Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

The grand hall of Malfoy Manor shimmered with silvers and greens, the proud colors of Slytherin glowing softly beneath the warm flicker of enchanted candelabras. It was a day of significance—Lucius Malfoy’s wedding day. Today, he would be bound to Narcissa Black, securing a union meant to strengthen two of the most powerful pureblood families in all of wizarding Britain.

The air buzzed with quiet excitement. Guests drifted through the room in elegant robes, their laughter and whispered conversations dancing along to the delicate notes of a string quartet. But Lucius stood at the front, still as stone, his expression unreadable.

His eyes, cold and gray, swept the crowd with practiced detachment. He saw everything—and felt very little.

Narcissa was approaching now, radiant in a gown of shimmering silver. Every step she took was perfect: elegant, poised, polished. She was the image of what a pureblood bride should be. And Lucius knew this was exactly what was expected. Their marriage wasn’t about love. It was strategy. Obligation. Power.

He held out his hand to take hers, ready to recite the vows he'd rehearsed more times than he cared to admit—when it happened.

A sudden gust of wind tore through the hall.

Gasps erupted from the crowd as a crack of magic shattered the air. Golden light shimmered and sparked at the center of the room, and a figure tumbled out of the chaos, landing hard on the polished floor.

Hermione Granger groaned, pushing herself upright, her hand clutched tightly around a cracked, flickering Time-Turner. It sparked feebly against her chest, clearly broken. She had been deep in the Department of Mysteries, researching temporal magic for the Order, when something had gone horribly wrong.

And now—now she was here.

Her wide eyes darted around the opulent room, landing on the stunned faces, the familiar crest of the Malfoys carved into the far wall, the man at the front of the hall whose face looked somehow... younger. Sharper. Less worn by time and cruelty.

Her stomach dropped.

She knew exactly where she was. Worse, she knew when she was.

“Who is this?” someone demanded, their voice sharp and cold.

Lucius’s wand was in his hand in an instant, instinct taking over. His gaze cut through the chaos until it landed on Hermione—her wild curls, the Muggle clothing under her robes, the strange energy radiating from her. His lips curled. A Mudblood.

But behind the sneer, there was something else. Something flickering. Interest? Confusion?

Hermione stood quickly, brushing herself off with shaking hands. “This... this is a mistake,” she managed. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Who are you?” Narcissa’s voice sliced through the air. She had stepped closer, wand drawn, her pale blue eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Hermione raised her hands slightly. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. I swear. This was an accident.”

Lucius stepped forward, his wand aimed directly at her chest. His voice was smooth and low, but laced with danger. “You dare interrupt this ceremony? Explain yourself, Mudblood, or you won’t leave here breathing.”

Hermione felt a chill creep up her spine—but she stood her ground, her chin lifting just slightly. “I’m not here to cause harm,” she said, slower this time. “The Time-Turner malfunctioned. I don’t even know how I ended up—”

Before she could finish, the Time-Turner let out one last, sputtering crack of light.

Lucius reached out without thinking, his fingers brushing hers as he grabbed for the broken device.

The spark was instant.

A jolt of raw magic surged between them, not just through skin, but through something deeper—older. Lucius froze, his breath catching. Hermione gasped. It wasn’t just a shock. It was a pull, a recognition. For one suspended heartbeat, their magic intertwined like threads twisting into a single knot.

Their eyes locked.

For a moment, there was only that connection—unexpected, electric, and terrifying.

Then Narcissa’s voice snapped through the silence. “What was that?”

Lucius pulled his hand away like he’d been burned. His expression snapped back into its usual mask, but there was something off—his voice wavered, just slightly, as he muttered, “A trick.”

He turned back to Hermione, jaw tight. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Hermione said, her voice rising. “I don’t know what that was!”

“Enough,” Narcissa hissed. “This is absurd. Lucius, end this. We have a wedding to finish.”

Lucius hesitated.

His wand was still raised, but he didn’t move. He was staring at Hermione, brow furrowed, his posture too stiff, like something inside him was still trying to understand what had just happened.

Finally, his voice came low and clipped. “Take her to the dungeons. I’ll deal with her later.”

Two Death Eaters moved in without question, seizing Hermione by the arms. She struggled, but she knew it was useless. As she was dragged out of the hall, she looked back.

Lucius was watching her.

And in his eyes, she saw it again—that flicker. Not hate. Not even curiosity. Something deeper. Something he didn’t seem to understand either.

The door slammed behind her. The music started again. The ceremony resumed.

But for Lucius Malfoy, nothing felt quite the same.

The air in the dungeons was thick and damp, curling cold fingers around Hermione’s limbs and settling deep in her bones. She sat curled on the rough stone floor, hugging her knees to her chest, trying to stay warm—trying to think. But her mind wouldn’t stop. It spun in frantic circles, replaying everything that had happened since she’d landed in this nightmare.

The golden burst from the Time-Turner. The chaos of her landing. The stunned silence of the crowd. Lucius Malfoy’s face—cold, unreadable, and then... different.

She let out a shaky breath and pressed her palms to her temples. What did I just do?

Even now, the reality hit like a punch to the gut. She hadn’t meant to interfere. But she had. Badly. Her very presence here—on that day, in that moment—was a disruption she couldn't undo. She’d stumbled right into the wedding of Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black, a union that wasn't just personal but political, a turning point in the rise of Voldemort’s empire.

And she’d interrupted it. Not just the ceremony, but something deeper. She saw it in Lucius’s eyes when he looked at her. Felt it.

She wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

The Time-Turner had seemed fine back in the Department of Mysteries. She had checked it. Triple-checked it. She had been cautious, as always. But it had reacted to her touch like it was alive, and then—then she was here. Out of place, out of time, with no way back.

Her fingers drifted to the Time-Turner hanging limply from her neck. The delicate hourglass was cracked, its magic seeping out in soft, golden tendrils that fizzled into the stale air. Useless. It wasn’t going to help her now.

You’re stranded, she thought, heart pounding. Stranded in the past, at Malfoy Manor, with no way home.

And worse still—she might have changed everything.

Her stomach turned. What if her presence had already shifted the timeline? What if she’d somehow altered the events that led to the war, to Voldemort’s power, to Harry’s fight? What if she’d made things worse?

She rubbed at her face, trying to calm herself, but her thoughts snapped back to the moment she couldn’t stop replaying.

That spark.

That impossible, electric jolt when Lucius touched her. It wasn’t just a magical accident—it had felt personal, like their magic had reached out for each other and recognized something. And that terrified her more than anything else.

Frowning, she pushed up her sleeve—and froze.

There it was. Faint, but unmistakable: the outline of a handprint glowing gently on her skin, right where Lucius had touched her.

What in Merlin’s name…?

It didn’t hurt. It wasn’t even hot. Just… warm. Alive. She pressed her fingers to it, and her breath caught. The magic pulsed under her skin like a second heartbeat.

“What the hell is this?” she whispered into the silence.

It wasn’t a burn. It wasn’t a mark left by force. It was something deeper—something imprinted. She’d never seen anything like it, not even in the restricted sections of the library or the deepest archives of the Order.

Was it the Time-Turner’s magic reacting with Lucius’s? Or… was it something else entirely?

The thought made her throat tighten. Because no matter what caused it, one thing was certain: he had felt it too. She saw the flicker in his expression. The pause. The confusion. The doubt.

And that was the problem.

Lucius Malfoy wasn’t the type to dismiss something strange. He was sharp, calculating, and terrifyingly thorough. If he believed that moment meant something, he would dig. And if he figured out who she really was—what she really was—he’d use it. Use her.

The panic came fast and sharp. She pressed her forehead to her knees, trying to breathe through it.

She was stuck. Alone. Unarmed. The Time-Turner was broken. The past was already shifting beneath her feet. And she had no allies, no escape plan, no way to fix what had gone wrong.

She swallowed hard and wiped at her eyes with trembling fingers. She couldn’t fall apart. Not now. There had to be a way out—there always was. She just had to find it before Lucius found her truth.

Her fingers brushed over the glowing imprint again, and a chill ran through her.

It wasn’t just a spark. It was something binding. Something intimate. And whatever it was, it wasn’t going away.

She’d interfered with time. With fate.

And nothing—nothing—might ever be the same again.

The wedding was supposed to be flawless. Every detail had been meticulously planned, every movement rehearsed. A union like this—Black and Malfoy—wasn’t just a celebration, it was a declaration. Two powerful pureblood families, tying their legacies together in front of the entire wizarding elite.

But something had gone wrong. And no one knew quite what to do about it.

Whispers rippled through the hall, soft and sharp, like wind rustling through dry leaves. Narcissa stood at the altar, her fingers frozen at her sides, her eyes locked on Lucius.

Her almost-husband hadn’t looked at her once since the girl—whoever she was—had crashed into their ceremony. He’d been the picture of composure before: cool, refined, every inch the Malfoy heir. Now, he looked like a man somewhere else entirely. His eyes were distant, his posture rigid, like something inside him had cracked but hadn’t yet decided how to break.

The air still felt strange. Charged.

“Lucius,” she said quietly, trying to keep her voice calm even as her stomach twisted. “Shall we continue?”

He blinked, like he was coming back to himself, and finally turned toward her. For just a second, there was something vulnerable in his face—uncertainty, maybe. Almost like he didn’t recognize the moment he was in. He opened his mouth, but no sound came. Instead, he glanced toward his father.

Abraxas Malfoy was already moving, his expression like ice splintering under pressure.

“What is the meaning of this?” he said in a low hiss meant only for Lucius. “You are humiliating yourself. And us. Say the vows. Now.”

Lucius’s fingers twitched. “Father, perhaps we should—”

“Enough,” a sharper voice cut in—Cygnus Black, Narcissa’s father, moving toward them with slow, deliberate steps. “This marriage was arranged for the good of both our families. Some girl appearing out of nowhere changes nothing. You will complete the ceremony.”

Narcissa felt her heart sink. It was never about me, she thought. Not her happiness. Not even her choice. She was simply the vessel through which legacies were passed and names were merged. She’d always known that. But today it felt more suffocating than ever.

Still, it wasn’t just the interruption that left her shaken. It was Lucius. He was different.

He always carried himself like someone in control—of himself, of others, of the room. But now he looked… unsure. Hollowed out. Like something had happened to him that he couldn’t name, let alone explain.

“Lucius,” she said again, firmer this time. “What’s going on?”

His gaze finally met hers—and for a heartbeat, she thought she saw something raw flicker in his eyes. Regret. Or maybe guilt. But it vanished as quickly as it came.

“I need a moment,” he muttered, stepping back.

“A moment?” Cygnus bristled, his voice rising. “You dare—”

“Enough,” Lucius said, louder now, and with a finality that silenced the room. His eyes were sharp again, but they weren’t cold—they were searching. And he wasn’t asking anyone’s permission. He turned his back on the altar and walked out of the hall.

Gasps and murmurs surged behind him.

Narcissa didn’t move. She couldn’t. Her feet felt rooted to the floor, but her mind was racing. She’d never seen him like that. He’s shaken. He’s not pretending.

A heavy hand landed on her shoulder. Her father’s.

“Do not make a scene,” Cygnus said quietly, but his grip was anything but gentle. “You will marry him. This alliance is not optional.”

She jerked her shoulder out from under his hand. Her voice trembled when she spoke, but not from fear—rage was starting to rise, hot and tight in her chest. “Do not tell me what I will do,” she hissed. “Something’s wrong, and pretending otherwise won’t make it disappear.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You forget yourself.”

“And maybe you forget that I’m not a piece on your chessboard,” she snapped.

The words startled even her. But once they were out, they didn’t feel wrong.

Before Cygnus could respond, Abraxas approached, his tone smooth but his words unmistakably final. “Narcissa,” he said, “my son will return. He always fulfills his obligations. Don’t let doubt poison something that was carefully built. Lucius is… complicated, yes, but he knows his duty.”

Narcissa didn’t answer. Her gaze was fixed on the doors Lucius had disappeared through.

She didn’t know what had happened between him and the girl—what kind of magic or moment had passed between them—but she knew it had changed him. And if she was honest with herself, something in her had shifted too.

Maybe it wasn’t just about duty anymore.

Maybe—for once—she had a choice.

Lucius Malfoy stepped out into the cold night air, the heavy doors of the manor closing behind him with a quiet thud. The noise of the ceremony—the music, the whispers, the expectation—faded instantly, as if it all belonged to a different world. He descended the marble steps without purpose, his feet carrying him into the gardens out of instinct more than intention.

The moon hung high above the estate, casting everything in shades of silver and blue. The hedges were perfect, the flowers blooming just so. It should have been calming. It wasn’t.

He pulled off his gloves with stiff fingers, the chill finally reaching his skin—but it wasn’t the cold that made his hands shake. He turned his palm over, frowning. There, faintly glowing against his pale skin, was something impossible.

A handprint. Small, delicate. Not his.

Lucius stared at it, the breath catching in his throat. He moved his fingers, flexing them slowly, and watched as the mark pulsed in response—a soft shimmer of gold, fading and returning like it was alive.

“What in Merlin’s name…” he muttered, but the words sounded hollow, even to his own ears.

He wasn’t the type to be shaken. His entire life had been built on control—of image, of power, of emotion. But this… this was something else. Something he couldn’t explain. He had touched her and the moment their fingers brushed, it was like lightning shot through him. Not just magic. Not just touch. Something deeper. Something ancient.

He flexed his fingers again, as if to shake it off, but the mark remained. Warm, steady, real.

He closed his eyes, replaying the moment—that moment—again and again. The girl. She had appeared out of nowhere, out of chaos and broken magic. One second, the ceremony had been proceeding exactly as it should, and the next, everything had shifted.

Lucius began to pace the garden path, the polished stones clicking under his boots. He couldn’t stop thinking about her—the way she looked when she landed, completely out of place and yet standing tall, unafraid. She hadn’t cowered or begged. Her eyes, warm and sharp, had met his as if they were equals. Challengers.

He remembered the way her magic had felt—how it had hit his like a wave, crashing into him with no warning, no rules. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t tame. It had met his head-on, and for a second, they’d connected.

He hated the word. Connected. It sounded weak. Sentimental. But there was no other way to describe it. When he touched her, something had…aligned. Something had clicked into place, uninvited and overwhelming.

She felt it too, he realized, rubbing his thumb over the imprint. Her gasp hadn’t been fear—it had been recognition.

And it infuriated him.

And now she was in his dungeons.

Lucius exhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose. He didn’t understand what had happened. And that was what scared him the most.

He'd been raised to believe he knew everything. His father made sure of that. Pureblood magic. Lineage. Power. Control. There was no room for the unknown in the world he was born to dominate. And yet, this moment—this mark—defied everything he thought he understood.

He tried to tell himself it was nothing. Some accidental magical reaction. A fluke. But then her face flashed through his mind again—her wild curls, the stubborn tilt of her chin, the way she had looked at him. Not with fear. Not with reverence.

Like she knew him.

And worse—like she wasn’t afraid of him.

He hated how that stuck with him.

“Lucius.”

His father’s voice, cold and sharp, pulled him out of his thoughts. Abraxas stalked toward him, the lines in his face etched deeper than usual, his eyes hard and furious.

“What are you doing out here?” Abraxas demanded, his voice low and clipped. “The guests are waiting. Cygnus is fuming. You’re on the verge of ruining everything.”

Lucius slid the gloves back onto his hands, hiding the mark like a secret he wasn’t ready to share. His face settled into something more familiar: that smooth, unreadable mask he wore so well.

“I needed air,” he said flatly.

“You needed air?” Abraxas sneered. "To do what? Feel something? There is no time for sentiment, Lucius. You marry Narcissa tonight. We’ve worked too long, too hard, for you to throw this away because of some magical glitch.”

Abraxas gave a harsh, humorless laugh. “She’s nothing. A filthy little accident who stumbled into something far above her place. She’s irrelevant.”

But she wasn’t. Lucius knew she wasn’t. He couldn’t explain how, or why, but his instincts—the ones that had always guided him so well—were screaming at him that this wasn’t something he could ignore.

He turned away from his father, heading back toward the manor.

“I will marry her,” he said without looking back. “But don’t mistake that for dismissal. Whatever happened tonight… it matters. And I won’t pretend it doesn’t.”

Abraxas didn’t follow. He didn’t need to. Lucius was already retreating into his mind again, back into that moment—the spark, the gasp, the way her magic had reached for his. It wasn’t over.

He could feel it.

Whatever had passed between them, it had left a mark on more than just his hand.

Chapter Text

PART ONE

CHAPTER TWO

The ceremony continued, but it wasn’t the flawless union the Black and Malfoy families had imagined. Narcissa stood beside Lucius, her hands folded neatly in front of her, her posture perfect as ever. The vows were spoken. The enchanted silver bands gleamed on their fingers. On the surface, everything was exactly as it should have been.

But it felt hollow.

Lucius kept his expression carefully neutral, playing the part everyone expected of him. But inside, he was barely holding it together. Beneath the fine leather of his glove, the mark on his hand still pulsed faintly, a constant reminder of what had happened. Of her. No matter how he tried to push it out of his mind, it clawed its way back, gnawing at his focus.

Narcissa didn’t hide her unease nearly as well. She kept her gaze fixed somewhere over his shoulder, her lips pressed into a tight, colorless line. She moved like a doll, graceful but brittle, as though one wrong word would shatter her. When the final toast was raised and the guests applauded politely, she barely glanced at him.

By the time the hall had emptied and they were left alone in the grand chambers prepared for them, the silence between them was suffocating.

Lucius leaned against the closed door, watching her. Narcissa stood by the fireplace, her back to him, clutching the mantel so tightly her knuckles had gone white. The firelight made her wedding gown shimmer, but it couldn’t soften the tension radiating off her.

“Narcissa,” he said finally, his voice low, controlled. “You’ve been avoiding me. Care to explain?”

She didn’t move for a long moment. Just when he thought she might ignore him entirely, her voice broke the silence—quiet, but sharp enough to draw blood.

“You changed,” she said. “The moment that girl appeared, you changed.”

Lucius’s jaw tightened. “You’re imagining things.”

At that, she turned to face him. Her pale blue eyes were colder than he’d ever seen them. “Do not insult me, Lucius,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. Diamonds at her throat caught the firelight, hard and glittering like ice. “I felt it. Everyone felt it. You hesitated. You flinched when you touched me. And you walked away.”

“I needed a moment to think,” he said, the lie sliding easily off his tongue.

“To think about her,” Narcissa snapped, her voice cracking for the first time.

Lucius straightened, feeling anger lick at the edges of his fraying composure. “Watch yourself,” he warned, voice dangerously low. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

But Narcissa didn’t back down. She took a step closer, her shoulders squaring against him. “Don’t patronize me. I know magic when I feel it. Whatever happened between you and that girl—it was real. You can't pretend otherwise.”

Lucius froze. Because she was right. He could lie, he could bury it deep, but he couldn’t unknow what he’d felt when he touched her. It wasn’t something he could explain away as an accident.

But admitting that aloud was something else entirely.

“You will not question me,” he said, pulling the familiar coldness around himself like armor. “You are my wife now. Your duty is to stand beside me, not to chase after phantoms.”

Narcissa let out a hollow, bitter laugh. “Phantoms? You call it a phantom? Lucius, you looked ready to walk out of your own wedding to chase after her.”

He snapped then, unable to stop himself. “Enough!” His voice cracked like a whip across the room, the force of it making the fire flicker.

But Narcissa didn’t even flinch. She just stared at him, her chin lifted high. “I don’t need to argue about it,” she said, voice steady now. “I see it when I look at you. I feel it. You’re different.”

She turned then, gathering up the heavy skirts of her gown as she crossed the room toward the adjoining chambers. At the door, she paused.

“I will not share your bed, Lucius,” she said without looking back. “Not until you figure out what she did to you.”

And with that, she disappeared into the other room, shutting the door behind her with a soft but final click.

Lucius stood frozen, the fire crackling in the silence.

Slowly, he pulled off his glove. The faint golden imprint of her hand still shimmered against his skin, mocking him.

Tainted, Narcissa had called him.

He clenched his fists tightly enough that his knuckles ached.

He didn’t know what was happening between him and that girl. But for the first time in his life, Lucius Malfoy wasn’t sure who he was anymore—or what future he had just set in motion.

And he hated it.

The Malfoy Manor library stretched out in endless rows of old, forgotten magic, the air thick with the smell of parchment and dust. The soft hum of enchanted lanterns lit the high shelves, casting long shadows across the polished floor. Lucius moved through the aisles like a man possessed, his boots echoing sharply in the cavernous space.

He barely registered his surroundings. His mind was a mess of questions he couldn't answer, and it gnawed at him.

At the farthest corner of the library, past rows of newer, showier spellbooks, were the ones he was looking for—the oldest, the ones even most Malfoys hadn't touched in centuries. He yanked off his gloves and stared down at his bare hand.

The mark was still there.

It wasn’t as bright as it had been at first, but it was steady—warm against his skin, almost pulsing, like it was alive.

His stomach twisted. He ran a finger over it roughly, half-hoping it would smudge, disappear, anything. But it didn’t. It stayed.

Biting back a curse, Lucius raised his wand and murmured a spell. A few dusty tomes floated down from the top shelves, thudding onto a long oak table. He dropped into a chair, dust clouding around him, and pulled the first book toward him with a sharp tug.

Hours slipped by unnoticed. He flipped through page after page—old magic, theories, rituals. Most of it was pure nonsense. Half-mad wizards spinning tales about love and fate and magic as if it were a children’s story.

But then, hidden between a volume on magical bindings and a collection of ritual curses, he found it.

Imprinting: The Mark of Fated Magic.

Lucius stilled. His fingers brushed the brittle page, the words faded but still legible. His heart, normally steady and cold, thudded hard against his ribs.

The descriptions were vague, maddeningly so, but the idea was clear enough: two magical beings, their magic so deeply compatible that even the slightest touch could create a permanent bond. A mark.

He kept reading, each sentence making him feel colder and colder.

Soulmates. That’s what they called it.

He shut the book with a loud snap, the sound echoing in the empty library. For a moment he just sat there, staring into nothing, trying to make sense of it.

It was absurd. Romantic, ridiculous nonsense. The kind of thing weak-minded fools believed in. Soulmates? Fate? That wasn’t how the world worked.

And yet—

The mark was there. Right there, on his skin, stubborn and shining and real. The spark he had felt when he touched her—it hadn’t been in his imagination.

Lucius pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, grinding his teeth.

It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t. She was a Mudblood, the living antithesis of everything he was, everything he had been raised to protect and defend. She didn’t belong in his world—and yet the universe, or magic, or whatever cruel force was at play, had tied her to him.

And he couldn’t break it.

The book had been very clear: bonds like these couldn’t be severed. Not without terrible consequences. Magical collapse. Madness. Even death. And the more he fought it, the more dangerous it could become.

He gave a bitter, humorless laugh. After a lifetime spent calculating every move, building a future stone by stone, this was how it unraveled?

He leaned back in his chair and stared at his hand. The glow was faint now, but it was still there—steady, patient, inevitable.

He hated it.

And yet… a part of him, deep down, already knew he wouldn’t be able to leave it alone.

He needed answers. Real ones. Not from some ancient book, not from half-forgotten theories. From her.

Lucius stood abruptly, sliding the fragile book into his robes, then yanking his gloves back on, hiding the mark as if that might make it less real.

He strode toward the library doors, the echo of his footsteps chasing him.

He would speak to her. He would find out exactly what had happened. He would control this.

Because if there was one thing Lucius Malfoy refused to be—it was powerless.

But as he crossed the threshold and disappeared down the long halls of the Manor, his mind kept pulling him back to her, to the mark, to the memory of the way her magic had collided with his like a spark in dry tinder.

Lucius Malfoy moved through the winding halls of Malfoy Manor like a man stalking a ghost. His gloves were back on, but it didn’t matter—the mark burned beneath the leather, an itch he couldn’t scratch, a reminder he couldn’t ignore.The heavy door to the dungeons loomed ahead, and with a flick of his wand, the lock clicked open. The hinges groaned as he pushed inside, the cold air curling around him, thick and damp.

She was sitting on the cold stone floor, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around herself. At the noise, her head snapped up, a wild tangle of curls shadowing her face in the dim torchlight. Even in this miserable place, even with fear written in the tightness of her body, there was something defiant in the way she looked at him.

Lucius stepped forward, the door groaning shut behind him. He said nothing at first, letting the silence press down on them like a weight. Finally, his voice cut through the heavy air, low and cold.

"You," he said, his gaze narrowing. "You're going to tell me exactly what you are."

The girl frowned, her brow furrowing slightly. "What I am?" she repeated, her voice hoarse. "I’m a witch."

Lucius’s wand slipped into his hand, loose but ready. He took a slow step closer. "Don’t insult my intelligence and me, girl," he said, voice like steel. "That... thing between us—that wasn’t ordinary magic. That wasn’t natural."

His hand itched beneath the glove, the faint glow of the imprint taunting him even now.

The girl’s brows drew together, confusion flashing across her face. "I didn’t do anything to you," she said quickly. "Whatever that was—it wasn’t planned. It wasn’t even..." she shook her head, swallowing hard, "it wasn’t something I understand either.

"You expect me to believe that?" Lucius said, taking two strides forward, closing the distance between them. His wand was pointed at her chest now, steady as a blade. "You appeared out of nowhere, disrupted my ceremony, and left this," he hissed, flexing his gloved hand at her. "Magic like that doesn't just happen."

She flinched, pressing her back against the cold wall, but didn’t look away. "You think I wanted this?" she snapped, voice trembling but fierce. "You think I wanted to land here? In the middle of... whatever this is?"

Lucius narrowed his eyes, watching her carefully.

"One moment I was in the Department of Mysteries—and then everything went wrong."

Lucius’s wand dipped lower, but only slightly. His mind caught on her words. "The Department of Mysteries?" he repeated sharply. "What business could a girl like you possibly have there?"

She hesitated, biting her lip like she was weighing every word.

"For the war," she said at last, voice low. "I was studying time magic. For the Order."

Lucius narrowed his eyes. The Order. Even years ago, the name left a bitter taste in pureblood society.

"What Order?"

She swallowed, visibly bracing herself. "The Order of the Phoenix."

The words hung between them like a curse.

Lucius stilled. His face didn’t change, but his mind reeled.

"The Order of the Phoenix is dead," he said flatly. "Crushed. Forgotten."

"In your time," she whispered, her voice trembling. "But not in mine."

He stared at her for a long moment, the pieces clicking together—and yet refusing to fit.

"You’re claiming..." he said slowly, dangerously, "that you’re from the future."

The girl nodded once, sharply. "I know it sounds insane. But it’s true."

Lucius’s chest tightened painfully. He fought to keep his expression neutral, but the words rattled him more than he wanted to admit. It was madness. Time travel was unstable, restricted to theoretical texts and Ministry experiments—and yet...

The mark on his hand pulsed again, as if agreeing with her.

He studied her in silence. She couldn’t be more than nineteen. Young, fragile-looking, but there was something hard beneath it. A stubbornness he recognized too well—because he possessed it himself.

"And you know me," he said, voice softening into something more dangerous. "In your time."

She hesitated again, then nodded. "Yes."

He took another slow step closer, until he towered over her where she sat.

"And what am I, in this future of yours?" he asked, voice sharp with an edge of something he couldn’t name.

She looked up at him, her brown eyes too wide, too honest.

"You’re... different," she said quietly. "Older. Sharper. Still ruthless... but not the same. Less chained to..." She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "Less chained to this."

Lucius said nothing, but his lip curled slightly in disdain. It wasn’t the answer he wanted.

"And what of you?" he asked, voice like silk cut on glass. "What is your place in this future?"

For a split second, something crossed her face—a flicker of fear, or maybe regret—but it was gone too fast to name.

"I’m just... someone who fought back," she said simply.

Lucius stared at her a moment longer, then finally stepped back, lowering his wand—but only slightly.

"I don’t know who you are," he said coldly, "or what accident of fate dragged you here. But know this: if you are lying to me, you will not leave this place alive."

She nodded, her chin lifting in defiance even as she trembled.

"I’m not lying," she said quietly.

He turned sharply on his heel, stalking toward the door, his mind spinning. He needed to think. To breathe. To understand.

Lucius paused in the doorway, his hand tightening around the cool brass handle. Something about her—her voice, her certainty, the mark burning beneath his glove—gnawed at him, pulling him back. Against every instinct screaming at him to walk away, his curiosity—sharp, cutting—won out over the disgust and doubt.

Slowly, he turned to face her again, his wand raised, steady and unrelenting.

"You say you’re from the future," he said coldly. "You say you know me. Let’s see how much truth there is to your story."

Hermione’s breath hitched, her body tensing the moment she caught the glint of intent in his grey eyes.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"Legilimency," Lucius replied curtly. "I will see the truth for myself. If you resist, I’ll assume you’re lying—and deal with you accordingly."

Hermione’s stomach dropped. Everything in her screamed to fight, to resist, but she knew she didn’t stand a chance. He was too skilled, too powerful, and in her exhausted, disoriented state, she wouldn’t be able to stop him.

She closed her eyes with a reluctant nod, heart hammering against her ribs as she tried to brace herself.

"Good girl," Lucius murmured, though there was no warmth in the words. His wand flicked, and a soft, chilling whisper filled the air:

"Legilimens."

He struck like a blade through water, cutting sharp and deep. Hermione’s mind shattered open under the force of it, memories flashing rapid and chaotic behind her closed eyelids.

Lucius focused, slicing through the noise, searching for the truth.

The first clear image hit him hard: himself—older, grayer, harder—standing tall in a grand, darkened hall, commanding a room full of robed figures. His voice rang with authority, but his body sagged with exhaustion, as if conflict had hollowed him out.

The memory twisted sharply, snapping to another moment.

Another scene: himself again, locked in a fierce duel amid the chaos of battle. Spells flared like lightning, and for the first time, Lucius felt a strange, foreign sensation—fear—not for his own life, but for something—or someone—else.

The memory flickered. Shifted.

The memory shifted again—Her in a forest, clutching her wand with desperate determination. Arguing with a red-haired boy, her voice sharp but her eyes hollowed by loss. Hunched over ancient books, exhaustion and stubbornness etched deep into her features.

Lucius pushed deeper, drawn to something heavy, pulsing.

And then—

Hermione. Curled up in a dim room, clutching a book to her chest. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her shoulders shaking with the force of tears she tried to suppress. No voices. No comfort. Just a crushing loneliness.

Every glimpse showed her fighting, enduring.

But it was the moments of stillness—the ones where she sat alone, her knees pulled to her chest, her face turned toward nothing—that unsettled Lucius most. And from her lips, broken and soft, came his name.

The silence where she whispered his name as if she could barely stand to say it aloud.

He tore himself free of her mind with a wrenching force, staggering back, breathless.

Hermione slumped against the wall, pale and shaking, her breathing shallow and ragged.

Lucius stared at her, struggling to reconcile what he had seen with what he had assumed.

No manipulation. No cunning plot.

Just a life—raw, fractured, painfully human. And no sign that she had ever sought this bond—or even him.

"You weren’t lying," he said finally, his voice quieter, rougher, though still edged with disbelief.

Hermione lifted her head weakly. "I told you," she whispered. "I didn’t want this."

Lucius’s gaze hardened, but lacked the venom it usually carried. "You whispered my name," he said, voice low, accusing. "Why?"

Hermione blinked up at him, exhaustion tugging at every part of her.

"You were..." she swallowed, trying to steady herself, "Someone... I crossed paths with. Someone I fought against. Someone that couldn't be forget."

Her voice faltered. She looked down, twisting the fabric of her robes in shaking fingers.

"I hated much of what you stood for," she said hoarsely. " I hated you, but there were moments—small, terrible moments—where I saw something else. Something that made me wonder... if it could’ve been different."

Lucius froze, the words cutting deep.

Not pity. Not forgiveness.

A question.

A possibility he himself had buried long ago.

"You should have stayed in your future," he said at last, voice rough. "You don’t belong here."

"I know," Hermione whispered, her gaze dropping again. "But I didn’t choose this. And now... we're both trapped."

Lucius turned on his heel, the weight of her memories and her words clawing at him. His gloved hand brushed against the faint, burning mark beneath the leather.

He needed to leave.

Now.

He strode to the door, hand outstretched—

—and then her voice caught him like a hook through his spine.

"My name," she said, almost too softly to hear. "It’s Hermione. Hermione Granger."

Lucius hesitated for a heartbeat, the syllables sinking deep into the marrow of his bones.

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t turn.

But as he pulled the heavy door closed behind him, her name burned itself into him, impossible to shake.

He strode out of the dungeons, his footsteps echoing sharply against the cold, narrow stone corridors.The torchlight flickered against the damp stone walls, but he barely noticed. His mind was a mess of fragments—of things he’d seen, things he now knew, things he couldn’t ignore even if he wanted to.

The imprint burned faintly under his glove, a steady pulse he couldn't ignore no matter how tightly he clenched his fist. It was maddening. A reminder he couldn’t banish.

He moved through the manor without thought, letting instinct guide him toward the west wing—the part of the estate he retreated to when he needed distance, silence. The grand windows along the corridor cast long strips of moonlight across the floors, the only light in the otherwise suffocating dark.

For the first time in years, Lucius Malfoy felt unmoored.

He pushed into the small study at the end of the hall and closed the door behind him with a soft click. The room smelled faintly of old parchment and leather, untouched for months. It was still, undisturbed.

He crossed to the decanter on the desk and poured himself a glass of firewhisky, the amber liquid gleaming briefly in the moonlight. He took a long drink, welcoming the burn in his throat—something real, something sharp enough to anchor him, if only for a moment.

But it wasn’t enough to drown the memories that rose up anyway.

The images he had seen in Hermione’s mind played over and over: her sitting alone in a dim room, clutching a book to her chest, tears sliding silently down her cheeks. The raw, unbearable solitude she carried like a second skin. 

He slammed the glass onto the desk with a sharp crack, the sound jolting through the quiet.

What does it matter? he thought bitterly. She’s from another time. Another life. Whatever she saw, whatever she felt, it meant nothing here. It had to mean nothing.

But deep down, he knew it hadn’t.

Lucius pulled off his gloves with shaking fingers. The faint, cursed glow of the imprint was still there, stubborn and constant, pulsing like a second heartbeat. He flexed his hand, his jaw tightening.

He hated how it refused to fade.

Soulmates. The word felt like poison in his mind. An ancient bond, irreversible, beyond logic.

Beyond control.

The concept was an insult to everything he had built his life around.

