Chapter Text
Some things—or people in that case—refuse to change.
Dinner was a lovely affair, and even though a lot of time had passed since the three last gathered, everything felt the same. If she closed her eyes, she could almost picture them in the woods, sharing a can of beans and quarrelling.
Or more like she would argue with Ron about some silly topic, while Harry tried to mediate. When he was particularly tired, he would ultimately pick a side, and there would be no winner, just one sore loser.
Hermione should have expected that she’d be on the menu for tonight, or more, her decision to defend Draco.
Fortunately for her, she found unlikely allies in Cho and Remus, who made some very valid points to throw in Ron’s face.
Cho, who all but throttled her to the floor in pure excitement the minute the trio entered the room.
Hermione was slightly disoriented upon entering, still marveling at the brilliance of the place. Whoever picked this location as a safehouse—or what could be more aptly described as a network of safehouses—deserves a standing ovation. Certainly her utmost respect.
They’ve apparated into a narrow, damp niche, smelling faintly of old water. Harry, likely retelling the same story he learned yesterday, explained that it had been a short test tunnel dug in 1855 for what would become the Tube, before the project was relocated elsewhere. According to city plans, this section was filled in and abandoned.
Never would the Muggles imagine that an entire network of underground wizarding safehouses exists beneath the Thames. Neither would anyone outside the Order, thanks to the wide Fidelius charm cast over each safehouse unit, each with a different Secret Keeper. For months now, this network of safehouses has been used as the general quarters of the Order.
Hermione briefly wonders why other safehouses are used across the country if this network exists.
After barely a minute of walking through the decommissioned tunnel, what seemed to be a solid cement wall blocking their way simply…isn’t anymore. It dissolves, revealing a broader tunnel. After a sharp turn, a wide metal door appears.
Hermione didn’t have time to take two steps before Cho threw herself at her, followed closely by Lupin, who wrapped her in a fatherly embrace.
So, yeah, both were on her side throughout the dinner, and between two bites of carrot stew, she had to repeat, yet again, why she needed to go back to the Manor.
“But he tortured you Mione!” Ron wails, his fist colliding against the table.
“I’m well aware, Ronald.” Hermione replies, using her knife to butter her piece of bread, rather than on the many other, more satisfying options available to her. Like throwing it at his face.
“But I forgave him, and opinions on that matter are irrelevant. You don’t know half of what he’s done for me or for the Order, so I don’t see why it’s any of your concern."
“He did save us back in Azkaban,” Cho quips. Hermione can’t ignore how close she’s leaning toward Ron, or that he lets her. “If not for him, Hermione and I would have been hanged, and the rest of the prisoners wouldn’t have escaped.”
“Exactly,” Hermione says, grateful for Cho’s help. “And if not for him or his parents, I couldn’t have killed Nagini. That’s huge.”
“This is significant, indeed.” Lupin agrees, raising his wand to dispose his empty plate into the sink.
“Yes,” Hermione says resolutely, with a precise goal in mind, and Lupin just walks straight into her net. “And wouldn’t you say their efforts have tipped the scales of the war?”
“I—”
“Yes or no?”
“Hermione, what you’re asking—”
“Yes or no? Do you believe the Malfoys’ actions have been material and determinative in possibly defeating Voldemort?”
Her choice of words is not random. She remembers the exact wording of what was essentially the Order’s playbook during the first war. They have been known to grant preemptive pardons to anyone willing to assist the Order in a ‘material and determinative’ way in bringing the conflict to an end.
Lupin sighs.
“Yes.”
A rush of excitement bubbles within her, met only with confusion from Harry and Ron. They clearly haven’t read the Order logbooks from the first war. Not that they didn’t have the chance. She found them during the brief time they were at Grimmauld Place and remembers avidly encouraging them to read the minutes, to which they replied that only a bookworm like her could find that exciting and they’d rather bleach their eyes.
“I’m getting the Malfoys a pardon,” Hermione explains, and realization finally strikes them. Ron turns a shade of angry-beet red she rarely sees on him and does absolutely nothing for his features. Harry—shockingly (not)—stays silent and watchful.
Lupin raises his hand, blocking the torrent of objections pouring from Ron’s mouth.
“I need to check with Kingsley first, as he’s the only one with the authority to issue a pardon.” She nods eagerly. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s a finicky legal document that can’t rely solely on their past actions. Those might favour a lighter sentence, but to avoid a full-blown Wizengamot trial and get a pardon, they will likely have to promise some future and ongoing efforts.”
“I know that. It won’t be a problem.”
It won’t. Draco is already helping her so much with her research into Horcruxes, and Narcissa is intent on getting rid of Voldemort simply because she can’t stand seeing him invade her precious home.
As for Lucius, there was a time when she would have cheered at the prospect of him being locked up in Azkaban. But of the three Malfoys, she has to admit that, thanks to his contribution with Nagini, he’s the one who has provided the most material and determinative help. She’ll have to find a way for Draco and Narcissa to step up their game.
After a while, the men retreat for the night, and although they warn her in different ways, each specific to them, the core message remains the same—to come back here if her living situation at the Manor becomes problematic.
