Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

- T.S Eliot, Little Gidding

Mudblood. The word was scrawled—carved, really—onto her forearm. The scar still ached from time to time, eager to remind Hermione of its existence. And though the skin itched, coated by a film of sweat and crawling with pinpricks of phantom pain, she refused to roll her sleeves up.  

Late summer waged war on London. No amount of cooling charms repelled the waves of viscous heat. Her thighs were chafed under a pencil skirt, fingers calloused and rough as the desk they rested upon. The cushion she sat on was drenched in sweat, but Hermione only had eyes for work. 

It didn’t matter that Voldemort was dead. That Bellatrix Lestrange was long gone. That the Death Eaters had been locked away in Azkaban.

Hermione Granger still didn’t dare breathe a word about her muggle parents holed away in Australia, just as she didn't let herself wear a sleeveless top in the middle of August. It was better this way, when the Ministry's conservative bureaucrats had no active reminder of her lineage. 

Turns out, the end of a regime did not signal the end of magical bigotry.

War heroine, smartest witch of her age, recipient of the Order of Merlin, first class—tucked away in a glorified cupboard on the second floor of the Ministry. Slaving over useless legislation and a handful of vexing investigations. 

The din of voices sank through thin walls. Peeling wallpaper curled against sticky air, and everything smelled damp. A chipped teacup sat abandoned at the edge of her desk—lukewarm earl grey, brewed too weak for such a busy day. 

Hermione absentmindedly swatted at a memo whizzing by, eyes trained on the file atop her desk. The scar stung briefly—perhaps this is what Harry had felt like in school. 

Abruptly, the office door swung open. A groan from its rusted hinges snapped Hermione’s focus from her work. As if summoned by her errant thoughts, Harry poked his head into her office. Of course he hadn't knocked.

“Morning, ‘Mione. How’s Bryn vs. Studgley going?” 

“As well as you’d expect,” she said, biting her tongue to keep the wave of frustration at bay. “Bryn’s case has no real precedence—as much as I’d love for his wand to be reinstated, no centaur has won a suit against a wizard in recorded history.” 

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose against an impending migraine. Though it had been seven years since the end of the war, Wizarding Britain still clung to its puritanical dogma, determined to let the Dark Lord's cadaver rule from the grave. 

Harry leaned against the frame of the door, wiry glasses lopsided on a crooked nose—Merlin knew how many times he’d broken it. He held a coffee in one hand, a thin file in the other. 

He frowned a bit in her direction, before passing both beverage and paperwork to her. The espresso came first—a sacrificial peace offering, but she preferred her coffee with cream—and then the work.

A sigh coiled itself behind her teeth. She bit down against it. 

Hermione couldn’t quite recall when the dynamic had shifted between them. Perhaps it was when the war had ended, and she’d run off to France until ’03.

Or maybe it had been when he was promoted over her. She told herself it was logical—Harry had worked at the DMLE longer, so it made sense that he was now the Department’s head. And there was nothing logical about the odd lump of resentment lodged under her ribs. 

So she accepted the file and drink from her boss, ignoring the sting.  

“Don’t stress over it, Hermione. The public outrage will die down eventually—they’ll move on to society gossip in a week or so. I’m sure Parkinson’ll report on some betrothal or another soon enough,” he said, patting Hermione’s hand reassuringly.

She gritted her teeth and pasted a smile to her face, determined to ignore the fact that Harry now prioritized preserving the Department's image over basic civil rights. If she let herself dwell on it too long, she'd have a conniption, and Hermione didn't quite have the time to indulge in hysterics.

The DMLE’s logo was embossed onto the file, and she added it to the immense pile at the corner of her desk. Ink stains, crumpled bits of parchment, lifeless memos and three snapped quills littered across the surface. The Bryn vs. Studgley case lay open before her, margins covered in nearly illegible notes. 

But Harry dragged the skinny folder back to the center of her desk, shaking his head. She frowned, opened her mouth, primed to argue, but he beat her to it. 

“This is from above me, and it takes priority.” He rapped a knuckle against the wood, and didn’t meet her eyes. “Shacklebolt himself took interest in the case.” He fidgeted again, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Spit it out, Harry. Neither of us have time to be skirting truth.” Her words held more bite than intended, and her fingers thrummed against the arm of her worn chair. Bryn’s wand would be snapped in a fortnight if she couldn’t sort this case out.

“Shacks mentioned that Doge’s finally stepping down.”

Hermione raised a brow, finally giving Harry her undivided attention. “Elphias Doge? Stepping down from the Wizengamot?”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Propped an arm against the door. Finally, he sighed, and opened his mouth once more.

“You know I’ve had my eye on a seat for a while now, ‘Mione.” 

Her ears started ringing. The dingy walls of the office felt like they were closing in, the chipped tiles under her heels cracking from pressure. It was always “Mione” when they needed something.  

‘Mione, help with this Potions essay, will you?

‘Mione, could you cover? Match against Slytherin next week, need to practice.

‘Mione, my transfiguration didn’t take—maybe I could pass off your work as mine?

The roaring in her head grew when Harry smiled sheepishly at her, scratching at his perpetual bedhead. Her fingers tightened over a quill, the feathers crushed under blunt nails, spine bending from tension. She imagined Harry in those plum-colored robes, sitting in the pews amongst the most esteemed wizards and witches of Britain—simply because he was the boy who lived . 

Nevermind that he hadn’t taken his NEWTs. That she’d gone to France to study under alchemical masters, or that she’d spent a summer in Greece learning transfiguration from Circe’s Apostles, or that she’d dissected wizarding politics and history in seven arcane tongues. He was the boy who lived; he would take the glory, and Hermione would never get anything more than a taste. 

As if sensing the exploit in the bags under her eyes, in the mass of hair pinned up by her wand, in the exhaustion that permeated the coatroom she called an office, Harry eyed Hermione with a touch of apprehension. The quill snapped between her fingers. She forced composure, offering a saccharine smile to her best friend.

“What’s the case about?” She flipped open the folder, alarmed to find only two slips of parchment; no photos, no notes, no leads. The file was barren.

“That’s the thing—I couldn’t make head or tail of it. We’ve had a few admits to St. Mungo’s over the week. The healers say it’s withdrawals to potions, and well,” he hesitated. “I’ve never been a hand at those, have I?” Harry grinned, pulling out of the door, already on his way out. 

As if Hermione simply opening the file had ascertained that she’d work the case. The threatening migraine bloomed to life, thudding against her skull.

He paused for a beat, lingering in the bright lights of the hall. Hope—stubborn, futile hope—clawed at her throat. Maybe he’d offer to work together, maybe it’d be like it had been during the war (and how foolish it was, that she wanted to go back to that). But there was a normalcy she craved: the idea of two friends against an unjust world. 

Instead: “You’ve got a liaison to the Department of Mysteries.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste, pulling the door closed behind him.

“Malfoy’s expecting you.”

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Linesia. Unclassified substance. Multiple cases of potion-induced magical dependency. Patients admitted to St. Mungo’s—twelve admits in two weeks. Symptoms: dissociative behavior, erratic spellwork, fatigue, magical burnout. Two cases reported to be fatal.¹

Hermione’s brow furrowed, the lift creaking below her weight. Potion-induced dependency. It sounded a bit like muggle drugs; a cross between ketamine and heroin. The sparse file didn’t tell her much else. Only that the case had been assigned to the DMLE, and that the Minister of Magic himself had expressed interest. 

Supposedly, the press weren’t meant to catch a whiff of it. She wondered if Parkinson had already gone sniffing around St. Mungo’s. 

“Level Nine: Department of Mysteries.” 

Hermione had always found the lift announcements rather obnoxious. Such a cheery voice had no place within these walls, especially not within the damp dark of the Department of Mysteries.

She exited the lift, tugging her sleeves to her wrists. Her wand was clutched firmly in her hand now, hair tamed into a braid that snaked down her back. Stray hairs clung to her cheeks. She blew them aside with an exasperated huff.

If Harry suspected that a Wizengamot nomination hinged upon this case, there had to be more to "linesia" than the deceptively innocuous file offered.

Hovering at the edge of the Department, Hermione forced herself to think pragmatically. If Harry expected such an extravagant reward for a job well done (a bloody seat on the Wizengamot, unbelievable), perhaps it was reasonable to hope for some sort of promotion for herself. And if nothing changed administratively, at the very least she might request an office with a window, or simply any form of ventilation. 

So Hermione straightened her back and steeled her spine, anticipating what was sure to be a disastrous meeting with Draco Lucius Malfoy.   

Down on Level Nine, each click of her heels echoed off the walls. Black tile gleamed, her worn reflection peering at her from every angle. Tired eyes, ghostly skin, more hair than skin on her bones. Hermione was but a wraith haunting the Ministry’s halls. 

No windows. No portraits. Not a breath of fresh air. Just air burgeoning with silence, as if secrets came alive when buried so deep underground.

At the end of the hall, a door loomed over her—handleless, like every other door on this cursed level. She heaved it open, pressing her body against the glistening tiles. Her sweaty palms didn’t leave a single mark. 

She was met by an amused Theodore Nott. He’d grown taller since school, and his brown curls spilled over his forehead—all the way to his brow. Though his lips curled at the edge, his eyes were sharp, and Hermione got the distinct impression that he was sizing her up.

“Well. If it isn’t good ol’ Granger,” he drawled in an accent that only came naturally to those born into obscene wealth. “When’d you become an errand boy for the DMLE?” 

Hermione scowled. Nott started walking towards one of the twelve doors lining the Entrance Chamber—eerie blue flames dappled across the smooth walls. His dark robes swished through the hall, and for a moment she felt like a belligerent student trailing after a professor. 

“Not an errand boy, Nott,” she huffed while attempting to match his strides. “I’m the department liaison. Harry said I was expected?” 

She hadn’t meant to phrase the last remark as a question, but was alarmed at the way Nott spun around, delight stretching across his face. He shouldered one of the doors, laughing a bit.

“You? The liaison? Draco’ll get a real kick from this. Potter—since when has the bloke had a sense of humor?” 

“What? Malfoy doesn’t know?”

Nott didn’t respond. He just pushed yet another door open—the Department twisted like a labyrinth, and for once, she was grateful not to be navigating it alone.

“Oi, Malfoy—look what the cat dragged in!” 

Hermione’s face pulled into another frown. The room was just as cold as the halls of Level Nine, but the dim blue had given way to the lively crackle of true flame. Massive cauldrons lined the room, fires lit under two. Magic hummed through the air, as if given life. 

The lab was a dream for any potioneer. Jars of boomslang skin, bat spleens, doxy skin stacked skyhigh on teetering shelves. Stalks of fluxweed, dittany, knotgrass, even valerian, draped and drying across walls. The air smelled of antiseptic—clean, clinical—with a bitter undernote of alcohol. 

Hermione stood, momentarily entranced—jaw slack, hand curled loosely around her wand. The file slipped from her fingers, fluttering to the floor. 

The spell was broken too soon. 

“Careful, Granger.” A voice cut through the haze—low. Even. Mildly disinterested. “Wouldn’t recommend inhaling too many of these fumes.”  

She blinked. Draco Malfoy hadn’t even looked up from his bench. His blond head was tilted towards a flask, one with contents that swirled like ink.

Snapped out of her daze, Hermione felt her cheeks warm. She bent and snatched the discarded folder from the floor, straightening the pages along with her spine. 

Nott had already wandered off to the other end of the lab. A burst of citrus sang through the thick air; he’d begun peeling an orange with the tip of a scalpel, watching with veiled interest as Hermione approached Malfoy.

“Malfoy,” she greeted, matching his curt tone.

He finally looked up. While Nott had changed since the war, Malfoy hadn’t. Same lazy smirk, and cold, calculating eyes. Same cheekbones, sharp against her gaze, like a dagger—as if his entire being was poised to draw blood with the next breath. 

“Can I help you?” 

She bristled. “No, I just fancy a midday stroll down to the Department of Mysteries every other Thursday. Hadn’t expected to come across you—would’ve turned back if I’d known.”

“Charming as always, Granger.”

“Courteous as always, Malfoy.”

His eyes narrowed just a touch—annoyance creasing the planes of his face. Satisfaction surged through Hermione, addictive as the burn of firewhiskey on a cold winter night. 

She dropped the file unceremoniously on the bench. The potion sample he’d been working with splattered across worn wood, staining his fingers black. Irritation flickered again, and the corners of his mouth turned down, while Hermione’s curled upward in triumph. 

“Didn’t realize Shacklebolt paid you to be a nuisance.”

“You’d be shocked what all a war hero is allowed to do,” and it was a bluff—saving wizarding Britain hadn’t amounted to anything, but she didn’t need Malfoy to know that. “You should try it sometime,” she said offhandedly. 

His fingers clenched against the flask. Hermione knew she had won this round. 

With a flick of her wand, she summoned over a stool, perching atop it while Malfoy thumbed through the case. The two had been inexplicably bound since the end of the war. In Versailles: her at the Athanor, him at Collège de la Brume. Then, in Paris: both studying alchemy at the Solenne. And now, at the Ministry, colleagues constantly at each other’s throats. 

She’d come to begrudgingly respect his quiet intellect. It hadn’t quite shown at Hogwarts, but adulthood, perhaps war itself, had drawn it out of him—sharpened a dull edge into a honed blade. 

“Am I meant to do something with this?” He had finished reading about linesia, and looked bored. Twelve cases, two fatalities, and Malfoy was bored. Hermione longed to hex him.

“You tell me. I was sent down here,” and she hesitated. She was sent to Level Nine to do exactly what? She hadn’t bothered to ask Harry what she was meant to do about all this; she supposed the Golden Boy expected she’d cure the potion-induced illness overnight.

Malfoy looked similarly unimpressed. 

“So Potter sent you down here to quite literally be a pain in my arse. Typical,” he sneered.

“Don’t you think this is a bit urgent? Can’t your experimental shite wait until after we discuss the minor epidemic at our hands?”

Hermione knew she’d erred the moment victory glittered in those lances Malfoy called eyes. He waved his hand, and the potion swept back into the flask in an impressive display of nonverbal magic. The liquid whirled hypnotically.

“Know what this is, Granger?”

She had a sinking suspicion, but he didn’t let her answer.

“Linesia—adapted from amortentia, imbued with alchemical purifiers. Observed to repel dark magic, to cleanse; lends itself to a euphoric effect when ingested by a wizard or witch.” His eyes met hers once more—molten amber against weathered stone. When she didn’t answer, he offered the sample to her. 

“Try a drop. I’ve been dying to observe its effects with my own eyes.” Malfoy’s grin was wolfish, teeth a flash of brilliant white in the dim light.

Hermione sucked in a startled breath. She slipped a bit from her stool—dug her heel into the tiled floor to keep herself upright. Registered the barely masked threat.

“I’m alright, Malfoy. If you’re so curious, have a sip yourself,” she sniffed, trying to recover the upper hand. His face simply tightened, and he turned back to his work. Hermione knew what that meant. She had been handily dismissed.

“Do your homework, Granger. Or better yet, don’t, and mind your own business. Leave the testing to the experts.”

The barb stung exactly as he’d intended it to. There was no point explaining to Malfoy that linesia had been made her business; his point was clear. She was out of her depth.

Hermione rose from the bench and made her way to the door of the lab. Next time she wandered into the maze that was the Department of Mysteries, she’d be better prepared.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Rain battered against Hermione’s windows. A flash of lightning shone through sheer drapes—thunder clapped distantly. She curled deeper into the couch, one hand splayed over the worn pages of a book, the other curved around her ribs. 

It was Friday night, and she had no plans. Before leaving the office this evening, Harry had asked if she wanted to join him and Ron at the Leaky for a pint. It had clearly been an afterthought, one borne from guilt. Besides, she hadn’t seen Ron since Easter with the Weasley’s—and she planned to keep it that way.

The flat was still. If it weren’t already pouring, Hermione might’ve said it felt like the quiet before a storm. In the lull between lightning flashes and the steady patter on the roof, she could almost imagine Malfoy’s eyes—glacial, monolithic, indifferent. She scowled to herself, flipping the page as if it had wronged her.

Propped open on her knees was a copy of Flamel’s Calcined—dense, dull, and utterly useless. She had half a mind to fling the text into her lit hearth, but she remembered the smug smile on Malfoy’s face, the little jab, the implication that she, Hermione Granger, hadn’t done her homework. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to rage.

Instead, she read, like it could silence the ache. 

To calcine a compound is not merely to burn it—it is to strip it of the inessential. To reduce the volatile and leave behind only what cannot be further destroyed. This is the truest alchemical transformation: not gold, not immortality, but clarity. That which remains after fire is the substance’s most ruthless truth.²

Hermione dropped the book in frustration, pushing herself off the cushions. Nicholas Flamel was no genius; he was just repressed and delusional, and of no help. 

Her flat glimmered in candlelight, distilled to its bones. In the dark, her eyes didn’t catch on the bare walls—stripped of photos after Ron had moved out. She didn’t notice the empty hook that hung by the door, or the Chudley Cannons’ mugs collecting dust on the shelves. In the dark, Hermione wasn’t alone; the shadows held her in a tight embrace. 

The kitchen was tiled in wan linoleum, the cabinets an array of mismatched wood. She hugged a cardigan around her chest—stretched up to open the cabinet above the fridge. With the stem of a wine glass dangled between two fingers, she yanked out a bottle. Spanish tempranillo, gifted to her by Ginny two years ago; half empty now, cork jagged like someone had taken a bite out of it. 

Just as she was about to pour herself a glass, Hermione heard a knock. A frown crossed her face like a cloud as she made her way through the living room. Tempranillo still in hand, she opened the door.

Ron Weasley stood on her doorstep, drenched to the bone.

For a moment, she was too shocked to speak. Hermione stepped aside; simply let him cross the threshold, like he’d done countless times. 

She imagined how the space looked to him: the beige couch he’d hated so much; the muggle-made fairy lights she’d draped across the mantle. Hermione herself—hair loose, tumbling to her waist, a cardigan over bony, overworked shoulders—complete with the bottle of wine she wielded like a weapon.

She crossed her arms over her chest defensively. His presence invited in wet air and the scent of rain—the candles flickered in protest.

“Ron. What are you doing here?”

“Was in this part of town, ‘Mione… thought I’d stop by and say hi.” 

His words were slurred, his gait unsteady. Hermione sighed. So he was drunk. 

“You just happened to be in muggle London? At,” she checked the time, “quarter past midnight?” 

He nodded, leaning against the wall as Hermione reached around him to shut the door. A strand of his hair snagged against the hook. She reflexively leaned up, smoothing it out.

“Aren’t you meant to be in Diagon Alley with Harry?”

He smelled like alcohol, and smoke. She scrunched her nose. Put some distance between them. 

“I was. And now I’m here.” He started to take off his boots—the pair she’d bought him two years ago. Ron looked up. Met her eyes through a mass of sopping, ginger hair. “I’m home,” he tacked on, rather unhelpfully. 

Home. 

The word made her lungs ache—made them twist into a knot between her ribs. 

“This isn’t home for you, Ron,” and she tried to be gentle. “Hasn’t been in months.”

“Leaving was a mistake.”

“Was it? We wanted different things.” 

Understatement of the century. Hermione set down the bottle, laid her hands on Ron’s shoulders—steering him back towards the door—before he could finish unlacing his boots. 

When he didn’t answer, she prodded. “How did you get here? Couldn’t have Apparated, not unless you wanted to be splinched thirteen different ways.” She sighed. “Let me call you a cab, get you home.” Hermione made to lift her hands from his chest, but before she could pull away, his palms flattened over her own.

“That’s the point, ‘Mione. I wanted to go home—so here I am.”

His breath fanned over her face. Through the stench of butterbeer, she caught a whiff of spearmint. Freckles scattered over his nose, blue eyes as warm as the summer sky. 

She understood faintly then, what Malfoy had meant about linesia being a form of amortentia. When stripped, all that was left of love was habit, comfort. An unhealthy infatuation with the past.

And Hermione could have stopped him—should have stopped him. But as Ron leaned in, as his lips brushed tentatively over hers, she felt herself relapse into routine. Like she was seeking warmth from a fire she herself had doused. 

He tasted sour, like alcohol and the tangy aftertaste of something sweet. She hated it. Pulled away like it burned. Her hands weren’t gentle as she pushed him through the door, back out into the rain.

Ron looked lost. Hermione couldn't say she felt the same.

Her fingers were still curled into his undone collar, heels of each palm pressed over his ribs. Each of his breaths—every irregular beat of his heart—felt like cuffs tightening around her wrists. She knew what needed to be done. 

With a crack, the two Disapparated—landing in front of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. The rain had let up on this side of London. 

Hermione looked at Ron, with his drunken, dazed expression. “This is home, Ron.” 

She made to Apparate home, but paused. Turned around briefly, meeting his eyes one last time. Though she didn't love him the way he had wanted—the way Ron had needed—he was still her friend. Had been and would be, because Hermione refused to lose anything more.  

“Be safe. Be happy.” 

And then Hermione was gone. 

Chapter Text

“Et comme nous savons, toute transformation exige une mort.” 

Every transformation requires death.³ 

The professor’s voice echoed over the marble rotunda—smug, nasal, so very French. Hermione’s quill pierced through the parchment, smearing a blot of ink across her notes. She frowned.

It was spring in Paris. The cobbles lay slick from morning rain, and the scent of lilacs and stone suffused the air. Ivy crawled up crumbling walls; the Solenne was ancient, monstrous, but most notably, tired. 

Two seats to her left—stationed there as he always was—sat Draco Malfoy. He was always late to lecture, always chewing on something. Licorice, or cloves—something that infuriatingly bit at Hermione’s nose. He was close enough that she could catch a waft of his cologne, always twined with the scents of faded ink and coffee.

Today, he raised a brow in her direction. Leaned a little bit closer. Cloves, he was chewing cloves—she could tell by the way the stench lingered on his breath. 

“Need a translation, Granger? Hate to think you’d miss something important.” His platinum hair caught the sun—eyes glinting like the Seine under light.

She scoffed, rolling her eyes and clenching the quill tighter. 

“Tais-toi, connard,” was her reply. To her disappointment, he didn’t look away. If anything, the bastard looked pleased with himself.

Hermione found herself turning back to her notes. Not because she was avoiding his gaze—rather, this lecture was important. She’d need a good foundation to pass the course, and would need to understand Paracelsus’ theories to do so. 

“Les minéraux et les métaux peuvent guérir les maladies physiques, mais l’esprit exige une purification plus profonde.”

Her frown deepened. Professor Girard knew absolutely nothing at all. It wasn’t the mind that needed purification, but the extremities—he had completely misinterpreted Paracelsus’ work. Purifying the mind itself was impossible. 

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Paris faded to dust as her fingers toyed with a singed scrap of parchment.

The memory of that lecture—of Antoine Girard’s grave misinterpretations of ancient alchemical texts—played on repeat through Hermione’s mind. She was at her desk in the DMLE, drowning in a stack of paperwork yet again. 

It had been a week since she’d received the initial report on linesia; within that week, eight new patients had been admitted to St. Mungo’s. The Prophet had caught on to the story—had released it to the public, headlined: EUPHORIA OR EXECUTION? THE MINISTRY’S ECSTASY IN SECRECY⁴. Hermione had ruined another two quills. She’d need to pay a visit to Flourish and Blotts at this rate. 

A week had passed, and she was no closer on Bryn vs. Studgley. Hermione had meticulously combed through file after file of legal cases—they were stacked haphazardly across her office, barricading the door. As far back as 1873—the earliest record she could find. She’d slept maybe nine total hours since Monday, and her back ached in a way that didn’t seem possible.

A sharp knock sounded at her door. She flinched, reminded of Ron’s intrusion on her flat last Friday. Of the way he’d drunk himself stupid, showed up sulking, bleating about home. 

But this was the Ministry, and she was professional, and this would be a colleague at her door. So she straightened her back and waved her wand to move the files aside. 

“Come in.” 

She smelled him before she saw him. It had been three—no, four years—and Draco Malfoy still wore the same cologne. She groaned. He merely furrowed his brow in response to her odd greeting, a divot appearing on his forehead. She wanted to jab her wand into it. 

“You welcome all your visitors like that, Granger?”

“Only the special ones.”

Malfoy drew a hand to his chest, feigning shock. “Pleasantly chuffed, I am. Would love to chat, but I’m here on business.”

