Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was near dusk when Ginny’s horse patronus appeared. “House ahead seems safe. No chimney.”

Hermione huffed a breath into her cupped hands. Even through her knitted gloves, her fingers felt half frozen. She pulled her parka closer around her. Beneath it she wore two sweaters and a vest — here they called it a camisole —  and leggings beneath her jeans and she was still chilled to the bone. She’d been told winters were colder in America than they were in Britain. But she hadn’t realized how cold.

She was tempted to cast a warming charm, even though she knew it was against their agreed-upon rules. Warming charms were only temporary, she reminded herself. They ultimately weren’t worth the drain on the caster’s magic and it left them feeling even colder afterward. They needed to save their magic for emergency apparition or combat. But still, she’d give anything to have a moment where she felt toasty warm. Just a single moment.

She waited for the rest of the group to catch up and repeated what she’d been told. She saw hope on all their faces. Hope that they’d be able to spend the night out of the elements. Hope that there might be some food.

They continued their slow and silent march through the woods, peering around through the trees, freezing at every snap of a twig or brush of a branch. The light snow on the ground wasn’t enough to muffle their footsteps.

Ahead of her Luna waved her hand, gesturing them forward. Hermione took a spot by her side. Luna had the only binoculars the group had left and kept them carefully protected beneath her layer of jackets. She handed them to Hermione, silent as always.

Peering through them, Hermione could see a shimmer where the disillusioned form of Ginny crouched behind an abandoned car so rusty it was likely inoperable even before the apocalypse. Ginny held an extendable ear that appeared to float in the air, listening for sounds in the house. She dropped the charm so they could see her and held up a thumb.

“Go on up, slowly,” Hermione whispered. They didn’t need the reminders, but she always gave them.

Luna, Neville, and Lavender cast their own charms before they slipped from the tree line and headed for the car. They met up with Ginny and after a pause, they were on the front porch. Ginny had her wand out to open the door and usher them inside.

Hermione looked back over her shoulder where Angelina stood. She was chewing on her lower lip as she watched the trees. Eventually Cho caught up to her and some of the tension drained from Angelina.

Hermione waited for them and then they crept toward the house, pausing, listening, and then finally entered the house. Neville greeted them in the foyer. “It’s been abandoned for a long time, but some other group seems to have already cleaned it out, if there was anything left. But at least there isn’t a fireplace, so we don’t have to worry it’s connected to the Floo network.”

Hermione hadn’t let herself get her hopes up, but she still felt a little sinking feeling. “Maybe we’ll find something they forgot.” She gave him a smile and a pat.

“Second floor is clear,” Ginny said, clunking down the stairs. She wore a blue puffer jacket, stuffing escaping from tiny cuts on its exterior, patched with duct tape in a few areas.

“Cellar is empty, too.” Lavender sat down beside Ginny on the stairs. Her coat was a brown mink they had found, worn inside out with the fur against her skin so it was warmer, with a short cape of plastic tarpaulin over it to keep it dry.

“I’ll take first watch,” Neville said and headed back out onto the porch.

“Wait.” Hermione tugged her gloves off and handed them to him and Neville gave her a grateful smile as he tugged them on over his half-frozen hands. He was getting chilblains. Chilblains, for Merlin's sake. Something Hermione associated with Victorian orphans. Her magical healing book hadn’t even covered the malady, and they had to resort to Muggle medicine and keep the ulcerated fingers bandaged. He wouldn’t take any of the girls’ gloves unless they were indoors like this. At least he had a heavy hat with ear flaps they’d found in a cop car.

“Alright, everyone,” Hermione said briskly. “Spread out and do a deep search. We’ll meet back here in an hour for dinner.”

Ginny stood and headed for the cellar doorway, but paused with her hand on the doorframe, a small frown tugging at her lips. “You good?” she asked Hermione and Hermione inwardly chided herself. Ginny must have caught an unguarded look on her face.

Hermione smiled. “I’m fine. Good hunting.”

She headed through the kitchen door and stopped, her fingers automatically brushing the light switch, though the power had been out for ages. She could see the winter sky above where a storm had ripped part of the roof away. At least that’s what she guessed must have happened. There wasn’t enough debris on the floor to believe that it had collapsed inward. The floor beneath was soaked. Who knew how long it had been open to the elements? It was risky, but the kitchen was the most likely spot for forgotten food.

 She crept around the edges of the room, peeking in each cabinet.

Dishes.

Glassware.

Empty.

Empty.

This one must have held the spices, from the fragrance that rolled out when she opened it. There was a carboard saltshaker. She picked it up and heard clumped salt rattle around inside. Nice. She put it into the beaded bag she always wore crossbody beneath her coat.

The cabinet above the stove held a Crockpot. She took it down and found an envelope of Muggle money inside. She gave a soft snort and tossed it negligently over her shoulder, where it scattered on the linoleum floor. American money didn’t even have the virtue of being colorful and pretty like the notes she’d had when she was growing up.

She crouched down to check the lower cabinets. Pans. Pan lids. Mixing bowls and small appliances. Beneath the sink yielded a selection of cleaners and Perhaps Neville would be able to use some of them to concoct weapons.

She stepped back to open the refrigerator and that’s when the floor gave way beneath her. She plunged down into the cellar in a shower of broken wood and Muggle money before she could even think to try to stop herself.

Ginny had her wand out and was using a lumos to light her way, and so she was able to cry out “Arresto!” and halt Hermione’s plunge in mid-air.

Hermione looked down at the pile of jagged wood she’d been about to land on. One piece was aimed directly at her throat and another likely would have stabbed through her gut.

Ginny moved her over to a bare patch of cellar floor and let her down.

“T-thank you,” Hermione managed to stammer out.

Ginny just gave her a nod.

“I tried to avoid where it would have gotten wet." Hermione tried to quiet her breathing.

“You’re always careful,” Ginny said. “But gravity is a bitch.”

“Gravity is a bitch,” Hermione agreed, rubbing her arms as she looked around. “Anything?”

Ginny held up two cans of corn. “They’d rolled under a shelf.”

Hermione gave her a grin and a pat on the back. “Good job.”

Internally, she felt that awful sinking feeling again. With these two cans and the remaining supplies they had, there was enough food tonight for half of the group. But she kept her smile pinned to her lips.

“Let’s get upstairs before the appliances decide to come down,” Ginny said. She straightened her shoulders and her jaw set in a stubborn line Hermione recognized from Molly. It was the expression Ginny's mother always wore when she glanced at the clock and saw the hands still pointed to mortal peril but she must soldier on for the children's sake. Hermione followed her up the cellar stairs.

They were joined in the living room by the others. Luna hauled down a selection of blankets she’d found in the closets, and there were some boots that fit no one. Lavender had found a pair of thick socks that Hermione immediately decreed would be given to Neville to use as mittens. Lavender held onto the socks for just a moment too long before giving them up. Hermione understood and pretended she didn’t notice.

Angelina was chattering, as she often did, trying to make everyone laugh at stories from their Hogwarts days. Today, it was a story of a terribly bad attempt at a potion, which she'd tried to vanish to start again but instead had splattered on her worktable, which melted into a puddle of goo, and Snape had stepped in it before noticing. Hermione remembered that story and the part about Snape was an embellishment, but it made the group smile and chuckle. 

Cho asked her archly if being bad at potions was also the reason why she was bad at cooking and Angelina gave an exaggerated sigh as she retorted she'd only burned the beans once and Cho was never going to let her live it down. 

It worked. The group was teasing and laughing as they settled in. Hermione made sure she kept a grin on her face.

The small living room had been where the previous group camped. Cardboard pallets still lay on the ground next to a trash can lid that had held remnants of a small fire. Empty cans and packages littered the floor. Hermione grimaced and swept it all up with her wand and vanished it. It might be silly, but she insisted on leaving the places they camped tidy. Even though the original occupants were probably dead, it was still someone’s home. And besides, leaving no trace of their presence made it harder to track them and estimate their numbers.

One of the blankets had to be sacrificed as a window covering because the living room curtains were mainly decorative in nature. Fortunately, the room had a door, and it would help hold in a little of their body heat. Hermione handed out the blankets and sleeping bags from her beaded bag. Not enough to keep everyone warm in this unheated room. There was never enough of anything these days.

That’s not how they started out. When they’d evacuated, Hermione had been prepared with tents and warm clothing and sleeping bags and food. But they’d had to run from the Snatchers several times and leave everything behind. Everything they had now was scavenged, piecemeal, from the few locations they’d found that hadn’t already been cleaned out by other groups. Other groups which had probably been taken by Snatchers themselves or were dead from the radiation.

Hermione cast a bluebell flame in a jar to warm up the canned food. The magical flames would heat anything over it but wouldn’t warm the room. They couldn’t cast a real fire because a Snatcher would be able to smell the smoke from miles away. It was odd that magic hadn’t yet developed a kind of room-warming fire that didn’t produce smoke.

Lavender brought out her battery-powered radio. She only turned it on once a day to save the batteries, since they hadn’t found any replacements. She slowly scrolled along the band, listening intently for any voices. The only thing she found was the repeating recording urging Muggles and Muggleborns to come to the refugee centers where they could be kept safe from the terrorists. Lavender turned the radio off with a snap.

The other cans were brought out to be warmed and Hermione saw how their eyes didn’t stray from those cans. Unconsciously, they licked their lips.

Hermione yawned loudly. She caught Luna’s eye as she stretched. Luna said nothing, but Luna hadn’t said anything since the evacuation. Hermione could read her face. She looked away. She curled up on the carpet and pulled her parka’s hood up as she rolled over to face the wall and pretended to fall asleep.

They wouldn’t wake her because they knew how exhausted she was, and she wouldn’t be awake to take a portion of the food. Barely food for four that they were trying to stretch to seven — six, if she kept pretending sleep.

Facing away from them, she no longer had to keep her mask of hopeful cheer in place. She no longer had to smile and be encouraging and hopeful and pretend she was any sort of leader. She stared at the dusty baseboard and let her mind go blank.

She wished Ginny hadn’t caught her.

It probably would have been less painful of an end than she’d receive once the Snatchers finally got her.

She could smell the corn being heated up and her stomach growled so loudly that she could only hope the others didn’t hear it.

She reminded herself she had to keep going. Had to put one foot in front of the other and keep trudging along. Lie to the others and tell them she’d heard that Canada hadn’t fallen to Voldemort yet. Had to try to lead them and be cheerful and positive for as long as she could. Pretend that her insides weren’t dark and heavy with dread, that she didn’t want all of this to be over.

Ron had wanted to give her a chance. He’d sacrificed everything to set up the portkey so they could escape to the one place he thought would always safe. The last one out, saved for the people he loved most  — the few who were left, anyway. He probably didn’t expect that Voldemort would expand his empire or that the United States would roll over so meekly as the government was taken over from within. No one had expected the bombs.

She had to keep going for Ron, despite the fact that a chance was starting to feel like an unintentional cruelty.

Chapter Text

“Hermione. Hermione.”

Someone shook her.

Hermione jerked out of sleep like a fish hooked from the water. She had her wand in her hand before she could draw in another breath.

It was Ginny.

She lowered her wand.

“Your watch,” Ginny whispered.

Hermione’s mind cleared a little glanced around and saw almost everyone was still asleep, except for one couple in the corner, shagging beneath a blanket, the bags piled around them in a low wall to give them a bit of privacy.

Hermione sat up. Someone had covered her with a blanket.

“Here. Breakfast.” Ginny held out a half a can of corn.

“Gin …”

“Eat it,” Ginny hissed. “You didn’t eat yesterday.”

She wanted to argue. She knew Ginny had probably given up her own portion and convinced someone else to surrender theirs. Maybe two someones, judging by how much was here. But the stubborn Molly lines were back in Ginny’s face, and she knew it was an argument she wouldn’t win.

Hermione tipped up the can and let the cold corn slide into her mouth. Starvation really was the greatest spice. It was the best thing she’d ever tasted and she gobbled the few bites, poking her fingers into the can to retrieve stray kernels.

She vanished the empty can and got to her feet and Ginny took her spot on the floor. She pulled the blanket up over Ginny and bent down to tuck in the edges like an attentive mother until Ginny gave a grin and swatted at her hand. “Say your prayers,” she reminded her and the memory of Ginny’s horror when Hermione had recited the famous “Now I lay me down to sleep,” rhyme made her smile a little.

“You mean Muggles make their children pray that they won’t die in their sleep? Merlin’s cockring, that’s awful!”

The cold when she opened the front door was a slap in the face. The light was blue in this pre-dawn hour but starting to pinken around the edges of the horizon. High above, stars still glimmered. Since the end of it all, the night skies had been magnificent, no longer hidden by the light pollution.

Neville was seated on a small glider by the door. Hermione sat down beside him. She felt tiny perched next to him. Neville was over six feet and it sometimes looked like his shoulders were as wide as he was tall. Built like a brick shithouse, Hermione’s father used to say, though she wouldn’t be able to explain that phrase if she’d been asked. Somehow, even with the hunger, Neville had managed to retain his muscle tone, and it made his sharp jawline more chiseled. No wonder most of the girls in the group had taken a turn. But for Hermione, Neville had slid into the “brother” space that Harry’s death had left vacant.

“It’s been quiet,” he said. “I think I may have seen a deer.”

She gave a small smile at the hopefulness in his tone. They hadn’t seen much wildlife this year despite the fact the animals should be flourishing now that humans were out of the way. She always had to stop herself from thinking about it too much because of the implications.

“You alright, then?” he asked her, as he did every time they got a private moment. Wizarding folk seemed immune to the background radiation. It varied among those who had Muggle blood.

“Yeah.”

“No nausea?”

She snorted. “I’m starving. I fluctuate between hunger and nausea all day long.”

“No bleeding gums? Loose teeth?”

“If I did have loose teeth it could be from the fact we’re probably all an inch away from having scurvy from lack of Vitamin C.”

“Reminds me I need to make everyone some pine needle tea again.” No one liked the taste, but they all trusted he was right about keeping them healthy. As healthy as possible, anyway.

Neville pushed the glider back into motion and they listened to the sounds of the night for a while.

“There’s a barometer mounted on the wall there,” Neville said. “Pressure is dropping and that usually means a storm.”

“Did you take a meteorology course I’m unaware of?”

“No, but I learned in herbology that dropping pressure often means rain for the garden. So we need to decide whether to move on and try to find better shelter and maybe some food, or hole up here.”

“There’s nothing left.” Hermione didn’t have to mask around him. He could probably feel the despair that oozed from her every pore. “Go in, get some sleep. We’ll decide when you wake.”

“I’m not tired,” he lied, just as she always lied about not being hungry. “If we stay here, we freeze and starve. If we move on, we’ll likely freeze and starve, but there’s a chance we might find something to tide us over.”

A chance. Hermione closed her eyes. “Is there any way to tell how bad the storm will be?”

Neville shook his head. “I don’t know the nuances.”

“My instinct is to stay here. Maybe one of us could go scout and —” She froze, staring out into the darkness.

“What?” Neville peered in the same direction.

Hermione blinked rapidly. “I thought I saw —”

“Then we have to go.” Neville stood and headed for the door. “I’ll wake the others. Meet at apparition point one.”

Hermione was momentarily frozen where she sat, her mind attempting to digest what she saw. What she thought she saw.

She thought saw a figure in a black robe, only a glint of their chin visible under the deep hood, pale as marble.

She shook her head and forced herself to her feet. She turned toward the door to help with getting everyone awake and on their feet. Neville was right to call it. It was better safe than sorry. That was their rule when someone thought they saw something. Immediate evacuation to an agreed upon fallback point. Even if they weren’t sure.

Hermione wasn’t sure, but she thought saw the Grim Reaper.

Apparition point one was a meadow they’d visited a month or so ago. Hermione counted the cracks as everyone appeared around her. Everyone — wait, where was Ginny? There she was! Everyone was accounted for, though some were still half undressed or dazed from being suddenly woken.

They had no choice now. They had to find a suitable shelter before the storm hit. She wouldn’t think of how many miles they’d lost on their progress north. Not that it ultimately mattered.

Hermione cast detection spells to make sure they were alone and that no wards had been placed recently.

The wind was picking up. Hermione dug the map out of her bag, and she and Neville hunched over it, debating the merits of different routes. There were two roads nearby, one of which led to a town, and the other a lake. They wanted to avoid towns or cities. The last time they had neared one, they had seen the green flashes reflecting off the clouds at night.

But staying still was equally dangerous. Hermione decided on following a road that led them to the lake. Usually there were houses around lakes, she reasoned. And maybe one would still have supplies.

She put up the hood of the parka. It had fur around the edges of the hood, and in general, she disliked fur, but she had to admit it helped keep the warmth in. She kept her hands thrust deep inside her pockets. Neville had forgotten to give back her gloves and she wasn’t going to remind him.

One foot in front of the other. They found the road and followed along from the woods beside it, safely under cover.

Luna came up to walk beside her. Hermione wasn’t sure she really believed in auras, but Luna had a presence that shimmered around her, peaceful and soothing. She took her hand out of her pocket so she could link her arm through Luna’s and gave her a smile.

She didn’t know what had happened to Luna during those horrifying hours after the fall of Hogwarts before they were able to evacuate. But she could guess. She didn’t allow anyone to try to pressure Luna into talking. Luna would talk when she was ready. Hermione knew a lot more than she wanted to about how a person might want to keep their traumas private.

Neville walked a few paces behind with Angelina beside him. She could hear the murmurs of their voices. She wondered if that would become a thing. They would make a cute couple, she thought, and she wanted her friends to be happy, if they could. To snatch a tiny bit of joy from this fucked-up world.

They stopped at noon, even though there was nothing to eat for lunch. They passed around canteens and Hermione checked to make sure everyone was doing okay. Cho admitted she thought she was getting a blister. Hermione took a bandage from her pack, even though Cho protested she was sure it would be fine.

“We can’t let any wounds go untreated,” Hermione said. “You know that. If any of us gets an infection, that we can’t treat …”

Cho nodded. Hermione used her wand to clean it and placed the bandage squarely over the sore spot. Cho pulled her sock back on even though it was more holes than sock at this point. Hermione dreamed of finding a camping store where everyone could outfit themselves with hiking socks and boots, but it appeared that Voldemort had ordered Muggle stores destroyed. Perhaps for the very reason to starve the remainder of resources.

They set out again. Within an hour, a light snow began to fall and with it, a snow-hush fell over the world and the only sounds were their steps and breaths. They walked in one another’s footsteps as much as possible, to try to disguise their numbers. Like Sand People, Hermione thought and it brought a ghost of a smile to her lips before the sudden thought that she’d never again see Star Wars stole it.

The snow was heavier now. Hermione stopped and imposed the buddy system because it would be easy for someone to fall behind and not get heard.

Neville cast an anxious look her way and Hermione just nodded. This wasn’t good. And it was getting worse by the minute.

“I’m apparating ahead,” Ginny declared and before Hermione could stop her, she had snapped away.

It was hard to see with the wind whipping the snow around. Hermione put on Harry’s glasses, which she always carried in her pocket. She’d charmed the lenses clear. They helped protect her eyes a little.

Harry. God, how she wished he was with her. There was a vicious, bleeding wound in her heart where he once was. In her dreams, she ran toward him, but her fingers barely brushed his sleeve before he was hit by the killing curse and fell, lifeless and blank, to the castle floor. And she heard Voldemort’s cruel laugh of triumph as she fell to her knees beside him.

How long she had remained there, she didn’t know. She’d come back to herself as Ron was pulling her arm, hard, and they were running, trying to duck the flying spells, trying to keep their shields up.

He stopped in an alcove and shoved something into her hand. “Ten minutes,” he said. “Bring as many as you can.”

“W-what?” Hermione stammered and he didn’t answer. He just pressed a kiss to her cheek and said he loved her before he ran back into the battle.

She opened the cloth and found a stone she didn’t recognize, a pyramidical stone that had the Deathly Hallows symbol carved into it. A portkey, she realized. When had he had time to arrange with someone to set up a portkey and why hadn’t he said anything?

Molly, she thought. She would have had the connections. Ron must have asked his mother for a way to escape in case it all went to hell. Harry wouldn’t have. He had been so confident the prophecy would lead them to victory. But where had Ron acquired this thing? She supposed she might never know.

“Ginny!” Hermione saw a flash of red hair and reached out to grab her best friend as she ran by. And together they tried to save as many as they could, as many who were willing to come along with them. Some refused. They had family they refused to leave until they knew… knew one way or the other.

And now they were here, a place where most of them would never have gone, and all she had of the two boys she had loved so fiercely was a rock and a pair of glasses.

Ginny apparated back in front of them, the crack making Hermione jump. She gave a little wave to reassure them she was okay and vanished again. Hermione fell back into memory and musing.

The portkey had sent them all to Boston, the central location of America’s magical community. They’d been taken in and treated kindly, though it was obvious the wizards of Boston didn’t quite believe them about the threat Voldemort posed. Not until it was too late to do anything about it.

Ginny apparated back and fell with a small scream of pain. There was a small hole that one of her legs had landed in and her ankle had bent in ways nature didn’t intend.

Hermione knelt beside her and pushed her hood back. “Keep moving!” she called to the others. “We’ll catch up.”

Ginny’s face was shiny with tears and she tried to choke out words between her sobs. “A white house with green shingles. Up ahead.”

“We’ll meet there,” Hermione said. She met Neville’s eyes and he straightened up to gather the group and get them moving. Her rock.

“I’m s-sorry f-for crying. It j-just really hurts.”

“Let me see it,” Hermione said.

They untied Ginny’s high-top sneaker and tried to pull it off. Ginny let out a scream and drew it back.

“Just leave me,” Ginny said. “You’re getting left behind! Go! You can’t stay out here.”

“I’m not leaving you; I love you, you dumb bitch,” Hermione snarled. “Now, help me!”

She yanked up the cuff of Ginny’s pants and helped pull off her shoe while Ginny tried to hold back her whimpers of pain.

Hermione cast a diagnostic. “It’s not broken, just badly sprained. I’ll wrap it and we need to get moving again.”

She had no bandages. She had nothing … She couldn’t even transfigure anything into a decent wrap. She reached up under her sweater and cut the straps of her camisole and tugged it off over her hips. A quick nick with her knife and she was able to tear it into strips, which she wound in a spiral up Ginny’s calf to stabilize it. There was no way to get her shoe back on without causing extreme pain, so they tied the laces so she could wear it around her neck.

“Come on,” Hermione said, slinging Ginny’s arm around her neck.

Tears ran freely down Ginny’s cheeks. “I love you, too,” she said. “You dumb bitch.”

Hermione laughed, probably the most sincere laugh she’d had in a while.

Hermione headed in the direction she thought the group had gone. That she hoped the group had gone. One step after the other, panting, straining. Ginny was trying her best, but most of her weight leaned on Hermione and she struggled to stay stable on one foot in the deepening snow.

And then Hermione saw it.

The Grim Reaper, his cloak flapping silently in the wind. Silent. Motionless, except for the hem of his dark robes.

Hermione blinked and used her free hand to rub her eyes.

He still stood there.

This wasn’t a quick glimpse from the corner of her eye that could be dismissed as a trick of vision. A hallucination, possibly, but she was undeniably seeing it.

Her breath was a strangled gasp.

“What? What?” Ginny looked around wildly.

“N-nothing. I think maybe we’re veering off course.” Hermione nudged her to the right, away from the dark specter. When she looked back, he wasn’t there.

A shape in the snow took on more definition. Neville stood there, his brown plaid coat covered in snowflakes. He scooped up Ginny into his arms. Within his line of sight stood Luna, and then when Cho, in a human chain that led them to a house.

“Is it safe?” Hermione asked.

“It’s fucking safer than out here,” Neville said grimly and used his hip to shove open the door.

Inside, out of the driving wind, it felt warmer. Neville deposited Ginny on the couch. And then Hermione saw the fire. She gave a start and Ginny said, “Don’t worry, it’s gas. No smoke.”

A fire. Warmth. Hermione burst into tears. Neville pulled her into his embrace and let her sob it out.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Hermione said, furiously scraping at her cheeks with her palms.

“I know,” Neville said softly.

Hermione looked around, counting each face. Everyone was accounted for, crowding around the gas flames.

Without electricity, the blower wasn’t forcing the heat out into the room, but they could absorb it sitting close by.

“That’s what I was coming back to tell you,” Ginny said. “I saw the propane tank out back. I knew you’d be happy.”

“So happy that I’m bawling like I’ve lost my marbles,” Hermione said with a laugh, scrubbing more moisture from her eyes. “Have we searched the rest of the house?”

“Just a basic run-through to make sure it’s empty,” Cho said, sounding a little guilty.

“Let’s search us up some dinner, shall we?”

Though they celebrated finding a sleeping bag in the attached garage, tucked up into the rafters, there was no food to be found. They met back in the living room and though they couldn’t hide their disappointment, the group quickly decided to act as though it were no big deal and devoted their energy to setting up their camp for the night.

Hermione wanted to hug all of them. Good people, she thought. All of them. Angelina was already cracking jokes, and Cho was snapping them back at her like it was a pre-rehearsed comedy routine.

They sipped cups of water heated over a bluebell flame. It seemed to trick the stomach into thinking it was full at least for a little while.

Hermione was given the new sleeping bag by unanimous vote of the group. She shared it with Ginny. Both of them were so scrawny by this point that they could fit inside. And so Hermione spent the night toasty warm. It was a shame when nightmares woke her.

She wasn’t the only person awake. Luna sat against the bottom of the couch, staring into the flames. Hermione extracted herself as carefully as she could and went over to sit by Luna. Luna laid her head on Hermione’s shoulder.

She remained there until it was time to take watch from Lavender, who had Neville’s usual shift because of his exhaustion in carrying Ginny. It had worked out well, Hermione thought. If it was Neville out here, the plan forming in her mind would never work.

Lavender was wrapped in an opaque plastic tarp they’d found in the garage, only her head visible.  Hermione smiled at her. Today, Lavender was in what Hermione thought of as her “original form.” As a Metamorphagus, Lavender often switched up her appearance and sometimes her gender, but Hermione had met her on the train to Hogwarts at age eleven as a slender Black girl with softly rounded cheeks, her hair bound back in braids.

“I’m going to apparate around to those other houses and look for food.”

Lavender looked very nervous. “Maybe you don’t need to. If the snowing stops, I can fish where there’s no ice in the middle. My dad took me ice fishing once.”

Hermione gave her a wry smile. “In a heated shack, I’m sure.”

Lavender chuckled. “Of course. Nothing’s too good for Princess Lav-Lav.” Her smile faltered as she started wondering what had become of her parents, and Hermione decided to distract her quickly.

“You can’t walk on ice. That’s dangerous.”

“I thought I might sit in the boat to displace my weight and push myself across with an oar. Keep myself disillusioned.”

“That’s pretty clever.” Hermione drew her hood closer around her throat. “But we need food now and there’s no way of telling how long it will snow.”

“You’re not going alone,” Lavender said. “Let me come with you.”

“Yes, I am. And you’re going to keep everyone calm and happy while I’m gone. Get some stories going with Angelina and Cho.”

“They’re going to notice you’re gone,” Lavender said. “Neville will go batshit.”

Hermione knew he would. That’s why she wanted to leave while he was still asleep. “If you can stay on watch for just another hour or two, it might be enough time for me to come back with breakfast.”

“That isn’t logical, Hermione. What if something like the kitchen floor collapse happens again and you’re alone?”

“If there’s anyone in the rest of those houses, we need to know,” Hermione argued. “We always send one scout ahead to see if there’s any signs of activity.”

“Yeah, to scout. Not to go inside and scavenge.”

“I won’t take long at each. Just a quick look in the most obvious places. If this works right, I could be back soon. I’ll send a Patronus if anything goes wrong.”

“Ginny’s gonna kick my ass,” Lavender said miserably.

Hermione stood. She could make out the faint outlines of the next house down the shore. With a deep breath, she apparated away.

Chapter Text

The next house along the curve of the lake’s shore was barely visible through the snow but Hermione took the risk and apparated in front of it. It was small, only one story, a drab and indifferently-kempt place that looked like it was struggling wearily against the elements chewing at its roof and siding.

She looked around, watching, listening, but everything was silent except for the wind tangling through the trees. She crept toward the house, casting the usual detection spells. No humans were around, but Voldemort also had the armies of vampires and werewolves, hags, and other assorted dark creatures under his aegis. Many of them were nocturnal but this weather blocked the sunlight.

She kept her wand at the ready as she approached, treading carefully across the porch. A wood swing with a faded green pillow tucked into its arm creaked on its chains beside her. She opened the screen door with a loud screech of rusty hinges.

The door unlocked at her whispered spell and she pushed it open. Snow spilled from her shoes into the tiny foyer as she stepped inside. Arched doorways led to a living room on the left and a dining room on the right. She headed into the dining room first.

As with many American dining rooms it appeared it had been utilized for purposes other than family meals. A laptop sat in front of one of the chairs. The opposite end nearest the doorway was stacked with papers, bills, and unopened mail and other debris that seems to accumulate on a table by the door. A piece of white copy paper, rumpled and curled from exposure to moisture bearing pieces of tape at the top and bottom, lay on the table. On it, a note was written in graceful Palmer method handwriting:

BILL WERE AT THE MYERS HOUSE
MOVING ON TO KANSAS CITY IN 3 DAYS
DEC 17 1999
KATIE

It must have once been taped to the door. Had Bill gotten the note in time, she wondered? She hoped Katie hadn’t made it to Kansas City. That was a month before the bombs fell and though they weren’t certain of the full list of cities that had been hit, she thought Kansas City was one of them. Both coasts and the midlands, making most of the country unlivable for the “vermin” Voldemort wanted eradicated. She constantly encountered these little unfinished stories in the wasteland, and her imagination continued to write endings for them, even though she struggled not to think about it.

Family pictures of happy, smiling people lined the wall, but Hermione knew better than to look at those and give Katie a face to haunt her dreams. The credenza below the photo array had been turned into a bar and several bottles of liquor remained. Hermione checked the caps to make sure they were sealed and then stuck each carefully in her beaded bag.

One of the Muggle groups they had encountered claimed that the Snatchers were leaving poisons in open liquor bottles. Hermione wasn’t so sure about that. They could have been poisoned by many things —the rads in the atmosphere, water, and food they ate. Food poisoning was rife because moisture in frozen cans expanded and often broke the seals. And then there were many health conditions they couldn’t detect or treat. But it was probably safer not to touch any of the opened bottles.

The dining room opened right into the kitchen. It was a wreck. The counters were covered with empty cans and the trash can — if there was one — was buried beneath a veritable mountain of garbage. There was no need to check the cabinets because they were all gaping.

On the counter were dozens of empty bottles of iodine. Muggles had thought it would protect them from radiation. And it did offer protection for one of the body’s organs, but sustained radiation effected more than just the thyroid.

She kicked her way through the cans and bottles on the floor to the bedroom at the back. She opened the closet and gave a little squeal of delight to see the clothes intact. She grabbed sweaters and pants, and from the drawers, she snatched up enough socks to re-outfit everyone.

Even without finding any food, this felt worth it.

She headed into the bathroom next and found some over-the-counter meds in the cabinet, none too out of date, and a few loo rolls. Soap, nail clippers, a sorely-needed hairbrush and some toothbrushes still in the wrapper. This place hadn’t been looted before. She was elated. Did it bode well for the other houses along the shore? She told herself sternly not to get her hopes up.

The last stop was the living room. This room, too, had a lot of trash on the floor. Scattered newspapers with horrific headlines about the bombs formed drifts around the bases of the furniture. The last papers that had been printed, she thought. But the news by then had been garbled and contradictory, even from esteemed press outlets.

She glanced up and nearly jumped out of her skin. It was a body in a deep state of decomposition. The cold had kept down the smell that might have warned her.

The dead man sat in the recliner, his feet still propped up, his head slumped forward, his hair patchy and thin. His chest and lap were covered with a bib of crusted vomit. There was a trash can beside him and the top of the table beside the chair was covered with empty anti-nausea medicines, pain medicines, and anti-diarrheal tablets that indicated he’d spent his last day or so here, in this chair, dying of radiation sickness.

Supposedly only wizards could become ghosts, but she felt … something. A protesting sort of presence that kept insisting this shouldn’t have happened.

“No, it shouldn’t have,” Hermione said. She took the crocheted afghan off the back of the sofa. Someone had once loved him enough to make it for him. Perhaps Katie. It seemed fitting it should be his shroud. She laid it over the body, making sure he was decently covered.

She headed out the front door, locking it behind her. It was his tomb now, she thought. Buried with all of his worldly goods and memories, like a pharaoh of old. She felt like she ought to mark it in some way so no one would disturb him. She took out her wand and scorched RIP in the wood of the door.

The wind had faded and now only the silent snow swirled down. She would check one more house, she decided. Just one more and then she’d head back.

She stepped off the porch and started up toward the next.

And then she saw him.

The Grim Reaper stood on the ice on the edge of the lake.

“No, no, no …” Hermione muttered and tried to step back so fast that she lost her balance and fell, half sitting, half reclining in the snow.

The Reaper slowly lifted a pale, slender hand. Hermione shifted her eyes to look, and he was pointing at the third house along the shore. She looked back and he was gone.

She slowly picked herself up and wiped off the snow sticking to her jeans.

What did the pointed hand mean? Did it mean she would die if she went to that house? Or was Death, for whatever reason, helping her to avoid his cold embrace? After all, he had scared her into changing to the correct direction yesterday, potentially averting a disaster.

But what if keeping her alive was going to lead to a greater disaster that would take more of their lives?

