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Chapter Text

The Texas heat cut like a razor blade, sharp and swift as it sliced through her. Every inch of her skin prickled, sticky and sweltering. Hermione ran her fingers through her curls, frizzy and thick, haphazardly gathering them in a bun atop her head.

She eyed Draco—if she passed him on the street she’d not recognize him. He was dressed for the part, frippery he insisted on yielding: a red bandana around his neck, shirt with double pockets and metallic snap buttons down the front, cowboy hat sitting low on his head, shielding his eyes from the high sun as he slept. She could spot a peek of soft blonde around his ears and the nape of his neck; but it was the only thing identifiable about him. They’d barely arrived when he’d stretched languid like a kitten, pulling his arms and torso taut, and tipping his hat down before pliantly settling with his arms crossed and head bowed. Like he’d stepped out of an old western. Lonesome Dove. All smoke and mirrors, was Draco Malfoy.

They were perched on the rickety porch of a place called The Waterhole. A muggle establishment specializing in sour booze and next-morning regrets. They arrived an hour before dusk, knowing that Kyle Roth liked to get an early start on his prowling.

She should have felt miffed that Draco assumed she’d keep watch—reliable old Granger, take a nap, she’ll take care of it. She scoffed. Yeah, she’d take care of it.

She’d brought them that far, hadn’t she? While Draco was balls deep in his many conquests, she was busy sweating and fretting. Always fretting. But that was all her fault wasn’t it? The slags and the fretting… all her fault.

Nevermind, she’d long accepted that fretting was a way of life. Because there would always be another. Another problem to solve. Another body needed. Another life to snuff. But, like Kyle Roth, they were bad, bad people. She had to remember, Kyle Roth was a bad man.

A bad, bad man.

The purifying scent of Lemon verbena hit her nose, out of place in such a stuffy office. Maxwell Golding, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, was a meek looking man. Glasses strewn haphazardly on his face, cloak two sizes too big, hands cracking from a lack of moisture. The dried skin of those hands scratched against the parchment he’d been examining. A list provided by Hermione.

She barely deciphered the mutter from the man, “Hmm, yes, peculiar. Peculiarity breeds fear.”

A thick cough sounded to her right. Arthur bent his head into his elbow, Molly tutted as she conjured a handkerchief. His coughing evolved into harsh hacks—stifling the room. Hermione’s eyes stayed on Golding. The parchment sat limp in his hands as he watched Arthur, tight mouthed and blinking rapidly.

“You see, Mr Golding, Mr Weasley’s symptoms began only months ago. He’ll be reduced to the state of those patients on that list within some months—confined to beds in St Mungo’s, left to wither until death finds them.”

A strangled sound left Molly’s throat. Hermione could be too harsh with her words, she’d been told.

Golding placed the parchment down slowly, watched it as if he could change the words if only he stared long enough. And when he inhaled deeply, clasping his hands in front of him, Hermione knew it was pointless, they may as well have left their seats and slammed the office door behind them on the way out.

“Ms Granger, I beg to differ on the word wither.” His eyes implored her, his mouth twitching. She could slap him. “Those patients are fully supported, sustained in comfortability while their healers do what they can–”

“Mr–”

“While their healers do what they can to cure them.”

“There is no cure!” Her hands clenched around the arms of her chair, her bum propelling her forward, nearly bouncing from her seat.

“According to whom? And can you know a cure is even needed at all? We’re not even sure if these cases are related.”

“They are related.”

“Coincidence, perhaps.”

Hermione gawked, “You can’t ignore the patterns, people dying without a diagnostic trace, vital organs affected in each and every patient. You can’t do this to your people.”

“Ms Granger, we’re not doing a thing.”

“That is precisely my point.”

The man pursed his lips, huffing through his nose before saying, “The Minister is offering as many resources as possible–”

“Resources to escort them to death’s door. So they can be comfortable. Which they certainly are not. We need resources for finding the source, finding a cure.”

“I believe we’re going in circles here.” Golding sighed.

“If I may.” Arthur interjected hoarsely. “I survived two wars—same as you, Mr Golding. I just want to rest, as I’m sure you do too. I didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes… My childhood friend was buried just last month. And it might very well be my turn. Maybe it’ll be yours next.”

Golding did not flinch at the words. Hermione felt like she might fall through the floor, felt like her breakfast might escape her. They knew.

“This has been looked into, hasn’t it?” The words left her mouth in a tremor. “It’s going to get worse, is it not?” She let the silence linger before she spoke again, “You’ll say nothing to the public?”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but we’ve been fairly occupied.”

She laughed short and sharp, “Who’s fault is that? The giants have been treated abhoringly–“

“Lest you forget who they supported–”

“Lest you forget whose regime you worked under for two years, Mr Golding. Why were you allowed your job? How many more of you sniveling cowards are there in the Ministry, hm? I’ve had enough of this pony show, we need to speak with Kingsley.”

“The Minister is occupied.”

Weeks she fought for this meeting, weeks and missives and–

She hadn’t realized she rose from her seat until she came to with her fists biting into her palms, the sound of Arthur’s soft wheezing cough next to her, “Yes, occupied. Ever occupied. Perhaps if the community was taken care of as it should be—including those giants, and werewolves, then radicalization wouldn’t be knocking at your bleeding doors. Perhaps if the rot had been excavated post-haste then someone like you wouldn’t be sitting before me now. Perhaps if our government wasn’t in denial about the collapse of its own society, foreign governments wouldn’t be so reluctant about association. Perhaps–”

“Ms Granger!” The cracks along Golding’s hands stretched as his fist curled and hit his desk, then sharp and clipped, “The Ministry remains composed, and will remain as composed as ever.”

In one crisp motion he held her stack of parchment out toward her, a dismissal.

The parchment hung loose in her fingers as she marched through the atrium. Slowly, ever so slowly, they slipped free and dusted the floor.

It came only five years after the war. Nose bleeds were the first sign. Blood trickled over a work desk, a dinner plate, soaking bed sheets, falling and mingling with water spilt from a shower head.

As horrifying as Hermione found it all, while the world scrambled, she couldn’t quell the sick curiosity that fizzed hot in her belly. When headlines reported on the increasing numbers of those admitted to St Mungo’s, when experts speculated on disease origins, on patterns, on predictions—Hermione felt that old and familiar call of musty libraries, sprawling parchment, and ink-tinged skin.

She clung to the belief: find the cause, find the fix. It was a mantra she repeated all the way to sleep every night. Stupid mantras did not halt the collapsing of lungs, the failing of kidneys, the swelling of brains. It was always a failure of vital organs.

She gave up on finding the cause only a few months in; the disease moved too fast. They were still in the beginning stages, and those beginning stages were a battle against time.

Successfully replace the organ, save the life. At least, that was what the few cases of successful transfers suggested. For those patients, the disease seemed to burn itself out once the failing organ was replaced. Even if there were only a few cases of survival via transplant. A few were enough.

What Hermione knew was that it was an issue within wizarding UK alone. And what Hermione assumed was this: in this magical world so fueled by intent—where that intent rippled outward and infused itself into the reality around it, shaping that reality—perhaps there was a consequence of such a high concentration of magic fed by fear and rage, survival and death. A consequence of their war and its aftermath, a coalescence of these magical forces into something tangible. A physical manifestation of their collective trauma. She imagined something akin to a magical pathogen, one that couldn’t be caught on diagnostics. Organs affected were those that regulate stress through survival—the heart, kidneys, lungs etc.

It was only a theory, a theory which she had no capacity to trace. It was an ailment that refused to be chased, it was insatiable. It begged to be outrun, dared you to try.

The Ministry remained ever in denial despite the obituaries, the journalistic reports. Then patients began receiving missives, representatives visiting their hospital beds. Full support from the ministry. Support to quieten down and die in peace, and in turn, leave the rest of the world in their peace. Elections were nigh, chaos spread through panic would do the Minister no good.

Nearly a year after the first few headlines heralding the start of the disease, began the headlines of the missing.

Missing, but hardly missed. The dregs of society, the forgotten. And if they were found: a lung removed, a heart carefully pried, kidney shaped holes embedded into flesh.

She made an effort to follow the trail of those bodies. It became so important to her. More than just morbid curiosity. It was the blood drained from Neville’s once forever-flushed face, the wheezing death rattle released from Arthur’s lungs straight into hers.

That trail led her to Astoria Greengrass, freshly recovered from a “blood curse.” Her engagement, once broken in light of her death sentence, was still broken, but left another decent trail of breadcrumbs. Those crumbs led her to a muggle chip shop, where she sat, watching one Draco Malfoy hand a wad of notes to a cashier.

Malfoy grabbed the mysteriously-pristine white paper bag offered to him, and made for the door. He was taller than the last time she saw him—at Hogwarts six years ago, a hazy blur of a boy, hunched in defeat beneath plumes of residual dark magic.

His hair was longer, curled beneath his ears, his figure was still slim, but filled out in the right places, with biceps that bulged and a full chest for puffing. He was striking, memorable.

His eyes grazed over her, unrecognizable as she was in her polyjuiced form. She followed him to an alley. Before she had a chance to disillusion herself, he turned around in harsh motion, all sneers and clenched fists, one such fist gripping a wand, pointed and accusing.

“What the fuck do you want?” He asked, voice as gritty as the shattered glass that lined the pavement beneath her.

“What’s in the bag?”

Her own wand was caressed by her waiting hand, a steady touch—one that reminded her not to panic, to panic was to lose one’s head, to lose one’s head was to lose one’s upper hand.

“In the– who are you?”

“Someone who you’re going to tell what you have in the bag.”

“As if you have the right to know. Now fuck off. Begone.” He barked dismissively. His wand lowered, ready to swish and flick into a disapparate.

“Tell me or I’ll tell the ministry what you’re up to.” She rushed out. “You’ve got something in that bag. And it’s not food.”

His movements were robotic as he moved his wand. He narrowed his eyes, head pulling forward as he studied her.

“Oh? You’ll tell on me, eh? Why do you care?”

Now that he was closer she couldn’t help but study him, eyes that purpled where they creased, lips that looked freshly healed from frequent chewing and splitting.

She huffed out a whoosh of impatient air, her arms crossed, a foot stomped sharply against the ground right before her chin raised.

He straightened, eyes widening. “I knew it. Why the fuck are you accosting me, Granger?”

She stared dumbly. He took advantage of her stupor, lifting his wand once more, but not fast enough for Hermione. Her hand found the wool of his jumper as the crack of his apparition struck the air.

They landed in a decrepit dungeon. What she would have assumed was his own, except for the Nott crescent engraved on a stone wall.

“What the fuck!” His roar would have been enough to shake her off him had he not already violently thrown her off himself. After stabilizing her feet, she took better stock of her surroundings. The dungeons were bare, but there was a barely visible shimmering veil of magic along a wall to the right. Without a second thought, she marched toward it and carefully poked it with a finger. It passed through with ease, so she allowed the rest of her body to do the same.

On the other side was a large well-lit room. A shelf of tomes lined one wall. A shelf of potions lined another, a brewing table was sequestered in a corner, on the other side of the room was a large four poster bed, and a barely visible woman buried beneath its covers. Her breaths came out in stutters; her lips, her cheeks, were absent of color.

Her eyes caught a figure moving in her periphery, pacing next to a lone bed—surrounded by an unnatural spot of bright light—was Theo Nott. His pacing didn't relent until he caught sight of her. His eyes—dark with fatigue—blinked rapidly, as if she were an illusion.

“Have you lost your bleeding mind, Granger!” Draco nearly tumbled into her. She moved her eyes from his flushed face down to the hand that held the bag, then to the figure in the bed, to Theo, then to the narrow bed next him—a medical bed.

“You mean to tell me, that you, Theodore Nott, have been transplanting organs from one magical person into another, and it keeps? There hasn’t been a successful transfer since Penelope Clearwater.”

“Says you. I’ve saved three of my friends' lives, I’m counting Trace here as one of those friends.” His eyes flitted to the face of his very still friend. “Her life is saved, as far as I’m concerned.”

The missing bodies. Black market organ dealings were highly suspected but never confirmed. But everyone knew. And it all whittled down to the two men in front of her.

They didn’t look inherently dangerous, but the wan skin, wild eyes, exhaustion peaking their faces…

She watched as Theo carefully placed the figure that had lain in the four-poster—who she now knew was Tracey Davis—onto the medical bed.

”How?”

Before he could reply, she was distracted by Malfoy cautiously placing the white paper bag onto the potions work table, prying it open and lifting a clear pouch, within the pouch was a heart sat atop a wad of ice; what she could only assume was being kept from melting with a stasis charm.

The carryout bag must have been illusioned to keep still because the heart was still pumping—glistening rosy flesh, striated and corded with muscle, contracting steadily like the clenching and unclenching of a fist. Wafts of vapor followed the plastic bag as Draco carried it ever so carefully toward Theo. He set it down on a small cart, and his gentle focus was broken. His eyes cut through Hermione.

”Out. If you want answers, you’ll shut up and wait for him to finish doing what he needs to do. Or else, you get out.”

”You heard him, Granger.” Theo murmured. And if she wanted to ask him anything else, any attempt would have been futile; Theo’s gaze, his intricate wand work was now honed in on the task at hand.

Hermione watched as he vanished Tracey’s nightdress, as he cast an unknown spell over her chest, cast a diagnostic to hover above her, warded the space around her; as he swished his wand soft as a whisper; as her skin parted, revealing blood, tissue and bone; as that parted flesh was widened into a gaping hole; as his wand cut through bone, as it severed veins and arteries; as Tracey’s heart, swollen with black streaks, was slowly removed from her body and placed in a metallic container, leaving a cavern of nothing in its place.

Hermione tilted her head, there were shrouds of magic hovering over and running through Tracey’s body, she could see it in the vibrating air around her. She was missing her heart, but she was still alive. Missing her heart, but still alive.

It was in a daze that Hermione was carried through the rest. It must have been hours. At one point Draco hovered next to Theo, following his instructions as Theo himself concentrated on the wandwork he was performing. She didn’t know how Theo was doing it. By the time he rejoined Tracey’s parted chest, he resembled a marionette with its strings cut—bending over then leaning against the wall, slowly lowering himself to a slouched sitting position, leaving Draco to complete the stitching himself. He looked ready to drop.

By the time Tracey was placed back on the four-poster bed, freshly stitched and still in deep slumber, Hermione was broken from the trance and Theo was on the mend.

And then… Theo guided her out of the room, took her upstairs and… served her tea and biscuits.

While Draco stuffed his face next to her, Theo explained, “It’s all about the magical signature. And it has to come from someone magical. Every muggle transplant has failed, bar none. And many of the magical ones, they never last.”

”There’s not enough dead wizards to go around.” Draco said with not one ounce of grace. “That heart.” He pointed languidly toward the ground, as if pointing toward hell, “That heart came from some unlucky bloke in Portugal.”

”Unlucky, why?”

Draco’s answer didn’t go beyond a raised brow.

It was organized murder. Murder by whom? Of whom? Exactly whose heart was now beating inside Tracey’s body?

“He’s a bad man, Granger.” Theo assured her.

“Was.” Draco emphasized before popping another biscuit in his mouth.

Theodore Nott graduated Hogwarts with hope coursing through every cell in his body—he’d learned about those in muggle science studies. He told Hermione about his journey to becoming a healer, how he’d prided himself on saving lives, specializing in second chances. It wasn’t until the start of Everything, that all that hope he carried faced its first formidable threat.

It wasn’t the declaration of death that did Theo in. It was what came after, the draining of hope from the friends and family relying on him and only him to deliver good news. He failed them, time and time again. And when he pleaded for help there was no one there to answer his call.

It was this wretched disease, and an even more wretched ministry that forced Theo, the reformed son of a Death Eater, back into the arms of his father’s old associates; the witches and wizards that knew how to turn a backstab into a generational curse; how to acquire the rarest and forbidden potion ingredients; that knew where to find bad men, how to murder them and steal their organs, how to move those organs from one sodden place and into Theo’s waiting hands. All for the right price, of course.

And despite those resources, a decent organ was hard to find.

“Because of the signature?” Hermione asked.

”Because of the signature.” Theo confirmed.

They couldn’t just rip a heart or lungs out from any old bad man, the signature had to be compatible. Or, as Theo had woefully learned, the transplant would reject and fail within mere months. It turned out that many of the organs acquired from the missing bodies found across magical Britain had proven ineffective; the first few Theo had tried to save had died all the same.

“Why haven’t you gone to the Ministry with this information? To St Mungo’s?!”

Malfoy, who’d been well occupied with a finger sandwich, sighed. Her mouth tightened.

“Granger, Granger, Granger. Do you fancy the Ministry as being real keen on murder?” Malfoy leaned forward, resting his chin on his palm as his eyes honed in on her. “Do you think they’ll seek out bad men with the right magical signatures and sign off on their assassinations? The ministry can barely keep itself alive, let alone us.”

And who were they to determine who was bad? What did that even mean? When Hermione asked, she received her nauseating answer. They were very, very bad. And yet–

”There has to be another way. Coordination with foreign governments–”

“No.” Draco’s hands interlaced in front of him, as if he was some crotchety old toff holding a weekly office meeting. “No. It’d be all bureaucratic nonsense and meanwhile my mother, my betrothed, or one of your snot friends are dead.”

Hermione, tell your parents I’d look after you always, if I could.

Plant something stubborn, Hermione.

Ginny… Ginny dripping blood into her salted lemon vodka only a week earlier.

She gripped her teacup, wanting to turn it to shards on the wall.

“We’ll do it.” Theo said quietly.

She turned to him, eyes wide.

“If you keep quiet, we’ll help you. When did their nosebleeds start?”

“Last week.” She whispered, her throat pained with a fat knot. “And… what if… we hone our focus on eradication?”

“What?”

“Use me—hire me on as whatever and use me. If I could afford to quit my job, I already would have. I’m more than sure you can afford me. I only need enough to sustain myself.”

“Bold of you.” Malfoy declared.

“Well, I’ve lost all pretense of propriety. Right now, the Ministry is in denial. Cases are too scattered, but in a few years, we’re looking at a significant population depletion.”

“And don’t you think there’s someone lurking in the shadows just waiting for such a thing?”

“Yes, of course I’ve thought about that. All the more reason.”

“The progression from two weeks ago hasn’t slowed. It’s moving at the average pace we see in kidney failure, all signs are pointing there. They’re still in good shape, for now, but that’ll likely change.” Theo vanished his diagnostic, “Take that with a grain of salt though. We won’t really know what needs fixing until it breaks.”

Ginny had the strength of a hippogriff. Hermione discreetly shook out the hand she’d been holding, flexing her fingers as she watched Ginny fish out a cigarette from the silver tin she carried in her back pocket.

“Do you mind?” She asked Theo, muffled by the cigarette between her teeth.

Wandlessly, Theo lit it for her. Ginny blinked in surprise, then smiled, slow and small. She’d spent nearly two months in an out of Nott manor as Theo monitored her condition. Hermione had since moved in herself in the name of efficiency.

She watched Theo and Ginny lock eyes as she drew in her first breath of smoke. Hermione didn’t miss the quiet conversations those two shared, the way they sequestered in corners, obnoxious guffaws the only thing breaking their bubble. Jesus, Harry was going to be so heartbroken. Nothing like the threat of death to stifle heartbreak, though. He’d get over it. Bah, she was an utter bitch. Hermione let those worries go with a heavy sigh.

”And how exactly will you find her match again?”

She felt utterly useless. She’d been briefed on this before, hadn’t she? But her mind refused to hold the information. She’d never felt so frazzle-brained in her life—even during the war. Back then her world lens was narrow; the war gave her a steady place to sharpen focus. But in the years after, normality was a loose thread in the tangled infrastructure left behind.

How does one focus when the creep of radicalism is felt at the back of their neck. When disease sinks its nails into flesh and tugs, oh so slowly, but oh so steadily. Villages plumaged by giants pushed to the brink. Werewolf attacks on the rise. Scandalous headlines gawked at, then forgotten. But life went on. How does one focus in such conditions when life goes on. And on and on.

Malaise and the brain on fire. It’s a harrowing combination.