That leaves her with Cho and their second bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.
“You like him,” the witch says, pouring Hermione a generous glass.
“I do not.”
“Oh, so you love him?”
“Even less!” Hermione screeches, then lets out an undignified hiccup. She really needs to slow down on the wine. On that wise thought, she knocks back the rest.
“Admit it,” Cho fills her another glass. “The way you defended Draco at dinner was quite obvious.”
“I’ve defended his mother.”
“Not with the same passion.”
“And his father! Merlin knows how much I hate Lucius.”
“So you admit you do not hate Draco?”
Hermione groans into her hands, hating the turn that their conversation took. She’s one to talk with how she’s been acting quite obvious with Ron.
“What’s going on with you and Ron? I couldn’t help but notice—”
“Don’t change the subject.” The witch glares at her. “But if it helps you to open up, let’s just say months of confinement in Azkaban will do that. The minute I walked out of the prison, any wizard might as well have been carrying Amortentia.” She shrugs. “Well—I’m sure you know.”
She unfortunately does, remembering the mortification she felt when asking for a simple hug after only one encounter with Draco.
“As you recall, Ron and I were in the same boat. Then we were placed in the same safehouse. We’ve grown…” A pause. “comfortable around each other…”
Hermione raises her eyebrows suggestively, encouraging her to clarify what she means by comfortable.
Good for them. In a weird and totally unexpected way, she can see how the two of them can work.
Both are easygoing and down-to-earth. Ron enjoys talking, perhaps a little too much, but Cho is a great listener. Hermione recalls conversations in Hogsmeade, where she would talk about Ron—the good and the bad—and Cho would just listen. Now that she thinks about it, she often defended him when Hermione overdid it. Maybe they were predestined.
Plus, Cho is a smart witch. But contrary to Hermione, she possesses the rare virtue of patience when it comes to Ron—and does not immediately combust the minute he does something spectacularly stupid. Which is what probably drove any semblance of romance between them straight into a wall.
Ron would call her a hubristic bitch (kidding, she doubts he even knows the word) and she’d call him a blithering idiot or any other insult chosen with the sole purpose to force him to open a dictionary for once.
But not Cho. She imagines she would simply explain. Slowly. Patiently. Possibly with drawings and diagrams. And somehow, find this arousing.
“I’m not saying anything else until you admit you have feelings for Draco.”
Fair. But so unfair. Hermione leans back dramatically in her chair, unsure how to phrase what she’s feeling. Because that would be the first time she’d say it out loud. Sure, she had multiple conversations about this precise debacle, but those happen strictly in her head like any sane person.
“I—” she gulps. Circe, why is it so hard? “Care about him. And I think he does too.”
She had reached that rare stage of drunkenness where everything becomes clear, the kind where her thoughts line up so neatly that it’s scary. Passed the stage where she would normally dissect everything so thoroughly that nothing would make sense. But still…doubts creep in.
“But I don’t know which part of him cares about me.”
“What do you mean?”
“If…it’s Draco or dragon Draco. This part he has no control over…The one where I could have been anyone else and he’d still care. But…” she sighs. “Not about me, me.” She slaps her chest to emphasize, but it only makes her burp. How chic.
“Did you ask him?” Cho asks, strangely interested in the rambling thoughts of her incoherent self. “Are you even sure that’s how Animagi magic work?”
She curses under her breath. Because that’s the problem. She doesn’t know. Hermione Granger doesn’t fucking know. Those are just speculations. And it’s not for lack of trying. She did try to find books on the subject, but for all the immensity of the Malfoy Library—whose owners are bloody Animagi—she couldn’t find anything.
Just a disappointing book by Emeric Switch, containing an even more unsatisfying section about Dragon Animagi and how their transformations are said to be triggered by a threat to a witch or wizard they are “deeply attracted” to. She doesn’t put any weight on it because the author concluded that these stories remain speculative at best.
“I didn’t.”
“Then perhaps you should ask.”
She should. And perhaps she would
Considering London and Wiltshire were close enough to wing it in one apparition, she concentrates on Draco’s bedroom and surprisingly manages to materialize there without any injuries or missing limbs.
But he’s not there.
The contents of her stomach threaten to come back up her throat, and she’s unsure whether it’s the wine or the fear that he’s still not back from whatever mission Voldemort sent him to.
She bolts to her bedroom through their shared bathroom and finds him dozing on her bed. The swaying in her stomach eases, replaced by a giddy lightness.
She infers he had no real intention of falling asleep, based on how stiffly he sits against the bedrest, still fully clothed and above the covers.
As she sits and the mattress dips under her weight, his eyes fly wide open.
“You’re here.” He cleverly notices, though a hint of uncertainty lingers in his words. “I thought… maybe they convinced you not to come back.”
Despite the dejection in his voice, she can't help but giggle nervously, eventually bursting into a fit of giggles. Not once during dinner did she consider not returning. Despite any objections from Ron or Harry, it never crossed her mind. For some reason—likely (totally) because she was a bit intoxicated—she finds this hysterically funny.
