Chapter Text
GOLDEN GIRL
Hermione stood alone in the quiet bedroom, the door’s soft click still echoing like a final note to the devastation she’d witnessed. Her chest ached, heavy with Pansy’s grief, the image of blood seared into her mind.
Moving on instinct, she drifted into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Steam blurred the room as she stepped under the spray, warm water washing over her skin, rinsing away the metallic tang that clung to her senses. It wasn’t about feeling clean—it was about shedding grief that wasn’t hers, yet had soaked into her all the same.
Moments later, she emerged damp and quiet, padding barefoot into the closet. Shadows and fabric swallowed her as neat rows of clothes blurred past. Moving on autopilot, she tugged a Rolling Stones T-shirt from the hanger and yoga pants from the dresser, sliding them on with the numb precision of someone drifting through fog. Dressed, she slipped into the alcove and sank onto the cushioned stool, her trembling hands hovering over the silver-handled brushes gleaming in the dim light.
She glanced at the mirror and startled. Her hair, now curling past her shoulders, was soft, defiant—a cascade of rebellion against the past. She threaded her fingers through the spirals, a small smile starting, marveling at their stubborn resilience. A quiet peace bloomed in her chest. Her hair was hers—untouched by Ron, unmarred by fear. A small victory.
Her smile faltered as her thoughts drifted back to Pansy. To the blood. To the words that had slipped past her lips: this time. The phrase looped in her mind, sharp and damning, carving questions into her heart. How many had there been? How many times had her hope been torn from her body, her future bleeding out in silence? There had to be something—potions, medicine, something that the wizarding world or even the Muggle world could offer. She would find it. She would. She had to.
A soft crack pulled her from her thoughts. Jinxie popped into the room, balancing a steaming mug of coffee in her tiny hands, the scent of lavender and honey curling through the air. She set it delicately on the vanity, ears twitching.
“Lavender and honey, warmth in a cup,
To soothe aching hearts when we refuse to give up.”
Hermione’s lips curved into a smile, the warmth of the mug seeping into her palms as she wrapped her fingers around it.
“Thank you, Jinxie,” she whispered.
The elf’s grin softened, her small hands lifting the silver-handled brush. She clambered onto the stool’s edge and began brushing Hermione’s hair, each stroke slow, gentle, rhythmic—a lullaby in motion.
“Miss Luna says she’ll come after breakfast,” Jinxie murmured, her rhyme quiet and steady. “She’ll bring her light, to set things right.”
Hermione nodded, her gaze dropping to the table, where a small stack of books rested. Mippy had brought them from her old flat, their covers worn and edges frayed with use. Hermione reached for them, her hand trembling as she traced the spines. Pride and Prejudice. The leather was cool, familiar beneath her fingertips. Dracula, its corners bent from nights she’d lost herself in its pages. A collection of Poe’s works, heavy with memories—nights she had read to drown out Ron’s drunken rages, to escape bruises hidden beneath long sleeves. These books had been her refuge. Her survival.
Her chest tightened as she flipped open Pride and Prejudice. On the first page, scrawled in messy, familiar handwriting, was a note.
Happy birthday, Mione. Love you to the moon and back, my golden girl. —Ron.
Her vision blurred, not with grief but with fury—hot, stinging tears carving angry paths down her cheeks. These books weren’t hers anymore. They were tainted, poisoned—peace offerings from Ron after the blows he’d struck the night before. She didn’t even know why she’d asked Mippy to bring them, except she’d grown so used to them being her only escape. Now every page she had once clung to revealed itself for what it was: another shackle, binding her to Ron’s lies, his cruelty, his false promises and sorrys.
Her hands trembled violently, clutching the book as if it were a venomous thing.
Her breath came sharp and ragged, catching in her throat as she tore the first page free. The rip split the silence with a jagged scream of paper, the sound like bone snapping. Another page followed, then another, her fingers savage, tearing with feral precision. Scraps rained to the floor, drifting like blackened ash, fragments of something she now knew had never been real.
“It was all a lie,” she hissed, her voice breaking, thick with fury. “None of it was mine. None of it.”
