Chapter Text
Draco gives her a small nudge as the doors open, prompting her forward. She’s acutely aware of her wand strapped to her thigh in case someone decides a celebratory hex would be appropriate.
Fortunately, none comes.
The crowd is oddly disciplined, and Hermione even catches flashes of smiles and quiet awe. The guests clear the dancefloor and drift toward their assigned tables, eyes fixed on her and Draco as they walk the central aisle to the High Table.
Voldemort lounges on his throne, and exactly as Lucius predicted, Nagini is there, coiled at his feet. It’s Hermione’s first time seeing the snake, and she finds that Harry’s description hadn’t been exaggerated in the slightest: massive enough that death would be possible if she decides to take a nap on you.
Draco drops to his knees. She remains obstinate just long enough for him to give a subtle tug, reminding her that bootlicking is part of the programme when this narcissist is concerned.
“My Lord,” he says. “We apologize again for the delay.”
Voldemort’s long, filthy nails tap against the armrest, unimpressed. After several seconds, he reaches a decision.
“Now that the concerned couple has graced us with their presence,” he says flatly. “Let the feast be served.”
The tables fill with food, and at last the mood makes sense. Evidently, champagne has been flowing freely before the first course, and alcohol on an empty stomach is generally a recipe for disaster.
Generally.
As long as no one curses her, Hermione can see only advantages.
Voldemort dismisses them with a flick of his hand, his displeasure with their union barely subtle.
As she and Draco make their way to their table, Hermione scans the room, alert for Nagini’s meal—something Lucius had been certain would be served at the same moment as the guests. For a second time tonight, she’s forced to appreciate his foresight when she spots a young man weaving through the tables with a cage clutched in one hand.
Quickly, she subtly rolls up her sleeve a fraction and loosens the strap securing the disillusioned vial containing her afternoon’s little project.
During her long confinement in Azkaban, she had more than enough time to hypothesize about ways to destroy a Horcrux. Even if she only knew one substance that could destroy it—Basilisk venom—it didn’t mean she couldn’t think about several ways to use it.
Sure, there was the Sword of Gryffindor, imbued with it. There were also the fang Ron had been clever and brave enough to retrieve from the Chamber of Secrets and tuck back into her beaded bag.
But none of those options were particularly discreet. Not when the Horcrux in question is currently curled up beneath its master’s throne, under the scrutiny of hundreds of witnesses.
Thankfully, Hermione had planned for this possibility.
After Lucius had suggested that Nagini would be present, she had returned to her room and set one of her long-considered solutions into motion. Careful not to contaminate herself, she extracted the venom from the fang and diluted it in water, sealing the mixture into a small vial.
Easy. All that remained was the tricky part: spraying the snake’s meal with it. But the stars must have been aligned this evening, because Hermione doesn’t even have to invent an excuse to get closer to the cage as the man chooses the same aisle as them on his way to the High Table.
As the cage draws nearer, she sees the chinchilla shifting restlessly. Poor thing. Its big, rounded ears twitch, as though it understands it’s moments away from being swallowed whole. Or so she hopes, though she doubts decomposing alive in the stomach of a python is any better than being savagely torn apart by Nagini’s teeth beforehand.
When the cage reaches Hermione’s left wrist, she presses the vial’s cap, spraying a precise and invisible jet onto the animal’s silky grey fur. According to her calculations, basilisk venom when applied topically, rather than injected directly into the bloodstream, takes about three hours before killing the victim. When ingested, it takes roughly the same amount of time.
Bottom line: neither Nagini nor the chinchilla should die suspiciously within the next few minutes, and no one will be able to accuse her dinner of being poisoned.
Hermione hides the still-disillusioned vial and smooths her sleeve just as they reach their table. When Draco gallantly pulls her chair back, he clocks the movement but doesn’t comment.
Not that she intended to keep him in the dark. She fully meant to explain everything and to include him, but he had to be late. As she sits, she considers warning him of what’s about to happen in the next hours. Unfortunately, this proves impossible because, shockingly, everyone demands the attention of the newly wedded couple. Which was to be expected since it’s their night after all.
Which wasn’t excepted though is, as the evening unfolds, she’s not considered as the public enemy.