Instead of explaining her sound and very coherent line of thought, she prefers to make another very solid observation, one that has been nagging her since she set foot here.
“This is my bed.”
“It is,” he drawls, though it sounds strangely like ‘obviously,’ strangely reminiscent of Professor Snape. “I wasn’t sure where you’d Apparate…just wanted to be sure…”
She believes she hears a mumble of ‘couldn’t sleep’, ‘without knowing’, but her loud hiccup drowns out his vague ramblings.
“You’re drunk!”
Another sound observation. He scrambles toward her, his cold fingers scalding against her flushed cheeks. He tilts her head from side to side, scrutinizing every feature of her face, then looks down her body. “You could have splinched yourself. The fuck were you thinking?”
“You.” She says instinctively, any sense of inhibition or embarrassment having long drowned at the bottom of her sixth glass of sauvignon.
Draco groans, and his dazed expression might be her last clear memory of the night.
By morning, when sobriety will hit her with full force, Hermione will be left with nothing but scattered and embarrassing flashes.
Like throwing her clothes in his face after he suggested that she might prefer something more comfortable to sleep in than those rigid pair of jeans. Just out of spite and to refuse his reasonable suggestion, she remembers declaring that she’d sleep in the nude, only to lose the argument entirely when he trapped her in his old Quidditch shirt.
Other arguments ensued when he tucked her into bed, and she might have whined. Hypothetically. Saying sound protests like no. Not that bed. His bed. Our bed.
He had sighed but scooped her up nonetheless and relocated her to his bed, their bed.
But what will remain forever blurred are the words she may or may not have said before drifting into a dreamless slumber. There had definitely been a question. From her.
“Do you like me?”
No memory of whether he answered, but she does, unfortunately, remember attempting a pale imitation of what she considered to be a dragon. Arms flapping like wings.
“I mean, do you—” she poked a finger to his chest. “—and not you—" enter her embarrassing interpretation of a dragon. “—like me?”
He might have repeated to go to sleep, and she dearly wished her last words had suffered the same fate as the others of her memories—drowned with the rest of the night—and not be destined to make her wince for the rest of eternity, or, if she were less dramatic, for the foreseeable future.
“Because I do.” … “like” …. “you” …“Draco.”
Hermione grunts, sliding back another book that is of no use to her.
After a morning spent agonizing over her hazy memories and cursing Cho for refilling her wine glass multiple times, she dragged herself out of bed and went straight to the library, determined to turn this miserable start of the day into something more productive.
And the misery had started early, when she turned to face Draco and her palm had met only cold sheets and a short note. Something about continuing the mission Voldemort had given him last night. She hated herself even more for not knowing what this was about, too preoccupied with rambling embarrassing confessions to ask what his mission was.
But her afternoon wasn’t any less miserable. By then, she must have read every book in the transfiguration aisle and nothing useful about Dragon animagi.
Nothing to explain the way she feels. This can’t simply be about a girl liking a boy…there has to be more to it. If she suspects that Draco's affection is related to him being an Animagus and her role as his catalyst, she wants to know if her own feelings can also be understood this way.
In a nutshell, she wants to find a logical reason for her feelings, which are far from logical. Is that too much to ask? This isn’t intellectualizing her feelings. No. That would be silly. She’s just…trying to uncover the rational theory behind it.
She can’t even process, let alone define, what those feelings are. To put a name to it. They’re just a gigantic cluster of emotions, all fighting with each other and bouncing chaotically in her head.
It’s how she perks up anytime Draco walks into the room. How she can still focus on what she’s been doing while keeping a window of attention open just for him, alert to every one of his movements. Like her world, inconveniently, arranges itself around him.
It’s how she becomes crestfallen when he has to leave on another mission. How anxiety tenses her muscles every hour of his absence, only to immediately loosen once she sees he’s back and safe.
How she’s always planning her next move, thinking about what’s next, only to belong to the present when she’s in his arms. And wishing for this moment—where past and future do not exist, only the present—to be infinite.
There’s no word for that feeling. That big, self-destructing feeling.
Except the one she refuses to say.
Although, she did take solid minute off her schedule to debate the merit of defining this feeling as lo—
Love.
She immediately shuddered and dismissed this ludicrous idea. No. This isn’t love… she just has to find a goddamn book that explains it, but that’s just her luck that the biggest private library in the country doesn’t seem to have the said book.
“Looking for something?”
Narcissa stands a few feet away, her hands folded loosely before her in effortless grace—something Hermione lacks at the very moment. She must look like a mad scientist, her hair frizzy from her useless searches all afternoon long.
“You know,” Hermione starts, “For a house where three dragon animagi reside, I’m surprised by how few books are devoted to this subject.”
“Oh?” Narcissa replies, unbothered. “And what question are you looking to solve exactly?”
Mmm, let’s see. I’d like to confirm that my unresolved feelings for your son can be explained by some animagi sort of science and not the horrifying truth that Hermione Granger might have fallen in love with Draco Malfoy.
Instead, she decides to go for another question that has been nagging her lately.