He was a Malfoy. His life was meant to be crafted—chosen—like the finest stone. Not dictated by whims of fate. Not tethered to a girl he had no place binding himself to.

And yet the evidence—the burning, undeniable mark on his hand—mocked him.

He paced the study, boots scuffing the worn floor, his mind a vicious loop.

Hermione Granger. A Mudblood. A girl - an intruder - who didn’t belong in his world.  And yet—her presence had cracked something open inside him he didn’t know could break.

She had seen too much. Not just the ruthlessness. Not just the name he wore like armor. She had seen past it, somehow, to something else. Some piece of him he had long since buried.

And the worst part—the part that gnawed at him like acid—was that in her memories, she hadn’t hated him.

She had mourned him.

Lucius stopped pacing abruptly, standing in front of one of the tall windows. The gardens stretched out below, empty and silver under the moonlight.

He needed to regain control. He needed to end this before it grew any deeper. Hermione Granger was a threat—to his life, his future, his very identity.

And yet he hadn’t killed her.

He hadn’t even hurt her.

Instead, he had read her mind, seen the quiet grief she carried for a man he could have been—and found himself unable to tear her apart for it.

The realization chilled him more than the night air.

For the first time, Lucius Malfoy understood that it wasn’t just the bond that trapped him.

It was her.

He exhaled slowly, pressing his fingers to his temple. You are a Malfoy, he told himself. You do not falter. You do not lose control.

But the mark still pulsed against his hand.

And the sound of her whisper—his name, caught somewhere between sorrow and hope—echoed in the back of his mind, refusing to let him forget.

With a rough breath, Lucius turned away from the window and poured himself another glass of firewhisky. He would find a way to regain control.

He had to.

But for tonight—for this one breathless, unsteady night—all Lucius Malfoy could do was try to drown the storm she had left raging in him.

And pretend, just for a little while, that he wasn’t already losing.

Chapter Text

PART ONE
CHAPTER THREE

The week after Narcissa left was quiet in the way a blade is quiet before it strikes.

Her departure hadn’t surprised Lucius. It wasn’t the first time she’d turned silence into punishment, nor the first time her absence had been a message. But this time, he didn’t feel the usual irritation. He didn’t feel much at all.

If anything, it gave him space.

Space to think.
Space to question.
Space to return to the dungeons.

And he did—night after night. Despite the growing tightness in his chest, despite how it unsettled him to feel pulled toward her, he kept coming back. Something about the girl below—the way her presence had upended everything—refused to loosen its hold.

At first, he told himself he was looking for answers. A way to break the bond. A way to sever whatever thread fate had dared to tie between them.

But each visit left him with more questions than the last.

She was always waiting. Always quiet. Sitting curled on the stone floor, watching him from beneath a tangle of curls. She never asked why he returned. She didn’t need to.

Lucius paced. As he always did. He hated the stillness that grew between them when he stopped moving.

"Tell me again," he said abruptly. "What did you see of me in the future?"

His voice was clipped. But not cruel. He no longer bothered pretending this wasn’t personal.

Hermione exhaled softly, weary with the repetition. "I told you. I didn’t know you. Not really." Her voice was quiet, but steady. "You were a figure in history. A name tied to Voldemort’s rise. A man who made choices—"

"Choices that affected countless lives," he finished. His tone sharpened, but not with pride. He stopped pacing. Turned toward her. "And yet you whispered my name. Why?"

She flinched, her shoulders tightening.

There it was. The lie she had told herself—that he wouldn’t remember that detail. But he had. He remembered everything.

Hermione looked away. Her voice came small, almost reluctant. "Because you weren’t just a shadow to me. Not completely. I hated what you did, what you stood for. But I also..." she hesitated, then said the truth out loud, "I wondered. I wondered what you could’ve been if things had been different."

Lucius’s jaw tensed. He turned from her, his hand flexing at his side. The words hit harder than they should have.

He had spent his life sculpting himself into something hard, something untouchable. He was a Malfoy. Measured. Controlled.

But she wasn’t looking at him like that. She never had.

"What you saw," he said finally, his voice lower now, less certain, "doesn’t matter anymore. If you truly are from the future… then you’ve changed it simply by being here."

Hermione nodded. Slowly. "I know." A beat passed. "I’ve thought about that. A lot."

She wrapped her arms around herself, her voice steady but tired. "The timeline’s already breaking. The future I came from isn’t going to happen. Not all of it."

Lucius turned to her, his gaze sharp again. "And yet one thing hasn’t changed." His voice turned darker. "The Dark Lord."

At the mention of Voldemort, she stilled.

"Yes," she said softly. "He’s... rooted too deeply. I don’t think anything can erase him completely. Not unless—"

She stopped herself.

Lucius caught it instantly. He took a step closer. "Unless what?"

Hermione didn’t answer. Her eyes dropped to the floor. "It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t understand."

He stared at her. "Don’t presume to tell me what I would or wouldn’t understand."

His voice had sharpened again, but the anger in it was hollow.

"You think you know me because of what you read. Because of what you imagined. But I am not that man, Hermione. Not anymore."

The way he said her name caught her off guard.

Soft. Deliberate. Not a weapon. Not a warning. Just... her name.

She felt it settle in her chest, and she hated that it stayed there.

"And yet," she said, almost to herself, "you still serve him. Don’t you? Voldemort. No matter what the future was, you’re still bound to him now."

Lucius flinched—barely, but it was enough. The truth stung more when it came from her.

"The Dark Lord isn’t so easily escaped," he said bitterly. "You’d do well to remember that."

They both fell quiet then, the weight of that truth sitting between them like fog.

Hermione studied him, her arms hugging tighter around her knees. She had spent years knowing the name Lucius Malfoy. Hating it, fearing it, surviving it. And now, here he stood—quiet, guarded, fraying at the edges in a way she hadn’t expected.

He was still cruel. Still cold. But not empty.

There was something else. Something deeper. Something uncertain.

Lucius stared at her for a long moment, unreadable. Then, at last, he turned.

"This isn’t over," he said quietly. "You and I... we’re tied together now. Whether we like it or not."

He paused, his voice almost low enough to be lost in the echo of the corridor. "I’ll find the answers, Hermione. And you’ll give them to me."

He walked out, his robes trailing behind him like shadow.

But the mark on his hand still burned. And the silence she left in his wake followed him up the stairs.

Lucius Malfoy didn’t believe in fate.
He didn’t believe in bonds, or destiny, or magic that couldn’t be undone.

And yet—he was starting to.

And it terrified him.

The decision to move herr from the dungeons was not made lightly.

It kept him up. For days. Pacing long hallways in silence, the sound of his footsteps echoing off marble and glass, his hands clenched at his sides, his thoughts circling the same question over and over: Why does she still occupy my mind when she is no longer in the room?

She was a prisoner. A stranger. A threat.

And yet.

Each time he descended the cold stone stairs to that cell, something in him tightened—not just from the bond, not just from the mark, but from the sight of her. Sleepless, pale, stiff with cold. Still stubborn. Still proud. But suffering. He had told himself it was necessary. That discomfort was a tool. That isolation would wear her down.

But it hadn’t. In the end, he told himself it was strategy. That was the line he repeated to himself when he called for the house-elves, when he gave the order to move her. She’ll think better in a proper room. She’ll speak more freely if her spine isn’t frozen stiff. She’ll be stronger—easier to interrogate. It’s logical. Efficient.

He refused to name the flicker of guilt that had started nagging at him each time he’d seen her shivering, her fingers red from the cold.

The room he chose was modest—by Malfoy Manor standards, anyway. Small, square, clean. Pale green walls. A narrow window that overlooked the edge of the gardens. A fireplace that hissed and crackled in the corner. A desk. A single chair. A bed with clean linens, folded precisely. No luxury. But no cruelty, either.

When she was brought there—flanked by two house-elves, her hands unbound but her wand still taken—Hermione paused in the doorway.

She stepped through slowly, stopping short as her eyes scanned the room. Her brow furrowed.

It wasn’t relief he saw on her face.

It was confusion. Mistrust.

She turned toward him.

“Why?” she asked. Her voice was low, edged with exhaustion, but still steady.

Lucius didn’t answer immediately. He looked past her, toward the fireplace. “You’ll be more useful to me here,” he said at last, his tone clipped. “I need answers. I can’t get them if you’re half-frozen and half-starved.”

She stared at him.

“That’s not the real reason,” she said.

Lucius’s jaw flexed. “Believe what you like.”

“You’ve been down there every night,” she continued. “Asking questions you already asked the day before. Watching me. Why?”

He didn’t answer.

“Why are you so afraid of this?” she asked, stepping into the room now, her arms crossed tightly. “Of the mark? Of me?”

He finally looked at her. Sharp. Cold.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“No?” Her voice was softer now, but more dangerous. “Then what are you?”

Lucius took a slow breath. His fingers twitched at his side.

“I don’t owe you those answers.”

She nodded once. “No,” she said quietly. “You don’t. But you keep coming back anyway.”

She studied him for a beat longer. As though waiting for something—an explanation, an apology, a flicker of something human. When she didn’t get it, she stepped inside. Slowly. Her fingers grazed the edge of the desk, the back of the chair.

Their eyes met and held.

Something passed between them then—not warmth, not exactly. Not trust.

But something aware. Something undeniable.

Lucius broke the moment first.

“You’ll stay here. You’ll be brought meals. Books, if you need them. But don’t mistake this for kindness, Miss Granger. You’re still a prisoner. Just a more... presentable one.”

Hermione’s lip curled faintly. “Of course,” she murmured. “Because appearances are everything.”

Lucius said nothing.

She stepped farther into the room, moving toward the desk. Her fingertips grazed the surface absently. It was clean. The parchment stacked neatly. The chair pulled out just so. It felt... prepared. As if someone had thought about how she would move inside the space.

She turned back to him.

“Why now?”

Lucius raised an eyebrow.

She clarified. “You could’ve moved me days ago. Why wait?”

A long pause stretched between them.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter.

“Because I didn’t trust myself to.”

The admission hung there, startlingly honest and strange. Before she could reply, he turned and strode toward the door.

He stopped just before leaving, his back to her.

“You have everything you need,” he said, voice measured again. “But don’t mistake this room for freedom.”

And then he was gone, the door shutting behind him with a quiet finality.

Hermione stood alone in the center of the room, staring at the closed door. The fire crackled softly. A cold wind slipped in beneath the window, brushing her bare arms.

She didn’t turn.

Lucius lingered outside for a few seconds longer than he should have. Listening. Thinking. Then he turned and walked away, the imprint on his hand burning quietly beneath his glove.

Inside the room, Hermione stood in the stillness, staring at the window. The glass was warped slightly, the view soft and cold with late winter light.

It wasn’t freedom.

But it wasn’t the dungeon.

And somehow, that unsettled her more than chains ever could.

Abraxas Malfoy’s reaction was as swift as it was venomous.

“You’ve moved her where?”

His voice rang through Lucius’s study like a crack of thunder. The door hadn’t even closed behind him. He didn’t wait to be offered a seat.

Lucius didn’t flinch. He remained behind his desk, seated in deliberate calm, fingers loosely curled over the armrests. “To a proper room,” he said evenly.

Abraxas stared at him, eyes blazing. “A room? She’s a prisoner.”

“She’s not a common criminal,” Lucius replied. “I need her alive. I need her coherent. The dungeons were no longer serving either purpose.”

Abraxas’s cane thudded once against the floor as he began to pace, his fury coiled tight beneath the surface. “You’re being reckless,” he hissed. “That girl—that mudblood—is a threat to this household. To our name. And you’re treating her like some delicate research subject—”

“I’m treating her like the key to an unprecedented magical phenomenon,” Lucius cut in. His voice was low. Flat. Dangerous. “Not a threat. A mystery.”

Abraxas’s jaw tightened. “Do you think I haven’t noticed?” he snapped. “The late nights. The guards dismissed. The endless hours spent in the dungeons like a dog hovering over scraps. Do you think no one is watching? And now Narcissa’s gone—walked out of this house without a word.”

Lucius’s expression didn’t change. But his fingers curled slightly tighter.

"Narcissa’s absence is temporary.”

“Temporary or not, it’s an insult,” Abraxas snapped. “To you. To this family. To the Dark Lord? And to the Blacks, who are already questioning this union. Do you know what this looks like? The Malfoy heir abandoning his bride for a mudblood in the basement?”

Lucius rose slowly from his chair. No sudden movements. No loss of control.

His eyes met Abraxas’s with cold precision.

“Narcissa’s absence is temporary,” he repeated. “She will return when she’s ready. The Dark Lord will not be kept waiting long. And the girl—Hermione—will remain under my supervision until I understand what this bond is and how far it reaches.”

Abraxas scoffed. “You speak her name now? As if she matters?”

Lucius didn’t respond. He didn’t have to.

Something flickered in Abraxas’s gaze then—uncertainty. It came and went so fast it could’ve been imagined.

“You’re playing with fire,” he said after a pause, quieter now. “She is poison. And if you think the Blacks are the only ones watching, you’re a greater fool than I thought.”

Lucius inclined his head slightly, the gesture cool and final. “I am aware of the stakes. You've made them perfectly clear.”

For a moment, they simply stared at each other—father and son, two reflections cut from the same ambition, now standing on opposite sides of something neither fully understood.

Abraxas said nothing more. He turned with a sharp sweep of his cloak and left, his cane striking the floor in harsh, even beats.

The door shut behind him.

But the tension he left behind hung in the air like smoke, sharp and heavy.

Lucius remained standing. His gaze drifted to the fire, but his thoughts were far from it.

Poison, his father had called her.

But Lucius couldn’t help but wonder—if that was true, why did he keep drinking?

Chapter Text

PART ONE

CHAPTER FOUR

Over the next few days, he returned more often than he meant to.

Always late. Always careful. Always when the halls were quiet and no one was watching.

He never stayed long. Never sat. The visits were brief, structured, clinical—at least at first.

The questions came sharply: what she knew, what she had seen, what she had done before the Time-Turner shattered. She answered little. Refused most. Not out of malice, but because she didn’t trust him—and didn’t pretend to.

Lucius, to his credit, didn’t pretend to trust her either.

Their conversations were jagged at the edges, laced with caution. She watched him like one might watch a predator who had chosen—for now—not to bite. He watched her like a cipher he hadn’t yet cracked.

But something began to shift.

It wasn’t obvious—not in words or gestures. It lived in the silences between them, in the way she no longer flinched when he entered, and how he no longer questioned why he kept coming back.

One night, he arrived later than usual. The fire had already been lit, casting flickering shadows against the pale green walls. She was curled in the chair near the hearth, knees tucked up, gaze locked on the flames.

She didn’t look up when he walked in.

He stood near the door for a long moment before stepping inside.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here,” she said suddenly, as if the words had been sitting just beneath her tongue. “I had a life. People I cared about. A war I was part of. And now... now it’s all gone. Everything I thought I knew—everything I was trying to protect—it’s gone..”

He said nothing at first. He watched her from across the room, arms folded, one hand gloved, the other bare. TThe faint imprint on his palm was hidden in shadow, but he could feel it there, warm and pulsing.

“You don’t know that,” he said eventually. “The war might still come.”

She turned toward him, face lit with firelight. She didn’t look angry. Just tired. Hollowed out.

“Maybe,” she murmured. “But it won’t be the same war. The future I came from—the people, the choices—it unraveled the moment I landed here.”

He didn’t argue. Not this time.

The silence between them stretched, filled only by the quiet pop of burning logs.

Lucius hated this—this sense of being pulled toward something he couldn’t name, couldn’t control. He told himself it was the bond. Magic. Nothing more.

But it felt like more.

Each day she became harder to ignore. Harder to dismiss.

She haunted the edges of his thoughts—her voice, the way she carried her grief in silence, the weight in her eyes. She was not what he had expected. S

he didn’t plead. She didn’t flatter. She didn’t try to win anything from him.

And somehow, that made her more dangerous and harder to keep at a distance.

Still, he kept coming back.

And she, in turn, had stopped asking him to leave.

“I miss them,” she said, eyes still on the fire. “The ones who knew me. The ones I knew.”

He watched her carefully. “Friends?” he asked.

A small nod. But no names.

“And enemies?”

Another pause. Then, almost inaudibly, “Yes, no.”

He waited. But she didn’t elaborate.

“Why not speak of them?” he asked finally, his tone lacking accusation. Just quiet curiosity.

Her gaze didn’t leave the flames. “Because saying their names here feels like breaking something. Like dragging them into a version of the world that was never meant to hold them.”

He nodded once, slowly. He didn’t push again.

“You knew one of them,” she said after a while. “In my time. You were... different then.”

He said nothing.

She didn’t explain further. And he didn’t ask.

“You’re not like him,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “But not entirely unlike him either.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And who was I?”

She looked at him then. Not with challenge. Just quiet resolve.

“You were someone I didn’t trust,” she said simply. “But someone I couldn’t forget.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. So he said nothing.

The silence returned—but it was softer this time, less brittle. The fire flickered between them, casting light and shadow in turns.

Eventually, he straightened from the wall.

“Rest,” he said quietly. “You’ll need your strength.”

“For what?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. Just turned toward the door, his hand brushing the mark beneath his glove as he went.

And when the door shut behind him, she stared into the fire and realized—no matter how hard she tried to fight it—the air always felt heavier after he left.

And warmer when he was near.

The tension between them was no longer subtle.

It lingered in the air like smoke—thick, clinging, impossible to wave away. Neither of them named it. Neither acknowledged the way it shifted the room when they were alone. But it was there. Pressed between them like something alive.

It had started in fragments—brushed fingers, a glance held a second too long. The way his voice dropped when he asked her a question. The way she hesitated before answering.

It should’ve been nothing.

But it wasn’t.

He still came under the guise of questions. Always questions. About the future. About the war. About the bond that pulsed between them like a second heartbeat.

But each visit felt less like an interrogation and more like a game—an unspoken, careful circling. A rhythm neither of them understood but both kept falling into.

She sat near the fire most evenings now, tucked into the corner with a book he’d brought her, always pretending to read. He stood near the window, pacing. Watching.

She hated how aware she’d become of him—of the way he moved, of the sound of his footsteps, of the faint shift in the air when he entered the room. She hated how her breath caught when he passed too close. How her eyes followed the line of his throat, or the way his voice turned soft when he thought she wasn’t really listening.

She didn’t trust him. She reminded herself of that often. He was still who he was—cold, sharp, cruel in ways that didn’t need to be spoken aloud.

And yet... her hands still trembled long after he left.

He told himself it was the bond.

That the draw he felt—the pull toward her, the way his thoughts twisted around her voice, her face, her silences—was magic. Not desire. Not anything real. She was wrong in every way that mattered—wrong blood, wrong history, wrong kind of magic—and yet she took up space in his thoughts like she belonged there.

Unsettled him.

She wasn’t afraid of him. Not exactly. And she didn’t beg, or flatter, or try to win him.

She simply was—steady, stubborn, quiet. She met his gaze and held it. She listened and said very little. And still, she got under his skin more than anyone ever had.

That night, the room was warm with firelight. She sat curled into herself, a book in her lap, legs drawn beneath her. He stood across from her, posture stiff, jaw tight. His hands were behind his back, but his eyes hadn’t left her.

The silence between them stretched.

“Do you stare at everyone like that,” she asked without looking up, “or am I just lucky?”

The words were sharp, but something behind them trembled.

He tilted his head. “You’re the only one worth staring at,” he said quietly.

Her fingers froze on the page. Her chest rose, slow and unsteady.

“Maybe you should spend less time staring and more time questioning your loyalties,” she said. But it came out too soft to sound convincing.

He stepped closer, unhurried. The sound of his boots on stone made her flinch—just slightly—but she didn’t move.

“I question everything,” he murmured. “That’s what makes me dangerous. It’s how I survive.”

She looked up—and found him closer than she expected.

Close enough to see the faint flicker in his eyes. The heat.

“And what am I?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t steady. “Just another question?”

He didn’t smile. Then, his voice dropped, low and steady. “No,” he said. “You’re a complication I didn’t plan for. Never asked for. A distraction I can’t seem to forget.”

Her breath hitched. The room felt suddenly too small. Too still, too warm.

“And yet,” she said, “you keep coming back.”

His jaw tightened. His hand twitched at his side.

“You’re impossible to stay away from,” he said, and there was something almost raw in it. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

The words hung between them like a secret—weighty and close. She blinked up at him, lips parted, heart hammering.

He didn’t move. Didn’t touch her.

But she could feel it.

The way his gaze ran over her skin like a hand. The way the firelight cast shadows on his face—sharp lines and something darker beneath.

She wanted to move. To break it.

But her body stayed where it was, caught between fear and something deeper. Something reckless.

“I should leave,” he said suddenly. The words were hoarse. Strained.

“You should,” she whispered.

Neither of them moved.

The fire crackled softly in the hearth. Her throat felt dry. He looked at her like he was memorizing every inch of her—and then like he was trying to forget her entirely.

They stood on a line neither of them had drawn, and both of them knew—one step closer, and it would vanish completely.

He turned first, with visible effort. Reached for the door. But even as he opened it, he lingered.

Neither of them said goodnight.

When the door finally shut behind him, the air he left behind was still warm. And it smelled faintly of him.

She stared at the space he’d occupied for a long time after, the weight of his gaze still lingering on her skin.

The bond was magic, yes.

But this?

This was something else.

And it was getting harder to breathe.

The boundary broke the next evening.

Narcissa had returned to Malfoy Manor with the same icy elegance she carried when she left—head high, shoulders set, her silence sharp enough to draw blood. No dramatic declarations. No accusations. Just a glance through narrowed eyes as she passed him in the entry hall, her heels clicking crisply against the marble, each step deliberate. Controlled fury dressed in silk.

He greeted her with cool civility, offered only what was required. She didn’t linger. Didn’t follow. She ascended the stairs like the house belonged to her again, leaving him rooted in the cold hush that followed.

He should have gone after her. Should have said something—anything—to mend what had fractured.

But instead, he drifted.

Unconscious steps carried him away from the west staircase. Away from the woman who had returned wearing his name.

And toward the other.

By the time he reached the door, he wasn’t even surprised.

He didn’t knock. He just pushed it open.

The room was dimly lit, quiet but not cold. She was seated near the fire, her knees tucked up beneath her, the same book from yesterday resting in her lap. She looked up, startled—just for a moment—then composed herself.

Her voice was calm, even, though her eyes flicked over him with guarded wariness. “Your wife is back.”

“She is,” he said. He closed the door behind him with a soft click.

She set the book aside, shifting in her chair to face him more directly. “Shouldn’t you be with her?”

His jaw tensed. “This isn’t about her.”

She held his gaze for a long moment. “It never was, was it?”

He didn’t answer.

“I don’t understand you,” she said quietly. “You keep showing up and you never say what you actually mean. You don’t ask for anything. You don’t offer anything. You just stand there. Why do you keep coming back?” Her voice wasn’t accusatory. Worn. “What do you want from me?”

He crossed the room slowly, each step deliberate, but hesitant. As if he wasn’t entirely sure why he was there either.

“I don’t know,” he said, honest for once. “But I can’t seem to stop coming here.”

Another beat of silence.

Her voice dropped. “I don’t think I’m angry anymore.”

That startled him. His head tilted slightly. “No?”

“I think I’m just... tired of pretending this isn’t happening.”

He looked at her then—really looked. The way the firelight moved across her face. The curve of her mouth. The quiet, persistent strength in her eyes.

“There’s nothing rational about this,” he said. “Nothing planned. Nothing wanted.”

“And yet,” she whispered, “you’re still here.”

He moved toward her again—slow, measured steps across the carpeted floor. “Tell me to go,” he said softly. “Say it, and I will.”

Her breath caught. Her lips parted.

But no words came.

His hand lifted. Slow. Controlled. His fingers barely grazed her cheek, trailing down the line of her jaw with a touch that felt too careful to be accidental.

She didn’t move away.

“You don’t understand what this is doing to me,” he murmured, voice low, hoarse. “I’ve tried to ignore it. I can’t.”

He was too close. His scent, his heat—she could feel it like a current running beneath her skin. Her heart pounded. Her hands trembled at her sides.

“This is wrong,” she whispered.

“I know.”

And then he kissed her.

There was no prelude. No hesitation. His mouth met hers with a kind of restrained desperation, the kind born not from impulse but from long-denied need.

She froze at first—shocked by the softness of it, the heat, the way it felt like being struck from the inside out. Then her body responded before her mind could catch up. Her fingers curled into the front of his robes. She leaned in.

The moment deepened.

Magic stirred.

It wasn’t imagined. The bond—the thread between them—responded. Surged. As if the kiss had called it forward from where it had been sleeping. His hand burned beneath his glove. Her skin tingled where he touched her.

Lucius faltered for half a breath as the power licked up his spine, then gripped the back of her neck and pulled her closer.

The kiss was fire and ache, restraint unraveling.

When they finally broke apart, both of them were breathless. She stepped back first, her chest rising and falling, her lips swollen and her eyes wide with something she didn’t yet understand.

He looked ruined. Hair tousled. Jaw tight. Composure gone.

But neither of them spoke.

The silence stretched. Then finally, she did.

“This changes everything,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said. “It does.”

Her hand brushed her lips, as if trying to erase the feeling. “You should go.”

He nodded. But didn’t move right away.

Her voice was softer when she spoke again. “Please.”

That did it. He turned toward the door, his shoulders tense, his breath still uneven. And then he left—quietly. Without looking back.

The door closed softly behind him.

She stood in the middle of the room for a long time after, staring into the fire.

The heat of the kiss still burned in her skin—but it wasn’t the kiss that scared her.

It was the bond. The way it had answered them. The way it had sealed something neither of them had intended to open.

Upstairs, Narcissa sat motionless by her window, a glass of wine untouched in her hand. She had heard the door open. She had heard it close. She had seen the look in his eyes when he came back.

And whatever had changed while she was gone… She could feel it. And she had no intention of being left in the dark.

Chapter Text

The argument began with silence.

Narcissa hadn’t spoken through dinner. Not even when the plates were cleared or when Lucius poured her wine. Her posture was perfect. Her eyes cold. Her refusal louder than any outburst.

He knew it was coming.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” she said at last, her voice like frost cracking across glass.

Lucius didn’t look up. “I’ve been occupied.”

“Occupied,” she repeated, almost amused. “Yes. I’m sure she’s been keeping you very... busy.”

He set down his glass, slow and deliberate. “Careful.”

“Why?” Narcissa asked lightly. “Does it sting when I say it out loud? That you’ve been spending your nights in the west wing with a girl you’re supposed to have locked in chains?”

Lucius exhaled. “You know it’s not like that.”

“No, Lucius,” she said, rising from her chair. “I don’t. You don’t say anything anymore. You just disappear. You stare at walls. You flinch when I touch you. Do you even remember that you’re married?”

He stood too, the chair scraping back with a low groan of wood on stone. “This marriage was never built on affection.”

“No,” she said, lips curling. “It was built on status. On control. Things you used to be so good at. But not anymore. Now you’re unraveling for a girl who doesn’t even belong to this time.”

His jaw clenched.

“You're pathetic,” she added, too softly. “A Malfoy, undone by a mudblood girl with wild hair and secrets you’ll never understand.”

There it was. The final push.

He stepped around the table without a word, brushing past her. She didn’t stop him. Didn’t chase.

“Go on then,” Narcissa said as he reached the door. “Run to her.”

Lucius paused in the doorway. For one breath. Two.

Then he left.

She was reading again when he entered.

No knock. No warning. Just the door opening and his silhouette filling the threshold.

Her eyes lifted, already wary. But she didn’t speak. She could feel it—the storm in his chest, barely contained. It clung to him like smoke.

He closed the door behind him, walked toward her in slow, quiet steps, like something dangerous that hadn’t yet made up its mind.

She rose from her chair, heart already racing, a word forming on her lips—

But then he was there.

He didn’t say her name. He didn’t speak at all.

He just kissed her.

No hesitation. No questions.

His hand slid to the back of her neck, pulling her to him, and his mouth captured hers with a force that stole her breath. There was heat in it—frustration, hunger, surrender. Her hands gripped his chest, then his arms, grounding herself as the bond surged between them like a current. Magic flared beneath her skin, familiar now, and terrifying.

It was a kiss meant to silence everything. To quiet the noise. The rage. The questions.

She kissed him back.

Harder than she meant to. Desperate in ways she couldn’t explain. His fingers tangled in her hair. Her lips parted beneath his. The heat between them grew sharp and dangerous.

And then—

He pulled away.

Just like that.

She stood there, stunned, her chest heaving, the firelight flickering behind her.

He was already stepping back, his eyes unreadable. His mouth—kiss-bruised. His jaw tight.

He said nothing.

And then he turned and left.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Hermione stood in the stillness, her fingertips pressed to her lips. The magic still hummed in her veins, her skin flushed and her heart wild. She had no words. No clarity. Only the ghost of his mouth on hers and the echo of what they both refused to name.

The candlelight in the drawing room flickered low, casting long shadows across the carved paneling. Narcissa stood by the window, arms crossed, spine ramrod straight. Her reflection stared back at her—composed, elegant, icy.

But her pride was wounded. And it pulsed like a bruise beneath her skin.

She didn’t turn when she heard footsteps behind her. She didn’t need to.

“I thought you might come,” Abraxas said smoothly.

His voice was always calm. Controlled. But there was something in it tonight—something alert.

Narcissa turned slowly to face him. Her expression gave nothing away. Her voice, when it came, was quiet. Sharp. “He’s losing control.”

Abraxas didn’t ask who. He didn’t need to.

“He’s compromised,” she continued. “Obsessed with that girl. He won’t admit it, but I see it. I feel it.” She stepped forward, the click of her heels sharp in the silence. “He’s not thinking clearly. He’s letting her in.”

Abraxas said nothing for a moment. He studied her with narrowed eyes, thoughtful and still. Then he spoke, low and measured.

“I warned him.”

Narcissa’s throat tightened. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to be humiliated in your own house? Warnings mean nothing now. He’s unraveling in front of me. He touches me like I’m glass. He disappears without excuse. He kissed her, I know that.”

Her voice broke slightly at that. Just a crack. But Abraxas caught it.

His mouth curled into something cold and humorless.

“And now you want me to do something.”

Narcissa nodded once. “If he won't protect the Malfoy name, then you must. You said she was poison. So stop pretending you don’t see what it’s doing to him.”

Abraxas crossed the room in slow, deliberate steps. He stopped beside her, gaze fixed ahead. “He’s my son,” he said quietly.

“That’s why I came,” she replied. “Because you’re the only one he still listens to. The only one who can fix this before it’s too late.”

Abraxas tilted his head slightly, as if weighing something. “And what is it you want, Narcissa?” he asked. “The girl gone? Or your husband back?”

Her jaw tightened. “Both.”

A long pause followed.

Finally, Abraxas nodded once.

“I will take care of it.”

Narcissa exhaled, slow and shaky. Relief didn’t quite come—but resolve settled into her shoulders like armor.

Abraxas placed one hand on her shoulder. Brief. Formal.

And then he left the room, his footsteps soft against the marble.

The promise lingered behind him like smoke.

It wasn’t framed as punishment.

Abraxas never gave orders that way. No raised voice, no visible coercion. Just a gentle hand on the chessboard, moving the next piece into place.

“There’s business in Prague,” he said one morning, standing by the hearth in Lucius’s study. “Delicate, but straightforward. You’ll be back by the end of the week.”

Lucius hesitated. Just enough for Abraxas to notice.

“I assume you’re not so entangled in your... distractions,” Abraxas said mildly, “that you can’t manage a few days of diplomacy.”

Lucius met his father’s gaze. Cold. Measured.

“No,” he said. “Of course not.”

By nightfall, he was gone.

And the manor, once simmering with tension, fell into a hush.

Narcissa barely looked up from her mirror when the carriage pulled away. She simply watched his reflection disappear into the fog, her expression unreadable.

Abraxas waited until the second night to begin.

He moved with precision. No theatrics, no accusations. Only quiet steps and locked doors.

The first thing he did was enter the west wing himself.

He walked the corridor Lucius had frequented, pausing outside the room where the girl stayed. He didn’t knock. He didn’t open the door. He just stood there for a long moment, as though expecting the wood itself to whisper its secrets.

It didn’t.

The next day, he summoned the elves.

“What do you know of her?” he asked softly.

They fidgeted. Whimpered. Eyes wide. As if the question itself was cursed.

“She’s... polite,” one said. “Quiet. Reads.”

“And?”

“She doesn’t ask for much. She doesn’t speak names.”

Abraxas narrowed his eyes.

“Nothing else?”

The elves shook their heads. Together.

He turned to the records next.

House ledgers. Guest lists. Census archives. School registers.

He combed through the Malfoy family logs, through everything the Ministry tracked, through the vaults of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

There was nothing.

No record. No match.

No trace of her birth. No trace of her name.

It was as though she’d been pulled from air.

Abraxas stared down at the empty parchment for a long while, his fingers still against the polished desk. The fire cracked behind him, the only sound in the room.

A girl who knew too much. Who didn’t exist.

She had whispered something into Lucius’s blood, that much was clear. A poison. A spell. A curse wrapped in skin.

And she had no past.

Which made her more dangerous than he’d realized.

He had been in Prague for four days when the first tremor of regret hit.

The business was dull. Unnecessary. A series of pleasantries and posturing, with wizards twice his age asking questions they already knew the answers to. Lucius fulfilled each obligation flawlessly. He spoke when spoken to, offered the exact amount of insight to seem clever, and drank just enough to appear charming.

But it was a performance. And his mind was never in the room.

At night, in the apartment Abraxas had arranged for him, he sat by the window and stared at the frost forming on the panes. A soft wind moved through the chimney, whispering like a voice he almost recognized.

He didn’t sleep well. And he didn’t know why.

Not at first.

By the fifth day, he began to question the nature of the assignment.

There was nothing urgent here. No real crisis. Just old men trading rumors and posturing over land disputes that meant little to the Malfoy name.

And that’s when it occurred to him.

This was never about business.

This was about absence.

He was meant to be away.

Lucius stood at the corner of the study that night, firelight playing across the cut crystal in his glass. He stared into the flames, his expression tight.

He hadn’t felt the pull since he left the manor.

That was the part that disturbed him most.

The bond—the thing he could never explain, the strange thrum beneath his skin that had always led him back to her—had fallen silent the moment the carriage pulled away.

It should have faded slowly, if at all. Not like this. Not like a door slamming shut.

Not like a ward.

A trap, something in him whispered.

A separation. Forced.

And he’d walked into it willingly.

He set the glass down with too much force, the sound sharp in the stillness.