“Yes Malfoy, no sane witch or wizard would believe you’re visiting my office for anything but.”

He let out a surprised bark of laughter. And for a brief moment, she saw a glimmer of that boy from Paris: inevitably war-torn, but with skin tanned like the sun loved him. The one who grinned easily and shot her conspiratorial looks, like it had been them two Brits against all of France.

His laugh faded as suddenly as it had surfaced, and he produced a stoppered bottle of murky potion. This time, she recognized it. The linesia twinkled at her, as if seducing her to taste it.

“Does it smell like amortentia?” The question came out before she could stop it.

Malfoy shot her a perturbed glance, ignoring the inane ask. His voice was solemn now, not a trace of sarcasm left. “I’ve run the analyses Shacklebolt requested. Had them double-checked by Nott,” and a glimmer of ego resurfaced with a small smirk. “Not that I’d need my work double-checked.” 

Hermione glowered at him, and grabbed the vial from his outstretched hand. 

“Have you come to deliver just the drug? Or is there a report to accompany it?”

“Merlin forbid you loosen up once in your life, Granger—I know better than to tempt you into getting high.” From within his robes, Malfoy pulled out a simple sheet of parchment, one that looked as scant as the file she’d received last week.

“There’s not much to see here, is there?” She unfolded the paper, scanning the contents. Frowned. 

Malfoy shrugged, ran a hand through his hair. “There’s not much to be found. Chemically, linesia is just another potion. It just has disproportionately devastating effects—as expected of anything derived from amortentia.”

She thought, absurdly, of Ron’s mouth. Of the aftertaste. Of how it hadn't even felt like a kiss.

“But I don’t understand—why produce it? Why subject the public to it? Where’s the source? None of it makes any sense.”

He sneered, and it was so typical, so expected that Hermione felt herself deflate. 

“Do I look like a textbook? I was told to analyze the potion itself. I’ve got sod-all to say about wizarding psychology.”

“Get out of my office, Malfoy.”

“This isn’t an office, Granger. It’s a shoebox.”

She ignored him judiciously, uncorking the linesia instead. Hermione stared into the vial, momentarily mesmerized by the potion's depth—darker than vantablack, thicker than blood.

Malfoy lingered at her door for a moment. Turned his head before leaving. 

“If amortentia smells of love, Granger—linesia reeks of grief.”

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Thursday evening in Diagon Alley felt like a balm to a harried soul. Walking down the familiar cobbled streets, Hermione couldn’t quite remember all the problems that plagued her—found that she didn’t want to remember. 

At this hour, wizarding London was a docile creature. Tamed. Fangless. 

Florean Fortescue’s had just reopened last year, under new management. The smell of churned sugar spun through the air, tickling at Hermione’s nose—coalesced with the pungent herbs wafting from a neighboring apothecary. 

Somewhere nearby, a kettle hissed. Pops of apparition echoed between worn bricks, and Hermione trudged forward towards Flourish and Blotts. The lull of slow chatter mingled with a soft rustle of robes. Evening shoppers drifted listlessly down the street, boots trailing soot from the hearths. 

Her eye caught the display in front of Flourish and Blotts, and she momentarily forgot her mission for quills. The window display was charmed to turn pages on its own—flipping through a garish copy of Hogwarts: A History Reimagined.

Hermione snorted.

She ignored the book, moving to enter the shop. The sun was dipping low now, casting the alley in long shadows and softer colors—gold and violet pooling across the shopfronts like spilled paint.

Somewhere behind her, a clock chimed the hour.

And in her periphery—she caught a flicker of movement.

A pale figure ducked between shops. Quick. Discreet. Knockturn-bound.

Her hand stilled against the handle. Curiosity—the one demon she’d never shake—skittered through her. She’d know that head of platinum hair anywhere.

Quills, or adventure?

Hermione left behind Flourish and Blotts, scampering after Draco Malfoy. 

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Hermione had found war to be the world’s greatest alchemical force. Nothing quite revealed the truth of humanity like violence. 

Knockturn Alley, though not a battleground, had never quite recovered. 

The air itself seemed to shift as she left behind Diagon Alley. Gone was the lazy charm, the lavender hush, of twilight—here, everything pressed inward. 

Wizards and witches clung to walls like shadows, their hoods drawn, faces turned down. Light refracted through the air, casting hazily over grimy stone. She wrinkled her nose as she passed the stalls and hawkers that lined the street; selling anything from snake oil guised as memory potions, to “self-esteem charms for the modern witch”. 

Malfoy was slipping through the crowd with a practiced ease. His form cut through the haze. Hermione had a guess as to where the Unspeakable was headed. Such knowledge didn’t stop the frown from stretching across her face.

The Second Wizarding War had stripped her peers to the bone. Childhood, innocence—all flayed away, leaving behind smears of truth. The truth itself was a murky, fickle thing; nothing but a reflection of their environments.

Hermione would never quite forgive Draco Malfoy. 

But in the years past the war, she’d come to understand him. He was a product of wizarding Britain, a compound built from years of systemic rot and bleeding prejudice. Blaming Malfoy for his sins was like blaming an infant for crying. Futile. 

Today, she permitted herself to feel a touch disappointed with him. The Malfoy that schemed and plotted and flitted through dark, narrow alleyways—she’d thought he was a thing of the past. 

He’d made a grand show of “turning the page”—with Lucius Malfoy locked away in Azkaban, Malfoy and his mother had set about restoring the family name. Over the past seven years, the young heir had outwardly transformed. Gone was the bratty boy from Hogwarts: in his place stood a man versed in legilimency, alchemy, and a handful of other arcane arts. A man who was a faithful Ministry employee by day, and supposedly a philanthropist by night.

So Hermione couldn’t quite help the sigh when she saw him duck into Borgin and Burke’s. Perhaps some habits never died.

The shop leaned haphazardly over the street, as if it couldn’t be convinced to stand straight. There was no sign, no welcome—just a warped door and frosted glass. A smattering of dim light. 

She pushed the door open, recoiling from the rust coating its handle. Her hope to slip in unnoticed lasted for all of two seconds.

“Following me now, are we Granger?”

Hermione jumped nearly a foot in the air. She held a hand to her chest—her heart hadn’t stopped pounding since she stepped into the alley.

“Would you mind being followed, I wonder,” she said, drawing a finger to her lips, watching as Malfoy’s eyes tracked the movement, “say, if you weren’t up to no good? I’d rather think the new and reformed Draco Malfoy has nothing to hide.”

He huffed. Rolled his eyes. Turned his back to her, attention on a glass case. A stunning pendant, encrusted in blood-red rubies, was nestled into a velvet cushion. Hermione noted how the most beautiful things were often the most dangerous.

“Typical that you’d assume I was up to no good,” he said, and his voice was a worn, weary thing. Hermione scoffed. 

“Didn’t realize do-gooders made a habit of patronizing,” and she gesticulated to the crammed shelves, the dusty displays, “contraband.”

Malfoy turned around once more, and took a step towards her. Suddenly, he had breached Hermione’s personal space.

Coffee, smoke, a hint of something old, clung to him like a lover’s touch. The day’s stubble peppered across a jaw crafted from steel. She could see her own reflection in his eyes—the way she was cornered, eyes wide, hair frazzled.

He leaned impossibly closer; she felt a tuft of hair graze her cheek. Fought the urge to flinch away.  “I’m here to investigate. On the case we’re both working on,” he murmured, voice low, condescending, barely more than a whisper. “Or have you forgotten about linesia already?” 

She saw it then—a hint of her own disappointment, mirrored in his eyes. It bewildered her.  

“I only wish I could forget, Malfoy.”

“Have you tried, say, drinking away your sorrows?” His tone had become almost conversational, and Hermione found herself reeling from whiplash.

“No, not yet, but do let me know if you’ve found it a good remedy.” She could match each of his jabs; could outdo him at every turn. She didn’t know when simple small-talk had become a competition, but she was determined to win.

A door clanged open on the far end of the shop, shaking the shelves near them. Briefly, Hermione had forgotten where they were—had been transported to a different plane of existence entirely. 

Borgin appeared, ensconced in shadow and hunched over a cane. The man had aged dreadfully—wisps of white hair clung to greasy, hollow cheeks. He reminded her of Snape, if the late professor were left to rot under afternoon sun.

Beady eyes passed between Malfoy and Hermione, and then he glared. 

“Malfoy. Didn’t realize you’d have,” he sniffed, glare deepening, “company. Filthy company.”

Hermione was shocked, and before she could help it, a surprised giggle broke through her chapped lips. It had been a long time since she’d been victim to a direct insult. It was a rather refreshing turn; she’d grown sick of the more veiled, indirect kind. 

For his part, Malfoy stiffened. She wondered if he remembered the Manor then, the way she’d been helpless on the ground, the way his aunt had carved the slur into her flesh. He gave nothing away; such was the gift of a natural occlumens.

“I’m here on Ministry business, Borgin. It would make sense, then, that I’ve brought along a colleague from the Ministry.” He’d managed to make the simple reply drip with patronisation. It was a wonder how he had a knack for turning every interaction into a verbal spar.

Borgin blinked. The man leaned heavily against his cane, but wisely kept his mouth shut. “How can I help you two, then?” Borgin’s voice was raspy as smoke. 

He began to titter around the storefront, hands shooting out to rearrange skulls, bloodstained trinkets. Leering, contorted masks. 

Malfoy frowned. Started following the man around the shop. Hermione found herself at a loss. Perhaps it was wise to leave. But Merlin knew she wanted to stay. And so she did—found herself trailing behind Malfoy.

Dust smattered through the air, pebbling under thin rays of light. “Linesia, Borgin. Don’t act like you don’t know the name. I asked a few sources. Word on the street has it that you know the most,” said Malfoy, his words a thin accusation.

Borgin merely snorted. “Nobody knows anything about that bloody potion. I’ve got as much to say as the rats scurrying through Knockturn’s streets.” He certainly looked the part of a rat, Hermione thought as he carried on. “A shipment shows up—like clockwork, every evening at nine—out by the cul-de-sac. The vials are always gone within an hour.”

Hermione frowned. “But there’s so much that could go wrong,” she argued, counting fallacies with her fingers. “Anyone could tamper with the potion. And how does the seller make money? Why would anyone even take a bottle—and similarly, what’s stopping one person from taking them all?”

Malfoy shot her a bemused look, and Borgin scowled. The older man tutted, muttering about nosy reporters. Hermione bristled; she was no reporter.

“Look, girl. How did you end up here?” His question made no sense, but it wasn’t phrased rhetorically. She paused, answering hesitantly.

“Curiosity, I suppose.”

“Exactly. That’s why people take the cursed things. Curiosity, and rumors that it makes magic so easy, that spells flow like water from your finger-tips.” Borgin polished an old dagger with the edge of his sleeve. His eyes grew dark, distant. “And then they get addicted, bled of their galleons till they have no gold left to give.”

Malfoy offered a question of his own. “What’s stopped the authorities from seizing the shipments before people can grab them?”

Borgin laughed—a harsh, crackling sound. “Then they just appear on doorsteps. Aurors have learned to leave the bottles alone,” he paused. “I’m not one to offer information from the good of my heart.” Hermione knew as much. “But take a look around on your way out.”

“The streets are bleeding, and nobody’s got a blasted clue why.”

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Malfoy vanished the moment they left the shop, without so much as a goodbye. Expected. 

Hermione was left alone in Knockturn Alley. She was disappointed to find that twilight had faded to night, and the air had turned biting. August would give way to September soon, and the British Isles would once more be cocooned by frigid air. 

Eyes peeled wide, she couldn’t stop herself from snooping—couldn’t stop her gaze from flitting to the corners of the alley, to where cloaked figures huddled under crumbling stoops. She paid attention to the conversation as she drifted past; took note of the soft pleas buried under sharp words. 

“A sickle, please… even a knut will do.”

“Need gold by the time the moon shines. Please, spare change, please.”

Hermione’s heart sank, clattering against her ribs. A hand grazed against her arm, and she turned, wand out. 

“Ma’am, please, anything to spare?” The voice was young, broken, haunted in a way she recognized. An addict.

She knelt down, trying to make eye-contact with the witch who leaned against a shuttered door. The woman’s eyes were distant, skin pulled so thin over her face that Hermione could practically make out the blood vessels laced underneath.

“What do you need the money for?” Her question was gentle, devoid of accusation. 

“For… for the potion.” 

“And who will you give the money to?”

The witch’s eyes snapped shut. She shook Hermione off, rose to unsteady feet before taking a step back. “You don’t understand. I can’t remember. I only know when… when it’s coursing through my veins.” She opened her eyes again; they were lined with unshed tears, alit with vitriol. Her next words came out as a hiss.

“Leave. Leave, little witch, and don’t come back.”

Hermione didn’t need to be told twice. 

──────── ☾☼ ────────

The third floor of St. Mungo’s looked like a circus on opening night. Healers ran between beds, robes in disarray, magic sparking from their wands. Eighteen patients. Twelve beds. Three Healers running themselves ragged.

Hermione wondered vaguely who allocated the budget for St. Mungo’s, and why the Poisoning Department was so seriously understaffed. The lights flickered ominously, and there was a draft that somehow kept the place frigid, even in the heat of late August. The paint peeled—specks of mold peeking out from behind splotches of dreary grey.

She’d only taken a few healing courses at the Athanor, but maybe she knew enough to assist. She started rolling up her sleeves, then hesitated. Mopped the sweat from her brow instead, and brandished her wand before asking the nearest Healer how she could help.

The witch was perhaps the same age as Mrs. Weasley, with eyebags like craters under frantic, hazel eyes. A lanyard around her neck revealed her as Healer Tia.

“Tia—let me lend a hand. Show me who needs what.”

She frowned at Hermione. “You’re that Granger girl, aren’t you? Reckon just ‘cause you’ve gone and saved the world, that you can stop an epidemic single handedly? Yeah, right,” she snorted. 

Hermione felt her eyes widen—found herself speechless for the first time in many years. “I’m sorry, I just meant to help. It looks like you could use an extra set of hands—”

She was cut off. “You’re here from the DMLE, right? To write up a report to send to the Minister? Tell him the outbreak of—of whatever this is, would be manageable if we were given the proper resources.” Tia’s eyes trailed down Hermione’s form, and she sniffed. “Not some malnourished nymph of a socialite who doesn’t know the first thing about healing.”

Hermione was stunned. She watched as Tia hurried off—blinked blearily. Let her knees give out, let her body drop to the cold, tiled floor. It had been such a long, dreadful week.

“Hermione Granger, war heroine turned malnourished nymph of a socialite,” came a snark-laden voice from the right. “I believe lovely Tia just delivered my next headline.”

“Bugger off, Parkinson. You’re more useless than I am here,” was Hermione’s only reply.

Pansy snorted. Sank to the floor next to Hermione. Held out a coffee. Hermione accepted the offering without another word. 

The two women sat side by side, and watched the chaos play out. The two knew loss intimately—they knew war, battles, the brutality of wizardkind. This fight just had Healers instead of hexes. 

Some patients lay derelict in bed, complexion's wan as the tiles lining the floor. Their eyes were sunken so deep into their skulls, flesh hanging so easily from bone, that they looked skeletal under the hospital's industrial lights. Other's wandered listlessly through the unit, expressions vacant—surely drugged out of their minds, veins thick with Wiggenweld Potion to prevent their hearts from going still. 

Over the week, St. Mungo's had been able to draft an in-depth report on the symptoms of linesia withdrawal; physical and magical fatigue, pneumonic body temperatures, heartbeat slowing to almost still. And of course, the amnesia—anterograde at first, worsening to retrograde with time.⁵

With no small amount of alarm, Healers noted that symptoms worsened exponentially with every passing day, unlike other addictions where symptoms tended to fade with continuous withdrawal. 

Hermione felt lost. “What is it,” she breathed, helplessness bleeding into her voice.

“Linesia?”

“Yes. No.” Hermione gestured to the patients, to the entirety of the ward. “The addiction. The reason. Who’s behind it? What do they stand to gain?”

Pansy shot her a look. “Galleons. Gold. What else is there?”

“Galleons? Like that’s all there is in this world? Pansy.” Hermione fought the absurd urge to laugh. “What an outlook. It’s so…”

“If you say Slytherin, I’ll transfigure your coffee to flobberworm mucus. Don’t think I won’t.”

“No, not that at all." Hermione hadn't even considered such a black and white delineation. "It’s just—so very bleak, isn’t it?”

“What’s bleak is that you’re squatting on a grimy floor, Hermione—near tears after getting verbally abused by a stout Healer.”

And that’s when Hermione laughed. The sound felt a bit unnatural—it came out a bit raspier than what she remembered it as. 

“Merlin,” and Pansy was laughing too. “No wonder boys gave you a wide berth in school. I would too, if your laugh always sounded like that.”

“Nothing to say about the level of swot? Just the laugh?”

Pansy’s eyes softened a touch—juxtaposed the sharpness of her nose, her jaw, the blunt cut of her bob. “You being swotty ended up saving the world. Can’t complain much against that.” 

Hermione’s eyes traced the Dark Mark that coiled up Pansy’s forearm. A brand, just like her scar, one that wouldn’t fade—no matter how much time had passed since the war. 

Pansy was the only witch she’d met who didn’t flinch at the stares—at the whispers that trailed after her. The Parkinsons had lost so much during the war. Money. Land. Reputation. Pansy still held her head high; moved forward despite it all.

“I think we both grew out of it, you know? You left behind the sass, and I got rid of the swot,” Hermione said, settling back against the wall. 

Pansy didn’t reply for a moment. Just took another sip of her coffee, watching as the Healers scurried from patient to patient, administering Draughts of Peace. 

“Do you think,” Pansy hesitated a beat; it was uncharacteristic. “Do you think the person behind all this—do you think they anticipated… this?” She gestured broadly, a bit of coffee spilling out from her cup. 

Hermione frowned. “I couldn’t say. Plan to write up a psychological profile on them?”

Pansy rose to her feet with a grin. “You know me so well Granger. Unfortunately, schedule’s a bit busy now that I’ve got ’nymphlike war heroine’ on the docket. I’ll need a photo for the Prophet next week—I’d love to get a shot of that pretty scowl.”

Hermione silently transfigured Pansy’s coffee to flobberworm mucus as the other witch exited the ward.

Chapter Text

It was Monday, just after nine; the sun had heaved itself below the horizon, giving way to a chilled night. Nobody was in the office this late, save for Hermione herself. There was no chatter leaking through the walls, no memos getting caught in her hair. 

There was just cold tea, thin air—and a report sitting on her desk like a threat. 

She hadn’t even meant to look at it this long. But Malfoy’s so-called “preliminary report,” the one he’d delivered with smug indifference last Thursday, was still gnawing at her.

She’d marked the thing up so brutally, so efficiently, that there wasn’t an inch of marginalia left. Red ink scrawled over his meticulous, looping script—his writing so elegant that it was borderline offensive. 

Lines of coagulants, of theorized ingredients, were underlined; why did he think linesia contained additional pearl dust?⁶ There was already plenty in amortentia—no need for excess, and linesia itself wasn’t particularly shimmering. Or was it?

Hermione found herself doubting not only Malfoy’s knowledge and his analyses, but something far worse: her own judgment. Something just didn’t add up. 

She tapped her quill against the wood in frustration, watching as the feather bent. The vial he’d given her sat untouched on her desk, a dark temptation. 

If amortentia smells of love… linesia reeks of grief.

Hermione hadn’t dared waft the scent since Malfoy had uttered those damning words. She had no particular interest in ascertaining what her grief smelled like; of what type of olfactory assault accompanied loss. 

Now, under the cover of tentative night, with distrust clawing up her spine—Hermione found her resolve wavering. 

She picked up the vial, uncorking it. Poured a bit into an empty teacup. She’d make sure to get rid of the thing later. 

And then, she held the sample to her nose. Breathed in. 

It turns out that grief smelled very similar to love. 

Hermione hadn’t come across amortentia in many years. The first time she’d encountered it was in Slughorn’s classroom, all those years ago at Hogwarts. Then, amortentia’s scent profile had been profoundly simple: grass cuttings, a hint of fresh parchment. Just a touch of that shampoo Ron used to love. 

The second time, she’d been at the Solenne. Hermione should’ve known then that she and Ron weren’t built to last. The amortentia had shifted, had become earthy, sharper—reflecting her own mind after the war. Then, it smelled of cardamom, something nutty. It held a note of Paris itself; a rather whimsical thought. 

Now, as the scent of linesia seeped into her bones, she recognized something different entirely. 

She found that the linesia smelled of mint—the way Ron’s mouth had tasted just a week ago. Reminiscent of her parents and their dentistry. It carried a touch of something bittersweet, like coffee—served black but with a cube of sugar. The linesia singed her nostrils, but she couldn’t tear herself away. 

It smelled like disappointment and what-ifs.

A bell chimed through the Ministry, breaking the spell. She jumped a bit in her seat; the teacup clattered to the ground, shattering. Linesia poured like ink over the worn tile, coating the white in streaks of shadow. 

She cursed under her breath. Vanished the mess with a shaky wave of her wand. Forced herself to rise from the desk, to fold the questionable report into the pockets of her robes. And then she steeled herself. 

A line from Calcined rose through her mind, catching on her synapses as she left her office.

Alchemy is not a science. It is an art, purely confined to the eyes of the beholder. It is not a practice of purification insomuch that it’s a methodology of transformation. And change is volatile—subjective, divine, nuanced. Alchemy, therefore, must be observed by one’s own eye.⁷

──────── ☾☼ ────────

If the Department of Mysteries felt ominous during the day, it was an entirely different creature by night.

Of course, there was no telling what time it was down in its windowless halls, but Hermione knew that the sun had long since set — that a sliver of the moon would be shining across London’s streets by now. 

And the knowledge is what made it all worse.

This time, there was no Theodore Nott to lead her through the Department’s winding halls. No Malfoy to laugh her back to her office. Just her, the tiles, and reflections of her ghostlike features. She suppressed a shudder. 

Within minutes of ill-advised exploration, Hermione found herself hopelessly lost. Each door from the Entrance Chamber led her in an endless loop. 

The first door she’d pushed open had led her into what seemed like a magical observatory. Caricatures of planets floated lazily past her; she caught sight of Saturn’s rings, of Jupiter’s ninety-five moons drifting by. 

The next room she came across was haunted by whispers—the chamber reeked of death. This chamber was one she couldn’t shake from her memory, despite numerous attempts. Hermione stumbled out of the stone room in a rush, heart thudding against her ribs.

She found herself gasping for air in a quiet room, where the only sound that accompanied her was a soft burbling—similar to that of a creek. Hermione stilled, breathing in.

Immediately, she covered her nose—not before the scent of ink, of something like cinnamon, assaulted her. So she’d found the Love Room. 

The Department of Mysteries had been designed to repel intruders. Each door was meant to lead you astray—it was said that only Unspeakables could navigate its labyrinthine halls. Hermione had chalked it all up to rumor; surely she wouldn’t have too much trouble finding Malfoy’s alchemy lab. 

Now, standing in the Love Room, she realized how wrong she’d been. Logic, her trusty, beloved torch of knowledge, had led her so abysmally astray. 

Still, she inched closer to the fountain at the center of the room. Theoretically, the room was locked, impenetrable at all points of the day. Hermione wondered if some employee had left it unlocked, or if somehow it was a trap—a fear that fizzled as soon as it formed. 

She snorted. A trap in the room of love. Who would that be designed to catch?

She sat on the rim of the fountain, uncovering her nose. She’d adapted rather quickly to the thick air—found that she could no longer distinguish breath from the fumes of amortentia. She only watched as the pearlescent potion spilled and frothed, marveling at how it cast a faint light throughout the otherwise dark room.

She pulled out the crinkled report, smoothing out its creases as she cast lumos . It was perhaps a blessing that she’d stumbled into the Love Room; there was no better place to study amortentia than from such a large sample. 

A line of Malfoy’s insipid script snagged her attention.

Transmutation from amortentia to linesia requires initial calcination, followed by infusion with wormwood.⁸

Wormwood—known to inhibit magical potency. But Borgin had said linesia did the opposite. That it made spells pour like water.

Besides, wormwood and pearl dust were magically incompatible. One dulled, the other amplified. Any infusion would destabilize before the potion even cooled. To transfuse it with amortentia, which was based almost entirely on pearl dust and rose petals, would be no small alchemical feat.