“Most ministries or government entities keep records of such things. Same with criminal history, of course. There’s measurement of magical force, honed abilities, casting patterns. Those are used to narrow the search down. But the real test comes when they take an object charmed by one individual and compare it with the magic of another individual. I don’t really know much beyond that, really. They pretty much take care of all that.”

”And what if they get it wrong?”

”Tough luck.” Ginny supplied, before inhaling a deep puff, the bright orange end of her cigarette reduced to falling ash.

As the wafts of smoke hit her, Hermione pondered at the idea of luck. She would not leave her friend’s life in the fickle hands of such a thing. She’d hold it herself.

There was a settee in Theo’s drawing room that had become Hermione’s designated spot at the end of every day. She often found herself lying back, loose-limbed with a tome in one hand and a tumbler of whiskey in the other. Draco would usually end up lounging across from her, spine held straight and poised yet relaxed, an ankle crossed at the knee, lashes blinking lazily as he examined whatever text he held. The calm demeanor was a facade; a quiet research companion, he was not.

“The transference of life breath.” Draco read aloud. “Pure air drawn from the lungs of the untainted in an effort to restore balance when dissonance exists within a wizard’s humours and their magical core.” With a snort he went on, “Precautions are most necessary, as exchanged life breath may alter one’s humours.” He sniggered, “How do you suppose your humours might alter if we ever exchanged life breath, Granger?’

An exasperated huff escaped her—she wasn’t in the mood to humor him, but then she couldn’t stop herself wondering. She supposed she would reach her capacity for moral bankruptcy, maybe she’d breeze down Diagon Alley and sneer at children, wink at all the pretty faces, trip anyone with an upturned nose, quietly laugh when they stumbled.

She supposed she’d have an easier go at processing life as she knew it. She’d be able to ignore the gnawing in her stomach when Theo took on another patient, someone she knew. And when that patient walked out of Nott Manor with a second chance at life, she’d not drink herself blind or bury her face in her pillow, tears spilling out of her in a mix of guilt and gratitude. It had only happened once since she started living there. It wasn’t as if Theo could advertise his services, and he was only one person, even if he wanted to, he couldn’t handle more than a few patients at a time. But once was enough for her to want to throw herself off the roof.

If Draco felt the same she never knew. He was so… placidly cool about it all—but squawkish or hissy when it came to anything else. He was always there, lingering like Theo’s shadow. Quietly observing, interjecting the worst and most inappropriate humor, and when he left to fetch an iced organ it was like he was off to the food shop. He’d even asked her if there was anything she needed and would she like him to bring it back while he was out.

“Where are you?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere, just tired.” With a deep sigh she said, “I think if you and I exchanged life breaths I’d have to commit to living by the sea for the rest of my life. My humours would simply never recover.”

Ginny was leaning over the balcony of Hermione’s room, chucking the leftover fruit from their breakfast to the lawn, watching as a small group of gnomes scurried and squabbled over the fruit, bulbous heads knocking, fists shaking in each other’s faces. The cackle that tore from her throat caused Hermione to do the same.

“You’re a lady of the manor now.” Ginny said.

“Hardy har.” Hermione leaned forward in her chair, pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders and pleaded, “Move in with me, Ginny. Please. I don’t like living with boys.”

Ginny cackled again, “Nott suggested as much, for health reasons.”

“Seamus has a wing.”

“They just give out wings here?”

“So they do.”

“Alright… if you come with us to the Circus.”

“I’m not.”

“Come on, Hermione.”

“If you can’t confirm whether its practices are ethical, then I’m not coming.”

“If they’re not, then we can do something about it, can't we? Hermione, pleaseeee.”

“Hmmph. Fine.”

Their practices were not ethical. It was hard to miss the small crowd gathered out front with picket signs when they arrived.

Draco pulled Hermione by the elbow, “No, you don’t.”

“Let me go.” She protested, or, she was going to protest, as soon as he let her go.

“I’ve a much better idea.” He leaned in, voice low in her ear, emphasizing three distinct words he’d more than likely deemed Hermione Granger Catnip, “Something productive, practical, sustainable for these particular beasts.”

He was unproductive, he was impractical, he was unsustainable — and much too pleased with himself. Unbearable.

Blast, what were they doing at the Circus anyhow? The absurdity of going to the circus amidst their crisis was not lost on her. Another spectacle. And Draco was thriving. She could practically see the stars in his eyes as he took in the striped red and white canvas of the tent, the paper lanterns that swung from frayed ropes and metal poles.

They crossed the threshold of the entrance to the tent, and during the seconds that they were swathed in darkness, she noticed Draco downing something in her periphery. He responded to her squint with a lazy grin, swiping his thumb over the corner of his lips.

Music was wheezing out of speakers, the sort that sounded like it came from an old gramophone. It smelt of popcorn, caramel and sawdust. The air was both cool and humid, she considered putting her hair in a bun, fingers twitching as she realized she couldn’t use her wand as a placeholder here. Hermione craned her neck, hoping to get a glimpse of any animals being used, where they might be held.

Theo and Ginny were walking side by side, Ginny excitedly pointing at… something… Draco… Draco was no longer next to her…

He was standing still, arms slack at his sides, head tilted upward, eyes unhurriedly tracking the streamers twisting above. As she walked closer she didn’t miss the blown pupils, the soft blinks. She nudged his shoulder with an index finger. His head lowered as if in slow motion, his stare was docile, mouth softly parted, he looked like his thoughts were half-forming and drifting away before he could catch them.

Sometimes Draco went out at night, she’d watched him stumble in late time and time again: hair mussed, pupils blown, eyes glazed over, sometimes with purple lovebites on his neck and collar, sometimes smelling of sex. But he always returned before dawn, and every time, he was exceedingly nice, not a jab she'd throw at him would land how she wanted. 

She sighed, looped her arm into the crook of his elbow and led them to their seats.

The lights dimmed, a single spotlight shone in the center of the performance area, a woman in silver silk descended from the rafters, muscles pulled taut as she clung to the trapeze—on the other side was her partner. A few swings back and forth, like a pendulum, and she suspended her body upside down in air, her legs spreading in a perfect split, toes en pointe like a ballerina. As she swung upward she let go of the trapeze. Draco gasped next to her, his hand lifting to cover his mouth, Hermione stifled a snort. The woman’s partner, swinging upside down, caught her in a perfect grip, they both swung to the left, hanging from the trapeze; she then folded her legs into her chest in a tight tuck, and her partner launched her above him so that her feet hit the swing in an upward position.

A searing whistle, giddy laugh and languorous clap sounded to her right, all coming from Draco. She’d never have thought she’d see him so expressive, even on whatever the fuck it was that he was on. But then she remembered, the last time she’d been acquainted with him was sixth year—that was a ghoul. This was… him.

Ginny was rocking softly, side to side, back and forth, beaming and captivated by the scene in front of her, oblivious to the hazel eyes of Theodore Nott sneaking glances next to her. Jesus.

When Hermione turned back toward the stage, she noticed the space to her right was empty. Draco was gone.

Damn it all to hell and back.

She stomped down the stairs, eyes trying to catch sight of him in the dark space. She searched every row, every corner, until finally she wandered into the twilight outside the tent. What her eyes caught was an enclosure some yards away, and a tiger, shoulders undulating as it slowly walked out of said enclosure. Its eyes were honed on something only a small distance in front of it. Something that must have been invisible to the untrained eye but she caught the blurred lines of a tall figure, moving backward.

In her rational mind she knew that the tiger's instincts were dulled by captivity, by training and conditioning. And anyway, she knew that tigers weren’t mindlessly violent, it looked well fed, calm but curious. Her rational mind also told her to keep away but alas…

When she was nearly in touching distance she could hear a faint, “Here kitty, kitty…”

She cast a Finite Incantatem. To her utter expectations, Draco stood in front of the tiger, eyes still glassy but focused on the animal with precision, his arm was stretched in front of him, and in his hand was a dangling glove. On his shoulder was a capuchin monkey, nibbling on a pear, one little arm wrapped around Draco’s head.

“Granger, don’t you dare.” He murmured.

Her? Dare?!

“Not a noise. Listen, I’ve not thought this through.” He told her quietly.

A harsh breath left her nose, her lips flattened, her eyes bulged, as if to say what the fuck??

He continued, “So, so… maybe you can make a noise. Very quiet, mind you. If you could tell me what comes next. I know a place we can take them.”

“What?” She whispered.

“Promise. Just tell me—how do we get them there?”

“Is it safe for them in this so-called place?”

“Said I promised, Granger. I keep my promises, I promise.”

With a sigh, she relented, “I think I know a spell that can put him to sleep. And then, we can dissapparate them. Well, you’ll have to do it, seeing as I don't know where this place is, but I’m coming.”

He exhaled slowly, “Good, good. Do the thing then.”

She cast a Somnus Totalus and the tiger slumped to the ground.

“Oh god.” She groaned, releasing all her pent up noise and anxiety.

“Well done, you.”

“I could throttle you.”

“Oh?” He smirked.

Good lord. She did a little whining shimmy—very unbecoming and very Draco-has-once-against-pushed-me-to-the-brink—what he might call character building.

“On with it then.” She said, laying a hand on the tiger's fur—softly rising and falling—gesturing for him to do the same.

They landed in a field of buttercups and tall grass, a small wind carried the scent of mild florals, earth, and parsley. Out of a magical energetic field, stepped Gregory Goyle, hair unkempt and wearing a dressing gown over nothing but a pair of pants. His eyes were searching at first, morphing into surprise at the sight of Draco. At the sight of the tiger, his brow arched, chest puffing broadly before heartily sighing.

Goyle escorted them inside the premises of The Lovegoyle Menagerie after securing the tiger in an enclosure. And then he… served them tea and biscuits…

“What’s with you purebloods and tea in the most inappropriate moments?”

“It’s good for the stomach.” Goyle blinked, then shrugged, “Soothing.”

“Draco, he cannot have a biscuit.” She told him, as she shoved the biscuit he’d been handing to the capuchin out of his hand.

“Buttercup can most certainly have a biscuit if he so pleases, Granger.”

“Oh god.” She groaned, again.

He muttered something lowly.

“What was that?” She asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Draco replied.

“He said that’s not how he imagined you groaning those words for the first time.” Goyle offered before taking a sip of his tea.

After chucking a biscuit at Draco’s head, he thoroughly chastised her for nearly hitting the capuchin-now-christened-Buttercup; and then explained why this was the best place to bring the tiger, because it was better than a traveling circus and it was–

“Pastoral, wide open, protected. What else could a tiger ask for?”

Goyle intervened before Hermione could launch into a tirade.

“We’ve got connections. We’ll get him sent off somewhere good. Prom–”

“Don’t you dare promise.” Draco pointed accusingly. “You’re not good at keeping them.”

“You miss one fête for the birth of your child.” Goyle replied, exasperatingly.

“Your child stole my birthday. You promised she wouldn’t.”

“Geminis are fickle, Draco. You know that.”

“Alright.” Hermione proclaimed loudly. “I’m spent. Hand Buttercup off, we’re leaving.”

Draco pouted, wrapping his hand around the capuchin’s back, pulling it in closer until it was scrunched against his cheek, its tiny fingers tangling in the fine strands of Draco’s hair.

Hermione left The Lovegoyle Menagerie with a tin of beetroot biscuits, a kiss from little Pandora, a pamphlet on capuchin care, a humming Draco Malfoy, and a concerning fuzzy feeling centered in her belly—it didn’t agree with all the dread she’d gotten so used to carrying.

“Weasley. Settle a debate between me and Theo.” Draco said.

Hermione was curled up on a chair on the terrace, quiet as her companions talked about anything at all—Hogwarts, post-Hogwarts, quidditch, the absurdity of the day's headlines.

“Go on.” Ginny droned.

“The Silver Reeds Riverbank or The Hill of Four Winds. Which is better?”

Ginny blinked in surprise then let out a quiet chuckle.

Hermione smiled drowsily, she felt blanketed in an unusual calm—with her exhaustion, the night breeze carrying the scent of meadowsweet, and that question, the innocence it carried. She’d learned long ago that the riverbank and the hill were childhood haunts for wizarding folk. A place families went for a day or night out. The reeds by the riverbank shimmered silver from long ago imprinted magic, and the waters had a warped quality, making it endless fun to splash about in. And the hill was forever windswept, the air often spiraling near its center where an ancient obelisk stood; it was apparently a popular spot for flying.

With a wistful smile Ginny replied, “I used to climb on the obelisk at Four Winds. All the way to the very top. Dad told me…” She paused and swallowed, Hermione felt the urge to sidle up next to her and grab her hand. “Dad told me if I made it to the top and closed my eyes with my arms outstretched I’d know what it felt like to conquer the broom. And fuck, did I ever. Did either of you ever do that?” She was glassy eyed, blinking rapidly as she asked the question, and then her eyes closed. “My hair was everywhere until it wasn’t, it ended up twisting and flying up above my head. I could barely hear the shouts of dad and my brothers below, but they were whooping and hollering. Nonsense about how the Harpies would never see me coming. I thought my heart would push out of my chest but gods, it was thrilling.” When her eyes opened she smiled, almost bitterly. “There’s no dives, no maneuvers that have ever made me feel so alive. But… I’ve always chased that feeling. Childhood was so simple, wasn’t it.”

It was quiet for some seconds before Draco cleared his throat, “So… are you saying the hill is better?”

“Yes, you dolt.” She huffed.

“Hah! Theo doesn’t know any better, Weasley.” With a mock whisper he said, “He doesn’t like brooms.”

Ginny gasped, “So that’s why you never played quidditch.”

“I had a nice time in the stands.” Theo declared airily, his nose lifting. “Besides, if I’d have played I wouldn’t have all these memories.” His index finger tapped at his temple.

“Memories?”

“Of you flying. Diving and missing the ground by an inch of your life. When your team would win, how you’d hold out your arms–” His own arms lifted in a mimic of the gesture, torchlight catching the glint in his eyes. “–going at breakneck speed, then grab hold of your broom and pull it in a loop. Peak, that. And also, all the times you’d trounce Draco six ways to Sunday.”

“Trounce?!” Draco leaned forward in offense.

“Soundly.”

Hermione watched Ginny watch Theo, watched as wide-eyed fascination morphed into utter delight held in the crinkle of her eyes. And then she watched the smile slowly fade, resignation writ on her face. Hermione wanted to give Ginny whatever future she saw in those seconds she’d allowed herself to want it. She pictured a tiny Ginny Weasley, eyes closed, arms flung wide, wild hair caught in the wind, adorning that same crinkle-eyed smile; thrumming with the future's endless possibilities.

It would be hers.

Chapter Text

Sequestered in Theo’s dungeon, was Hermione, bent over, head leaning forward, eyes glued to the container that held Tracey Davis’ removed heart. It was suspended in time, expertly preserved by Theo for further observation. The black streaks had faded to a dull grey, but the flesh was still unnaturally supple, decay delayed with runes etched into the glass that surrounded it.

“I think I’ve got the incantation ready. We shouldn’t wait any longer.”

Theo came to stand next to her. “Are you sure? I need you to be sure. If we rush for the sake of time we might end up fucking up the organ anyhow. And then we’ll really be spent on time.”

“Theo, if there’s one thing I’m confident in, it's my brain. I wouldn’t claim to be ready if I wasn’t.”

Theo’s voice came out quiet and crackled. “Why didn’t I think about doing this before? I’m an idiot.”

“You’ve been busy trying to prolong your friends’ lives, same as I have. And you’ve been doing a much better job than I ever did.”

Neville was tinged purple—along the cheek that Hermione frequently kissed in greeting, the tips of the fingers she often watched tilling soil, the lips he so often lifted in her presence. She’d colored him in shades of purple.

She sat so very still next to Arthur’s bedside, breathing in, slow, slow, slow. And out, slow, slow, slow. Her chest hardly rose and fell, as did his. As did his.

“You’re not a healer.” Theo didn’t look upon her with pity, he said it like he’d say, you’re not a cat.

“Yes, but… I did what I could, and it worked until it didn’t.”

“Well, then you bought them time. That’s…” He sighed. “I’d say that’s enough but it’s never been enough for me. Maybe if I agree not to bog myself down about it, you can too?”

Hermione released a hollow laugh.

The room was astonishingly cold. She wore double jumpers, wished she could warm her sterile gloves, wished she could let her hair fall around her, instead of carefully and tightly tied out of the way. She could feel the prickle of blood gathering beneath her cheeks, lips drying as the seconds passed.

Theo carried the diseased heart to the steel table before her. She willed the tremor in her right hand to quell.

A layer from the heart's surface was sliced, the pericardium, assuming any ambient magic would have pooled there. The incantation she spoke next parted the organ cleanly along its atria and ventricles. The right atrium was examined first, running on the hypothesis that if the contamination flowed through circulation channels, then the deposits of flawed magic would gather there. At first glance, faintly shimmering crystal residue was spotted within the walls of the atrium. In the left ventricle there was scarring along the muscle, crystal residue glinting there too. More residue lined the walls of coronary vessels, and in some capillaries, a small shimmer implied attempts at partial regeneration—leading Hermione to suggest that Tracey’s magic was trying to heal itself.

The most residue was gathered in the aortic root, causing Theo to remark, “You could be right, this was trying to expel… something. An attempt at filtering.” With a sigh, he added. “We’ll need more diseased organs.”

They stored the parts they’d dissected, casting preservation runes around them. Leaving the slice of surface tissue out for closer examination. Black specks and porous texture lined the tissues interior. Hermione cast an incantation of her own creation, one that would expose any dark magic residue. The whole of the surface bloomed with violet veining.

“I’m positive this is residue from the war…”

But, why their war? It wasn’t the first magical war ever fought, nor would it be the last. The magical system in Britain was known for being unusually insular, something like a closed magical loop—geographical and cultural isolation primed it as such, and internal regulation imposed post-Grindlewald only heightened any self-sustaining tendencies.

In contrast, many other magical regions around the world were more diffuse, their networks more pliant, porous—wizards sharing rituals, incantations, artifact trading, community wards; rather than leaning on secrecy and hierarchical individualization—allowing the release of excessive energy, rather than trapping it. The sheer number of unforgivable curses used in the Second Wizarding War could have become pent up within the loop, allowed to fester over time.

Hermione wondered if, had they worked on cycling out excessive dark energy immediately after the war, this whole thing might have been prevented. It was a theory to put on the backburner, something worth looking into for the future’s sake. She ran through the list of everyone she’d known who’d fallen ill, all of them had been present at sites which held some form of highly concentrated dark magic—Hogwarts, Godric’s Hollow, the Ministry.

“Maybe, the residue is something like radiation, energy seeping into our bodies and for some god-awful reason, some of our bodies are not quite filtering it out well. And the organs affected, they hold magical function, yes? Emotional intent. The heart—courage and will. Lungs—the spirit. Liver—anger and transmutation. Kidneys—fear and endurance. Every one of these forms of intent was overused, every one of them underpinned the casting of the very dark magic that left this residue behind.”

“Perhaps. Yes, perhaps. Gods, we need more time.” Theo roughly ran a hand through his hair and down his neck, massaging the area he’d held tilted for the hours they’d been in the room.

“We’ll have time.”

“Will we?”

“I… guess I don’t know. We’ll keep meticulous records. We’ll arrange a way to share this with any appropriate parties should anything happen to us. And in the meanwhile… we– well, we’ll do what we have to, right?”

“Right.” Theo smiled, sad and wrong, all the smiles were always wrong. “You’ve always been a little… frightening, you know. I heard things back in the day.”

Her cheeks bloomed with heat, eyes lowering to the grain of the floor.

“But do you know what the frightening part was? How… kind you were. It never made much sense to me. The dissonance.”

Her eyes rose to meet his, lips curving upward, “Kindness is a symptom of compassion. Compassion can be a terrible thing to possess, Theodore.”

She’d long learned that, in the right person—or wrong, depending on perspective—compassion didn’t neutralize danger; it amplified it, all around.

The manor grounds were uncannily dreamy, despite how overgrown everything was—feral little hedges sprouting every which way, roses mingling with briar, moss covered fountains, butterflies fluttering all around. Pleasant views for a daily walk.