Jinxie’s eyes gleamed with unholy delight, her tiny body vibrating as if she’d been waiting centuries for this single moment. With a squeal, she sprang onto the stool, stamping her feet in a mad little jig, the cushion squeaking beneath her wild rhythm. Her ears flapped as she clapped her hands, her giggle high and sharp, a sound that danced on the edge of hysteria.
“Ruin them all, Miss Hermione!” she crowed, her voice spinning into rhyme, breathless and gleefully unhinged.
“Tear the page, break the spine,
Smash his love, it isn’t thine!
Rip and shred, crack and snap,
Turn his words to ash and scrap!”
She spun in a circle, skirts flying, her laughter bubbling like a kettle about to boil over. “Burn the ink, bleed the lie.”
Hermione’s chest heaved, rage burning through every breath. Her eyes snapped to Jinxie’s manic grin before she seized Dracula and hurled it across the alcove. It struck the mirror with a violent crack, glass exploding into glittering shards that rained over the vanity, scattering her reflection into a hundred fractured pieces.
“Yes!” Jinxie shrieked, spinning in a chaotic twirl, her tiny hands clapping like a drumbeat of destruction. “Smash and break, tear it through, let his ghost be skewered too!”
Hermione snatched up Poe, then the others, her voice splitting the air as she screamed, each throw sharper, more desperate. Each book became a missile—grief, rage, loss turned physical—slamming against the walls, the vanity, the ruined mirror. Pages flew like feathers torn from a bird’s wings, the sound of her rage filling the alcove.
The mirror’s jagged remains stared back at her, her reflection fractured into grotesque shards. She stumbled toward it, drawn like a moth to flame, her fingers grazing the broken edges. The glass bit into her skin, a sting she welcomed, a pain that made sense. She understood it—this need to shatter before being forced back together.
The heavy thud of hurried footsteps echoed through the room—but Hermione didn’t hear it. The sound existed, but it didn’t reach her, not through the fog of memory clawing her under.
Draco slipped inside, wand raised, eyes wide, chest heaving as he took in the destruction.
“Granger,” he called, sharp, urgent. “Granger—look at me.”
But the words slid past her unheard. She was locked in another place, another time—Ron’s voice curling like smoke in her skull, Ron’s hands clamping down on her wrists, Ron’s shadow blotting out the room. Her fingers clenched tighter around the jagged shard of glass, her breaths coming in fractured bursts as rage drowned her reason.
“Granger,” he called, once—twice—his voice a command edged with something far more fragile. “Granger, look at me.”
She didn’t. Couldn’t. She was gone, swallowed whole by the storm in her mind. The room wasn’t the alcove anymore—it was Ron’s flat, Ron’s voice sneering in her ears, Ron’s hands crushing her wrists. Rage wrapped around her like chains, dragging her backward.
Draco froze at the sight of her fingers closing around a jagged shard of glass. His stomach dropped, a violent twist of dread tightening through him—he’d seen this look before, the hollow haze of someone lost in their own terror, unreachable.
Her eyes were glassy, unseeing, locked on phantoms only she could battle.
She spun as Draco stepped closer, his presence looming at her back. In her mind it wasn’t him—it was Ron. It had to be Ron. With a broken sob, she swung the glass like a weapon, desperate to protect herself from the monster she couldn’t escape.
The world slowed. He was too close.
The shard plunged into his chest with a sickening resistance, wedging deep into muscle. Blood welled instantly, stark and vivid against the white of his shirt, blooming red like a violent flower.
Hermione froze. Her hand still clutched the shard, buried in him, her eyes wide with horror as the reality snapped into focus.
Draco’s breath hissed through his teeth, his hand flying up to steady hers against the glass, holding it in place to keep it from cutting deeper. His voice was low, urgent, strained, but unmistakably his.
“Granger,” he rasped, silver eyes locking onto hers. “Eyes on me. Come on, look at me. It’s me. Not him—me.”
Her breath caught, panic flooding her, the fog in her mind breaking apart as her eyes locked onto his.
Jinxie yelped, her voice shrill and panicked, her ears flapping wildly.