Hermione frowned. She caught a trace of linesia lingering on her pinky, from when she’d dropped the potion in her office. An idea crossed her mind.

Experimentally, she dipped the finger into the fountain of amortentia, leaving logic far behind. She hissed, reveled in the pain, as the two substances coiled—black writhing, bubbling against pearly white.

Dully, she noted that she’d seen the reaction once before. Couldn’t place where, but just the fact that it wasn’t new made her reel. She yanked her hand out of the fountain, watched in horror as the amortentia protested, as linesia ate through the entire vat.

For some reason, the Solenne came to mind—its ivory towers and steam filled labs. 

And that’s when it dawned on her.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Memory engulfed her the same way linesia eroded at amortentia’s sheen. Suddenly, it was early-summer in Paris. Muggy, petrichor-tainted June.

Steam played against her curls, weaving between the strands of her hair. Cauldrons bubbled around her while students tittered in a mix of French and English. Professor Girard stood at the head of the room, dressed head to toe in a tweed suit. She’d always found the ensemble ridiculous.

Her experiment had already failed. Hermione peered at the concoction in frustration; Draught of the Living Death was not a good base, but she’d let ego steer her to failure. Now, she’d have to present the mess to Girard, and pray that she’d get marks for sheer ambition, if nothing else. 

A sudden hiss startled her. She looked up—three tables ahead, a thick coil of smoke was rising from Malfoy’s cauldron. Not an accident—his wand was steady in his left hand, his knife still slicing with surgical grace in his right.

Girard hurried over, barking something in French about instability, about incompatible components. Malfoy didn’t flinch. He simply stirred clockwise, slowly, as the potion turned from ivory to ink. A sheen of magic danced across the surface.

“You infused it with wormwood?” Girard snapped, disbelieving. “Into a pearl-dust base?”

Malfoy’s smirk had been almost imperceptible. “Just a drop.”

Girard huffed. “That’s not innovation, Monsieur Malfoy—it’s recklessness.”

But Hermione had seen the way the potion shimmered. The way it resisted breaking apart. That memory had dulled in her mind for years—until now.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Hermione blinked. She was back in the Love Room, finger aching, nostrils stinging. 

Malfoy had lied. The disappointment was back in full throttle. This time, it twined viciously with suspicion. 

That day in the Solenne, he’d been the only one to complete the reaction. The only one who’d been able to alchemize wormwood with something inherently incompatible. And now, as she sat beside a newly inky fountain, Hermione found herself faced with a stunning truth.

Malfoy hadn’t lied. He’d just omitted the truth with the precision of a scalpel. It was easy to feign ignorance—when he’d been the one to invent the damn thing. 

She turned the idea around in her head a few times. Nobody else in Britain would’ve uncovered the truth. Nobody else had been at the Solenne that day, had seen his improbable infusion work. 

Hermione stood from the edge of the fountain, knees wobbling, eyes tearing from the fumes. Her shaky legs led her towards the door. She needed to get out of these cursed halls, needed a breath of fresh air, perhaps a coffee. Or a pint of something strong. Maybe lager. 

Most of all, she needed to find Malfoy before he realized his mistake.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

But of course, Draco Malfoy already stood by the lift on Level Nine, idle as a serpent in the sun. A portrait of boredom. A study in control. Danger wrapped in silk and shadow. 

Hermione stilled. Drew her wand—didn’t know why she did, only that it felt like she should. Malfoy caught the movement, tracking her hand with his eyes. Smirked. 

“You’re quite the awful sleuth, you know,” he said, tone conversational. Alarm bells whistled through Hermione’s skull. Her grip tightened on her wand as he carried on.

“Of course, you lot always had Potter’s cloak at school—bit naked without it, aren’t we, Granger?” At that moment, she did feel naked. She tried to school her features, to hide the weight of her realization behind tight lips and flared nostrils.

“I’m not sleuthing, Malfoy. Just came down here for some work.” The lie felt limp—useless—on her tongue. 

He raised a sleek brow. “The Department is barred to anyone who’s not an Unspeakable, or an invited guest. And in your traipsing, you set off not one, not two, but three entire wards.” 

Malfoy’s eyes were predatory, as if he could see into her mind. Another flare of panic surged through Hermione. Perhaps he could ascertain her thoughts—he was a legilimens, after all. 

She didn’t know what to do. The report was clutched tightly in her fingers, edges crumpled between her nails. Had he realized the error? That including the wormwood in the analysis would give him away? Or was he really here because she’d tripped half a dozen wards?

Hermione inched closer to the lift, to Malfoy himself. She felt like a mouse approaching a viper—each step steeped in trepidation. 

Once again, she matched his tone. Forced her cadence to resemble something casual. “The doors were all unlocked. If I wanted to do something, it would’ve been quite easy,” she cringed, remembering how the linesia from her fingers had tainted the entire fountain. “But now you know it’s just me. No criminals in sight.”

She shifted on the balls of her feet. Malfoy’s undivided attention was a heavy thing, the scrutiny near visible on his face—in his constricted pupils, the pull of his lips. His body was positioned in front of the lift, barring Hermione’s only exit.

“The Love Room. What caught your interest in there? Fancy drugging your crush, Granger? Thought you already had Weasel wrapped around your little finger.”

He was too suspicious—too close to the truth. She watched in horror as his eyes actually found her little finger, the one curled around her wand, where linesia still stained her nail bed black.

“Thought I’d just hammer the nail in the coffin. Can never be too careful where such noncommittal wizards are concerned,” her voice wavered.

“Did the reaction work?” Malfoy’s tone—mild disinterest—was so at odds with the question that Hermione merely blinked.

“I’m sorry—what?”

“My reaction at the Solenne, with the wormwood and pearl dust. I'm curious, Granger. Do you remember if it worked?”

She blinked again, stunned. Didn’t know how to answer. Malfoy simply continued, his voice taking on that familiar, lazy drawl.

“I mean, it's in your nature to remember, with that steel trap of a mind. Of course, I did realize the mistake a bit too late. You see, I’d drafted that line of report before I knew you were the damned liaison—funny how fate played that out. The only being in London who would catch the alchemical nuance, and I handed the evidence straight to you.”

Hermione’s breath hitched. The cat was out of the bag.

“So it was you,” she breathed.

Malfoy paused. Reassessed her, the wand in one hand, parchment crumpled in her other fist.

She didn’t even have time to curse him.

The stupefy hit her before her breath could catch—

And then the world went black. 

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Hermione’s head was packed full of cotton and smoke. Light scraped at her eyes. She blinked—once, twice—trying to peel herself back into consciousness. Had to blink again, in shock, when she realized where she was.

Sunlight glimmered through an east facing window, tapering over ornate wood. Her legs were propped over a plush settee, neck aching from the unnatural way it was bent. Heavy, velvet drapes pooled across mahogany floors.

She closed her eyes, pressing her lashes tightly to her cheeks. Perhaps if she tried hard enough, Hermione would wake from the dream. 

Because surely—surely that’s what this was. Just a horrible, horrible dream. One where she hadn’t wandered into the Department of Mysteries. One where Malfoy hadn’t whisked her away to Merlin knew where.

Well. Hermione knew where she was. It didn’t mean that she wanted to acknowledge it.

She opened her eyes once more. The room hadn’t changed. Same gilded ceilings, empty hearth. Same portraits of white haired and steel eyed witches and wizards—all peering curiously at her from their frames. 

Malfoy Manor. 

Hermione hadn’t been back since the war. Her fingers traced the scar on her arm, the ridges of where her skin had healed jaggedly over the slur. 

Mudblood.

She took a deep breath, then rose unsteadily to her feet before stumbling back into the cushions. Her wand was still in the folds of her robes, and she breathed a sigh of relief—but the feeling didn’t last.

Hermione tried to apparate. Found she couldn’t. There was no flicker of magic, no subtle pop . She cursed under her breath. 

This time, she forced her legs to cooperate, shaky as they were. She refused to contemplate how long she’d been unconscious for—such anxiety would only cloud her judgment. Right now, all she needed to do was find a way out.

She tried the window first. It was a monolithic thing—all thick glass and heavy panes. Still, Hermione pushed at it until her arms ached. Cast a simple alohomora . Nothing. Just silence. Indifference.

Finally, out of desperation: bombarda . The glass simply absorbed the spell—gleefully drank the magic whole. She heard a chortle behind her. Swiveled. 

A man with familiar icy eyes stared at her. She scowled, tempted to blow the painting to bits. Then thought better of it.

With every ounce of faux haughtiness Hermione could muster, she addressed the portrait.

“And you are?” Her voice was raspy from disuse, and perhaps dehydration as well.

“I should ask the same of you, but Draco has instructed us to be polite. So polite is what I shall be,” the man said, a classic Malfoy sneer working its way across his face. “Abraxas Malfoy. Decidedly displeased to make your acquaintance, mudblood.”

She hadn’t heard the word in a long time, and it stung just the same as it always had. So really, the reaction to the casual venom couldn’t be helped.

“I’m not particularly pleased, either. Besides, calling me a mudblood feels awfully impolite, Abraxas,” she spat. Her voice cracked—desperation, outrage, all bleeding through despite her best attempt at dignity.

“Only you would get into a sparring match with my ancestors before noon, Granger.”

Hermione jumped. This was the third time in as many days that Draco Malfoy had caught her off guard, and she was starting to utterly despise it.

She didn’t let herself think this time. Simply spun, wand out, hexes at the tip of her tongue. Orbis. Impedimenta. Flipendo. Oppugno.

Once again, she didn’t get the chance to cast a single one. The wand snapped from her fingers before a thought could even form. It hovered by Malfoy’s face—smug, unbothered, infuriatingly calm. 

His eyes glittered with amusement. Hermione wanted to slap him—the same way she had in third year. She marched up, fingers splayed, aim steady.

He caught her wrist before her palm could make contact with a porcelain cheek—before her fingers could so much as graze his infuriating smirk. His fingers were warm. She’d expected ice. 

“Do you really think,” his hand slipped lower, wrapping around the entirety of her forearm like a vice, “that Collège de la Brume hands out Diplômes de Duel to just anyone?”

She was seething. Poison coated every word that fell from her lips. “Why let me keep the wand at all? Just to rub the dueling prowess in my face?”

The moment his eyes met hers, she noticed something was off. Dark circles sagged under his eyes; his complexion paler than normal, cheekbones a touch too sharp. Still, his voice stayed level.

“Interesting fact about the Manor. Nearing the end of the war, Voldemort cast such a paranoid web of wards on the place that it’s practically sentient now. So,” he paused, nodding at her wand, “even though you really want to hex me, Granger, you’ll find that the Manor simply won’t let you.”

He released her hand, assuming that the violence had left her system. He’d thought wrong. 

Hermione didn’t let herself blink—simply struck him against his cheek. She felt the bridge of his nose shatter with a satisfying crunch. Took a step back, admiring her handiwork. 

Blood pooled over Malfoy’s upper lip, dripping to his chin. His eyes widened comically, and a hand flew up to his broken nose. Hermione felt a feral smile curl across her lips. It didn’t matter that she was trapped, that her wand wasn’t currently in her hands—she’d hit him. And it had felt so fucking good. 

She expected retaliation. Some sort of jinx—perhaps he’d cast the cruciatus. Wouldn’t be the first time she was tortured within these walls. 

Instead, Malfoy surprised her yet again: he handed her wand back to her.

She was stunned. He sat down heavily in an upholstered chair, his own wand in hand—muttered episkey under his breath to heal his nose. 

“Sorry.” The word slipped off her tongue without permission. What was she apologizing for? He was the one who had abducted her.

Still, she’d broken his nose—and Hermione herself had not a single injury to show. 

Malfoy laughed, blood dribbling from his lips, staining his perfect teeth. “You just broke my nose, and now you’re apologizing? Every interaction I’ve ever had with you has given me whiplash, Granger.” 

She could say the same. Didn’t. Only tightened her jaw, and sank back onto the settee. Adrenaline had run its course, and only exhaustion remained.

“Why am I here, Malfoy?”

Hermione’s eyes traced the imprint of her hand across his cheek, and found the bruises on her right arm—where his fingers had held her still. He hesitated for once, thrown by her blunt question. She was just tired of verbal warfare.

“Because you figured it out.”

“You let me figure it out,” she hissed.

“No, I simply fucked up,” he snarled, calm demeanor finally cracking. A hand raked through his hair; Hermione clocked it as a nervous tick. She wanted to unravel him. She wanted to understand.

“Why?”

The question was loaded. It asked several things all at once: why brew linesia? Why distribute it? Why agree to investigate it? And finally—why trap her here?

He narrowed his eyes, as if choosing which to answer first. 

“I thought about obliviating you.” 

Hermione shuddered, drawing back into the couch. She held her wand up defensively.

Malfoy merely snorted. “Relax. I’m not going to.” Yet hung in the air like a curse.

“So why am I here? If you’re not going to obliviate me, if you’re going to let me slap you—”

“I didn’t so much as let you as I didn’t expect it—”

“Oh shut it, you great prat.” 

He guffawed. She snickered. Everything was ridiculous, but the humor felt hollow.

His face grew serious. The red on his cheek was so pronounced against the paleness of his skin. It looked like blood. 

“I need help fixing it,” he confessed. 

Hermione blinked owlishly. “What?”

“Don’t make me repeat it. I’m not fond of asking for help.”

“Oh, so we’re back to the grandiose pride, are we—”

“Hermione.”

Her name from his lips silenced her. She looked at him again, at the way his eyes sank into his face, the grim line of his mouth—the fatigue creased across his forehead. 

Malfoy sighed. “Please.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand a single thing, do you know how infuriating that is?”

He took a deep breath. “Then let me explain.”

“Go right ahead.”

“You really can’t keep your mouth shut for a single second, can you,” he marvelled dully. She made a point to answer with silence, simply because she could. He eyed her warily before continuing. 

“I'm responsible for the creation of linesia. It was…” he trailed off. “Experimental.”

“So how did it end up on my desk at the DMLE?”

His mouth twisted. “Accidentally.” 

“Nothing else? What of the systemic drops in Knockturn alley? The galleon greedy distributor?” She snorted, pointed her wand at the portrait of Abraxas Malfoy, waving at the general wealth surrounding them in the parlor. “You’ve got enough money to bathe in. Don’t tell me you want more.”

His nostrils flared. “No. That isn’t me. It’s gotten rather out of hand.”

“So where do I come into this?”

“Well. The options are rather simple here.” Malfoy rose from the chair, long legs making quick work of the distance between them. 

He leaned over her, arms on either side of the settee—caging her in. He was so close that she could smell the bitter coffee on his breath; the whiff of cologne clinging to his collar. 

Hermione didn’t dare open her mouth. Didn’t know what she’d say. 

“We can do two things here. You can agree to work with me,” he started, eyes flicking to her throat, of all places—to the chain that she kept clasped at her collarbone. “Or, I can obliviate you.”

She was immobilized. 

“Your choice, Granger.”

Chapter Text

Draco Malfoy had stunning eyes. Tumultuous as clouds, but only if they were condensed from steel instead of water.

Hermione hated them. 

She hated him; the way his arms currently caged her, the way the Manor trapped her, the fact that she wouldn’t—couldn’t—win in a duel against him. Hated that eyes so pretty were wasted on a man so insidious. A man who had ‘accidentally’, singlehandedly, started a magical drug epidemic.

She wanted to light him aflame. Wanted to gouge his eyes out with the tip of her wand, wanted to hear the sickening crunch of his bones breaking beneath her fingers. Wanted to see his pupils bloodied, feel cartilage shatter like glass. 

She wanted to be free. 

Her choice. Obliviation, or to help him. 

Not much choice, was there?

“Get off me.” The anger was palpable in her words.

He blinked. Maybe he hadn’t realized how close he was. So he moved back across the room—back to pacing like an overly large lion, circling in his cage. Malfoy reminded her of Crookshanks, in that moment. 

But Crookshanks was a kneazle turned house cat, and well—Malfoy was a dragon. 

To sum it up: Hermione was fucked. 

She couldn’t break out of the house with magic. Couldn’t apparate, doubted she could floo—where’d he even keep the powder? Couldn’t so much as take a step without being obliviated.

So, she’d treat him like the insufferable bureaucrats that slunk through the Ministry’s halls. Like how she treated Harry. That thought in particular made her heart thump dully, even as she took a deep breath—her lungs were full, vision clear, nostrils just a bit flared.

“So. Last six years of civility, down the drain. Bloody waste if you ask me.” It was her turn to be conversational, to act like the world hadn’t been turned upside down. As if reality weren’t some absurd, gilded bird-cage. 

Malfoy’s jaw tightened. She could practically hear his teeth gritting from across the room—hoped that one of those precious canines chipped. 

“You have no idea what you’re on about,” he started, voice low, calm, steady. Disgusting.

Negotiation. Diplomacy. Fury would do nothing here.

“What type of help would you want from me?” She snorted. “Great man like you, didn’t think you’d need help—isn’t that what you said about Nott?”

“Yes, well, seems like I’ve found a poison without a cure—isn’t that your job, Granger? Fixing unfixable things.” 

So it was back to Granger. Only he would wield her given name—“Hermione”—as a plea, to manipulate her, to ply her, to make her soft. 

“You didn’t find it. You made it. And now it’s out of control,” she accused. Suddenly, she was on her feet. It’s like she’d lost control of her limbs. Fascinating.

She was the one standing over Malfoy now, staring down at him, at where he sat in his frilly, velvet chair—the thing probably cost more money than some wizards had to their name. 

“So. I want to see you beg. Beg me to help. Do it right, and I just might.” Nevermind that she didn’t know the first thing about curing addiction—addiction didn’t seem like something one could cure anyway. 

His lips twisted, half sneer, half otherworldly fury. Pride was something he’d be forced to give up. She hated it. 

“You want me to beg, Granger?” 

Hermione got the distinct feeling that she’d erred—his tone didn’t make it feel like she had the upper hand. But she was the one looking down at him. He was forced to crane his neck to meet her eyes, forced to either beg or obliviate her. It wasn’t her memory, but his morals—or lack thereof—on the line here.

So why did it feel like she’d lost anyway?

“I want you to remember that this is your mistake, and I want you to repent for it,” she said, because that’s what he’d claimed anyway. 

And really, were they talking about linesia anymore, or was she just demanding an apology for his general existence—for all his mistakes, even those from the war?

“Usually, I’d have a woman take me out before she asks me to beg.”

“You’re disgusting, did you know that?”

“I’m sure I make my mother proud.”

“Your father, certainly. Narcissa’s likely rolling in her grave.”

Malfoy snapped. Hermione had poked the dragon a bit too much, and now he was on his feet, about to breathe fire into her face. 

She didn’t back down; she was but a moth circling flame. 

“You are the most infuriating witch I’ve ever met,” and he uttered the words like an oath—it sank into her bones like praise. Felt like she’d gotten top marks on an exam, like she’d just landed a promotion, become the fucking Minister of Magic herself. 

“Likewise, Malfoy. Witch part and all,” she chimed, and when he opened his mouth to retort, she held up a hand. “Hush. You wouldn’t ask me for help if you didn’t need it—desperately. And as much as I’d like to see you continue to squirm, I’d much rather help the people who are addicted to linesia now.”

Hermione watched Malfoy’s throat bob, Adam's apple rising and falling as he swallowed. His skin was so pale—too pale. He looked ill. She hoped he was. 

When he stayed silent, she carried on. “If I weren’t of some use to you, I’m sure you would’ve already hexed me black and blue—”

“You clearly know my moods so well, Granger, been watching me from afar all these years, have you?”

She bristled. Was so tempted to slap him silly. Didn’t. “If I were you, I’d stop trying to rile me up—there’s a point at which I think I’d rather be obliviated than work with an obnoxious twat like you.”

But that wasn’t true. If Malfoy had created linesia, and really was trying to fix this whole bloody mess, then, well—it really was in Hermione’s best interests to stick around. 

Not just her best interests, either. She thought of that witch in Knockturn alley, with her hollow eyes and rambling words. Of Tia and St. Mungo’s, of bloody Parkinson, of all people—driven to existentialism over some potion. 

Of Harry, struggling with ‘damage control’. 

“I have some terms,” he said, voice gruff with restraint. She only nodded, prodding him to continue. He sat back down, and she mirrored him before he could ask—command—her to do the same.

“First: you must stay here.” He stopped, eyeing her, clearly expecting some sort of rebuttal. Hermione let loose an abrupt laugh.  

"House arrest? Isn't that a bit extreme, even for you? I'll make an Unbreakable Vow. I won't reveal a thing about your involvement, Malfoy," she countered, fighting to keep herself from outright pleading. 

"Be honest, Granger. Would your pure conscience allow you to keep such a thing secret? I bet you'd rather let the truth slip and die for it, if it served the name of justice." Hermione ignored his uncanny dissection of her character. "Besides, I couldn't make an Unbreakable Vow if I wanted to—Voldemort saw to that," he said, lips curling to a sneer. 

Her forehead pulled into a contemplative frown, recalling the detail from the trials so long ago. Death Eater's who wished to make Vows ensuring good behavior found themselves unable to, bound by their oaths of loyalty to the Dark Lord even after his demise.

So it really was obliviation or compliance to all his demands. Obliviation, or stay at the Manor—a glorified prisoner.

Hermione bristled but squared her shoulders before meeting Malfoy's eyes, surprised to find his gaze uncertain.

“What, no snappy comment about how I won’t cage you? Nothing? Shocker."

“Disappointed, are we?” Hermione asked evenly, raised a brow. He rolled his eyes, and she thought the glimpse of uncertainty must have been a trick of light. “It makes sense. The moment I leave the Manor, the wards won’t stop me from eviscerating you. I could run my mouth. You’d lose control,” she continued, making a show of studying her nails. “You’re getting predictable with your old age, I rather think.”

If expressions could kill, Hermione would be dead. Several times within the last ten minutes, really. But maybe she was the cat here—one that was equipped with all nine lives, or at least a feline that had a good two or three left to spare.

“I’ve already instructed the portraits to be polite.”

“Don’t think being called a mudblood is polite, Malfoy.” She addressed her words to both Abraxas and the other Malfoy sitting in front of her.

“You won’t be forced to interact with him, you know.”

“Oh, so you’re implying I’ll be ‘forced to interact’ with others? Wonderful.”

“You could just stay holed up in one corner of the Manor—I was trying to be civil, to extend the full house to you.”

“You do realize I was tortured here during the war, don’t you?” Hermione nearly tore fabric in her haste as she rolled up her sleeve, flashing the scar.

Malfoy’s face was a mask. Illegible. His eyes a dagger, cutting over the healed skin. Her skin crawled, goosebumps lacing their way up her back.

Perhaps, to win this war, she’d need to make him feel—maybe that’s how one handled a man like Malfoy. Maybe she needed to imbue emotion—guilt, grief, shame—into a frigid, selfish heart. 

And Hermione would win. She always did. 

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Malfoy hadn’t said another word. He’d led her up a set of winding stairs—opened a grand door for her, like he was some gentleman and she was a damsel in distress.

Now, Hermione sat in the most opulent room she’d ever seen. Silk sheets, heavy drapes, plush cushions, a bed large enough to host an orgy if she so wished. Rugs that felt like clouds under her tired feet, a hearth so grand she could throw a fête in it. 

The first thing she did was hurl spells at everything in sight.

It was experimental, she told herself. She was testing the wards on the manor. Besides, it was healthy to work the rage out of her system. Productive, even.

The curtains, she found, could not be set aflame. Most things—sadly—could not be destroyed, so she settled to strip them of wealth. The settee was transfigured into a sad stool, the marble of the fireplace into worn, crumbling stone. A wonderful mahogany armoire became a sack; the ottoman under the window a simple plank. 

She dyed every bit of upholstery bloody, Gryffindor red in a fit of vindictive fury. 

Finally, when the tub resembled a cauldron more than a place fit to bathe, she sank into the bed. Only a sprawling desk, the bed, and an empty bookcase stood untouched.

And that was when she let herself collapse. 

The tears were hot—as if her body had boiled the fluid before letting it well in her eyes. As if they were designed to burn and sting. Her hands shook, curled into fists on her lap. Hermione was sure her hair was a mess—found that she didn’t care. 

The luxury was a trap. It was designed to make her feel secure, to trick her into thinking this wasn’t some pretty little cage. She hated it. Hated everything. 

Hermione hadn’t felt this lost, this angry, this hopeless since the war. 