And this was assuming she had actually seen anything at all, and the Grim Reaper wasn’t just a visual manifestation of starvation and stress.

Hermione took a deep breath and headed for the third house, hoping that maybe she’d at least find some answers. If nothing else, she’d be able to dismiss it entirely as the product of her imagination if the house had nothing special to offer.

She noted as she arrived that there were no footprints marring the snow. Where he had stood on the edge of the lake seemed perfectly undisturbed. But she supposed he could have been standing on the spot where the wind had scraped the ice clean.

This house was newer, modern architecture of glass walls and sharp lines. She walked up to one of the windows and cupped her hands around her eyes, but the glass was too dark to allow her to see through.

She cast her usual detection spells and then headed inside, creeping slowly on tiptoes, half expecting to encounter a pack of Snatchers or a werewolf behind the door.

The first room she entered was the kitchen, a very liminal space of white marble countertops and stainless steel appliances. A wood bowl filled with wicker balls sat in the center of the island. If it wasn’t for the thin layer of dust over everything, it would look like it had been prepared for a magazine shoot. She took a deep breath and warned herself not to get hopeful before she started pulling cabinet doors open.

Glasses.

Dishes.

She opened the third cabinet and stared. A puff of surprise from her lips condensed in the cold air.

The cabinet was full of cans. She reached out to touch them cautiously, as though they might be a mirage, and then began grabbing them wildly, stuffing them in her bag with frantic speed, as though she might be interrupted, or stopped, or that they might vanish if she didn’t get them quickly enough.

She checked the rest of the kitchen and then made her way through the short hallway to the bedroom. The closets contained only summer clothing; she grabbed a few extra t-shirts. In one of the drawers was a sports bra close to her size and she let out a little scream. She took a few minutes to wiggle into it. She’d never been very large on top and starvation had stolen what little curves she had, but she still felt better with an undershirt or bra on. A lifetime of training she supposed.

She circled over to check the nightstand. She pulled open the drawer and froze with her hand on the knob, staring at what was inside.

It was as though tendrils of dark temptation were spiraling up through the air toward her, pulling her toward to lift it into her hands. She picked up the gun, cold black metal, heavy in her hands, slowly turning it.

This was what she had silently yearned for. A quick and painless way out.

Just one moment …

She forced herself to cut off that thought.

Was this what the Reaper had been leading her toward? Was this where it was supposed to end for her? She put the gun down on the bed and dropped her head in her hands.

When Hermione Granger considered death, she did so methodically. On one hand was an end to her myriad sorrows and sufferings, and the joy of being reunited with the people she had loved and lost.

On the opposing side was that she didn’t want them to … find her. She didn’t want to impose that trauma on them. She’d always pictured just wandering off into the woods and hoping they’d move on. Lying to herself that they’d just shrug and move on.

What would happen to the others without her? Love warred with resentment. She wasn’t going to flatter herself into thinking she did a good job of it, but she was the group’s leader. She was the one who kept them moving, kept each member thriving as much as possible.

They needed her and she had to get this food back to them.

She considered just leaving the gun where it was, but she couldn’t leave a valuable resource like that just because she was afraid it might prove too much temptation one night. She shuffled through the drawer and found a box of bullets for it. At least she assumed the gun and the bullets matched.

She didn’t know much about guns, but she knew she should look for a safety. One button made the bullets slide out of the handle, which seemed safer anyway. Then she found the little red sliding button. Once that was clicked, she slid it into her bag.

She headed to the door, snatching up a pair of gloves that lay on the credenza. She hurried outside and apparated back to the house where they were staying.

Neville and Ginny were on the swing. They jumped up as soon as she appeared.

“Hemione, damn you,” Neville said. “You know better than this.”

“Never mind that,” Hermione retorted as she went through the door. “I have food.”

“Food?” Cho repeated.

“Did she say food?” Today, Lavender was a boy with blonde hair and piercingly pale blue eyes shining eagerly.

Hermione knelt down and began to pull the cans from her bag.

The room erupted in cheers. Cho threw her arms around Ginny and began jumping wildly, nearly knocking Ginny over. Angelina counted them aloud, her voice getting more and more excited with each number. She picked up a can of pineapple and turned it in her hands like it was the Hope Diamond, awe written on her face.

Neville still looked like a thundercloud.

The pile grew larger.

Lavender's eyes sparkled with tears. “Hermione, this is enough food for a week. Where did you find it?”

“Weird,” Angelina said. She felt the sides of a can and then opened it. “It’s not frozen.”

“That is weird.” Hermione remembered seeing her breath when she opened the cabinet door so the house was definitely cold enough. Perhaps this food had somehow been insulated enough inside its cabinet not to freeze?

“Maybe it dethawed in Hermione’s bag? I mean, do any of us know how temperatures work in an Undetectable Expansion charm combined with weightlessness?” Ginny scratched her head.

“There are beans, corn, and tomatoes, I’m making chili,” declared Cho. They had a small collection of spices that just might make an acceptable version. “You don’t know how badly I’ve been craving it. There’s no carne, but it will still be good.”

Lavender grimaced. “You’re putting corn in your chili?”

“Yes! This restaurant in Boston I used to go to —”

Hermione let the conversation fade into the background. She stood and walked over to Neville. He glowered at her with his arms crossed. Hermione took one of his hands and put the gloves in it. “For you.”

“I just don’t know why you would do that.” Neville took the gloves and stuffed them in his pocket. “Do you have a fucking death wish?”

She wasn’t going to answer that. “I was hoping that a quick look would find us something for breakfast and my hunch paid off.”

“But going off by yourself … We don’t do that. We all agreed—”

“I know.” She patted his arm. “The wind has died down now. We’ll give it a few days to let Ginny’s ankle heal and then we can search the other houses more safely.”

“If we’re going to stay for a few days, we need to double the watch,” Neville said.

She nodded. “Who’s on watch right now?”

“Luna.” Luna didn’t speak, but she could use her wand to set off a noise charm if she saw anything.

Neville didn’t seem too unhappy about them staying put for a bit. They’d try to be as safe as possible, but for a while at least they were well-fed, and warm enough. A minor miracle in of itself. She was sorry Ginny was still limping on her swollen ankle, but also glad to have an excuse to hole up for a little while and rest.

Angelina brought out some board games she’d found. It took them a while to figure out how to play the kind of games Muggles favored, but soon they were all gathered around the fire, playing and having fun while Cho’s “chili dupe” cooked over a bluebell flame. Hermione huddled under a blanket with Angelina and as she sat there, comfy and warm, watching their smiling faces, she was envious that they could snatch these scraps of happiness. She just felt  … empty.

“This reminds me of Hogwarts at Christmas,” Neville said. Like Hermione, he had often stayed over the holidays.

“Do you think we’ll ever find a place like this, remote enough where we can just … stay?” Lavender asked. “Where we can build up what we need and just live our lives? I mean, we can’t run forever.”

“We’ve been doing it for nearly three years,” Hermione said grimly.

“Yeah, but doesn’t a journey usually have an end?”

For a moment the room was silent, and she realized most people were imagining a far more dire end than Lavender was thinking.

“Canada,” Hermione said crisply, hoping the sharpness in her tone covered the fact that she was lying through her teeth. “That woman in the group of Muggles we saw near Little Rock said that Canada was standing up to Voldemort.”

“What then?” Lavender persisted. “I mean, what if we get there and —”

“Lav,” Cho said, her voice gentle. “The food’s done! Let’s eat.”

Dishware was one thing each home reliably had. They washed some bowls and portioned out the food and everyone settled into the task of eating. Cho took a bowl outside to Luna so she didn't have to wait.

Neville ate slowly, tiny bites savoring each. Hermione gobbled her portion, as did the others. The food was delicious. Afterward, they all lay around the room, happily enjoying the rare feeling of a full stomach.

Hermione opened her bag and withdrew a bottle of whiskey. The group gasped and gathered in. “Since this has been a day to celebrate …”

“Can we drink it?” Lavender asked.

Hermione shrugged. “Take a vote.”

The vote was unanimous.

She held up a hand. “However, only half of us should drink tonight. We need people with clear heads to be able to side-along apparate us if there’s danger.”

Cho waved a hand. “I volunteer to be one of the sober ones. I got really sick from drinking whiskey once and now I can’t stomach the stuff. I’ll go back out on watch.”

She sent Luna inside, who shook her head when asked about the drink. Neville mentioned to her about doubling the watch and Luna headed back outside, to guard the back of the house while Cho took the front.

“Okay, the rest of our names go in a hat then and we pick them that way.”

Ginny conjured a top hat and they all added a slip of paper with their name. The winners were Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. Hermione cast a suspicious look at Ginny, but she widened her eyes and shook her head to protest her innocence. The others groaned but good-naturedly, since Hermione told them that tomorrow they would get their chance.

They retreated to the window seat at the side of the room. They’d tacked a blanket up over the window to block any light from getting outside, and they brought over another so they’d be cozy and warm. Ginny hobbled over to the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cabinet which they quickly washed before Hermione poured a couple of inches of whiskey.

“Be careful,” Hermione warned. “It won’t take much to get us absolutely pissed and we certainly don’t want to drink so much that we get sick.”

Ginny took the first sip and sighed. “Not as good as Ogden’s, but we’ll take what we can get.”

Neville took his drink and closed his eyes. “As much as I’m enjoying this, I’m also chastising myself that we should save it for medicinal use.”

“I have two more bottles,” Hermione said. She took a gulp and felt it burn all the way down.

“We gotta have something that makes life worth living.” Ginny said and held up the glass in a salute. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Hermione murmured.

"Did anyone cast healing on your ankle today, Gin?" Neville asked.

"Cho tried, but I don't think it did much. I'm trying to keep it elevated."

For a muggle, healing a sprain could take weeks, but for wizardfolk with healing charms, it should only be a few days. 

"I don't think we've stayed in the same place more than two nights since ... when?" Ginny crossed her legs and sat back against the wall.

"Boone, Kentucky," Neville supplied. 

"Oh," Ginny said. They had buried Hannah Abbot there about a month after the bombs fell. She was a half-blood but apparently hadn't inherited the genetic quirk that made wizardfolk immune to radiation sickness. 

They didn't speak after that, lost in their own thoughts. Neville had taken Hannah's death especially hard. Hermione was pretty sure he fancied her.

By the time they were good and sloshed, the room had quieted down and some of the others were going to bed.

Neville stood, just a bit wobbly. “I’m going to check on whoever’s on watch —”

“Cho and Luna,” Hermione supplied.

“Check on Cho and Luna and head to bed myself. I’m grateful for tonight, Hermione, but I’m still a little pissed at you.”

“Fair enough,” Hermione said.

She slipped down onto the floor where Neville had been sitting and Ginny took the opportunity to lay flat in the window seat, curled up on her side.

The room was quiet. The snow outside had turned to ice pellets and Hermione could hear it tapping against the window.

“Hey, Hermione?” Ginny said softly.

She’d almost drifted off and now jerked herself awake. “Yeah?”

“I know you haven’t been … doing so great lately.”

Hermione didn’t reply. She traced her finger on the carpet. It needed vacuumed, but it would never be vacuumed again.

“It’s understandable, you know. We’re all struggling. Angelina told me she likes taking watch because she can cry without anyone noticing.”

Hermione licked her lips. “I … I’ll be okay, Gin. I have to be okay. Everyone’s counting on me.”

“I just want you to know that you can talk to me.”

“I know.”

“No, I really mean it.”

“Okay.”

“I think sometimes talking to you is the only thing that keeps me sane,” Ginny said. “To tell the truth, sometimes I think I’m not. I… uh, I talk to Harry.”

Hermione turned her head to look up at her.

“I mean, I’m not seeing him, but I imagine what he’d say and when I’m on watch and no one’s around … yeah, I talk to him.”

“That doesn’t sound crazy to me.” Hermione took the glass from her and swallowed.

“I really think he was it for me. My one true love. And I know that people would say it was stupid, that we were just two schoolkids who don’t know anything about life and have no experience with the world, but I honestly feel like he was my soulmate and I’ll never love anyone like I loved him.”

Hermione passed her the glass.

“Sometimes, it’s like I feel him near me, you know? I feel him waiting for me just on the other side of this very thin veil separating us. And sometimes I wonder what it would be like to … let go and take his hand.”

Hermione finished off the last drops in the glass and chuckled humorlessly. “I’ve been seeing the Grim Reaper.”

“The who?”

“It’s the Muggle personification of death. Dark figure in a cloak.”

“Oh, like the Black Dog.”

“Yeah, in human form.”

“Well,” Ginny said. “… that’s not good.”

Hermione burst into laughter and clapped a hand over her mouth to keep the volume down.

“Like, are you really seeing him or …”

“Full-blown seeing him.” Hermione took another deep swallow. “It’s either an omen of doom or I’m hallucinating. Neither option is good.”

“Do you … talk to him?”

Hermione shook her head and then remembered Ginny couldn’t see her. “No. I mean, the first couple of times, I was so scared, I just wanted to get away.”

“Is that what you saw after I twisted my ankle?”

“Yeah.”

“I wondered why you shifted our direction so abruptly. What do you think he wants?”

“He told me to go to the house where I found the food. I mean, didn’t tell me. He pointed.”

“So, he’s trying to be helpful?”

Hermione was not going to tell her about the gun or her own dark draw to it. “Yeah. I think so.”

She waited to see if Ginny would reply to that, but all she heard was a soft snore. She stood and arranged the blanket over Ginny.

She wandered outside to sit with Cho. She was nowhere near sleepy. Cho tried to make her laugh by telling her the story of when she’d kissed Harry, an experience that neither of them wanted to repeat. Hermione tried to play along, but her laugh sounded fake even to her own ears. She was too drunk for this. She patted Cho’s arm and went back in the house to sit by the fire and let her mind drift. She thought of being by the lake at Hogwarts, sitting up against a tree, her books piled up around her. If she’d known those would be some of her happiest memories, she would have done it more often.

She saw a movement from the corner of her eye and turned her head. It was Luna, wrapped in her sleeping blanket for warmth. Her watch must be over. She sat down beside Hermione. Hermione gave her a smile and a little bump with her shoulder.

Luna pulled Hermione into her arms and stroked her hand over Hermione’s tumbled hair. “It’s not death you’re seeking," she said. "It’s love and healing.”

Hermione wasn’t going to argue with the only words she’d heard from her in almost three years. “Sure. Yeah.”

But she couldn’t imagine what Luna was referring to. Had she heard the conversation with Ginny about the Grim Reaper? But she’d been outside.

And where in this desolate, dreary world was Hermione supposed to find love and healing?

Chapter Text

The next morning when they woke, Ginny had the sniffles. By the third day, when the snow had stopped and they were ready to explore the other houses, Ginny was in a full-fledged hard cold, coughing loud enough to rattle every eardrum within a mile radius, and loud enough to wake the whole house at night.

“It must have started when she took her shoe off after twisting her ankle,” Lavender declared. “My mother always said people get the grippe because their feet or head got cold. Was her hair wet at any time?”

Angelina challenged this. “That’s an old witch’s tale. You get sick from influenza di stelle, the influence of the stars.”

Hermione just sighed. She knew if she tried to tell either of them about bacteria or viruses, they’d look at her like she was the crazy one.

Though Ginny argued, Hermione made her stay back in their base house while the others explored.There wasn’t much to be found in the other houses. Most of the places along the lake shore had been used as summer getaways or vacation rentals. They only came up with a few cans of food. After finishing up the last house, they were ready to move on, but Hermione could hear Ginny coughing while she and Neville sat on the porch glider.

“We can’t travel like this,” Hermione said, closing the medical textbook she’d been reading.

“Agreed. What did your diagnostic charm say?”

“She’s got a fever and her lungs are severely congested.”

“I heard that she said she wasn’t hungry at dinner. You don’t think —”

“It’s not radiation,” Hermione said. “It’s probably the flu. I’m trying to keep the others out of the room so they don’t catch it, too, but truthfully, we’ve all been exposed. We’ll all sleep in the bedrooms now. Colder, but Ginny needs to stay near the fire.”

There was a miserable honking sound as Ginny blew her nose.

“I’ve got to go get her some disposable tissues.”

“She’s has a cloth handkerchief.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if scourgify actually eradicates germs.”

Neville blinked at her. “What are germs?”

The next day, Ginny’s fever was even worse and Hermione made the decision. “I’m heading into town.”

“I’m going with you,” Neville said.

She expected he would. “Angelina, you’re in charge. Check on Ginny every half hour or so and try to get her to keep drinking water. But stay out of the room as much as possible. We’ll be back this afternoon.”

Hermione and Neville set out early the next morning, following the highway. Usually, they would stick to the woods, but today they needed the solid surface of the road below them. They briefly considered using apparition, but they might need their magic later. There was at least six inches of snow from the storm, Hermione estimated, and it made walking a real challenge. She was exhausted before they’d even gone a mile.

Ever the gentleman, Neville offered to walk ahead, and Hermione walked in his tracks, which cut down on a lot of her effort.

Neville looked around and took a deep breath. “It’s so beautiful. With the snow blanketing everything the world looks clean and bright. You’d never imagine the devastation below.”

Hermione had little appreciation for natural beauty these days. One foot in front of the other, she reminded herself.

“I just worry that we’re not seeing more birds, though.” He squinted up at the sky through the branches. “Do you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“The silence.”

She stopped walking for a moment and listened to it. It was so quiet she could hear the blood rushing in her ears and the sound of her own heartbeat.  

“The storm’s over. The animals should be out and about looking for food. There should be deer. Now that their only predator is gone, there should be deer everywhere.”

It was a conversation she didn’t really want to have. She knew what it meant. It meant the end of the world, the collapse of the food chain. And it meant that they were just stretching out the inevitable.

She decided on distraction. Luckily, she had something she’d been wanting to ask him.

“Say, Neville,” she started as she began walking again. “Do you know anything about guns?”

“A little,” he said. “My dad liked to hunt grouse.”

“But that’s with a long gun, right?”

“A shotgun, yes.”

“What about handguns?”

“I target shot with some Muggle friends in Boston. Why?”

That was more experience than she had. She dug in her beaded bag and pulled out the handgun.

“Where did you find this?”

“The same place I found the food.”

He took it from her and checked the safety before he pulled back the slide to look for something. Satisfied by what he saw, he took the piece that contained the bullets and slid it up into the handle.

“Do you have any more rounds for it?”

“ … bullets?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Yeah. You really don’t know anything about guns, do you?”

She handed him the box of bullets. “I haven’t stayed conversant with its slang.”

“No holster?”

“No.”

He put it in the inside pocket of his coat.

“I could teach you how to shoot it, if you like.”

It wasn’t like her to turn down a chance to learn anything, but in this regard, she had to decline. “There aren’t enough bullets to waste on training. You can keep it for when we need it.”

They approached the little town slowly, cautiously. The signs were positive. They couldn’t see any places where the snow had been disturbed, and there seemed to be no wards that had been cast. Their detection spells all came up blank.

The town was tiny. One short street of businesses and municipal buildings, flanked by small streets with a few houses.

“Let’s check the diner for food,” Neville said, jerking his chin toward the building in question.

“This was supposed to be a quick trip,” she reminded him.

“It will be. We’ll just check the back for cans. Those big cans … remember when we found those peas?”

Hermione chuckled. “We were so sick of eating peas by the time we finished those.”

It was a wreck inside. Someone had looted it, but it appeared to have happened right after the bombs fell because the cash register had been broken open and the money taken. Even the little jar collecting money for the local animal shelter had been smashed. A quick look in the back confirmed that the wire pantry shelves were empty.

“What if it’s not other survivor groups looting the food?” Neville said. “Not here, I mean. Like the grocery stores we’ve seen burned to the ground.”

“The Snatchers are taking it?”

“Well, they need to eat, too.”

She hadn’t considered that.

How many people did Voldemort have, she wondered. She’d once heard that there were five million wizardfolk around the world. But how many of those were “pure” enough to join Voldemort’s kingdom?

To be considered pureblood, a person had to have four pureblood grandparents. Ron had once told her that most wizarding families had Muggles in their family tree somewhere, and there were only 28 families in Britain that considered themselves pure lines. Even assuming there was a similar number of acceptable bloodlines in America, it made for a very small population pool, she thought. The Wizarding world was going to run into a genetic bottleneck.

How many of those five million had been halfbloods or Muggleborns? What about people with Muggle grandparents? Were they genetically vulnerable to the fallout? How many of the “mudbloods” had survived, and if they did survive the radiation, what was their fate under Voldemort’s regime?

They hadn’t run into any Muggle groups since last year. Could it really be that there were only wizardfolk left in America?

What about the rest of the world? What little news they had told them only of bombs in the States. The radiation was enough to be toxic here, but what about in other countries? She imagined that even if it wasn’t toxic enough to affect those overseas, it would probably lead to a rise in cancers and birth defects.

But maybe Wendell and Monica Wilkins were happy and safe in Australia, eating well and strolling on a sunny beach. The thought made Hermione smile faintly.

Would Voldemort be satisfied with the United Kingdom and America? Or would his restless eyes turn to the rest of the planet? And now that he knew a sure-fire way of easily eradicating Muggles, would the bombs fall elsewhere?

She shook her head and pushed the thoughts aside. Questions like that kept her up at night and send her into a spiral of speculation and an even deeper depression when she couldn’t answer what was the point in trying.

They trudged up the sidewalk toward the pharmacy. Hermione glanced up and saw a dark figure standing on the roof. Her eyes widened and her breath caught. It was the Reaper. Neville was focused on the sidewalk ahead of them, and Hermione was tempted to grab him and ask if he saw what she did.

The Grim Reaper raised a hand, palm out. Stop. And then he was gone.

For a moment, she paused in her tracks and opened her mouth to ask Neville to apparate back, but then she shook her head. They couldn’t stop. If she didn’t get these meds back to Ginny, she might die. And despite her attempts to keep Ginny isolated, there was a very good chance more of them would fall ill. She had to be prepared.

“Pharmacy is still standing,” Neville said. “Why do you think they haven’t destroyed the pharmacies the way they have burned grocery stores?”

“My guess is that maybe he, or his Death Eaters, need something from them.”

“But the Dark Lord taking Muggle medicine?”

“He’s desperate to avoid death, and willing to do some pretty horrific things to cling to life. I told you about the horcruxes.”

“Yeah.” Neville adjusted his hat.

“If he’s willing to split his soul apart with ritual murder, is it really surprising he might be willing to take pills?”

A metal fence had been pulled closed over the shop to protect its windows and try to prevent looting. It was still locked, so it seemed possible the store was intact. Neville unlocked the gate and the glass door behind it and they slipped inside into the darkness.

Hermione dusted the snow off of the hem of her jeans and illuminated her wand. “I’ll head back for the medications. You grab any food you see.”

“I already see some candy bars. This is gonna be a great day!”

She forced a smile and headed back along the dark aisle, pausing occasionally to listen.

Except for Neville’s occasional shuffles as he grabbed things from the shelves, the store was silent. Hermione took several boxes of tissues and shoved them in her beaded bag. In the Cold and Flu aisle, she grabbed practically one of every kind of decongestant and cough medicine, shoving them indiscriminately into her bag to be sorted later. Who knew what they might need, especially if it spread to others in their group?

She also grabbed some tampon and pads, though few of them got periods anymore. Starvation would do that. But it was always good to be prepared.

At the back of the store, Hermione climbed over the counter and unlocked the rolling metal door that blocked off the pharmacy behind.

The medications were arranged on the shelves by alphabetical order and different dosages were set apart. They were out of several of the antibiotics that were on her list, but she found some that would work. She stuffed different options into her bag, and grabbed other medications she thought would be helpful for common ailments.

Neville approached the counter. “The food’s gone.”

“Huh. It didn’t seem this place had been looted.”

“Not taken; destroyed.”

That would only be the doing of Death Eaters. “There goes your theory they need it for themselves.”

“Maybe. This food is different, though. This was the really Muggle food. I mean, a bag of flour or a jar of applesauce are the same in the Wizarding world; just in different packaging. This was crisps and snacks that only Muggles eat. There’s no reason why Muggles would have destroyed it. They would have taken it all.”

She had to admit there was some logic to what he was saying.

Had this been why the Grim Reaper told her to stay away, because he knew there was no food inside? But he couldn’t know she needed the drugs for Ginny.

“Let’s get moving, then, if Death Eaters have been here. We shouldn’t linger.”

 She braced herself on the counter to leap over but suddenly a pair of hands grabbed her around the waist and threw her against the pharmacy shelves.

Pain exploded in her back. Hermione swatted boxes of pills and bottles off her face and she was looking up at the face of a werewolf, its fur gray and black and its yellow teeth bared in a snarl. She let out a scream of terror as a gunshot rang out, spinning the werewolf away from her. Hermione scrambled to her feet and bolted for the counter, clearing it in a quick vault.

Neville ran backward as they retreated, firing at the werewolf as it lunged over the counter and up the aisle after them. “RUN!” he shouted at her, but she didn’t need the suggestion, she was running as hard as she could for the front of the store.

She could hear Neville running behind her, his feet pounding against the tiles, but then he crashed to the ground with a loud “Oof!”

The werewolf was crouched over him. And before Hermione could even draw her wand, it sank its teeth into Neville’s shoulder.

Neville screamed through clenched teeth and tried to push it away. He kept firing into its chest, squeezing shot after shot, but it didn’t seem to even feel the lead tearing through its flesh. “Hermione, go!”

“Combure omnia,” she screamed with a slash of her wand.

A gold red pulse left the end of her wand and hit the werewolf in the shoulder, a huge dark ring burned into its fur. With a high-pitched shriek, it flipped off Neville and writhed on its back as the burn began to spread, eating its way in both directions, down the arm and across the chest.

The werewolf morphed back into a man, a skinny man with a black moustache. His back arched up off the floor until only his heels and shoulders were touching the tiles. “Please!” he screamed. “Stop it! Ah, Merlin, please!” And he continued to scream until his throat had been replaced by charcoal.

And then the man fell silent. Ash in a man’s shape had been left in his place.

“What was that spell you cast?” Neville asked, not looking away from the charred figure arced upward on the floor.

“Never you mind,” Hermione said. “Let’s go.”

Neville reached up and felt his shoulder. He drew away a palm smeared with blood. A horrible dark understanding fell over his features.

He looked down at the gun, and then back up at her, his expression bleak. “You should go.”

“You’re coming with me.”

“Hermione, I’m bit. I don’t want to become one of those … things.”

An idea struck her. “Stay there.”

“What?”

“Just stay there. I saw something that might help.”

She returned in a moment with a bottle she’d seen in one of the aisles. “Take your shirt off and sit down.”

He stripped off his coat and his blood-soaked sweaters, and the t-shirt he wore beneath. He sat on the floor. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve got something that might work.”

“What is it?”

“Colloidal silver. It’s a liquid with silver particles. I’ve read that if you get silver into the wound, you might be able to prevent the saliva from causing infection.” She took off the cap and poured it over the puncture wounds. When the silver particles hit the werewolf saliva, it fizzed like peroxide. Neville pressed his fist to his mouth to hold back his groans.

“I know,” she said softly. “But I have to get it all.”

She poured out three bottles before the fizzing completely ceased. Neville was pale and sweating despite the chill in the store. “Do you really think this will work?”

“I do,” she said. “It’s not the full moon. I don’t have any dittany to heal the wounds, so you’re going to have to endure a bit more.”

Neville just nodded and waved a hand for her to proceed. She used her wand to heal the puncture wounds. It was slow and she thought Neville might pass out as the flesh slowly knitted itself together, but when she was finished, there was very little scarring, which helped to convince her that she might have managed to prevent the saliva from entering his bloodstream.

“There,” she said crisply. “I’m almost certain you won’t turn. You might gain some wolfish characteristics, like a preference for rare steaks, and a proclivity for scratching behind your ear with your foot.”

Neville snorted. “That’s a terrible joke.”

“You’re not going to turn,” she said.

He looked at her for a long moment. “Hermione.”

“You’re not,” she said. “At least make a deal with me that you’ll wait … until you do.”

“It will be too late then.”

“If you turn, I’ll put you down myself.” It was hard to force the words out, but she had to.

“Do you swear?”

“I swear it on Harry’s memory.”

He nodded. “We need to get moving. Do you have everything.”

“Yeah.” She quickly cast a charm to clean his sweaters. She picked up his t-shirt and a laugh burst out of her. “Twilight?”

“Alice is hot,” he replied, pulling it on over his head. There were tears in the fabric where the fangs had sunk in. “We need to hurry. If that werewolf was here, the Snatchers are definitely watching this area.”

She nodded. She cast her detection charms as they ran for the front door. Neville pulled the cage shut behind them but they didn’t bother locking it.

“Apparate back,” Hermione said, clinging to his arm. In just a moment, they appeared in front of the house by the lake.

“How is she?” Hermione asked Cho as she approached the door.

Cho was chewing on her lip. “She’s really hot and she’s saying stuff that doesn’t make much sense.”

“I’ve got some things that might help her,” she said. She knelt in front of Ginny, who lay on the couch, propped up by pillows. Ginny’s face was pasty and her nose was red from how often she blew it. She woke blearily as Hermione took her hand.

“Whaa’s that?” she muttered.

“Medicine. It will help.” Hermione opened the first antibiotic she wanted to try and pulled out some decongestant tablets.

Ginny shook her head. “Don’t wanna take Muggle stuff.”

“Gin, so help me, if you don’t fight this and get better, I’ll go outside and walk right into that damn Reaper’s arms and make him take me. I swear it. Take them!”

Ginny gave a gurgling chuckle and opened her mouth. Hermione popped the pills inside and gave her a sip of water to swallow them.

Hermione started a log on a piece of paper of which antibiotic she had chosen and the dosage and slipped it into her jeans’ back pocket. She knew she might have to try a couple different medications until she found the right one since she didn’t know what kind of bacteria was causing Ginny’s lung congestion.

Neville came up to them with a mug in his hands. “Surprise!”

“What is that?”

“A cup of tea. It’s made using a teabag, which you’ll have to forgive considering it’s the end of the world and all.” He handed it to Ginny with a smile.

Hermione patted him, her eyes shining. “Now get out of here before you catch it, too.”

Hermione must have dozed off because it was dark outside when she woke, based on what she could see through the tiny gap in their makeshift curtains.

“Ginny,” she said. Ginny stirred, mumbling. She looked utterly miserable.

Hermione put a hand to her head and grimaced. She was still too hot, but it was too soon to give her another dose of antibiotics. At least the other meds had reduced her coughing and nasal drip.

An idea struck her.

“Gin, I don’t know if I ever told you I have these. Something from Ron. And Harry.”

“The glasses,” Ginny said. “I’ve seen you wear them.”

“And the portkey Ron made for us. Do you remember?”

She put the cloth-wrapped stone in Ginny’s hand. Ginny opened the fabric and pulled out the small stone. Her eyes opened wide and she smiled, gasping in delight at something beside Hermione’s shoulder.

“I can see him! Oh, Hermione, he’s right there! Harry, Harry … I’ve missed you so much.” She held out her arms. “Ron! Mom! Dad! You’re all here. All here …”

She fell back against the pillows and joyful tears streamed from her eyes.

Hermione felt cold. If Ginny was hallucinating that badly, her fever must be sky high. She hurried from the room and grabbed some cloths to soak in cold water and brought them back to lay them over Ginny’s forehead, chest, and arms.

Ginny was still crying, but she looked so happy. “Did you know?” she asked. “Did you know that’s what it did?”

“Know what what did?”

“The stone.” Ginny handed it back to her, wrapped in the bit of cloth. Hermione shoved it into her pocket.

“What about it?” Hermione asked, trying to keep her talking and lucid while patting down her fevered skin with cool water.

“Harry told me to tell you this is the Resurrection Stone. One of the Hallows.”

Bullshit. Its only significance was that it was Ron’s portkey, but she wasn’t going to argue with her. “We searched for them, but never found them, other than Harry’s cloak. And Voldemort had the Wand of Destiny.”

“Harry found it at the end. But he didn’t bring it with him to the castle, so he didn’t have all three when … you know. He gave it to Ron, and Ron had Mom make it into a portkey or Mom had taught him how to make one. I wasn’t really clear on that. In case …”

Well, even if it was, it wouldn’t save anyone without the other two Hallows.

“You could see him, if you wanted,” Ginny said. “You could see anyone who’s gone. Your parents …”

Hermione but back a protest that she didn’t know for sure her parents were dead. She shook her head. “I’ll see them when it’s my time. Here, take these.” She gave Ginny two acetaminophen tablets to bring down the fever after checking to make sure it asn’t an ingredient in the decongestants she’d given her earlier. “You need to sleep.”

Ginny grasped her hand as Hermione stood. “Thank you,” she said, eyes shining.

“Sure,” Hermione said.

Neville took the next watch shift, exhausted but far too keyed up to sleep. Hermione joined him on the porch with a cup of tea of her own in hand.

“This was a nice surprise,” she said. “I’m probably going to be awake for three days because I’m not used to the caffeine anymore.”

Neville said nothing.

“You okay?”

He gave her a grimace that was supposed to be a smile. “Not really.”

“You’re going to be fine,” she said.

He pointed at the sky. “The full moon is in three days. I need to leave the group and go somewhere. Somewhere far enough away from everyone where it will be safe.”

That was probably the smartest way to handle it. Hermione sipped her tea. “Okay.”

Neville looked relieved, as though he had expected an argument. “Okay. I’ll leave tomorrow.”

“But I’m going with you.”

“Hermione —”

“Don’t try to argue with me. You need someone there in case you do change. You might not even know if it happens, right? So, someone should be with you to be able to tell you, or to be able to witness nothing happened. You can’t talk me out of this. I’m coming with you.”