Hermione tilted her head upward, face imploring the sun for attention. The arm Ginny had looped through Hermione’s, tugged her to the right, Hermione’s eyes shot open.

“You promised.” Ginny said, chin dipped as a devious smile formed crooked on her face. “They take promises seriously around here.”

Hermione laughed softly. “Alright, untwist your knickers, Weasley.”

Ginny gasped, “I’m not wearing knickers.”

“Ginevra Weaslette, you hussy.”

Ginny snorted, “There’s cobwebs down there, Hermione. Cobwebs. I promise.”

“Guinevere Whistleton. How unbecoming.”

“Never coming, I am.”

Hermione tittered, kissed Ginny’s cheek, then said, “Race you.”

A shriek sounded from behind her. Hermione gave it her all, she really did, but the ponytail of a copper-crowned menace bounced ahead of her, then Ginny’s hair was spilling and streaming in the air, having been let loose. Ginny screamed ferociously, delighted against the afternoon wind as she launched herself into the Nott property’s lake.

Hermione followed suit, shouting out the incantation that would transfigure their clothes into proper bathing suits, right before she hit the water. When she broke the surface, she was laughing, head swiveling in search of Ginny, who was nowhere to be found.

Before she could panic, a hand gripped her thigh, yanking her down with force before launching her back up again.

Ginny cackled next to her, “The ghost of Cormac Mclaggen.”

She hadn’t caught her breath before she gasped, “Ginny, he’s dead.”

“I know. That’s why I said ghost.” Ginny inched closer, “Don’t look now. There’s another ghost behind you.”

Hermione turned around.

“I said don’t look. Oh my god, you’re just like mum.”

Leaning against a balcony, was Draco, eyes honed in her direction, his capuchin sitting on his shoulder. He wore a dressing robe over his bare torso, it fell open just enough to reveal the slope of his chest and the faint lines of muscle tracing his abdomen His lips quirked as he mouthed something to Buttercup, and the capuchin seemed most displeased—leaping down and hopping about on the small table next to them, then jumping onto the ledge of the balcony, wobbling back and forth.

Hermione gasped, tearing herself from the water and scrambling for her wand. When she pointed it in the direction of the balcony, Buttercup was no longer at risk of launching himself to his death—he was back on Draco’s shoulder, playing with his hair. Hermione glowered, her hand met her hip, where slick lycra was clinging like second skin, droplets falling from every surface of her body. Draco was statuesque—jaw set, eyes flickering, gaze lingering before abruptly turning and disappearing into his room.

Hermione was, unfortunately, facing yet another prospect of doing what she had to—it seemed her conviction was meant to curdle with each passing day. As wretched luck would have it, it turned out that Theo’s father’s old associates were quite scary, and dangerous, and threatening, and not sustainable as a permanent resource for life-saving organs. So, Theo and Draco concluded that it would be up to them to track their next… victims… themselves.

Hermione couldn’t have that. Neither of them were fit to shovel dirt, let alone track down and apprehend bad men. She vomited her breakfast the morning she decided.

Plant something stubborn, Neville said.

Hermione had done plenty awful to plenty people. Wilfully plotting their deaths felt a touch too far. It felt like she was plotting her own death alongside them. But as much as she told herself to let it play out as it lay—she couldn’t look away from a fix, no matter how… wrong… it was.

So, as it came to be… Hermione was in Spain… with Draco Malfoy.

Their first promising catch turned out to be an Argentine they’d tracked there. This Argentine was meant for Seamus Finnegan. Prior to that, they’d stalked two other wizards—one in Wales, one in Italy—meant for another patient Theo had recently taken on. They abandoned those prospects once magical compatibility proved weak.

They carried a few charmed objects with them, and a Nott elf named Winston. It only took a few days of research for Hermione to discover that elves could read magical signatures. It took nearly two weeks of Winston’s harrumphing and sighing and croaking before he finally determined that the Argentine was an optimal match for Seamus.

The man was a war criminal, one who’d assumed he’d never have to answer for all the vile wandwork he’d experimented with years prior. AND, based on their minimal observation, he cut in queues, leered at young men and women, was abhorrent to service workers, and kicked at stray dogs. He was a bad man.

The compatibility of magical signatures among these wizards and the people she knew, unnerved Hermione. She’d always felt protective of her magic, the distinct way it flowed through her, the innateness of her abilities. The idea that there was someone out there who shared such a thing with her, and who chose to use their magic for sinister purposes… and… well, was she not doing the same?

Hermione and Draco were perched outside a cafe, nibbling on a shared slice of almond cake, and exchanging theories on ward matrices, how by pinning down the determinant—the sweet spot—one could wholly invert and dismantle wards that expanded more than an acre. Draco spent a good ten too many minutes harping on about symmetry in ward casting, causing Hermione to tell him about Évariste Galois—a mathematician who knew all about the brilliance of symmetry. To her utter delight, she barely had to explain the idea of polynomial equations; Draco’s mind latched onto it like second nature. Before she knew it, she was blathering on about Galois’ personal life.

“And he chucked the eraser at the professor’s head.” Hermione concluded her story with a fist to the table, as if to say, can you believe it?

Draco’s mouth twitched, his index finger running along his bottom lip, “Because the professor was too stupid to understand what he was saying? A bit off his trolley, that one.”

“I don’t know. I find myself hankering for a good object chucking myself these days.” She said pointedly.

“Like I said, off his trolley.” Draco rolled his eyes as he unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, his lithe fingers moving so deftly, she imagined they were creating their own little matrices, where they warded off porcelain smooth skin from the blistering sun. He must have been perspiring to no end in the wool waistcoat he insisted on wearing in the dog's-arse peak of summer.

She flicked the red carnation he had pinned on his pocket. “You look ridiculous.”

He did not look ridiculous, he looked rakish, much too handsome for his own good. A fact confirmed when his head tilted teasingly, and a sliver of hair fell from the artful tousle it was styled in.

“I look jollified and on holiday. I’m blended. And you, English Rose, could lose those thick trousers and use a light voile dress instead.”

“I’m perfectly comfortable. And, my jeans are practical, Malfoy.”

“Practically ugly. You look positively British.”

“I am British. Doesn’t that track with being on holiday, anyhow?”

His eyes grazed her, full of judgment, as he flicked his hand toward her dismissively. “British in a way that says you’re up to no good, not minding your business, that sort.”

“These jeans are absurdly comfortable. They’re my father’s, transfigured to my size long ago. Are you insulting my father, Malfoy?” Hermione’s lips quivered, smile barely suppressed as she lifted her brows.

He leaned back, eyes forming saucers, a pink flush climbing his neck like ivy.

“I wouldn’t.”

Winston popped in front of them, nodding voraciously. “Bad man is following pretty boy to the alley.”

They shot out of their seats and hauled arse toward said alley. Her chest was on fire, burning and pattering maniacally. She shouldn’t have allowed Draco to bribe that young man into playing bait. If he got hurt, his blood, his trauma, would be on their hands. She had enough trauma to last an endless cycle of lifetimes.

They didn’t thoroughly discuss what would happen once they determined the Argentine was fully compatible for successful transplant. They knew what was to come next, they just refused to acknowledge how. Which was how Hermione and Draco ended up wrestling the Argentine-that-almost-got-away to the ground after neither would concede to the other on who would “take care of him.”

Pavement scratched at Hermione’s hands as she scrambled for the wand that had fallen during their tussle. As soon as she grasped it, she shouted, “Stupefy!”

Her breaths came out short, hot and disbelieving as she hunched over with her hands on her knees.

“You imbecile. Why couldn’t you have done that in the first place?” Draco panted.

“Me?!” She shrieked. “You’re the only other bad man I see here. Bad man, meet bad man.” She gestured sharply from Draco to the burly man on the ground. “As a fellow baddie, you’re more than capable of taking care of your own.” She turned her nose up at him for good measure.

He sputtered, “You’re such a bitch.”

“And you’re shit with a wand.”

Draco leant his head against the brick wall, oddly uncaring for any potential grime present. His pallor—already that of a man who’d spent years curating his fragility like an art form—had deepened to something nearly tragic.

Hermione cast the magical signature erasing spell she’d found in ancient text while perusing the Nott manor archives; undoing any traces left behind by her and Draco. She did a scan of their surroundings, and cast a Hominum Revelio as double assurance that no one else witnessed the debacle.

“I’m sorry.” She said quietly. “For calling you that. You’re not bad, not like them.” Then she grabbed his arm and apparated the three of them out of there.

They landed in the Nott manor dungeons. She levitated the Argentine to the room they’d designated as the cold chamber and lowered him to an empty medical bed, ready and waiting especially for his body to fill it. She vanished his clothes and felt a rush of ice wash through her veins. He was not a he. It was a body. A body.

The soft tissue of her inner cheek stung. She tasted copper and swallowed it down, inhaling the odd combination of disinfectant and something oily, sticky, resinous—something long embedded into the old space.

An incantation flowed from her lips in the cadence of a lullaby.

Draco propped himself opposite her on the wall beside the bed. His hands in his pockets and the back of his head resting on stone as he watched her, quiet and still.

She paused the incantation for the seven seconds it required. In those seven seconds she focused on the rise and fall of the body’s chest, the air stung her eyes as she refused to blink. It rose one last time, her breath held in the seconds after, when she released it her eyes closed. She inhaled deeply, steadied herself and went on.

The second half of the incantation filled the room. Above the body a mesh of runes in the form of light collided and pulsed like capillaries, stretched like spidery veins. They clustered in the place where the heart laid and branched out, the flow of magic cycling in and out, similar to the flow of blood. In this way, the body and its organs would remain fresh.

She conjured a white sheet, and carefully laid it on top of the body—gasping and jolting back when her hand grazed its still warm flesh.

She glanced up, intending on telling Draco she was done, but he’d already gone.

After washing her face and rinsing her mouth of vomit, she made her way to the western terrace, where she found Draco hand-feeding grapes to Buttercup. Theo and Ginny were dancing, not joined, but side by side. Wrapped in a blanket and sitting at a table watching them was Seamus, weak and nibbling on chocolate. Hermione was happy for him, she really was, but she felt something akin to mourning, it hit her sinuses as she observed him. She needed her best friend to be okay. Her throat ached, vision blurred while she watched Ginny’s head of hair catch the light as she spun—sparkling fire, it was.

“It’s called a line dance.” Theo remarked, biting his cheeks, a smile that Hermione didn’t know could exist, trying its damndest to stay hidden. “Gin’s never had a better dancing partner. Bet if I had glasses I’d be falling over myself like some saddo.”

“Have they been at it, the two of them?” Seamus asked.

“At it?” Hermione asked

“Have they shagged, is what he means. Boffed. Bedded. Sexual relations.” Draco provided.

Hermione nearly sputtered, but Ginny was in her bubble, neither aware nor fussed about their side conversation.

“You lot are off to Texas!” Ginny shouted, her feet performing a kick in sync with Theo before grabbing his arms and releasing all pretense of synchronicity. “There’s a potential match for Parkinson there, and in California, one for me… maybe.”

It was Pansy Parkinson that came knocking on Theo’s doorstep a few weeks prior. Apparently, they hadn’t seen her in years. Draco told her she’d never looked better (she looked like shit ran over) and she promptly slapped him in the face. That was enough for Hermione to advocate on her behalf when Theo insisted he couldn’t handle more than two patients at a time. Pansy Parkinson was dying. She had only a few months left, less than Ginny, more than Seamus.

Theo sat down, catching his breath before saying, “The bloke in Texas. Keep a close eye on him, Hermione. He has a reputation in certain circles for… well, for attempting to frankenstein magical folk’s magic. Used to have his own lab at MACUSA until they shut him down for unethical practices.”

“Frankensteining how? Splicing their magic together? How is that possible? Did he ensure they were magically compatible?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t think I ever want to know. But I’m wondering if he might have some thoughts on the fibrotic tissue we encountered in Tracey’s heart.”

“Ah, so we’ll convene over tea and discuss work before we off him?” Hermione asked.

“Don’t think about that part.” Draco supplied.

Hermione sighed, burying all thoughts of what they’d be doing beneath soil, hoping that what sprouted would be something harder than the gentle rose, stronger than the weak bluebell.

“So… you’re sending us to the states then.” She said numbly. “About time, I suppose.”

“Speak for yourself, Granger.” Draco said, crossing his arms lazily. “I have a feeling once we cross that line we’ll never come back. You won’t stop until you’ve tried saving every single sickie in England.”

“And what's so wrong with that?” She asked archly.

Draco slinked over to the table, next to Seamus, where he swiped a bar of chocolate. After his gleaming white teeth snapped off the first bite he replied, shaking the bar at her, “This was all fun and games—”

“Fun and games?! Life and death are fun and games? Murder is fun and games?”

“FUN AND GAMES when we were saving our own, but you’re turning it into some bloody heroic quest, and when you realize you can’t save everyone you’ll be forced into a deep depression that’ll send you careening into a nervous breakdown, and for some awful reason I’ll be the one who has to deal with it.”

She curled her hands into fists where she stood, inhaled a deep breath, then asked, “Draco, would you like to go to the cinema?”

He blinked, the sun catching his lashes so prettily. The hand holding the chocolate bar paused midway toward his mouth. “The cinema?”

Hermione’s mode of distraction was simple, take Draco to see that film set in California with the nice looking blonde that may or may not have resembled Draco. It was the last film she saw before she went on the run with Harry and Ron. And if that particular blonde’s face carried her through lonely nights in that godawful tent that was no one’s business but her own.

She knew the technicolor wonder that made up the film would captivate him; the vivid Hawaiian shirts, the leather vests, the sharply tailored suits. This is California, she’d tell him. And he would believe her, and he would plot, and he would drag her to his favorite tailor where he’d custom order a new wardrobe, specially made for their trip.

She ignored Draco’s raised brows as she confounded the workers at the theatre. He was left on a bench with a tub of popcorn as she snuck into the theatre's archives and summoned Romeo and Juliet, hoping with all hope that the reel was somehow there. She would not entice him with something as paltry as a television screen. She would have the film swallow him whole instead.

“What’s that?” He asked when she returned, his glistening fingers curled around a large fist of popcorn.

“This is the film.” She chirped, holding it up and walking past him. “Come on, then.”

Nearly two hours later, they walked out of the cavern of darkness that was the theatre and into the muted sun with salted and buttered fingers, and bloated bellies.

Draco had let out the deepest and most awestruck sigh as the credits rolled. And now he was focused on the ground, holding a secret smile. Then he declared, “Thou darest lead me to view a tale most blasphemous.” He waggled a finger at her face, “BUT, a feast for mine eyes.”

She knew it.

“Blasphemous?” She turned around to face him, walking backwards as giddiness lay claim, “Nay, thou art but stiff of arse: with a rod as hard as thou art pale!”

His steps slowed, his arms and shoulders—that had been lifted in play—laxed, a drooping, languid stance.

“A hard rod, you say.” He smirked, eyes tracing her every curve from head to toe, murmuring, “My, my Granger.”

He may as well have cast an incendio on her face, she angled her chin high, turned back around and hurried her pace, leaving him behind with a shouted, “Oh, shut up!”

She closed her eyes, pretending there wasn’t a pale wretch of a man following her and breathed in the city air. Petrichor and softened smoke. She hadn’t felt so at ease in some days. Every day it was books upon books, arithmantic calculations, owling her friends, ensuring their health hadn’t taken a turn for the worse, and lately, training with Theo. The next few days would be spent at his side, watching him dismantle the body formerly known as the Argentine, and in turn, dismantle a little more of her sanity. But she insisted. If anything happened to Theo, someone would have to do it.

She felt like she’d been lodged somewhere in a cave. Not even allowed to take advantage of all the space a cave might provide. Stuck in a crevice in a dark cave, and in order to carve her way out of that crevice she had to carve away at bits and pieces of herself too.

“Say, Granger. What did you think of the film's ending? I’ll tell you what I thought. I don’t think he loved her enough.”

“What?” She nearly gasped in laughter.

“If he loved her more, he’d have lingered. He’d have held her and wept and–”

“He did weep.”

“Not enough. And if he had, he’d have been around when she woke up. What a knob. I’d sooner eat my shoe than let the love of my life go so easily.”

“He wanted to die as soon as possible. To meet her in the afterlife post-haste.”

“Pish posh, what afterlife?”

“Harry says there very well could be an afterlife. He saw something, you know. When he died.”

Draco tutted, “I ran into Potter at the ministry some years ago, he smiled and waved.”

“Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like Harry offered to suck you off or something.”

Draco choked on air and upon recovery rasped, “The mouth on you. Point is, Potter’s too trusting.”

“He is not. He was suspicious of you all of sixth year, drove him mad.”

“Exactly, he trusted his instincts.”

“And he wasn’t wrong.”

“Almost killed me though.”

“Right. That.”

“So, whatever he saw, he shouldn’t trust it. Bad news for him.”

“Is that how you sleep at night?”

“Excuse me?”

“Live fast, die hard. No regrets, all that. What I mean to say is, I don’t see you losing sleep over what we’re doing. Is it because this is all we get, this life.”

His arm brushed hers and he leaned into it, their point of contact never ending. “Granger, if you’d like to accompany me to bed so you can personally see to my sleeping habits you’re more than welcome.”

“Why do you always do that?”

“What?” He held out a plastic bag. “Fizzy strawberry?”

“Pretend things don’t bother you.” She pushed the bag away.

He popped a few in his mouth. “I’ve never had these before. Muggle sweets aren’t bad.”

“Draco.”

“Draco? Hmm. Okay, fine. Of course things bother me. You know that.”

“Oh, yes I know that. But not the right things.”

A smile overtook his face, but it came out wrong, warped. “I don’t like to dwell. I did enough of that in my youth. As we’ve already discussed, it nearly got me killed. Why should I fret over things I can’t control?”

But he was wrong. He did fret. She was sure of it. There was a sharp edge to the way he maneuvered through life. Like he cared too much, and the only way he knew how to live with such tenderness was to wield it. For the sake of his soft heart he’d slip his hand up a skirt just as easily as he’d slip a knife in his pocket—and without any prior knowledge or skill on how such a knife should be used. Such was the audacity of Draco Malfoy.

On the weekend before Harry’s birthday, Ginny invited him and Ron to the manor. It was not only a small gathering Ginny had been craving, but also a public service announcement on Hermione and Ginny’s behalf: still alive, against all odds. They rarely made it outside the manor at all those days, with Ginny’s condition worsening, still mild, but neither Theo nor Hermione wanted to risk excessive activity on her part. And Hermione spent most of her days keeping Ginny company, scouring texts, tracking illnesses and deaths across the country, rarely were cases reported anymore—and they desperately needed to get their hands on more organs for studying.

And while Ron and Harry knew that Theo was providing special care to Ginny—they’d omitted the harvesting details—they still worried, still asked for visits. Since Ginny had become ill, she’d avoided her family, only allowing visits from Molly. Hermione urged her to see reason, but all Ginny saw was grief, and what could Hermione say to that?

But today was different, Hermione was leaving the country for weeks on end. She could see the lament in Ginny’s eyes with each day that passed closer to her departure. Hermione could not entertain the idea that Ginny’s health might decline to a worrying degree while she was gone. She couldn’t.

As they waited for their arrival, Theo perched in a corner, pretending to study an organ piece — the musical kind, promise — but his foot kept jiggling, the silence punctuated by heavy sigh after heavy sigh. Draco was sprawled on a chaise, tumbler in his hand and an arm slung over his eyes.

Harry stumbled through the floo, eyes scanning the area, face half-awkward as he spotted Ginny. Harry and Ginny had been on-again, off-again for years. They’d just recently entered another off period, which Hermione assumed would become the permanent status of their relationship.

She left them to their timid greeting and turned to Ron. His lopsided smile fused into her chest, the sight of him made her want to weep. It was like he represented something that she could never have again. Steady kindness, goodness, safety. What would he think of her if he knew what she’d been up to? Participating in organized murder, supporting it, even. When he pulled her into a hug, she rubbed her face on his tee shirt, discreetly wiping the tears that had escaped.