“I want to know what happens if we were to end the marriage. That’s been the plan from the beginning, and I remember you saying it yourself—that we'd be able to get an annulment very easily."
“I did,” she says, her face blank. “You’ll be able to get one. If that’s something you wish to pursue when the time comes.”
No. That’s not something she wants. If her marriage to him was driven by pure insanity and desperation weeks earlier, the idea of ending it now only fills her with dread.
“But if we do… can we really live the rest of our lives apart?”
Her own question hurts.
“You can.”
“And him? What will happen to Draco?”
Narcissa’s mask of composure cracks, just enough to reveal the face of a mother terrified that something might happen to her child.
Then her impassivity clicks back into place.
“Come, what you’re looking for can’t be found in theoretical books.” Narcissa leads her to a secluded area on the second floor, one she has never seen before. Not for lack of observational skills, but because it’s been deliberately hidden behind a Notice-Me-Not charm.
Once lifted, a small parlor appears, revealing a half-moon of bookshelves and a purple upholstered love seat at the center.
“Over the last centuries, every Malfoy who has believed his existence sufficiently fascinating to be documented has been preserved here.” She says through pursed lips, unimpressed. “Regrettably, fascination was rarely involved. Most are vapid and unremarkable chronicles of vain men and aren’t worth your time. An appalling misuse of ink. However—” She grabs a thick book on the lower shelf. “If you’re wondering what happens to a Malfoy who can’t have what he wants, I present to you Mr. Orpheus Malfoy.”
Hermione accepts the journal, which has a miniature portrait attached to the cover. The portrait depicts a sharp-looking young man with the distinctive Malfoy trademark—silver hair. Or at least she assumes it’s silver, as the portrait is in sepia and faded.
“The end is missing, for reasons that will become clear.” Narcissa pulls out the book next to the empty space. “The son’s journal is helpful to fill in the rest.”
She retreats and says, “I hope you’ll find the answers you’re seeking.”
Eager, Hermione hastily sits on the velvet chaise and opens Orpheus’s journal.
By the time she’s done, the sun sets on the horizon, bathing the room in a warm glow.
But Hermione feels anything but warm.
Orpheus Malfoy was nothing short of a monster.
Born in 1631, he spent his life at the Manor—like all Malfoys, seemingly tied to the estate. Half of his journal was painfully dull, and one page even featured her drooling, showing how unstimulating his storytelling skills were. She drifted off during a particularly dull recount of an uneventful event he held in the ballroom.
But it took a turn one morning in May when a lady named Mary Fitzgerry caught his eye at the local market in Wiltshire.
May 4th, 1652
I knew instantly she was a witch, for the air within me vanishes as though summoned by her unseen wand.
What started as a healthy friendship transformed into a courtship. Something Mary seemed less than enthusiastic about, and looked very much like someone who had friend-zoned the poor bloke. Her reluctance was obvious to everyone—even Hermione, reading this centuries later. Instead of getting the hint, Orpheus remained undeterred and continued his pursuit. Toxic male ego wasn’t a recent thing it would seem.
Things took a turn for the worse when she told him her family was moving to London and she intended to follow. Still missing every glaring sigh, he proposed on the spot. She replied—far too politely for Hermione’s taste—that she’d rather they stayed friends and promised to owl him lengthy letters.
That was the day Orpheus began the process of becoming an Animagus, describing a sudden and noble urge to protect and cherish. In his defence, that was the year London became the epicentre of the bubonic plague, and Mary’s decision to walk straight into it could be considered dangerous and questionable.
Still, the plague was merely an inconvenience compared to what Mary’s next years would become.
Because the day before the Fitzgerrys departed, Orpheus had cast an Imperius on the woman he claimed he respected, loved, cherished… die for. In terms of declarations of love, humanity has certainly seen better ones. He ordered her to inform her family she had accepted his proposal and that, from that moment on, she would reside with him at the Manor. Consent, a foreign and outdated concept it would seem.
According to Orpheus, it was a beautiful wedding. A pity that Mary spent it under an Imperius. As she did in the years that followed. He would lift the spell from time to time, and each time grew visibly distressed to discover she still did not love him.
October 9th, 1655
It has been six months since I last lifted the spell. I remember too well the look upon her lovely face. Such terror. Such desperation. As though I were some vile monster. Does she not see I long for her? Am I so dreadful of a man to love…
I mean to free her from the spell tomorrow. This has gone on too long. I pray that no sculpture shall be thrown in my direction this time.
October 10th, 1655
She declared that befriending me was the gravest mistake of her life. Somehow, this wounded more deeply than the bust of Merlin the Great she saw fit months ago to send crashing upon my left feet. I still bear the scars. But her words, I fear, know no known cure.
I have burned for her, was that not enough? I desire only her happiness. Here. With me. Why must she persist in refusing what is so plainly meant to be?
September 20th, 1656
Years have not robbed her of her beauty.
For last night, we marked the fifth year of our marriage.
I had her wear the same ivory gown,
The same pretty ribbons tangled in her dark locks,
I told her to smile when I kissed her,
Told her to sigh my name as I loosened those ribbons under the dancing candlelight of our room,
I asked her to tell me she loved me.