Lucius wasn’t prone to panic. His mind was trained for control, for patience, for cold calculation.

But this was different.

This was instinct.

Something wasn’t right.

And the silence in his veins, where her presence should have been, terrified him more than he wanted to admit.

By the sixth morning, he left Prague without sending word.

He didn’t wait for approval. Didn’t notify the hosts. He stepped through the Floo with nothing but his wand and the clothes on his back, landing in the Malfoy Manor study in a gust of ash and urgency.

The fire had long gone out.

The house was quiet.

Too quiet.

He didn’t call for the elves. He didn’t go to his father. He didn’t speak.

He went straight to the west wing.

And when he reached her door—

It was unlocked.

But she wasn’t inside.

Chapter Text

VI

The door opened without warning.

Hermione didn’t look up.

She remained in the armchair by the fire, her legs tucked beneath her, hands curled around the spine of a book she hadn’t touched in hours. The silence had grown thick since he left. A silence not just of the manor—but in her body. As though something had been unplugged inside her. A bond stretched too far, frayed at the edge.

She felt his absence like a missing limb.

So when the footsteps came—measured, elegant—she knew it wasn’t Lucius.

She still didn’t look up.

“Miss Granger,” came the voice. Low. Polished. Touched with amusement.

Hermione exhaled through her nose. Slowly. Quietly. She closed the book and set it on the small table beside her.

Then turned her head.

He was standing just inside the doorway, leaning slightly on his cane. His silver hair was pulled neatly back, and his robes were impeccable—fine velvet, dark as ink. A gentleman, by all appearances.

But his eyes—his eyes were knives dipped in honey.

“Forgive the intrusion,” Abraxas said. “I thought you might appreciate some conversation. It must be terribly dull here, alone.”

Hermione said nothing.

Her gaze held his.

Unmoving.

He smiled.

“It’s remarkable, truly,” he said after a pause, stepping further into the room. “Your silence. One might mistake it for strength.” He studied her face carefully. “Or fear. But I suppose you’re too clever for either.”

Still, she said nothing.

Abraxas let out a small laugh, as if charmed. “You look quite different from the stories,” he said lightly, glancing around the room. “I expected someone more... obvious. More flame and fury. You’re quite tame, really.”

She held his gaze. Refused to react.

He moved closer, with all the ease of someone used to owning every space he entered. “Lucius has been very distracted by you, you know. He speaks little, but he rarely does when he’s confused.” A beat. “I don’t enjoy confusion.”

Hermione lifted her chin.

The first sign of acknowledgment. But not a word.

Abraxas’s lips curved. “I wonder what he sees in you. No name, no history you’ll share. No pedigree. No magic of note, and yet—” He stepped close enough now to catch the scent of her hair. “He returned to you again and again.”

Hermione’s pulse quickened.

He noticed.

“I understand you’ve bonded,” he said, lowering his voice as if offering a confidence. “But bonds are not always what they seem. They can be forged. Manufactured. Even cursed. We live in a complicated world.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said suddenly.

Her voice cracked from disuse, but her words were sharp.

Abraxas smiled.

“Of course you’re not,” he said, pleased. “That’s what makes you interesting.”

He studied her for a long moment—head tilted slightly, like a collector examining a relic he wasn’t sure he wanted to preserve or break.

Then he stepped back.

“I do hope you’ll come to trust me, Miss Granger,” he said, voice velvet-smooth again. “I only want to understand you. After all... Lucius is family. And anything that touches my son—touches us all.”

With a final, polite nod, he turned and walked out, the cane tapping once on the threshold before the door clicked shut behind him.

Hermione exhaled slowly. Her fingers were trembling.

She hadn’t touched her tea. It had gone cold on the table beside her.

And somewhere in the corridor beyond that door, Narcissa Black Malfoy was waiting.

Smiling.

The thought came to her in fragments.
Like a whisper in the dark.
Run.
Just run.

It was a stupid, impossible thought—but it came, sharp and aching, in the stillness of her room after Abraxas left.

Hermione could feel it bubbling under her skin, a pressure—tight, urgent, irrational. Her body itched to move. To claw through the walls. To vanish.

But then reality settled over her like a wet cloak.

No wand.

No allies.

No Time-Turner.

The world she’d come from—the war, the friends, the future—was gone. Or, worse, waiting. Somewhere ahead or behind, tangled in timelines she no longer had the power to control.

She had nothing—she imagined the front gates, imagined slipping through them in the dead of night and disappearing into the trees. Into a world that didn’t know her name. But then reality settled, as cold and unforgiving as the manor stone beneath her feet. 

She stared out the narrow window.

And stayed.

Lucius didn’t return the next night.

Or the one after.

She told herself it was a relief. That she could breathe more easily with him gone. That the fire in her chest had dimmed without him near.

But it wasn’t true.

She started watching the clock more. Listening harder for footsteps in the hall. A sound. A presence. A breath that wasn’t hers.

A part of her began to ache.

Abraxas came every evening.

Always dressed in dark, refined layers. Always unhurried. Always with that courtly smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

He would offer, “A short walk in the garden, Miss Granger. The air might do you some good.”

She refused. Every time.

Once she didn’t even speak—just stared at him until he left.

But on the fifth night, something shifted.

She was restless. Her skin felt too tight. The air in the room stifled.

But on the fifth night, something gave way.

A crack, a breath, a whisper. And she said yes.

The garden was colder than she expected.

Night clung to the hedges, casting long shadows over the gravel path. The moon hung heavy above them, pale and silent, watching.

Abraxas didn’t speak at first.

Neither did she.

She walked beside Abraxas. 

He had offered, again. And this time—this one time—she had said yes.

The air in her room had grown unbearable. She hadn’t seen Lucius in nearly a week. The silence stretched longer with each passing night, fraying something inside her. The part that had learned to stay alert, to keep sharp, had dulled. Just enough.

Abraxas moved with practiced elegance, his cane tapping the stones like a metronome. For a while, neither of them spoke. But she knew it wouldn’t last.

It didn’t.

“I find it quite tragic, in a way,” he said at last, as though commenting on the state of the roses. “You’ve traveled so far. Survived so much. And still ended up caged.”

Hermione’s jaw tightened. “Not by choice.”

“Of course not.” He smiled, as if that settled everything. “Though I imagine you’ve made your peace with certain comforts. A proper bed. Books. A man’s attention.”

She stopped walking.

Turned to him. Slowly.

“Whatever game you’re playing—”

“I’m not playing,” he said, soft and warm, like a father humoring a child. “That’s for my son.”

She flinched before she could stop it.

His smile never wavered.

“I know what he’s done. What he’s… feeling,” he added, and the way he said it made it sound like rot. “And I know what you’re doing to him.”

“I’m not doing anything—”

“Oh, but you are.” He stepped just close enough to touch. “You’ve tangled him in something. Ancient magic, maybe. Or just the oldest kind of trap.”

His eyes glittered. Cold and calculating.

“You’re clever. I’ll give you that. But you’re not invisible.”

The air between them turned still.

And thin.

He leaned in, voice low. “And you’re not safe. Not here. Not forever. So if I were you… I’d consider very carefully which direction I tilt my favor. Or I might find myself out of rooms. Out of protectors. Out of time.”

He reached out—almost casually—as if to brush a curl from her face.

Hermione stepped back.

A breath.

A line drawn.

Abraxas stilled.

“Good girl,” he murmured. “Learn to move when danger’s near.”

She didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. Her stomach coiled, tight as a fist. Her heart thudded behind her ribs like it was trying to escape.

Abraxas turned slightly, glancing down the path.

And stopped.

A rustle. A presence.

Hermione followed his gaze.

Lucius stood at the edge of the garden path, shadow and moonlight playing across his face. His eyes, always cold, were lit with something colder now—something sharper than fury. His jaw was clenched. His wand hand steady at his side.

“I suggest you take your own advice, Father,” he said, voice like broken glass.

Abraxas didn’t turn. “You’re back.”

“Clearly.”

Lucius’s eyes never left Hermione’s.

And hers—God help her—didn’t leave his.

She couldn’t speak.

She didn’t move.

The bond between them, quiet for days, flared in her chest like a pulse finally restarting.

Lucius stepped forward.

And Abraxas, after a pause, nodded once to her with mock courtesy—then turned and disappeared into the hedges, his cane tapping soft warnings into the stone.

Lucius didn’t speak.

He just walked to her.

Stopped close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath against the cold.

Her voice was a whisper. “You came back.”

His hand lifted—hesitating, then brushing a curl behind her ear. “I never should have left.”

She didn’t answer.

She didn’t need to.

“I shouldn’t have left you,” he said again. The words tasted bitter, like failure.

Hermione didn’t answer. Her throat was too tight.

She felt the warmth of his hand before he touched her—his palm grazing her cheek in a gesture that was more grounding than tender. As though he had to be sure she was real. That she hadn’t vanished like the bond nearly had.

“I couldn't feel you,” he murmured. “I’ve never known silence like that.”

“I thought—” She swallowed hard. “I thought something had snapped.”

“It did,” he said. “And I think I did too.”

Their eyes locked.

They walked back in silence, their hands brushing once before Lucius gently took hers, his grip steady, unspoken. The manor was quiet, heavy with shadow, and neither of them spoke as they moved through the halls toward her chamber. At the door, he paused—his gaze dark, searching—before she gave the smallest nod.

And the space between them—already stretched thin—broke.

He reached for her, not with hesitation but with hunger.

The kiss came fast. Fierce. Nothing careful about it. His mouth crushed hers like he’d been starved, and maybe he had. Her hands fisted in the front of his cloak, pulling him down as his body pressed hers into the door, one hand braced beside her head, the other slipping into her curls like he needed something to hold onto or he’d come undone.

Hermione gasped into the heat of him, her lips parting as he deepened the kiss—hot, aching, breathless. Her back arched as the tension that had coiled through her since the moment he vanished finally snapped. This wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. It was the kind of kiss that came after fear. After being pushed too far. After nearly being taken away from something you didn’t yet know you needed.

Lucius groaned low against her mouth, his hand gripping her waist to pull her closer still, like he couldn’t bear even an inch of space. His kiss trailed to her jaw, her throat—his breath hot, his control fraying with every second.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he muttered against her skin.

“You didn’t.”

Her voice was breathless, threaded with need.

He looked at her then. Truly looked. Her flushed cheeks, her swollen lips, her chest rising fast beneath her shift.

“I need—” he started, voice rough.

She kissed him again before he could finish. Slower this time. But no less desperate.

By the time he finally pulled away, they were both flushed and breathing hard, their bodies still pressed together in the quiet dark of her chamber.

Lucius touched his forehead to hers, still catching his breath. “You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

“I know.”

He didn’t ask for permission. He didn’t need to.

She stepped back and let him follow her inside.

The fire was still low. The room silent.

He closed the door behind them and locked it with a flick of his wand. Then turned to her, not saying a word. The silence between them wasn’t empty anymore.

It was full of what they both knew was coming.

And neither of them moved away.

Chapter Text

VII

They barely made it through the door.

Lucius didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

Hermione felt him behind her before she even turned. The air between them was thick, charged with something they’d both spent too long trying to ignore. His breath hitched—hers caught. And when his hand finally caught her wrist, she didn’t pull away.

He spun her gently, pushed her back into the door as it shut behind them, and kissed her like he couldn’t breathe unless he did. It wasn’t tentative. It wasn’t soft.

It was need.

It was him, all ice and hunger and quiet desperation, poured into the press of his mouth against hers.

She gasped, hands flying up to his chest, not to stop him—she didn’t want him to stop—but because she didn’t know what else to hold onto. His body pressed against hers, solid and shaking slightly. His kiss was deep, dragging, like he was trying to taste everything she hadn’t said aloud. Her fingers twisted in the collar of his robes.

She didn’t recognize the sound she made when his hands gripped her waist and lifted her.

And she didn’t care.

They stumbled toward the bed, clothes half-undone and breaths breaking between them. No teasing. No pretense. This wasn’t about seduction. It was about the bond—the thing between them that had become unbearable.

The room felt alive. Not metaphorically. Literally.

The air shimmered faintly, thick with magic. Not his. Not hers. Theirs.

And it wanted. Demanded. Fed.

Everywhere he touched her, she felt it flare—heat and light blooming under her skin. Her body trembled, breath ragged as his hands found her again, as his mouth traced the line of her jaw and the soft space just below her ear.

“Merlin—” she gasped, too breathless to finish.

She could feel him. Not just physically—inside her head, her chest, her blood. The bond had opened wide. Every piece of him was pressed into her now, and not just skin to skin. Emotion, thought, ache. She felt his need, the strain in him, the tight coil of restraint he’d been clinging to—and how it snapped the second she kissed him back.

His forehead came to rest against hers. His breath was warm, shallow, brushing her lips.

“I tried,” he whispered, voice wrecked. “I tried not to—”

“I know,” she breathed. “So did I.”

There was no hesitation after that.

When he moved inside her, it wasn’t just physical. It was everything. Raw and bare and consuming. Her nails dragged over his shoulders, her legs wrapped around him, and the bond lit up with each movement. Like their magic was waiting for this—for them—to finally stop pretending.

The room pulsed with it. Every sound felt louder, every sensation deeper.

Her body arched. His voice broke. And through it all, the bond burned brighter—sparking, humming, whispering in the back of her mind. Not words exactly. Just feeling. Want. Keep. Mine.

And she felt it too.

Not control. Not submission. Just joining.

Not giving in—giving up. All of it. To him. With him.

He groaned something against her shoulder—her name, or maybe just her—and she buried her face in his neck, her breath caught on a moan as everything peaked, as her magic snapped free and tangled with his.

And then—

Stillness.

Like everything in the world had been rewired around them.

He didn’t move. Just kept his hands on her hips. Kept his body curled around hers like he was holding something too precious to let go of.

Their breathing was the only sound. That, and the quiet thrum of magic between them. The bond was quieter now. Full. But still there. Still awake.

Hermione didn’t say anything.

Neither did he.

They stayed there, tangled together, his skin warm against hers, her fingers curled loosely in his hair, the space between them filled with everything they couldn’t quite name.

It wasn’t over. It was just beginning.

They hadn’t moved.

Not really.

Lucius lay beside her now, propped slightly on one elbow, his body still warm against hers, the sheets tangled low at their waists. Her curls were damp at the temples. Her chest rose and fell in slow, measured breaths. But she hadn’t looked away from him once.

He wanted to say something. He didn’t know what.

Instead, he reached for her hand—hesitant, unsure—and when she didn’t flinch, when her fingers slid into his like they had always belonged there, he exhaled. The kind of breath you didn’t know you’d been holding.

“I should’ve given you time,” he said quietly. “I didn’t. I—” He broke off, jaw tight, brow furrowed. “I just… didn’t know how.”

Her eyes didn’t soften. Not quite. But they steadied on his. Like she saw through every layer of calculation he usually hid behind.

And then she laughed.

Not mocking. Not bitter.

Just real.

Startled, startled even herself, maybe—but real. It bubbled up without warning, low and breathless and a little incredulous, and it filled the space between them like light cracking through a window that had stayed shut too long.

Lucius blinked.

It was the first time he’d heard her laugh like that.

Unburdened. Free, even if only for a heartbeat.

“You didn’t need to give me time,” she said, still smiling faintly, her voice husky with the rasp of magic and breathlessness. “It was never going to matter.”

His brow lifted, confused.

She shifted closer, their knees brushing beneath the sheets, her gaze searching his.

“This,” she murmured, “was always going to happen. Whether we admitted it or not. Whether we ran from it or not. It was… unavoidable.”

The word settled between them.

Not heavy. Not regretful.

Just true.

Lucius studied her face for a long, quiet moment. And then he reached up, brushing a loose curl from her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

“You’re not what I expected,” he said softly.

Hermione smirked faintly. “Neither are you.”

He let out a low hum of amusement, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He was still watching her like he wasn’t sure she was real. Or maybe he was afraid she wouldn’t still be here if he blinked.

And she was watching him too.

Not as a captor.

Not even as an enemy.

But something else now. Something quieter. Stranger. More dangerous.

Known.

The bond pulsed between them. Not loud. Not hungry. Just alive. Settled. Waiting.

And for the first time since she’d landed here—whatever here was—Hermione didn’t feel quite so lost.

She woke to warmth.

Not magic. Not the restless heat of a bond thrumming wild beneath her skin. Just—warmth. Human. Quiet. Still.

Lucius hadn’t left.

She could feel the weight of his arm across her waist, the soft rise and fall of his breath against her shoulder. He hadn’t vanished into shadow or silence or guilt. He’d stayed.

She blinked slowly in the pale morning light filtering through the curtains, her body sore and aching in ways that felt too big to name. Not just from what they’d done—but from what they’d crossed. From what had broken open.

He stirred behind her, his breath catching as he shifted closer. She didn’t move.

“Are you awake?” His voice was still rough with sleep. Softer than she’d ever heard it.

She nodded.

He didn’t speak again right away. Just pressed his lips to her shoulder, lingering there. As if grounding himself. As if apologizing without words.

And then—

“I want to see you.”

She blinked up at him, her pulse flickering.

“I want to see you,” he said again, his voice low. “But not just like this. I want you to let me.”

“You already have,” she said softly.

He shook his head once. “Last night was instinct. Magic. Fire. This—what I want now—is something else.”

He reached for her hand, brushing his thumb across her palm. “I want your trust. All of it. Not just what the bond demands. I want you to give yourself to me… not because you have to. But because you choose to.”

Her throat tightened. She didn’t speak.

He leaned in, his mouth near her ear. “Let me worship you,” he whispered. “Let me show you what it means to be seen. To be held. To be wanted… as you are. Not because of the bond. Not because of fate. Just because you’re you.”

Her eyes burned.

Vulnerability cracked something inside her. Letting him see her like this—soft, still, undone—was harder than anything she'd faced in war.

But slowly, she sat up. Let the sheet fall from her shoulders. Her breath trembled. And still, she held his gaze.

Lucius inhaled like she’d struck him.

She lay in front of him, bare and open, lowering her gaze—not in shame, but in surrender. Not forced. Not commanded. Offered.

Her voice, when it came, was barely above a whisper. “Then show me.”

He moved slowly. Carefully. Like she was something sacred.

His hands touched her first—palms warm, reverent. No rush. No hunger. He moved around her as if learning her body note by note, trailing his fingers down her spine, across the curves of her hips, the backs of her knees. Her breath caught at every gentle pass, each one grounding her deeper into the moment.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured.

“I’ve never… let anyone see me like this,” she admitted.

Lucius lowered to his knees before her, his hands resting on her thighs. “Then I’ll be the first,” he said, voice like silk. “And I’ll earn it.”

He kissed the inside of her knee, the curve of her hip, the base of her throat. No part of her body was rushed. Every inch was honored. Cherished.

Her eyes fluttered closed as he worshipped her—not as a symbol, not as a witch, not even as a lover—but as Hermione. As a woman stripped of defenses, choosing to trust a man who once stood on the other side of everything.

When he finally touched her more deeply, her breath caught—but it wasn’t lust that bloomed in her chest. It was the ache of being seen. Of being wanted for no other reason than who she was beneath the fire and the fight.

Lucius pressed his lips to her heart.

She didn’t know when the worship turned into hunger.

One moment, he was on his knees, reverent and patient, his mouth barely brushing the inside of her thigh. The next—he was rising, eyes darker now, jaw clenched with restraint, the edges of his control fraying.

Hermione felt it first—not the kiss, not the touch—but the shift. The ache that tightened low in her belly. The heat that spread between her legs with every pass of his breath. She had been seen, yes. Held. But now… she wanted to be taken.

“Lucius,” she breathed, her voice catching on the edge of something sharp. “Please.”

He didn’t ask what she meant.

He stood before her now, taller, broader, beautiful in a way that made her chest twist. His shirt had fallen open, revealing the long line of his torso—lean, sculpted, every inch of him deliberate. She reached for him, fingers trembling, and he let her touch. Let her feel.

“You look at me like I’m someone else,” he said, voice rough as gravel.

She shook her head slowly. “No… not someone else. Just not who I thought.”

His eyes searched hers, something hot and devastating burning behind them. And then he crushed his mouth to hers, all reverence forgotten.

This kiss wasn’t careful. It wasn’t polite. It was claiming—teeth and tongue and breathless sounds swallowed between them. She moaned into him, wrapping her legs around his hips as he lifted her. Her back hit the mattress with a gasp, her curls fanning across the pillow, her skin burning.

Lucius followed, stripping his shirt away as he moved over her. His body pressed into hers, chest to chest, skin to skin, and the bond roared to life between them—sparking along her ribs, up her spine, through the tips of her fingers.

His hands mapped her like he’d dreamed of this a thousand times. Her breasts, full and aching beneath his palms. The soft swell of her stomach, the dip of her hipbone, the inside of her thighs already slick and trembling.

“Look at you,” he murmured, his voice almost reverent again, even as his fingers slid lower. “You’re shaking.”

“Because I need you,” she choked, hips arching helplessly toward him. “Lucius—I need—”

He groaned, like her words undid something in him. His mouth found her breast, his hand her heat. She gasped, legs falling open wider, the shame swallowed by the hunger.

There was no teasing. No waiting.

He slid two fingers inside her—slow, deep—and she cried out, the sound desperate, unguarded. Her hands clutched at his shoulders, nails dragging across his skin as her body opened to him, as the bond fed on the pressure, the rhythm, the need.

Her orgasm hit fast—unexpected, raw. She came with a sob, biting into his shoulder as the magic pulsed through her, as his name tore from her lips.

But he wasn’t done.

Lucius moved over her, pulled her legs around his waist. His cock pressed against her slick entrance—hot, heavy, hard. Their eyes met. She nodded once. He pushed in.

They both gasped.

It was too much. It was perfect.

He filled her completely, his body slotting into hers like it had been meant. Hermione clung to him, head thrown back as the pressure built again, as he drove into her over and over, hips unforgiving. The bed creaked. The magic flared.

He was beautiful like this—wild, undone, sweat on his brow, his mouth open on a moan every time she clenched around him. She could feel his emotions pouring through the bond. Hunger. Possession. Worship. Mine.

“I can’t stop,” he gasped against her neck. “Hermione—I—fuck—I can’t—”

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

He growled—actually growled—and thrust deeper, harder, until she was falling again, legs shaking, hands fisting the sheets. He followed her, his body going taut as he spilled inside her, their magic crashing together in a final blinding wave that left the room shimmering, the walls echoing with unspoken vows.

When the last tremor passed, Lucius collapsed beside her, chest heaving. Hermione turned to him, dazed, her fingers finding his.

He looked at her then—really looked.

“I should apologize,” he rasped. “For not giving you time. For… not waiting.”

Hermione laughed, breathless and shaking. Her head dropped against his chest. “There was never going to be enough time.”

He smiled—small and real.

She looked up at him. “It was always going to end like this.”

He nodded once. “Yes. It was.”

And for the first time, neither of them fought it.

She didn’t fall asleep right away after he left. 

The sheets were still warm where his body had been. His scent lingered on her skin—dark, sharp, unmistakably him. Her legs ached in the way that made her breath catch. Her lips were swollen. Her chest tight. But it was the magic—the bond—that kept her awake.

It felt different now.

Before, it had been a tether. Invisible. Subtle. Always there, humming beneath her skin like an unanswered question. But now—it was a presence. A second pulse. A weight beneath her ribs that rose and fell in time with her breath. It wrapped around her like a second skin. Pressed into her thoughts. Brushed the backs of her teeth when she spoke his name in her mind.

Lucius.

It shouldn’t have happened. That’s what she had told herself again and again—every time he walked into her room, every time his voice dropped too low, every time his fingers brushed too close. It shouldn’t have happened.

But it had.

And now—now she was his. Not in name. Not in law. But in something deeper. More ancient. She could feel him still. His lingering thoughts like echoes. His hunger—sated but not gone. His need. His claim.

It filled the room long after he had gone.

She lay on her side, sheets twisted around her thighs, one hand curled against her stomach. Her heart beat unevenly beneath her palm. She had imagined the bond would settle after being fed—like a hunger finally silenced.

But it hadn’t quieted. If anything, it had grown louder.

Not painful. Not violent. But undeniable.

She closed her eyes, trying to push away the memory of his mouth on her throat, the rasp of his voice as he whispered things she had never expected from him. His need had been more than physical. It had been desperate. Emotional. Terrifying.

And something in her—some buried, unguarded part—had responded.

The worst part wasn’t that he had changed. The worst part was that she had. Her body had betrayed her long ago. But now… her mind was slipping. Her heart was opening.

And the bond was no longer pulling her in one direction.

It was pulling her apart.

Chapter Text

VIII

By morning, the mask was back in place.

Pressed and pristine. Hair neatly combed. Robes without a single wrinkle. The man in the mirror looked every inch the heir to the Malfoy legacy. But the man beneath the mask—he was still tangled in the scent of her skin. In the sounds she’d made. In the way she’d clung to him when the bond had finally taken them both whole.

He had barely shut the door behind him when the summons arrived.

A house-elf trembling in the corridor. A note bearing his father’s crest. No words. Just a time and place. Breakfast. Study.

Lucius did not keep Abraxas Malfoy waiting.

When he entered the room, the air was colder than it should’ve been. The hearth was lit, but there was no warmth. Only stillness.

Abraxas sat behind his desk with his hands folded, his expression unreadable. That alone set Lucius on edge.

“Sit,” the old man said.

Lucius obeyed, wordless, spine straight.

Abraxas didn’t speak right away. He simply studied his son for a long, uncomfortable moment—like he was looking for a crack. A slip. The barest betrayal of truth beneath the veneer.

“You look rested,” he said at last.

Lucius inclined his head. “As much as any man in this house.”

That earned a small smile. Not kind. Not amused. The kind that slithered. “I imagine your night has been… occupied.”

Lucius said nothing. But his jaw ticked.

Abraxas leaned back slightly. “You always were too indulgent,” he mused. “Too curious. And yet here we are. Back where we began. But now the girl’s not in a cell.”

Still, Lucius said nothing. Silence was safer.

Abraxas’s eyes gleamed faintly, hard as polished glass. “She’s clever,” he continued. “I had a conversation with her, actually. Walked the gardens, as you may noticed. Quite the resilient little witch.”

Lucius’s spine stiffened, almost imperceptibly.

“She doesn’t speak much,” Abraxas said lightly. “But her eyes say enough. Especially when she thinks she’s in danger.”

Lucius’s fingers curled against the armrest, blood rushing in his ears.

“I know what you’re doing,” Abraxas said, voice now a low hum. “And I’m telling you, Lucius—you’re being played. You think this is magic? Fate? Some bond wrapped in destiny?” He leaned forward, eyes sharp. “It’s manipulation. She’s found her place in your weakness.”

Lucius didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. But something in his chest twisted. Not with doubt. With fury.

“She doesn’t belong here,” Abraxas said. “And she certainly doesn’t belong to you.”

A beat.

Then another.

Lucius’s voice, when it came, was quiet. Too quiet. “Is that why you threatened her?”

That silenced the room.

Abraxas smiled. It was thin. “You’re emotional. That’s beneath you.”

Lucius didn’t move. “She told me.”

“Oh?” His father arched a brow. “And did she also tell you how easily she listens when one speaks softly enough? She likes walks. Responds well to calm. I was merely having a civil conversation.”

“Then allow me to return the favor,” Lucius said coldly. “Stay away from her.”

Abraxas stood, smooth and slow. “You think you can protect her from this house? From me? From Narcissa?”

That name hit its mark. Lucius exhaled slowly through his nose.

“She’s quiet, but she’s not blind,” Abraxas went on. “She knows. And she’s not the kind to cry in corners. She’s the kind who poisons wine glasses.”

Lucius stood as well, their eyes now level. Cold against cold.

“I’ll handle Narcissa,” he said. “And I’ll handle you.”

“Will you?” Abraxas said, voice like silk stretched over a blade. “Because I see a boy who’s already unraveling. Tell me, Lucius—what happens when she leaves? When she turns on you? Will you beg for her? Or destroy her?”

Lucius didn’t answer.

He simply turned and walked out, pulse pounding behind his eyes.

But as the door shut behind him, he knew something had shifted.

They were both planning something—Narcissa in her chambers with her silence and smiles, and Abraxas in this room with his patience and poison.

And he—he was caught between the legacy he was raised to protect, and the bond he was no longer sure he could live without.

Narcissa Black Malfoy did not pace. She glided. And she certainly did not rage.

Rage was for lesser women.

She preferred silence. Precision. Observation.

She sat now at her dressing table, brushing her hair with measured strokes, her mirror reflecting not just her own features but the narrowing lines of her patience. Behind her eyes, the chessboard moved. Quietly. Deliberately. Every expression calculated. Every word stored.

She had known, the moment she returned to the Manor, that something had shifted.

It wasn’t the silence between her and Lucius—there had always been silence.

No. It was the wrong kind of silence.

The kind that filled a room after a secret had been made.

At first, she let it play out. Watched the elves more than she watched her husband. They were better at revealing truth than any confrontation. She caught the way they hesitated before entering the west wing. Not fear. Not duty. Something closer to reverence.

And then there was the girl.

That thing her husband had dragged into their home under the pretense of obligation.

A mudblood, Narcissa had been told. A prisoner.

But no prisoner was moved to better quarters. No prisoner dined on fresh bread and warm soup. No prisoner received books in her chamber and long, quiet visits from her captor.

Captive, indeed, Narcissa thought now, pausing with the brush still in her hand. He’s the one being held.

She had caught glimpses of her—brief, careful glimpses. But it was enough.

The girl’s eyes said everything. That quiet, contained boldness. That trembling dignity that dared to keep her spine straight in a house that should have broken her.

Narcissa knew what women like that became if left unchecked.

She was a Black. And if the world taught her anything, it was this: the ones who pretend to be harmless are often the most dangerous.

But she would not confront her. Not yet.

That was Lucius’s mistake—going in too close. Touching fire before he learned its temperature.

No. Narcissa preferred subtlety. Slips in tea. Suggestions in passing. Questions without subjects.

She had already spoken to Abraxas. A single conversation, no louder than a sigh.

And now the wheels were turning.

He would stir the pot for her. He always did.

And while the men flared with anger and pride, she would wait. Quiet as smoke. Patient as poison.

Narcissa set down the brush.

In her mirror, her reflection looked composed. Controlled. Impeccable.

But inside, she was coiled tight.

Let them think they’re choosing sides, she thought as she slipped her robe over her shoulders. Let them think the game is about her.

She smiled.

It’s wasn't. 

Narcissa stood in the solar where the afternoon light spilled over old stone and velvet drapery. Her hands were folded at her waist, a picture of cold elegance. But her eyes, the stormy blue of winter skies, never left Abraxas.

“You want him back under control,” she said simply. “Then let me be useful.”

Abraxas scoffed. “You are useful. Decorative. Loyal—”

“I’m not asking,” she said, her voice crisp. “Let me approach the Dark Lord.”

The silence between them stretched. Abraxas’s expression shifted—wary now, not angry.

“He won’t see you,” he said.

“He might,” she replied. “If I come with a solution. You want Lucius distracted. I can give him purpose. Let me ask for a task. Something worthy. Something far from here.”

Abraxas’s cane tapped once against the floor. A pause. Then: “You overstep.”

Narcissa didn’t blink. “You underestimate me.”

He studied her—this woman he had tolerated, then molded, then dismissed. She had been silent for so long, loyal in the ways wives were expected to be. But now… now something in her had changed. Hardened.

“Very well,” he said at last. “Try. But don’t mistake tolerance for trust.”

She gave him a slight nod, her eyes sharp. “I never do.”

But the Dark Lord would not see her.

The summons she sent was returned unopened. The name she used—Black, not Malfoy—meant nothing.

She waited. She pressed discreetly. No reply. 

So she went alone and it failed as well. 

he outer circle had refused her.

She hadn’t been turned away with cruelty—oh no, they were far too polite for that. Instead, she had been received with brittle courtesy, her request heard, acknowledged, and quietly ignored.

The message had been delivered in carefully chosen words, practiced to avoid offense:

The Dark Lord’s focus has shifted.

He is preparing.

He has no time for wives, not even clever ones.

It wasn’t about Lucius. Not really.

It was her.

A woman. A Black, yes—but a wife above all. Decorative. Useful only within the borders of her husband’s reputation.

The sting wasn’t new. But it burned hotter this time. She had expected resistance, not dismissal.

By the time she reached the drawing room, her gloves were off, her jaw tight, and her nails left crescent marks in her palm.

Abraxas was already there, waiting by the fire with a glass of brandy.

“Well?” he asked.

Narcissa took her time removing her cloak. She draped it carefully over the chair, smoothing the fabric before turning to face him.

“He won’t see me,” she said.

Abraxas snorted softly, as though it had been inevitable.

“Even the outer circle gave me nothing,” she added. “Just talk of shifting focus. Of war. Of priorities.”

“And you’re not one of them.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

Abraxas set his glass down with a decisive clink. “This is what happens when women play at strategy. You offer them polish, they want poison.”

“I offered precision,” she said quietly.

“You offered yourself,” Abraxas replied. “They already have Lucius. They don’t need you.”

That, more than anything, sealed it.

She smiled. Small. Sharp.

“They will,” she said, just as quiet.

Abraxas tilted his head, studying her. “You always were too proud for a wife.”

“I was never just a wife,” she returned.

He said nothing more. Neither did she.

But later that night, while the house slept and Abraxas played at patience, Narcissa sat at her vanity, brushing her hair with slow, deliberate strokes.

Let them underestimate her.

Let them look past her.

She would not forget it.

And she would not forgive it.

It was past midnight when Narcissa packed her trunk.

She did not rush. Each item folded with care, each movement precise, as though control could be wrestled from silk and stitching.

She didn’t tell Lucius.

There was nothing left to say.

By dawn, she stood in the foyer, pale and regal in travelling robes, her trunk already waiting by the door. The house-elf lingered nervously beside it, eyes flicking between Narcissa and the figure descending the stairs behind her.

Abraxas.

He moved slower these days, but his gaze was no less sharp.

“You’ve made up your mind, then,” he said.

“I won’t be gone forever. Two, three months at most,” Narcissa replied without turning. “Bellatrix will see me.”

Abraxas let out a dry laugh, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes. “Your sister might welcome you. But don’t think that makes you important.”

Narcissa’s spine straightened. “She has the Dark Lord’s ear.”

“And you think she’ll loan it to you?” Abraxas stepped down the last stair, his cane tapping lightly against the marble. “She may be his favorite, but she is still a woman. That buys her danger, not influence.”

