the once-existing moat was present.  

Hermione led the way across the lawn and up the steps, her initial determination faltering when she reached the mahogany doors. Golden door knockers rested on each door, but she hesitated to lift them. Talking to Luro and Matei, and even seeing the vampire quarter in The Underworld, felt different than this. This felt...more substantial. It felt like she was toeing some unknown line, like there was no going back. It felt like, once she entered the estate, the Hermione that left would be slightly different than the one she was now. Who was she now, anyway?

Draco stepped towards her, and she could feel his presence at her back more than hear his footsteps. He leaned down, his head dipping above her shoulder, his lips close to her ear.

"Everything okay?" He murmured, his voice low, sending a shiver down her spine. She shut her eyes for a moment, nodded, and lifted the door knocker.

....

A pallor man with dulled red eyes led them through the high-ceilinged entryway and deeper into the home. They followed him through halls lined with painted portraits, each subject looking more sickly than the last, before he brought them into an elaborate drawing room. The walls were baby pink and covered in dramatic wainscoting, and the picture rail molding framed even more portraits of unhealthy-looking subjects. Hermione realized with no small amount of fear that several of the portraits had been silenced, and seemed to be...crying? 

The butler instructed them to await the entrance of the lady of the house, so they sat together on a baby blue couch with gold trim. One of the portraits was desperately trying to make eye contact with Hermione, and she shuddered.

After some amount of time had passed, long enough that Malfoy had muttered, Where the hell is she? under his breath, Nicoara Valcov finally swept into the room. Hermione jumped up from the couch, patting her skirt flat nervously. The woman smirked before waving her off.

"Please, sit, Miss Eleanora Beaks. I see your pet already has." She drawled, her accent thick. She gave Malfoy a disdainful look before returning back to focus on Hermione. "You know, I usually do not allow dogs on the furniture, but I suppose I can make an exception this time." She continued, draping her long frame along the fainting couch across from them. She flicked her auburn hair behind her shoulder and snapped her fingers, summoning the butler. He arrived quickly with a tea service, to which she readily indulged.

"Do prepare yourself a refreshment, if you would like." She said to Hermione. Hermione stole a glance at Malfoy, but it told her little; his arms were folded across his chest, and his face seemed bereft of all emotion, save a slightly furrowed brow. He looked, if anything, a little mean, and she wondered if he was occluding.

"Thank you so much for meeting with us, Miss Valcov," Hermione said.

"You may call me Nico." She replied, and Hermione had a hard time committing this woman in front of her as someone who used a nickname .

"Go on," Nico encouraged, gesturing towards the table. "It is a special blend. I can assure you, you will find it to your taste." 

Hermione eyed the teapot thoughtfully; after that comment, she deduced it was most likely filled with blood. But whose...

"I see. What is the origin?" she asked, reaching slowly for the teapot. The answer likely didn't matter; she couldn’t appear weak-willed in any capacity in front of this woman, not if she wanted answers about the blood ritual.

"This pot is from one of the Medici sons. Cosimo |, I believe." She answered mildly, and Hermione's eyes widened.

"I—What? How?" She sputtered, and Nicoara grinned.

"It is a preservation spell. You would do well to learn it, especially if you are as interested in the Rite as you claim to be in your letter to me." She gave Hermione a pointed look, and Hermione nodded eagerly. "It is like wine...it is better with age." Nico continued, taking a sip from her teacup. "But of course, the best is fresh, is it not?"

Hermione nodded again, forcing her brain not to recall the taste of Draco's blood. She felt him stiffen almost imperceptibly beside her, as if he was reliving the same memory in his own mind.

Hermione took a sip from her cup, and she had to admit to herself that it was good. Better than her usual blood supply in the manor, though she wouldn't tell Draco that. She wasn't sure where exactly the blood in her ice box came from, but she knew he'd start importing historic, magically preserved blood in by the gallon if she so much as mentioned it to him. 

"Ok, Miss Beaks. What is it you wish to know? You said in your letter that you had many questions."

"Eleanora, please. As I mentioned, I am a relatively new vampire, and I am...not exactly 'connected' with my sire."

"I can see that. Any sire would not have let you anywhere close to this one you bring with you here,” She said it so casually that Hermione almost didn’t realize it was another dig at Draco. She forced herself to ignore it, for now. 

“Who is your sire?" Nico asked.

"Dorian Ionescu. Are you...familiar with him?"

"Oh, yes. I have known who he is for quite some time." This made Hermione's heart race.

"Are you two friends, then?" Hermione asked, trying to stay calm. Nico rolled her eyes.