And later, when the night was quiet and I lay wrapped in her scent, her skin soft against mine, I believed her.
She does love me.
November 3rd, 1656
Like a fool I believed her…
I lifted the spell, persuaded at last that she understood her feelings, that the mind magic was no longer necessary.
And when she looked at me, with those beautiful hazel eyes, saying she knew it now, that there was no need for the spell, that she loved me…I believed her.
An hour later, when I returned with her honeyed tea and a plate of her favourite fruit pasties, she had fled by the garden door.
And she took my heart and my soul with her.
For a whole year, there were no other entries.
When Hermione turns the page, she wonders if it’s the same person writing. The calligraphy is different—almost childish—and the quill strokes are so forceful that the parchment is torn in places. Some pages are drowned in ink stains.
December 1st, 1657
You must be gone from this world, for I have searched it these many months. I have flown over lands, over forests, over seas. You are no more. No more.
No more.
And if you are no more, then I am no more.
Is this farewell my dearest?
January 25th, 1658
This is not farewell. I shall find you, though it be the last thing I do. I will find you. I must.
Your image is blended with my every thought. The phantom of your love.
October 13th, 1658
Why must the world be so vast, when all I require is you within mine?
September 19th, 1659
Happy Anniversary my love.
Wherever you are.
I will find you. You will be happy. With me.
March, 1661
I have not. I MUST.
must.
1662
Love. Love. Love. Why are you so mean.
I have burned for you. I will burn for you. We will burn together.
February
Mine. Fire. Mine. Fire. Mine. Fire. (unreadable due to yet another ink stain, presumably the whole pot dropped on the page)
1665
.
.
Pain.
I can feel pain.
Her pain.
.
166
IT HURTS. SHE HURTS. Everything hurts.
Sep 5, 66
I know where she is.
At last, this is farewell.
Hermione closes the journal, her mind reeling. Narcissa’s words hit her like a Bludger—
If you’re wondering what happens to a Malfoy who can’t have what he wants…
Insanity.
Sure, one argument could be made that Orpheus Malfoy was never in his right mind to begin with. Forcing a woman into a marriage and putting her under an Imperius spell for years can hardly be considered the choices of a mentally fit person. Yet, his writing skills weren’t impaired when Mary was near.
It was only after she left that his script faltered. He wrote like a child learning to write for the first time. As tough his brain, finding her gone, had simply…ceased.
Hastily, she grabs his son’s journal. Which is curious now that she thinks about it, since Orpheus never once mentioned having a child.
Hubert Fitzgerry-Malfoy
She’s surprised by the double-barreled surname, which must have been uncustomary for the 17th century. But when she brings the journal closer, it’s now clear that the name Malfoy was added later, and maybe even centuries later. Some ancestors presumably took offence and corrected the blasphemy of a Malfoy heir having his mother’s surname. How preposterous.
Hubert’s journal—if it can be defined as such—is minimal. As if someone told him that journaling was a sacred Malfoy duty, and therefore, he resolved to contribute as little as humanly possible. It’s mostly notes about the weather and scattered thoughts about his daily life in the Manor.
It’s only toward the middle that Hubert finally decides to be voluble.
Today I came upon an old portrait of my parents, hidden away by the elves within a cupboard. I can understand why. Mother appears …lifeless. A striking contrast to the woman I knew her to be. Caring, spirited, full of light.
Yet, he stole that from her for many years. Turned her into but a shadow of herself, all because he would not let her go.
But she did escape. However, by then, she was with child. Myself. Unbeknownst to him.
She granted me the happiest childhood a fatherless child could hope for. We wandered the continent, and each day brought a new adventure. We sailed across the Mediterranean Sea, travelled from city to city by train and never lingered long in one place. Mother called it a game, yet now, in hindsight, I see that fear guided her every choice.
We were never truly going toward a city; we were forever leaving one.
For a monster was chasing us. My father.
She told me of him when I was nine years old, on the second of September 1666. I remember the date, though the whole country recalls it, for this date will forever be etched in history books.
Mother’s health had long been failing, and that night, she told me at once who my father was and what kind of man he was. Why we had lived as we did. How he never found us.
Until he did.
Because just after my mother had drawn her final breath, a piercing animalistic roar shattered every window of our small cottage. A cavernous, splintering howl that ruptured the night air. This wail of pure agony haunts me still.
I never met my father as a man, yet that night, I met his dragon form. For the first and last time. I still remember the glow behind its eyes flickering erratically, black threatening to swallow everything.
And, without sparing me one glance, he soared away into the starless sky, his cries fading toward the city. A roar no longer loud, but low and continuous. A sound dragged through miles, like a wound that shall never close.
Far away, from our little cottage perched on a hill, I saw London swallowed by flames.
In the end, a French watchmaker was executed for the Great Fire of London.
Yet, my father was the culprit, a truth the Ministry of Magic erased from the memory of every witness, except my own.
Upon my 20th birthday, I received word from Gringotts that Father had died, and that his gold and estate had passed, by Goblin decree, to his next of kin. An information known only to Goblin magic, for he himself never knew he had a son, nor an heir.