Narcissa turned to face him then. “She’s feared.”

Abraxas’s mouth curved into something like a smirk. “So was Medea. And look where that got her.”

For a moment, they stared at one another.

“I am not going to beg,” Narcissa said.

“No,” Abraxas agreed. “You’re going to gamble.”

“And you,” she said softly, “are going to wish you hadn’t left me out of the game.”

His eyes flickered—approval, or warning, it was hard to say.

She stepped outside without waiting for him to reply.

Snow had begun to fall again. A quiet, steady flurry, like ash descending. Too early for winter, though.

Narcissa climbed into the carriage without looking back.

Let the men play their war. Let them sneer at clever wives and dangerous sisters.

She would find her way in, one way or another.

And Bellatrix—dear Bella—would either help her open the door.

Or burn it down.

Chapter Text

IX

It was just after dusk when the door opened.

Lucius didn’t look up from his writing. The candlelight spilled across the desk, catching on the edge of his silver cufflink. His quill moved in slow, deliberate strokes.

The house-elf hovered in the doorway, small hands wringing in nervous loops.

“Master… Madam Narcissa. She… she has left the Manor.”

That made him pause. The ink bloomed in one slow blot across the parchment as he stilled.

Left.

“Where?”

The elf’s ears twitched. “We do not know, sir. But… I heard Master Abraxas speaking. Mentioning her sister. And London. ”

Lucius’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. If his father had orchestrated something—and Narcissa had gone willingly. That, in itself, was a message. But it could be also Narcissa's in charge, he wasn't sure.

He didn’t rise. Didn’t lash out. Instead, he sat very still, listening to the quiet thud of his pulse in his ears.

Gone.

She hadn’t even spoken to him. No final words. No explanation. Only absence.

And yet—no pain followed the thought. No grief. No guilt. Only a flicker of something colder. Caution.

He had underestimated her.

She wasn’t just angry anymore. She was planning.

And she wasn’t alone.

That—more than her leaving—was what gave him pause.

Narcissa had always been dangerous in the way a beautiful blade was dangerous. Elegant. Controlled. Measured. But now, it seemed, she’d stepped off the path of pureblood decorum and into something darker, more unpredictable.

Her sister, Bellatrix, was the Dark Lord’s favorite. And Narcissa would use that. Use anything she had left.

Lucius set the quill down, fingers brushing over the ink-stained paper like he might smudge the thought away.

There had been a time—years ago—when he imagined it might have worked between them. A match born of strategy and bloodline, prestige and purpose. They were cut from the same cloth, schooled in restraint and legacy, two perfect names knotted into one future. She had been cold, sharp, poised beyond her years. He had admired her, in the distant, bloodless way one admired a rare book or an ancient spell—valuable, irreplaceable, but never quite his.

Their courtship was arranged before either of them knew what want really was. Supremacy wrapped in silk. Legacy sealed in contracts. No warmth. No affection. And now, no loyalty.

Still, he knew better than to dismiss her.

She was a Black. And Blacks didn’t make empty moves.

Lucius leaned back, the shadows playing across his sharp features, his eyes fixed on the fire. Not once did her face rise in his mind.

Not once did he imagine her return.

Only one name stirred beneath his skin, hotter than the rest. A name he could not say aloud. A name that wasn’t his wife’s.

And it was her—always her—that the bond pulled toward.

She felt it before she knew what it was.

The bond had been steady for days—quiet, pulsing beneath her skin like a second heartbeat she had learned to live with. But now, it shifted. Not sharply. Not like pain. No. This was... softer. A slow, blooming change. Like the moment before a storm when the air goes still and you know something is about to break.

Hermione sat curled in the window seat, a book open but unread on her lap. Her eyes weren’t on the page. She was staring past the glass, into the slow dark of the gardens. Waiting.

And then she felt him. Not his footsteps. Not the rustle of robes or the faint creak of floorboards. She felt him in the bond. A presence that stirred something low and tight in her chest. He was coming.

The door opened a moment later.

Lucius didn’t speak at first. He stepped inside and closed it gently behind him, his silver hair gleaming in the candlelight, the sharp line of his jaw tense.

Hermione didn’t move from the window seat.

He didn’t go to her. Not yet.

“She’s gone,” he said finally. “Narcissa.”

No reaction.

“She’s gone to her sister.”

That caught her.

Hermione turned her head slightly, just enough for her eyes to meet his. And Lucius—who had known her expressions in resistance, defiance, submission—saw something colder now. Something sealed.

Her face didn’t change. But the temperature in the room seemed to drop.

“Bella,” she said, flatly. No question. No surprise.

Lucius nodded once, watching her carefully. “Yes.”

That name—Bella—sat between them like a blade.

Hermione’s gaze drifted back to the window, as if nothing had been said. But he felt the spike of something sharp through the bond. Not fear. Not quite. Something quieter. Something buried.

“Say what you came to say,” she murmured.

Lucius was quiet. He took a step toward her, then stopped. “I don’t trust what they’re planning.”

She gave a slow, deliberate blink. “Neither do I.”

“You’ve heard of her,” he said.

Hermione didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. The bond thrummed between them—darker now, muddied by old wounds and unspoken truths.

Lucius felt it. The weight of what she knew. The things she would never say.

And suddenly, the silence between them felt like a wall he couldn’t cross.

“Bella,” he repeated, softly this time. “She’s the Dark Lord’s favorite.”

Hermione let out a faint breath through her nose, almost a laugh. But there was no humor in it.

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

Lucius stepped closer again. “What aren’t you saying?”

She turned to look at him fully now. Eyes dark. Unreadable. “You don’t want to know.”

The words hit him harder than he expected.

He crossed the room then, slower now, and stood before her. The bond curled between them—thick with emotion, unspoken and simmering. But Hermione remained still. Her silence was her armor. And Lucius, for once, wasn’t sure if he could reach her.

He knelt before her.

Not out of submission. But something else. Something like acknowledgment.

“Narcissa will be gone for some time,” he said quietly. “But that doesn’t mean you’re safe.”

Hermione held his gaze. “I was never safe.”

“I’ll protect you.”

But the words didn’t land the way he wanted them to.

She didn’t flinch, didn’t scoff, didn’t cry. She simply looked at him—long and steady—and in that silence, Lucius saw everything she didn’t say.

She didn’t believe him.

Not fully. Maybe not at all.

And he couldn’t blame her.

Because as the promise left his lips, even he felt the hollowness of it settle into his chest. It sounded right. It felt right. But in the marrow of his bones, where instinct lived, he knew: he might not be able to keep it.

There were too many shadows moving now. Too many forces outside his control.

Still, he couldn’t let her see that. Not yet.

He reached for her.

His hand rose slowly, and when it touched her face—light, like a whisper—it was not to seduce, or to demand. It was to anchor. To feel something real. Her cheek was warm beneath his palm, soft and tense, and her breath caught as his thumb brushed just under her eye.

“You don’t have to believe me,” he murmured. “But let me try.”

Hermione didn’t lean in. She didn’t pull away. She just let his hand stay there, as if she was deciding whether it was comfort or danger.

Maybe it was both.

And in that small, suspended moment—neither of them moved.

The bond curled between them, quiet and deep, like a held breath waiting to be released.

He didn’t say anything when he unlocked the door the next morning.

Just turned the key, stepped aside, and let her pass.

There was no speech. No conditions. No warnings. Just a glance—measured and unreadable—as if he were testing something far more fragile than rules.

Hermione hesitated in the threshold for only a second.

Then she walked.

The manor was still. Not empty, but quiet in that way old houses could be—like the walls were listening. Her steps were slow, careful, her hand brushing the curve of the banister as she descended the stairs. Lucius followed at a distance, but said nothing.

And as she moved—room to room, hall to hall—something shifted.

Her movements weren’t tentative. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t seem lost. In fact, she didn’t seem like a guest at all.

Lucius watched from the far end of the corridor as she turned toward a door she shouldn’t know.

One of the parlors on the south side—a space no longer used, one even he rarely entered. She reached for the handle without hesitation. Her fingers didn’t hover. Her steps didn’t falter. When the door creaked open, she stepped through like someone returning.

His breath caught.

It wasn’t just familiarity—it was memory.

She paused by the window, her eyes scanning the garden beyond the glass. Her hand lifted slightly, like she expected to see something—someone—that wasn’t there. She blinked, swallowed, turned away.

She didn’t speak. Didn’t offer an explanation. Just walked out again and moved on, deeper into the house.

Lucius followed without meaning to. His chest tightened with every room she passed—each one she somehow already knew. She never opened the wrong door. She never paused to orient herself. Her body moved through the manor with muscle memory she should not have.

She’d been here.

He felt it under his skin—like a key turning in the wrong lock. Familiarity in a place where there should be none.

And still, she said nothing.

By the time they returned to the west wing, she didn’t look at him. Just nodded once and disappeared into her chamber.

He watched her across the corridor. The door to her chamber was ajar, the firelight flickering inside, casting long, broken shadows against the floor. She was standing by the window again.

But it wasn’t her stillness that unsettled him.

It was the absence.

She looked like she was there, but her mind wasn’t. Her gaze didn’t follow the movement of the leaves outside or the drift of fog curling over the hedges. Her eyes were somewhere else—unfocused, unreachable. And her face…

There. A twitch.

Small. Barely perceptible. The tiniest flinch at the corner of her mouth. The crease between her brows. Her lips, moving—not speaking, just shaping something silent, invisible. Like she was answering a question only she could hear.

Like she wasn’t in this timeline at all.

Lucius stepped forward. Quiet. Careful.

Her shoulders shifted at the sound of his boots against the stone. But she didn’t turn.

He stopped just short of her, studying the fine tremor in her breath, the distant shimmer in her eyes.

“You’re not here,” he said quietly.

No answer.

Only another flicker in her jaw. The barest tightening of her hand at her side. Not denial—but not quite confirmation, either.

Lucius reached out, slowly, and touched her wrist. Her skin was cool. Alive, but drifting—like she was floating just above her body, as though some part of her had slipped loose.

The mark on his palm burned faintly in response. The bond knew. Felt it. Her shift. Her fracturing.

He turned her gently to face him.

Her eyes blinked—once. Twice. Then focused, not fully, but enough to see him. Her lips parted, as though she might say his name.

But she didn’t.

“I don’t know where you’ve gone,” he said, voice low, steady. “But I know you’re not here.”

For a moment, he thought she might break. That whatever she was holding back would finally spill out. But instead, she only looked at him—quietly, like someone on the wrong side of a memory.

“You shouldn’t care,” she whispered.

Lucius’s jaw clenched. “I shouldn’t,” he agreed. “But I do.”

Her throat worked as she swallowed. Her hand, still resting in his, twitched once.

Then—“Please,” she whispered. A single word. Barely shaped.

He stilled.

The softest tremor carried through her voice, not desperation but surrender—like something fragile cracking open beneath the surface. She lifted her gaze to his, and there was no mask left. Just her. Stripped down. Frightened. Needing.

He didn’t move.

But she did.

Her hand slipped up, fingers trembling as they touched his jaw. Her breath caught, and for the first time in days—maybe ever—she reached for him without being pulled, without being cornered by the bond. Her lips found his—hesitant, but deliberate.

A kiss not of hunger, but of quiet ache. Of needing to feel something real again.

Lucius responded without words, his hand tightening around hers as his mouth met hers with more certainty. He kissed her back slowly, reverently, like a man afraid she’d vanish again the moment he let go.

Her other hand slid into his hair, anchoring herself. She pressed in closer, and he could feel her trembling—not from fear, but from the weight of everything unsaid. From holding too much inside for too long.

The kiss deepened, but never rushed. It was messy in a different way—raw not from urgency, but from truth.

When they pulled apart, she didn’t open her eyes at first. She just stayed close, her forehead brushing his, her breath warm and uneven between them.

“I didn’t mean to disappear,” she said softly, not fully explaining, not fully able.

“I know,” he murmured. “You don’t have to explain.”

After a moment, Lucius kissed her back.

Not with fury. Not with hunger.

With reverence.

His hands came to her waist, pulling her gently into him, and her body softened against his. The kiss deepened slowly, unraveling them both with each passing second. She made a soft sound—somewhere between relief and surrender—and it undid him.

Because this wasn’t about dominance. Or power. Or lust.

It was about the bond.

The need to feel, to anchor, to understand whatever lived between them.

He pulled her closer still, one hand threading through her hair, the other curling around her back like he couldn’t stand the thought of space between them.

She sighed into his mouth.

And when they broke apart, foreheads pressed together, her breath still shaky, she whispered against his lips:

“I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Her whisper hung between them like a frayed thread, delicate and unraveling.

And then it snapped.

The bond surged, alive and greedy.

One breath—just one—and everything changed. The air thickened, charged, as though their magic had reached some quiet agreement before they had. The kiss reignited in an instant, no longer soft or questioning but starving. Their mouths clashed, all restraint burned away. There was no hesitation in the way Lucius pushed her back against the wall, no apology in the way Hermione pulled at his robes, needing skin, heat, him.

She gasped as his hands roamed her body—rough, purposeful, reverent. He touched her like a man unraveling something sacred, like he wanted to learn every inch of her with his palms, his mouth, his breath.

The bond pulsed wildly now, deep in her bones.

Magic flickered at the edges of her vision, golden threads weaving through the room like smoke. Wherever he touched her, it responded—bright, alive, possessive. It curled low in her belly, hot and aching, every nerve pulled tight with need.

Lucius’s mouth broke from hers only to drag across her jaw, down her neck, pausing at the delicate line of her collarbone as though memorizing it with his teeth.

“You’re burning,” he rasped, voice hoarse, reverent, lost. “You feel like fire.”

“You’re feeding it,” she breathed.

He growled low in his throat. The sound made her knees buckle.

She clung to him, helpless against the way he pressed her against the wall, his thigh between hers, his hand at the back of her neck keeping her grounded while his other slipped beneath the fabric of her blouse—skin to skin now, flesh and magic meeting, their bond flaring between them in a heat that wasn’t just want.

It was hunger.

The bond pulsed wildly now, deep in her bones.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered, voice trembling with the weight of control he was still trying to hold.

She didn’t.

Instead, she arched into him. Fingers in his hair, mouth to his ear.

“I need it.”

Need him.

In a blur, he lifted her, carried her to the chaise behind them, and laid her out like something rare, something forbidden—something his. He worshipped her with urgency now, shedding his mask entirely. Not Malfoy heir. Not soldier. Just a man wrecked by the woman fate had bound him to.

Their bodies found rhythm quickly—raw, breathless, relentless. The bond responded in kind, pulsing with their shared need, lighting up the room in flickers of gold and deep, aching red. It wasn’t just pleasure—it was claiming. Every movement a vow. Every moan an answer.

Hermione cried out as the tension snapped inside her, her magic shattering outward in a golden wave. Lucius followed her over the edge, undone completely, eyes locked on hers, body trembling as the bond took hold of them both.

When it was over, neither of them spoke. They just lay there—bare skin tangled, breath shared, the bond humming softly like a satisfied flame.

And somewhere deep inside her chest, Hermione felt it settle.

This was no longer a pull.

It was a need.

They lay tangled in the aftershock, the room still thick with the echo of what they had done.

Lucius’s chest rose and fell against hers, the sweat between their skin a seal, an anchor. Hermione stared at the ceiling, her fingers idly tracing the ridge of his shoulder blade as silence wrapped around them—not awkward, but trembling. Like the air after a storm. Alive. Shifting.

Neither of them spoke, but everything had been said in the way they touched.

Lucius exhaled slowly, forehead pressed to her collarbone, eyes closed as if to block out the world beyond the shape of her body beneath him.

She should have felt fear. Guilt. Even shame. But what she felt was a strange and terrible calm. A dangerous sense of rightness that scared her more than anything.

Because now she knew. The bond wasn’t passive.

It was alive. Ancient. And ravenous.

Still humming inside her, nestled low and heavy between her hips where he had filled her moments ago.

She shifted slightly, his soft groan barely audible. Her legs were still wrapped around him. She could feel the warmth of him inside her—still there, thick and real and intentional, and the thought made her throat tighten.

He hadn’t pulled away. He hadn’t even tried.

Lucius lifted his head finally, and their eyes met. Raw. Changed. His hand brushed her stomach, barely a touch, but she knew the thought was already blooming in both of them.

The bond did not only crave touch.

It craved legacy. Creation.

The bond wasn’t just satisfied. It was feeding. Deepening. And with it, a truth neither dared voice: it could heighten everything. Even fertility. Especially when joined like this—magic bare, bodies bare, desire unfiltered.

Hermione’s breath hitched. She swallowed.

He hadn’t pulled out.

Lucius knew it, too. She felt the realization flicker through him, not guilt—he was incapable of that—but a sharpened awareness. A weight dropped into the center of their silence.

Still, he didn’t apologize.

And she didn’t speak.

And now, lying bare beneath him, still joined, she knew that whatever they had crossed—whatever they had become—there was no going back.

Because the bond no longer pulled.

It held.

And somewhere deep inside, something had already begun to take root.

The weeks blurred.

There were days and there were nights, but the difference between them ceased to matter. The manor moved around them—unaware, or pretending to be—but within the walls of her chambers, time folded inward. The bond became the axis of their world.

And it was always hungry.

It started with a glance. A shiver under her skin. The invisible thread tightening between them like a whisper. Sometimes he found her in the library. Sometimes she went to him in the dark, barefoot and silent, the ache already blooming low in her belly.

It never took much.

A look. A breath.

Then hands. Mouths.

She began to crave the scent of him, the taste of his skin. The way his fingers would dig into her thighs, anchoring her as he moved with ruthless reverence—no longer cold, no longer cautious. Just honest. Wanting.

He was always roughest when the bond flared, when her scent shifted—when the magic curled in the air between them, coaxing something ancient out of both of them. He would bury his face against her throat and say her name like a vow. His thrusts would lose their rhythm, driven by something far deeper than control.

And she—she gave in.

Every time.

She let herself be undone. Bent. Taken. She let her cries echo against the stone. She let the bond pull her under, again and again, until there was nothing left of the girl who had landed here from another time.

Only this.

Only now.

Sometimes, when it ended, they stayed close. Breathing in silence. His fingers tangled in her hair, her palm resting on the flat of his stomach, both of them still bare, the warmth between her legs a reminder of what had just happened.

Other times, he would leave quickly. Wordless. As if afraid of what staying might mean.

But the bond never weakened.

It only grew louder.

More primal. More knowing. It pulsed between them like a third heartbeat. And though neither of them spoke it aloud, they both felt the change.

The deepening.

The tether becoming chain.

He came in her every time. And she let him.

She didn’t ask if he meant to.

He didn’t ask if she wanted him to stop.

They both knew that something was coming.

And neither of them could stop feeding it.

He had expected to guide her again.

To take, to lead, to press her beneath him and feel her surrender all over again.

But tonight—Hermione changed the air the moment she touched him.

It was slow.

Intentional.

She rose from the bed while he was still standing there, half-unbuttoned, still holding the weight of the day in his shoulders. Her hands reached for him, quiet and deliberate, and when he looked into her eyes, something in him stilled.

There was no hesitation in her now. No shy glance, no trembling hand. Just certainty. A quiet, consuming presence that wrapped around him like heat.

She tugged him forward by the collar of his robes.

And he followed.

Lucius let her walk him back to the bed. Let her push his coat from his shoulders and unbutton his shirt, slowly, one by one. She didn’t speak—not once. But the bond between them buzzed with meaning. And when her hands slid across his chest, bare now, her fingers tracing the ridges of bone and muscle like a map she already knew… he felt the shift.

She was in charge.

And he… he wanted her to be.

Her mouth followed the path of her hands—down his collarbone, along the curve of his shoulder, over the line of his ribs. Each kiss was soft. Focused. Like she was learning something. Like she was giving something back.

Lucius sucked in a breath when she knelt in front of him.

Not because of lust—though that was there too—but because of the look in her eyes. Fierce. Gentle. Decided.

He felt undone. Exposed in a way he couldn’t command or control.

Her fingers at the waistband of his trousers. Her touch slow. Reverent. Peeling him open with that same aching patience.

When he was bare before her, she didn’t rush.

She traced her fingers over the most sensitive parts of him—his hips, his inner thighs, the sharp line of his abdomen. Each touch lit a spark under his skin, made his breath catch, made his body tense. Not from dominance. But from vulnerability.

He realized then that this was worship.

Not obedience.

Not submission.

Worship.

Her lips pressed to his hip bone. Her cheek brushed his length, and he nearly groaned. But he held still—barely—watching her, his heart thudding in his throat.

She looked up once. Met his gaze.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t dare.

And then—her mouth on him.

Warm. Wet. Soft and unhurried. She wasn’t trying to arouse him, not entirely. It was more than that. She was tending to him. Giving herself over to the act like it meant something more. And it did.

Lucius’s head tipped back. His fingers dug into the sheets behind him, his knees nearly buckling. The way she moved—intentional, careful, his—made his breath stutter.

The bond sparked between them, golden and thick. It shimmered in the air, humming with ancient magic. With choice.

He was losing himself.

To her.

Not because she demanded it—but because he offered it freely.

When she finally let him go, she rose slowly, her fingers catching his jaw, pulling his mouth to hers. He tasted himself on her lips and groaned against her mouth, his hands finally grasping her waist.

But she didn’t yield.

She climbed onto the bed first. Lay back. Looked up at him with quiet authority.

And only then—when he saw her, bare, open, waiting—did he understand.

She had never needed to be tamed.

She had always known the power she held.

And tonight, she gave it to him, not as a prize—but as a promise.

His to worship.

His to ruin.

His to belong to.

He stood there, watching her.

Chest rising. Jaw clenched. Eyes devouring.

The way she looked—hair mussed from his hands, lips slightly parted, body stretched out in offering—he’d never seen anything more dangerous. Or holy.

Lucius moved slowly at first.

He crawled over her like a man starving, one hand dragging up her thigh, anchoring at her hip. His mouth traced the path she had carved earlier on him—collarbone, sternum, the underside of her breast. But it was different now.

Fiercer.

His tongue flicked over a nipple, then drew it into his mouth, sucking until her back arched and her fingers twisted in his hair. He didn’t speak. Didn’t ask.

He took.

Because she had let him.

And that permission was something he didn’t take lightly.

His fingers slid between her legs—slick, swollen, ready. He groaned against her skin. Not performative. Just need. Her hips lifted to meet his hand, and he held her there, right on the edge of his palm, teasing her slowly, purposefully, watching her fall apart.

Hermione gasped, her thighs trembling.

She didn’t answer with words—but her hands dragged him up, pulling his mouth to hers, and when he pressed into her—slow, thick, deep—they both cried out.

The bond snapped between them like a whip. Magic flared in the room. Not light. Not golden. Something older. Darker. Sacred.

Lucius stilled for one long breath.

His forehead pressed to hers.

He felt her body stretch to take him in. Felt her legs wrap around him, pulling him impossibly closer.

And then—he moved.

No rhythm, not at first. Just the desperate thrust and pull of instinct. Of hunger. Of claiming.

Her nails raked down his back. Her mouth dragged along his jaw, whispering broken words, prayers, maybe curses. He didn’t know. Didn’t care.

He fucked her like she was the answer to a question he never dared ask.

Hard.

Deep.

Real.

The bed creaked beneath them, but neither of them noticed. The magic thrummed louder now—louder than their moans, louder than their breathless cries. Their bond fed on this. On them. Their bodies moved in perfect rhythm, like they’d been made for this.

Like they were designed to ruin each other.

Lucius gripped her thighs and slammed deeper, harder. Her body shattered around him, pulsing, wet, her cries muffled against his throat. He groaned—guttural, torn from somewhere deep.

He didn’t pull out.

He couldn’t.

The bond demanded it.

His seed spilled into her with a final thrust, thick and hot, and her legs tightened around him as if her body had been waiting for it. Welcoming it.

The magic surged one final time—an old, living thing—and then slowly, slowly, it settled.

Their bodies slick and trembling.

Their breath uneven.

Hermione lay beneath him, her fingers curled in his hair, her lips parted but silent.

Lucius didn’t move.

Couldn’t.

The bond pulsed quietly now. Fed. Content. But there was something else… something new.

A faint awareness stirring deep in her womb. A potential. Not life. Not yet. But possibility.

He felt it in his blood.

And so did she.

Her hand moved to his jaw, soft, grounding.

He kissed her again—slow and reverent now, all fire quieted.

She didn’t say it aloud.

But they both knew—

Whatever had been between them before… was nothing compared to this.

And neither of them could ever go back.

Far from the west wing, past the closed doors and silenced wards, Abraxas Malfoy stood alone in the drawing room.

He didn’t pace.

Didn’t frown.

He simply waited.

One hand rested lightly on the head of his cane, the other on the lip of his glass, untouched scotch gleaming amber in the low firelight. He didn’t drink it. He was listening.

To the magic in the house.

To the pulse of the manor’s bones.

To them.

He could feel it. The shift. The binding.

Old magic—older than even he had dared to account for—thickening in the air. Fed. Claimed. Consecrated.

He closed his eyes, briefly.

So.

The boy had fallen.

He opened them again and turned to the window, where fog pressed against the glass like a breath from another world. His reflection stared back at him—calm, composed, cold.

He had warned him.

Had warned her.

The girl was dangerous—not for her blood, not even for her power—but for what she represented. Disorder. Choice. Emotion.

He tilted his head slightly, listening again.

Nothing now. The magic had gone still.

Satisfied.

Claimed.

Bound.

He exhaled slowly and finally sipped the drink, letting it sit on his tongue before swallowing.

Narcissa would return. With bitterness in her mouth and a plan in her hand. And when she did—he would be ready.

Already, the whispers had begun. Low voices in shadowed corners. Old names spoken like superstition. The Dark Lord stirring again. Not confirmed. Not yet. But real enough that even the outer ring had gone quiet.

He would let Narcissa believe she still held power.

Let her believe she could still steer this ship before it shattered on the rocks.

But the truth was, the tide had already turned.

Lucius was no longer his to command.

Not entirely.

And that meant—Hermione Granger would have to be dealt with.

Eventually.

The game had already begun.

For now, he waited.

And the manor waited with him.

Chapter Text

X

Malfoy Manor changed when Narcissa returned.

Not with noise. Not with ceremony. But with a kind of poised elegance that crept through the halls like frost reclaiming the corners of a forgotten windowpane.

She returned with the wind at her back and something sharper in her eyes.

She did not announce herself. She did not embrace. She swept through the manor gates with her chin high, her robes trailing like smoke, and resumed her place at the head of the household as though she had never left.

The first morning she appeared at breakfast as if she had never been gone—chin high, silk dressing gown trailing like smoke, her smile cool and absolute.

Even Abraxas paused, his usual air of disdain briefly disrupted by the sight of her seated at the head of the table, where she poured herself tea like a queen reclaiming her throne.

Lucius said nothing.

He watched. Watched her take back the rhythm of the manor, the servants, the household schedules, even the subtle politics of the Black-Malfoy alliance.

But something in her was different. Sharper. Controlled. A woman who had gone to the edge of something—and come back with her blade honed.

Even Abraxas saw it. She no longer asked for his counsel. She accepted it with grace and then did exactly what she wanted. He observed with wary approval, though his eyes lingered a little too long when she dismissed Lucius mid-sentence at dinner. She had never done that before.

She was no longer content to be the wife. She had returned to be the mistress of the manor.

Meanwhile, in the west wing, Hermione was fading.

It began subtly: a shortness of breath at the top of the stairs. A headache that throbbed behind her eyes. She wrote it off as strain. Poor sleep. Stress.

But the nausea followed.

Sharp. Bitter. Creeping into her mornings like a curse she couldn’t spit out. She tried to hide it. Tried to pace herself. But the dizziness made her grip the walls. The sickness came with no warning.

Lucius noticed. Once. Twice. Then every time.

He didn’t speak of it. Not directly. But his hands lingered longer at her waist. His glances turned sharper, more assessing. His magic wrapped around her like instinct, like question.

She ignored it. Until the day came when she couldn’t.

It was in the late hours of the morning. She stood alone at the window in her room, one hand pressed to her stomach—not for comfort, but because something beneath it felt off. Felt real.

She didn’t cry.

She simply whispered the word into the glass: “No.”

The reflection didn’t argue. It just stared back with wide, frightened eyes.

It wasn’t possible.

It shouldn’t be possible.

But it was.

The bond—growing stronger by the day—had changed her. Changed them. And with each desperate, hungry time they fed it, they had ignored the risk. She had ignored it. Buried it under the fever of connection, under need, under the illusion of survival.

And now…

Now it was too late.

Her body trembled. Not from fear, but from knowing.

From what she could already feel shifting inside her.

A new heartbeat. A new life. Something neither of them had asked for—but had created anyway.

He found her the next evening.

The door to her chambers was left slightly ajar. Whether that meant invitation or oversight, he didn’t know. But he stepped inside all the same, drawn not by logic but by something quieter—the ache beneath his ribs that hadn’t eased since yesterday.

She sat near the fire, knees drawn to her chest, her body wrapped in stillness. She didn’t look up when the door closed behind him. But he felt her feel him—like always. That invisible pull that snapped tight the moment they were near each other.

He said her name gently. “Hermione.”

She didn’t move.

Only after a long pause did she speak, her voice small, unfinished.

“We need to talk.”

He crossed the room. Stopped a few feet away. “What is it?”

There was no fear in his voice—but there was tension, and she heard it.

She turned toward him slowly. The firelight made her face hard to read. Her eyes were distant, glassy, as though she were still half somewhere else.

“I think I’m pregnant,” she said.

The air between them stilled.

Lucius didn’t react. Not right away.

Time folded in on itself—soundless, airless—until he blinked and stepped back slightly, like the words had pushed something in him loose.

“Say it again.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“This changes everything,” he said at last.

Not angry.

Not cold.

Just raw.

As though something had split inside him and was still bleeding out beneath the words.

He turned to her, grey eyes unreadable. “Do you understand what this means?”

Hermione stood, slowly. Her fingers trembled at her sides. “Yes. I do.”

“Do you?” His voice rose—just enough to crack something in the air. “This—” His hand cut through the silence. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were never—”

“It wasn’t just me, Lucius.”

His head snapped up.

“This isn’t something I did on my own. You were there. You came to me. Over and over. So don’t you dare make it sound like I—”

He closed the distance between them in two long strides.

“You think I don’t know that?” he said, low and vicious. “You think I haven’t been waking every morning with your voice burned into my throat and this bond humming like a curse under my skin?”

She blinked. Her breath hitched. “Then stop pretending like it was an accident.”

His hands curled into fists at his sides.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment.

Just the fire.

The bond humming softly, insistently, like a second heartbeat.

Lucius stepped back first. He raked a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly, trying to gather the sharp pieces of himself.

“This child… is dangerous,” he said finally. “To both of us. To everything we’ve tried to keep hidden.”

“I know.” Hermione’s voice was quieter now. “But it’s real. It’s already here.”

Lucius looked at her then—truly looked. And beneath all the fear and defiance in her eyes, he saw it: the truth they were both trying to contain. It wasn’t just magic. It wasn’t just biology. It was the bond. It was them.

He stepped closer again, more careful this time.

“This isn’t just a mistake,” he murmured. “This is consequence.”

Hermione’s chin trembled. “It’s also life.”

They stood like that, suspended—wounded, wired, locked in a silence too full to bear.

Finally, his hands lifted, slow and unsure. He touched her cheek. Not like a lover. Not like a man taking. Just… touching.

“I’ll protect you,” he said quietly.

But Hermione didn’t answer.

And he felt it—her silence wasn’t agreement.

It was fear.

Because she wasn’t sure he could.

And deep down, in the marrow of his bones, he wasn’t sure either.

But he let his fingers linger against her skin anyway, anchoring himself in the only certainty he had left.

Her.

Narcissa had always understood the value of silence.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t threaten. She didn’t demand. She watched.

And the manor—her manor—watched with her.

While Lucius brooded behind closed doors and Abraxas withdrew into quieter corners, she turned her attention where it always yielded results: the corridors, the shadows, the help.

Elves talked when no one was listening. Not in words, necessarily—but in glances, in hesitations, in the way they lingered by certain doors or appeared less often in others. Narcissa watched their patterns shift. It didn’t take long before one of them—small, pale-eyed, trembling—dropped a hint too sharp to ignore.

“She… she is not quite well, mistress.”

A tilt of Narcissa’s head. Nothing more.

The elf quivered. “She sleeps too much. Does not eat much. Vomits sometimes.”

“And yet no healer has been summoned.”

“No, mistress.”

Silence.

The drawing room filled with the faint crackle of fire. The elf stared at the floor, terrified to breathe.

Narcissa stood. Slow. Measured.

“You may go.”

The creature vanished with a pop, relieved to escape whatever she hadn’t yet said.

But she already knew.

Not in words.

In instincts.

In the way Lucius had changed. In the strange hum threading through the walls of the house—residual magic, laced thick with something primal and pulsing.

She had felt it once before. Long ago, during one of the ancient bonding ceremonies whispered about behind closed doors. And again, when Bella had returned from a Dark ritual almost glowing with madness.

Something old. Something binding.

Now, she felt it between them.

And the signs were undeniable.

Narcissa turned toward the window, her expression calm, untouched by the slow turn of horror beneath her skin.

So. That was the game.

Her lips curved, cool and almost amused.

Let them play.

Let them believe they were safe.

Let the child grow.

She would wait.

And when the time was right, Narcissa would take back what was hers.

Even if it meant tearing the manor apart brick by brick to do it.

Narcissa was gone again.

This time, she hadn’t said where. Only that Abraxas required her. A vague excuse cloaked in formality. No details. No return date.

Lucius didn’t ask.

He told himself it didn’t matter.

He told himself it was a gift. An opportunity.

But deep beneath the flicker of calculated reasoning was something quieter. Something shameful.

He was relieved.

No eyes watching. No whisper of disapproval curled behind every corner. No wife, cold and pale as bone, waiting at the edge of every decision.

It was just him now. Him and Hermione.

And still—he hesitated.

He could burn a name into parchment with a single spell. Crush rebellion with a single glance. He had survived courts, duels, threats that tasted like blood. And yet—

When it came to protecting her, really protecting her—

He did nothing.

Coward.

It was a whisper beneath his ribs, sharp and precise.

He kissed her neck that morning, slow and reverent, as she stood by the window and didn’t look at him. She didn’t move. Didn’t push him away.

But she didn’t reach for him either.

And that terrified him more than anything.

He had every tool now—freedom, silence, access. The manor was his. The time was his. She was his.

And yet.

And yet.