“Chaos King! Chaos King!” she cried, her tiny hands waving in distress before she vanished with a crack, her rhyme trailing behind like smoke: “Miss Hermione’s gone wild with the sting!”
Hermione’s hands shook violently, her palms slick with his blood.
“Malfoy—I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” she stammered, her chest heaving as she stepped toward him, her eyes fixed on the crimson soaking through his pristine shirt.
Draco’s lips twitched, a wry smirk breaking through his grimace, sharp even as his breath caught from the pain.
“You stabbed me,” he said, his tone low, dry, threaded with dark amusement despite the blood blooming over his chest. “Theo’s going to be insufferably jealous and likely sulk for weeks knowing you marked me first.”
A shaky laugh broke from Hermione’s throat, thin and trembling, but real. She pressed her hands hard against his chest, desperate to stop the bleeding.
“Hold your breath,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
In one motion, she yanked the glass shard free. Blood gushed hot and immediate, and Draco growled—a guttural, primal sound that vibrated through her hands, through her ribs, low and feral. The sound jolted her, her stomach dropping in a way that terrified her almost as much as it thrilled her. She shouldn’t like it. But she did.
“I can heal it, I can heal it, I can heal it,” she rambled, frantic, her words tumbling too quickly, her hands fluttering above the wound as raw magic sparked at her fingertips.
Draco’s larger hands closed around hers, firm but not cruel, anchoring her in place.
“Eyes on me,” he said, his voice steady, “breathe for me,” commanding, cutting cleanly through her spiral.
She froze, the magic flickering out as her gaze lifted to his. His eyes burned into hers, grounding, pulling her out of the fog. She sucked in a shaky breath through her nose, then let it out slowly through her mouth, her pulse still racing but evening under the weight of his stare.
Then—deliberate, slow—he released her hands and reached for his shirt, unbuttoning one button at a time. Each flick of his fingers exposed more pale skin, more history etched into his body. Jagged scars slashed across his chest and ribs—the mark of Sectumsempra—now threaded with something new: tattoos, black and grey, serpents coiled like living things across his collarbone, runes carved in ink along the ridges of his ribs, protective sigils layered over violence.
The sight stole her breath. Her eyes traced the lines—scar over ink, ink over bone—her throat tightening at the quiet truth of what it meant: survival carved into skin.
Draco caught her staring, his eyes glinting with dark amusement, his lips curling into a smirk.
“Keep staring like that, Granger, and I’ll bleed out before you can frame this masterpiece of a wound.”
Her cheeks flamed, a pink flush blooming across her skin as her stomach knotted, heat coiling low and dangerous. She bit her lower lip, the motion instinctive, and Draco’s gaze dropped to her mouth, his eyes darkening, tracking the way her teeth sank into the soft flesh. She stepped closer, pressing her palm to his chest, directly over the wound, and his gaze flicked to her face in time to see her eyes darken, her breaths coming quicker as if the magic itself was straining through desire.
“Corpus integre,” she whispered, the words trembling past her lips. Warmth surged from her hand, sealing flesh and vein, knitting muscle until only a faint pink line remained.
Draco’s eyes flickered, a storm of shadows and silver.
“Blaise swore you could wield wandless magic,” he murmured, his voice a low, intimate growl, “but I didn’t think it’d feel this… potent.” His gaze lingered on her bitten lip, a hungry edge to his stare.
They were close—too close—nearly nose to nose, her hand lingering on his chest, the solid thrum of his heartbeat beneath her palm. The air crackled, thick with unspoken desire, a dangerous current pulling them under.
“What the fuck is this travesty?” Theo’s voice boomed, sharp and petulant, cutting through the alcove’s charged silence as he swaggered in, dark eyes glinting with mock outrage. He jabbed a finger between Draco and Hermione, his unbuttoned shirt flapping with dramatic flair.
“Seventy-two hours! I’m out there, exiled, playing the tragic hero by your bloody rules, and you two are in here—” he flung a hand at Draco’s bloodied, open shirt and Hermione’s trembling hands, “—painting each other in blood like it’s some twisted art show, leaving your star performer uninvited? I’m wounded. Positively gutted.”