She couldn’t leave; it had been both her choice, and hadn’t. If she’d chosen to leave—to get obliviated—innocents would suffer so long as linesia remained an issue. 

Malfoy had turned his problems into hers. She would’ve loved to see him suffer, if it didn’t come at the cost of her own pain. Of others’. 

So she cried. It was a decision, she told herself, to cry. To expel the negativity from her body in a way that she determined was right. This was reclamation. Tears, at least, were hers, even when nothing else was. 

And then, Hermione slept. The pillows, despite her best efforts to resist them, were lovely; the mattress plush. 

She dreamed of nothing and everything. Of dragons, of amortentia, of Ron’s freckles and Mrs. Weasley’s hands on Tia’s body. Of Pansy’s eyes sunken into that addict’s face. Of Harry’s scar branded across her own forehead. 

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Hermione’s mind wasn’t hers anymore.

It was an observation that sparked equal parts horror and fascination. 

At some point throughout this ordeal, her mind had become her body’s; not hers to control. Her limbic system spiraled out of control, and emotion had won the longstanding war with logic. 

There was nothing practical about stripping her cell—because that’s what this bedroom was—of comfort. Nothing logical about breaking Malfoy’s nose. No real control to be found in surrendering herself to tears and sleep—nothing but incomprehensible dreams and a comatose state in which she left herself vulnerable.

Yet it had all been comforting. 

The reasonable decisions she’d made—those were the ones that had hurt.

The war. Unforgiving, but necessary. Grief-laced. What if she’d just run with her parents to Australia—let them keep their memories of her, and had left it all behind?

Her career. Why had she come back to Britain at all? Theoretically, she was destined for legislation—her mind sharp, her morals sound. But politics were rather dreary. They were nothing compared to alchemy, to experimental transfiguration, to finding the Panacea, to becoming a witch that rivaled Circe or Medea.

Ron. Dating a childhood friend was smart, she supposed. He knew her, had known her, would surely grow with her. So why oh why had they been so inherently incompatible?

The Ministry. Gritting her teeth, swallowing her pride, bending at the will of others. Forever Harry Potter’s little muggleborn sidekick; at school and during war and in the DMLE too.

Malfoy Manor. She was caged. That was the truth. A bird with its wings clipped. But she needed to help figure out linesia, or else—well, or else it was her fault when the next person died. 

So Hermione got out of bed. Forced herself to scrub her face clean in a basin of cold water, to tame her curls, to put on a new set of clothes. 

Exiting the attached washroom, she shrieked.

Somewhere between Dobby’s untimely death and now, Hermione had forgotten house-elves existed. 

The creature had more ears on his body than fat, and was dressed rather meticulously—he puffed out a bony chest, proud of the little pillowcase fashioned as a two piece suit. 

“Hello Miss Granger, Chippy at your service. Chippy is very pleased to meet you, Miss Granger. Master Malfoy didn’t say that Miss Granger was so pretty, you see.”

Hermione laughed. Chippy beamed.

The elf did not seem mistreated; Chippy’s eyes shone, and his skin looked healthy. Her laughter faded, wondering if Malfoy subjected the elf to psychological horrors instead.

“Chippy, do you work alone here?”

“No, Miss Granger, Chippy has his mother, and two other friends. Manor’s so big, Chippy would be in big trouble if he were alone.”

Her eyes sharpened. “Trouble?”

“Yes, Chippy doesn’t know how to garden. Chippy would have to learn, Miss Granger, and Chippy is not fond of learning.”

Hermione’s shoulders slackened, and she found herself sporting a small smile. 

“Call me Hermione, please—if we’re to be friends, you must.” Chippy’s eyes widened. “Is there a reason you’re here?”

“Master Malfoy sent Chippy to check on you, Miss Hermione,” he said, stuttering over her name. “Chippy’s to bring you to dinner.” 

“Dinner?” 

“Yes, wherever Miss Hermione would like it. Master Malfoy said that Miss Hermione would not like the grand dining hall.” Master Malfoy had been correct, for once.

“Would it be possible if a tray were sent up?” Dinner meant that a full day had passed since she’d been in the Ministry—a full day since she’d been whisked away. She would need to get things sorted, then. “And, while you’re at it Chippy—can you procure Malfoy for me?”

Chippy blinked at her. “Miss Hermione would like to eat with Master Malfoy?”

Hermione scowled. “No, most certainly not. Send him after dinner.”

“Send him,” the elf echoed. She was tempted to laugh again. 

“Yes, tell him Miss Hermione insists. Malfoy and I have things to discuss.”

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Hermione held court over the desk. She’d repositioned it to the center of the room—made it so that her back faced the hearth, and that she was always looking at the door. 

Malfoy walked in at exactly quarter past eight, shockingly punctual as per her request. He looked irritated, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, trousers hanging loosely from his hips, hair mussed in a way Hermione had never before seen. 

So this is what Draco Malfoy looked like in the comfort of home.

With no small amount of shock, she noted that his cuffs were rolled to his elbows. The Dark Mark on his left arm writhed, almost as if Voldemort were still alive. She thought back to Pansy’s mark, to Theodore Nott whom she’d seen just a week ago. 

She’d never seen any of Malfoy’s scars—hated that even a glimpse had made her curious. 

“Commandeered an office, Granger? Better than that wardrobe they’ve got you in at the DMLE, isn’t it?” He did not comment on the way she'd artfully transfigured the room. 

“It’s a bit gaudy for my tastes, but I’ll make do, at least ’til I can get a designer to pop around,” she said, examining his face. Malfoy’s lips twitched ever so slightly. Interesting.

“That’d truly make my mother roll in her grave, I think,” he replied, tone a little too casual. She understood. Malfoy was trying to show her that he could joke about his dead mother. He was telling her that her words couldn’t hurt anymore. No matter, she’d find a new way.

“Have a seat, Malfoy.”

“Oh, playing professor, are we? I think I’ve had this fantasy once or twice before.” He conjured a chair and turned it, leaning forward on the seat-back while facing Hermione and the fire that burned behind her. 

She raised a brow, mildly perturbed. “Your foul mouth has in fact, become predictable,” she said, repeating herself from earlier.

“Bugger. Was hoping I’d catch you off guard with that one.”

“Won’t be happening. We’re here to discuss business.”

He looked amused. “Business? What sort of business, Granger? Care to invest in Malfoy Holdings, do you?”

“Not a chance in the world. Rather, the logistics of this,” and her mouth twisted before she carried on, “arrangement. This… thing. The plan. Everything.” 

Hermione had never been so confused about so many things in her life. Perhaps she hadn’t lost control of her mind—maybe the organ had left her body entirely.

Malfoy nodded. “Right. So crack on. Assuming you’ve got a list hiding in that mane you call hair, anyway.”

“Funny.” She didn’t laugh, didn’t think she could even if she wanted to. “First order of business: what does it do?”

“Going to need you to be a bit clearer, Granger—”

“Oh you bloody well know what I’m talking about here—”

“No, I really don’t, if only you could articulate a bit better—”

“Linesia, you fucking moron, I don’t need to spell it out every time, do I?”

The two had leaned across the desk, constructing a frontier in the middle. Hermione realized they were nose to nose; she leaned back in her chair, forcing her spine straight. Malfoy did the same. 

She huffed. He glared. This would never work. Not in a million years. 

They simply weren’t built to cooperate, were they? Slytherin, Gryffindor. Death Eater, Order of the Phoenix. Wealthy, not. Pureblood, muggleborn. Both equally stubborn. It was doomed.

He seemed to realize the same, sighing. “It’s a potion, Granger. It’s euphoric. It’s addictive. It makes magic easier.”

“Yes. Thank you for telling me what I already knew,” she cringed, stopping herself from spewing more venom. “I mean to say—why create it? What niche does it fill? Why do you feel the need to make magic easier?”

“That’s not what it was designed to do.”

“That’s it? I get nothing else here?”

“You don’t need to know anything else.” His eyes flashed. “It was experimental. It didn’t work. Someone stole the methodology. It’s addictive. And a problem. And my fault.”

And that was the crux of it, she realized. Hermione didn’t need to induce guilt within Malfoy; he already felt it. Was frustrated by it. She felt unmoored.

She cleared her throat. “So who's behind it?”

“Don’t know.”

“Who did you share details with?”

“That,” he spat, voice low, leaving no room for argument, “is none of your business. I will only say this once: if you poke your nose where it doesn’t belong, I will not hesitate to obliviate you. To send you back to your sad corner of the Ministry, to slave away over whatever it is that you do. I will find another competent fool—and trust me Granger, there are many of those in this world.”

“Noted. So before I begin to even sort through this mess, what am I meant to do about my life?”

He looked at her dully. “What?”

“My life,” she repeated. “What do I tell my boss? My friends?” She ignored that they were one and the same.

“Quit your job.”

Hermione bristled. “Are you out of your mind?”

“No. What’s keeping you there anyway? Doubt the DMLE's keen to give their only competent employee time off. Seems like an easy decision to me.”

And of course it seemed an easy decision for him. Hermione imagined that he hadn't worked for a single thing in his life—had probably been handed everything and anything without even needing to ask for it. But her corner of the DMLE, drab as it was, had been fought for. Hermione had bled for every ounce of minimal recognition she had thus far accrued. 

So the truth slipped out too easily, against her will. “The only reason I took this bloody case was to get a promotion!”

Malfoy stilled, eyes widening ever so slightly. And then he laughed.

Watching Draco Malfoy laugh was a surreal experience. His eyes creased at the corners, the bridge of his nose scrunched, and his face softened in a very unfamiliar way. She felt like she was watching the man evolve. Perhaps someone should study the phenomenon. 

“Goody-goody Granger took on a case about magical addiction for personal gain? Merlin, is that good.” He grinned at her, and it was more a blade than smile. “You would’ve made a half-decent Slytherin, Hermione Granger.” 

“I reckon I’d be good at anything I tried.”

“So. Quit.”

Another choice. Quit her job, or be obliviated and a perpetrator of manslaughter. Quit, or have innocents suffer. Her career that she’d fought tooth and nail for, or human lives. Choose herself, or choose others?

"It bodes poorly that you think this process will take so long that I can't just take time off." A deflection, but it gave Hermione time to steady her voice. "I can just write for the next week off."

Malfoy arched a brow and sneered. "It takes nearly three weeks to brew linesia itself. Reckon Potter'll be enthused by you taking more than a month off in the middle of a heavily publicised crisis?"

A stone of dread sank to the pit of her stomach. Hermione forced her face to stay smooth—took a page out of Malfoy's book, hoping that her eyes would not give away the anguish. Then, she took a deep breath, resigning herself to fate. 

“If I quit, I can’t very well just send an owl with a resignation letter. You think Harry would ever buy that?”

Malfoy shrugged again, but there was a triumphant gleam in his eyes. “Who knows what, if anything at all, goes through Potter’s head? Often, I find myself wondering if there’s anything in there but owl dung.”

Hermione found herself laughing involuntarily. It was awful. She clamped her lips shut around the sound, and glowered. Malfoy’s smile sharpened, turning predatory. He drummed slender fingers over the table—Hermione noted the rings lining his hands. Silver, one embedded with what looked like a fang, others with various crests. 

He leaned closer. She was hit by the scent of cloves. 

“Say,” and to her alarm, he grabbed a bit of her hair. Hermione was frozen—found that she couldn’t move. “What if I went in your place?”

The two hung in suspended motion, time slowing to a crawl.

Malfoy clutched a curl between his index finger and thumb, hands so close to Hermione's face that she could see where callouses roughened otherwise smooth skin. She could smell the ink clinging to his knuckles; tannic, metallic, jarringly familiar. Breath lodged itself stubbornly against her throat, stretching a millisecond to what felt like eternity instead.

Regaining autonomy, she furrowed her brows. “What?”

Her question broke the spell. Malfoy tugged quickly. Hermione yelped. He held a strand between two nimble fingers, and grinned so wide his teeth glinted. 

“Polyjuice, Granger. What if I quit your job for you?”

Chapter Text

Hermione had not expected to begin her day by handing Malfoy her clothes.

There had been a long argument in the morning, and contrary to what many believed, Hermione was not a morning person. At the very least, she was not sociable in the morning—the early hours of the day were for productivity, not small talk.

Now, she stared at herself in a full length mirror—noted how she looked in borrowed clothes. 

Fashion had never been something Hermione concerned herself with. She dressed for work—to be professional and practical. Before work, there had been the war. Before the war, there had been Hogwarts and the school’s uniform.

So if she did not care about her clothes, then why did it rankle her to give up yesterday’s to Malfoy? The pantsuit and matching robes were not anything special. Typical Ministry grade black robes—loosely fitted at the waist, a well of fabric that pooled at her feet. What she wore everyday.

Hermione frowned at her reflection. At the sinking bags under her eyes, the way they bloomed purple against her white skin. The unnatural sheen of her pupils themselves—the brown was glazed. Her lips were cracked in the morning air; blood welled at a cut at the edge of her lips. She must have picked at the dry skin unwittingly. 

She sighed. This is who she was. This was her life—a cumulation of all the decisions she had made to this day. So Hermione wiped at the corner of her lip, and commanded herself not to cry. 

──────── ☾☼ ────────

The night before, she had dismissed Malfoy’s ridiculous polyjuice notion. There was no way anyone would buy his impersonation of her; he would be too snobby, too cold. It would never work.

Besides, the only reason she had agreed to “quit” her job was so that she would be given a chance to leave the Manor—it was true that Harry would never let a simple letter of resignation slide. 

She had hoped that the conundrum of needing her to quit versus needing her to stay in the Manor would lead to freedom. That maybe Malfoy would allow her back to London for just a few—likely supervised—hours. But a few hours would have been enough for Hermione.

So they had ended their discussion at a vexing stalemate. 

She woke up the next morning still in her rumpled clothes from yesterday, limbs tangled in gaudy, red sheets, and had been momentarily disoriented. Her sheets at home were a soft cream, and certainly not made of silk. 

Her first fear was that she’d somehow made it into Ron’s bed, which had made her sit straight up in alarm. Had she caved to the idea of comfort, to the seduction of familiarity?

But within seconds, Hermione registered the room: the sack where an armoire had been, the desk positioned in front of the fireplace, the cauldron shaped tub peeking at her through the washroom’s open door.

Dread was a physical weight—an anchor, yanking Hermione’s heart to her gut. 

Dully, she wondered what remained of the foyer where she had been tortured. 

On especially bad nights, she would wake in cold sweat, tremors coursing through her limbs—just as the cruciatus had. Other nights, she stood by and watched as Harry, or sometimes Ron or her parents, were the ones being tortured. 

Hermione mindlessly clutched at her left forearm—felt the ridges of the scar through her thin sleeve. But she didn’t dwell. There were more important things to think of.

Namely: linesia. 

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, bare feet landing against cold wood. The parquet floors were dark—the entire room was drenched with shadow, and the air was thick. 

First, she shoved aside the drapes, hoping that some morning light would repair her mood. A dismal English overcast is all she found waiting for her. So she let out a sigh, watching as a ring of moisture coated the window pane.

Then, she took to exploration—theoretically. Ignoring the crust coating her lashes and her parched throat, Hermione cautiously opened the doors. She’d half expected to find them locked. She had only made it two steps out of the room when a set of ears appeared before her.

Elf ears. Chippy stood at her feet, all curious eyes and the scent of fresh laundry; the pillowcase had been washed, and was now clean. Decidedly chipper for such an early hour. Hermione mentally lauded herself for the terrible pun.

“Morning Miss Hermione! Chippy is here to offer you breakfast.” 

And bless his soul, the thing looked shy—eager to please. She’d never had anyone anticipate and wait on her every need before.

“I was thinking I’d like to have a look around before eating this morning, Chippy.”

“Oh, but Chippy has been sent with special instructions before Master Malfoy leaves for work, you see—he said he needs to settle things with Miss Hermione today,” he said, wringing his little hands. He was nervous. Would Malfoy harm Chippy—punish him, as Lucius had with Dobby—if Hermione didn’t heed his demands?

“Where would he take breakfast? Does he really require I eat with him?”

“No. Master Malfoy has only requested Miss Hermione’s clothes—‘right off her back, if she so pleases,’ is what he said.”

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Hermione had not taken Chippy’s request seriously—had not expected that Malfoy would storm up the stairs and make the demands in person. But he had. 

And somehow, she had found herself begrudgingly instructing the man on how to impersonate her. 

He looked so odd, wearing her skin. She had thought herself much warmer toned than Malfoy—found that her flesh was nearly as pale as his. Hermione needed more sun, clearly. 

And the hair. 

It was almost comedic, seeing him pull at the curls that spilled down his back. He looked irritated by them (“Why the bloody hell is hair so heavy, Granger?”), and she’d had to braid the mane for him. It was weirdly intimate, in a very grotesque way.

Worst of all were the eyes. 

Hermione didn’t think her eyes were cold, but somehow, they looked almost right paired with Malfoy’s signature sneer. The way her lips stretched on his face—but no, it was her face, wasn’t it?—looked natural. 

It was not Malfoy inhabiting her skin, but rather her mannerisms, that had made her so profoundly uncomfortable. 

“I’ll need your wand.” 

She flinched. 

To borrow her face was one thing, but her wand? Hermione had used the same wand since first year—the same one she’d had since visiting Ollivander’s that one fateful summer. Ten and three quarter inches, vine wood entwined with dragon heartstring. It was a loyal, stubborn thing. It was hers. 

She ran her forefinger down the wood—felt a small notch at the base from where it had nearly snapped. Frowned at Malfoy, but really, she was just frowning at herself. 

His face—her face—softened infinitesimally. Hermione felt disoriented again; she looked rather pretty when she wasn’t frowning. There was a small jut to her upper lip that faded, and her jaw—it looked almost elegant, even when the muscles went slack.

Did she herself look beautiful? Or was she only made attractive when another wore her skin?

“Only if I can have yours in exchange.” Her voice sounded small, and she hated it.

“Naturally.”

Hermione blinked. He had agreed so readily. 

She saw him mirror the expression, watching the way her eyes on his face widened owlishly. Merlin. It was endearing, almost—seeing curiosity and confusion play in equal parts across her own face.

“So,” she started, and then paused. Recollected herself. “You’d give me your own wand?”

“Yes.” He stepped closer, and she was confused. 

He was her height, and the eye contact was easy—she didn’t need to look up. They were on equal ground.

“No issues with it?” 

“I am taking from you.” No clarification on what, she noted. “It’s only fair that you get something in return.”

Hermione couldn’t help the snort. “Fair? Since when were you concerned with fair?”

Curiously, hurt flashed across his face. (Her face. Hermione was having trouble keeping it all straight.) Did she wear emotion so freely?

“I’m not concerned with what’s right, Granger, but I’ve always been bound to do what’s fair. It’s just that the definition of fair has been rather changed.”

A moment of seriousness, where all pretenses dropped away. Like looking into a fractured mirror—one of those at the circuses her parents used to take her to, where nothing ever looked right.

“Merlin, Malfoy. I don’t always sound so wise. You’re rather good at sounding as self-aware as I am. Maybe you’d make for a believable Hermione Granger after all.”

After that, the tension snapped—dissipated through the air like little granules of dust. Malfoy’s lips curved into a reluctant smile, one that looked decidedly his, even against her lips.

“I’ve had to take paid time off for this, you know. Theo’s already sent me a belligerent note, asking why-oh-why I’ve left him alone with the day’s work, and that surely there’s no ailment of the physical world that could prevent me from shouldering my burden.”

Hermione laughed, and this time, she didn’t tamp down on the sound. It was ok to laugh around herself, she thought. To laugh at—with?—herself.

“Do me a favor—bring back the Bryn vs. Studgley file off my desk, yeah?” She walked over, and gave Malfoy her wand. Plucked his from an outstretched hand—felt a brush of skin against her own. Warm. “I cast with my right hand, Malfoy.” 

“I know, Granger.” 

And then he was gone, and she was on her own again.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Chippy was a force of nature. 

Hermione could not convince the elf that she didn’t want breakfast, or brunch, or really any elaborate morning meal. No matter how much she insisted that simple coffee would do, he would not budge.

In fact, he was quite obstinate, and—fearful?

“Miss Hermione. Chippy’s mother will have his head if you are not well-fed.”

“Your mother?”

“Potsy, Miss Hermione. Does all the cooking around here.”

She followed him down the marble stairs—found that she was not in the entrance hall, but a foyer in a different wing. Merlin. What family needed this much space? The walls were statue-esque, the ceilings painted in fresco and murals. Hermione wanted to lie on the floor and simply observe.

“What other elves work here, Chippy?”

“Lumi and Cogs, Miss Hermione. Cogs is Master Malfoy’s favorite, and Lumi does the cleaning.”

“And what do you do?”

Chippy frowned. “Chippy doesn’t have any particular job. Mother calls Chippy a nuisance, but Chippy thinks Master Malfoy likes it.” He smiled. Shocked, Hermione simply laughed. “Also, Master Malfoy has instructed that Miss Hermione must not be nosy in the West Wing.”

Be nosy in. She snorted. Hermione was not nosy; she was curious. Warning her away from the West Wing would only make her want to explore it more. Once she figured out where it was, that is. 

“Thank you, Chippy. Now, can you show me to the gardens? I’ll take my breakfast outdoors, I think.” She was certain they’d be delightful this time of year. Besides, Hermione wanted to test her cage a bit more—prod at the bars, see how far they’d bend. 

She wanted to see if the bars could break.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Late August on English soil had never looked so divine. 

Malfoy Manor—thoroughly ensconced in waves of morning fog—glittered. Dew settled like tears against unfurling petals. Roses, delphinium, lilies and hydrangeas littered the grounds—all soft white and baby blue and pale pink. Little hints of red from hybrid shrub roses. Fronds of bracken, sage green and inviting under pale, overcast light.

It was a dream. The entire estate was a wolf wearing sheep’s skin—a daydream shaped like a nightmare, Malfoy’s mind imprisoned in Hermione’s own skin.

She was delighted. It was miserable. She sat under a gnarled alder tree and simply stared—drank the scenery in. Moisture from the grass seeped through her pants, through her very flesh itself—burrowed its way into bone. 

Chippy left her with simple fare: crusty bread and sharp cheese, and a bundle of soft grapes. Fig jam, which she had not asked for, but found rather pleasant. A half dozen hard boiled eggs, and a sloshing mug of freshly brewed tea.

Hermione wanted to cry once again. 

The wrought iron fences were as far as she could venture. It was impossible to clamber over them—just a touch to the cruel metal, and her skin sung in pain. In her frustration, she’d lashed out with her foot. Her ankle may have been sprained.

She’d cast a barrage of spells at it—with Malfoy’s wand.

Nothing, of course. If anything, the fence seemed to have climbed higher, like the estate were mocking her. Hermione was torn between curiosity and frustration, as she so often was. What wards had the Dark Lord woven over the Manor to make it… sentient? 

So she lounged in the grass. After finishing her meal, she lay down—let her head thud against the curling roots of the ancient tree, and stared up towards the grim sky. Through twisted branches, Hermione watched the clouds drift by.

The damned things reminded her of Malfoy’s eyes.

But, she mused to herself, his eyes were not as volatile as the sky. The clouds were not fluffy—they were heavy, tumultuous, and ready to unleash a torrent of rain. And Hermione could not imagine Malfoy crying. The mere thought made her snort in derision.

She found herself longing for a book, for something to pass the time. What had she done before Hogwarts? She’d read, of course. But if Hermione hadn’t been a witch, what sort of life would she have led?

Maybe she would have painted. But no, Hermione did not have an artistic hand. Maybe she would’ve been a muggle researcher—the kind who worked in labs till the crack of dawn, with nothing but vials and tubes and molecules drifting through her mind.

Or maybe it would have been the government. Politics. She imagined muggle politics to be just as dreary as wizarding ones—as dreary as the British sky.

Perhaps she would have lived in France. Not in Paris, but somewhere more like Versailles. Rolling gardens and crumbling estates. Just history and the earth—jarringly, the Manor reminded her of the commune. Just air drenched in magic and light.

Hermione would not be herself without magic, she realized. She would be something entirely different—like the polyjuiced version of herself she’d glimpsed this morning.

Versailles had been the Athanor and transfiguration so thick it had been a drug. It was Malfoy under the French sun, the world painted in peace instead of magical war.