He stood behind her like a ghost of a man he might have been—wanting everything and afraid to ask.

So he took.

That night, he didn’t wait for her to come to him.

He went to her.

The door creaked softly as he entered, and she didn’t look up. She was curled in bed, a book open but unread in her lap, one hand pressed against her lower belly in sleep.

The sight of it nearly undid him.

He sat on the edge of the bed. Reached out.

His hand trembled as he touched her face.

She stirred, eyes fluttering open—confused, half-lost.

“Lucius,” she whispered.

He didn’t speak. Only leaned in, kissed her. Not gently.

Hungry.

Claiming.

He pulled her beneath him like a drowning man reaching for air. Her legs parted for him, slow and aching, and when he sank into her, the bond roared alive between them—hot and needy and pulsing with something ancient and undeniable.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t wait.

He took her with a desperation he hadn’t let himself name. Over and over until she was shaking beneath him, until his name was sobbed into his skin, until his body spilled inside her with a raw, broken sound that echoed like surrender.

He wanted her swollen with him.

Tied to him.

His.

Only then did he whisper what had already written itself into the bond:

“You’re mine.”

And when she didn’t say no, when she only turned her face into his neck and breathed his name like it still meant safety—

He told himself it was enough.

Even if it wasn’t.

They returned before dawn.

No fanfare. No thunder of arrival.

Just the creak of the manor gates and the soft, calculated footsteps of two people who had never needed to raise their voices to be dangerous.

Lucius was still in her bed.

The sheets tangled around their bodies. Her back pressed to his chest. The imprint of her skin still cooling on his mouth.

He felt it before the elf whispered the words.

They’re back.

His body went still. Every nerve sharp. Awake.

Hermione stirred against him, the bond still warm between them. But she said nothing. She didn’t ask what it meant.

Because she already knew.

So did he.

He dressed in silence. No armor. No spells. Just the practiced grace of someone born into performance. Into war masked as civility.

But something was wrong.

More than just the hour. More than their sudden return.

It was in the stillness. In the way the manor seemed to pause, holding its breath around them.

He stood at the edge of the room and knew.

Something had shifted.

He couldn’t name it yet. Couldn’t prove it.

But deep in his bones—in that ancient, wordless place where magic warned and memory stirred—he knew.

They hadn’t come back with questions.

They had come back with plans.

And somewhere, he feared, the time for pretending was slipping through his hands.

Hermione hadn’t expected her. Not like this. Not when the house still whispered of dawn and Lucius was gone—summoned, once again, by the man who ruled everything in shadows.

The knock was soft. Too soft to be a servant. Hermione barely had time to stand before the door opened without waiting for a reply.

Narcissa Malfoy stepped inside, regal as ever, her pale hair pulled back tight, not a strand out of place. Her expression was calm, practiced. But her eyes—those cool, glass-cut eyes—held something new. Something sharp.

Hermione straightened slowly, instinct prickling along her spine. “Narcissa.”

The woman’s gaze drifted over her—up, down, and back again—before it landed on the modest desk, the stack of books, the teacup on the mantel. Then finally, on Hermione’s face.

“I see you’ve been… comfortable,” Narcissa said, her voice a smooth glide of velvet over a blade.

Hermione said nothing.

“I do hope you’ve taken advantage of the library. It’s a rather fine collection—though I imagine some of the more… provocative titles have been removed.” She gave a small, cold smile. “For your safety, of course.”

Hermione’s jaw tensed. “If you came to gloat—”

“Oh, no,” Narcissa interrupted gently, waving a hand as if brushing away smoke. “I came to clarify. I came to offer... something clearer than assumptions. I thought perhaps, given your condition, you might want honesty for once.”

Hermione flinched—barely, but it was enough.

Narcissa’s smile sharpened.

“What I want,” she continued, stepping further into the room, the hem of her gown whispering against the stone floor, “is to keep what is mine. And you, Miss Granger, might just help me do that.”

Hermione frowned, confused and defensive. “What are you talking about?”

Narcissa studied her for a moment. Then, with a slow blink and a voice dipped in saccharine grace, she said, “The child.”

The word dropped like a stone in water.

Hermione’s fingers curled into the fabric of her robes.

“You think this changes everything, don’t you?” Narcissa murmured, circling now—never threatening, never rushing, but moving like she owned the air itself. “And you’re right. It does.”

She paused at the window, watching the grey sky for a moment, then turned her head slightly. “But not in the way you imagine.”

Hermione’s voice was tight. “I never meant for this to happen.”

“Oh, darling,” Narcissa said, tilting her head, her tone almost amused. “Intent is such a fickle thing. It means very little when results speak louder.”

She walked toward her then, slowly, stopping just within reach. “You think because he touched you, claimed you in some spell-fueled delirium, that the world will shift to accommodate it? No. What you carry might shape something, yes—but that shaping will be mine.”

Hermione blinked. “You’re threatening to take my child?”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Narcissa sighed. “I’m offering you a place. A quiet one. A safe one. One where you might remain useful and untouched—if you learn when to lower your eyes.”

Hermione’s heart was pounding now, but her voice didn’t waver. “And if I don’t?”

Narcissa’s smile didn’t change, but the cold in it turned glacial.

“Then I suppose we’ll see whether the bond that keeps you here is strong enough to withstand losing everything it’s anchored to.”

For a moment, neither of them breathed.

Then, without waiting for permission or reply, Narcissa turned and left the room—her heels clicking softly against the stone, her scent trailing behind her like lavender and poison.

They made him wait.

When Lucius was finally summoned to the west parlor, the air in the corridor already felt wrong. Still. Staged. Like a trap set hours ago.

Narcissa sat poised on the edge of the velvet settee, dressed in soft silver. Her gloves still on. Her chin lifted like a queen receiving a lesser courtier. Abraxas stood behind her, silent and composed, as though they were presenting a united front in a war that had already been declared.

Lucius stepped inside, slow and wary. “You wanted to see me.”

“I did,” Narcissa said, voice like glass—clear, hard, and dangerously close to shattering. “Though ‘see’ may be generous. I rather expected I’d have to summon you.”

Lucius ignored the barb. “What is this?”

Narcissa tilted her head, the movement regal. “An intervention, I believe they call it. Or perhaps just a reckoning.”

He flicked his eyes to Abraxas. “You agree with this performance?”

“This is not a performance,” Narcissa said sharply, before her father-in-law could answer. “This is a reckoning, as I said. You’ve made a mess, Lucius. And now we decide what to salvage.”

Lucius didn’t move. “If you’ve come to threaten her—”

“Oh,” Narcissa laughed, quiet and cold. “Darling. We are well past threats.”

She stood, slow and deliberate, smoothing her gloves before folding her hands before her like a magistrate about to pass sentence.

“What I want,” she said, walking toward him with calm certainty, “is to keep what is mine. My house. My name. My future. And yes—my husband.”

“I was never yours to own, Narcissa.”

“Weren’t you?” She stopped a few feet from him, her voice gentling. “Lucius, we were a perfect match. Since childhood. Our bloodlines aligned, our futures assured. I played my part. I stood beside you, silent and polished, through every failure and every victory. And now you think to discard me because some foreign magic led your cock astray?”

Lucius stiffened. “Watch your tone.”

“Or what?” she whispered. “Will the bond defend me too?”

Abraxas cleared his throat then, and the sound felt heavy. “We are not here to rehash your past.” His eyes fixed on Lucius. “We’re here to secure your future.”

Narcissa turned, graceful as a curtain drawing closed. “Indeed. And the solution is simple.”

She looked him in the eye.

“The child can stay. But the mother cannot.”

Lucius felt the breath leave him.

“I see,” he said, voice tight.

Narcissa stepped closer, eyes shining with the cruelty of clarity. “You’ve allowed a moment of passion to destroy the very structure of this family. You think I’m cruel for wanting her gone—but you mistake cruelty for strategy. If word gets out, if even a whisper reaches the wrong ears—our power collapses. Everything we built, everything you inherited, burns.”

“She’s not a threat,” Lucius said, more quietly now. “Not to you. Not to the child.”

“She’s everything that threatens me,” Narcissa snapped. “Not because she’s clever. Or strong. But because you made her matter.”

He looked away.

“And worse,” she said, softer now, almost tender, “you let her carry your child. You knew what that meant. And you did it anyway.”

Lucius closed his eyes.

Abraxas spoke now, his voice cool. “The child will be cared for. Raised under the Malfoy name, if that is your wish. But the girl—”

“Say her name,” Lucius snapped, eyes narrowing.

“No,” Abraxas replied flatly. “She’s no longer your concern.”

Narcissa moved beside her father-in-law, shoulder to shoulder with him.

“She can go quietly,” she offered, almost sweetly. “Or we can make it harder. I’m not without creativity when motivated.”

Lucius stepped forward, the air around him tightening. “You can’t—”

“I can,” Narcissa said. “And I will. Unless you stay. Here. With me. As you were always meant to. A husband. A father. A Malfoy.”

He stared at her, eyes burning.

She leaned close, her lips nearly brushing his ear.

“And every day you stay, I’ll know it’s not for me. It’s because I hold the strings. Because I let you keep the child. And because you’re too much of a coward to fight me for her.”

He didn’t move.

Then she stepped back and smiled, radiant and bitter. “That’s the choice, darling. Choose carefully.”

She left the room without waiting for his answer, the scent of her perfume and power lingering like smoke after fire.

Abraxas stayed a moment longer. Then, quietly, he said, “Your silence will speak volumes. Make sure it speaks to the right future.”

And then he, too, was gone.

Lucius stood alone.

The fire in the hearth crackled. But it didn’t warm him.

She couldn’t sleep.

The bond wasn’t quiet tonight. It pulsed in her chest like a second heartbeat, heavy and uncertain. Something had shifted. Something deep. She could feel it in the walls, in the coldness of the corridors, in the way her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Lucius hadn’t come.

And yet, she felt him—fractured, silent, distant in a way that felt worse than anger. He was still tethered to her. Still hers. But something had been taken. Twisted.

She wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders and stood by the window, staring out into the empty gardens below. The moonlight spilled silver over the stone. But it was the dark she focused on.

He wouldn’t protect her.

Not like she hoped.

Maybe not at all.

She could feel the web tightening—Narcissa, Abraxas, the whispers crawling through the manor like rot. And she realized then, quietly, that her silence had run out.

The child inside her was reason enough.

But even without it… she had known this day would come. When the future she carried like a buried secret would need to be spoken aloud. When the timeline would fracture, not just from love, but from truth.

She whispered into the darkness, “He deserves to know.”

Not because he had earned it. Not because she trusted him completely. But because she had no other path left.

Hermione sat still by the window, the heavy curtains drawn just enough to let in the afternoon grey.The bond, quiet for days, was pulsing again. Off-beat. Uneven. Like a heartbeat struggling to find its rhythm.

Lucius was still alive. Still tethered to her. But something had shifted in the air around him. Around them.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, the motion instinctive. Protective. The nausea had lessened, but the fatigue hadn't. Her body felt heavy. Her mind, louder than ever.

She closed her eyes. Tried to block out the possibilities.

But she felt it again. A flicker of cold calculation. A wall rising between them. A choice being made—not in her favor.

And in that moment, Hermione understood something with perfect, aching clarity.

She had no more time.

If she wanted any chance to protect what was growing inside her, if she wanted to preserve any piece of herself in this world, she had to burn what she had tried so hard to protect.

The future.

The truth.

The last of her cards.

She rose slowly, steadying herself against the edge of the table. Her legs trembled, but not from weakness. From resolve. A quiet, terrifying kind. The kind that doesn’t leave room for doubt.

By the time Lucius returned that evening, she was waiting for him.

He stepped into the room, his coat still dusted with the cold from outside. Their eyes met. And she saw it—the storm in him. The conflict. The cost.

But he didn’t speak.

She did.

“I need to tell you everything,” she said, her voice low but sure. “No more riddles. No more omissions.”

Lucius froze.

“Hermione—”

“I should’ve told you sooner,” she continued, cutting him off. “But I kept holding on to the idea that maybe the future didn’t need to bend. That I could survive this without undoing what had to happen. But I can’t. Not anymore.”

He stepped forward, cautious. “What do you mean?”

She swallowed hard.

“I’m going to tell you how the Dark Lord was defeated,” she said. “How your family fell from grace. What your son becomes.”

The words hung between them like a spell already cast.

Lucius stared at her—like he didn’t recognize her. Or perhaps, like he was seeing her fully for the first time.

“If I tell you this,” she said, softer now, “you can’t go back. It will change you. It will change everything.”

He nodded, once. Slow. Careful.

“I have no choice,” she whispered, her fingers curling against her stomach again. “Not anymore.”

And then she began to speak.

Not in riddles.

Not in warnings.

But in truth.

The truth he was never meant to hear.

The one that might cost them everything—or save them.

Chapter Text

XI

Lucius didn’t sit.

He stood near the fire, one hand braced against the mantle, the other still gloved. The air between them trembled faintly—whether from the bond or the storm outside, she couldn’t tell. But something had settled over him. Cold. Final. As though a door had closed somewhere behind his eyes.

Hermione rose slowly from her chair, her hands curled into fists at her sides. “You need to hear the truth,” she said. “All of it.”

His jaw tightened, but he gave no reply.

“The future. The wars. What happens to me. To you. To your son. To the Dark Lord. All of it.”

That made him look at her. Not with suspicion. With something quieter. Like recognition.

She had known this moment would come eventually, but now that it had arrived, it felt irreversible. Like stepping off a ledge.

Hermione inhaled, steadying herself. “You need to understand—what I tell you could fracture everything. It already has.”

Lucius didn’t move. “Then fracture it.”

So she began.

“The first war ends in failure. Voldemort is destroyed—but not killed. Not really. He tries to kill a child. A baby. Harry Potter. But the curse backfires. It tears his soul from his body and breaks him. He disappears. And the rest of you—his followers—you scatter.”

He blinked, slowly. “That’s not possible. A baby?”

Her voice stayed soft. “His mother died to protect him. Love magic. Ancient. Powerful. You all underestimated it.”

Lucius’s mouth twisted in disbelief, but he said nothing.

Hermione continued. “You weren’t caught. Not right away. You bribed, bargained, lied. Your family walked free. But the damage was done. Everything you believed in? It started crumbling then.”

He shifted, slowly pulling off his gloves one finger at a time. His expression gave nothing away. But the bond—it hummed like a warning.

“And then?”

“He comes back,” she said. “Years later. I was there when he returned. We fought him again. And that second war was worse. Bloodier. He was no longer just a madman with a vision—he was an obsession. The world tilted into fear. And you...”

She stopped.

Lucius’s voice was barely audible. “What becomes of me?”

Her throat was dry. “You stay loyal. Publicly. You help. You host. You torture. Your wife helps too.”

That made him flinch.

“You become afraid—of him. Of what he might do to Draco if you don’t comply. You’re not just cruel anymore. You’re desperate. And in the end, none of it matters.”

Lucius’s eyes flashed. “What happens to my son?”

Hermione hesitated. Then: “He’s used. Given a task meant to break him. He’s sixteen. A child. And he nearly dies. Because of the choices you made.”

Lucius turned away, his spine rigid. He didn’t pace. He stood still, fists at his sides, breathing through his nose like someone trying not to shatter something fragile in his hands.

She watched the struggle ripple through him. Watched the weight settle in.

“And the Dark Lord?” he asked finally.

Hermione’s voice lowered. “Harry kills him. For good, this time. At Hogwarts. The final battle.”

“And you?”

She stared into the fire. “I’m fighting. Against him. Against you.”

Hermione’s voice steadied. “You lose everything. After the war, you’re thrown into Azkaban. Public disgrace. Ruin. Your son walks free—but only barely. And your wife... she turns her back on the cause before the end. To save Draco.”

That seemed to rattle him. “Narcissa?”

“She lies to the Dark Lord. Risks her life for her son. It’s the only reason Harry survives.”

Lucius’s mouth opened, but no words came.

Hermione took a step forward. “You want to know what I saw? I saw Draco cry in a corridor because he couldn’t kill. I saw him tremble when the mark burned. I saw you—reduced to a man afraid of your own master.”

His eyes met hers. Quiet. Hollow. But alive.

“And then,” she whispered, “I’m here.”

Lucius’s eyes lifted to hers. The silence between them stretched long and taut.

He stepped forward, voice low. “You said it was an accident. The Time-Turner. Your presence here.”

She nodded slowly. “It cracked. When I landed, it splintered. Time… didn’t snap back.”

He studied her face carefully. “So you’re trapped.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And every time we touch—every time this bond deepens—I’m changing more than I can control.”

Lucius didn’t blink. “You altered the path.”

“I might have erased it entirely,” she said. “I don’t know what part of my world still exists. If it exists at all.”

The truth trembled in her chest, raw and awful. “I’ve tampered with something that shouldn’t be touched. And I can’t undo it. Not with magic. Not with will.”

He was still. But his voice came softer. “So what happens now?”

She looked at him. Quiet. Steady.

“I think I was meant to die,” she said.

Her voice wasn’t trembling. It was quiet. Steady. Flat, like a confession already rehearsed in her mind a hundred times. A truth she had made peace with.

Lucius stilled.

“But I didn’t,” she continued. “Something—maybe the bond, maybe the Time-Turner breaking—kept me here. And I thought maybe that meant I was meant to do something. Change something. But now…”

She looked up at him, and the firelight caught the gloss in her eyes.

“I think I will still die, Lucius,” she said. “Just not in the way I thought.”

His jaw tensed.

“Do you know what it feels like,” she whispered, “to sense your death coming and still walk toward it?”

“Hermione—”

“I can feel it,” she cut in. “In my bones. In the way the house watches me. In the silence from Narcissa. She will kill me. Maybe not today. But after the child. When I’m weakest. When I’m no longer useful. She’ll slit my throat while I sleep or use some perfect little curse. I know it.”

Lucius’s mouth parted slightly, but he said nothing.

“If I try to return to who I was,” she said, her voice more fragile now, “if I try to go back—I might not exist at all. Not in that world. Not in this one. I don’t belong anywhere anymore.”

She paused, then laughed softly—bitterly. “Except here. In this damned manor. With you.”

The fire cracked. The weight of her words hung over them like fog.

Finally, he turned back to her. His expression was unreadable. Cold. But not cruel. Just… stripped.

“If what you say is true,” he said quietly, “then everything I’ve done has been for nothing. And everything I’ve believed in is a lie.”

Hermione’s heart twisted. “It was always a lie,” she said gently. “You just didn’t know yet.”

He looked at her, as though trying to see through her skin, beneath her voice, past the place where time bent and rewrote itself around them.

“It’s not too late to change it,” she said softly. “You can still make a different choice.”

The bond between them pulsed—not warm, not kind, but real. Alive. And still pulling.

Lucius didn’t speak. Not right away.

But something in his silence was starting to shift.

Time moved strangely in Malfoy Manor.

It did not pass with light or warmth, but with small shifts in silence. A deeper quiet in the east wing. A new lock on a corridor. A fresh set of instructions whispered between elves.

And Hermione was growing. Visibly.

Her belly swelled faster than expected. By the end of the sixth month, she could no longer pass for anything but what she was—pregnant, vulnerable, undeniable. The bond pulsed stronger by the day, feeding and feeding, until Lucius could feel her mood in his fingertips, her fear in the marrow of his spine.

She rarely left the rooms he had claimed for her. Not because he forbade it—but because Narcissa made it unbearable.

Elegant, brittle Narcissa. Always watching. Always smiling too precisely. Her words never raised in tone, never outright cruel. But the message was clear. This is my house. And you are the rot inside it.

Hermione endured it in silence.

Cold glances. Veiled remarks about half-blood children and weak wombs. A sudden shift of heat in the bathwater. Dinners that arrived late and lukewarm. Books replaced with irrelevant tomes. Not enough to accuse. Just enough to isolate.

Lucius noticed. Of course he did. He tried—quietly, cautiously—to fight back. Without declaring war.

He had new wards placed around her rooms. Increased elf supervision. Refused to dine with Narcissa unless Hermione’s food was already served. He started working from her sitting room, taking meetings by the fire while she rested with her hands on her belly, breathing through the pressure building in her ribs.

But it wasn’t enough.

Because he was still afraid.

And Hermione could feel it. Through the bond. Through the way he looked over his shoulder before he touched her. Through the way he gripped his wand a moment too long after every whispered message from Abraxas.

He was protecting her—but not choosing her. Not openly.

Because beyond the walls of the manor, beyond Narcissa’s poison and Abraxas’s shadow, there was a greater threat. A darker force. One that Lucius could not lie to, manipulate, or charm.

The Dark Lord.

The name was never spoken in Hermione’s presence. But she felt him. In the tremble of the house when owls arrived in the middle of the night. In the way the elves bowed deeper on certain mornings. In the way Lucius’s eyes darkened before he spoke her name.

He was terrified that Voldemort would learn.

Because the Dark Lord would not tolerate sentiment. Not deviation. Not betrayal. And Lucius wasn’t the only one who knew it.

For Narcissa, the threat was just as dire—but far more personal.

She didn’t want the Malfoy name destroyed. She wanted Hermione destroyed. There was a difference.

She had spent her life cultivating power through elegance, control, legacy. She had endured the icy grip of tradition, married the son of a tyrant, and played the role of the perfect wife—silent when it counted, sharp when it mattered. Now, on the cusp of something larger, she could feel it again. The stirrings. War in the air. The way the owls flew differently. The way the house stiffened at night.

The Dark Lord was moving. Not yet visible. But near.

And Narcissa needed to be on the right side of that fire.

She needed favor. Proximity. Usefulness.

Hermione was the one thing in her way.

Not because of the child. Not even because of Lucius’s quiet disobedience. But because Hermione was a reminder that control could be lost. That something unsanctioned could grow right beneath her roof, fed not by duty but by desire.

If Voldemort knew—truly knew—that Lucius had betrayed the bloodlines, the structure, the cause—it wouldn’t just be Lucius punished. It would be all of them. And Narcissa would never allow her own blood to burn for someone else’s mistake.

So she waited.

She smiled.

She made Hermione’s world smaller by the day.

And in the privacy of her wing, she began gathering names. Couriers. Strings of old favors. There were still those who remembered what the Black women were capable of. Still those who whispered that Narcissa’s silence was more dangerous than Bellatrix’s madness.

She would not strike too soon.

But when she did—it would be clean, permanent, and righteous.

Because if war was coming again, Narcissa Malfoy would not be left behind.

And she would not share power with a girl who didn’t know how to survive it.

The wind outside had a strange, listless rhythm to it. Not quite a storm. Not quite still. As though the world itself was holding its breath.

Hermione didn’t hear the door open, but she felt it. That shift in the air. That unmistakable pull deep in her chest, low and constant, as if the bond itself whispered, He’s here.

She didn’t turn. Her back was to him, seated at the window with her knees drawn up beneath the thin nightdress. The fire had gone out hours ago, but she hadn’t moved. The candle at her side guttered weakly, casting flickers of gold over the stretch of her rounded belly. She was full now. Ripened. The weight of the child shaped her every breath.

Lucius said nothing.

But he crossed the room slowly, until the silence between them became unbearable.

She turned just as he reached her. Their eyes met. No words passed between them.

He knelt before her.

Both of his hands found the edge of her knees, his head bowing forward to rest against her belly. The weight of him, the press of his palm, the silent shape of his mouth against the stretched skin—it undid something in her.

Her fingers threaded into his hair, held him there.

“I know,” she whispered.

He nodded against her. Still no words.

Because what could he say?

He was leaving. Voldemort had summoned him. A mission. A loyalty he had never truly revoked. He couldn’t refuse. He couldn’t delay. Not even for her.

Not even for the child.

They undressed in silence. Not in hunger. Not even in grief. But in something older. A need as deep and devastating as time. Her belly was in the way now, but he kissed her there, reverent, then guided her back onto the bed as though her body were the altar to some long-forgotten prayer.

He looked at her like she was something holy.

Something doomed.

And when he finally moved over her, he moved like a man already saying goodbye.

The stretch was different now. Slower. She winced with it, but her hands gripped his arms tighter.

“I want to remember this,” she whispered. “Just this.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. “So will I.”

Their bodies moved with aching slowness—everything stripped away. No dominance. No games. No power.

Just skin.

And breath.

And the unbearable thrum of the bond between them.

Hermione’s hands didn’t stop moving. His shoulder. His chest. His face. She traced him as though memorizing the geography of loss.

And Lucius—he was already unraveling.

He kissed her mouth like he couldn’t bear to leave it. Kissed her breasts like they were already feeding the child. Kissed her neck like her pulse would anchor him through the dark that was coming.

And when he came inside her, it was silent. But his hands shook. His lips parted. His body collapsed over hers like he couldn’t bear to leave even an inch between them.

She held him there. Her legs around his hips. Her eyes staring at the ceiling.

Neither of them said the word goodbye.

But it was in the way they clung.

The way he buried his face in her neck, breathing her like it might be the last time.

The way she turned her face into his hair, and finally—finally—let herself cry.

When sleep took her, it was shallow and restless.

And when dawn came, he was still there. Still holding her.

Somehow already gone.

But for now— as of  1st of June, 1980 -  he was hers.

And she, his.

Chapter Text

PART ONE

XII

The door creaked open—not loudly, but with a kind of deliberate finality that made Hermione’s breath catch.

She didn’t need to look up.

The cold announced her first. That chill Narcissa always carried with her, like perfume only Hermione could feel. Measured footsteps followed, soft against the rug, the faint whisper of silk robes drawn tight with purpose. Hermione remained seated in the armchair, one hand curled protectively over her swollen belly, the other gripping the edge of the cushion. Her body was heavier now. Every movement slow. Careful. Weighted.

The door closed behind Narcissa with a careful finality. She stood still for a moment, poised in a wash of candlelight, her pale eyes taking in every detail. Hermione felt the appraisal like a blade. Measured. Cold. Merciless.

She said nothing at first. Just stood there, her silhouette framed in the low light, elegant and unmoved. 

“You’ve ruined everything,” Narcissa said at last, her voice smooth. Measured. Icy.

Hermione didn’t flinch. She couldn’t. She just looked up and met her gaze.

“I never meant—”

A flick of her hand silenced the room.

“No,” Narcissa said. “Don’t pretend intention matters now. You didn’t mean to destroy my marriage. My name. My place. But here you are.” She stepped forward, the floor quiet beneath her heels. “And here he is. The man who should have stood beside me—now risking everything for a girl who doesn’t even belong to this time.”

Hermione swallowed. “You think I chose this?”

Narcissa stepped forward. “You didn’t choose it. But you accepted it. Let him touch you. Let him fall.”

Hermione’s lips parted, but no words came. She could barely keep her spine upright, let alone mount a defense. “I didn’t choose this,” she said finally, voice raw. “You think I wanted to be here? To carry this? To live every day wondering if I’ll survive tomorrow?”

Narcissa studied her for a long, dangerous beat. “And yet. You are here.”

Hermione didn’t reply.

The silence between them was thick with everything that couldn’t be undone.

“Lucius should be beside me, not on some mission, chasing shadows for the Dark Lord. I needed him. And he chose you.” Her voice cracked. Just slightly. “I warned him what love would do. He thought he was above it. We both did.”

“I’m sorry.”

The words fell like stones.

For a moment, they seemed to land somewhere unexpected. Narcissa blinked. Her expression faltered. Not enough to call it softness, but enough to draw breath.

“You’re sorry,” she repeated, quieter this time. “Do you think that matters?”

“No,” Hermione whispered. “But I am.”

Narcissa’s gaze dropped to Hermione’s belly. The breath she took was slow, unsteady.

“You didn’t take him on purpose,” she said, more to herself than to Hermione. “But you took him all the same.”

Hermione nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek.

“I know.”

And for a moment—just a moment—there was something like stillness between them. Not peace. Not warmth. But a shared weariness. A recognition of what had been lost, and what would never return.

Then it vanished.

Narcissa straightened. Her expression cooled like ice refreezing over water.

“Your apologies won’t save you,” she said quietly. “You’ve stained this family. Lucius won’t see it now, but he will. Eventually. The child... the child can stay. But you won’t. No one will speak your name.”

Hermione stiffened. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Oh, but I do,” Narcissa said softly. “Because you’ve taken something from me that I cannot get back. So I will take from you in return. I won’t lose everything to a girl who fell out of time and into my house. You’ve had your season. You’ve felt his touch. You’ve known what it is to belong. That ends.”

Her gaze lingered a moment longer. Not cruel. Not angry.

Just… decided.

She turned to go. But at the door, she paused.

“When the child comes, your usefulness ends,” she said without turning around. “Enjoy the days you have left, Miss Granger. They will be few.”

The door shut behind her with a muted click.

Hermione didn’t move.

Only sat there in the growing silence. Her hands splayed protectively over her belly. Her throat burning. Her heart somewhere far beneath the fear.

She had known it would come to this.

But knowing didn’t soften the edges.

Tears came silently. Slowly.

And the child inside her shifted, as if sensing the truth of what waited.

The end of one life.
The beginning of another.

Alone. Still. Unseen.

The pain woke her before the dawn.

A low, dragging ache had bloomed in her spine sometime in the night, dull and persistent—but now it flared, sharp and certain, radiating across her belly with enough force to steal the breath from her lungs. Hermione curled forward on instinct, hands bracing her weight, and let out a quiet sound—half gasp, half sob.

It was time.

The house-elves appeared almost immediately, as though the bond had alerted them before she had spoken a word. Their small eyes were wide, their movements quick but careful. Warm cloths. Water. Potions brewed and placed on trays without a word. One of them gently touched her arm and murmured, “Miss must be strong now. It is coming.”

Hermione nodded, barely. Her teeth clenched as another wave of pain rolled through her, deeper this time, grounding her in the unbearable realness of it. The room blurred, candlelight flickering like stars through the sweat stinging her eyes. She tried to focus—on her breath, on the rhythm of her body. But fear clawed its way through her. He wasn’t here. Lucius. He wasn’t here.

She bit it back. This child deserved to be born without grief touching his first breath.

Another contraction hit. She doubled forward, biting her lip to keep from crying out. The pain was unbearable—but it was real. Anchoring. It kept her here. Here, in this moment. Her body was breaking open to bring something through, and all she could do was surrender to it.

She thought of Lucius. Of his hands on her belly just days ago. Of the way he kissed her as if memorizing her breath. The way his eyes had softened when they looked at her, at their child.

He wasn’t here.

She couldn’t let herself think of that.

The labor dragged on for hours. Time folded in on itself. Some moments passed like lightning, others like lifetimes. Her body trembled with the effort, back arching with each contraction. The elves supported her, whispered words she barely heard, brought cool cloths to her neck, and guided her through the worst of it. One of them took her hand, tiny fingers surprisingly strong as they pressed into hers.

And then—there it was. The shift. The moment the pain turned from cresting waves into something else. Something final.

“You must push, Miss,” the elder elf said softly. “He is ready.”

Hermione gathered what strength she had left, grit her teeth, and bore down. Once. Twice. Again.

A scream ripped through her—raw, human, primal.

And then—a cry.

Sharp. Piercing. New.

Hermione slumped back, breathless, as the weight of it all fell away. Her body shook with exhaustion, her mind reeling. She was distantly aware of hands catching the baby, wrapping him in a soft cloth, cleaning and checking him quickly.

And then— bundle. Warm. Alive. Laid against her chest.

Her son.

He was pink and wrinkled and perfect. His tiny fists curled. His face pressed instinctively into her skin. And when he opened his eyes—grey, unmistakably grey—her breath caught in her throat.

Tears spilled freely now. Silent. Unstoppable.

She had no words. Just the rise and fall of his breath against hers.

The bond hummed faintly in her chest, like the echo of a heartbeat. Not her own. Not Lucius’s. But something new.

Her son.

Her child.

His mouth opened, rooting instinctively. His fingers curled like leaves against her skin. She touched his face with wonder, her tears falling freely now. He was here. Against every rule of time, every law of magic, every line of history she’d ever known—he was here.

She kissed his forehead, breathless. “You made it,” she whispered. “We made it.”

Outside, the wind stilled.

And within her arms, the future shifted.

It was the 5th of June, 1980. The morning the world changed—quietly, in secret, in blood.

Hermione held him close, their skin still slick from birth, his cries already softening into small, curious grunts. He was so small. So impossibly warm. His little face turned instinctively toward her breast, his mouth seeking, his fingers curled into trembling fists.

She guided him gently. Watched his mouth latch, felt the tug—sharp, unfamiliar. And then the warmth. The bond. Magic, but not the kind taught in books. Not even the kind that tethered her to Lucius.

This was different.

This was bone-deep.

She could feel him. His small, primal need. His breath catching as he fed. His heartbeat fluttering beneath his soft skin, impossibly fast. And hers slowing, steadying. Meeting his. Calming him.

Her hand cradled the back of his head, her other curled protectively around his body. Their magic pulsed in a gentle loop—hers to him, his to her, without effort or incantation. A mother and her son. Created from a rupture in time. Anchored now in breath and blood.

“You’re real,” she whispered, voice hoarse with exhaustion and awe. “You’re mine.”

For the first time in months, something inside her loosened. The fear, the shame, the weight of futures undone—it all fell silent for a moment. There was only him. His smell. His warmth. His life.

She didn’t notice the door until it opened.

Softly. Deliberately.

Narcissa’s silhouette appeared in the doorway, backlit in silver. She didn’t speak at first—her gaze locked on the small bundle in Hermione’s arms. She stepped inside without being invited, the air cooling as she crossed the room. Her face was composed, but her eyes burned.

Hermione held him tighter.

Then Narcissa spoke.

“It’s time,” she said, her voice clipped. Clean. Devoid of anything human.

Hermione tightened her hold on the baby.

“No,” she whispered, her voice already breaking. “Please. Don’t do this.”

Narcissa’s steps were unhurried as she moved closer. Her hands folded in front of her like a queen addressing the condemned. “This is not a negotiation.”

Hermione shook her head, breath catching. “Please, Narcissa,” she whispered. “He’s mine. He needs me—he’s just a baby.”

Narcissa’s eyes flicked down to the bundle in her arms. For a moment, something passed across her face. Something old. Cold. “He is not yours,” she said softly. “He is a Malfoy. The first and only thing of value to come from this… mistake.”

Hermione felt herself splinter. “You can’t—”

“I can.” Narcissa’s voice hardened. “And I will.”

Draco stirred, his mouth puckering in his sleep. Hermione pressed her lips to his forehead.

Then Narcissa turned slightly. “Tilly.”

The elf appeared with a soft pop, eyes wide and trembling.