Draco didn’t flinch, his fingers tucking a strand of Hermione’s wild hair behind her ear, lingering with deliberate possession.
Theo stalked closer, his gaze dropping to the faint scar on Draco’s chest, his lips curling into a slow, wolfish smirk. He bit his lower lip, letting it snap free, his voice dropping to a decadent moan.
“Oh my god, Dove, you stabbed him? That’s fucking filthy. Promise you’ll stab me if I’m a good boy.”
Hermione’s heart hammered, her pulse fluttering wildly, a searing heat coiling in her belly. Her breath came shallow, her pupils dilating as confusion, panic, and desire tangled into a dizzying knot. Theo’s hand shot out, seizing her wrist, his grip firm. He lifted her hand, his eyes burning with dark hunger as he ran his fingers through the blood on hers, smearing it deliberately. He brought her fingers to his lips, his tongue flicking out, slow and obscene, licking the blood off with a low moan. Her knees buckled, the wet heat of his mouth sending shivers through her. He sucked her fingers, his moan vibrating against her skin, his eyes locked on hers, devouring her flushed cheeks, her shallow breaths, her wide, dilated pupils.
Draco’s gaze remained fixed, tracking the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the way her flush deepened, the air suffocating with tension.
A soft sound shattered the moment. A throat clearing, feather-light but firm.
Luna stood in the doorway. Her pale eyes swept over the carnage—the confetti of torn pages, the books littering the floor, the mirror fractured into jagged slices, Draco’s shirt hanging open, Theo’s blood-smeared lips. She tilted her head, dreamy but sharp in her timing.
“Am I interrupting something? I could always come back,” she asked, the corner of her mouth quirking, amusement threading through her voice.
Hermione’s voice cracked its way free, trembling but resolute.
“No, Luna,” she said, pulling her hand back from Theo’s grip. “I’d like to speak with you now.”
Draco and Theo exchanged a glance, an entire conversation spoken in one flicker of eye contact—curiosity, frustration, hunger.
“What happened here, little dove?” Theo asked finally, his tone straddling that line only he could walk—half-jest, half-serpent hiss. He gestured to the wreckage with a dramatic sweep.
Hermione’s gaze dropped, her throat tightening until the words scraped out raw.
“The books… they were from my flat.” She swallowed hard, forcing the words into the room like stones. “I opened Pride and Prejudice, and there was a note in his handwriting. ‘Happy birthday Mione, love you to the moon and back, my golden girl.’”
Theo’s expression hardened.
“What do you want done with them?”
“Burn them,” she said, her voice steady despite the tears in her eyes. “Burn them all.”
Draco nodded, already gathering the scattered books and pages, his movements purposeful. Theo joined him, stacking the books with a grin.
“We’ll arrange it,” Draco said.
They turned to leave, but Theo lingered, his grin wicked, eyes glinting like he was already planning trouble.
“Fuck the seventy-two hours,” he drawled. “I’m sleeping in my own bloody room tonight—with you, little dove.” He didn’t wait for her answer; just spun on his heel with a dramatic sweep, his words final.
Luna’s eyes flickered over the mess, her lips curving in a soft, whimsical smile.
“Well, that’s one way to say good morning,” she said, her voice lilting like a breeze through a field of nargles.
Luna stepped forward, her hand brushing Hermione’s arm with the kind of light touch that both soothed and steered.
“Let’s move somewhere softer,” she said, her tone gentle but certain, guiding Hermione away from the wreckage.
They crossed into the bedroom, the air cooler, calmer. Luna tilted her head slightly, as if listening to something only she could hear, her silver-blonde hair spilling like silk over her shoulders.
“There’s death clinging to the air,” she murmured, her dreamy voice carrying weight. “It’s heavy, like damp earth after a storm.”
Hermione’s throat tightened, her voice breaking as it slipped out.
“It’s not my story to tell.”
Luna didn’t press. She only nodded, accepting the boundary without question, her gaze patient. Stepping closer, she let her expression soften.