"Once, maybe. He is too...what is it?...untrustworthy. He has always been obsessed with power, no matter how he gets it. Caused lots of problems for us here in Romania during his early days. I do not often leave Romania, so I have not seen him in some time." She explained, and Hermione's heart sank a bit. "You are better to not be near him."

“Ah, yes. Of course.”

“So, you have a no-good sire, you come to me—very good idea. You want to know about the Rite?” Nico asked, returning to the matter at hand.

“Yes! I’ve been looking for information about it, but the closest I’ve come to finding anything is a meager reference to a ‘rising brew’.” 

“That would be because we do not write it down. The steps to complete the entire rite are known only to those who have attended. This is where you are in luck; I am hosting a ball in two weeks here. We will be Ascending a few very good Vampires. Very lucky, they are, to be selected. Some of the items needed for the Rite take time to prepare, and the magic is stronger in numbers. If you come, you can see the Rite take place first-hand.” She explained, then looked reproachfully at Draco.

“It is, however, a Vampire-only event.” Nico continued, eyeing Draco again, and Hermione felt a surge of panic shoot up her spine.

“But! He’s—” she sputtered, looking frantically between Nico and Draco, who had gone still next to her. “He’s my…familiar,” She felt Draco shift next to her. “Can’t he come?”

She recalled vaguely from one of her many texts that ancient Vampire etiquette considered permitted familiars not to be considered an “other” and were instead more of accessories. She was gambling on that belief also applying to formal events, and the narrowing of Nico’s eyes told her it had paid off.

“Is he truly ?” Nico drawled, looking him over with a sneer. Something deep in Hermione’s gut turned at the sight of her appraising him.

She heard Draco shift again, and then she felt his warm hand on her knee. He sat up and slid his hand up slightly, his fingers gripping her inner thigh and sending a jolt of sensation through her. He turned and looked at her with such tenderness that she felt it in her bones. 

“Yes,” she breathed.

“I am,” He agreed, still holding her gaze. The heaviness of his attention on her made the space between them feel very small. 

“Well, Miss Beaks,” Nico started, snapping them out of whatever moment they were sharing. “I will say, I did not expect you to have such terrible taste. Does he agree to follow the traditional roles befitting a familiar to a Vampire?” She finished, her gaze challenging.

“Of course.” He responded,his eyes on Nico now but his grip on Hermione’s leg still strong, the heat of his skin still searing into hers. 

“ All of them?”

“I will do whatever is necessary to escort Eleanora to the rite.” He said, his voice filled with conviction. 

“Very well then. I suppose he may be allowed in this…capacity.” She permitted, and Hermione nearly gasped with relief.

“Thank you, Miss Valcov. I-“

“Now, I must ask you to allow me to take my leave. I’ve had about enough I can take of smelling him. You will hear from me, one week before the event.” She interrupted, standing and nodding to Hermione.

“Edmund will escort you back to the foyer. Safe travels!” With that, she strode out of the room, her robes flowing behind her.

Notes:

I based my imagery on the description of Romania from Dracula by Bram Stoker and some photos I found online.

Nicoara's home is based on Kemény Castle in Romania

Chapter 22: Oh What a Feeling, It's One I've Never Felt

Notes:

Hi, sorry this has taken me forever to get up!!!

Draco

 

They took Nico's private thestral-drawn carriage back to town, depositing them just outside the village gates. 

As Hermione started to pull her hood back over her head, he grabbed her arm, pulling her towards a small bank of trees. He tried to ignore the weight of her inquisitive stare. He calmed his racing heart; each erratic thud pushed behind a granite door, shoved away. Bloody hell, was he nervous ? What was he, a schoolgirl? 

"I have something for you," He said, reaching into the pocket of his robes. "It's—ah—" he tried, pausing when he found the item he was looking for. He pulled it out of his pocket with shaking fingers and deposited it into her hands. She looked at him, brow furrowed, for a millisecond before her attention refocused to the box he'd handed her. 

"Open it." 

She clicked the tiny golden latch on the wooden box, and he watched her face shift between bemusement, then intrigue, then disbelief.

"Is—is this...?" She trailed off, lifting the spectacles from their velvet cushion and spinning them between her fingers.

"They are, well. They’re Eyeglasses. They'll allow you to look at other people again—without Turning them. I know it's not a permanent solution, but—" a sharp intake of breath cut him off. 

"Are you...serious?" She whispered, her voice soft and delicate and raw , and it stopped him. He looked up from where her fingers had stilled and found her brilliant, beautiful eyes on him. 

"Yes." he whispered back. She was silent and stock still, her brows pulled together. Her stare was penetrating, and he felt like she could see straight through him. He felt like he was baring his soul to her...and maybe he was.

"Where...where did they come from?" She asked, her voice still quiet. 