She wanted to go back. It was a brittle realization. So she let her mind take her back to Versailles—to sun, and grass so green, so bright that it stung her eyes.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

June. Northern France. The sky, an endless stretch of dazzling blue—clouds an afterthought, dollops of cream, crowning a land painted vivid green.

Hermione was lost in the hedge maze—surrounded by jasmine and lavender, sticky florals coating her tongue and throat. The air tasted cloy, like the honeyed brioche clutched in her hands; the one she’d bought impulsively from the magical quarter’s boulangerie. The bread was still warm. 

Freedom felt a bit like a cage, one that trapped you in glorious bars of choice. The Athanor was stunning, class was immersive, and the war was over. It was just Hermione and magic—transfiguration without bounds. 

But the hedge maze was properly infuriating.

She plopped down onto a stone bench. Heat curled through the air, and wasps flitted around her head. Her hair was tamed into what she liked to think was an elegant chignon. Hermione was trying very hard to be French.

A book lay open across her knees, and she made sure her sticky hands didn’t make contact with the frail pages. The words swam through her sun-drunk brain; like they went through one eye and out the other. Although that saying really only worked with ears, and not eyes. 

Motion caught her distracted eye—a figure, sailing, soaring through the sky. A bird, perhaps. 

Upon closer inspection, it was not a bird, but rather a wizard on a broom. The French were not prolific fliers in the way the English were—nobody in Versailles played quidditch, thank you very much. 

So Hermione studied the wizard, flitting by like a bird on a broom. Imagine her surprise when she realized it was Draco bloody Malfoy.

It had been two years since the end of the war—one since she had seen this boy. Though they were both twenty now, and decidedly no longer children.

What was he doing in Versailles?

She watched him reach dizzying heights, circling towards the sun. He reminded her vaguely of Icarus, or a moth drawn to flame—destined to burn.  

Maybe Malfoy was just like her, in a twisted, broken way. Maybe he’d fled Britain to run from his past—to ignore his battle scars the way Hermione was trying to.

He was so distant that Hermione couldn't bother to indulge any form of righteous anger. The sun was too bright and the sky too blue and her pastry too sweet and intellectual horizons too broad. Île-de-France was untouched by Britain's war; by Hermione's past. She would like it to remain that way. 

So she turned back to her book, and ignored the Death Eater streaking through the sky like a shooting star—one that wasn’t afraid to fall in broad daylight.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Peace never lasted long. Not in France, and certainly not at Malfoy Manor. But then again, searching for peace at Malfoy Manor was a bit of a silly endeavor to begin with. 

Chippy had found Hermione an ancient tome from the fifteenth century—one about obscure magical botany, and she’d settled against the tree trunk to read. Herbology had always been one of her least favorite subjects, but now, with flowers breathing at her neck and linesia trickling down her spine, Hermione felt that plants were rather interesting, after all. 

So she read about wild variants of mnemonea and subsequent accounts of hallucination, and the varying effects of moondew as collected during different lunar phases; brushed up on night-blooming scurra, and how to properly harvest it (just after dusk, right as the petals unfurl).⁹

Hermione took notes on the scurra, wondering if the leaves only imitated amortentia's fumes, or if it would be possible to infuse the petals into substances to mimic the love potion's effects. 

The Manor would certainly have a greenhouse. She’d demand Malfoy take her there after he successfully quit her job. She decided to not think of it—to not mourn the loss of her career. Besides, she hadn’t really wanted it, had she?

Really, Hermione just had too many questions for Malfoy. She wanted to know what linesia was for—after all, if she were to help sort this debacle, she’d have to understand the origins and intents of the potion, at the very least.

While reading, she took little notes in the margins—but the notes formed little questions: how will Malfoy react to my questions? How will I manipulate him—how will I successfully extract information from him?

She stilled. That’s what it was, wasn’t it? Hermione’d had the same thought yesterday—that she’d have to manipulate Malfoy, to force him to heal in order to win. 

When he flooed in from the Ministry, she was prepared.

It was just past four on a Tuesday—and after lunch on Tuesday as Hermione Granger, working in the DMLE, was a dreadful time. She knew from firsthand experience, after all.

She watched as the polyjuice wore off in live time—as her hair fell from Malfoy’s face, as his nose protruded from her soft cheeks. It was entirely bizarre. 

When the transformation finished, he was left holding a case file; Bryn vs. Studgley. He’d remembered. But something felt so unnervingly off .

Gone was the simple ease of the morning. Back in his own bones, dressed in his own ghostly skin, Malfoy was cold once more. Just marble and ice sewn into life. 

So the truce was over. 

Hermione held out his wand. The thing had been shockingly cooperative. He sneered in response, and it was striking how normal the expression looked—at how odd it had looked on her face, and how right it looked on his.

“Your wand is a menace, Granger,” he uttered, handing it back to her. His words were clipped. 

“Yours was not, to my surprise. Maybe you need a new one.” She tried for lightness, for something—testing to see if the cold exterior would crack, give just an inch. Nothing. Just frosty eyes and an equally cold scowl.

“Your coworkers—incompetent, the lot of them. Nobody seemed surprised to see you quit, either. Even Potter seemed resigned to his fate. Everyone but you seems to realize that you’re too good for them.”

She hesitated. “Did nobody notice… anything? That—”

“That perfect bloody Granger was actually a fucking Death Eater? No, nobody noticed.” He laughed, and the sound was cold—it was not the sound she’d heard last night. “Little sad, isn’t it, that Potter didn’t notice anything off about his best friend.”

He was cruel. A monster. Hermione didn’t know why she’d considered any alternative at all.

She tossed the book—his wand—at his feet. Found that she was storming upstairs, line of practiced questions discarded. Fuck linesia—he could fix the mess himself. He wanted to make her a prisoner? Then she’d be a damn prisoner. No need to help.

And the rage felt good—until she heard him call out.

“Wait, Granger.” She turned at the bannister, meeting his slate grey eyes. He was watching her, ascertaining if she’d flee. “Thought you’d barrage me with infinite questions the moment I got back.”

Hermione simply canted her head. “They’re written in the margins of the pages—doesn’t matter, Malfoy,” she said, letting her own voice turn to ice. “None of it matters, frankly. Do what you want, what you please. It’s what you’ve done your entire life.”

That seemed to set him off again. “Whatever I want?”

“Yeah. You heard me. You created linesia—Merlin knows what for, I don’t care to ask when you won’t answer—probably something inane, to help your dueling prowess, who cares—”

His words cut through the tense air like steel. “I did what I had to do. Some of us are not so pampered by the privilege of choice.” The veiled insult barely registered. Hermione was too busy watching him peel his sleeve back—over the Dark Mark.

In the cold light of the stairwell, the curse crackled to life; but no, that wasn’t right. It writhed against his skin, like death. She shivered, but found that she couldn’t look away. He met her eyes, before opening his mouth once more.

“Look, Granger. Look at how it’s eating at my skin.” So she looked, compelled by curiosity and the odd, feverishly earnest undertone of his voice—like Malfoy was dying to be seen. 

“I didn’t start this to become some sort of dueling prodigy. I was simply hoping to slow inevitable death.” And Hermione saw then what the Dark Mark had become. It coiled up Malfoy’s arm, sunk its fangs into his veins—discolored them black like death itself.

She realized, distantly, as if her mind had disconnected from her body, what Malfoy meant.

That he was a dying man, desperate to live.

Chapter Text

Death and Malfoy were suitable companions. With his pale eyes and even paler skin, the drawn complexion, generally sharp features and deadly words, Draco Malfoy already seemed like a ghost at times. 

So the Dark Mark that stretched across his forearm—that meandered across his skin—did not draw the eye. It blended in; it was a part of him, in the same way his nose was part of his face, or in the same way his sneer was a permanent fixture.

But at the moment, his lips were pulled into a subtle frown. Hermione caught the way his fingers trembled—just a bit—where they rested against his shirt sleeves. 

“Why’s it like that?” She flinched a bit, even as the question fell from her lips. Her voice was harsh, but then again, this was Malfoy, and there would be nothing but harsh words between them, so maybe the tone was okay—even if his Dark Mark was killing him.

Karma, Hermione thought judiciously. It’s only fair that his crimes, his allegiance to Voldemort, was what spelled his end. Yes, he had been just a boy, but she had been just a child too. 

He only fidgeted under her stare—which again, only felt fair. He’d drawn attention to it, so it was only fair that Hermione looked. Curiously, his discomfort was not satisfactory at this moment. Perhaps the air was too tense.

“Nobody knows,” he said. He looked up to where she leaned against the balustrade of the second floor landing. The wood dug into her elbows, but Hermione held still. “Shit just hurts like all hell, and there’s no way to… reverse it.”

She blinked. “Nobody. Implying others know about your curse?” Curse seemed like an apt descriptor. Besides, calling it karmic justice would only incense her gracious host further.

He hesitated just a beat. Started climbing up the stairs. Hermione fought the urge to flee back towards her room—she would stand her ground. The truth was, Malfoy reminded her a bit of a predator, and her a mouse trapped in the cage with him.

“I’m not the only Death Eater left in the entire world, Granger. Didn’t realize you had such a poor impression of me.” His tone was self-deprecatory. Hermione found herself at a bit of a loss. “The experimentation was done to find a way to reverse the effects of the curse. It doesn’t quite dispel whatever’s going on with the Dark Mark, but it certainly slows the deterioration.”

His blond hair glinted in the late afternoon light. This was the most information Malfoy had ever given her voluntarily. Something had happened today, for him to lower his defenses so spectacularly. 

But his face looked the same. The eye bags were purple—like belladonna blooming under silver eyes. Hermione had spent too much time in the gardens today, if she was seeing flower petals in Malfoy’s face.

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, nibbling at the torn skin. Other Death Eaters, ones who bore the Dark Mark, were suffering in the same way Malfoy was. As Malfoy reached the landing, she broke the silence.

“So you gave others linesia. And I’m supposed to believe one of them managed to replicate it—and mass-produce it?”

He mirrored her posture, leaning against the rail, face darkening in equal parts contemplation and reservation. “I didn't give anyone anything. But I'm not as tight-lipped as I once was.” 

Hermione snorted, even as her mind raced. Theodore Nott. Blaise Zabini. Pansy Parkinson. Merlin knew who else Malfoy was friends with—someone he had confided in was surely to blame for this. She remembered the way he’d sworn at her yesterday, when she had pried. Hermione had to choose her next move precisely—she had to take advantage of the oddly vulnerable state he was in.

“Spit it out, Granger,” said Malfoy, voice tired. “Your curiosity has a physical presence.”

She snorted again. “What does curiosity look like on my face, then?”

He looked thrown off—she was too. Endless questions, and this is the one she’d chosen to ask. “Like it always does, I s’pose.” He relaxed infinitesimally. Maybe it had been the right choice. 

“Call me intrigued.” And she was—really. What did he know about her facial expressions? The two had gone to school together for seven years. They’d been on opposite sides of a war. Versailles. Paris. The Ministry—as coworkers, peers once more. “Tell me, are you proficient in reading my face—my eyes?”

Hermione took a step forward unconsciously. She was fixated on Malfoy’s pupils—because if he really did know how to read her, she’d have to learn to understand those opaque eyes. 

And they lightened, just a touch. From cool iron to a sterling silver, glinting—amusement. Her mouth quirked in victory.

“Reckon I’ve spent enough time ‘round you to figure the basics out, yeah,” but he didn’t sound amused. He sounded tired, resigned to fate—to a destiny of being bound by the curse rippling across his arm, of being bound to Hermione Jean Granger, smartest witch of her age. A mudblood. 

“Tell me,” she started, stepping closer again. 

How will I manipulate him—how will I successfully extract information from him?

The question reemerged in her mind, and a tentative answer began to form. 

She reached out one hand, slowly, so as not to scare him away—as if she were approaching a wild animal, not a man. Softened her voice, before trying yet another question.

“What do you see in my face, when you think I have questions racing through my mind, Malfoy?”

He tensed, but didn’t back away. Maintained eye contact, because for them, such small things had always been war. The first to take a step back, to tear their eyes away? They had lost. 

“It feels like looking at a fire, Granger,” he murmured. “Like I’ll get burnt.”

Her fingers grazed against his forearm. She waited for him to flinch, to cover up the mark, to hit her with a spell, or even his fist. 

Nothing. He didn’t move an inch. Hermione didn’t know who was winning anymore. She felt dizzy from the tension dripping through the air—it coated her tongue, and every breath was sticky going down her throat. Like molasses, like time and space had been slowed and honeyed—had been made more viscous.  

She turned her eyes to the snake coiling through the skull. Traced her finger up the discolored veins. From where blue turned to black, and venom tore at his skin. 

Hermione had never touched a Dark Mark. This close, she could see the skin looked burned, and that there were inscriptions, illegible and tangled against each other, creating jagged edges—like the way her own flesh curled over Bellatrix’s scar. 

“How was work, in the DMLE? Different to the Department of Mysteries, I’m sure,” she continued. 

Apparently she would ask every question that didn’t matter. Not why is your Dark Mark eating you alive , or when did all this start? After Voldemort’s death? No, she had chosen an absolutely inane question instead.

Which was fine. It gave her more time to study him the way he was—as unguarded as she’d ever seen him.

“Like I said. Quitting was easy. Felt like nobody expected you to stick around.” 

She let out a hollow laugh. “Well, after being passed up for promotions year after year, I guess not even Harry expected me to enjoy the office you so eloquently labeled a ‘shoebox’.” 

Now, he was the one studying her, as if he could peel away her skin and see the way blood pumped through her veins—as if that would let him understand her. 

Hermione met his eyes again. Somehow, she felt like she’d lost the upper hand—had no idea how, and it didn’t seem like Malfoy was winning either. 

Right now, they both seemed as they were: tired. 

“You know, I didn’t call your office a shoebox to insult you.”

Another pause, and a blink. “What?”

He cleared his throat softly—she wouldn’t have heard it if she were even a step further, wouldn’t have caught the way his throat bobbed with the sound. “The venom was directed at the Ministry, not you,” he elaborated. 

Hermione was stunned. Malfoy had never expressed an ounce of sympathy for her, ever. And now, a prisoner in Malfoy Manor, threatened with obliviation, faced with a magical addiction epidemic—he admitted that he pitied her. Implied that she deserved a better lot than what she’d been given.

Her hand was still on his arm, fingers curling around his wrist. This was a new kind of war. Who would acknowledge the discomfort first? 

“One day in my shoes—in my skin, really—and you’ve grown a conscience?” A humorless laugh erupted from her chapped lips. “Should’ve spiked the Slytherin table’s pumpkin juice with polyjuice potion back at school. Could’ve saved us a great deal of pain, I bet.”

And just like that, the spell ended. Malfoy tore his arm from her grip, pulling his sleeve back into place. His eyes were closed off once more, and his face had hardened to stone. Hermione didn’t understand. 

“Trust me, Granger. The polyjuice had nothing to do with it.”

And without another word, Malfoy stormed off, and Hermione was left alone in the foyer, mind somehow brimming with even more questions than before. 

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Full days, a week, passed where Malfoy did not approach her. 

Hermione wove her way through the Manor’s halls, slipping room to room looking for something—anything. 

Instead, all she found was dust—thick as snow, muffling each of her footsteps against marble and parquet. The entire estate stank of damp stone, dried lavender, old pages. Like forgotten things, left to rot—left to ferment in bitter memory.

They had last spoken Wednesday night, after Malfoy returned from quitting her job. 

Hermione didn’t know which part of the Manor he holed away in. She had no idea where to begin looking, and though eager to help with any other task, Chippy refused to show her around the cursed house.  

So she spent her days exploring dark halls—ones that were simultaneously untouched by life yet worn away by time. 

There was the floor, uneven beneath her feet. The banisters, cool to touch. Wooden doors swollen with time, the very air drenched in decay. Sometimes, she felt the entire house exhale with her, as if exhausted by her presence, or during better moments, she considered that it might be a prisoner, just as she was. 

But she swore that the Manor was sentient, just as Malfoy had said it was.

Every door she opened, every turn she took, Hermione found herself right back at the start—standing in front of the door to her own chambers; her cell.

It was a labyrinth, she was sure. Designed by Daedalus himself. 

Every hall looked the same, but just a bit different: the wallpaper peeled in the same ways, cloistering near decadent moulding. 

But sometimes, the walls were gilded French blue. Other times, they were a dusty rose. 

Or maybe, it was Hermione’s own mind playing tricks on her. 

Why would Malfoy leave her alone to rot? Supposedly, he needed help figuring out how to “cure” linesia. 

She paced down the maze-like halls, mulling over addiction. 

What made a substance addictive? Reliance on it. But then, why did people rely on linesia? What made it potent enough for people to spend their last galleons on it?

Of course, she got no answers. But she could not stop thinking, so she kept walking. Hermione needed to find something—answers, a new room to explore, hope, Malfoy himself.

There was one door leading out to a small terrace, one that descended to the gardens. Her legs grew tired from the constant pacing. So, she took the Bryn vs. Studgley out on the terrace on Thursday morning, and sat on a worn bench, puzzling over the case yet again. 

And then, Hermione remembered that she no longer worked for the Ministry—that she was now unemployed, and that she could no longer help Bryn get their wand back. She’d sacrificed it all to help bloody Malfoy put an end to this linesia epidemic, but she hadn’t seen the man himself in days. 

That night, she burnt the file in her hearth—watched as the flames licked up her notes, as the fire ate away at spilled ink. 

In the dim light of the Manor, every word looked like it had been scrawled in blood.  

By Friday, the elf had learned that she truly didn’t care for breakfast. 

By Sunday, Hermione established a new routine. 

She took lunch on the grounds, enjoying the fleeting warmth of summer. August had faded to September, and the leaves would soon wither and fall. She felt numb. Listless. Like she was headed somewhere, but there was no direction. 

Like her feet carried her forward, but forward was actually backwards, and that she was destined to be lost, because she had not made a single decision for herself in these last ten years.

She spent the day wondering if it would have been better to be obliviated and oblivious to all of this. Maybe then, she may have figured out Bryn vs. Studgley. Maybe then, she’d still have her office—grimy and tragic as it was. But at least she would still have it—at least it would have been hers.

Then, she would have dinner in her room. Books were always piled on the desk, no doubt sent by Malfoy—yet no words were exchanged. And the man had given her reading material . 

The rage would return, and with it came boundless questions.

She wanted to know how many more admits St. Mungo’s had seen, and if any others had died, and what the Ministry was doing to manage the situation. She wanted to ask Malfoy about linesia and its ingredients—the process by which he’d made it, who he’d distributed it to. 

Then, by night, Hermione would curl into the covers that were still transfigured an ugly crimson. She’d done it out of spite, but now they just reminded her of Hogwarts—of Parvati Patil’s cloying jasmine perfume, and Lavender Brown’s offkey singing. 

Face turned towards the gothic windows, she’d think about her apartment, and its beige couch—of how Ron had looked tucked into it, playing chess against Harry who would sit cross-legged on the floor. She thought of her kettle, and how it whistled every morning. Of her fraying sheets and the worn rug under her sunken bed frame.

Under the cover of night, Hermione let herself cry. 

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Hermione rather hoped she’d lose track of time.

The minutes, hours, even days had been slippery in the Manor lately—like silk through her fingers, or soap curdling, foaming against her bones. Every turn took her in a new direction, every door opened to some variation of the same: high ceilings, aging wallpaper, shadows that clung to the corners like mold.

She was trying to retrace her steps—trying to get back to the terrace. 

But the Manor wasn’t built to be understood. It wasn’t a home; it was a trap—a palace of illusions, ever shifting. 

Hermione was starting to think the house wanted her to feel lost. That it was amused by her confusion. So one evening, she slumped against the walls—let her knees give out until she sat against the cold, dust-laden floors.

It started with a sound.

A soft hum, almost imperceptible—as though the walls themselves were exhaling. Hermione paused, then stood, wandering towards a door. One hand on the frame, she tilted her head. The door had looked just like the one to her own chamber, but…

Music? No, not quite. But something like it. Something delicate. Wind chimes, maybe. A melody carried on magic.

And then: warmth. A faint draft, like a hearth had just been lit.

She pushed open the door.

It didn’t creak. Hers did. It glided open, as though welcoming her in. And what she saw made her blink, just once, to make sure her mind wasn’t crafting the scene.

It was a dining room.

But not just any dining room—not the one Voldemort had held court in during the war. 

No, this one was drenched in decadence.  Candlelight that floated midair, suspended in globes of crystal. The ceiling was painted with constellations, stars shifting slowly in their dome—illusion or enchantment, she didn’t know. 

A table stretched the length of the room, so long it vanished into shadow. It gleamed—dark wood and silver polish, covered in an embroidered cloth of antique gold.

And food.

So much food.

Steam curled from silver dishes. Plates shimmered. Lids lifted themselves with a clink, as though the air itself had been waiting for her to arrive. 

Roast duck glazed in blackberry reduction. Spiced potatoes crisped to perfection. Freshly baked bread, its crust cracked just so. A tureen of soup—something pale and velvety, cream swirling with what looked like saffron. Hermione caught the scent of rosewater. Orange peel. Something nutty. Something sweet.

“Oh,” she said, very softly. “What the hell.”

There was no one else in the room. No sign of Chippy, or the other elves. No sign of Malfoy.

But then the chairs began to shift, one scooting out with a gracious little bow.

Hermione blinked again. “What the hell .”

She should have left. She should have turned and run. But she was hungry—so hungry—and the room was warm and golden and strange. It felt like she had walked into a memory. Not one of hers, but someone else’s—one rich with wealth and expectation and loneliness.

She sat. The upholstery cradled her hips like it had been carved with her in mind. The plate filled itself. A fork hovered at her elbow, waiting. Music began—faint, orchestral, and definitely magical . Strings, but slow. Minor chords that sounded like lullabies turned inside out.

It was like being courted. Like being... appeased. Or wooed. Hermione didn’t know which unnerved her more.

“Is this a bribe?” she asked the room. “Or an apology?”

The chandelier overhead chimed in response—soft, musical. Mocking.

She ate.

She didn’t mean to, but the food—it was divine. Warming her from the inside out. It hit her ribs and stayed there, settling behind her lungs. The bread had rosemary and sea salt, and the butter melted with a faint sweetness, like honey infused with thyme. The potatoes were perfect. The duck—she hadn’t even known she liked duck—made her want to groan aloud.

She took a sip of the wine.

Merlin.

What was happening?

Hermione set down her fork. Looked around. The room was alive with motion now—candelabras drifting closer, tablecloths smoothing themselves out. Plates swapped in and out before she could ask. Dishes disappeared only to be replaced with something more fragrant, more intricate. And still, not a single person had appeared.

The house was showing off.

She leaned back in her chair, lips parted in awe. The music swelled—violins reaching some soft crescendo. For a moment, Hermione let herself be enchanted. Just for a moment.

The Manor was feeding her.

And not just feeding her—presenting to her. The way it might to... Malfoy.

She paused mid-bite.

The chandelier dimmed slightly.

“This is for him,” she murmured. “Isn’t it?”

The chandelier chimed once—not in agreement, not in denial. Just sound.

Hermione set her fork down slowly. The realization soured the food in her mouth. The house knew how to seduce her for a reason. It was working at his whim, naturally, because nothing good was truly good . There was always an ulterior motive.

And of course, that was exactly when the door behind her opened.

The air snapped like a whip. Hermione turned in her chair—slowly—and there he was. Draco Malfoy. Pale, rumpled, very still.

They stared at each other.

“You’re in my dining room,” he said eventually. His tone was unreadable.

“I didn’t mean to be,” she replied. “I got lost.”

“You don’t say.”

“The house led me here,” she added, because she could feel him gearing up for sarcasm. “I’m not joking, Malfoy. The walls shifted. The door opened for me.”

He blinked. Then furrowed his brow.

“Of course it did,” he muttered, more to himself than her. “Bloody Manor’s always been sentient. Thinks it can bribe guests into liking it—into liking me. ”

Hermione straightened in her chair. “Excuse me?”

He walked past her—not quickly, not slowly—and stood at the head of the table, surveying the feast. He didn’t sit. Didn’t touch anything. The candles dimmed in his shadow.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” she said.

He didn’t answer.

“I'm here to help,” she snapped. “Remember? You dragged me into this. Said you needed me. Then disappeared for an entire week and left me to pace around this cursed house like a lunatic.”

He stepped closer, eyes narrowing. “You’re eating my food.”