He was silent for a long while. “Okay.”

“We’ll tell everyone in the morning and set out together. We’ll tell them to apparate to spot one the day after the full moon.”

“I want to ask you something else,” he said.

“Yeah.” She was pretty sure what it was.

“That spell …”

She sipped her tea.

“Hermione, that was Dark Magic. Not one of the Unforgivables, but it probably should be. I’ve never seen a spell so dark. Where did you even learn something like that?”

“The Restricted Section at Hogwarts is restricted for a reason, as it turns out.”

“Don’t make jokes. You know why I’m asking.”

“You’re worried about my soul.”

“He was a werewolf, but he was still a person.”

She gave him a hard look. “It takes six or seven stunning spells to stop a werewolf. By the time I'd fired those off, you would have been shredded."

"But you killed someone, Hermione."

"And you’re asking me to shoot you if you turn into a werewolf, so that will make two.” She regretted the harshness of her tone as soon as it came out.

“How do you feel about it?” Neville's voice gentled.

Hermione considered. She took another swallow of her tea and cast a warming charm over the remnants. “I don’t feel anything,” she admitted. “I don’t know if that should worry me. But I honestly put it out of my mind as soon as we left and started thinking about Ginny. Do you think I should feel bad that I killed someone trying to kill us? Or trying to turn you into one of them? You shot him, like, ten times.”

“Nine,” he said. “That’s how much ammo it holds. I emptied the clip.”

“If he’d been a human, he’d have certainly been dead. Would you have felt bad about it?”

He thought about it for a moment and nodded. “Yeah. I would have. Even though I had no choice. I still would have carried it with me.”

She wanted to say what she’d gone through had changed her. But he had gone through the last three years of it right beside her and it hadn’t changed him in the same way.

“Have you used Dark Magic before?”

“Not directed at someone,” she said. She gave a humorless chuckle. “Harry never would. Never, under any circumstances. He thought that was the line that separated the good guys from the bad. I was the one who was willing to use the dark side for good.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe it’s already eating into you. Its effects are cumulative, you know.”

“I know.” She put her empty mug down. “But I’ll do what I have to in order to protect the people I love. Including you, Nev. I can’t lose you, too.”

In the morning, she sorted the supplies, taking all of the food out, and reserving just enough for herself and Neville. They pyramid of cans was significantly smaller this time. They needed to move on and find more food quickly.

She wrote out exhaustive instructions for Lavender, who volunteered to be Ginny’s nurse, and piled some of the antibiotics and other meds on the coffee table — only the ones she wanted them to use in the next few days to cut down on confusion — sorting them by name and dose.

She wished she could see some progress in Ginny’s recovery before she left.

Cho tried to make her feel better about. “You’re looking out for her health by doing this. For all of our health.”

Hermione hugged her.

“And, Nev, even if you are …” Cho went over and hugged him hard. “You come back to us. We’ll understand if you need to take a little vacation from us each month. As long as we have you here the rest of the time.”

Angelina kissed him, deep and slow. “You come back to me,” she whispered.

“Remember, everyone, new moon, apparition point one.”

“Got it,” Lavender said firmly. “We’ll be there.”

“Does anyone else feel like Mom and Dad are going away for the weekend, leaving us kids at home?” Cho giggled. “Let’s throw a party while they’re gone! Invite all the boys from the frat.”

“From the what?” Angelina asked.

“I saw it in a movie. That’s what American kids do when left alone at home.”

“Be good,” Hermione said sternly, and gave them both a hug.

Luna kissed Hermione on the cheek. “Goodbye,” she said softly.

Hermione was startled, but she smiled. Maybe this was a sign Luna was going to start talking again.

And so, it was with a little bit of hope in her heart that she set off with Neville that morning. They had three cans of food, all that the diminished stash could spare. She hoped they’d find some along the way to wherever they ended up.

The snow was melting, so the temperature had to be above freezing and the sunshine was bright. Hermione charmed Harry’s glasses into sunglasses so the glare didn’t hurt her eyes.

They had chosen to go West, a direction that hadn’t been explored yet, and using their wands as a compass, they went walking over fields and through woods instead of following a road. Around noon, they connected with a road and were grateful for the smoothed path, easier to walk on.

A small house stood at the crossroads. “I’ll be the lead scout for a change,” Neville said, and after Hermione cast the detection charms, he opened the door. He stood there for just a moment, looking inside and then shut the door and trotted back to join Hermione on the road.

“What?” she asked. “What was it?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Let’s just go.”

“Neville, what —”

“Nothing. Just … come on.”

As evening approached, they found a house with an RV parked beside it. Neville checked the house but found no food. They settled in the RV for the night and shared a can of Campbells Chunky Soup, warmed over a bluebell flame. They played poker with a deck of cards Neville carried and some Muggle money they found hidden in a cookie jar. Neville won every hand.

They retired for the night on the bed in the back, sharing their blankets for warmth.

“You’re worrying about Ginny,” he said suddenly. “I can see that line on your forehead.”

Hermione laughed. “Yeah, she is what I was thinking about.”

“You practically wrote out an entire medical text for Lavender. She’s in good hands.”

“I know. I just … I feel responsible for everyone.”

“I know the feeling,” Neville grumbled. “I’m laying here feeling like I failed them because I got bit.”

“They’ll be fine,” Hermione told him, and herself. “They’ll be fine.”

Neville was soon snorting softly in his sleep. She turned over and gazed out the small window. The moon was so bright, reflecting off the snow. She lay her head down on her arms and tried to drift off, but she kept opening her eyes.

And then he was there.

The Grim Reaper stood on the road. She sat up, and he was gone.

She felt an irrational disappointment. He hadn’t pointed or given her any other sort of message. But maybe the message was his presence. He was still following her. Did it mean her mission wasn’t over? Or did it mean her time was short?

She didn’t see the Reaper the second day, though she kept such a sharp eye out that Neville asked her what she was looking for.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just trying to be vigilant. Remember Moody? Constant vigilance!”

“Yeah, it didn’t help him in the end, though, did it?” Neville said, unusually glum.

“How many miles do you think we’ve walked?” she asked, to try to distract him.

He shook his head. “Hard to say, really. I don’t think we’ve been going in a perfectly straight path. But it should be far enough. If it took us three days to walk it, surely a wolf couldn’t run back in a single night, right?”

“Right.”

Their travel the third day, the night of the full moon, was interrupted by Neville exploring every building they passed. He was looking for the perfect place. Somewhere that Hermione would be able to see him but could still be safe if he turned.

He finally settled on a warehouse that held snowplows and salt trucks. There was a little office up a metal staircase that had a large window that looked out into the main area. Hermione screamed with delight when they discovered a vending machine outside the employee break room.

Hermione sent a bombarda at the glass and they snatched out dozens of bags of snacks. For dinner, they gorged themselves on tail mix, Doritos, and Skittles. Hermione stored the rest of the treats in her purse. Cho, especially, would be thrilled. She’d mentioned craving M&Ms. Hermione couldn’t wait to see the look on her face.

“I’ll sleep down here. You hole up in the office. Hopefully, if I turn, the wolf won’t notice you up there.”

“Okay,” Hermione said. “If it makes you feel better.”

“It does. Hermione, listen, if I do turn … Remember your promise.” He took the gun from his pocket and held it out for her, butt first.

“Neville, stop.” She looked away and he took her hand to press the gun into it.

“I mean it, Hermione. Don’t hesitate. Do it. I don’t want to live like that.”

The hand with which she held the gun was shaking. “I would hate myself. I would always think I’d pulled the trigger too soon and maybe there was something else I could have done.”

“Yeah, but you’d be alive to hate yourself.”

She was already battling depression. Self-hatred on top of that would send her right over the edge. But she put the gun in her coat, just so he’d feel better about it.

“There’s no cure for lycanthropy,” he said. “If I’ve got it, I’ve got it, and you have to remember your promise. Will you?”

She gave a tiny nod.

He kissed her forehead. “Love you, Herms.”

“I love you, too.”

Her bed for the night was the desk in the elevated office. Neville helped her shift it over, so it was below the window. Neville gave up his blanket so she'd have something to pad the hard surface a little.

Neville’s bed was in the cab of a salt truck. He shut and locked the door, hoping that could be the first barrier if he shifted.

Night fell and the moon rose. Hermione knew she’d never be able to sleep. She sat on the desk and watched him through the window. She could see his head and shoulders, leaning against the passenger door, his feet propped up against the driver’s. Their eyes met through the layers of glass, across the distance.

Every time he moved, she started, but he was just trying to get comfortable in the truck, which was impossibility, given his size.

The hours passed. Around two AM, she went down and tapped on his window. He jerked awake.

“You’re going to have a terrible crook in your neck if you sleep all night like that.”

“I’m staying here until I know it’s safe.” His voice was muffled. “When the sun comes up.”

Hermione sighed and headed back upstairs to the desk. She lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling. Exhaustion lay on her like a sack of sand, but she couldn’t fall asleep. Her worries shuffled through her mind one at a time, and the faces of her friends. Cho, Angelina, Ginny, Luna, Lavender, Neville ...

“Hermione?” Neville was at the door and she had to shake off confusion. She must have fallen asleep after all.

She sat up.

“Let’s apparate back.”

She gave him a smile, a real one, this time. They both took a few minutes to freshen up and brush their teeth using a bottle of water. When Hermione met him outside, Neville gave her a kiss on the forehead.

“What’s that for?”

“Thank you, Hermione. You saved my life in that pharmacy. I was … I was done. I thought that was the end of the line for me.”

“Maybe the universe is finally giving us a break for a change,” Hermione said. “I would have kept my promise, Nev, but it would have killed me too.”

He looked over at the horizon where the sun was barely peeking over the edge of the world. “The others probably won’t be there yet, but I don’t mind waiting for them.”

She took his hand and he apparated them to point one.

He was wrong.

The rest of the group was already there.

But the rest of the group only consisted of only Ginny and Lavender.

Chapter Text

Lavender seemed uninjured, but her face wore the slack, blank look of shock. She was clinging to Ginny like she was the only thing tethering her to the earth and she might spin off into nothingness if she let go. Ginny coughed so hard that Hermione was afraid she might make herself vomit and her eyes were glassy with fever.

“What happened? Where is —”

“They came in the night,” Lavender said dully. “We were sleeping. Luna was on watch and she set off an alarm to warn us. But we didn’t even have time to — We were sleeping.” She repeated the last like it was very important for Hermione to understand.

Ginny began to cry softly, sobs merged with coughs.

“Cho ran in the front door and shouted for us to apparate, apparate but then she went down. We tried to apparate, but they had cast an anti-apparition shield.”

Lavender’s breathing hitched and then the words spilled out of her in a rush, like a dam had burst inside her.

“I could see Cho, laying on the floor and there was blood dribbling from her mouth, and Angelina started running toward the door and a spell hit her and she started screaming and Ginny jumped off the couch to run to her and I said, No, hide, Ginny, so we both went in the bedroom and squeezed under the bed. It all happened so fast. I just had time to cast a silencio so they couldn’t hear her cough. We stayed there, hiding. They walked around and cast more spells, m-making sure that —” 

Lavender’s face crumpled and she began to sob, her fists twisted in Ginny’s coat.

“What about Luna?”

Ginny lifted her head wearily and choked out, “She’s dead. All of them. Dead. Everyone but us.”

The words hit Hermione like a fist to the gut. She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming. No, no, no ... it can't be it can't be it can't be ...

Behind her, Neville said, “Are you sure? Did you see it?”

“They piled the b-bodies in the b-bedroom with us.” Ginny spoke like every word was being ripped from her throat unwillingly.

“Was it Snatchers? Death Eaters?” Neville asked.

“No, just a group of wizardfolk like us.” Ginny shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe it was possible that her fellow survivors would do this.

Neville let out a groan and paced a few steps in a circle, holding his hands against the top of his head.

“American wizards,” Ginny said, as if it mattered. “Their accents. American.”

“They wanted our stuff,” Lavender spat. “As soon as it was quiet, they went in and started going through everything and they were mad there wasn’t anything good. Only a few cans of food and a bunch of meds that wouldn’t get them high.”

Hermione finally found her vice. She pried her hand from her mouth and asked, “How did you get away?”

“Through the bedroom window. We waited until we thought they were asleep and slipped out and ran past the edge of their shields and came here.”

Hermione sat down in the slushy snow, crushed under a grief too enormous for tears, a grief that hollowed her out.

She’d left them.

She’d let them die.

“We need to get moving,” Neville said.

Hermione pulled her knees up to her chin and said nothing.

“Come on. Up with you.” He took her arm and pulled her to her feet. “We need to —"

A spell hit him squarely and he fell face-forward into the muddy slush.

Hermione took a breath to scream his name but never had a chance to get it out.

She was blind.

She pawed at her eyes only to find them swollen shut. What was —

Where was she?

She was on something soft. A bed?

A cry wrenched from her throat.

“I’m here, Hermione, I’m here,” Ginny said, and pulled Hermione into a hug. She felt Ginny stroking her hair, jerking against her body as she coughed.

“Where are we? What happened?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Hermione tried to think, but her mind was sluggish, like each thought had to push its way through thick mud. “Neville. He … Something happened and he fell …”

Ginny’s voice was grim. “Before we could even blink, they were there. Dozens of them. They had us surrounded. Coming from the tree line and some were on brooms. Snatchers.”

Hermione’s insides twisted into ice. And there it went, her last shred of hope. This was the end.

They were going to die, and the only question was how horribly.

She’d failed her friends.

 Lavender had asked only a few days ago where their journey would end, and she’d always known it was here, but was hoping to spare them longer.

“Why don’t I remember?”

“You were fighting like hell. You sliced Bellatrix Lestrange nearly in half. And I don’t think everything they sent your way was a simple stunner. You’re really banged up.”

She felt like it.

“Where’s Neville? Where’s Lavender?”

“I’m here,” Lavender said. “Neville — they took him and we haven’t seen him since.”

“How long have we been here?”

“It feels like hours,” Ginny said.

She heard the sound of an opening door and Ginny went stiff beside her.

“Hello,” a voice said. Somewhat familiar, and Hermione’s mind strained to identify it. “Please don’t be afraid. As long as you cooperate, none of you will come to any harm.”

Lavender barked out a sarcastic laugh. “We’re already hurt.”

“We’re going to take care of that.”

“No! Don’t touch me!”

“Let me go!” Ginny rasped with an explosion of coughs.

Hermione felt surprisingly gentle hands grasp her beneath her arms. She writhed against them, but they held her firmly.

The journey was a short one. They went through another door and Hermione felt herself being deposited on a padded table. In a moment, a bright light hit her face. She could feel the warmth and see pinpoints of the light if she tried to open her eyes to the widest. She grimaced and turned her head.

A hand on her shoulder stilled her. “No one will hurt you. I promise.”

She definitely recognized that voice. “M-Malfoy?”

“Yes, Granger, it’s me. Try to stay calm. I’ll have your injuries sorted in a moment.”

She heard him murmur healing spells, some of which she didn’t recognize. Soft fingers swabbed her cuts and bruises with liquid. One of the spells must have numbed her because she felt no pain as her flesh knit together where she’d been injured.

In a moment, she was blinking. Her vision was still blurry, but she could see his white-blonde hair and marble-pale skin as he leaned over her. She blinked even harder, trying to clear her sight.

It was Malfoy but much different than she had known at school. He’d only been sixteen the last time she saw him. Now he was in his early twenties like her and the years had been kind to him.

His frame had filled out. He wasn’t as large as Neville, but his shoulders were wide and his torso lean, forming a graceful V shape down to his hips, accentuated by the trim, dark wizard’s robes he wore. His face was almost inhumanly beautiful, perfectly symmetrical with high cheekbones under wide-spaced gray eyes. He cast a long series of diagnostics she didn’t recognize, studying their color patterns. He glanced over at her.

“Don’t worry. Your eyes will fully clear up soon. Within the next hour, I should think. Are the glasses yours? Do you need them?”

“Glasses?” She realized what he meant in a flash. “No. But please don’t take them.”

There was a long pause. “They look like … were these Potter’s?” He didn’t say the name with the contempt he used to use.

Her throat tightened. All she could do was nod.

He unwrapped the cloth and glanced at the stone, apparently not recognizing the symbol. “What’s this?”

“It came out of a ring I used to have.” She hoped he couldn't read the tension in her posture. She hoped he wouldn't touch it.

He cast a detection spell over it and satisfied it wasn’t a portkey or something transfigured, he wrapped it back up, took her hand and put the glasses into her palm with the stone. “Just lie here a few minutes to let everything take. I’ll be back when I’ve taken care of the others.”

Bit by bit, Hermione’s vision fully cleared and she saw that she was in a small doctor’s clinic. Maybe what muggles used to call Urgent Care or a rural hospital with only a handful of beds, though most of the equipment that used electricity had been cleared out. Candles floated in the air for lighting. She saw Draco pull one closer as he bent over Ginny.

Hermione sat up on her bed, pressing a hand to her aching head. She was filthy. She reached for her wand to —

But of course, she didn’t have her wand. They would have taken it.

“Please … I need to give Ginny her medicine,” Hermione said. “She’s sick. I think it’s edging into pneumonia. I’ve been giving her antibiotics … Do you know what those are?”

Malfoy nodded.

Hermione pulled the log she’d started from her back pocket. “Please, let me have my bag so I can give her some more of these.”

“I can’t let you have your bag until it’s been thoroughly searched. But I have that medicine in stock and I’ll get her the next dose on time if she still needs it when I’ve finished.”

 He opened the door and Alecto Carrow stepped through.

Hermione shrank back in fear. But Malfoy was behind her. Her back pressed against his chest. He leaned over to murmur in her ear. “I promise you won’t be harmed.”

She trusted his promises about as much as she trusted a politician’s, but she let him lead her back to the first room.

The room itself was a pleasant surprise. There was a circle of beds in the center, much like their Hogwarts dormitory, each with a heavy blanket folded on the foot. A soft rug lay over the floor and plenty of candles lit the space. The most comfortable prison one could imagine. Suspiciously comfortable, in Hermione's mind.

Carrow came in with Ginny. Her color was healthy again and when Hermione touched her face, Ginny felt cool. “He healed you?”

“Yeah, he really knows his stuff, apparently,” Ginny said. “My mom raised half a dozen kids and couldn’t knock out lung congestion like that with a healing spell.”

Alecto started out the door but glanced back over her shoulder. “If you want showers, go to the door at the back. Leave your clothes on the bench and our elves will clean them while you bathe.”

The last time Hermione had a bath, it was summer and it was in a creek. She’d had to make do with scourgifying herself since. She waited until Carrow had left and then went back to peek. The room was tiled in pristine white. There were three showers with curtains and two tubs in cubicles.

Hermione shut the door. She shook her head and went over to sit on one of the beds. She didn’t know how to express that she felt too vulnerable to be naked in this place.

“We could go one at a time and guard the door,” Lavender suggested. She sat down on the bed where Ginny and Hermione were seated.

“Guard it how? None of us have wands.”

Ginny leaned in and whispered in Hermione’s ear. “But you do have your knife. I know they didn’t search your sock.”

“Save it,” Hermione muttered. She lay down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. Waiting, she supposed, to find out what horrors they had in store for them next.

“Hermione.”

She jerked awake and found she was still lying beside Lavender, who took up more space in today’s form of a tall, brawny man. Too bad the muscles were no stronger than Lavender’s ordinary arms. But Hermione could guess why Lavender would want to look strong and powerful today.

“Breakfast,” Ginny said. She gestured to a cart beside their bed that had three covered trays. Ginny passed them out. When they pulled off the lid, they found that each contained a plate filled with fried eggs, bacon and toast.

“Fucking bacon,” Ginny whimpered. “I haven’t seen bacon in years.”

"Wait," Hermione whispered. She looked over at the green door to make sure it was still closed and then wandlessly cast a poison detection spell. Nothing glowed.

"If they're gonna kill us, I doubt it will be with poisoned breakfast," Ginny said.

She took a bite of the bacon and moaned, stuffing the rest of the strip into her mouth. She looked so much like her brother at that moment that Hermione's heart hurt.

“Have mine,” Hermione said. She’d never cared for bacon.

“I’m not really hungry.” Lavender pushed the tray away.

Hermione picked at her eggs and took a few bites of the toast, wondering if this was her last meal. Why did they have Malfoy patch them up? Wanting them to be as healthy as possible before the tortured them to death? They might want to make into a spectacle, she supposed. The Mudblood and Potter’s girlfriend finally captured, the last two members of the Order of the Phoenix. It might be a few days until they had the event set up.

Carrow came back in a couple of hours after breakfast and maybe she had sympathy for the terror on the faces of the women in the room. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long for processing. It’s rare we get this many purebloods at once.”

“I’m not a pureblood,” Hermione blurted.

Carrow looked down at her clipboard. “You’re on the list.”

“The list is wrong. I’m Muggleborn.”

Carrow waved a hand. “You survived the hadiation.”

“The what? Oh, you mean radiation.”

“Yeah, that. Anyone who survives that has to be a pureblood.”

“That’s the stupidest — I know who my parents are!”

“Maybe you were adopted and didn’t know it.”

It was the worst logic Hermione had ever heard. But at least she was sharing the same fate as her friends. She took Ginny’s hand on one side and Lavender’s on the other. They stood there, trembling.

“In any case,” Carrow said, “First we have Ginevra Weasley?”

“Wait, you’re separating us?” Hermione gasped.

Ginny pulled Hermione into a hard hug and kissed her. “I love you, you dumb bitch,” she whispered.

Hermione choked out a laugh. “And I love you.”

One of the guards took Ginny by the arm and Hermione lost the tenuous grasp she had on calm.

“No,” Hermione sobbed. “Please, no, let us stay together. Please.”

They tried to hold on, but bit by bit they were pulled apart. Ginny struggled as they took her through the door, her face shiny with tears. The light glinted off her red hair and then she was gone.

“I’ve got you,” Lavender whispered, pulling her into a pair of huge arms and crushing her against a broad, hard chest.

But less than a minute later: “Lavender Brown?”

Lavender sobbed and struggled, but the guards were inexorable. Not cruel in the way they handled the prisoners, but firm and unyielding.

Hermione’s knees gave out when the door closed, leaving her alone, and she sank down onto the floor.

All of the tears she’d held back for the last three years tore through her at once. All of the loss. All of the pain and fear. The knowledge that nothing would ever go back to the way it was. Grief for her dead friends and grief for a dead world, it poured out of her like a river freed of an ice jam, knocking aside every emotion or rational thought in its path, leaving her wrung out, as limp as a rag. Her head throbbed from the force of her sobs and her voice felt raw and shredded.

Her legs were curled against her chest. She reached down and stroked her fingers over the handle of the knife hidden in the side of her sock.

She could no longer help her friends. They were gone to their fates just as she would soon go to hers, and whatever was through that green door was almost certainly something very unpleasant.

She went into the bathroom and sat down with her back to the door. Her fingers stroked over the pair of glasses and the wrapped stone in her pocket. Should she summon Harry? She imagined him sitting beside her. Would he understand or would he protest and say she had to fight to the end, to try to survive as long as she could?

No, she didn’t want him to watch this. This was a journey she needed to undertake alone.

She knew where to cut. Arteries were much faster than veins. Within moments, she slumped over to the floor, her cheek pressed to the cool, white tiles, and blessed darkness was crawling across her vision.

“Fucking hell, Granger,” Draco Malfoy said. Had he pushed his way into the bathroom?

He knelt beside her and said a quick incantation to stop the blood flow. He pried her jaw open and poured blood replenisher down her throat.

“Please, jus’ lemme die,” she muttered. “Gon’ kill me anyway.”

“I promise you, Hermione, the last thing they want is for you to die.”

He cast a spell to clean up the pool of blood and then reached down to scoop Hermione up in his arms. He walked through the building holding her, carrying her outdoors into the freezing cold. She held up a weak hand to block the light from her eyes and tried to pull her coat closed and was successful at neither.

“We won’t be out here long,” Draco said, but he reached his hand up over her body to pull the scarf from his coat to lay over her and help keep her warm. In his palm, he had a keychain-sized leather case. He flipped it open and there was a compass inside which he brushed with his thumb. She felt the navel jerk of portkey travel.

They landed in a building of marble and glass. Hard and shiny and cold. A man in a burgundy wool uniform with brass buttons stood at a counter. Lee Jordan? She thought. But it couldn’t be.

“Good evening, Lord Malfoy,” he said, as if Draco wasn’t carrying a young woman covered in blood.

“Good evening, Jordan.” Draco walked them over to the elevator bank. Lee, being helpful, hit the button for him. “Thank you.”

Inside the elevator, Draco juggled her a little so that he could pull out his wand. “Please hit 42,” he said.

She stared at him.

He sighed and freed a hand to poke the button while also tapping his wand to the panel. The elevator headed up. They waited there silently in the little booth, lit by a sconce on the wall, an instrumental version of “A Cauldron Full of Hot, Hot Love” playing softly. It was the most surreal experience of Hermione’s life.

The doors opened into a small, marble-floored lobby with just two doors placed to the right and left of the elevator. Guards were stationed against the wall opposite the elevator doors, as motionless as the guards outside Buckingham Palace. Draco turned to the doors on the right and tapped them with his wand and they opened for him.

Wherever Hermione had thought he was taking her, it wasn’t to a huge apartment with soaring ceilings and luxury furnishings. It looked like a magazine ad with everything perfectly matching in shades of beige and cream, the look softened with natural-looking fibers and baskets and pampas grass, and absolutely no personal objects of any kind.

The only oddity was that every window as covered with thick drapery and the room was lit with candles instead of natural light.

Draco headed down a short hallway and turned to the left. “This will be your room.”

He put her down on the bed and gestured to a second doorway. “Bathroom’s through there.”

“What is this?” Hermione said. “Why am I here?”

“You’re in Millenium Tower, Boston. This apartment is my home, and you’re going to be staying here.”

“Why? What’s going on? I don’t understand any of this.”

Draco sighed. “It’s a very long story. Please, just wash up and get some rest. We’ll speak in the morning. Just know that you’re safe here. No one will harm you.”

“I’m supposed to trust you?”

“I can make an unbreakable vow if you like.”

“It’ll be a trick somehow,” she said, and turned her head away.

She heard a soft sigh. “The balcony is inaccessible for obvious reasons. The apartment door is warded to only open for me. If you did somehow manage to get through that, there are the guards in the hallway. On each floor’s hallway, in fact. And in the lobby, too. You can’t get out. I know you won’t believe me and will probably waste a lot of time and energy trying, but I thought I’d tell you. You have the freedom to move about the rest of the apartment, excepting my bedroom and office, the doors of which will remain locked. My house elf, Coral, will bring you food and something to drink. There’s a Dreamless Sleep potion for you in the bathroom cabinet, along with a headache potion.”

“How did you know I had a headache?” she blurted.

Malfoy gave her a small smile. “I’m a healer, Granger.”

And with that, he left the room, closing the door behind him.

Hermione sat on the bed for a few moments, waiting to see if he’d come back, but the door remained closed. She eased up off the bed and crept to the door. She turned the knob slowly and pulled it open a tiny crack to peek out. All she could see was the hallway.

She closed the door.

Maybe they wanted her to relax and think she was safe before they unleashed whatever horror they had in store for her. Hermione would remain vigilant and continue to search for weaknesses. The first step was to search this room to see if there was anything she could fashion into a weapon.

Like the main rooms, the bedroom had been decorated in shades of beige and cream, as impersonal as a hotel room. The chair, chaise, and headboard were covered in a matching textured fabric that looked rough but was velvety soft to the touch. Floating shelves of light-colored wood were mounted on the wall and held a wood bowl, vase with dried flowers, and a small modern art painting that was apparently chosen for its blandness and matching colors. Hermione took down the vase and gave it a hard bang against the edge of the shelf, but it wouldn’t break. With a sigh, she replaced it.

The opposite wall was glass, floor to ceiling. She pulled aside the drapery and gaped at the amazing view of the city. But it wasn’t the city she remembered. The gray ribbon of highway in the distance was empty. The streets below no longer bustled with people. She could see a shimmering expanse of water but no boats. The sky, too, was completely empty. No planes circling in for a landing or contrails in the clouds. No helicopters full of tourists eyeing landmarks from above, or police searching for suspects. No planes towing banners or blimps advertising tires. Except for the sparkle of the water, the view could be a still-life.

Unsettled, she turned back to the room. The table in the center of the seating area seemed to be one giant block of wood. Just a square chunk of wood, polished as smooth as silk on all five visible sides. On whim she tried to lift it and decided it was what it looked like. Rich people and their weird décor. It was flanked by a chaise lounge and an overstuffed armchair. She tried to see if she could remove a leg, but they were distressingly sturdy.

There was a low bookcase of two shelves along the wall opposite the bed and she crouched down to glance through the titles. A lot of 19^th century literature, she noted. A handful of historical romance novels. Some biographies. Above, a TV was mounted to the wall, concealed behind a sliding panel.

To the right was a narrow door and it opened to a walk-in closet. A very full closet. There were witch’s robes in every imaginable color and matching shoes rested on a rack below. Hermione peered at them and frowned. She lifted one to look at the sole to confirm. They were all new, never worn. All of them were flats or low heels, fragile shoes meant for carpeted floors and ballrooms, not for walking. There were no tennis shoes or boots. Apparently, she was to be an indoor pet.

The opposite rack held cloaks in a variety of colors and lengths. She eyed them critically. All were lightweight, lined only with smooth satin, intended only to keep a person warm on a short walk between stores, or from an apparition point to a house.

Hatboxes sat on the shelves above and each held a new hat that would match the cloaks. Not the pointed scholarly witch hats, but stylish headwear the type that was often worn by Princess Kate in the old days.

The set of drawers at the back of the closet held undergarments, the kind favored by older witches. The underwear resembled bicycle shorts, covering from navel to mid-thigh. The bras were longline style that hooked in front and covered the torso to the waistline.

The next drawer contained stockings, none of them requiring a garter, thankfully. The last drawer contained nightgowns, the long kind that probably hadn’t been worn by Muggles in the last century and a half. Hermione thought she would rather sleep naked that wear one of those shapeless sacks.

She backed out of the closet and nearly collided with a small house elf.

She was dressed in an embroidered pillowcase, clean and neat, and there were no bruises on her soft pink skin. Her enormous eyes were bright green, and she had carved wood earrings in her pierced ears.

“I am Coral, Miss. I have brought lunch.” She gestured to the table where a tray was waiting, covered with a silver dome. If she was shocked by the dried blood covering Hermione like a splash of paint, she gave no indication.

“Thank you,” Hermione said, and Coral’s triangular ears fluttered.

“Is there anything else I can get for Miss? Can I perhaps draw Miss a bath?”

“Nothing else, thank you.”

Coral bowed deeply and popped out of sight.

There was only the bathroom left to explore. It was covered floor to ceiling in marble, all in shades of cream and beige. The shower occupied one wall, a walk-in rectangle of glass with multiple shower heads of antique brass. The opposite wall had a massive bathtub, practically large enough for swimming. It featured the multiple taps she remembered from Hogwarts that dispensed bubble bath in different fragrances and colors. Fluffy towels were piled on a floating shelf above it. The toilet was off in a cubicle by itself and had a bidet attached. Apparently, there was another area in which wizardfolk had modernized.

She opened the cabinet above the wide vanity and found the potions Malfoy had mentioned. A toothbrush still in its package lay there beside a tube of toothpaste. It was the brand she used to buy in Boston.

She opened the headache potion and sniffed. Snape had taught them all about identifying potions from scent and ensuring the ingredients were correct and hadn’t been tampered with. But Malfoy had been trained by Snape, too, and he would know how to conceal any tampering.

She poured the potions down the sink and hurled the vials to the ground to break them. They bounced. She then pounded the bottom of one of them against the vanity mirror. It, too, proved unbreakable.

She scowled. Well, he hadn’t thought of everything. She just had to find a weakness somewhere.

She went back into the bedroom and tried to sit down on the bed but felt so exposed. She sat down on the floor in the corner beside it and that was much better. She would just stay here, she decided, until they dropped this ruse and her real ordeal began.

Chapter Text

“Hermione. Hermione.”

That voice. She knew that voice. She —

Hermione jerked awake. Draco Malfoy was leaning down over her. She cringed back.

He seemed to realize that crowding her was scaring her. He backed up a few paces and crouched down so they were on eye level. God, he was so much larger than she remembered. She felt tiny and fragile next to him, and it was terrifying.

Malfoy spoke gently. “Hermione, you fell asleep. On the floor. Come on, get up. Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable, okay?”

She stood, perhaps too quickly, and the dizziness made her a little unsteady on her feet. He took her elbow, and she was still numb enough with sleep that she let him guide her over to the bed. She sat down on its edge. He took her calf in his hands and raised her foot to start unlacing her shoe.

“No!” She jerked her foot away.

“You need some sleep,” Malfoy said. “You can’t sleep with your shoes on.”

“I’ve slept with my shoes on for three years,” she said acidly.

“You don’t have to do that here. You don’t have to run anymore, so you don’t need to worry about not having your shoes on.”

“You want to take them from me because you know I can’t run in any of the shoes in that closet.” She met his eyes with sharp challenge.

"You wouldn't be able to run even if you had a dozen pair of new sneakers." He glanced over at her table and saw the tray. He went over and lifted the lid. “You haven’t eaten anything.”

She didn’t reply.

“The food is safe. See?” He picked up a piece of chicken and bit into it. “Would you feel more comfortable if you saw me taste everything before —”

She sighed with impatience. “I’m not eating your food. I want … Look, Malfoy, I know you didn’t bring me here to be a guest in your luxury apartment. Just ... do what you’re going to do, okay? Or is waiting for the hammer to fall part of the cruelty?”