"I, ah-" he started, hesitating. "I made them. With Theo. It was his idea, actually." She looked from the glasses to him a few times, still silent.  

"I know, I should've given these to you before we left Wiltshire, but I..." He trailed off, and she refocused on him. He cleared his throat.

"I suppose I'm rather selfish, and I wanted you to need me a bit longer." He murmured, only half-joking. He felt her awareness of him like a physical touch. He held her gaze, as much as it terrified him, and awaited her judgment.

After what could have been years but was probably only a minute, her lips curled into a small, surprised smile. 

"Draco," she breathed, her grin expanding. "This is—this is incredible. I can't believe I didn't even think of something like this." She continued, her excitement taking over her voice. Something in Draco's chest squeezed.

"How do they work?"

"A combination of mirrors and a few spells. What you see in the glasses is a mirrored image of what's in front of you. The mirror is spelled so nothing looks backwards, and the whole thing is transfigured to look like regular eyeglasses.”

"Incredible," she murmured, putting the glasses on. The thin gold frames complemented the red of her eyes wonderfully. 

"How do I look?" She asked, tilting her head back and forth. Her curls slid along her jaw and danced across her shoulders, and he fought the urge to tell her she looked bloody fantastic, absolutely incredible, like an enchantress.

"Better than Potter ever did, that's for sure." He said instead, and she giggled.

"You can't imagine how happy this makes me. Oh, Draco, thank you!" She cried, then flung herself at him.

He caught her easily, wrapping his arms around her small frame and pulling her into his chest. He felt her wrap around his torso, and he felt the tension he carried leave his body. He pressed his lips to her hair, a ghost of what was in his heart, and decided that he'd do anything to chase the high that he felt when she was happy.

She pulled away much too soon for Draco's liking, but she took his hand, and he accepted this consolation readily.

"We can use them tonight! I saw several people setting something up in the town square earlier. Let's go have a look."

 

...

 

She didn't let go of his hand once they entered the town, and he was elated. 

They walked through the streets jovially, no longer relegated to the shadows and corner alleys. The daylight was fading fast. It was nearly nightfall by the time they reached the town square, though it mattered little; the large courtyard was overflowing with light and activity. Several merchant stalls wound through the large space, some selling food and some selling silk gowns or stones or the like. There was a small crowd gathered to the side, watching a dance troupe perform a traditional Romanian folk dance. Hermione was incandescent with joy, her gemstone eyes drinking in everything around them.

"Oh, Draco! How lovely is this? We must see everything." She announced, and he nodded, a smile creeping across his lips.

"Lead the way." He replied, and she pulled him into the fray.

They strolled at a leisurely pace through the rows of merchants, floating in and out of the tents to examine their wares. There were some makers selling swaths of fabric, some selling jewelry and sparkling headdresses, and a few selling spices. A potter was spinning a mound of clay into the shape of a vase in the back of his stall, his previous work lined up on tables in front of him. A few stalls sported vintage artefacts, though nothing Draco deemed particularly extraordinary. One stall sold magical oddities that piqued Hermione's interest: a quill that loudly announced whatever the author wrote down, a few vials of anonymous, “mystery” memory strains, among other things. 

Draco immediately noticed that several of the merchants were vampires. They noticed him too, if their sneers were any indication. He wondered if Hermione’s hand resting on the crook of his elbow was all that kept any of them from barring him from their stalls completely. 

Hermione had explained the town in detail to him before their arrival, of course. It was a wizarding town, but more notably, it boasted a large vampire population. As they chatted with the shopkeepers, they discovered that Nicoara was something of a local icon to the residents. Many were pleased with all of the “new visitors” she attracted to their town, and one seemed especially envious of the house call they’d paid her earlier in the day.

“The balls she holds for the Blood Rite raise money for the town. That’s why the infrastructure is so excellent here.” Hermione explained as they walked away from a shopkeeper who’d talked their ear off about Nicoara’s skincare routine. “The townspeople seem quite thankful,” she continued.

“ Thankful is an understatement.” He quipped, and she chuckled.

“I don’t know if they’re all aware of why the ball happens, but I suppose that’s by design. Even in a vampire-heavy community, I doubt everyone would be unanimously supportive of regularly scheduled immortalization rituals being conducted in their backyards.” 

 

...

They strolled through the last few tents before stumbling upon a quaint little restaurant that boasted fresh bread and local cheeses. 

The interior was dim and utterly romantic in a way Draco couldn't have planned even if he'd tried; boughs of ivy hung from the ceilings and covered the brick walls, candles floated in the air around tables, and a lutist was set up in the corner playing a soft tune. There was a massive stone hearth with a roaring fire, where two ancient women in aprons roasted pine nuts in a small pot over the flame. Hermione looked nearly incandescent with delight when the server led them to a table on the second-floor balcony. When they sat down, he handed her the wine menu and asked her to pick a bottle. She grinned, and it felt like the sun.