Like any group bound by indoctrination and excessive devotion, they regard their cause as the only truth. And if their truth is absolute, then surely everyone must arrive at it eventually, leaving no room for skepticism. From that perspective, she was just a misguided lamb, waiting to be brought in.
Just like someone realizing that the world is round and not flat. No one would hex for finally reaching this sound conclusion.
Or at least, that’s what she gathers from the steady stream of comments directed at her throughout the night.
“I’ve always told my husband the Order was a violent organization.”
“Terrorists! Plain and simple.”
“I heard half of them turned on each other.”
“They’re losing members left and right, it was just a matter of time.”
“Revolutions always eat their own. You must feel relieved!”
“The Malfoys have always known how to protect what’s theirs. It’s no secret.”
“Thank Salazar the Malfoys took you in, dear. You wouldn’t have fared well with the issue of...your lower blood.”
That last one almost does it.
She’s inches away from pulling her wand and showing Mrs. Parkinson exactly how capable someone with her blood can be when it comes to violent hexes. Coincidently or not, thoughts of cursing any Parkinson invaded her mind the minute Mrs. Parkinson’s daughter—pretty Pansy—stole Draco for dance.
Her wand burns on her thigh just when Draco intervenes in time, smoothly ushering her onto the dance floor. He must have felt the heat rolling off her.
“You’re doing so well,” he murmurs into her ear, as the music slips into a slower tempo. “It’d be a shame if Patricia were to spontaneously combust in the middle of the ballroom.”
“I hate pretending I’m on their side,” she grumbles, though her anger is already dulling. She focuses instead on his hand in hers, guiding every one of their steps, on the other settled on her lower back, his thumb tracing calm, absent-minded circles along her spine.
Her eyes drift to Lucius and Theo, standing near one of the enchanted trees lining the ballroom. Lucius looks, once again, profoundly offended by the décor. He lifts a gloved hand and slices it through the air, outlining the problematic. The tree is apparently asymmetrical, and Theo has chosen chaos from what Hermione gathers from afar.
Theo tilts his head, appraising the branches like an art critic in a gallery. He doesn’t look convinced by Lucius’s arguments. If anything, he looks quite amused. With one final shrug, Theo walks away utterly unrepentant, leaving Lucius staring after him in quiet dismay.
Hermione turns her attention back to Draco, her pulse finally evening out.
“You’re doing this for a reason,” he says softly. “For the greater good. Right?”
For the greater good.
Those were the exact words she kept repeating to convince herself that marrying Draco was a means to an end. A necessary sacrifice. Besides, an annulment would be easy enough to obtain.
Now, the thought rattles uncomfortably in her chest. There’s a crucial variable she hadn’t accounted for in her calculations. One she didn’t know at the time, and thinks Draco didn’t either.
“Right,” her palm is so damp that she fears it will slip free of Draco’s grasp. “I’ve been wondering…if the bond was so insistent on us—” she hesitates. “—consummating it, and seems to require some form of…upkeep…what happens when we’ll break it off? Once this is all over?”
He skids to a halt, his hand on her waist, thankfully preventing her from colliding headfirst with another dancing couple.
“Break it off?” he repeats, his gaze boring into hers.
“I mean…like we talked in the cabin,” she reminds him. “I believe it was your mother who mentioned it. That obtaining an annulment wouldn’t be an issue? But when we do…what will happen to you?”
The silence stretches, and she wonders if he has trouble understanding her words. His pupils are reduced to tiny dots, twitching faintly, as if reacting to thoughts she can’t see. His fist clenches the silk at her waist, before he lets go entirely, and drags a hand through his hair.
“I—” He falters, his voice going hoarse. “I’d have to check.” He takes a step back, hair now in complete disarray. “Would you excuse me for a minute? There’s food,” he gestures vaguely toward their table, though they’ve already eaten, and the table is now clean. “And water,” he adds, loosening his pretty red bow around his neck. “Water. I need water, I’ll be right back.”
He walks away briskly, though oddly in the opposite direction of where the bar actually is and therefore nowhere near any refreshments.
Confused and—yes, suddenly parched now that she thinks about it—Hermione heads toward the bar herself.
Does he regret marrying her?
Clearly, neither of his parents thought to warn him of the risks of marrying the catalyst of his transformation. Do they even know?