He considered for a minute. “If I tell you what’s happening, will you eat?”

She nodded.

“All right, come with me. I’ll have Coral bring us something fresh.”

She followed him back into the living room. She noticed that the curtains were still drawn. They walked past the giant fireplace that stood in the middle of the room, serving as a divider of the space. The dining table was behind it, a long expanse of light wood with padded chairs surrounding it. He took a seat at the head of the table and gestured for her to sit at his right.

“Coral,” he called, and the elf popped into the room beside him. She nodded when he asked her for supper and in just a second or two, she returned with two plates that she placed in front of them, his first and then hers. The bone china plates had a lacy pattern, white on white, around the rim. Silverware and cloth napkins appeared when the plates touched the table’s surface, along with glasses of chilled water. Hermione thanked her and Coral bowed before popping away.

She couldn’t believe what was on her plate. It was a steak, its juices pooled between the seared grill marks and slowly dripping onto the plate beside a mound of mashed potatoes and crisp green beans.

Hermione could only stare.

“Please, have some. And then I start talking.”

Hermione picked up her steak knife and pondered it.

He chuckled. “All of the knives are enchanted to do no harm. You can go ahead and stab me right now or try to cut yourself. Neither will work.”

As fast as a blink, she brought the knife down to stab through his hand into the table. But the knife stopped just a scant inch or so above his flesh. It felt like she’d stabbed into invisible peanut butter. It took some effort to draw it back out.

He didn’t smirk or say he’d told her so. He just gestured to her plate and said, “Eat.”

She picked up her fork, real silver with elaborate scrollwork on the handle. She wondered how many hours the elves had to put into keeping it polished. She cut into the steak and speared a bite. She nearly burst into tears as the intense flavors exploded over her tongue. She chewed slowly, savoring every moment of it.

But where had it come from? House elf magic was in preparing food, not making ingredients appear from nowhere. They had to have a source of beef.

“I haven’t seen any cows in at least a year,” she said. “Not live ones, anyway.”

“It’s imported,” he replied. “You’re right. There isn’t much in the way of livestock left in the US. It will probably be some time before the radiation fades enough that we can bring back domestic production. Magical creatures, of course, aren’t affected, but so few people are willing to eat centaur.”

Her silverware clattered to the table as her hands flew up to cover her mouth in horror.

“Sorry. That was a joke. Or an attempt at one.” He cleared his throat and went back to cutting his steak. “We can magically force plants to grow, especially in greenhouse conditions, so we won’t go hungry. The meat imports are just a luxury for those who can afford it.”

She wondered about the wizardfolk who couldn’t afford it.

“I know there were accusations about rebellions and terrorists, but did Voldemort really nuke the country to kill the Muggles?”

She wasn’t good at reading him yet, but his expression seemed sorrowful. “Yes.”

The bite of steak she’d just swallowed felt like a golf ball in her throat. She took a deep gulp of the water. When she set the glass down on the table, it refilled itself.

“Did it work? I haven’t seen any since last fall.”

Malfoy nodded, his eyes on his own water glass, turning it slowly with his fingers. “It worked even better than expected,” he said, and there was a note of bitterness in his voice. “As far as we can tell, there are no Muggles left in the continental United States. Any stragglers will be dead by spring.”

At least two hundred and eighty million people dead. It staggered belief. “Where are the bodies? As time goes on, we’re encountering fewer and fewer.”

“Vanished, mostly. We’ve developed a spell that clears a large area most effectively. Even Vanishes bodies from cemeteries, I’m told. We have cleansing squads working their way across —”

“You can’t Vanish a human body,” Hermione interrupted. “We all learned that in school.”

“Far be it from me to contradict the sacred texts of Hogwarts,” Malfoy said with a twist of his lips. “But there are few hard limits in magic; the trick is finding a way around them. We may even find a way to clear up the radiation now that ...”

Now that magical beings were the only ones left. “What about Squibs?”

“They’re being sterilized.”

The more she learned, the more horrible it became. But she needed to ask about the most immediate concern. “So, when does it start? The torture and imprisonment part. Or is it to be immediate execution in some dramatically awful fashion?”

“That’s not what’s going to happen. The people he wanted dead are dead. Voldemort doesn’t blame you for what happened during the war. After all, you were a child, manipulated by a doddering old fool who sent children to fight his battles for him.”

Out of all the things she’d heard Malfoy say, the voice behind that last sentence rang with the most sincerity.

Malfoy took another drink of water. “The Dark Lord is not even particularly upset that you’ve been on the run. As long as you settle down now.”

“And obey?” Hermione spat. She sawed viciously at the tender steak and speared another bite with unnecessary violence.

“Yes.”

She paused with her fork in the air. “He might as well kill me now because I’ll never bow to him. I’ll never become a Death Eater.”

“He doesn’t want that from you.” Malfoy touched the napkin to his lips. His table manners were absolutely impeccable. Everything from his ruler-straight posture to the graceful way he handled the silverware spoke of years of aristocratic lessons.

“What does he want, then? Why am I here? With you?” She took another bite.

“Repopulation,” he said, and at that she sprang up from her chair and stumbled back, choking, coughing as the bite she’d just taken lodged in her paralyzed throat.

Malfoy surged to his feet to come help and she shook her head wildly.

She finally managed to clear the bite of steak and stood there, panting, her hands extended and crooked into claws. She’d fight with her nails and teeth, if she had to. “You! No, I won’t — Stay back! Stay away from me! I swear, I’ll kill you.”

“Please, sit and let me explain.” He held the back of her chair, unmoving, just waiting for her to calm herself. It took a while. She gulped breaths like she was drowning and had to clutch the edge of the table until her trembling ceased.

He hadn’t moved. She knew he was trying to convey that he wasn’t going to hurt her.

She edged her way back over and perched on her chair, but part of her was primed to spring away, if necessary.

“Voldemort wants the rebellion to end, of course, but more than that, he wants all young witches and wizards working on producing the next generation. So he’s got everyone working on capturing the strays and finding them spouses.”

Hermione couldn’t eat any more. “My friends, the people I was captured with …”

He waited for her to finish and when she didn’t he said, “They’ve been paired off with their intended.”

“Even Neville?”

“He’s in sequestration until the full moon. I know you think you managed to heal him from his werewolf bite but … well, time will tell. But if he’s not infected, yes, he’ll be paired off.”

“This is preposterous. I’m not a pureblood.”

“Voldemort has decided the radiation is the arbiter of that particular question. You may believe you’re Muggleborn, but as the Dark Lord sees it, your genes say otherwise.”

He neatly took a bit of his steak and patted his lips with the napkin. There was a long moment of silence as he chewed. “And you are considered to be quite exceptional, you know. Brightest witch of our age. You could be an asset.”

“Not to Voldemort.”

“An asset to the Wizarding world, then. An asset to my family.” He put his silverware down after taking another bite.

“Why would you even be willing to entertain this idea? You hate me.”

“Not really.” He gave her a small smile that quirked up on one side. “I have to ask forgiveness for the abominable way I behaved when I was a boy, but I certainly don’t expect you to grant it.”

She nudged a green bean with her fork. She hadn’t had fresh vegetables in … she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had any. Probably before the bombs fell.

“Part of my resentment stemmed from the fact you were always better than me. Smarter than me. Better liked than me. You could even throw a better punch than me.”

She knew the last was meant to be a joke, but she didn’t crack a smile. She stuck her fork in her mashed potatoes.

“I can’t, of course, go back and change what I did, but I hope that as an adult, you’ll allow me to show my remorse and attempt to make amends?”

She looked around the apartment. “So, you’re trying to tell me you’ve grown up and you’re a better man now when you’re apparently high in the favor of Voldemort. You don’t rise high in his favor without doing awful things on the daily.”

“I’m a healer,” Draco said. “I’m not flattering myself when I say I’m very skilled at it.”

“But the Dark Lord isn’t going to hold you high in his favor just because you can patch up the Death Eaters’ boo-boos.”

He cast an indecipherable look in her direction. “There’s much I can’t tell you because knowing it would put you in danger. Suffice to say that there are some things only I can do and that’s made me very valuable to the Dark Lord.”

“What happens if I refuse?”

He wiped his lips again. “Are you saying you’d prefer torture and imprisonment?”

“To being married to you?”

He waited.

She put her silverware in the middle of the plate. The plate vanished.

Her mind was racing. Of course she didn’t prefer being imprisoned. In a prison, there was limited possibility of escape. Nothing she could do to try and change things, her body growing weaker in captivity. She was being given a chance here. She would be in Voldemort’s upper echelon. Close to him. Perhaps able to work acts of sabotage from within. Maybe even get a chance to end this.

A chance, she thought. She thought of Ron giving up everything to give her a chance. What would he have given for her to have this chance?

“Will I be able to see my friends?”

“I imagine so. We’re all in the same social circles.”

“Can you at least tell me where they ended up?”

“Your friend Ginny is with Blaise Zambini, which, personally, I think is a good match.”

Hermione didn’t really know much about Blaise, other than he’d been one of the Slytherins who taunted her.

“We’ve all done a lot of growing up over the years,” Draco said. “I suppose a war will do that — force a person to grow and adapt. None of your friends are with people who will harm them or treat them badly.”

She gave him a deeply skeptical look.

“The Dark Lord gave them to some of his best people. Blaise is a close personal friend of mine, so I’m familiar with his character and the way he treats women.”

“And he was perfectly fine with being assigned a prisoner of war for a wife?”

“The war’s over, Granger,” he said mildly.

She said nothing.

“We’re used to this. Pureblood upper classes don’t marry for love. All of our marriages are arranged. But we try to foment marriages with compatible people who can at least live cordially, if not forming romantic attachments with their spouses. So each person was placed with someone we thought would make a good match.”

“We?”

“Yes.”

“You and Voldemort?”

He shook his head. “There was a group of us who discussed this. Our choices were presented to the Dark Lord for his approval.”

“Where’s Lavender?”

“Lavender Brown is with Theo Nott.”

“But Lavender … Lavender isn’t always a girl.”

Malfoy shrugged. “Theo’s bisexual, so that will work nicely.”

“And Voldemort is okay with people having free gender expression?”

Draco hesitated. “I would suggest Lavender restrain the metamorphmagy in public.”

Good old-fashioned values, like bigotry. She scoffed in disgust. “How has Theo managed, as a bisexual?”

“Like most sinners in a pious regime — by pretending and hiding.”

“And I’m just supposed to trust that these highly-ranked Death Eaters are nice people?”

Draco sighed. “Nice people are in somewhat short supply in the leadership ranks of a fascist regime, Hermione. But neither Theo nor Blaise are Death Eaters. Neither man will treat their wife cruelly. Believe it or not, Voldemort doesn’t allow domestic abuse. He wants productive marriages, and abuse isn’t compatible with his vision.”

“I saw what happened when Death Eaters had a woman in their power after the fall of Hogwarts. Luna Lovegood never spoke again after that.”

“If you knew who hurt her, he would be harshly punished. Voldemort thinks rape is abominable. Probably because of what happened to his father, being drugged by his mother. If you want me to put it in its bluntest form, he sees fertile women as a valuable asset and if a man doesn’t treat that asset with respect, she’ll be taken away from him, lest any harm —physical or psychological — befall her.”

Hermione shook her head. “This is not … not how I pictured the Death Eaters.”

Draco gave a chuckle. “Voldemort is oddly prudish. He thinks the wizarding society of the modern era is decadent and depraved. He wants things to be an idealized version of the society of his youth. No sex before marriage. Wives as domestic goddesses on a pedestal. Modesty and decorum. He even gets upset by swearing.”

“What happens if someone violates his standards?”

Draco didn’t look at her as he took a drink of water. “Nothing good.”

“How soon would this happen?” Hermione asked.

“Soon. Voldemort doesn’t like unmarried couples living together, even though the men are under strict orders.”

“How soon?”

“He’s given us a little time to try to get you used to the idea.” Draco gave her a small smile. “Maybe take your coat off?”

Hermione had forgotten she was still wearing it. “I want my wand.”

“That’s understandable, but I don’t have it so I couldn’t return it to you even if I thought it was advisable. Considering what you did to Bellatrix, I’d say it isn’t.”

Hermione’s lips twisted in a smirk. “Is she dead?”

“No.” He smirked back at her. “As I told you, I’m a skilled healer.”

“Whose clothes are in the closet?”

“Yours. Everything should be in your size.”

Unease slithered through her guts. Even for wizards, wardrobes didn’t appear overnight. He had to have been planning for her presence for some time. How long, she did not know.

“I want some comfortable clothes. Some jeans and sweatpants.”

Draco looked uncomfortable again. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Voldemort has banned Muggle clothing.”

“He’ll live in a Muggle skyscraper with an elevator, but he won’t tolerate sweatpants?”

Draco put down his silverware and his napkin. His plate vanished as hers had. “You need to rest some more. And you certainly need a shower and some clean clothes.”

“Are you saying I smell?”

He blinked. “No. But you’re covered in dried blood, and a scourgify isn’t the same as a hot shower.”

“If I take off my things, your elf will take them.”

“How about if I promise she’ll only clean them and hang them in the closet for you? Even the shoes.”

She hesitated and then nodded. She’d see if he kept that promise. It would tell her if he could be trustworthy over other promises.

Chapter Text

Hermione got up from the table and grabbed the back of her chair, smirking at the baffled look on Malfoy’s face. She dragged it behind her into her bedroom and shut and locked the door. She took the chair into the bathroom with her and wedged it beneath the knob after locking it.

And still it was hard to undress.

She took Harry’s glasses and the Resurrection Stone out of her coat pocket and laid them on the vanity table where she could keep an eye on them.

She shrugged off her coat and laid it aside. It was a moment before she could start on her jumpers. Layer by layer, she peeled off the clothes that protected her from the harsh winter. She set them aside and, just in case she never saw them again, she gave them a little pat of thanks for the way they had preserved her life.

She eyed the controls on the shower for a moment because there were so many levers and dials. She turned on the water and it poured from a slot in the ceiling like a waterfall. A turn of the dial changed it to a rainfall. She turned the lever to the right and it switched on the shower head, and then another turn switched on a second shower head. A lever on the heads themselves changed the different ways the water emerged, in needle-like streams, or pulses. She turned it to the “standard shower” setting.

The hot water was an amazing sensation after three years. She just let it run over her hand for a minute, trying to get used to it again. She finally stepped in and tipped her head back under the stream, shivering in full-body goosebumps at how good it felt.

The shelf in the shower held a selection of shower gels. There were so many scents to choose from that her nose became numb from smelling them all. She finally chose a vanilla sandalwood and began to scrub.

She knew a scourgify wasn’t the same as a bath, but it was still kind of embarrassing to see how much grime went down the drain as she scrubbed. She washed three times before she began to tackle her hair.

It was only shoulder-length now. Only a year or so into the apocalypse, she had cut it all off with a pair of dull scissors because there was no way to manage it without mats and rats. At shoulder length, it fell in twisting curls. After she had it clean, she conditioned it twice.

She emerged from the shower to find her old clothes gone. In their place was a pile of clean new clothes for her, a nightgown with matching robe and underthings.

She put on the robe and went to the closet. She found her old clothes cleaned and neatly placed on hangers in the back, and some of the tension on her shoulders faded. Even her coat was clean, all of the bloodstains removed. She put on the leggings she usually wore under her jeans, and her t-shirt.

She went back into the bedroom, taking the chair with her, and wedged it beneath the doorknob before pulling back the blankets on the bed. She put Harry’s glasses on the nightstand beside her, facing her, as though he were watching over her.

The sheets were buttery soft and when she lay down, the mattress felt like a cloud. Rich people beds, she thought.

The comfort sucked her into sleep within moments.

“Granger.”

She opened her eyes. Malfoy stood at the door. The open door. The chair was nowhere in sight.

She sat up and spotted a domed tray on the wood table. The elf must have come in.

A chill twisted her gut. Whether it was intentional or not, the message was there was nothing she could do to keep them out. Her safety was dependent on Malfoy’s mercy.

“What?” she said to Malfoy.

“You’ve been sleeping all day. It’s nearing dinner time. I thought I’d invite you to dine. Same offer — if you eat, I’ll answer questions.” He gave her a small coaxing smile.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

He came into the room to stand by the bed. “When I said you could keep your old clothes, I didn’t mean you could wear them.”

“I won’t tell the Dark Lord if you don’t.”

“Granger, he has … ways of knowing things. Change your clothes and come to dinner. Please.”

“Fuck you.”

He paused for a moment. “If you change your clothes and come to dinner, I’ll invite Blaise and Ginny to join us.”

She considered and upped the offer. “And Lavender.”

“I’ll invite Lavender and Theo, but only if you promise you won’t wear any of your Muggle clothing again.”

It felt like a piece of her tearing away, but she nodded.

“Any of it,” he repeated, and she knew he also meant the underthings. She made a face but nodded again.

“Done. Please, get dressed. It won’t be long before they arrive.”

“Are they close?”

“They’re living here in the Tower.”

She’d had no idea her friends were in the same building. It was somehow comforting.

The robes were already laid out for her on the foot of bed, complete with stockings and underclothes.

Grimly, Hermione stripped down and put them on. The set consisted of a blue ankle-length dress with a matching outer robe over it in a darker shade, which clasped at the chest. The lapels and the hem of the dress were embroidered with a wide band of flowers and vines that matched the outer robe. She shoved her feet into the matching slippers.

The fabrics were soft and the fit was loose. She had to admit the clothing was comfortable, though the underwear would take some getting used to. She hated that every time the robes fluttered around her ankles that she was reminded that wearing it was submission to this regime.

Hermione gazed at her face in the mirror. She was winter pale, and in her thin face, her eyes looked enormous, rimmed with heavy dark circles. Her chapped lips were so colorless that they blended into her face.

She pulled open the drawers on the cabinet under the sink. There was an array of hair potions that might help smooth the wild riot of curls and frizz around her head. Another drawer held lotions. Lotions for the face, for the eyes, for the hands, for the elbows, for the body, for feet. She let out a soft snort. She’d had no idea each part of the body needed its own individual moisturization regimen.

The next drawer held perfumes. No cosmetics. She hadn’t expected to find a full array, but at least some powder would come in handy. Some lipstick she could smear into blush and pretend her face had some color.

She emerged to find Malfoy in the living room, dressed in dark blue robes of his own. Beneath, he wore matching trousers and a high-collared shirt.

“You look lovely,” he said. “I admit, though, that I miss your hair being long.”

“I do, too, but I couldn’t handle the maintenance on it out there.”

“May I?” he asked and cast a spell with the flick of his wand. She felt her hair lengthen, sliding from her scalp in an odd, but not unpleasant, sensation. It now hung to her hips, the way it had at school, a tumbling river of curls and waves. She pulled a lock over her shoulder. It was soft and shiny, soft brown glittering with golden highlights. She’d never thought of her own hair as beautiful before, but now she did.

“Now you look like yourself,” he said, his voice a little rough.

“I’d look a little better if I could cover these dark circles. Can I have some makeup?”

He shook his head. “The Dark Lord banned face paint as a decadent Muggle intrusion in our culture.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “But shower gel and hair products are just fine.”

He let out a little chuckle. “You keep searching for a logical pattern. I suppose that’s just the way you think.”

“Where are Ginny and Lavender?”

“They’ll arrive any moment now.” He had barely finished saying it when someone knocked at the door. Coral appeared and opened the door, bowing low for Lord Nott.

Lavender walked in after Theo. She apparently hadn’t known she was going to see Hermione because she let out a little scream of shock and joy. Ginny and Blaise Zambini arrived just a few moments later. Ginny’s red hair was unbound and bouncing around her shoulders, shiny as satin. Lavender was still in burly man form. Both wore witches’ robes, though Lavender’s had been made for a much smaller body and the fabric stretched to the limit across her wide, flat chest.

They ran to each other and met near the door, sobbing, gasping, squeezing the breath from one another.

“Are you okay?” They all kept asking one another that question. Ginny stroked her hands over their heads and shoulders, reaching up for Lavender’s, as if to reassure herself there were no wounds hiding. Hermione realized with a pang that she’d seen Molly make the exact same gesture when she was reunited with her children.

“Dinner will be in ten minutes, if you’d like to sit,” Malfoy said. He drew Theo and Blaise a few paces away toward the dining room.

Ginny blurted, “Have they told you —"

 “— that they expect us to marry them and have babies?” Lavender exploded.

Hermione nodded.

“Do they have your wands?” Hermione asked. “Malfoy says he doesn’t have mine.”

“But you can do a lot of wandless magic, can’t you?” Ginny hissed in her ear.

Hermione glanced over at Malfoy, deep in conversation with Nott and Zambini. “I see they forced you into their clothes.”

“Zambini took my clothes,” Ginny said grimly. “Waited until I took them off to shower then had his elf steal them. Said he wasn’t going to let me get myself sanctioned, whatever that means.”

“Nott told me the same,” Lavender said. “To try to get me to go back to my girl form. But I’m afraid. I’m not like you, Hermione. I’m afraid. I don’t want to be in a girl’s body here.”

“Oh, Lav.” Lavender’s beard tickled Hermione’s nose as she went in for a kiss. “You don’t understand. I’m afraid, too.”

“You don’t look afraid,” Lavender said with a small laugh. “You look mad.”

“Being mad helps distract me from my fear,” Hermione admitted.

“We need to have a plan,” Ginny said. “I’ll feel braver if we have a plan to focus on.”

“There are a lot of rules,” Hermione said. “We’ll have to learn them just to avoid trouble until we can put our plan into action. Pretend to assimilate until they start trusting us. Malfoy indicated I’d be able to see the both of you regularly.”

“And Neville?”

“If he passes their no-lycanthropy test,” Hermione answered.

“So, what’s the plan?”

Hermione’s eyes glittered. “The plan is we kill them all.”

Dinner was Cornish game hens with greens and spring potatoes. Malfoy stood behind Hermione’s chair until she sat and then pushed it in for her. Ginny swatted Zambini’s hands away from her chair and scooted it in herself. Lavender plopped down and refused to budge until Knott walked away, defeated, and then she scooted in her own chair.

“This looks delicious,” Knott declared. “Thank you for inviting us, Draco. I imagine you ladies didn’t expect to be able to see each other again so soon.”

Rot in hell, Hermione thought, but gave him a strained smile.

Glasses of chardonnay appeared beside their plates. Ginny grabbed hers and chugged it. The men watched in quiet horror as she clanged the glass back down onto the table.

Draco picked up his silverware and then the other men did the same. Ginny picked up her game hen like an apple and bit into it. The looks of dismay on the men’s faces was priceless. Hermione hid her laughter in her napkin.

“So, Mister Nott, what is it you do for Voldemort?” Hermione asked.

“Oh, please, don’t call me mister,” Nott said.

“Especially since his title is Lord Nott,” Malfoy whispered.

“Please, call me Theo.”

“Theo, then.” Hermione bared her teeth at him in a parody of a smile.

“It’s complex, but I’m more or less a glorified accountant,” Theo said.

“Don’t let him deprecate himself,” Zambini said. “He keeps the economy moving along. Prevented a horrific crash after —”

“After Voldemort killed everyone?” Hermione took a sip of her wine. It was quite good.

“Yes, that.” Theo said. He sawed delicately into his hen and took a bite from his fork, held tines down.

Ginny picked up her knife and tilted her head in Blaise’s direction.

“Won’t work,” Hermione mouthed.

Ginny scowled and dropped it on the table.

“Please, Hermione, eat,” Malfoy murmured.

Oh, that’s right, she thought. Her friends’ presence was dependent on her cooperation. She took a bite of the greens, fresh and buttery with a hint of garlic.

“And you, Mister Zambini?”

“Lord,” Malfoy corrected in a stage whisper.

“Please, call me Blaise.” Blaise turned a smile on her so bright and beautiful that Hermione was knocked off kilter by it. She had thought Malfoy was beautiful, but Blaise should have been a model or an actor. His warm brown skin contrasted with his brilliantly white teeth and his onyx eyes that slanted above high cheekbones.

“What do you do, Blaise,” Hermione said flatly.

“I’m in agriculture,” he said. “I’m really hoping to get your friend Neville on our team.”

She thought of the ways Neville could sabotage the food supply and smiled a genuine smile. Blaise blinked in surprise but smiled back, encouraged.

“Eat, Hermione,” Malfoy said. She took another bite of the greens.

“What about you, Malfoy?” Ginny asked. “When you’re not kissing Voldemort’s ouchies to make them all better, what do you do all day?”

Draco ignored the insult. He took a sip of wine. “I’m director of the hospital.”

“The hospital? There’s just one?” Lavender asked, giving her beard a scratch.

“All that’s been needed thus far,” Malfoy said.

“Do you call it St. Mungo’s Boston?”

Draco shook his head. He cut into his bird and took a bite, patting his lips as he laid down his silverware. He obviously didn’t intend to add anything further on the topic.

“Don’t be modest, Draco,” Zambini said. “The Dark Lord named it after Draco. Malfoy Hospital. Has his family crest on the sign and everything.”

Hermione dug her fork into a chunk of potato. Apparently, Malfoy hadn’t been exaggerating when he said there was something special that only he could do. But what could it be now that the war was over and there wasn’t a steady flow of combat injuries to treat and curses to break?

“And what do you expect us to do with our time?” Ginny asked. “Just make babies?”

Zambini and Nott exchanged a glace. “You’ll be free to spend your time as you like. The wives we know have hobbies. Painting, gardening, curating personal libraries. And once we can fully trust you, you’ll have the liberty of socializing.”

“What If I want a job?” Ginny insisted. “Since Harry died, I’ve wanted to fulfil his dream of becoming an auror.”

Theo ran a finger over the stem of his wineglass. “That’s not possible. For one, only Death Eaters are aurors. For another, women of our social class don’t work outside the home.”

“What do you mean about social class?”

Theo stumbled a bit. “Well, I mean … you know … women who are in … deficient economic situations have no choice but to work.”

Hermione snorted. That had been the story since the dawn of time. The rich wanted the status symbol of an idle wife while poor women labored alongside the men — usually for less money and in shittier positions.

“You’re the head of the economy, aren’t you? Why are there women in poverty while others live in idle luxury?” Hermione gestured around at the apartment.

Theo didn’t look at her. “The Dark Lord believes in the natural division of social classes but appreciates the American system which rewards hard work. Capitalism creates prosperity for those who work hard.”

“Are you saying a woman laboring in the fields isn’t working hard?” Hermione asked. “I’d argue it’s objectively harder work than pushing papers around all day. Where’s her penthouse, Theo?”

Draco put his silverware in the center of his plate and all of their plates vanished.

“What a lovely dinner,” Blaise said.

“No dessert?” Ginny asked.

Draco stood. “Perhaps we should all retire to the living room.”

There, the men huddled in a group, talking in low, intent voices. Hermione, Lavender, and Ginny sat on the couch.

“I guess I shouldn’t have criticized capitalism,” Hermione said laconically.

“You sounded like Luna,” Lavender said. “I know everyone thought she was a flake babbling about nargles or whatever but if you got her talking about economics, she would suddenly turn into a professor.”

“I always thought the whimsical shit was a shield she used to keep others from getting too close.” Ginny picked at a loose thread on her robe.

“She said goodbye to me,” Hermione said suddenly. They all turned to look at her quizzically.

"Before I left with Neville, she kissed me and told me goodbye. I didn’t think about it until afterward.”

“She talked?” Ginny asked.

Hermione nodded. “She said something else to me before that. Something about how I was seeking love and healing. Maybe if she hadn’t … maybe she would have started talking again if she’d had more time.”

“Ginny?” Blaise walked over and held out a hand. Ginny rose but didn’t come anywhere within touching distance.

Theo took Lavender’s arm, though she glared at him menacingly and yanked it away.

Hermione hugged and kissed Lavender and Ginny before they were tugged away by their new wardens. She watched them go, helplessly.

A handkerchief touched her cheek, dabbing away one of her tears. Hermione jerked away, glaring at Malfoy. He looked at the handkerchief with a faint sense of surprise, as though his hand had moved on its own, and tucked it into his pocket.

“You’ll see them soon,” he said.

She turned away and walked back to her room.

Hermione woke with a start when Coral popped into her room with her breakfast tray. She set it on the table. “Good morning, Miss,” she squeaked. She was dressed in another pillowcase today, this one pink with blue flowers around the hem.

“Good morning,” Hermione replied. “What time is it?”

“Just after seven, Miss. It’s the time Lord Malfoy usually wakes.”

As if she cared what time he woke in the morning. Hermione sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“After you have finished, can I draw a bath for you, Miss?”

“You don’t need to draw my bath for me,” Hermione said, but she said it as pleasantly as she could. After all, it wasn’t Coral’s fault she was Malfoy’s slave. “I prefer to do that kind of stuff myself.”

“As you wish, Miss. Just call for Coral if you should need anything.”

“Thank you,” Hermione said and Coral’s ears flapped in pleasure before she vanished. It seemed like she didn’t get thanked very often, judging by the reaction. 

She curled up on her side and traced runes on the bedsheet.

There was a tap at the door. Hermione sighed internally.

Malfoy came in. “You’re not eating your breakfast.”

“What is it with you and monitoring my food intake?”

“If I don’t take care of you properly, you’ll be given to someone else,” he said. “And I’ll have no control over whom that might be.”

“You said spousal abuse was frowned on.”

“There are other ways to abuse someone than the physical,” he replied. “And as you noted, Death Eaters are not famed for their kindness.”

She scowled, but he was right. Right now, she was in a somewhat stable situation with someone who hadn’t indicated he intended to harm her. A situation close to the seat of power that she could use in the future. She went over and sat on the chaise and picked up the tray. She took off the dome and stuck her fork into the fluffy pile of eggs.

“I have a coach coming for you today,” he said.

“A coach? Like the things we rode in to get to Hogwarts?”

He chuckled. “No, a coach as in someone who helps guide you. Lady Flint will be here around nine.”

Hermione swallowed her mouthful of eggs. “Coaching me in what?”

“Etiquette. How you’re expected to behave as Lady Malfoy. How to avoid … issues. I know you don’t believe me. Merlin, I don’t think I would believe me, if I was in your place. But I am trying to help you.”

“Why?”

He cocked his head. “Is it so difficult to believe that you’re worth saving?”

She didn’t have an answer to that.

“I’ll be home in time for dinner, barring any emergencies,” he said.  “I’ll send word if I’ll be late.”

She looked over his shoulder at the glass walls covered by draperies. “How do you get an owl here?”

“All the owls are dead, Granger.” His voice was grim. “I’ll have an elf from the hospital pop by to tell Coral.”

At nine precisely, there was a knock at the door. Hermione went to answer it and was given a chastening look by Coral. A new thing to remember: Lady Malfoy didn’t open her own door. That was an elf’s job. She retreated back to her bedroom.

She heard Coral welcome Lady Flint and opened her bedroom door to make an entrance. As soon as she saw who it was, she stopped in her tracks. “Why, Pansy Parkinson!”

Pansy dipped into a curtsey and then tilted her chin up and smiled. “Hermione Granger.”

Hermione gestured for her to take a seat on the couch. She tried to remember Malfoy’s comments about how everyone had grown up, but her stomach was a ball of dread. She couldn’t imagine Pansy’s lessons were going to be pleasant.

Pansy was dressed in dark red robes that set off her pale skin and dark hair. She no longer wore it in a bob. It was long enough to be pinned back in a loose chignon caught at her nape with a jeweled comb. Hermione wondered if those were real rubies.

“Garnets, actually,” Pansy said, guessing what Hermione was thinking when she saw the direction of her gaze. “My birthstone.”

“It’s beautiful,” Hermione said honestly.

“Thank you.”

Coral popped in with a tray containing a teapot and some little cakes.

Pansy glanced down at it and then at Hermione. “You’re supposed to serve it when you’re the hostess.”

“Oh! Sorry.”

She picked up the tea pot and carefully poured a cup.

“Very good,” Pansy said. “But first ask if your guest takes milk because you will need to add that first.”

“I already feel like I’m going to be bad at this.”

“Not at all!” Pansy said. “Just remember, I’ve had a lifetime to learn this. You’ve only been learning for five minutes.”

“You’re stirring your tea and buttering your own scones by hand instead of using your wand. Is that part of the etiquette?”

“Not precisely. Women of our social class rarely carry their wands outside the home. It’s a symbol that they don’t need to call on magic because they have husbands and servants to do it for them, and their magic is used solely in the domestic sphere.”

She thought of the class signifiers that also amplified a woman’s helplessness, like bound feet. She would never have willingly given up her magic just to show she was so pampered that she didn’t need it. It probably wouldn’t be long until upper class women weren’t taught magic at all.

Pansy smiled pleasantly and sipped from her tea.

“I remembered you differently,” Hermione confessed.

Pansy nodded. “We were children placed in a situation that intentionally created rivalry and animosity by adults who should have known better. Children can be horrid little beasts enough on their own without adults creating artificial divisions.”

“So, the schools now don’t have houses?”

Pansy took a sip of her tea and set her cup down before she answered. “Far fewer students mean it’s not necessary to run so many dormitories.”

“Hogwarts never recovered after the battle?” Hermione took a little cake and watched how Pansy ate hers before consuming it.

“Hogwarts was restored, but it’s now only a school for pureblood boys.”

“Where’s the girls’ school?”

Pansy’s teacup clattered as she picked it up again. “There isn’t one.”

Hermione dropped her cup. It rolled off her leg and shattered on the table.

Coral appeared instantly and began to clean the mess up with magic.

Hermione hadn’t moved.

