Chapter Text
The cry tore from her throat before she woke.
Hermione Granger jolted upright in bed, heart pounding as if she’d sprinted through Trafalgar Square. Her cotton sheets were twisted around her limbs, damp with cold sweat. Her breath came fast, ragged. The taste of copper was in her mouth. Phantom pain crawled up her arm where Bellatrix’s knife had once carved letters into her skin.
She reached instinctively for her wand on the nightstand, fingers trembling.
“Lumos.”
Soft light bathed the room. It was warm, golden, safe. There were no dungeon walls…no Black sisters or the echoing laughter of Death Eaters. All she could hear was the quiet hum of Muggle London below, and the ticking of her brass clock.
It was nearly five, still too early for the sun, too late to bother trying to sleep again. At the end of the bed Crookshanks shifted with a wide yawn and stared up at her.
“Don't worry, old man,” she scratched under his chin, “Everything’s fine.”
Hermione swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her feet met the soft rug exactly where they always did. Every object in her flat had its proper place. Her bookshelf towered neatly against the far wall, sorted by subject and subcategory, then author, then binding color. Beside it, scrolls of parchment were rolled with military precision in their labeled cases. Policy Drafts, Research Notes, Department Correspondence.
She smoothed the front of her pyjama top and exhaled. The dream wasn’t real. It hadn't been for a long time.
She padded barefoot into the kitchen. Her flat was pristine, modern yet traditional, with polished wooden floors and enchanted plants that thrived on sunlight and trip hop. She had chosen every fixture herself, down to the brushed bronze drawer pulls and the wine-colored backsplash that matched her favorite ink. It was the kind of place that looked staged, perfect in a Witch Weekly spread for Book Lovers.
She brewed tea by hand instead of magic, an old grounding trick her Mind Healer had given her after her second year of treatment. “Routine restores reality,” Healer Iskander had said.
As the kettle boiled, Hermione leaned against the counter and stared out at the skyline. Rooftops were still veiled in fog, but the sun was slowly starting to peek through.
People thought she was the put-together one. The brightest witch of her age! The girl who rose from war into a perfect life like some phoenix, blazing with degrees and ministry honors, pencil skirts and heels.
She liked it that way, order made the rest of her feel bearable.
The mirror above her bathroom sink caught her reflection as she twisted her curls into a smooth French plait. She paused for a moment, eyeing herself with quiet scrutiny. Shadows clung under her eyes, but her blouse was crisp, and her knee length pencil skirt immaculate. A burgundy blazer completed the ensemble. She looked like someone in control.
Good.
There was no time to spiral. Today, she was scheduled to meet with her Head of Department, and she would not waste the opportunity. She had worked too hard, pushed too long against the tide of people who saw her youth, or her name, or her blood, and wrote her off.
The wizarding world needed law reform, badly, and someone needed to be brave enough to say it out loud, push quills, make points.
Hermione slid a folder into her satchel. It was neatly bound with color-coded tabs marking her notes on elf rights, wand permit equity, and registry reform. She double-checked her wand, tapped her blazer straight, and breathed in.
A framed muggle photograph of her parents caught her eye as she passed the entryway. They stood together on a beach in Greece, arms wrapped around each other, smiling like they had never forgotten her. Her mother’s wild curls blowing in the wind while her father looked in adoration.
They remembered their daughter now. They came back, forgave her. They were proud, even.
She squared her shoulders. She would make sure they stayed proud.
Hermione’s heels clicked neatly against the cobbled walk as she made her way through the quiet early streets of London, the hem of her blazer fluttering just slightly with her brisk stride. The corner shopkeeper gave her a polite nod. He never seemed to remember her name, but she passed by each morning with a look of steel in her spine and a purpose in her step.
Ginny and Harry’s flat wasn’t far, just two streets over, next to a little bakery that always smelled of warm cinnamon. Hermione paused just long enough to knock on their front door with two firm raps. A few seconds later, it creaked open to reveal Harry in half-buttoned robes, his hair still a disaster.
“You’re early,” he said, voice still rough with sleep.
“You’re late,” she replied smoothly, pushing past him into the flat. “I told you last night I had to speak with Price this morning.”
“The reform thing?” he yawned, disappearing back into the kitchen. “You’ve rewritten that proposal five times, haven’t you?”
“Seven,” Hermione corrected, setting her bag down and smoothing a stray curl behind her ear. “It has to be perfect.”