From what she understands, his parents married young, and years passed before Lucius transformed, followed later by Narcissa. Their marriage bond had time to settle before they layered the far trickier Animagus bond on top of it.
But for Draco and Hermione? Both occurred in the same week. She has yet to read about this subject—clearly a failure she files away for later—but she suspects it’s uncommon. Possibly stupid even.
She wonders what would have happened if she hadn’t returned with him after breaking out of Azkaban and simply vanished from his life.
Her heart clenches.
Would he already be burning out, like he was only days ago?
Which leads to one final question:
Do all dragon animagi inevitably attach themselves to their catalyst—want them, need them, marry them—or is the role purely functional, just a match to spark the change?
A sense of vertigo rises, climbing on top of questions she has no answers for. Damn it. She really needs to investigate.
Add that to the list.
“Water, please.” she tells the barwitch, rubbing at her temples as the promise of a headache looms.
“Granger,” someone says in a distinctive nasal whine.
Hermione doesn’t need to turn around to know it belongs to Graham Montague, the only man she knows who sounds as though every sound resides permanently in congested sinuses. “Surely water isn’t your drink of choice for a celebration of this grandeur.”
She does eventually turn, gathering every scrap of patience she has left and arranging it into a polite mask.
“Montague,” she nods, offering her hand for a neutral handshake.
Instead, the cheeky prat takes it and presses his dry lips to her knuckles. To Hermione’s displeasure—and to that of the woman standing at his side, whose shoulders creep up toward her ears, as though she’s hoping the floor might open and oblige her disappearance.
Her face is familiar. Hermione knows her from Hogwarts, though her name escapes her. The long, flat black hair is distinctive.
“I’m Hermione,” she says, snatching her hand back from Montague and extending it instead to the petite woman. Her skin is so pale it’s nearly translucent. “I know you, but—”
“T–Tracey Davis,” she answers quickly, grasping Hermione’s hand with a faint flinch. “You were two years ahead of me. I wouldn’t expect you to remember someone like me.”
There’s no blame in her voice, just a lack of self-esteem.
Her hand is icy. Hermione instinctively glances down, wanting to confirm she’s shaking an ice cube or a human hand. But it is flesh, though her breath catches when her gaze lands on Tracey’s narrow wrist, ringed with purple and brown bruises.
Tracey notices. She pulls her hand free and tucks it beneath her sleeve.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she murmurs, already stepping away. Montague doesn’t spare her a glance, his attention entirely fixed on Hermione. “I will—I need to go to the ladies’ room.”
The barwitch returns at this moment, sliding a glass of water toward Hermione.
“Your wife?” Hermione asks Montague, deliberately casual, her eyes following the direction Tracey fled. She’s determined to know if Montague is responsible for the fear clinging to her like a cloak.
“Fiancée,” he replies with a shrug, draining his dark liquor. “A mistake, clearly. Especially now that you’re so open-minded toward Slytherins. If memory serves, you rejected me more than once because of that.”
He isn’t entirely wrong. Hermione had turned him down every time he’d asked her to Hogsmeade. Yes, he was a Slytherin, and—aside from her current husband—she had a firm rule against dating anyone from a house that treated people like her as dirt beneath their shoes.
But that wasn’t the only reason.
Aside from finding him wholly unattractive, there had always been something off about him. Something simmering beneath the surface, trying to find a crack. A temper kept on a short leash, waiting for the excuse to snap.
And if she had to guess, Tracey Davis had front-row seats to it.
“The heart wants what it wants,” Hermione says lightly, taking a measured sip of water.
“Mmm,” Montague hums. “You’re not fooling me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on.” He turns fully toward her, voice dropping into something coaxing. She resists the urge to hex him on the spot. No one seems to notice them anyway. Except Lucius Malfoy, across the bar, watching the exchange with curiosity.
Right. The second part of their plan. This could work. Montague could be the one.
“I don’t know what your angle is in marrying Malfoy,” Montague says, almost spitting the name, “but you didn’t marry him for love. And you certainly didn’t change allegiances.”
Her heart races at the danger of someone here knowing she’s still secretly with the Order. But then, she tells herself that it’s just one person—much better than what she expected before entering the room—and that it’s Montague. His hours are numbered if everything goes according to plan.