“I was hungry,” she bit out. “Since you’ve left me to starve on philosophy and fucking Flamel.”

“Oh, forgive me,” he said, dry. “Didn’t realize I was obligated to personally wine and dine the guest who thinks me a monster. The elves should’ve brought you food.”

Hermione stood. “You’re so full of yourself. There isn’t a person in the world who doesn’t think of you as a monster.” She was being unnecessarily cruel. But it felt right.

Malfoy crossed his arms. “Right. Because that’s what this is about.”

“You invented an addictive potion to save your own life, and it’s ended up harming others.” Her voice cut like glass. “Is that meant to redeem you in my eyes?”

Something in him flinched. “You think I did this for me? You think I care to be redeemed ?”

“Yes, because you keep trying to prove something to me,” she snapped. “But the problem, me choosing to stay in this haunted fucking house—it’s not about you, Malfoy. This is about linesia. About people dying. About St. Mungo’s overflowing with patients who can’t even remember their own names. You think I give a damn whether you live or die?”

Silence stretched between them. Cold. Tangled, barbed like the stems of the roses scattered through the grounds. Hermione’s heart beat against her throat. She was so cruel. A week in this Manor, and she’d turned just as terrible as her captor—like these walls were made to corrupt.

“I gave you my wand,” she went on, quieter now but still livid. “I let you take my face. I gave up my job, my apartment, my life. And you disappear for a week?”

Malfoy said nothing. His expression was unreadable. Had she always been like this? Had her words always carried such a bite?

Hermione stepped closer. “If you need help fixing your mess, you should act like it.”

“I didn’t think you wanted to help after our last altercation,” he muttered.

“Well, you don’t get to decide that for me.”

He exhaled, looking suddenly very tired. “I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“By abandoning me?”

“By getting out of your way. This way, you wouldn’t have to choose between obliviation and your bloody morals . Because of course you would choose to be essentially imprisoned in this house, just like I am, instead of a guilty fucking conscience.” He was properly incensed now, and his eyes glistened with agitation. “But no. Hermione Granger, golden girl, destined to save every life that isn’t hers. I thought I was doing you a favor, by not forcing you to look at what you’ve shackled yourself to.”

She stared at him. “You didn’t shackle me, Malfoy. You don’t matter that much.” A thought: I don’t matter that much. “The people suffering because of what you made—they do.”

A beat. A long one.

Then: “You really don’t care if I rot.”

He said this blandly, as if it were a mere observation, and not quite a qualm he had with her. A simple conclusion, that Hermione Granger, do-gooder extraordinaire, did not care an ounce for his apparent suffering. As if it were some sort of nigh-impossible discovery that should be studied. Draco Malfoy, the man that had rendered the Golden Girl apathetic. He'd broken the system.

But it was in the way he had phrased it; as if he had expected her to care. And maybe that betrayed some perverse inner-working of his mind. Perhaps Malfoy wanted someone to care—to see past the Dark Mark, to see him. But Hermione couldn’t see past it—past the selfishness. She couldn’t forgive herself for being selfish; how could she forgive him for it? 

It didn’t mean she couldn’t pretend.

How do I manipulate him? 

She had her answer, so she softened her voice before answering. “I don’t even care if I rot.” She’d give up a small truth to continue this farce. “Not if others die first.”

That hit him. She saw it in the way his jaw flexed, in the way he glanced down at the plate she’d left untouched.

He didn’t speak for a moment.

Then, reluctantly: “Sit down, Granger.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

She didn’t move.

“Consider it a favor,” he said, voice dry. “Since you’re not here for me.”

She sat. He continued speaking, voice low, exhausted. Like their argument had drained the last of his energy away.

“Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” She nodded cautiously. 

He leaned closer, and once again, the air between them was charged; electric. It silenced her, yet didn’t seem to affect him. Hermione watched Malfoy’s lips purse around words—saw the syllables form before she heard them. 

“Granger, let me tell you the story of how my mother died.”

Chapter Text

Spring in the Burrow smelled of fresh tulips and disaster.

Hermione sat at the kitchen table, fingers tapping against her thighs. She’d arrived late on Easter morning, breathless from Apparating. Mrs. Weasley had simply ushered her into the only empty chair—beside Ron, who couldn’t quite meet her eyes.

Draped in faded linens, the table practically groaned under the weight of a veritable feast. Chipped plates stacked sky-high with roast vegetables and steaming shepherd’s pie, a glazed ham fragrant with thyme. Buns spilled from overflowing baskets, falling into eager hands.

Ginny sat to Hermione’s left, her hand wrapped protectively around a swollen belly, rambling.

“I spend so much time horizontal, feet propped up, and I still can’t fit into my favorite boots—I feel like a beached whale, ‘Mione.”

But Hermione wasn’t really listening. It was impossibly claustrophobic, and she found it hard to breathe. Laughter rang too loud. Victoire squealed, darting under the table after Teddy Lupin, weaving through a sea of legs. Sticky hands brushed against Hermione’s shins.

Across the table, Charlie told a story about his newest scar. Through the clinking and scraping of cutlery, Hermione barely caught mention of a Peruvian Vipertooth—Percy and Fleur gasped, and every sound grated against her ears.

Hermione forced her body to turn towards Ginny. “It’s normal for your ankles to be massive eight months in,” she said, lips stiff around the words.

Ginny hummed, leaning against Harry.

Something warm pressed against Hermione’s arm. An elbow. Ron’s. She’d almost forgotten how he sat—limbs sprawled carelessly, content to occupy all the space in the world. 

Hermione hadn’t seen him in two weeks. Not since the fight, when she’d cast him out of the flat. He’d looked so hurt then, blue eyes dull against spring’s first warm night, his grandmother’s ring clutched in a loose fist.

Wood creaked as bodies shuffled. Between vases of mismatched flowers, Mrs. Weasley met Hermione’s eyes, offering a cheery smile. She understood then—heart thumping dully against her ribs—Ron truly hadn’t told anyone the news yet.

“Dear, have you and Ron decided on a date yet? I know you mentioned a spring wedding.”

Conversation lulled. Expectant eyes turned towards her as the table stilled. The very air thrummed impatiently, yet all she could do was squeeze her eyes shut. 

The world turned inward; vertigo swept over her, blood pulsing in her ears until she could hear nothing else.

When she opened her eyes, Mrs. Weasley’s smile had slipped a notch, forehead wrinkled in mild confusion. Hermione could feel each of Ron’s breaths. Each erratic exhale brushed warm air against her cheek.

Abruptly, she stood. The chair’s legs scraped across the floor as heads turned.

Hermione’s nails dug into her palms. Ginny’s concerned eyes, Harry’s quirked brow, Fleur’s lips forming questions—she couldn’t hear, could hardly even think. Muscle memory led her through the front door, and onto the path. She took her first full breath after hours of slow suffocation.

And then, Hermione ran.

Knee-deep in fescue and nettle, a sob tore involuntarily from her throat. She collapsed into a bed of grass, daisies and buttercups tickling her thighs.

So this was the end, she thought numbly.

Insects hummed. A breeze caressed her cheeks, carrying the scent of tulips, peonies, freshly bloomed lavender. Dew clung to her skin, her bones brittle with dread.

Twelve years of treating the Burrow as a second home—gone in a blink. Something rough lodged in her throat, damp soil clinging to her bloodied palms; her nails had broken skin. Experimentally, Hermione tilted her head towards the sun. She closed her eyes once more, and forced her breathing to steady—urged her thoughts to slow.

Shakily, she rose to her feet, and Apparated home.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

As silence stretched through the Manor, Hermione couldn’t help but think of Easter at the Burrow. Six months later, she could still feel Ron’s breath ghosting across her cheeks—still saw Mrs. Weasley’s crestfallen eyes every time she closed her own.

But there was something decidedly different about the tension skittering through the air today.

At the Burrow, Hermione had felt smothered—fear, expectation, disappointment, all sitting heavily against her skin. Now, trying to make sense of Malfoy’s offering, Hermione felt her body coil with tentative curiosity instead.

She watched him pour a glass of wine, candlelight glancing off strands of rumpled hair—blonde rendered warm and luminescent under the chandelier’s gentle glow.

It felt odd to observe him in his natural habitat, but Hermione couldn’t help but track every movement out of the corner of her eye. After a few measured sips, Malfoy sank into the seat across from her, finally meeting her eyes.

Granger, let me tell you the story of how my mother died.

Hermione simply waited for him to continue—to prove that yes, she could be patient, yes she could wait for answers, even as curiosity caught between clenched teeth.

Some unnamed emotion rippled through Malfoy’s eyes, and he set his mouth into a grim line. Resolve, she realized—he’d set his face in determination. So she’d learned to recognize at least one of his subtle expressions.

“If you’re looking to carve something up, there’s a perfectly good piece of meat on your plate, Granger. No need to dissect me with your eyes.” 

His voice was even, steadier than it had been moments ago. 

“It’s probably gone cold by now,” Hermione remarked, even as she prodded the duck with her fork. She watched as Malfoy ran a hand through his hair—a tell. He was nervous. 

“The Manor keeps the food warm,” and then a pause, as if he expected her to fill the silence, to fall into their established rhythm of verbal sparring. 

She could easily comment on how the Manor kept food warm yet his heart stayed frozen. But this was an opportunity, and Hermione would not—could not—squander it.

So she stayed silent, waiting for Malfoy to crack.

Flames flickered solemnly in the hearth, and a muscle in his jaw popped, slim fingers tightening over the stem of his wineglass. The Manor stilled, and the room held its breath.  

“Mabon was Mother’s favorite holiday. She used to say that mulled wine always tastes better with a touch of chill,” and something wistful curled the edges of Malfoy’s lips before he continued. “I wonder if she knew that she’d die on Mabon—if some part of her looked forward to it.” 

The candlelight wavered, shadows dancing across the walls. Moulding shimmered where it met parquet, and chills feathered over Hermione’s spine.

“Mabon. The autumnal equinox? You celebrated it?” 

Immediately, Hermione felt blood rush to her cheeks. She was embarrassed to interrupt. Worried that her voice would remind Malfoy exactly who he was sharing this story with.

But he looked wholly unperturbed, simply taking another sip of wine.

“The Blacks have Welsh roots. Father called it all ‘druidic nonsense’, but he indulged Mother and her many traditions just the same,” Malfoy replied, voice soft with nostalgia and gilded in an emotion Hermione couldn’t describe. 

She simply nodded, taking a sip of wine to prevent herself from interrupting again. The burgundy tasted of cherries and smoke—melancholic, like reaching for something only to watch it drift further out of reach. 

Lost in thought, Malfoy grabbed a roll from the basket, absentmindedly tearing it in two. And then, in a motion borne from muscle memory, he extended an arm towards her. 

Hermione nearly flinched. 

But there was no wand in his hand. No thinly veiled violence to the gesture. Just rings glinting under dim light, a calloused palm, and half of a dinner roll.

Malfoy was offering her a piece of bread.

He stared, eyes widening as if his body had betrayed him. But before he could retract his arm, Hermione’s hand reached out without permission—grazed her fingers against a warm knuckle, and then smooth metal, as she plucked the roll away. 

“Thanks,” and her voice was stilted, awkward even to her own ears. He dipped his head stiffly in acknowledgment. 

Yet despite the oddity of the interaction, something resembling peace fell over the table. Tension dissipated from the air like morning mist, leaving nothing but breath hanging between them.

She was tired of the constant animosity, Hermione realized. Her jaw ached from being held so tight, her throat raw from perpetually choking on anger.

And Malfoy seemed to feel the same. His shoulders slackened as he exhaled, and Hermione found herself mirroring the breath. A truce in the form of silence—until Malfoy broke it. 

“It was her Dark Mark. Nothing like mine; hers was infinitely worse.”

The mention of the Mark was a cruel reality check. 

Hermione had momentarily forgotten why she was in the Manor at all—somewhere between the candlelight, wine and Malfoy’s unexpected nostalgia, linesia had slipped from her mind. For a moment, she’d simply been a witness to grief that was comparable to her own. 

She didn’t voice any of this, though. Simply asked: “How so?” 

“Mother had always been pale, but her skin turned near translucent near the end—the veins underneath rotted completely black. And it wasn’t just her arm. The curse spread,” he paused, as if deciding what to say next.

But Hermione had caught on. “It got to her heart, didn’t it?”

“There’s almost a deranged poeticism to it, don’t you think? Voldemort knew what he was doing, branding our left arms. Closer to the heart.”

Flames shivered and shadows deepened. The air chilled upon mention of the Dark Lord, as if the Manor remembered him—as if it despised him, even though it was his wards that had brought it to life.

“But why did her curse spread so fast, compared to yours? And the other Death Eaters’,” she mused, remembering the way Pansy’s Dark Mark had looked under St. Mungo’s sterile light. There hadn’t been a trace of rot on the reporter’s fair skin.  

“I have my theories,” is all Malfoy said. 

Hermione frowned, and thought briefly of her own scar; how it was positioned exactly as a Dark Mark would be. It was disconcerting to be scarred just as Malfoy was—by the same war and in the same place. 

“It was for her, wasn’t it? ’To slow inevitable death’ is what you said.” Hermione’s voice was soft, contemplative and bewildered all at once—because Malfoy hadn’t done it for himself.

He didn’t answer, simply staring at her instead. 

“You don’t care for redemption or forgiveness,” she continued, at this point merely thinking aloud. “But this guilt around linesia. You feel responsible because not only did it fail to save her—it started taking lives instead.”

Silence reigned once more. The last dreg of wine clung like blood to her lips. She swept it away with a flick of her tongue, and Malfoy’s eyes followed—not predatory, not hungry. 

Just observant, in the same way she studied him.

“You really think I’m plagued by guilt, Granger?” A corner of his mouth twitched upwards, but Hermione refused to fall for the bait.

“Playing it off won’t make me believe it any less,” she chided. 

“Isn’t it a bit absurd,” he drawled, “to think a Malfoy could feel something so noble as guilt?”

“It’s even more absurd that the mere notion of remorse makes you squirm.” Hermione rolled her eyes, tone almost teasing—as if teasing Malfoy was a normal occurence. “Is emotional vulnerability such a foreign concept?”

And with that, he let loose a laugh. Genuine but self-deprecatory, an acknowledgement that Hermione had seen through him. A concession.

For inexplicable reasons, the victory felt hollow.  

Malfoy finished the last of his wine, a stray drop lingering on his chin. “Regardless, it doesn’t matter if I feel guilty or not.” His thumb brushed it away. 

“But it does,” she argued, and he raised an aristocratic brow. “I can’t quite articulate why, but it just does, Malfoy.”

“Okay.”

Acceptance. Perhaps the wine was poisoned, she mused. Maybe they were both drugged and hallucinatory, stuck in an alternate reality—where remorse and grief somehow softened the severity of crime.  

As if attuned to her thoughts, a bottle lifted itself from the table, refilling her empty glass. Steaming soup ladled itself into a bowl, and a spoon nudged against her hand. 

The Manor hummed, eager to please.   

Just a bit longer, she told herself, not ready to let go of this upside-down world just yet. So Hermione felt her mouth form the word too, as if a simple echo could make the strange ease last.  

“Okay.”

──────── ☾☼ ────────

A soft knock came later that evening, just as dusk slid over the Manor, hushed and reverent. Hermione’s fingers untangled from her hair, braid forgotten as she rose to her feet, dizzy with anticipation. 

Malfoy had promised answers, and he was finally here to deliver. 

It was only after their strange dinner that she’d noticed the extent of his exhaustion—his skin pallid, limbs heavy, eyes dulled when there was nothing left to say. 

He’d begged off her questions (“Just let me shower, Granger, please, I smell of tuna from Theo’s lunch”) and Hermione had prepared herself for a return to secrecy. But he was here. Knocking at her door, just as he’d said. 

Maybe, she dared to hope, this truce could last.  

Pulling open the door, Hermione couldn’t help but agree that all Malfoy had needed was a shower. Hair still damp and in a fresh set of clothes, he looked transformed. 

Craning his neck over her shoulder, he peered into the room, eyes glinting with a touch of mischief. His nose grazed an errant curl. Hermione froze.

“Salazar’s tits, you did a number on this place. I didn’t notice last week, but is there a single piece of furniture that’s been left intact?”

His voice was too close, breath warm against the shell of her ear, open collarbone so near she drowned in bergamot and vetiver, the faint sweetness of pinot noir clinging to the air. Too much. 

Hermione took a small step back, conceding ground.

“You don’t smell of tuna anymore,” was all she could offer, mind scrambled from sensory overload. 

Malfoy raised a brow. “Astute observation. Next you’ll tell me that the sky is blue.”

“Actually, it’s rather orangish now—if you haven’t noticed, the sun’s nearly set.” She tilted her head towards a window.

“Ah—so we’re doing the professor-student bit again?”

“Only if you haven’t got any other sick fantasies to share.”

He smirked, and a dimple appeared, just beneath his left cheek. “Thought you’d never ask—I’ve got quite the list.”

Hermione flushed faintly, retreating into the room. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m rather looking forward to a different set of answers tonight.” Perched against the edge of the desk, she busied herself with the unfinished braid. 

Malfoy sauntered over, settling into the chair he’d conjured last week. Her knee brushed against his thigh, and she refused to give ground this time—Hermione reminded herself that she needed to win. 

“Okay,” was his measured reply.

And there it was again. Her eye twitched, and she gave up on the braid, pulling apart the strands with a few swift tugs. Anticipation morphed into vexation with a single breath.

“I don’t understand you, Draco Malfoy. And don’t you dare say ‘okay’ one more time.”

A startled laugh, and then: “Alright.”

Hermione closed her eyes, tilting her head towards the ceiling. She counted backwards from ten, fighting to even her breath. Vexing was too mild of a descriptor. He was infuriating. Exasperating. Positively aggravating.

When she opened her eyes, she found Malfoy staring at her—tracing the column of her neck with those illegible eyes. Taking in the unbound curls, tangled over tensed shoulders. Hermione only felt herself deflate under his scrutiny.

“Sometimes I think you antagonize me intentionally,” she sighed.

He shot her a curious glance. “That’s what we do best, isn’t it? We've made a sport out of it. This is hardly new, Granger. It's what we've done since our adolescent years.”

“And that doesn’t seem like a problem to you? When we could perhaps be accomplishing something, if you gave me even an ounce of cooperation?”

Malfoy’s gaze darkened. “Was I not cooperative tonight, Granger?” Hermione frowned, reevaluating her approach. 

“It was a start,” she said, tone a touch gentler. “But you didn’t tell me why Narcissa’s curse was so accelerated, or why the linesia didn’t work to cure her.”

Hermione lifted the battered copy of Calcined from the desk. She used it to gesture to the larger stack of books: The Mutus Liber, De Alchimia, Splendor Solis.

“You know that I’ve already read all these works, Malfoy. We took all the same bloody courses—yet this is all I got for a week. Silence, and obscure literature on the purification of fucking gold.” It was harder to keep her voice even now.

“Actually, I never attended any of Thorne's seminars,” he remarked casually.

Hermione groaned. Not only was the deflection entirely irrelevant—it struck her as strange. Every alchemist worth their salt had. But she let it go, meeting his eyes once more. They were shuttered. Wary.  

“Please.” It was all she could bring herself to say. 

Malfoy let loose a staccato breath. The silence pulsed once, twice, as he studied her intently. Twilight bruised the sky purple and blue, and any lingering hope disappeared with the last rays of light. 

When he finally spoke, his voice was even. Clinical, like he was offering a diagnosis. “You know what the problem is, Granger? You’re so very eager to assume.”

She exploded. “It’s because you give me nothing to work with—I can’t do anything but assume.” Venom laced each word.

“From the moment you caught the wormwood in my report, I’ve been the villain of your narrative,” he countered.

Hermione fought the urge to roll her eyes. “It’s hard to argue against the narrative when you lock me up in a figurative tower, Malfoy.” 

“It’s because I can’t trust you to trust me.”

She blinked. The odd phrasing caught her off guard. “What?”

Malfoy’s eyes were set in grim determination—he was making a case. “If I told you right now that I’m not the one who made linesia, that I have nothing to do with the potion, would you believe me?”

Hermione laughed incredulously. “I’d be a fool to believe that statement. You have me imprisoned, remember? And I was just handed a proper motive: your mother, the curse with the Dark Mark," she said, extending fingers as she tallied her reasons. Logic was a comfort, and Hermione would savor this. "Not to mention a decades worth of documented crime and intent, all based on pureblood dogma and conservative vitriol. A history of extremism. A blatant disregard for moral or ethical boundaries. I could go on.”

It had been years since she'd last gone off on Malfoy like this, and Hermione was reminded afresh of how deeply she despised him. 

“Sure,” he said easily. Didn't even flinch at her ruthless vivisection of his psyche. “Now imagine I told you the same thing a week ago, back in the Department of Mysteries. Would you believe me then?” 

She frowned, thinking over what she had known. “I wouldn’t, no,” came her hesitant reply. It felt like the wrong answer, but there was no world where it wasn’t the right instinct.

“Why?”

It wasn’t a desperate question—just a demand for an explanation. She tugged gently at a curl, mulling over this odd interrogation. Part of her wanted to say because you’re Draco Malfoy, but Hermione knew that wasn’t a reasonable response. 

“Because you’re the only one who completed that reaction. Back at the Solenne.” Hermione bit her lip, conflicted whether the strength of his character factored into this careful debate. It most definitely impacted whether or not it was possible for her to perceive him as innocent, but some words were better left unsaid.

But when he stared coolly back at her, not an ounce of emotion visible on his face, whatever remained of her resolve snapped.

"The knowledge that you've endeavored to do one good thing to benefit your mother doesn't cleanse your conscience, Malfoy. There is a history here, and a pattern of behavior that indicates a certain level of apathy for the greater public. It would be fucking foolish for me to ignore it."

And that's when Hermione felt the shame. A few drops of wine and a magical house had nearly made her forget who she was contending with. Years in France together with the war behind them—careers within the same sinking ship that was the British Ministry—and frankly a focus on larger problems, had almost made her forget who exactly Draco Malfoy was. The debate felt like picking at the scab over an old wound, only to find an infection burgeoning underneath.

She was a fool, in the most ostentatious, obscene sense of the word. As if a trickle of guilt—the simple indication that under the wealth and privilege, a conscience existed—could undo years of what could only be described as villainy. 

For his part, Malfoy simply nodded once, a simple dip of his chin glossing over her poor opinion of him. Perhaps because it was a given that Hermione would think this way about him—nothing he heard was new knowledge. It was all expected.

“Right," he said measuredly. "But looking at the facts and putting predispositions aside, all I did was prove a reaction between wormwood and pearl dust is possible. Are you telling me that someone couldn’t replicate it? Couldn’t Girard?” A pause. “Couldn’t you?”

She swallowed. “It’s not impossible,” she started, then stopped. “Just improbable that it was someone other than you.”

“Why?” 

Hermione’s fingers tightened around the edge of the desk. The answer was simple, humiliatingly so. “Because I don’t trust you enough to believe that you're uninvolved in some secretive alchemical scheme,” she admitted, voice smaller than she liked. 

Malfoy smiled ruefully. “See? You don’t trust me, so I can’t trust you. That’s the impasse.”

The crux of it really was simple. An elegant articulation of such an inelegant problem.

“So you brought me here because you assumed I’d turn you in. All that talk about assuming—bit hypocritical, don’t you think?” 

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” he huffed, losing a bit of his calm. “You still don’t. Even if I try for transparency.” 

Which he was, Hermione realized. This was a version of Draco Malfoy, elusive Death Eater, temperamental academic, trying to be honest. And failing. Miserably so. 

“So,” she started. “You’re trying to tell me that you’re not the one behind it?”

He looked at her then, and for a moment his face looked wholly unguarded—brows furrowed just-so, eyes cast upwards beseechingly. Tired. Exhausted by people drawing uninformed conclusions about him.

“I’m answering your questions truthfully, letting you decide what to believe.” His tone was measured once more.

Hermione nodded, rapping her fingers against the smooth mahogany of the desk. A thick swallow—a futile attempt to dispel the disdain clawing up her throat. 

“Linesia never worked for Mother because I never gave it to her. There were other experimental compounds I made,” he sat up, pulling the transcription of The Mutus Liber open between them, “from the same infusion I tried at the Solenne, but nothing worked to slow the curse.”