"So," she started, in between bites of the mushroom and leek soup they’d ordered as an appetizer, "how did Theo manage to get us a portkey here?"

"Well, it was intended for him. He was supposed to meet with the Muggle Liaison Division of the Romanian Ministry to discuss a streak of teenagers setting off English whiz-bang fireworks in the woods near a Muggle community." Draco explained.

"And I take it that's not actually happening?" She asked.

"I'm sure it’s happening somewhere , but the report Theo received about it is fabricated." 

"They didn't cross-check his report?"

"They did not." He replied, and she rolled her eyes.

"Such a waste of government funds. Glad the waste is to our advantage, though."

"Cheers to that." They clinked their glasses together and sipped quietly.

"What else does Theo do for you? Besides transporting wine internationally and lying to the government."
She asked, and he sat back, thinking.

“He helped me get an apothecary contract for Noctis Cura. The official address that the Ministry has on file is an old Nott property that’s fallen into disrepair, but if you were to go through the front door, you’d end up at the shop.” He explained. “He helps me identify artefacts, sometimes. And acquire them, but I don't often trade in Muggle goods, so it’s rare for him to involve himself in the actual trading. He gathers information for me, occasionally. Mainly, he does the deliveries and picks up wine for me."

"So he's your errand boy?" She asked, and he raised a brow at her. "Sorry! I didn't mean it like that."

"No, I suppose you're right. I don't think he sees it that way, though. Nott hates being home, and delivering items to clients means he gets to travel." 

"What's wrong with being home?" She asked.

"Well, Theo’s father is decidedly not in Azkaban." Draco replied, and she blanched.

" Oh ."

"You understand, then."

"Why doesn't he move out? Get his own flat, or move in with a friend?"

"Most of his friends live in houses with their own ghosts."

“I see.” she said. “And...does your house have ghosts, Draco?”

He looked over at her and held her gaze, feeling a sudden charge between them.

“No. Not anymore.” He replied.

“Just the wife in the attic?” She quipped, and he grinned.

“Yes, Granger. Just the wife.”

 

…

 

"I adore this little town," She said after their dessert came, her eyes watching the people passing below them on the street through her glasses. 

"Do you think you could ever live somewhere like this? I think I could." She asked. I could with you , he almost said. Instead, he just watched her as she mused.

"It's just so lovely here. The mountains are beautiful, everyone is quite friendly, and vampires seem to have integrated well into the community. If the Ministry ever lets me loose, perhaps I'll move here."

NO, he nearly screamed, his stomach dropping into his chest. Stay with me! He wanted to beg, but he stopped himself. 

There's no way she'll be happy to hear that, not from me , he thought. S he wants out of this life--my life . My life has no cure, but maybe hers does. She'd be accepted back into society either way, as long as she can get rid of the Sight. Even if she wore the glasses for the rest of her life, she'd be able to lead a better life than anything I could give her.

No. He wouldn't burden her with this, with his...infatuation. His desperation. Besides, what if she's disgusted by him, by his feelings? What if he's only tolerable as an academic partner for her, and when he's no longer able to be just that, she wants nothing to do with him? He couldn't handle the possibility of that. 

"I think I could." He replied, finally, a half-truth. "Not sure if the townsfolk would be too thrilled with me, though. I think the only reason that I haven't been escorted outside of city limits is because I'm with you."

"Oh, I'm sure they'd get used to it after like a week. And if they don't, I'd happily defend you from the bullies." She teased, smirking and holding her hand to her chest in mock chivalry.

"Thanks, Granger," he replied drily, taking another sip of his wine and forcing himself not to dwell on the fact that in this hypothetical she'd created, they ran away from England to the Romanian countryside together .

"Don't worry, Malfoy. Auror training has greatly improved my right hook." She continued, and he laughed.

"You seemed to already have the hang of it in third year, not sure how much more there is to learn." He grumbled good-naturedly, and she giggled.

 

…

 

When they finished dinner, they walked leisurely towards the same spot in the woods they’d flooed in. Hermione wound her arm through his and smiled up at him, and Draco suspected that he’d never been happier in his life. 

When they spun out of Romania and landed back on the Manor grounds, she told him how much fun she’d had that evening, and there was light in her eyes and a satisfied smile on her face when she looked at him, and he was certain he’d never been happier.

Notes:

Thank you for reading! I promise the next chapter will come sooner than this one did. I hope you guys enjoyed this, which was pretty much just fluff.

 

The title is from funny how? by The Maine. Draco's entire internal monologue is actually just this song.