They separated enough to have a conversation, he held her by the waist, her arms still wrapped around him.

“Hermione, you look worse than you did when George had you burping My Heart Will Go On.”

She huffed, turning toward the chaise, ensuring Draco wasn’t eavesdropping. The chaise was empty.

“Of course I look terrible, Ronald. It’s expected in times like these.”

“No, you look awful though. Peaky.”

“I’ve not been sleeping well.”

“You’re not sick too, are you? You wouldn’t keep that from us, would you?”

“I wouldn’t.”

His shoulder relaxed into a sigh, “And Ginny?”

He grabbed hold of her hand, leading her to the nearest sofa.

When they sat, he joined his hands with hers and leaned in, speaking quietly, “She won't tell us anything. Be honest, Hermione. How is she?”

“She’s good. Honestly, she is. She’s been having more headaches, the nosebleeds come and go. But no signs of significant failure in her body just yet. Theo has her on a strict regimen of potions, a strict diet. She’s made to rest often, still, she gets enough sun. She’s good.”

She wanted the ever hopeful Ron, warm eyes assuring her it was good to hear.

Instead, he forced a smile and said, “You always say that. Said it when Gin got her first nosebleed, when a fever landed her in Mungo’s. I don’t know what good means anymore, Hermione.”

She bit her lip, staring at him much too intently, squeezing his hands in hers, pleading for mercy. Just let it go.

A drink was shoved in Ron’s face, “Here you go.” Draco loomed, eyes flaring, mouth pulled in the faintest hint of a smile.

“Er… thanks.”

Draco lingered, as if expecting Ron to say anything else, he even tilted his head for good measure.

“Thanks for opening your home, Malfoy. We… we appreciate it.”

“We?”

“Yeah?”

“Hold on—my home?”

Ron glanced at Hermione, his eyes lost.

“It’s your home, right? You and Nott.”

‘This is the Nott estate.”

“Are you two not…”

“Not what?”

“Notts, you’re both Notts. Didn’t I hear you got married? That’s what Trace said. ”

“Tracey said? To Nott? Pffft.” His next words came out in a lilting cadence, “He wouldn’t have me even if I wanted it. If it were up to me, I’d live in blissful domesticity with Theo forever. But I’m afraid his heart is taken.”

“Yeah? By who?”

Hermione could see the world tilting in that very second, a slow-motion reel of every cascading moment that could lead to snarled words and hurt feelings as she watched Draco’s mouth open.

“Why, taken by our fair Ginevra, of course.”

She closed her eyes the moment after she watched pale crimson rise from the collar of Ron’s shirt, then a flummoxed chuckle released from Ron’s throat.

“What are you–”

“Oh, love.” Draco crooned. Hermione’s eyes opened right before Buttercup scrambled between her and Ron, sloshing Ron’s drink and mouthing at his hand.

“The fuck is that?!” Ron shouted, jumping up from where he sat. At that very moment, the swell of an ominous organ chord sounded. Ron turned at the noise, then whispered, “The absolute fuck.”

Draco scooped Buttercup up from Hermione’s lap, saying, “Come my petal, Uncle Theo is holding court.”

Theo was hunched over, locks of hair falling forward, profile lit in an amber hue from the sconces hanging above; the dark knit of his shirt absorbed the light, accentuating the pale of his hands and the contrast of blue veins against ivory keys.

Hermione’s head spun, the musical piece was mournful and gloomy—as if heeding a warning, rich and rolling through the room, traveling through Hermione’s body, vibrating under her ribs; wrapping around her lungs, constricting, but not with the fatal precision that had strangled Arthur’s own lungs. Her heart was arrhythmic, its pattering feverish—a juxtaposition of the arrhythmia that existed in Tracey’s old heart. Merciless all the same. The corner of her eyes stung, her throat ached, her jaw hurt, tension rising to her temple.

Ron had pulled Ginny into a corner, their arms were crossed as he flatly listened to the words escaping through the wobbly twist of Ginny’s mouth. When the piece finished, their back and forth ended, both retreating into separate shadows of the room.

Dinner was announced. Draco insisted Harry sit at the head of the table as the man of the hour. Harry looked like… Draco had just offered to suck him off.

In sequential order from the head of the table, Draco, Buttercup, and Hermione sat on one side; Theo, Ginny, and Ron sat opposite.

“Is that monkey gonna sit at the table while we eat?” Ron barked incredulously.

“Buttercup is a member of the family.” Draco said, napkin harshly billowing as he shook it out and placed it on his lap.

The food appeared… as a typical Hogwarts spread. Roast beef, steak and kidney pie, yorkshire pudding, treacle tart, pumpkin pasties, toad-in-the-holes, a vast amount of fruit and veg, and finally, butterbeer.

Hermione angled her head so she could look at Draco. He was watching her.

When their eyes met, he raised a brow. She blinked, slow and deliberate. He replied, “What? Potter was always gagging for Hogwarts, wasn’t he?”

She scoffed, tampered it down when she saw the reluctant smile pull from Harry’s face as he took in the spread. Pleased, she proceeded to serve Buttercup—bickering with Draco about healthy capuchin food choices—while Draco tended to Hermione’s plate, indulgently overserving her.

“You look like you have consumption, Weasel. Is something the matter?” Draco asked, docile-eyed and tilting his head innocently.

Ron was pushing his fork around his plate, concerningly atypical.

Ginny sighed.

Harry was oblivious.

Theo handed Ginny a second serving of butterbeer.

“Thanks.”

Ron scoffed.

Harry remained oblivious

“Is something the matter?” Ginny asked Ron.

Hermione guzzled a glass of wine.

Harry, impressively, was still oblivious.

“What’s the word, Hermione?” Ron bit out.

“What?”

Terse, he replied, “When a healer acts– acts inappropriate. Has to be a word for it. I’m sure you know it.”

Harry was blissfully, obstinately, maddeningly, still oblivious.

“Unethical practices.” Draco provided.

“Thanks, mate.”

Draco laughed under his breath, sweet and sharp, “I am not your mate.”

Ron ignored him.

Harry, truly, was in a league of his own.

“Put a sock in it, Ron.” Ginny snarled.

Ron’s fist came down on the table.

Hermione squeaked.

Draco leant over and whispered in Buttercup’s ear. Buttercup proceeded to climb atop Draco’s head and launch himself onto the chandelier above, fractals of light swaying across the room as he swung back and forth.

At long last not oblivious, Harry turned to Nott, finished chewing, swallowed slowly, and said, “There’s a monkey hanging from your chandelier.”

Hermione’s nerves were wrecked and stinging by the time Harry and Ron left. She rushed to the western terrace, mild air rushing over her heated face. She shivered, conjured a small blanket to wrap over her exposed arms. Footsteps clicked behind her, too sharp and light to be anyone else. She turned around, the same harsh motion he’d used when she followed him to that alley all those months ago.

“What is wrong with you?” She seethed.

“Many things, be more specific, maybe I can provide a better answer.”

“Why would you tell Ron business that wasn’t yours to share?”

He inched closer, passing by torchlight, stalking forward like a creature from hell. “It involves my best friend. So, I beg to differ.”

“You ruined Ginny’s night. Do you not care about that? How many nights do you suppose she has?” Her voice cracked, she wanted to strangle him, demand he turn back time and fix his thoughtless behavior.

His eyes faltered, lowering as he swallowed, “She has plenty, I’m sure.”

“And how will you sleep tonight? With your, your, your pristine lungs, your full pumping heart, your enduring kidneys. Flawed brain but works well enough for you to thrive and fuck people over.”

“Why does he care anyway? Ginevera is a grown woman, capable of making any gods-damned decisions she likes.”

“Of course she is. But Ron is protective. Protective of Ginny. Of Harry. He knows just as well as I do that this would devastate Harry. So what does it hurt to never tell him? Ginny is physically weak, he doesn’t want her taken advantage of. He doesn’t know Theo. It’s a reasonable concern to have.”

His voice was raw, strained, “Potter will find out eventually. Theo doesn’t do casual, and he’s decided that he belongs to Ginevra. You saw him ripping at the seams tonight with worry. One look at the Saint and Ginevra would forget all about him.”

Her chin wobbled terribly.

“As if she could ever.”

It was those words that prompted her held-back tears to spill over. Draco’s eyes drifted down her face, as if tracking their path. She’d never seen him look so wretchedly solemn. His body swayed forward infinitesimally.

Her eyes landed on the crook of his neck, then she whispered, “Goodnight.”

Milky moonlight faded into a matted gold as she crossed the threshold of the terrace.

There was a stream that ran along Nott Manor’s eastern edge, a natural spring that cut through limestone and divided the property in two: the main house, tall and looming; and a smaller annex, converted from what was once a 13th century priory—with the two sides joined by a stone bridge. The annex was where the dungeons, now designated as an infirmary and cold chamber, were located. Hermione thanked Theo’s excessive ancestors time and time again. It allowed a divide to exist in her mind. A literal bridge between her two worlds. Allowed her to delude herself into thinking she had two worlds at all. As if everything she did didn’t revolve around research and stalking, purification and corruption.

She was treading across said bridge when she spotted Draco sitting on its ledge, back hunched, legs carelessly dangling. She thought she might ignore him, she wasn’t in the mood for acknowledging, but the closer she got the more awkward she felt. He had to have sensed, if not heard, her presence. She cleared her throat before passing him, when he looked up she mumbled a good morning.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“I’m going to go over the reports on our next– on the people we’re following.”

He hummed, then said, “Come sit.”

And then she went and sat like a twit.

“I feel like a twit.” She huffed.

He snorted. “Why’s that?”

“You told me to come and sit and here I am.”

“I have tea.” He offered, gesturing to his left where, sure enough, there was a spread hovering next to him. Tea, milk, sugar, lemon, biscuits, crumpets and clotted cream.

He met her arched brow with his own, holding a cup of steaming darjeeling out toward her.

“Your favorite.”

She eyed it and as she slowly took it from his hands she muttered, “I take it with a generous splash of milk… but thank you.”

“Can’t expect a fellow to know that.”

“Well now you do.”

She could feel his eyes on her and she resented it. Not only for the flush on her face that he was more than likely noticing and amused by, but because she’d rather have the chance to look at him too. She tucked a few curls behind her ear and chanced a glance, barely missing the way his eyes skittered away from her face and to the water.

“How are you sleeping?”

She jumped at the question, hot tea spilling over her cup onto the corduroy of her trousers. Despite the barrier of the thick fabric it burned all the same. She hissed as she hastily set the cup down.

“Shit.” His hand came forward to touch the meat of her inner thigh, a mixture of a rub and a grip. She hissed again, this time in shock from the contact. God, she was burning.

“If you please, I need to scourgify and dry the spot.” The priss of her tone was an old and reliable friend, good enough to cover up the fluster in her voice.

“Right.” The peak of his cheeks were inflamed as he pulled his hand away.

The moment was mortifying enough, that being honest about her sleep quality seemed like a small mercy to grant them both. With a clearing of her throat she said, “No, I’m not sleeping well. I’ve been thinking… well, who are we to decide one life is worth more than another? And who are we to play God? Not that I believe in God, it’s an idiom but even so… And also, why those people? What is it about them that threads them to their counterpart?”

“It’s just magical signature. Not a big deal.”

“It is, though. It’s a big deal to me. It’s threaded through our very being. And what if I get sick? Could I live with someone else’s part inside me? Knowing that the only reason they're dead is because I wanted to live. Knowing that they’re simply awful, homicidal, violent, abusers. Could I live with that inside me?”

“Granger, do you expect everyone else to welcome death because they simply can’t? Do you expect them to sit with the conflict of whether they should or shouldn’t? Do you imagine they have those privileges? What they do have the privilege of, is resources available that aid us in committing criminal acts on their behalf.”

“No, I guess I don’t expect anything of them. But they’ll have the rest of their newfound lives to live with the burden of why they're alive.”

He looked away from her, ran a hand through his hair and sat in thought before saying, “If the ministry wasn’t already eating themselves alive they’d be doing much worse than we ever could.” He was staring off, far away and at nothing in particular. “Let’s say this gets as bad as you fear it might. Give them ten years of this, allow them the slow descent into madness and they’ll probably find a way to create replicas of people, farms of children raised for one purpose—the very valuable and healthy organs they possess. Of course, they’d never truly possess their own bodies, a possession cannot possess. And they wouldn't call them farms, no… they’d sequester them in large stately homes in the countryside, a quiet and distilled life for such delicate and valuable things. It's the most inhumane and idiotic solution, so of course they’ll go with that one.”

Hermione tried to laugh, it came out tremorous. “How very fatalistic, Draco.”

He watched her over the rim of his teacup as he took a long sip. When he lowered his cup he stared into it contemplatively before murmuring, “It really is better with milk.” It was held out toward her mouth, “Try it, you’ll feel better.”

She didn’t move, he only nudged it closer until it nearly touched her lips. The slant of his brows made his eyes look too striking—so intense it was as if their focus alone could carve you open, revealing every soft part within—or, compel you to drink from his cup like a twit. She lowered her chin, completing the journey between the rim and her mouth. When she drank she didn’t dare break their stare. The tea was silken and warm and like something unnamably gentle; like the soft grey of his eyes in that very moment. She thought she might like to knit a blanket from such a color. She’d wrap herself in it night after night, let it catch her tears, scream into it, etcetera.

“Good?”

His question came out soft as a wisp.

The pattering of her heart was not.

Portkeys were hard to acquire those days, and it’s not like one could simply ask for one when up to no good. So it was convenient that Hermione had long ago perfected the art of the portkey—for no reason other than because.

Her wand traced runes around a chipped teacup, the air around it compressing and releasing, vibrations pulling like a rising tide. Not long after she started casting, exhaustion began seeping through her chest; a slow creep, like cold air coming through the crack of a window. The release of the word Portus triggered a hum.

Something about making Portkeys made Hermione feel more powerful than she ought to be. The way it burnt through her energy stores, the way it made her want to lay against a spot of grass with the stars above her, cast in a tranquil opaline light with arms spread. And in her mind she’d pretend that the living network below her was sending its energy to her—the powerful being resting atop it. Like she was a root threaded in the earth, drawing nutrients and water, a thread in the everflowing lattice of life.

That was where Draco found her.

Boots came to rest on the ground adjacent to her head. She followed the path from his legs to his face, indulging in the hard lines of his body from such an angle. His head was tilted, almost like he wanted to turn it upside down to see her straight.

“Hi.”

His brow raised and he softly replied, “Hello.”

“Sit.” His lip curled in disdain, causing her to smile. “The grass doesn’t bite.” He considered this, then slowly lowered. “Bugs might.” His bum hadn’t yet reached the ground when he paused at her words, finally hitting the grass in petulance once the laugh she was holding in escaped.

“Why are you sprawled out like a corpse?”

“I’m dead.”

“You’re not.”

“Am.”

He sighed. “Oh, Granger. Thus conscience does not make cowards of us all.”

Her huff was gravelly, brimmed with exhaustion.

“Screw your courage to the sticking place. Right?”

“There’s nothing courageous in what we’re doing.” He said sharply. “Is that what you have to tell yourself? Just accept what you are and you’ll be just fine.”

She laughed, acrid and full of salt. “I’m not delusional, I’ve not convinced myself that this is justified in any form. I know. I know. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that.”

“Good.” They sat in silence for a few seconds and then, “But um… I have this.” It was a small vial, shiny silver liquid within. Perhaps the same thing he took at the circus, perhaps the same thing he took often. “It does help, you know.”

“Are you going to explain what it is?”

“Must you be so vexing?” He then mimicked her question, high-pitched and inflated, one might call such an imitation vexing.

“Well, what is it then?” She groused.

“The base is Draught of Peace. Then there’s Moondew, Ashwinder, Aether petals, something they call bloodroot.” He downed it in one gulp, pulled another from his pocket and held it out with a murmur, “Softens your edges.”

As her fingers met his, he lowered from where he was sitting, his eyes—already dreamlike—left hers and fixed on the stars as his back hit the ground.

What did she have left to lose? She was already a homicidal scoundrel, as far as she was concerned.

Her lips puckered after she drank it, her tongue working away at the acidity. In an instant discordance became a thing for the empathetic. In her apathy she found nothing and everything, she found the guts of every star that forged who she was. She found their energy whirring within her—a current she was herself forging into existence, a cycle of supernova feedback.

Above her, the heavens sprawled in a phantasmagoric swirl of light and plasma, hydrogen fusing into helium. She thought she could feel the stars pulsing beneath her skin, a radioactive hum. Thought and Being dissolved as soft and sugary as candy floss on the tongue. She was nought but a spark in the dark.

The awareness of her limbs hit her all at once—when Draco smoothed his fingers over her hand. The fingers she’d been spreading languid over the grass, twitched in anticipation. The whole of his hand, warm as a toasty hearth, came to rest over hers. When she flipped her hand, his fingers found their way between the space of her own, where they curled and tightened. A marvelous handhold. When was the last time she held anyone’s hand and reveled in it?

She turned her head toward him, grass tickling her cheek, eyes catching his—he was already watching her. The soft parting of his lips looked lovely and suckable. She might have told him as much because he let out what he’d never admit was a giggle. She giggled too, and when their giddy noises ebbed into hushed breaths, they stared in awe; exchanging, offering, sharing dazed twin smiles.

Chapter Text

Summer was refusing its surrender at The Lovegoyle Menagerie. Thistles dotted the low stone wall of its entrance, brambles spilling over from one side to the other—Buttercup was propped on the ledge of the wall, fingers purpled with the blackberries he was gorging on. Draco sat next to him, watching him, melancholic, overly so.

“Butter, father will bring you sweets, and we won’t let Granger steal them this time.”

“It’s detrimental to his health, Draco.”

“Gods, he looks absolutely heartbroken.” Juice the color of deep violet was dripping from Buttercup's content little mouth. He held a blackberry toward his father—er, Draco—overagressive, its pulp seeping through his hand. Draco moved the hand toward Buttercup’s own mouth, he happily obliged. “Granger, can monkeys die of a broken heart? I won't bear it. I think he can come.”

“He cannot.”

Luna hummed next to them. “Portkey travel alone might just kill him.”

Draco grabbed Buttercup, clutched him to his chest, pressed his face into his neck and choked out something that sounded like “Oh, Gods.”

A few hours later, across the pond, the sun was shining, birds were twittering, laughter ricocheted off sidewalks. The air smelled like food, like smoke and charcoal. Her mouth watered. Her eyes watered. Was she going to cry in the middle of a crowded sidewalk in Texas?

It was so…

“The war really never touched them here, did it?” Draco mused quietly. He was blindingly bright, angelic almost.

Hermione bit her bottom lip until it stung, released it then let the open air catch that sting, she would not sooth it.

Draco continued, “I mean, I knew the war never reached the Americas, I just— it’s not that it’s a foreign place— it is a bit of that, I suppose. But…” He looked so lost—lost in translation, lost for words, just lost. He turned toward her and with a pinch of his brows said, “You’ve got a bit of blood on your lip, Granger.” His thumb brushed her bottom lip, gentle and curious. He smoothed the spot of blood between his thumb and index finger, his eyes transfixed on the smear, hers transfixed on him. As she watched him, she ran her tongue over the spot he’d just cleaned.

Terracotta walls, whirring machines, cinnamon and dark roast scenting the air—and Draco Malfoy’s name carved on the aged oak of a table.

“Everyone else put theirs, Granger.” Draco whinged. “Don’t leave me all alone.”

Hermione took a long sip of her latte, then replied, “As you said, everyone else put theirs. There’s—” she glanced down. “—easily one hundred names to keep yours company.”

But, she did put her name, because she was not a spoilsport.

“So, Roth works on cars for a living.” Hermione told him.

“Cars?”

“He’s no longer hirable in the magical world. His shop is ten miles down that way.” She pointed vaguely to her right. “We’ll go there, and hopefully we'll be able to follow him home, wherever that is.”

“There’s no way he doesn’t have the spot warded to the nines.”

“Right, that’s what we’re scoping out.”

“How many galleons—that he has someone tied up there?”

“Draco.”

“It is what it is, Granger.”