“Take the child,” Narcissa said. Quietly. Sharply.

Tilly didn’t move.

“Please,” Hermione begged, her voice fraying. “Please, don’t take him from me.”

Tilly looked between them, wringing her hands. “Mistress Malfoy… Miss is still healing… perhaps—”

“Now.”

The elf flinched.

Draco began to cry.

“No—” Hermione’s voice cracked. She gathered him tighter to her chest, rocking him instinctively. “Don’t touch him. He needs me. He needs—”

“He needs a name,” Narcissa cut in. “He will be registered as Draco Lucius Malfoy. The heir. Raised properly. By this family. Not by a girl who should never have stepped foot into this house.”

Hermione screamed when Tilly stepped closer. “No! No—don’t touch him! Please, please—Tilly, don’t—”

But Tilly’s hands were gentle. Shaking. And Draco was lifted from her arms with careful magic. Hermione fought, nearly lunging from the bed, her body still too weak, still bleeding. She clawed forward with everything left in her—but Narcissa stepped in her path, her palm pressing Hermione down by the shoulder with frightening steadiness.

“Enough,” she said, low. “You’ve embarrassed yourself enough.”

Hermione sobbed openly, her fingers dragging through empty air. “He’s my son.”

Narcissa didn’t flinch. “Not anymore.”

Draco cried harder as he was taken. Hermione’s breath caught as the bond stretched—pulled—then screamed. Not broken, but burning. A phantom pain tore through her as if her heart had been removed still beating.

Tilly disappeared with a pop. The cries vanished with her.

Silence.

Hermione collapsed onto the sheets, her body convulsing with grief.

Narcissa stood above her, composed once more.

“You’ve served your purpose,” she said, voice like glass. “And you’ll be forgotten just as quickly. Draco Lucius Malfoy will never know your name.”

Hermione couldn’t breathe.

Her arms ached with the absence of him. Her chest heaved in silent sobs, each one catching, folding in on itself. The bed beneath her was damp—milk, blood, tears, the afterbirth of everything she had loved and lost in the space of a single breath.

Draco was gone.

The bond screamed inside her—raw and searing, stretched to some unnatural edge. It hadn’t broken, but it was fraying. Her skin felt cold. Her bones hollow.

Narcissa hadn’t moved. She watched from across the room, pale and radiant and merciless, as if this were just another afternoon in the drawing room. Another lecture. Another victory.

She turned to leave.

But the air changed.

Not with sound. Not with magic. With presence.

Hermione felt it before she saw him.

The door didn’t open. It simply ceased to matter. The light in the room shifted. Shadows curled differently on the floor.

And then—he was there.

Lucius.

But not the one who had left her behind. Not the man who had buried his face in her neck on the first of June and whispered promises he could never keep.

This Lucius was older.

His hair was the same shade of winter, but the face had hardened. There was something cold in his posture—coiled, knowing. His robes were black. His wand already raised.

Narcissa froze.

Her hand instinctively flew to her wand—but it was too late.

“Petrificus Totalus.”

Her body locked mid-turn, crashing to the floor with a dull, rigid thud—arms pinned, mouth half-open, eyes wide with fury. Lucius stepped toward her, his expression blank. Still, he didn’t look at Hermione. Not yet.

Hermione couldn’t speak.

He crouched beside Narcissa, murmured almost gently, “You will remember the child. He will know you as mother. But nothing more.”

Then he raised his wand once more.

“Obliviate.”

A clean, precise spell. Whispered like a secret. Narcissa’s body shuddered once, and her expression went slack.

Then—he spoke to her.

“You were never meant to win,” he murmured, crouching beside her. “You mistook coldness for strength. Control for loyalty. But you were never strong enough to hold what was never yours.”

He rose.

“She will remember the child,” he added, voice sharper now. “As hers. And she will believe it. Because even in delusion, she will still serve the name.”

Hermione’s mouth opened, but no sound came.

He turned to her then.

Lucius.

Her Lucius—and not.

His face changed the moment their eyes met. Everything in him fractured. The sharp lines. The cold control. It fell away as he looked at her—torn, shaking, bare.

He crossed to her without a word.

And without asking, without needing to explain—he took her into his arms.

The bond surged.

She clutched at him, her body collapsing into his without resistance. No fear. No logic. Just heat. Just breath. Just the unspeakable, impossible relief of being held by the one she had mourned.

He pressed his mouth to her temple. His breathing was rough. Off rhythm.

Still, not a word.

Then he reached beneath his robes.

The Time Turner shimmered gold against the black.

Hermione gasped, her fingers closing around his sleeve.

He pulled her close.

The baby was gone. The timeline was broken. Her body trembled, raw and unfinished.

But he had come.

She nodded once.

And then—time cracked.

The room dissolved.

And they vanished.

END OF PART ONE

Chapter Text

PART TWO

XIII

The world did not fall apart when time tore open. But the magic of it was not gentle.

It ripped. It seared. It folded the body into something boneless, then snapped it taut again like a violin string pulled too tight.

Hermione felt every second of it.

She was already bleeding. Already broken. Her limbs ached with the memory of labour, her belly raw and empty, her breasts tender with milk that had nowhere to go. The pull of the bond was quieter now. Distant. As if muffled by the very walls of time.

And then—the world came back all at once.

Hard ground. Cold air. A sky split in half by rain.

She didn’t cry out.

She just collapsed.

Her legs folded. Her fingers slipped from Lucius’s sleeve. Her knees hit stone.

The last thing she remembered was the sound of wind catching on his cloak—and the way his arms caught her just before her head struck the floor.

Then—nothing.

She woke in silence.

The room was dim, unfamiliar. Stone walls. Wooden beams above. Somewhere far from Malfoy Manor. Far from the nursery. Far from the bleeding echo of a child’s cry.

The scent of mugwort and crushed thyme floated faintly in the air.

Her limbs were too heavy to move. Her mouth dry. Her breasts ached, swollen with milk and the ache of absence.

She stirred faintly.

And he was there.

Lucius. Sitting beside the bed, one hand braced on the edge of the mattress, the other holding a small glass vial. His hair was pulled back, his face shadowed—but he was watching her.

He had not left.

The bond was still there. Dimmer now, quiet as a heartbeat buried beneath cloth. But it pulsed. It knew her.

“Drink this,” he said quietly.

Not sharp. Not urgent. Rough around the edges. Hoarse from lack of sleep.

Hermione tried to speak, but her throat failed. She opened her mouth. Closed again. Her body was too hollow for words.

He lifted the vial to her lips. His hand was steady.

“It will help you sleep.”

She didn’t want to. She wanted to ask where they were. What day it was. If the pain meant the bleeding had stopped. If the bond was still intact. If the child—their child—

But all of that was beyond her. She was nothing but bone and pulse and memory now. Her skin still smelled like milk. Her belly still bore the soft, sagging weight of what had been carried. Of what had been taken.

Lucius tilted the vial gently.

She drank.

The potion was warm. Bitter. It spread through her like honey pulled through ash.

His hand brushed her temple. Just once. Just briefly.

“Sleep,” he said, and for once it was not a command.

It was a promise.

She closed her eyes.

And this time—when she fell—it didn’t hurt.

She woke slowly.

No jolt. No pain. Just breath—shallow, uncertain—filling her lungs in a room washed with grey morning light.

The ache in her limbs had dulled. The fever had broken. But her body still felt foreign—emptied out and still waiting for something that would never come.

Her hand drifted to her abdomen.

Still soft. Still hollow. Still mother, who had lost her child.

She turned her head slightly and saw her.

Tilly.

Older. Slower. Her back stooped, her ears thinner, grey at the edges. But Hermione knew her at once.

And Tilly knew her.

The old elf stood folding linens at the far end of the room. Her eyes were lowered, but they were sharp beneath her lashes. Watchful. Trembling. Not afraid—just changed.

“Miss,” Tilly said softly. She bowed without looking up.

Hermione’s throat tightened. She tried to speak but couldn’t. Her mouth moved once, then stilled.

Tilly moved to her side with quiet care and placed a cup of warm broth in her hands. She did not ask questions. Did not scold. Just smoothed the blanket over Hermione’s legs and murmured a charm to ease the soreness in her back.

Hermione watched her through blurred lashes. Something in her shifted, painfully.

“You remember,” she whispered.

Tilly’s hands paused, ever so slightly.

A breath. A glance. Then a single nod.

Hermione didn’t ask how. Or why. Or if the magic had spared her, let her hold on to something no one else could. She didn’t need to know. All that mattered was this: she wasn’t alone.

Not entirely.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then—the air changed again.

A familiar tension gathered behind the door. Not heavy. Not cruel. Just… absolute.

Tilly turned quickly, and without a word, disappeared from the room.

Lucius stepped inside.

He hadn’t changed his robes. His hair was still damp near the temples. A line of exhaustion cut deep under his eyes. But he stood tall, composed.

Hermione sat up slowly. He didn’t speak. Just looked at her like something half-lost had returned.

And she—wrapped in linens and silence, emptied of child and time and fear—looked back.

Her lips parted. “Where are we?”

“We are in a safe place.” His voice was steady, but softer than she remembered. It folded into the air between them like something meant to hold her still.

She blinked, trying to sit up straighter.

“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “You don’t have to wait. You can tell me now. Everything. Where we are. What happened. What year—”

Lucius raised a hand.

“Later,” he said. “You’re not ready, Hermione.”

Her jaw clenched. “I am.”

He didn’t argue. Didn’t call her bluff. Just looked at her the way one might look at a wounded thing that refused to limp.

“You’re still pale,” he said quietly. “Still hollow.”

Her fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket.

“I’ve been through worse.”

His eyes flicked to hers. “And that’s precisely why you need to rest.”

She wanted to protest. But her body betrayed her. Slumping. Breath catching. The ache deepening.Her hands trembled when she tried to push herself upright. Lucius stepped forward and caught her wrist.

Two fingers. Careful. And the bond stirred between them—humming. Familiar. Tethered.  

“You bled too much,” he said, and for the first time, there was something unguarded in his voice. Not fear. Regret. “You need more time.”

Hermione lowered her gaze, chest tight. She hated this—this softness. This forced fragility.

But more than that, she hated the truth of it.

She didn’t feel better.

And they both knew it.

She hadn’t noticed the chair until Lucius pulled it closer to the bed, his movements quiet, unhurried.

“There’s a healer,” he said. “Someone I trust.”

Hermione stiffened.

“I don’t need—”

“You lost a great deal of blood. You’re still weak. This isn’t about trust or comfort, it’s about your body.” His gaze didn’t waver. “I won’t force it. But I’ll ask you to consider it.”

She swallowed.

A healer. Of course. After childbirth. After everything. She hated being prodded. Observed. Vulnerable.

But she hated not knowing more.

“Fine,” she murmured, pulling the blanket higher. “If you trust her.”

He nodded and left.

Minutes passed. Then the door opened.

She expected someone older. Traditional robes. Grey hair and gentle eyes. Someone maternal. The woman who stepped in wasn’t old, wasn’t gray-haired, wasn’t familiar in the way she should have been. Instead—a young woman. Blonde. Neat in green robes. Composed.

It took Hermione a second to see it.

The poise. The symmetry of her face. The name rose  before she could stop it.

“Daphne,” she whispered.

The woman stilled, just slightly.

But she recovered with elegance, offering only a faint smile and a soft, professional tone. “You must be Hermione. Lucius said you’ve only just woken. We won’t do much today—just an evaluation to ensure everything’s healing as it should.”

Hermione gripped the blanket. Couldn’t look away.

She doesn’t remember me. Of course not.

“I’ve been told you went through a difficult labour,” Daphne said, setting a small satchel on the table beside the bed.“I want to check for internal strain. Healing seems to be progressing, but we should be sure.”

Hermione nodded slowly.

Daphne was careful. Too careful. No questions about age, or weeks, or the child.

Just spells. A wand tip, cool and clean. Notes on bleeding, fever, pain. Nothing more.

And when it was done, she stepped back with a reassuring nod.

“You’re healing,” she said simply. “Still weak. But no complications.”

Hermione exhaled, shaky.

“Thank you.”

Daphne paused. “If anything feels off, call me,” she said. And with a polite smile, Daphne turned and left—closing the door behind her without looking back.

And Hermione, too stunned to speak, stared at the closed door. A strange pressure settled beneath her ribs.

Something had changed.

(Everything has changed.)

The next morning, they ate together.

Or—they sat across from each other.

At a long wooden table in the dim little room that served as both kitchen and parlour. A fire crackled. Tea steamed. Bread. Cheese. An egg. He had made it. She could tell—not from the way he said it, but because everything was cut too carefully. Too evenly. Like feeding her was penance.

Hermione barely touched it.

She sat with her back straight despite the ache in her spine, her hands wrapped around the warm teacup. Lucius was silent. He had always been comfortable in silence, but now it pressed between them like a second presence—thick, pressing. His eyes drifted to her face once or twice. She kept hers lowered.

So many unspoken questions.
So much unspoken loss.

Her voice broke like glass.

“Where… where am I?”

Lucius waited a moment, “Somewhere safe. Far enough no one will find you. Unless we want them to find us.”

Hermione nodded slowly, though the words didn’t mean much.

She swallowed. Tried again.

“Draco,” she said softly. “My baby. Where—”

Her voice fractured. She couldn’t finish.

Lucius closed his eyes.
When he opened them—something weighted lingered there.

Not sorrow. Not peace. Something else.

“He’s safe,” he said quietly. “This different world… this timeline—it’s already lived. Already settled.”

She blinked.

“He’s grown now,” Lucius added, his voice rough. “He’s alive. He’s here. But not in this house. Not with us.”

Hermione’s throat closed.

It didn’t make sense. Not really. Not yet. But her heart understood it before her mind could.

She’d lost him. And yet—he lived.

Somewhere, out there, was her son. Grown. Breathing. Walking through a world she hadn’t shaped. One that didn’t remember she’d held him in her arms, sobbing, only days ago.

Crushing her.

The memory of Draco’s tiny cries. The feel of his soft warmth in her arms. The damp heat of his cheek pressed to her collarbone.

It was still so fresh. So close. And the pain of losing him was like a knife twisting through her ribs.

Her fingers curled.

Across the table, Lucius’s fingers twitched—hovering slightly, as though he wanted to offer comfort. But he didn’t move. Didn’t reach her.

She breathed once. Then again.

“I had him,” she whispered. “He was mine.”

Lucius’s jaw tightened. He looked away, as if the morning outside the window offered something easier than her grief.

“I remember how he smelled,” she said. “Like milk and skin. His hair was damp. He had—he had these lines on his feet. So small I thought they’d fade in an hour.”

Lucius didn’t speak.

And Hermione couldn’t look at him.

Her arms still remembered the weight. Her breasts ached with the ghost of him. Her body hadn’t caught up with the truth—it still thought he was near.

But he wasn’t. He was gone. He was here— but he was gone.

A grown man. A stranger. No soft cries, no tiny fists, no warm cheek tucked beneath her jaw. Just absence. And time.

And silence.

She gripped the edge of the table, fingers white.

He would never know her.

She had died, in every way that mattered. Erased before he ever learned to speak her name.

The thought lodged sharp in her throat.

Her eyes burned, but she didn’t cry. Couldn’t. The grief was too vast. Too still.

She didn’t know this place. This time. She didn’t know what version of Lucius sat across from her, or what Draco had become in a world without her. The bond between them still pulsed beneath her skin, but everything else—everything real—was gone.

“I need air,” she said, and stood. Slowly. As though every part of her body still belonged to the past.

He didn’t stop her. Just watched her walk to the window, one hand braced against the frame.

Behind them, the tea cooled. The bread went untouched. And silence stretched between them—wide and unbearable.

Neither said another word.

Chapter Text

XIV

The weather turned colder. Not winter. Not yet. But the wind came sharper now. Rain fell harder.  Even the fire in the hearth seemed to burn lower, as though it, too, was conserving itself.

Hermione walked more each day.  Her body still ached—an echo of labour she couldn’t forget—but she forced herself to move.
Across the room. Down the narrow hall. Once, as far as the kitchen before Lucius appeared in the doorway, his hand resting lightly against the frame, watching.

Always watching.

Not when she looked at him. Never directly. But she could feel it—his eyes on her when she shifted a chair, when she reached for something heavy, when she lingered too long at the window.

The distance was deliberate.
Not cold . Not cruel . As though a part of him still believed she might vanish if he came too close.

She remembered the way he’d held her when they landed—how his arms had closed around her without thought, how he’d kept her head from hitting the stone. There had been no calculation in that. Only instinct.

Now—she realised sadly – there was calculation in everything.

She learned the house in pieces. A low-ceilinged kitchen with an uneven stone floor.
A small parlour with a single armchair positioned near the fire.  Her room—the largest—was clearly meant for convalescence. Warm, quiet, with shelves lined in jars of herbs and potions.

There was no trace of Malfoy Manor here.
No gleaming marble, no endless corridors, no echo of footsteps in long halls. This place was built for survival, not display.

Once she found him in the kitchen in shirtsleeves, sleeves rolled neatly to his forearms, cutting bread with precise, even strokes. His expression didn’t change when he saw her, but his posture did—spine straightening, knife set down, the faintest tightening in his jaw. He asked if she needed something.
She said no. But she wanted to scream yes. 

That was their pattern now.  Small exchanges. Long silences.

His grief—if that’s what it was—slipped through in the smallest ways. The way his eyes lingered on nothing for too long. The pauses before he answered her. The unspoken things he kept locked behind the press of his lips.

She was strong enough to dress without stopping to sit. Tilly had brought her plain wool gowns in muted colours. They fit well enough, though the fabric scratched faintly at her skin. She wore one now, hair braided down her back, and sat by the window with her tea while rain pressed against the glass.

That was when she heard them.

Low voices, muffled by the door to the hall. Two men.  She recognised one instantly—Lucius.
The other…

Her hand stilled on the mug.

The words were indistinct, but the cadence was unmistakable. Precise. Controlled. Worn smooth by years of measured contempt. A voice she had once hated, then learned to trust, then mourned.

Her heart thudded once, hard.

It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.
She had seen him—no, she remembered his body, cold and…

Hermione set the mug down, careful not to let porcelain click against the saucer. She crossed the floor quietly, bare feet making no sound, and pressed her hand to the wall near the door. The wards on the wood dulled the sound, but not completely.

She leaned in, eyes closing.

Lucius’s voice—measured, calm.Then the other again, low and quick, the consonants clipped the way she remembered.

Severus Snape.

Her pulse beat in her ears.

The voices faded.  Footsteps receded down the hall.  The front door closed with the heavy finality of magic-latched wood.

Hermione stood there for a long moment, her palm flat against the wall.
The air in the room felt heavier now, as though the sound had left something behind.

She went back to the window, but her tea was cold.

Tilly came half an hour later with a tray—fresh bread, soft cheese, more tea steaming faintly.

Hermione didn’t greet her at first. She stayed seated by the window, looking at the low sky and the rain sliding down the glass.

“I heard someone this morning,” she said finally. Her tone was mild. Almost offhand. ”Speaking with Lucius.”

Tilly’s hands hesitated over the tray, then moved again. “Sometimes, miss. Not often. Master sees… some people.”

“Friends?” Hermione asked lightly.

The elf’s ears twitched. “Old friends.”

Hermione let the silence breathe between them, unhurried.

She reached for her tea. “I know the voice, Tilly.”

Tilly stilled.

“I would swear to it,” Hermione continued softly. “It can’t be him. It isn’t possible. But I heard him.”

The elf began to busy herself with the bread knife, slicing too quickly.

Hermione kept her gaze on the rain. “Was it Snape?”

A pause.

The faintest nod.

Hermione turned, but before she could speak, Tilly’s eyes widened in alarm.
“Oh—Miss must forget what Tilly said—Tilly should not—Master would be—Tilly didn’t mean—”

“Tilly—” Hermione began, but the elf was already gone, the pop of displaced air echoing faintly in the room.

Hermione sat back, her hand tightening around the mug.

The warmth bled slowly into her skin, but the chill in her chest didn’t lift.

The rest of the day, she did not see him.

She listened for the sound of boots in the hall, the rustle of a robe as he passed her door, the faint weight of his presence in the air—nothing.

When Tilly came with supper, Hermione asked where he was.
The elf’s eyes slid away. “Master is occupied.”

That was all.

That night, she couldn’t sleep.

The bed felt too wide. The walls too close. Every time she shut her eyes, she heard the impossible voice again—low, precise, utterly alive.

Severus Snape.  Here.  Breathing. Alive .

And Lucius had said nothing.

By morning, her tea tasted bitter.

She told herself it was the leaves, or the water, or the pot gone stale. But it wasn’t. The bitterness was her own. It sat low in her throat, pressed behind her ribs.

He was keeping things from her.
Not small things. Not harmless omissions -  everything.

Where she was. What day it was. What year.

What future she had fallen into.

She remembered the war well enough to know what silence could do. Silence could shape a battle. Win it. Lose it.

It could kill.

She began moving differently.

Not the slow convalescent walks meant to regain strength, but steps measured for quiet.
Bare feet on stone. Hand trailing along the wall to feel for loose boards, hollow spaces. She noticed which doors were locked, which hinges creaked, which ones opened without sound.

She kept her head down when she passed Tilly in the hall. Let the elf think she was still tired.
Let Lucius think she was still pliant.

Her anger burned cleaner now.

Not a loud fire. Not yet.  But the kind that glows low in the grate, eating slowly at the logs until they collapse in on themselves.

Every time Lucius looked at her without telling her where she was—she felt it.

Every time he left without saying who he was meeting—she felt it. 

Every time she remembered Draco and knew she couldn’t even find the right street to go looking for him— she felt it.

The house had patterns.

 Lucius was gone mid-mornings, most often. Back by late afternoon. Tilly used those hours to do the kitchen work, the laundry, the cleaning—never far, but distracted enough that Hermione could move.

She started small.
Opening the kitchen door just far enough to see the back garden—wild grass, a crumbling stone wall, mist curling low over it. Pressing her ear to the door at the end of the hall—the one with wards she could feel prickling at her skin.

Each time she found nothing, her frustration sharpened.

Then - she heard it again.

A low murmur from behind the warded door. Lucius’s voice. And the other—slightly sharper this time, as if irritated.

Hermione stepped closer, careful on the balls of her feet. The air near the wood was faintly charged. She leaned her head toward the grain, eyes closing.

“…not yet,” Lucius was saying.

A pause.

Then Snape—clipped, quick, the syllables clean as glass breaking. She couldn’t catch the words, but the tone was unmistakable.

Her pulse quickened. She took a step closer.

The wards shifted under her skin—like heat running through fine threads. Her breath caught, and she pulled back just before the magic could flare.

Inside, the voices dropped again, too low for her to catch.

When the door finally opened, she wasn’t there to see it. She had gone back to her room, cup of tea in hand, looking out at the rain as though she had never moved.

She heard Lucius’s steps pass her door.

He didn’t stop. Didn’t look in.

And her anger settled deeper.

She lost count of the passing days when she tried the study door.

Lucius had left just after breakfast, coat pulled tight against the wind. She watched from the narrow upstairs window until the sound of boots on stone faded completely.

Tilly was in the kitchen. The scrape of a knife against a cutting board drifted faintly up the hall.

Hermione moved quickly, bare feet silent, her hand already curling around the door handle.

Locked. Of course.

She closed her eyes, breathing slowly through her nose, and put her hand onthe  door, resigned. And then - to her surprise - the lock gave with a click that sounded much too loud.

Still shocked, she slipped inside and shut the door behind her.

It smelled faintly of ink and old parchment. The desk was heavy oak, papers stacked in precise columns, each quill cleaned and capped. There were no photographs. No keepsakes.

No trace of a man’s private life—only his work.

She went to the desk first, opening drawers carefully, running her fingers over ledgers and correspondence. Most were coded or written in shorthand.

It was the folded newspaper under a blotter sheet that stopped her.

The print was neat. Ordinary.
The Daily Prophet, dated 6 November, 2000.

Her breath caught.

She had never thought of a year as a physical thing before, but here it was—inked at the top of the page. A randon date in a random world she didn’t belong to. 

She set the paper flat on the desk.

There were headlines about Ministry policy, Quidditch standings, a new wandmaker’s shop opening in Diagon Alley.

It was so… normal.

Her eyes darted for names.

Near the bottom of the third page—a small item, barely a paragraph— Arthur Weasley appointed head of Muggle Integration Council; new programme to expand Muggle–wizard trade relations lauded as success.

She read it twice. Three times. That was all. No mention of Molly. No mention of Ron or Ginny or the twins. Just Arthur, smiling faintly in the moving photograph, shaking hands with a witch in bright blue robes.

Her chest tightened.

She turned pages faster now, scanning for any sign of the names she carried like stones in her pocket. Potter. Longbottom. Lovegood. Malfoy. Snape, even.

Nothing she would like to see.

The war was nowhere. The dead were nowhere.

It was a paper from a world that had kept moving without her.

Her fingers gripped the edge of the desk until her knuckles ached.

It should have been a comfort—this absence of violence, of loss. But it wasn’t.

It was suffocating. Like trying to breathe under wool.

The ordinariness pressed in on her, heavy and relentless. This life was already lived. Already settled. And she was a stranger in it.

She set the paper down slowly, smoothing the creases she’d made.

Then she folded it exactly as she’d found it, slid it back beneath the blotter, and stood very still until her heartbeat steadied.

She had just closed the study door when she heard the sound.

Not loud. Not deliberate. Just the low shift of boots on stone, the subtle weight of air changing — the way it always did when he was near.

Her stomach dropped.

Lucius stood at the far end of the hall, coat still on, rain dripping from the hem, hair damp and pulled back with less care than usual.
He looked at her once. Then at the door she’d just closed. And then back at her.

There was nothing on his face. Not anger. Not surprise. Only the kind of stillness that could split apart into anything.

“I was looking for you,” she said. Her voice was thin. Unsteady. “You weren’t here.”

He walked toward her, slow and measured, his boots almost silent on the worn floor.  “You’ve been in my study.”

It wasn’t a question.

Her hand tightened on the back of a chair by the wall.  “You’ve been keeping me in the dark,” she said, and once the words began, they didn’t stop.

He stopped in front of her, tall enough to make the narrow hallway feel smaller. “You are not well enough—”

“I am not an invalid, Lucius.” Her voice cracked, then rose, sharp. “You’ve brought me into this strange, impossible world, and you won’t tell me anything.”

He didn’t flinch. But his eyes held her steady, like he was trying to anchor her in place.

“I don’t know where I am,” she went on, heat rising in her throat. “I don’t know what’s  happened. I don’t know what’s waiting outside these walls, or what year I’ve been thrown into. I don’t know who’s alive and who isn’t. And,”  her breath caught, breaking “I don’t know how to find Draco.”

His mouth pressed into a hard line.

“You said he’s alive,” she pushed, words tumbling over each other now, “but I am nowhere near him, and I don’t know what kind of life he has. I don’t know if he’s safe. I don’t know if he would even” her voice trembled hard “recognise me.”

Her breath was coming too fast. She could hear it.

“I feel like a prisoner.”

Something flickered across his face — grief, or guilt, or both — and was gone in the next second.

“You are safe,” he said, low. Steady.

She laughed — not because it was funny, but because the word cut like glass. “Safe is not knowing if my son would even know my voice. Safe is hearing a man who should be dead speaking in your hall, and you saying nothing.”

His eyes sharpened, but she didn’t stop.

“You’re a stranger to me,” she said, and it landed between them like a blow. “You look the same, you sound the same, but you move differently. You speak differently. You keep me at arm’s length as if I’m something you can’t bear to hold.”

Her chest ached. Her hands were trembling.

“And maybe you have your reasons,” she went on, quieter now but more dangerous for it, “but I am drowning in them. And I am telling you,” her voice cracked again, “I cannot stay here, blind and silent, while the rest of the world moves without me.”

He didn’t move at first.

Just stood there, looking at her like the words had stripped something raw between them.
Her breath came fast. The hall felt too narrow. The rain outside was a steady whisper against the glass.

Then he stepped forward.

One measured step. Then another.  Until the space between them was gone.

She expected a hand on her arm. Fingers on her chin to force her still. A cutting remark.
But instead, his arms came around her.

It wasn’t careful.  It wasn’t distant.
It was fierce — the kind of hold that drew her in against the hard line of his chest, his breath warm at her temple.

The bond between them flared — not the muted hum it had been since the jump, but a live current, sparking bright under her skin. She felt him in it — the way it had always been, but sharper now.

Fear. Tight and low, curling deep in him. And under it — love, the kind that burned, unyielding, no matter how much he tried to bury it.

Her hands, stiff at first, found his robes and held.

The tears came hot, sudden, blinding. Sliding down her cheeks and into the fabric at his shoulder. She hated the way her body shook against him, hated how much she needed the weight of his hold.

But she couldn’t stop.

His palm cupped the back of her head. Not guiding. Not forcing. Just there — steady.

“I know,” he murmured, voice low, rough in a way she hadn’t heard in years. “I know.”

It wasn’t an answer. It wasn’t enough.

But through the rush of the bond — his fear, his grief, the fierce certainty that he would keep her breathing at any cost — she understood.

He wanted the best for her.  And it was killing her to bear it.

Chapter Text

XV

He had told himself he was prepared.

Years of discipline had taught him the value of readiness. The art of calculating a dozen outcomes before the first move was made. But nothing — no amount of strategy, no cold-blooded rehearsals in the dark — could prepare him for the sight of her.

Hermione.

Not the girl from his past. Not the name spoken only in memory.

She was there — in this time, in this place — raw from birth, eyes wide with a grief that tore straight through the years he’d survived without her.

For a moment, he thought it was a trick.

Some cruel echo conjured to pull him off balance.

But the bond answered before he could think otherwise — surging like a rope pulled taut between them.

Her. Alive.

And Narcissa, who was at the edge, ready to attack. 

He didn’t hesitate.

The words — the curse — left his mouth like muscle memory. Narcissa stiffened, fell, the fury in her eyes freezing before she hit the floor. He didn’t look at her again.

The wand turned in his hand, the Obliviate precise, surgical. To reshape the memory, leave her with a version that would keep Draco safe — keep them safe — from the ruin she would bring.

Only then did he look at Hermione.

The years he had worn like armour cracked in an instant. He had not been ready for this — the sight of her body still trembling from the labour, the colour drained from her face, her eyes hollowed out by what Narcissa had taken.

He crossed the space between them without thinking. The sound of her breathing was uneven — shallow, fading. He reached her in time to catch her as she broke.

The scent of her skin — blood, milk, and salt — hit him with the force of memory. For a heartbeat, the past and present blurred. He had held her like this before, almost like in another lifetime. And lost her.

Not again. Never again.

His hand closed over the Time-Turner at his chest. The weight of it was almost unbearable. But he saw the flicker of recognition in her eyes, the faint nod — trust, even now.

When the magic took them, it ripped through him like fire. But the only thing he felt was her, pressed into his arms, the fragile pulse of her life against his chest.

She would hate him, possibly.  She would curse him for what he would keep from her at the beginning.
But she would live.

The house was waiting for them.

He had made sure of it years ago — in another life, another war. Quiet wards buried so deep that even the Ministry’s most delicate tracing spells would slide past without pause. A building no one remembered owning, tucked into the crook of a nameless lane, its chimney smoke lost in the sprawl of an old northern village.

It had always been for her.

Not that he could have admitted it, even to himself. When the notion first took root — that a seam in time might open and she might slip through — he buried the thought beneath more practical contingencies. Safe houses, supply caches, secure lines of contact. His role demanded foresight, and foresight demanded that he prepare for every possibility.

Including this one.

The landing was hard. Time travel always was.
She collapsed almost instantly, her fingers falling away from his sleeve. The sound of her knees hitting stone was enough to make his teeth clench.

He caught her before her head struck the floor, lowering her into the crook of his arm. She was weightless in the wrong way — not light with health, but emptied. Her skin was damp, her breath thin. Her body still carried the traces of birth: the blood, the heat, the sharp chemical tang of magic burnt thin.

He didn’t speak. Not yet.

The wards bloomed open at his touch, accepting her without resistance. Inside, the air was cool, scented faintly with herbs and old wood. A fire had been set in the hearth earlier in the day — he had given instructions. Tilly wasn’t there. Not yet. She would come later.

For now, there was only the bed, the potion he had kept waiting, and the silence of a room that no one but him had entered in years.

He set her down as though she might break — though he knew she already had — and uncorked the vial. Mugwort, chamomile, a trace of poppy. Enough to draw her into deep, painless sleep. Her eyes found him, unfocused but aware.

He held it to her lips. Watched her drink. Brushed a strand of hair from her temple.

“Sleep,” he told her. It was the only mercy he could give her tonight.

By the second morning, arrangements had begun to move.

A message had already gone to the one man who could be trusted with this: a dark-feathered patronus slipping like smoke through the countryside until it reached its mark.

Severus didn’t come in person, but his answer had been swift, laced with the same dry precision it had carried for decades. The code was old, one they had used during the war when neither side knew where the other’s allegiance would fall.

I will supply what is needed. 

Lucius burned the parchment in the hearth.

She stirred only twice before he brought Tilly to her. The elf had aged — he saw it in the stoop of her back, the grey dusting the edges of her ears — but she still moved with the same deliberate care.

“Tend to her,” he instructed. Tilly did not ask questions, though he saw the quick flicker of recognition in her eyes when she looked at the bed.

The healer was harder to arrange. He had not wanted anyone near Hermione, but there were things he could not do — things that required a softer hand. Daphne was the only one he trusted enough. She owed him a debt, and more than that, she had the discipline to keep her mouth shut.

She arrived without fanfare, hair pinned, robes immaculate, her voice as steady as it had been the day she had sworn never to work under Ministry registry. 

For three days, Lucius kept to the study when he could, retreating there when her breathing was steady enough to leave. It was not avoidance — not entirely — but he knew the danger of speaking too soon.

She was clever. Too clever.

If he told her everything now, she would fight it. Break herself against truths she wasn’t strong enough to bear.

He had waited twenty years for this moment — for her to return, in any form, in any time.
He could wait a little longer to tell her what she was stepping into.

The rhythm of the house had settled into something almost tolerable.The fire banked low by night. Quiet footfalls in the corridors. Tilly’s careful ministrations.

He worked from the study when she slept, not because there was pressing business, but because there were still threads in this world that demanded his hand. Threads that had been woven years ago, in the kind of secrecy only Severus Snape had ever understood.

The sound of the wards shifting came just before the knock.

Lucius didn’t rise — he knew exactly who it was.