The Goblins informed me I must identify him, and sent out a Portkey to some remote place in Romania. Upon my arrival, an old man guided me along a narrow mountain path, and as dragons passed high above my head, I understood at once that I was not come to claim a human corpse.
In a lush valley lay a dragon, curled upon itself in perfect stillness. Its scales—more teal than the navy I recalled from that fateful night long ago—were almost hidden by a veil of bright wildflowers. When I raised my eyes, I glimpsed dragons swirling in the clouds, each descending in solemn turn to lay a single flower, held gently between its teeth, upon the body that would rise no more.
Much distraught, the man—who was in fact the keeper of this reserve—explained the dragon had come to them a decade prior. He took care of it faithfully, believing it to be an orphan abandoned by its clan. He swore the dragon had lived as any other. Never once could he have suspected that the teal dragon was an Animagus.
For no trace of humanity remained.
A sentence, I think now, most fitting for the crime.
For he was a monster in what he did to Mother. And when she died, it was only befitting that he should remain one, even in death itself. Buried as a dragon, far away from his home, for all eternity and more.
Once a monster, always a monster.
A tear falls on the parchment, and that’s when Hermione notices she’s been crying. She doesn’t entertain any sympathy for Orpheus Malfoy—may his cadaver forever rot in Eastern Europe—but she can’t help but think of Draco, slowly losing his humanity if she were ever to leave him.
Because isn’t that the moral of this whole story that Narcissa so delicately placed in her hands? Leave her son and he shall forever lose himself? Hermione can’t even blame her for trying to protect Draco in this very roundabout way. She might even admire her for it.
“What are you doing here?”
She drops the journal on the floor and quickly retrieves it like it’s some sacred object. Draco stands a few feet away, looking exhausted and in dire need of sleep and not a late-night quiz, but Hermione feels inspired.
“Your mother showed me this hidden place. Any reason why you didn’t?”
Judging by the way he scowls at the rows of his ancestors’ journals with open distaste, she presumes it’s not a place he cherishes.
“It wasn’t intentional,” he sighs. “I fail to see how a bunch of dull memoirs about self-absorbed men could interest you.”
“Perhaps I had some questions.”
“And were they resolved?”
“Some were.”
She lifts the journal just enough for him to read the title, the letters Hubert Fitzgerry-Malfoy glinting in silver on the coal black cover.
His eyes take on a hunted terror.
“I see…” His voice drags out, as though his tongue was made of sand. “The resemblance is...unfortunate.”
“What do you mean?” She asks, confused.
“Isn’t that obvious? Good old Orpheus forced his wife into a marriage if I recall correctly.”
“I fail to see any resemblance.” She relies flatly, refusing to play into his self-imposed guilt trip.
“…Forced her to remain in the Manor—”
“That was my decision.”
“—And in the end, she left.”
Her jaw clenches shut.
She catches his hostile stare, a storm brewing behind his grey iris.
“You’re nothing like him, Draco,” she says softly, setting the journal aside and rising. She feels ridiculous for saying it, and affirming he’s nothing like the monster who submitted an innocent woman under the Imperius spell for years. Yet, she knows he needs to hear it.
“And I am nothing like her.”
Because, unlike Mary, she does have feelings for him. Entirely hers. Feelings that have nothing to do with the bond she now realizes. Besides a blossoming friendship that withered away, Mary never liked Orpheus. Not before. Not after the transformation. Not when the bond was sealed.
So this emotional attachment she feels toward Draco is entirely her fault and cannot be explained rationally through Animagi magic. Is it bad news or good? That is yet to be determined.
“Stop looking for answers, Granger.” he says through gritted teeth. He looks royally annoyed for some reason she doubts has anything to do with her reading his ancestors’ journals. “It does not concern you. That is my burden to bear.”
Oh how rich. How noble. Since when Draco Malfoy choose the selfless path?
And he dares to walk away? Not a chance.
“Doesn’t concern me?” she follows him out of the small parlour and into the alley, hot on his heels. “Hello, have we read the same story? It very much concerns me. If I didn’t care and walked away, you’d be at risk of turning into a dragon. Permanently.”
He spins so abruptly that she stumbles back, the wrought-iron balustrade biting into her lower back as he presses her against it.
“Exactly, this is my problem. Instead of sticking your nose into matters that do not concern you, why not devote that energy to finding a way to get rid of the Dark Lord?” His hand tightens around her wrist. “After all, that’s the only reason you are still here, is it not?”
Her chest clenches painfully. Is that really what he thinks?
“Don’t take your anger out on me!” She wrenches her hand free, only to hit her wrist hard against the railing which counters by gracing them with a loud ringing clang. She winces, but before she can cradle her wrist, Draco already has.
He cups her wrist carefully between his palms as the anger drains from his face.
He looks miserably guilty, and immediately softens.
Serves him right.
“Fuck,” he hisses, already casting a cooling charm over her wrist. “You’re right, I—” His posture crumples, head dropping. “Today has been a shitty day. Yesterday as well. But it isn’t your fault that I am forced to serve a complete moron.”