Ginny was in the sitting room, curled on the sofa in flannel pyjamas and a nursing wrap, her red hair a halo of loose waves. She was cradling a newborn, James Sirius, barely a month old. His tiny hands flexed in his sleep as he nestled against her chest. She looked up and gave Hermione a tired, glowing smile.
“He’s been up since three,” she said softly, adjusting the blanket around him. “But Merlin help me, I think he’s perfect.”
“He is perfect.” Hermione murmured, kneeling for just a moment beside them. She reached to stroke James’s dark tufts of hair with two fingers. “And already looks exactly like his father.”
“Doesn't he?” Ginny beamed, then glanced at the satchel. “And don't worry about that proposal. You’ll be Minister before you know it.”
Hermione managed a small smile. “Let’s start with a seat on the Wizengamot, shall we?”
Ginny offered her a sympathetic glance. “Don’t let them talk over you again.”
Hermione’s mouth tightened. “I won’t.”
Harry emerged fully dressed at last, shrugging on his Auror robes and giving Hermione a once-over.
“You look…sharp. Intimidating, even,” he said.
“Good.”
He chuckled. “You ready?”
Hermione gave one last glance toward Ginny and the baby, a quiet softness briefly flickering in her eyes. Then she nodded, brisk again, grabbing her satchel. “Let’s go.”
The morning air hit them the moment the door shut. London was still stretching awake. The air had a chill to it despite it being July. She pulled her blazer a little tighter around her.
Harry fell into step beside her as they walked. “You still seeing your Mind Healer?” he asked, casual but careful.
Hermione kept her eyes forward. “Yes. Only about once a month now. More if I need it…”
“Good. Me too.”
That was all he said, and that was all she needed. They didn’t talk about the dreams. Not anymore. Not since it got worse again two years ago when she'd ended her internship and gone into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement full-time working on policy reform under the Wizengamot Council. Though truthfully, she did more solicitor work than anything, assisting the Council of Magical Law.
Somehow Bellatrix’s voice had a way of resurfacing when Hermione worked too long, slept too little, or pushed too close to legislation that rattled old bones.
They turned the corner near King’s Cross, crossing over toward a graffitied alley where a series of bricked-up service doors lined the wall. Muggle eyes would see cracked red paint and warning signs. Hermione, however, stepped with purpose to the third door, tapping it with the tip of her wand in a swift, practiced motion.
The rusty latch clicked. A whisper of magic rippled outward.
Harry reached for the handle and pushed the door open.
To a Muggle, it would look like a cramped storage cupboard with dusty shelves, old paint cans, maybe a forgotten broom. As they stepped through the threshold, the world shimmered, rearranged, and expanded into a narrow corridor lit by enchanted torches. Smooth marble replaced brick underfoot, and voices echoed from deeper within.
They had to enter through the Ministry’s auxiliary floo passage, used mostly by junior officials, or those working odd shifts. Hermione didn't have a hearth to floo in, and Harry hadn't been granted direct clearance from his own just yet. So instead, they walked this way most mornings together.
The hearth at the end of the hall flared with soft green flames.
Hermione strode ahead and called clearly, “Level Two. Department of Magical Law Enforcement,” before vanishing into the emerald glow.
Harry followed behind with a brief nod to the floo supervisor on duty, who barely looked up from his morning copy of the Daily Prophet.
They arrived at the heart of the Ministry. She took a deep breath before heading to the Law offices, waving to Harry as he headed to the Aurors section.
Today would be the day they took her proposals seriously. It had to be.
*. *. *.
Draco woke with his face half-buried in a velvet pillow that smelled faintly of perfume and smoke.
His skull throbbed, deep and unforgiving, as though someone had cast a low-level percussion charm inside his brain. His mouth was sandpaper. His throat tasted of ash and stale firewhisky. Somewhere under the migraine haze, he realized the pounding beat he heard wasn’t music. It was his own pulse, grinding behind his eyes.
He shifted and immediately regretted it. A soft moan came from the woman tangled around his arm. Blonde? Her face was tucked into his shoulder, half-obscured by her hair and glittering mascara smudges. She was naked beneath the thin crimson sheet. So was he.
Draco stared up at the opulent ceiling of The Vermillion suite. Gilded, charmed to shift gently in hue depending on the hour. It gleamed a foggy silver, signaling dawn. Bloody hell.
He didn’t know her name, didn't remember her face from last night either.
Something bitter twisted in his chest. Vanta powder would do that…fracture a night into disjointed pieces. Euphoric highs, manic laughter, and then…blankness. He could smell it still, the acrid sweetness that clung to the walls here. Blaise never banned the stuff from the rooms upstairs. This was The Vermillion, after all. Gambling, potions, secrets, sins. Everything was for sale, as long as someone had the galleons.