“Maybe we should try and dismantle his wards today. He’s by far the most dangerous person we’ve followed—well, in terms of his propensity for committing crimes at this very moment.”

Draco’s brows rose ever so slightly, a look that suggested disagreement was on the tip of his tongue, but then, he said, “Maybe the Argentine can protect us.”

“What?”

“Let’s go grab the Argentine, he can do it.”

“He– he’s dead?”

“Oh. That’s right. Can’t do much when you’re dead. Too bad, he’d have been a great help.”

“Out with you, Draco Malfoy.” She said, voice too tired and groggy to carry any bite.

And out he went… to the nearest boot shop.

“These’ll last you– oohwee, until death do you part, son.”

The middle-aged man before them had the rustiest lilt to his voice, with an accent that Hermione couldn’t help but delight in. It wasn’t like she imagined they’d run into a certified cowboy… type upon arrival, yet there they were. And they hadn’t even had to make their way toward any pastures.

The man wore a suppressed smile from the moment he heard Draco speak, requesting the finest pair of cowboy boots they had. Oh, but he smiled properly, though. A real smile, all teeth and crinkled eyes, but there was something hidden under it. It was somehow both genuine and put-upon. And beneath it, was the hidden smile, the one he suppressed, the one absolutely amused at the posh British gent in his shop.

“Look at these, Granger. Look at that detail.” He held the boot to her face, the scent of leather engulfing her—burnished whiskey in color—and pointed to stitching that spiraled in arcs and curled upward like flames.

“They’re nice. Quite nice.”

He scoffed then turned away from her before asking, “Can you point us toward the women’s section?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Let’s not give her too high a heel. She’s plenty petite, but still.”

“You absolute fop!”

Hermione’s boots did not fit under her jeans, and just when she thought she’d triumphed and they’d leave–well, they did leave. BUT. But but but. He got the boots anyway and dragged her to another shop, where he insisted on acquiring her jeans made for such boots.

“It’s hotter than a dog’s arse out there, Malfoy. I have dresses packed!”

“All the better, Granger. Ideal, in fact. I’ve seen these worn with dresses. You’ll look… fine.”

“I gave you exactly one afternoon for shopping.” She glanced at her watch. “You’ve wasted one hour of that afternoon on me. You do realize that no one around here actually dresses like that?” She gestured to his new getup. The exact outfit worn by the boot shopkeeper—a crisp button up, with jeans that fit a little too well, and a belt with the biggest silver buckle she’d ever laid eyes on. Oh, and the boots—those damned boots. He looked so stupidly roguish. Why did his shirt have to tuck in just so? Caught beneath the belt, drawing in his waist in a way that made her feel like an adolescent Victorian lad flustered over an ankle.

It was only a few hours later that Draco was imposing his smug smile on her gaping face. They’d followed Roth to a local bar, where there were swarms of men in a similar get-up as Draco. Not a single person batted an eye when they walked in.

There was a long road that unspooled between thickets of mesquite and oak, so thick the only thing that peeked through was the sky, ribbons of blue and puffed cream. Asphalt morphed into dirt, where the road thinned out, brittle tufts of grass lining the edge. It was on that dirt road that Hermione and Draco watched Kyle Roth’s truck disappear behind wards so invisible, Hermione was convinced the magic behind it was steeped in blood, and if either of them were to even attempt a crossing, they’d meet violent consequences.

The next night, at the point where his truck disappeared, they stood. They followed the grass until they spotted the point where it deadened so thoroughly, all they’d have to do was rub it vigorously and it’d spark into fire. This was the determinant, they decided. It was there that they formed a circle with a mixture of salt and soil. In that circle Draco moved his wand in angles that if not precise, would lead to failure and alert Roth to a potential intruder.

The air around the wards was stifled, hot and overwhelming. After many minutes of Draco performing his wandwork—with sweat on his brow and his eyes sharp and keenly focused, she felt a breeze hit her from the center of the determinant.

“It’s open. Let’s go.” She whispered hastily. They only had a few minutes before the wards closed again. It had taken her nearly all of the previous night and three shots of tequila to convince Draco that in order to ensure their safety, they first needed to risk it. They needed to acquaint themselves with Roth's abode; suss out any skeletons in his closet, so to speak—figurative, literal…

Roth’s home was small, a one-story shack crouched behind a wraparound porch and a lone rocking chair keeping vigil at the front—it moved to and fro as the wind softly stirred. Windchimes dangled from the eaves—upon closer inspection, she could see that the chimes were threaded with a mixture of silver and bone—slender bleached finger bones, curved sections of vertebrae clicking together in hollow knocks, the sound weaving discordantly with the brighter tinkling of the silver.

Wind hissed around the strip of skin left bare above her boots and beneath her shorts, goosebumps running from her calf to her thigh. Far too often since they’d arrived, she was finding herself begrudgingly grateful for the sodding boots Draco insisted she wear.

Disillusioned and Muffliatoed, they ghosted off the path to the porch and slipped inside. The house was quiet, save for a low, low crooning voice, subdued instrumentals. They followed the sound, it drifted from a door, what led to the basement, because yes, yes, of-fucking-course.

Draco seized her elbow right before she made her way down. She couldn't see him but could certainly picture him tight-faced and glaring. What could she do? This is why they came. They had to see just what he was up to. What stitches would unravel if they plucked Roth out of Texas and hauled him back to England?

There was a solid warmth behind her as she descended. She felt a prickle of relief at the feel of him, not leaving her on her own. The basement was brightly lit. It was wide—most likely stretched via extension charm. Space enough for a small lab, multiple medical beds, a large heavy-looking desk, and a closed door within.

A man lay prone, cheek pressed against one of the beds. Hermione watched closely, willing her eyes not to play tricks, watching for the rise of a breath. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it but she thought she caught the faintest, nearly invisible lifting of his back. He was alive… and his back. A long and thick seam of stitches ran from the base of his neck down to his lower spine. The skin was glossy where it was red and inflamed. Hermione had an urge to rub or scratch at her own back, she couldn’t decide which.

Out of the closed door walked Roth. Changed from the mechanic’s uniform he sported everyday, hair pulled back in a low bun, muttering something lowly to himself. He passed the man without a glance, sat on his desk and began scribbling as if he had a deadline to make—completely unaffected by the man before him.

Charts were strewn about, notebooks laid open, full of writing.

A muffled groan, raspish and shaky, escaped the man lying on the bed.

Roth did not look up.

The man stirred, his head rose a fraction, eyelids papery-thin and spidery-veined peeled open. Gravity reclaimed him, his head flopping back down as unintelligible slurred words escaped him.

Roth’s focus stayed on the notebook before him. He dropped his pen only to flex his hand, the soft popping of his knuckles the only sound in the room—it wasn’t until he’d finished stretching his hands that he moved his attention to the man.

Roth looked nearly reverent as he watched him, inhaling deeply, his eyes fluttered closed, then a small huff escaped him.

“Gods.” He whispered.

When his eyes reopened, his face took on a seriousness—furrowed brows, frowning mouth.

“Her magic loves yours.”

The man, who’d been blinking sluggishly, seemed to come to all at once. His gaze flitted around the room, his breathing came out rapidly. Trembling, short whimpers escaped his throat—in and out, in and out.

He was saying something… Atlas?

Atlas, Atlas, Atlas.

Roth appeared bored, and told him, “Alice is sipping on a milkshake. She’s alright. A weakling, but… alright.”

A harsh thud from the other side of the door in the basement nearly sent Hermione toppling down the remaining stairs. A woman was screaming, shredding her throat, surely.

“Spoke too soon. This is the trouble with lovers.” Roth muttered as he swished his wand lazily—the screams went mute.

A ragged, anguished sound tore from the man on the bed. His elbow flattened against the mattress—he rose, slowly but determined. His form was hunched, head drooping with exhaustion from the lift. The stitching on his back angered, flushing a deeper red. Hermione leaned forward, intent on getting a closer look, the skin was splitting, blood seeping from the joining.

As soon as the question of why Roth hadn’t magically healed the wound flickered through Hermione’s mind, she came to the conclusion that in him doing so, it would overwhelm the man’s body, and prevent it from doing whatever it was that Roth wanted it to do.

“Settle.” Roth hissed. “The sooner you heal, the sooner you both get out of here. No harm, no foul. Understand? Tell me you understand.”

A few deep breaths later and the man nodded.

“Good. You’re only good to me alive, don't you know? How many times must I explain the same thing?” His exasperation was evident in the hands on his hips, and the tightness held in his posture. What a fucking loon. He was absolutely batshit. As if he was the one being inconvenienced, and not the gnarled man before him.

A hand cinched around her waist, another slid down her arse. She gasped. The hand didn’t stop at her bum, it traveled to the back of her knee, hitching her up—suddenly she was flipped, lifted and carried bridal style up the stairs and out of Roth’s house.

“What are you doing?” She squawked. No answer.

Draco didn’t lower her as they approached the same spot of the wards they’d come through. No matter how she twisted and wriggled, his hold was unrelenting, arms locked tight around her. She could feel the fluid flicks of his wrist against her waist as he cast. The moment they stepped through the boundary, the faint static she hadn’t noticed permeating her ears, dissipated, replaced by the harsh buzz of–

Draco hopped backward with a mortifying scream.

“What the buggering fuck is wrong with you?” She asked.

“Snakes.” He panted, whipping around, eyes scouring the ground.

“They’re cicadas, Malfoy.” She told him, the fool that he was. “It’s early autumn, they’re not ready for burrowing just yet. Did you not read up about the place you planned to go tromping about with your boots in? And put me down!”

He did just that, then crossed his arms firmly and sniffed.

“Why did you take us out of there? We can’t just leave those people there.” She demanded.

“We certainly can and will, and you know it.”

Ah, she did know it. Rationality told her Roth was intent on healing them, intent on sending them on their way. He wasn’t lying about that, her instincts told her so. He would need to observe them in their normal environments after their procedure. The wise path was one they timed just right. Now was not the time.

“Let’s go back to the motel. I need you to perform legilimency on me.”

“Why…”

“Did you get a good look at the research Roth had out? Because I did.” 

Subject 1A:

No known curse residue

Baseline signature: warm, low oscillation at distal channels (hands, lips, ocular). Charmwork precise but unremarkable

Implementation: attempted infusion through bone marrow

Source donor signature: mild, stable, casting patterns 88% match

Subject reports the feeling of needles under ribcage

Casting: flow is fuller, spidery, like ink in water

Day 3 sensory drift, subject reports colors are too “loud”

Day 8 native signature reasserting itself slowly. Charmwork back to being a hair too plain

Subject 4A:

Deposits of curse residue: cruciatus

Baseline signature: sharp, pressurized, highly reactive (ideal for testing)

Implementation: marrow infusion

Source donor signature: reactive, casting patterns 94% match

Subject reports pressure behind sternum, in temples, rhythmic

Casting: flow is like a wave, ebbs in a fat rise and falls just as thoroughly

Wandwork output tripled before stabilizing

Day 6 identity drift, psychological distress. Attempted stabilization via runic conduction.

Subject frightened, attempted to withdraw from study

Subject 9A:

Deposits of curse residue: Imperius

Baseline signature: thin, loose, easily tangled

Implementation: coronary transfer

Source donor signature: tightly-latticed, thin, casting patterns 79% match

Woke prematurely

Attempted escape

Magical outburst: flow sloshed out as if sealed in a jar

Sedation

Obliviate

Release week 2

Casting: like pale gold shards

Subject loses focus often, frequently loses focus at stop signs in particular

Deterioration 9 weeks

Crystalline residue along coronary tissue

Subject 12a

Deposits of curse residue: Imperius, cruciatus

Physical injuries consistent with struggle

Baseline signature: sharp, sub-zero, ward-weaving refined, highly resilient

Implementation: spinal grafting, runic carving

Source donor signature: low volatility, high flexibility, rounded, heated. casting patterns 47% match

Woke hysterical

Sedation

Draco’s magic pulsed in her mind like the low notes of a lullaby—soft hum, flutter of lashes, slow yawn, star winking out.

The warmth, the liquid smooth, only lasted a heartbeat.

After he found what they needed, his attention lingered on the man on the bed. Why, god, why the man on the bed? Hermione was not there in body—not in any physical manifestation of her form, her mind stomped its feet all the same. She kicked up a fuss. She inhaled sharply. Froze. Folded in on herself, cowered in a corner—in that sterile silver corner by the door—the one that, in a few minutes, would erupt those awful desperate sounds.

It was her memory, and sod her memory for being so viciously thorough.

When he pulled out of her mind, she felt hollow. She had been so full. Full of him. Him and his warmth. And then nothing.

She wanted to discuss what was found but she didn’t know how. Couldn’t stop picturing blood oozing from the stitches lining the man’s spine. Couldn’t stop picturing his lover on the other side of that door, desperately trying to get to him. Couldn’t stop picturing the bloodshot of his eyes, the terror they held, the grief.

She was shivering, teeth chattering uncontrollably. They were in her room, sitting on her bed, she gripped the sheets in an attempt to ground herself. A hand maneuvered her chin, grey eyes—she really ought to knit that blanket—scanned her face. Then a vial was held to her lips.

“Just a little.” He whispered. “Tomorrow is for troubles.”

A jerky nod of her head and he was tipping the vial against her. A drop slipped from the corner of her mouth. Tentatively, he leaned forward and kissed it away—a barely, infinitesimally-there peck.

As she marveled at the touch, she watched him swallow his own, his body blurring before her. She blinked it away. Then his forehead was pressed against hers.

Slurred, he told her, “I’m sorry about that. I couldn’t look away. It was…” A weary sigh. “…grotesque.”

After a few languid blinks, he smiled. It was a slow crawl of a smile, it made its way up her spine and prickled over her scalp. Slowly, as if enraptured, he told her, “You smell like lavender soaked in a dish of cream.”

“Mmm.”

“That’s a pretty noise, Granger… Hermione.”

Her name was a dulcet roil, thick and lux, syllables soaked in a dish of cream. His eyes were so close, her own began to ache from the strain of trying to hold them, so she let them drift until they landed on the small protrusion of bone on the bridge of his nose, then down to its pointed tip. She leaned forward until her own nose brushed his, slid it back and forth against his in an absentminded rub.

Then, her sleepy reply, “Yeah?”

His breath smelled of the potion—sugared roses with a sharp, tangy edge.

Somehow, he leaned forward even closer, slid his nose to her cheekbone, to her temple, then inhaled.

Clumsy steps found them in the middle of the room, the motel’s tired air conditioner and Draco’s melodic humming, the only sounds that propelled their swaying. She couldn’t remember how one was supposed to hold themselves upright, but that’s what she had Draco for, she supposed. He could hold them both up, if she leaned in.

Her fingers twisted in the cotton of his shirt, she drew spirals there, in the middle of that spiral was where she’d find her answer. What was the problem again?

“S’not a problem.” Draco rasped.

“Okay.” She whispered against his collarbone, she felt a shiver run through his chest and into hers—she would have liked to bathe in it.

How nice would that be?

He murmured, muffled, into the curls of her hair, “So nice.”

The trill of a bird woke her, she was lying stomach down on the old carpet floor at the foot of the bed. Draco was above her on the bed, also stomach down, his pale locks falling over the edge of the mattress, arm falling over, hand in her hair. She inhaled stale fabric, gagged and hobbled up. There was a dull throb working its way through her head, her left arm was stiff from her body laying on it for too long, a sharp pain near her elbow where it was bent.

Draco stirred at the movement, his fingers weakly grasping at empty air, nails scratching the carpet where Hermione had been. He groaned, “That bird is a cunt.”

The shower was scalding, perfect. The shampoo, lacking. The towel, surprisingly new.

They discussed Roth while Hermione scrunched product into her damp hair.

“I think he’s able to sense certain aspects about magical signatures. Like, like, he can taste it, or see it, even.” Hermione said.

“Oh?”

“Yes, it’s fascinating, really. What an odd duck.”

“Right… his magical abilities make him odd and not the fucking bones on his porch…. or the bodies in his basement.”

She plowed on, “There were crystalline fragments in some of his victim’s organs. You know, he’s pressurizing his subjects' magical pathways.” There had to be some connecting thread there. “I wonder how similar those deposits are to those in the afflicted. I’d wager he hasn’t the faintest clue why they develop.”

“That’s not good.”

“No. It’s not. But if we can explore his mind… We’ll need him alive, Draco. Please.”

He scoffed as he hiked up the leg of his jeans, tugged the softest sock she’d ever seen over his foot, up his ankle, all the way to mid-calf, where the cuff gave a quiet snap over skin—a snug fit—and then slid his right foot into a boot, “Do I look like I’m out for blood?”

“... no…?”

“Oh. That’s right. Me bad, you good.”

“Shut it.”

In the states, the magical often blurred the lines between their world and the world of the non-magical, or no-maj, as Americans called them. Texas was a place with even less separation, with the magical considering the non-magical world to be as much their own as the other side. They were woven into the very fabric of no-maj life, often lived in no-maj neighborhoods, worked no-maj jobs, frequented no-maj establishments.

Kyle Roth was thoroughly integrated into non-magical society, favoring no-maj bars in particular. Every day they tracked him—patient, watchful, honed for any signs of further horrific behavior—waiting for Winston to confirm that he was, without a doubt, a match for Pansy Parkinson. Because no matter what Roth did in his downtime, and how it might help them, as ever with the disease, immediate survival eclipsed all else. For what they really needed was Kyle Roth’s lungs—reclaimed and given life anew—not his brain.

It was still early evening, they had already watched him for two hours as he laughed raucously, slapping the backs of his companions, eyeing passing women. He was so boisterous, overmuch. Like a man on the verge of winning… something. Perhaps his current experiment was turning out to be his most fruitful.

His lovers.

Their signature likeness was one of the lowest he’d recorded, and yet… Hermione imagined there was a balance being struck. One’s magic softened to the Other because it had what it lacked, what it wanted—the Other flowed in such a tantalizing manner, that it was compelled to make chase. Like two children, utterly unalike, meeting for the first time. So opposite but enticingly so, curiosity alight, energy fervent.

Her eyes caught Draco, whose own eyes rarely strayed from the other patrons around them. He was probably wondering what material their boots were made of, how they got their hair to artfully fall in that devil may care manner, how they got their jeans to be so crisply pressed.

“Stop looking at me like that, Granger.” Draco told her gruffly.

“We’re here to follow Roth, not find sartorial inspiration. By the way, according to Winston, that man next to him has a magical signature that nearly perfectly aligns with Cho Chang—”

“Cho whot?”

“Cho Chang.” She hissed. “Harry said she only has a month or two before things take a turn for the worse. I thought there was surely no hope for her but don’t you see, we can get two for the price of one.”

Malfoy did a double take, “Merlin, Granger. Calm your tits, we’re talking about people here. And who is this other man?”

“Obviously a friend of our target, Draco.” She said it in the way of talking to a simpleton—extra emphasis on the O. Dracohhh. When she used such deliberate condescension with others, it usually caused recoils, a step back, a shoulder slanted away. But Draco, he’d perk—everytime—his head tipping toward her ever so slightly, his chest puffing just so. Almost like… like she’d set him with a task, and he was always up for it. She leaned in, meeting him in the middle, giving as good as she got, then with a lilt, “Get a good look at him.”

Draco was watching her from beneath his brow, head tilted, eyes fixed on her a touch too long. Then they swung to the man in question. He went still, studying, assessing.

After a minute or so, she whispered, “Do you think he’s bad too?”

He blinked, something vicious overtaking the cool grey of his eyes as they cut back to her, “And how would I know?” He leaned toward her. “Because I’m a bad man too, I must recognize every bad man we encounter? I’ve got news for you, Granger. You’re not so good yourself, are you?”

“Excuse me?”

His arm came to rest on the back of her chair, a show of intimacy where it didn’t belong. He moved closer, gaze flitting to her mouth before murmuring, “You're here, with me. The same man you always insist is so very bad. And yet…” His fingers found their way to the nape of her neck, gently tucking themselves into her curls, a barely there touch. “You’re here… with me.” Their noses were aligned, eye to eye. She shivered, she was losing it. He was going to have her acting up again.

Only a few months around Malfoy, day in and day out, and she was losing it.