Malfoy flipped to Plate X with ease borne from repetition. Hermione studied the familiar depiction, silently urging him to continue with the explanation.

He switched tactics, posing a question instead. “Do you remember the last battle, when Voldemort presented Harry’s body as if he were dead?”

Hermione tried not to think of such things, but she nodded curtly. “Yes. I remember.” She could still see Harry’s body, limp amidst a sea of darkness—how the hope had gone limp within her chest.  

“Do you know why Voldemort even thought he was dead?”

It had been mentioned during the trials, when only Lucius was sentenced. “Narcissa lied.”

His eyes glinted. “Exactly. And I think she was made to pay for her crimes.”

“She was punished? By the Dark Mark? But that’s impossible—”

He cut in. “Exactly. Nobody would expect the Dark Mark to kill so many years after Voldemort's death. But she still died. So that begs the question: is anything really impossible, Granger?”

And Hermione understood what Malfoy was really asking.  

They’d both leaned closer, heads hovering over the open book, hands splayed side by side over its yellowed pages. A habit, Hermione noted. She could make out the rise and fall of Malfoy’s chest with every breath. Could smell hints of vetiver once more, now woven with scents of weathered parchment and tannic ink.

Her index finger traced the arc of the sun, just to the point where it merged with the moon—to where both celestial bodies combined into one incandescent sphere. The Coniunctio Oppositorum.¹⁰ An unfeasibly stable union of opposites, drawn together intentionally. Recklessly.  

But it wasn’t impossible—because nothing really was.

“I could ask you the same question,” she mused. 

“What?” A frown pulled at Malfoy’s lips. Hermione felt the exhale of his words against her chin, but she didn’t pull away, because she had already won.

Hermione held his gaze for a long moment, heart pounding. “If nothing’s impossible, Malfoy, then make me believe you,” and she delivered the line like a challenge. “Prove that it's possible for me to trust you.” 

Chapter Text

Hermione would never admit it aloud, but Draco Malfoy was rendered disastrously beautiful by the remnants of twilight. 

The sun’s dying light lingered in hollow cheeks, pooling over his jaw before settling into the groove of a prominent cupid’s bow. Deepening shadows cast his silhouette as a jigsaw of delicate edges—he looked carved, like a scalpel had been taken to skin and bone. 

Though minutes had passed since she'd issued the challenge, Hermione's words still echoed, carrying tension through the subsequent silence. 

Prove that it's possible for me to trust you.

And he seemed actually to be devising a method—because of course Malfoy would turn even trust itself into a bloody sport. 

What startled her most was his silence. He hadn’t argued when she’d told him why trust was impossible—hadn’t protested, hadn’t justified. He’d only listened, as if seven years after the war, he finally understood that her doubt was something he’d rightfully earned. Acceptance looked strange on him. 

Hermione took the chance to study him unabashedly. Took note of the way his thumb fiddled with a ring subconsciously. Of the way his lips pulled tighter while his mind raced. How his eyes had taken on a distant look—as if mulling over consequence had transported him to an entirely different plane of existence.

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.¹¹

Unbidden, the line from Le Petit Prince curled at the edge of her mind—a memory and maxim all at once, recited in her father's soft baritone. He'd always quoted Saint-Exupéry, but this passage had been his favorite; his interpretation so loose it used to make her laugh. Now, it made unsettling sense.   

Isn't choice just whatever you tame life into, dear?

To this, Hermione would always nod solemnly, eager to accept his words as pearls of wisdom. He'd tell these stories while braiding back her unruly hair, sporting an indulgent smile while turning a fable into a lesson about accountability.

So really, the Fox is saying that one always has to be responsible for the choices they make. And responsibility of choice means acceptance of consequence. Even if the consequences don't seem like a monster you can tame. 

Finally, Malfoy looked up, and Hermione hurriedly averted her gaze—she'd lost herself to thought while staring at the crown of his head. But he smirked, and she knew she’d been caught. So naturally, she broke the silence with a scoff. 

“Has anyone told you how much you resemble a bloody ghost, Malfoy? Is it some sort of health condition that's made you so pale?”

He ignored her, and she seethed. Standing from the conjured chair, he walked to the door, and only when he’d reached the doorway did he look back.

“Coming, Granger? The library awaits.”

There was nothing but a history of antagonism between them. Stubborn, stalwart Hermione, waiting for Malfoy to suffer as a result of his own actions. Waiting for him to apologize instead of continuing to defend himself. To acknowledge his wartime actions as the mistakes that they were—and repent.  

Now, Hermione hated how easily she followed him—how easily she accepted his silence as a concession of crime. Because Draco Malfoy had finally shown a crack of remorse, and she was all too eager to mistake it for a fissure.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

The chill of the Manor gave way, in her mind, to something warmer. 

The boulangerie, nestled deep into Le Quartier Doré, had always been remarkably mundane—all warm bread and flour-laden air, thick with the tang of yeast, butter, and fresh cream. Morning light fractured through thick glass, staining worn tile a soft gold.

Through rays of light glancing off ornate mirrors and glistening trays, one could hardly catch the tell-tale signs of magic. But under hushed French chatter and the subtle scent of caramelizing sugar, it was undeniably there.

A faint metallic note stung Hermione’s nostrils—ozone before rain, the way air smelled when charms met heat. The shimmer of enchantments cast over a display, designed to keep baguettes, brioche and fougasse fresh throughout the day. 

The French had mastered the art of making magic seem ordinary. Le Petit Prince—a charming boulangerie just south of the Athanor—was delightfully plain, even amidst the inherent grandeur of Versailles. 

In Le Quartier Doré, fondly dubbed “the Quarter” by its magical residents, Hermione was allowed to pretend she was just another student. Two years after the war, she was finally unremarkable; stripped of obligations, of history, of memories that were otherwise impossible to escape.

In Versailles, she could just be Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age. 

Just a girl from London eager to study transfiguration, enrolled in one of the most prestigious programs in all of Europe—and to her glee, woefully incompetent for the first time in her prodigious life.

There was something so exhilarating about new knowledge; an admission that the world wasn’t finite, and that there was always something to explore. Another crack in the cosmos that she could disappear into. 

So now, Hermione found herself sipping a café au lait, cheerily bickering about the ethics of human transfiguration—tucked into the corner of a bakery named after her father’s favorite book. 

“If intent defines the spell, then human transfiguration isn’t immoral until intent makes it so,” Céline said, huffing a loose strand of hair from her face. 

Lithe, poised and always sporting a classic red lip, Céline de Gaulle was perhaps the dictionary definition of chic. Hermione really thought it ought to be studied. 

She was ridiculously posh. Brilliant in a way only money could buy. So painfully privileged, yet inexplicably down to earth. And Hermione loved her all the more for it.

Céline made even fierce debate feel elegant. There was a restraint to her words—every turn of phrase was chosen with precision, every syllable of accented English tinged in the airs of aristocracy. As was expected of any landed noble of Norman descent. 

Brow arched, Hermione polished off her drink and went for the jugular. “That’s an awfully charming way to justify turning some poor sap into a teapot.”

A snort from Daphne, who had been scribbling away in her notebook, content to observe her friends’ playful diatribe.

Poetic and forever-whimsical, Daphne Markou was more nymph than witch. Native to Thebes, she and Hermione found themselves floundering through French seminars and salons together—two strangers in a world where understatement and passive aggression reigned supreme. They had formed what felt like a trauma-bond over the last two years of their studies.

When Daphne spoke, her words were always loose, as if truth could only be ascertained from a listener’s interpretation. It was a kind way to say that she always spouted varying degrees of nonsense. 

So when she looked up from the leather bound journal, pages creased and stained with what could only be chocolate, or shit—both Hermione and Céline groaned before Daphne could even open her mouth.

“I think so long as the teapot is beautiful, the caster cannot be accused of malice,” she said, voice airy as anything.

Hermione threw her head back, a bright laugh bursting forth. “I dare you to present this line of reasoning in Duret’s seminar,” and her words were barely comprehensible through the fit of laughter. “Yes, Professeur, the morality of transfiguring another against their will—a violation of their autonomy—hinges on whether or not the outcome is aesthetically pleasing to the eye.”

Even Céline sported a grin, though it more closely resembled a smirk. “Ah, yes, as if beauty and aesthetics are not subjective in the slightest.”

Before Hermione could cut in with a remark on how Burke would categorize any form of human transfiguration as more sublime than beautiful, the bell above the boulangerie’s door chimed thrice. 

Normally, the trio paid no heed to the constant stream of customers flowing in and out of Le Petit Prince. Every Thursday, they would monopolize the singular table in the bakery from morning until noon, spending hours discussing theoretical abstracts while imbibing decidedly undignified amounts of caffeine.

Thus was the way of all students enrolled at the Athanor; just north of the Quarter, the repurposed conservatory boasted the sun as a sigil of enlightenment, of discovery through light. 

So Hermione did not expect Céline to be so distracted while she presented a carefully constructed thesis on the sublime. 

“Really, it’s quite fascinating how aptly Burke’s theories illuminate this moral trench we’ve dug ourselves into. After all, sublimity inspires terror,¹² and well, if I were to watch Daphne turn someone into a teapot, I’d be terrified, indeed. But that’s mainly because Daph’s spellwork is tragic—” 

Hermione trailed off as Daphne uttered a feeble protest (“My theory work’s better than both of you combined,” as if such a thing could be true), eyes on Céline instead. 

Attention fixed to a point behind Hermione, Céline’s eyes were narrowed thoughtfully in an all too familiar way. Nose scrunched and thin brows creased, Hermione knew immediately that her friend had taken to judging some unsuspecting soul.

“What fashion crime has a poor customer committed today? I wonder,” Hermione said, drawing a thoughtful finger to her chin. “Unhemmed robes? Mismatched metals? Socks with loafers?” Daphne gasped in dramatic, feigned shock, and the two shared a mischievous look.

But Céline remained preoccupied by whoever was ordering at the counter. “Socks and loafers can be intentional, Hermione,” she chastised absently. “But—mon dieu, un Malfoy anglais?”

At first, Hermione thought she’d simply heard wrong. So when her entire body twisted instinctually in the rattan seat, she hadn’t actually expected to see Draco sodding Malfoy leaning against the counter of her favorite boulangerie. 

Her brain tumbled to a halt, intellectual gymnastics put on pause. Now, there was just observation without true perception. Just Draco fucking Malfoy, and his head of tousled silver hair, and his long legs, one bent slightly at the knee, and an easy, all-too familiar smirk playing at the edge of his lips.

Just a Death Eater casually ordering un café noisette, as if it were the most normal thing in the world for him to be traipsing through Versailles—as if the academic commune held any interest for the likes of him.

Céline’s voice was a distant thing; Hermione didn’t register much beyond “Malfoy” and “anglais”—of course all Norman wizarding gentry were loosely acquainted. Her body was too busy launching into motion, alarmingly without permission.

Without a single thought, Hermione stood from table and marched over to Malfoy, hardly noticing his companion. 

She had moved beyond the initial shock, and was now analyzing little details. The fitted shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, Dark Mark presumably glamoured away. Combat boots over slim trousers, an olive green set of robes and—a bronze crest, pinning them in place.

No fucking way. There was no version of this world where Draco Malfoy was a student at Collège de la Brume. 

No way. Her eyes were playing tricks on her, surely. It wasn’t the Collège’s distinct green, or its bronze sigil. Hermione briefly entertained the idea that he’d stolen the robes from some unsuspecting student.

And suddenly, she was in front of him, meeting his stony glare with one of her own. She heard her voice fill the charged air—hadn’t even realized she’d been speaking, until sheer venom gutted the atmosphere of its irreverent charm.

“Café noisette? How utterly fucking predictable,” she snarled, tone stupendously out of place in the cramped bakery.  

His expression was flinty, lips twisted into a recognizable sneer. Her fingers trembled from how tightly they wrapped around her wand, which stayed tucked within her robes. 

“Have an issue with my coffee order, Granger?” The question held more bite than curiosity, and in her periphery, Hermione caught his friend—did Malfoy have friends?—gaping at the two, who stood chest to chest. 

Since June, she had managed to forget spotting Malfoy flying over Les Jardins Voilés’ hedge maze. He’d been easy to ignore then, so distant he could’ve been a fly. But now, three months later and a week into the fall semester, standing in what she’d subliminally claimed as her space, it was impossible to put aside the lingering anger. 

It had been two years since Hermione had last spoken to Draco Malfoy. 

She remembered his trial, the way her begrudging defense of him had tasted acrid even then. How she’d had to constantly remind herself that no seventeen year old, no matter the crime, deserved Azkaban.

She hadn’t let herself look at the scar on her left forearm. Didn’t let the nightmares of the Manor dissuade her resolve. Because she was Hermione Granger, and understood the concept of justice well enough to know Malfoy didn’t deserve chains for his complacency. 

But he sure as hell deserved her wrath. 

“Why,” she hissed, “the fuck are you in France? And why are you dressed like you’re enrolled at Collège de la Brume?”

His eye roll was withering. “Maybe because I am a student at the Collège.”

Hermione was floored. “For what? I didn’t realize they taught the dark arts in the Quarter.”

“Yes, because I decided the first thing I wanted to do off parole was learn to split my soul seven ways. What gave it away?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you and your deficient morals.”

“Deficient morals?” Malfoy’s eyes rounded in disbelief, as if somehow shocked by Hermione’s assessment. “You think you know me well enough to discern my values, Granger?”

“I don’t need to—” nor want to “—know you to judge your actions. You let a horde of Death Eaters into Hogwarts!” Hermione vaguely registered that she was shouting. “Endangered children. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t the one to kill Dumbledore.”

“Have you lost the fucking plot? As if I wasn’t being blackmailed the entire time,” and just like that, he was shouting too.

“Circumstance doesn’t change the fact that you did something inherently wrong! If everyone in the world were as bloody rotten as you, there would be no world left. Don’t you see the issue?” She hadn’t intended the question to implore, but it did.

“Oh so that’s it, is it? I defied your precious universal law?¹³ What a fucking shame,” he uttered, each sarcastic syllable coated in condescension. 

“Familiar with Kant, then? Makes explaining this easier,” but Hermione still enunciated each syllable slowly, as if speaking to a child—she might as well have been. “Morality is bound to duty. It is putting outcome and self-preservation aside to do the right fucking thing, simply because it’s right!”¹⁴

They stood so close now that every one of their breaths tangled together. The world had stilled. There was no hiss of coffee brewing, no clink of coins being exchanged, not a word of casual conversation—perhaps because their shouting match had stunned the small audience into silence.

Malfoy leaned impossibly closer, eyes glittering with malice. “And in this fantastical world of yours, who gets to decide what’s right and wrong, Granger? The likes of you?”

She blinked slowly. “You fought for fascism. I fought against it. Do I need to spell it out further for you?”

“Everything I did was to defend my family,” he spat. “Does that not register as duty in that allegedly brilliant mind of yours? Since when did protecting one’s family indicate a lack of virtue? I stuck to, and fought for, my core beliefs, instead of preaching universal law like a broken fucking record!”¹⁵

Hermione felt the urge to laugh. “Your interpretation of Aristotle is weaker than your understanding of Kant. Is it really virtue when Lucius happily spearheads your little proto-fascist movement?” She jabbed a finger into his chest, right below the Collège's flame insignia. "Is it really virtue when you aren't fighting for survival, but in the name of extremism? For fucking genocide?"

“You cannot be comparing my father to the likes of Franco,” Malfoy sputtered, coffee frothing over the edge of its cup—his hands were trembling with anger. Of course that was the point he'd chosen to fixate on. 

A snort escaped. “Do you think basic knowledge on muggle history scores brownie points, Malfoy? It does quite the opposite. Despite your familiarity with the Caudillo and his numerous crimes, you still think it was right to defend Lucius fucking Malfoy,” she shook her head, amazed. “Incredible what one will do to retrospectively justify one’s actions.”

“You're just upset that I chose differently than you. We all know it was easy for you to forsake family in the name of the greater good, Granger,” he cooed, tone perversely soft while referencing her obliviated parents. 

And now Hermione was the one shaking. White spots lanced through the edges of her vision. “Apples and fucking oranges, Malfoy. There is no world in which the situations are comparable.”

“No, but you value the lofty notion of “duty” above family. That much is clear.” He wrinkled his nose distastefully.

Rage had evolved into a creature, writhing under her ribs. "Your family was not the target of aforementioned genocide—they were the perpetrators! You fought for power. I sacrificed for survival." Distantly, she heard Daphne calling her name—an unfamiliar voice calling out to Malfoy. Yet neither could turn away from the other.

"In my world, power and survival are one and the same, Granger," and Hermione's name landed like a curse. "If you weren’t so bound to your precious universal law, maybe you could recognize that circumstance dictates morality just as much as predetermined duty.”

If Malfoy wanted metaphysical war, he’d have it. “And you think that conforming to the will of Voldemort signifies as noble value-creation?¹⁶ Nietzsche is rolling in his grave.”

“Again, the elephant in the room. Why are you so insistent to ignore it? Coercion—”

“Doesn’t negate duty, only lessens blame.” Hermione took a step closer unwittingly. Sniffed delicately, catching a whiff of the bitter coffee. “You didn’t make a single difficult choice. You complied. You obeyed—thoughtlessly,¹⁷ with nary a consideration of consequence. Was it the promise of glory that made obedience easier?”

“Obeying meant survival. Don’t drag Arendt into this,” he growled.

“Why? Because she’s a muggleborn?” Hermione caught the way Malfoy’s jaw tightened. “Because she’s Ilvermorny educated, instead of subscribing to your classic European schools of thought—”

“Muggleborn? Nietzsche was a sodding muggle, you arrogant, presumptuous, condescending—”

Hermione cut in again, unable to resist. “Maybe that’s why you’re so susceptible to bad-faith Nietzscheanism. You lean on Aristotle, because Aristotle was a pureblood, and you’re certain that he philosophized to defend his own ilk, right? But Arendt examines the Holocaust. Voldemort’s sodding inspiration—”

“I know,” he interrupted, voice brittle, “what the fucking Holocaust is, Granger.”

Dimly, Hermione was aware of the voices growing louder in the background. A manager, bellowing about her and Malfoy making a scene. Céline’s swift French—soothing, reassuring that they would be gone soon. Buying time for her. She didn’t care.

Hermione met Malfoy’s eyes once more. Watched them fluctuate as she spoke. Took note of the way his expression shuttered as she delivered a final blow. 

“No, you don’t want me to bring up Arendt because you know I’m right,” and her voice was dangerously soft now. “You didn’t stop to consider abject moral failure before it was too fucking late. You look for redemption by selfishly bending philosophy—by defending your actions instead of taking accountability for your sins, all to avoid true remorse.”

They were so unbearably close—she could smell the salt of faint perspiration on him. A touch of his cologne. Malfoy reeked of privilege. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. 

Instead, she perched her lips against the shell of his ear, letting her breath ghost over the sensitive skin.

“When you can’t twist the truth anymore, you’ll understand, Malfoy. One day, you’ll look into the mirror, and the reflection will shatter in the face of sheer vanity. There'll be nothing but guilt left.” Her lips curled into a vicious little smile, body turning towards the door. “And I can’t fucking wait to see you break under the burden of culpability.”

The bell above the door chimed victoriously as Hermione abandoned the boulangerie.
   

──────── ☾☼ ────────

It felt as though she’d stepped straight from the bakery into the Manor’s library—Le Quartier Doré's understated charm giving way to ancient wealth. The echo of her own words on accountability still lingered, rose-tinted and righteous, as she found herself staring, mouth parted in quiet disbelief.

The Malfoys had a way of making even beauty seem obscene. That was the first word that surfaced, though the longer she looked, the less conviction it carried. Obscene in its precision, its symmetry, its quiet, suffocating grandeur.

Candles floated in suspended constellations, their light caught on gilt spines and carved moulding. Rows upon rows of shelves rose like the ribs of some ancient creature, polished to a mirror sheen. The scent of wax and parchment filled her lungs in an intoxicating rush. 

Every surface breathed of power and preservation. The air itself thrummed with layered enchantments—old magic and older arrogance, bound together so tightly they were almost indistinguishable.

It was too beautiful—maybe the most beautiful thing Hermione had ever seen.

And Hermione hated that she could see it; that she could recognize the mastery in the craftsmanship, the reverence for learning hidden beneath all the ostentation. Her rational mind catalogued the features automatically, but another, quieter part of her simply stood there, spellbound.

She straightened her spine, masking the flush of wonder behind irritation. Merlin help her. The most magnificent library she’d ever seen belonged to Draco Malfoy.

“Bribery doesn’t secure trust,” she said, immediately suspicious. 

Malfoy looked deplorably smug. “If bribing you was so easy, I would’ve done this eons ago.”

Hermione scowled and took a step through the ancient, intricately carved doors. The Manor murmured, a touch of magic grazing her skin—as if it were preening for her admiration, happy to show off. Slowly, a realization clicked into place. 

She shot Malfoy a positively filthy look over her shoulder. “You instructed the Manor to lead me astray this last week, didn’t you? Even Chippy wouldn’t acquiesce my requests to be shown around.”

“I was in France until this morning, Granger. Couldn’t have you wandering unsupervised, could we? Lots of nasty curses afoot,” he said, striding into the room. 

Hermione blinked. “You went to France?”

“Chasing a lead.” He stopped in front of a table piled with newspaper clippings. She frowned, walking up to where he stood.

“Isn’t that what the Aurors' Office is for?”

“Might come as a shocker, but not everything I do is strictly Ministry sanctioned.”

This earned a derisive snort. “And this is meant to make me trust you how?”

They stood side by side now, and Hermione caught the faint shimmer of a glamour by the nape of his neck. But before she could voice a question, Malfoy held out the latest edition of Le Courant. 

She didn’t have a chance to read the headline, or any amount of text before Malfoy surgically sheared a single photo from the first page—another flick of his wand, and it joined a small pile to her left. 

He nodded towards the stack, as if inviting her to rifle through what appeared to be a series of clipped photos from Le Courant. What was Malfoy doing collecting snippets of Parisian magical news?

As Hermione flipped through the set of photos, a sense of dread coiled in her throat. The faces all looked faintly familiar, but she couldn’t place why—until she found the photo of Antoine Girard.

That’s when it dawned on her. All of these witches or wizards had once been involved at the Solenne. Faculty, students, researchers. And she had recognized them all from her and Malfoy’s shared two years in Paris. 

When she turned back, his mouth was taut, his brow furrowed. A study in unease.

“Explain.” A demand. He exhaled noisily through his nose, as if picking over which point to begin. Hermione’s patience thinned. “Today, preferably,” she tacked on unhelpfully. 

An annoyed look, and then: “Disappearances, over the span of the last month and a half. Solenne faculty members, professors, researchers—all reputable alchemists, vanishing overnight. They’ve been keeping it quiet internationally, which is why I had to cross the Channel. There was no other way to verify the rumors.”

Her head spun, turning over the new information, trying to process it.

Hermione shuffled through the clippings, catching snips of headlines. None of the articles had featured on Le Courant's front page, except for Girard's. There was an explicit effort to keep this under wraps—likely because the French Ministry had no clue what was going on, and refused to acknowledge its own incompetence. Typical bureaucratic behavior. 

A tentative theory formed. 

“Primarily faculty from our years there,” she paused, immediately backtracking. “From your years there.” A nod from Malfoy; affirmation that her thoughts were spiraling in the right direction.

“All those who showed interest in my research,” he said, voice devoid of typical pride.

“In the research on the wormwood reaction?” An unnecessary clarification, earning her another curt nod. But the dread only grew, rising like bile in her esophagus. Hermione swallowed around it, hazarding another question. “Why?” 

Her eyes stayed fixed to the photo of Girard. In it, he wore the wretched tweed suit, and she knew instinctively that the smudge on his wrinkled cheek was from soot. She could practically hear his voice, even now. 

Soot is just the proof of a successful calcination, Mademoiselle Granger. 

“Because someone found something in my research, and managed to exploit it. And now they’re getting rid of their loose ends,” and he offered her one of those self-deprecating smiles she’d come to hate. “But you figured that out already—just needed me to be the one to voice it.”

Disbelief flooded Hermione’s system in increasingly forceful waves. So this is what Malfoy had spent the week doing. He’d been in France, following up on a pattern of disappearances that all pointed toward one thing: his innocence.

He really had been prepared for her mistrust.