Draco certainly did.
He eased his arm out from under the girl like it was a trap about to spring and sat up slowly.
A half-empty bottle of firewhiskey sat on the floor next to his wand, along with a heel he didn’t recognize and his shirt crumpled like a truce flag. The girl stirred behind him but didn’t wake.
Draco exhaled through his nose and ran a hand over his face. He needed to leave. He had…what? Breakfast with his mother?
A promise he couldn't afford to break.
He slipped into his clothes and boots, then made his way downstairs. The Vermillion was still cloaked in its velvet-draped morning silence. Sunlight filtered through enchanted stained glass, throwing blood-red pools across the otherwise dim interior. The scent of liquor, smoke, and whatever was left of last night’s indulgences still lingered like ghosts.
Draco crossed the sprawling club floor, past booths that had seen things he tried not to think about. The round corner table was occupied by Blaise, reading over parchment and scribbled notes with a sharp quill and an even sharper look. Business, no doubt. It was always business these days. Blaise was never without something to tally, something to track, someone to own.
Draco didn’t care.
“Hey,” he said, voice gravel. “Where’s your hangover draught?”
Blaise didn’t look up. He just slid a tiny glass vial across the table without taking his eyes off the parchment. “You’re welcome,” he said.
Draco grabbed it, popped the stopper, and downed it in a single swallow. The world rebalanced slightly, though the taste still made him grimace.
“Ever the gracious host,” Draco muttered.
Blaise smirked at his ledgers. “You keep bleeding on my carpets, I might start charging rent.”
Draco rolled his eyes and dropped into a chair opposite him.
Blaise still didn’t look up. Draco hated that. He hated how Blaise didn’t need the money or the flash, yet made something of himself anyway. Out of nothing of his own. His mother’s marriages might have provided the gold, but Blaise had turned it into power. People looked at him and saw someone to fear, or follow.
Draco...he had a name and inheritance. It was a rather…large inheritance…but that was all he had.
Malfoy had meant something once. Now it was a cautionary tale, an echo of old money and darker things. A father in Azkaban. And him? The infamous son, too young to be a true villain, but too involved to be innocent. He was the only one their age with the Dark Mark burned into his skin. It was faded now with Voldemort gone for good, but it was still there…forever marked in his shame.
He had been required to serve probation. Community service. Public rehabilitation. A performative penance so the papers would print something about redemption, so the Ministry could pretend justice still meant something.
Blaise had never been marked. Never had to kneel, not to Voldemort or the Ministry. Draco had been forced to do both.
Of course…he still had his wealth. Still had his estate. His vaults. His wand. His reputation…fractured though it was…and a sharp tongue he kept honed like a blade to hide the rot beneath.
The Malfoy name had never sunk lower.
Yet, he was still standing. Still rich. And in this place, Blaise’s den of vice and velvet, that was enough.
Draco apparated just outside his Manor, the familiar crack of disapparition giving way to the still hush of morning on ancestral grounds. The dew clung to his boots as he stepped over the threshold and pushed open the wrought-iron side gate with a practiced hand, careful to stay just out of view from the front-facing windows.
Not that it mattered.
He was halfway across the hedge-lined path when a clipped voice met him like a cold splash to the face.
“You’re late.”
He didn’t even have to look. That tone was unmistakable, ice wrapped in silk.
He turned slowly, exhaling. There she stood on the veranda, robes perfectly fastened, hair in a flawless chignon, a porcelain cup of tea balanced effortlessly in her hand. Narcissa Malfoy’s eyes flicked down his form with the precision of a scalpel. His disheveled clothes, wrinkled collar, his tousled hair and that faint, but undeniable, scent of smoke and debauchery still clinging to him.
Draco straightened his spine, rolled his shoulders once, and strode forward like he hadn’t just crawled out of a club suite next to someone whose name he couldn’t recall.
“Good morning, Mother,” he said smoothly.
She didn’t answer until he passed her to head into the house.
“Vanta powder reeks, Draco,” she said mildly. “And so does desperation.”
He smiled without teeth. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The dining hall was already laid out in its traditional excess of crisp linens, silver trimmed china, charmed steam curling from platters of warm bread, eggs, roasted tomato, and a sliced fruit arrangement so surgically symmetrical it almost offended him.
He dropped into the seat at the end of the long table, reaching immediately for the coffee.