Hermione forced herself steady, “We’ll have to find out who he is and request a report on his past thereabouts.”

Draco nearly growled, “That’ll add nearly a week to our time spent here. I don’t know how much more of this my complexion can handle.”

She reared back, “Are you asking me to choose between your skin and Cho’s life? Is that what you’re asking me, Draco Malfoy?”

“Of course not, darling.”

“Stop that.” She brushed her hair off her exposed shoulders and fanned herself. What sort of place was Texas, anyhow? Since when did autumn feel like the devil’s arsehole?

“His name is Jerry Sanchez.”

“How do you know that?”

He tapped a finger against his temple.

“You didn’t.” She hissed.

“Extenuating circumstances.” He shrugged.

“That’s a violation of the mind.”

“Granger, you’re planning on killing the man.”

Her hand covered his mouth in haste as she desperately shushed him. His tongue flicked out against her palm.

“Stop that.”

He did not stop. She removed her hand and swiped it against her jeans before flouncing off to the bar.

He followed.

“You haven’t done that to Roth, have you?” She asked.

“Of course not, I’m not an idiot.”

He ordered them shots of tequila, after they’d knocked those back, he ordered them beer.

“So, do you think you can fix this? All of it.”

She expected a smirk, a twitch of his lips, but instead his face was solidly blank.

“I don’t know. Well, I’m sure that we can do it. I just don’t know how long that will take. Theo doesn’t trust inviting help—but we could really use it.”

“Hmm, if word got out that anyone was close to being close to finding a fix, there’d be plenty people upset. Plenty who’d like to see it run its course. Nefarious purposes, mal-intentioned agendas, etcetera, etcetera.”

Her finger—that had been gliding along the grain of the counter’s wood—caught on a sticky spot, she rubbed it absentmindedly then proceeded to gag.

Yes, she knew all of that, and she knew it all too well.

“Tell me, where would you be if none of this had happened?” She asked.

Draco drained his bottle, blew a raspberry, then looked at her from the side of his eyes.

“I’d probably be happily planning a wedding.”

He grabbed another bottle.

There was a tumbling in her stomach, like someone tripped over a step in there and was falling arse over tit.

Heat coursed through her veins in the form of tequila, so she asked, “Why?”

“Well, weddings are fun. I like fun.”

“Not the part where you commit yourself for life to the person you love?”

His fingers tapped a staccato rhythm on the counter, all the playfulness in his face dissipating.

She sipped her beer, it filled her head with sugary nothing, he was the one who insisted on placing it in front of her, so her next question was his fault, “What happened with your betrothal, then? Astoria Greengrass, right? You only wanted to wed her for the fun of it?”

Draco crossed his arms next to her, shoulders stiff. She poked his bicep, her finger met significant force, it was amazingly hard. She did it again.

“Well? I’ll take a gander. It was arranged? A pureblood darling for Draco Malfoy.”

And wasn’t she just so, Astoria frequented headlines those days. Her frizz-free straight hair, smooth complexion, rosy cheeks. Nearly every outing and potential beau tracked. She wondered if he–

“So, do you get jealous? Does it sting? Seeing her in Witch Weekly so often?”

He’d been carrying around copies of the magazine, staring at it wistfully as he nibbled his thumbnail, like it held a dream he couldn’t quite grasp. She’d been overcome with the wiliest urge to throw the thing in his toilet and leave it there for him to find.

“Tequila and beer don't agree with you, Granger. You’re terribly wicked. And no, it wasn’t arranged and it wasn’t because she’s pureblood.” He spat. “That’s really fucking awful of you to assume, by the way. I— ah, shit.” He sighed, rubbed a hand over his barely visible stubble. “Alright, I can’t do this. Look, maybe…” His eyes volleyed between the bottles of drinks before them. “Maybe I latched onto her especially because yes, she’s pureblood. Let’s call it a bonus. Fuck my parents, but also, they’re mine. And maybe some sordid, sick part of me wanted them to have that—after all the loss, after losing me. I’m sick in the head. But we already know that, don’t we? Still, that wasn’t why I chose her. She’s witty, pretty… kind. Too kind.”

Why did she insist on doing these things to herself? What good did she think would come from such a conversation? It’s just that there was something gnawing within her, feral and blood-slicked and wretched—a maw of ugliness.

“Why choose anyone in the first place?”

His eyes drifted to the ceiling, hesitance on his face as he answered, “I didn’t want to be alone.”

And Astoria is witty, and pretty, and kind.

“Why are you pouting?” He asked, grit was working its way into the timbre of his voice, the late evening and tequila more than likely calling him into a siesta.

“So… she broke things off…?”

His lips glistened from the hearty swig of beer he’d just partaken, he replied, “She got sick. And I got sick with worry—thought it was somehow my fault. I don’t know why… no one knew much back then. But if anyone’s going to pay a steep price in life, it's someone who chooses to associate so deeply with me. Drove myself mad trying to get her fixed. It’s… what started my involvement in this all.”

Ah, so she was sat in a bar, moping and on the verge of tears because of Astoria Greengrass—the very reason she was on the verge of tears, brilliantly, was the very reason she was on the verge of tears. Hermione is making ALL the sense. Flawless logic, Granger.

“Wait, wait, but who broke things off?” His eyes lowered to his arm, oh, her hand was there, clutching his shirt. “Hold, just a sec.”

She reached into her bag, accioed a sober-up, it fumbled from her fingers and fell to the floor, where it shattered. “Bugger. Sorry.” She chirped. “Go on.”

“S’alright. I ended things. After her surgery, quite literally after her surgery. Can you believe it? Freshly sliced and sutured. Once she was coherent enough, I told her that she deserved better. Because she does.”

“You think she’s too good for you?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know her.”

His fingernail peeled at the condensed film that made up the label of his beer bottle as he sat in thought. Then, “I am a bad person, you know. I really am. I didn’t want a life with her. I didn’t want to wade in tepid water all my life, and then be forced to feel something when the water started boiling. Does that make sense?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

See, because she really wasn’t sure, and she knew this because she still had the nastiest urge to shake his shoulders and demand: DO YOU LOVE HER OR WHAT, MY GOOD FELLOW?!

Their eyes latched, soft crackling warmth.

Warm, warm, warm.

Draco broke it, his eyes tracking movement behind Hermione.

“He’s on the move.”

Roth was heading for the door.

The day after they’d arrived in Texas, Draco asked if they could steal a car. Hermione told him to go to hell.

A few days later he dragged her to a dealership where he laid out a wad of cash and proceeded to wander off to choose his prize. He whinged and insisted until she relented on going for the Ford Mustang. A ridiculously trite purchase in light of their temporary stay. She agreed, but only if he agreed to let her teach him how to drive.

She wasn’t sure what psychiatric reasoning lay behind her own masochism, but she was surely a fiend for it—being the one who insisted on those driving lessons. She held her breath through every catastrophic lurch and jolt. She was fairly certain she’d pulled a muscle in her neck from enduring his abrupt starts and stops.

Once he got a handle on the gas and brake it didn’t get much better. That was two weeks ago, he’d since improved, sort of. But it was hard to tell, what with the fuzz of alcohol running through her veins.

Roth went home, like he always did when he left the bar alone. Hermione wasn’t sure why they ever expected anything else. Although he frequently found women to go home with. The first few times, Hermione and Draco stalked them all the way to them performing The Act. But that was all Roth ever wanted from them, satiation of his baser needs.

He’d yet to release the couple. Hermione’s Hominum Revelio confirmed they were still there, alive and… well, alive. They were in limbo, unable to grab Roth until they were sure, unable to set off any warning bells in grabbing the couple, unable to disrupt the healing he was monitoring lest they worsen their condition.

“How much longer do you think Winston needs?” Draco sighed as they drove back to the motel.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t want to be here any more than we do, you know. He’s beside himself being so far from Ginny, he’s fond of her.”

“Hurrah.”

“Hmmph. Wouldn’t you like to know what it’s like to hold the love of such a creature.” A statement rather than a question.

“Why would any of my elves have loved me, Granger? I was their master. Held my proverbial boot at their scrawny little throats and they knew it. There was never any room for fondness. Only resentment. Believe what you might but even as a child I understood that.”

“What happened to them?”

His hands tightened on the wheel.

“The Malfoy elves? You mean the ones that didn’t throw themselves off the manor roof?” His voice was placid, too smooth. “Oh, that’s right. They all happened to do just that.”

“What?” She gasped. “Oh my—oh my god.”

He ignored her, hit the gas harder, sped down the vacant road, rolled his window down, and insisted she do the same; the wind whipped at their faces. Then he screamed his lungs raw into the humidity-tinged air—a sound so furiously wretched she was sure it could tear at the fabric of reality itself.

His come-down took the form of deep ragged gasps.

Hermione was at a loss, but she didn’t take her eyes off him.

When he calmed, remarkably, he said, “Gods, you feel that, Granger? Smell that evening wind? Fuck.” He looked ready to catch a moonbeam. His smile was radiant, catching, she could feel the catch in the pull of her cheeks, the strands of hair sticking to her lips and pushing against her teeth. When his eyes moved to her face, his smile waned. He looked at her like… like… she was not simply a witness to his fit of mania, but an anchor of sorts. As though the wind might scatter him to pieces if she wasn’t there in the seat beside him.

She looked away, pretending not to notice the gravity of such a stare.

His glances were fitful, partly on the road, partly sneaking back on her, when he said, “Granger, I know you insist that I’m a bad man–”

“Oh come off it.” Hermione groaned.

“Excuse?”

“You are bad. And I am too. I’m bad, bad, bad. I’ve schemed and frauded my way to murder. And it doesn’t matter what those men did, or have done. I’m an accomplice in their demise.”

He regarded her in that infuriating way of his—open, unguarded, unabashed. She hated it. How dare he? No one was allowed such a thing.

“Granger.” He brought the car to a halt on the side of the road; once again, much too abrupt. They jerked forward and he continued, “I’m going to tell you I’m sorry.” His hands came up to rub his face. “You know what I’m sorry for. All the name calling, the ugly thoughts, the torture… the attempts on your life… I’m so very sorry. Do you know that, Granger?”

She eyed his throat as he swallowed, and it was as though she’d been freshly wounded—bloodied and sliced by something delicate and salt-edged.

She tore her face from his, focused on the setting sun, orange and blue gradient on the horizon. “Of course I know that. Why did you feel the need to bring it up?” When she turned back to him, his mouth was turned down, he was softly blinking, intently staring. “You think so little of me that you think I need that?”

“The opposite, you maddening woman.”

How could he look at her like that? How could he stare at magazine pages that held his past, with starlit eyes, and then go and look at her like that?

She thought to ask him. But what if she hated the answer?

The car was just so hot. Everywhere was hot. Heat dug into crevices, left no room for breathing. Maybe he could breathe for her, and she could breathe for him.

She leant forward, he pulled back, a movement that spoke of unsurety. Hermione wasn’t too obtuse to know that he wanted her in some way. His past, whatever had been, had washed away. What was left was there for grabbing. So she’d grab it. She wouldn’t allow him to ruin this.

She observed him from under her lashes, felt her mouth relax, caught the very moment his brows pulled together, forming a gentle crease. When his lips parted, she leant forward again, when his chest stilled, she put her hand above his right pectoral and smoothed it up, fingers running over collarbone—up, up, up, until she reached the back of his neck. When his breath stuttered, she climbed over the console, sliding her right leg over his thigh, and lowering to straddle him. A shiver ignited at the feel of his breath grazing her lips. There was nothing left to wonder on his part. No questions to be asked. I want you, her actions said.

And so he let her take him.

They met in the middle, not a timid touch. Timidity was not meant for bad people.

His mouth was hot and sharp, teeth marking her skin, tongue scorching patterns on her jaw, down her neck. Tingling wet, the muffled pinch of a bite, a soft groan lifted from his throat. She wanted to swallow him. She wanted to—

She latched onto a pulse point, the left side of his throat, right next to the spot where his Adam's Apple always jumped, where her eyes always caught. Her teeth dug into flesh. She sucked until she heard a throaty moan, then just barely eased the pressure.

You are mine, her touch said.

For now, here and now, you are mine.

She licked the softly wounded skin she’d just abused. His next release of breath was shaky, fluttering over her ear. She sighed at the sound, at the feel of it. She needed more.

Her face lifted in another invitation, mouth moving closer to his pink-flushed lips. He captured her bottom lip in a nip, pressed his tongue into her.

Sweat trickled down her sternum. The air in the car was stifled with the heady scent of skin, of rose and bergamot, tequila on the tongue, an intoxicating hint of vanilla. The air vent blew the coldest air on the back of her arms and neck. It hit her like a wall of ice. His hand came to grip the exposed part of skin on her neck, the heat of his fingers a lingering signature.

She felt him hard against her stomach, the promise of it turning her bites into something that was too much. Her body lifted, aching with the need to feel him on her core.

She wasn’t too good for him.

She was awful.

He’d use her and she’d use him—maybe she’d never cauterize the wound of it.

But she wasn’t too good for it.

Astoria was too good for it.

And then she couldn’t breathe.

And then…

She scrambled off him. They were so tight in that car, in the blistering heat. She was gasping, coughing. A fit so harsh that at one point it morphed into a gag. She should have said something, offered anything. But her body and mind were fried, left out in the sun for too long and utterly useless.

She didn’t look at him.

He hit the gas so hard it burnt rubber.

Hermione held her face toward the window and inhaled.

They didn’t talk as they made their way to their respective rooms but before he entered his own, she grasped his elbow and meekly asked, “Can I have a dose?”

He wouldn’t look at her, but he replied, “You ought not take it on your own.”

“Watch me, then.”

He ordered her on her bed after she came out of the bathroom, changed into her sleep clothes. Her hands were intertwined on her stomach, ankles crossed—the very picture of patience.

He crouched on the floor next to her head, looking awfully regretful—terrible, sincere regret. She’d fucked things up. She shouldn’t have pressed her longing into his own, shouldn’t have placed her loneliness in the space between them. She parted her lips to apologize but before she could utter a word, he poured two vials down his throat.

She gasped, lifted her head from where it had been settled on a pillow. He shushed her, gently pressed his fingers into her shoulder, nudging her back down. Then his hand cupped the back of her head, upending a vial against her eager lips—she swallowed greedily.

She’d wanted to bathe in the sensation of his shiver the other night, this time, she would. The potion washed through her like a warm, vibrating milk-bath, perfumed with lavender and roses. His fingertip traced a path from the bones of her wrist up her inner arm, to the crook of her elbow. Goosebumps rose in the wake, he smoothed his warm palm over every tiny bloom.

She hummed.

Was it pretty?

Draco looked anguished. His pupils blown wide as the moon. Restraint thrummed through the pinch of his brow, the teeth indenting his bottom lip. Abruptly, he wrenched his gaze away.

His form seeped through the walls until he was no longer, and she was alone.

A screen flickered across her ceiling. A reel came alive, it rattled softly as it counted down—three, two, one—and then:

Her Life in Technicolor

Hermione was fresh off King’s Cross platform, red-brick arches and steam pure-white, buoyed by nervous energy and a fickle sense of loyalty. She was helping that squish of a boy find his toad, and then she was not. Oh, but that was alright.

She was sure she was going to die in a cold and wet bathroom—dingy white porcelain and pale moonlight—and then she was not. That was very much alright.

Friendship was not something earned; it was stumbled into. Scarlet soft wool, bright orange lights of fat jack-o’-lanterns, golden fireplaces and their syrupy warmth. She had been lonely, and then she was not. And that was surely alright.

Survival was not survival at all. It was not. Sparkling reds, robust oranges, glowing blues, silvery whites, phosphorescent greens. It was frantic and it was wild and it was bright at its edges: Adventure. Yeah—alright, alright.

War was the third act, the final arc. A triumphant score swelling beneath choreographed chaos. Dirt and grime artfully placed and easily washed off. The final shot: a slow pan outward, victory silhouetted against the rising sun. And they were alright.

The slamming of a door woke her. Her lashes fluttered, a rasping groan scraped from her throat. She tried to lift her head but the world was still blurred and heavy, her movements weighed.

It hadn’t been her door.

She summoned a glass of water. Downed it in three sloppy gulps—still half asleep.

She thought she heard noises on the other side of the wall—where Draco’s room was. She closed her eyes so she could hear better.

Maybe.

No.

Yes, maybe.

Yes.

Rhythmic thumping against the wall. Squeaking of bedsprings. A steady pace.

Moans—soft, high pitched, squealish—too soft to be Draco.

He wasn't—

Something hit the wall, a sharp sound, a groaned “Fuck.”

That was…. that was Draco.

Holy shit.

Oh god, her stomach.

And oh god—her—

She squeezed her thighs, she was pulsing and gorged and it was not welcome. Not at fucking all!

What the hell was he thinking?!

The thumping stopped.

Already?

Well.

The mattress creaked again, quieter that time, slower. As if intentional.

The next feminine sound was more of a drawn out whimper.

Hermione hated him. She had a sinister urge to rake her nails over his eyeballs. To drag whatever slag that was in his bed out by her hair and—

Fuck, she was going to cry.

This was so stupid.

The woman was close, her sounds short and breaking apart, falling into softness.

The rhythm was perfect, long enough to hit deep. Loud enough to suggest his thrusts were hard and shudder inducing, thigh shaking.

Hermione decided right then and there that she would not allow him to have her. And she’d not allow herself to crave it to the point of satisfaction. But she could allow herself this foray.

She could.

Her hand slid to the wet patch on her knickers. She deserved a slap for this indignity, so she gave herself one in that very spot. Firm enough to pretend it was his hand and not hers. She gasped, she was hypersensitive, more than she’d anticipated.

She bit her lip to quell any sounds as she swiped her fingers from her entrance to her nub. Her hips rose, grinding against her hand at a frantic pace, chasing relief. She was closer than she could have even imagined, how very humiliating. Caught in a snare, such humiliation only fed itself, and made her even hungrier.

Draco hadn’t made any other noises since the ‘fuck’ of it all. The woman went quiet too. She was coming, surely. Bitch.

The arrhythmic creak of a bed. An ascension, building pressure. Clenching around nothing.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

A masculine groan, mild, and restrained—but deep, chest quivering. Beautiful. Not enough.

Hermione was so swollen. She finally shattered—unable and uncaring to swallow her breathy moan, gasping loudly. And then it was eerily quiet, much too quiet. She grabbed her duvet and pressed it into her face for fear of any more sounds being audible in such a silence.

The cold of the air conditioner hit her damp skin. She removed the bottom of her pyjamas, her sticky knickers going with them.

His door slammed again. Heels clicked past her room.

And then Hermione drifted.

She woke again to an itching nose and the hot trickle of liquid.

She wiped at her face and came away wet, wet, wet.

Lumos.

Fingers glistening Red.

Her nose dripping relentlessly.

She gagged, ran to the bathroom, and vomited.

Chapter Text

Rationality told Hermione that her body was adapting to a new climate. That the violent swings—from the blistering Texas heat to its overly air conditioned interiors could very well be wreaking havoc on her blood vessels.

Rationality reminded her she hadn’t developed a fever. That her lack of appetite and constant queasiness could be chalked up to stress.

But as she retched into the toilet, so went all rationality.

Hermione was scared.

She rinsed her mouth, splashed cold water against her nostrils, watched it dribble back down and into the drain in a pink tinged swirl.

She wanted to go to Australia.

Collapse on the oversoft, worn couch between mum and dad. Lay her head on mum’s lap, stretch her feet on Dad’s, a fuzzy film in the background—Hermione insisting (pretending) she’d stay awake till the end and inevitably end up nodding off anyhow.

Impossible.

Cutlery clinked against plates, chatter rose and fell, the bell at the diner door chimed again and again. The scent of maple and coffee drifted warm through the air.

Unforgiving formica pressed into Hermione’s back, she stretched against the booth, grimacing at the stiffness in her joints—stomach lurching at the idea that the stiffness could be her body destroying itself. Then she remembered every spiral, every dose of potion she’d indulged in the past few weeks alone, and she considered it might be her destroying her body. Please let it be that one, she thought.