“Enter,” he called.

The door swung open to reveal the same figure he’d met in countless unlit corridors and abandoned houses over the years. Snape still dressed as though the war had never ended — black from throat to boot, his hair falling loose over his shoulders.

He shut the door with the same measured grace, his eyes scanning the study in one sweep before settling on Lucius.

“You look terrible,” Severus said without inflection, setting a small package on the desk.

“And you look precisely the same,” Lucius replied dryly.

It was not warmth, not exactly — but it was their version of it. The understanding of men who had lied to the same people, kept the same secrets, risked the same knife in the back for the same outcome.

“How is he?” Lucius asked without preamble.

Snape’s brow eased just slightly. “Well. Stubborn. Brilliant. In need of a sharper challenge than the Ministry dares offer him. But alive. Which is more than can be said for many.”

Lucius allowed himself the smallest exhale.

“And your godfathering?”

“Impeccable. I’ve kept him alive, haven’t I?”

“You’ve also taught him your bad habits.”

“Someone had to,” Snape said, a flicker of wryness ghosting across his features. “Merlin forbid the boy grow up thinking you’re the clever one.”

Lucius didn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth shifted in a way that Snape had learned to read years ago.

They had both worn masks for so long — for the Dark Lord, for the Order, for the Ministry that claimed victory after the war. They had lied with the same breath they told the truth. And the only people who knew the full shape of it stood in this room now.

“She’s upstairs?” Snape asked at last.

Lucius nodded. “Recovering. Restless. It will be… difficult.”

“It always was.”

That almost drew a real smile. Almost.

Lucius glanced at the parchment Snape had brought, but before he reached for it, something shifted in the air beyond the door. Not Tilly. Not the wards. Something warmer. Lighter. A person leaning close enough for the breath to change the air.

Hermione.

Snape caught his glance toward the door instantly, one brow lifting in silent question.

“Later,” Lucius said, quiet but carrying.

Snape didn’t press. He only sat back, his dark gaze steady, and waited for the conversation to change to safer ground. They had been overheard before — by enemies who didn’t live long enough to regret it. This was different. But it was still dangerous.

Lucius let the silence stretch, already certain the damage was done.

Snape didn’t stay long. He never did.

Before leaving, he paused with one hand on the back of the chair, his gaze narrowing slightly. Only once, in all the years since Lucius had told him — since that night Hermione had been torn from another life — had he asked the question outright.

Am I in her world?

Lucius had shown him, just once, the fragment of her memory that held him. In her timeline, he had been the same man in principle — a double agent walking the knife-edge between survival and ruin — but there had been more shadows in his eyes. A sadder end. A life spent serving a cause that had claimed him in the end.

She hadn’t trusted him so much as she had trusted Dumbledore’s word. Still, in her memories, he had stood at her Light side when it mattered and saved Harry.

Snape had never asked again. Some truths, once seen, were better left untouched.

Now, their eyes met in brief, wordless understanding. A nod passed between them — acknowledgement, agreement, an unspoken promise that nothing further would be said.

Then Snape gathered his cloak, the firelight slipping across its folds like water over stone, and let himself out without another word.

Lucius didn’t move until the wards settled again.

He knew she was there before the wards confirmed it. A faint disruption. The soft scrape of parchment. The weight in the air that only came when she was angry enough to ignore consequences.

Her shoulders were set in that stubborn way he remembered. 

The same defiance she’d worn the night she died.

He still saw it when he closed his eyes — Narcissa’s hands, precise and merciless, the sound Hermione made when the curse struck. His own paralysis, half a second too long. That cold, absolute understanding: he had been too late.

It had not left him in all these years.

When the opportunity came — when the strands of time aligned and the impossible became possible — he had not hesitated. Not for the Order. Not for redemption. Not even for the bond they had shared before it broke.
He had done it because the memory of her death was a wound that had never closed, and he would not live with it twice.

Now here she was. Alive. Breathing. In his house, in his study, looking at him as if she still stood in the corridor of the war, still deciding whether to trust him.

The fire between them was not new. He had carried it for years — through the work, the double life, the endless careful steps to rescue her without revealing too much. Every arrangement with Snape, every quiet warning passed through Dumbledore’s network, every time he positioned himself between Narcissa and the Dark Lord’s suspicions.

It had never been enough.

She looked at him now, eyes bright with fury, and he thought — not for the first time — that love and fear were the same thing. That to protect her was to hold both in equal measure, burning and unbearable.

If she knew how many nights he had calculated this — moving pieces on a board she could not yet see — she would hate him for it. She would see only the control, not the desperation behind it. Better she think him cold than see how much of him was already hers.

She shouted. Accused him of keeping her in the dark. Of locking her in this unfamiliar future, far from Draco. Of making her a prisoner.

Every word was true.
Every word was wrong.

Because he had not kept her in the dark out of cruelty. He had done it because knowledge was a blade, and this world already had too many ways to cut her down. Her heart and soul.

And when her voice broke — when she said prisoner — something in him gave way.

He stepped forward before he could stop himself, closing the space, letting the bond surge and spark between them. Her grief struck through him like lightning. Her body shook against his, and he held her as if the past could be undone by force alone.

Fear. Love. The same. Always.

Her tears hit his neck, hot and salt-sharp, and he felt something in him go — a fine, precise fracture in the place he had kept untouched for decades.

It was one thing to plan for her safety. To build walls around her life so high that no curse, no betrayal, could reach her. That he could do. That he had done.

It was another thing entirely to feel her shaking against him and know she believed she was alone.

The bond throbbed in his chest, low and steady at first, then stronger — answering her without thought, without permission. It had been quiet since the day he pulled her from that other time, muffled under layers of exhaustion and grief. Now it burned. Not like the brand of servitude he had worn once in his youth, but like a vein of molten metal, carrying her pain straight into his own bloodstream.

He had learned long ago not to move when hurt. Not to react. Stillness was armor, silence was strategy. But stillness now was agony.

He could feel what she wasn’t saying — the way the dark was closing in on her, the way every unanswered question pressed like hands around her throat. She had lost her child. Lost her world. Woken to a man who wore her lover’s face but carried years she had never seen.

Her fingers curled against his back, not to hold him closer but to steady herself.

And he thought — wildly, dangerously — that if she asked him in this moment to tell her everything , he might. He might strip back the years of careful secrecy and give her every answer, just to stop this tearing in her voice, this heat on his skin that told him she was breaking.

He had loved her in silence once. Loved her in the long, dangerous way that meant she would never know until it was too late.

Now silence was killing her.

His hands tightened — just enough for her to feel it — and he let the bond open a fraction more, let her sense him the way he had been sensing her: the coiled fear, the unwillingness to let her go again, the jagged edge of wanting to protect her even from himself .

“Breathe,” he said, and it was not a command. It was the only thing left between them that wouldn’t break them both.

It was different this time.

The bond didn’t just hum — it opened.

She felt it before she understood it: a sudden rush under her skin, too sharp to be warmth, too deep to be mere magic. Not just presence. Not just the faint tether that had been there since before Draco was born.

This was him.

Not the controlled lines of him she was used to. Not the unreadable face that always left her guessing. This was the marrow-deep fear, the low thrum of exhaustion he never let anyone see, the fierce, stubborn refusal to let her go again — not to time, not to death, not to anything.

It came with the force of breath into lungs starved for air.

She gripped his robes harder, because her legs didn’t trust her anymore.

Her fury was still there — bright and choking, full of everything he hadn’t told her — but it tangled now with something raw and disarming. His fear lived alongside his love in the same breath. The same heartbeat.

It was too much.

She wanted to scream at him, to tear the words out of his mouth, to make him say what this place was, what year it was, why she was kept in shadows while the rest of the world spun on without her. But the fire in her chest twisted under the weight of what she felt through him, and her voice caught.

It was almost worse, knowing that he wasn’t doing this out of coldness. That every closed door, every deflection, came from a place that hurt him too.

Her eyes burned, and she hated the hot spill of tears down her cheeks — hated how he held her tighter when he felt them.

And still, he didn’t speak.

But the silence wasn’t empty anymore. It was full — too full — of him.

She didn’t plan to say it. It slipped out, low and hoarse in the dimness of the small sitting room, the fire casting slow shadows across the walls.

“I want to be close to you tonight.”

For a heartbeat, she thought he hadn’t heard her. He didn’t turn. Didn’t breathe differently.

But he didn’t say no .

Something moved behind his eyes — not surprise exactly, not relief, but a quiet acknowledgement. As if he’d been waiting for her to ask and dreading it in equal measure.

“Then you will be,” he said simply.

And that was all.

Later, when the lamps were dimmed and the corridors silent, he made the arrangements without ceremony. The bed was already warmed. A single candle burned low on the nightstand. He’d placed nothing between them — no questions, no demands, no explanations.

When she lay down, he was already there. On his back, one arm loose across the coverlet, as if the space beside him had been kept open for her for years.

She slid into it.

The silence wrapped around them again, but it wasn’t the cold, suffocating stillness that had been building between them since she woke in this new world. This silence was heavy in a different way — threaded with the weight of breath, the faint pulse of the bond, the warmth of his body so close her skin could feel the heat through the fabric.

He didn’t reach for her, but when her shoulder brushed his, he didn’t move away.

And somewhere between one breath and the next, the ache inside her shifted.

Not gone. Not soothed. But no longer alone.

She didn’t sleep.

Not really.

The candle burned low, pooling light across the sharp edges of his profile.

Lucius slept — or at least, his breathing had settled into something that could pass for it. His hair spilled loose against the pillow, silver catching in the dim glow. She studied him the way someone studies a map they’ve half-forgotten, tracing lines they know should lead somewhere familiar but don’t.

It was his face. And it wasn’t.

The mouth was the same. The slope of the cheekbones. The faint crease between his brows when something sat too heavily in his mind.
But the years had altered him in ways she couldn’t name. Smoothed one edge, hardened another.

The Lucius she had known — the one she’d loved, the one who’d kissed her as though their bond was the only truth left in the world — carried a weight that was sharp, fevered, reckless when it came to her. This one… this one carried something older. Colder. Not cruel. Just measured. A man who had lived through his choices and learned how to keep them from spilling into his eyes.

And yet — there it was.

Beneath the quiet. Beneath the control. A flicker in the set of his mouth, the stillness of his hands. She felt it more than saw it — through the bond, faint but undeniable.

Her chest tightened.

She reached out without thinking, her fingers hovering just above the space between them. Close enough to feel the warmth of him. Not close enough to touch.

And she thought of all the versions of him she’d carried inside her: the young man, quick with his charm and cruelty. The lover who’d made her feel seen even in the darkest rooms. The man who had not been there when Narcissa tore Draco from her arms — and who had returned too late, only to find her bloodied and broken, nearly lost himself when he chose to wrench her out of time.

All of them lived here, in this face.
And none of them did.

The distance was unbearable.
And so was the nearness.

She turned onto her side, her gaze still fixed on him. And somewhere between her ribs, the bond stirred again — sharper this time, like it, too, was searching for the man it once knew.

Chapter Text

XVI

Morning. The house was still.

Hermione was sleeping at last — not deeply, not peacefully, but enough that he allowed himself the sanctuary of his study. He closed the door behind him, leaned against the heavy oak for a long breath, then crossed to the desk.

The Time-Turner lay there where he had placed it.

Not the fragile toy the Ministry once pretended to regulate. Not the neat little instrument handed to precocious schoolgirls so they could stuff more lessons into a day. This was something else. Something he and Theodore Nott had built from the ruins of theory and forbidden craft.

The chain was longer, the casing heavier, the hourglass inside deeper — its sands not pale but shot with faint, dark shimmer, like ash caught in amber. Runes spiraled along the outer rim, dense and precise, the kind that punished error with obliteration.

And across the curve of gold, an engraving in a hand even his own father might have admired:

Sanctimonia vincet semper.

Purity always prevails.

His finger traced the letters slowly, a gesture more weary than reverent. He had chosen the motto for its irony as much as its truth. The purity he fought for now had nothing to do with bloodlines. Nothing to do with old names or crests on rings. It was her. It had always been her.

The bond had marked him long before he admitted it. Years before he let himself act on it. He had known, even when she still glared at him across battlefields, that she would matter more than reason. More than survival.

He sighed.

This device had cost him years. Coin poured into Nott’s hands, nights of work bent over ancient manuscripts, secrets traded for materials that should never have reached him. They had broken laws of magic so old no one remembered who wrote them. More than once, he had wondered if he was mad. If chasing the possibility of undoing one death while the world piled bodies by the thousand made him a fool.

But he had carried the memory of her last breath with him every day. The stillness in her eyes. The way his son had been taken while he stood elsewhere, wearing a mask, playing the part.

He could live with many sins. That was not one of them.

He had built this for her.
For the chance.

And when the chance came — when time bent, when the war’s end left gaps wide enough for him to slip through — he had not hesitated.

Now she slept in the next room, alive and angry and aching. And the Time-Turner gleamed on his desk, its sands waiting, as if mocking him with the reminder that nothing they had done was permanent.

Every world cost another. Every life stolen back left a grave behind.

But he chose to risk everything. 

Lucius let the chain run over his knuckles, the gold catching the morning light. The weight of it pulled him back years — to the conversations in cellars and abandoned houses, when the device had been little more than scribbled theory.

Severus had been the first to know.The only one he trusted enough.

“You’re mad,” Snape had said flatly, his arms folded, the faint hiss of cauldrons in the background. “Time is not clay to be moulded to your whims. It resists. It breaks.”

“And yet,” Lucius replied, placing the prototype frame on the table between them, “it bends. It has before. The Ministry used to play with it like a trinket for children.”

“For hours. For lessons. Not for years. Not for lives.”

Lucius hadn’t flinched. “Then we’ll make it stronger.”

Snape’s lip curled. “We?”

“You’ll test it,” Lucius said simply.

And he had.

The memories came in fragments — Snape’s long fingers turning the delicate frame, his eyes narrowing over runes that had not been spoken aloud for centuries. The quiet nights when Severus slipped into deserted streets, flicking the dial back a minute, then five, then an hour. The ripple of air when he returned, pale and sweating, muttering notes Lucius only half-understood.

“You’re playing with fire,” Severus had told him once, after returning from a test that left blood at the corner of his mouth. “You want to drag her back. But every step changes something. Every stone you move has consequences.”

Lucius had met his gaze, steady. “And yet you return. Again and again.”

For all his sharp words, Severus had never stopped. He was curious. He was furious. But he was also alive in the work — eyes lit by something more than caution, more than contempt.

Together, they had tested small things first.
A letter misplaced.
A coin flipped.
A door left open in a corridor no one remembered walking.

And always, the future shifted by inches. Never enough to fracture the world. But enough to prove it could be done.

Now, years later, the final device gleamed on Lucius’s desk.

Severus had argued until the end. He had said love was not reason enough. That obsession was not strategy. That saving one woman could damn them both.

And he had warned him. Again and again.

“You think you’ll come back to the same world,” Severus had said one night, his voice low, sharp as a blade in the dark. “But every time you turn that dial, you split it. Fracture it. What you return to is not home, Lucius. It is only a copy. A cousin. Familiar enough to hurt. Different enough to undo you.”

Lucius had dismissed it then. Or told himself he did.

But Severus pressed harder, the way only he could.

“She does not belong here. Not in this time. Not in this skin. Every step she takes will ripple outward. A word spoken, a glance held too long — you cannot predict how far the shattering spreads. One stolen life can unmake hundreds. Thousands. The boy. The war. Even Potter.”

The butterfly effect, Severus called it — though his tone made it sound more like a curse than a metaphor.

And yet Lucius had chosen it anyway.

Because what was a world without her?
What use was victory, if it was built on the silence of her absence?

He ran his thumb once more over the engraving, the words catching in the gold.

Sanctimonia vincet semper.

Perhaps purity did not always prevail. But obsession might.

And for her, he would bear the weight of every altered world.

The morning was grey but clear, the air crisp with the bite of early November. Smoke curled thinly from the chimney, carrying the scent of peat and damp wood.

She sat at the table with her hands around a cup of tea, barely drinking it. She had not eaten more than a mouthful of bread in days. Her eyes were sharp, restless — darting to the window, then to him, then down again.

He felt the press of it in the bond. Anger. Weariness. Suspicion hardening into resolve.

It was time.

Lucius set his napkin aside and rose. “Put on your cloak.”

She blinked at him. “Why?”

“Because,” he said, meeting her eyes, “you and I are going to walk. And you will have some of the answers you’ve been demanding.”

Her breath caught — not relief, not quite, but a shift. The stillness inside her broke enough for colour to rise faintly in her cheeks.

She stood too quickly, and he caught the tremor in her hands as she adjusted her cloak. She hated needing steadiness, hated that her body had not yet recovered. He saw it in the line of her jaw, the tightness of her mouth.

Outside, the air hit her like glass. She flinched but didn’t pull back. He kept his pace slow, measured — enough that her steps could fall beside his without strain. The path wound through bare trees and low stone walls, the village hidden beyond the ridge.

For a long while they walked in silence. The leaves crunched underfoot, the only sound between them.

Then, finally, he spoke.

“You are not mad,” he said quietly. “The world is different. You feel it because it is.”

Her head turned sharply, eyes burning into him.

“You were right,” he went on. “This is not the life you left behind. It is another. A world that has carried on without you. One where you did not exactly exist.”

Her breath faltered.

“Your parents,” he said after a pause, his voice low, deliberate, “ever lived past the day you arrived. They died in a crash — the very day I married Narcissa. Before you were ever born here. This world never had you. No daughter to grow into the woman you are.”

She stared at him, pale as the sky above them.

“And Draco?” she whispered.

Lucius exhaled, long and heavy. “He lives. He is grown. He has never known you. In this world, he has only ever known me.”

Her mouth trembled. Her fingers clenched at the edge of her cloak.

He turned his gaze back to the path, because if he looked at her a moment longer, he might falter.

“This is the cost,” he said at last. “The price of tearing one life out of time. The world will go on — but not unchanged. Never unchanged.”

She walked beside him in silence, her steps heavy, her chest too tight for breath.

And in the quiet, the thought pierced her like a blade she could not pull free.

If this Draco had never known her — if she had never existed here — then was the bond she had felt with him even real at all? Was the warmth of his newborn skin against her chest real, or only a memory stolen from a life the world no longer recognised?

The bond inside her pulsed faintly, as if echoing a heartbeat too far away to reach, she wondered if even that was real.

Her breath came unevenly, each word scraped raw against the cold.

“And the war?” she asked at last, her voice trembling, breaking as though the shape of the question alone cost her strength. “Harry… did he—?”

Lucius slowed, then stopped. The silence before his answer stretched long enough for her chest to ache.

“Potter lives,” he said at last. “He lives well. The war ended and he has not carried chains since..”

Her heart stuttered. Alive. Not broken. She pressed a hand to her mouth, a strangled sound catching in her throat.

“And Ron?” The name tore out of her. “The Weasleys—”

Lucius’s expression flickered, but only for a breath. “Weasley is alive as well. His family too, so far as I’ve heard. They went on… without you.”

The words cut deeper than any curse. Without you. As if she were nothing but an absence, a name missing from a family tree. She saw Molly’s arms open in welcome, Arthur’s warm eyes, Ginny’s laughter — all carried forward into years where she had never existed.

Her knees nearly buckled. She gripped the edge of her cloak with white knuckles, as though fabric might anchor her.

Lucius’s gaze lingered, then shifted away. He did not reach for her.

She forced breath into her lungs. “And you,” she rasped. “You should have been in Azkaban. You should have been branded a Death Eater, a traitor. You should—”

“I was never tried,” he said sharply. “Because I was never caught. Because I was never one thing or the other. Like Severus, I walked a blade’s edge. The Dark Lord trusted me. Dumbledore trusted me enough to use me. Between the two, I carved out space for Draco to live.”

The name struck her harder than she expected. Draco. Her child. Her son. Here grown, but stranger. She had carried him in blood and bone, but in this world he would never know her arms.

Her head spun. She wanted to scream.

“You were,” she said, her voice breaking, “a spy.”

Lucius’s mouth curved — not into a smile, but something grim, weary. “Do you think Severus bore that burden alone? I did what he did. Every lie spoken to Voldemort, every secret carried back to Dumbledore, was measured by its cost. Each day I lived meant one more chance to shield my son. That was the only calculation that mattered.”

Something in her stilled. The words didn’t belong to the Lucius she remembered — reckless, proud, all sharp corners softened only in her arms. This was different. Hardened. Older.

But then—her breath caught. “Severus.”

The name felt foreign in her mouth. But his answer came without hesitation.

“Yes,” Lucius said quietly. “He lives. He endured the war and what followed. He is alive still.”

Her vision blurred. She swallowed hard, unable to stop the shake in her voice. “Alive.”

The man who, in her own world, had died beneath Nagini’s fangs. The man Harry had pitied, forgiven too late. The man she had mourned as enemy and ally both. Alive.

The path seemed to tilt beneath her feet.

Alive. And yet he had never known her here.

Lucius’s eyes narrowed slightly, watching the cracks in her face. He didn’t soften. He only stood still, letting her absorb the weight of it.

Hermione wrapped her arms around herself, but it did nothing to keep out the cold.

Everything she loved was both saved and lost.
Alive, but without her.
Carried on, but erased.

She wondered if she had been a shadow all along.

Her breath turned ragged, shallow. The names rattled in her chest like broken glass.

Harry. Ron. The Weasleys.
Alive. Breathing. Living through twenty years in a world where she had never drawn breath.

And Snape.
Alive. Walking through streets she would never see. Carrying secrets she had once died to protect — but without her beside him.

It was too much. Too far.

Her chest tightened until it burned. The trees blurred, the cold air scraping against her throat. She pressed her fists against her eyes, but the tears broke through anyway, hot and merciless.

“I don’t exist,” she choked. “I don’t exist here. They’re alive, they’re all alive, but I—” Her voice fractured. “I don’t belong anywhere.”

The bond pulsed in answer, raw and steady, as though refusing her despair. And then — warmth. A hand against her arm.

She flinched, but he didn’t withdraw. Lucius stepped closer, slow, deliberate, until the distance between them closed. His arms came around her, not tight, not forceful — simply present. Anchoring.

She let out a sound she didn’t recognise, something cracked open from deep in her chest. Her tears spilled hot against his robes. Her body sagged into his, too weak to hold itself upright against the storm breaking through her.

He said nothing. No explanations. No reassurances. Only silence, solid and alive, holding her together where she was falling apart.

The bond surged, fierce and consuming, fire threading through the wreckage of her grief. She could feel him — not just his strength but the fracture beneath it, the fear he carried, the love he never named.

It was unbearable. And it was the only thing that kept her standing.

She buried her face against him and let the tears come, hot and endless, until the forest around them blurred and all she knew was the press of his arms and the truth of her loss.

And he held her. As if he had been waiting years to do only that.

Chapter Text

XVII

The days shortened. The world outside the cottage dulled into grey and frost.

Hermione measured time not by the calendar but by the rhythm of his footsteps — the way Lucius’s boots sounded against stone as he moved between rooms, the faint closing of the study door at dusk, the whisper of him pausing outside her chamber before retreating again.

At first, she barely slept. Her body still remembered loss in the dark — milk that no longer had purpose, arms that ached for something small, heart that wouldn’t quiet. The bed felt too large. Too clean. Every creak in the night reminded her that she was alone in a world that had forgotten her.

Until the night she wasn’t.

It was past midnight, and the wind was hard against the windows. She couldn’t breathe. The grief came in waves now — smaller, but sharper for it. She rose without thinking, her bare feet cold on the floor, and crossed the corridor to his door.

She didn’t knock. She only stood there until he looked up from his desk.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t ask. He just nodded once.

And she climbed into his bed.

That first night, they didn’t touch.
He lay on his side, turned slightly away, the space between them thick with what couldn’t be said. She watched the rise and fall of his shoulders until the shape of him blurred into sleep.

The next night, she came again.
And the night after that.

By December, it had become silent ritual — the soft click of her door, the whisper of steps across the hall, the faint dip of the mattress. She would lie facing him, eyes open in the dark, until the pull of his breath steadied hers.

He never spoke when she arrived. Never turned her away. And slowly, something shifted.

A hand brushing against hers under the covers.
The warmth of his palm settling at the curve of her back. The way his breathing changed when she leaned closer, not from desire.

It wasn’t about forgiveness. Or want.
It was about survival. Two ghosts learning to be flesh again.

When she woke pressed against his chest — her head beneath his chin, his arm heavy over her waist — she didn’t move. The bond pulsed low and slow between them, faint as a heartbeat under skin.

And for the first time since the world had broken, it felt right.

She could feel him. Not just the man of this time, but the one she had known — the Lucius who had knelt beside her in candlelight, who had whispered her name like a prayer, who had once sworn she would never be alone again.

That Lucius lived beneath this one’s quietness, buried but breathing. And when his fingers tightened against her hip in his sleep, the bond flared — bright, certain.

He was hers. Still.

Even here.
Even now.

By late November, snow lay in the garden, unbroken and pale. The air outside was cold enough to sting the lungs, but the cottage stayed warm. A fire burned almost constantly in the hearth, its light moving across walls lined with parchment and old books.

Hermione spent most mornings at the small table by the window, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea gone cold, her gaze on the newspapers Lucius brought her.

He never said where he found them. Only that she should read. So you understand the shape of the world you returned to, he’d said one evening, sliding the folded stack toward her, his eyes avoiding hers.

And she did read — every line, every column, every fragment of a future that wasn’t hers anymore.

The dates struck first: November, 2000.

Two and a half years since the end of the war.

Two and a half years of life she had never lived.

The articles were careful, factual, dry in their optimism — but to Hermione, every sentence was a knife turned slowly in the same wound. She read about a Ministry rebuilt under Kingsley Shacklebolt’s calm hand. About new laws of reconciliation, about trials and pardons, about the weary rebuilding of a country that had bled too much to remember hate for long.

Harry Potter, aged twenty, Senior Auror in Training under the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. His photograph was small but bright, his grin awkward and familiar.

Behind him, Ron — freckled, tall, standing slightly apart but smiling in that crooked way he never could hide. Ronald Weasley, Tactical Advisor, field specialist, Order of Merlin, Third Class.

They were alive. Young. Unscarred in ways they shouldn’t have been. Still the same age, though she felt much, much older than 21.

Luna Lovegood’s name appeared further down — a small article about her work for The Quibbler, her research on magical fauna in Eastern Europe. Still dreamy-eyed. Still luminous. The text called her a beloved young voice of post-war hope.

Hermione traced the photograph’s edge with her thumb.

Harry. Ron. Luna. The Golden Trio.

Only she wasn’t one of them here.

Her name didn’t appear. 

No “brilliant strategist.”

No “Muggle-born defender.”

No “friend.”

She was a missing note in the melody of their lives, erased so cleanly it felt personal.n this world, she had never existed. No photograph. No name. No trace of the girl who’d stood between them in the Battle of Hogwarts.

Her eyes burned, but she kept reading.

The next page blurred. She blinked through the sting in her eyes.

Ministry Reconstruction Efforts Expand Across Europe — Snape and Lupin Oversee Education Reform.

Her breath caught.

Snape. His photograph, grainy and small, showed him mid-sentence at some conference table, dark hair falling across his brow. No sneer. No coldness. Just fatigue. Lupin beside him — thinner, paler, but alive. Tonks, too, captured laughing at his side, the caption calling her “Head of the Auror Recruitment Division.”

Hermione pressed her fingers to the image until the ink smudged.

Alive. All of them alive.

And Lucius — Lord Malfoy, appointed consultant to the Ministry for Defense Strategy, decorated for intelligence work during the final campaigns.

She read the words twice before they made sense.

The article spoke of him with reverence. Instrumental in the final defeat of the Dark Lord.

Liaison to the Order of the Phoenix. Key negotiator in post-war accords.

Glorified. Sanctified.

A man remade by time itself.

She almost laughed, but it came out as a broken breath.

He had done it. He had rebuilt a world without her and made himself indispensable to it.

She folded the paper slowly, her hands trembling. It was too much. Too many familiar names bent into new shapes.

Her friends alive but strangers. Her enemies were gone but still hauntedher. Her son grown but unknowing.

Lucius found her like that. He didn’t ask what she’d read. He didn’t need to. The look on her face told him..

She looked up at him slowly, “You made all this happen.” 

His mouth tightened, the faintest flicker of exhaustion in his eyes., but he didn’t answer.

She turned then, her eyes red but defiant. “You made this without me.”

He looked at her for a long time — no anger, no triumph, only the faintest flicker of something.

Then, softly, “I made it for you.”

The words landed between them like a promise and a confession at once. She didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Instead, she reached for the newspaper again, clutching it to her chest as though it could anchor her to this world — a world rebuilt, beautiful, cruelly whole.

And all she could think was how strange it was to live in a future shaped by love she had never seen, and by a man who had built it to give her back her life.

She began to read every morning.

At first it was to torment herself — to trace the borders of what had been lost, to see her absence printed again and again in the stories that shaped this world. But over time, it changed. The pain dulled, not because it lessened, but because it became part of her. Something she carried without flinching.

The newspapers arrived in a steady rhythm now, stacked neatly at the corner of the table beside the window. She sorted them by date, by headline, by the faint smell of ink. It became her ritual — wake, wash, sit, read.

By late December, she had begun to memorise the new timeline.

Lucius kept bringing her newspapers — not just the newest ones, but older issues, stacked and carefully ordered. Ministry publications. The Daily Prophet. Even a few crumpled bulletins printed in the weeks before the war had ended.

He left them on the table each morning with her tea. Never said anything, never lingered. Just placed them there and left her to find the pieces herself.

At first, she resisted. The thought of opening those pages — of seeing history written without her — made her chest tighten until she couldn’t breathe. But the longer she stared at them, the more unbearable not knowing became.

So she read.Spring 1998 – The Final Battle at Hogwarts. The headline blazed across the page.

She read slowly, each word deliberate, her mind painting scenes she half-recognised. The article spoke of chaos, of fallen fighters, of the castle torn apart by fire and spells — and then, finally, the turning point.

Harry Potter confronts He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in the Great Hall. Witnesses confirm his death, the Dark Mark fading from the sky moments later.

She knew the words.
She remembered that night — her wand shaking in her hand, blood on her palms, her body raw with exhaustion and terror.

But in these pages, there was no trace of her, obviously.

The byline spoke of others: Luna Lovegood, Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom. The brave, the young, the victorious.

She turned the page.

Snape’s face stared back at her — a photograph taken days after the battle, the headline reading:
Professor Severus Snape cleared of all charges. Confirmed as double agent for the Order of the Phoenix.

Her throat constricted. The article detailed how he had passed information from inside Voldemort’s ranks, how his courage had led to the final confrontation. Dumbledore’s trust vindicated. The Ministry reinstating him as Professor of Defence.

A tear slipped down her cheek, caught in the crease of the page.

Then another:
Lucius Malfoy and his covert alliance with the Order revealed posthumously through Dumbledore’s sealed records.

She blinked, reading the line twice. The ink smudged where her thumb pressed against it.

By the time she reached the later articles — Trials Continue for Remaining Death Eaters — she was numb.

Dolohov sentenced. Rabastan Lestrange executed. Bellatrix never caught; presumed dead.

So much of it the same, and yet completely different. All the threads had been pulled and re-tied until her own thread vanished entirely.

She folded the last paper neatly and set it aside.

The fire crackled. Snow drifted past the window, soft and endless.

For the first time since she’d arrived, Hermione exhaled without shaking.
She had grieved enough. Fought enough. This world didn’t need her name.

It only needed to live.

For a moment, that felt like enough.

Then his voice came from behind her, low and certain.

“You saved this world,” Lucius said.

She turned slightly in her chair. The firelight reached him in fragments — his face half in shadow, half in gold.

He didn’t move closer. Didn’t touch her. But his gaze didn’t waver.

“You think your absence means you did nothing,” he went on, quiet but unwavering. “But it was your choices — your courage, your defiance — that tore open time itself. Every act, every word you spoke in that other life changed what became possible in this one.”

Hermione stared at him, her throat tight.

He stepped forward a little, his voice softer now. “You saved lives here that were lost before. You gave the world another chance. You gave me another chance.”

Her chest ached. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

He knelt then, slowly, so that his eyes were level with hers. The lines of his face looked sharper in the firelight — older, yes, but also unbearably human.

“I’ve lived long enough to know what was and what wasn’t,” he said. “I saw the cost of your death once. The ruin it left. This world exists because you defied it.”

The tears came before she could stop them. Silent, unguarded.

He didn’t reach for her at first — only let the words settle between them like something sacred. Then, when she bowed her head, he lifted a hand and brushed his fingers lightly against her cheek.

His touch was almost reverent.

“You saved me, Hermione,” he murmured. “Even if you never meant to.”

Her breath broke.

He stayed like that — his hand warm against her skin, his eyes steady — until her shaking stilled.

The bond pulsed faintly between them, no longer the sharp ache of grief but something steadier, alive.

For the first time, she let herself believe it.
That she hadn’t been erased.
That her life — even misplaced in time — still mattered.

And that perhaps she hadn’t lost everything after all.

Her breath steadied, though her chest still trembled. The silence between them lingered, fragile but whole.

And then, softly, she asked, “Draco.”

Lucius’s hand fell away. His expression shifted — not surprise, not hesitation, but a quiet dread, as if he’d been waiting for the question.

“Tell me,” she whispered. “Please.”

He was silent for a long time. Then, with a slight nod, he rose and crossed the room. The sound of a drawer opening broke the stillness — the faint scrape of wood, the quiet rustle of parchment.

When he returned, he carried a book. Not the usual kind bound in magic or gilt, but a simple leather album, worn smooth along the edges.

He paused before her. “Are you certain you want to see?”

She nodded. Her hands were already shaking before she even touched it.

Lucius set it gently on her knees and stepped back, as though giving her space was the only kindness left to offer.

The leather was warm from his hands. She opened it.

The first photograph nearly stole the breath from her lungs.

A boy — no, a man — looked out from the moving image. His hair pale and fine, his features sharp, beautiful, achingly familiar. But older. His eyes, though grey, had softened at the edges.

Draco.

Her baby, grown.

In the photograph, he was shaking hands with Harry, both smiling stiffly before a crowd of Ministry officials. The caption read: Draco Malfoy joins diplomatic corps for post-war restoration efforts.

She traced his face with her fingertips, her tears falling before she could stop them.

He looked proud. Whole. Unbroken.

She turned the page.

Draco standing in front of a small group of wizards — the next generation of Hogwarts governors. Another with a young woman beside him — laughing, golden-haired, her hand on his arm.