“Are you sure you’re ready for another session so soon, Hermione? So much has stirred in you already this morning.”
Hermione’s fists clenched, her nails biting into her palms.
“I’m sure, I can’t stay like this—broken, stuck. I need to heal. For myself… and for others.”
Luna’s brow tilted, her curiosity slipping through.
“What others?”
Hermione shook her head quickly, lips pressing shut.
Luna accepted her silence with another small nod, her expression serene.
“Then let’s begin. Are you ready to go to the healing room?”
“Yes,” Hermione nodded.
They left the bedroom together, their footsteps soft as they moved down the winding corridors of the manor. The healing room opened before them, welcoming in its strange serenity. Music thrummed faintly in the air—a low hum of strings and distant chimes. Candles glowed along the walls, their light pooling gold across smooth stone. The chaise lounge waited, draped with blankets charmed for warmth, soft as an embrace.
Hermione sank into it, pulling the blankets around her shoulders. The weight grounded her, pressed her racing heart back into her chest.
Luna stood over her, calm and luminous.
“I’d like to do things much like last time,” she said, her dreamy voice weaving through the room. “But this time, you’ll be lulled into a deep, hypnotic state, a healing trance where you’ll live your memories as they unfold. They won’t stay locked in your mind—they’ll project in real time, a tapestry of light and shadow shimmering around us. I’ll see exactly what you see, every moment, every whisper, and I’ll record them, preserving each fragment like starlight caught in a jar. This way, I can watch what you might miss, pull you back if you linger too long in the dark, and keep these memories for us to process later.”
Her eyes glinted, reflecting the golden glow of the candles.
“Every detail will be held, safe and seen, so we can unravel what haunts you.”
Hermione nodded, her throat tight.
“I understand.”
Luna’s smile was soft, encouraging.
“Lie back. Let the blankets hold you.”
Hermione obeyed, sinking deeper into the chaise, the warmed blankets cocooning her, their softness easing the tension in her bones. Her breathing slowed, steadying as Luna’s voice returned, a chant as light as the wind.
“Breathe in, and let it fill you.”
Hermione inhaled, her lungs stretching against the pressure in her ribs.
“Breathe out.”
She exhaled, shaky, loosening a fragment of the tension coiled in her chest.
“You are safe. You are seen. You are in control.”
Hermione let herself sink, her mindscape unfurling before her—the purple-and-black glow of her sanctuary, candles flickering like distant stars. The mirror stood tall against the far wall, its silver surface rippling, waiting.
This time she didn’t pause. She didn’t linger on her reflection. She stepped forward, and the mirror swallowed her whole, silver pooling like liquid starlight, pulling her under.
The world shifted, and she was no longer watching—she was living. The memory seized her, not as a distant observer but from within her own body, every sensation raw, visceral, inescapable.
She was lying in a bed, the sheets cold and unfamiliar, the air stale with the scent of damp wood and something sweeter—rotting flowers, maybe, or perfume left too long in the sun. The room was a haze of shadows she didn’t recognize yet somehow knew, every darkened corner pressing in on her. Her stomach churned, a sickening lurch that twisted her insides, bile burning the back of her throat. Her mind was fuzzy, heavy, as if she’d been drugged.
The edges of the room blurred, shapes melting into smears of color when she tried to focus. Curtains fluttered though there was no wind, and the ceiling swam above her like water. She tried to move, to sit up, but her limbs resisted, every motion sluggish, wrong, as though her body no longer belonged to her.
A voice sounded, muffled and distant, warped like it was carried underwater. Footsteps followed—measured, sharp, deliberate—drawing closer until a door scraped open. The sound was metallic, grating, tearing through her already frayed nerves.
Cold glass pressed against her lips, the rim of a vial forcing itself between her teeth. Bitter liquid spilled onto her tongue, acrid and cloying, coating her mouth. She gagged, tried to spit it out, but the hand that tipped it held her jaw shut, the fluid sliding down her throat like poison.
Her bleary eyes caught a flicker of detail—a hand, pale and delicate, holding the vial steady. Too delicate to match the voices, which rose now from somewhere else in the room, low and cruel.