Draco—who’d yet to look at her since he’d knocked on her motel room that morning, who insisted she down a glass of water since they’d sat, who still looked impossibly lovely with faded maroon imprinted in the crease of his eyes—that Draco, finally looked at her head-on.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“My back hurts,” she snapped. “Or could you not tell by the stretch I just gave?”

He sneered. “You’ve been acting like a bitch all morning, Granger.”

“Oh? Apologies,” she said sweetly right before sending a (mild!) stinging jinx to his cheek.

“Ow. Bitch,” he grit through his teeth.

Her lips curved up, such sweet relief washed through her, as if she’d been quivering and overfull since the night before, and a pressure valve had finally released.

Her smile went soft—docile as a lamb. Then she puckered her lips, kissed empty air, and aimed it straight at him. Her hands lifted, fingers interlacing beneath her chin.

He reared back, only slightly, blinked in a daze then shook it away as he grumbled, “Where’s our breakfast?”

“We only just ordered it, they're not elves–”

Her lips folded inward.

Blast. The elves.

The well-adjusted looking woman that was their server—who kept smiling at Draco like he hung the moon, the fuck was her problem—saved her and her insolent mouth. She arrived at their table, two steaming plates in hand. One with a ridiculous amount of fried eggs, potatoes and ham. Another with pancakes.

“What nutritional value do you suppose that is?” Draco asked, gesturing to her plate after their waitress left.

Hermione swiped at the puff of cream at the very center of her pancakes, sucked it off her finger, then replied, “The best kind. Why are you talking to me when your mouth should be full of egg?”

No reply. When she glanced up, his eyes were set on the table, jaw feathering, lip nearly curling.

And then he was staring out the window, forlorn. Putting on a show, he must have been. It wasn't because of her behavior, couldn't have been. So she was in a cunt mood. Not like he wasn’t mercurial. Not like he–

“Granger, eat your food.”

Her eyes swung at the tone, gravelly and commanding.

Oh, but he was looking at her.

There was a napkin crumpled in her fist.

She released it.

Kept the napkin close for… bloody reasons. She shivered.

He was still staring.

Fine.

She cut into her pancakes, grinning through the bite, mouth overstuffed, bits of syrupy fluff peeking through teeth, she felt rather like a chipmunk.

He huffed before stuffing his own mouth with egg.

Draco was avoiding her. When they weren’t trailing after Roth, he was solitary, sequestered in his room. There was something awfully dramatic about it, Hermione decided. Even when he wasn’t in her face, performing, he managed to keep himself on a stage of his own making.

She considered it might be punishment for the way she’d acted before, or maybe it was embarrassment. Then she considered how easily he replaced her warm body with another, her fault. It was all very confusing—the labyrinthine task that was understanding Draco Malfoy—and her fate, for the time being, was to wind about in it.

She supposed she was much the same. She hadn’t attempted to coax him out. And she was still quite curt and piqued around him. And it was so bloody hot, all the time. She was not used to such conditions. She was wilting.

It was with dogged purpose that Hermione knocked on his door. And it was with valiant drudgery that Draco answered it.

She tried her best to catch his eyes, inaccessible as they were—lowered to the ground and squinting from lack of sun.

“I heard there’s a magical spring nearby.”

“Oh?” How interesting was the concrete, then?

Hermione huffed, “Yeah, you look like you could use a dip, if you ask me.”

He really did. Stringy hair. Nearly translucent. Lips bitten raw.

“Not asking.”

“Well, I’d really like to go. And… I don’t want to go alone.”

Turned out the concrete really was quite interesting afterall.

“Isn’t it a bit late for swimming?” he bit out.

What nerve.

“No,” she clipped. Every single one of her next words were gritted out, “You see, this spring sprouted from a meteor crater. At night, it has the most darling lights.”

He scoffed, finally lifted his eyes, weary and unable to hold hers for more than a few seconds.

“Fine.”

Draco was concerningly sober. Annoyingly sober. Hermione certainly wasn’t in the mood for partaking—however, if he were to offer, why refuse? But alas, offering, he was not.

There was a small crowd, laying about or idling in the water. Fragments of melodies spilled into each other, softly blown from speakers. The night sky blanketed above, a thicket of trees encircled the springs. The water glowed a hazy aquamarine, emerald green dancing around its edges.

Hermione slid off her trainers, peeled off her socks, and wiggled her toes in the soft grass.

She glanced at Draco—moonlit and lounging in a conjured chair, refusing to get inside, what a ninny—how was his stare both expected and surprising? Exhilarating and frightening. Lulling and sickening, labyrinth.

After heaving a breath in acceptance of such a stare, she removed her shorts, then her shirt; her cheeks flushing hot as cotton grazed the skin there. She couldn’t handle one more second of the knowledge that his eyes were on her so exposed.

Her toes dipped tentatively—

tiptoe forth, tiptoe forth—

until ankles were submerged—

feet sinking into mud—

water lapping over knees—

and then, breath held—

head under.

She pushed her hair back after rising, rubbed her face and let out a breathy giggle.

Saints preserve us.

It was as if she’d been carrying a lifetime’s worth of residue, and all that grime washed away, the sediment below claiming what no longer belonged to her.

Beaming, she turned to the patch of grass where she’d left Draco, “Draco, you–”

Such stares shouldn’t be allowed without one’s consent, the way it pinned one in place and emptied the brain.

“Yes, Hermione?” Said soft, as if not to disturb the quiet they secreted away, secret passage.

He really was not safe around her. At that moment, she thought how easily she could ruin him—with her own stupidity, with her tenacity, with her iron-will, sacrificial lamb that she was.

And most of all: How does one hold such a stare, and everything that comes after?

She imagined herself saying come here, and he would. They’d swim around each other, never close enough, until their orbit grew smaller and smaller. He’d lower himself like a predator, mouth below water, eyes and nose above, watching. Then he’d go in for the kill.

Or, no, she’d be the killer. She’d encroach until she was as close as he craved but daren’t ask for. And he’d hesitate again, rightfully so. But she’d persist, she was a persistent woman, afterall. Then she’d have him and not know what to do with him.

“Nothing.”

An air-dried Hermione drove them back, body tired but satiated, curls curiously lush and smooth, mood exponentially lifted.

Draco lounged with his head against the open window, dusty countryside blurring past, warm smears of color, temperate wind rushing through his hair, lashes lowered and fluttering.

He really did look peaky, but his beauty was untouchable, always hauntingly present.

She had a selfish thought, if it was possible for him to look so unwell, maybe her own sickly state was due to their circumstances, like his was, and not disease. And then she had an even worse thought, what if he was sick?

“Draco.”

He jolted, eyes flying open.

Groggily, he snapped, “I was napping.”

“Draco, have you had any nosebleeds?”

“No.” His brows pressed together.

“Just wondering.”

Bugger, if he reciprocated the question, would she lie?

“We should go back to that spring before we leave. Maybe you can give it a try.” She blurted.

“I don’t care for natural bodies of water. Never know what’s lurking inside.”

Hermione proceeded to tell him about every body of water she’d ever swam or bathed in—

“Bathed?!”

“Yes, bathed.”

Subject thoroughly changed, the question mercifully never came up again.

Two half-eaten sandwiches and a cluster of crumbs sat between them. On the table was Draco’s elbow, in his hand rested his cheek, his other hand was flipping a magazine. Witch Weekly to be precise, hand movements rote, bored.

“How do you feel about the color Moss, Granger? Color of the season, they say.”

“Moss is slippery.”

“Exactly. Not for you.”

“Winston!” Draco called from the little table in Hermione’s sparse room.

Winston appeared before them, Hermione didn’t dare address him. Winston was a bitch. A lovely little bitch, but a bitch all the same.

“Nothing?” Draco whinged in an ask.

Winston walked to the tiny window, spelled it open a smidge, and stood there, staring out of it with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Miss Parkinson is an artist.”

Silence.

Draco side-eyed Hermione. Pffft, like she’d intervene. Yeah, right.

“Okay…?”

“You’re peeving me off,” Winston droned.

Now he was in for it.

“Winston, I… just don’t see how that matters. Can you explain?”

Winston let out a despicable sigh and cleared his throat with the violent gusto of a creature hacking away at the entire future of the Malfoy line.

Draco crossed his arms and hunched in on himself, such was the instinct when Winston was cross.

“Miss Parkinson and Mr Roth have spasms and sparks and fits. They are playing a game of skip. Wizards like Miss Chang and Mr Sanchez are like waves, it is easy for Winston to find the alignment or misalignment.”

His tone. Hermione shuddered. He might as well have said, I’ll misalign you.

“How—” Draco glanced Hermione’s way again, she immediately looked away. “And how— Say, Winston, have you heard from Ginevra? Because she misses you so. She told me as much, you see. And— well, I was just hoping to write her with a timeframe in mind….” His voice trailed off, hardly audible by the time he got to the words ‘in mind.’

“Miss Ginevra is understanding that Winston must get it right.”

Theo was less understanding, according to his last letter:

I had a sorry thought, Hermione. I nearly asked Winston back so he could go find Ginny’s bloke in California and confirm he was good to go. Pansy would hate me, but in her own malignancy, she’d understand.

She’d sooner welcome my own death, than allow anything to happen to Draco, for example. She’d get it.

Hermione did sort of Incendio that letter. Hermione did sort of have a problem. That problem was currently in a body bind, sock stuffed in his mouth. Winston nowhere to be found.

Hermione covered her mouth to stifle a laugh, when he leveled her with a dead stare, she dissolved, giggles spilling through her fingers.

Strawberry ice cream dribbled down Hermione’s hand; she licked around her soggy cone, licked the knuckle of her thumb.

Next to her, watching with a keen eye and brow raised, Draco said, “Mother always said eating ice cream from a cone was mortifying. I’ll have to write and let her know how wrong she was.”

A glop of pink dripped all the way to her wrist and splattered on the pavement as she laughed.

“So bloody wrong.” He sniggered.

“Gods but I’m tired of this place.” Draco sighed.

They were lounging in her room, texts strewn about—because there was to be no rest for the wicked.

“What do you mean? You love this place.”

“I do not.” What a great heaving sniff that was.

“But, but, but the boots! The belts— the shirts—”

Loudly, he interrupted, “I yearn for the gloom. I’m tired of the sun.”

“You know, so am I.”

“The sun loves you. Its most cherished child, you are.”

She bit her lip, stifling a smile.

“Is that why you’re always looking at that magazine? You miss home?”

“No.” He tittered in surprise. He scratched at his stubble, then asked, “Do I really look at it that often?”

“Mmm, enough to notice.”

“Maybe it's an escape.” He shrugged. “Don’t you ever? They make life seem so… so normal. Like all there is are the people we dine with, and the clothes we wear to such dinners. Granger, how do you feel about silk organza, by the by?”

Hermione’s hands dug through Draco’s jacket—laid on the car console between them.

“Shove off,” he griped.

“I know you have some in here. I’m not feeling so good right now.”

“What do you mean?”

Their heads and shoulders lurched with the stopping car.

“I’m anxious, is all. Normal stuff.”

“Alright… well, you’re not allowed.”

“Beg pardon?”

“They’re mine.”

“Aha!”

She held the vial out like a prize before grasping it to her chest.

“Don’t you dare.”

“I dare.”

“Give it here.”

“Shan’t.”

He twitched forward, she flinched, and they were stuck in that liminal moment of freeze for only a few seconds before Hermione opened her door and bolted. She saw the very moment he knew what she was about to do, and assumed he’d be on pursuit, but she’d never have predicted he’d be that fast—grabbing her by the waist and—wow, oh god—and tickling her.

She shrieked in spasms of laughter, the vial slipping from her hands and landing on the ground unharmed. Before she could reach for it, Draco’s boot came down hard, glass crunching beneath. He rubbed it into the ground, shards and rock and gritty earth.

“You brat!” Hermione shouted, panting.

The brat was pleased, gloating all the way to the car about how it was the last one, lording about behind the wheel, assuring her most diabolically that only he knew the brew, that he’d perfected it ages ago.

As if she couldn’t easily dissect such a thing by memory alone.

“Granger. Let’s go.”

Draco shoved a bright flyer toward her face. Nearly two weeks after Hermione’s nosebleed, she hadn’t had another, they hadn’t received anything substantial from Winston, and Roth had settled into the thrilling existence of couch-bound potato—forgoing his evenings at the bar for spending them at home, instead.

Hermione and Draco were antsy, two tightly-wound, twitchy little dogs desperate for a reason to go, to do. And so when Draco showed her the flyer, insisting they attend a roller derby… game? Match? Who knows! Not Hermione! But she agreed, nonetheless.

They were in some event center, what looked like a great hall but cold with clean lines—made warmer with ever-flowing booze and rowdy attendees.

Most were dressed casually enough, and Hermione couldn't help but note—as she often did since they’d arrived in Texas, that Draco somehow managed to look misplaced. Not wrong, exactly, just a little too on the nose. Both not fitting the scene and still very much a part of it.

At this particular match there was an announcer, a lad like Lee Jordan, voice amplifier and all. This announcer had the whole cowboy get-up, but his hair was long and unkempt, sleeves rolled, tattoos marring his arms. He was a showman, like her— like Draco.

Where had Draco gone, anyhow?

She caught sight of him at the beer stand, two beers in hand, yapping. Talking to a robust man, more tattoos, a black cowboy hat. He looked like the sort little Draco might declare as his—his to rule over, his to snap his fingers at, his to laugh at. But he was not laughing at the man, he was laughing with him.

Hermione wouldn’t call Draco a social butterfly. He was usually one to skulk in a corner and ignore anyone who bored him—which was just about everyone—but there was something about the change in scenery, the novelty of it—it made him flirty, friendly.

He left the man with a smile. A smile.

When he handed her a beer, he said, “We’ve been invited to a bar afterward. Apparently these lovely ladies gather there. Aren’t they so odd looking?”

“Odd? Erm, lots of tattoos.”

“Right.” He nodded in agreement, his eyes transfixed on the people around them, even as the lights dimmed.

Music blared from speakers. A woman strutted out in all black: a leotard, tiny tulle skirt and fishnet tights. a leash clasped in her hand. On the other end of the leash, a man crawled in a dog’s costume, barking at the crowd.

The skaters were introduced next, one by one they did a lap around the track, flashing their underthings with a teasing lift of their skirts, pounding their chests, whooping and hollering, riling up the audience. Beside Hermione and out of Draco’s mouth came murmurings of:

Oh, look at her.

Granger, how do you feel about skirts that short?

The muscles on those calves.

And the muscles on those calves, indeed. Hermione watched skater after skater rocket forward, shoving, elbowing, nearly wiping each other out, captivating.

Well into the match, she was slamming her bottle of beer against the rubber bar before them, demanding Draco acquire more; she downed her next while bellowing at the top of her lungs for— what was it? Ah, yes—the Holy Rollers. That was the team name. Naturally, Draco decided the Rhinestone Cowgirls were for him. And when his team lost, Hermione so very graciously stuck her tongue out, rearing back when Draco snapped his teeth playfully at it.

“What a violent creature, you are,” she scolded as they rose from their seats.

“Mother said the same once.”

A pause.

“Well, she was wrong.”

Fat string lights—reminiscent of Christmas lights—lit Draco’s silhouette unevenly, pulsing greens and soft reds, hazy blues sketched the planes of his face, the pale strands of his hair.

Cigarette smoke wafted about. The place was rather humid. There was a jukebox playing something that was building, rolling, light and sharp percussion, melodic base, twangy guitar, raw crooning vocals, jangly but haunting—off-kilter. If Hermione had to describe the establishment they’d stepped in, she’d say it lived within the same vein of that song.

It was different from the bars Roth frequented. Those bars were littered by patrons one might describe as salt of the earth. Here, the conversations she overheard…

Two men sitting at the bar, one sketching on a napkin, the other yapping on:

“No, no man. See, you– you, my interloping friend, are a voyeur.” Voyeur was emphasized in its original french pronunciation, rolling it slowly out of the mouth. “Observing isn’t knowing. How can you feel the weight of being when you’re peering through glass?”

Three women hovering near a narrow hall, one chewing gum, one sipping and scanning the crowd, one complaining, ready to pop a vein:

“He brought that uber cunt—Star is her name, I think. Cardboard bitch. That thing she calls a personality depends on who she’s fucking one week to the next. How could he?”

A woman with black sunglasses sitting at a table, talking into her mobile:

“Seventy for a dime is a fucking deal. I’ll be back at eleven to pick it up… Dude fucking tell him… Well, tell him again… Well, make him say yes!”

Hermione and Draco settled in a corner.

“That bloke at the bar was onto something. The one about observing life through a glass,” Draco said.

“Of course you’d think so, Lonesome Dove.”

“Excuse?”

“You like to immerse yourself in the world, yes?” She let her eyes trail slow—so slow, slow over him, head to toe. “But you’re playing pretend. Hiding.”

“Psssh. I’m in the thick of it. Meanwhile, you hover about with your observations and your rationality–”

“I am in the thick of it. Just because I don’t want to writhe about in existential mud with you–”

“Mud is where life exists! Where it teems. And you, my English Rose, you bloom on the bank with your little roll of parchment, writing your data. Like the bloke said—you’re a voyeur.”

Hermione spat her beer.

A bit of it landed on the back of his hand. He observed it. Looked her straight in the eye. Lifted that hand and ran his tongue over the spot, licking it off. What a wanton little hussy, he was.

She leaned forward, pointed a wobbly finger at him while saying, “I’ll have you know I spent seven years nearly suffocating in the thick of it.”

“That’s another thing.”

“Oh? Another?”

“You’re version of the thick of it is a slog. Your constant offering to Them. They need, so you offer. You offer, They take. You thrive off validation, need it, even. They—”

“If you say ‘they’ one more time.”

He smiled. Devastatingly so.

Must he?

Hermione slipped off her boots, her feet aching, still unused to the feel of them. She owed him something for all the grief he brought upon her. She stretched, settling her socked feet on his lap, rubbing them together just enough to bother—smiling into her drink the moment he stilled.

“Can I enlighten you?” she asked.

Ah, there was that maudlin grump again.

Still no answer, yet she persisted, “You need quite a bit of validation yourself.” That earned her a scoff, a yank of his glass and a swift downing of his drink. “Yes, you’re in it but only so you can walk away, and once you do, you want Them to notice.”

He blinked, spluttered, affronted.

“It’s true. You treat your own solitude like a…. like… like a proclamation. You want someone to gasp, point and say, ‘oh look, there he is—how tragic, how beautiful.’ Like I said: lonesome little dove.”

No reply but a narrowing of his eyes, a beat for a thought, then another upward curve of his lips, his hand curling around her wiggling toes, then over her foot, thumb embedding and rubbing itself into her arch with deliberate intent.

“Oh—god.” Her whimper could not be contained, and if the sound coiled around him, tightening and constricting, then that was not her problem.

Between her legs was a prickle, problematic. Hermione sat up straight, attempting to reclaim herself from his hold, only to find his grip steadfast—pulling her back, removing his hands from her feet but placing them elsewhere. Nails absentmindedly scratching her leg softly, a hand wrapped around an ankle.

In this position they were bound, while Draco rambled about magical thermodynamics, while Hermione ardently interjected with her theories about different spells pulling forth more or less energy from different natural resources, while Draco noted how stretches of post-war earth were still sickly; the grounds of Malfoy Manor, in particular, rotting and concerningly barren.

Eventually, the players from the roller match finally hobbled in, bruises like badges, freshly applied lippy, smeared and smoky mascara—they looked exceedingly fuckable. Intriguing. Concerning.

As she expected, it didn’t take long for them to gravitate toward Draco like moths to light. And when he opened his mouth—well, it was over. He held their attention the entirety of the night. Hermione didn’t mind so much, they were awfully funny, riotous and rambunctious—aspirational, even.

But when one of them propped herself on his lap—well into her cups—and plopped someone’s (no idea whose) cowboy hat on his head, Hermione had the funniest desire to yank her off. To shout at Draco—accuse him of trying to feed her jealousy, of being an attention whore—because he most certainly was.

She was hyper-aware of the glances he kept stealing her way, how keen he was to know if she was watching, if she cared.