A wedding.
Or close to it.

The image blurred beneath her tears. Her throat burned.

He was happy.
He was alive.
He was a man.

And she had missed all of it.

Every word he ever learned. Every fever, every heartbreak, every triumph. She had missed his first wand, his first day at school, the sound of his voice when he spoke her name — if he ever had.

Lucius said nothing. He only stood by the fire, his hand braced on the mantel, his profile rigid in the glow.

She turned another page — Draco with Severus, both composed, both faintly smiling. The caption: Professor Snape and his godson in Hogwarts.

Her breath caught again.
He wasn’t alone.
He had been loved.

She closed the album gently, fingers trembling against the cover. Her tears slid silently down her cheeks, one after another.

Lucius turned at last, his eyes finding hers. He didn’t need to ask what she’d seen.

“He’s safe,” he said quietly. “He’s strong. He’s become everything he should have been.”

Hermione nodded, but the motion broke her. Her hand came to her mouth, and she let the sob rise, quiet but endless.

Lucius crossed the room without hesitation. He knelt before her and took the album from her lap, setting it aside. Then he gathered her into his arms.

She didn’t resist. She clung to him, shaking, grief spilling through her until she couldn’t tell where it ended and the bond began.

He held her as he always did — firm, silent, unflinching. His hand in her hair, his breath steady against her temple.

“He’s safe,” he murmured again. “Because of you.”

Her reply came broken, muffled against his chest. “But he doesn’t know me.”

Lucius’s hand stilled in her hair. His breath lingered near her temple for a long moment before he spoke.

“He will.”

She froze.

He drew back slightly, enough for her to see his face. The firelight carved his expression in amber and shadow. There was no hesitation there — only certainty, and a kind of quiet longing she hadn’t seen in him before.

“I want to invite him here,” Lucius said softly. “For Christmas. So you can meet.”

The words hit her like a spell.

Hermione’s breath caught. Her fingers clenched in the fabric of his shirt. “No.”

He didn’t flinch. “You deserve to see him, Hermione.”

Her head shook violently. “No, I can’t—Lucius, I can’t.”

“You can.”

She pushed back slightly, enough to look at him. “What will he think?” she demanded, her voice trembling. “A strange woman living under your roof? What would you even tell him? That I’m—” She laughed once, brokenly. “An old friend? Your new mistress?”

The words hung there, raw and cruel in the small space between them.

Lucius didn’t look away. The fire painted him in quiet shades — grief, restraint, longing — and when he finally spoke, his voice was almost too soft to hear.

“I would tell him only what is true.”

Hermione’s throat closed. “And what’s that?”

“That you are someone who deserves to be seen.”

Her mouth parted, but nothing came.

The silence after that was thick, trembling, full of all the things neither dared say aloud. The possibility that Draco might feel something — the echo of the old bond — or nothing at all.

“He might not know me,” she whispered. “Not the way he should. Not the way he did.”

Lucius’s hand lingered at her back, steady, warm. “The bond between you runs deeper than memory,” he said quietly. “It may stir when he sees you. Or it may not. But either way, it’s still there.”

Hermione looked down at her hands. “And if it isn’t?”

He hesitated. The fire cracked softly, its light catching in his eyes. “Then it changes nothing,” he said. “You are still his mother. You are still you. Even if the world doesn’t remember, I do.”

Her breath broke. The bond stirred again — faint, but real — like a heartbeat that refused to fade.

She didn’t answer him. She couldn’t.

Chapter Text

XVIII

It was a quiet evening.
Snow whispered against the windows, soft as breath. The fire burned low. Hermione sat curled in the armchair, knees tucked beneath her, an open newspaper on her lap. She wasn’t reading anymore. She hadn’t turned the page in half an hour.

Lucius stood near the hearth, a glass of brandy in his hand, untouched.

She didn’t look at him when she spoke.  “Do you think… it’s strange I haven’t left this house since I got here?”

His gaze shifted to her. “No.”

Her mouth twisted. “I do.”

The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. Not tense. Just… thick with the things they hadn’t yet dared to say aloud. The world was moving, but she wasn’t. Not really. Not yet.

Lucius set the glass down.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said carefully. “You need clothes. Proper boots. A wand holster. I imagine you’d rather choose for yourself.”

Her eyes rose slowly to meet his.

“You mean—”

“Yes,” he said. “I’d like to take you to London.”

The words landed sharp in her chest.
London.  Diagon Alley.

Her breath stuttered, just slightly.

“To… Diagon Alley?”

He nodded once. “It’s quieter now than it once was. Controlled. The Ministry keeps it under strict oversight. We’d go early. Get what you need. Leave.”

Hermione turned her gaze to the fire. Her heart was beating too fast. Too loud.

“I’m not even supposed to exist,” she said, barely above a whisper. “What if someone sees me? What if someone… knows?”

“No one will,” Lucius said. “Your face is unknown here. You’re safe.”

Safe.  It didn’t feel that way.

Her hands curled slightly in the blanket. “And what if I’m not ready? What if I see someone I used to know — someone who doesn’t remember me — and I—”

Her voice caught. A sharp intake of breath. Panic prickled beneath her skin.

“I’ve been in hiding since I arrived,” she whispered. “Not because I had to. Because I couldn’t breathe. I still don’t know what I am to this world.”

Lucius stepped forward, slowly, letting the firelight catch on the silver threads in his hair.

“You are what you choose to become in it.”

She looked up at him.

“I don’t even have a cloak.”

“I will buy you a cloak.”

She let out a short laugh, brittle but real. “Is that how you do it? Solve everything with Galleons?”

“No,” Lucius said. “But it’s how I begin. It’s about giving you a choice.”

A beat passed.And then — her voice, quiet but firmer, “All right.”

His brows lifted slightly.

“I want to see it,” she said. “The world. Even if it doesn’t want to see me.”

Lucius nodded. He didn’t smile. But something in his face — in the line of his shoulders — eased.

“We’ll leave early,” he said. “Before the alley grows crowded. You can choose what you need. And if you want to leave at any point, we go.”

Hermione exhaled, trying to still her pulse.  She’d asked for this. Chosen it.  And yet — the walls of the cottage suddenly felt too thin.

Too many ghosts. Too much time.

She stood slowly, pressing her hand to the mantel for balance.

Lucius didn’t touch her. But he watched. Every breath. Every tremble. Always.

It felt… strange.

The kind of strange that settled under the skin. That made her stand at the edge of the bed for too long, arms limp, as if her body hadn’t quite remembered how to be clothed for the world again.

The past year—if she could even call it that—had existed almost entirely within walls. Soft ones. Shattered ones.

First, the Manor. Then, this place. Lucius’s presence. And before him, Narcissa.

Always a Malfoy. Always a room that wasn’t hers.

The thought pulled at something in her chest.

Hermione stared down at the carefully folded garments laid across the chair. The wool stockings. The plain linen blouse. A long winter cloak, black and high-collared, with the faintest embroidery along the hem—silver thread shaped like frost. Too big, obviously.

HIs. 

He had thought of everything.  He always did.

She dressed slowly. Her body still unfamiliar to her in small ways—the hollowness of her belly, the softened curve of her hips, the ache that lingered in her lower back when she bent too long. The mirror caught her off guard. She didn’t look like the girl who had walked into Malfoy Manor. Or the woman who had bled out screaming on those sheets.

Her face was thinner. Older, maybe.
Or just… emptied.

She touched her cheek with one hand, as if trying to locate herself inside it.

This was the face no one in Diagon Alley would recognize. Not anymore.

She descended the stairs quietly, the hem of his cloak on her brushing wood that creaked despite the wards Lucius had placed.

He was already waiting by the hearth. Tall. Composed. He hadn’t shaved that morning. She could see it in the faint silver stubble along his jaw. A shadow of something undone.

He didn’t speak right away. Just looked at her.

And for a moment—just a moment—she forgot what it was to hate silence.

Because in that quiet, there was grief.  There was awe.

He held out a pair of leather gloves.

She took them without a word.

And when they Apparated, hand in hand—her fingers curled so tightly in his she almost couldn’t breathe—it felt like stepping through a glass that didn’t shatter. Just warped everything on the other side.

It hit her like a memory she didn’t own.

The pop of Apparition hadn’t even faded when the street surged to life—boots on cobblestone, winter air tinged with soot and cinnamon, the glint of frost on shop windows charmed to shimmer. Someone laughed. A child shrieked with delight. An owl swooped low between rooftops.

And Diagon Alley… was alive.

More than alive. Rebuilt. Blooming. Reclaimed from the ashes of war.

Hermione froze.

The sheer volume of it—the colour, the pace, the people who brushed past without a second glance—felt like pressure against her chest. Her hand instinctively reached for Lucius’s sleeve, grounding herself in the one familiar tether in a place that had moved on.

“Breathe,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Just breathe, Hermione.”

She did. Once. Twice. It didn’t help.

Her eyes swept the shops.

Madam Malkin’s, still elegant. Flourish and Blotts, still slightly crooked. Ollivanders had a new sign, sleeker now. Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes had reopened, brighter than ever, its windows filled with fizzing sweets and enchanted snowflakes.

A grin. A flash of red hair in the reflection. Gone before she could turn.

It all felt like glass—thin, glinting, already cracking beneath her feet.

Lucius placed a gentle hand at the small of her back. A protective gesture. A quiet shield.

“We won’t stay long,” he said, softly. “Only what you need.”

She nodded, though her breath still stuttered.

The world had kept spinning.

No one here knew her. And she—who had once fought and bled and learned every brick of this place—was just another woman with too-wide eyes and shaking hands.

Her steps faltered as they reached the window of Flourish and Blotts.

Books she had never read stared back at her. New editions. New authors. Titles on magical trauma and post-war healing. She blinked, swallowing hard.

Lucius paused beside her, watching her expression.

“You can go in,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

Hermione didn’t move.

She didn’t want books. She wanted time. Answers. A way to crawl back into the world without feeling like a ghost.

“Not yet,” she murmured.

He didn’t argue. Just led her on.

When they entered Madam Malkin’s, the quiet swish of robes and warm light felt like sanctuary. The older witch blinked at her with vague disinterest—polite, professional. No flicker of recognition. No suspicion.

As if she were just another witch needing winter clothes.

“Something simple,” Lucius said smoothly. “Durable. And warm.”

Hermione stood still as spells were cast and measurements were taken. Her arms out. Her feet steady.

She barely heard what they discussed. Her mind was elsewhere—flashing through articles and dates, memories of timelines stitched and unstuck. How easily a single name could vanish from history.

How the world could forget she ever lived.

When it was done, they left with parcels shrunk and tucked into Lucius’s coat. The sky above Diagon Alley had dulled to a steel grey. Snow had begun to fall again, quiet and steady, catching in the folds of her new cloak.

Lucius turned toward the alley’s side street, clearly intending to leave.

But her voice cut through the air before he could speak.

“I want to go to Weasleys’.”

He paused. A beat. “Hermione—”

She was already turning. Already walking.

He caught up to her in three strides, falling into step beside her with restrained urgency.

“That’s not wise,” he said quietly. “You’ve already pushed yourself too far.”

She didn’t respond.

His voice lowered further. “There could be someone inside.”

“I know.”

She kept walking.

“I’m not trying to provoke anything,” she said. “I just want to see it. That’s all.”

“Hermione—”

“I need to know if they’re real.”

Lucius went still. Not entirely. Just enough that she felt the shift beside her.

“The Weasleys?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

Her fingers were balled in the wool of her gloves. Her steps were fast now, sharper, as if something inside her had snapped and she was following the break.

Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes sat just as she remembered it: garish and bold and utterly impossible to ignore. A brilliant orange sign blazed overhead, and the twin mannequins in the window were enchanted to swap hats and robes every ten seconds with a puff of glittering smoke.

She stopped across the street, just out of reach of the windows.

Her breath was thin in her throat.

The shop looked the same. But it didn’t feel the same.

She’d come here with Ron once, years ago—laughing at nothing, arms full of sweets. Fred had winked at her from behind the counter. George had tried to sell her a cauldron of hiccuping ink.

That world was gone.

What stood now was only a shape carved into the outline of something lost. Familiar—but warped by time and memory and her absence.

Her eyes searched the front windows for a sign of them. Any of them. Fred. George. Ron.

Just a glimpse.

But all she saw was a young witch sweeping confetti off the welcome mat. A boy, maybe twelve, giggling as he left with an exploding peppermint.

The windows were crowded with colour. Jokes. Gags. Bright displays.

No ghosts. No answers.

She stepped closer. Slowly.

Lucius didn’t stop her this time. He stood back, just far enough to give her room, just close enough to catch her if she fell.

And something inside her twisted. Twisted so hard it nearly broke her ribs.

She’d expected pain.

But not this. Not the hollowness. Not the unbearable feeling of being a memory no one missed.

The war had ended. The world had healed. And the Weasleys had kept going.

The moment she stepped over the threshold, the smell hit her.

Sugar. Smoke. Sawdust. That distinct, impossible-to-describe scent of chaos barely contained.

She froze inside the doorway, just long enough to let the weight of the place settle around her ribs.

It was loud. Laughing children. Clinking jars. Whirling toys. The familiar jingle of the Weasleys’ theme tune playing on loop from a charmed gramophone in the corner. Her eyes flicked over the shelves stacked high with joke wands, rainbow fizzbombs, and prank parchments that snapped when touched.

It was the same.

And yet completely different.

The colours were brighter now. The layout slightly changed. Someone had painted the far wall in new shades of purple. And behind the counter—she saw him.

George.

Not much older than she remembered. Still tall. Still grinning at some customer with a box of Canary Creams in one hand. He looked tired in a way that didn’t belong to youth. But the spark—his spark—was still there. The humour. The easy warmth. The grief that didn’t show itself until you’d known it too long.

He laughed. Tossed a galleon in the air. Spun.

And then she saw another figure beside him, flipping through a product catalogue with a practiced eye.

Ginny, with a wand tucked into the waistband of her deep red robes, hair pulled into a practical ponytail. Young. Still fierce. Still Ginny.

She was frowning at something George said, then rolled her eyes, the way she always had. Unaware she was being watched by someone who used to call her a sister.

Hermione felt her breath stutter. Her stomach dipped, then twisted.

It was too much. Too close. Too present. Too real. 

She turned to leave—and stopped cold.

Because walking in, cheerfully brushing snow off his sleeves, was Ron.

Ron. Red-cheeked. Taller. Laughing at something George had shouted across the shop. Holding a bag of fizzing fireworks. His voice—older now, but still undeniably Ron—sent a crack through her ribs.

And just behind him—Arthur Weasley.

Lucius stepped forward then, quiet as shadow, moving to her side without touching her.

Arthur looked up—and paused.

His eyes met Lucius’s first.

There was no hatred. Only slight surprise.

And then—some sort of recognition. A brief, respectful nod.

Hermione blinked, frozen in place, her hands clenched inside her gloves. Arthur’s gaze flicked to her next. And something changed in his expression.

Curiosity. A softness. Like he couldn’t quite place her—but he wanted to.

“Lucius,” Arthur said. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Just shopping,” Lucius said smoothly. His voice was neutral. Measured. But there was something protective in his tone.

Arthur looked back to Hermione. He smiled, kind but puzzled. “And you are?”

Lucius didn’t answer. He left it for her.

Hermione’s throat burned. Her lips parted. But she couldn’t speak.

Ron had passed by now—close enough she could’ve touched him. His fingers brushed the shelves. He didn’t even glance her way.

Ginny laughed at something George said. George tossed a product at Ron, who fumbled and caught it.

And Hermione?

She stood in the centre of it all, unseen. Untouched. Unknown.

A ghost in a world that had survived her absence. She couldn’t breathe.

Her name. Her name — the thing that had once filled headlines, class lists, war memorials — now lived only in silence.

It sat behind her teeth like a broken tooth.

Arthur was still watching her kindly, waiting.

Her fingers twitched, unsure whether to hide or reach.

Lucius shifted. Just a subtle step closer — and then his hand brushed hers. A light touch. Barely more than pressure. But it was enough to steady her. Enough to say, You are not alone.

Then he said it.

Clearly. Calmly.

“This is Hermione Granger.”

The name landed softly. Not with recognition or shock.

But with something quieter—interest.

A glance from Arthur. A flicker of attention in Ron’s face. George paused only for a beat before nodding once, polite. Ginny tilted her head, eyes narrowing slightly—not hostile, not cold. Just curious.

Hermione felt it instantly.

They didn’t know her.

Her name meant nothing to them. Not the way it used to. Not the way it had, when it had been stitched into war and friendship and loss.

Here—it was just a name. Attached to a woman who stood too close to Lucius Malfoy.

That was what drew their attention. That was the strangeness.

Lucius’s hand lingered lightly against hers. A tether. A warning. An offering.

Arthur smiled again, slower this time. “Ah,” he said mildly, “a pleasure, Miss Granger. I’m Arthur Weasley, and the redheads here are my children.”

Hermione’s throat tightened. She nodded, not trusting her voice.

Ron’s brow furrowed, just slightly.

Ginny looked at her again. Longer this time. Measuring. Hermione met her gaze and saw no hatred there—just the cautious curiosity of a girl who’d survived a war and learned to question everything.

Lucius stepped in, voice silk-wrapped steel. “Miss Granger is a researcher,” he said coolly. “We’ve been working closely for some time now.”

Arthur’s eyebrows rose. “Ah,” he said again, and this time there was understanding. Or at least sort of acceptance. “Still managing to convince people to work with you, are you?”

There was a faint laugh from George at that. But nothing more.

No shouts. No joy. No reunion.

Only silence.

And her name, sitting between them like a folded letter no one opened.

Arthur smiled kindly, hands folded over his walking stick. There was a gentleness to him—something unspoiled by war or years.

“And how are you finding Diagon Alley, Miss Granger?” he asked. “Is this your first time visiting Britain?”

The question was so ordinary it made her stomach twist.

Hermione blinked, forcing a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s—yes,” she said, her voice catching. “First time.”

The lie scraped against her throat.

“I mean—not ever, but... it’s been a long time.” Her words fumbled. Too vague. Too careful.

Arthur nodded, still polite, but there was a flicker of something behind his eyes. Not suspicion. Just interest. Like he was used to strange answers now. After everything.

But it was Ginny who truly looked.

Ginny, whose arms were folded now, weight shifted to one hip, brow slightly furrowed—not in challenge, but in wondering.

Hermione could feel it. The girl's sharpness. The way she was listening to the spaces between Hermione’s words. Watching the tension in her shoulders. The too-careful stillness beside Lucius.

She knows something’s off. Of course she does.

Hermione gave a small cough and glanced away, eyes darting to the shelves of Pygmy Puff keychains.

“I used to hear stories about this place,” she added, more quietly. “But it’s different seeing it in person.”

Lucius shifted beside her, just barely. His voice cut in, smooth as ever. “We won’t stay long,” he said to Arthur. “Just passing through.”

Arthur nodded. “Of course. But you’re both always welcome at the Burrow. The war taught us at least that much, didn’t it?”

Hermione froze at the mention—just for a breath, a blink—but it caught in her chest all the same. She managed a tight smile. “Yes,” she murmured. “Thank you. That’s… kind.”

Lucius’s hand brushed her lower back. A subtle gesture. Protective.

She didn’t lean into it—but she didn’t pull away.

No one pressed further. Not directly. But Hermione could feel it. Hanging in the air.

They didn’t believe the cover story.

Not entirely.

And beneath all the polite small talk and measured glances, there was one thing she could read in every Weasley face, Who is she, really? And why is she with him?

Neither of them spoke on the walk back.

Not after the door of the shop closed behind them.
Not through the shimmer of the Apparition wards.
Not when the countryside settled cold and quiet around them.

Hermione hadn’t said a word since she stepped out of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.

And Lucius hadn’t asked.

When they returned to the safehouse, he took her cloak gently, hung it by the fire, and didn’t touch her again.

She watched him move across the room — remove his gloves, straighten a stack of unopened letters, light the lamp near the window. Every movement slow. Measured. Controlled.

There was so much silence in him.

But she felt it all. Buried just beneath.

She didn’t speak.

Didn’t know how.

The moment the fire caught, he turned and looked at her — and whatever he saw in her face made him stop.

His voice, when it came, was quiet. “Would you like tea?” Hermione shook her head.

Lucius nodded once. Then crossed the room and opened the door to his study.

“I’ll be in here if you need anything,” he said.

That was all.

The door shut behind him with a soft, final click.

Hermione stood frozen for a moment in the center of the room. Her hands were still trembling.

They didn’t know her.

Not even a flicker of recognition.

Not in Ginny’s sharp eyes, not in Ron’s voice, not in George’s sideways glance. Her name had been spoken aloud—and nothing stirred.

She didn’t exist in this world.

Not in memory. Not in story. Not even in someone’s mistake.

Just... absent.

She sat down slowly at the edge of the couch, the fire warming her knees.

And finally—she cried.

Not in gasps. Not in sobs.

Just a slow, steady leak of everything held in her chest for too long.

Grief. Shame. The ache of seeing people she loved living without her.

The ache of not being missed.

Later, after sunset, she didn’t go to the study. She didn’t say goodnight.

She simply undressed slowly, folded her robes over the armchair, and slipped beneath the covers of his bed as though she had always belonged there.

The sheets were cold. The room was dim. Her skin still ached from being seen — and not seen.

She lay facing the wall, still dressed in her undershift, knees curled slightly toward her chest.

She didn’t know if he would come.

But then—the door opened. And closed again.

Lucius crossed the room with slow, unhurried steps. His movements were quiet. Careful.

The bed dipped under his weight, but he didn’t speak.

Not at first.

He lay beside her, not touching her, the silence folding around them like a second blanket.

And then—his hand reached across the space between them. Found hers.

Warm. Steady. Familiar.

He laced their fingers together.

She didn’t move.

She didn’t look at him.

But her grip tightened, just barely.

His voice came low. A breath more than a whisper.

“You were very brave today.”

The words sank into her like heat.

Not praise.

Not comfort.

Just truth.

Her throat ached, but she said nothing. Her body softened beside his, still trembling from everything she had lost — and everything she had seen.

And in that silence, she let herself be held by the only person who knew just how much it had cost her—and who had paid for it, too, in ways the world would never see.

Not in blood or glory.

But in the quiet ruin of years spent waiting for a second chance.

Chapter Text

XIX

The house was hushed under a thin crust of frost. The hearths burned low. The air smelled faintly of pine and warmed cloves, though no decorations had been hung.
Hermione stirred her tea with the wrong hand. Her fingers trembled slightly—not from cold.

Lucius watched her from across the small sitting room. Not hovering. Just watching. He’d spent the last week doing that—giving her space, but never truly leaving. Some evenings, she found him asleep in the chair by the fire, book fallen from his lap. Other nights, he sat in silence, eyes closed, as if bracing himself for something unnamed.

That morning, he was dressed too precisely for a day at home. Black robes. Trimmed coat. Wand tucked into his sleeve with the ease of long familiarity.

“You’re taking me somewhere,” she said, setting down her cup.  He nodded once. “Yes.”

Her throat tightened. She didn’t ask where. The bond between them hummed low—constant now, steady. It didn’t answer questions, but it told her enough. That whatever this was, it mattered to him.
When she stood, her hands were already shaking.
He didn’t notice. Or pretended not to.

“You’ll want a coat,” he said. “It’s bitter out.”

The walk through the village was silent. Just the brittle crunch of frost underfoot and the whisper of wind catching in the bare trees.
Lucius stopped before a small stone house, half-covered in ivy. Quiet. Unremarkable.
It looked like it had grown out of the hillside itself. Timeless. Hidden. He turned to her, briefly.

“He’s expecting us.”

Hermione didn’t move. Not at first.

But the door opened before she could speak. And there he was.

Severus.
Alive.

Older than she remembered. Paler. His hair streaked with grey at the temples, tied back with deliberate neatness. But his eyes were the same—sharp, impenetrable, endlessly tired.
He took her in with a single glance.

Hermione froze. Her lungs stuttered.

“You’re—”
“Yes,” he said dryly. “Very much alive. You must be the girl who broke time.”

Lucius exhaled sharply. “Severus.”

But Severus waved him off, stepping aside to let them in.

The room smelled of old books and strong tea. A fire burned low in the hearth. There were vials lined up neatly along the mantle, a stack of the Daily Prophet folded and marked with ink. Hermione stood just inside the doorway, her coat still on.

Severus watched her with a strange look. Not distrust. Not curiosity. Something more forensic. As if he were studying a living paradox.

“You’ve changed little,” he said at last. “For someone who’s died.”

Hermione flinched. But didn’t look away.Lucius stepped past her, removed his gloves with slow precision.

“Severus,” he said quietly, with a warning. 

A long pause. Then—Severus inclined his head. “I’m told you were clever. I imagine this is… difficult.”

“I don’t imagine you’re the sort to offer comfort.” She said.
“No,” he said. “But I respect survival.”

He sighed.

“Your magic feels older,” he said at last—not as an observation, but almost a challenge. “Rougher. More frayed at the edges. As though it’s been worn through something.”

Hermione stiffened. “Time,” she said simply.

His brow arched. “You’re aware of what that actually means?”

“Enough to know I shouldn’t exist. And enough to know I do anyway.”

There was a long pause. “You’re wearing a different magic. Altered threads. And still holding onto something old.”

Hermione swallowed. “The bond.”

“Among other things,” he murmured. “I’ve seen spells fracture under the weight of time. You, however, have held your shape. Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I shouldn’t even be alive here.”
“No,” Severus agreed. “You shouldn’t.”

He stopped in front of her. Studied her face.

“And yet—here you are. Paradox in the timeline. But apparently anchored. In every sense that matters.”

Hermione’s pulse ticked under her skin. “Why are you interested?”

“Because I’ve spent twenty years trying to understand time,” his dark eyes stated still. “And now I’m looking at a proof of concept that bleeds.”

Lucius, standing nearby, remained still. Watchful. But said nothing.

Hermione took a breath. “You believe in the multiverse, then.”

Severus smiled—faint and cold. “What else is there to believe in, after all we’ve seen?”

She hesitated. “I thought perhaps… I’d torn through a single line. That I’d made a mess of this world by falling out of my own.”
“You did,” he said, without judgment. “But the threads were already woven. You didn’t destroy anything. You arrived. A variable. An anomaly. The universe adjusted.”

She looked down at her hands. “What was lost to make space for me?”
Severus was quiet for a long moment. Then, “We don’t know. That’s the point. That’s the cost.”

Her throat ached. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

Lucius stepped forward, the weight of her silence drawing him toward her. His voice was low. Final.  “That’s enough for today.”

But Hermione didn’t move. Didn’t nod. Didn’t yield.

Her eyes lifted, sharp and unblinking.
“No.”

Lucius stilled.
“No,” she repeated, stronger. “You don’t get to end this. Not when you’ve kept everything from me. Not when you’ve spoken around him, above him—but never about him.”

The fire crackled. Severus glanced between them, unreadable. The energy changed and they knew Hermione wasn’t speaking about Snape anymore.

Hermione took a step forward. Her hands trembled. She didn’t care.
“Draco,” she said, her voice nearly breaking on the name. “Tell me. Not just that he’s alive. Not just that he’s safe. I want to know what he’s like. What he became. What kind of boy he was. What kind of man he is now—” Her breath hitched. “I want to know him.”

Lucius’s jaw tightened.

“The grief still bleeding through your magic. The bond—intact, if distant. It makes sense you’d ask.” Severus offered, a dry edge in his voice.

Lucius shot him a look. Severus raised a hand.
“She has a right to know.”

Hermione turned to Lucius again, her lower lip trembling.

“You said he was safe,” she whispered. “But I carried him. I bled for him. I died for him. You can’t ask me to let go of that.”

Lucius’s gaze flickered. She saw it—the restraint. The grief he never let surface. He nodded. Barely.

“He was sorted into Slytherin,” he said quietly. “Top of his year in Charms. Too clever for his own good, and too proud to hide it.”

Hermione’s breath caught.

“He argued with his professors. Got into duels. Argued more. Never expelled—but only because he was quick enough to charm the truth from witnesses.”

A small, broken laugh slipped from her throat. Lucius stepped closer.

“He never spoke ill of anyone. Not really. Not with the cruelty I once had.” His voice dropped. “He loved flying. Loved arguing. And Merlin help me, he loved Severus.”

Severus snorted. Didn’t deny it. Lucius’s voice softened further. “He is—steady. Controlled. Loyal in quiet, dangerous ways. And very alone.”

Hermione’s heart twisted.

Before Lucius could speak again, Severus cut in—voice drier than before.
“He works at the Ministry now. Magical Law Enforcement. Not in the Auror Corps—too refined for the politics. But not afraid of power. The kind of wizard the Ministry pretends not to fear.”

Hermione turned to him slowly.  Severus’s mouth twitched, just barely.
“He’ll be Minister of Magic one day, if he doesn’t get bored first.”

Lucius didn’t contradict him.

Hermione opened her mouth. Closed it again. The ache behind her ribs sharpened.

“He was always bright,” she whispered.
Severus nodded once. “And careful. He learned not to waste words. Or loyalty.”

She looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. “And Harry?”

Lucius’s voice was quieter now. “They aren’t friends.”
“I didn’t think they would be.”
“But they’re not enemies,” he said, surprising her. “They learned to live in the same rooms. Fight the same laws. Speak when they have to. There’s… mutual understanding.”

Hermione didn’t respond. Her gaze dropped—slid off the fire, past the corners of the room, far beyond the space they occupied.

Because in her mind, something opened.

She remembered another Draco.
The one who wasn’t hers.

A boy with sharp words and frightened eyes. Pale fists clenched in fury. The smirk that hid everything. She remembered detentions. Hallway scuffles. His cruel taunts—about blood, about loyalty.

The pain on Harry’s face. The rage. The bitterness. The divide between them like a trench—carved deep, impossible to cross.

They’d been children. Fighting their parents’ war with borrowed pride and secondhand grief.

And yet—she remembered standing between them, more than once. Defending Harry. Watching Draco turn away. And realizing, only now, how alone he’d looked in those moments.

Her stomach twisted.

The boy she once knew had been angry. Defensive. Raised to believe himself untouchable—and terrified to fall.

But that boy hadn’t been her son.

This man was.

Her chest ached. She blinked hard and brought a shaking hand to her mouth.

Across the room, Severus tilted his head, frowning slightly.
“She’s gone very quiet,” he murmured.

Lucius didn’t look away from her. “She’s remembering,” he said softly.

The fire snapped. Somewhere in the hallway, a clock ticked past the hour.

Hermione exhaled a thin, unsteady breath and finally looked up, eyes shining.

“I hated him once,” she whispered. “The version of him in my world.”

Neither of them spoke.She looked between them.

“But then, everything changed. I held him in my arms. I heard his first cry. I felt the way his hand gripped mine, like he already knew me. The bond we shared.”

Her throat trembled.  “I don’t know how to carry both truths.”

Severus didn’t speak at first. Then, slowly, he exhaled—not loudly, not wearily, but with weight.

“You’ll find you don’t carry them,” he said, still facing the hearth. “You wear them. Like scars. Some deeper than others. Some that never stop bleeding.”

Hermione looked up, startled by the softness in his tone.

He turned slightly. His gaze was sharp, but not cruel.
“I lost Lily twice. Once when she stopped looking at me. And again when she died.”

Lucius didn’t move. Severus’s voice stayed dry, but something underneath had shifted—less guarded.

“I used to think time dulled it. Like a worn blade. That grief softened, if you waited long enough.”
He glanced at her, “It doesn’t.”

Hermione swallowed.

Severus stepped forward—not intrusively, but enough that she could feel the air shift between them. “But it reshapes,” he added, quieter now. “If you let it.”

She stared at him, unsure how to respond.

Then—his mouth twitched, almost a smile.

“Apparently, I’ve known many versions of Lucius Malfoy,” he said. “This is the only one I trust.”

Hermione’s throat tightened.

“And you,” he added, tilting his head slightly, “are not the brightest witch of your age in this world. You’re something stranger. Unwritten. Undefined.”

Her lips parted, but no sound came.

Severus raised a brow. “I expect you’ll redefine the rules. Eventually.”

And with that, he turned back to the fire and poured himself more tea— as if he hadn’t just offered her a quiet mercy disguised as a warning.

Lucius glanced down at her hand in his. Squeezed once.

Her grief hadn’t left her.
It wouldn’t.
But something in the room had shifted.

As if Severus had acknowledged her place—not as a disruption. Not as a ghost. But as a living contradiction this world would have to learn how to hold.

They were back before dusk. The cottage was warm, quiet — the fire already lit by the time they stepped through the door. Tilly had prepared something soft for dinner, but neither of them sat to eat.

Lucius poured her a glass of wine without asking. Hermione accepted it without a word.

He stood near the hearth, one hand resting on the mantel, the other curled loosely around his glass.

“I’ve spoken to him,” he said at last, voice low.

Hermione didn’t look up.

“He’ll be here. In two days.”

She paused, wine halfway to her lips. Her fingers curled tighter around the stem.

“Does he know I’ll be here?” she asked, softly.

The silence was answer enough.

Her gaze lifted.

Lucius didn’t meet her eyes.

Hermione let out a slow breath. There was no sting of betrayal, no spike of panic — just a faint exhale of something she couldn’t name.

“You haven’t told him,” she said.

“No.”

She nodded. Looked down into her glass. The wine was dark and still.

“That’s… fine,” she said after a beat. “Whatever will be, will be.”

Lucius turned his head sharply, almost surprised. She offered him the smallest of smiles — tired, perhaps, but real.

And in that moment, something shifted.

Not between them — that tether had always held — but within her.

He saw it. The faint light behind her eyes. Not joy. Not ease. But… clarity.

It had started earlier. After the firelight talk with Severus.

Lucius hadn’t interrupted them. Hadn’t even tried to soften the edges of Snape’s words. He knew better — knew the kind of grief Severus spoke fluently in. Knew Hermione needed to hear someone else name what couldn’t be fixed.

He’d watched her closely that evening. The way her shoulders sank, just slightly, as if the weight she carried had finally been acknowledged. Not lifted — never that — but shared.

And now, here she was.

Standing before him, wine glass in hand, her voice steady even as her world continued to tilt. She wasn’t unraveling anymore.

She was rebuilding.

He couldn’t look away from her.

Maybe — just maybe — it would be better from now on.

Not easier.

But better.

His hand drifted to hers, unspoken.

She didn’t flinch.

And for the first time in what felt like a thousand fractured timelines, Lucius allowed himself the smallest breath of belief

They might make it through this.