Her voice was slow, thick with dread. “Let me get this straight. Anyone who indicated interest in—who even witnessed—the wormwood and pearl dust infusion has fallen off the face of the earth over the last month and a half?”

“Everyone but you,” he said, flashing a razor-sharp smile. Hermione’s blood curdled. 

And then—another slew of realizations, punctuated with a small gasp. She turned to face him, colliding violently with his arm. Malfoy reached out reflexively, steadying her, but Hermione brushed him off, too enraged.

“That’s why you were so insistent I quit my job! To get me out of the public eye,” she accused, voice shrill even to her own ears. In the most deranged way—no doubt borne from a place of self-interest—Malfoy had helped her.

“You’re abysmal at the art of subtlety, really. Spotted once with me at Knockturn—I wouldn’t have been noticeable if you hadn’t followed me, mind you,” and they exchanged dirty glares, “and once more flitting around at St. Mungo’s, harassing Healers.”

“I was hardly harassing anyone, I was just offering help—”

He let loose an exasperated sigh, cutting her off. “No need to launch into hysterics over semantics, Granger. Point is, you have two strikes against you. First—”

“I witnessed the reaction itself, at the Solenne.” This time, Hermione was the one to interrupt. “And I’ve been linked to the linesia investigation, and—fuck, I’m sure there’s a paper trail.”

Her desperate eyes found Malfoy’s, which were uncharacteristically imploring. 

“And you figured out my connection—which, by the by, Pansy wrote an article for the Prophet last year on the Department of Mysteries’ research. There was a bit on purifying effects produced by ‘wormwood and love’.¹⁸ Shouldn’t have let her fucking publish it,” he swore, jaw working.

Hermione hardly processed the fact that he’d continued this research at the Ministry. She was too busy unraveling the threads of what could only be labeled as an academic conspiracy.

“So you’re the perfect scapegoat to pin the creation of linesia on,” she realized. “Which is the only reason why you yourself aren’t dead, and why you needed me silent immediately. If I said a single thing, the entire shitshow would collapse onto your shoulders.”

Because of course others would arrive at the same conclusion that she had. Draco Malfoy, aloof and historically unpredictable, would be the perfect culprit for this imperfect crime. It wouldn't matter that his record had been spotless since the war's end, or that he didn't need to pad his wallet by selling addictive potions. With Malfoy, it was always safer to presume guilt. 

“Give me some more credit. I’ve got the self-preservation instincts of a roach,” he replied, notably ignoring her second point. 

Still, his nonchalant comparison of self to roach—combined with the general hysteria that accompanied large influxes of unwelcome knowledge—elicited a weak laugh from Hermione. 

There was one last question that remained, and Malfoy wasted no time in voicing it. 

“So,” he started, eyes triumphant after having successfully made his case. “Believe me now, Granger?”

Hermione’s answer was immediate and startlingly honest. “Yes," she breathed. But she clarified hastily, memories of his attempts at redemption via philosophical manipulation fresh in her mind. "Only regarding this mess, that is."

Malfoy’s features loosened instantly, posture relaxing, upon hearing truth reverberate through her voice. 

Briefly, she marveled at the situation—how her instincts had guided her so wrong regarding Malfoy’s involvement. At how easily she’d believed him responsible, his abduction of her notwithstanding.

For his part, Malfoy looked wholly unbothered. He simply snapped his fingers, and Chippy appeared. 

“Chippy, take Miss Granger to the floo parlor and show her the powder. Make sure she makes it home.” The elf nodded eagerly. But Hermione could only sputter incoherently, mouth agape. Malfoy held up a hand.

“I don’t particularly care if you hate me. I rather enjoy our brand of mutual disdain,” he drawled—correctly assuming that Hermione absolutely despised the way he’d structured this revelation of information. But he didn’t give her a chance to point out the myriad of reasons why.

“I merely want your hatred to be informed, Granger. Don’t paint me as the wrong color of monster; if you’re to hate me, do it for the right reasons.”

With that, he disappeared into the stacks, leaving Hermione with unexpected freedom, at least a dozen half-formed questions—and the profound feeling that this version of Draco Malfoy was not the one who had cowered from accountability so many years ago. 

Chapter Text

Traveling by floo was perhaps Hermione’s least favorite form of wizarding transport. Even flying was preferable to spinning through flames, soot and grime—there was something truly demeaning about landing in a heap just in front of one’s own hearth, let alone a public one. 

Brushing ash from the front of her borrowed robes, she took quick inventory of her flat. Everything seemed in order—the small unit was dim and softened by a fine smattering of dust, narrow bookshelves casting long shadows over the sitting room.

Home. She was finally home. No more of Malfoy Manor’s ridiculous, taunting grandeur—no more white-haired, reticent men prowling through the halls. 

Hermione released the breath she’d been subconsciously holding, a sigh loosening her lungs before breaking through trembling lips. 

Home. 

Her typically agile brain had slowed. Every thought meandered, coasting through various cortices only to be muffled by the steady thudding of her heart—each pulse reverberating through her skull.

Sensation first, process later. Hermione could handle that for a little while longer. 

So for now, there was only the worn rug at her feet and the scent of old parchment, laced with wisps of honey and smoke from the candles strewn about. Just the familiar notches of her window, wooden grooves smooth under her fingers as she propped it open to let an evening breeze trickle in. 

Hermione would not cry just yet. There were other things to be done first.

She lit the hearth with an admittedly shaky wave of her wand, and set to brewing a fresh pot of tea. With the kettle going, she rummaged through lean cupboards, digging up a packet of stale digestives. Merlin knew what year they were from; she wasn’t too keen to find out. 

Only when she had polished off a sleeve of biscuits and moved onto a second mug of tea did Hermione finally allow herself to think. 

She had spent the last week as prisoner at Malfoy Manor. 

There were no bruises nor scars to be found, but her mind had been wrung out like an old washcloth. Naturally, mental warfare was Malfoy’s specialty; he’d made her doubt her own mind more than once.

One hand tightened around the wand she still clutched, tea momentarily forgotten.

Wards. Hermione would need to cast fresh wards over the flat—she did not wish to disappear like the other alchemists had. 

But before that, she’d need to check the post. Merlin—she’d need to file the rest of the paperwork for her resignation. And then there was the rent for the month, which she’d have to pay from her savings. Fuck.

A headache bloomed at the base of her temples, unfurling against her brow. Hermione was so extraordinarily fucked. Every fragile metric of stability she’d established since moving back to London had come crashing down within one disastrous week. 

Draco bloody Malfoy.  

His name skittered through her thoughts like a curse as she unlatched the door. For a moment, she leaned over the terrace, reveling in the evening’s brisk air, and marvelled: what a great, conniving prat he was. 

By Hermione’s best estimate, barely an hour had passed since she’d flooed home from the Manor. Within that time, cradled by familiar comforts, she had decided that she couldn’t afford to trust Malfoy unconditionally. He’d only given her reasonable doubt against previously indisputable guilt.

So even as she evaluated the information methodically, suspicion directed towards Malfoy stayed affixed in the back of her mind. 

I merely want your hatred to be informed, Granger. Don’t paint me as the wrong color of monster; if you’re to hate me, do it for the right reasons.

She cast her eyes towards the street. Her flat—the attic of a rundown Georgian—leaned over Doughty Street rather ominously. 

In the distant dark Hermione could just make out Mecklenburgh Square, wrought iron fences and rain-slick bricks glistening under lamplight. Her building’s steep stairway led down three flights, straight to tarmac that glistened like wet ink. The faint scent of coal and candle wax carried upward from the rows of townhouses, all quiet against gentle shadows.

Hermione loved Bloomsbury by night, when the hush of history and scraping quills muffled London’s chaos. But tonight, peace was an abstraction; a light at the end of the tunnel that she could no longer see. 

So she scooped up the post from the terrace and retreated back into the flat, determined to focus on organizing the crumbling pillars of her life. 

She would not think of him, or the sodding Manor, or his bloody taciturn demeanor for another second; it would be but a waste of precious time. And Hermione had already wasted an entire week of her life. She decided not to think of that either.

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Lavender Brown was decidedly the Prophet’s most insipid reporter. Hermione stared dully at the front page of The Sunday Prophet—the paper was stiff against her fingers, as if left to soak in the rain and then dry under autumnal sun. 

POTION PANIC BREWS: ON LINESIA, WITHDRAWALS & THE FAILURES OF THE DMLE

Tuesday, Aug. 30th — An interview with Unspeakable Draco Malfoy reveals new details about the unclassified potion sweeping Knockturn Alley. “Upon first receiving reports of the substance and the memory loss experienced by patients at St. Mungo’s, the Department of Mysteries coined it ‘linesia’,” Malfoy said. “The potion is an exceptionally dangerous derivative of amortentia. Analysts and officials advise the public to steer clear of it.”

Wednesday, Aug. 31st — Head of the DMLE’s Investigation Department, a subdivision of the Auror Office, Hermione Granger resigns amidst the crisis, sending shocks rippling throughout the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at large. Granger has refused to make a statement regarding her abrupt resignation. 

Friday, Sept. 2nd — St. Mungo’s Poisoning Ward has declared the linesia epidemic as a national crisis. Department head Ned Wallace reports that the unit cannot accommodate the flood of patients; within a week, cases have risen from eighteen to thirty-one, with three confirmed fatalities linked to potion withdrawal.

The public is left reeling after an unexpected twist in the narrative. War heroine Hermione Jean Granger, once considered the Ministry’s beacon of hope, has abandoned the investigation. The mantle has been taken up by an unexpected savior — Draco Lucius Malfoy, former war criminal.

Until the press can reach Wizarding Britain’s so-called “Golden Girl,” a title that may have been retired along with her post at the DMLE, we may only assume that Granger has had her fill of saving the world — obeying, perhaps, more selfish whims instead.¹⁹

Hermione scowled at the article, which was accompanied by a smug photo of Malfoy captured outside the Ministry itself; his hair windswept, jaw set and back straight. Every inch the image of dashing savior. 

Without a second thought, she threw the offensive paper into the hearth, watching in grim satisfaction as the flames ate away at Malfoy’s sharp profile—as the words that dubbed her “selfish” burnt to a crisp. 

Hermione was turning into something of an arsonist, between this and the Bryn vs. Studgley file she’d set aflame at the Manor. She rather enjoyed it. 

Selfish. 

Hermione Granger, the most selfish witch in all of London. She nearly laughed at the thought. When was the last time she’d done something purely for herself? 

Circe’s tits. Not like she’d spent the last week voluntarily confined to Malfoy Manor, hoping to help. She’d let a stout healer chew her out. Had unwittingly endangered herself by actively investigating linesia, if any of Malfoy’s conspiratorial drivel was to be trusted. 

And now Lavender fucking Brown—did she still hold a grudge from school?—had all but painted Hermione as the villain, and Malfoy as a knight in shining armor.

This time, she did let loose a laugh. It was a bit manic and wet, morphing into a hiccup. The earl grey had gone cold in her mug, but Hermione couldn’t find it in herself to care. She was seething, cheeks burning, hair frizzing as magic crackled through the air.

For one blistering second, she considered revealing the wormwood detail to the press—letting Malfoy burn at the stake. Instead, she turned to the stack of correspondence, willing herself calm. 

Five letters—and one oddly shaped package—had accompanied the Sunday issue of the paper. It was the most correspondence she had received in a while; presumably, her friends had read Lavender’s article and were reaching out, concerned. Hermione snorted derisively. 

First was the formal acceptance of her resignation, tucked into a crisp envelope and sealed with the DMLE’s insignia—Harry’s messy signature scrawled at the end. A pang, and then a little stutter of her heart. She’d avoided thinking about this. Her career, gone. 

At the same time, it was a relief tainted by guilt. Hermione had never wanted the office at the DMLE—it had been an obligation, a continuation of her servitude to the ever-elusive Greater Good.

After France, there had been abstruse visions of a Potions Mastery, or a Runology Degree. In her wildest dreams, she would spend years in Damascus studying practical alchemy, or theory at Baghdad’s legendary Bayt al-Hikma.

But chasing those dreams would make her selfish in earnest. So she hadn’t. Hermione had a duty to her friends, to those she loved—to the world she’d fought a war to save. 

And Hermione Granger was bound by the tenets of logic and duty; concepts in which she could place trust. Logic did not crumble under duress. Duty would not bend no matter the circumstance. 

Emotion, whims, illusions of grandeur—they were temptations, destined to lead her astray.

Steeling her resolve, she reminded herself why the resignation had been necessary. (She would not think of Malfoy’s subterfuge; of his careful manipulation that made her think captivity was why she had to resign.)

Rather: the disappearances. The trail of memos and Ministry clearances and bloody articles linking her to the linesia investigation. The French keeping their academic conspiracy under wraps.

Everyone but you.

Wards—yes. On the back of the DMLE’s letter, Hermione drafted a list. Repello inimicum, cave inimicum. Perhaps salvio hexia and protego totalum, though those would have to be refreshed daily. Tomorrow she would brush up on warding theory; she’d write Bill for advice.

Next on the docket was a personal letter from Harry, which elicited a grimace. She could hardly imagine how he’d reacted to the resignation—one of his closest friends leaving him high and dry. And delivered with Malfoy’s lacking etiquette. The grimace grew.

Hermione,

I’m worried. The piece in the Prophet’s utter shit, by the way, but it's not the only reason I'm worried. You seemed high-strung on Wednesday, too. It’s been a while since we had a proper talk, which is my fault. Dinner on Saturday? I’ll keep the floo open, Ginny’s taking James to the Burrow for the weekend. I already bought a bottle of red (Cabernet Sauvignon). Yes, this is coercion. No, I am not ashamed. See you Saturday night. 

- Harry 

An unexpected smile stretched across Hermione’s face. 

Dinner, at 12 Grimmauld Place. It’d been a while since she and Harry had sat down for a proper meal. Between a promotion to head of Department, a newborn, and Ginny touring with the Harpies, she imagined he hardly had time to sleep.

And the apology. Which is my fault. Recognition that there was a strange rift forming in their friendship, belied by a willingness to mend it immediately—and of course the bottle of cabernet, because the git knew her weaknesses.

She reached for the next envelope. The stationery was gorgeous—smooth, decadent parchment that smelled faintly of roses—and written in glossy ink. 

A letter from Pansy Parkinson. Equal parts curiosity and trepidation pooled in her gut.

Dearest Hermione,

You’re a brilliant wench for not having your address listed on personnel records, really. I admire it. What I hate is that I had to corner Potter to blackmail the info out of him — can you believe he actually thought I’d print an article about “Pothead Potter”? 

Anyway. You, me, a pint at the Leaky, Friday night? Lavender’s piece; fucking blasphemous. I admit I’d like a scoop to one-up her (the Prophet’s bloody competitive, and linesia’s technically my jurisdiction), but let me clear your name too. What’s it that muggles say — two stones one bird?

Kisses,

Pansy

Hermione exhaled through her nose, somewhere between a scoff and a sigh. Dinner on Saturday, drinks on Friday. What was next, lunch on Sunday? 

But she’d heed Pansy’s request and meet the reporter at the Leaky. Granted, Hermione’s motives were not innocent. If Pansy was the lead investigator on the linesia debacle, she was an invaluable source of information. 

‘Mione,

Just got my hands on an Arabian variant of mimbletonia. Thought it’d interest you; pop by to the Conservatory on Sunday, there’s a symposium on Central Asian flora you might enjoy. Free lunch and lots of tenured faculty. Could job hunt. But don’t forget the mimbletonia - she’s gorgeous.

- Nev

A laugh—lunch on Sunday. Bless Neville; ever the one to look out for her, even if botany wasn’t remotely her field. Hermione felt rather bad ignoring the invite, and decided a trip to Edinburgh wouldn’t be terrible. Scotland was lovely this time of year.

All that was left of the pile was the misshapen package, and a letter stamped with a familiar seal. A delicate poppy embossed in black wax. The de Gaulle crest.

Hermione grinned, tearing open the package first. In it was the softest shawl she’d ever felt—gorgeous sky blue cashmere, the exact color of the Athanor’s banners. Then came the letter.

Ma chère Hermione,

It has been too long since we last spoke. I have half a mind to cross the Channel to see you, but the semester just started — you would not believe the assholes that I have for students. 

I am not sure if you’ve heard of the disappearances in France. Achemists vanishing, mon dieu, it is not good for my blood pressure. I worry that you are not safe, and I worry that you are freezing to death. Why are the British Isles so cold? 

Please write soon. Or floo call. I’m too lazy to pen all my grievances, I’ll develop calluses. Same office as always — they still refuse to give me a garden view. Clearly L’Ordre de Mélusine wants me gone. 

Je t’embrasse, 

Céline

Despite the warmth of the letter, Hermione felt her heart sink. Embedded in Céline’s looping script was clear confirmation that something was awry in France—something that academic circles were all aware of. 

Four letters, four voices calling her back to the world—and still, the room was too quiet. She sank further into the couch, contemplating her choices. 

Malfoy had all but warned her off of further investigating linesia; but Hermione’s curiosity was unquenchable. If Solenne-trained alchemists were disappearing—specifically those that had witnessed or been interested in Malfoy’s bloody reaction—it meant they were being silenced.

It meant that Hermione herself had some sort of knowledge that would help combat the epidemic. The issue was now figuring out what exactly it was that she knew, and why the knowledge would prove dangerous to whoever conceived linesia.

There was always the chance Malfoy was withholding more information—because that was his character, his heavenly-mandated imperative on this earth. Of course there would be more secrets, because Merlin forbid he ever tell the full truth.

And it would be easier to condemn Malfoy if his actions could be attributed to malice. 

But the facts refused to cooperate with her convictions. He hadn’t made the potion. His secrecy read as survival, not spite. Even the unforgivable meddling—quitting her job, confining her to the Manor—had shielded her more than it hurt her. Each new piece of evidence tugged another thread loose from the tidy tapestry she’d woven around him.

For the pattern is new in every moment.²⁰

Hermione buried her face into the shawl and let out a silent scream. 

──────── ☾☼ ────────

Memory, she thought, was perhaps an undiscovered form of alchemy: sensations as coagulants—the blue of Céline’s shawl, the photograph of Malfoy burning in her hearth—distilled by emotion. 

As the illusion of comfort gave way to exhaustion, Hermione’s next breath tasted of crisp parchment and perfumed air. Gone was the smoke and honey of her own flat. 

The Athanor’s library had always tasted of the sky. 

Set at the heart of the main dome, it was a cathedral of quiet wonder, hewn from brittle glass. Shelves carved from pale wood spiraled upwards in double helices, as if seeking knowledge were a genetic predisposition rather than a choice.

A mosaic of pale glass formed the vaulted dome, each shard boasting a rune—Kenaz, Ansuz, Laguz and Perthro. A promise of divine secrets and enlightenment, etched in gold.

Charmed motes of light hung suspended in the air, rumored to be the remnants of lightning bolts tamed by Nostradamus himself. By night, the atrium glittered as if filled with fallen stars. 

Friday evenings were always quiet in the library, the dome flushed lavender with dusk’s fading light. Hermione, Céline and Daphne sat in companionable silence, reams of parchment and open books littered over a central table. Enchanted quills hovered to the side, ready to transcribe their words into notes.

Once a royal hub for botany in the Saint-Louis district, the conservatory lay in ruin after the Revolution, until an alchemical society reclaimed it in Mélusine’s name. 

Now the air carried hints of jasmine, ozone, and a perpetual thrill of the unknown.

“Do you think,” Daphne groused, “that Mélusine spent her Fridays studying infernal texts instead of drinking bordeaux by the river—or dancing under moonlight?”

Céline shot her a perturbed look. “C’est magnifique,” she marvelled sarcastically. “Is this what you do in Thebes? Drink cheap wine and dance barefoot on the streets?”

Daphne’s eyes sparkled. “No, Céline, in Thebes we drink néktar and argue with the Gods.”

Curiosity piqued, Hermione looked up from her notes. “Néktar. Is that a potion, or a drink, or a drug?” A quill quivered despondently by her ear. She swatted it away with practiced ease. 

“It is…” Daphne waved her hands inarticulately. “All three? But at the same time, none.”

Hermione’s brow creased. “So how do you make it?”

“I don’t,” and Daphne adopted a mischievous look. “The maenads do.”

“Maenads,” Hermione said, enunciating the word slowly. “Dionysus’ devotees, right?”

Daphne looked pleased. “Precisely. In Thebes, néktar is made during orgeia.” She lingered on the word, as if it weren’t meant to be spoken aloud. 

This caught Céline’s attention. “Orgeia?” She completely butchered the pronunciation, French accent harsh over smooth vowels. “Like ménage à trois?”

Hermione laughed, covering her mouth with a hand so as not to upset the quills. 

“No, not in the least. Maenad traditions are divine and sensual, yes, but they are not necessarily sexual,” Daphne said, rolling her eyes. “Outsiders are not privy to many customs, and néktar is a drink of the Gods—some things are meant to stay secret.”

“Speaking of things that are not meant to stay secret.” Céline gingerly slid aside the tome she’d been translating. “Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus and Latin drivel on runes can wait. What cannot wait is the elephant in the room.”

“I was unaware there was an elephant,” Hermione said, turning to Daphne for support. 

But Daphne merely nodded, propping her chin on the heel of her palm. “Yes, the boy from yesterday. The one whom we could not tell if you wanted to fuck or fight, Hermione.”

Hermione faltered, aghast. “Pardon?” 

Céline laughed, forgetting to tamp down the sound. Half a dozen quills angrily swarmed her hair, and a swift charm sent them scurrying to the stacks.

“Yes, Malfoy anglais. What was his name again?” Céline tilted her head. “It was something interesting.”

“Draco,” Daphne offered unhelpfully. “His friend was kind, forthcoming with information.”

“Fuck or fight?” Hermione repeated dumbly. She could only stare at her friends as if they’d become hydras, and began sprouting extra heads.

“I liked his hair. He has good cheekbones too. Nice bone structure overall, really—”

Hermione cut Daphne off. “Are you two blind? I wanted to hex him, not shag him,” she hissed. 

Céline nodded, a touch of mischief dissipating upon hearing Hermione’s vexed tone. “Yes. You did not sound particularly happy with him. May I ask why?”

Hermione blinked, dumbfounded. How did one explain Draco Malfoy’s unscrupulous existence to French and Greek witches? 

“He’s an utter git,” she offered blandly. 

 “Most men are,” Céline agreed, tone airy. “But that doesn’t explain why you nearly dueled him in public.”

Hermione groaned. “I thought you two heard the conversation.”

“It was hard to miss,” Céline said dryly. 

It was Hermione’s turn to gesticulate helplessly. “The man tried to turn Aristotle and Nietzsche into moral shields!” Quills flitted threateningly, as if daring her to raise her voice further. “Quoting dead philosophers does not make one less reprehensible.”

Daphne quirked a brow. “By that same logic, quoting dead philosophers—even correctly—does not offer one moral high ground,” she said gently. 

“He twisted every theory of virtue and duty to justify himself,” Hermione pressed. “He spoke of coercion as if circumstance erases culpability.”

“Perhaps he wasn’t justifying,” Céline murmured, fingertip tracing the gilt title. “Perhaps he was… reconciling.”

“Reconciling what? He was defending himself.”

“Or testing himself,” Céline countered, softer. “He didn’t sound proud of what he’d done. He sounded like someone checking whether morality is something he can learn instead of inherit. That isn’t absolution; it’s audit.”

Circumstance dictates morality.

Audit. Not confession, but calculation—deconstructing sin arithmetically to see if anything could still be redeemed. Malfoy's theorem was simple: the actions may be inherently wrong, but morality was a variable he wanted to define.  

Daphne leaned in. “He didn’t look smug, Hermione. He looked… restless. People who feel guilty circle arguments like that—trying to make the facts hurt less.”

Hermione scowled darkly to mask her unease. “That’s generous.”

“It’s not generosity,” Céline said. “It’s observation. Life doesn’t fit your metaphysical boxes. People break rules; then they try to understand why. That’s how they change.”

Daphne rested her chin on her hand again. “Maybe he is trying to grow,” she said softly. “Not justify, just… grow.”

Hermione’s mouth opened, then closed. She looked down at her notes, but her quill hovered uselessly above the parchment. 

The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,²¹

“You don’t have to forgive him,” Céline said after a pause. “He isn’t owed absolution. But you are owed some hope. And if you cannot believe that people change, Hermione, how can you believe the world ever will?”