“However, if it’s just you wanting to spread your legs for Death Eaters,” he adds, a disgusting smirk tugging at his lips. “I’m up for it. Always been.”
She suppresses a laugh and wonders why she ever worried about him exposing her, since he’s much too preoccupied to think with his dick. A rather fortunate turn of events, because now, that’s something she can use to her advantage.
“Oh yeah?” Her voice turns all honey as she leans in, angling her chin just so. “And sweet Tracey?”
She lets her gaze soften, dropping briefly to his mouth before sliding back to his eyes. That’s seducing 101, and Montague is clearly still thinking with his lower anatomy because he’s practically chewing on her hand without realizing it.
“It wouldn’t be the first time I cheat on her.”
Got you.
All they needed was a scapegoat. Now, they have a scapegoat, an abusive boyfriend and a cheater. All wrapped into a convenient loathsome package.
Hermione’s eyes flick toward Lucius across the bar, but instead she catches Draco whose gaze lands on her like a hawk. He watches her interact with Montague with something akin to suspicion, but mostly possessiveness.
He bares his teeth slightly, running his tongue over them once, a futile attempt at reining in whatever is boiling under his skin.
She must have looked too long, because Montague follows her line of sight and spots Draco’s scorching glare. That doesn’t deter him, and it even seems to encourage him.
“And what about your husband?” he asks, pointedly provocative, turning his body to block Draco from view.
A pang of guilt twists in her chest. She has no intention of hurting Draco. He still doesn’t know about their plan for the evening, and that she’s not actually seducing Montague. She tries uselessly to communicate with Lucius, silently willing him to bring his son to speed, but for all her proficiency in Occlumency, she has yet to learn about Legilimency.
“Meet me in ten minutes,” she murmurs quickly, “Downstairs. Outside the cellar.”
Montague smiles smugly as though he just scored some big win. If only he knew he just scored his death.
She’s about to slip away, hoping to have enough time to intercept Draco and explain, when a solid presence slams in behind her.
“What,” Draco spits, his voice low and venomous, “could you possibly want with my wife, Montague?”
His forearms come down on either side of her, caging her against the bar.
Hermione goes still. She can feel his breath at her ear, uneven. His venom is directed at Montague, but the betrayal is aimed at her. And that makes her chest ache.
Montague, ever the idiot, grins wider.
“Nothing she doesn’t already want.”
Not a full-time idiot, it seems. Montaghe chooses (wisely) to walk away, leaving her alone with Draco, who exhales with barely veiled panic.
“Draco—"
“What the fuck, Granger?”
“It’s not what you think,” She turns in his arms to face him. Under the guise of being affectionate with her husband, she draws him closer so she can murmur in the lowest of voice possible. “For this evening, we made a plan to—”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and your father,” she supplies, and it’s only when his eyebrows shoot up in pure surprise that she registers the ridiculousness of it. The two of them. Working together. For the greater good, indeed.
“We just have to drag Montague out, and then Lucius will—"
“Isn’t that sickening...” a sadistic voice interrupts. “I once had such high hopes for you, my nephew.”
Hermione knew this moment was coming. She had been spared of Bellatrix Lestrange during her time at the Manor, courtesy of Voldemort’s staff management executive decision, which assigned the witch in Slovenia as the primary supervisor of whatever the hell is going on there.
But her luck has run out tonight.
Just one hour ago, she’d spotted the criminally insane witch lurking at the edges of the ballroom, watching Hermione with naked disgust written all over her skeletal face, and knew it was a matter of time before she’d graced them with her existence.
“Bella…” Draco tries.
“But since all you do is disappoint me,” she continued, crowding them, her foul breath invading their space. “It shouldn’t surprise me that you’d stoop so low as to bed a Mudblood—"
“Don’t you dare call—"
“What’s the matter?” Bellatrix croons, then grabs Hermione’s arm and yanks her sleeve up. Draco’s face turns grey. “I heard you were the one who carved this word. You shouldn’t have any problem with me saying it.”
Hermione wrenches her arm free. If she’s the one who bears the scars, Draco looks like the one who bled for them, still carrying open wounds.
Her stomach sinks.
“You’re a disgrace.” Bellatrix snarls, and spits in his face.