Hah.

Off to the bar she popped. The announcer from the show was there—the chap in the cowboy getup—missing his hat, incidentally.

His fingers drummed over the woodtop of the counter. When he caught sight of her, he smiled—it made his eyes nearly disappear, so… friendly.

“You’re not from here.” He tipped his bottle toward her, tendons in his hands flexing, the ink along his knuckles shifting with the motion.

“How could you tell?” What was that voice? Low and melodic. Wanton hussy.

His eyes lit up.

“I don't know.” He chuckled, seemingly delighted. “Don’t know. Just some things you can tell. You know?”

His drawl was low and slow, would his pelvic rhythm be just the same? She could practically feel it. A lay is what Hermione needed. Pronto.

But the more drinks they shared, the more he leaned in—stubble brushing her ear under the pretext of the bar’s roar—the more assured the prospect of taking him back to her room became, the less she wanted it. So much so that she thought she might hurl on his scuffed boots. She imagined it wouldn’t have been the first time they’d endured such a tragedy.

But…. But she had dignity to maintain. Restraint to uphold. Yearning for a man that wasn’t hers was not to be done. It could be shagged out of her, she thought. Certainly.

It was, in fact, the prevailing thought as she laced her hands in his—grubby, over-damp, too-calloused hands that they were—and led him to that narrow hall.

When she pushed him into a wall, he smirked, and it was wrong. Oh well.

When he twirled a curl around his finger, it tugged, too sharp and ugly. Oh fucking well, then.

When his breath hit her face it was sour, fermented. God. Oh—

Her elbow stung.

There was metal, silver, a silver signet wring digging into the flesh of her elbow.

“Has your mind left you, Granger?!”

“Ex-fucking-scuse me!” She shrieked.

Leroy(?) yawped.

Draco snarled, “Back off.”

Those Christmas lights were awfully blurred, aurora borealis. Why did her mind always try to anchor proof and thought into beauty? Solar wind, charged particles, atmospheric excitation. She’d once told Harry—as they observed those lights—that even the wildest lights in the sky were ruled by order. They could not glow without being struck by something first.

“Don’t you know there’s lunatics snatching pretty young things, hauling them to their basements.” Draco spat.

Before she could bite back that he’d be snatched before she ever would, that he’d be the damsel, and he’d be in distress—she hurled…. on his boots… and unlike Luke—Larry? Lucifer? Unlike that guy! She’d bet her life that had never happened to him before. Nevertheless, her damsel did not show his distress.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, raggedly sighing. “I’m sorry, Granger.”

Then he escorted her to an apparation safe spot, took her to her room, ordered her to brush her teeth, ordered her then, to bed, flapped the duvet over her, forming a hefty puff of air that hit her so nice, tucked that duvet under her chin, hesitated, then nearly left.

But before he could walk out the door, Hermione mumbled, soft, drowsy and foggy, “S’not your hat. That’s Lester’s.”

“It’s mine.”

Bother, but Hermione was nauseated. She swallowed for the umpteeth time. Leaned her head against the wall of The Waterhole. Focused on the steady rise and fall of Draco’s chest—she almost felt bad. For keeping him out so late, for also ruining his night. Not for hurling all over him. That was his own fault. Should have left her to Lenny, would have been his boots dirtied instead.

Jerry Sanchez, possible target number two, stepped out of his car, removed a carton of cigarettes from his pocket, lit up and held his face toward the sky as he exhaled. Only a few long drags later, almost concerning how long and spent they were, he crushed the cigarette butt beneath his boots and made his way inside.

“Draco.”

“Gods.” He groaned, wiping at the drool on the corner of his mouth and rubbing the spot of his arm she’d just poked. “Woman, your fingers. Weaponry. Must you stab me so?”

“Sanchez is here. The first time in a week.” She seethed in a whisper. “The same week Roth decides to show back up?”

“They are friends, according to you.”

“Still…”

Draco sighed, weary and resigned, “Fine. Inside.”

Before they made their way in, she told him, “I’m sorry for ruining your time with those skaters.”

“Hmm?”

He’d probably wanted to take one of them back to his room. Fair enough. She wanted that, too. Needed it. She’d even acquired earplugs for such an occasion. She needed him expelled from her system—purged via the searing burns left behind anytime he’d so much as touch someone else. But he’d yet to do so—why, for the love of god.

“You didn’t ruin my time.”

She let the quiet linger, staring at him, until he finally asked, “What?”

“Aren’t you going to apologize?”

“For what?”

“For ruining my good time with— with…”

His brow arched.

“It wasn’t going to happen,” he declared.

“It most certainly was. Besides, you slept with someone.” Accusatory, mortifying, leaping off her tongue before she could stop it.

He blinked, cheeks dusting pink, then coughed, “Right.” His right leg bounced, finger tapping against the arm of the bench. As per usual, his emotions were smoothed over with a veil, slipping away before she could grasp them. Then his head tilted, razor-sharp eyes dancing against hers, “The walls really are thin…. aren’t they, Hermione?”

Her stomach nearly dropped clean out of her arse.

With burning cheeks and great effort, she lifted her chin, “So, if you’re allowed your fun with strangers, then so am I.”

“No.”

She made noise in protest, and he added, “As I’ve established, I’m selfish.”

“You’re sick, is what you are.”

“Also established.”

“You can’t be that way.”

With a great put-on sigh he recited, “Okay I promise to consider your consideration of the next piece of shit you you’d like to bed.”

She looked at him pointedly, up and down, tracing the shape of him, delighting in his squirm.

Sharply, he turned away, “You should have stayed with me, though. Don’t wander off like that again.”

“I’ll do as I please.” She scoffed, then, wandered off.

Once inside, they didn’t last very long at all, Roth jolted only an hour into drinking—as if shocked with something electric.

Then he was hauling arse.

The tires screamed something awful as Draco skidded out of the parking lot, rubber burning as he wove through traffic, mouth pulled in a tight frown, eyes flitting to the rearview mirror, hands white-knuckling the wheel, handling it most violently. Traffic lights washed over his hands, face and hair in shifting waves of red, green and yellow.

Hermione braced her palms on the dash, her seatbelt bit into her collarbone, her stomach nearly reached its limit by the time she realized their destination was Roth’s own home. It was some minutes later—after bickering about whether it was a good idea to go in or not—that they breached his wards once more and made their way down his basement.

By the time they nearly reached the bottom-most step, Hermione caught sight of the man from before. His head was lowered, he was watching Roth from beneath his brows, his right hand rested limply on his leg, in that hand he was lazily swirling magic that resembled vivid constellations.

Roth approached slowly, he looked fascinated, rather than frightened.

“That’s a pretty cast you have there. Giving the borealis a run for its money?”

The man didn’t move, didn’t change his stare, eerily placid as it was.

Aurora borealis…

Aurora borealis…

Aurora—

“You know. I’ve been honest with you from the start, Michael. I want you to leave here safe and sound. Peachy keen. Same for Alice. I’m not sure that’s possible if you interfere with my goals. You want Alice safe, or am I wrong to assume as much?”

Hermione felt the slide of Draco’s hand around her waist, it tightened, his fingers gripped, tension in the hold.

Michael did not respond, did not move, but for the circling movements of his fingers, the slow blinks of his eyes.

Roth moved his wand in a flourish, casting around the man, now deemed Michael, who slumped against his pillow, hand going limp and magicless. It looked like a modified cooling charm—Roth’s wrist twisting oddly, sharp and short but just as fluid, then a wriggling of his fingers with his other hand, as if composing a symphony.

Draco inhaled next to her, sharp as cold ice.

She heard a muttered Incarcerous leave Draco’s mouth. It hit nothing, sparking and fading out midway to its target. In the same breath, Roth turned around, cast a Finite, followed by an Expelliarmous, sending Draco’s wand careening forward—leaving Draco visible to the eye, and Hermione yet unaffected, still unseen.

The world shifted in that slow drift of something submerged underwater, the very air thickening with an unfamiliar density.

“I was wondering when you’d show yourself. Or, your wandwork, I should say. Man, I was hoping you’d at least wait until I was nearly ready to send this one off.” His head gestured toward Michael. His sigh was only slightly put-upon. “Alright.”

Incarcerous

Tracto

Mobilicorpus

Before Hermione could react, he’d pulled Draco to a bed—head and torso twisting in a feeble attempt to break free.

Her spells would not reach him. Perhaps some form of suppressant within the basement. But then there was Michael, who’d been running magic through his hands much too easily, too fluid.

Hermione decided she would have to lure Roth upstairs.

She crept slowly, careful not to draw his attention too soon. He was murmuring some form of diagnostic above Draco. She’d only gone two steps up when his voice cut through the air and landed in her chest.

“I think it’s in your interest to stay. Your partner is useless to me otherwise. Your magic is so— so eager for his, and his, yours. Wonderful news for us all.” His eyes rose, aimed in her still-invisible direction.

Finite.

Expelliarmus.

“Come,” Roth said softly, extending a hand. Her wand was in the other. “I’d rather not force you down. Follow me, and we’ll get you somewhere safe and warm. Better yet, we’ll keep him safe and warm.”

Where was her mind? Where had it gone?

She suppressed a dry heave, it triggered a cough and the heave broke free. Both hands slapped over her mouth, fingers digging into her cheeks, as if she could physically hold the terror in.

Short breaths burst hot against her fingers.

A gasping inhale.

Long breaths, deep breaths.

She could breathe.

Her stomach lurched again, what if she let her vomit free? Made her way down the remaining stairs and let it splatter over Roth’s desk, his life’s work, his materials.

Would that work?

Would it?

She swallowed, and swallowed, and swallowed.

There was a chest in the corner.

Rows of potions glinting along the wall beside it.

On the bed—Draco, wide-eyed, cursing at her, demanding she turn tail.

Why? Why would he do that?

”Draco, why?”

No answer but a shake of his head.

She couldn’t look at him. He’d just watched her panic, and that would be what he took with him once he slipped into unconsciousness—that was the next step for Draco, she thought. Unconsciousness. Her panic couldn’t be the last thing he saw. She braced herself. What did Hermione look like when she knew what the hell she was doing? She’d never mastered the art of neutrality, her face betraying her emotions every time.

She bit her lip, felt that familiar sting.

Hermione felt as though she’d been set on a singular path, forward momentum had swept her this far, and it would see her through to the end. Unstoppable inertia, a force that lay claim, is what called her feet forward, step by hesitant step.

Her hand met Roth’s. She knew this man. At his insidious core, he was docile—a creature ruled by curiosity. A boy who made messes and swept up the shattered pieces with a rough, unfeeling hand.

He’d not hurt them excessively, not life threateningly, not as long as they offered some use to him.

He led her to that door. A chorus of Draco’s shouts and pleas accompanying her along the way.

She finally looked at him. “Please,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she replied.

With every step she contemplated the prospect of physically attacking Roth, if she might pull it off. Or, he might subdue her, she might end up unconscious for posing such a threat, she might wake up with her spine, her chest, her stomach—split and stitched.

And besides…. besides, besides…

The door was heaved open, then his hand was hovering at her back, a gentle escort. The room was framed in warm woods and linen, chestnut drawers, oak floors, mahogany nightstands, thick quilt on a pristinely made bed, soft white curtains at a window with fake scenery.

There was a honey-haired blonde standing by that window. She turned around swift, she seemed well–kept—shining hair, supple skin, rosy cheeks—Alice.

Alice scoffed, indignant. “You’re kidding. I know you better be fucking lying right now.”

“Alice. We have an unexpected guest.”

“Guest?! You psycho–”

“Alice.”

“Three weeks, you said. Three weeks. You promised.”

Oh, but her rage was not only palpable, it was suffusive. Hermione had a fleeting, unsettling thought that she’d be better off in a room with Roth than with this Alice.

“Hold on. I know you.”

Hermione’s eyes flitted her way.

“You kidnapped a war heroine?! The Girl Wonder.”

Hermione winced, that was a new one.

Fits and shrieks of laughter escaped Alice’s mouth, she buckled over, face flushing red as it stole her breath.

Still laughing, she told Roth, “You’re in for it now. So much for staying under the radar, dipshit.”

Roth was seemingly unaffected, hands clasped behind his back, a twitch of his brows suggesting slight annoyance.

Then he turned to Hermione, half his mouth lifting with a jovial ask, “Milkshake?”

When he left the room she pressed her forehead against the door, making a significant effort to steady her breathing again. Slowly, she turned her head so her ear was flush to wood.

What she heard was Draco’s laughter, high-pitched, guttural, unrelenting, maniacal.

Then, blanketed in his hysterics—cocooned there, a promise to be kept—bright and awful, Draco said, “I’m going to kill you.”

Hermione was sucking milky-rich chocolate ice cream through a fat straw. She initially refused the drink, almost decided to forgo her stance on violence against Roth. But then he began sharing his theories on core grafting through spinal transfer, how it was his favorite yet, and did Hermione think he should stick with what worked or try another method—just to see? And did she happen to know Draco’s muggle medical history? Was he allergic to sedatives? Did she know that transference without softening the core of the donor first, could result in volatile psychological drift. And didn’t she think milkshakes were palpable enough to administer such bitter softening potions?

Alice didn’t say a thing but: Just drink it.

Roth had since left.

Alice held her head against the back of a rocking chair as she rocked back and forth, watching Hermione.

“How did this happen?” She blurted, accusatory.

The ice cream was so good, she didn’t want to stop drinking, especially for talking. She wanted to finish her sweet treat, comfortably filling her belly, maybe lie down, rest her brain, and when she woke up, she’d figure out how to fix this. Because there was a skill Hermoine had perfected years ago: leaving. There was a way out of this room, out of this house, and she’d find it.

She’d find it. She’d find it. She’d find it.

“Aren’t you supposed to be cunning?” A scoff. “Pathetic.” All the derision. “English Rose.”

The glass of blended ice cream slipped from Hermione’s fingers, landing on her lap, sticky cold enveloped her legs, exposed from the dress she wore.

Alice’s face looked dreadfully amused, chin lowered, barely there smirk.

“My magic comes in fits.” Alice said. “Tiny, stupid little sparks. Never enough to do anything with. Except maybe make like a spy and see the humiliating crush my new roommate has on someone I’d name Trouble—if I had to give him a name. If you think you’re going to get a lick of anything from Roth then you have another thing coming. Shouldn’t have got yourself stuck in here. Hope is a dwindling thing, little dove.”

Hermione yanked at a bedsheet, pulled it off and wiped at her legs, hard and unforgiving, streaks of red imprinted on her skin in the wake of her touch.

Humiliating, yes.

A rose, she was not.

A husk, perhaps.

Dried petals, yes.

Even dried petals had purpose.

Husk it was.

She should have let nature run its course. Dealt with the consequences of that.

But she was owed something, wasn’t she? They all were.

What about the prices they’d paid? In full, with interest.

Had they held that pin trigger in place—bloody hands wrapped around that grenade, small underdeveloped fingers, it was slippery and it was so frightening but they held on—had they done that just to be blown apart anyway?

So, she was still caught in the maelstrom.

Such was life.

The numbness would take.

Eventually, it would.

No more substances.

No more potions.

No more telling Winston his readings needed to be a million percent full-proof.

No more. No, no, no.

Now was not the time for pity.

“Alice, your pressure spikes—is there a pattern?”

“My what?”

“Your fits of magic. Have you noticed a pattern?”

Hermione balled her dirtied sheet and threw it in a corner. Then stood in front of the door, observing. End to end. Grain to grain. Every nick, every splinter.

A knock on nearly every part of its surface, ear pressed. Where it was hollow, she placed her fingers, then not too far from that spot she tapped with her other hand. No feedback. She repeated the action in another spot, her fingers caught vibrations. In that same spot, barely imperceptible change in temperature. So close to imperceptible, Hermione wondered if it was all in her head.

During that observation, Alice told her there was not a pattern she noticed, that it usually happened when she was overly emotional. That the milkshakes helped with that. Calmed her.

Ah, so that’s what that feeling was. It was coming on slow, but it was there, the difference. It was like Roth had turned the volume down on the world.

And a calm Hermione is a grounded Hermione, is a rational Hermione.

Roth was surely an idiot.

Hermione sat cross-legged on the bed, across from Alice.

“Alice, you and I are going to exchange information. We’re going to share all there is to share until there’s not a thread loose between us. But first, we’re going to go over ward matrices. How comfortable are you with them?”

“He’s like an embroiderer. So… careful about how he sews it all together. Not a stitch left undone. It’s how he’s held me and Michael in place. No weaponry, no wands—never. He uses us. The prospect of our safety. Once we’re healed, he’ll let us go with a thorough obliviate, he says. So, so… Hermione, I’m not sure I can do this. I–”

“You will.”

Hermione’s words came out like a bow pulled taut. She understood, she did. Alice had endured significant trauma. She was worried for her partner. How very understandable. But Hermione had someone to fret over, too.

There were truths Hermione simply had to face. On morality and the tumultuous relationship she shared with it. About her heart and the tumult that resided within.

Truth: She’d sooner set that arrow loose, aimed right for Alice’s broken heart than risk Draco’s well-being.

“What do you suppose Roth means when he says obliviate, hm? You think he’ll set you on your merry way, life as normal. Two test subjects to be studied in such close proximity? Obliviate, as in: no more Michael for Alice, and no more Alice for Michael. That is what he has planned for you and your Michael.”

Alice’s breathing shallowed after that.

Hermione let Alice wade her way back to normalcy on her own. Let her sit in that truth—true, or not, Hermione neither knew or cared. Her care had been expended; it was currently splayed on a medical bed on the other side of that wall.

“He lets me see Michael. When he’s sedated. The first week I was stuck in this room until I woke up—completely out of it. Two incisions he made. Here—” She held a spot on her mid-back. “It hurts when I twist, sharp pains. And when my magic sparks, it’s like a drop, right in that area. Like when your stomach drops from a fall? Like that. And then here—” A spot at the small of her back. “It still feels sore here, under the skin, a little tight, but not as bad as the other one.”

“May I?” Hermione asked.

Alice nodded, slowly turned and lifted her shirt.

“Do you know how humiliating it is to be violated on your back of all things? Not only not having a clue what he did, but not being able to see it.”

In the middle of her back, slightly off-center, not directly on the spine, was a tiny scar, pale pink skin, slightly indented with a waxy sheen. When Hermione grazed her fingers, Alice gave an involuntary flinch.

The other incision was right on the soft spot between Alice’s spine and the curve of her waist. It was smaller, and with time would more than likely become nearly invisible.

“I think he took something from your bone here, and perhaps tissue from here.”

“I hadn’t heard a thing from Michael until after I woke up with these. I asked and Roth would assure me he was fine but how could I believe a thing he said? Then I heard him. Michael. He sounded so scared, I’d never heard him make noises like that.”

“I think I was here when that happened.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“And you just left us here?!”

“We were—” Hermione swallowed, it was always so untenable for her to face those she wronged. “We were being cautious. Your partner was in bad shape, we couldn't have safely transported him. And— and we have another agenda here. I’m sorry, we had to.”

“Oh, right, of course. Why didn’t you say before?” Alice’s smile was saccharine. “You ended up here anyway, didn’t you?”

Bitter.

Hermione removed herself from Alice’s proximity, her fury much too potent.

“The next time Roth came I tried to stab him with a piece of this very chair.” A warped smile. She began rocking again. Then Alice’s chin was wobbling, cheeks flushing, eyes welling. She wiped at them with a rough hand. “He told me all the reasons I should settle. Same old, same old. We’d get out. He needs us alive. Then… then he let me see Michael.”

Alice went quiet after that.

So very quiet.

So Hermione slept, her eyes too heavy.

She dreamt of the Aurora Borealis.

Not even the big screen could ever do it justice.

Not an observer, not Dream Hermione.

Dream Hermione was there, in it.

And next to her, sat a boy.

This boy!

Upon finding your toes will ask for the foot.

This boy!

Upon finding your foot will ask for its path.

Therefore, he will map the whole of you.

Behind them was a defiler.

This man!

Upon finding the boy will ask for his heart.

This man!

Upon finding the heart will ask for its chambers.

Therefore, he will map the whole of you.