Narcissa didn’t join him right away. She entered a few minutes later, folding herself with stately grace into her usual chair. A house-elf appeared silently to refill her tea.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Narcissa raised her gaze, studied him coolly across the table, and said, “Do you have any intention of doing something with your life, or are you content playing the spoiled relic while the rest of us work to rebuild the family?”
Draco sipped his coffee, then helped himself to eggs.
“I’m plenty occupied,” he muttered.
“Gambling at Blaise’s den and sleeping through breakfast is not an occupation.”
Draco didn’t flinch. “Neither is trying to claw back social standing in a world that already moved on, Mother.”
There was the faintest flicker of emotion in her expression…disappointment? Irritation? Whatever it was, it passed.
“You carry the Malfoy name,” she said softly. “Try not to drag it through the mud any more than your father already has.”
That landed, but he didn’t let it show. Instead, he reached for a slice of toast. “Then perhaps you should’ve married better.”
Narcissa’s expression didn’t change, but her knife sliced through a poached pear like it was his throat.
She tapped the corner of the Daily Prophet toward him. The gilded paper shimmered faintly in the morning light.
“Look at this,” she said.
Draco squinted, brushing crumbs off his sleeve. “Another proposal about Muggleborn law reform? Hardly news.”
She didn’t smile. Instead, she gestured to a tiny column tucked near the back. Rising Stars; Hermione Granger’s Unlikely Ascent.
Draco froze for a heartbeat. The words blurred past the hangover haze…polished…ambitious…relentless. Miss Perfect. She always had been.
“She’s making quite the name for herself,” Narcissa said softly, tracing the headline with a single finger. “You could take your father’s seat at the Wizengamot any time you choose. But let me be clear… you dither, and she–” Her gaze sharpened, piercing as any Malfoy stare could be. “This upstart will vote you out. I've heard she is trying to propose an abolishment to hereditary seats. Unlikely, but with her, the Muggleborns agenda moves faster than you could ever care to move it.”
Draco exhaled, leaning back in his chair. He hated politics. He hated rules. He hated this conversation. Yet a flicker of something darker gnawed at him. Hermione Granger. That pompous, know-it-all, polished little brat. The one who had stood there with that infuriating glare when he had gone to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to finalize the end of his probation a few years ago.
She had been there, watching. Judging. Making sure he knew every detail of her superiority.
He hadn’t seen her since, not really. He had barely glimpsed her. And yet the memory, her polished blouse, curly hair barely restrained, lips pressed together with her narrowed gaze, still twisted in his chest with irritation.
Draco pushed the paper away, though his eyes lingered on her name. “And…you’re telling me what exactly?” he asked, voice smooth, deliberately bored.
“That the seat is yours if you want it,” Narcissa said evenly. “But if you continue to squander your time…” She let the words hang. “…someone else will take what could have been yours. Hermione Granger included.”
He grunted. He didn’t want the seat. Didn’t want the meetings, the debates, the constant policing of outdated traditions. The societal peacocking. It wasn't who he was, not anymore. And yet, the thought of her succeeding where he had chosen to coast…it made his jaw tighten.
“Not interested,” he muttered.
“Not yet,” Narcissa corrected, leaning back in her chair. “But every moment you waste, every day you flaunt your freedom and wealth without purpose…she moves closer. And Draco…” Her eyes sharpened to steel. “She remembers you. She will never forget the Malfoys.”
Draco swallowed, all trace of humor gone for a second. The words struck somewhere deeper than he wanted. He looked away, reaching for another piece of toast, shaking his head.
Narcissa let out a quiet sigh, the kind that could silence a room without raising her voice. She leaned back, folding her hands over her lap as if setting the conversation aside…for now.
“How is Pansy?” she asked smoothly, her sharp eyes flicking to him with careful calculation.
Draco shrugged, brushing a crumb off his trousers. “Her usual,” he said lightly. “Shopping. Drama. Keeps herself busy.”
Narcissa raised an eyebrow. “Nothing more?”
He shook his head. “Not really. She does her thing. I do mine.”
She studied him for a long moment, expression neutral, before nodding once. Satisfied, or at least placated, she picked up her teacup and sipped slowly, the silence filling the room with its subtle tension.
Draco leaned back in his chair, taking another swig of coffee. The mention of Granger still lingered like smoke in his mind, but for now, he would let it slide. Politics could wait. So could the endless scrutiny of his mother.
For the moment, there was just the rich warmth of breakfast, the quiet dominance of the manor, and the sense that whatever games were being played beyond these walls…he didn't want to play.