When Coral finished, she thanked her in a dazed tone.

“N-no schools for girls?” she repeated. “None at all?”

Pansy’s lips were pressed tightly together. She gave Hermione a long, hard stare as she answered. “The Dark Lord believes girls are better taught at home, by their mothers, who can teach them the basics and the domestic magic they’ll need. Free mixing of the sexes and lax supervision only led to trouble.”

Hermione didn’t have to ask what kind of trouble Voldemort was referring to. She was one of the few girls who had left school a virgin, after all.

“What about university?”

Pansy shook her head.

She should have expected there would “be no need” for women’s education when they weren’t able to work outside the home. Their jobs were as wives and mothers, sending the boys off to school and professional achievement and raising the girls to marry and repeat the cycle. Voldemort had effectively dropped women back into the mid-19^th century.

“Hermione! Hermione, breathe!” Pansy was patting her cheeks.

“Wha …?” Hermione realized she was lying on the floor.

“I didn’t know someone could faint while sitting down,” Pansy said.

“Hermione!” Malfoy strode through the room, his robes fluttering around him. He knelt beside her and pressed his fingers to the side of his neck, casting a tempus to time her pulse.

“I’m sorry. Maybe I made too many disclosures too quickly.” Pansy worried her lower lip between her teeth.

“She hasn’t been eating properly,” Malfoy said. He slid his arm beneath Hermione and lifted her easily, striding through the living room toward her bedroom. He laid her carefully on her bed.

“I’m okay,” Hermione said.

“That’s enough for today,” Malfoy said to Pansy, who was lingering by the door. She curtsied and departed as he snapped his fingers and a bag appeared beside him. He pulled out three vials. “Open.”

“I’m fine. I don’t—”

“Granger, so help me, I will pry your jaw open.”

She opened.

He poured each potion in her mouth and she swallowed it.

A wave of exhaustion knocked her mind reeling, but she had to ask. “You said Voldemort wanted me because I’m the brightest witch of our generation. That’s not true, is it?”

He turned back from the door. “The committee wanted you.”

“Why?” What had he given her? Her head was humming drunkenly.

“Your genes could produce exceptionally bright and very magically talented children.”

“Exceptionally bright sons, you mean. No use for exceptionally bright daughters, except as brood mares producing more exceptionally bright sons.”

He didn’t reply. What could he say?

“I hate this,” she whispered. “I hate the world you’ve helped create. I hate you.”

He turned to walk out of the room.

“Malfoy?”

He turned back.

“I’m going to destroy you.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Chapter Text

The next few weeks passed in a dull pattern of repetition.

She rose and ate breakfast in her room.

Pansy arrived at nine for lessons. Hermione relearned how to stand and walk, how to sit in a chair (with her back never touching the back of the chair), how to shake hands, how to dine and take tea, when to curtsey, and how to react to an inferior’s curtsey (with a gracious nod of the head), to which gentlemen she should extend her hand for a kiss, how to speak to a social superior and inferior (and studied flashcards of the names, titles and ranks of the people in Voldemort’s inner circle), and even simple things such as how hold a fork. Wizard etiquette shared similarities with that of Muggles, but there was a great deal to learn.

Pansy ordered her invisible posture-correcting back braces to wear until it became natural to always have a perfectly straight spine and level chin.  She had to practice walking up and down the living room while Pansy critiqued the placement of each foot. Her natural stride was too long and wide. She needed to take dainty little steps. Her hands should be crossed loosely in front of her.

Even accessories had dizzying sets of rules. Ladies did not carry handbags. It was a point of pride that they didn’t need one; their elves carried their things and fetched whatever they needed. As an unmarried woman, she couldn’t wear a tiara, but after the wedding she would wear them to formal dinners. At informal dinners, she would wear jeweled combs; at tea, she would wear only one jeweled comb. She would always wear jewelry on her head, neck and arms. One piece each (if wearing a tiara, she would not wear earrings; if wearing a necklace, she would not wear a brooch; if wearing cocktail rings, she would not wear a bracelet.) Coral, of course, knew these rules and Hermione just trusted her and wore what was laid out for her each morning.

Her hands were manicured and a similar spell to the one Malfoy used on her hair was used to lengthen her nails. They were buffed to a high shine and they spent more time working on her cuticles than Hermione could have ever imagined a tiny part of her body would need. She could only wear clear polish, she was warned. Lady Bagman had appeared at a party with red nails and something awful had happened. Something that neither the beautician nor Pansy would say, but Lady Bagman’s hands were still recovering.

Her eyebrows were plucked and delicately shaped. Her hair was given treatments that made it flow in a soft, sleek river of curls and waves. Her skin was moisturized and masked and exfoliated before a wand was employed in zapping away every skin flaw. She lost her freckles. Her skin now looked like a doll’s, smooth and poreless, and perfect. Even the freckles on her hands were zapped away.

The one thing she wouldn’t allow them to remove was the scar on her arm where Bellatrix had carved MUDBLOOD.

A few weeks into this, Malfoy came home early and tapped on Hermione’s bedroom door. She’d been laying on the chaise, reading a book Pansy had given her on etiquette, trying not to chew on her newly groomed nails.

Malfoy came into her room and sat on the armchair, leaning toward her. “I have something for you,” he said, and pulled out a ring box.

She opened it. Inside was a ring with an emerald cut diamond. Thankfully, it was not ludicrously large like the one Hermione had once seen Narcissa Malfoy wear. It had a vaguely old-fashioned look to it. Silver leaves curled around the stone and the sides of the band. Or perhaps it wasn’t silver. It could be platinum or white gold. She didn’t know the difference.

“It’s beautiful,” she said honestly. “Is it a family heirloom?”

“Yes, from the Black side of the family. My maternal great-grandmother’s engagement ring.”

“I like it.”

“It would look odd if you didn’t have an engagement ring,” Malfoy said.

“Who will see it?” she asked, gesturing around to the empty apartment.

“There will be parties soon,” Malfoy warned her. “When our engagement is announced, Theo and Blaise will both want to throw me a party because they’re my closest friends. My relatives, too. We’ll have to reciprocate with dinner parties and such.”

“I don’t really care for parties,” she said.

“Neither do I, but it’s part of this life,” he said.

“What life?”

“Nobility.”

She frowned at him. “Do you actually have a title? I thought Lord Malfoy was just a courtesy.”

He nodded. “My father was a baron, one of the few people who held a noble title recognized by Muggles and wizardkind alike. Voldemort has revived wizarding titles of nobility and has parceled out American land and titles to his favored. I’m now Earl of Ohio.”

Hermione burst into laughter. “You’re joking!”

She was glad he recognized the humor of it. He flashed a quick grin. “Theo is Baron Pittsburgh. And Blaise is Viscount Hamptons. It sounds ridiculous now, but I imagine in a hundred years it will sound as ordinary as the Earl of Wessex.”

“What does it actually mean, though, aside from the name?”

“We would be able to derive income from the territories from taxing the wizarding population that lives in those areas, and the economic activity in the region. Voldemort is looking at future generations inheriting these titles, and growing wealthy as the wizarding population in the lands grows.”   

“So, feudalism? You would kick up a portion of your income to the Duke of the Midwest or whatever, and they pay up to Voldemort?”

He nodded.

“Voldemort doesn’t call himself king, but he’s pretty much the king.”

“He prefers the title Dark Lord. His new empire will have many kings, but only one of them called Dark Lord.”

“Do people actually use these new titles?”

“In formal settings, but in daily life, we just use Lord and Lady.”

She took a deep breath. “How soon will you announce the engagement?”

“In a couple of weeks, I imagine. Pansy says you’re doing splendidly in your lessons.”

Hermione held up the book with a cynical twist of her lips. “I always was a good scholar.”

He took her hand and slipped the ring on. It resized itself instantly to fit her finger.  “It has protection spells,” he murmured.

“Protection from what?”

He tried to demur. “Any dangers that may arise.”

“Supposedly, I’m in the safest, most coddled living environment a witch can have. What dangers?”

He tried to be vague, and it only made her more doggedly determined to get a real answer out of him.

He finally admitted, “There have been a few attacks.”

Her attention sharpened. “Attacks by whom?”

“Investigations are —”

“Oh, cut the bullshit, Malfoy. Is there a rebellion?”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Hermione. The attacks pretty much consist of single entities doing suicide runs at figures thought to be close to Voldemort, since they can’t get to him. We don’t think there’s an organized network out there.”

So, there was still a rebellion, or at least people out there who wanted to resist and were willing to give their lives to do it. Someone had to make the bombs or teach others how to make them. Hermione’s heart pounded fiercely. She found that thin thread of hope she had lost when they were captured. She couldn’t wait to tell Ginny and Lavender.

She turned her hand in the light and watched the ring sparkle.

“Another thing I wanted to bring up.” He paused and cleared his throat. “It’s just a personal request.”

“What?”

“Will you please call me Draco?”

“Pansy told me at parties, I’m to refer to you as Lord Malfoy, or my lord husband.”

“I’m not talking about in public.” He had a bit of a pink flush on his cheekbones. “I mean you and I, when we’re together.”

Her interest was piqued by that blush.

“We’re to be married. A first name basis is probably the first step, but I’m hoping we can be … cordial. Friends, perhaps.”

Now he was really blushing and she was intrigued. He wanted to be her friend. He liked her.

She could use that.

A few days later, Malfoy told her a photographer was coming to take a picture for their engagement announcement. Coral laid out the robes she was to wear: black outer robes with a dress of green below, and a silver belt — the Malfoy house colors. After she had dressed, Coral arranged her hair, piling the curls high atop her head and catching it in place with a curved silver comb shaped like a serpent. But despite the freezing charm, Hermione’s hair had a mind of its own and curls kept escaping to fall down around her face.

The drapes in the living room were pulled back to display the panoramic view of the city. There they stood in the traditional pose, facing one another, hands clasped, their heads turned to smile at the camera. She gave a little start of surprise when Draco brushed a curl behind her ear. She looked up from under her lashes at him and gave him a little smile to see how he would react and she saw that pink flush return.

That was the image they used. Her little jump of surprise and coy smile. She noticed how his eyes never left her.

Ginny and Lavender visited the next afternoon, probably because Draco was so pleased with how things had transpired.

“You look … wow, Hermione, I haven’t seen you look like this since the war,” Ginny said.

“We all look better,” she said. Lavender, who was in “original form” today, had regained some of the softness to her cheeks. Ginny, too, looked better. Her eyes were no longer sunken. But Hermione supposed a couple of weeks of good nutrition and rest would do that.

Ginny tilted her head. “Yeah, but your eyes … you have that sparkle again.”

“That’s because I heard something very interesting.”

Lavender and Ginny’s heads came in close and she whispered what Malfoy had told her about the rebels. “It’s happening often enough that he wanted to charm my ring to somehow protect me.”

“At least we know they exist,” Ginny said, “even if there’s not a group we could contact. It bears watching. Maybe they will get organized and we can figure out a way to assist. You, especially, Hermione. Malfoy has Voldemort’s ear. He’d be privy to good information, if you can get it from him.”

Ginny gestured at the folded newspaper lying on the table. “What was that by the way? That hair thing? Was he acting?”

“I don’t think so,” Hermione said. “He seems like he wants to be … friendly.” She described his demeanor when he asked her to call him Draco.

Ginny’s eyes sharpened and Lavender slapped her knee.

“You’ve got an in,” Lavender said.

“Maybe.”

“Better than I have at the present,” Ginny said. “Blaise barely speaks to me.”

“Theo won’t shut up,” Lavender said. “But I can’t tell if he’s being genuinely friendly and flirtatious or if that’s just the way he usually is.”

“Lean into it,” Ginny urged both of them. “Capture their attention and get them talking. The ring is pretty, by the way,” Ginny said.

Hermione glanced at it. “Oh. Thank you.”

She took it off to hand it to her so she could see it more clearly and she noticed something inside. There was an engraving.

DM + HG 2002

She gaped at it for a moment and handed it to Ginny.

Ginny smiled grimly. “You’re in.”

That evening, Coral announced a visitor. “Lady Lestrange to see Lord Malfoy.”

Hermione peeked through her bedroom door. She saw Malfoy cross the living room. His grim expression turned into a large, fake smile as soon as the door opened.

“Aunt Bella,” she heard him say. “This is a surprise.”

“Surely you would have expected me to come after that splashy announcement in the paper. Where is the blushing bride? Oh, there she is! Peeking out like a little mouse waiting to see if the snake has passed her by.” Bellatrix tittered and gestured to Hermione. “Come on out, little mouse. This snake won’t eat you. Yet.”

Hermione walked into the living room, tugging at her right sleeve. Her arm was stinging, each letter burning. Hermione tilted her chin up as she walked up to them, bold and brave as though she wasn’t wandless. She didn’t technically outrank her until after the wedding, but she stared her down until Bellatrix grudgingly curtsied, to which Hermione responded with a gracious nod.

Bellatrix had aged considerably since Hermione had last seen her. Her black hair was now mostly silver and her face sagged as though it was tired of its job. Her teeth were the same, though. Blackened and cracked and jagged. A badge of honor, she called it, a souvenir of Azkaban that proved her sacrifice for the Dark Lord. Hermione wondered how much Bellatrix appreciated being told to stay home and be a good little wife after being one of Voldemort’s finest warriors and putting him on the throne.

“My little sister’s boy, all grown and getting married!” Bellatrix exclaimed. She reached up to cup Draco’s cheek in her hand, and he froze like a snake was crawling across his shoe. “And so high in our Lord’s favor that he granted you the woman you wanted.”

Pansy had tried to train Hermione for moments like these, when someone would drop an emotional bombshell just to see the expression on her face. She’d told crass jokes about Harry’s death and laughed about the Weasley family name being extinguished now that their only living child was a girl, trying to prepare Hermione to keep her face impassive and calm even when her insides were boiling or frozen with horror.

She must have failed because Bellatrix giggled and put a hand over her mouth. “Oops! Was that still a secret? I do apologize, Draco.”

Draco murmured something. Hermione didn’t hear it. She was still fighting to remain calm.

“I see you’ve given her great-grandmother Violetta’s ring. Cygnus had that made for her. Did you know that Cygnus and Violetta were also James Potter’s great-grandparents? My how all of our families are entwined!”

“Yes, I knew,” Draco said.

“And such a woman you’re adding to our tree!” Bellatrix crowed. “A shining golden girl for the Malfoy line. A bit on the scrawny side, but a few children should righten that.”

Draco’s voice was clipped. “I wish we could extend this visit, Aunt Bella, but Hermione and I were settling down for the evening. She’s exhausted. It’s been a busy day for us.”

“I imagine so. We’ll get to see her more at the parties. And at the wedding! The Dark Lord is so looking forward to that event.”

Coral handed Bellatrix her cloak. She must not live in the building, Hermione realized. It was somewhat of a relief to have that toxic nightmare living somewhere away from her.

Bellatrix kissed Draco and then yanked Hermione in to press a cold kiss to her cheek. “How is that scar, dearie?” she whispered in her ear, her foul breath fanning Hermione’s face.

“Not as big as the one I gave you,” Hermione whispered back.

Bellatrix smiled widely. “I do like her, Draco. You chose well.”

“Thank you, Aunt Bella. Good night.”

She was out the door and Draco shut it firmly behind her.

Hermione tried to keep herself steady on her feet as she walked toward her room.

“Wait, please,” Draco said.

She turned, her eyes burning with unshed tears. “You want to tell me the truth?”

He nodded. “I do. Please. Sit down.”

He gestured to the couch, and she walked over stiffly and perched on the edge. Draco sighed and she heard something splash behind her. He came over with a bottle of Ogden’s in one hand and two filled glasses in the other. He handed one to her.

Hermione took a sip. She enjoyed the burn, all the way down to her stomach.

“Go on then,” she said. “Tell me what she meant about the Dark Lord giving you the woman you wanted.”

Draco took a large swallow of his drink. He leaned forward, his forearms braced on his knees. He kept his eyes fixed on the toes of his shoes. “About six months ago, I was in the Midwest. I can’t tell you why I was there. Just that I was gathering something I needed. I saw you. I saw your group.”

He took another drink and then refilled the glass.

“One of our duties is to find people of wizarding blood and bring them in or report them to the Snatchers. It’s something we’re handsomely rewarded for. The Dark Lord is always pleased when these ‘lost ones’ are brought home, especially young, unmarried women.”

Hermione shuddered and took several gulps.

“I don’t know why I followed you. But I did. That evening, you holed up in an abandoned house and shared a few cans of food. Barely enough for a hearty meal for one person and all of you were sharing it like it was a feast. It was the warmth that drew me in. The warmth and love. You were a family. Joking, squabbling, laughing … I never had anything like that and until I saw it, I didn’t know how badly I wanted it, how it fit into a hole I hadn’t known I even had somewhere within me.”

He drank again and checked the level of her glass with a swift glance. He flicked his hand and the bottle lifted, floating over to tip over her glass and refill it neatly. An interesting display of wandless magic.

“I put a tracer on you.”

“That’s not possible without blood magic,” she said.

He just looked at her.

Oh.

He tapped the rim of his glass. “I have free and unlimited usage of portkeys, so I kept portkeying to the Midwest, to your location. I kept watching your group and I kept watching you. I was fascinated that even amid what seems to have been a crushing depression, you managed to keep the group going. Kept a smile on your face. Worried about each individual’s issues. Found a way to build each of them up. Found a way to lie and keep each of them thinking things would get better soon when you reached Canada. Why Canada, by the way?”

“I lied to them and said I was told Canada was resisting Voldemort.”

Hermione dumped the contents of her glass down her throat. The bottle hopped up as though it had been waiting and refilled it.

“Did you know the truth?

“That it had fallen, too? I suspected.”

Draco summoned the bottle.

“How did you spy on us?” Hermione asked. “I never saw any trace of you.”

“I stayed on my broom. And I wore Potter’s Invisibility Cloak. I asked for it as a souvenir after the Battle of Hogwarts when the Dark Lord was feeling jubilant and generous. I doubt he knew what it was when he gave it to me.”

“And then, you spotted me. I didn’t have the Invisibility Cloak on for a moment, and you saw. I intended to be more careful in the future, but in the snowstorm, you started heading in the wrong direction.”

“I thought you were the Grim Reaper,” Hermione said. Her head was pleasantly floating from the alcohol. She took another deep sip.

“The what?

“A Muggle omen of death. He appears as a cloaked figure with no face and a scythe.” She frowned. “You had no scythe. But I was sure you were the Reaper. I couldn’t see your face.”

“I didn’t want you to, so I wore a cloak with my deepest hood.”

“And then you pointed at the house with the food and the gun.”

“A gun?” he frowned. “I just put food in there, and a pair of gloves, which you gave to Longbottom. Your group was so happy that night. Telling fun stories of the Hogwarts days.” He downed his drink. “I don’t have any memories like that. I was never able to cast a Patronus until after my father died.”

He was drunk and traveling off on non sequiturs, she thought. “You didn’t put the gun in there?”

“No, why would I?”

“Well, again, I thought you were an omen of death. I thought … well, I considered …”

He looked horrified. “Did you want to die?”

She was drunk, too, and with it went her ordinary caution. “Yes. But I knew my death would be awful for my friends. So, I stayed.”

She thought he would ask next if she still wanted to die, but he didn’t. And she realized it was because he didn’t want to hear what he thought would be her answer.

She took another deep drink. “We used the gun against the werewolf.”

“That was my fault.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I got sloppy. Bellatrix noticed repeated portkeys to the same location. She started investigating and sent a werewolf to scent out the stores and buildings to see what I’d been doing in the town. I tried to stop you from entering because I didn’t want him to catch your scent the next time he was there. I had no idea he was there at the time, I swear. I would have tried harder to stop you if I’d known he was inside.”

He drained another glass, pressing the empty glass against his forehead. “I was watching you. I wasn’t watching your group. If I had been, I’d have been able to save them. I’m so sorry. But it was a clear sign to me that it was too dangerous for you out there. The canned foods are running out. The remnants are becoming desperate. What If I left you out there and you were hurt? I’d regret it for the rest of my days.”

Horror washed over her like an icy river had swept the room.

“You …” Hermione whispered.

“Yes. I told Voldemort I’d found a group and asked him for you as a reward.”

Her throat ached as unshed tears pressed behind her eyes. “Why? For Merlin’s sake, why?”

“Part of it was to protect you. To ensure you weren’t given to anyone who would treat you cruelly.”

She emptied her glass and set it aside. Her head felt like it was swaying on her neck. She didn’t think she’d ever been this drunk. “What was the other part?”

His silver eyes burned into hers, molten mercury. “I want … I want what I saw through those windows. I want what I saw with you and Potter and Weasley. The warmth and affection. I want camaraderie. And love. I wanted you.”

She considered telling him that the warmth and camaraderie had only been for the others. Even during most of the time she’d been on the run with Harry and Ron. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d genuinely felt it and could take happy comfort in its embrace. Sometime before sixth year, certainly.

“You can’t force those things, Draco. They build naturally.”

He shook his head. “You’re neglecting to notice the common denominator. You build these things. You create a family wherever you go. And I want that. I want you.”

The way he spoke those last words left no doubt he wasn’t just wanting her as a companion. “You stole me. You took me from my freedom and trapped me here because you wanted me?”

“It wasn’t safe out there,” he retorted, but it sounded like a rehearsed line.

“It’s not safe here, either,” she said. “If I wear the wrong nail polish, Voldemort will have my fingers pulled off or something.”

“Just the nails,” Draco said, and she stared at him in open-mouthed horror. He looked ashamed, though she wasn’t sure if it was of his own callousness or of being part of the system that would do that to a woman.

Something suddenly occurred to her. “The clothes. Even magical tailors can’t create a wardrobe like that overnight. You had to have been planning this for some time.”

He froze. And she knew at that moment that he’d wanted to make his decision seem spontaneous, like he’d decided as soon as Luna, Cho, and Angelina were killed that he needed to “save” her, but he’d been intending to do it for a while. A couple of weeks, at least.

“This place is worse than the wasteland,” Hermione said. “It’s just a better-washed version of the same death traps. What am I protected from? Out there, I could die because someone wants my cans of soup. In here, I could die for saying the wrong thing. Out there, I could be raped. In here, it’s a given —”

“No!” he snapped. “I would never do that to you.”

“Oh, so you’re willing to have a platonic marriage?” She grabbed the bottle and poured more into her glass.

“We … we can’t do that,” he admitted. “If we don’t create a pregnancy within a year, they’ll have us checked to find out why.”

She downed the whole glass in one gulp. She felt sick, but not from the booze. “Were you going to tell me that? There’s no consent with a gun to my head.”

“I had hoped … I had thought maybe I could … That I could court you and maybe you’d be willing.” The blush was back. “My parents’ marriage was arranged. It took a little time, but they found an accord.”

“Your father is not a positive role model in any respect, so pardon if I don’t take his example for marriage.” She stood and wobbled on her feet. “I don’t want you. I don’t want any of this, and if you try to touch me, I swear on Merlin’s grave, I am going to make your life a living hell.”

Chapter Text

Blaise Zambini threw the first celebration for Draco’s engagement. He brought Ginny over for dinner to give Draco the details of the party.

Ginny and Hermione sat on the sofa in the few minutes before dinner, heads bent together as they whispered.

“Progress?” Ginny asked.

“With what?”

“With Malfoy, idiot. Have you been stoking his interest?”

Hermione bit her lip. “Not exactly.”

Ginny sighed. “It’s the only tool we have right now, Hermione. It’s the only way you could shift the balance of power in your favor.”

“I kind of told him I was going to destroy him and make his life a living hell.”

“That’s okay,” Ginny said. “It actually makes it more believable. He wouldn’t expect you to melt right away.”

But she noticed how Draco’s eyes lingered on her throughout the meal.

The party was in one week. In preparation, Hermione spent her time reviewing the flash cards of names and ranks and responding appropriately to Pansy’s increasingly esoteric etiquette questions.

The next afternoon, Draco asked her if she remembered her dancing lessons from their Hogwarts days. They had been taught a perfunctory waltz.

“This isn’t a ball, but most parties have dancing, and you and I will be expected to lead off.” He cranked the side and then dropped the needle on a gramophone. Tinny waltz music came from the horn speaker. Hermione stood transfixed for a moment until Draco called her name.

“I haven’t heard music in years,” she said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I’ll have Coral bring a radio to your room. There are a couple of wizarding radio stations. One is talk; just state propaganda, and you’ll probably want to ignore it. The other, though, plays different time periods of music throughout the day.”

“Speaking of radio, I want to ask you about the television in my room.”

“Yes?”

“There’s no cable hookup and no DVDs. What’s it for?”

“The Dark Lord only permits their use to broadcast his speeches.”

“Ah. And the books in my room … I’ve noticed that there’s some historical fiction, but no modern fiction. And nothing that mentions magic — the Muggle understanding of magic, that is. Nothing with vampires or elves.”

“The Dark Lord only allows certain Muggle books. Depictions of modern Muggle life or their …” He paused over the word before he said it, making it clear it wasn’t his choice. “… depraved views of the magical world are banned.”

She tried to think of a reason why and then she inwardly sighed. Draco was right; she was trying to find a logical pattern in actions that didn’t have a logical basis in the first place.

“Thank you.” She stepped into his arms stiffly and after he restarted the record, she started performing the steps as she’d learned them so many years ago.

They glided around the room easily. “Very good,” he murmured. “Is this the only dance you know?”

“Aside from the Electric Slide,” she said and didn’t bother to explain when he gave her a confused look. “I don’t have time to learn another.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so. It should suffice. No other man will ask you to dance since you’re an engaged woman. I’ll ensure whenever we dance it’s a waltz.”

He released her hands, and she immediately turned to return to her room.

“Hermione,” he called.

She paused her steps but didn’t look back.

“I … I have something for you.”

She turned.

“Just a little … ah … I thought …” He held out a package wrapped in brown paper and shuffled his feet.

She took it. “Thank you.”

He waited a moment, but didn’t ask her to unwrap it and she didn’t offer.

“Also … You’ll have a visitor this afternoon.”

She just nodded and continued on her way.

Behind her, she heard him sigh.

She opened the package when she arrived in her room and found a box of chocolates. She popped one in her mouth and chewed, wondering why he’d brought this for her and why such an awkward presentation of it. A present, maybe? Was he unused to giving gifts?

She heard Coral announce a visitor and peered around the doorframe.

“Neville! Oh, Neville!” she ran to him, jumping up to fling her arms around his neck. Neville held her up, his arms around her waist and his face buried in her hair.

“Herms … Merlin, I’ve missed you.”

She couldn’t get any words out. She was crying and laughing. She pulled back to look in her face, and that’s when Draco grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away, so abruptly she stumbled. His face was twisted in a scowl and his eyes burned.

“That’s enough,” he snarled.

“Draco … what?”

“She’s my betrothed,” he spat at Neville.

Neville just blinked at him. “Yeah … I heard that.”

Hermione wrenched out of Draco’s grasp and glared at him. She took Neville’s hand and drew him over to the couch ignoring Malfoy as he stalked around the periphery of the room like a caged tiger. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Coral brought tea. Hermione poured him a cup, adding the sugar without needing to ask.  She smiled at him as she handed it over. Draco loomed over by the glass wall, pacing.

“They kept me in isolation,” he said. “True isolation. I didn’t see another human face for thirty days. Food appeared on my table. And that was it.”

“They gave you nice quarters, I hope.”

“No, I was in the county jail.”

Hermione’s jaw dropped. “Merlin’s arse! What? Why?”

“They were waiting to see if I’d manifest any werewolf traits, even if I didn’t fully turn. Super-strength and all that. If I had any signs of infection … well, it would be very different for me. I didn’t so now they’ve let me go.”

She could tell his brief and glib retelling didn’t disclose a great deal of misery. But that was Neville. He never wanted to burden others.

“Where are you living now?”

“Here in this same building, actually, but on the third floor. The apartments down there are a lot … um … simpler than these. They’re not bad, mind you. Just not as big and posh.”

“Are you living with anyone?”

“No, but I have guards stationed outside my door. They say I’ll be assigned to a betrothed of my own soon.”

“Do you know who it will be?”

“Romilda Vane, of all people.”

Hermione laughed. “A Gryffindor, at least.”

Romilda was Theo Nott’s secretary. Not one of Voldemort’s inner circle, but still a member of the regime. Close enough to the seat of power to warrant an apartment in Millenium Tower. Hermione was pleased to know he’d be nearby.

“Are you coming to Blaise's party?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’ll be —"

“Thank you for stopping by,” Draco said, stepping between them. Coral appeared with a pop to lead Neville to the door.

“So soon?” Hermione protested. She jumped to her feet when Neville stood and pulled him into a quick hug before Draco could stop her. “Come visit me again soon.”

The door closed behind him and Hermione rounded on Draco. “What the fuck was that? How dare you pull me away from hugging a friend.”

Draco crossed his arms. “I’m sure Pansy told you an unrelated man should not embrace a betrothed or married woman.”

“I don’t care about that!” Hermione said. “It’s Neville. Don’t you understand? I was with him for three years, every day, and I haven’t seen him in over a month.”

His eyes were still molten silver, his lips pinched thin. He raked a hand through his hair roughly.

Why was he acting like this? What was —

It finally dawned on her. “You didn’t pull me away because of etiquette. You pulled me away because you were jealous.”

His eyes flashed, but he didn’t deny it.

“You’re pathetic,” she spat and slammed her bedroom door behind her.

The next afternoon, Draco knocked on her door. “Hermione?”

She considered ignoring him but put down her book to open the door. She looked at him.

He was uncharacteristically subdued. He wore the formal robes he wore for work, today in dark brown. “Can we … I’d like to speak with you, if I may.”

Stiffly, she nodded. She walked past him and recoiled. An awful stench of death wafted from his robes. It smelled like he’d been moving corpses all day. What in the world had he been up to?

He gestured to the couch, which she avoided and took one of the arm chairs.

“I just arrived home. I wanted to tell you … I wanted to explain …”

She tented her fingers under her chin.

“The Dark Lord has set a date for our joining.”

“Oh?”

“It’s to be on the spring equinox. March 20.”

That was less than a month away. Hermione sat forward. “I don’t understand. Pansy told me that most ceremonies are six months after the engagement announcement.”

“That’s true, but it’s not a requirement.”

“But … it’s less than a month away …” Hermione’s voice sounded faint to her own ears.

“The ceremony will be public. The Dark Lord wants people to see you joining with a Death Eater. He thinks a show of unity will prevent further attacks. He’s even going to broadcast it on the view screen things — I forget what they’re called.”

“Televisions.”

“Yes, that.” He cleared his throat. “The Dark Lord himself will be our officiant.”

“No!” Hermione stumbled out of her seat. “No! I can’t! I won’t”

“Hermione, calm —”

“I can’t,” she screamed. It was as though the world had shrunk to this tiny room, darkness pressing in on all sides of her. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t —

“I’ll kill him with my bare hands,” she choked out. “I’ll spit in his face. I can’t. I won’t!”

Her chest was heaving with her wild panting breaths and everything in the room had shrunk down to a pinpoint. “He killed Harry!”

“Deep breaths, Hermione,” Draco said softly.  “Slow, deep breaths.”

She couldn’t. Her breaths were wheezing, and her heart was slamming against her chest like a bird trapped behind a window.

He summoned his bag and pulled out a potion. “Hermione, drink this. Kitten, please.”

Startled, she looked over at him and started to say something. Expertly, he poured the potion in her open mouth and tilted her chin up so it ran down her protesting throat despite her protests.

Hermione sank down. Draco grabbed her arm to help her. Slowly, she crumpled down to the carpet, laying on her back and staring up at the plain white ceiling. Draco lay down beside her.

"You’re okay,” he told her. “You just had a panic attack. “

“I’m feeling great now,” she giggled. “Whatever this is, it’s good stuff. I wish I could have it every day. This is the first time I’ve felt happy and relaxed since … I don’t remember when I felt like this, but it felt great.”

“Yeah.” He reached over and took her hand in his.

“I don’t know why you drink booze when you could drink this stuff.”

“The addiction is even worse,” he said softly, as if he knew too much about the topic from personal experience.

“Did you call me kitten?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I did. Sorry. I was panicking. Your heart rate was dangerously high. It surprised you enough to give me a chance to get the potion in you.”

“I’ve never been anybody’s kitten,” she said. “Never been anyone’s honey or babe or anything like that. Neville calls me Herms, but he’s like my brother.”

“I saw you cuddling once and I thought —”

“Pfft. No.” Hermione waved her free hand. “He was always having flings, but toward the end I think he and Angelina had a thing and it was getting kind of serious.”

“What about Ron?”

“I had a crush on him when I was a kid, but one kiss was enough for both of us to know it wasn’t going to work as a romance. After that, well, I was running for my life. Not much chance for love. And the last couple of years … I’ve been in a really dark place.”

“I could tell, when I was watching you.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “If you would like, I have some potions that may help.”

Hermione gave a humorless laugh. “Potions don’t make my circumstances go away. Circumstances to which depression is a logical reaction, I might add.”

The buzz was starting to fade. Hermione realized Draco still held her hand. She wanted to jerk it away, but she heard Ginny in her head, coaxing her to allow it.

“Can you keep Voldemort from coming to our wedding?”

“No.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You must,” he said, simply.

“I wish you’d left me out there,” Hermione said.

“I know. I’ve tried to lessen the impact of this on you as much as possible. But the Dark Lord is proud of having you and wants spectacle showing you off.”

“Isn’t that lovely? Everyone else is getting what they want. Voldemort is getting to show off the last member of the Order. You’re getting me in your bed. Everyone’s getting what they want, except me.”