Her ire melts too, partly due to the instant joy she feels when hearing any insult aimed at Voldemort—especially when pronounced by Draco.
“What did he make you do this time?”
“Apparently, he received a tip that the Order’s Headquarters are somewhere in London. Had us searching half the city. Nothing but dead ends, at least.”
Brilliant. Just brilliant. Now she will have to alert the Order that the mole is probably inside the Tube’s Headquarters since he or she is handing out their location like party favours. She has no idea how this person can reveal it under the protection of Fidelius Charm. Yet, the tip mentioned London, incredibly vague, but not useless. The mole must be stopped.
“I hate this,” Draco continues. “Playing both sides. I’m constantly on edge that someone will find it, and then I won’t know what to do. Usually, it’s only Father and me that get dispatched to destroy a safehouse, and occasionally one or two other Death Eaters who can easily be Obliviated. Evacuation beforehand is fairly easy. But now?” He exhales shakily. “This is Headquarters. Over forty people are searching. If they find it—”
He stops. His eyes drop to the floor, as if refusing to show any hint of vulnerability. But Hermione sees it anyway.
She cups his jaw and lifts his face back toward hers.
“I know where Headquarters is. That’s where I was yesterday evening,” she admits. “Do you want to know as well? Perhaps it’ll be easier for you to steer them away from it.”
He shifts from foot to foot.
“Where?”
“Beneath the Thames. A network of underground tunnels. You keep them away from there, and I’ll notify the Order to reinforce their wards, and stay alert.”
Oh, and interrogate the Secret Keepers. They need to find the bloody mole. This has gone long enough.
He nods slowly, clocking this new information. Yet, he still looks jittery with nerves.
Maybe—Maybe if she were to be nice and stop being a brat for one second.
“And for your information, gathering intelligence isn’t the only reason I’m still here.”
By the way he perks up, she made the good call.
“No?” he breathes, eyes bright with fervent hope.
“I rather enjoy your company.” She blushes, fingers fidgeting with the hem of her grey cardigan.
Unbelievable. She sounds like a child whispering her affection to another kid in the sandbox while building a castle. No, scratch that. This isn’t remotely childish. Enjoy his company? What is she? A Victorian prude?
She can do so much better.
“I—” One breath in. One breath out. “like you.” There. And this sounds ten times worse, somehow.
She refuses to meet his eyes, suspecting her skin has gone a shade alarmingly red. And if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, her words pour out of her just to make the situation even more humiliating.
“I just…and that’s why I was there, reading your family’s journals…Not because—they were fascinating, mind you. Well, I wouldn’t know, just read Orpheus’s and his son’s. It’s your mother that told me the others were unremarkable. So anyway—” Why does the air feel so thick. “I read it, read both, and still—” she laughs, for no reason except to expel this infuriating tension strangling her lungs. “Still couldn’t solve that particular conundrum.”
“Granger. Breathe.” His thumb presses gently beneath her jaw. He looks thoroughly amused. “What conundrum?”
“I know my feelings are mine…” She gulps. Hard. “But I don’t know if yours are truly yours—and by this, I’m not saying you feel anything for me—”
Why must this be so intolerably difficult?
“But if you did…I wonder how much of it comes from the Animagus instinct. Whether it explains… entirely, those alleged feelings. Or—”
He chuckles and that doesn’t help her feel less humiliated. She smacks him, incensed.
“I’m not laughing at you,” he clarifies, but she doesn’t believe him. “It just fascinates how you conveyed that same thought far more coherently while intoxicated last night.”
She blanches, the confirmation of her drunken ramblings now undeniable. However, her mortification quickly morphs into resentment. She might be an incoherent mess right now, but she’s pretty sure he doesn’t need an interpreter for the words ‘I like you’.
She just said those.
I
like
you.
Yet, he chooses to ridicule her?
She huffs an indignant breath and tries to move away, too hurt to process any other attempt at communication. However, his uselessly broad shape blocks her and brackets her right back against the railing.
“Lucky for you,” he whispers. “My intelligence knows no bounds and I therefore can interpret your obscure dialect. But that’s not an answer you’ll find in books.”
“No?” She squeals.
“No.” His eyes shine with something only he seems to understand. “By now, surely you must know that I—"
He suddenly steps back, gripping his forearm like someone just poured hot acid on it.
“—Fuck!”
“Again? But you just came back!”
“It seems urgent,” he says through gritted teeth. “Must be about Headquarters...”
Brilliant. Just brilliant. How convenient that just when she’s about to pierce the mystery of what Draco Malfoy might feel (or not) for her, he gets summoned.
This minor inconvenience aside, she probably should notice the Order, in case their Headquarters are about to be invaded.
“Okay, I will go tell them.”
Wand in hand, ready to Apparate for a quick visit of courtesy, but Draco instantly grabs her wrist.
“What are you doing? Just use the Galleon to tell them.”
“No, it’ll be quicker and more efficient that way. Plus, I’ll be able to help with the wards and—”
“No. Absolutely not.” His nails dig into her skin. “You stay here, let them figure it out, you don’t have to sacrifice yourself every time.”