“Golden girl,” one sneered, the words dragged out like mockery, slicing through the fog clouding her mind.
The phrase cut her open, lodging itself deep in her chest. She knew that voice—or rather, she knew the type of man who used it. Always the same tone, the same ownership wrapped in disdain.
Hands followed. They slid over her body without permission, without pause. Rough, calloused, greedy. They skimmed her stomach, her sides, creeping lower, higher, as if they owned every inch of her.
She tried to jerk away, but her head spun wildly, the room tilting, her vision fracturing into blurs of movement and shadow. Her arms felt weighted, her legs sluggish, her body a puppet under strings she couldn’t see.
The scent of vanilla thickened in the air, cloying and wrong, twisting her stomach into painful knots. Vanilla should have been sweet, familiar, comforting. Here it was suffocating, sickening, the sweetness turned rancid.
The hands on her thighs gripped harder, pressing, spreading. A low chuckle followed, rumbling in her ear, vibrating through her skull until her whole body recoiled.
Then a sharp, deliberate clap echoed through the room—final and commanding.
“Right,” a voice said, cool and detached, the authority in it chilling. “Enjoy your evening.”
Footsteps retreated—measured, fading—but the hands did not leave. They lingered, insistent, groping, claiming what wasn’t theirs.
Hermione screamed—or thought she did. The sound clawed at her throat, but when it broke free, it wasn’t a scream at all. It was a moan, warped and distorted, weak and betraying her.
She tried again, but her voice betrayed her every time.
“You like this, don’t you?” he taunted, his words vile, curling in her ears. “Moaning like you can’t get enough, and I haven’t even started yet.”
Her vision swam again, colors bleeding into each other, shadows dancing like predators at the edge of her sight. Panic screamed in her blood, her heart pounding so hard it rattled her ribs, each beat a hammer threatening to split her chest apart.
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t fight. She was trapped, drowning in her own body, every second of their touch carving her soul into jagged pieces. The violation seeped beyond skin and bone—into her marrow, her blood, every inch of who she was. A delicate, echoing whisper broke through, soft as moonlight: “Hermione…” the voice, faint and ethereal, called from a distance. Hermione’s mind reached for it, chasing the sound, yearning to follow, but the memories surged back, pulling her under with their cloying weight. The hands gripped tighter, the vanilla scent choking her. Then, louder, urgent, the voice pierced the haze: “Hermione!”
She was yanked free, the memory dissolving into darkness like water slipping through her fingers. Hermione gasped, her breath ragged, her stomach roiling as she lurched forward, clutching her middle.
“I’m going to be sick,” she choked, her voice raw, desperate, breaking apart in her throat.
Luna was there in an instant, as if she had been waiting for the collapse. A basin appeared in her hands with a flicker of magic, cool porcelain pressed gently into Hermione’s reach. Her other hand stroked Hermione’s hair back, steady and soothing, as Hermione bent over the basin and retched, the acid sting of bile burning her throat. The room spun, tilting violently, but Luna’s voice threaded through the chaos, soft and grounding.
“You’re here, Hermione. You’re safe.”
The words were like a balm pressed against an open wound, steady enough to anchor her as she shuddered, as the remnants of terror and nausea wracked her body.
Then it came—banging. Sharp, relentless, rattling the heavy door like a war drum. Muffled yelling followed, anger spiking with every strike, vibrating through the walls until Hermione’s body hummed with it. Her head snapped up, panic flaring, eyes wide and wild as she looked at Luna.
“What’s that?”
Luna’s gaze flicked to the door. Her expression stayed calm, but her mouth was set, the faintest strain threading her dreamy cadence.
“Pansy,” she said softly, as if saying her name was enough to explain the storm outside. “You were yelling in your session, Hermione. She’s been trying to get in for the last few minutes.”
Hermione’s stomach dropped, realization prickling sharp against her skin.
“Mippy told her you were in a healing session, and I sent my Patronus to reassure her you were safe, that she couldn’t come in.”
Luna’s voice was steady, but she tilted her head toward the door, listening to the pounding. “That’s when the banging started.”