“I want you in my bed willingly,” he said. “Until you are willing, I’m content to wait. I think I may have come up with a way that you can delay the childbearing requirement.”

“What?! How?”

“Blood. Your virgin blood to be precise. Said to be an extremely powerful ingredient in spellcasting. All I have to do is convince the Dark Lord that your blood is more valuable than a child for the time being.”

Her hands flew to her mouth. “Can you do that?”

He nodded. “I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh, Draco, thank you!” she cried. She rolled over and kissed his cheek.

Part of her recoiled from it. Was she really thanking him for not forcibly impregnating her? But the look on his face told her that had been the right choice. His eyes lit up like Christmas tinsel, and he grinned. She’d never seen Draco Malfoy grin before.

He helped her to her feet and she headed off to her bedroom. At the door she looked back and saw him reach up to touch the spot that she’d kissed.

“The Earl and Countess of Ohio.” 

Draco and Hermione floated through the door, chins aloft, nodding to people who curtsied as they passed.

Was this the third or fourth party this week? Hermione had lost count. Each of them was the same. Each of them was exhausting. Each of them was like running through a maze, trying to avoid landmines disguised as polite conversation.

She got the impression that everyone in the room hated everyone else. Everyone was always looking for an angle to better their own station at the expense of others, dropping a poisonous word in the Dark Lord’s ear. She spun from guest to guest, laughing, chatting amiably, trying to avoid the verbal knives that would suddenly flash and try to slit her throat. They were the opposing team, trying to gather information, build alliances that would counter the alliances built against them and plot reputational assassinations over petit fours.

The only bright spot of it is that she saw her friends, Ginny, Lavender, and Neville at each of these parties, even if she could only speak to them for a moment or two. They were a safe space in the quagmire.

Draco and Hermione gave a dinner party the night before their wedding and by the end of it, Hermione felt like a rabbit that had spent the day in a cage with wolves all around. Her nerves were shot.

Draco was seated at the table. The dishes had been instantly cleared by elf magic, but the napkins and crumbs still remained. Draco waved the bottle of wine at her. “Hermione, come finish this with me.”

She just wanted to go to bed, but he added please, and she went in to sit in her usual chair, on his right hand side — unless an equal-ranked man was present, at which case she was demoted down the table.

Draco summoned a wine glass for her and poured her a huge glass but had trouble putting it down on the table.

“Are you drunk?”

“I am, but not yet drunk enough to sleep. Miles to go before I sleep.”

She was surprised he knew that Muggle poem. “That poem is about death.”

“Well, hopefully, I have a few miles before that, too.” He toasted her and drank deeply.

“Do you do this … often?”

“As a healer, I know it’s too often. Go on, drink your drink so I don’t feel so pathetic drinking alone.”

She took a sip of her wine.

“I have good news for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Voldemort wants to start the experiments with your blood, so that means you get to remain unsullied by my foul hands for some time yet.”

“Are you sure the experiments, whatever they are, will work?”

He gave her a wobbly smile. “Positive.”

She downed the rest of her glass. She stood to walk past him to her room, and he caught her hand. “I have something for you.”

He handed her another present, though this one wasn’t wrapped. It was a book, a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt.

“You had volume one in your apartment but not volume two,” he said.

She just stared at him for a moment. It was a little creepy to imagine him looking at her things, the things she’d had to leave behind once Voldemort came to the US and began seizing power.

He lifted the hand he still held to his mouth and pressed a kiss into the center of her palm, hot, needy lips against her skin.

She pulled away and hurried to her room.

It was raining when Hermione awoke on her wedding day. She picked at her breakfast while staring outside at the rumbling skies.

“It will clear up by noon,” Draco said.

She jumped and dropped her fork. “Merlin’s tits! You scared me.”

“Sorry.”

He was dressed already in his wedding robes. A green shirt collar peeked from beneath a silver underrobe with a black robe over it. His shirt collar was closed with a silver Malfoy crest and pinned to his outer robe was a silver Dark Mark symbol, the same as the one tattooed on his arm.

Her matching robes were folded on the foot of her bed beside a pile of necklaces and bracelets.

Draco had a case in his arms, which he sat on the chaise beside her. “For the wedding.” He opened it and her eyes bulged.

It was an emerald tiara. The silver frame was designed to look like entwining snakes. Square emeralds of ascending size were mounted between the frames, the smallest of which was the size of the pad of her thumb. The largest was as big as a matchbox.

“You’ll have access to the Malfoy gems now,” he said. “And the vaults. If something happens to me —”

“What’s going to happen to you?”

“Nothing, hopefully, but you need to know this. The Malfoy vaults in Gringotts will open for you. There are other vaults in other banks. The goblins will have a list for you. You’d also be able to access Malfoy Manor, though I imagine you’d rather visit hell than that place.”

“What if we divorce?”

“Divorce?” he repeated the word like he was unfamiliar with it. “Well, that’s never happened, so I’d have to have our solicitors look into that.”

He said it so smoothly that she knew something was amiss but couldn’t quite nail it down.

“You’ll notice there’s another door now beside my bedroom door. That’s to your new jewel vault. Again, you’re free to wear whatever you like. Can’t sell or give it away, though. The jewels are entailed to Lady Malfoy.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“It means they’re essentially loaned by the Malfoy family line to whomever holds the title of Lady Malfoy. If I died and our son became the lord, they would belong to his wife because you would then be the Dowager Lady Malfoy.”

“Hold out your hand, please,” he said and before she could blink, he’d sliced her finger.

“Ouch!”

He took a small vial and caught a few drops of blood in it. “A gift for the Dark Lord. He’ll be able to sense the power in it.” He cast a quick healing charm but he didn’t release her hand.

“I have a few of these for you.” He held up some blue vials. “Calming draughts. You’ll have to take them before we leave for the ceremony because you won’t have a chance to sneak them later. You’ll have a break where you can take more before the reception. Take no more than three. If you take three, you’ll be feeling very numb.”

“That sounds like an attractive prospect.”

As Draco had predicted, the rain was gone by noon. The wedding was at three, the most auspicious time, according to the Dark Lord’s seers. The ceremony was held at White Stadium in Franklin Park. They now bore other names, names of the Dark Lord’s sycophants, but Hermione thought of them as she had known them when she lived in Boston before the bombs fell.

She had once loved this beautiful, peaceful park. She’d even attended some high school American football games in this stadium, cheering on both teams equally.

They apparated near the stadium and began their slow, stately walk toward it. Hermione took a deep breath, the first fresh air she’d inhaled since her capture. Well, not fresh air, she supposed, considering it was chock full of radiation. But the air did have a distinctly different scent without all of the exhaust fumes from traffic. The other scents of a city were also absent. The smells of cooking from restaurants, the smells of their garbage bins in the alleys. The smell of piss outside of bars. The smell of tainted water trickling through the gutters into the drains.

Hermione shook her head. She was drifting.

There was a statue she didn’t recognize. Brilliant brass that hadn’t yet grown its patina. They walked around the front of it and Hermione froze in her tracks. It was a statue of the Dark Lord, his face in a scream of triumph, holding Harry Potter’s severed head aloft.

“Keep your eyes down,” Draco murmured.

She did. The three potions she had guzzled before they left were doing their job. The statue should have been enough to break her apart, but she just felt a quiet sadness as they walked onto the football field. She reached into her pocket to touch Harry’s glasses.

The stadium erupted in roars as they entered. Hermione looked around, startled. Draco had mentioned the ceremony was open to the public, but she’d never imagined it would draw most of the population of Boston. She wondered how many of the witches and wizards she’d known when she lived here were present and if they were utterly bewildered she was marrying Draco.

A line of Death Eaters stood beneath the goalpost, which had been hung with flowers and streamers to make a backdrop. The crowd parted and she saw him, Voldemort. He was being carried on a sedan chair being carried by two centaurs, who gripped the poles in their hands. They set the chair down and backed away. Voldemort rose slowly.

She’d only ever seen him in person once, though Harry had faced him multiple times. She’d seen him at the Battle of Hogwarts as he hit Harry with a killing curse and sent his young body crashing lifelessly to the earth. He’d been pallid and snakelike then. Now he looked, and smelled, like a corpse moving through sheer magical will.

Had it not been for the potions, she would have been screaming.

Her name lit up in gold ribbon above the field. Draco’s beside it, joined by a heart. The crowd cheered.

The Dark Lord drew out the Wand of Destiny and cast a sonorous over them so their voices could be heard.

She’d been at Bill and Fleur’s wedding and she knew that something wasn’t right when the Dark Lord ordered them to grasp the wand and repeat after him. Draco’s vows were simple. He would protect and cherish his wife, and respect her station in his life until they were parted by death.

Then Voldemort’s eyeslits turn to her. “Repeat these words: “I, Hermione Jean Granger, take Draco Malfoy as my husband unto death. I do swear to obey, respect, and honor my husband, and bring no shame upon his family name. His bed will be my own, and I will use no contraception or abortifacients. I will raise his children to honor and esteem their father and take pride in their family line and the purity of their blood.”

Once again, she was deeply grateful for the potions. The words flowed from her lips. When she finished, a stream of fire erupted from the tip of the Elder Wand, winding around their joined hands. Her gut was iced with terror. She didn’t know what that meant, but it hadn’t been an ordinary wedding.

Draco put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her toward him. His face lowered and she closed her eyes. His lips touched hers, soft and cool. The crowd erupted in cheers.

And then it was over, and Voldemort was showering them with golden stars, his face stretched in what she supposed was supposed to be a smile.

She took three more potions before the reception began. It was held at an ornate golden ballroom with chandeliers and what seemed like the contents of every florist in Boston. “Only” two hundred people were present, Draco told her, the upper echelons of Wizarding society. A massive pile of gifts she didn’t want stood near the doorway, guarded by a dour goblin brought from Gringotts for the occasion.

 They sat at a long table beside the Dark Lord who gave an interminable speech about the future and the strength of the wizarding race. Her head began to ache beneath the weight of the tiara. Her face ached from smiling. Her eyes burned from unshed tears.

Her mother should be at her wedding.

Harry should be at her wedding. He’d always promised he’d stand up with her as her Man of Honor.

 And she should be marrying someone she loved, not someone she loathed.

The Dark Lord sat back down between Hermione and Draco, and Bellatrix stood to give a coy, cooing speech about how delighted the Malfoy line was to embrace Hermione as one of their own.

“Did you know,” the Dark Lord said, leaning toward her, his decayed stench pooling around her, “that wizarding receptions were invented to distract the guests so the lord and lady could escape and quickly consummate their marriage?”

She said nothing.

He drew out the small vial of her blood Draco had created.

“Your blood hums with amazing power,” he murmured. “If not, I might have asked him for a turn myself. Revive that Muggle custom of jus primae noctis.”

“That’s a myth,” Hermione said. Her skin was crawling with disgust, and she mentally thanked Draco again for the potions that kept her from screaming or attempting to strangle the Dark Lord with her napkin. “Something from Muggle fiction.”

“Ah, such a pity.”

She longed for more bottles of calming potion. She longed for this to be over. Voldemort seemed to delight in making her uncomfortable, though she tried to remain as stoic as possible not to feed into it. Draco kept trying to draw his attention, but it wasn’t working.

She would kill Voldemort, she thought. Whatever it took, before she left this earth, she would take him out. That was her purpose.

Finally, there was cake cutting and dancing to take her away from the table. Draco’s eyes were concerned as he held the knife with her to make the first cut into the cake. Finally, they ran from the room beneath a glowing gauntlet of wands crossed above their heads out to the coach waiting for them and climbed inside.

Hermione let out a long, slow breath when the coach rocked into motion. She pulled off the tiara, uncaring that its pins pulled at her hair, and dropped it onto the seat beside her.

“You were smashing,” Draco praised her.

“That wasn’t an ordinary wedding ceremony.” Her voice was as blunt as a brick thrown to the ground.

“No” he sighed. “It wasn’t.”

“What was that?”

“An Unbreakable Vow.”

“Did you know he was going to make me make an Unbreakable Vow to obey you and not to use birth control?”

“No. I’m just as horrified as you are.” But she remembered how uncomfortable he’d been when she mentioned divorce.

“What happens to me if I break it?”

His voice was low. “You die.”

She closed her eyes.

“I don’t want your obedience. I’ll try my damnedest not to phrase anything as a command.”

“I’m just grateful he didn’t make me swear loyalty to him.”

“He made you swear loyalty to me, and he thinks my loyalty to him is unshakeable. Same thing in his mind.”

“Is it?” Hermione asked. “Is it unshakeable?”

He just looked at her.

She looked away, out the window. Of course he wouldn’t admit it aloud if it wasn’t. He said Voldemort had ways of knowing things. But he had come up with the blood idea to allow her to avoid pregnancy — and his bed — for a while. Perhaps he wasn’t quite a loyal to the regime as he appeared.

She knew what Ginny would say: keep prying at the loose mortar to see if she could tear out a brick, because that was the first step to destabalizing a wall.

She reached over and took his hand in hers. He looked down at it, surprised, then raised their joined hands to his mouth. He laid a long, slow kiss against the back of her hand before raising his gaze to hers, burning hot.

When they arrived home, she started to head right into her bedroom when he called out, “Hermione?”

“Yes?”

“That’s not your room any longer. The Dark Lord made you swear to share my bed.”

Her mouth dropped open and a hand flew up to cover it.

His lips twisted. “Don’t look so appalled. I won’t touch you.”

“That’s —“ she started. That’s not what I meant, she was going to say. She was horrified at the lack of privacy, the loss of her refuge.

But he just scoffed and got up to go over to the bar and splash liquor into a glass. He didn’t turn back to her, drinking it with his back to her.

She turned and went across the hallway to his room. The door was now unlocked.

It was larger than hers, decorated in shades of gray, ranging from a shade so dark it was almost black to a pale dove gray. The bed was massive, in the same place as hers, but occupying far more space. His coffee table was an actual table made of ebony flanked by armchairs. A peek inside revealed they had the same bathroom, though his came equipped with a sauna. His closet was also larger, and all of her robes and shoes had already been moved into it. She wondered who’d told Coral about the vow.

She dropped down onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. It was her wedding night and she fell asleep in her wedding robes.

Chapter Text

The new Lady Malfoy was in high demand. Almost every evening, she and Draco were invited to a party. Her afternoons were taken up by visitors. She drank more tea and ate more tiny sandwiches than she thought was humanly possible. But she tried to make it worthwhile by listening for little tidbits of gossip that could be useful in the future. Weaknesses. Potential for blackmail.

It was nearly a week after the wedding before she finally had an opening in the schedule to see Lavender and Ginny. Both of them faced a similar struggle of finding a free afternoon. She was disappointed Neville couldn’t make it, but he was working, having been enthusiastically requested by Blaise, knowing his talents in herbology.

But she was getting itchy, impatient to put a plan into action. She didn’t want to risk getting to comfortable here, too complacent, too accepting of this ugly world.

“We have a decision to make,” Hermione said. “Do we work on destroying Blaise, Theo, and Draco, or do we aim higher for the big fish?”

“I don’t want to kill Theo,” Lavender confessed. “He’s kind to me. He’s a good man.”

Hermione scoffed. “Good men don’t work for fascist empires.”

“Is that universally true, though?” Ginny asked.

Hermione tossed her hands in the air. “You aren’t seriously asking well, what about the nice Nazis, are you?”

Ginny shifted uncomfortably. “No, I’m saying, well, maybe everyone in this isn’t there because they believe in it, but because they were trying to protect friends or family. Some people had no choice.”

“Blaise just didn’t want people to starve,” Ginny said. “He’s never killed anyone. Never so much as cast a curse in combat. That’s why he was never promoted to Death Eater.”

Hermione rounded on Lavender. “I suppose you’re going to say Theo’s just good with numbers.”

Lavender didn’t answer.

“It could be a lot worse,” Ginny said. “We’re all being well-treated, but at the parties, I've met a lot of women who aren’t. I’m sure you’ve seen how many of the women at these parties who have empty eyes and strained smiles.”

“Merlin’s blue balls,” Hermione muttered. “They don’t get extra points for basic human decency.”

"We're just saying they're not evil people who deserve to die." Lavender twisted the sleeve of her robe.

"Whether or not they deserve it, they both are key pillars that uphold this regime.”

“So is Neville, now. He’s working with Blaise in the Agriculture Department.”

“That’s different! Neville is our inside guy, the one who will feed us information so we can destroy this. All of this.”

“I’m just saying that not everyone in the regime is there because they’re true believers.” Ginny gripped her teacup like it might try to escape her.

“Whether they believe or not, they’re complicit in upholding a man who murdered hundreds of millions of people.” Hermione poured herself more tea. “But if you’re softening toward Theo and Blaise, then our target should be Voldemort, whom I think we can all agree deserves to die.”

“Painfully,” Ginny said.

Lavender nodded. “Slowly.”

“How goes the seductions? Any progress to report?”

“Blaise is talking to me now,” Ginny said. “We’re building an accord, but he hasn’t shared anything really useful with me yet.”

“If Theo has given me any useful information, it’s buried in the thousands of pages of blather," Lavender laughed. "I’ve never seen a human so talkative. If he’s not talking, he’s asleep. Thankfully, he’s funny and charming, otherwise I would kill him."

She needed to start talking more to Draco, Hermione realized. She’d been avoiding him. Well, as much as she could, considering they shared the same bed every night. He kept late hours, so she was usually asleep by the time he came in and he was almost always gone in the morning, though there was that one weekend morning when he slept in and she’d woken curled up in his arms, her head on his chest.

She needed to step up her efforts. But she vowed she wouldn’t be like Lavender or Ginny. She wouldn’t soften. She wouldn’t forget what he had done. Draco, after all, was a full-fledged Death Eater with Voldemort’s mark on his arm.

“Taking the brick from the top of the stack doesn’t destabilize the wall, though,” Hermione said.

“We’ve all been gathering bits of gossip. Maybe the best way would be to report anything harmful we discover so those Death Eaters get taken down and destabilize them bit by bit,” Lavender suggested.

“That will take an investment of time and becoming close friends who whomever seems to have the most toxic bits of information. Like Bellatrix.”

All of them shuddered at the idea of becoming friends with that woman.

“Oh, here’s something,” Ginny said. “Neville got his wand back.”

“What? Really? Does that mean they’re going to give us ours?”

Ginny scowled. “I asked Blaise about it and he said the Dark Lord had decided we have no need for wands anyway.”

Hermione’s nails bit into her palms. Of course not. They were pampered ladies now and their elves would do their magic for them. It only reinforced her suspicion that soon, they would cease teaching magic to upper class witches … and that would eventually spread to all witches.

“Hermione,” Lavender said nervously. She was staring at the tea service on the table in front of them. All of the cups were boiling over.

“Sorry,” Hermione muttered and forced herself to calm.

That evening, after her shower, Hermione dressed in her long nightgown and robe and went out to the living room. Draco was seated in one of the armchairs, staring at nothing, a glass in his hand and a bottle at his elbow.

Hermione sat on the sofa. “May I have a drink?”

Draco looked surprised but pleased. He summoned a glass for her and filled it with a splash of Ogden’s.

“You always look different after a visit with your friends,” Draco remarked. His voice was slurred and his eyes were bleary. Drunk, she realized. More than usual. “More relaxed and open, somehow.”

“They remind me what’s important,” Hermione said and took a sip of her drink.

“I envy that, you know,” he said. “How close you are to your friends.”

“I thought Blaise and Theo were your closest friends.”

He nodded. “But I’m not able to … Theo and Blaise have that emotional connection to each other. I never have. It feels like I’m standing on the bank of a wide river, watching what I want on the other side, but never able to reach it.”

She realized he was probably the loneliest human being she’d ever encountered. Had he always been that way? Was some of his spiteful behavior as a child his way of pushing everyone away before they could reject him? “Have you ever considered therapy? A mind healer, I mean.”

He shook his head. “That’s not really an option. Not done in our circles, love.”

She took a drink. “From what I’ve seen, our circle is a toxic cesspool.”

He laughed. “It is, rather.”

She took a sip of her drink as the silence settled around them, unsure of what to say next.

His eyes sharpened for a moment. “May … may I come and sit by you?”

She nodded, and steeled herself. This was what needed to happen, she thought. Reel him in. Soften him. Get him to talking.

He grabbed the bottle and his glass and came to sit beside her on the sofa, leaving a respectful few inches between them. But his shoulder brushed against hers when he moved his arm.

He lifted his hand. “I just want to .., just once …”

When she didn’t object, he touched her hair, tentatively at first, and then he buried his fingers in it, drawing his hand back to let the strands flow through his fingers.

“So soft,” he said. “I never imagined how soft.”

“You stock good hair products,” she said, and lost her nerve. She scooted away. He dropped his hand.

“I don’t like it when you wear it bound up,” he groused.

She shrugged. “Coral and Pansy have both told me that a woman has to wear her hair up in public after she’s married.”

“Whiskey and amber,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“I was trying to find a way to describe the color of your eyes.”

Hermione felt her cheeks heat and she was a little surprised. She didn’t think she was still capable of blushing. Draco was enchanted. She looked away quickly.

“Something I wanted to ask you… didn’t you used to have a cat?”

A pang of sorrow hit her heart. “I did. Half kneazle. His name was Crookshanks.”

“What happened to him?”

“I’m not sure. He was at the Burrow while Harry and Ron and I were on the run. I’m told the house was razed when Molly and Arthur were killed. I hope he escaped, but I have no way of knowing.”

“I know that you can never replace a pet. Or at least, that’s what I’m told. But I was wondering if you would like another kneazle?”

She stared at him. “Why are you offering this?”

“I thought perhaps it might make you a little … happier here.”

Did he really care about her happiness? That threw her a little. She'd thought of him as being only concerned with his own desires. But maybe he was thinking that softening her would get him closer to his goals.

“Have you ever had a pet?” she asked.

 “Never. My parents … they would never allow that.” He gave her a flat smile, almost a grimace.

Ah, an opening. “It couldn’t have been easy for you, growing up with them. You once said you weren’t able to conjure a patronus until after your father died. Does that mean you never had a happy memory to use?”

“I shouldn’t have told you that,” he mumbled, and took a deep drink.

“Why not?”

“As I was raised, you don’t talk about such things. Family matters are private.”

“Well, I’m family now. You’ve no reason to hide it from me.”

“Only my shame.” He finished off the glass and poured another. “I’d rather you not see me as weak.”

“I don’t see you as weak. It just helps me understand who you are and the choices you’ve made.”

“They’re dead,” he said with a swish of his hand. In the distance, she heard something break, as though he had thrown a glass. “So it no longer matters.”

“When did they die? I saw Narcissa at the Battle of Hogwarts.”

“She was executed afterward for lying and saying Potter was dead the first time. Still, to this day, I don't know why she did that. Maybe she was trying to play both sides. In any case, after that, my father lost what little restraint he had. I wouldn’t … I wouldn’t be who he wanted me to be and so he schemed and lost. The Dark Lord killed him, personally.”

“What did you do afterward?” she asked softly. “The thing that gave you a happy enough memory to conjure a patronus?”

“That’s enough for tonight,” he said, getting woozily to his feet. “Goodnight, kitten.” He bowed down and took her hand and gave it a courtly kiss. He turned and headed toward his room.

“Draco?” she called.

He stopped and looked back at her, and there was something in his expression. A longing deeper than anything she had ever known.

“I — I would like a pet,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be a cat. Something you would enjoy, too. No reptiles though.”

“Only magical creatures can survive the radiation,” he said.

She gave him a tentative smile. “I’m sure you’ll find something.”

Draco shot up in the bed, gasping like he’d been running. Hermione was jolted out of sleep.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nightmare.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. They usually don’t happen when I drink. Which is a large part of the reason why I drink.”

“Could you take a Dreamless Sleep potion?”

He shook his head. “Long story. Go back to sleep, Hermione.”

“You too.”

He shook his head and threw aside the blankets. “It’s almost time to get up, anyway.”

“Draco …”

But he had already left the room.

A few days later, Draco tapped on her door and carried in a basket. He looked so nervous, she almost reached out to reassure him. She was confusing herself. He was becoming humanized. She didn’t want to think along those lines. She was supposed to seduce him and get him to the point he’d tell her useful information, but she didn’t want to fall into the pit of liking him back.

He put the basket on her table. “If it’s … wrong, or not what you want, I’ll take it back.”

“Draco, what is it?”

“Just look inside.”

She lifted the lid of the basket and gasped. Inside was a crup.

They could be mistaken for Jack Russell terriers, except that they had two tails, both of which were flailing wildly when the cruppy saw her. Its fur was caramel and white. Black eyes shone with excitement.

Hermione lifted the cruppy out and peeked beneath. A girl. She brought the wriggling ball of fur in for a cuddle and she began plastering Hermione’s neck and chin with kisses.

“In the old days, the law required that we crop at least one of the tails, but that’s not necessary any more.”

Right. Because two hundred million Muggles were dead. And the man who had just given her this adorable creature was complicit.

“But if you still want to, for appearance sake —”

“Absolutely not,” Hermione thundered, prepared to give a lecture on the cruelties of cropping if necessary. “Nature gave her two tails and she will keep them.”

“It’s litter box trained and has been given some basic obedience lessons,” Draco said. “We’ll take her on walks in the evening, if that suits you.”

She nodded. She would love to get outdoors again.

“I did some reading on crups and their teeth are incredibly sharp. They can also eat anything. They’ve been known to eat car tires. I wanted to warn you to watch that you don’t leave any shoes unattended. You may want to put any sentimental items on a high shelf.”

The only sentimental items she had were Harry’s glasses and the Resurrection Stone. She usually carried both in the empty wand pocket in her robe or tucked them in her nightstand whenever she was home. But she appreciated the warning.

She sat on the sofa and the cruppy gamboled about sniffing everything and picking up a pillow, which she shook ferociously. Hermione giggled and took the pillow from her.

“I’ve never heard you laugh like that,” Draco said softly.

“Come over here and make friends with the cruppy,” Hermione said.

He sat uneasily on the edge of the sofa and the cruppy hopped over to him, sniffing. Draco held out a hand and the crup licked it enthusiastically.

“Pet her,” Hermione urged.

Draco put his hand on the crup’s back and gave a little brush across the fur. The cruppy loved it and rubbed her head against his hand in response. She watched him slowly warm to the animal until it was standing on his lap and he was laughing as he tried to avoid having his face licked.

She’d never heard him laugh like that, either.

“What shall we call her?”

“Whatever you’d like,” he said offhandedly.

“No, I’d like for you to name her,” Hermione said. “I’ve had the experience of naming a pet. You never have.”

After a long pause, he said “Buttons.”

“Why Buttons?”

He looked a little abashed like he thought she was going to mock him for his stupidity. “Because her eyes are like little shiny black buttons.”

“I like it,” Hermione said and wondered why she was being kind to him. She should just say “fine” and let it go at that. No, she should have named the crup herself and never offered it to him.

She had told him she was going to be cruel. Why wasn’t she being cruel?

That evening, they went to the elevator to take Buttons on a walk. Hermione was surprised that there was no leash, but Draco seemed equally surprised she thought they needed to keep their pet tied to them with a rope.

When they stepped outside, she took a deep breath of the fresh air, able to enjoy it more now that there wasn’t a horrible event looming at the end of the walk. They headed down the city street. It was hauntingly quiet with all of the cars gone, and the immaculate streets looked wider. So quiet that she could hear Buttons’ nails click against the pavement and the little snorts she made as she sniffed everything in her path. She stayed right alongside Hemione and Draco, deviating only a little from their path from curiosity, but always darting back over to join them when it seemed they’d move on without her.

The storefronts were vacant. Someone must have vanished the Muggle clothing and electronics and jewelry they once held. They were now just black voids. The buildings would start deteriorating soon, she thought, if they hadn’t already. Would Voldemort let the city crumble around him, or would he insist on keeping it in shape for the future he envisioned in which it was filled with wizarding businesses?

They walked the few blocks west to Boston Common park. It probably had a new name now, but Hermione didn’t ask for it. Someone was keeping the grass mowed, she noted. Likely elves. They saw a few wizardfolk strolling the paths, but otherwise the large park was vacant. She thought of how this park used to hum with activity — the skateboarders, the bicyclists shouting “On your left,” the old men feeding the ducks — and her eyes shimmered with tears.

They approached the Frog Pond, but it was just a dead body of water now, no frogs or ducks or fish. Buttons didn’t even have a squirrel to chase.

They looped around the path and crossed Park Street to another green space. She looked around in confusion. “Didn’t there use to be a church and an old cemetery there?”

“The cemetery was emptied,” Draco said. “The spell that Vanishes all Muggle corpses cleared it out. So the land was reclaimed.”

“And the church?”

“The Dark Lord decided there was no use for those. Our strongest wizards are using them as practice for trying to vanish the melted-down reactors.”

She looked back at the Commons park and could just see the top of the carousel by the pond, which stood silent and still, and Hermione wondered why. All of the Muggle statues and memorials had been removed. Why was a Muggle amusement ride still there?

But, as Draco had said, she was searching for logic within illogical situation.

“Hermione,” Draco said, breaking the silence. “I would like — would you mind if — Could I hold your hand?”

His cheeks had pinkened again.

She nodded and held out her hand. His slipped into hers, cool and smooth. He had a callus along his index finger where he held his wand, but his skin was otherwise soft.

He gave a small chuckle. “I’ve been trying to think of a pleasant topic to try to get you talking. But there aren’t many pleasant topics these days, are there?”

“The weather’s nice,” she said, looking around at the budding trees. “I’m glad the cruppy gave us a reason to go on a walk.”

“I should have invited you out sooner. You must have been going stir-crazy locked in the apartment for so long.”

“I suppose it gave me time to adjust,” she said.

“It’s getting dark,” he noted. “We should head back.”

“Is it dangerous after dark?”

He hesitated a moment, but he answered honestly. “The Dark Lord has been having trouble keeping some of the creatures contained. Vampires are starving now that there aren’t any Muggles and wizardfolk are so unwilling to allow them to drink from them.”

“Didn’t Voldemort foresee this as a consequence of killing off all the Muggles?”

“You’re assuming he cares that vampires may starve to death.” Draco’s voice was grim. “And if a vampire attacks a wizardfolk, well, that just helps him track down their kiss and eradicate them faster. He’s hoping they’ll leave and go … er … infest other countries.”

“I’m no fan of vampires, but why does he hate them so much?”

“He hates all magical beings that approximate humans. Beings like elves and centaurs are acceptable because they’re obviously not human. Provided, of course, they stay in their subservient positions.”

“But what —”

Suddenly, he hissed and grabbed his arm. “Fuck! I’m sorry, Hermione, but I have to cut this short. My Mark is burning. I’m being summoned.”

He whistled and Buttons ran over. He scooped her up, grabbed Hermione’s arm and apparated them back into the lobby of their apartment building.

“You can trust me to go up if you need to leave,” she said.

“I have to go up with you anyway. I need some of your blood.”

She was silent until they arrived. He gently deposited Buttons on the floor and summoned a vial. “Sorry,” he murmured as he sliced into her finger with a motion of his wand. He caught about six drops before sealing up the wound. He took her hand and brought it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her finger.

“What Ginny said I’m best at. Kissing ouchies.”

She gave him a little chuckle, and he headed back out into the hallway. The door closed slowly and she saw him summoning the elevator.

An idea occurred to her and she slipped down the hallway toward their bedroom. There was a door that led to a small room that had probably been created as a dressing room, but he used as his office. She tried the doorknob. He’d left it unlocked. For a moment, she hesitated. Had he been careless, or was this a trap?

Quickly, she slipped inside. She wouldn’t have long. She gave Buttons a toy to play with to keep her occupied.

The walls were lined with bookshelves. Her eye caught on a familiar cover and she paused. Chronicles of Narnia. She had that edition as a kid. A book that was banned under the Voldemort regime’s rules against books that contained Muggles’ perverted views of magic. In fact, there were a lot of titles that would have fallen under that restriction. Anne Rice’s vampire books. Dune. Lord of the Rings. Terry Goodkind. Did Draco have a secret love for Muggle novels?

But she couldn’t spend time examining the shelves. She had to look for what she came to find and get out of here. Who knew how long he’d be gone?

His desk was in one of the corners, an old, battered slant-top desk with an inkwell and quill at the ready at top. An odd piece of furniture, she thought. So plain and rough. It didn't match the decor here, or in Malfoy Manor. She lifted the top swiftly, rifling through the scrolls and parchments, and unrolled the first scroll she grasped.

It was a report that said the fertility of witches in the United States continued to drop. It was blamed on the radiation. Half-bloods, oddly, seemed to be less affected by the lowered fertility. Interesting that they’d track numbers for halfbloods and Muggleborns when Voldemort’s official policy was that they were mistaken about having any Muggle blood.

Another document was a memo from Blaise, reminding Draco that in the radiation cleanup, they’d also have to factor in the nuclear plants all over the US that had gone into meltdown after the bombs fell. They’d have to be Vanished and no one currently was powerful enough to vanish a whole power plant at once. Wizards were immune to background radiation, but radiation that intense was an unknown, so dismantling them bit by bit might be impossible too.

The next report she picked up was about the experiments to clean up the radiation. She unfurled it to read and the movement of a shadow caught her eye. She whirled around.

Draco stood behind her at the doorway.

Chapter Text

Hermione let out a short scream of surprise and dropped the scroll she was reading. She retreated against the back wall.

“Hermione, come here,” Draco said and then added, “please,” so it wouldn’t be a command.

She shook her head wildly.

He came over to her. She held her hands out defensively. She didn’t want to reveal her wandless magic yet, but she would if she needed to protect herself.

Draco raised his hand slowly and cupped her cheek in his palm. “You look so terrified.”