A cold rage compels Hermione to seize her wand, but Draco is quicker. His hand slips through the slit of her dress, stopping her short. His gaze is a warning.
She knows cursing Bellatrix wouldn’t rank among the most brilliant ideas she’s ever had, but the casual lack of respect she’s shown toward her nephew is unnerving.
“And you,” the witch sneers, turning her venom on Hermione. “I know you don’t care about him. If I had to guess, you’re after his gold.”
Draco’s hand remains firm over hers, his thumb brushing slowly up and down her thigh in a pacifying motion. She focuses on the heat and on the fact that there are worse things than being called a gold digger. Probably half the room thinks the same.
When he senses her breathing even out, he carefully peels her fingers from her wand, and withdraws his hand. A tragedy. Of all the things he could have done with that hand placement.
Unaware she’s lost their attention, Bellatrix barrels on.
“…filth like you don’t belong…”
“…probably bewitched our Dark Lord…”
Hermione turns around, and sips on her glass of water, deciding that ignoring Bellatrix will hurt far more than engaging her. Draco stays close behind, pressing more firmly against her back, tacitly endorsing restraint over spectacle.
His hand glides along her side, fingers grazing her ribs before slipping beneath her hair, baring the curve of her neck. Under the pretext of drinking from her glass, he leans in and she doesn’t miss the good girl murmured against her temple.
Hermione perks up at the praise and silently agrees. She has been good, considering all the crap Bellatrix is croaking.
“…Gringotts will make sure she never touches your vault…”
“…dirt like her shouldn’t even be allowed in Diagon Alley…”
“…never let her anywhere near my vault. You should….”
“Are you listening?”
Hermione has missed half of it, distracted by Draco’s solid heat and the unmistakable evidence of his own loss of attention, growing against her backside. For a second, she considers abandoning the Montague plan entirely, dragging Draco upstairs—or really, any dark corner will do—and letting him ravish her.
But first, the snake.
Then, she can deal with a much more satisfying kind of serpent.
Too lost in thought, she doesn’t react in time when Bellatrix grips her chin, evidently tired of talking to herself.
Surely Draco wouldn’t mind now if she hexed his aunt, seeing how Bellatrix nails dig into her skin? She can practically smell the blood dripping from her chin, and she would hate to ruin her ivory dress with blood stains. Not very proper.
It seems she won’t need her wand after all. The moment Draco’s eyes snap to her chin, he bounces and pins his aunt against the bar, his own wand pressed to her throat.
He’s positively feral, just like any dragon would when someone breaks its possessions.
“Draco, behave.” Narcissa hisses, while Lucius drags him off Bellatrix who grins victoriously, delighted to have finally provoked either of them.
Draco’s eyes shift between reptilian slits and human pupils, half his face shimmering with silver scales. “Go. Outside. Clear your head!”
His mother tries to usher him away, but he slips past her and instead takes a step toward Hermione, his gaze fixed on the blood at her chin. She murmurs a quick Episkey, followed with a Scourgyfy, and that seems to temporally appease his nerves.
“I’m okay,” she assures him, gently pushing him back, noticing his pupils have fully blown to vertical slits. “Fly a few laps, you’re scaring the guests, Darling.” Hermione says, all picture-perfect devotion as every head turns toward the commotion.
And plus, the ballroom hasn’t been designed to accommodate a full-sized dragon. While she would deeply enjoy seeing Lucius lose his composure over his carefully curated décor, now is not the time. A disgraceful vein bobs on Lucius’s forehead, and she knows that it’s mostly due to the fear of his son sabotaging his ballroom.
Draco nods, throws Bellatrix a warning glare, and leaves.
“Hermione is part of the family now,” Narcissa says coolly. “Even the Dark Lord has accepted that. It would be wise to remember it, dear sister.”
As if this were their usual sisterly quarrel of the week—and maybe it is—Narcissa loops her arm through Bellatrix’s and steers her away, toward what Hermione hopes is the Floor parlor and a Portkey that would kick her back into Slovenia. Bellatrix scowls, but doesn’t protest, apparently having reached her personal quota of theatrics for the evening.
With the spectacle now over, the onlookers drift back to their conversations and the tension slowly dissipates.