She rolls her eyes.
“It’s hardly a sacrifice,” she snorts. “I’ll be back before you’re even—”
“It’s the last place you should be. If this tip proves right, and you’re there. Granger, I swear—”
“If this tip proves right, then they will need me!”
“Granger, please.”
“I can help—”
“I said NO!”
He shouts, his sharp tone striking the central dome above their heads, reverberating throughout the library. A fresco of cherubs burst into tiny, scandalized shrieks, highly perturbed by this unprecedented breach of etiquette.
She turns her head to the commotion, the fresco looming above the entrance to the journals’ parlour. One hides behind a cloud while another flaps his angel wings in complete indignation. The podgier one is about to launch an arrow at them. Splendid.
Her eyes linger on the coffee table where she previously laid Orpheus’s journal. Draco follows her gaze, his face still contorted into something menacing.
“You can’t boss me around, Malfoy.” Hermione sneers.
“I very well can. You stay the fuck here.”
She scowls and takes a sidestep, body instinctively retreating into defence. There’s no way he just told her what to do. Even the bawling cherubs seem to recognize the fatal error, their cries fading into a quieter snivelling.
“You can’t keep me here,” she murmurs, her voice cracking with rage.
His eyes snap again to Orpheus’s journal before he moves to block her path, resolute. She recoils and hates herself for it.
“Nothing an Imperio can’t fix.”
She freezes, muscles locked in momentary paralysis. For a terrible moment, she thinks he’s already cast it, but no. That’s just her body reacting to one of the worst things he could have said to her.
Worse than being called a mudblood.
He’s threatening to steal her own will.
His face shifts into a mask of cold indifference, his previous panic and rage gone. His eyes narrow into draconian slit, and understanding crashes over her like a bucket of freezing water.
This is not him.
“You would not,” she reminds him.
That alone is enough. The slits facture back into stormy grey, human irises, wide now and completely horrified. He staggers backward, one hand dragging over his mouth, like he’s trying to shove the words back inside.
“Shit…fuck.” his voice breaks. He shakes his head once, disbelieving. “I don’t know why I said that.”
But she does. The proof lies on a coffee table a few meters away.
“You can’t force me to stay,” she repeats, taking advantage of his shock to slip sideways and put a distance between them. Her grip tightens around her wand. “You can’t turn into him.”
He looks faintly sick, eyes darting across her face.
“I know, I would never…” His breath comes in shallow gasps, as the weight of his previous words threatens to choke him. He looks small and miserable, unlike the great dragon that almost made an apparition. “I—I’m sorry,” he gasps with desperation, turning fully toward her. “That’s not—I didn’t mean…” He swallows hard, like he’s about to be sick. His fingers splay in open surrender. “What I mean is…please stay. Don’t go where you’ll be in harm’s way. I’ll be back soon.”
Thoughts of Mary being trapped for years, a prisoner of her own mind, shift behind her eyelids. Hermione imagines her wandering the Manor’s austere corridors, captive under a spell repetitively cast by the man meant to love her. She ignores how Mary looks, but her brain supplies a disturbingly familiar image of a woman with tan skin and chestnut curls falling loose down her back.
She sees her finally escaping, leaving behind Orpheus—a monster in the making.
He paces the same corridors, like a caged animal, waiting for her to return. Waiting for control to be handed back to him.
Then, Orpheus morphs into Draco.
Blink.
Back again.
Blink.
Draco.
Blink.
Draco raising his wand, Imperio on his lips.
Going progressively mad until nothing recognizably human survives.
Until he becomes a dragon for all eternity.
Rising over London, flames engulfing streets. Stone melting. Screams echoing.
A lifeless dragon curled into a bed of wildflowers, in the hollow of a lush valley, covered by the shadows cast by snow-capped mountains.
Its teal scales darkening into black scales, gleaming faintly with a silvery shimmer.
And it’s suddenly too much.
In one sharp crack, she Apparates into Headquarters before she even understands what she’s done.
The world lurches violently sideways and her knees nearly buckle as the circular niche of the Tube reveals itself and surrounds her.
She ignores how she managed such a feat, since the third “D” of successful Apparition—Deliberation—had very clearly been absent.
Maybe she splinched herself. That would explain the dramatic feeling of having her heart ripped out, abandoned somewhere far away, left at Draco’s feet while his eyes had widened in alarm. While he screamed her name and jumped towards her in a futile attempt to stop her.
Except her heart is still there, drumming frantically against her ribcage.
She tries to Apparate back immediately, instantly regretting her decision even if it could arguably be more aptly defined as a reflex than lucid determination on her part, but the concrete walls remain stubbornly solid around her. Nothing happens.
Soon, the niche used to Apparate in and out from the Tube’s Headquarters floods with people in panic, shouting over a high-pitched alarm. A wizard screams when their second attempt fails. Another swears.
No one is leaving.
People start to run out of the niche instead, presumably trying to find another spot to escape. She follows the motion blindly until she collides with someone familiar.
“They found us,” Cho gasps, gripping Hermione by her shoulders. “We’re under attack.”