She remembered what Lavender had said about her looking angry when she was scared. Was that no longer true, or could Draco see through it?

Slowly, as if to give her the chance to escape, he drew her into his arms, his hand still cupped against her face. “Shh. Shh. It’s okay.”

She noted that awful smell clung to him again, that reek of rot in the folds of his robes. She turned her face away.

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “I saw the fear in your eyes, Hermione, and it bothered me. I’m not going to hurt you. I told you that the first day when you arrived, and I meant it.”

He drew back to look down into her face. “Now, what were you doing in here?”

“Snooping,” she confessed.

He picked up the scroll she had dropped. “Keeping everyone out of my office is a force of habit, a holdover from the days when I wasn’t allowed privacy, so when I got some personal space of my own, I defended it fiercely. But there’s nothing particularly secret about the items in here. I know better than to bring home anything that could be dangerous.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry I haven’t made toppling the regime easier on you,” Draco said with a small smile. He plunked his medical bag on top of the desk and dropped a few more papers beside it. Ge gestured to them. “Reports on nutrition, if you’re interested. I’m trying to get the Dark Lord to allow a budget for eggs and dairy products for children in poverty.”

“And fruit,” she said.

“Fruit? Why?”

“Do you know what scurvy is?”

He shook his head and sat down on the edge of his desk. Hermione launched into a description of it and ways it could be prevented.

“Hmm,” he said. “Would you mind talking to Blaise about this? We haven’t really ramped up fruit production here in the States, but if you think it’s necessary, we’ll devote some resources to it.”

She blinked.

“Don’t be so surprised, Hermione. I recognize that Muggles knew aspects of medicine we did not. Antibiotics and mind healing are two areas in which Muggle culture far exceeded our capabilities.”

Her eyes drifted back over to the shelves, and she touched a book’s spine.

“If you want to come in here and read, you’re welcome to do so, but please don’t take any of these books out of this room. I can get away with having them; you can’t get away with being caught reading them.”

“His eventual goal is to eradicate female education, isn’t it?”

Draco shook his head. “Not really. He thinks women should have basic literacy and if they want to learn independently, he doesn’t care, even though he sees it as a waste of time. A witch can’t do anything with higher education.”

He gazed at her for a moment. “I can see the howling, fathomless rage in your eyes.”

“How can you support this?”

Draco lowered the lid of his desk. “I was raised in that world. The idea of women working in the professional world … it seemed very Muggle to us. You saw us on the cusp of modernizing, and then Voldemort brought us back to the old ways. A lot of the wizarding world approved of that.”

“Do you approve of that?”

“No,” he said softly. “I don’t. It’s wrong that a mind like yours wouldn’t be utilized.”

“So, we need to change it.”

He looked away. “You can’t solve every problem, Hermione.”

Perhaps not, but she was willing to keep on fighting for it. She paced, staring at the titles on the shelves. “Why aren’t you angry about me being in here?”

He shrugged. “I knew you’d come in at some point. If it was locked, you’d find a way to pick it, even without your wand. After all, you’re the girl who broke into the Restricted Section at night to study.”

She was startled. “How do you know that?”

“I used to watch you.” He gave her a crooked smile.

“But why?”

He opened his bag and reached in to search for something, but she was pretty sure it was to avoid her eyes. “I envied you, remember?”

“That doesn’t seem an adequate explanation.”

His eyes snapped back up and burned into hers. “Maybe I lusted for you even then.”

She scoffed. “You were so hateful to me. You mocked my teeth. My hair.”

“And I’m sorry about that. More than you know. It’s not an excuse, but I didn’t understand what I was feeling. My parents taught me only that emotions were to be suppressed, so I never learned how to deal with them. I was ugly and cruel because I pushed everything into hate.”

She understood better than she wanted to admit. She, too, was guilty of pushing her emotions under something that was easier to feel — anger.

“You say you wanted me, but you watched your aunt torture me. She hit me with cruciatus curse, Draco. Watched her carve MUDBLOOD into my arm with a cursed knife so that it took years — and some dark magic of my own — to heal it. Have you ever been crucioed, Draco? Do you know how it feels?”

He met her eyes. “Yes, Hermione. I have.”

She hadn’t expected that answer. She knew Voldemort’s ranks were a cruel and vicious place, but he was the Malfoy princeling. Who would dare?

“Who?” she whispered. “Who did it to you?”

He was silent for so long she didn’t think he was going to answer. “My parents.”

A stunned breath whooshed out of her. She’d once heard someone describe the cruciatus as the closest thing a human being could experience to being burned at the stake while being electrocuted at the same time, and she thought it was an apt description. That a person’s parents would do that to them, even parents who were cold and occasionally cruel, was unthinkable.

“Why?”

“Because I disobeyed an order.” Draco’s reply was too quick, too easy. There was more to it.

She dug in. “What was the order?”

He turned his back to her and put his hands on the desk’s slanted top. “Does it matter?”

“What was the order?”

“I was ordered to kill someone.” Draco’s voice was so low that she had to strain to hear it. “I refused. I was threatened with punishment. I continued to refuse.”

“Draco, that’s —”

He turned back to her, but his eyes were fixed elsewhere, as though he couldn’t look at her. “My mother told me I was weak. Pathetic.”

Hermione winced. She’d used that word on him.

“They took turns.”

To cast a cruciatus, you had to really mean it. How could his parents have hated him that much?

“How … how long? How many times?” The human body wasn’t equipped to endure it for long. People could die or go mad.

He shook his head. “I lost track. All night. The sun was up when they threw me down the stairs into the dungeon because their magic was drained.” He turned to her, his face even paler than usual, a cynical smile pinned in place. “Don’t look so sad, Granger. It’s why I’m a healer today. As it turns out, I have incredible healing powers. I should have died. I should have been unable to walk or talk or think straight. I shouldn’t have been able to hold my wand steady ever again. But I healed myself inch by inch before they returned. Instead of finishing me off for my disobedience, the Dark Lord was impressed by my skills in patching myself together and here I am today, using those powers.”

The tone in which he delivered the last left no doubt he’d have rather died in that dungeon.

She walked over to him. He turned his head away. She wasn't sure if it was because she was trying to manipulate his emotions or from her own, but she put her arms around him. His body stiffened for a moment and then melted against hers. He pulled her up tightly against him and dropped his head down to her shoulder, his face buried in her hair. She heard him whisper her name. His hands stroked over her shoulders, her back.

He drew back a few inches. His eyes searched her face for something. She didn’t know if he found it or not, but he slowly leaned forward until his lips found hers. Soft, tentative, as gentle as a butterfly landing on a flower. He tilted his head and did it again from another angle.

He drew back. “Thank you. I won’t take further advantage of your pity. But thank you.”

Hermione watched as he left the room. She heard the plunk of a cork being pulled from a bottle and then the splash of liquid into a glass.

She closed her eyes. She knew she was at a crossroads. A moment that could change everything.

She went into the living room and summoned a glass and lifted the bottle. Draco watched in amazement as the glass filled itself and floated over to her hand.

Now he knew he wasn’t the only one with special abilities. And even as she sat down on the couch beside him and took her first sip, she kept asking herself if it was right to have revealed it. Could she trust him with that knowledge?

“How long have you been drinking like this?” she asked.

“Since fourth — no, fifth year.” He gave her that crooked smile again. “Crushing depression and suicidal ideation are something else we have in common. I found a potion that could mask the outward effects and I had an invisible flask I could carry with me throughout class days. On days when I had to play Quidditch, I used potions to get me through.”

“Draco … I’m sorry. I’m sorry your life was like that.”

“I won’t claim my life over the past few years has been joyful, but when my parents were alive, things were much worse. I actually wasn’t up on the astronomy tower to kill Dumbledore.”

“You were going to kill yourself.”

He gave a brief nod. “But when the fucker arrived up there ... I tried to follow my orders. I couldn’t do it. The Dark Lord had threatened my parents. They were most upset to find out that wasn’t sufficient inducement. But my mother had a backup, forcing Snape to follow through if I was too weak to fulfil my task.”

“Was refusing to kill Dumbledore the reason that they …”

He shook his head. “I was given another chance to prove my loyalty. I refused outright. And … well … that’s why I ended up broken into pieces in the dungeon of Malfoy Manor.”

“How do you have the Mark?”

“My father. At one time, he was the apple of Voldemort’s eye. And so, at his pleasure, I was given the Dark Mark and made the youngest Death Eater, but despite my father’s promises, I failed to live up to it. I still get occasional snide remarks from my peers about being the Healer Death Eater.”

“So, you’ve never actually … killed somebody?”

“Not directly, no.”

“Indirectly?”

“Indirectly and unintentionally, yes.” He finished off his glass and poured another.

“I have,” she said.

“I heard.” He tipped his glass at her in mock salute. “Quite a nasty spell for a nice girl like you to know.”

She took a drink. “Neville was quite horrified. I can’t imagine what Harry would have said. Disarm, stun, immobilize. Even at the most perilous moment of his life, faced with Voldemort himself, he would only try to disarm him.”

“Let’s drink to the memory of Saint Potter,” Draco said, and slammed back the rest of the contents of his glass. “Who died for his dumbass principles.”

“I know you disliked him.”

“I didn’t dislike him. I had no respect for him. Something quite different. Potter was an idealistic fool.”

“Yes,” Hermione said sadly, “He was.”

Draco raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t expect you to agree with that one.”

“Harry and I argued about it several times. I felt that running and escaping weren’t quite enough. We needed to end the war. We needed to end Voldemort and keep fighting until we’d taken apart the whole damn system. Or, well … this.” she gestured vaguely at everything with her glass.

“You’re a realist,” he said. “But you still retain some idealism. You still think you can somehow remake the world."

"I’m under no illusions that I can singlehandedly bring it all down. But there are bricks I can remove that will destabilize the wall enough to give other people a change to topple it.” Maybe she should stop drinking around him, Hermione thought. She was telling him too much.

“You’ll die,” Draco said flatly.

“Some things are worth dying for. Some deaths are a price worth paying.”

“Oh, Hermione.” He shook his head.

“Why did you give in to it?” she demanded. “You know this is wrong. Yet you’re working for it.”

“I … never really had the chance for much different.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped. “You could have joined us —”

“And ended up pointlessly dead or parceled off to whichever sycophant was willing to breed with me? No thanks. Hermione, I saw the signs. I saw that Voldemort’s win was inevitable, especially when his main opponents were literally child soldiers that Dumbledore fully intended to sacrifice. What you refuse to acknowledge is that most of wizardfolk wants this.”

“You’re right, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe most wizardfolk wanted to kill two hundred and fifty million people.”

“They may not have wanted to kill them, but they’re not particularly upset they’re gone. Did you know we had to set up immigration limits? Because wizardfolk from all over the world want to come here and live in the Muggle-free country. Witches feel like their children are safer. Wizards feel they have more economic opportunity. Magical creatures like centaurs now have vast swathes of territory.”

Hermione emptied her glass. “And what of witches like me who want education and the opportunities for careers? Who don’t want to be mares bred until their bodies wear out?”

“Hermione, you have Muggle sensibilities in a Wizarding world. Your idea of freedom is not shared by everyone.”

The whiskey was making her bolder. “Are you sincerely trying to sell me on the idea that most women want a world where their fingernails are pulled off if they wear nail polish? What does Voldemort do if a woman wears face powder? Does he tear off their skin? I never asked.”

“No, you’re right, people aren’t fond of that. But a great deal of them feel it’s necessary to purify society and once things are back to … how they think they should be, they’ll …”

“They’ll what?” Hermione shouted. “They’ll nicely ask for fascism to end? Once it’s established, Draco, it doesn’t end except in blood. It never has. History tells us that.”

Fury boiled in her veins. Maybe he was weak, if he’d meekly accept this abomination.

Buttons hopped up on the couch beside her and nudged at her arm. Hermione began to absently pet her, but Buttons wasn’t content with that. She crawled onto Hermione’s lap and stood to lick at her chin.

“She’s trying to diffuse tension,” Draco marveled.

“Yes, pets do that. Crookshanks used to jump on Harry and nearly knock him down when he and I were arguing.”

“Is that what this is?” Draco asked. “Our first argument as a couple? On the same day as our first real kiss?”

“That wasn’t a real kiss,” she scoffed. “This is a real kiss.”

She grabbed him by the back of his head and tilted his face up. His eyes were wide with shock as she dove in. She’d never kissed someone with passion fueled by anger, but she found it made her heart pound just the same.

His tongue tentatively stroked back at hers. And then it was as though he had been unleashed. He pushed her back against the couch, his mouth hungry, exploring, graceless. She could have guided the kiss to show him what she liked, but she let him discover it on his own.

"You’re making little sounds,” he whispered, drawing back a scant millimeter from her lips. He let out a shaky breath and flicked her lip with his tongue. “You’re driving me mad. Living with you without being able to touch you is torment.”

“Give me what I want, and I’ll let you kiss me like this whenever you want,” she said.

"Tell me.”

“Ginny, Lavender, and Neville come over at least once a week.”

“Yes,” he said instantly. He buried his hands in her hair and kissed her like she was the last drop of water in a desert oasis.

“I don’t think he’s as solid as he appears,” Hermione said to her friends the following afternoon. “He says things that are critical of the regime. He doesn’t agree with their sadistic punishments for small misbehavior.”

“I’ve got Blaise in the same spot,” Ginny said. “He admits he hates it. He’s telling me more every day. There’s a food crisis they’re ignoring. They’re growing enough, but middlemen are buying up the food when it’s harvested and then jacking up the prices to resell to the consumer. Voldemort ignores it; calls it capitalism. But hungry people are resentful people. Blaise says he didn’t take over agriculture to create a new way to make people hungry. Which reminds me — he said he wanted to talk to you about fruit?”

Hermione explained.

“So, Malfoy’s listening to you.”

Hermione nodded. “And is willing to let me out of going to tea with Lady Whoever today so I can meet with my friends.”

“Nev, you haven’t told us how things are going with Romilda.”

“Poorly,” he said, rubbing Buttons’ belly. “She’s terrified of me. Seems to think I’m some kind of feral cannibal wildman.”

“Are you working on her?” Lavender asked.

Neville sighed. “Honestly, no. I’ve just been ignoring her as she sneaks around the apartment as if I’ll jump on her at any moment. Voldemort has our wedding set for next week.”

“That’s even before us!” Ginny said.

He nodded. “I think it’s because I’m a man and I have a maiden trapped in my cave. Doesn’t look good to the public. If I’m going to abuse that woman, they want her to be my wife when I do it.”

“Well, Romilda isn’t as important, as information goes,” Ginny said. “She could only tell us more about what Blaise is doing and I don’t think he’s hiding much.”

“Theo’s a nervous wreck,” Lavender said. “I think that’s why he never shuts up. He’s keeping everything held together with Spell-O-Tape and wishes. There’s a shitload of effort going into making everything appear to be working well. There is a growing coalition of nations that’s boycotting.”

“We just have to tip the right dominoes,” Hermione said.

“What about you? Are you still willing to kill Draco?”

“If it’s necessary,” Hermione said, despite a twinge that made her wonder if she was really as firm as her words conveyed. “But he’s valuable right now. I think I can get him to reveal more information with the right … encouragement.”

Ginny snorted. “Is that what we’re calling a fuck these days? Honestly, I’m surprised you’ve held out this long. Keeping him pining for it?”

“I’m going to have to escalate soon,” Hermione said. He was bringing home more documents for her to read, things he deemed as undangerous for her to know. But putting them all together was adding up to a very interesting picture. It made her wonder what the dangerous things would be.

She knew he was hoping she would see the immutability of this society; instead she saw cracks that could be wedged apart. She just needed to know the secrets he was hiding.

And she was pretty sure she knew how to get him talking.

Chapter Text

It took her a week to sum up her courage. Each time she edged closer to taking that next step, she’d back off at the last moment. She wasn’t afraid, exactly. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. It was an odd, awkward bashfulness, a nervousness with no name. She stared at her own eyes in the mirror and knew she had to take the leap because she was being ridiculous.

She was still awake, reading, when he came to bed. It was rather early for him. He was drinking considerably less these days, replacing it with an addiction to her lips.

He slid under the covers beside her and she had to look away from the heat in his gaze. He pushed her back into the pillows and loomed over her for a moment before his lips found hers. His first kiss was gentle as it always was. Her fingers twined in his incredibly soft hair, and he gave a small moan.

He had remained within the boundaries of their agreement. He never touched her below the neck, or pushed her for more than kisses. But he took his full measure. Hours of kisses. Slow kisses, rough and wild kisses that heated her blood along with his. Kisses that felt pleading, and kisses that were demanding.

His hands were buried in her hair. His chest pressed on hers and she could feel the hammering of his heart. On evenings like this, he kissed her until he could take it no longer and then excused himself for a shower.

He finally drew away from her lips, gasping as if the air in the room was too thin. He sat up, facing away from her, trying to hide how much it affected him.

She inwardly girded her loins and reached out and caught his arm. “Stay.”

The hunger in his gaze made her gut clench. “Hermione …”

“Stay,” she repeated, and held out her arms.

His voice was rough. “I want to be clear.”

She nodded. “Just … um ... be kind. I haven’t done this before.”

The longing in his gaze was almost enough to break her because she knew that for him, this meant far more than simply satisfying the flesh. “Neither have I.”

She suspected as much from his initially untutored kisses.

“We’ll go slow.”

“Slow,” he said, and it sounded almost like a growl. He came around the bed to her side and drew her to a sitting position. He knelt beside her and slid the nightgown up her calf and trailed it inch by inch with his lips.

He kissed up her thigh, and she gasped. She lifted up a little so he could raise the nightgown over her waist. His lips followed her exposed skin, up her bare stomach, over her chest to her collarbone and then he drew the nightgown over her head and tossed it to the side.

She knew the underwear wasn’t exactly sexy. She was mostly covered from mid-thigh to chest, but he looked at her as though she was the most erotic thing he had ever seen. And perhaps she was.

He gave a little laugh. “I don’t really know where to start.”

“Let’s both get all of this off and we’ll go from there.”

Wizard underwear, as it turned out, was just ordinary boxers. Typical that men wouldn’t have weird restrictions on their clothes. He stripped it off quickly and slid under the covers as if a little embarrassed by his nudity. And she understood; she was uncomfortable about her own. But when they were both under the blankets, it felt warmer, more relaxed, more natural.

He kissed her again, not holding back the eagerness of his lips. His hand slipped up her ribs, slowly, every movement a question, giving her time to reject it if she wanted, before finally reaching her breast, gently caressing around the softness of her skin, learning its shape. Her breath caught. He stroked her nipple, and she moved a little restlessly. She hadn’t expected to be so … involved. But his touch felt incredible.

His lips left hers and trailed down, over the soft slope of her throat to follow the line of her collarbone. He dipped his tongue in the depression between them and she jumped. She felt his hot breath on the underside of her breast and then on her nipple. His tongue, a quick hot touch, and she heard a little moan leave her lips. He tried it again and she squirmed as she dug her fingers into the back of his neck.

His hands slipped down, skimming over her navel and then lower, to the thatch of curls between her thighs. He groaned and dropped his head on her chest. “Just ... give me a minute,” he whispered, and went still, taking deep breaths.

His fingers began to move again, stroking her, playing with her curls, and then slipping into her cleft as his tongue learned the contours of her nipples. Hermione arched up, gasping.

“You’re going to have to help me,” he said. “I know I’ll probably last ten seconds, so we need to make sure you’re satisfied first. Yes?”

She nodded.

“Just tell me what you like, okay?”

She did, with gasps and moans and writhing that she couldn’t contain, and he paid attention, quickly working out the rhythm she liked. The orgasm hit her like a truck, knocking her back against the pillows and something like a wail came out of her mouth. It had been a very long time since she’d even had the inclination to touch herself, so she supposed she had a lot of energy saved up.

“At least one more,” he whispered, and she started to wriggle away and protest she was too sensitive but in just a moment, her body was arching in demand. She had time to feel the second one build, but it was no less intense when it hit.

His weight settled over her, and she felt him prodding against her. “Tell me if I’m hurting you,” he panted.

He slid inside bit by bit. She could feel his arms trembling, and he had his eyes closed, taking deep breaths. There was a bit of a burn and ache as her body adjusted to him, but nothing she’d describe as pain.

“Good?” he rasped.

“Yes.”

“No pain?”

“No.”

He tried moving a little and swore.

He paused and tried again.

He gave a small, helpless laugh. “I’m sorry, I really can’t —”

“Just go,” she urged him.

He reached down and stroked her with his fingers until she was arching and panting against him. He moved then and it was enough to tip her over. She shook against him, gasping as he groaned, low and deep. He threw his head back and when he looked back down at her, his eyes were like stars.

He kissed her then, sweetly, gently before rolling over beside her. He grabbed his wand and performed a quick charm over her.

“Was that the contraceptive charm?” she blurted.

“I’m relatively certain you’re not interested in pregnancy right now.”

“Yes, but my vow —”

“You vowed you would use no contraceptives. Your vow said nothing about me.”

He must be right because she didn’t die.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to her, and she gasped as she pushed her tumbled hair from her face.

“You alright?” he asked.

“My blood,” she said. “You were giving Voldemort drops of my blood and now I’m no longer a virgin.”

He scoffed. “There’s nothing special about virgin blood. Think of it. How would your blood know if you have a hymen or not?”

“I don’t know. Magic doesn’t always make sense.”

“Well, trust me when I say there is no difference. I lied. I pretended your blood had an extra power, but in truth, its power was something I could do all along that I hadn’t been doing.”

“You lied?”

“I lied,” he agreed. “I lied so you wouldn’t be forced to … I only wanted you in my arms if you came willingly. So, yes, I lied to spare you.”

She kissed him and cupped his cheek in her hand. “Thank you.”

“I could spend the rest of my life right here, with you looking at me like that,” he said. “Come with me for a shower. I’ve always fantasized about you in the shower.”

In the shower, he wanted to try out another fantasy he’d had about kneeling in front of her, his face buried between her thighs, his tongue working out the best way to set her to quaking.

He turned her around and she braced her arms on the walls of the shower as he slid into her. “Okay? Not sore?” His fingers found her, much more confidently now.

“No,” she grit out between clenched teeth. Her body was already pulsing. He started thrusting and she tried to stifle a scream. She was coming and he was hitting some spot within her just right and her legs shook so hard she thought she would fall.

They stumbled out of the shower, and he used his wand to dry them after casting the contraceptive charm again so they could tumble back into the bed.

His eyes were practically glowing when he looked at her and she had to look away quickly.

Don’t love me. I can’t love you back. I’m using you. I’m manipulating you.

He let out a soft, contented sigh and snuggled his face into the crook of her neck. She waited until his breathing changed to that of sleep and then slid from his arms to head into the bathroom. She met her eyes in the mirror and told herself she was doing the right thing.

Buttons snuffled at Draco’s face and she heard his mumbled, “What the fuck?”

“Hmm?” Hermione rolled over and gave the crup an ear scratch.

“Why is the crup in the bed?” Draco asked.

“Where else would she sleep?”

“Hasn’t she a bed of her own?”

“She ate it.” Hermione craned her neck. “Along with the clothes we left on the floor last night.”

“Worth it,” Draco declared. He gave her a wicked grin and grabbed Buttons with one hand, depositing her outside the door and shutting it firmly. He dived under the covers from the foot of the bed. He found Hermione’s ankle and grabbed it. She felt him bite her on the ankle bone and squealed. With a growl, he started kissing his way up her leg, pausing to nip and bite punctuated by little snarls, making her giggle, even as the kisses started heating her blood.

Playful Malfoy was something she hadn’t expected.

He reached his destination and she cried out. Her legs were over his shoulders, her feet braced on his back. She arched up to meet his mouth, just as hungry and demanding as he was.

He didn’t stop with just one. He seemed determined to make her drunk with pleasure. She was bleary and wrung out by the time he was satisfied. He came up to give her a slow kiss before he rolled over onto his back, taking her with him.

She was perched up there, awkward as hell. “I’ve never …”

“Well, me either,” he said. “Don’t worry. You can’t do anything wrong.”

She positioned herself and held him so she could guide him in, and he let out a moan so sharp it sounded almost painful. She slid down onto him bit by bit. From this position, she felt the soreness, but it wasn’t bad. Not enough to make her stop, anyway.

It took a few tries to find the right rhythm that pleased them both, and when she found it, she shamelessly ground herself against him until she shattered, throwing her head back as she cried out.

Draco stared up at her with something like awe on his face, then turned them over so she was laying on the bed again. He quickly cast the contraceptive charm and his fingers caressed her cheek.

“Hermione,” he said. “I —"

Coral popped into the room, holding a breakfast tray. “Good morning, my lord and my lady!”

Hermione grabbed the sheet and pulled it to her neck.

“I … er … Good morning, Coral. Is it seven?”

“Ten minutes, after, my lady. But you were busy.”

Hermione thought she would melt from the embarrassment.

Coral put down the tray, bowed, and winked away.

“Don’t be upset,” Draco said with a laugh. “Coral has been with me since I was a baby. She probably knows my body better than I know it. It’s simply a natural function.”

“My mom was with me from the time I was a baby and I wouldn’t want her to see this.”

Draco scratched his chest. “It’s different somehow. They see us in the bathroom. They help us dress. They help us when we’re sick.”

“I let her pick my clothes and style my hair. That’s about as far as I’m willing to go for personal maintenance.”

“Give it time. You’ll have her washing your hair in the bath in no time.”

She scowled at him, and his grin fell. He didn’t understand. He probably couldn’t understand. To him, having an elf tend to his every need was a natural part of life. To her, it was slavery.

It was a welcome reminder of what she was supposed to be doing in this bed. She was here for a purpose, and she had to keep that in mind.

They ate breakfast in bed. Hearing chewing that wasn't coming from either of them, Hermione peeked over the edge.

“Buttons has one of your shoes.”

“Wingtip or loafer?”

“It’s in shreds, so hard to say. Loafer I think.”

He shrugged. “Fuck it.”

Hermione sipped her tea. He looked younger today, like he no longer carried the weight of all of his sorrows. He looked … happy.

“Draco?”

“Hmm?” He took a lock of her hair in his fingers and began to play with it, sliding it around his fingers.

“What was the blood for?”

“I told you, I used it to lie —”

“No, what were you using it for? You said you had an ability you weren’t using? How did the blood tie into that?”

He chose his words carefully. “I created a potion or a spell and said the blood made it more powerful.”

“But what kind of spell or potion?”

“You’re being very pushy,” he groused. He rose from the bed and went into the bathroom. In a moment, she heard the shower. She decided not to join him.

He came back out naked, drying his hair. He was already more comfortable with his nudity around her. “I was thinking of that time-turner you had in — what was it, third year? Fourth?”

“Third year. And how did you know?”

“You would show up at class and mention things that hadn’t happened yet,” Draco said. He headed into the closet and called over his shoulder, “I always thought it was bloody mad they’d overload you like that.”

“It was my choice.”

“You were fourteen,” he said, and came back out with the clothes he’d need for the day, having apparently decided to dress himself rather than call for Coral. “Adults are supposed to keep young people from choices that will harm them. You only did it for one year, I noticed.”

“Yeah, it was too much stress.” She watched with appreciation as he slid his boxers up over his hips. His body wasn’t heavily muscled, but it was lean and toned, panther-like in its grace.

“I was thinking if I had one of those and could go back now, my life would have been much different. If only I could have told my past self, ‘Hold on. A day will come when you’ll wake up with Hermione Granger in your arms.’ I could have better endured everything that came my way if I could have had that thought to hold.”

His movements were crisp and efficient as he put on his trousers and shirt and then draped his dark blue robes over them.

“Draco, can I ask a very personal question?”

“Sure,” he said, as he fastened his belt.

“How is it that you were still a virgin?”

His eyes flicked to take in her face and then went back to the hands that were smoothing his robes into place. “From sixteen onward, my life was nothing but Voldemort. As I said, he’s rather prudish. He thinks men who are promiscuous are weak and degenerate. And in this world, there’s always someone watching ready to report your sins for their own advantage.”

“In school, I thought you were with Pansy.”

He shook his head. “Both of us were using it as a shield against our parents, hoping they might pair us off to one another instead of to some repugnant stranger who would despise us. I never even kissed her.”

“Had you kissed anyone?”

He flushed. “I don’t know why you want me to admit out loud what you already know. My first kiss was at our wedding.”

“Why, I’m a brazen hussy in comparison! I’ve kissed two boys! Three, counting you.”

He growled and grabbed her by the back of the neck. She looked up at him with a brow arched in challenge. “Don’t talk to me about them. I might have to hunt them down and break my no-murders streak. What about you? How is it that you’ve reached the grand age of twenty-three without having a lover?”

“In school, I had a crush on Ron but he didn’t notice me, and then there was the war and we were on the run. Harry was always there, and I suppose it just never had the space for it to happen. We kissed once, and that was enough for both of us to know there wasn’t a spark. Then with the depression … well, you know what that’s like. I just never had the urge to date, let alone get anyone close enough for sex. On the road, my friends were pairing up, just for a release of tension, just for a little bit of pleasure in life, but I’ve never been attracted to girls and Neville is like my brother.”

He touched his forehead to hers. “I’m glad my first time could be with you. You were … kind. And generous.”

Kind. She wasn’t being kind. She was being grossly manipulative. Not overtly cruel as she’d once promised him, but cruel just the same.

“How is it you knew so much about sex?”

“Reading.” He laughed. “You and I are a lot alike, Hemione. I wanted to be as prepared as possible and not make a fool of myself. It wasn’t something my parents talked about, and I wasn’t about to ask the other boys at school. So yeah, I did a lot of reading to make sure my … er … performance would be acceptable. I mean, there’s always a learning curve when you actually put the knowledge to use, but I had a general inkling of what I needed to do to make sure you were satisfied.”

“You studied well,” she praised.

He kissed her and drew back with a groan. “I have to go to work.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“I need some blood. Sorry.” He pricked her finger quickly and collected the sample.

She watched him head out the door and her mind was already laying plans for the night. She was going to work on getting him talking. Whatever his big secret was, it was somehow tied to how he was using her blood.

And if he still wouldn’t talk, she also had something she had picked up in reading during those late nights in the Restricted Section.

That evening when he came home, he kissed her at the door and scooped her up into his arms.

Hermione laughed. “What about dinner?”

He grinned. “I’m about to eat mine.”

Hermione felt her face flame, and she gave his chest a little chastising swat. “Draco!”

He laughed and carried her into their room, using one foot to nudge Buttons out and slam the door behind them.

He tossed her gently into the center of the bed and leaped on her, his lips trailing down her throat. “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he murmured against her skin.

“So have I,” she confessed, but drew back to ask him, “Did the Dark Lord notice any difference in my blood?”

“Can this wait?” he groaned as he tugged her robes up to her knees.

“Maaaaaybe,” she teased and caught his hands in her own. “But if you tell me now, I might show you an interesting surprise.”

“No, he didn’t,” Draco said. “Can I have my surprise now?”

“But what were you using it for in the first place?”

His eyes flashed. “Later, okay? What surprise?”

She gave up. “Look under my robes and find out?”

“Why, Hermione Malfoy, you little hussy! No underthings?”

But he didn’t tell her later. Afterward, he cast the contraceptive charm and snuggled into her for a pre-dinner nap.

She chewed her lip as she lightly stroked over his skin, making him hum with pleasure. Dark magic should never be used lightly, she believed. But she was starting to think she wouldn’t get answers without it.

Hermione would recommend that bloodmagic users read the works of Bathilda Vane, who posited in her books that blood wasn’t the only fluid that could be used for dark spells. Many fluids were based on blood, she argued, and fluids willingly given were even more powerful.

She dipped her finger in their shared fluids smeared on her thighs.

On his thigh, she traced the rune for Truth, followed by Giving. The last rune she hesitated over. It was Fidelity. And it could possibly tie him to her even more strongly and permanently than their wedding vows. But she needed him on her side. She dipped her finger back into their fluids and wrote it beside the others and then pushed her magic into the runes to activate them.

Draco sat up, still half asleep. “Did someone open a door?” he asked. “Did you feel that cold wind?”

“No, you’re having a bad dream,” she said.

He shivered and pulled her body up against his, nuzzling against her neck.

Chapter Text

When Hermione woke in the morning, Draco was lying beside her, watching her. They exchanged smiles and he brushed her hair back.

“What has you looking so happy?” she asked.

“Waking up to the most beautiful woman in the world will do that for you,” he said. “I have the day off. I was thinking we’d take the cruppy to the park and have a picnic lunch.”

“That sounds lovely.” Hermione sat up and stretched.

“But first,” he said, “how about a bath together?”

“A real bath or a bath that’s going to leave me needing to wash up again afterward?”

He grinned and stood to scoop her into his arms. “Let’s just see where things take us.”

Things took them in a predictable direction. Afterwards, they settled themselves comfortably, Draco leaning back against the tub with Hermione leaning against him, her back pressed to his chest.

Draco picked his wand up out of the pile of clothes and cast the contraceptive charm. He was always very careful about that. But she was leaning against his right shoulder and noticed he was casting with his left hand.

“Are you ambidextrous?” she asked.

“That’s a word I’m not familiar with,” he confessed, and twined his finger in one of the curls that had fallen from the messy topknot on her head.

“Able to use both hands equally well.”

“Ah, that.” He dropped his wand back onto his clothes. “Unfortunately, I used the wrong hand as a boy. My parents were exasperated with trying to get me to use my right hand and used a switch to lash my hand whenever I reached with the left. Still have some faint scars. They even tried magically paralyzing my left so I couldn’t use it. But whatever they did, I could never remember to always use the correct hand and just used whichever hand was closest.”