Hermione’s voice came hoarse but firm: “Let her in.”
Luna hesitated, her eyes searching Hermione’s face for certainty. Then she gave one slow nod.
“As you wish.”
A wave of her wand, and the locking charms unraveled with a low hum. The door flew open with a crash.
Pansy filled the frame, wand drawn, its tip burning like a live coal. Her hair hung in a wild tangle around her face, eyes blazing, her whole body rigid with fury. Each breath tore out of her in sharp, ragged bursts.
“How dare you lock me out of a room in my own house, Lovegood?” she spat, her voice shaking, venom dripping from every syllable. “She was screaming!”
Luna didn’t so much as blink. Her pale eyes were steady, luminous in the dim light.
“It’s not about you, Pansy,” she said softly, though the steel beneath her tone rang clear. “It’s about Hermione. My duty is to her, not to your pride. If protecting her means keeping you on the other side of a locked door, then yes—I’ll do it. Every time.”
But Pansy wasn’t listening. Her gaze had jerked upward—and she froze.
The projection still hovered in the air above the chaise, shimmering ghostlike: the blurred outline of the vial at Hermione’s lips, the delicate hand forcing it, the shadows of male hands sliding over her drugged, half-conscious body.
Pansy’s expression broke apart. Fury cracked, and what replaced it was raw, a protective anguish so sharp it bled into every line of her face. Her chest rose and fell quickly, her lips parting, but no sound came at first.
Then, softer, her voice urgent: “Come with me.”
Hermione’s head snapped to Luna, eyes wide, searching for guidance.
Luna knelt beside her, pressing two cool vials into her trembling hands.
“Pepper-Up. Calming Draught,” she said, her voice gentling again, her touch steady.
Hermione’s fingers shook as she held them, glass clinking softly.
“Where are we going?” she whispered, her gaze darting back to Pansy.
Pansy didn’t answer. She only gestured to the vials, sharp and impatient, then turned to wait by the door, posture rigid.
Hermione’s throat tightened. She looked at Luna again.
“It’s your choice,” Luna said softly, her eyes steady, her tone calm as still water. “Stay or go.”
Hermione swallowed hard, then tipped both vials back, one after the other. The Pepper-Up sparked warmth through her veins, her skin tingling faintly, the Calming Draught pulling her panic into softer edges, dulling the sharpest corners. She wasn’t ready to plunge back into the memory—not now, not yet.
Her voice came out a whisper.
“I’d like to go.”
Luna’s lips curved into the faintest smile, small but knowing.
“Be gentle with yourself, Hermione.”
Hermione pushed herself upright, her legs trembling but holding. She crossed the room and joined Pansy at the threshold.
Pansy’s pace was brisk, heels striking the stone with clipped rhythm, her stride taut with purpose. Hermione hurried to keep up, her heart pounding still, not sure if it was from the memory or the urgency in Pansy’s movements. They turned down a corridor Hermione had never seen before. The walls rose high, lined with ancient tapestries, their threads dulled and frayed by centuries, shadows pooling in their folds.
They stopped at a towering portrait, depicting a white serpent coiled tight around a dark glinting dagger, its pale scales gleaming against the blade. The air around it pulsed faintly, a signature of power, of secrecy—the mark of The Serpentes.
Pansy leaned close, her lips barely moving as she whispered a word too low for Hermione to catch. The serpent’s painted eyes flared, glinting silver, and the portrait swung open on silent hinges, revealing a staircase plunging downward.
The stone steps fell away into shadow, narrow and treacherous, as though leading into the very bowels of the earth. Cold air wafted up from below, smelling of damp stone and hidden things.
Hermione’s eyes widened, unease prickling along her spine.
“Where are we going?”
Pansy’s lips curved, but it was no smile—more a shadow of the sharpness she wielded like armor, a ghost of her old self piercing through grief.
“To your next healing session,” she said.
And then she was moving, her heels clicking against the stone as she started down the stairs, steady, sure, as though the darkness posed no danger to her at all.
Hermione hesitated only a heartbeat, her pulse hammering. Then she followed, the cold air biting as the descent swallowed them both in shadow.