After all this, Hermione’s afraid she has exceeded the ten-minute rendez-vous she gave Montague, but a quick tempus charm reassures her that she hasn’t.
Turning to Lucius, she grins and says:
“I have our fall guy.”
Guide on How to Destroy a Living Horcrux and Hopefully Not Be Blamed
In ten easy steps
By Hermione Granger (PhD. Prepared and Highly Determined)
Step 1
Determine whether a living Horcrux can be destroyed in the same manner as an inanimate one.
(note: Dumbledore’s explanations were frustratingly vague on this point, if inexistant)
Step 2
Formulate the hypothesis that an Avada Kedavra might suffice.
(emphasis on might)
Step 3
Conclude that precaution beats regret. Use both (i.e. Avada Kedavra + Basilisk’s venom).
Step 4
Inquire into Nagini’s feeding regimen.
Step 5
Prepare Basilisk venom for inconspicuous ingestion
(crucial part of not being blamed).
Step 6
Poison the snake’s food
(while still remaining blameless. This bears repeating.)
Step 7
Survey the attending guests and select one who demonstrably deserves to die in excruciating pain.
Step 8
Perform an Imperius on the selected guest to
Practice and succeed in casting an Imperius
Have Lucius Malfoy perform an Imperius on the selected guest.
Step 9
Obliviate the selected guest, in the event that Voldemort searches his mind before murdering him for killing his beloved pet.
Step 10
After near-total absorption (approx. 3 hours), have the selected guest cast Avada Kedavra on Nagini.
Once this is over, Hermione promises herself that she will apply for a patent.
Because every step was executed flawlessly.
Especially the last one.
If she had to choose one single image for the cover of her patent brief, it would be Montague’s smug face transforming into sheer terror when he realized that Hermione wasn’t alone when she climbed down the stairs to the cellar.
Or perhaps his expression when he staggered back into the ballroom in a drunken stupor, courtesy of Lucius’s Imperio.
After much debate, they settled on the narrative that Montague would act thoroughly inebriated, rambling incoherently about snakes and terrifying reptiles. Hermione even emptied an entire bottle of Ogden’s on his shirt, reinforcing the narrative that the man couldn’t hold his liquor.
Voldemort is so gobsmacked—and mildly entertained—by the audacity of a low-level Death Eater climbing onto his podium, going on and on about how snakes were his lifelong Boggarts and declaring it his personal mission to rid humanity of such abhorrent creatures, that he fails to react in time when Montague casts the Unforgivable.
Still unconvinced that Avada Kedavra paired with Basilisk venom would be enough, they had Montague cut her like charcuterie afterward, really leaning into the drunken-insanity angle.
No one dares to speak. The silence is broken only by Voldemort’s knees hitting the floor, by the sound of him sobbing as he cradles Nagini’s severed head.
Watching the darkest sorcerer of all time sob over a snake was not on Hermione’s bingo card for this Horcrux hunt. She almost feels bad, thinking of the three months she spent grieving her childhood guinea pig at six years old. His name was Alfred—her sweet and furry baby angel.
But the scene is so painfully embarrassing that any empathy she felt vanishes.
Lucius quickly swoops in to ask if he should handle Graham Montague.
As if abruptly reminded of the source of his misery, Voldemort looks at Montague, eyes shining with fury. In a gesture of poetic justice, the Dark Lord mutters a wandless severing spell.
Montague is reduced to pieces, just like Nagini. It actually gets hard to tell which bits are snake and which are human.
A chunk of his bowel—or brain—smacks Hermione right in the face.
Like several guests who are rightfully disgusted and mildly perturbed by having witnessed their Lord cry like a toddler, she decides it’s time to leave. She slips out, following the crowd.
As she sees them queue in the Floo Parlour, whispering behind their hands about what they’ve just witnessed, Hermione congratulates herself on the evening’s entertainment.
She just got rid of a Horcrux. That’s one hell of a wedding present to herself. She couldn’t have asked for better.
But then, she thinks of Draco. A flicker of guilt surfaces at the thought that she never had the time to explain tonight’s plan.
By the time she reaches their wing, she decides he deserves his own wedding gift. It’s finally time to tell him everything about the Horcruxes.
No more secrets.
Spousal privilege, after all.