He frowned. “I don’t know why I told you that.”

The runes were working. She snuggled into him and tried to keep her breathing steady. “I’m glad you did. You don’t need to keep secrets from me.”

“Some secrets are for your protection,” he said. “I’ve always been willing to tell you what I can.” He traced his hands slowly over her skin, not in a sexual way, but as one who’d been starved of touch and now couldn’t get his fill of it. “You have secrets too. You’ve never talked about your parents.”

“No, I suppose I haven’t.” She took a deep breath. Could she trust him? She would regret it for the rest of her life if she chose wrong.

“My parents are in Australia,” she said. She told him about obliviating their memories and setting them up with an alternate identity to hide them from the Death Eaters.

“I lied to Harry and Ron so they wouldn’t worry about me. I used to do that a lot.”

“Lie to them?”

She nodded. “I guess I just felt like my problems and needs took up too much space. I was there to support Harry, and by extension, Ron.”

“Promise you’ll never do that with me.” Draco took her chin in his hands and turned her head so she was looking up into his eyes. “Swear it. Don’t hide what you need from me.”

“I promise,” Hermione lied.

He seemed to know she wasn’t being quite truthful, but was willing to let it rest for the time being. “What was the lie about your parents?”

“I told them I’d undo the memory charm when the war was over. But I knew that simple memory charms are relatively easy to break. All it would take is someone who once knew my parents to bump into them at a beach and it would all be undone. Obliviation was the only truly safe way to alter their memories. And obliviation is permanent.”

“Kitten, they covered that in second year at school. If Harry and Ron were paying attention, or thought about it much, they would have realized you were lying.”

She traced patterns in the water droplets on his chest. “But they just accepted it at face value. A tiny part of me resented that. I loved them both, but they were both rather self-centered. We were children, so it’s possible they would have grown out of it, but we’ll never know, I suppose.”

“Did Potter really want to be an auror, like Ginny said at our first dinner?”

“He did. He loved the magical world and wanted to devote his life to keeping it safe, keeping it just like it was. He never agreed with me that there were deep-rooted systemic problems, the kind of problems that lead to people accepting Voldemort’s version of the world. Probably, if you’d asked him, he would have said he thought I’d grow out of my silly desire to see the elves freed and magical creatures given equality, and I’d learn to love the wizarding world just as it was.”

“What about you?” He nuzzled his lips against her temple. “What did you want to be when you were grown? Hermione Granger with her brilliance and ambition?”

“I wanted to be Minister,” she admitted. It was the first time she’d ever said it aloud because most people would have laughed. It was an impossible, wacky dream to think a Muggle-born witch known for trouble-making and opposing tradition could win an election to the highest rank in the wizarding world. She never even would have achieved a seat on the Wizengamot. More realistically, she may have made it to be the undersecretary of a Wizengamot member at the pinnacle of her career.

But Hermione Granger was intensely stubborn and wouldn’t give up a fight even if she knew beforehand it was lost.

Draco didn’t laugh. He tucked a curl behind her ear and gave a little nod as he digested it.

“What about you?” she asked. “What was your ambition?”

“I had no ambition,” he said, and dropped his head back so it lay on the rim of the tub, “My life was decided for me before I was even born. I was to be the Malfoy heir and the next baron and concern myself with creating a generation to follow me and finding ways to add to our already oversized holdings.”

“But what did you want?” she said. “In your dreams, you must have wished for something?”

“I wished … I suppose I wished for a little cottage with a thatched roof and a wife who loved me as much as I loved her. At least that’s what I’d daydream about sometimes. And a child who would never, ever feel their life had already been lived for them.”

“That sounds lovely,” she said honestly. She could see it, too. Draco walking up a stone path and the door opening with a toddler running out, arms held up and Draco swinging him around before kissing his smiling wife.

She realized she wasn’t envisioning herself as that wife and was a little startled. But where was this going, really? She didn’t expect to see herself end up with Draco forever ... did she?

“I imagine your parents envisioned quite a different life for you when you were young,” he said. “How did your parents feel about you joining a different world? I’ve always wondered what that was like for Muggles.”

She repositioned her head against his shoulder to a more comfortable spot. “It was hard on them. They knew I was going off into a world where they could never follow. That if they had grandchildren, they’d be people whose lives they could never fully share, never really understand. Perhaps they’re happier now in Australia. They don’t have to miss a daughter or worry about her. And I know that they’re safe from anyone in this world who would harm them.”

“I can tell it was difficult to tell me where they are,” he said, “and I want to thank you for deciding to trust me with it. The war is over, kitten. Even if you sent the Dark Lord a note with the information on their whereabouts written in it, he wouldn’t do anything with it, simply because he no longer cares. If obliviation could be undone, you could visit them with no issues.”

“Because he doesn’t believe they’re my real parents.”

“True.” Draco retrieved his wand again and re-warmed the water.

“I loved them dearly,” Hermione said. “Neither of them went away for school when they were young, so it didn’t feel like a natural progression to them to separate from their child at age eleven. In their world, children only left home when they were at university age.”

“Did they miss you?” he asked softly.

“Yes, I think so. But they tried to put on a brave face for me.” Hermione blinked hard as her eyes began to sting. “I promised them that we wouldn’t grow apart, but soon I was spending more school holidays with Ron’s family than my own, because Harry needed my help. I couldn’t tell them why, of course. I didn’t want them to worry. It’s always torn at my heart when I think about the fact they never knew why I distanced myself.”

“If they loved you as much as you say they did, they knew you wouldn’t have done it without a good reason.” Draco kissed her temple gently, sweetly, his lips a benediction. “You did nothing wrong in becoming the person you really were, Hermione. Even at the cost of time with your family. You were doing what was right and trying to save the world.”

“I still need to save the world.” Hermione turned her head to look up at him. “Voldemort isn’t going to be satisfied with just North America and Britain, is he?”

“No,” Draco admitted, and his eyes widened a little, as though he wished he could have kept the word from slipping out of his mouth.

“He wants to rule the whole world.”

“He would first have to clean up the radiation and restore food production here in the states to something we can sustain without having to rely on imports. If he can’t clean up the radiation once it’s … done its job, it will have a cumulative effect around the world and would kill off all the animals we rely on for food.”

“I saw another memo on your desk,” Hermione said. She moved down to the other side of the tub so she could look at him. “It said that the fertility of American witches had declined and that radiation was blamed.”

He nodded. “The Dark Lord’s marriage program hasn’t been as fruitful as he’d hoped.”

“When I asked Pansy about it, she acted as if she had never heard of the idea men could be infertile, too.”

Draco twined his legs around hers. “He thinks it’s Muggle nonsense.”

“But it’s provable,” she argued. “If you look in a microscope, you can see the sperm cells.”

“Microscopes are banned, Hermione.”

She stared at him, speechless.

“Maybe it is the radiation causing it. We don’t know. Hopefully, once we get it cleaned up, there will no longer be a problem. But cleaning up the radiation is more than just cleaning up what was left by the bombs. We still must figure out the problem of the nuclear facilities that went into meltdown after their workers fled or died. I think you read Blaise’s memo on that. They keep pumping out radiation, making huge swaths of land uninhabitable. We’re immune to radiation up to a certain level; getting close to one of those plants is too much. We’ve tried sending in other magical creatures and they can’t even get as close as we need to start vanishing the meltdown components.”

“You sent in other magical creatures?”

“A giant, two centaurs, and two elves,” he said. “None of them were resistant enough.”

“Elves? Draco, they’re not free to refuse.”

“Neither were the centaurs or giant. No one refuses the Dark Lord.” At that, Draco looked aghast and climbed out of the tub, standing beside it with his back to her, dripping on the marble floor. “I didn’t send them, personally. I want you to know that. I wouldn’t … I wouldn’t have chosen to do that.”

“You were called in to try to heal them, weren’t you?”

He nodded.

“And that’s what he uses your skills for, for patching up the damage he does.”

“I hate it,” he admitted with a bitter twist of his lips. “I wish I didn’t have this ability so I wouldn’t have to see what he does.  So I wouldn’t have to heal a person’s broken body so he can enjoy ruining them all over again.”

She pressed her hands to her lips, struck dumb with horror. Imagining it. Imagining Draco ordered to restore a person after hours or days of torture so it could all begin again.

“He can’t fuck any longer, so the only pleasure he gets is in watching people suffer.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be telling you … I don’t know why I’m telling you these things. All it can do is upset you.”

“I’m not upset,” she said, reaching for a towel and standing to wrap it around herself. “Not at you. I’m so deeply sorry you have to go through that. Seeing things like that leaves scars on our minds. And you must have a great many at this point.”

“Don’t pity me,” he spat. “I don’t want it, nor deserve it.”

“It’s not pity,” Hermione said. “It’s  … recognition.”

“We all have no choice but to work toward what the Dark Lord wants,” he said. “Cleaning up his messes. Whether it’s putting back together a broken human body or cleaning up a radiation leak, we do what he demands. We work on solutions.”

“Like coating it a thousand feet of lead,” Hermione muttered.

He looked startled. “Wait … that might be … if we created it through alchemizing an impermeable lead from other metals … Hermione, that may be the solution.”

“What?” she said, “That was just something ridiculous I was —”

“Everyone was focused on vanishing it. But encasing it in an impermeable covering could be the solution we’ve been looking for.” He kissed her forehead and summoned some robes. “You’re brilliant, you know."

“I take it we’re not going to the park?”

“I have to go in right away.”

She went into their bedroom and sat on the bed. She wasn’t sure if she’d done the world a favor by suggesting they cap the reactors, or if she’d given them the tools to set in motion another genocide.

If he got close to cleaning up the radiation, she’d have to strike. She couldn’t let another country be wiped from the map.

Hermione had expected he would just go in to report her idea, but Draco didn’t come home for a full eighteen hours and when he did, he stripped down and collapsed on the bed and went right to sleep from utter exhaustion. The odor of rot wafted from his robes. Hermione grimaced and scooped them up and deposited them in their laundry basket in the bathroom.

He woke late the next morning. Hermione was lounging in bed with Buttons, reading a book. When Buttons heard him stir, she eagerly began licking his face.

“I see that sharing my bed with a crup is going to be a permanent situation,” Draco grumbled.

“More than likely,” she said. “How are you?”

“Better now that I’ve had a bit of sleep. Breakfast?”

“Brunch,” she offered. “I can go get some fruit and croissants from the kitchen.”

He rolled closer to her and wrapped his arms around her. “Ask Coral to do it. You’re needed here. I haven’t held you in nearly twenty-four hours.” He yawned and stretched, then resettled her in his arms. “I have to go back in later, but I have a little time. Coral!”

The elf appeared and after Draco told her what he wanted, she reappeared with a tray for them.

Hermione sipped a mimosa and watched him devour a pile of fruit and croissants.

“You must have been starving,” she remarked. “Especially after skipping dinner — I mean for real food — last night.”

“I was. I used a lot of magic today.” He frowned. “Last night. Whenever. Losing track of time.”

“Probably because you can never tell when it’s daylight in this apartment with all the curtains closed. Why is that, anyway?”

“I can’t stand to look out at it,” he confessed. “The massive cemetery we created.”

That made sense. The stillness was eerie.

“You were working on the radiation last night? Were you doing alchemy?”

He shook his head. “Never had a talent for it. I was healing. People had burns from the experiments. Which reminds me, I need to get a few more drops of blood.”

And here it was.

“What are you using it for, Draco?”

“I’m mixing it in a healing potion with a massive load of antibiotics.” She could see he was struggling against the compulsion she’d laid on him. “That’s why I needed the pharmacies kept intact.”

“For whom?”

“Just … one of my patients.” She could see it in the tightness of his face. The way he pinched his lips. He was being honest, but choosing his words carefully.

“I want to know. Who is using my blood and why?”

“It’s a revitalization potion taken by the Dark Lord,” he said. “He feels your power in it.”

She’d known the first few drops went to him as a gift, but why did he keep needing it? “Why does he need that potion?”

“Because he’s decaying.”

“… what?” She was glad she was sitting down. She supposed that explained the smell; every time he was around Voldemort for any length of time, the stench must seep into his clothing.

“His soul is still going strong but the body he inhabits is dying, rotting as he stands. Organs shut down and must be revived. His skin … well, you’ve seen it. I never cured it, only kept it from progressing. Since I started harvesting your blood, he feels the power of it and thinks it’s restoring him.”

“But it’s not.” She said it as a statement, but he answered it like a question.

“It’s me. All this time I’ve been keeping a secret. I’m the only one who can heal him when necrosis begins in one of his limbs. I’m the only one able to keep his rotten flesh in place. But I never gave him the full extent of my power. Now, I give him the treatment and heal him and he sees a patch of healthy, living flesh instead of the corpse skin he’s been living in. He credits you and your purity.”

“Draco, what would happen if you weren’t healing him?” Her face felt numb.

“He would rot away like any dead thing. Eventual collapse. I’m not sure if the pile of rotten meat would remain sentient, or if his shred of soul would leave or not, but for all intents and purposes, he’d be dead.”

Hermione tried to keep her voice steady but it got away from her. “Are you telling me the only thing keeping him alive is your magic? You’re the only thing holding up this entire fucking regime?

He nodded, his head jerking once, as though unwillingly.

“Why? Why would you do it? What is he holding over you?”

“Blaise and Theo. I know I don’t ... I don’t really show it, but I love them. They were the last people on earth I cared about. Until you. That’s what he does. He finds out who you care about and uses them against you. And now you. I think he knows. He hasn’t outright said it, but he hinted today about how pleased I seem with my new wife and how happy I look.”

“Knows what?”

He actually bit on his lip to keep from answering. He looked at her then, his eyes full of suspicion. “What did you do to me?”

“I’m —”

He seized her arms to look down into her face, careful even now not to bruise her. “What did you do to me? I know you still have magic. You’ve hexed me, haven’t you?”

She didn’t answer.

His eyes were hot with fury. “You don’t understand. You can’t know this. If he thought I’d told anyone else about his condition …”

“He won’t find out,” Hermione said.

“He’s the most powerful legimens I’ve ever encountered, Hermione. And I can’t teach you occlumency fast enough to keep you safe.”

“Just keep me away from him and it won’t be an issue. He doesn’t tend to go to the parties we attend.”

“Even my mind isn’t safe! What did you do to me? Tell me.”

“Bloodrunes,” she admitted.

He sat down, hard.

“What did you use?”

“Your semen.” She felt herself flushing, not from saying the word, but from a sudden discomfort that she was using something he gave her in trust for such a nefarious reason.

“Clever.” His eyes flashed with hurt before he hid it behind a mask of cynicism. “I should have wondered at your sudden willingness, but I was too swept up by excitement.”

“You never would have told me otherwise.”

“No, I wouldn’t have. I want to keep you safe. I love you.”

She stared at him.

“Do you hear me? I love you.” He bit the words off angrily. “And I’m terrified he’ll see that. If he does, he’ll dig deeper and he’ll see …”

“Everything,” she said.

He nodded. “If he learns I lied to him about the blood, he’ll execute us both. And he knows how to make it last for weeks, Hermione.”

Silence hung in the air. Hermione could hear the blood rushing in her ears and the sound of her own breath seemed loud.

“I can fix this,” he said. He stood, wand in hand and held it out toward her. “I can fix this. I have to fix this.”

“Draco! Don’t you dare —"

Chapter Text

Hermione.

Her name was Hermione.

She rolled over and looked around. A luxurious bedroom. She was lying in soft bedding, wearing only her underwear.

A man rolled over to face her, a man with pale blond hair and bright gray eyes. “Good morning, my beautiful wife.”

She smiled. Her husband. His name was … Draco. That was it. Draco. They had —

Where had they met? She frowned when it didn’t come to her immediately.

Ah, yes, they had gone to school together as children. She was a witch.

He was —

He smiled back at her. “You have that crease on your forehead that means you’re thinking too hard. It’s all there. Everything you need. It will all come back to you. No need to push.”

“Why don’t I remember?”

He waved a hand. “A bit of a mishap, but don’t worry. Everything is fine, and it will all come back to you in due time.”

She nodded, trusting him.

He stroked a finger down her cheek. “I love you.”

She gave him another smile, this one tentative. She didn’t remember how she felt.

He kissed her, softly, sweetly, and her heart began to hammer.

Oh.

She knew that much about their relationship, at least.

Their elf brought breakfast and they ate it in bed together. Draco fed her bites of French toast between kisses, and when he “accidentally” dribbled syrup on her, he was always kind enough to lick it off and make her laugh at his overly-profuse apologies between tongue twirls.

She remembered there had been a war, a war that was lost and for a long time, she had been so cold and hungry, but they had brought her in, and she was safe now. She was married to a man who loved her, whose touch made her blood sing.

Her memory was hazy, but she thought she was happy.

That afternoon, they attended a wedding, that of a man who’d been part of the group Hermione was with out in the cold. Neville kissed her hand, but he looked worried about something. Perhaps it was his new bride, whose eyes were red and swollen from tears.

When they arrived home, Draco surprised her with a beautiful emerald bracelet that looked like a vine twining around her wrist, the emeralds shaped like leaves. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him until he looked dazed and flushed. It wasn’t so much the gift; it was the thoughtfulness behind it.

They took their crup for a walk. His hand was clutched in hers and there was a skip in her step. The warm spring wind scattered white petals as they walked along the path in the park, and Hermione giggled as they tangled in her hair, and Draco picked them out between kisses.

He told her childhood stories that made her laugh, like the time he fell off his broom into the pond at his home back in Britain. And the time one of the albino peacocks had stolen the charmed quill pen that held all of his astronomy notes and he had to chase after it.

Back in their apartment, they shared a shower and he tried to walk back to the bed while carrying her, her legs tightly around his waist because they couldn’t stop kissing long enough to walk across the room. They only made it as far as the wall beside the door. His passion was almost violent in its intensity but every touch was gentle. She felt cherished, even as she was ravaged.

Later, as they lay in their bed, she saw the black tattoo on his arm and traced it with her finger. He jerked it away and something uneasy stirred in the back of her brain, but she pushed it away. She was happy and wanted to stay that way.

She was awakened in the middle of the night when Draco began to thrash and moan. Before she could wake him, he sat up, gasping, his face pallid.

“Shh.” Hermione sat up and stroked back his down-soft hair. “Just a bad dream.”

“Yeah.” He sank back into the bedding, staring up at the ceiling. His bare chest was shiny with sweat.

“My mother always told me that if you have a bad dream, you have to tell someone about it to get it out so that it won’t haunt you. Do you want to tell me?”

“No.” He kissed her hand. “It’s okay. I have bad dreams when I don’t — never mind. Unimportant. Go back to sleep, kitten.”

The next afternoon was her “at home” day and she entertained a stream of callers in the living room with tea and cakes.  It was pleasant enough because so many ladies wanted to be her friend, but she knew in the back of her mind she shouldn’t trust them.

That evening, there was a party and Draco spun her around the dance floor in a waltz that felt like they were dancing on air. He was cool and detached at the party, but that was the norm for society. It was so gauche to be affectionate in public with one’s spouse.

“Hermione, are you okay?” A redheaded woman sidled up to her when Hermione paused to sip some champagne. Ginevra, she remembered. They had been out in the cold together.

“Everything is wonderful,” Hermione assured her with a smile, but if anything, it only made Ginny look more concerned. But then she was called away by Draco to speak with the Education Minister and his wife, Milicent. Milicent was dour and unhappy, and Hermione felt sorry for her. If only everyone could have the kind of happiness she and Draco had.

The redhead was at a party a few evenings later, too, and she said that Malfoy hadn’t let them come for a visit.

“Oh, I’ve been so terribly busy,” Hermione said apologetically.  

“Don’t you remember the deal you made with him that we could all get together once a week?” Ginny asked.

Hermione smiled politely. She did remember, but it seemed so unimportant now. “Oh, there is Lady Goyle! Do excuse me, I have to say hello!”

That night, Draco rubbed her feet, sore from her dress shoes. “Ginevra Weasley complained you haven’t let her come by.”

“Hmm. Well, in any case, you’ll see her on Friday at her wedding.” He kissed her toes and she giggled from the tickle.

Oh, that's right, Ginny was marrying Blaise Zambini. Such a charming gentleman.

“It’s getting difficult to keep all of your appointments in order. How would you like to have Pansy as your social secretary?”

“I like that idea! Pansy was so helpful in tutoring me.” Coral always had a pile of messages for her whenever she came through the door and Hermione always struggled to remember who outranked whom to give precedence to visit requests and invitations.

“Pansy, Blaise, and Theo,” he said, almost absently. “Our family.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. I have a gift for you,” he said in a playful singsong voice.

“Ooh! Where?”

He held out his spread hands. “You have to find it.”

Giggling, she dug through his pockets, brushing her hands over the front of him and groping his buns just to hear his sharp intake of breath, until she felt something metallic. She withdrew a diamond necklace, as intricate as lace. She sighed in appreciation and he grabbed her by the neck to pull her to him. Gentle but with an exciting edge of potential roughness.

“I want to see you wearing nothing but that.”

She looked down. “But goodness, I’m in all of these layers.”

He vanished her clothes and his eyes had a predatory gleam as he held out the necklace. “Put it on.”

On Friday afternoon, Draco and Hermione watched as Ginevra Weasley walked down the aisle in a gown of gold and gray with a red sash, the colors of House Zambini. In her red hair, she wore a diamond-encrusted tiara made to look like laurel wreaths cupping her temples. Blaise grinned when he saw his bride, and they clasped hands. Blaise stole a quick kiss and everyone laughed when Theo, the officiant, stage whispered that it wasn’t time for that part yet.

Blaise’s eyes rarely left his new wife, but Ginny stared off into the distance, giving strained smiles when congratulated. Hermione tapped her lip thoughtfully. Perhaps she could help Blaise win her over. Ginny had been single for so long since Harry’s died. Maybe it was time to gently encourage her to move on.

Hermione hugged Ginny in the receiving line after the ceremony. Hermione extended her hand to Blaise to kiss. He pecked the air an inch above her skin, as was proper, and gave her his dazzling grin. “You’ve made Draco the happiest I’ve ever seen him. Thank you.”

An odd thing to say at a wedding, she thought. They were supposed to be exchanging platitudes about Blaise and Ginny’s future happiness. But she smiled and Draco took her arm as they headed for their table.

They were seated with Theo. Hermione had a momentary thought that it was odd Theo’s wife Lavender would be seated over with the wedding party, but it was soon gone because Theo was such fun and kept her breathless with laughter. Draco kept the conversation going, pointing out all the things that Hermione and Theo had in common, such as a love of books and cats. And as they were heading home, he mentioned that they ought to invite Theo over more often, and she agreed, wondering briefly if Draco meant to include his wife or not.

On Monday, Pansy started as her new secretary and it was so delightful having a friend around with her.

“Honestly, Hermione, you are weeks behind on your thank-you notes,” Pansy said, exasperated. "And you should have one calendar for calls and another for evening events. I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep any order with just the one.”

“It’s been chaotic,” she admitted.

“And you have a pile of invitations you haven’t responded to! What a mess! If I’d known you were in such a mess, I would have been here weeks ago.”

The door opened and Draco strolled through, smiling at both of them. Hermione’s heart lifted when she saw him. He sat down and they shared lunch, chatting amiably. Draco and Pansy had been friends in school, and it showed in their comfort with one another. Pansy even brushed some crumbs from Draco’s lapel with the air of an older sister chastising her messy little brother.  

Every day was better. Every day, she felt swept off her feet. Every day ended with her snuggled in the arms of a man who openly adored her. And every day, Hermione could feel the cracks in her soul caused from the traumas she’d endured beginning to heal. Every day they seemed smaller and far away. She remembered something Luna had once said to her about seeking love and healing, and that turned out to be true, didn’t it?

It didn’t take long for her to realize that Draco’s love meant everything to her because she loved him back. Surely, she had told him before, hadn’t she? But that spot was hazy in her memory. She knew she shouldn’t be so shy about saying it, but she waited for the right moment.

That moment almost never came because of what happened at that night’s party.

Hermione was making her rounds, chatting with the other party guests when she heard someone shout something and then she was lying on her back, staring up at the underside of the harpsichord and her ears were ringing. She sat up woozily. The air was filled with smoke and dust and the smell of blood. People were screaming and running and someone stepped on her leg as they dashed by. Hermione yanked her legs up and held her knees to her chest, huddled beneath the harpsichord. She pressed the back of her hand to her nose and coughed. A tickle on her cheek and she reached up to touch it. Her fingers came away smeared with blood.

“Hermione!”

She tried to find the source of that shout, and it was Draco. He strode toward her, his wand out. His face was smudged with black ash and blood, and his robes were in shreds.

“Are you hurt? Where are you hurt?” he demanded. He flicked his wand at the cut on her face and she felt the burn of reknitting flesh.

She looked down at herself and shook her head.

He scooped her up off the ground into his arms.

“What happened?” she asked. “Why are you bleeding?”

“It’s not my blood,” he said grimly. “Lord Marcus Flint is dead.”

“Oh no! Where’s Pansy? We must —”

“She’s being cared for, kitten. I must get you home, behind my wards, where I’ll know you’re safe.” Draco apparated them away to the Towers.

“But what happened?” she demanded. “An ... explosion?”

“A suicide bombing,” he said. He tersely greeted the night deskman, who stared at him, filthy and tattered as he was. “Intended to strike at the Dark Lord’s inner circle.”

“Is anyone else hurt?”

“Injuries. Nothing major.” They entered the elevator, and she reached down to punch in their floor. He tapped his wand and the elevator started up.

The doors of their apartment opened for them and Buttons danced around Draco’s ankles, yapping in excitement until he lowered Hermione to her feet. Hermione picked her up absently.

“You’re sure you’re not hurt?” she asked Draco. Buttons frantically licked her face as if to heal her wound.

“I’m fine. But I have to go back. I just had to get you out of there for my own peace of mind.”

“Please, be safe,” she said.

He kissed her, hard, and strode out the door. She heard him tell the guards to be extra alert because of the bombing.

Hermione dropped down to the couch, wondering who could have done such a thing and why.

Draco was exhausted when he returned home. She helped him shrug out of the ragged robes and into the shower. Blood swirled down the drain as he sagged against the marble wall, exhausted from all the magic he had used.

She had a cup of warm chamomile tea waiting for him. He took it gratefully and sat down in the bedroom armchair to take a sip.

“I’m just glad you weren’t hurt,” she said, and her voice was a little ragged from suppressed tears. What if he’d been standing just a few feet away, in Marcus’s place? What if she, instead of Pansy, were being consoled as a new widow tonight? She sat down on the arm of his chair.

He reached up and caressed her cheek. “I love you, kitten.”

Her hand hesitated only a moment before she reached over and mirrored the motion of his. “I love you, too.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them, burning silver. “Say it again.”

“I love you, Draco.”

He set the tea aside and pulled her into his arms, holding her tight, a little too tight, but she wasn’t going to protest. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

She tilted her face up to kiss him. Oh, his lips were so sweet and tender. His hands were expert at pleasing her body. She fell asleep in the warm circle of his arms, safe and content.

The next afternoon, Hermione used her status to bump her way to the front of the line to visit Pansy, and she did it with no shame. This was the time to use such a thing, she decided.

She found Pansy in her living room, dressed in dark gray mourning robes, pale but composed.

“Oh, Pansy,” she said as she sat down beside her and took one of her hands. “I’m so sorry. I wish there were words.”

“I’m alright, Hermione,” Pansy said softly. “A regrettable tragedy, yes, but I wasn’t fond of Marcus, and I can’t say I’m terribly grieved that he’s gone. I’ll observe all of the customs, of course, and play the part of the mournful widow. My only sorrow is that the mourning period is just three months.”

“Three months!”

Pansy nodded. “It used to be three years, but Voldemort wants more wizardfolk babies, so in ninety days, he’ll start looking for a new husband for me. Can’t waste precious time when my fertility clock is ticking.”

Hermione had a sudden memory of seeing a memo in Draco’s office that said fertility for American witches was declining.

“All the more reason to hurry since this was my second try.”

Hermione gave her a puzzled look.

“Marcus wasn’t my first husband,” Pansy said. “I was married before.”

“I didn’t know that. Did I know him?”

“You did,” Pansy said. She took a sip of tea. “It was Seamus Finnegan.”

“But he was —” Hermione cut off the words by sharply biting into her lip.

“He was a half-blood, yes,” Pansy said. She rolled her eyes and added, “Or at least he was thought to be a half-blood and must have been adopted unknowingly. Standard disclaimer thus inserted.”

Hermione suppressed a laugh.

“I loved that man,” Pansy said, and her face went soft and dreamy. “Merlin, how I loved him. An arranged match but I fell in love the moment he smiled at me after our wedding. He was so good to me. He treated me like he thought he had to court me and win me over each day. Now, I take his memory out like a folded photograph, tucked away in a safe spot in my mind. I worry sometimes, that it will become crumbled around the edges or disintegrate entirely, that if my memories of him fade, it will be like losing him all over again.”

Hermione stopped herself before she could ask what had happened.

“Cancer,” Pansy said. “Wizards aren’t supposed to get cancer. Draco tried everything. God, how he tried. I know he’s always felt like he failed me in being unable to save him.”

“I’m so sorry,” Hermione whispered.

Pansy blinked rapidly, as though forcing back stinging tears.  “And it seemed before he was cold in the ground, the Dark Lord had shoved me into Marcus’s arms.”

“Did he … did Marcus hurt you?”

Pansy shook her head. “He wasn’t physically cruel or even particularly mean. He just saw me as a chore. He has —” she stopped and corrected herself “— had a mistress, and he was more interested in spending time with her.”

“Mistress? But I thought Voldemort frowned on such things.”

“He does, but a woman who has been married multiple times without a child is considered pretty useless to the regime. If I don’t have a child with my next husband, it’s unlikely the Dark Lord will waste one of his fine noblemen on me again. I’ll remain a widow and, well, if people are discrete …”

They had discussed infertility once before and she remembered the weird look Pansy had given her when she suggested that it might be the men who were infertile.

Hermione cleared her throat and picked up her cup of tea. She wondered whose mistress Pansy would want to become but decided that was a very personal question. “Of course.”

That evening, Draco sent his patronus to tell her he intended to bring home Blaise and Theo for dinner unless she objected (in which case to send Coral to tell hime). But she thought that was a splendid idea.

She had such a great time with them that night. They shared a bottle of wine after dinner, and they told her so many tales of Draco’s school days that she hadn’t known. For dessert, she served biscuits, called cookies here, that she’d made.

“I thought I was going to have to wrestle Coral to get her to let me use the kitchen unassisted," she told them. "But this was my mother’s recipe. I can’t believe you haven’t ever had chocolate chip cookies!”

“It’s not a wizardfolk recipe,” Draco said, snagging his fourth from the plate. “In fact, I don’t think cookies are commonly made at all. Pastries, yes, but not cookies. I had them while we were in school once or twice — McGonnagal had ginger ones in her office — but never this type.”

“In any case, I would have dueled you for her hand if I knew she could make these,” Blaise moaned as he bit into his third. She saw Theo make a swift count of the ones that were left and he surreptitiously hid one under his napkin.

“The Dark Lord won’t, like, punish me for making these, will he?” Hermione asked.

“It will be our secret!” Theo vowed.

“A blood oath to protect the cookies,” Blaise said. He and Theo dramatically drew their wands and made them shoot red sparks.

The next party they attended was three days later out of respect for Marcus. The crowd was suitably subdued. Hermione ate her canapes and drank her champagne while everyone murmured what a terrible loss it was.

Draco, for whatever reason, was thrilled. When they came home that evening, he couldn’t contain his grin.

“What has you looking like a cat who ate the canary?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing in particular,” he said, and she knew he was lying. He went straight into his office, locking the door behind him. Something ¾ she didn’t know what  ¾  seemed to have lifted a burden from his shoulders. 

And so the weeks passed, and soon it was summer. A blazing hot summer with temperatures so high, they had little choice but to hide in the air conditioned indoors. Hermione didn’t mind. It gave her more hours to spend tangled in Draco’s arms. He was becoming bolder as time passed in the safe space of their bedroom, more dominant as they explored what appealed to them the most. Though she could always feel respect in his touch, it made her heart hammer when he pulled back her hair or caught her throat in his hand.

Blaise and Theo were over frequently, several times a week for dinner and games of cards. Pansy came too. As a widow, she had considerably more freedom than she had as a wife. Blaise and Theo never brought their wives, but soon Hermione was so used to seeing them lounging on her couch or playing with Buttons that she didn’t question it.

Those evenings seemed to mean so much to Draco. He was slowly and awkwardly trying to be more open and affectionate with his friends. He no longer stiffened if Blaise threw an arm around his shoulder or smacked him on the back. He didn’t retreat into formality if Pansy teased him, but tried to tease back.

He took a lot of his cues from Hermione, who was helping to build that bridge that Draco needed. It was one evening when he and Theo had their arms slung around each other, singing the Hogwarts anthem that she realized he was finally getting what he had longed for all these years. A family.

Draco started putting pictures up around the apartment … the four of them laughing, Draco kissing Hermione’s cheek, Buttons eating the couch … He had such a look of satisfaction as he placed each frame.

“I wish I could freeze time,” he said. “I want to live in these last few weeks forever.”

She laughed. “But perhaps the future has something even better in store for us.”

His eyes were haunted. Her smile fell away and she stepped to pull him into her arms, but he retreated to the bedroom and his office. He was spending more time in there these days, keeping the door locked. She couldn’t imagine why when he shared all his memos and daily activities with her, but she gave him the privacy and space he seemed to need.